Latest / Hart & Hustle Podcast / Why Most People Get Legacy Wrong and How to Fix It
Transcript
- Efrain: Welcome back to another episode here on the Heart and Hustle Podcast. I'm Ephraim. This is Dan. How are you doing today, sir? Dan: I am really doing well. Thanks for having me on. Efrain: Same, I appreciate you coming on, man. You were telling me how active you were over the weekend, Dan. Are you trying to keep up with the kids? Dan: I was. Efrain: Is that what it is? Dan: Well, no, my kids are older now, but now I got a grandbaby on the way in a couple of weeks. So I I've got to stay active at least for another few years to keep up with them. Efrain: yeah. How does that make you feel, man? Granddad, even saying it out loud like that. Dan: It makes me feel great. I I have been looking forward to this ever since so every every time we had a kid and they would get to be like two, one or two, and they're not a baby, like they're walking around now. They're I'm like, man, we need another baby in the house. Efrain: Ha ha ha. Dan: So of course that ended, you know, with my youngest who's now 18 years old, and now so I'm I'm happy to get get another baby in the family. Efrain: How how many kids you have, Dan? Dan: I have four daughters. Efrain: my god, you got in trouble. You had four daughters? Dan: I did, but you know what? I lived and live like a king. they they they just treat me like royalty, so I I really get I really get good treatment with Fortnite. Efrain: I guess I can see that. Cause I only have one daughter and the way she treats me, it's like, my god, I work for her. Dan: There's a little bit of that. There's there's a little bit of that, but it's it's a trade off. Efrain: You look good too, man. You're talking about being a granddad, man. What keeps you Dan: Yeah. Efrain: looking so good? Dan: pr I I have to say number one, a great wife. She feeds me well, she treats me well, she takes good care of me. I mean, she she really has been the most amazing partner a man could ask for. I think that's number one for me. But work I think working with kids too, it keeps you young. So Efrain: Yeah. Dan: that that's probably part of my recipe. Efrain: You you you got some good points when you go home. She's gonna hear this and realize, honey, you didn't have to say that. I Dan: See? I'm I'm I'm playing a long gaming free. Efrain: love it, man. And and what's the organization you represent, Dan? What is the organization that you're a part of and what is your role? Dan: It's called Key of Hope. and my role is founder and executive director. My wife and I founded it back in two thousand seven. So coming up on our twentieth anniversary here in a couple of months. Efrain: What does it look like to chase passion and purpose for almost twenty years, man? Cause we've talked offline, you do some great work, we'll Dan: Yeah. Efrain: get into it. But how does it feel really to kinda chase that passion and purpose for so long? Dan: I I mentioned playing the long game with my wife, but I I ser on a serious note, th it's for me, passion and purpose has has always been about the long game. Whether that's with raising my own daughters and and always telling ourselves and and actually telling them like I'm not your friend. I I wanna be your friend when you're twenty-five, thirty. So right now we're not friends. but playing the long game and and so chasing passion and purpose through key of hope has been really a lot. the same idea. for us, 10 years, a decade, we consider that one lap, one lap around the track. And so for me, it's just been not not getting too low in the valleys, but you know, you also, although you celebrate the winds you you don't allow that to define your your existence either. Chasing passion and purpose for me has been about faithfulness and keeping at it day after day and letting those bricks add up and and eventually build something great. Efrain: And let the people know that are listening or watching, what exactly is Kia Hope? What does that look work look like on a day-to-day? Dan: Yeah, we are all about long-term and we say lifelong mentoring relationships. So we do that a di a bunch of different ways. so we we visit every one of the children and young people that's involved in our program at home every week. And then we have after school and weekend programs that we bring them into. But every single thing we do, whether it's feeding or assistance or or choir or whatever it might be, it's all about long-term mentoring relationships. And in a nutshell, that's that's really what we do. It looks like it's a lot. you look at our website or you'd be there on the ground in South Africa or Kenya, it looks like, man, there's a ton going on here. But every every string ties back into that core, which is long-term relationship. Efrain: Why why is that so important to you, Dan? Dan: I I think for me that's how we're wired. You know, I I I think we are all created in the image of God, and God is love, and love requires another person. it's it it's a it's an idea that I think started in the in the Garden of Eden itself with God wanting a relationship with Adam and Eve, and that hasn't stopped. And I think for us as people, we're wired for relationship. And