Habits and Hustle - Episode 100: Charles Koch (Billionaire, Philanthropist) and Brian Hooks (CEO of Stand Together)

Episode Date: January 26, 2021

Charles Koch is a Billionaire Businessman, CEO of Koch Industries, and Philanthropist. Brian Hooks is his writing partner and Chairman & CEO of Stand Together. These two document their time together and expand on the several year journey of writing their new book “Believe in People.” Exploring the gifts and talents of those who may have come from extreme struggle, those without college degrees, or even those who’ve spent time behind bars. Charles and Brian discuss the importance of meeting people where they are and helping them to “self-actualize” to become their best, most successful self. They propose the notion of selfless selfishness, and the foundation of being a social entrepreneur, divulging what it might be that keeps Charles passionate and working at a level no one has been able to compete with forgetting the fact that he’s also 85! Wanting to hear from the man eclipsing Disney and Boeing combined? Worried about your own worth or lack of experience, and what the world’s 11th richest man surprisingly might think about it? This episode’s for you. Youtube Link to this Episode Book: Believe in People ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Did you learn something from tuning in today? Please pay it forward and write us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. 📧If you have feedback for the show, please email [e-mail]  📙Get yourself a copy of Jennifer Cohen’s newest book from Habit Nest, Badass Body Goals Journal. ℹ️Habits & Hustle Website 📚Habit Nest Website 📱Follow Jennifer – Instagram – Facebook – Twitter – Jennifer’s Website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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to your number. Consent to receive marketing text not automated marketing text to your number. Consent to receive marketing text not required. Message and data rates may apply. You want to lose weight and get in shape, but every time you try, it only lasts a couple weeks. Well, look, it's not your fault because it's super f*** hard. I'm Carl, the founder of Body.

That's Body with an eye, and here's a secret. Most fitness and diet programs don't work long-term because they aren't designed to fit into your life-long term. That's why I created the world's first health esteem app, and I want you to text me to try it free for 14 days. Body shows you how to enjoy your life while you get healthy and lose weight. Sound too good to be true?

Don't say that to our millions of happy members. The next 500 people to text me the word health to 30 30 30 can try body for free for two weeks or get 50% off a paid membership. Text health to 30 30 30. It's gonna work, but first you need to be one of the next 500 people to text health to 30 30 30. I guys is Tony Rob Robbins you're listening to Habits and Hustle, fresh it. On today's episode of Habits and Hustle, we have the infamous and famous Charles Koch. Charles Koch is a chairman of the board and CEO of Koch Industries. A

position he is held since 1967. He is renowned for growing Koch Industries from a company worth 21 million in the early 1960s to one with revenues estimated as high as $110 billion by Forbes. He is one of the richest men He is one of the richest men in the world at number 11 and sometimes number 10 hovering. And his company by its revenue is larger than both Boeing and Disney combined. He has transformed the business into a diverse group of companies that employ nearly 130,000 people, making everything from Dixie Cups to components in your cell phone. Charles credits the success of Koch Industries to applying proven principles of social and scientific progress, which led to the development and implementation of his market-based management

MBM business philosophy. He describes MBM as his applications in two of his books, The Science of Success and Good Profit. Charles is now using those principles in philanthropy as a founder of Stand Together to tackle some of the biggest challenges in the U.S. Stand Together is partnering with thousands of social entrepreneurs to help them improve their effectiveness and scale at tackling poverty, improving education, and bringing justice to our criminal justice system.

And much more. His new book is called Believe in People, and he's on the podcast today to discuss all of it. It was super interesting speaking with him. And I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I enjoyed doing it. Well thank you guys, thank you for coming on to the podcast. Today I want to just, I'll do a proper intro later, but today we have Charles Koch and Brian Hooks who wrote the book, wrote the book, Believe in People. And well, Charles, I think that you are kind of famous infamous for, I mean, online. You're the 11th richest human being in the world.

I mean, if people don't know you, they should be Googling you right away. If you believe that. Well, even if it's a little bit off, still, you're more financially successful than the majority of us. Let's put this one on that bro. No, you're definitely not broke, exactly. So I think it's very interesting. I know there's a lot that just there's controversy around some of the things that you are around you a little bit, but

what I really want to really focus on is just the fact that you've been able to build, I mean, your, I mean, coke industries is what more, it's bigger, more successful in Disney, Boeing. I mean, there has to be some kind of thing that we can glean from that, right? So you took over from your father when, you know, it was, you know, it was successful, but it wasn't even close to where it is today. And I really want to get to understand the principles and of how other people can kind of, to kind of take that information and apply it to their own life. So that's why I want to why I'm so excited to speak to

you. Thank you. Well, we're excited to have you speak to us. Good. And we're obviously going to speak a lot about your book. I think I actually, I really did enjoy it a lot. A lot of your, a lot of what you write about are things that I speak about on the podcast and I actually tend to agree with. And let's start with the basics. I mean, you talk a lot about in the book about the bottom, you know, the bottom up approach about social entrepreneurs. Can we talk about, you know, the beginning, how, what was some of the things that you did, the bottom-up approach, and explain what that is, how you were able to grow the business from what it was and what it was

and what it is today? What it was to central to that is, well, let me go back a little. The, after I finished college, I worked for a consulting firm in Boston and I didn't know, I knew what I was good at. It was a very narrow range of things and I was trying to find a way to develop it and apply it, my gift. And as you know, our philosophy is everyone has a gift

and the key in society and the key for all of us is to find our gift, but not only find our gift, find a way to develop it and apply it to create value for others. And that's the way we can succeed and feel good about ourselves and believe in ourselves. And so I was working for this consulting company and I said, well, I got three degrees in engineering, but I was a lousy engineer. So that wasn't it. But the only job I could get it was as an engineer with this consulting firm. But I worked my way around to different departments and I got in the

management consulting and got to work on strategy and innovation. Wow, I was pretty good at that. And so I'm going to be an entrepreneur. So at MIT, I had all these spin-offs from professors and students and I knew a bunch of them. So I was going to invest in one of those and go to work for them. Meantime, my father called me and he said, he called me several times.

