Good Life Project - The Power (and Heartbreak) of Being Called to Serve: Danielle Butin

Episode Date: January 27, 2015

"People who are not listened to need those who are listened to to fight like hell for them."How many times have you heard an inspiring story of incredible service and heart and then thought, "How does that even get started?"Probably a lot.Because the truth is, most of us would love to create an impactful, service-oriented mission in our lives, but we're overwhelmed with the sheer logistics, let alone cost.Danielle Butin was no different, except that she didn't let those obstacles deter her.After decades of a highly successful career in occupational therapy and geriatric care, she found herself at a personal and professional crisis.So she took a trip to Tanzania.And what she experienced there left a mark so deep on her heart, she couldn't ignore it. Even though she tried.In this conversation, we get to hear the raw, unfiltered truth about how Danielle had to do the work of "undoing" her professional habits and mindset in order to get her non-profit, Afya Foundation, going.She opens up about the toll it took on her family, how she found funding and supplies, and how to be direct in communicating what you need to happen (even across the world with a translator).She peels back the covers on how people react to you when you park a semi-truck full of medical supplies in front of your house, when you dumpster dive in the city, and when you stand up to corrupt systems.Danielle's story is so full of vision and passion, it will have you changing your entire perspective on what's possible when your heart calls you to do something you've never done before.It's my honor and delight to introduce you to the extraordinary heart and mind of Danielle Butin.Some questions I ask:How old were you when you started to notice your love of elderly people?Why would a corporation not preserve a model that is successful both financially and functionally?How do you cover the financial needs of a growing non-profit?Links we mention:Afya Foundation Mountains Beyond Mountains Partners in Health Pencils of PromiseFollow Afya Foundation:Facebook | Twitter | YouTube"It was about creating a new reality and listening to other people and not just what I knew." Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I can't imagine anything making me happier than what I'm doing today, you know, and it's hard. It's hard and it's challenging in ways I've never been challenged in my life, but it's real and I get to be real and I love that every single day. So I'm recording this from the beginnings of what they're calling the storm of the century here in New York City on a, on a, it's turning into a me in an interesting way. People often ask me, where do I find the people that I speak to? And they come from all walks of life, all different ways. This one came through an introduction from a friend of mine, Seth Godin. And when Seth reaches out going about her life, you know, a New York mom, powerhouse career woman, as an occupational therapist who had really substantial responsibility in one of the largest health companies in the world, really, at this point. And a trip to Africa changed everything in a really profound way. It opened her eyes, it led her to tears, to laughs, and it made her realize in a moment that the path that had brought her to that place

in her life had to change profoundly. And that included her vocation and her career, and it led her to start a foundation. And what that foundation does and the extraordinary benefit that it delivers to, you know, at this point, probably millions across Africa is a big part of the conversation we're going to explore today. So I hope you enjoy it. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping.

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Flight risk. So let's take a little bit of a journey with you. We're hanging out at Good Life Project HQ, also known as my home on the Upper West Side. And you have had a stunning adventure over, I guess, the last few decades, really. You're right now running a really amazing organization, which we're going to get into. But before that, you lived a fairly different life. So take me back into what the vast majority of your professional life was all about. So I was blessed at a very young age to have an amazing grandfather who had a monstrous influence on my life and really indulged me in the world of aging. And I, through him, fell in

love with older adults and elders from a very, very young age. What did he do? He was a producer and a treasurer for Broadway shows. No kidding. So growing up, I got to dress up in the original Brigadoon costumes. How awesome is that? It was amazing. And he was amazing. And on weekends, he would pick me up and take me to matinees. And he introduced me to theater.

And he introduced me to having and he introduced me to having an amazing, older, loving role model in my life. And so from that point, early, all I wanted to do really was to be with older adults. And how old were you when you started to notice this? Middle school. Wow. It started to take hold. Right. Because at that point, that's the age where most kids actually want nothing to do with anybody over their age. Right. And I couldn't get enough of him and I couldn't get enough of others. And I was drawn to elders. And then I had the fortune of taking an extraordinary literature class at Scarsdale High School in aging and in gerontology. And this one teacher at Scarsdale High School probably aging and in gerontology. And this one teacher at Scarsdale

High School probably changed the course of my existence. Sue Silver put us all in this room, had us reading literature, listening to music about older adults, and then we had to go to nursing homes. And we had to volunteer in nursing homes. So I got a taste of very different older adult than the ones that I had been exposed to. And I remember coming home from this experience in high school, bawling my eyes out and my mother saying, what do you want to do about it? And I said, I can't believe how older adults are treated in this country when they're not well. And she said, then go to school and make a difference. So what was, tell me what was happening that was upsetting.

I saw people being pushed into showers, screaming and yelling and crying, clearly Holocaust survivors that were having a horrible flashback. I saw people being spoken to who had cognitive impairments. At the time, I didn't even know what that meant. Now I know what that means. People who were very confused, being spoken down to, disrespected, pushed around. It hit a point in my soul that I really thought I was going to be sick watching this show. And so that was a turning point. My mother said, then choose to make a difference in this. And that was it. I went to college, I became an occupational therapist, I did tons of work with older adults. And was that the goal in mind to really focus your

energies around older adults? Yes. And then I got my graduate degree at Columbia and a public health specialization in gerontology and geriatrics. So that was the course of my life. And for years, I built programs in aging and I taught at Columbia and I did big sweeping programs. And then Oxford Health Plans offered me an incredible position starting their wellness and health promotion department for their Medicare line of business. And at first I said, you're the enemy of medicine. I'm not going to manage you. Okay, so deconstruct that a little bit. Okay.

