Latest / Money And Wealth With John Hope Bryant / Principles Over Politics: Chase Koch and Demario Davis on Building What Lasts"

Transcript

Principles Over Politics: Chase Koch and Demario Davis on Building What Lasts" · Money And Wealth With John Hope Bryant

0:02
Speaker 1: I'm a home crewd that knows a little bit about
0:04
Speaker 1: everything in every body.
0:05
Speaker 2: You know, if you don't lie about that, right? Lauren
0:08
Speaker 2: came in, Hey, Hey, John, Hope, Brian here. This is
0:11
Speaker 2: the Money in Wealth podcast series on iHeartRadio and Black
0:15
Speaker 2: Effect Network, Season three. This is a very special podcast
0:20
Speaker 2: that you're about to witness. It's one of the few
0:23
Speaker 2: live podcasts that I have ever done. And as you know,
0:28
Speaker 2: when again when I bring on some guests, they're always special.
0:33
Speaker 2: I this ended up different than I thought it was.
0:37
Speaker 2: This interview with Chase Coke, who is the heir parent
0:41
Speaker 2: of you know, one of the wealthiest private companies, most
0:45
Speaker 2: successful in the world. I think it's like nine thousand
0:48
Speaker 2: percent are nine thousand uh degrees of.
0:57
Speaker 3: Growth.
0:57
Speaker 2: I'm trying to find the right in his calculation. I
1:00
Speaker 2: don't think it's percentage, but you get my point. It's
1:03
Speaker 2: grown nine thousand times since its founding in the nineteen
1:08
Speaker 2: sixties as one of the biggest private companies in the world,
1:11
Speaker 2: and they're in a dozen industries in the world. Have
1:16
Speaker 2: you know, just have eight thousand eployees just in Georgia alone,
1:21
Speaker 2: one hundred and twenty thousand plus employees around the world
1:25
Speaker 2: and not to tell their business, but I think his
1:27
Speaker 2: father's worth about seventy billion dollars. So you think that
1:30
Speaker 2: Chase might be a jerk, you know, because it's hard
1:34
Speaker 2: not to be for some people. It's hard for him
1:37
Speaker 2: to be. He's a really decent, good guy. And I
1:41
Speaker 2: was prepared actually not to like several years ago, based
1:44
Speaker 2: on some of the things I'd heard and seen a
1:46
Speaker 2: few years ago of the political dynamics. And to see
1:50
Speaker 2: themselves correct and come into what I call the middle
1:53
Speaker 2: of America on their own says a lot to me
1:58
Speaker 2: about their true character and that I just gained a
2:03
Speaker 2: lot of respect. And so this meeting that we had
2:05
Speaker 2: both behind closed doors in the green room, conversations leading
2:11
Speaker 2: up to it, and the podcast that was recorded live
2:15
Speaker 2: with no editing, I mean, what you see is what
2:18
Speaker 2: you get. I mean, it just shows you should never
2:21
Speaker 2: prejudge people like be nosy, give everybody a shot, because
2:25
Speaker 2: you never know whe you're going to meet a friend
2:27
Speaker 2: or meet somewhere in the middle, and build bridges versus walls.
2:31
Speaker 2: And that's what happened. I mean, you had every race
2:33
Speaker 2: of people in this podcast, every class structure, Republicans and Democrats,
2:37
Speaker 2: blacks and whites, written for a billionaire and somebody trying
2:40
Speaker 2: to buy some there and it was just really inspiring.
2:44
Speaker 2: And he was there to promote his new book, and
2:48
Speaker 2: which is I will tell you fantastic. I'm reading it now.
2:54
Speaker 2: And I was there off for my podcast but also
3:02
Speaker 2: my new book, Capitalism for All, and we you know,
3:08
Speaker 2: he wrote a book with his father, and I wrote
3:13
Speaker 2: a book with my spiritual father, Ambassador Andrew Young, his
3:16
Speaker 2: father Charles Cooke, and the book his book is called
3:21
Speaker 2: Becoming a Principal Driven Leader by Charles Koke and Chase Coke.
3:26
Speaker 2: And my book is Capitalism for All by me and
3:29
Speaker 2: Forward by Ambassador Andrew Young. I also put him on
3:32
Speaker 2: the phone the Ambassador Young and bass Young really liked
3:35
Speaker 2: him as well. And we find it hard to agree
3:39
Speaker 2: to argue on something. I mean, we found ourselves in
3:41
Speaker 2: massive agreement on things that really matter, and it inspired
3:45
Speaker 2: me like maybe we can bring this country back together. Anyway,
3:49
Speaker 2: I want you to watch the podcast and listen to
3:51
Speaker 2: it for yourself and make your own determination, but I
3:57
Speaker 2: think it's going to make you cheer for the country,
3:59
Speaker 2: to feel like we're not hopeless, to see that people
4:04
Speaker 2: still listen, even the most powerful in the world. Listen,
4:07
Speaker 2: because his dad, who's now I think ninety, who's brilliant
4:10
Speaker 2: obviously for running the build. And by the way, and
4:13
Speaker 2: you'll hear about challenges they've had in their own family.
4:16
Speaker 2: I mean they suit each other, not the Chase and
4:19
Speaker 2: his father, but the brothers and whatever. They almost destroyed
4:23
Speaker 2: this empire over power and money and and you know
4:28
Speaker 2: other things. So everybody's got problems, everybody's got drama, and
4:33
Speaker 2: but life is about how you deal with that. How
4:35
Speaker 2: do you come out on the other side. How do
4:37
Speaker 2: you punch through rainbows? Only follow storms? You cannot have
4:41
Speaker 2: a rainbow without a storm first? And what drives that?
4:45
Speaker 2: What center is that? And for them, for the for
4:49
Speaker 2: Chase and his dad, it's the last men's standing, so
4:53
Speaker 2: to speak. In in in the company are principles and values.
4:58
Speaker 2: And so this this book, Principal Driven Leadership. They have
5:01
Speaker 2: forty one principles and they even have an app. It's
5:04
Speaker 2: called Principal the Principal Companion. I've downloaded it and you can.
5:08
Speaker 2: You should pull up the app. It's pretty cool and
5:10
Speaker 2: it has all of the principles and you can ask
5:12
Speaker 2: questions like how do you try to you're trying, what
5:14
Speaker 2: are you trying to solve? And how do you solve it?
5:17
Speaker 2: And you can literally just type in your question it
5:20
Speaker 2: is overcome your problems by taking principled action and use
5:23
Speaker 2: the principles that they have outlined, none of which you'll
5:26
Speaker 2: have any problem with. They're all just really good, common
5:29
Speaker 2: sense things, very much like things I talked to you about,
5:33
Speaker 2: and one hundred percent non partisan, non political, non drama
5:38
Speaker 2: to help you just move your life forward. As I say,
5:40
Speaker 2: PhDs are good and PhDs are better. So download the
5:43
Speaker 2: app that's free, Get the book. I'm endorsing it. It's yes,
5:49
Speaker 2: I said endorsing it. It's a good book. And I
5:52
Speaker 2: think I've got a new friend, Like I really like
5:54
Speaker 2: this guy, Chase Code, like he's stuck with me. So
5:57
Speaker 2: this is going to be a longer podcast than normal,
6:00
Speaker 2: particularly with his little intro, But I think you'll be inspired, fascinated.
6:06
Speaker 2: You'll learn something about business, learn something about building something,
6:08
Speaker 2: growing something, making something, sustaining something, working through problems, admitting
6:13
Speaker 2: admitting admitting you're not perfect, falling forward, uh, you know,
6:19
Speaker 2: punching through to your greater version of yourself through principles
6:23
Speaker 2: and values that are timeless. We were there with this
6:28
Speaker 2: great NFL pro tomorrow. Uh so uh, he's he's he's
6:36
Speaker 2: he's also written I think afford for this, uh this
6:39
Speaker 2: new book. Or he's one of the endorsers for this
6:42
Speaker 2: new book from Chase. And he's a friend of Chase's.
6:45
Speaker 2: And uh he's got his own story. Yeah, be inspired,
6:50
Speaker 2: be encouraged. And uh this is a part of money
6:54
Speaker 2: and wealth because this is a wealth mindset that we
6:58
Speaker 2: all need to get. There's some thing is that he
7:00
Speaker 2: said that that inspired me and I learned from and yeah,
7:05
Speaker 2: I hope it inspires you too. Let's go. This is
7:09
Speaker 2: John O'Bryant money and Wealth. And let me introduce you
7:12
Speaker 2: to my new friend, Chase Cope. All your best behavior.
7:19
Speaker 2: Hello Atlanta. Oh come on now, hello Atlanta, Chase Tomorrio,
7:32
Speaker 2: come on, give us some love, all right. You know
7:42
Speaker 2: that the Bible says be how to or be cold.
7:46
Speaker 2: Hey hey, mommy Bible says be hot or be cold.
7:49
Speaker 2: If your luke warm, I'll spat you out. Translation. Even
7:54
Speaker 2: God is not like mediocrity. You're gonna do something to
7:57
Speaker 2: do it with both feet or don't do it all.
8:01
Speaker 2: I didn't have any idea what this group would look
8:04
Speaker 2: like when we was we have you know, I've been
8:06
Speaker 2: in the back running my mouth before I see anything.
8:09
Speaker 2: Let me acknowledge my beautiful wife, whoever everybody thinks is
8:14
Speaker 2: my daughter. Uh, Shatra, Brian, you stand up, Shatra, and
8:22
Speaker 2: that's her. That's her mom and dad. So look, Uh,
8:28
Speaker 2: this is a ambassador Young who wanted to be here.
