The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 252: Luke Mickelson—The Gospel of Do-Goodery According to Luke

Episode Date: May 24, 2022

Luke Mickelson talks about how his charity Sleep in Heavenly Peace skyrocketed after appearing on Returning The Favor and his mission to make sure every child has a bed to sleep in.    

The ocean delights us as playful otters restore coastal kelp forests. The ocean teaches us how our choices impact even the deepest places. The ocean connects us. Visit Monterey Bay Aquarium.org slash connects. Where does the time go? It's me again, Mike Bro, with another episode of the way I heard it, specifically number 252, which is called The Gospel of Do Goodery, according to Luke. You live with that one, Chuck?

I think that's a reasonable one. This is a guy who is clearly on a mission. I love his foundation's slogan, which is no kid sleeps on the floor in our town. If it sounds familiar, it's probably because you saw Luke Mickelson on an early episode of returning the favor. We've mentioned his name on here from time to time. And I wanted to have him on for a lot of reasons, but mostly because very few days go by anymore without somebody asking me about returning the favor or about starting. some kind of a foundation or about trying to do something. It's so interesting. It's been a hard few years for the country, and a lot of decent people are really interested, I think, in giving

something back. But it's hard. People don't know how to start a foundation. They're not quite sure what to do. And because of that show, I get a lot of questions, and I realize that in many cases, my answer involves Luke McElson. Luke formed, sleep. in Heavenly Peace years back, we featured him on the show. When I met Luke up in Idaho, I think it was 2017, there were nine chapters in Sleep and Heavenly Peace. And to be clear, these are the guys that build bunk beds for underprivileged kids, kids who in many cases have never slept in a bed.

It's a huge outreach program that started really modestly. And people love Luke. That episode of Returning the Favor reached a lot of people. And today, in real time, Luke Mickelson is running, sleep in heavenly peace. But they no longer have nine chapters, Chuck. They have, how many? 309 chapters. It's almost inconceivable.

The guy, when I met him, he was still working. You know, he still had a job and he was trying to build this foundation. And I think their operating budget was probably, it was well under $100,000, $70 or $80,000, I think. Again, that's with nine chapters. They're buying wood. They've got all kinds of supplies, gear that they need. And they were just still trying to get this thing formed. I think he said last year's over $12 million.

That's amazing. So the point is when people ask me about Mike. They ask me about running a nonprofit. They ask for advice. I rarely know what to say, except it's harder than you think. It's every bit as hard as running a small business. And because Luke has been an entrepreneur, had a business, quit the business, and now works full-time for the foundation he started, which in all likelihood is going to build a million beds before the dust settles. I mean, it's going to happen.

they're already in the hundreds of thousands and a lot of that has to do with the appearance on returning the favor. That's the thing that draws me to this story. I don't think there's ever been an example of something where you shine a light on this dot org and it blows up like this to the tune of 300 more chapters.

Amazing. I've seen it. I mean, I've seen it on Dirty Jobs. I've seen it on somebody's got to do it. I remember a guy early on in Dirty Jobs. It was a dairy farmer named Matt Furrow. up in a new canaan. And the bottom had fallen out of the milk market.

And Matt realized, really, the crap from his cows was worth more than the milk. Right. And so he created these things called poo pots made from the fertilizer. His cows were generating. And we did a story on that. And, you know, he was great. And I thought it was a good tale about resilience and pivoting and so forth. But he wound up with his poopots in Walmart.

and his business exploded. And really, I think that's the first time I realized, you know, if you just you pay attention to people who were doing good stuff and nice things happen. And so returning the favor didn't have a corner on that market. It's just that that was the first show I ever worked on where we specifically looked for people who we wanted to see that kind of growth. We never imagined it could happen. We always had positive feedback, but to see this thing do what it's done, it's humbling and amazing. And Luke Mickelson is doing it. He's doing the very thing people constantly ask me how to do. And I don't really have a good answer for them. But I think somewhere in this conversation, a good answer comes out, courtesy of Luke. It's called the Gospel of Do-Gudery.

according to Luke. And if there's a commercial first, well, what can I tell you? That's how these things happen. Indeed. Do do do do do do do do do do do. My guest today, Tomolbenis, is an American giant. And I'll tell you why. Tom understands on a fundamental level that the business of mining is a non-negotiable prerequisite of our civilization and our economic independence, just like the business of making things. American Giant knows this, which is why they committed themselves 16 years ago to make all their excellent clothing right here in this country. It wasn't easy, but they did it. They sourced locally grown cotton, and they built factories in towns across the nation where they could hire hardworking locals who cared about making a quality product.

And then they went about the business of gently reminding people that when you buy a piece of clothing from American Giant. You're not just buying a high-quality sweatshirt or t-shirt or another pair of jeans. You're investing in a local supply chain. You're supporting communities from the Carolinas to California. And you're getting a piece of clothing that won't just survive the wash. You're getting a garment that'll get better with age. Check out their high-quality staples, hoodies, teas, denim, built to be worn year after year at American-giant.com Mike. It's quality you can feel and a true American success story that you can be proud to support. Use code Mike. Get 20% off your order at American dash giant.com slash Mike.

American Giant American Made. American Giant. American Made. How you doing? I'm living the dream, man, or whatever this is. I'm trying to think the last time I saw you, I think we were in an airport maybe. It was that Nebraska, Omaha, what was that returning the favors honorie? The furniture project or something like that? That's exactly what it was. You had me come in. The cool story about that was we didn't get a whole lot of time because that season from what Sarah told me is you just flew in for a couple of hours and then you were gone versus mine where you stayed the night in Twin Falls.

Yeah, man. You got out of suffering with that. You caught me in the early days. of returning the favor where we still weren't quite sure what in the world it was, because it wasn't really a show. And we were spending a lot of time on something that we didn't really think was a show and not really knowing what we were going to get. In fact, I think Luke's episode was Sarah's first episode.

I just watched it this morning, and it was Sarah's first. And she's been a guest on the podcast as well. What was interesting about Omaha is, so I was really, really jealous, but, you know, I wanted to stay back and let the honoree have his moment with you. Magnanimous of you. I didn't get a lot of time with you. Well, you know, whatever I can do, bro. But I remember we got the airport that morning and we were flying to Salt Lake at the same time.

So here I was sitting at the terminal. Turn around. Here comes Jacob. And here comes half the team. And then, of course, there's you, Mike. And that was fun to sit there and just chit chat with you for a while. Well, you know what? It felt like a really small moment, a couple of dudes passing in an airport.

you going to where you were going, me doing what I was doing. But I said to Mary, who was with me, I said, you know, it's not until you get a couple seasons into a show or whatever this thing is, that you start to realize the impact it can have when you run into people who are on it and you get a chance to check in and see what's new. And so I thought it would be fun and, well, mostly I just wanted to catch up. But I think the people who listen to this thing will enjoy hearing your story, And the way your plan, the way your hobby got completely out of hand, the way your do-goodery

completely usurped your life, it looks like. You've left your job. Your Sleep and Heavenly Peace has exploded from all intents and purposes. So I just want to kind of go back to the beginning, if we could, because I looked at that old episode, too. and I don't think I fully understood what was going on in your life. You had what, like nine chapters when we met? You know, what's funny is 2017 was a really pivotal year for me. SHP had been going on for, I guess, at that point, the last five years.

