The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 077: Adam Braun – Pencils Of Promise: Growing A "For Purpose" Organization Through Intrinsic Motivation

Episode Date: December 3, 2015

Episode 077: Adam Braun – Pencils Of Promise: Growing A “For Purpose” Organization Through Intrinsic Motivation Adam Braun is an extremely intelligent and selfless leader.  He is intrinsically motivated and is focused on constant self-improvement in order to serve and help others.  He firmly believes in family and the important role they play in one’s life.  We are extremely fortunate to have Adam share his knowledge with us, the loyal listeners of The Learning Leader Show.  Adam is a New York Times bestselling author and the Founder of Pencils of Promise, an award-winning organization that has broken ground on more than 300 schools for children in poverty around the world. He is also the Director of the Global Education Platform, an initiative conceived by the UN Special Envoy for Global Education to accelerate breakthroughs in learning innovation. He has been featured as a speaker at The White House, the United Nations and the Clinton Global Initiative. He has also been named to Business Insider’s 40 Under 40, Wired Magazine‘s 50 People Who Are Changing the World, and was selected as one of the World Economic Forum’s original ten Global Shapers. Episode 077: Adam Braun – Pencils Of Promise: Growing A “For Purpose” Organization Through Intrinsic Motivation Subscribe on iTunes  or Stitcher Radio The Learning Leader Show “If you could have anything in the world, what would you choose? – “A pencil.” – Adam Braun speaking with a child in India Some Questions I Ask: What are the common characteristics of people who have sustained excellence over time? How has your family’s incredible journey and story played a role in your decision making process and the expectation level you set for yourself? What specifically have you learned from you parents that you will pass down to your future children? What prompted you to start Pencils of Promise? Why don’t you like the term “non-profit?” What is your relationship like with your famous brother Scooter Braun? (Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande’s business manager) What does being a learning leader mean to you? In This Episode, You Will Learn: Being intrinsically motivated and how that determines long term success The importance of his family and the expectation level set from his parents The incredible story of a near death experience while on Semester at Sea Specific learnings from children in developing countries What specifically Pencils of Promise does and how many schools they’ve built Why Adam is so uncomfortable with contentment His relationship with his brother Scooter and the roles they play in each other’s lives That participation trophies should not exist and why they harm children’s growth Servant leadership and what it means to serve and be humble “Integrity is the currency that buys trust.” – Adam Braun Continue Learning: Go to Adam’s website: AdamBraun.com Read Adam’s book: The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraodinary Change See why over 300,000 people follow Adam on Twitter: @AdamBraun You may also like these episodes: Episode 001: How To Become A Master Connector With Jayson Gaignard From MasterMind Talks Episode 034: Jimmy Hatch – Shot While Searching For Bowe Bergdahl And Sky Diving With Gabby Giffords Episode 004: How Todd Wagner (and Mark Cuban) Sold Broadcast.com To Yahoo! For $5.7 Billion Episode 010: Shane Snow – How To Accelerate Success Using Smart Cuts Did you enjoy the podcast? This was a jam packed episode full of great content.  Adam Braun is a leader who is constantly learning in order to help us all live a better life. Who do you know that needs to hear this?  Send them to The Learning Leader Show! Episode edited by the great J Scott Donnell Bio From AdamBraun.com Adam Braun is a New York Times bestselling author and the Founder of Pencils of Promise, an award-winning organization that has broken ground on more than 300 schools for children in poverty around the world. He is also the Director of the Global Education Platform, an initiative conceived by the UN Special Envoy for Global Education to accelerate breakthroughs in learning innovation.  He has been featured as a speaker at The White House, the United Nations and the Clinton Global Initiative. He has also been named to Business Insider’s 40 Under 40, Wired Magazine‘s 50 People Who Are Changing the World, and was selected as one of the World Economic Forum’s original ten Global Shapers.

And just having this moment of recognition that it wasn't my day. And just knowing that the ship's going to go down. And fortunately, I didn't. But in my mind, it was going down. But for some reason, I knew I had to survive. And within that moment, there was this recognition that I have a purpose. And if I'm not meant to perish at sea, then I must be here for a reason. And I think that's really kind of guided a lot of my thinking and approach to life ever since.

One, I really recognize how fortunate I am to be alive, that each day is truly a blessing and that I don't take, like, the coming year for granted. And so I'm willing to take on risks that others probably aren't because I know how easily everything can be taken away. And then secondly, I just have this deep-seated knowledge that I'm here for a reason. And I think everybody else is, just most people haven't acknowledged it yet. Are leaders born or are they made? Our host, Ryan Hawk, believes that leaders can be made through determined, focused work on learning the art and science behind the makeup of other successful leaders.