where we work in South Africa and in Kenya, that that is such a lack in many of our kids' lives, some of them in childheaded households, living literally on their own with with no relationships, family or otherwise. and providing that filling that gap and and providing those relationships to me has just been the most powerful tool that I've seen for making a difference not only in an individual life, but But just in the world, just through relationship. I'm my my family is probably where I've got that. I'm the oldest of 14 kids and a lot of relationships in a family with 14 kids. And they evidently, you know, one day you're getting along with your sister and not your brother, and then next week that switches. Efrain: Ha ha ha ha. Dan: And you know, we're we're still all all close today and the power of relationships that I that I learned through my own family and and how that impacted us. really still guides me, in day to day decisions, even now. Efrain: Do you think that's where it kind of started for you? Just the feel the family aspect of things, the mentoring, the giving back. I mean, 14 siblings, mom and dad, that was a task on its own. But you got to see how they poured into you guys different characters, different levels of your life. Dan: Yeah, it it's true. key of hope in in so many ways for for our kids becomes a family. And that that model stems from my own family. So my mom had six of us, so six biological siblings and then eight adopted siblings. And we always had Efrain: Mm-hmm. Got it. Dan: other people around the house too. there was always somebody extra in the house, and you sometimes you didn't even know it. There's so many people that in one or two extra, it's like doesn't even make a difference. they're just they're just part of the crowd. And With Key of Hope, it's it's been that same kind of dynamic where it's just an open family. And if you want to be a part of this, you're welcome. and so, so yeah, that really is where where it all finds its roots for me, is in in the in the family that I grew up. Efrain: What what do you learn from seeing cause I'm adopted as well? I I would always really I guess intrigued on how the other person that is adopting or being the adopted brother, right? what is that feeling like? Like, do you n is it anything different? Is it seeing people for who they are? Like, what are you really learning through that life? Dan: Yeah, that's a great question. for for us, six is already kind of a big family. I mean, you we were Efrain: Yeah, a hundred percent. For sure. Dan: so we always kind of had that dynamic of you we're a large family. So when we when my parents started adopting, we we didn't necessarily feel like, now we have to compete for attention or you know, who's who's gonna get you know new clothes this week or My parents just always did a really good job of dividing their attention and resources across all of us. And so that that I think is something that they they gave us where we didn't we didn't feel like we were competing with one another. Efrain: Mm-hmm. Dan: Secondly, most of my adopted siblings came came out of really difficult, tough situations, family situations here locally in the in the Detroit area. And so Seeing seeing that really gave us a sense of appreciation for what my parents were building in our household. and so it gave me a perspective of not taking for granted everything we had. I I I think you know, I look at a lot of American, Western young people today, and they just kind of, it seems like they just kind of feel like, this is it's just like this everywhere. Life is good, and and they don't really have a concept of that there are not just broken families, but there are like just absolutely devastated, crushed families and and situations where the the level of tragedy and and trauma is is something that that that the average middle class young person, going to public school, riding the bus to school, coming home to a a dinner on the table. even if that's a single parent home where they they got a parent that that that cares about them. that can become a bubble. And so I think we weren't as insulated from the realities of what life is like for probably most of the people in the world, if we're being honest. Because my parents, while they protected us from a lot of that, they also saw that that we were exposed to this, you know, everyone doesn't live like like we lived. And Efrain: Yeah. Dan: that perspective was has been and continues to be so helpful for me in my own life. Efrain: I love that. And your trajectory getting here is quite different. It's not like you just say, Hey, I'm here and we're starting this organization. You were actually in a different sector before, kinda led you into this path. Can you kinda talk Dan: Yeah. Efrain: about how we even get here, man? Dan: That's true. my my wife still gives me grief to this day because it was a bait and switch. When when we got engaged, I was a pre-med student on my way to be a pediatrician. So she was she thought she was marrying a doctor. she yeah, I mean, yeah, Efrain: She thought she was in, huh? Dan: Gucci bags and you know, she but Seriously, about was less than six months after we got engaged that I that I've spoke to