But we started to realize that there was a lot bigger need out there than in both needs that we say we solve, which is child bedlessness, which is the one need, obviously, our main need. But we also found that there was a lot of people, great people out there that just didn't know how to give back. You know, they wanted to donate their time, but they wanted it meaningful. Companies wanted these opportunities for their employees to give back. If it was local, great. If it was a charity, even better. And we just found these needs growing and growing as people became more aware, which caused us to do a lot more builds during the years.

We got up to do in like 15, 17 builds in one year versus the one build we saw. started out at Christmas time. Explain what a build looks like for people. Like when you get together, let's go back really to the beginning, because there's only a handful of you guys. I don't know where you were sourcing your wood from, but you were literally impersonating carpenters, building wooden bunk beds and delivering them oftentimes at night to parts of a city that were, shall we say, the wrong side of the tracks. That's kind of where it started, I think, right? At the time I served in my church group at the time I served as what was called a young men's president, which basically I was responsible for the spiritual growth and the activity of the boys between about 12 and 17.

And the activity arm of the church at that time, they adopted the Boy Scouts program. And so basically I was over the Boy Scout leaders. I was what they call a venture leader at the time. I only had four or five boys in my venture team. But, you know, we had about, oh, I can't remember, 12 or 14 boy scouts and some varsity scouts. And in these leadership meetings that we had with the church leadership, that's where we discovered our, I learned about a family that were in need. The father had been struggling a little bit with mental health, couldn't hold a job. The mom actually drove bus for the small town I lived in, Kimberly, for a lot of years.

And so I'm in the very limited income, as you can imagine. imagine, but really trying to make things happen. And when I first heard about the situation where these kids are sleeping on the floor, you know, I just remember thinking that's kind of odd. Like, every child's got some sort of bed. And I really honestly thought, okay, we're just, they're going in there. They've got these broken down beds. You know, we'll just get something figured out for them. And the more I learned about the situation, the more I realized, okay, this is a problem for these kids. And no kid should be sleeping on the floor. So I took these boys. So I took these Boy Scouts, and I said, okay, look, what do you want to do? I kind of wanted them to be involved with this

project as much as possible. And, you know, we kicked around the idea of buying a bed or going finding a bed to donate or get one donated to us. And I don't know, the thought came to me. And I just got done building this salon in the third bay of my garage for my wife at the time. And so it's kind of in this build mood, which I always kind of figured that was the catalyst of the idea. But I thought, here's a great opportunity to get an Xbox controller out of these boys' hands. Let's get a drill. Let's get a saw. You know, let's teach them something. I was a little nervous. You know, trying to get 12, 13, 14 year old kids to do something any laborous nowadays is difficult. Yeah, good luck. Difficult. And here's a power tool, by the way.

Good luck with that too. Yeah, exactly. Let me talk to your parents first and sign this, right? But what was really amazing actually is just to watch and see as we started putting these beds together, while this one bunk bed together, the joy that they had, which was really odd to me. Because I, of course, was involved with other activities with these boys. And, man, it was like crack and whip just trying to get them to do something. But they really took to this. I don't know if it was because they finally get their hands on something or they realized what this was going to.

I'd like to think it's probably a combination of both. But they really took off with it, which was fun to see as a leader, as a parent as well, to see that. I bet it had something also, Luke, to do with the fact that the thing they were making was so universally understood. It's a bed, right? I remember in the Boy Scouts working on these pioneering projects and, you know, using ropes and lashes and cutting timbers and erecting these complicated structures, really for no use other than to build it, right? So now you have a tower that you can climb. It was just a way to practice skill. but there was no real practicality rooted in it.

You were making beds oftentimes, as I recall, for kids who had never slept in one. Oh, yeah, for sure. It's not like, hey, we've got a better bed for you. It's like, we have a bed for you. What a concept. And the beauty of it, Mike, was, I don't think the boys realized that. I think they realized, look, we're making a bed for a child. Awesome.

And boy, I'm pointing to myself as well, because I didn't realize, again, I thought it was just we're going in there and replacing some beds. You know, they're broken down, blah, blah, blah. No, these kids that we serve, you're right, 15, 16 years old, never slept on a bed. She never slept on a mattress. We have some kids. I remember one story going into a home, six or seven years old. The mom was just, she was, oh, she'd just come up from Mexico, a immigrant worker there. And I remember walking in, there was hardly anything in the house, but she had neatly folded all the kids' clothes. Of course, they were stacked on the ground

because they didn't have dressers or anything like that, but super clean for what we normally see, but the kid had never slept on a pillow. That's the kind of situation that we walked into. And back in 2012, that's what these boys got to see. And what was the funny part of the whole story is I had to stay back and clean my garage. I didn't even get to go on the delivery.

But the parents got to go. Of course, the kids got to go. And the next day I had heard just how amazing it was, not just from the kids, but from their parents too. And it was just eye-opening to me. And I remember sitting there first week of December and thinking about Christmas. And there was a lot going on in my life at that time. You know, work was difficult. What were you doing?

So I'd been doing industrial water treatment for a company locally here as a regional water treatment company. And I'd been doing it for 18 years. I was going to buy the company with my stepbrother there. And I enjoyed it. I actually enjoyed the work. I enjoyed talking to people and teaching them the ins and outs of water and stuff like that. So I enjoyed that. The ins and outs of water?

I mean, you got hydrogen? You got oxygen? Yeah. Put them together. There it is. It's wet. I tell you what, I tell everybody, when I first got into water treatment, I knew water was wet. And that was about it.

So you took a deep. dive in water. Is that what you're saying? Yeah. Well, yeah, feet first, buddy. After 18 years, and I've always been kind of entrepreneurial-minded. You know, I always wanted to kind of run my own thing. I was really excited to buy this company. But there was just something missing in my life. And I know a big part of that at the time I was going through a big faith crisis, you know, just trying to figure out exactly who am I and, you know, what part of this world am I a part of, what imprint means something to me. And all these things were culminating together.

And I remember my kids, my boy, he was about 10 years old at time and he wanted an Xbox. And I just said, we already have an Xbox son. We're not getting another one. And here I just had this amazing experience building these beds for these kids that don't have beds for crying out loud. And you're talking to me about an Xbox? There's a problem here. And I remember right then it was just one of those, I got off of the couch. I didn't say anything.

I just got up off the couch and started walking to my garage. And I had some leftover wood. And I remember, you know, everybody's like, where are you going, Dad? And I said, you know what? You're going to come out with me to this garage and we're going to build another bed. I enjoyed it. You're going to learn to enjoy it. My God.

Yeah, by God, exactly. And then we're going to find a kid that needs it. It really was just more I wanted my kids to feel two things, the joy of serving others, but also, gosh, dang it. Appreciate what you got. Be grateful. Hey, watch your language, Luke. It was a family show.

