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Mitzi Perdue: Inheriting a Fortune, and Putting It to Work · All in the Family Office

• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Danik Sharad. Welcome back to All in the
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Family Office. On this podcast, we give you an inside
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: look at the successful families and the fortunes that are
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: moving and shaking things all over the world. Most people
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: are familiar with the family business, but family offices are
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: a somewhat modern phenomenon. that are increasingly influential and always fascinating.
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  Speaker 2: Always fascinating indeed. Hey, everyone.
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  Speaker 3: I'm David Alberts, here with Denny to introduce another incredible discussion.
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  Speaker 3: You know, something that I find so interesting about family
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  Speaker 3: offices is how much opportunity they generate.
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  Speaker 2: You've got multiple.
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  Speaker 3: Generations that create businesses and capital, and if you lay
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  Speaker 3: the groundwork correctly, then this motivation for the people who
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  Speaker 3: inherit to keep things going rather than just spurge on
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  Speaker 3: frivolous comforts.
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  Speaker 1: And today's guest is a perfect example of that. She
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  Speaker 1: came into a lot, some of money at a young
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  Speaker 1: age due to the fantastic success of her family.
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  Speaker 2: But instead of wasting it, she got to work.
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  Speaker 1: And she got to work altruistically as well because she
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  Speaker 1: had the instinct instilled in her that you take care
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  Speaker 1: of your people and they will take care of you.
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  Speaker 1: A rising tide raises all the ships.
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  Speaker 2: I completely agree.
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  Speaker 3: Denny, I've had a fantastic time listening to the Mitzi
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  Speaker 3: Perdue story. As we say in All in the Family Office,
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  Speaker 3: every family has a story and every story has a lesson.
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  Speaker 3: And Mitzi Perdue has a lot to tell the world.
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  Speaker 3: I just love it. Right back from her myth story,
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  Speaker 3: the whole idea that her father bought a hotel after
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  Speaker 3: World War I and the hotel nearly went bankrupt. And
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  Speaker 3: he called in all his employees. What he said to
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  Speaker 3: them all was, I want everybody to keep their jobs.
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  Speaker 3: And that whole theory about you have to inspire people
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  Speaker 3: to do their best and you will have the best
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  Speaker 3: hotel in the city.
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  Speaker 2: What a wonderful way to start a family business.
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  Speaker 3: In this show, one of the key points that we
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  Speaker 3: learn about is how people have gone from affluence to influence.
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  Speaker 3: But hearing Mitzi talk about she only ever flew economy.
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  Speaker 3: And the fact that her mother said, you arrive at
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: the same time, whether you fly economy or business, I
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  Speaker 3: thought was just beautiful. But when she talks about a
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  Speaker 3: ticket in business class costs 10,000, a ticket in economy
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  Speaker 3: costs 1,000. So I get to give 9,000 to somebody
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  Speaker 3: who needs it. And what I thought was incredible was
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  Speaker 3: when she spoke about it gave her the opportunity to
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  Speaker 3: to mix with people that she would never met otherwise.
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  Speaker 3: What an incredible lady that kind of really impacted in
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  Speaker 3: real time the people she came across.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely.
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  Speaker 1: And I can tell you, throughout the years, I interviewed
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  Speaker 1: and obviously met at our conferences hundreds of families. And
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  Speaker 1: one thing I can say about Mitzi is that she always,
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  Speaker 1: with a smile, and, Danny, hi, how are you? She's
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  Speaker 1: always with this energy of, that never stops, which is incredible.
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  Speaker 1: So I am so excited to be here today with
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  Speaker 1: Mitzi Perdue, an author, foreign war correspondent, mental health advocate,
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  Speaker 1: and thought leader on family businesses and multi-generational wealth. She's
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  Speaker 1: also the daughter of Ernst Henderson, one of the co-founders
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  Speaker 1: of the Sheraton Hotel chain. She's also the wife of
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  Speaker 1: the late Frank Perdue, the former president of Perdue Farms
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  Speaker 1: and originator of Perdue Chicken. But beyond these family legacies,
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  Speaker 1: she has made a name and career for herself in
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  Speaker 1: completely different spaces and industries. Mitzi holds degrees from Harvard
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: University and George Washington University. She's authored more than 1,600
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  Speaker 1: newspaper and magazine articles on food, agriculture, the environment, philanthropy, biotechnology,
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  Speaker 1: and women's health, and was a syndicated columnist for 22
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  Speaker 1: years with her weekly environmental columns distributed by Scripps Howard
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  Speaker 1: News Service to roughly 420 newspapers. She has served as
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  Speaker 1: president of the American Agri-Women Organization and as a U.S.