her and said, you know what, I I I I still want to help kids because I was gonna be a pediatrician. I've always Efrain: Yeah. Dan: and some of that obviously is from my family background and just how how my parents raised us, but always wanted to help kids and so I was gonna be a pediatrician and I thought this is this is the way I'm gonna use what I feel like my my my talents are, my giftings, but yet apply that by by helping kids. And in my junior year of my pre-med, so I was a junior in college at Wheaton College, out west of Chicago. And I started volunteering doing inner city work with kids, both in Chicago and and the Detroit area where I'm from. And at the same time I was doing an internship at children's hospital of Detroit. And I was shadowing different doctors and going around and you go into the the neonatal intensive care or in the the pediatric, different different wards. And man, Ephraim, I would get done with those shifts at that hospital internship. And I was wrecked. And not in a good like I just drink I would sit in my car. And just have to, I'm trying to process all of this that I just saw with all of these kids that were sick and suffering and and not knowing any of their it was like we were in and we were out on to the next one, and then the nurses would stay behind and and do the follow-up. And I found myself running through those names or the the faces of those kids and the rooms and what it was. And and I I wanted to go back around after that we were done. I wanted to go back and see, Efrain: Yeah. Dan: how is this kid doing? But of course, that that's not the job. That's not what you do. The nurses do that. And so after I would kind of decompress and and detox from that for probably an hour, I would sit in my car. I would then drive and volunteer when I was in Chicago at one of these inner city ministries or in Detroit. and just in that two hours, the the way that I would be emotionally filled up again. was was just so it made it so obvious the juxtaposition of those two things right right at the same period of my life that hey I I am not wired for this medical field and this lane. But man, this this ministry side of things and helping kids this way. man that that this is what I was built for. This is what I'm wired for. This is what I was created to do. And and so I Had that conversation with Rachel, my wife, and said, Yeah, this is what I'm feeling. And she was she was all in. I I think as much as she gives me grief, I I I feel like that's actually what she had always hoped for. she grew up in a pastor's home and and she loves ministry. She she just it's it's part of who she is. And so I think for her, she was thrilled when I said, Hey, I'm I'm not gonna go down the medicine road. I think I'm made for a ministry. And I I I honestly think she was over the moon and said, all right, let's do this. she was, she was ready to go. Efrain: Yeah. Dan: but yeah, I I definitely shifted, shifted gears and changed lanes and and same direction, helping kids, working with kids, but just in a different way. Efrain: I love that. And I love that your wife just supported you really with the journey whatever the journey was. I can imagine she just loved you for who you were, knowing that you Dan: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yep. Efrain: always had some good in you. And both work really good, but knowing what you'll become in life, I think I think our our wives usually see that in us more than we see ourselves sometimes. We're just Dan: Mm-hmm. Efrain: going through life, whatever makes us happy in a sense, Dan. But Dan: Yeah. Efrain: you are completely happy, man. You have went international, you are doing some amazing work. are you fulfilled today? Do you feel fulfilled now that you've been doing this twenty years? You've made the pivot. you found what, you know, brings happiness, not just for yourself, but even your family is in the work. Dan: Yeah, I I think that's a that's a that's a two-sided answer to that. so as far as day to day, am I am I satisfied and fulfilled in what I'm doing and and how I'm spending my days, my weeks, my years, you know, while we're building this organization in South Africa at the same time, you know, raising our girls, you know, when we moved. South Africa in 2007, our girls were seven and five and two, and and our youngest Cece was six weeks old. So we didn't have to buy a ticket for her. She just, had sat in my wife's lap. yeah. Efrain: Save a little money there. Dan: so you know, both of those things, it's been it's been just incredibly fulfilling to not only be on this journey of starting this organization. On the other side of the world from scratch, but then sharing that not just with my wife, but with my four daughters, and and they each one of them has been involved as they've grown up in different ways. so that has been just incredibly fulfilling. But then the other side of that is there is still so much to do. So I there's a there's a piece of me that's unfulfilled that is that is thinking. Where's the next kid? Where's that next household? Where's that next location? What what other community is is still crying out for us to come and expand Key of Hope into their area so we can