I've heard your podcast. All right. Permission to it just sum up very quickly. It's 2012. Luke Mickelson is having one of those existential moments where he's trying to figure out his place in the world. He's a father. He's a husband. He's just seen something good happen with these Boy Scouts who have come together to help in some kind of a service project.

And now you're on the cusp of scratching the entrepreneurial itch and buying a, water treatment company, but all of a sudden, there's this thing nagging at you in the garage in the form of a pile of lumber that needs to be transformed into a bed with the help of your boy. So that happens. And then what? Well, here you go. I've got this bed that it was me and my daughter. And I had another son. He was one years old, so he's really young. But here we had this bed, Christmas time, and I had no idea what to do with it. We just built the bed. I mean, I didn't child businesses was a problem. It's one of those words, you know, you started a charity when you didn't know there was a problem,

but you didn't know you started a charity. If you build it, they will sleep. Yeah, there you go. And that's what we realized was, okay, I'm sitting here. I have no idea what to do with this bed, right? I remember my wife at the time suggested, well, just throw it up on Facebook, these buy-sell trade, Facebook groups. And I'm like, are you kidding me?

I wasn't a big Facebook guy. But I also knew if I threw something on Facebook and said free, I was just going to get inundated, right? Now, maybe because I didn't have a whole lot of friends on Facebook, but it was surprising. I got more people wanting to give back. What can I do? Can I provide a pillow, a blanket? Here's a mattress. Here's some food. Here's some coats. Blah, blah, blah. The first year we did this, we started taking everything. I mean, it was just going to be a Christmas project. You know, if we're going to bring a bed to a child and someone brought food and brought toys and stuff like that, we were just putting these care packages together. And I really, and I

remember there was more people that wanted to help than people that knew a child because people didn't know. I mean, there was only a few, really, be honest with you. But I remember one friend of mine, Toneil Clarege, who I actually served my mission with in Texas, kind of a social worker. And she knew of a family that would just come out of homelessness, just got this home. And the story, I call it my Haley story. Her name's not Haley, but she was a six-year-old girl that had been sleeping in the backseat of her mom's car since she was born. born. Either that or they were couch diving on friends. I heard that and she was telling me how amazing the mom is. It just seemed like a perfect fit. They lived in a town about 30 minutes away.

So, you know, me and a buddy and we jumped in this car and we were out delivering this bed to this child. Now, I've worked with homeless before. I've seen poverty before. But Mike, I'd never really walked into a house with the concept, the thought process of what does this look like through the eyes of a child. That changes everything. When I walked into this home, there was nothing in the house. There was a milk carton that had a hot plate and a can of soup on it. And that was it. There was nothing else in the house. But this little six-year-old girl, Haley, was happier than a lark that she's got a house. And she's got a bedroom for crying out loud. We didn't tell her why we were there, but I just said, hey, show me your bedroom. And so she pulls me in the back here.

and there's a hard part of the story. You can imagine what you saw, right? You saw holes in the carpet and, you know, scratches on the wall. And in the closet, she had her dolls. Obviously, someone had given her to her. But what really hit me was in the corner, there was just this pile of clothes. And that was her nest.

It was very obvious that that's where Haley slept. She'd come home from school and take her school clothes off and sleep on our school clothes and then put them on in the morning. And I instantly thought about my own daughter, who wasn't far off the same age, just thinking, my gosh, I can imagine she can't be doing very good in school, how embarrassing was for her to bring friends over, which probably would never happen. You know, just all these thoughts kind of rolling into my head. And then I looked over to the mom. And I remember we started bringing in the bed, and Haley got really excited. Once she figured out what we were doing, what we had brought her, she'd never had a bed before.

And we made it very clear this is your bed, Haley. It's not your moms, it's yours. And she just started kissing the bed. It was just amazing. Mike, if you remember on the show how these kids' eyes just light up, if that wasn't special enough, you look over to this mom, and I was raised by a single mom too. Six years of tears are just pouring down this lady's face.

Right then I knew, okay, this is more than just a bed for a child. This is more than just a good night's sleep. we got on the car and started heading home, and here we are, 30-minute drive home, really didn't say much to each other. It was just that impactful. And I just remember two thoughts. The two hours I spent with my kids, those three or four days each night, to solve that problem was well worth my time. And fishing, watching college football, all this stuff on Saturdays just didn't seem like it was that big of a deal anymore. because I remember the second thought I had was no kid is going to sleep on the floor in my town

if I have anything to do with it. And that wound up on a shirt. And I wound up on a shirt. What I didn't realize is I thought that was going to be a pretty easy fix. Because there's a lot more kids in my town and everybody's town than what one guy can take care of. I was attracted to the story when they pitched it to me the first time. This might strike you as odd, but it was a lot. small thing. It was the language thing. And it struck me now listening to you talk when you said

you walked into her bedroom. But what is a bedroom without a bed in it? It's a room. You walked into the room where she slept in a nest made of her clothes. I started to think about that too before I met you. But I'm just thinking, isn't it the word bed is so inculcated into our lexicon that a bedtime story. Well, without a bed, what's at bedtime? It's just a story that you hear in a room. Time for bed, even, right? It's like, they don't say, look, it's time for sleep. They say it's time for bed. So what you do when you get in that bed, well, yeah, maybe you sleep, maybe you read, maybe you think. But if you don't have a bed, then the things that trickle out from that are actually quite mysterious. I wanted to learn what some of that was. The other thing I want you to

acknowledge or maybe talk about that struck me was that was the first RTF episode where I realized that selfishness was a good thing. And hear me out. Chuck's heard me do this before. It's a very kind of Ayn Randi an observation, but so far we've been talking for about 20 minutes. and you talked about the joy of the Boy Scouts when they realized they were involved in the business of building a useful thing, your own joy, the joy of your wife, the joy of your kid,

the thrill of delivering this thing. So not only are you impersonating carpenters, you're impersonating Santa Claus. You're knocking at the door, it's night, and you come in with this thing. And most of all, Chuck, you asked me this an hour ago. You're like, what are you going to talk to Luke about

once we establish the fact that he builds beds for kids in need. And I'm like, you know what? I want to talk to him about the impact on what I understand today is over 100,000 volunteers who are doing this work for reasons that, of course, are virtuous. But I think it's crazy to talk about charitable pursuits and not talk about what's in it for you. Is it weird to love people but despise human resources? If so, well, color me weird. It's not to say I don't respect the millions of people who work in HR departments

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ZipRecruiter.com slash row. ZipRecruiter.com slash row. The smartest way to hire. Oh. And for sure. I'm telling you, man, it happens all of the time. So many people, I don't know whether it's virtue. signaling or just a desire to be seen as a good person. People skip right over the part where they

get paid, not in currency, not in money, but in something that absolutely, I think in your case, compelled you to leave your job. I mean, it's not a small thing. Trust me, we have trained over 309 chapter presidents since RTF. That's unbelievable. And none of these people are paid. When I tell you a chapter president's duty is not an easy duty, it's not. It's many hours a week sometimes. And these guys and gals are all in it for, you're right, not just providing beds for kids. And I don't want to call it selfish. What I call it is the currency that you get from serving others. And I said this when I was a scene in hero, I said this on a lot of our own humans helping humans podcast.