Now it's time to inhale knowledge and exhale success. You're listening to The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk. Hey, guys, before we get to this great conversation, I want to let you know that this episode was brought to you by Mizzen and Maine. You'll probably remember from episode 64, I spoke with the CEO of Mizn and Maine, Kevin Lavelle, and you know, we promised to continue that dialogue as we both progressed on our journeys. And we certainly have, and we formed a partnership. And Kevin and his great companies and support and people that he works with have agreed to sponsor my podcast. But for me, I'm very picky when it comes to this. I only wanted to work with people who I truly believed in their products.

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before. And so originally I bought one just to try them out to see if this is really true. A buttoned down shirt that looks great with a suit or in business casual. I'm like there's no way this thing is going to feel like people tell me it will. Well, it felt even better than that. And so after I bought that first shirt, I ended up buying six more shirts and two Henleys. And so we've set up a deal for you guys to go to ryan.misen and mane.com. So that's ryan.misen and mane.com. Pick your favorite shirts. I love the button downs. You'll see on that site my favorite shirts.

And when you're checking out, use the code Ryan Hawk to get free shipping if you're only buying one shirt. If you happen to want to buy three button downs like I've done a couple times, use the code Ryan Hawk 3 and you'll get $50 off. Again, I love Miz and Maine. I love everything they stand for. And I promise when you try the search, you will too. Hey and welcome to the Learning Leader Show.

I am Ryan Hawk, and I am thrilled with tonight's featured leader. It's with the great Adam Braun. Adam is a New York Times bestselling author and the founder of Pencils of Promise, an award-winning organization that has broken ground on more than 300 schools for children in poverty around the world. He's been featured as a speaker at the White House, the United Nations, and the Clinton Global Initiative. He's also been named to business insiders 40 under 40, Wired Magazine's 50 people who are changing the world and was selected as one of the World Economic Forum's original 10 global shapers. Adam lives a remarkable life and I loved having this conversation with him tonight. A couple of the things we got into.

People who have sustained excellence over time are intrinsically motivated, meaning they're motivated to be better today than they were yesterday. They're always striving to improve upon themselves, not comparing themselves to others, not trying to get the big flashy cars, jewelry, big house, but intrinsically motivated to better themselves. We also discussed his for-purpose organization pencils of promise and what motivated him specifically to start it. Great story there. You'll love that part. And then also the importance of family and specifically how him and his brother have achieved these. immense level of success and certainly fame and how they keep each other in check. His brother is Scooter Braun, best known for being the manager of Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande, among other really famous musical acts, has an incredible story himself, has done some huge things.

So him and Adam both have achieved these big levels, and it was really cool to talk to him about their conversations and their friendship and how they both help each other out. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm so excited for Adam Braun. Adam, so thrilled to have you here on the Learning Leader Show, man. I got a quick question to get us rolling. The fact that you've spent a great deal of your life surrounded by people who have sustained excellence over time is a great thing. And that's a tribute to you and what you've done with your life. And I'm curious, though, what are some of the common characteristics that the people who have sustained excellence, some would say achieved success,

What are some of those key characteristics they all seem to share? Sure. So I would say it's a couple things. And first and foremost, I'm honored to be on the podcast. But there's three things that really stand out to me when considering people that have achieved sustained excellence. So the first is they're tremendously intrinsically motivated. They're not necessarily motivated by the extrinsic characteristics, you know, having a bigger

house, a nicer car, you know, more money in the bank account. Those are things that certainly can motivate individuals. but I don't think that you see that as the primary motivator within people who have sustained excellence. It's always intrinsic. It's the desire to be a better version of themselves tomorrow than they were today. It's the desire to outdo whatever their previous achievement was on whatever scale it attained to do something bigger in the next iteration of their life. And so they have all these kind of intrinsic motivations rather than extrinsic that allow for sustained excellence rather than a one-off.

The second one is they display a tremendous amount of integrity. I do a lot of public speaking. And one of the things that I consistently share is that integrity is the currency that buys trust. And ultimately, I think there's a lot of people who reach levels of success. And the higher you get in your personal level of success, oftentimes, the fewer kind of checks and balances or kind of people look it over your shoulder. You know, your own boss, there isn't a boss to check on whether you're doing the right thing at all times. And that's when personal integrity really becomes important. And we've seen it so many times with these people that we hold in such a steam light within society.

You know, they have 20-year careers of excellence, and they have this one moment where they drop their personal integrity. And, you know, the entire kind of house that they've built comes crumbling down. And so that's the second one is just tremendous personal integrity. And then the third is that they surround themselves with people that, I think, kind of play not on their level, but play on the level above them. And so, you know, the way I frame it is that they're always. always kind of trying to play on the big kids court. You know, if you think about little kids, there's usually courts broken out by age. And there's always like that one, you know, eight-year-old that's playing with the 12-year-olds.