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  Speaker 1: delegate to the UN Conference on Women in Nairobi. She
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  Speaker 1: also served as a commissioner for the National Commissions on
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  Speaker 1: Libraries and Information Science. Mitzi produced and hosted more than
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  Speaker 1: 400 half-hour interview shows on KXTV in California and hosted
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  Speaker 1: and produced more than 300 editions of Mitzi's Country Commons,
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  Speaker 1: syndicated to 76 stations. As an author, her book, Tough Man,
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  Speaker 1: Tender Chicken, Business and Life Lessons from Frank Perdue, reached
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  Speaker 1: number five on Amazon's business biographies list. Today, Mitzi is
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  Speaker 1: one of the most compelling voices on what it takes
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  Speaker 1: to build family legacy that lasts. She's going to share
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  Speaker 1: hard-won insights from two of America's great family dynasties. Mitzi,
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  Speaker 1: welcome to the podcast.
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  Speaker 4: It's a joy to be here. I just hope I
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  Speaker 4: can live up to that introduction, but I'll try.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's so much to talk about. And I love
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  Speaker 1: your story of how Sheraton started with a bunch of
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  Speaker 1: guys out of the army in devastated, I believe it
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  Speaker 1: was Chicago, under a very challenging economical climate. So I
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  Speaker 1: would love to hear your story, how it all started.
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  Speaker 4: The story of Sheraton is my father, he was a
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  Speaker 4: Harvard graduate and his roommate from college. They both served
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: in World War I. And they had war bonuses that
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: totaled $ 1, 000. It was a great big fortune back around 1918. Well,
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: they invested it in this and that. And finally, at
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  Speaker 4: the height of the Great Depression, a hotel came up
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  Speaker 4: in a bankruptcy where you could buy it for five
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  Speaker 4: cents on the dollar. And they thought, why not? When
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  Speaker 4: they bought the hotel, and this was at the height
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  Speaker 4: of the Great Depression, and father was very aware that
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  Speaker 4: that when he took over the hotel on the brink
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  Speaker 4: of bankruptcy, that everybody who worked there was afraid of
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  Speaker 4: joining the breadline. It was a time when 20% of
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  Speaker 4: the people just didn't have jobs, and if you lost
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  Speaker 4: a job, you probably weren't going to get another. So
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  Speaker 4: he invited all the employees to come into the ballroom
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  Speaker 4: of the hotel, and he told them, I want you
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  Speaker 4: to know that every one of you gets to keep
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  Speaker 4: your job. We want you. And the reason we want
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  Speaker 4: you is you know your job better than anybody else
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  Speaker 4: in the country. And my job is to give you
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  Speaker 4: the resources and the encouragement to show people just how
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  Speaker 4: great you are. And you'll see in a few months
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  Speaker 4: this hotel, it's going to turn around and it's going
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  Speaker 4: to be the most popular hotel in the city. The
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  Speaker 4: city at that point was Cambridge, Massachusetts. He gave them
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  Speaker 4: the pep talk. Everybody left. And then the next day
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  Speaker 4: he did what he said was the most important. He said,
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  Speaker 4: you know, the words are really important, but they're just words.
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  Speaker 4: So what he would do, and again, this is with
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  Speaker 4: every hotel he ever took over, the workers would come
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  Speaker 4: to work and they'd just see whole hordes of people
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  Speaker 4: coming in who were painters, plumbers, decorators, and they were
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  Speaker 4: fixing up the hotel. But, and here's the important part,
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  Speaker 4: he told me that the first money he ever spent
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  Speaker 4: on any hotel would be on areas that the public
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  Speaker 4: would never see. It would be the worker elevators, the
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  Speaker 4: worker locker rooms, the worker dining rooms, or the employee
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  Speaker 4: dining rooms. He did that because he wanted to communicate
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  Speaker 4: to them they were what was going to make this
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  Speaker 4: a success and that we were all a team.
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  Speaker 2: Wow.
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  Speaker 4: I discovered really early on, I was the fifth of
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  Speaker 4: five children, what could I do to get attention? And
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  Speaker 4: I found the magic key, which was to ask my
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  Speaker 4: father questions about his business. And thank heaven from my
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  Speaker 4: point of view that I did because I learned such
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  Speaker 4: cool things. And I asked him, why did you promise
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  Speaker 4: everybody they could keep their jobs? And he said, there
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  Speaker 4: are three ways you can get people to do what
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  Speaker 4: you want them to do. You can threaten them. You
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  Speaker 4: can bully them. You can say, shape up or you're fired.
