The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – red helicopter―a parable for our times: lead change with kindness (plus a little math) by James Rhee

Episode Date: April 7, 2024

red helicopter―a parable for our times: lead change with kindness (plus a little math) by James Rhee https://amzn.to/3PThkGy Redhelicopter.com Embrace your agency, lead change, and fly free—in the business of life and the life of business—with kindness (plus a little math) In kindergarten, James Rhee received a toy red helicopter in gratitude for a simple act of generosity—sharing his lunch. Decades later, the lesson from that small gift led him to develop a human-centered framework for business and personal achievement that helped him overcome seemingly insurmountable hurdles and find unprecedented success. “red helicopter is a transformative experience. James Rhee's story is a must read for anyone, of any age, who wishes to think, act, and lead with balance, agility, and wisdom." —Jay Shetty Rhee was a high school teacher turned private equity investor when he unexpectedly took the helm of Ashley Stewart, an iconic company predominantly employing and serving Black women. Inspired by the values his dying Korean immigrant parents instilled in him, he knew that a radically different—yet familiar—approach was required to lead this twice-bankrupt company from certain liquidation to true transcendence. Is it possible to be successful and kind? To lead with precision and compassion? To honor who we are in all areas of our lives? The entire world bet against him and Ashley, but Rhee trusted his instincts to identify, measure, and leverage the intangible goodwill at the company’s core, a decision which ultimately multiplied its fortunes several times over. Anyone can combine the clarity and imagination we had as children with fundamental business metrics. Anyone can apply this refreshingly intuitive approach to lead change at work and at home. While eloquently sharing a story of personal and professional success, red helicopter presents a comforting yet bold solution to the dissatisfaction and worry we all feel in a chaotic and sometimes terrifying world. The insights and knowledge that Rhee imparts have been accumulated over decades of investing and leading at the highest levels of business. Drawing on this experience, he encourages us to trust the wisdom deep inside each of us so we can learn how to: Create and measure “goodwill,” the ultimate collective good Discover agency and the truth about kindness it entails Identify the invisible obstacles standing in your way Lead transformational change through small, scalable acts Construct an accurate “balance sheet” of our assets and liabilities Reorient our lives, organizations, and the world to reflect the best in us Are you looking for a sustainable balance between life, money, and joy? For yourself and others? Imagine, a clear path forward told as a deeply felt human story. A poignant and uplifting celebration of humanity, red helicopter—a parable for our times is a tale of struggle and triumph, compelling for its honesty and relatability as much as for the instructions we can all use to balance the books of our lives. red helicopter—a parable for our times features approximately 20 original illustrations by Korean artist Heyon Cho.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast. The hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show. The preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready. Get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. It's Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com.

The Chris Voss Show. There you go. She does it much better than I did for the first 15 years. We love the Iron Lady. She sings it well. Thanks for tuning in to my audience and friends, neighbors, relatives, all the people who come to the show. The Chris Voss Show is the family that loves you but doesn't judge you, at least not as harshly as your mother-in-law, because she never liked you anyway.

But refer her and her family to the show, the Chris Voss Show, at Goodreads.com, 4Chess Chris Voss, LinkedIn.com, 4Chess Chris Voss, Chris Voss 1, and Chris Voss Show at goodreads.com, 4chesschrissfoss, linkedin.com, 4chesschrissfoss, chrissfoss1, and chrissfoss on the tickety-tockety and chrissfossfacebook.com. And we'll try and make her laugh, and maybe she'll put you in her will someday. We have an amazing author on the show. He's going to be talking to us about his newest book. It's entitled Red Helicopter, A Parable for Our Times, Lead times lead change with kindness plus a little math comes out april 9th 2024 james re is going to join us on the show with us today he'll be talking to

about his insights his story of his life and journey and lessons that you can lose or oh maybe maybe they should lose them lessons that you can lose so that you're not a loser in life. I was trying to segue into something and it didn't work. I disliked that. He's going to give you the stories of his life. You don't turn out to be a loser because he's done pretty well. James Reed is a claimed impact investor, founder, CEO. It's Monday, right?