Even if they're the smallest kid, they're just scrappy. And I find that people that have sustained excellence in their lives and careers consistently are not comparing themselves to what others would deem as their peer set. They're comparing themselves to the people that are on the next level that they want to be at. Love it, man. Are there a few people that pop to pop into your mind that are tremendously intrinsic? that have integrity and that are striving to level up, so to speak. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, you can look at kind of the people that are famous in society,

but it's hard for me to know their pure motivations. I just think of the people that I'm friends with. So one that really comes to mind is Gary V. So a bunch of your listeners might know Gary Vaynerchuk. He was episode 31. Yeah, so Gary's a really, really close personal friend. I mean, kind of, you know, treats me somewhat like a younger person. other almost. And so we spend a lot of time together. He's on the board, it depends on

promise, because of our relationship. And he's somebody who, I think, the external world sees him speaking on stages and on podcasts and television shows as this guy who just has all this energy, curses up a storm. He's willing to kind of attack whatever he believes in. But, you know, when you get him in kind of the quiet, private moments, there is so much personal integrity. There's so much commitment to family. There's so much authenticity behind this guy. And also, no matter what level success he gets to, he is constantly motivated to get to something much, much higher. And so Gary is one that, you know, I just see having a tremendous amount of intrinsic motivation

and demonstrating integrity and surrounding himself with, you know, people that are at even higher levels than he's reached. He's one that definitely comes to mine. Another one is our mutual friend, Lewis House. Lewis, I think, has huge, huge integrity. And that's really what's allowed him to kind of find the success that he's found recently. And then the last one is a guy who's a real personal mentor of mine, Ray Chambers. For anyone that's listening to this and doesn't know Ray Chambers,

I really just encourage you to Google his name and look at this man's life work. He essentially created leverage buyout and modern private equity in the 80s and 90s and retired at a relatively young age just to focus on humanitarian work. And so he co-founded America's Promise with Colin Powell. He co-founded Malarian O'More with Peter Chernin. And he's now the UN Special Envoy for the Millennium, development goals around health. And he is more responsible for the eradication of malaria or the near eradication of malaria than anybody on earth. And he's just kind of this sage. And I've been really

fortunate to spend a lot of time around Ray and count him as a mentor. And this is a guy who could have just, you know, made many more billions than the absurd amount of money that he already made. And I think that instead he's kind of focused on the intrinsic motivators. And ultimately, you know, he's going to be remembered for the great work that he did in the world beyond just, you know, the kind of simple tadpoles that most people can point towards. Yeah, I love it because it's, it's kind of the way you define success and everyone has a different definition. And I really appreciate and enjoy the way you view the world, man. I think that's, that's why I was drawn to, to want to have this conversation with you and to work with you. So I'd love to dive into you and your story as to,

I mean, I know it quite well, but for the, for the few people listening who may not know the Adam Braun story of how you've gotten to the current point to where you are. I love to hear, you know, book, I know you're big into family, and I've obviously read your great book, the bestselling, bestselling book, The Promise of a Pencil, how an ordinary person can create extraordinary change. It's a phenomenal read in addition to all the work you do. So feel free, man. Give it to me. Let's hear your story. Sure, yeah. And I'll even, you know, maybe share a couple things that I don't normally share because having done a handful of interviews over the years, especially in relation to the book,

you know, a lot of times I think we get in this habit of kind of sharing the same old story and, you know, framing things the same way. And for any of your listeners out there, hopefully I can kind of touch on some stuff that I haven't historically shared quite as much. But, you know, my background, it really starts with my family. My dad and mom both come from total poverty. My dad was actually a refugee. So both of his parents are Holocaust survivors, lost their entire families, my grandmother in Auschwitz, for

an extended period of time. And when the Hungarian Revolution broke out in the mid-1950s, I was with my grandmother actually late last night talking her about this and hearing her story. She was saying, you know, I'm watching on the news all these refugees and they're walking for days. And I look at them and I remember, that was me.

That was me walking through the woods. And your grandfather carried your aunt and I carried your father. And it was just so powerful to hear that within two generations, my family could go from walking through the woods as a refugee to now the position that myself and my siblings are in able to create, you know, a pretty profound impact on the world.