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  Speaker 4: And they'll probably do what you want, but they'll do
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  Speaker 4: it grudgingly and the least that they can get by with.
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  Speaker 4: So he said, that's just not a good thing. Don't
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  Speaker 4: bully them. What about offering them raises if they do
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  Speaker 4: a great job? Wouldn't that be a good thing? And
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  Speaker 4: he said, no. Of the three ways to get people
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  Speaker 4: to do what you want, the first is bullying, the
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  Speaker 4: second is bribing. And he said, bribing, I'll give you
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  Speaker 4: a raise. That's not good either because people will do
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  Speaker 4: what they need to do to get the bribe, but
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  Speaker 4: they won't do more. The motivation is wrong. Of course,
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  Speaker 4: I ask him, what should a person do to get
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  Speaker 4: people to do what you want? And his answer was inspiration.
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  Speaker 4: When he was telling people that they were part of
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  Speaker 4: a team that was going to make this the best
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  Speaker 4: hotel in the city, the bellhop who's carrying your suitcase
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  Speaker 4: or the person who's checking you in or the waitress
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  Speaker 4: or the maid, they're not just doing their job of
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  Speaker 4: carrying suitcases or checking you in or being a maid.
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  Speaker 4: They're now part of a team. And they're going to
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  Speaker 4: be an inspiration to others, showing people that things can
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  Speaker 4: be turned around. And the success of the company was,
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  Speaker 4: depends at every level on the employees. So if you
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  Speaker 4: can get the employees to really buy into what they're doing,
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  Speaker 4: to own it, to take pride in it, boy, you're
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  Speaker 4: ahead of the game.
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  Speaker 1: I want to ask you a different question. You wrote
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  Speaker 1: a book about your late husband moving to Purdue. He
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  Speaker 1: took over the business from his father, who founded the company.
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  Speaker 1: What do you think was his greatest contribution to the business?
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  Speaker 4: Okay, I want to be as fair as I can.
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  Speaker 4: I think his father was an utterly, completely, amazingly honest, farsighted,
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  Speaker 4: foresighted person. I think Frank had more fire in the belly.
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  Speaker 4: When Frank joined the company, there were no employees. At
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  Speaker 4: the time of Frank's death, there were 20,000. So I
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  Speaker 4: do believe that it was Frank who built on what
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  Speaker 4: he calls the solid foundation of, he was very proud
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  Speaker 4: of his father's utter honesty, utter fair play. But as
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  Speaker 4: an example, it's a puzzle to me that a man
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  Speaker 4: who grew up in a small farming community And the
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  Speaker 4: farm that he lived in was several miles away from
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  Speaker 4: the town even. So they'd go to town like once
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  Speaker 4: a week. How did somebody from such a small town
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  Speaker 4: background figure out how to act in New York and
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: get into the advertising world and become an advertising icon?
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  Speaker 4: How did somebody grow so much so fast with no
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  Speaker 4: background whatsoever? I find that mysterious. I always thought that
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  Speaker 4: Frank's gift was seeing how to get from here to there.
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  Speaker 4: And what I mean by that is he learned from
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  Speaker 4: his father that he wanted to have his chicken stand
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  Speaker 4: out for quality. He felt that he had put a
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  Speaker 4: lot of effort into making the best chicken possible, but
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  Speaker 4: it costs more. They need more room. They need more care.
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  Speaker 4: They need more attention. How do you charge more unless
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  Speaker 4: you communicate with the buyer what's better about them? And
• 11:36
  Speaker 4: so he was smart enough to figure out that you
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  Speaker 4: need to advertise. You know, if you're going to communicate
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  Speaker 4: your story, it's not enough to be excellent on your own.
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  Speaker 4: If you want nationwide sales, you better advertise. So what
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  Speaker 4: he did, which I take to be just amazing, is
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  Speaker 4: he took off from running his chicken company to spend
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: six or eight weeks just full-time in New York, total immersion,
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  Speaker 4: studying everything he could about advertising. He joined an association
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: of advertisers. He joined a library that had all the
• 12:06
  Speaker 4: information you can think of about advertising. And then he
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: went around and interviewed radio and television stations. You know,
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  Speaker 4: what makes a good ad? And then he'd interview the butchers.
