The School of Greatness - 774 Change the World for Good

Episode Date: March 22, 2019

REJECT APATHY. There is suffering happening all over the world. We all can do something. Children can be a great example. When you see a kid give up what little allowance they have to help someone else or set up a lemonade stand, you realize that what you’re able to give is enough. We can’t just turn a blind eye. For this Five Minute Friday, I revisited a conversation I had with Scott Harrison where he talked about living a life of giving. Scott Harrison was working as a nightclub promoter in New York when he became “morally bankrupt.” He sold all of his belongings and set sail to Africa in an effort to redeem himself. He returned to New York with one goal: to provide clean water to everyone on earth. Twelve years later, he’s raised over 320 million dollars and provided water to people in 26 countries with his nonprofit charity: water. He may not be driving a fancy car or going on huge vacations, but he is ending suffering for hundreds of people a day. For him, that means so much more. Learn what it takes to change the world for good in Episode 774. In This Episode You Will Learn: The biggest lesson Scott Harrison has learned (1:30) About the children who have gotten involved in solving the water crisis (3:00) About the donor who saved charity: water (5:00)

This is 5-Minute Friday! Scott Harrison, after a decade of indulging his darkest vices as a nightclub promoter, he declared spiritual, moral, and emotional bankruptcy. He spent two years on a hospital ship off the coast of Liberia, saw the effects of dirty water firsthand, and came back to New York City on a mission to change the world. Upon returning to New York in 2006, having seen the effects of dirty water firsthand, he turned his full attention to the global water crisis and the then 1.1 billion people living without access to clean water. What's the biggest lesson you've learned in the last 12 years in giving your life to service and being on this mission to end suffering with the water crisis?

It's been, a lot of people feel like it's a big sacrifice. Bro, I know you got offered that big job at Facebook. Like, you know, do you ever think you should have taken it? Like, you know, bro, you're driving a Kia Sorento, you know? Like, you can't pay for piano lessons for your kid, you know? Like, there's this empathy that a lot of people will have because I haven't tried to get rich, right? I haven't gone after the money.

And they feel like, you know, sometimes like I've made this great sacrifice. And I'm like, I haven't made the sacrifice at all. Like, think about it. Today, we will raise enough money to get 3,800 humans clean water for the first time. Just in one day? Today.

And then we'll do it again tomorrow. Then we'll do it again the next day. So we're filling, you know, stadiums about every four to five days. into clean water for the first time. Just in one day? Today. And then we'll do it again tomorrow. Then we'll do it again the next day. So we're filling, you know, stadiums about every four to five days. So from Monday to Friday, you know, Madison Square Garden, we've just filled with people that are getting clean water for the first time

and then emptied it out. And Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, we just did it again. That's an amazing thing to be able to do. One person every 15 seconds, seconds you know as we sit here because not because of me because of the community because of a million people around the world that have joined charity water that have rejected the apathy that would be so easy to embrace with a paralyzing global issue like this and said i can do something i can donate my birthday i can

give 30 bucks a month i can can build one well. You know, our family can give up holiday gifts. I mean, we have kids doing lemonade stands like all over the country. I love the lemonade stands. There was a little girl in Vancouver, Lewis, who did 12. She came across one of our videos online, was so offended by the fact that people are drinking dirty water. The kids don't have clean water to drink. So she does 12 lemonade stands, one of them in the rain, just undeterred. At her last lemonade stand, she convinces a local band to perform

on the sidewalk next to the lemonade stand. To attract an audience. To attract an audience. She sells $5,600 of lemonade. Wow. Builds half a well. So these stories keep us going. There was a little girl named Nora who was six,

again, saw one of our videos, and goes up to her room that night, and she says, you know, should I give or should I not give? Should I keep my allowance? Should I give my allowance? And this internal bait, she comes out in the morning, and she drops $8.15 on the kitchen counter and draws a picture of herself next to a well in Africa with clean water coming out. Wow.

And writes us a note and says, dear Charity Water, my name is Nora. Here's my $8.15, and I don't want kids to die of dirty water. So, you know, this arrives in the mail, and we were so inspired. We actually sent a camera crew down, interviewed this astonishing little girl. And on World Water water day we asked everyone we knew to give eight dollars and 15 cents and raise like 80 grand wow you know in her honor to build eight well so these you know it's an amazing thing to be able to do did she go to africa and she hasn't yet but but we should totally take her when she gets a little older

to see where that goes and you know i guess the way that I would love for billions and billions of dollars to flow through, you know, my hands, our hands. I mean, the way of keeping score is money for others, not money for ourself. My greatest ambition really about money is to actually write a million dollar check personally to a charity someday. Because someone did it for me at a really, really important time, and it changed the game for us. It was way too much money, right? Normally what happens with charities is there's an amount that people are giving, right? Like this is a charity that people give $10,000 to,

or this is a charity that people give $100 to. Well, this person came in when we were a charity that people gave $10,000 to, and they gave us $1 million. What was the biggest donation before that? Maybe $50,000 maybe something like that. They gave a million. A million on the overhead side. It's almost too overwhelming.

It was a year. It was a year of capital. I tell the story in the books. I won't ruin the drama, but it was at a moment of desperation, and this saved the organization from insolvency, basically. You needed the payment in the next couple of weeks, probably. We were running it. We were not, we were unable to pay our staff, but we had $881,000 in the bank. We couldn't touch. And we were unwilling to compromise by either borrowing against it or

borrowing one penny. So I was going to shut the organization down and say, Charity Water didn't work. Oh man. This is $320 million ago. But this is $318 million ago. This is year one, year two. This is a year and a half in. We had raised a couple million dollars for water projects. Couldn't keep the lights on on the overhead account. Just couldn't tell our story. And I had been praying, if I'm honest,

with very little faith, with no faith, that anything would happen for a miracle. I'd been like, God I'm honest, with very little faith, with no faith that anything would happen for a miracle. I'd been like, God, I need a miracle. Like, you know, would the sky part? Something needs to happen here. And a complete stranger walked in off the street, sat with me for two hours and said, cool, I'll give a million dollars into the overhead account.

Crazy. You're like, there's the miracle. So I want to do that for somebody at some point. So that, you know, the ambition is not a house in the Hamptons or, you know, to drive a Mercedes or anything like that, but I'd love to be able to actually give more generously. Um, I, I do not make it a big enough salary to do that yet. Cause you make a charity salary, right? I mean, and we're benchmarked and, um, Ied. I mean, for years, the board has always tried to pay me more because the benchmark in New York is higher than I've taken. And I'm like, yeah, but I'm just going to give more away.

So anyway, at some point, it'd be fun to, maybe it's a side hustle. Yeah, of course.