Finally, he said, he called me and he said, son, as you know, my health is poor. I don't have long to live. And I'm not really able to run the business we have. We had sales of about 12 million there. So we've grown not only in sales but other ways 10,000 fold since then. So having that statistic, I have to do it. I know I'm wrong way to get to it. way to get to it. Okay, so he said either you come back to run the company or I'm going to sell it and he started, he turned things over to me right away. He had been real tough on me growing up, made me work all the time and a lot of discipline

and stuff and I didn't want that but once he promised that he would turn it over to me. I said, okay, and he said, you already own an interest in the company, so, okay, this is good, an entrepreneurial offer as I'm going to get. Yeah, exactly. So I came back and I was able to make success and improving it because it was in such bad shape, as he said. But I didn't feel good about myself. I was missing something. I mean, it says, one of my mentors, Abraham Maslow, put it, if you are not fully developing your capacities and realizing your potential, you may be successful externally, but you will be deeply unhappy. And that was it. I didn't believe in myself.

I wasn't happy. So I said, I got to find something that will make me feel good about myself and feel I'm really able to contribute. So I started searching for what I call the principles of human progress. And there are a lot of them. We use over a hundred of these now in the company and then stand together. And we don't obviously have time to work through all these. But I started applying those and they worked. They worked in the company. And so I said,

why will I apply them in all aspects of my life? So I apply them in raising our children, apply them in my philanthropic work, and then we apply them in stand together, our philanthropic community, plight them in everything, and boy, so I've dedicated my life to discovering more of these principles, and concepts and apply them, and how do we better apply it every day?

That's what I focus on. And then because I'm only good at that narrow range of concepts, then I surround myself with people who are good, who are all the other things that need to be done, that I'm not good at, because I learned the hard way when I didn't, and I tried to do everything I failed. Yeah, I got good feedback. Exactly. I think that there's a lot of through lines in your book

that I think are very simple for people to understand. Number one, that you're empowerment. You empower your people or people people you believe in basically empowering people to find who they are, what they're good at, what their talents are, and to self-actualize. And to me, I mean, that really resonated. I thought that was something that I've always believed in. And I guess my question to you is,

I know that you learned that from, what was that guy's name, learned that from what was it? What was that guy's name Maslow who didn't right? Maslow. Maslow. So how did you come? How did you come about him? Like, were you already kind of searching for something and you kind of, you got that early

on and then you just like you said, start to apply it? How do people in your opinion begin that process of finding what their talents are? How does self-actualize? What is the process? Well, it requires effort, time, and trial and error. So I said, I've got to build a network of people who will expose me to different ideas of all kinds, not one ideology, but all across the board, all different disciplines. And then as they did, and they'd say, okay, okay, here's what you're looking for.

You read this book, or meet this professor. And so I built this network. And so I was constantly exposed. I was day loose with ideas. And I got in these book clubs and searching for these and meeting other people who had different ideas. So that's it, trial and error. And then I'd find something and then I studied history. Okay, what ideas worked in history? What transformed people? What turned people, transferred people's lives and enabled them

to become social entrepreneurs. And then when there were enough of them, how did they change society? So it enabled more and more people to realize their potential to self-actualize. And so as I read that, okay, I figured, I mean, I could see that we needed in our businesses to focus on becoming the preferred partner to everyone, every organization that was important with that would be our customers, our employees, our suppliers, our communities and societies as a whole. Why do we need to do that? Because if people who are

important to you and organizations don't want you to succeed, they aren't going to support you. Yeah. And you want everybody to help you. And the only way you're going to get that is if you're dedicated to helping them. Yeah. No, I think that's really, I think that's very true. I mean, you talk about that, like how you empower your soup, like the, the number one thing that you tell the super, the supervisor one thing that you tell the supervisor's number one job is to empower the employees underneath them.

Absolutely. To help them self-actualize and see what does that involve involves them helping them find their gift, what they're good at, and they'll be passionate about. And then get them in a role that uses that not stick people in a role that they're no good at. I mean, the example I use with our people, look, our supervisors is, like, let's say I was hired for an opera company to be business manager and then the tenor got sick and they say, okay, Chuckie, you got to sing tenor now. We would be bankrupt. So that's what we do and that's what businesses do to people.

Give them reviews, you're no good at this, you got to improve. Well, you could give me feedback on singing till I was a grease spot on the floor. We would still go bankrupt. So what we look at if somebody is trying hard and they're not succeeding, okay, we say it's our fault. We have you in the wrong role. And if we get in a business and customers are buying for us and we're not profitable. That's not the customers fall. We're not a victim. We didn't develop the capabilities to create via superior value for our customers. So we got to either build those capabilities or we got to find different kinds of customers and have different products and services that we can create some barrier value for our constituencies.

We tell the stories in the book of a whole lot of different people that have gone through this process. When Charles talks about self-actualization and all of that, it can sound daunting. But one of the things that we try to stress is it's a process, right? And you're never done, but you can continually become more and more self-actualized. And so how do people do it? Well, we often make the mistake that we've got to stop what we're doing and all of a sudden find something brand new.

But I think one of the points that we've learned from a lot of the people that we've worked with is that, you know, you start with what's close to you. And then you go on to this discovery process and you build sort of your self-actualization through a realization of your skills over time. No, I mean that part really hit home for me. That's why I was like I was really excited to talk to you guys because I talk about this all the time. I think that and you said something about this in the book too, about like some other person that you, another psychologist, but not everybody's smart or everyone's not smart or stupid. Yes, yes, yes.

Miss multiple intelligence theory. Yes. That there are all these independent intelligences and none of us are good at all of them. Exactly. I was out of the eight he has. I think there are many more than that. There are many so I was only good at part of one of the eight. My whole life is focused on that.

And you've done pretty well. Yeah. That works. When you focus on what you're really good in, you tell I'm passionate about it. And I love what I'm doing and I'm turned on every day. I want to use my abilities to contribute. And part of that is finding the people to partner with me or her good and all the other things that we need to do to succeed and contribute. Absolutely.