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  Speaker 4: What would move you? What's important? And he had lists
• 12:19
  Speaker 4: and lists. Today, it would have been on spreadsheets or
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: FileMaker Pro or something. But I've seen, you know, he
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  Speaker 4: had like thousands of little entries of what made a
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  Speaker 4: good ad. And then... how do you choose the best
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  Speaker 4: advertising agency? And he got as far as investigating 63
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  Speaker 4: different ad companies before he chose one. So this man,
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  Speaker 4: he figured out how to get from here to there.
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  Speaker 4: If he needed to let the world know that his
• 12:45
  Speaker 4: chickens were great, he needed a good advertising company. So
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  Speaker 4: he put the effort into learning how to do it.
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  Speaker 2: Amazing.
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  Speaker 1: Now your bio says you were a former rice grower
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  Speaker 1: at one point. Can you talk about this experience? How
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  Speaker 1: does a hotel Harris becomes a rice farmer?
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  Speaker 4: I love to joke, doesn't every Boston debutante want to
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  Speaker 4: be a rice farmer? And in case that answer doesn't
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  Speaker 4: satisfy you, I can give you a more realistic one.
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  Speaker 4: Father died fairly young. He was 70 years old. Which
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  Speaker 4: meant that I suddenly came into an inheritance. By the way,
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  Speaker 4: my five brothers and sisters did pretty much the same
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: thing that I did. None of us went out and
• 13:20
  Speaker 4: bought private jets, racehorses and yachts and things. To this day,
• 13:24
  Speaker 4: this may shock you, but I still go economy class
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: because we were taught that you get your identity through service,
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  Speaker 4: not through spending. And nobody wins points in either the
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: Henderson or the Purdue family for slathering money around. It's
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  Speaker 4: totally acceptable to spend your money on philanthropy or for
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: things that contribute, but neither family is extravagant. In my case,
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  Speaker 4: so suddenly I've got the responsibility of a whole lot
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  Speaker 4: of money. I could have put it in the stock
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  Speaker 4: market and hired a fancy advisor. I thought I'd do
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  Speaker 4: something else. And I started thinking, what if I were
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: to buy rice land? It would be as an investment,
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: but I would make it available to researchers at the
• 14:10
  Speaker 4: university to find ways of growing rice in a more
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: ecological way. And before buying the first property, I spent
• 14:19
  Speaker 4: four years at the university studying agronomy, rural appraisal, agricultural accounting,
• 14:26
  Speaker 4: and just everything that I could get my hands on
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  Speaker 4: before I invested a great big pot of money into
• 14:33
  Speaker 4: agricultural land. And I feel as if I copied my
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  Speaker 4: father a little bit because I bought one piece of
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: land after four years. It did well enough so that
• 14:43
  Speaker 4: with the profits of that, I bought more. And pretty
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: soon I had $ 10, 000. fairly large farms.
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  Speaker 1: But what I really want to understand, it's so minor
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: versus the inheritance to buy another first class ticket. So
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: why wouldn't you enjoy life and buy a first class
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: ticket and buy a fancy car? I admire that, but
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  Speaker 1: I really want to understand. And my second question would be,
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  Speaker 1: is that all in your second generation? And the third generation,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: maybe spenders enjoying themselves saying, hey, I don't care about
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: my parents. I want to enjoy my life if I can.
• 15:17
  Speaker 4: In both families, as far as I can tell, all
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: of them emphasize being frugal. Part of why I go economy,
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: if you only hang out with first-class situations, you get
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: too isolated from the world. I also use subways here
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: in New York. I don't want to live too much
• 15:35
  Speaker 4: in a bubble. And the other thing is always I'm
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: feeling that if I go economy, it's $ 1, 000. If I
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: went first class, it would be something like $ 10, 000. I'd
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: much rather give the $ 9, 000 away to a charity.
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  Speaker 2: Wow, beautiful.
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  Speaker 1: And you think these ideals went to the next generation
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  Speaker 1: as well?
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it is. Frank Perdue, until he was 80,
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: and his doctor said, you must, he went economy. And
• 15:59
  Speaker 4: if anybody in the world has ever earned first class,
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: it was Frank Perdue. But he didn't succumb to first
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: class until his doctor said, in your 80s, you really
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: should have more leg room and ability to move.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: You once said you noticed similarities between your father and Frank.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: What were some of those qualities that you think they
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: both shared? Which ones do you attribute to their success
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: in business?