And so, I know, we grew up just very close to my parents, very close to my grandparents. And I think we kind of came out of that, that survivor, you know, kind of immigrant hustle mentality that we are just willing to outwork anybody else. And if we do that with two things, integrity and ambition, that we can ultimately have whatever life we wanted to have. And so I grew up in the suburbs of New York. And at a pretty young age, I was already a big basketball player and a really strong student, but math was really my expertise. And I looked at the intersection of competition and mathematics. And it was this thing called Wall Street that some of my teammates' fathers worked on. And I also collected basketball cards

and trading cards. It was almost like trading stocks. And you kind of learn at a young age that, hey, you either have a pension for this thing or you don't. And then some of my teammates, as a basketball player, most of my teammates lived in the projects and places, I don't know how many of your listeners will know of Connecticut, New York area, but in the heart of New York City or, you know, in places like Bridgeport or Norwalk or Stanford, Connecticut, a lot of my teammates were the best players that lived in projects.

Some of my other teammates lived in enormous mansions. And so at a pretty young age, I just decided I want to make as much money as I can because that seems to be the better life. And so when I was 16, I started working, a hedge fund. When I was 19, I helped to launch a fund of funds, you know, landed all the right internships, got all the right grades, had the right major. And when I was about 20, I just kind of went to this period of personal rediscovery. And I think it happens to a lot of us at that kind of 18 to 24 college age of, you know, transition. But it was partially probably guided by, you know,

a desire to figure out who and what I wanted to be in the world, a little bit of that kind of, you know, 21-year-old angst and rebellion to say, maybe I shouldn't follow the path that I've always thought is going to create happiness. And I learned about a program called Semester at Sea. And I went on semester at sea as a junior. It's a cruise ship. It's a floating campus, 100 days around the world. You stop in 10 countries. You have four to six days to backpack. And there's a bunch of professors on that ship that are 10-year professors at universities that are teaching content. And that voyage just radically changed my life. A series of life-changing experiences there. but the most powerful of which was getting hit by a 60-foot rogue wave 13 days into the voyage

and having essentially a certain death experience, you know, believing that the ship was going to go down, that I was going to perish with it, you had no access to lifeboats. It's 800 miles from land in the freezing North Pacific in winter, so if the ship goes down, you're probably not surviving. And just having this moment of recognition that it wasn't my day. And just knowing that, you know, the ship's going to go down. And fortunately, it didn't. But in my mind it was going to.

down, but for some reason I knew I had to survive. And within that moment, there was this recognition that I have a purpose. And if I'm not meant to perish at sea, then I must be here for a reason. And I think that's really kind of guided a lot of my thinking and approach to life ever since. One, I really recognize how fortunate I am to be alive, that each day is truly a blessing and that I don't take, like, the coming year for granted. it. And so I'm willing to take on risks that others probably aren't because I know how easily everything can be taken away. And then secondly, I just have this deep-seated knowledge that I'm

here for a reason. And I think everybody else is. Just most people haven't acknowledged it yet. Incredible. I was just rereading that story, your semester at C story this morning when I was working out on the elliptical. And I was like, oh, my God. I mean, I remember you telling that story, Lewis. And it's had the effect that sometimes. these big moments, these inflection points, what they can do to your life because you're on this path to living in one of those mansions and being a million whatever, a hedge fund manager or a billionaire, what you're looking to do. And it seems to me, and I'll let you tell your own story that those events, though, had an effect to where mixed in with some other events that

I'm sure you're going to get to that led to pencils of promise and what you're doing today. Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, the kind of next pivotal moment was that I had a habit of asking a question in each country that I went through to one child, and that was if you could have anything in the world, what would you want most? And I'd find one kid per country. I'd answer the question and write down there on a piece of paper, and I thought I'd make a collage when I got back to my college dorm room, and I'd have this map of the world with global interest from children. And in India, a young boy was on the streets begging, and he was the one child I wanted to ask because there were so many street beggars that were children that I just thought, you know, what would one representative of these kids kind of say? And so I found a young boy and I asked him and he said, if he could have anything in the world, the thing he would want most was a pencil. And it was just so surprising. And, you know, I gave mine and he led up and I started to ask more questions and I realized he had never been to school before. And, you know, most things of actual value would be taken away from him. But, you know, there was a lot of wisdom in requesting that pencil because not only was it hopefully not going to be taken away, but

he could really explore his sense of curiosity and imagination and personal potential. And so I learned a tremendous amount from that request, not only about this kind of situation around lack of global education, but also that as somebody who at that time in my life was pretty introverted. I mean, I'm a middle child that wasn't hugely comfortable going out of my way, you know, meeting new people. But if I carried pens and pencils while I traveled, that was my entree to meet new people. I could sit with a, you know, a mother or father in a market and give a pencil to their child.

and suddenly they were interested in talking to me. And so because of that, I started carrying pens and pencils, and eventually that inspired the name Pencils of Promise for the organization that I founded several years later in late 2008. And so I'd love to, you know, Pencil of Promise is something that I've loved to learn about as I, you know, both, you know, I started preparing for this talk. It's kind of funny to say it like nine months ago, man. Oh, really?