If you want to have true joy, you need to stop looking at yourself and see how you can help someone else out. Now, what happens when you do that is your problems don't go away, but they certainly don't seem as heavy. And that was the currency that I enjoy. That's the benefits and the selfishness that I found when I started doing this. My work, I still worked. I mean, I stopped working in a week before I met you, by the way. is when I quit my job. And it was five years after Sleping NLP started.

So I worked the whole time. And really what kept me going, the currency that really became more important to me was the satisfaction that I was making a difference in the world and that I could see that difference. And so it is, I guess, selfish. Human nature is trying to find ways that we can better our own lives.

And hopefully we do that in a way that betters others as well. Let me say it this way. You're on the plane. There's a sudden loss of altitude. The masks drop from the ceiling. There's a kid sitting next to you. And the kid is scared. And the kid doesn't know what to do.

And you, in that moment, are convicted to do whatever you can to help that kid. The first thing you do, though, is put your mask on yourself. Because you're no good to him if you don't. It's the altruism that makes me a little nervous. And candidly, it's the reason I passed on returning the favor, not twice, but three times. I said, I don't want to do a show that overlooks the importance of putting your mask on first. Because if we don't do that, then we're going to spend a lot of times patting ourselves on the back and throwing parades for nice people. But like, you went from nine chapters, brother, to 309.

And I just don't think any organization can grow like that if the titular head of it is saying, hey, do this because these kids are in need, period, and stop. Need, need, like real want, real need. Those things are real. But they're still not compelling enough to get most people off their sofa and into their garage to do something. So I don't know what the balance is or what the exact mix is. but I just loved to hear you on that show talk about why your volunteers

were lining up to do a hard thing. They were getting something from it, and whatever that something is, is super important. Well, let me put it this way, Mike. This is pretty telling. So when returning the favor aired, February, I think it was 12th or 13th.

I always get the dates mixed up, because anyways. Well, neither one of them is Valentine's Day. Close, but those you are. That's right. What's interesting, since that day, we have received over 5,000, 5,000 new chapter requests. Is people seeing us, hearing us, going to our website, clicking on, starting a chapter, and starting the process. 5,000.

But there's only been 309 show up for training. So that tells you that what happens, I think, is people get that initial excitement for exactly what you said. I want to solve child synthesis, boom. But once they realize that there's a lot of work involved in it, then the need, the supply, or the result isn't as outweighing as the task. I'm laughing because Chuck knows what I'm thinking right now. I bet. Right?

We give away a million bucks a year in work ethics scholarships. We just closed our deadline. I think we've got probably between six and seven thousand people. who started an application, I'll tell you that maybe seven or 800 will finish it. Wow. Maybe. Yeah.

So it blows my mind. And we've looked at this many, many times. And it's continue to work, look at it, try to analyze what takes a person from going to our website, clicking on, I want to start a chapter to not carrying it all the way through. I mean, there's things that we've tweaked to maybe bring a little bit more information to light so they can understand what the benefit is for them. But really, you can't experience that. You can't feel that until you experience that. And we tell everybody all the time, look, if you want to know really what we're talking about, you can watch videos, you can hear from friends all you want.

But until you show up, until you actually be a part of that delivery team or attend that build, it's hard to wrap your mind around just the satisfaction you get out of it. And when returning the favor hit, we called all these NCR's new chapter requests. We call them the first generations. First generation chapter president is someone that never been to a build, never been to a delivery, doesn't know anything about SHP. They just happen to see it maybe on the radio or TV program or what have you. Second generation chapter presence, they're far more prepared is a good way to say it. because they've been to multiple builds. They've been on multiple deliveries.

They've already seen the process and actions. They've already felt the satisfaction that comes from serving. I'm not going to say they make better chapter presents. They just make better prepared chapter presence. And they hit the ground running when they get rolling. One of the big lessons I learned from working on that show, we did 100 episodes before the dust finally settled, was that people talk about the failure rate and the burnout rate for small businesses,

You know, how difficult it is to launch a business. And most reasonable people do get to the point where they understand, okay, the odds are against me. This is going to be harder than I thought. But there's a blind spot with 501Cs. The idea that this charity is going to be easier to run. The idea that the missionary position is going to be somehow easier than the mercenary position, both of which are overrated, underrated, I should say. It's difficult.

I know that you were like an octopus going in a dozen different directions with nine chapters. What are you doing with 309 right now? How are you managing it? I've got a great team. I'll tell you what, I'm not a carpenter. I'm not even a good word worker, to be honest with you. But what I think my skill is, and it came from being in the business world for 20, 20 years is I think I'm pretty good at finding a round peg and a round hole and making it work.

And that is a tribute to my team. And we have over 40 people that are on quote quote staff with us that help us run a 309 chapter organization that operates in four different countries now. Our goal every year is 50,000 beds. Different from the 500 we used to go back when we first met. It's a lot more now than one guy. And I think the shining pivotal point for me in this whole growth, and it happens still today, I go to chapter president training. Here are these people coming to train on SHP.

They have no idea who I am. And that's when I knew we've made it. Or that's when I knew I needed a publicist. Yeah, right. I got a question for you, Luke, about you leaving your job. Now, your job with the water company was a high-paying job, wasn't it? weren't you making good money? Yeah, for Idaho, I was making over $100,000, which some people might not think that's great money, but hey, I'll take it.

It was my retirement. And really, it was more the retirement focus. I mean, buying a multimillion dollar company, when I'm 65, I'm going to be set. And so it was a long term that I was, it was the easiest hard decision I ever had to make. Well, that's what I'm curious about is how did you get the courage to leap? Like Mike said, 501c3s fail as well. So they do. How did you do that?

Well, it was difficult. It came back to the fact that, you know, I liked my job. I quickly learned, you know, I can find other jobs. What I can't find is a passion, not like what I found. And I just couldn't give it up. In fact, it was 2017. The owners of the company came to me and said, you know what? I think you're getting really involved.

We had just started the San Diego chapter. And they said, I think you're getting really involved. This is getting bigger. And they knew me too well. This was the problem. It was they know Luke and he likes to build and build and build and grow businesses. Heck, that was my job at the company. I was vice president of sales and marketing.

They knew that that was my mindset. And they couldn't get me off that mindset. And they were right. Even though I was working in it and after hours and taking personal vacation days to do these things, it was mind-consuming. I can't argue the fact it did drift me away from thinking about my job. And as an employer now, that's what you want as a guy that's focused in on what he's being paid for. So they approached me and said, you know, you really got to tone this back.

This is becoming a problem. And I remember 2017 early on, I went to Jordan Allen, my best friend, cohort. If there's ever a co-founder of Sleeping Every Piece, he'd be the first guy in line. And I said, I've got to step away. My job, my career's in line here. And I just got to step away. That lasted two days. I couldn't.