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  Speaker 4: I thought they were both kind of equally amazing. First
• 16:27
  Speaker 4: of all, to me, it's kind of shocking that father,
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: who was in the hospitality industry, he was at his
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: core very shy. And with Frank, We once took a
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: personality quiz. It was from the local university and they
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: were just sort of trying to figure out the characteristics
• 16:45
  Speaker 4: of a super eminent entrepreneur. So we took this test
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: together and there were probably 20 questions. And very, very
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: often on all the questions, I felt that if his
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: went up, mine went up. We tracked each other. His
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: result was more than me, but it was similar with
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: one exception. And that is, There was a question that
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: was designed to bring out whether you're energized by being
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: with people or whether it takes effort. And in my case,
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: the best in the world is to be with a
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: crowd of people that I like and interacting and joking
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: and whatever. I grew up in the hospitality. I love
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: this stuff. He, on the other hand, he was good
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: at it. He didn't shrink from it. But for me,
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: it's energizing. For him, it was draining. And I felt
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: that my father was a lot that way also. My mother,
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: on the other hand, was a Southern belle and was
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: the most hospitable person the world's ever known. And it
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: was a case of opposites attract. But under her guidance,
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: he could do and say all the right things. But
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: at heart, he was, to the end of his days,
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: a kind of shy man. And I would describe Frank
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: the same way. They were both really good at it.
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  Speaker 4: But it wasn't deeply innate the way I think it
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: is with me and my late mother.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: And by the way, speaking of family offices, how did
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: both families treat that? How did they structure it? What's
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: the difference perhaps between them?
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: The Hendersons, since we've been in business for 1840, it's
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: slightly less formal what Purdue's do because we just continue
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: with what we've done generation after generation. I think Eric
• 18:17
  Speaker 4: Henderson might be the sixth or eighth head of the
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: family office. And The way it works is he has
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: all the latitude in the world. He reports to us
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: shareholders at least once a year, and he's always done brilliantly.
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: And so it's somewhat informal. The produce, on the other hand,
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: it's much, much, much more formal and more professional, and
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: both ways work very well.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: And Purdue, by the way, is still owned by the
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: family and Sheraton was sold.
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: Purdue is owned by the family. Sheraton, on the other hand,
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: we did sell the company, but we still invest together.
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: And I'd pick my nephew, Eric, above anybody in the
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: planet for doing well. I joke with him all the
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: time that he is enough to make me believe in reincarnation.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: Really?
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah, because he sees elaborate reports of what the market
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: is doing and what you might expect and what's pushing
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: it this way and what's pushing it that way and
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: why we did this. And I write to him and
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: I say, Eric, it feels as if I'm listening to
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: my father. They both have very analytical, clear-thinking approaches.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: I want to get to a couple of more interesting stories.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: Do you think your background as a farmer aided the
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: growth of Purdue Farms? Was there any connection between the two?
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: Actually, extremely little because... What are the chances of I
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: telling a genius like Frank Perdue anything? Except I did
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: do one thing that I think really worked. out well.
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: When we were first married, we had just come back
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: from our honeymoon, and I suggested to him, having grown
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: up in the hospitality industry, I told him, Frank, I
• 20:00
  Speaker 4: think we should entertain every single person who works for
• 20:03
  Speaker 4: the company, and I think we should do it in
• 20:04
  Speaker 4: our homes. And he thought that was a terrible idea.
• 20:07
  Speaker 4: He said, there's 16,000 people, which there were in 1988.
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: You know, we can't possibly do that. And I pretended
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: that I hadn't heard him say no. And I said,
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: I think we should have them 100 at a time.
• 20:19
  Speaker 4: And he said, no, that's way too many. And I said...
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: I think we should start with the secretaries because they
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: can tell everybody else that our parties are fun and
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: not scary. Oh, and then I said, this being August,
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: I bet we could put it together by the end
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: of September. No, that's way too soon. Anyway, by the
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: end of September, we started entertaining people in our home
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: 100 times, three times a month, and would have them
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: in groups like the truckers or the live hall people
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: or the veterinarians or the secretaries. Wow. And it was
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: the coolest thing in the world. I told you that
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: I felt Frank was a fairly shy man, but when
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: he had a hundred people in his home, he would
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: talk with each of them. And then something that I'm
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: so proud of, I could burst. Here they are in
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: our living room with long card tables set up, covered
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: with tablecloths so that there's a buffet line. And Frank
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: Perdue would stand behind the buffet line with other waiters
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: serving people. He would be waiting on his employees. Is
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: that not amazing? And then at the end of the evening,
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: he would always give a report to 100 people of
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: the good, the bad, and the ugly, what was really
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: going well, what was carry your hair out kind of thing.