I think I first reached out and I was trying to get a hold of you and you obviously have a lot going on between public speaking and pencils of promise and everything else that you're doing. And so yeah, that's why I'm excited to have this one, but then learn about what you guys do because I think it's a, I'll let you share. What exactly is the core mission of pencils of promise? Sure. So pencil of promise is a 51C3. Most we call it a nonprofit. I prefer the term for purpose. I don't like the word nonprofit.

I've spoken a lot about this, but it's the only industry that introduces itself. with the word non, which makes no sense to me. So I prefer to talk about what we are driven by, which is increasing poverty in the lives or increasing profit of or just value or opportunity in the lives of those of poverty and kind of increasing the sense of meaning and purpose in our own lives. And so anyway, 501c3 organization that is most known for building schools. So we started out really focused on increasing access to quality educational infrastructure. I've backpacked a ton traveling to all these rural parts of the developing world in my early

20s and mid-20s, even late 20s. And I just kept on seeing, you know, kids learning under mango trees or kids not having any school at all to go to or kids learning and dilapidated, you know, corrugated tin shacks that would flood in the rainy season and overheat in the dry season. And, you know, there was just no access to any form of even quality education. So Pencila promise builds schools with these communities. But over time, what we saw is that putting up those four walls is really just the start. and that ultimately having access to a quality school is the beginning,

but the teacher is really the most pivotal component in a child's educational attainment. And so now we do several things. We build schools. We train teachers. We support teachers. And we also develop communities around the common cause of education for all. So, you know, that could be getting a family in Delaware involved to help, you know, get their kids inspired, connect their kids to a sense of, you know, greater self-worth and the ability to value their own

education by recognizing how few kids have access globally. Or we also have this really large social media community and through them we're able to kind of rally towards important points of advocacy throughout the world. So the kind of snapshot now, while I started it with $25 on the side of my job in late 2008, my grandmother I was referencing before was turning 80 and I wanted to build one school and dedicated to her and ideally transform a community and some children's lives within that community. Pencil Promise now has built well over 300 schools around the world. We've trained thousands of teachers and we now have about 34,000 students that are impacted by our programs. Wow. What countries are they all in over 300 schools? So the schools are in four different

countries, but there's three of focus. So we had historically worked in Nicaragua. We have about 20 schools there, but most of the focus now is on three other countries. So one in each of the three major poverty zones, Asia, Africa, and Latin America. And the three countries are Ghana in Africa, Guatemala in Central America, and then Laos in Southeast Asia. And also one thing to correct, I'm not sure if we've reached thousands of teachers in the training yet. I know it's in the hundreds, but at the same time, we've also distributed thousands of scholarships to students as well. I gotcha. I want to think it back to actually where we started and that's family because this is a really big deal for me both the family for which

I grew up my parents and brothers as well as the current family I'm leading with my wife and our daughters and I know family is huge and I've seen some of your keynotes and listened to you before and you've written about it a lot and especially how I love hearing the stories about your dad and some of the colorful language he might have used on the playground with with you guys and talking about the fact that bronze aren't normal right why why in even the first chapter your books, why be normal? And you know, you've got a very successful family, not just you, but, you know, siblings as well as your parents. I'd love to learn a little bit more about what it was like growing up in that environment. Because for me, I'll just give you a little bit. For me,

the expectation level has always been extremely high and not in a bad way, but just that we expect to do a lot of big things and to have a positive effect on other people. And gathering from your story, it feels like there was a lot of that involved as well as, I'm sure, some other aspects that I'd love to hear about. Sure, yeah. So I would say what you just described is very much ingrained in the way that we were raised. So, you know, as I mentioned, my parents both grew up in total poverty. And my dad was, you know, an immigrant, essentially a refugee at the age of three, arriving on a boat over 16 days and was taken in by, you know, like a refugee situation. And so grew up with nothing in Queens, learned English without an accent by watching.

watching TV. My mom's father passed away when she was 12. And so from that point forward, you know, was raised by her mother throughout her teenage years. And both of them just totally self-made by dad as a dentist for a long time. My mom, an orthodontist. And so once they, they, you know, started to focus on raising us and building the family, you know, our upbringing was definitely pretty unique. I mean, they found the best public education system that they could in Greenwich, Connecticut, which is pretty well known as one of the more affluent towns in the country. And so, you know, we certainly weren't in a situation of poverty when I was growing up, but we didn't have anything close to what some of my friends had. Let's put it that way.