I love it. It's Wednesday. Yes, Wednesday. Whatever. I need some testosterone over here founder ceo goodwill strategist thought leader and educator he is who empowers people brands and organizations by marrying capital with purpose he bridges the emotional with the mathematical and gives permission for us to be human. A longtime private equity investor, James also serves as a founding member of JPMorgan Chase's Advancing Black Pathways,

a charter member of Shoka's Entrepreneur to Entrepreneur Network, and a former chair of the Innovative Committee of the National Retail Federation. In addition to his private sector endeavors, he teaches at Howard University and MIT Sloan School of Management and Duke School of Law. Now he's on the Chris Voss Show. Welcome to the show, James. How are you? Hey, Chris. It's great to be here. It's wonderful to have you as well, if I can figure out what day it is. So give us a dot com. So where do you want people to find you on the interwebs? Redhelicopter.com. It's easy.

There you go. You were able? Redhelicopter.com. It's easy. There you go. You were able to get that? Seriously? Totally. So give us a 30,000 over you. What's inside the new book? What's it about? Well, I think it's three stories

combined into one piece of music. Number one, it's a simple story about son and parents. Trying to understand mom and dad. We all do. Number two, son meets a group of friends, unlikely group of friends that on the surface of it has nothing in common with him, realizes that has a lot more in common, particularly with his mom. And then these friends help him really understand mom and dad. And I think number three, when you sort of weave that all together, it's all based on a business story at the same time. It's a story of what was a, I think,

a pretty remarkable transformation of a company and hopefully will give us insights about, you know, where maybe our business world in our country could be going in this in a year that's pretty fraught with a little too much madness maybe we just we need a little bit more joy and friendship definitely we we definitely need more of that i'm kind of over all the weirdness of the past well it seems like it's been going on for a while but covid wasn't cool either so i'm totally against that thing no more pandemics for a while. COVID wasn't cool either, so I'm totally against that thing. No more pandemics for a while. Can we wait another hundred years for that one? The book is

entitled A Parable for Our Times. So you structure the story, I guess, as a parable, as it were. Do I have that correct? It is. It's actually structured as a piece of music. Really? Yeah, there are three acts. Act one, act two, act three. There's a bridge.

There's a prelude and a coda. And it may not seem like this. It may not come across in the bio, but I tend to interface with people almost as a musician. I hear sounds. I hear people's timbre, and I hear their pitch. It's kind of how I think about the world through music there you go is it anything like stairway to heaven by led zeppelin no i'm just kidding but it is it is really okay well there you go it is and she's buying the red helicopter let's see

now the other thing is you said plus a little math is that the musical science part of it yeah you know like it's you know people when i say kindness and math you know it challenges people to say they pause to pause and say what what's kindness have to do with math they seem so opposite i think just like the story being three stories it's by the end of the book people reconcile what kindness really is how it's actually quite related to math and when you sort of weave those two things together a third thing crops up and it feels good and it's actually quite related to math. And when you sort of weave those two things together, a third thing crops up and it feels good and it's sort of truthful. Now is,

is the red helicopter, can you tease us out on what the red helicopter is? Or is it like people need to read the book if they want to find out? No, I can tell you the story. I mean, for me, like for everyone, it's a metaphor.

It's a, it's a symbol and a story of when you are laser clear, not overthinking things. It was just intuitively true. And so for me, literally, it was a red helicopter. You know, when I was really little in kindergarten, I came home from school with a toy red helicopter that it was a chain of misunderstandings. Like at first, my parents thought I had taken it from school. And then they thought that maybe they had screwed up because they didn't know in America, everyone, they thought I was supposed to give gifts to my kindergarten friends. And I said, mom, I'm the only one who got one. Then they got sort of annoyed at me when I didn't know why this

family came in to give it to me. And it turned out I got it because I've been sharing my mom's like meticulously made lunch every morning with my best friend because he came to school often without any. And I didn't know why. I just knew my buddy didn't have lunch. And so I didn't know that his mom had died that summer. And so the dad had come in with a couple of his brothers and just wanted to he basically patted me on the head and said he didn't make a big deal of it he just he did that and anyway i my parents were they explained it to me and you know i was like as a five-year-old i was obviously it felt good but i was i was kind of like he didn't have any why wouldn't i share my lunch with him yeah and as you get older as we all get older, we tend to mistake, I don't know, like education or ego for truth.