So to go back, I was teaching a fair amount of coursework at Columbia in the School of Public Health and in rehab medicine. And someone who was involved came to Columbia and said, would you be interested in creating a department at Oxford that doesn't exist? And I really, I felt like it was a betrayal of everything that I believe to be true for older adults. I think older adults should have community-based health care. I think people should make informed decisions about what their life should look like. I don't believe a plan should make decisions for you. So I raged, you know, and they kept saying, we're going to give you a budget to do everything you dream of doing. And they did. And so I, for years of my life, staffed up a department that was amazing. And they did everything from informed

decision making for people dying to preventing falls. And I got to do a deep dive into the world of aging, create a testimony for Congress as to what preventive care should look like. And then UnitedHealthcare acquired Oxford Health Plans. And everything I held true and dear to my heart, I had programs in Flushing and Harlem and the Upper East Side. And I knew the way older adults look for care. And next thing I know, I'm being told that what I created there has to look like Austin and LA and Nashville. And I know I'm a terrible soldier. I'm a terrible soldier. I'm a good leader, but I'm a terrible soldier. So it was time to go, only I didn't know how that was going to happen. So, I mean, it's so interesting. How long were you actually

just practicing? The word just is really demeaning. I don't mean to say it. How long were you really just focused on practicing OT? 15, 16 years. And then you moved into teaching from there. And then you moved into actually, okay, I'm joining with who I perceive to be the enemy. Yes. But which is, I want to go even a little bit deeper into that because there are so many people who would look at that and say, look, I don't care what they're saying. Philosophically, they're the enemy to me and I wouldn't do that. I had this conversation with people in an interesting way because a lot of times there's

a bit of a bent in the entrepreneurial world that corporations are evil, they're the devil. And I actually don't believe that. I don't either. You know, I believe that there are some corporations where the culture and what they're doing is not beneficial, but, you know, to name just sort of like everybody, because if you can actually, if you know what you're trying to accomplish, you know the values you hold dear, you know who you want to serve, and you can actually ally yourself with an organization with substantial resources and power and all this stuff behind you, why wouldn't you do that? But so many people just out of hand reject that. Even if everything that was offered to you, which was legit and allowed you to make a really big difference, people would just look at it and say, no, because it's a large organization, it's the devil. I didn't find that.

I found it was an opportunity to learn about business. I was strong clinically, really strong clinically, and I didn't understand the business side of healthcare and I wanted to understand that. A, B, I wanted to find a way to align financial incentives with doing the right thing. So that was an amazing challenge for me. How do I make it worthwhile to run self-management programs for older adults with diabetes and have it be a cost-effective outreach effort for the managed care plan?

That was a fascinating challenge for me. And it was driven by quality. Right. Did you think it was possible going in? Yes, I did. Because I really, once I have faith, I have faith. I really, I thought I could do it. And I started, you know, I remember one day there was no literature at all in any of the abstracts that I was looking through to support a premise that I wanted to present to senior leadership. So I started marrying all this like crazy literature about the self-management movement in healthcare to this initiative that I wanted to launch. And they basically looked at me and said, this is such a hell of an argument that there's no way

this is not going to work. Go and do it. And it was highly effective from a cost perspective, as well as from a functional health perspective. So I guess the question then becomes, I'm getting a little policy level here, but I'm just really curious about this and to have you here. When you have a model that you've done all this work on, and it's working, and it's accomplishing things both financially, you know, okay, the numbers are good, and we're serving people in the way that they need to be served. I guess the question for me is always, you know, okay, the numbers are good, and we're serving people in the way that they need to be served. I guess the question for me is always, you know, even if somebody else takes over, somebody else comes in, what's the incentive not to preserve that? I think when you have a model that is scaled nationally, it's very hard to manage the subtleties of regional health care.

I guess. And so the one-offs are exquisite, and they match what people need and how families respond and resiliently respond. But you can't scale and you can't manage that across an entire country. It was the little nugget of New York, but I don't think it could have been brought to the entire nation. I don't know how that could have been managed. Right. So you get to a point where you realize this is no longer your future. Yes, and I rage. So I start going to meetings barefoot. I am blasting the Alvin Ailey's Revelation CD from my office. I'm seeing like the hippie beats in the 70s and picket signs.

Literally. And my favorite was when people would come. This was actually one of my favorite stories. There was a group of women who would come and come to New York from another state. And they hated me because I was, I think, such a New Yorker and I was opinionated and strong and I wore black. And so I literally would go to the Salvation Army and find three-year-old tweed suits with big gold buttons when they would come so that they would hate me less. And that's how I would dress for these meetings when people would come in. And I remember my staff saying, what's on your body? And I would say, corporate is coming in. So I need to dress the part. But it was wild and crazy and ridiculous that all these antics were being brought to bear

because I was so unhappy. And I was managed by a physician all of a sudden who was not forward thinking, wasn't bright, wasn't inspiring me. I like and need to be inspired on a regular basis to keep my hand because I inherited half the United States to manage. I was promoted. And all of a sudden, I was given half the United States to manage for the healthcare services. And I just wanted out. And finally, I think after enough barefoot antics, and enough of my Alvin LECD blasting from my office, which actually made me happy, and that's why I played it. They let me go and I got a package. And then it was really now what? Yeah. I mean, do you go back to OT? Do you go back to teaching? Or is this a door that's opening to something totally different? Yeah. And I think that every story has an introduction.

And unbeknownst to me at the time, the intro to the next chapter of my life was my out of nowhere interest in African drumming and dancing. I would go to the city and I would take West African djembe drumming classes. And I would dance to the point of like almost collapsing, dance class after dance class. And this was in the throes of also, I'm going through a divorce. It is upheaval at its finest. And the one place I felt intact and okay through this chaos was when my hand was on a drum or when I was in an African dance class. So this was therapy for you. I mean, and expression, and this is where you touched stone. Yes. Yes. And very different from the life that I had ever known. And so I got my package, and the only thing that made sense to me at that time was to go to Africa.

Wait a minute. Okay, so you're going through a lot of traumatic chains, and you want to reconnect with movement and dance. I can see the move to, okay, I'm going to take classes in African drumming and dancing. It's a pretty big leap to I need to be in Africa. Take me deeper into this. I felt connected in a way I've never known before when I would dance and drum. Like literally, I can't explain the visceral feeling, but it was a knowing so deep inside of me that I knew I had to go to that land and touch that soil. And all my scientific and intellectual training can't explain what that meant, but it was so deep and so riveting for me that I thought this is my one chance. I have no idea how encumbered or booked my life will become once

I'm employed again. But right now, this is my little nugget of time that I could go and explore and touch. I wanted to touch the soil. That's all I knew. It was beckoning me. So where do we go from there? So my significant other and I decided that we would get on a plane. The kids were in camp. They were set for the summer. That we booked an incredible trip to Tanzania. And we worked with an agent.