I mean, this is, this is the crux of like what I talk about all the time because if you, like you're saying, you're trying to fit like a square peg into a round hole, you're, you're going to constantly, you know, it's, it, it, like, wears on you and your confidence. But if I, that's why that part really resonates, like, you have to kind of kind of not you're not no one's going to be smart at everything Like I know my my lane and I stay in my lane and then I find other people to Basically balance out what I'm bad at right and that's that's a point that I think people need to kind of hear over and over again right and That's why I love this part of it the the whole self-actualization, and also the

empowerment part because when people feel like they're actually making a difference or they're really listening to and involved, it makes them want to be better and be involved versus being just another cog in the wheel that no one cares about. Absolutely. And the key here is you've got to find both what you're good at and what you're not good at. Absolutely. And it's important because people are really good at something. Let's say you're a great actor. So you think because I'm a great actor and I can act all these parts of people who do all these things, well I can go do all these things.

So they become experts in their mind on all these other things. Right. Absolutely. And we all fall into that. So the other part of this is challenge. And that's one of one of our principles of human progress from Karl Popper, the prominent philosopher of science, which is science as falsification. That is, whatever theory in science, the proper method in science is whatever theory you come up with, the first thing you've got to, it's got to be testable, and then you need to find challenges

it. You've got to work on finding the flaws and find other people who will show the flaws in it. So that's what I do. And because I know I get a lot of ideas and some of them are pretty good and some are pretty loud. And boy, I don't want to just charge off and have us do in that and have this massive failure. So I say, okay, who, what are the key things that need to work to make this acquisition, this strategy, whatever, successful?

Who will, who will really challenge me on that? Who has insights in that? So I get four, five, six people together and we have a brainstorming and they challenge me. Show me what's wrong with it. Right. and we have a brainstorming and they chatted, challenge me, show me what's wrong with it. With that idea. And every time we come up with a better idea than I started with.

That's right. Right, so you don't surround yourself. Yeah, no, because you don't surround yourself with people who are just yes men who just agree with you. That doesn't really get very far, right? Like you need to be, so you have that wherewithal.

I mean, I think also, and you have that wherewithal. I think also, and you talk about this a lot too, it's like the education system, right? We're putting everyone through the same funnel. I see it all the time, I have two small kids, and even friends of mine, or when I was going through the school system, if you're not doing it the way that, if you're not good at the way that, if you're not good at the way that they're,

how it works, you're deemed stupid or you have a learning disability. And that also like mentally plays on somebody's ability to self-actualize because you don't feel that you have the, you don't feel like you can because people, but you can't do that one-dimensional type of learning. And you don't believe like you can because people, but you can't do that one dimensional type of learning. You don't believe in yourself, right?

Because you've never, you had the chance to really discover who you are and what you're good at. You brought it up the one dimensional schooling, which is unfortunately what most of the kids today have to go through. Yeah. Public or private school doesn't matter. Most of them are just this one dimensional,

one size fits all. Right. You look at it from a three dimensional perspective, right? You spend a lot of time helping kids to go through this discovery process, then they get to find out, hey, you know what, I'm not good a lot of things. And that's okay. But I am good at some things. Right. Exactly. Exactly. It's good to get that belief in themselves. And that's, I mean, that's kind of the first step to, to a future. So I mean, there's a lot more that we can be doing to improve the ability of kids to have

that kind of an experience of three-dimensional education. And we have a lot of program, it was in the book, started this program called Youth Entrepreneurs. and in one school in a tough neighborhood there in Wichita and that was the idea. We would, and so kids were attracted to it that thought everything was hopeless. They were looking for something different and they heard, well we can maybe get some money in this class. And so because what we do, okay, you prepare a business plan, we'll help you talk through what you're good at and whatnot and what you might products or services

you might have. And they go through that and then the ones that come up with a good business, a good plan and they seem like it might work. We give them some little seed capital, a few hundred dollars to go start it and then mentor them and get local entrepreneurs to help mentor them and it transformed their lives. Many of these kids are failing everything and they start making straight A's because they see a purpose in it and now some of them are entrepreneurs and they

get scholarships to college or trade school or whatever fits them. I mean it is so exciting to see. No, that's amazing. I wanted to talk to you about the youth entrepreneur problem and also the narrative for the whole individualized education. So how are you doing it and how do people, like how do people, if they're not if they're not in Wichita or whatever how are they going to be able to be involved in it or get more yeah how are they going to do it like can you talk about that whole program? Yeah we're in uh it's good for for talking over you but uh we're in 43 states now

because as people see what it's done, they say, I want that in my community, okay, if you'll set it up. So they have mentors, it's not just classroom, this is life's work kind of thing. So they need outside mentors. And then we've put it on the internet now. We have like 60,000 users now around the country, and some of it can be homeschooling,

and teachers. And so, our main focus is on the teachers. And these teachers, when they see the difference in this In this class or this program the other things are teaching It transforms them. Wow Yeah, really accomplish something. I can now help these kids and So it's so so we we empower the teachers. I mean, this is bottom up. So they can empower the kids. Absolutely.

The whole thing about the entrepreneurs is it's one of several hundred of these opportunities for, as you said, the individualized education. We've got a project with the Walton Family Foundation where we're helping to support 600 new projects that'll be bottom up. Most of them will come from teachers who have figured out just a better way to teach in their class, but they need a little bit of capital to see whether or not they can expand

the program. And they run the gamut. I mean, there are some of what will be kind of familiar to people, especially in this COVID world where so many of our kids are having to learn remotely. Now, there will be new digital projects, but some of them are really hands-on. There's a project that we supported called Uncommon Construction. It's just brilliant project. Never would have thought of it if you'd sort of said, hey, let's start a program like this, but it's a bottom-up solution based on what one of these teachers figured was working for him

and his kids. He teaches a class on construction sites. And so it's for kids who've sit in a classroom for eight hours at age. It really doesn't work for them. But they're smart. They just haven't been able to get turned on to the right way to learn. And so we invite them into a program where they all build a house together. And what do they learn? They learn how to get along with each other, right? How to solve problems because when you're doing construction, it doesn't ever go as planned.