And, you know, I've always clung to that story because it was me being, he was right. There you go. You know? And easily misunderstood and people not understanding the meaning and not wanting to maybe learn more, maybe. I don't know. So is the story a parable based on your life? It's a parable because the characters in the book are, it's everyone. Okay. it's everyone okay you know and even though it's specifically tied to

like my story or the story of these new friends the story of my parents it's written in a not prescriptive way like a lot of parables like esop's fables or things like these they they let the reader come to the conclusions. There's no lists. You know, a lot of books these days have, here are the five things you have to do to not suck, right? Here are the 10 things to do that you don't suck. And I'm not writing it that way. I'm saying, listen, I don't think you suck. I think you know a lot of the answers that you already know them. I'm giving you permission to sort of rethink a lot of things that you think are intuitively right, but maybe people are telling you you're wrong. And I'm saying, no, you're good. And I write the story that way. And I think that, look, I'm a former high school teacher too. I

think good teaching, it allows the reader slash student to come to their own conclusions versus forcing it down their throat. There you go. I like that. Plus, I never do the five things, so I just assume that I always suck. Or you read the five things and say, no, thank you. I don't feel like doing those five things. I always feel guilty. I'm like, I don't know. I watch that YouTube video that says, do these 10 things and you won't suck. And I'm like, I'll get back to it later.

I'll just keep sucking. I'm asleep on number three, right? I can't do this anymore. Yeah. So tell us a little bit about your journey through life and what got you to the point. And then finally, what motivated you to write the book? Tell us about how you grew up with some of the influences you had and kind of some of the journey you went on. Yeah, look, I'm a public school kid, Long Island.

You know, grew up playing baseball on our neighborhood street every day. Loved the New York Mets. Really liked Steve Garvey. That was my guy. Yeah, loved him. Number six. Played first base. Wore his number. And, you know,

just was kind of friend to all. Whatever. Pretty happy kid. First family member to be born in this country. Parents had immigrated. Mom and dad, mom was nurse, dad was pediatrician. So grew up in a family that really took care of people. Like it was really important in our family that you take care of people. And it's sort of in my genetics, which is why after I sort of went off to college,

you know, I taught high school for 12 grand a year. I mean, it was, I always kind of do things and then I learn it. And then I'm like, why do people make this so complicated for other people? So I'll do something and then I'll teach it back. And so that's what I do. And then after that, I thought I went to law school. I thought I was going to be a public defender. Remember the whole service thing? Yeah. But I was drowning in school debt. I had a lot of school debt and it was suffocating. And so I made this crazy pivot in the early days of private equity.

Had no idea what it was. Get it and still do it, but didn't grow up with money. And so learned money. And I'm like, oh. And then you realize, oh, money is a tool. There are an awful lot of people who view it as an end goal and they're kind of miserable for it. So I'm like, okay, I know how to make money,

but maybe there's a way for me to combine all this stuff, be a teacher, a public defender, and a capitalist at the same time. So I've spent a lot of my time making money in a way that benefits lots of people. There you go. And if I do that well, then I should get a cut of that pie, right? But that's generally my background, heart of a high school teacher, but I know how to make money and that's it. There you go.

And here you are. So what, what, what, was there something that was the proponent to make you want to publish the book and write the book out? Was there something that said, Hey, you know, it's time to share this maybe? Yeah. My mom died. Okay. Yeah.

You know, the, the business story in the book was I did something kind of nuts, right? I, you're, you're, I don't know if your listeners can see my face. For those of you who can't, I'm a dude. I've got a Korean face, okay? And I'm wearing like a red hoodie and sort of living the life in Boston, you know, and I left. I left that life for almost my entire 40s. I became the unlikely CEO of a business that was very important for plus-size black women. And it was about to go away, and these women reminded me of my mom.