And I said to her, and he said to her, meeting with people who are nontraditional and having non-traditional experiences is more important to me than anything I can describe. And so she arranged for us to go on a hike in the forest with a medicine man from the Maasai tribe and have him teach us about plants and leaves. And he literally speaks to the forest when people are ill and it speaks back to them, him, with what the remedies might be. And I wanted exposure to that kind of medicine and that kind of knowing that was very deep and extraordinary. And we saw tribal dancing and it was incredible. And I have to say that I landed, the plane landed and I burst out crying and I said, I'm home. And he looked at me and the whole plane looked at me, you know, like all these people from Tanzania and they're all looking at me saying, what are you talking about?

I'm really home. I don't get it, but I'm home. I don't know. I mean, you look like an Upper West Side, like a New York City person. The girl who grew up in Scarborough is home. So we had incredible experiences there leading up to what was really the turning point. And I would, on a daily basis, it was my moment with the divine. I remember I would just sit on the ground and put the soil in my hands and have tears rolling down my face. There was some deep connection that I knew existed, but I didn't know how profound it would be until I was there.

And it humbled me to my bones just to have like the soil in my hands. And so we're in the Serengeti. And one night there's this big tent. And this woman strikes me as just in pain. Like she just had this very sad face. She was from the UK. And I sat down next to her and we were both drinking wine. And I said, are you okay?

And she said, I'm not okay. I am probably one of the best docs in England. I have a huge waiting list in London. I've come here to do medical mission work and I'm taking a minute break. And I am astounded at how helpless I am here without supplies. And we start to talk about what that actually looks like for her. There's no gauze. There's no IV starter kits. There's no fluids. And I'm listening and I'm listening and I'm listening. And all of a sudden, I'm realizing this is it. Like, this is it.

This is, I think, what is supposed to happen here and what I'm supposed to do with the next chapter of my life. And from that point forward, the floodgates open. And anyone who's doing any medical mission work in that country And from that point forward, the floodgates open and anyone who's doing any medical mission work in that country from that point forward, for some reason would find me and say, there are no supplies here. This is the most tragic thing I've ever seen. And so I think when the universe speaks, you listen. And I don't think messages are, I think messages are to be taken very seriously and to be heeded. And I started to notice them.

I noticed them over and over and over and over again. And was, I had some undoing to do. So I would go to tribal communities and people who were living in huts and didn't have access to care. And my traditionally trained science brain would say, how am I going to help this get better? How am I going to help this get better? I can't stand it. You know, kids with a runny nose and flies attached to their runny nose and flies running into their eyes. And Tracy, my significant other, would say, this is not yours to fix. This piece isn't what they're asking for help for. And really kind of like, appropriately brought to me like, there's a juxtaposition of what you think is tolerable or intolerable and what people who are living a life find distressing.

What people they're living a life find distressing is that there's no guarantee they're going to get through childbirth. They don't care about the flies. The flies are on me at that point. They're not on them. And so I did a lot of processing and a lot of undoing during that trip. And I remember sitting with him and just sitting on the end of bed and crying and saying, I feel so twisted up inside that everything that I think and I know is real may not be when I'm in this environment in terms of what's important. And I started to realize that it was about creating a new reality and listening to other people and not just what I knew and what I'd been trained. Because I had 20 plus years in healthcare. I knew a lot, right? I came in with this beautiful model and programmatic head.

I'm here to fix this. Right. And I know it needs fixing. Exactly. But. Exactly. And so this was about being with people and meeting them where they're at and literally saying, what do you think you need? And asking people who never were asked that question before. And literally, when I would ask people that, they would say, I don't even understand the

question. So we leave Africa. I read Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder about Paul Farmer, who we've done a lot of work with, on the plane ride home. And I'm convinced. That's it. I'm going to do this. And then I start to wimp out. I'm doing it.

I'm not doing it. And what was this? So what was the thing in your mind like I'm going to do, I'm gonna start collecting urinary catheters from doctors offices, literally, because I knew I could get those. There were enough urinary catheters out there that I could just start collecting something as simple as urinary catheters or basic first aid supplies. And my friends garages would be available to me. And I'm just gonna, you know, store this stuff and somehow get them to Africa and somehow be available to me. And I'm just going to, you know, store this stuff. And somehow get them to Africa. And somehow get them to Africa.

And that would all come together somehow. Right? So this was the thinking. And but the reality is I am a divorced mother of three. I made a really great salary when I worked in the managed care company. I had been bonused and there were incentives. And so I did really well there. And now I'm interviewing with headhunters for jobs in aging. I want to start a non-for-profit that collects medical supplies and there's the rub. Am I going

to have a life that makes sense to me or am I going to do what I am quote unquote supposed to do and what is in line for me, supposedly. And every time I would go for an interview, I wanted to throw up. Literally, I would walk out of the interview and I did really well in these interviews, intellectually, but my soul was like still in Africa and it didn't leave me that feeling and I couldn't let it go. So, you know, one night we had friends over for dinner. This is the turning. This was another turning point. We had friends over for dinner.

It's like two months now that we've been back from Africa and I'm vacillating. What do I do? What do I do? What do I do? And I had no food all day long. We drank way too much red wine at dinner that night. I am sobbing. All I want to do is start this non-for-profit, and I don't have the guts. How am I going to get over this hurdle? And the hurdle is all me. And Tracy, he turned to me,

just do it. Stop with this agony and just start. And our friends were the same. They were like, just get on the wagon and start. And the next day I started. Literally, it was my turn, about face turn. And I said, I'm just, now I'm going to really do this. And I had no idea what I was doing. I mean, like literally, I had no idea what I was doing. And I said to Tracy, I really want to call Partners in Health. And I said to Tracy, I really want to call Partners in Health. And I want to talk to their executive director, Ophelia Dahl, and find out how I could be helpful in the New York healthcare market to collect medical supplies and get them to some of their sites in Africa or Haiti. So what's Partners in Health?