They had one meeting without me and I said, this is BS. I can't. And so I did my best. You had to step away or you had to lean in. It's like a pop fly, like a foul tip. It's either going up or it's coming down. There's a second, a fraction of a second, where it's doing neither. And I think a lot of people get to that moment in all sorts of decision-making things.

And you try and stretch that moment out into infinity. Because it's nice to just be hovering there, right? Yeah, oh, for sure. Have everything moving around you, but you're just hovering. But of course, that doesn't work. You're either going to get pulled back down to earth or not. You're right. And I remember sitting there, if I can just figure a way to make them both work, right?

And I think when they kind of first threw that big red flag up, my gut reaction is like, I got to protect myself. I got to protect my family. This just isn't my decision, right? This is a family decision. So your gut reaction is, know this. And then it didn't take very long to realize, I can't. So then I spent the next, I don't know, seven or eight months,

doing my best to try to figure out ways to navigate what now was very, very rocky waters. The owner of the company was my stepdad. This was family owned. And so it wasn't just an easy see you later. This affected. You know where I'm going with this. It affected a lot of things. And I remember, I actually really haven't told a lot of this story.

when they approached, what had returning favor call Scott? He was the inside man, right? Or something like that, right? Scott had told my best friend and at the time chairman of the board said, hey, this is happening. Mike Rose come in, blah, blah, blah, return the favor. We got to get Luke to show up for these two days. And I had already kind of spoken with Jordan of this problem, this issue, and had been going on for a while. And he came up and he's like, hey, Luke.

He's like, there's this big thing that you need to be available these two days in November. And I'm like, is this SHP related? He's like, yeah. And I said, Jordan, you know what you're asking, right? I've got to go and ask for two days off, personal days, but two days off. They're going to ask why. That's not going to go very well. And it really didn't.

I don't blame them. At first, I think I had a lot of resentment towards it. You give me an ultimatum. I've got to choose a nonprofit versus my career. You know, first you're kind of at face value to get defensive. But I am so grateful for that. I am grateful that my dad at the time, he kind of pushed me into this, obviously, now,

but more for my own mental health. It was a passion, and I gave a TED talk about passion and purpose and how difficult it can be for people to find those passions and purposes of their life. And I knew I'd been searching it for a long time. I just, I was not going to let it go. it's only the scariest and hardest thing a man can do, right? I wish I had known more of that because I remember after we delivered that bed to those desperately poor people on RTF, we were sitting in the cab of your truck.

And having a similar conversation, I didn't know where you were right in that moment, but I did remember saying something to you along the lines of, this is going to be one of those moments when you look back in a couple of years. and say there was an inflection here. I mean, I'm not a shrink or anything, but it was obvious to me that you were going to have to choose because even in those early stages, I knew we were throwing gas on a flame.

This was one of those endeavors that really anybody has the capability to do. Maybe not the will, but the capability. And I figured if we put it out there, you were going to have to make some sort of a decision. I didn't realize you had already made it. Yeah. Fuel to the flame is right.

Holy cow. RTF was the megaphone that just announced to everybody what they could do in their own hometown. And we learned a lot from what that megaphone did. Sleep in Heavenly Peace, I've always said, I said on the program, it's bigger than one guy. We measure our decision making based on our mission, which is no kid sleeps on the floor in our town. decisions get made based on that mission and it gets based on the fact that this is a community problem the minute non-profits and when i was came home from returning the favor excuse me not returning the favor or seen in hero they gave us a week that we went over to that's called the annenberg alchemy

foundation in california it's non-profit training world-class nonprofit training we learned a lot of stuff there and we learned that we actually did things right not knowing that we did things right for example, a lot of nonprofits have a problem when they first get their idea and they start implementing this mission and it starts growing and growing and growing, well, all of a sudden more people get involved. And the people get involved with nonprofits, they have one curse about them. They're all big-hearted, love to give back to people. And what happens is now they no longer, quote, quote, build beds. They provide desks. And then they provide lights and they provide kitchen utensils and all of a sudden they become a very diluted form of what the original mission was.

And they call it Mission Creep. And I remember when I first started thinking about becoming a nonprofit, I didn't know what that meant. The only nonprofit I knew the executive director of locally was a nonprofit called East End Providers here in Twin Falls. And I went to talk to Cecilia. Now, you'll love this, Mike. Picture this. I don't know how old she was. She was probably, I don't want to be mean. She was probably 65, but she looked 80 just because me. I walked into this house, Mike, and they just got this, you know, run down house, donated to them. It looked like a garage sale. It was floor to ceiling of everything possible. You can think shoes, socks, coats, bikes, just everything. And I walked in here thinking I was going to talk to this

lady about how to run a nonprofit. And I thought, there's no way in hell. I'm going to be able to manage something like this. Because I still had a full-time job at the time. And I remember walking away from that. In fact, I called Jordan right away and I said, we're going to build beds and that is it. It's going to be the only thing we can do and we're going to be the best at it. We're not going to provide teddy bears and books and dressers and anything. It's just going to be beds. And little did we know that that's one of the first defaults or declines in a 501C nonprofit is mission creep. And we've been able to stay very focused in on that. And it's been hard. I mean, we've had chapters from the South, especially who.

who are very religious, very Christian-centered chapters. A lot of our chapter presence are either pastors or preachers or something like that. And they're just good people. And what do they want to do? They want to give Bibles away with their beds. Or they want to write scriptures on the slats. And they do all these things. And I tell you what, it's a hard thing, Mike, to stand in front of 200 pastors and say,

you can't do that, guys. Hey, believe what you want. You know, I'm glad that you have faith. A lot of these people, most of these people, will tell you their test. testimony, their stories of coming into SHP and how God led them to them. And it's awesome. It's a great story and share that. But trying to keep the mission as pure as possible, we deliver beds to kids that don't have them. That's it. We got to stay focused in on that. And I bring that up because when I was making this decision, I knew it was coming. I knew at the time I had a fisher cut bait. I did this

internet search of, are there any other nonprofits? Surely there's other nonprofits that build beds for kids. And it was extremely difficult to find it. There was once in a while I'd come across one. It was a little church that did it one day a year or something like that. But the only one I ever found was an organization called Beds for Kids. And I thought, oh, perfect. That's a great name. And I actually talked to the founder, kind of similar, although I think he made a lot of money and had a chance to do this on the side, if you will. But he started out building beds as well. And very shortly stopped doing that and just started buying beds, which I think was another problem that halters non-profits is when you make it too simple or you start cutting out volunteers.