I mean, just a lot of things were going. My dad was dying, and I was thinking about a lot of things of how I grew up and how I had sort of gotten away a bit, I think, from the public school kid who wanted to teach high school. And so I left that life. And so we had a lot of success. I think the way we did it was really successful, actually. It invited a lot of people in. We made

a lot of friends. So anyway, so then toward the tail end of that, it was supposed to be six months. It ended up being seven years of me doing that. My mom died. And I lost her in three to four weeks. She was for, I think, a lot of people, like a lot of sons. She was the most important person in my life. And I took a step back and took some time off just to think about everything we had done think more than my mother and then i wanted to write this book for my parents but in this book the protagonist it's it's my mother oh really yeah and it's me understanding at the very end that of how

freaking strong she really was and yeah it was my mom there you go there you go one thing you talk about in the book is a helicopter can fly in six different directions up down left right forward and backward can you tease out a little bit about how that applies to what you're telling talking to people about in the book yeah the book is a story about emotional and financial agility. And I think for those of us who played sports, there people agency, which requires you to understand certain things about money and life and your brain and friendships, and that will give you balance. And then once you have that balance, you can be agile. And so the helicopter, in addition, it being a toy that I got that reminds me of what's important, what's the truth. You know, I debunk a lot of things in the book

that we have grown up sort of worshiping. Remember, we're making fun of the five things, 10 things, all these things. Think about it. When you're a kid, it's like we get taught, you should want to be like a jet plane. You can fly really high. You can fly tons of people. You're really powerful. And I don't think it's right. I think that I'm teaching my students and my kids to be a helicopter. You can fly in six different directions. You're very agile. You have vertical lift. You don't need a long runway to take off. You don't need a long runway to land. You can land anywhere. And I think that as we think about the future of the world, you need to be agile, right? One way and one and only way

ain't going to work, particularly for the younger people listening to your show. They're going to have 14 jobs. And so you have to be agile. And so what does it take to be agile? I think mentally, the first thing I'm asking the readers to think about is do not want to be an airplane. Be a helicopter. There you go. You can fly all sorts of ways. You just don't have to go straight. That's right.

And you don't need a long runway. You've got to be able to shift. And then when you feel like you're about to crash, you've got to be able to land. Mm-hmm. And one thing you talk about though is the helicopter is harder to fly than a plane i mean you gotta the the yaw and the i can't remember all the different terms but you know if you don't do things right that thing will spin out on you or you know all sorts of bad things can happen you have to balance it pretty

well totally i mean i think that the way people the pilots helicopter pilots i'm about to take lessons by the way my helicopter friends they they say that hovering uh helicopter which is the hardest maneuver it's like balancing a marble on a sheet of glass wow that's the sort of feeling of balance that a helicopter pilot has so yeah i mean here's your choice right so you can either sort of say, it is true statement, helicopters do crash more, and they are more costly to maintain. So you can decide that that because, because of that, you can say, Oh, I don't want to be able to fly my own helicopter, I'd rather ride in someone else's plane. And to me, after 53 years of living and particularly where the world is going,

I think I would rather fly my own aircraft. Yeah. Yeah. Plus, I mean, you know, you can make sure that the bolts and doors are attached. Close the door. Don't fall off. Put on your seatbelt.

Don't fall off. If you fly with Boeing lately, you have to bring your own bolts and nuts. And they're actually giving discounts to people that fly with, I think it's United, where if you hold the door closed the whole time during the flight, they'll give you a discount. BYOP, like bring your own parachute? A couple weeks ago, I took Dolly from ChatGPT's service, and I had to make a whole mess of pictures of people flying in planes with

bolts and parts all around them. I had to make about 10 different photos of the drawings, and it was quite amazing what it came up with. There's flight travel. It's an impossible. It's like the Sphinx.

If you have to bring your own bolts and stuff, how do you get through security? Don't you set off the alarms? Pretty much. The IKEA evidently is making it so that you can build your own plane now too as well. So they've got that going on. And, you know, I think if everyone just chips in and brings a few bolts, I think, you know, we'll be okay. As long as, you know, the door doesn't completely fly off. Or it'd be like the movie up you know like you just you just buy 500 helium balloons and stuff and you just probably the future of air travel at this pace so so stick to helicopters folks

and anything isn't made by boeing at this pace there you go in the short term well 10 years from now i'm listening to this podcast going what the fuck is going on? Yeah, these guys. Which is what they do. I mean, there's episodes that are 15 years old on our show that people are just like, what the fuck is going on? Google it, folks. You'll know what was going on in 2024. There you go.