They learn geometry, or they learn. But what do you do when you don't have power and you have a plan today to you know use all your power tools how do you make sure you don't waste the time so developing all of these life skills as well as the basics you know the reading the writing and and the math that they would otherwise probably not have gotten if they were sitting in a classroom all day not right for everybody but but it could be right for a whole lot of kids that otherwise wouldn not have gotten if they were sitting in a classroom all day. Not right for everybody, but it could be right for a whole lot of kids that otherwise wouldn't have that opportunity. Oh, absolutely. So what age can you start this at?

Like what age is the, I guess when someone can actually start doing this? Doing the uncommon construction? No, no, no, not that. This overall, like the whole youth entrepreneur, like what age do people start being able to do that? Because I think this is like a great, I mean, no, no, not that. This overall, like the whole youth entrepreneur, like what age do people start being able to do that? Because I think this is like a great, I mean, again, like I was, I wasn't, I'm not just saying this

because I'm trying to be polite, but when I was reading the book, there are so many things about it. I was like, this makes so much sense. It's exactly what I think. Like more people who don't know should know about these things. But it all comes back to this idea that Charles mentioned, right? You start with this deep belief in people.

Everybody has a gift. And so then if it's our job as a society to try to empower them to realize that gift, then the answer to your question is, when can you start? Start right now, right? Start whenever. I mean, kids from birth, basically, right?

This is our job. What programs do we have that reach the youngest? Yes, exactly. And what would you say? Well, I think what we've found in recent years is actually the prior to kindergarten is a really, really important time in kids' lives. But you've got to, and so we haven't done a whole lot there, but that's an area that we're moving into. What, as I understand it, what you do there in terms of really nurturing kids to begin

to realize who they are, is you make sure that they feel love, right? You make sure that they've got the kind of personal interaction that they can start to develop relationships with adults, they can start to model behavior, that sort of thing. And there are certainly programs that help families to do that or help kids who don't have a traditional family to be able to do that. But as kids develop at each stage, there's a program that's tailored to what's appropriate to them that can really help them to begin to realize things. So we start in basically in K through 12, but there's a lot of opportunity to apply these ideas before that as well. And it's an area that we're getting into.

Now, is this part of the stand together? Foundation to like a sip, someone goes there, they can find this type of programming and they can look into it. That's right. Yes. All of these. Yeah. Stand together. Everyone goes there, they can find this type of programming and they can look into it. That's right, yes. All of these. Yeah, yeah. All of it.

So then what is narrative four? Can you talk about that a little bit? I saw that in the book, too. Yeah, narrative four is one of my favorite programs. It's just this awesome experience. If anybody gets a chance to go and actually participate, it's like life changing. So narrative four was started by really effective storytellers, fiction writers, a guy named Colin McCann, an Irish author, started it and surrounded himself with other people.

And the whole idea is that we need to develop empathy between people who don't otherwise share, they'll feel like you have a lot in common. And so what Column and the team do is they organize what they call story exchanges. And so you come into a room, you sit down next to somebody who you don't feel like you've got anything in common with, and you spend some real time together, a few hours at least. And you tell each other a story that's really meaningful to your life. You go into detail and then the other person does the same thing. And then you get back into the group, say, 20, 25 people, and you've got to tell that other person's story as if it were your own. Tell them the

first person. And what it does after you've had to basically live, you know, in that person's shoes and really internalize their experience, even by just articulating it. You develop a lot more empathy for somebody that when you walked in the room, you figured, well, what do I have in common with this person? But the really cool thing about the program, what I didn't expect when I saw it, is it doesn't just help you to develop empathy. It helps the person who's story you're telling to develop confidence, because they hear

somebody else telling their story. Yes. And they think, wow, that's a great story. Wait a minute, that's my story. Right, right. Even myself more. And when we do this, we do this.

We support programs that do this and say some of the poorest high schools in the country. And so sometimes when those kids hear that other kid tell their story, it's the first time that they felt important, right? And it's just pulling block towards really helping them to believe in themselves, and given then the confidence to start to believe in other people. Keep coming back, you got plenty of space. Oof, not how you would have done that.

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No, I think that's a new run stand together, correct? Like you're the, you're the... I'm the founder, but I'm kind of just in the philosophy department. We've been working really hard on about 20 years on this sort of stuff. Listen, I think, you know, I always say that way you do one thing in life is how you typically do everything. And I love the how you took all these principles that you've figured out, you know, with business and you're now just applying them to your philanthropy or your personal life.

I mean, I wanna talk more about these principles. You talk about virtuous cycles of mutual benefit. Now, what do you say? What do you mean by that? Is that a principle or is that just, well, you can tell me. That's a principle that I came up with. I know you did, yeah. I mean tell that's a that's a principle that I came up with. I know you did. Yeah. I

mean, and that's that's really taking these steps that we talk about for the individual to self-actualize. Right. What's required? It starts self-actualization requires believing in yourself and the way you believe in yourself is you find your gift you develop it and you find ways to apply it that will help others and so it makes you're successful by making other people successful and you start to believe in yourself and self-actualize and then it comes to what maslow called synergy right and that's what that to the self-actualize you have synergy in your life. And what that means is is the selfish and unselfish merge because you are trying to succeed by helping others creating value for others. So so that's unselfish. Right. That's the truth. So what, which is selfish, and which is unselfish and all runs together. And that's why why at 85 am I so passionate

and what? Every day I wake up, okay, how do I contribute today? What can I do? How can we apply these principles better? How can we help people more? Wow, and then I see somebody who's learned these and they're transformed and they're pumped up and they're self-actualizing. Wow. Then he's, okay, I got to find more ways to do this. Right, this is your passion. This is the most fun I've ever had. What time do you wake up in the morning, by the way? Like, what do you do? What's your day to routine?