So, you know, within the household, the thing that I think you're referencing is in the first chapter of the book. And for anyone that hasn't read the book, it's called The Promise of a Pencil, and the subtitle is really the important part. So how an ordinary person can create extraordinary change and it's framed around 30 short chapters and every chapter is tied with a mantra, this kind of short pippy phrase that can act as a guidepost on your way to achieving both success and significance. And that first mantra, Y be normal, comes from the fact that it was my dad's license plate the letters YB and ML.

And most of my friends, he was very intimidating. He was kind of like the crazy scary dad. So they thought it meant Y be an animal. But every night before my brother and sister and I went to sleep, they would always say the same thing. and that was just remember bronze are different and that really became ingrained in the way that we were brought up and you know it wasn't this kind of statement that we're better

or superior than anybody else but just that we are held to a different standard and regardless of what you're seeing around you that does not apply to you and so that could be good bad or anything in between you know when friends had access to video games we did not get video games we were told to go outside and play or read a book or play a sport and any free time we'd complain they would just say like look bronze are different. But when we started to do things that I think espoused the values that they wanted us to uphold, they would say, you know why you did that? Because bronze are different. And so eventually, you know, as now an adult, there's just this expectation internally that as

soon as I start to kind of live a life of contentment, I mean, I talk to my wife a lot about this now, like, why am I so uncomfortable with satisfaction? Like when I achieve a level where I feel satisfied, why does that also feel like the most restless period for me? And she was like, you know, you're not uncomfortable with satisfaction. You're uncomfortable with contentment. You cannot be just content because you have this desire to go out and do something great and that requires you to be uncomfortable and that requires you to in some way, shape, or form be different. And as soon as you start kind of moving towards the norm, you have this desire to kind of burn the ships

and, you know, swim towards a new island where you can kind of build a new castle. And so I think within our upbringing, even now within our family, you know, we're kind of entering a different period. My brother now has a son and I'm married as well. And so we're kind of entering this new phase where now we're starting to build our own family. And, you know, I've seen quotes about this before. But I do find it really funny that like at the age of 12, your parents know absolutely nothing. And then somehow when you turn 24, they become really smart. So we have a great relationship, fortunately.

and I think I feel lucky. One thing, another thing that I really hadn't recognized until recently was that even though my dad was a dentist at heart, he's always been an entrepreneur. And, you know, I was raised with a set of knowledge around financial literacy that I think most people just don't have. You know, when I spend time around a lot of other individuals, I see how they spend their money, the lack of ability to save, the kind of inability to just concept. In their head, what it's going to take to get into the life that they want to be in financially,

I think a lot of those things are ingrained at a very young age, and it's through simple things like, you know, running your lemonade stand or, you know, hosting the NCAA, you know, March Madness bracket, all these things that kind of build these business skills that ultimately lead to financial literacy that can start at a very young age that while my dad wasn't, you know, a traditional businessman, he was definitely instilling in us from as, you know, as long as I can remember. You know, you have a very successful brother as well. Do you call him Scott or Scooter? I call him Scott, but the world calls. I mean, I was the first one to call him Scooter, but it was kind of playful, and he would hate it and fight me over it when we were in high school. And then I stopped, and obviously the rest of the world continued with it because he ran with it. Yeah.

So, I mean, for the people who, whether you Google, you, Adam Grasn or Scooter Braun, I mean, Scooter is known for, I think best known for being Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande's manager, or I don't know the precise term, but basically, you know, I know he was involved with Justin B. wrote from when he was just a YouTube guy. Yeah. But what is, what's that like?

Because you guys both have achieved levels of both success and significance. I know you work together on Penciler Promise Tour, he's a big advocate for you. And it feels to me like it's a cool friendship that there's, it doesn't feel, at least from what I have from afar, like there's any competition. It's just like you guys genuinely are loving best friend type of a relationship.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, we grew up two years, two and a half years or so apart. And, you know, we grew up really competitive with one another because I was small. He was very small. And so, you know, we would oftentimes kind of compete on the basketball court or even occasionally sometimes kind of academically. And I think ultimately, you know, you get to a place where you struggle through it when I was 21 and he was 23.