Helicopter can hover in windless conditions. The sum of the weight and drag forces equal the sum of the thrust and lift forces. Yeah. So as you play that with the balance and stuff, I like the agility that you're trying to teach people to do because that's really, you know, what I saw when I was growing up is learning to think out of the box, learning to take a look at what was coming at me from society or what people

want to influence me or you know what do you do you go to high school and get good grades what do you do after that you go to college you get good grades what do you have that you go get married but what do you do after that yeah you have kids and then you get a job and you're just like what I do after that and somewhere in there there's the assumption that if you do all those things that society or you know what everyone tells you is the norms that somehow you're going to find happiness in there yeah and a lot of people get you know to midlife crisis stage and go this is all there is like this i'm still not happy i know i mean it's there is no formula

we get taught that it's helpful there's certain things that are helpful to know. And at the end of the day, you've got to fly your own helicopter. And sometimes you do crash. Sometimes other people fly higher. That's all right. I like to quote Frank Drummond during these types. You know, Naked Gun? Yeah.

Our life may not amount to a hill of beans, but this is our hill, and these are our beans. There's some reality in there, isn't there? Yeah, that's the end of the movie. Remember in the movie when Priscilla Presley sort of become like a captured robot, and she's about to kill the queen i oh it's the baseball one oh yeah you gotta i showed my kids it the other day most of the stuff i show them i forced them to watch like the 80s stuff and they're like that what we can't watch this that movie they loved oh well that's good that's good i remember watching when oj was in jail how'd he get out but no it's funny i remember you know you probably grew up in the same year i

did when he played football and then when he would jump the luggage yeah that hurts airports and it was like i don't know for some reason it was cool i don't know why he'd run through the airport and jump the luggage. I wonder why it's so hard to find those ads now. I wonder why her. I wonder why. Why'd they kill him? Anyway, that's a really bad dark joke.

So there you go. He was chasing somebody's waiter. What haven't we touched on that you want to tease out in the book to entice people to pick it up? I don't know. I think it's a book that's going to make you laugh. You will cry. And you'll learn.

I mean, and it's not in a showy way. I mean, I think that the best thing to think about it is, for those of you who love music, it literally is written like it's an anthem. It's like a Springsteen anthem. It's like a Born to Run anthem in 2024. That was what was in

my head while I was writing the book. You don't like Springsteen? I love Springsteen. I love Springsteen, but whatever that chord was you hit, that didn't sound very Born to Run born to run is that the right chord for born to run i noticed that you know there's references to the stairway to heaven in the book yeah i think i just saw a reference to it got away from me but so you talked through some of your music influences there it sounds like that plays a little bit into it. It's all woven in.

I mean, like the cool thing about Stairway, which was really important, for a different reason it's important in the book, because it was a gift I gave my brother. I gave him Zeppelin IV. Oh, wow. And I saved up my money the entire year when I was like eight to afford to give it to him. But I don't want to – that's a very emotional part of the book but it's this

actual song was the book takes some inspiration from the structure like that that song is famous because first of all people didn't think it was going to be successful because it was too long yeah and there are three tempo changes which my book has too but in the first when you when stairway starts starts off there's no percussion there's no drum yeah and it's one of the few songs that i think they set the percussion like two and a half three minutes in yeah which i think getting back to what you like about the helicopter and hovering i i think a lot of people like here's a little life advice they try to set the drums too early or they're listening to someone else's drums.

And sometimes you just got to chill, not decide. The world's telling you to do all these things and you just have to sort of listen and say, okay, I got it and not do anything and then do something. So that hovering period, to me, musically, it's analogous to not setting drums. There's no beat that you have to do something. It's like, just let it be for a bit.

Just let it be. You know, a lot of the great music was said that way. Stairway to Heaven, of course, Hotel California. Radio stations were like, this isn't radio. This is a seven minute opus or whatever. And this is never going to fly. And yet I think both those songs are two of the greatest songs ever. Well, you mean Rhapsody.

I mean, same thing. Like people were like, you can't release a song like that. And they said, well, we're going to. Yeah. I'm a Rush fan. They're known for making just old sides of an album you're just like can you guys calm down and cut this up a little bit like your coke i don't know what you know i that was the maybe that moving pictures album was one of my favorite i still have it in the basement i I've kept it. Really? Yeah. I don't know if you, did you watch the Geddy Lee interview?