I want to know what you do. I want to be like you. Oh, no, no, you don't. Yeah, I do. I do get in the hard, too many hard knocks, two-way school year knocks to beat the 10 by six in. But, no, I get up, I get up by six. If I wake up at five, three, I get up,

let's say, five, 30 to six. And then I get to the office by seven. And I'm sorry to interrupt you. So you still go to the office every day? Well, every day during the week. Well, that's what I mean. I don't mean on Saturday and Sunday. I work on Saturday and Sundays too,, that's what I mean. I don't mean Saturday and Sunday. I work on Saturday and Sundays too,

because that's more fun than anything else. God bless you. Okay, I love it. I'm not a kid, I drive on nuts with voice mails and staff for all time of day or night. But anyway, so it's for you. Then I come to the office and go come there early before most people do and get caught up on my paperwork, what came overnight and get organized and then's just one fun thing after another, but I all are people here at Koch Industries and we're in my office by the way. Is that your office at your city?

So of all those books, what is your favorite book that you have over there? Well, it's probably the one or one of the ones, I mean, I have a bunch of favorite ones, but the one that, one of the ones that helped me the most is what Mezzel called, a Eusichian management. And I won't define that. It's been reprinted. When I first read that, Mezzel was dead and it was out of print. And so I conducted his window and got the rights to reprint thousands of copies to distribute

to all of our employees back then. We have many more employees now, so that would be a big job today. Wow. And a lot of these concepts, I talk about self-actualization, synergy, all of this, and how to organize, how to be a social entrepreneur. A lot of this is in there. Really? It's a fat, maslow on management.

I mean, it's the best management book. I've read a bunch of management books. Most of them aren't worth much. Right. Is, this is profound. Wow. Do you have an extra one that I can look at perhaps or? Yeah. We'll send you a copy. Well, you send me one. Do you promise? Can I hold you to that?

Yeah. No, it is true. I've read now all of the Maslow's books. No, it is strict. I've read now all of Maslow's books. And then another, in my book, as you saw, I have, I was asked to write in the conclusion who most influenced me. And I said, well, two people in real life. And then two authors, and those are Mas our Maslow and Hayack would be the most. And then what role models,

and they would be Frederick Douglass and Victor Frankl. Right. And we can, if anybody's interested, we can talk about, but anyway, with Hayack, it's his, what he said was probably the greatest discovery of mankind. And that is that people, the discovery that people can live together in peace and to their mutual advantage if they are only limited by abstract rules of conduct. And to me, those rules of conduct, which are my nor-star,

is a system of equal rights and mutual benefit, where people succeed by assisting one another, and everyone has the ability to realize their potential. So everything I work for is in that. You can see those are kind of the 50,000 foot version of what we're trying to do with individuals. So you combine a Mezzel, one the Nobel Prize for economics, but he was a philosopher as well and

and Mezzel was a psychologist But he was a philosopher as well, right? This is what I learned when I started studying these it doesn't matter what discipline They're they're interrelated. Yes that That one discipline and refine one that does it is jarring against the others wealth, you've got to be a little suspicious of that one. Yeah, I love that.

I think, you know, I totally understand and I agree. But let's talk about that. I mean, you know, you mentioned it, you talk about in the book, Victor, Frank, Colin, Frederick, Douglas Douglass those are would you say those are your role models you said who are living to like who are here today. No, no, no, they're not living right now. I mean that was going to say those are the ones from yeah, but yeah, but no, because because they overcame the most they did talk about them. I think they're both great examples actually in your book

The greatest hardship. I mean, let's just take Fredrick Douglas He was born into slavery and he overcame that and became not To go get vengeance of all the people who tormented him vengeance of all the people who tormented him and created all this injustice, but to eliminate injustice for everybody. And what's great in his autobiography, he gives the aha moments that caused him to be a social entrepreneur. So if I could just take a couple of minutes and describe those, I think I mean, that's been very helpful to me. Okay, when he was when he was eight, he was a house lay. Yeah. And so, so he saw the, the mistress of the house teaching her kids to read.

And and he found out in that I will go through detail, but he found out that he wasn't a slave because he was inferior, which is what he'd been told, but because he was being kept ignorant. Right. So he on his own, entrepreneurly at age eight, found ways to teach himself to read. And then the next real highlight moment was when he was 16. And he got the opportunity to teach Sunday school. And he secretly, which was illegal, was teaching the other slaves to read.

And here's what he said. Here he was a slave, mistreated, horribly treated. He said, at last, I found a way to contribute. Just think of that. Yeah. When you're in a condition and you're teaching us, and then he was punished and beaten and tried to destroy his will and he beat up this slave breaker he was assigned to and then he said at last I'm a man. Yeah, believe me this is all believe in yourself.

At 100 percent. You shouldn't make it motivated. So he says I'm going to escape. I'm not going to put up with this anymore Well, you then he escaped and he found ways to support himself So he says I'm not only a free man. I'm a free working man Once again, I can contribute then he started going to Abolitionist rallies in garrison and all the top abolitionists were speaking and they saw him there

a former slave so they called on him to speak and he was the best speaker of them all So he found his gift and he became very successful. He became the most photographed person in America Social presidents in America, so she's a president. No, I love that. He's like a real social entrepreneur. And I feel like also that Victor, the first one that in your book was Victor Frankl, who was in the Holocaust.

And the death camps. He dedicated himself, everyone was starving and the sign, and most of them, I mean, many of them were were they would turn in others to get a show food ref He dedicated himself To helping the others to he was a psychiatrist to counsel them and he'd give them part of his food If their shoes were ready to give him his shoes And he said the reason I survived I had meaning meaning. I had a purpose. The others were just trying to survive. They could, and who wants to survive in that? And so his saying

that I, that I, that I quote all the time is ever today, ever more people have the means to live, but no meaning to live for. So that's what we all need. That's what Frederick Douglass found. That's what Victor Frankl, and that's what I've got to do every day. I've got to find meaning. I've got to contribute. Or I don't feel good about myself. And that's the most important to your person you've got to please. Everybody wants to please the crowds and stuff. Food, please yourself. And the way you please yourself

is use your capacities to contribute. I love that. It's a key to longevity. I mean, listen to you. You know, you're 85 years old and you're sharper and more with it than like people literally like 20 years old. I mean, you're a great role model, I feel, for a lot of different people because you keep yourself.