Partners in Health is an amazing organization doing some of the best, best medical empowerment work, I think, on the planet. They're housed in Boston, they're in Haiti, they're in Malawi, they're in Rwanda, and they're headed up by Paul Farmer, who is an extraordinary physician and a beautiful leader. And so I called. I called after Tracy said, just get on the phone. And I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm just going to get on the phone. I'm going to cold call the biggest organization that I have the most respect for and say, I don't know what I'm doing, but can you help me help you? This is so crazy, right? So he said, yeah, I think that's exactly what you should do. So I had this amazing long conversation with her executive director. She assigned their

procurement team to me and the country director in Haiti. And they started to train me in what to collect and what not to collect. So out the gate, I had no idea what people would find useful and what they would find just garbage. So they did that. And then next thing I know, I start making calls to hospitals in New York, just cold calling them, cold calling the material management people, literally walking through the tunnels of some of the hospitals in New York. Like the angels of New York are from the DR and from Haiti, and they run the waste management tunnels of the biggest health centers in New York. So I would just walk through and introduce myself and ask them if they had stuff on a regular basis that they're throwing

away that could be diverted to someone else. And they all were like, absolutely. So one hospital in New York, I call, and this guy meets with me, and he's from the Dominican Republic, an angel. And he said, you know, we had some water damage. And when water enters any kind of storage space of medical supplies, even if it's like a quarter of an inch of water, we have to get rid of all the supplies because they've been exposed to water and the water didn't touch any of these supplies. I said, okay, well, show me how much you're thinking of. And I'm literally thinking like a little box of catheters, a few Band-Aids. And he walks me into a room of 27 pallets of inventory, eight feet tall. So a pallet is like a five by five piece of wood

and it climbs all the way up to eight feet. And he said, can you take this? And I have my like SUV, right? I have my SUV parked. I'm going to need to get a whole bunch of other moms from Westchester with SUVs to hire really fast. And I like took my breath away and I said, seriously, you're giving me all of this? And he said, yes. How fast can you be here? So I am completely out the gate over my head. And I called Tracy. I say to Tracy, do you know how to drive a semi truck? Because Hector's saying to us, you need a semi truck. And Tracy said, I do know how to drive a semi truck from all of his years in production. He goes, do you realize what you're getting yourself into, Danielle? Like, this is a big moment. And I said, sure. I had no, I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but I was just like, forge ahead, make this happen.

So we load up this truck. It sits outside of our house in Westchester County for three weeks. The cops are banging on the door. They're like, when are you going to move this truck? So you've got a semi-truck sitting in front of your house. Other than, I have no warehouse. I haven't gotten this far. Banging on the door. They're like, when are you going to move this truck? So you've got a semi-truck sitting in front of your house. Other than the truck, I have no warehouse. I haven't gotten this far. Banging on the door, when are you going to move your truck? We move it across the street. The guy across the street is so angry that there's a truck there that he tries to run

Tracy over with his car. I mean, like it's escalating. We need to find a place to put our gigantic semi-truck that's becoming an eyesore. So we find a temporary warehouse where the people who owned this building gave it to us for a song, but they were racist and hateful and vindictive, and would turn off the electricity and just do terrible, terrible things when they found out what we were doing and where we were doing it for. Literally, it was horrible. So no kidding. So that was the motivation for them treating you that way

was that they found that you were serving people that they were- Yeah. I heard one say, somebody who worked in the building say something to the effect of, I can't believe she's sending all these supplies to those people who are dying of AIDS in Africa. They should just let them be.

And I thought, this is just not a good fit for me. And like literally would get into my face and yell at me. And I'm in the dark with a flashlight trying to find the cause. It was horrible. And yet, it was worth fighting for. I think from the start, my conviction was people who are not listened to need those who are listened to to fight like hell for them. And if I can do that with all my years of experience, and this is where your question earlier begs at this, I was well trained working for a Fortune 500 company because I got to deal with situations that were complicated, that involved high level of communication, that involved listening in a way most people don't have enough exposure to,

to figure out how I'm going to get my point listened to and accepted. And so I had great training in that kind of environment. So here, God help this guy in the stairwell, right? That's my conviction. So then this is the other great part of our first warehouse. So then I heard Bombay was closing the furniture store. Bombay, the beautiful, like, mahogany stuff. I remember. It used to be in there. Yeah.

It was great. And so I walked through and went to their back warehouse room. And they had gorgeous shelving. And I said, how much do you guys want for the shelving? I need shelving. And this is what I'm do you guys want for the shelving? I need shelving. And this is what I'm trying to do in this dark warehouse in Yonkers. And they said, oh, well, this shelving is $80,000. So we want like, I think they asked for like 50 or more.

And I said, I'll give you $3,000 for it. And they said, you gotta be kidding. We're not going to sell this to you for $3,000. So I went back. Tracy went back. Every day, one of us went back to talk to them about the shelving. And finally going to sell this to you for $3,000. So I went back, Tracy went back every day. One of us went back to talk to them about the shelving. And finally, they gave it to us for $3,000. So you went from 80 to three. Yes. But I felt like if we just stayed on top of it long enough, and then I didn't have boxes,

you know, and what was I going to pack boxes? So my kids would scream. I had three young kids at the time, scream at me at the top of my lungs because I found PetSmart's garbage. Their garbage area had this incredible cardboard dumpster and I would lift it up and start throwing boxes out of it to my son who had just started high school. And he was like, mom, get out of the dumpster. If anyone's going to get into the dumpster, it's going to be me. But that was the extraordinary chaotic launch. And it is named Athia because Athia is the name for health in the Kiswahili language. And Tracy, I was giving a talk once in aging in the beginnings because I had to support our income somehow. And so I was continuing to work in the world of aging for a while. And I went away one weekend to give this big talk, came home, and he had found the name.