8:31
Speaker 2: We had a he had a speech. Uh at ninety
8:33
Speaker 2: four years of age. He had a speech and make
8:35
Speaker 2: it or somewhere he had to go to.
8:37
Speaker 3: Uh.
8:37
Speaker 2: But he talked to Chase on the phone about an
8:39
Speaker 2: hour ago and he likes him.
8:41
Speaker 3: By the way.
8:43
Speaker 2: But in bassor Young has a quote, coincidence is God's
8:45
Speaker 2: way of remaining anonymous. And I had no idea what
8:49
Speaker 2: this is going to look like. But as I come
8:51
Speaker 2: out and I see this, this is America. I mean,
8:55
Speaker 2: look at look around you. This is exactly what we
8:57
Speaker 2: should want in every room in a Maria, every race,
9:01
Speaker 2: every place, every space. Gender. Uh. And so it's a
9:05
Speaker 2: really beautiful, elegant way to start this conversation. Just so
9:08
Speaker 2: you know, this is going to be on my Money
9:11
Speaker 2: and Wealth podcast, so it'll go around the world. But
9:14
Speaker 2: We're going to ignore that and just have a natural conversation.
9:20
Speaker 2: I want to introduce uh to Mario Davis, who any
9:26
Speaker 2: sports aficionado already knows, is a legend, a linebacker and
9:31
Speaker 2: team captain, which means he was a leader New Orleans Saints.
9:37
Speaker 2: That's what he's most known for. Founder Devoted Dreamers Foundation.
9:41
Speaker 2: His wife is also here is who's also his I
9:48
Speaker 2: thought it was his daughter to Mario Davis is a
9:51
Speaker 2: five time All Pro linebacker linebacker and six time team
9:55
Speaker 2: captain currently with the New York Jets. He is one
10:01
Speaker 2: of the NFL's most respected leaders on and off the field.
10:04
Speaker 2: He and his wife founded Devoted Dreamers Foundation in twenty
10:09
Speaker 2: thirteen and running youth leadership academies, mentorship programs, and community
10:15
Speaker 2: development initiatives across New Orleans. He has been nominated three
10:19
Speaker 2: times for the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year
10:22
Speaker 2: Award and the league's highest individual honor. Contributed the forward
10:30
Speaker 2: endorsement to becoming a principal driven leader. Mario is a
10:36
Speaker 2: good brother. Honored to have you with us and I
10:40
Speaker 2: want your hair.
10:43
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me brother, and they met.
10:45
Speaker 2: They met in twenty nineteen. These two Chase coke is
10:51
Speaker 2: I'll just say my brother for another mother. I really
10:55
Speaker 2: like this dude most. I mean, I'm gonna say the obvious.
11:02
Speaker 2: Most billionaires at being their kids, the young. The children
11:06
Speaker 2: are sort of jerks and because the life just comes
11:11
Speaker 2: too easy. And he's just so normal and approachable and kind.
11:23
Speaker 2: And here's the most important part, authentic. I met him,
11:28
Speaker 2: and I can't say where we met because there's no
11:30
Speaker 2: website for this meeting, but I met him in the
11:34
Speaker 2: middle of the country and I walked up to him
11:37
Speaker 2: and I just started talking to him. He and we
11:41
Speaker 2: had an instant comfort, and I said, You're just You're
11:45
Speaker 2: just so abnormal because you're normal. And what I meant
11:50
Speaker 2: by that is what I said earlier, that people who
11:52
Speaker 2: are insecure and uncomfortable themselves and who are impressed with
11:55
Speaker 2: themselves spent a lot of time walking around with sunglasses
11:59
Speaker 2: on at night. And he has no need for any
12:04
Speaker 2: of that. He's just reasonably comfortable in his own skin.
12:07
Speaker 2: And I was fascinated how he formed his own personality
12:13
Speaker 2: in the midst of this entirely overwhelming legacy. And I'm
12:18
Speaker 2: going to read you as bio, but just to give
12:21
Speaker 2: you some context of what he had to overcome to
12:23
Speaker 2: become himself. His dad is reportedly worth just his dad,
12:32
Speaker 2: about seventy billion. Now that means he's ball or adjacent.
12:39
Speaker 2: And it'd be very easy just to fold in and
12:45
Speaker 2: to become somebody else's personality. And I just want to
12:51
Speaker 2: I just want to say, in public, in front of everybody,
12:54
Speaker 2: I think you're a really cool guy.
12:55
Speaker 3: Oh man, I didn't pay him to say that, I
12:58
Speaker 3: promise him.
12:59
Speaker 2: So here's the official official introduction. Charles Coke is the
13:05
Speaker 2: co author of Becoming a Principal Driven Leader And the
13:08
Speaker 2: fact that you and your dad like each other is
13:10
Speaker 2: also extraordinary. The audience really needs to loosen up, Hey,
13:17
Speaker 2: curly forty one Principles to Build and Enduring Business, which
13:24
Speaker 2: is from Simon and Schuster. The book draws on sixty
13:27
Speaker 2: years of real world experience at one of America's largest
13:31
Speaker 2: private companies, so nobody really knows what is worth actually,
13:34
Speaker 2: which I think is pretty cool. Chase is the founder
13:37
Speaker 2: of Disruptive Technologies within Coke, which I love that, and
13:43
Speaker 2: served as executive vice president of Origination Partnerships at the
13:48
Speaker 2: parent company. Georgia has the second largest company presidence in
13:53
Speaker 2: the country. Within the company approximately eight thousand employees across
13:57
Speaker 2: coke businesses including Georgia Pacific and Hill's Resources Info and
14:02
Speaker 2: Vista Guardian Coke Engineering Solutions. You get the gist. It's
14:07
Speaker 2: a lot, and I didn't you know. Well, first of all,
14:12
Speaker 2: I feel a little similarity with you because my playfather
14:16
Speaker 2: is ninety four and bassiaror Andrew Young and your dad
14:19
Speaker 2: and he's a legend in the world the world and
14:21
Speaker 2: your dad's ninety ish, and both of them still going
14:24
Speaker 2: to work every day, and they both live for something
14:28
Speaker 2: large and more important themselves, and they both have this
14:30
Speaker 2: humility that they willing to admit they're wrong. And I
14:37
Speaker 2: didn't really I wouldn't really feel in your family a
14:40
Speaker 2: few years ago because of what I thought I knew.
14:44
Speaker 2: And then I heard them course correcting themselves, like, oh,
14:49
Speaker 2: that's that's somebody I can get with, and I just
14:55
Speaker 2: to me, it's it's how somebody manages this failure and
15:00
Speaker 2: not just success that defines their personality. So let's now
15:05
Speaker 2: get to that and then tomorrow. You just jump into
15:07
Speaker 2: this whenever you feel so inclined. So talking about failure,
15:12
Speaker 2: this is extraordinarily interesting to me. You fired yourself as
15:20
Speaker 2: an executive within the company. What principles gave you the
15:25
Speaker 2: courage to do that? You fired yourself within your own
15:30
Speaker 2: within your your family company.
15:32
Speaker 3: So before I get into that, I just want to say,
15:34
Speaker 3: like your intro, I really appreciate that. But to your
15:37
Speaker 3: point on it took you a while to warm up
15:40
Speaker 3: to the Coke name and stand together at cocink the
15:44
Speaker 3: business side. And I think, you know a lot of
15:47
Speaker 3: people have that because we believe what we read, you know,
15:50
Speaker 3: in the media, and we made a lot of mistakes
15:52
Speaker 3: over the last i'd say a few decades where we
15:57
Speaker 3: let the media define us as opposed to getting out
16:00
Speaker 3: there and defining ourselves and you know, being a private
16:04
Speaker 3: company out of Wichitak, Kansas, and just we just wanted
16:07
Speaker 3: to put our heads down and do good work and
16:09
Speaker 3: create value. But if you're not out there telling your story,
16:14
Speaker 3: someone's going to write the story for you. And so,
16:17
Speaker 3: you know, my father to just give a little background
16:19
Speaker 3: on this for the audience, because sometimes it's the elephant
16:22
Speaker 3: in the room. Just like, just deal with it, right,
16:24
Speaker 3: And my father would say, you know, he's been working
16:28
Speaker 3: on social change for sixty years of his life and
16:33
Speaker 3: he avoided politics the first forty and he didn't want
16:36
Speaker 3: to get into it at all, but when he realized, like,
16:37
Speaker 3: there's so many bad policies that are holding people back,
16:43
Speaker 3: I've got to get in the game to see if
16:46
Speaker 3: we can get principal leaders in government that make good
16:50
Speaker 3: decisions that create principle based policies that actually help people
16:55
Speaker 3: as opposed to creating more barriers in their lives. And
16:59
Speaker 3: so got involved in that. And one of the biggest
17:03
Speaker 3: learnings I think in terms of our involvement in politics
17:07
Speaker 3: and policy and all of this is picking one team
17:13
Speaker 3: and just thinking about it from a Republican versus Democrat situation.
17:19
Speaker 3: And we all know if you have a tribalist mindset
17:22
Speaker 3: and you're thinking about you know, Republican, Democrat, black, white, whatever,
17:27
Speaker 3: pick your your tribe, that you're never going to grow,
17:31
Speaker 3: you're never going to learn, you're never going to get
17:33
Speaker 3: beyond that. And so we're thinking short term versus long term.