You have purpose behind what you're doing. Absolutely. Right? I mean, so can we talk about these two guys who are social entrepreneurs and stand together, I don't, just so people understand what is the definition of a social entrepreneur, people don't know what it is and why they make such an impact on different things. Like you talk about how a social entrepreneur, people like that, the best people to actually make a change are these people because they're like living in that space.

So yeah, but we look at social entrepreneurs, people who, where others can only see the problem or the barrier that's holding people back, a social entrepreneur can see a solution that empowers people to overcome that barrier. And when you hear stories like Victor Franco or Frederick Douglas who have overcome literally the most difficult barriers that anyone can imagine, it seems like well that's a really hard thing to be a social entrepreneur. But the point we try to make in the book is there's actually a social entrepreneur in all of us. And so the opportunity is to really find your passion and apply your passion to

help empower others. And what we find in our work and what we talk about in the book is, the social entrepreneurs are often found in the most unlikely places. So a guy like Scott Strode, for instance, who's just one of my favorite people as well. Somebody we've worked with now for four years or so. Scott's a fitness guy. But Scott runs a group called the Phoenix, which is one of the most effective recovery, addiction recovery programs in the country. It's about twice as effective as some of the best clinical programs. But Scott's a guy that most people wouldn't have invested in to start a recovery program because Scott himself is a form of addict, right?

For two years he struggled with addiction. But that's why we invest in him. Right. He's closest to the problem. He understands what it means to struggle. And because he has that knowledge, he's able to come alongside others who are struggling and empower them to improve their lives. He does its physical fitness. He does it by creating a sense of community and helping people to discover

that, hey, I didn't think I could do anything, but I can do a few pushups and then I can do a few pullups and then I can get on the bike and ride around the mountain up in Colorado where he started things out. And there's, there are thousands of those people that we work with, which is amazing. But the story about Scott, to me, what's important to people who are kind of looking for this meeting, this purpose, is Scott started

with what he do best. And then he said, how can I use what I know best to help other people to do more than they could on their own? And that's absolutely how you start on that path to social entrepreneurship. So, I'm sorry, go ahead. Oh no, you go ahead. I was just gonna say,

you were just speaking my language, talking about a push up and a pull up and just like how you start people, go ahead, no, you please, go ahead. Well, I'm just gonna say, and that's why we intend the book to be a guide to help people from all walks of life transform their lives and then if that really works, then help others do the same and then you'll be a social entrepreneur and then you'll feel really

good about yourself and you'll have a great life and you'll live a long life Be as happy as you can be I Mean listen if I want to live as I want to live like you. I'm telling you. I wasn't just saying that I also love the story in the book about the guy who was a gang member and when someone told him that story But like you have such leadership skills and people are Looking at you to do bad all the time. Why don't you reverse it and you know try to do good and that was like the Ahidahah moment and now he's working with all these. The guy who was I think he was the guy who was the guy.

And Tom Rookie. Yeah. Absolutely. That's phenomenal. Yeah. And let me tell you a story about Anton. After we've been working with him a few years We teach our management philosophy based on these principles of human progress

We offer to all the social entrepreneurs and they can use it to whatever extent they they want and so Anton said well, we were we were exposed to this and we said got that Where they were this and we said, God, they were skeptical. And they said, well, we run ours like a gang because they call themselves OGs, original gangsters. Yes. I mean, you said they know how to deal with gangs and how to deal with kids that want to go in gangs

because they've lived it. Yes. Let's us what Brian was talking about. So I was visiting with him one time and I said, well, tell me, how's it going? And he said, this stuff works. He said, this is great. And so he went through, point by point, how they changed their hiring, how they changed organized point how they changed their hiring, how they changed organized, how they changed their reward people,

how they trained people. Everything was changed along this. And it went in detail. And it wasn't just I was just impressed me. I mean, there were specifics. And I said, Anton, you've learned our management philosophy, market-based management quicker than any executive of any company we've ever acquired.

Totally. Totally. Bottom up. People, oh, you're just going to discount you. You're just the next gang member. You're the next prisoner. Blame me. Everybody has a gift.

And he has tremendous gift and capacity, which has been overlooked. And that's why he went down the wrong path. And that's what we want, a society that enables everybody to find and practice their gift. You know, you also, I agree with you. You are also, I think someone in your book, or I think it was your book,

that someone asked you, like, you're not hiring the Harvards of the world or the Gales of the world. You know, how can you find good people even in Wichita? And I guess to your point, as with Anton, like, you find that the people who usually, maybe who haven't had the, you know, who aren't the Ivy Leagers, who have had it to be,

have had a life to be a certain way or a charmed life. Usually are the ones who are the shining star or the gem or like the diamond in the rough, who actually are the ones who are the hardest workers, who have the most to do, the most to say. I mean, you know more than I do. I mean, I'm sure people ask you that all the time, right? Like, are you hiring from Yale?

Are you going to this? Well, I mean, we will, but what we look for are not credentials. We don't care anything about that. We look for, well, we have eight guiding principles which we describe in the book, but they boil down to two things to make it simple, which we look for. And the first is to be contribution motivated rather than negatively motivated. And the second is to have some gift or some talent that will enable us to create value for all the people we need

to create value for, including fellow employees. And when we find people with those two things where they went to college, went to high school, didn't make any difference. If they have those and we get them in the right role, the improvements are marvelous. It's we're doing a lot better job to that now. Boy, when I go to business meeting, I hear all the improvements. And from people in the first line who didn't go to college. And so that's, I mean, it confirms it. And just another thing confirms it after I stepped down as president and just became the chairman.

My successor, who was terrific, Stirling Varner, who I wrote about in the book, never graduated from college. And our current president went to Empory Estate. Now that's right up there with Harvard, I recognize. But what is to you? To you it is, yes. Because he is terrific. So you mentioned contribution motivated. What is that? Can you tell people what that means?