And he had spent time like really like with heart and soul researching like what would be a match to the intent of like this extraordinary body of work and found the name Athia. So it, um, I love the fact that that carries kind of the soil that made me sob in my hands every single day. And it's, it's covers the work.

It's just everywhere with it. So, and you brought up something really fascinating, which is that you've got, how old were your kids then? So son was in high school. Son was in high school. Daughter was in middle school. And the third was in elementary school. Yeah. Summer runs or playoff season meditations, whatever your vibe, Peloton has thousands of classes built to push you. We know how life goes. New father, new routines, new locations. What matters is that you have something there to adapt with you, whether you need a challenge

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You know what the difference between me and you is? You're gonna die. Don't shoot him! We need him! Y'all need a pilot. Flight Risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever,

making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum.

Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. So you've got, you know, these three kids at really impressionable ages, seeing their mom who could easily go and do something for secure, very stable, well paid and respectful, you know, like still doing things where you felt you were contributing, turn around and do this. Have you had conversations with them about what was going through their minds, like sort of in these early stages? That's such a great question. I, in the beginning, I was an absentee mother and an absentee partner. So I, to birth this baby took everything I had. And I remember one night with the girls,

I have a son and two daughters, and sitting with the girls at the dining room table and saying to them, I just suck these days. I am so sorry that I'm not there for you. And I can't be the mother that I want to be. And I don't know how to make it better. And I know I have to make it better. But I don't I can't figure out how yet. And I have to find a better balance here. And I started to sob. And then they started to cry. And we all just sat there and cried. And it was just like, it was bearing witness to the truth. The truth was this stunk for us as a family.

It was extraordinary for the work and what was happening for people globally. But in my own little nest, it was a disaster. And I'm the kind of mom, I don't care what job I have. Every morning I wake up and I make gourmet breakfast for my kids. I love that as a maternal experience. They wake up at whatever time they wake up. And there's like really complicated breakfasts waiting for them. And that's like my maternal contribution to start their day. And I didn't do that for months. And so the beginning was very hard. And you know, they talk about it now

laughingly, but it's not so funny. They have said when interviewed for press, they've said things like, Oh, yeah, we'd be in high school and someone would show up and say, Hi, your mom asked me to come get you because you got to get to the train to get to your dance class in New York. And the writer would say, Oh, did she have a password? And they were like, no, but we always knew that it would be someone lovely waiting for us and say, Danielle's stuck. She wanted me to come get you. You got to trust me.

It's all OK. And it was so chaotic. And it worked somehow. These children talk about now, today today that they learned resilience and independence and a respect for like the work and what can be as a role model that they never imagined happening in their lives, right? So they come from a family that is very creative. I have a very creative artistic family. But going this far

to a different direction than the one that we've all been kind of accustomed to going is a big leap in our family. And, you know, my son came with us to Haiti after the earthquake, right after the earthquake. And he came home to his sisters and said, I can't even begin to tell you how important our mother's work is. And if she has to go away, and if she's not available to us the way she once was, it's for a really good reason. We have to like be able to share her. And, you know, for him to say that was huge. It was huge. And they all feel that, you know, they all feel a kinship. Every Christmas break now, they come with a group of other friends to Haiti with me, and they lead a creative arts workshop at one of the communities where we work. And these children love them and appreciate it. And it culminates in a performance where 500 to 1000 people in this community come out to watch their children dance or perform a theater piece or have an art show. And so they've adopted this as like part of their life. I mean, my middle child is at UCLA, and she decided to learn Swahili this past

year. And she's now almost fluent in Swahili. So it's interesting the way it's kind of rippled for them as well. Yeah, I mean, it's so fascinating. And just the fact that you would make that choice to start with and then reach a moment where you were incredibly transparent with what was happening, how it was affecting you and how you noticed it was affecting the family dynamic and you were open with them and let them know I'm struggling, which as a parent, I mean, I'm a parent also, it's a brutally hard thing to do to actually share that with your kids, because you always want to present this image of I got this, you know? And, but sometimes I wonder if that does more harm than good, because it doesn't prepare them for the fact that, you

know, we're, if you want to do something big, you know, there are sacrifices, there's work, and there's a humanity that, you know, it's actually okay to step into and to share and then to see if we can work together to figure it out. And that there's something bigger, like that there is, we're all part of something bigger and that the notion of service is really important. Something that's always spinning in my head of how do I bring that to the interaction with my wife, my daughter, and just other people. I share a lot of heartache and beauty with the kids, a lot, and talk to them about it in an ongoing way. I mean, dinners are stories. And I think what I've learned in my life doing this work is indigenous places in our world teach and inspire through storytelling.

I think we kind of lost that art here. Totally. And so I now embed it in everything that I do. I tell a lot of stories. And that's part of what we are as a family now. So you get to a point where this is becoming real, this is becoming an organization. And so where's it going? I mean, what's this building into? So in the beginning, we started collecting from a number of hospitals. I actually

trained an operating room in New York City at five in the morning to teach nurses how to collect from the back of the operating room table supplies that were still totally acceptable. And the reason for this is there are parts of our world where if they don't have enough sutures to stitch someone up, they will dunk a piece of gauze in alcohol, they'll pull the strings out, put it through a needle, and that becomes the sutures. So anything I can do to collect as many of these consumable supplies as I can that are not used, and if anything is exposed to a patient's medical field, regardless of whether it's touched or unwrapped, it cannot be reintroduced for another patient in this country. So millions and millions of dollars of supplies are being thrown away because of regulations. So we don't have those regulations in Africa and Haiti. I want

to get the supplies there. So this is an opportunity in ORs to collect. So we started doing massive amounts of collections through that venue. And then I met, this is where worlds start to collide, right? So then at the same time around, I meet this fabulous man in his late 80s, Ed Bobrow, who's on the East Side, taught strategic planning at NYU, and is in his late 80s and just lost his wife. And he calls and he says, I have a lot of medical supplies. I read about you. I heard about you. I want you to come to my apartment. And there in his den is his wife's rehabilitative remains, her multiple walkers, her wheelchairs, her unused trucks, her unused medical supplies. And it hit me so deeply through him and through his exquisite emotional world of giving the stuff away to create life for another, that this is a