17:37
Speaker 3: Long term is what built Coke. Thinking long about long
17:40
Speaker 3: term value creation, and the political game sadly is very
17:45
Speaker 3: short term. So we started we learned from that and said, okay,
17:50
Speaker 3: it's not about it's not about picking a team and
17:54
Speaker 3: just going all in on that it's about what Frederick
17:57
Speaker 3: Douglas taught us. Frederick Douglass is like my dad's like
18:02
Speaker 3: number one hero. He's read everything about Frederick Douglass and
18:06
Speaker 3: studied them. And the biggest takeaway I think he learned
18:11
Speaker 3: by studying Frederick Douglas is this idea of working with
18:14
Speaker 3: anyone to do right. And that's such a big idea, right,
18:19
Speaker 3: and thinking beyond a party or whatever tribe you're in,
18:24
Speaker 3: and thinking even when Frederick Douglas what he went through
18:27
Speaker 3: in life to overcome that and said I'm going to
18:30
Speaker 3: help everyone, it's absolutely incredible, right. And so I think
18:36
Speaker 3: my father learned and we learned that to just have
18:39
Speaker 3: this more kind of libertarian mindset and just preaching to
18:43
Speaker 3: the choir and thinking about it through that lens, we're
18:46
Speaker 3: not going to get anywhere. We're not going to drive
18:48
Speaker 3: the social change we want. You have to really get
18:50
Speaker 3: out there and build preferred partnerships with everyone and listen
18:55
Speaker 3: to Frederick Douglass and be able to work with anyone
18:57
Speaker 3: to do right. So huge opening for us, just from
19:01
Speaker 3: a mindset and a principal standpoint, and we changed a
19:04
Speaker 3: lot since then.
19:05
Speaker 2: Anybody who's unfamiliar Abraham Lincoln Frederick Douglass in the eighteen
19:08
Speaker 2: hundred has had this unique sometimes troubled friendship, constructive friction,
19:14
Speaker 2: and they didn't agree on a lot of stuff. But
19:17
Speaker 2: Lincoln learned from Frederick Douglas and ultimately became as strong
19:22
Speaker 2: as advisor. And it appears your dad has learned from
19:26
Speaker 2: you and has opened up and become I mean, he
19:30
Speaker 2: seems to by like an endless learner now and tomorrow.
19:33
Speaker 2: We were in the back talking about the three of
19:35
Speaker 2: us are talking about what really matters. How you got connected,
19:39
Speaker 2: how we got connected. And by the way, I really
19:41
Speaker 2: think this is the future of America right here, because
19:45
Speaker 2: we may not agree on everything, but we agree on
19:47
Speaker 2: the most important things, and we're focused on what we
19:49
Speaker 2: agree on versus what we don't. And one thing I'm
19:53
Speaker 2: going to throw out here as I asked you about
19:56
Speaker 2: your relationship with our friend, and can somebody bring me
20:00
Speaker 2: the book? I want to promote the book. Actually like
20:02
Speaker 2: the book that there's forty one principles in the book.
20:04
Speaker 2: Everybody should know. Somebody bring the book. Put it.
20:06
Speaker 3: I signed it for him in the back and he
20:08
Speaker 3: doesn't even bring it out here.
20:09
Speaker 2: Take my book. I don't want anybody taking my copy.
20:12
Speaker 2: Thank you very much. And this is the real boss here.
20:14
Speaker 2: By the way, Yeah, yeah.
20:16
Speaker 4: She agreed.
20:16
Speaker 2: By the way, she agreed that she has a real yes,
20:19
Speaker 2: thank you. So in the back I said that in
20:27
Speaker 2: a relationship, two plus two should equal six, eight or ten.
20:32
Speaker 2: If you're not better together, what are you doing? And
20:35
Speaker 2: a giver and a giver is exotic, a given or
20:38
Speaker 2: taker is neurotic, and a taker and a taker is psychotic.
20:42
Speaker 2: And most of our relationships are the last two. And
20:46
Speaker 2: it appears that you and your dad have like me
20:49
Speaker 2: and a bassil young bass Young and I. We like
20:51
Speaker 2: each other and respect each other. He allows me to
20:55
Speaker 2: disagree with him. You and your dad seem to have
20:58
Speaker 2: that good relationship, and you like each other and you
21:00
Speaker 2: respect each other. You and I have had wild, wide
21:04
Speaker 2: ranging conversations. I'm gonna just say it right here. I've
21:07
Speaker 2: intentionally sort of messed with you. I just want to
21:14
Speaker 2: see who you weren't you know you can you confirm
21:16
Speaker 2: you are who you are? And I loved it and
21:17
Speaker 2: we had I have not had one uncomfortable conversation with you.
21:21
Speaker 2: And we've talked about a lot of stuff and none
21:23
Speaker 2: of it was edited or prepped or there was nobody
21:25
Speaker 2: else around U. You know, and and my guess is,
21:29
Speaker 2: and I want you tomorrow the frame this in your
21:31
Speaker 2: of course, in your own words, your experience from a
21:34
Speaker 2: completely different perspective. He passed your test, Is that right?
21:40
Speaker 1: Well, all of it is helped me to really understand
21:44
Speaker 1: this thing of mutual benefit that you guys talked about
21:49
Speaker 1: Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln when you really look at
21:53
Speaker 1: their friendship, Abraham Lincoln couldn't win the war without Frederick
21:57
Speaker 1: Douglass because he needed those black soldiers and he had
21:59
Speaker 1: the voice that's right. And Frederick Douglas couldn't end slavery
22:02
Speaker 1: without Abraham Lincoln because he had the power in access.
22:06
Speaker 4: How I even got into.
22:07
Speaker 1: This space long before I met Chasing Charles Charles Koch,
22:12
Speaker 1: by the.
22:12
Speaker 2: Way, businessman in his own right, investor, I mean more
22:16
Speaker 2: than much more than an NFL pro. This is a
22:18
Speaker 2: really really.
22:19
Speaker 1: Listen we up here talking about mutual benefit. I don't
22:21
Speaker 1: know what mutually benefit they getting from me. I'm getting
22:23
Speaker 1: a bunch of winess. I'm just sat in the back.
22:26
Speaker 1: I wish I had my notebook out. Can I just
22:29
Speaker 1: record before you go? On that question, you're a cool factor, bro.
22:32
Speaker 3: No, he's way more in the cool factor of course.
22:36
Speaker 3: But like the book, becoming a Principal Driven Leader from
22:39
Speaker 3: what Knowing Tomorrow, the last six years, there's like no
22:43
Speaker 3: better example of a principal driven leader and someone that's
22:47
Speaker 3: constantly thinking about the world, whether it's his craft with
22:50
Speaker 3: sports or helping others through the lens of these principles.
22:53
Speaker 3: And I wanted to make sure the world here's because
22:56
Speaker 3: he is an example.
22:57
Speaker 1: Well, thank you for thank you for having me so
23:00
Speaker 1: And started was in the country streets of Mississippi.
23:02
Speaker 4: My grandmother had ten kids.
23:04
Speaker 1: My mama was the youngest, and it was pretty much
23:07
Speaker 1: a single mother raising me in between my mom and
23:10
Speaker 1: my grandmother, And that's why I learned a lot of
23:13
Speaker 1: principles on humility, people, putting people first, and all these things.
23:18
Speaker 1: And though I played sports, my mom also had me
23:21
Speaker 1: reading books and doing all these different things. So by
23:25
Speaker 1: the time I got to high school and got a
23:27
Speaker 1: chance to get a scholarship, what I noticed was the
23:29
Speaker 1: first time I saw a separation between me and my peers.
23:32
Speaker 1: I was going to take the act and I was
23:34
Speaker 1: scoring twenty four, twenty seven, and I didn't really study,
23:36
Speaker 1: and my friends were trying to get scholarships, but they
23:39
Speaker 1: were scoring thirteens and fourteens. So that just stuck with me.
23:42
Speaker 1: That was the first time I saw at abnormality. I
23:45
Speaker 1: didn't know what was going on. I mean, we did
23:46
Speaker 1: everything together. So by the time I got to college
23:50
Speaker 1: and then you know, going on to make pros, I
23:52
Speaker 1: always wanted.
23:52
Speaker 4: To have a saw for that gap.
23:54
Speaker 1: And I realized that a lot of those guys were
23:57
Speaker 1: struggling with reading comprehension I would later find out. But
24:00
Speaker 1: it really was just about me making it to a
24:02
Speaker 1: place and saying I didn't do anything different than my peers,
24:06
Speaker 1: not much. I made a lot of the same bad decision,
24:08
Speaker 1: did all these things not right. But here I am
24:11
Speaker 1: in a place, and I always said, I think God
24:13
Speaker 1: brought me to this place because he knew I would
24:15
Speaker 1: go back, And so it was about what could I
24:18
Speaker 1: do to create a solution.
24:19
Speaker 4: That's what devoted Dreams. Was birthed me and my.
24:21
Speaker 1: Beautiful bride right here fourteen years, this beautiful black angel
24:26
Speaker 1: right here on the front row. We started that in
24:28
Speaker 1: twenty thirteen, and it really was just to have a
24:30
Speaker 1: solve for a problem.
24:31
Speaker 4: That I had experienced in my life that I had
24:33
Speaker 4: sold well.
24:35
Speaker 1: Years later, I get a chance to hear about learn
24:38
Speaker 1: about staying together at a Super Bowl event I had
24:41
Speaker 1: been it was part of players coalition. We had got
24:43
Speaker 1: a chance to continue to do that human thing, just
24:45
Speaker 1: looking out for people. I meet him at an event
24:49
Speaker 1: and I read up a little bit about staying together.