That's a concept from Maslow. people who want to succeed by contributing. They want a job where they can contribute, where they can help others. That's challenging. That causes them to learn and develop and self-actualize. What Maslow called deficiency motivated is what you see. Oh, I mean like Frederick Douglass could have been deficient. I'm just a slave. I'm going to kill somebody or something or I'm out now. I'm an outlaw or slave. I'm going to organize a group to go kill all these people or hurt them.

Right. He didn't have that attitude. He was contribution, motivate. That's what makes you a great social entrepreneur. That's what makes you successful in business. If I tell our people who are recruiting, I say, okay, if you want to hire somebody whose deficiency motivated or negatively motivated, like wants to play politics or cover up the deny they ever made a mistake and pretend everything's perfect when they got a disaster, or we see

that everywhere. I said, if you want to hire somebody like that, hire them really slow and inept. Right? We get them out of here before they ruin us, because we've hired a lot of people who are really talented and weren't really contribution motivated. We've made a mistake and they've been our biggest disasters in our history, our biggest failures are from those people. Yeah, no, I'm sure. I mean, so how do you do it though? Like, is there like a test that you give people

when they first start? Like is there like a war, like a psychology test or how do people even begin the process? Well, if I wanted to work for your company, which, you know, I'm just giving an example, what would be the process? Okay, we'd bring in for an interview. What are your interests? What are your aptitudes?

What tell us about your successes and your mistakes? And if you start off, well, I haven't had any mistakes. But people I work with were, my boss is in, let me do anything and they ruined everything I did. And so it wasn't my fault. No, sorry, we hope you're working for our competitor. Exactly. No, it's exactly.

But the key here, once again, is to find people to do the interview who have this gift for interviewing. Like, my wife has that. When we meet somebody, she can spot problems with them much faster than I can. And this is, you know, I, because I have this narrow capability, I find prayers. And so that was my wife, your vision and values, and have complementary capabilities. I'm good at this. No, right. She's good at everything else. And I can't we've been together 51 years and I can't tell you how much she's helped me. She's changed my life. She's transformed me.

What I wrote about her and the Burke her and Stirling Barnard are the two people who individually have have helped me the most. Does she interview for you sometimes still? Or do you bring her into? No. No, but she has a lot of opinions on you. You'll work with, yeah. I'm sure she does. I think your wife and I will get along just fine.

I'm sure. Do you ever watch television? Do you have time to like watch TV or like? Like what do you do besides go to work at seven o'clock wake up at six? We do X when do you exercise when you eat? I want to know what you do what your schedule is every day Three meals a day, but I limit what I eat so I don't No, I don't snack. Okay. I don't, I don't game weight, but I eat a try to eat a balanced diet and I try to work out an hour and a half a day. Good for you.

Wow. I mean, when you get to be my age, if you go, will you go down in a hurry? Wow. An hour and a half. So what do you do? What's your workout regiment? Well, I start with 30 minutes on the elliptical. I do intervals on it. Good for you. So I can keep my my strength up. Yeah. And and then I do some mad exercise, core exercise, mat Pilates, and then I do, I do 30 minutes of weights, alternating days, upper body and lower body. Do you have a trainer?

I hope you must have a trainer. Well, I do, I do when I go to the desert, but here in Wichita, I don't. We have a little gym in our basement that I go to. A little gym? Well, it's not a commercial gem. I'm just teasing you. So you actually work out an hour to have every day. Do you take one day off? Do you maybe just take a day to just chill and not work out or it's seven days a week you work out? Well, I try to do seven days a week and I don't always make an hour and half. Sometimes if I'm pushed, it's only an hour. Oh, excuse me. Okay. And then is that in the

morning before you go to the office? I leave work a little early and go work out before dinner and then have dinner. And if my wife's out of town, then we face time at dinner and face time with my kids and grandkids. And, and, and after dinner and then I, then I work some more after, but when I watch TV is what I'm working out. Which is favorite show? Oh, of all time? Yeah, of all time.

Yeah, probably. Lone summed up. Oh, okay. I. Yeah, of all time. Yeah, probably. Lonesome dev. Oh, okay. I don't know that one. How about one that's current that I would know or anybody else would know? That's about 30 years ago, I think. So you know, let me see.

What would be my favorite show? You do a lot of documentaries, right? Yeah, no, I do. Yeah, there was a documentary by Neil Ferguson on what was it on connections. Oh, okay. And showing how bad news spreads faster than good news. Yes. And I mean, it's very similar to one of our principles from Palani, philosopher of science,

called Republic of Science. And it's what Newton said. If I see further, it's because I'm standing on the shoulders of giants. So what you need is build a network. And if you want people to help you, you need to have these nodes. They have a circle of influence, and you get them to understand what you do and trust you, and then they will influence their circle.

But unfortunately, bad rumors and stuff about you spread much faster. He explained that in these documentaries, these series about why that is, why that's so. And all these bad rumors. And so the hate spreads faster than that. And that's why people don't work with each other enough. Yeah. They hear these bad things and they believe it. Because why the news reported because people love to hear bad news and trouble a lot more than they do good news. So you have to grow all of that. What's the call? I want to look I want to want I want to see if I can find that I think it's called network I'm gonna look at that and then so you don't watch like billions or anything like that