Oh, which one? The one that he did before he knew that was it, was it Neil Peart that passed away? Yeah. He passed away. Right. So he,

so Geddy knew that he was dying or had died during the interview. And so if you, if you, I'll send you the link after. He knew that he passed during the interview? Or he was dying, like he was close to dying. Yeah. And no one knew while he was being interviewed. Yeah, because he kept it pretty quiet, him and Alex.

That's what Neil wanted, and Neil was very private. But yeah, early 2020. But yeah, I'd be interested to see which interview that was at the time. It was a shock. It came during COVID, which was like a double punch to my gut when he passed. But yeah, they would do these huge long opuses in their early years. And just, holy shit, this is a long-ass song. But keep that album, because that's probably worth some money, that original.

Moving pictures and stuff. Yeah, look, it's one of these albums you think that they're not going to be a great live band, that they sound so good. It's a studio band, but they were incredible live. And many times in the early days when they hadn't mastered well the albums, most people didn't realize that back in the day they have to really fuck up stuff to be able to get on the vinyl and remaster stuff. And then it's even worse

because when they made the CDs, they used the vinyl imprints, which sounds awful on CD. And that's why they had to go back and remaster all the CDs and make them so that they would, you know, be utilizing the technology of the CD. And so it took a while for a lot of albums and then a lot of them were just poorly produced and poorly mastered

and they sounded kind of good on vinyl but they really came out shitty once it went to technology and I noticed that you know bad engineering when when we were well I don't think it was engineering I think it was in the mastering. It was in something in the production. But they went back and cleaned a lot of that up. And a lot of those early albums, whether it was for Rush or other bands from the 70s, and they just really made them a difference.

And yeah, so I'm glad you incorporated that in the book because music is kind of the pathway to life or the representation of life. It is. I is not sure what i'm trying to say art yeah it reconciles kindness and math that's how it's music is a language of of humanity i mean i there's after this for your listeners too i read helicopter.com there's there's original music arranged that for this book yeah and i'm composing right now a rock anthem for this book and like the plan is to adapting this in writing a rock opera there you go maybe put on broadway i think tommy's

on broadway right now yes i haven't seen it who you know i haven't seen it but yeah and you know that was such a huge rock opera holy crap crap. And, of course, like Hamilton. Hamilton's a rock opera, right? I mean, it's, yeah, so like the book is written. All right, I'm not going to go there because you love music. So the book is written, I talk a lot about counterpoint, which is, you know, for you non-musicians out there, it's, you know, when you were little and you used to sing row, row, row your boat in rounds. And so it's when you have two melodies so usually in a piano it's your right hand and your left hand play it's there's no harmony both play a

melody so they would sound good independently but together when you play both melodies together there's a third emergent melody and i write a lot about that. The book is structured in counterpoint and it's meant to sort of be a metaphor for being a good friend to someone. It's, hey Chris, sing your song, dude. And then I'll sing mine. And like

friendship is what results. I'm not asking you to change who Chris is to be my friend. It's just sing your melody. I got it. And then I'm not asking you to change who Chris is to be my friend yeah you know it's just sing your melody I got it and I'm gonna sing mine and I think it's just for me after 53 years I'm like oh my gosh like my best friends best friendships you know like I think the way that I ran that company I know the way I ran that company it was in counterpoint I didn't I didn't ask people to

be me change themselves I'm like you're good and yeah that's a good analogy some people that are leaders and I may have been guilty of that in my early years of trying to make people maybe either my culture or my people around me like me the same sort of things and then you had to realize that you weren't the you weren't the purveyor of all the greatest ideas in the world and you needed everyone else to have those differences and those those those those yin and yangs because the great ideas can come from anywhere and their life journey is different yours so they can contribute something, sometimes from a different perspective or angle that you don't see.

That or they're just stupid sometimes. Those guys, they should read the top five list that we don't read. Do these five things. How not to suck. Yeah, suck less. Suck less. That's like a P. Diddy part. I don't know what that means. What do you want people that read your book to come away with?

And what do you want their experience to be or their thoughts to be when they come away with your book? Well, I think that... This is a serious question, Chris. You shifted right from P. Diddy to serious questions. We do that on the show. We throw them at you. We keep you dancing. I think it's reminding.