24:51
Speaker 1: I hear about the principles that they say bottom up empowerment.
24:54
Speaker 4: And I'm looking at.
24:56
Speaker 1: This gigantic empire with all this access to resources.
25:03
Speaker 4: People, capital, all these different things.
25:05
Speaker 1: Well, if you guys live out these principles that many
25:08
Speaker 1: people know on the bottom in these places of power.
25:11
Speaker 1: And I didn't really know chasing charge at the time.
25:13
Speaker 1: I walked up to him the first day. I shook
25:16
Speaker 1: his hand and I said, Hey, if you guys live
25:18
Speaker 1: out these principles, it's gonna work. How What shocked me
25:22
Speaker 1: was I was just saying, in general, if you live
25:24
Speaker 1: out these principles, going to help people with organizations, small
25:27
Speaker 1: organizations that are doing it right, those people close to
25:29
Speaker 1: the problem are closer to the solution. If you go
25:32
Speaker 1: and power these organizations gonna work. Within a couple of weeks,
25:35
Speaker 1: they were sitting down with me and my wife, what
25:38
Speaker 1: are you guys doing at the load of dreamers? How
25:39
Speaker 1: can we help with pen and pad and trying to
25:42
Speaker 1: figure out how they could supercharge in one hundred excess.
25:45
Speaker 4: And that work hasn't stopped.
25:47
Speaker 1: And that is who he is, That's who his father is,
25:52
Speaker 1: that's who the organization is, that's who the community is,
25:54
Speaker 1: and that's how we why we've been premier partners with
25:57
Speaker 1: Stand Together since then, well.
25:59
Speaker 3: And John's Stand Together the organization that he's referring to.
26:03
Speaker 3: Just to give your audience some background, you know, as
26:07
Speaker 3: I mentioned, my father has been working on social change
26:10
Speaker 3: for sixty plus years. It was in two thousand and
26:13
Speaker 3: three he realized that if I just try to do
26:16
Speaker 3: this on my own, I'm not going to drive any change,
26:18
Speaker 3: like maybe help a little bit on the margin. But
26:20
Speaker 3: if we stand together hence the name Stand Together, with
26:24
Speaker 3: partners like to Mario that have completely different organizations, different networks,
26:31
Speaker 3: different communities, and we can help supercharge that and stand
26:35
Speaker 3: together at scale, then you can drive movements. You can
26:39
Speaker 3: drive change around things like poverty, addiction, transform the education system.
26:45
Speaker 3: And that's what we've learned over the last twenty years.
26:48
Speaker 3: I mean, I make a lot of failures and a lot
26:50
Speaker 3: of mistakes. I talked about the one on politics. You know,
26:53
Speaker 3: we learned a lot through that, and we've learned a lot.
26:56
Speaker 3: But back to this, I would say one of the
26:58
Speaker 3: single most important principles that we talked about in the
27:01
Speaker 3: book is bottom up empowerment and the whole partnership if
27:07
Speaker 3: you look at Tomorrio and Stand Together is about how
27:11
Speaker 3: do we supercharge him and bring the platform and help
27:14
Speaker 3: him push the easy button. Because Tomrio and his wife
27:17
Speaker 3: Tamala have have their own platform that if we can
27:22
Speaker 3: help them with capital through our network, the Stand Together
27:26
Speaker 3: community of a lot of business leaders but also principle
27:30
Speaker 3: driven approach and capabilities and network, hopefully that we can
27:34
Speaker 3: make them go thousand X and we want to do
27:36
Speaker 3: that over and over and create a virtuous cycle.
27:39
Speaker 2: Yep. So maybe back up a little bit, so great
27:43
Speaker 2: testimony tomorrow for what we've said earlier, which is authenticity
27:47
Speaker 2: for Chase. But I didn't know everybody else. So I
27:52
Speaker 2: knew Chase. I thought he was cool. But the Stand
27:55
Speaker 2: Together group of Brian hooks, he's really quiet, run it
28:00
Speaker 2: and I'm trying. He checking me out. I'm checking him out.
28:03
Speaker 2: You know, are you real he's asking him the tree,
28:06
Speaker 2: He's asking the same question about me. I said to
28:08
Speaker 2: somebody earlier, Brian Hooks is like a slow burn. He
28:10
Speaker 2: just keeps staring at you until he makes up his mind.
28:13
Speaker 2: And he's all in anyway. So I'm just used to
28:16
Speaker 2: people trying to play games with me, and so I'm
28:19
Speaker 2: waiting there for the shoe to drop on the conversation.
28:22
Speaker 2: You know. By the way, Charles has donated like eight
28:26
Speaker 2: billion dollars to charity they've endowed Stand Together. I didn't
28:31
Speaker 2: know this until later, and was on the largest i
28:35
Speaker 2: call it, nonprofit venture capitalist in the country. And I'm
28:37
Speaker 2: just waiting for this. It'll be like some partisan drama,
28:41
Speaker 2: you know, and it's just that drama never comes. I'm
28:44
Speaker 2: sitting there having these meetings and meetings. I'm telling my people, like,
28:46
Speaker 2: you know, we don't play these games. We're just right
28:48
Speaker 2: down the middle, you know, like John's pretty much what
28:51
Speaker 2: you see is what you get. And they weed into
28:55
Speaker 2: a partnership with him. It's been very successful. And all
28:58
Speaker 2: I'm gonna tell you is it's the real thing, is
28:59
Speaker 2: true parent, It's straight straight, no chaser, and to me,
29:02
Speaker 2: that is, that says who your dad's character is in
29:06
Speaker 2: you and the whole family. Right now, more than anything else,
29:10
Speaker 2: is what Stand Together is doing amount. I mean, it's
29:13
Speaker 2: one of the biggest national platforms of philanthropy in action
29:17
Speaker 2: that I've seen in the country, and I encourage people
29:20
Speaker 2: to access it, and I can say without a flinch
29:25
Speaker 2: that it is the real deal. And right now we
29:30
Speaker 2: need real deals and we need you know, rainbow's only
29:33
Speaker 2: follow storms, people. You cannot have a rainbow without a storm. First,
29:39
Speaker 2: It's a scientific fact. Also, we're living in a moment
29:42
Speaker 2: in history right now. I called it the third reconstruction.
29:48
Speaker 2: First one was freedom, Civil War. Second one Frederick Douglas,
29:52
Speaker 2: Abraham Lincoln. Second one was civil rights movement. By the way,
29:55
Speaker 2: all three of those movements rooted here in Atlanta. Civil
29:59
Speaker 2: War ended it and the March to the Sea. They
30:01
Speaker 2: sorry the Battle of Atlanta, and that was black and
30:06
Speaker 2: white together, by the way, Republican and Democrat together, that
30:09
Speaker 2: got Lincoln re elected. Little is known the battle here.
30:12
Speaker 2: Then the civil rights movement, for which my mentor Andrew Young,
30:16
Speaker 2: of course, was right in the middle of that, with
30:18
Speaker 2: doctor King Berney's King, I believe might be here somewhere
30:20
Speaker 2: by the way, she said she was coming tonight, and
30:23
Speaker 2: who's still doing her dad's work. And that was black
30:26
Speaker 2: and white together, Republican and Democrat together. But it was
30:30
Speaker 2: a difficult part time for the country and we were
30:34
Speaker 2: trying figut who we're going to be where we grew up.
30:36
Speaker 2: And I think the third reconstruction is about ownership from
30:40
Speaker 2: the streets to the suites, and the colors that black
30:42
Speaker 2: are white or red or blue. It's green, economic green.
30:47
Speaker 2: And the country once again is having on the two
30:51
Speaker 2: undred and fiftieth anniversary of America and identity crisis, one
30:55
Speaker 2: huge colonic You audience, you had a really tough It's
30:59
Speaker 2: some good stuff I'm giving you, and it's one huge
31:06
Speaker 2: family fight, and we're gonna get through it. We're gonna
31:10
Speaker 2: be better together. We're gonna stand together. But I think
31:13
Speaker 2: we got to come back to each other now that
31:15
Speaker 2: we've gone so far out, come back to each other
31:17
Speaker 2: with some common sense principles to help people prosper together.
31:22
Speaker 2: I guess the question is if this is a third reconstruction,
31:25
Speaker 2: if this is a moment in history, and if the
31:30
Speaker 2: only way we succeed it could be the light on
31:33
Speaker 2: the Hill the biggest economy in the world for fifty
31:36
Speaker 2: more years, because if we don't get this act together
31:39
Speaker 2: were speaking Mandarin in twenty years, you get that, like
31:46
Speaker 2: everybody wants to be an American, but Americans, and no
31:50
Speaker 2: one can win in a fair fight. We gotta give
31:51
Speaker 2: this away. So we gotta stop arguing with each other
31:54
Speaker 2: and find stand together and find some common ground and
31:58
Speaker 2: build an economy together with all groups of people. I
32:01
Speaker 2: guess I want to know because Coke had nine thousand
32:08
Speaker 2: it's some crazy thing, like nine thousand turns of growth
32:11
Speaker 2: since nineteen sixty. It's unbelievable. But to find really these
32:16
Speaker 2: values defined more from its failures than its success is
32:20
Speaker 2: What people don't know is that the family had a
32:23
Speaker 2: huge blow up and fell apart and suit each other
32:29
Speaker 2: and had to come together. And your dad was not
32:33
Speaker 2: feeling good about that for a few years because it
32:35
Speaker 2: was personal to him. But these values rooted. And I
32:39
Speaker 2: think if we can find some values from these forty
32:41
Speaker 2: one that tomorrow and I everybody here, you know, Felk
32:49
Speaker 2: Award over here, who's running a business, all these businessmen
32:52
Speaker 2: and women, if we can find a way to root
32:55
Speaker 2: ourselves and shared values, that even when the treat when
32:59
Speaker 2: thems come, we're still rooting in something that brings us
33:03
Speaker 2: together and keeps us together. What jumps out from either
33:07
Speaker 2: of you from this book that are things that are
33:10
Speaker 2: practical and literally And I you know, I have a
33:12
Speaker 2: book out right now that's the bestseller. But I wasn't
33:14
Speaker 2: smart enough to do what he did. If I was
33:17
Speaker 2: going to reprint this, I'd steal his idea. What page
33:21
Speaker 2: is this? Where the graph is? This thing is amazing.