But I remember talking to me, I said, you know, so what was it that allowed you that got you the courage to stop doing your full-time job and doing this full-time? And honestly, I don't remember really what he said other than I walked away from that going, okay, the decision's going to have to happen very soon. And so I always had that lingering in the back of my mind that I'm still trying to make this work, but I've got to make it simple so I can still do my job. And that really is a culmination of seeing what I saw with this East End provider organization, realizing that I've got to keep this process simple. And all these decisions that went into that, I had no idea was really the foundation that we needed to put down and continue to uphold and hold strong with these other chapter presence coming online. we got to keep the mission statement pure and what we do pure because really we're just providing

a platform for people to do what we do, not doing it for them. It's so important, Luke. I mean, we can talk about microworks a little bit in terms of comparisons. I think it's kind of interesting, but really that whole mission creep thing applies more to dirty jobs than anything else. Dirty jobs had a mission statement, right? Explore the country, look for people who aren't afraid to get dirty, hardworking men and women who do the kinds of jobs to make civilized life possible for the rest of us. There was a lot of mission creep in the later seasons from pressure, both from advertisers and the network and the production company to make it bigger than that, to make it something other than an exploration and an attempt to locate people who weren't afraid to get dirty.

It's a very modest mission when you think about it, you know, but it was my mission. and I stuck with it for better or worse. That show is still on the air now 20 years later. You're right. No kids sleeps on the floor in our town. You get much beyond that. You get over your skis with that, and you're right. You're going to create trouble.

The other difference between us is you were, your job was water treatment. That was your mercenary position. Your missionary position was building beds. Those two things don't occupy. a lot of space on the old Venn diagrams. But I work on shows that celebrate skilled labor and alternative roads to knowledge and enlightenment and hard work. And my foundation does the exact same thing. So I've been super lucky in that I get to run a foundation and have a full-time job because the two are so sympathico. And I've taken that for granted, actually, and listen to.

to your talk just now, I realize how weird it is to have a job and a career that is so completely in line with your foundation. I don't know of anybody else who has done that, which is probably why I haven't had to quit one to do the other. You're right. The federal government is not going to close America's skills gap. They have an important role to play for sure, but if we're serious about reinvigorating the skilled trades on a national level. We need more organizations like Skills USA making a real difference on a local level. These guys have been around since 1965, and today they are relevant like never before, with hundreds of chapters in schools all over the country and hundreds of thousands of students

participating and competing every year. Nobody is doing more to train the next generation of skilled workers than Skills USA. And I'm encouraging you to at least consider being a part of this movement. Skills USA advisors and volunteers aren't just teaching trades. They're launching careers and strengthening the backbone of our country by mentoring the next generation of industry leaders. In high school, you could be among the people who are making this movement explode. Join the skilled trades movement. Support career and technical education programs through Skills USA. There's no better way to do it. You can volunteer at a local chapter. You can start a chapter in your own town. Or you can just go to their website and see the impact for yourself and see, too,

how easy it is to get involved. Thousands of kids are being introduced to the trades in a way that's absolutely positively moving the needle. The goal is a million members by 2030. I think it's doable. I'm doing what I can to help them. Learn more at skillsusa.org slash mic. That's skills usa.org slash Mike. I'm talking skills, U.S. Skills, U.S.S.S. USA. Passion, in my opinion, should be the driving force of what it is that you do. Because if it is, then the amount of zeros that you start out with behind your paycheck, it doesn't mean anything. If it's your passion, trust me, those zeros will show up. And you know what? And if they don't show up in the form of a dollar, it's going to show up in some.

something else because it's your passion. It's what you want to do. And now, years later, sleeping heavily piece as big as it is, I'm able to do this full time as a paid position. And I used to, at first, long time ago, we kind of frowned on that. We wore this badge of honor that said, we're a nonprofit and no one gets paid. And I can't remember the name of the gentleman. I think his name is Joe, something or other. Anyways, he gave this talk about the difficulties non-profits have when they compare themselves to for-profit companies. And I took that to heart. And we actually still use that in our training videos today.

The main purpose that he talked about was, here you have a for-profit company. Let's say a guy makes a million dollars building this violent video game. He gets put on the cover of People magazine, and he's highlighted as an extreme success, and he's making millions of dollars. You put a guy that builds beds for kids and pay him, oh, I don't know, $200,000 or $150,000 a year's salary.

And he's crucified. These donated dollars are going to a paycheck to pay someone a salary. And he says, let me bring another thing to. He says, would you rather pay a guy $30,000 a year to build 150 or 200 beds a year or pay a guy $200,000 a year to build 300,000 beds? And that's really, really kind of hit me that I think we're missing the point. it's hard to find good help in a nonprofit because you're not supposed to pay him. And that's difficult.

You know, the last thing I'll say about this talk, it was really interesting. He says, you know, when you die, what do you want on your gravestone? Hey, we were able to keep management expenses below 20%, you know, or do you want to say, we built a million beds for kids? Once we realized that, and this is interesting, then we started focusing more on what is the return of investment on whether it's an employee or it's a project. Go to Africa. Do we want to go to Africa and build beds?

Because certainly there's a need. But the return on the investment is not near as great as solving a problem, Michigan, you know, San Antonio, whatever. And we look at that, again, it goes back to the mission statement. How many kids can we get off the floor? That's the point. And if it means that we pay someone extra, but we get more kids off the floor, then we've solved our problem.

And your donors deserve to understand that. And as long as it's all transparent, fair dinkum, as they say. I'm sorry, did you say fair dinkum? Fair dinkum. You can Google it. It means it's transparent. Everything's Jake, as they say in New Zealand. Jake, that's a new one.

I totally made that one up. But fair dinkum is the thing. You can absolutely Google that. Devil's advocate. I'm on board with everything you've said. but back to the passion thing for a moment, I don't know what I would say to you had you come to me as a friend years ago

and said, this is my passion, this is what I believe I need to do, this is what I've been called to do, but I knew enough about you to realize that you didn't know a hammer from a nail. You had no head for business, no notion of where to source your wood. And frankly, though I like you

and find you charming on a one-in-one basis, you're not all that inspirational in front of a crowd. So let's say that's my measure of a man, and he tells me his passion is this, but it's obvious to me that his skills are not in line with his desire. How do you advise someone like that? What do you say to the 20-year-old American Idol auditioning, right, who's about to learn for the first time in his miserable life

he can't carry a tune in a bucket? He's been told by everybody who loves him, oh, don't abandon your dream, stick with it and so forth. I'm always interested. I believe you, and I agree, that to be fully invested in something that you're not passionate about is a recipe for misery, real misery. But to be passionate about something you lack the skills to push forward, that's another kind of hell. How do you dance around that little blast of wisdom, Luke Mickelson? It's a good one. It's tough. Let me give you an example. About 2018 and 2019, returning a favor happened. We had about 100 chapters at that time. Just started blowing up.

Man, every week I would get these calls from people, non-profits, or people wanting to start a nonprofit, locally especially. Hey, Luke, can I come talk to you? How did the S.S.P get from point A to point B? How do you do this, right? Blah, blah, blah. And I remember this one guy comes in. He actually did the trailer wrap for our local trailer here. And he comes in, he's like, Luke, I just want to steal a minute of your time. I want to start a nonprofit in the Philippines. And I want to feed the Filipinos.

And I said, you want to feed the Filipinos? That's kind of funny. I have it on excellent authority. They're hungry. Exactly. The guy wasn't Filipino at all. I'm like, are you going over there? I mean, you know, if you can imagine my surprise.