bring that hope, bring that light into these places where darkness really pervades. Efrain: Hmm. How many people are you guys serving now on a yearly? Dan: So we we measure that by how many children and young people we visit at home every week. That's really how it started. When we first moved to South Africa, we just showed up, there was there was no organization, there was nothing. We got our girls in school. Rachel stayed home with the baby, and Durban, South Africa is is actually the worst disparity of wealth of any country in the entire world. Which means the fewest number of people have all of the money, the assets, the wealth. And of course, that's a leftover from apartheid. And that that has not been fixed. That's actually gotten worse since ninety-four. and so it didn't take me long to find these communities, these what they call in South Africa, townships, where in the apartheid days when the Group Areas Act was in effect. the even the housing was segregated. different races could only live in different areas. And so didn't take us long to find those kids. So I the very first thing I did was visit a couple of kids at home back in 2008 when we moved. And the the mom could not afford to send all five of her kids to school. So we helped get get all them in school, pay their school fees because school's not free in South Africa. You have to pay fees or you can't go. And so got them all in school and then I went back the next week to follow up. Hey, how's it going? Yeah, you get everything you need. And so I just began going back to these kids' house every single week. Then other kids started to be there as well because they could not believe that there was a white guy coming to these kids' house. people came to see the spectacle of me coming and seeing these kids. So then Efrain: Ha ha ha. Dan: I started visiting other kids, and then we started a program shortly after that. But still to this day, we visit every one of our kids every week in their home. And so that translates now to a little over 3,000 kids every week that we visit at home in South Africa and Kenya with a staff of 65 full-time employees. Most of those staff are those for example, that very first house that I was talking about, that I three of those kids are now on our staff and they visit, they visit other kids. In fact, Wendy, the oldest, oversees now all of our school fees that we pay for hundreds of kids. And she was she was part of that very first family that we paid school fees for. Now she she oversees that for for hundreds and hundreds of kids. Efrain: So that's cool, man. You're really just building the cycle, ideally, building a cycle of life here to those that are received the help continue to also provide the help as they get a little older. I think it's cool. I I I think there's also a lot to really debunk when we l really think about South Africa. you've probably seen so many different locations in South Africa, but I feel like as Americans, I learned a lot. I think I told you when I went to South Africa on what living actually looks like, people Dan: Yeah. Yeah. Efrain: to the point that I've realized that they don't call Americans, you're either just white, black, or colored. And I told Dan: Yes. Efrain: my wife that. She says, Really? I'm like, yeah, they told me I was it depend you I was talking to. I was either the white or the colored. I'm i in the middle. But even Dan: Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Efrain: seg segregation that didn't really end till what, late nineties or something like that. So life in South Dan: Yeah, ninety-four. Efrain: Africa is really different. Dan: It's really different. there's it in it's in in some ways it's so dysfunctional and in other ways it's so beautiful how how South Africa is. there's Efrain: Mm-hmm. Dan: this there's this layer of of first world in South Africa, you know, where ten twenty percent of South Africans live what we would consider a middle class or or upper middle class life. But then you go outside of the cities and you go into the rural areas and the villages, then you see the other South Africa where 80% are living in really third world poverty. and so I mean but the country the the way that people have found to get along to find a way forward. Between, black, colored, white, and then even in Durban, there's an Indian population. actually the biggest Indian population outside of India is in Durban, where we are. but there, over the 20 years that we've been there, we have seen and experienced some just incredibly beautiful moments of South Africa just being South Africa. One of the things they say in South Africa, which they call the Rainbow Nation. is samoye, which is a Zulu word that means we are together or we are one. And there there have been some incredible moments where South Africans have have really come together and and lived out that theme. Efrain: Yeah. Have you learned any of the languages? I know they have multiple languages out there. Have you learned any of them? Dan: Yeah. 13 official languages, but Zulu is the one most spoken at home, especially in our language. We're in we're in the middle of the Zulu kingdom. and so I've I've learned this I wouldn't say fluent, but I'm