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: And my feeling is that anybody listening to this would
• 21:37
  Speaker 4: just feel, oh, I'm part of something so big and
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: so complex and so important and so good. And then
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: he'd invite people to ask questions.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: We have an office at the World Trade Center with
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: friends of ours that you know well as well, the Silversteins.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: And every Thursday, the Silverstein family and the top management,
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: they have a buffet and they serve food every time
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: a different member of the family to the employees. So
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: I think it's brilliant. Now, you are a foreign war correspondent.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: When I first heard that you're going to Ukraine and
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: other places at the height of the war, I was like,
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: but why would you need that, Mitzi, with all these
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: crazy things going on? You're an environmental advocate, the founder
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: of a global mental health organization. Just to name a
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: few points on your resume here and why.
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: Why?
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: And saying you care about it, but you're risking your life.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: You're not just doing philanthropy. You're basically going to a
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: war zone.
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: Why? First of all, Just because I'm 84 doesn't mean
• 22:36
  Speaker 4: I've lost a taste for adventure. Right now, at this point,
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: I've had published 299 stories on Ukraine. And my particular
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: beat is, because I am a journalist, something like 10%
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: of them were written in bomb shelters in cities under
• 22:53
  Speaker 4: active attack. And so, yeah, there is a whiff of
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: danger to it. I do it because my particular beat
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: is telling the human side of the war. I've been
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: five times and I hope to go six times shortly.
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: I'm always the guest of the Ukrainian National Police. And oh,
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: I've got to boast, I am an honorary Ukrainian policewoman. Wow, congratulations.
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: How's that for a status level? Amazing. But so many
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: of the people that I talk with, I feel if
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: I didn't tell their stories, their stories would be lost
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: and their stories shouldn't be lost. Actually, that's how I
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: got to found a mental health organization. It's called Mental
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: Health Global. And The chief advisor for it is General Petraeus.
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: And it came about the following way. I interviewed a girl.
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: She was 14 at the time. And I'm in the
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: police station in an interview room because when I go
• 23:45
  Speaker 4: to a town like Butchar, Irpin, or wherever, the word
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: spreads that there's a journalist who wants to hear your story.
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: And people come to the police station and there I
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: am writing it down. And the stories I write do
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: get published. But in this case, Here I am with
• 24:01
  Speaker 4: a 14-year-old girl, and there's a translator, and she tells
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: me a story that's so horrific. She had watched both
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: her parents be randomly machine guns down for no reason,
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: and they bled out in front of her. And she's
• 24:16
  Speaker 4: orphaned now. And among the things that I picked up
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: listening to her, I have her for half an hour,
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: and she was describing as if it happened to somebody else.
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: And From a psychological point of view, she's dissociating. And
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: it takes a lot of effort to trying to pretend
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: it happened to somebody else. If somebody with trauma that
• 24:36
  Speaker 4: serious doesn't get counseling, they're extremely likely to handle the
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: tension with alcohol or drugs. Now, I don't want it
• 24:45
  Speaker 4: to happen to her. So after she's left the interview room,
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: I asked the police translator, will she get counseling? And
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: the police translator said, there are millions of people with
• 24:55
  Speaker 4: equally severe trauma We have almost no psychiatrists or psychologists
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: or mental health professionals. And here's the words that haunted me.
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: She's on her own. I started wondering if artificial intelligence
• 25:09
  Speaker 4: could help fill the gap between the people with need
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: and the people who can't afford it or there just
• 25:15
  Speaker 4: aren't any there. So I came up with an idea
• 25:19
  Speaker 4: of having something like CHAT-GPT, an artificial intelligence that's trained
• 25:24
  Speaker 4: in Ukrainian by Ukrainians Right now, today, we're piloting it,
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: but you can get mental health advice from your smartphone.
• 25:35
  Speaker 4: You don't have to download anything, and it's military-grade security.
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: And the testing that we've been doing it on, if
• 25:42
  Speaker 4: it continues like this, it's going to make a huge
• 25:44
  Speaker 4: difference in mental health because people can get advice like
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: at three in the morning, free, seven days a week.
• 25:51
  Speaker 4: And We have memorandums of agreement to be partners with
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: the Department of Defense, the Ukrainian National Police, the first responders,
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: the Ministry of Digital Transformation.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: While being in Ukraine, did you almost... feared for your
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: life that you were in the middle of a strike?
• 26:09
  Speaker 4: I was told by the third time I went that
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: I had written things that the Kremlin didn't like and
• 26:14
  Speaker 4: that I was on the murder list. And I heard
• 26:16
  Speaker 4: from three different people. Like I heard from a guy
• 26:18
  Speaker 4: in China, heaven knows how he knew, but I was
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: on the murder list and don't go. But I assumed
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: that there were probably half a million people on the
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: murder list and that they wouldn't get around to me.