blessing, that we have to extend this to families who are in the crisis of bereavement, because there's something about their life living on through their supplies for another. And so we started collecting from the bereaved. And my need to work with older adults was completely satiated because I did all the pickups in my SUV, right? So I would go to families who were bereaved. I would bring the kids with me. One family, I brought my middle child. And we watched this daughter holding her mother, who was in her mid-80s, so proud after I just

thanked her and told her where these supplies were going to go. And the mother just put her head on her daughter's shoulder, like in this midst of just terrible grief. There was this beautiful moment of this daughter being so proud of her. And my daughter just started to cry. And I'm like, this is the work, like this is the beauty of the work. And it can happen here and it can happen abroad. So that started to happen. More hospitals are donating to us. And then I wanted to start something for, we needed help loading containers, right? So I don't have a staff. It's Tracy and Danielle at this point and any volunteers that might come in and want to help us. So I decide I'm going to reach out to Children's Village, which is a residential home in Westchester County. And these kids have huge pasts. And

it's a group of boys who I loved the minute they walked out of the elevator. And I started a work placement program where five to eight CV boys would come to the warehouse, they would pallet jack, they'd help us load containers, they'd help us get stuff up on the shelves in the warehouse. And it became the trigger for having lots of populations at risk working in the warehouse. And the conversations we would have were extraordinary, like one got his girlfriend pregnant, we're waiting for the elevator, we're talking about informed choice, and what does this mean for you? What does this mean for the rest of your life? And these are the conversations that only can happen around doing, right? So I'm an occupational therapist,

and it's the doing and the doing for others that allows you to have extraordinary conversations. And I'll never forget one boy from CV and I were loading shelves, loading shelves, loading shelves together. And I said, you're a really, really good guy. And he said, no, I'm not. You've no idea what I've done in my past. And I said, well, it's 930 at night. And in your present, you're here working alongside me and helping me. So that tells me that you are a decent, good human being. And it was just like these moments, these beautiful, beautiful moments started to emerge to the point where we then had Riverdale Mental Health Association for people with chronic mental health issues. We had kids from the cottage school through Jewish JCCA. We had Devereux. We had WARC. And now we've hundreds to this day, fast forward,

hundreds of people ranging from forensic histories to psychiatric illness to just needing a leg up in the warehouse, giving back, recovering, and feeling like a million bucks there. And so that happened early in the process, and it just continues to grow. You know, the giving through the bereaved grows, the populations at risk program here grows, and so does the work we're doing abroad. And it's interesting because hospitals started over time to donate equipment to us. A hospital would close, we would decant the entire hospital. We learned how to do this really quickly. AFIA started to develop a big, huge staff. I mean,

huge staff. We are seven. But for me, that's like huge in terms of what we can support. But the growth has been, it's kind of like a flower at this point, because so many things start to kind of bloom and blossom at once. And you have no idea where it's going to go. Yeah. This is also an operation where you've got a warehouse, you're shipping containers internationally. So obviously, even though the equipment is donated, and you've got a ton of people volunteering and doing this incredible work for you, I got to imagine your financial needs are substantial. So how do you go about covering that? So that's, that's my least favorite question. So what we do is we charge recipients,

we've developed amazing relationships. So we're working with a huge, fantastic NGO in Turkey, that's building hospitals throughout Africa, we're working with the Tanzanian People's Defense Forces, we're working with governments, we're working with the Second Lady of Ghana. We're working with governments and large enough NGOs that can support big change, sweeping healthcare change instead of a container here and a container there. And we do some of that. I'd much rather create sustainable change over time in key areas where we can do that. So we charge a fee to cover the expenses of filling a container. And we ask the recipient, so whoever it is we're shipping to, to cover all the shipping costs as well. And so every container is worth at least $250,000.

It could be up to a million dollars, depending on what's packed on that container. And I'd say to get a container to Africa, it's between $25,000 and $30,000 all in, depending on what that looks like. So the cost benefit of this is clear and obvious. But coming up with that kind of funding for many agencies or organizations in Africa, it's really hard. So sometimes organizations in America sponsor those shipments. Affiliated groups, academic groups do that. And that supplements a huge part of the warehouse sustenance. So we figure we have to get two to three containers out a month to meet administrative costs. And that's how we've broken down sustaining the support of the warehouse.

And then we do a fair amount of fundraising and grant writing in order to sustain the ongoing work. So why is that your least favorite question? I don't like the money side of this. I've gone from working for a Fortune 500 where I was consumed with my financial spreadsheets to let my soul just do the work. and I just want to do the work. And it's hard and it's frustrating. You know, I've gone from the beginning of Afia, I could barely sit across from someone and say, would you consider making a donation?

And now I'm way past that point, way past it. But I don't really fully understand the world of non-for-profit development. And I don't know that that's my best match. I head up this organization, and clearly that's a huge piece of what we do. But my strong suit is in leading and in building clinical models that have efficacy, whether they're here or there. Yeah. So it's a combination of just not that being sort of like where you came from. But also, I mean, what I've found, the curiosity for me is that so many people who are really mission-driven and service-oriented really struggle with the notion of accepting value for what they're providing.

Even if what they're providing is 10 times more than, and all they're asking for is enough to just sustain the endeavor. I think so many people who are service oriented, they're like, I want to just do this where nobody has to pay anything because I just, because you know, the fact that we have this barrier is stopping like X percentage of people who could benefit from this this from getting it. And it's making us have to staff up and focus a certain amount of energy on fundraising rather than just serving people.

And it's interesting to see how different people explore that. Because I think a lot of people don't explore it at all. And it just kind of ignored it until everything implodes. And then, you know, what they're trying to do goes away entirely. Then you see other people or groups where it's almost the exact opposite extreme. You know, like the entire organization is built around fundraising. I know. There's some really interesting hybrids coming out.