We really didn't get along for probably three or four years. So for anyone that is not getting along with the sibling at a certain stage or you're a parent and your kids are like warring, it's okay. That happens, especially when you're really trying to kind of make your mark and figure out who you want to be in the world in your late teens, early 20s. But I think we just kind of reached a place where we recognized that we had different paths. And then those paths, well, separate could actually be really complimentary to one another. And that ultimately we were always going to have each other's back in ways that, you know,

nobody else in the world ever could. And so it's been a really fun journey. And I think, you know, he's not only, you know, him and my wife, my two best friends, but he's also like a huge role model for me and just somebody who I know I can count on consistently when I need that, you know, good quality advice, but somebody who I think also knows that as, you know, he reaches higher levels of success, you kind of have to question the motivations of some of the people that come into your world. And I think for both of us, it's really nice to know that there's somebody out there who can kind of understand the

experience that each of us is going through, especially as we're increasingly more and more public. You know, we both have pretty substantial social media followings. My book discloses a lot of the stuff in my life. I'm sure he'll be putting out a book at some point in the coming years. We just know that there's somebody out there who cares about us for us and not for all the other things that kind of the public world sees. And I think people, as you guys achieve levels of some of this fame, you know, my younger brother's played in the NFL for 10 years.

So I've seen this where there are people who are afraid to say no to certain people. And I think so when you achieve these levels of fame and the notoriety, the people around you, even if some of them are friends, they're afraid if they say no, that maybe they'll be thrown out of that inner circle. So it's good to have, I think, close family members who, because I can call up AJ, and he knows this. And I think I know he appreciates it and vice versa.

And we can both say, dude, like, that's not a good idea. Or no, we shouldn't do that. And we're in it for life. man like it's closer than best friends you know like I said both of our wives are our best friends but we're right there at the same level and I think that's really important and I'm it feels like you guys have that too because you have to have somebody like that who I think it helps if you're closer and it's we're two years apart as well and so I think that's a it's a big a big thing for people to have yeah I mean it's it's kind of I'm laughing because I'm thinking about the last

time that we were together in person I said something to him that he really didn't like and he real mad about it and he was like don't ever say that to me again especially in public like there was like a stranger on the street walking by or something like that and you know for me I was like you know go at yourself

and afterwards I'm thinking like nobody would ever say that to him about me but I think truthfully as in particular would Justin Bieber say that to him I don't know I mean Justin says whatever he wants and Scott also says whatever he wants back to Justin

They have such a unique relationship too. But, you know, I think especially as a younger brother, you almost take a little bit of pride and going back to like the eight-year-old version of yourself that gets to rib your older brother in ways that nobody else does. So I think we keep each other in check in healthy ways. That's good. Are there things you've learned from your parents? Obviously there are.

But I'm curious what those few things are from your parents, from your siblings that you're going to make sure you implement when you are a father yourself. Yeah, actually, I was with my dad and my mom and my wife last night. actually had a Stevie Wonder concert all together, which is really fun. But we were talking about this. There was a kind of intermission. We were talking about our plan whenever we have kids starting raising them. And I mean, one of them is, like, not celebrating just participation.

And we're talking about, like, you know, what sports the kids are going to play and stuff. And, you know, my desire to coach teams and all that stuff. And, like, I was just saying, you know, when my kids, like, don't get first, second or third place, that's not going to be, you know, like, awarded with a participation trophy for ninth. place, which you see all the time. It's hard, man. I'm telling you, it's hard to manage that because it's true. You're right.

Yeah. So you see a lot of like celebrating achievement that is not success but treated as success. And just the way that we were raised, it was like it's okay to fail, you know, but failure is acknowledged as failure as you did not get to where you wanted to go to. And therefore, next time you have to try harder or, you know, I think a lot of the things that I learned was that you do not accept failure, but you learn from it. And that's something that I definitely learned from my family that I see in a lot of other people and especially the way that people in the workforce now enter. And like, they've never really taken a risk.

And so they've never truly had the opportunity to fail. And so because of that, they're unwilling to take risk because they're so afraid of failure. And, you know, because I grew up where, like, if we didn't come in first place, like, you were not celebrated. you know like that wasn't a big win that now at this point like if i don't get if i don't win i mean i'm super competitive and so if i don't win at something i want to keep going after it until i win right if i if i'm playing you know knockout if i'm shooting around in a gym and i lose three games and knockout or i come in second place i want to keep playing until i get first and that's something

that i definitely learned from them the other is you know that in kind of each room you can be both a student and a teacher and i think a lot of people have this perception that like i'm either pure student and I'm there to learn or at the same time or in a kind of different token, I am there as a teacher to bestow my knowledge and I'm not there to kind of gain from the other person. And I think, you know, our kind of dinner table was kind of famous amongst our friends and kind of broader circles that like when you came and sat at our dinner table and, you know, you join the bronze for a meal in their house, like you better come prepared to debate. You know, like our dinner table was ferocious. I mean, if you brought up an idea, it was it was debate.

it was, you know, you could get ripped apart intellectually. And so a lot of people would come and just like not even talk. And afterwards, they'd be like, that's crazy. I was so scared to say anything because I felt like if I said anything, somebody was going to tell me I was wrong and then I have to defend it. And so, you know, because of that, I think I enter most rooms understanding that I both have some value to give, but at the same time I have a tremendous amount of value to learn from.