I lost interest I tried that but I like it like true detective. I like that. You like that one. Do you have your watch succession? No, I started I didn't like that. Yeah, I wasn't so crazy about that. I thought it would be better and it wasn't And then I'm trying to think of one other one other thing And we didn't touch upon and I wanted to ask you about because you talk about it is The you talked about how one of your big principles is the second law of thermo You talked about how one of your big principles is the second law of thermo-dynamics. Thermodynamics, yeah. Do you mind just to talk about, I know you got to wrap it up,

but we didn't, do you mind to talk about that a little bit? No, I've been running. No, I, I, you're talking about this all day, right? Yeah, this is in my sweet spot. Good. And I took, I love thermodynamics. I was taking all these engineering degrees and I was no good at practicing any of them,

but I was good at the theory. And so all the courses I could on theory and get away with, still get my degrees. And so I took a lot of thermodynamics and I was really fascinated with the second law of thermodynamicsodynamics which is considered by many of the top scientists be the most important law of nature. So it's pretty important that we all have some idea what that is. And what the second law says is that in a closed system, entropy, which is uselessness,

or a randomness, virtually always increases. And the only way you can reverse that is with bringing in from the outside knowledge and energy. And so what I took this and others have taken this, this doesn't only apply to physical processes, this applies to individuals, organizations and societies. So look at, look at what we've been talking about. The individuals who have accomplished something and succeed like Newton's, if I see further, I'm standing on the shoulders of giants, he didn't create all this himself. He learned and then he

built on it and it influenced it. And improved it. I mean, it's what Einstein said. He said, the best fate for any theory is a limiting case for a future theory. In other words, and that's what we teach here at Coke, whatever we're doing, no matter how well we're doing, if we're best in the world, it didn't go to enough because somebody's got to come up with a better way. And that's creative, what Chumpeh are called creative destruction.

These are our principles. I know, I love them. And which is that there is particularly today, there is continuing progress and transformation. So you as an individual, if you want to succeed, you have to be open. You have to build these knowledge networks and always learn, okay, who can help me? What ideas? What sources can I have that are going to give me principles that are going to enable me to create value for others and succeed. If you're a business, you've got to do the same thing or you're going to fall behind. And if you're a country and you close yourself off and this isn't just

theory, this is the history of the world. China at one point was the most advanced society in every way technologically. And then they had a change in rulers and they closed themselves off and they became one of the poorest. And they had changed again. And once again they became among the most successful. And that's what's a little concerning about this country is we tend to close ourselves off to immigration to trade. And we're just condemning ourselves.

Right. Just to help a few people that aren't really advancing and competing, but we're hurting everybody else. We're lowering the whole standard and we're lowering our rate of progress, which is long term suicide. Yeah, no, I agree. Hey, are you tired of the irritation you get down there? From pads and other blotter weakness products, new, tennis-sensitive care pads are the first

blotter weakness pads enriched with our skin comfort formula. 100% breathable material in combination with the skin-friendly layer is designed to be soft on intimate skin. 100% breathable material in combination with the skin friendly layer is designed to be soft on intimate skin. And as always, with triple protection from leaks, odor, and moisture, dermatologically approved by the skin health alliance, Tana's sensitive care pads, with skin comfort formula, available online and in stores now. Uh, how did you guys get connected, you and Brian, then?

I know Brian and you and Brian stand together but did you guys work together prior to you guys relatives like if you figure out that we're relatives you let me know I'm gonna say you be a very lucky guy Brian you know very lucky guy I'm a lucky guy I'm at Charles 21 years ago now it's been over 20 years and Oh, wow. Right out of college, I went to work for an organization called the Mercatus Center. Where did you go on? Where did you go to college? University of Michigan. Oh, okay.

Okay, good college, all right. All right, that's a good... The hard me nevertheless. I know. Yeah. You know, I know what I was doing. I moved from Michigan to just outside of DC and two weeks into the job. There was a board meeting and I happened to be coming out of the men's room and I looked

up in the Strauss Koch. So I met him two weeks into my first job at a college. I worked with him as a random ricketed center for 10 of the 14 years I was there, set across the board table from him. And about seven years ago. Joe's ability, three years out of college, he would transform the whole organization. It was a lot of fun. Great, great, great organization.

That's amazing. But he asked me to do this about six or seven years ago, and we've been working in this way together ever since. See, and on the book, I started on this book five years ago and For the first four years I I had all written and stuff, but I said God this isn't I have been written this in a way and be a good guide for people to really help people I mean abstract a bunch of irrelevant stuff and so I said I give up I said the only way I will continue to work on this book is if you join me as co author. Oh, wow. That's nice.

That's nice. out and so together we reorganized it and and get it more got it more focused and now we got a good book. It's a great book actually. It's a phenomenal experience. But what we did was we told the story of this work at Stand Together that Charles has been doing in one way or another for 60 years. It's a philanthropic community and we're supporting thousands of these incredible social entrepreneurs.

We're working with hundreds of philanthropists, and the lessons right in this book are lessons that we think can benefit other people who just want to make a difference in the world. So there's a lot of fun because we got to tell stories about the work that we've done, in some cases that we hadn't thought about for a while, and these universal principles, they just, they applied for those things that are successful. They're applying the same principles. No, I agree with you 100%. Like they're very applicable,

and people can really partake in it, even in their own communities. I, yeah, I totally agree. And that's why I really did enjoy the book. Are you accepting any pro de jays at this time, Charles? Or do you have any, do you have like a loose, do you get having people ask you daily if you would mend for them? Yeah.

Excuse me. No, it would be a help. We can get you in touch and stand together and show you all our stuff. No, you joke about big part of what we do is education. Yeah, I know, I know. Trying to get people to be able to practice these principles that have made this work so successful. No, it's fantastic. And the book is called

Believe in People. And you guys have been a real pleasure. I thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I've learned a lot. And I like I said, I'm a big I'm a big believer in your principles and how have they really could turn around not just, you know, communities, institutional education. I really appreciate you guys being on the podcast today. Thanks so much, Jennifer. Thanks for your interest. Thanks a lot.

Oh, absolutely. And I hope I can do this. I'm not. I wasn't just saying that I hope to get a copy of that book that you said by Maslow, right? And I hope to have an in-person interview when we're allowed, enable. Is that a deal? For sure. Yeah, the ideal.

Perfect. Great. We appreciate it. This episode is brought to you by the Yap Media Podcast Network. I'm Hala Taha, CEO of the award-winning digital media empire YAP Media, and host of YAP Young & Profiting Podcast, a number one entrepreneurship and self-improvement podcast where you can listen, learn, and profit. On Young & Profiting Podcast, I interview the brightest minds in the world, and I turn their wisdom into actionable advice that you can use in your daily life. Each week, we dive into a new topic like the art of side hustles, how to level up your

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