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: So I went. The Ukrainian police took it seriously enough
• 26:33
  Speaker 4: that they had four People with AK-47s with me, bodyguards
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: the whole time. Nothing happened. But I went to Poland
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: from Kyiv and I checked into the Warsaw Marriott and
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: I had the key in my hand and I'm walking
• 26:48
  Speaker 4: up to the elevator and I see two people standing
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: by the elevator and some instinct, the spidey sense, told
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: me don't get on the elevator with them. So I didn't.
• 26:59
  Speaker 4: But that's not the end of the story. I'm holding
• 27:01
  Speaker 4: my key. I walk away as if I'd forgotten something,
• 27:04
  Speaker 4: wander around the lobby for half an hour, come back.
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: They aren't there. I get on. They get on the
• 27:11
  Speaker 4: second floor. Oop. And then what I'm about to describe,
• 27:17
  Speaker 4: I don't remember, but it's happened to almost 100 other journalists.
• 27:20
  Speaker 4: So one of them bumps up against you and the
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: other injects you with Novotek. I get off the elevator.
• 27:28
  Speaker 4: I make my way to my room and I'm feeling
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: a little bit funny. By the time I get to
• 27:32
  Speaker 4: my room, I'm having the worst trouble breathing you could
• 27:35
  Speaker 4: possibly imagine. And I know that this is really serious
• 27:39
  Speaker 4: and that I should roll over to the bed and
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: pick up the house phone and say, help, can't breathe.
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: I couldn't do it. I didn't have the energy. But
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: my fingers were still working. And I texted a Polish
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: friend saying, help, can't breathe, room 409, Warsaw Marriott. And
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: he immediately called the front desk. And then something that
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: saved my life, a coincidence, the airport ambulance was in
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: the driveway of the hotel. And the desk guy went
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: running out and told the emergency medical technicians about my case.
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: They came running to me. They opened the door to
• 28:15
  Speaker 4: the room and then they just jumped across the room
• 28:18
  Speaker 4: and they smashed an oxygen mask over my face. And
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: they grabbed my wrist and they quickly injected me with
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: what I think was epinephrine. thinking that it was anaphylactic shock.
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: No results. I'm having more and more trouble breathing. I'm
• 28:32
  Speaker 4: sinking fast. They inject me again with the same thing. Again, nothing.
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: And then the room's going black at this point, but
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: I see them. Suddenly it's gotten really serious and they
• 28:43
  Speaker 4: go through their medical bags and they pull out something else.
• 28:47
  Speaker 4: And it turns out that all the emergency medical technicians
• 28:51
  Speaker 4: in Warsaw have atropine, which is the antidote to Novichok.
• 28:55
  Speaker 4: And they have it because The Polish drug cartels and
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: the Russian drug cartels are having a turf war and
• 29:02
  Speaker 4: they knock each other off with Novichok. So they had
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: the antidote and they gave it to me. And, you know,
• 29:09
  Speaker 4: in a matter of minutes, I could breathe again. But
• 29:11
  Speaker 4: I was too sick to travel for about five days.
• 29:14
  Speaker 4: I was sleeping like 19 hours a day. When I
• 29:16
  Speaker 4: finally got back, the doctors were swarming all over me
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: and half a lung wasn't working. My gums were so
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: inflamed that I was about to lose all my teeth,
• 29:25
  Speaker 4: my heart. was racing. But within a couple of months,
• 29:28
  Speaker 4: it all resolved and I'm fine and I'm going back.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: And by the way, you were not scared going to Ukraine?
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, you're going to a war zone? I mean,
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: your family, your kids didn't tell you, mommy... what the hell?
• 29:41
  Speaker 4: Well, yes.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: So speaking of your kids, as a parent yourself, what
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: lessons about working with family do you hope your children
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: would have learned from you?
• 29:51
  Speaker 4: I'm going to quote what I think is an old
• 29:54
  Speaker 4: New England saying, but maybe the world knows it, but
• 29:56
  Speaker 4: I grew up with it. He who loses money loses nothing.
• 30:01
  Speaker 4: He who loses health loses something. He who loses character
• 30:06
  Speaker 4: loses everything there is. So my advice to them, what
• 30:10
  Speaker 4: I hope they've learned is do the right thing. Be
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: a straight shooter. Keep your self-respect.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: And what about working within the family? Do you think
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: your kids might end up working together in a family business?