33:24
Speaker 3: I think it's twenty one two like that.
33:27
Speaker 2: I mean, this is uh, here we go. This is
33:31
Speaker 2: just brilliant. Literally, all forty one principles just laid out,
33:37
Speaker 2: and I don't you know, and there's not one of
33:40
Speaker 2: these I disagree with.
33:41
Speaker 3: By the way, can I grab one of those principles?
33:44
Speaker 3: Couple to your question? And this speaks to how we
33:49
Speaker 3: think about talent.
33:50
Speaker 2: And by the way, as you're saying this, Chase, I
33:53
Speaker 2: want both. I want to know people how can they
33:55
Speaker 2: become as massively successful as your family has so they
33:59
Speaker 2: have the resent, which is to do good.
34:00
Speaker 3: In the world. That's why we wrote the book. We
34:03
Speaker 3: want that. I mean, okay, A lot of people ask
34:08
Speaker 3: like this principle based management framework. Why would you offer
34:13
Speaker 3: that externally? That's Cooke's biggest competitive advantage. Why would you
34:18
Speaker 3: take all these principles. You've codified them, you run your organization,
34:21
Speaker 3: you solve problems with it. Clearly, if you grew nine
34:24
Speaker 3: thousand fold, it's a huge competitive advantage. I would say
34:28
Speaker 3: this is our secret sauce. It's the principal based approach.
34:32
Speaker 3: This is it. And the reason why we wrote the
34:34
Speaker 3: book and why this is my dad's fifth book this
34:36
Speaker 3: is my first, is because we want to help as
34:39
Speaker 3: many people as we can. We certainly didn't write a
34:43
Speaker 3: book to make money. We wrote a book to to
34:47
Speaker 3: get these ideas and tell our stories of the failures
34:51
Speaker 3: that we have, right. I think that's one thing that's
34:53
Speaker 3: different about this book is that we talk about there's
34:56
Speaker 3: there's sure, I mean it's failure turned success, But we
35:00
Speaker 3: want people to see themselves in these just day to
35:04
Speaker 3: day failures that you go through in business, whether it's
35:06
Speaker 3: having the wrong vision, picking the wrong talent, having the
35:10
Speaker 3: wrong culture, all of those things, and it only takes
35:14
Speaker 3: one or two principles to transform a business, transform your
35:17
Speaker 3: life personally. I've learned that myself, right, And so what
35:23
Speaker 3: I would say, I'll just pick one principle in here,
35:25
Speaker 3: contribution motivated. It contribution motivated. And so we've learned this
35:32
Speaker 3: through a lot of different failures, having the wrong leaders
35:35
Speaker 3: and the wrong roles. If my dad were sitting here
35:38
Speaker 3: and you asked him like, what are you what's your
35:39
Speaker 3: biggest failure at Coke, he would say leaving the promoting
35:44
Speaker 3: the wrong leaders into the big job and then not
35:49
Speaker 3: moving fast enough to get them out because well, because
35:55
Speaker 3: one they look great on paper, you know, or you know,
36:00
Speaker 3: they've got a great resume, they've got a great network,
36:03
Speaker 3: but they don't have the mindset of what I'm going
36:07
Speaker 3: to go back to sports here a little bit. What
36:08
Speaker 3: Jack Clark. I don't know if anyone in the audience
36:11
Speaker 3: have heard of Jack Clark. He's the most winningest coach
36:14
Speaker 3: of any sport of all time, and he was the
36:17
Speaker 3: coach of Cal's rugby team. He's won thirty national championships.
36:22
Speaker 3: And his thing about leadership is it's very simple. It's
36:26
Speaker 3: making those around you better. That is your job as
36:29
Speaker 3: a leader. And so I've watched my father do that,
36:34
Speaker 3: you know, over the course of time, and then he
36:37
Speaker 3: sets the example for others and back to contribution motivated.
36:44
Speaker 3: It's the idea that well, let me back up. Our
36:48
Speaker 3: talent model is very simple in terms of who we
36:50
Speaker 3: hire and who we don't hire. We want someone that
36:54
Speaker 3: wants to come in and make a contribution and has
36:57
Speaker 3: a very unique skill that we need two things. The
37:02
Speaker 3: opposite of that is someone that comes in more deficiency
37:06
Speaker 3: motivated and so deficiency motivated. And we see, I'm sure
37:09
Speaker 3: many of you business leaders have seen this where they've
37:13
Speaker 3: got a fancy resume, four to zho Ivy League school whatever,
37:17
Speaker 3: and they come in and they feel entitled to a
37:19
Speaker 3: certain role, certain title, a certain salary without coming in
37:25
Speaker 3: and actually earning it.
37:26
Speaker 2: Right.
37:27
Speaker 3: And one of the reasons why frankly, we like being
37:30
Speaker 3: in Witchtalk Kansas our headquarters, and why we like being
37:33
Speaker 3: in Atlanta, and why Georgia is our second largest employer
37:38
Speaker 3: state is because we can we hire kids with values. Right.
37:44
Speaker 3: So our whole, our whole talent model back to this,
37:47
Speaker 3: contribution motivated is higher first on values, second on skills,
37:53
Speaker 3: last on credentials. A lot of companies flip that completely
37:57
Speaker 3: upside down, right, And you know, being a Kansas boy,
38:01
Speaker 3: I call it the farm team. I want the kids
38:04
Speaker 3: that grew up, you know, on have that mindset of
38:08
Speaker 3: working on a farm with ret work ethic and just
38:11
Speaker 3: want to come in and make a contribution.
38:13
Speaker 1: And then I would say, and to that is on
38:16
Speaker 1: top of contribution motivated is preferred partnership.
38:21
Speaker 4: And so I've been able to live out both of
38:23
Speaker 4: those principles.
38:24
Speaker 1: And guys, just get the book and if you don't
38:26
Speaker 1: do anything else, just go to the back where it
38:28
Speaker 1: goes through all.
38:28
Speaker 4: The principles one by one.
38:30
Speaker 1: If you don't have time to read the whole book,
38:31
Speaker 1: if you just go and sit with a principle today
38:33
Speaker 1: is going to change life. But two of those so
38:36
Speaker 1: contribution motivated and preferred partnership.
38:39
Speaker 4: So for me, I was contributed motivated.
38:42
Speaker 1: At the time when I started Devoted Dreamers, it was
38:44
Speaker 1: how can I contribute to society something that doesn't exist?
38:47
Speaker 1: And then there was this word around innovative education. And
38:50
Speaker 1: then when preferred partnership, what preferred partnership is is someone
38:53
Speaker 1: that has shared value, share vision, and complementary capabilities. That's
38:57
Speaker 1: what Stand Together Stay has ten x close to one
39:00
Speaker 1: hundred X. I worked with Devoted Dreamers. We all we
39:03
Speaker 1: wanted to do was holistic development, holistic development around students
39:08
Speaker 1: and now we have the ability to reach the entire
39:11
Speaker 1: country just because of different schools.
39:13
Speaker 4: We all of the country. My wife is.
39:14
Speaker 1: Traveling more than me now going and visiting with different schools.
39:17
Speaker 1: We have an app that's getting ready to come online
39:20
Speaker 1: that are teaching kids this five strand model that we
39:22
Speaker 1: started in twenty thirteen. If we didn't have the preferred partnership,
39:27
Speaker 1: we wouldn't be able to do that. So you have
39:28
Speaker 1: to be okay with working with people who don't look
39:31
Speaker 1: like you, people who don't have the same things as you,
39:35
Speaker 1: a different skill, and be able to make those connections.
39:38
Speaker 1: And when you do that, it allows you to accelerate
39:40
Speaker 1: your impact at rapid rates and have more influence or
39:45
Speaker 1: affluence that you would you would have originally thought you
39:48
Speaker 1: could imagined and so thought or imagine.
39:50
Speaker 4: And that's what I would say is the.
39:53
Speaker 1: Key for our country going forward is people having a
39:56
Speaker 1: contribution mindset. How can I contribute to society? But then
40:00
Speaker 1: and unlikely partnerships with people on different sides of the trend.
40:04
Speaker 1: And if you can create that, it's done accelerating. It's
40:05
Speaker 1: gonna bring our country to.
40:06
Speaker 3: See what he just said, there's no difference between running
40:10
Speaker 3: the business and also what we need in society from
40:13
Speaker 3: our views. I mean, that's why it's at the principal level.