This was not the first time. It wasn't my first rodeo of someone doing that. I felt this guy just did a great job on my trailer. He gave me a good deal. I wanted to spend some time with him. I said, okay, let's sit down for a second. I said, what is it that you want to do? And he's like, well, I just want to provide food for the Filipinos.

I said, okay, how are you going to do that? And I started walking him down this thing. And he's like, well, you know, I want to go over there. I want it to be my full-time job and blah, blah, blah. I'm like, okay, time out. Number one, you realize I've been with SHP for like nine years without $1 being paid. I said, it's great. It's great that you have this passion for this.

But you have to be realistic that passions don't pay very well. I just can't get over the Filipino thing. I looked at Africa. And yeah, there are a lot of hungry kids over there. But screw them. It's the Filipinos. I'm worried about. I don't know if he just saw a program or what the deal.

It was just, I mean, I felt for this guy. You know, I remember my advice to him was amongst a bunch of things. I said, you know what, if I were you. You. The one thing SHP has been really nice is our mission is very pure, very simple, very straightforward. And it's a niche. I said, dude, Mike, you'll love this. I go, you know what, I wouldn't go over there and provide food. I would be like the soup guy. Go over there and like, I'm the soup guy. And so then everybody knows exactly what you supply. It's very easy. I mean, just find your niche over there because there's probably a lot of nonprofits to provide food over there.

Yeah, I got some time on Thursday. I'm going to go feed Manila. Geez. Oh, man. It's one thing to get off your couch, walk into your garage and build a bed because you feel compelled to do it. It's another thing to get on a plane, fly to Manila, start a soup company. I'm glad you said that because that's exactly what I'm talking about. The unintended consequences of a show like returning the favor, they will open the floodgates and they will all come. Can you imagine?

I know the kind of calls you get as a result of doing that show. I did 100 episodes. All right. I walked down the street to get a cup of coffee, and I still hear it every day. I mean, I'm not complaining, believe me, but some people want to do a follow-up to dirty jobs, and they have an idea.

Other people are pretty sure they were born to be in voiceovers. Chuck gets the same question every day. Hey, people tell me I've got a pretty good voice. Where do I sign to start getting paid lots of money to talk like this? And then after returning the favor, it was like, hey, I got an idea. I've got this idea that is going to allow amputees to grow arms. Okay? And the science supports it, and here's how we're going to do it.

And I'm just sitting there shaking my head going, what is happening? How can so many well-intended people genuinely believe that, yeah, so you don't want to discourage them. Oh, I know. And at the same time. I know it. You kind of do. what do you say? And here I am talking to this guy that's in Twin Falls Out. I don't think he's got two pennies to rub together and he wanted to fly over to the Philippines. And I will say, knowing you, Mike has been a little bit of a curse. I can't tell you how many people says, hey, why don't you call up Mike? I've got a great idea for him. I'm like, okay, yeah, I got Mike on speed dial here. Let me do. Good. Hang on. I'll call him. I want to feed the Philippines and Mike Rowe. And Mike, and I've got a new idea for dirty jobs. Oh, I can imagine. While we're shooting that, yeah, we're going to.

feed all the Filipinos. This is going to be great. Let me ask you, since we're talking a little bit about unintended consequences, and this is something that I really wrestled with with the show in general. And to be honest, I saw this in your segment a little bit and realized that you have to make a very conscious decision, not just about what your mission is, but specifically about who it is you're trying to help, right? I don't know if you remember. remember, but every household is different. They're all experiencing various levels of need, I suppose. But the house we visited, there was a parent in an adjoining room where we built those bunk beds. She was lying on a sofa watching television, and it appeared to be a 60-inch high-definition TV.

And I say this with respect. The conditions were. squalid. You've seen it day after day. But that particular home was filled with examples of choices. And those choices did not include beds, right? And so I felt, I wasn't quite sure yet what sort of show I was working on and what kind of conversation I wanted to have with you in that moment. Part of me wanted to go in there and sit next to that parent and say, hey, hey, genius, what the hell? What are you doing? So I guess my question is, how do you not do that?

And do you worry sometimes that this good thing you're doing for these kids might be enabling a long list of bad behaviors among those who are charged with caring for them day in and day out? Yeah, we deal with this a lot, to be honest with you. First of all, when we bring chapter presence to training, one of the first things is, If not the first thing I teach them or tell them is, look, we are here for the kids. We're not here for the parents. You might walk in, not might, you will walk into a house that's got a BMW in the driveway. It's got a 60-inch plasma screen teen on the wall.

Sometimes it's hard not to judge. I remember going to this one house. I took my brother-in-law with me. Same scenario. Walk to this house. Got a bigger TV than him and I combined. And I remember walking out of the house and he kind of complained about it too. and I had found out that that big screen TV was given to that family, donated to that family.

And I think that happens more often than not. Don't get me wrong. There are a lot of people out there. I've seen them. I walk in. The hardest ones, Mike, is when you walk in, you're bringing four beds, two bunk beds to their kids that are sleeping on the floor. And you don't even get off the couch to show me where the room's at. You don't even offer to bring in a pillow.

Those are the tough ones. Again, I tell my chapter presence, I said, you just got to focus in on the kids. If that parent is hiding a million dollars in the closet and is too damn lazy to help his own child out, then I'll get him a bed. Because the child's there because of his decisions, not the child's decisions, his or her. Is there an element, an argument of enabling? I'm sure there is. I'm sure there is somewhere down the road. but I would rather provide a bed for a child, giving them an opportunity, number one, to show them that, hey, there's more people in this world that actually do care about you in the result of your childhood than just your parents.

I'll give you an example again. I'm sitting in the dentist office. This is a couple months ago, last summer. And in walks this lady with this about nine, 10 year old son and sits down. I remember I'm just sitting here kind of waiting, and I look over and she's trying to catch my eye. You know, you get that, they're either trying to figure out who you are, and then she recognized me. She just says, hey, you were sleeping out of the peace, right? I said, yeah.

She says, I want to thank you. You brought me my boy's bed last year. And I remember those are the neat things to realize that these beds stick around for a long time. And just what the impact of that period of time can have on a child that has normally or had otherwise been sleeping on the floor. And so was I enabling that mother or? naming that child, I don't look at it that way. I certainly look at it as I'm just giving him or her that child an opportunity to have a better situation, a better chance, both in school, both in confidence level. And are there some parents out there that just need to be drop-kicked?

Sure. I don't know any better way to say it. Well, this is in no way of judgment. It's an observation that's tortured me over the years. And there's probably great biblical precept examples teaching a man to fish versus giving him a fish comes to mind. But, you know, when you're talking about a kid who's hungry, the first thing you have to do is feed the kid, right? And then maybe think about another thing. I think anybody who runs a nonprofit will have to grapple with that basic question early on. is your primary mission to feed the Philippines, or is it to reward work ethic?