I timed this book. It's part by accident, part intentionally that it's coming out in 2024. Okay? And I've lived a life. I think I confessed. I was on Brene Brown's podcast. I said to her, I was like, I'm a hot mess. You know, like I, I've got friends that look so different.

I got athlete friends, musician friends. Like I don't, you know, I don't know. I chair entrepreneurship at Howard, which is a really important historically black university. I'm this Korean guy. And then I also teach at MIT. I'm like, it doesn't matter for me. It's just like, I find a way to get along with people and we connect at kindness and math and music.

And so I want people to sort of read the book and like sort of just be reminded of this actually and say, you know what, call your, go hug your mom, take your dog for a walk. You're not as bad as you think you are, you know what, go hug your mom, take your dog for a walk. You're not as bad as you think you are, you know, because people are told they suck. Yeah. And I'm like, I'm tired of people being told they suck, actually. Stop doing that.

Because we know what. Tired of people who suck. Yeah, they suck. And we know why they do it. Because telling people they suck, this whole FOMO thing, then people spend money. And, oh, I better spend money because then I'll suck less. And I'm like, don't spend the money. Invest it in the S&P 500.

And why don't you retire earlier? There you go. That's what my landing page says. People go to it and it says, you suck. Give me your money. I'll make it so that you don't suck as much and here the seven credit card just the credit card thing to suck less please do this and here are five convenient payment methodologies i'm never gonna be able to look at tony robbins

the same ever again after this uh there you go. I love Tony Robbins. It's a different approach, right? Here's the random. You're going to love this because you watched this movie. I know you love this. Have you seen Dodgeball? Yeah, yeah. What a great movie that was. Yeah, you know like the average Joe's gym? Yeah.

Yeah, it's kind of sort of like gay. You want to come to the gym? You want to meet some friends and learn a few things in seriousness, but have fun while learning some things rather than it being life and death? Yeah, then come here. And I think the book does do that. There's a lot of serious stuff in there, right? It's stuff that I think that every high school kid at a minimum should be learning,

and we're not teaching them. This is the high school teacher in me. So I'm teaching everyone everything I've learned in 25, 30 years of being in private equity, law school, running a company, entrepreneur, founder, they're getting all of it. But it tastes good. It's like they're eating like chicken noodle soup. And while they're eating, I'm like, do you know that the formula for discounted cash flows and IRRs? Here, learn this. Okay. Not good.

Now put the spoon down. Let's keep talking. There you go. There you go. Well, give us your final thoughts as we go out. Tell people where they can pick up the book and dot coms to check it out. Yes. RedHelicopter.com is where you don't have to suck and come visit we we welcome all flyers you have everything there like you can sort of see the background to the book like the ted talk

and all these things you'll see it there and then there are links to the book there's a bunch of original music as well there's a spotify playlist as well and i hope you the book. There's a bunch of original music as well. There's a Spotify playlist as well. And I hope you enjoyed. I mean, there's a book tour that's pre-launched already. It's launching next week. And the Boston Globe just did a piece. My hometown paper just did a piece on the book,

which was really nice of them. That just came out. And i hope to see you on tour because i'm bringing when i can do this without if i'm allowed to because i have to now carry nuts and bolts because i'm gonna say chris voss can't do it but i'm bringing my guitar you know and it's it's sort of just it's meant to be pretty festive there you go just pack a parachute too if you're flying united or spirit airlines you get You get the discount over there. But I don't think Spirit's had anything fall out of the sky. I think it's mostly been United and just anything Boeing, I guess, is whatever.

In fact, there's a rumored joke going around that that ship that crashed into the Francis Key Scott Bridge was carrying Boeing parts. It's a horrible joke. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, what can you do? That's the thing of life. So thank you very much for coming on the show.

We really appreciate it. And sharing your infinite knowledge there, James. We got the dot coms. Thank you very much for coming on. Thanks for tuning in. Go to Goodreads.com, Fortress, Chris Foss, LinkedIn.com, Fortress, Chris Foss. Chris Foss 1. The TikTok. Get all those crazy places. Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other.

Stay safe. And we'll see you guys next time. And I should have.