• 30:24
  Speaker 4: Oh, they do work together in the family vineyard. And
• 30:26
  Speaker 4: five years ago, they converted 90 acres into olive oil.
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: And that's been a fabulous investment.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: The word relentless can have a lot of connotations. What
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: does it mean to you? What does it look like
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: for successful people?
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: Okay, of the three big men in my life, my father,
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: my husband, and my friend, Mark Victor Hudson, success didn't
• 30:49
  Speaker 4: just drop in their laps. They were so persistent. I mean,
• 30:53
  Speaker 4: I once asked my father, what was the secret of
• 30:55
  Speaker 4: your success? And one of the answers he gave was
• 30:58
  Speaker 4: he felt that his competitors might give up on a
• 31:01
  Speaker 4: project after trying 20 times. He'd do it 100 times.
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: perseverance was a big thing. And Frank Perdue, my goodness,
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: the effort he put into things, like when he was
• 31:12
  Speaker 4: getting into advertising chickens, nobody had done that. The wisdom
• 31:16
  Speaker 4: of the world at that point was that you don't
• 31:18
  Speaker 4: advertise a commodity. Then he thought, but how am I
• 31:21
  Speaker 4: going to tell my people who would be buying my
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: chicken how good it is unless I advertise? And Mark
• 31:27
  Speaker 4: Victor Hansen, his book, which has been a Guinness Book
• 31:30
  Speaker 4: of World Records for selling more than half a There
• 31:35
  Speaker 4: were like a couple of hundred publishers who turned it down,
• 31:38
  Speaker 4: who said nobody would buy this. But he didn't give up.
• 31:41
  Speaker 4: He was relentless. What if that's one of the biggest
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: aspects of success? Well, you have to be smart and
• 31:48
  Speaker 4: you have to figure out to head in the right direction.
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: But after that, you're relentless.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: You got to keep on going no matter what.
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: I would love to also include another question here, which
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: I always like to ask. What's your favorite book? What's
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: your favorite film? What really motivates you and inspires you
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: to keep on going?
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: Okay, book that inspires me. Mother Teresa's biography. Somebody who
• 32:12
  Speaker 4: really wanted to do good. Kennedy said men's reach... exceeds
• 32:16
  Speaker 4: his grasp. So the fact that I admire her and
• 32:19
  Speaker 4: am inspired by her doesn't mean that I have any
• 32:22
  Speaker 4: illusions that I'm like her, but I still think that
• 32:26
  Speaker 4: her life is a good thing to aim for. There
• 32:28
  Speaker 4: was a time when I read two biographies the same week,
• 32:32
  Speaker 4: just by coincidence. It happened to be in 1985 and
• 32:34
  Speaker 4: it changed my life. Biography of Napoleon Bonaparte. At the
• 32:39
  Speaker 4: time when he was emperor, He had more money, power, status,
• 32:43
  Speaker 4: territory than probably anybody had ever had before. He just
• 32:47
  Speaker 4: had it all. Mother Teresa, with her vow of poverty,
• 32:51
  Speaker 4: she only owned four things, three cotton saris and the
• 32:55
  Speaker 4: sandals on her feet. She gave her life to taking
• 32:58
  Speaker 4: care of the poor. And by the way, she had
• 33:01
  Speaker 4: a vow of obedience and a vow of chastity. So
• 33:04
  Speaker 4: could you have two people more different than Napoleon and
• 33:07
  Speaker 4: Mother Teresa? How did it work out for them? Napoleon
• 33:10
  Speaker 4: said at the end of his days that he couldn't
• 33:13
  Speaker 4: count five happy days. And Mother Teresa, with poverty, chastity, obedience, service,
• 33:21
  Speaker 4: she said, my life has been a feast of unending joy.
• 33:24
  Speaker 4: Which would you rather have, a feast of unending joy
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: or I can't count five happy days?
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: And film, is there a favorite film?
• 33:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah, this will be out of character, but I absolutely
• 33:34
  Speaker 4: love the Godfather series. I love it because it's a
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: story about family business. It's a story about power. It's
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: brilliantly done. Yeah, so anybody who cares about family business,
• 33:46
  Speaker 4: go see the Godfather series.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: Mitzi, thank you so much for sharing those amazing stories.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: I hope to see you soon at one of our
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: future shows. Thank you so much for being here.
• 33:56
  Speaker 4: It's been sheer joy being with you. Thank you.
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 34:01
  Speaker 4: All in the Family Office is a Bubbler Media iHeart
• 34:04
  Speaker 4: Podcast production.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: If you're not in the conversation, you're not in the game.