A friend of mine, Adam Braun, who started Pencils of Promise, you know, and he's like, look, you know, I don't call it not-for-profit. He's like, nobody goes into anything with the express purpose of not making a profit. It's for purpose. And it's fascinating to me to see how there seems to be this new wave of people exploring different ways to fund and different ways to treat it more like a business. But it all comes down to almost always the sort of longstanding beliefs and values that the founder has around money and service and how they relate. Like what did you, when you were five years old, how did you feel about that? And that kind of like stays with you for life.

I think you're absolutely right. I think you're 100% right on this one. I, I, you know, in the beginning, it would be very hard for me when people would call and say, but we don't have any money to pay for these supplies. And I my, you know, I would crack in half, this was all new to me. And now when people call and say, we don't have any money to pay, my favorite was we actually staged an entire container for this site in Ghana. And we're ready to call the container to be delivered. And the recipient said, thank you so much for doing this. We don't have the money yet, but we hope we'll have the money at some point. And I said, I'm pulling it.

And he said, but we need it. And I said, so do millions of other people. And if you can't help us to sustain our costs, we go away. So I'm not, I'm sorry. I'm pulling the container. When you've raised enough money to be able to afford this, then we're a go. And that sounds like a hard line. But the reality is, if you don't protect what you need to cover your costs, you're done. Right. You can't serve anybody.

No. You know, it's, it's, and that is such a tough pill to swallow, I think, for almost anybody who cares. But it's, it's the only way to create something you use that were sustainable a number of times, you covered. Summer runs or playoff season meditations, whatever your vibe, Peloton has thousands of classes built to push you. We know how life goes. New father, new routines, new locations. What matters is that you have something there to adapt with you,

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Charge time and actual results will vary. I'm curious when you're thinking about things like that, you were describing how close you were with your grandfather when you were growing up. Does what he would think of the decisions you're making ever kind of sneak into the back of your mind? That's such a good question. like to think that I inherited from him the ability to really, really care and invest in who is in front of me. And he did that effortlessly. And I would watch him, you know, I'd watch him park his car. And we'd go after a show back to get the car and he'd have a bag of fresh, delicious, unbelievable hot bagels for the guy who parked his car. And he would just land them in his hands and say, here, I know you love bagels.

And my grandfather would like pick stuff up from people all the time. So I like to think that there's an ode to him in those moments where I'm on. And like, I've come to a point or I've come to a conclusion that wasn't clear at the beginning of a conversation. You know, that's a good example of this was when after the earthquake in Haiti, we created an incredible rehab program. We trained Haitians to be the providers of rehab care and thousands of people were disabled in the blink of an eye there. And so we were going through Sean Penn's camp and we started, that was one of our rehab there. And so we were going through Sean Penn's camp. And we started, that was one of our rehab sites. And so we're going down this cliff. And this woman saw me

treating a few patients and saw me training our staff with an amazing translator. If no, Haitian runs our program there. And he's an exquisite man and an exquisite leader. And this woman goes, I need you right now for my daughter. And I said, what's wrong with your daughter? And she said, it's her thoughts. So we sit there and she's 13. And I said to her, tell me your thoughts. Why is your mother worried?

And why would you want me to sit with you? And she said, I'm scared of going back to school because I'm scared another earthquake will happen. And if I die, she won't find my corpse. And if she doesn't find my corpse, I'm the only child she has. And what will that mean for my mother not to be able to bury me? Pause. And Ifnil is sitting next to me. And he went, oh my gosh, I like have these thoughts too. I have these thoughts that I can't get out of my head. So he's equally traumatized. It's a nation that's been traumatized. And I said to her, so let's start to like re-imagine you. I want you to start to write. And she looked at me and she said, how do you know I'm a writer?

And I said, I don't, but I think the wind speaks to us here. And I'm just going to give you what I'm getting right now. So you're just going to stay with me because I don't know you at all, but I'm going to tell you what I'm thinking and what I believe you need to know. So we talked about her starting to write and re-imagining herself as some mystical force that can break through concrete. And these are like techniques that are used for PTSD managing the symptoms and kind of like re-engineering yourself into something that would have special forces and special capacity. And she said, I would love to write, but my mother tells me that no writers, and especially no female writers, come out of Haiti. And I said, that's so not true. There's

some beautiful writers who come out of Haiti. So it's time for you to start to write. We're going to give you paper. We're going to give you a pen. And I'm going to look for you. And one day, I'm going to see you at a book signing in New York and I'm just going to have this huge smile on my face. We went through this whole thing. And Ifnel turned to me and he said, that helped me as much as it helped her. And that was a moment of my grandfather, right? So there it was, that moment of like him bringing the bagels. It was about like really watching and listening and paying attention. And he paid attention all the time. So that's my moment of memoriam to him, I think, on an ongoing basis. Yeah, that's beautiful. So where are you?

What are you up to now? Where are you focused? Unfortunately, we're focused semi on Ebola. What is happening in Sierra Leone and Liberia, We do a lot of work during disasters. So we did a huge amount of work in the Philippines recently. And now healthcare workers don't have protective, they don't have protective gloves, they don't have gowns, they don't have masks. And if we don't protect the people providing care, they're going to leave. You know, the exodus will begin quickly. So we are trying to figure out how to get into the air before air is cut off into Liberia and Sierra Leone, pallets of supplies so that we can at least contribute partially to the need for medical supplies. And the Liberian

and Sierra Leone community in New York especially is turning to us and saying, can we bring you supplies? Because we need the medical coverage precautions, but we also need stuff that comes from families and communities. And we do that all the time. We need mops and buckets and disinfectant and platex gloves and all this other stuff that families and communities can donate so that we can deliver wholeheartedly. We saw with cholera what that looks like in Haiti. They needed buckets and disinfectant as much as they needed protective garments for the healthcare workers. So we are in the throes of trying to figure out our strategy for Ebola and maximizing

access to supplies. We're doing a lot of work with the Tanzanian People's Defense Forces on bringing rehab units to some of their hospitals, creating greater capacity at some of their biggest health centers. And that just like warms my heart because Tanzania started this. So now here we are. Full circle. Yeah, it's a beautiful full circle.