40:15
Speaker 3: These are not detailed business rules that top down you
40:19
Speaker 3: want people to follow. It's empower people with these principles
40:22
Speaker 3: and let them run. And if your contribution motivated, like
40:26
Speaker 3: Tomrio is to go build his own organization and look
40:30
Speaker 3: what he's doing from a leadership standpoint within the NFL
40:33
Speaker 3: and helping so many NFL players, Like you know, there's
40:38
Speaker 3: beyond the game. What what are we going to do? What?
40:41
Speaker 3: How can I help you succeed, whether it's in business
40:44
Speaker 3: or in philanthropy. What do you want to do with you?
40:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what That's what has happened is we become friends.
40:49
Speaker 1: We hang out now and so we get a chance
40:52
Speaker 1: to connect and we co create. So that's what's happening
40:54
Speaker 1: with the philanthropic locker room. We co created that stand
40:57
Speaker 1: together and and us and other athletes we co created this.
41:00
Speaker 4: How can we serve athletes at today?
41:03
Speaker 1: Well, athletes can't sustain their impact most of the time
41:05
Speaker 1: when they're down playing if they don't put their right system,
41:07
Speaker 1: structures and partners around. And so we put together complementary
41:10
Speaker 1: capabilities again and we came up with something. But that
41:13
Speaker 1: was a principle from bottom up empowerment and just understanding
41:17
Speaker 1: that those closest to the problem aren't the problem. Those
41:19
Speaker 1: are there are the solutions. They the leadership team that
41:23
Speaker 1: Stand Together. We have more that are here today. They
41:25
Speaker 1: sat down with athletes, got on phone calls and said
41:27
Speaker 1: what are the issues, what are the pain points?
41:29
Speaker 4: How can we fix them?
41:30
Speaker 1: And that humility allowed for vast change to happen in
41:36
Speaker 1: our game. And what we're doing inside of the NFL
41:38
Speaker 1: is looking to be modeled in the NBA and mmb.
41:42
Speaker 3: I think and so this contribution motivated mindset, it's great,
41:46
Speaker 3: that's how we hire all these things, but we also
41:49
Speaker 3: realized there's so many people that are left behind that
41:53
Speaker 3: how do you just start with a contribution motivated mindset? Right?
41:57
Speaker 3: And the other thing that I want to just make
41:59
Speaker 3: clear about Stand Together is that we recognize that there
42:02
Speaker 3: are so many barriers holding people back. Stand Together is
42:07
Speaker 3: really this community of call it one thousand plus business leaders,
42:14
Speaker 3: but social change entrepreneurs like to Mario that all come
42:18
Speaker 3: to get stand together around this idea that every human
42:22
Speaker 3: has a gift and every human has potential, but we
42:27
Speaker 3: have stacked the institutions of our society have stacked so
42:30
Speaker 3: many barriers against people that people don't believe. Like I
42:34
Speaker 3: was reading this the other day, only thirty percent of
42:37
Speaker 3: people in America that have been surveyed at least believed
42:40
Speaker 3: in the American dream. That's very sad. And fifty of
42:47
Speaker 3: Americans don't believe that we can solve our own problems.
42:52
Speaker 3: So if that's your attitude, who do you look for
42:54
Speaker 3: to fix your problems? Look for the government.
42:57
Speaker 2: To questioning capitalism itself. Capitalism why I wrote the book myself.
43:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, And so these barriers just give one example that
43:06
Speaker 3: I should make all of our blood boil. Is these
43:09
Speaker 3: occupational licenses. I'm sure you know about these. And this
43:14
Speaker 3: is like you got to have a permit for everything.
43:16
Speaker 3: You want to start a business, you want to start
43:18
Speaker 3: a business and in beauty products and you know, create
43:23
Speaker 3: a hair salon, hair braiding, be a nail technician, and
43:27
Speaker 3: you want to be a florist, you have to have
43:29
Speaker 3: a permit for that. Why do you have to have
43:31
Speaker 3: a permit for that? And by the way, it's ten
43:33
Speaker 3: thousand dollars or more to get through the permitting process
43:37
Speaker 3: to go take your skill and go build a small
43:40
Speaker 3: business around that's the American dream. You just want to
43:43
Speaker 3: go be an entrepreneur, all the things that you talk about, John,
43:46
Speaker 3: And so we have to like take one barrier at
43:51
Speaker 3: a time and blow those up. And whether it's our
43:56
Speaker 3: education system, our criminal justice system, or stupid regulations like
44:01
Speaker 3: occupational licensing, we've we've that's I mean, that's what we're
44:06
Speaker 3: working on right from stand together standpoint, and more and
44:09
Speaker 3: more people are joining and like that's at least my
44:12
Speaker 3: call to action to this group and to your community
44:15
Speaker 3: is how do we stand together around something that you
44:19
Speaker 3: care about, a very specific barrier in your community or
44:23
Speaker 3: something that is a nationwide problem, and how we come
44:26
Speaker 3: together because we can do a hell of a lot
44:27
Speaker 3: more together than we can alone.
44:30
Speaker 2: I want to yes, agreed, and to both with both
44:35
Speaker 2: of you said to our excellent comments. And by the way,
44:39
Speaker 2: thanks for reminding me tomorrow about the back of the book.
44:41
Speaker 2: For anybody with ad D, just go to page two
44:44
Speaker 2: forty five. It summarizes all the summarizes all the rules.
44:51
Speaker 2: I want to come back Chase to you as an example,
44:53
Speaker 2: because people again, people look at your life to less
44:56
Speaker 2: you great. Look at my life, the Mario's life. They say, oh,
44:58
Speaker 2: these guys have got it is perfect, every things perfect.
45:01
Speaker 2: I can't relate to that. And I talk about the
45:04
Speaker 2: challenges so that people realize we're human beings. I wish
45:11
Speaker 2: my friend Bernie was here for me to brag on
45:13
Speaker 2: her in person again. She called Today's Sally say she
45:15
Speaker 2: was gonna be here, but I know she was coming
45:16
Speaker 2: back from I think it was Birminghamer some place doing
45:19
Speaker 2: some civil rights work. But she could have so easily
45:22
Speaker 2: just gotten either into depression or just become a stamp
45:28
Speaker 2: out of somebody else's image. But she's she's stuck with
45:31
Speaker 2: that name King, You're you have this name Coke, And
45:37
Speaker 2: I was fascinated, and I'm still fascinated with how normal
45:40
Speaker 2: you are. What was that barrier? What was the obstacle,
45:43
Speaker 2: the barrier, the challenge that you had to bust through
45:48
Speaker 2: to get comfortable with yourself that the audience might take
45:52
Speaker 2: some inspiration from. What is that failure, that insecurity that
45:56
Speaker 2: you had to punch through? So you just weren't a
45:59
Speaker 2: you were just not your.
46:00
Speaker 3: How long do we have I've grown up with a
46:04
Speaker 3: lot of insecurities and imposter syndromes and all of that.
46:09
Speaker 3: But I'll take you back to a letter that my
46:13
Speaker 3: grandfather wrote to my father. It was amazing that he
46:16
Speaker 3: wrote this to my father and and his older brother
46:20
Speaker 3: because they were the only too alive when he wrote
46:21
Speaker 3: this letters in nineteen thirty six, and he put it
46:24
Speaker 3: in a safety deposit box for when he passed on.
46:27
Speaker 3: The brothers would open it up and read it. And
46:31
Speaker 3: the letter said something like this, sons, when I pass away,
46:37
Speaker 3: you will receive what seems to be a very large
46:39
Speaker 3: sum of money. You can either let it, squander it
46:44
Speaker 3: and let it ruin your life, or you can you
46:48
Speaker 3: can basically invest it and use it to do good,
46:52
Speaker 3: you know, with a little guilt trip and there's like
46:54
Speaker 3: I know you won't let me down this sort of thing.
46:58
Speaker 3: And on that second piece is I hope you choose
47:01
Speaker 3: the second path because you will feel the glorious feeling
47:04
Speaker 3: of accomplishment. Very powerful words. Right. And then so my
47:10
Speaker 3: father's passed that idea and that letter onto me. It's
47:13
Speaker 3: got to hang it up in his office. I'd go,
47:16
Speaker 3: I walk over there and look at that original letter,
47:18
Speaker 3: and how impactful that was because when you're born into
47:22
Speaker 3: wealth and you seem to have everything, you can take
47:27
Speaker 3: that other path and just squander it or just use
47:32
Speaker 3: it for power or pleasure as opposed to reinvesting it
47:37
Speaker 3: and figuring out, like, look, you're standing on the shoulders
47:40
Speaker 3: of giants that you can do amazing things. What are
47:43
Speaker 3: you going to do with it? And so, growing up
47:48
Speaker 3: as a kid, this took me, by the way, I'm
47:50
Speaker 3: forty eight years old, now, this took me to my
47:52
Speaker 3: early forties to like to address all these imposter syndromes.
47:57
Speaker 3: And by the way, I'd probably still have a few.
47:59
Speaker 3: But but but what the gift my father gave me,
48:04
Speaker 3: and I can give my mother a lot of credit
48:06
Speaker 3: in this too, is they they wouldn't let me be
48:10
Speaker 3: a country club bum. And so when I was fifteen
48:14
Speaker 3: years old, when and I started having a bad attitude
48:18
Speaker 3: and having sophomore itis and all the things that teenagers
48:20
Speaker 3: go through. And I was a tennis player at the time,
48:23
Speaker 3: he said, you can either commit and give one hundred
48:26
Speaker 3: percent to tennis, or you're going to get a job.
48:28
Speaker 3: And I said, I'm burned out, I'm sick of tennis.