definitely functional in Zulu. I've actually been adopted as a an honorary member of Zulu Society, speaking about sports. When I was nine or twenty years old, I I pulled my pinky finger off dunking a basketball. When Efrain: What? Dan: yeah, what and it's still off. When I moved to Efrain: shit. Dan: when I moved to South Africa. I found out very early that there's a royal clan within the Zulu nation, the Ngubane clan. And when you're born into this royal clan, they they cut the baby's pinky off like that. And so now people who are in the Zulu, you know, nation, and especially Ngubane people, they notice right away. And literally, I'm this is not an exaggeration. When certain places I've gone, I've been treated like royalty. Because they they can't explain it how this white guy got to be a part of the Zulu, royal Zulu name. But somehow, Efrain: Ha ha ha ha. Dan: tradition and protocol dictates they have to treat me that way. So I get fed, I get put to the front of the line, I get welcome. So because Efrain: That's crazy. Dan: I'm missing my pinky finger. So only God could could have thought something like that up, so many years ago. Efrain: I know, I know. Almost like your life would I mean and it kinda goes back what you went to mentioned, like God literally has a plan for us and almost knows every step of the way when we are asking ourselves why, God already has reason. You just gotta kinda live and and have faith that it's going to work out. I'm still at night at nineteen years old, what what are you thinking, man? You l lose your pinky. What the hell? Dan: Well it wasn't well, I didn't do it on purpose. I I just but Efrain: I know, I know, but what were you think when it when you knew it's happening? Dan: I mean when it I you know what, Ephraim, I was the one that kept my head. Everyone freaked out. All the other players ran away off the court. Efrain: Yeah. Dan: I had I grabbed it and I told my friend, hey, get your because I didn't I had gotten a ride there with my friend. I Hey, get your keys, we gotta go. And then I told my other friend, Hey, pick up my finger. We got, you know, we got Efrain: my god. Dan: so he we were running to the car. He was running, literally running in place over, looking down at my finger. And I Efrain: Yeah. Dan: I so we get to all the way across the park to the car and I yell back, I pick it up, we gotta go, come on. Because I mean when you lose any kind of limb, you know, like that, it's I mean, it's time, minutes matter. So I'm like, come Efrain: Yeah. Dan: on. So he took his shirt off and picked it up like in his shirt, came to the car, sat in the back seat, and and took me to the hospital. So but it was it was too, Efrain: Holy crap. Dan: it was ripped and twisted and Mangled. So doctor was like, No way, this this ain't going back. Efrain: That is what a crazy story, man. Dan: Crazy. Efrain: and still just as passionate as ever, as giving as ever, man, just still loving life. And that just kind of goes to show the man that you are. Like life happens around us, man, but we still have this heart of really helping others and giving back. And in this case, really building up communities. What does that what does that look like for you? Like when you think of goals and you and you missions of what it looks like for the next three to five years. Have you thought that far? Dan: Have thought that far. I I was thinking that far, Efran, on day one. When when we first arrived in South Africa, I knew I did not want to build a monument to myself or you know, have this be the Dan Smithers show. I needed to build something that I could hand over to leaders that we would raise up. I mean, in the and and that's what that's what we're in the middle of doing now is is is handing over to these leaders, local leaders that that have come up through our children's programs that are now in their late twenties, early thirties. one girl who looked at me when she was about eleven years old when I was asking them what they wanted to be when they grew up. And she looked at me and said, I want your job. I don't know what it is you do, but I want your job. And last month I had the incredible honor of walking her down the aisle at her wedding as her as her dad. And so she actually has my job now. She works for us as our as our kids' club supervisor. but from day one it was about handing something off to the next generation. I remember my mom telling me, because my my parents got both became Christians out of pretty bad dysfunctional family situations, a lot of alcoholism and and abuse and things like that. And They felt like they were a David to us kids as Solomons, in the sense that God told David, You're not gonna build my house, you're not gonna build a temple. You're a man of blood, you've fought too many battles, you're wounded, you're scarred. The next generation is gonna build my house, my temple. And so David set about collecting all the resources, the wood, the gold, all the things that Solomon would need to do what he knew God would call Solomon to do. And my parents. My my parents did that for us, knowing that the battles that they fought were the focus of their life so that we could follow the call of God on our lives. And they said