And we have many other projects and countries on our horizon. And we're building this Haiti rehab program out, working with the government now and their Secretary of Disabilities to bring access to rehab supplies and rehab services countrywide, not just our little organization in Port-au-Prince, but to really expand it thoroughly. So if you'd said to me a year ago, where would we be? I don't know that I would have said that we'd be doing all this amazing work in Tanzania. And we're kind of starting to slowly change a country of health care access, which is thrilling and beautiful to me. And we're going to make a huge contribution in Haiti for people with a huge variety of disabilities as well.

When I think about the countries that you're talking about, in my mind, it's interesting. On the one hand, it's, wow, what an incredible, incredible adventure, what incredible work you're doing, that the service is just jaw-dropping. The other head is, those are dangerous places. Are they? I don't know. I feel safer and much more at home there than I do in some of the environments I find myself here. Like I, when I'm there, I am refreshed by the authenticity of the people I interact with. That it's interesting what scares us, what scares me in terms of what's scary is a lack of authenticity and a lack of people being real. Like it actually, I find myself getting agita.

I love the fact that I can be in those countries and people there feel your genuineness. So I've been in areas of tented camps where there are quote unquote, they're called the bad guys. They've got machetes, they've got guns, and they don't come anywhere near us. And I don't know why that is. And I like to think that somewhere the energy of like being genuine and being there for the right reason is palpable for people and it works. But I am drawn to the authentic experience and I find it there readily. I don't have to worry about what I say. If I think something has to happen a certain way, I can just say it and no one's feelings are going to get hurt and no one's going to say, Daniel, you didn't say that in a really nice way. I'd like you to say it in a different way. Can you please? It's just you say things straight.

And a perfect example was If-No. We had a security guard who was asking him for a raise at one of our camps. And this guy was literally trying to abscond with our supplies, our materials, trying to steal from Ifnel. And I get there. And I'm watching Ifnel talking to him. And this goes on for over an hour. And I'm disgusted. He's not getting a raise.

In fact, he's stealing from us. Ifnel should set a huge limit and just cut him off and say, absolutely not. But instead, he's engaging in this like discussion. And I turned to Ifnel after and I said, we're done. And he said, what do you mean we're done? I said, we're done. Tell him we're done. He's not getting a raise. In fact, he's fired. Tell him he's fired and he's not getting a raise. And he goes, but Daniel, I can't do that. And I said, then I will watch me. And the guy in America, I in a million years would never have done it like this, right? I turned to him and I said, you're stealing from us. We have proof

and you're fired. And I want you to leave the camp. And if you don't leave the camp, I'm going to get security for the camp. And Ethel looked at me and I said, Ethel, this is what I need you to start to do. He, who just needed the gumption, started to. But I never had a conversation like that here where it's just pure. You're not doing the right thing. You're stealing from the poor. You're stealing from people who don't have anything and need the help. You got to go. But it's an interesting voice that we can acquire in a land where like it's just about being real. There's an urgency, I think. Yes.

And there's an urgency to protect. And I, you know, it's an interesting question. I, the only time I've ever felt, and we've been around gunshots. We've been around gunshots. We've been around a lot. The only time I've ever felt unsafe was there was a terrible physician in Haiti who falsely accused part of our team of stealing and set them up because she was angry at me. She hit me in public, literally smacked me in the head in public. That didn't scare me. What scared me was a number of weeks later, she accused them and threw them in the worst prison in Port

of Prince. And you're not documented there. If somebody doesn't come to testify in front of the judge within 48 hours, and you fall into this abyss, and it was at the height of cholera, and Ifna was one of the people in that jail cell. And Tracy and I flew down, it was harrowing, flew down to try was harrowing. Flew down to try to get them out of jail. I literally, I remember packing three black dresses and three black pairs of heels. And I was just going to park myself in a courtroom for like three days and argue and hire an attorney and dress for court. And I get there and this amazing woman, Maurice, who we work with, got them out of jail.

She's very politically connected. Sarah, who works with me, was unbelievable at helping to maneuver this. And the point was, afterwards, I was scared. Like, I was scared of retaliation. I was scared of what happens when you publicly humiliate somebody who did something wrong. And I got over it over time. But that was the only time I've ever been aware of having feelings of unrest. And it had nothing to do with anything but a woman who had some power. So the name of this project is Good Luck Project.

When I offer that out to you, what does it mean to you to live a good life? I think it's to live an authentic life and to have faith that what you think can happen really can happen. I mean, the obstacles that I described during our talk were crazy. And most people I think would say, okay, I give up. Like I can't, this is just too much. I think having a good life is about paying attention to the signs that are in front of you, heeding them, seeing them as a gift, and having faith that what you believe can be really can be and listening to that voice. And at least to like an authentic existence. I can't imagine anything making me happier than what I'm doing today. You know, and it's hard.

It's hard. And it's challenging in ways I've never been challenged in my life. But it's real. And I get to be real. And I love that every single day. Beautiful. Thank you so much. Thank you.

It's been a great conversation. So I hope you enjoyed this conversation with Danielle this week. She is just so incredibly inspiring to be around her, to be in the room with her. It's like she's almost vibrating off the chair, just radiating energy. And what an amazing story of somebody who comes and just says, there's a massive need. It's so big, I can't even conceive of being able to fill it. But by God, I'm going to make this happen, no matter what's going on. I'll figure it out. I'll find the resources. I'll make this happen. And it's just so inspiring and incredible to see what one person is capable of doing when you have a focus and a will and a really strong desire to serve. So I know I'm

reflecting on this conversation and I've learned a ton. I hope you guys have as well. If you've really enjoyed it, please head on over to iTunes. We'd love if you'd give it a quick review or a thumbs up. Again, only if it's in earnest. And again, if you were interested in my little tease in the beginning of this episode about the Good Life Project immersion, then just take a jump over to goodlifeproject.com slash immersion and you can check out the details and just see if it's right for you. Wishing you a wonderful rest of the week. I'm Jonathan Fields signing off for Good Life Project. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever.

It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required.

Charge time and actual results black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg.

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