48:31
Speaker 3: Get me a job. And the first job was you know,
48:35
Speaker 3: like basically shoveling kalmanur, digging post holes and working seven
48:38
Speaker 3: days a week and working fourteen hour days. So I
48:41
Speaker 3: literally went from being kind of country club rich kid
48:44
Speaker 3: to shoveling shit in twenty four hours. And but I
48:49
Speaker 3: looked back on that moment and like, I think he
48:52
Speaker 3: probably saved my life yep, by by by putting me
48:55
Speaker 3: down that road. And then you know, just over the
49:00
Speaker 3: course of my life learning like going back to that letter,
49:04
Speaker 3: even though I didn't really know I was, But intuitively
49:07
Speaker 3: it's like I know, I'm going to feel good about
49:09
Speaker 3: myself and be able to look in the mirror if
49:11
Speaker 3: I make a contribution. That's why we talk about contribution
49:14
Speaker 3: motivated like we all have. Like if you can take
49:17
Speaker 3: your gift, whatever it is and actually make a contribution
49:21
Speaker 3: that helps others, whether it's in business or in philanthropy
49:24
Speaker 3: or the lady down the street, you're going to feel
49:28
Speaker 3: better about yourself. And so just over time, I kind
49:32
Speaker 3: of got out of that imposter syndrome. And also just
49:35
Speaker 3: because my father never forced me into a role that
49:38
Speaker 3: wasn't me. He gave me permission to be me, and
49:43
Speaker 3: I have way different skills than he has I can
49:46
Speaker 3: never do the job that he you know, And this
49:48
Speaker 3: is I think one of the problems with a lot
49:51
Speaker 3: of family owned businesses. It's like, well, you know, Junior's
49:54
Speaker 3: up next, and he's going to take the role or
49:57
Speaker 3: she's going to take the role just because their last name. Well, like,
50:01
Speaker 3: we don't view coke as a family business that surprises
50:05
Speaker 3: a lot of people. We view it as a meritocracy.
50:08
Speaker 3: So when you think about contribution motivated, what's your gift,
50:12
Speaker 3: what's your comparative advantage? And then also like you want
50:16
Speaker 3: to be in the role where you can self actualize.
50:19
Speaker 3: This is another one of the principles. It's self actualized
50:22
Speaker 3: and I didn't know I was learning at the time,
50:25
Speaker 3: but it came from Abraham Maslow and this idea of
50:29
Speaker 3: what you can be you must be, and that is
50:32
Speaker 3: so powerful. Like when you think about that, and it's
50:35
Speaker 3: like what if. Like that's why we do so much
50:38
Speaker 3: work in communities because we want everyone to feel that,
50:41
Speaker 3: and we want everyone to feel the glorious feeling of accomplishment.
50:44
Speaker 3: But we have too many damn barriers in the way,
50:47
Speaker 3: and we got to pull these barriers back. So I mean,
50:50
Speaker 3: no one's feeling sorry for me, like going to the
50:52
Speaker 3: feed yard and all that. You know, It's like, yeah,
50:54
Speaker 3: but you have all the resources you could ever want.
50:57
Speaker 3: But I you know, to your point, I still want
51:00
Speaker 3: to feel like I'm adding value and I'm making a contribution,
51:04
Speaker 3: and we want that for everyone. Yeah, everyone in the country.
51:08
Speaker 2: I'm going to thank you for being Thank you for
51:11
Speaker 2: that openness. Brother. Tomorrow, I'm gonna come back to you
51:14
Speaker 2: when you pick a principle that defines that pivot point
51:16
Speaker 2: for you that the audience can take inspiration from as
51:19
Speaker 2: we come to the conclusion of the formal structure. I'm
51:22
Speaker 2: going to actually do something because it's my podcast and
51:25
Speaker 2: I can. I'm gonna ask the audience that they have
51:28
Speaker 2: a question or two. By the way, I want to
51:30
Speaker 2: give Curly some Curly adostment a lot of love. He
51:34
Speaker 2: runs the foundation he does. He represents very well, extraordinary
51:38
Speaker 2: human being and a great leader in Atlanta. So I'm
51:42
Speaker 2: gonna take a couple of questions from the audience if
51:44
Speaker 2: you have it. So think about that, hey, Sam, but
51:49
Speaker 2: question from you as you think about your point. I
51:52
Speaker 2: want everybody to pick up like one principle that is
51:55
Speaker 2: like really important to you from the book, that is
51:58
Speaker 2: the signature for you. But Chase, if you haven't noticed
52:04
Speaker 2: we're black, I don't know if I don't anybody else notice.
52:12
Speaker 2: And uh and with a lot of my I live
52:15
Speaker 2: in two worlds, to live in the streets and the sweets,
52:18
Speaker 2: and I'm I'm I'm constantly moving between these worlds and
52:22
Speaker 2: often I have to translate. And I got to be bilingual,
52:25
Speaker 2: and I find very few people who are multi lingual.
52:29
Speaker 2: Michael Milkin. I don't need to translate for Tony restaurant.
52:31
Speaker 2: I don't need to translate for But they're older, They've
52:34
Speaker 2: they've seasoned, and they're they've they've really made an intention
52:38
Speaker 2: to be normal and all like that. How did you
52:41
Speaker 2: get so a couple of round brothers? I mean, is
52:44
Speaker 2: it the music? What the hell?
52:47
Speaker 3: I think my parents like topping back to like our
52:52
Speaker 3: value system. My parents, it was never a discussion about
52:57
Speaker 3: skin color, this or that. It's just like you want
53:00
Speaker 3: to be around people have great values and then there's
53:03
Speaker 3: mutual benefit and like build friendships that way. I do
53:07
Speaker 3: think what my my my mom, frankly, she wanted me
53:12
Speaker 3: to play bitty basketball when I was a little kid.
53:15
Speaker 3: My mother bitty basketball, so This was in Witchtalk Kansas.
53:20
Speaker 3: The Salvation Army put on this amazing basketball program. All
53:23
Speaker 3: the best kids in the city played it. So when
53:26
Speaker 3: I was seven, eight, nine, ten years old, I played
53:30
Speaker 3: a bitty basketball was an okay player, but I was
53:34
Speaker 3: one of two white kids, all black team, and what
53:39
Speaker 3: it was amazing.
53:40
Speaker 2: Everything makes sense.
53:41
Speaker 3: I mean, no, no, no, I mean but but I
53:45
Speaker 3: would just say, like, those were those were my homies,
53:48
Speaker 3: those were my friends.
53:49
Speaker 2: And translate homies for you.
53:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, but but I would say like, and I've just
53:55
Speaker 3: carried that on, you know, through life. Is that Like
53:58
Speaker 3: I play in a band as well. My drummer's black,
54:03
Speaker 3: singers black, and it's like, but I'm colorbyne I'm not saying, well,
54:08
Speaker 3: I want great talent that can go deliver a great
54:11
Speaker 3: product and you can go win and all that, and like,
54:14
Speaker 3: I just don't. I don't see the world through that.
54:17
Speaker 1: Let me let me, let me rave on him for
54:18
Speaker 1: a little bit. I'm gonna answer your question about what
54:20
Speaker 1: principle stands out the most. So when I hang around Chase,
54:25
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm too color not blind. I mean,
54:32
Speaker 1: he has a he is a gatherer. He makes a
54:35
Speaker 1: melting pot. One of the most beautiful melting pots that
54:38
Speaker 1: you've ever seen.
54:39
Speaker 4: Like I've gone through a few events that he's hosted.
54:41
Speaker 4: I mean, you got people.
54:42
Speaker 1: From every imaginable background, no matter ethnicity, color orientation over here,
54:51
Speaker 1: political belief over here, religious beleef over here, crazy story
54:56
Speaker 1: over here, worst story over here.
54:57
Speaker 4: All in one room.
54:59
Speaker 1: And and when it really comes alive is when he
55:02
Speaker 1: plays music with the group.
55:05
Speaker 4: You hear the most unique sound. I'm in New York
55:08
Speaker 4: right now.
55:09
Speaker 1: I think one of the most beautiful sound is Brooklyn
55:10
Speaker 1: Tabernacle in the church because all these different nationalities are
55:15
Speaker 1: singing and they worship it where it's supposed to go.
55:19
Speaker 1: But the sound that they make with that band, I
55:22
Speaker 1: mean from the instruments and the sound coming together. But
55:24
Speaker 1: it really shows what his superpower is, his ability to
55:27
Speaker 1: gather people.
55:28
Speaker 4: So walking in a room like this is nothing for him.
55:31
Speaker 3: He thinks, I'm the one that's actually playing the music
55:33
Speaker 3: the other But this what de Mario is saying is
55:38
Speaker 3: like that, like my north star is to unite people
55:42
Speaker 3: around around like solutions that empower people that are disruptive, unite, empower,
55:49
Speaker 3: disrupt I love doing things that are the next curve
55:53
Speaker 3: of technology or the next business model or whatever. I
55:56
Speaker 3: apply that to every element of my life that I
55:59
Speaker 3: found it Stand Together Music. Back to the music comment
56:02
Speaker 3: that Mario made, because I don't know what you guys
56:05
Speaker 3: think an audience here, but there's nothing that unites people
56:09
Speaker 3: like the power of music. And it doesn't matter what
56:13
Speaker 3: tribe you you say you're in, like you go to
56:16
Speaker 3: that that great show, that great concert, that great gathering,
56:20
Speaker 3: all of that BS falls aside. And so I've always
56:25
Speaker 3: loved music since I was a little kid playing music.