about, you know, sending us to private school and and raising us in a Christian home and and encouraging us to to do whatever God wanted us to do. that's the the the template that that we're using at Key of Hope to say, look, I look, I'm I can speak a little Zulu, but And I and I'm and I I'm maybe considered, but I'm not Zulu. So this is but I'm Efrain: Yeah. Dan: here knowing that the ultimate fulfillment of what key of hope will one day become is is not for me to do. It's it's for this next generation, the Solomons that are now in Durban that will be the ones to take this thing ultimately where it will go one day to build something incredible, something beautiful. And it's my job to resource them, raise them up, and give them every tool and and and resource that they're gonna need to do what God's called them to do. Efrain: How big is the organization, man? How do people continue to just pour into this to see these things come to life? Dan: We are again in in two locations in South Africa and Kenya with more on the on the way, more locations on the way, sixty-five plus staff. there's different ways people can can get involved with us. I mean the the the the the gateways probably social media follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and all that, and our website, keyofhope.org. but people also come on mission teams to to both of our locations and serve for a week or two at a time. we have concert tours here in the US where our our children's choir comes and and tours around. They've they've performed at Disney and the Brooklyn Tabernacle and the South African Embassy in DC and all all over the country. that we're we're doing another tour at the end of next year, 2027. That's another great way to get involved. but yeah, we would love people to get connected and be a part of what we do. Efrain: I've seen actually a choir when I was in over in Cape Town and it was like, I don't Dan: Yeah. Efrain: know, a a market. And they were so good. I just sat there and just watched them the whole time. the way they get involved and the way they they do it all, man. The beats, the singing, the dancing, nothing like it. Dan: It's special. It is special. There is nothing like it. It just it's just a part of the culture, man. It is it is really something to see, especially in person. Efrain: Yeah. I I actually on TikTok, sometimes they have these groups that go live on TikTok as a whole community and they're start singing the dancing and I just sit there and watch it. Like I just love how happy Dan: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. Efrain: and how free these individuals are in a time where maybe life is not as good as we have it here sometimes in America, Dan: Mm-hmm. Efrain: but they still find the peace and the happiness and the family and the you know coming together. There's not there's definitely nothing like it, Dan. I think it's amazing what you've done and what your family has. committed to continue to do. you guys live literally boot on the ground. You guys are there, so really appreciate it. Where you talked about social media, you talked about different mission trips. So is there anything that you guys feel there's a need for right now as we start to wrap it up? Dan: I I think for people just to get connected, you know, going way back to what we said in the in the very beginning of our time together, is relationship. And the DNA of you know, me, like I as I described in my upbringing, but therefore of this organization that we've built, it's just a network of relationships. And so we love to get connected to as many. people as possible, not just in South Africa and Kenya, with our with our kids and and those households, but but here in the US and anywhere we go, the more we can build that network of relationships. It's like in the Bible it says Apollos planted the seed, I watered it, but God gave the increase. So we Efrain: Mm. Dan: build relationships with the idea that who knows what what might come out of this, how we might be able to invest in you, how you might be able to invest in us, but let's just get into relationship and and see what God might bring out of that. And so that for me, that's the thing, Ephraim, that that we always are looking to do is is just to build relationships and see what open doors that might provide both ways for us to just Efrain: Yeah. Dan: live out who each one of us is created to be. Efrain: I love it, man. Continue to plant those seeds, allowing others to water those seeds. And while Dan: Mm-hmm. Efrain: you may not see all of them come to life, knowing that you're building the legacy for that to continue to happen, fertilize in the future is a word that I like to use, man. I Dan: Yeah. Efrain: you're doing it, Danny. You have been for the last 20 years, man. And I I can imagine that it just it is very rewarding to see what you've done in the last 20 years. And I think you have another twenty more in you, man. So hope they continue to talk to you throughout this journey and see what you guys are actually doing. But if guys are still watching, make sure you guys do go check out what Dan is doing. I'm Efrain. This is the Hard and Hustle Podcast. And we'll catch you guys on the next one. Later.