In my world, everything we do is means tested. The whole proposition is, look, there's a whole bunch of people out there who might be in need of a scholarship. But the ones that I'm personally called to assist are those who can make a persuasive case for their own ambition, capabilities and desires.

I wonder, though, sometimes I think, what am I really doing? I'm trying to draw a line where I can say to my donors, look, this is how I'm spending your money. There's rigor, and this isn't for everybody. And there's a moment every month where I usually say to some parent who's outraged that I want their kid to sign the sweat pledge, where I say, look, this particular pile of free money is probably not for you. or somewhere else.

But you can't do that without letting the mission creep bitch up your whole single-minded proposition. If no kid in your town sleeps on the floor, then you can't afford to judge the parents.

You can't afford to judge anything. You've got to do it. And that's interesting to me and probably difficult. I tell chapter presence and they learn the hardest thing that they have to deal with is number one, they'll have two, three, four hundred kids on their waiting list and they've got, I don't know, 50 beds in their inventory. And to try to go and sift through those individual applications and find out which one they think is the best is tough. Meanwhile, while they're comfortably laying

in their own bed, it's a tough guilt-ridden position. But with that being said, they need to focus in on just the kids. I think I've been on, I don't know how many, but the thousands of bed deliveries. I can only remember one where we denied it because the situation wasn't exactly what the application said it was. And so it does happen from time to time where let's call a spade a spade here. Those kids are in those situations because of the decision making of their parents. And quite frankly, those decision makings are difficult. And people find a way to work around things, and we run into that once in a while. But we do our best to try to vet them. We always encourage the chapter presence to try to work with the social working organizations, other service

providers, because they do have probably a better vetting program than we do, because our vetting program is the chapters on the local level, call them, and do the best to try to figure out exactly how bad the need really is. We gave George Bush a hard time years ago when he talked about a thousand points of light. Your organization is exactly what that meant. It's not a government organization. Yes, it evolved out of a church, but the mission is broad enough that it's pretty agnostic. It's a very, very practical organization. So as we start to land the plane here, what do you need that you don't have? And what is the plan over the next two, five, ten years for SHP? It goes back to our mission statement, Mike. No kid is going to sleep on the floor in our town.

And the mission statement actually, it was first our motto. We turned it into a mission statement. And after CNN Heroes, the next day we did this media interview, they were basically telling us, teaching us how to talk with the media. And anyways, they went over the mission statements of each one of these heroes. And they came to SHP. The guy paused and he said, well, this is an interesting mission statement. I don't know what to feel about it. Because most mission statements are the company telling the audience or the customer what the, or the,

organization does. Well, ours is meant for the volunteer to own the mission, not the organization. It's no kid sleeps on the floor in our town. And we want our volunteers to say that because it is a local problem. And what we need really is people to recognize the child businesses is a major problem. Not a real word, but a real problem. And it's a problem in their own town. And if they can, if they would get off the couch. And if this is a passion of theirs, learn how to start a chapter, learn how to help those kids in your own town because that's where it's going to be solved. This farm kid from Idaho in Twin Falls, Idaho isn't going to solve it for you. It's going to be something that's going to be solved locally. And if you have a chapter locally, that's another

big help. Find out a ways to either volunteer. We're right now actually trying to work with a big investment company to try to supply donations on the level of providing storage or warehouses for these chapters to build out of. A chapter that has a warehouse builds almost five times more beds than a chapter that doesn't have a warehouse. And so a lot of these local needs are generated locally or local specific. And so I just encourage people to find your local chapter if you have one and visit with them, see what they need specifically. It really does help when you communicate with the local chapter and they can tell you exactly what their needs are. And finally, what do you say to the man or woman who's sitting there on their couch wondering metaphorically if there's a bed in their garage

they can build, or maybe literally, but that feeling, because we can walk this back and probably find a thousand little inflection points that are fun to unpack. You know, I do that all. I do that the time with this podcast. But it seems to me that you're just agitated. You just wake up agitated because the town's not the way you think it ought to be. And finally, that feeling, you had no choice but to get up off your ass and go in the garage and build a bed. So your advice to people who have that feeling, not knowing if they possess the skill, not knowing if they have the intestinal fortitude, not knowing if they're going to be among the majority who reach out only to realize they don't have what it takes to be a chapter president. What do you say to people who have

that feeling? Yeah. On my own podcast, not a shameless plug here, by the way, but our humans helping humans podcast, we ask almost the same question to every one of the chapter presidents or any other person that we interview is, and it comes out like this is one chapter president said it perfectly, just do something. Get off the couch and do something. Now, It may culminate in you build one bed or you, I don't know, you pick up trash at the local park. And that's the sum of it. At least you did something. This was the highlight of my TED talk was if you don't, if you don't get off the couch, if you don't move or do something, you'll never find really what that passion is.

And then you end up sitting in my office talking about how you want to feed the Filipino people. And it'll never happen. Hey man, you have lit a fire under a lot of people. I'm at a loss to explain the randomness of the circumstances that allowed our paths to cross, but I'm glad they did and at the risk of my own self, shameless promotion and pluggery. I wonder how many kids are in a bed today, thanks to our random meeting. Oh, thousands. We've built over almost 130,000 beds since returning the favor.

And Mike, thank you for that way in here because I want to thank you and returning the favor. Mike, Sarah, everybody that was involved because of that, almost every chapter president, almost everyone that comes to training since then with their motivation was returning the favor. That's amazing. If you think about that, that's 250, 60 chapter presidents at, say, 80, 90,000 kids because of that show. that airing. And thank you so much. Let me tell you something. In a world where I think a lot of people still are waiting for their trophy. I got one. I actually, I want a freaking Emmy for returning the favor. Now, the show is canceled two weeks later, but whatever. Whatever. I got an Emmy. But you know

what else we got? Tens of thousands of bunk beds all across the country. It's an amazing story, brother. It's amazing. Well, thank you. And it's an honor to be just annoyed to call you a friend. And I hope we'll pass across again. I think there's a lot of things that we commonly share, hard work, trade skills, but more importantly, just highlighting great people. And our chapter presidents are the best of the best out there. And if you ever have a chance, I'm trying to get chucked down to our build in California here in a couple weeks. But if anybody ever gets a chance, go see what it's about, I promise you, you'll walk away with a knowledge that you didn't have before of exactly how passionate these people are and exactly how important our mission really is.

General info is what? Sleep and Heavenly Peace.com, SHP, what is? SHP beds.org. You can go there and that has pretty much anything. I mean, we have all sorts of cool programs on there, but you can find your local chapter. You can apply for a bed. If you have a kid that you know that's sleeping on the floor, ages 3 to 17, by gosh, we got a solution for you.

By gosh, you've got to clean up this body mouth, Luke. Honestly, I don't know. We're Chuck's going to be cool. My golly. My golly, yeah. Say hello to anybody who knows me in your travels. Give them all my regards. Really great to see you again.

Don't hang up. We've got to upload this hot mess, assuming you said something cogent. And then Bob's your uncle. It's fair dinkum, Chuck. Fair dinkum indeed. Thanks, Luke. Thanks, Chuck.

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