And so I really enjoy the act of teaching. And so one of the things that I've kind of realized is, you know, now with Pence is a promise I recently replaced myself as CEO and I'm just the founder and you know most active board member and within that I realized from the feedback of my book all these people were reading the promise of a pencil I'm reaching out saying hey Adam this was so helpful but now I'm inspired can you spend you know 30 minutes on the phone with me so you can kind of show me how to start my own nonprofit or yeah I have a nonprofit it's not scaling it the way that I want can you spend 30 minutes with me just give me advice and I realize there's no quality resource for anybody to

learn how to create launch and scale a high impact nonprofit. And so kind of given my background and upbringing and enjoyment of teaching and learning, for anyone that's out there, if they're listening to this in January, 2016, I'm going to launch a website called the nonprofit playbook.com. And on that website will be, you know, a series of kind of modules and lessons and all that good stuff. But it's really just going to be a course for me to share with individuals how to go from, you know, getting your 501 certification to how to galvanize early monthly.

volunteers to work on paid all the way through to here's how to make the ask and fundraise at a six-figure level and here's how to build a board of directors. All these things that I think aren't particularly taught, but I think kind of given my background and, you know, the success of pencil of promise and the learning zone of the last seven years, hopefully the nonprofit playbook can be a helpful resource to people in the space. I'll make sure that's linked up in the show notes at learning leader.com. Adam, I know we're up against that. I have one more question before we take off. And I have to say, I definitely want to do this again at some point in the future because there's so much to get to.

Sure, I'd love to. So my final question was around, the whole purpose behind my show. It's called The Learning Leader Show for a reason, because I love studying the art and science of leadership. The fact that I believe it's a learned skill or trait, you're not necessarily born with it, and I don't think I was and had to kind of grow into that, especially I think growing up as an introvert,

as a middle child as you were, needing to find ways to get outside of my comfort zone. And so I'm curious, though, when you hear that phrase learning leader, what's, what are the first few things that pop into your mind initially, maybe when you saw the email from me or, or you, you, you heard the title of the show? Wow. Great question.

You know, when I heard the title, the learning leader, I immediately kind of thought of the concept of servant leadership. It's something that I've studied a fair amount. One of the board members of Pantsel Promise, who I'm very close to and is, has just been one of those people that's changed my whole outlook on the way I conduct myself. on the way that Pencila Promise runs as a business as an organization. He's a huge proponent of servant leadership. And I think one of the keys of servant leadership is not only that you kind of serve the

greater good of those that you are leading, but that you act with humility. And you understand that at all times we are individuals under a state of evolution and that you can constantly improve upon yourself. So, you know, I thought the name right away kind of jumped out to me as, all right, this is, you know, a forum essentially for individuals who recognize that no matter what level you're at, there's always an opportunity to improve. And those oftentimes, I think, are the most effective leaders. I love it, man.

Adam, thanks so much. Do you want to, where can people find you online? I know I'll make sure your new website, the nonprofit playbook.com, on the show notes, but what other places can you be found? Sure. So my core website is just my name, Adam Braun, B-R-A-U-N-com. and that's where I blog and you can watch videos of speeches and get access to a lot of different good stuff.

There's an easy way to contact me there. Also on Twitter, I'm just at Adam Braun. There's a Facebook page that I recently launched. I hadn't used Facebook for a long time. I'd always been focused on Twitter and Instagram. And then, you know, I always encourage people to reach out to me directly. So my email is Adam at just letter I promise.org. And so if some of these ideas resonated with you, if you want to get involved in helping to build an upcoming school,

it's about $25,000 for us to create a school. So as an individual, as a family, as a company, as a school, we'd be happy to work with anyone out there. And then the book is just the promise of a pencil. How an ordinary person could create extraordinary change. It's on Amazon and a whole bunch of retailers nationwide. Perfect. Adam, thanks so much again for being here, man.

I look forward to our continued dialogue as we both progress, man. Absolutely, me too. It's been a pleasure. All right. Thanks, Adam. All right, take care. This episode of The Learning Leader Show is over, but we have plenty more to keep you locked in until next time. Head over to Learning Leadershow.com for more information and to request your favorite entrepreneur, CEO, world-class athlete, or anyone else that inspires you.

You can also talk to Ryan directly by reaching out to him on Twitter at Ryan Hawk 12. Thanks again, and we'll see you next time on The Learning Leader Show.