56:29
Speaker 3: But also you know, my my first business was actually
56:33
Speaker 3: with my friend, a Skio mod that he taught me
56:36
Speaker 3: how to build car stereos and we were building boomboxes
56:39
Speaker 3: for for my friends when I was fourteen years old.
56:42
Speaker 3: That was my first X is yeah yeah, So to Mario.
56:47
Speaker 2: I went. When to Mario, I decided, by the way
56:49
Speaker 2: before we came in here, we went to the side.
56:51
Speaker 2: We had a little committee meeting. We decided to make
56:53
Speaker 2: you an honorary black man. I would love that, and
56:57
Speaker 2: I love so so don't forget you, don't forget your Let.
57:03
Speaker 3: Me just finish this. I founded Stand Together Music to
57:08
Speaker 3: to basically empower musicians that want to do good, but
57:13
Speaker 3: they don't have they don't have the platform like stand together.
57:16
Speaker 3: So we're working like with the Weekend. We work with
57:20
Speaker 3: like Matt Sorem from Guns N' Roses, Marcus King is
57:23
Speaker 3: one of the most incredible up and coming blues guitar players,
57:28
Speaker 3: a lot of different We work with Darryl McDaniels from
57:31
Speaker 3: d MC killer Mike exactly, thank you, And but we
57:37
Speaker 3: want to push the easy button on social change for
57:39
Speaker 3: the issue they care about most. And we just I
57:43
Speaker 3: started that because I was like, nobody's doing this, and
57:46
Speaker 3: we have the platform that they need and we can
57:49
Speaker 3: help them push the easy button and get that in
57:52
Speaker 3: sports is the same thing. That's what the Mario is
57:54
Speaker 3: doing with the NFL, and like we can drive movements
57:58
Speaker 3: with that kind of mindset.
58:00
Speaker 1: And that's why I'm here, the reason why I left
58:04
Speaker 1: football practice today, got.
58:05
Speaker 4: On a plane and flew down here.
58:07
Speaker 1: Though I love Chase, though I love Charles, I love
58:10
Speaker 1: these principles, but it's not about this book and it's
58:12
Speaker 1: not about these principles.
58:14
Speaker 4: It's about you. That's why I came in the room.
58:17
Speaker 4: It's about you.
58:20
Speaker 1: For anything to work in our society, it begins with you.
58:25
Speaker 1: Nobody else. It begins with you. God created everybody in
58:29
Speaker 1: this room with any coherent value. He created that it's
58:35
Speaker 1: in you, and the world needs your contribution. You have
58:39
Speaker 1: to have a contribution mindset. We all have to have
58:41
Speaker 1: a contribution mindset. What contribution can you make to society?
58:46
Speaker 1: That's the first part. The second part is people need
58:49
Speaker 1: to see a pathway that they can go and make
58:52
Speaker 1: that contribution. If there are barriers that exist and people
58:57
Speaker 1: want to try, it's going to lead to learned helplessness.
59:00
Speaker 1: Meaning I tried, but I keep getting shocked by the fits.
59:04
Speaker 1: And that's where we come together using our complimentary capabilities
59:08
Speaker 1: to remove those various for people. And the last piece,
59:12
Speaker 1: and this is what's great about being an American. You
59:15
Speaker 1: have to have a resilient attitude.
59:19
Speaker 4: You will get knocked down. It will be things that
59:23
Speaker 4: you try that you will fail, and you will fail horrendously.
59:29
Speaker 1: It could be at work, it could be in relationships,
59:32
Speaker 1: it could be its parenting, it could be on it
59:35
Speaker 1: could be anywhere.
59:36
Speaker 4: But you have to get back up.
59:39
Speaker 1: And so I know we're in dark times right now,
59:42
Speaker 1: but trouble don't last our ways.
59:45
Speaker 4: That's what the creators say.
59:47
Speaker 1: But what's gonna matter is what we do when we
59:49
Speaker 1: come out of the other side of the dark time.
59:52
Speaker 1: Are we gonna be a people with more hope or
59:53
Speaker 1: people with less hope?
59:55
Speaker 4: And I got here.
59:56
Speaker 1: I came here for this to make sure that this
59:59
Speaker 1: room walk out of that tunnel with more hope.
1:00:01
Speaker 4: And I cannot do it without each and every one
1:00:04
Speaker 4: of youth.
1:00:06
Speaker 1: So I'm grateful to be here talking about the country.
1:00:11
Speaker 2: Reverend Tomorrow, the church was happening. Now, what are you
1:00:15
Speaker 2: talking with me lately? Did you have a point you
1:00:18
Speaker 2: want to make from the book?
1:00:19
Speaker 4: And you set the principal.
1:00:22
Speaker 1: The principle is self actualized number five. Self actualized is
1:00:28
Speaker 1: what he spoke about earlier. What these gentlemen are doing
1:00:30
Speaker 1: in their life. There there being the best versions of themselves.
1:00:34
Speaker 1: But it's only going to go so far. We need
1:00:37
Speaker 1: everyone to be the best version of themselves self actualized,
1:00:41
Speaker 1: and it takes all of us. It takes a contributional mindset,
1:00:44
Speaker 1: it takes pathways where the barriers are removed, and it
1:00:47
Speaker 1: takes a residient mindset to do that.
1:00:51
Speaker 3: That's impossible to follow. I'm gonna try only with a
1:00:55
Speaker 3: call to action, because we want to be able to
1:00:58
Speaker 3: figure out how we can partner with everyone in your audience,
1:01:01
Speaker 3: not only here, but in your amazing community that you've built.
1:01:06
Speaker 3: And that so we have the biggest project that Stand
1:01:09
Speaker 3: Together has ever embarked on. It's called Be the People.
1:01:13
Speaker 3: Going back to the Declaration of Independence and what created
1:01:17
Speaker 3: the American dream, basically this idea that what made America
1:01:25
Speaker 3: great was this culture of everyone wanting to make a
1:01:29
Speaker 3: contribution and to help others. So especially now versus any
1:01:35
Speaker 3: time in our country where it feels so divided and
1:01:39
Speaker 3: it feels so tribal, standing together, bringing people together and
1:01:44
Speaker 3: encouraging people to be the people and tell their stories
1:01:49
Speaker 3: of how they're making a contribution in their community, small, medium, large,
1:01:53
Speaker 3: doesn't matter, but making a contribution to others and the
1:01:57
Speaker 3: fact that we have we use social media for good. Right,
1:02:00
Speaker 3: tell those stories of what everyone in this room is
1:02:04
Speaker 3: doing and celebrate those and make these stories go viral
1:02:08
Speaker 3: and make contribution cool, right, and I think we can
1:02:13
Speaker 3: we'll be able to shift. This is long term, This
1:02:15
Speaker 3: is not a short term. Hey, let's figure this out
1:02:18
Speaker 3: and celebrate the two hundred and fiftieth birthday and then
1:02:21
Speaker 3: we all go home and do this is a This
1:02:24
Speaker 3: is a decade long platform we're building and that everyone
1:02:28
Speaker 3: can be a part of this. So I just encourage
1:02:30
Speaker 3: you to check it out. You know we're on all
1:02:31
Speaker 3: the social media platforms, but just engage with be the
1:02:35
Speaker 3: people and stand together. And there's like we want to
1:02:39
Speaker 3: push the easy button on how to do that and
1:02:41
Speaker 3: make sure everyone's a part of what's going to make
1:02:44
Speaker 3: the next two hundred and fifty years of this country
1:02:46
Speaker 3: better than the last.
1:02:47
Speaker 2: Amen. Have you guys enjoyed tonight? Now we can end
1:02:56
Speaker 2: this right now. And because we have a great eving,
1:02:58
Speaker 2: does it? You want to hear a question? Question? You
1:03:00
Speaker 2: want to try a question or two? All right? And
1:03:04
Speaker 2: by the way, anybody was not clear on whether chase
1:03:09
Speaker 2: with the brother or not. Just look at those boots.
1:03:12
Speaker 2: I want those boots.
1:03:14
Speaker 3: My girlfriend over here picked them out for me. I
1:03:16
Speaker 3: don't address myself.
1:03:17
Speaker 2: Yes, this beautiful lady, say your name, coordinate who who job? Leona?
1:03:28
Speaker 2: She runs one of the most important business organizations here
1:03:31
Speaker 2: in Atlanta, Atlanta Business League Stamp yep.
1:03:39
Speaker 5: So a couple of things, and I'll make it brief, John,
1:03:43
Speaker 5: I met either your father or your uncle when you
1:03:47
Speaker 5: first came to Atlanta. Curly hosted a reception at Georgia Pacific,
1:03:53
Speaker 5: and I recall going in and there were a ton
1:03:56
Speaker 5: of people that were walking in front of me and
1:03:58
Speaker 5: everyone was talking shop.
1:04:00
Speaker 2: You know, business business.
1:04:02
Speaker 5: It was just I'm sure he was tired of it.
1:04:05
Speaker 5: But anyway, I said to him, you're one of two
1:04:09
Speaker 5: people I know from Kansas, and he said, and he said,
1:04:13
Speaker 5: who is that? I said, Dorothy and Charles McAfee. And
1:04:23
Speaker 5: I don't know if you know Charles McAfee McAfee Architects,
1:04:27
Speaker 5: But in a few minutes he shared with me that
1:04:29
Speaker 5: his son did not want to be a part of
1:04:31
Speaker 5: the business and that he was working as an EMT
1:04:35
Speaker 5: at Grady. Is that you or your cousin that's not me.
1:04:41
Speaker 5: But interestingly enough, based upon what you've said tonight, I
1:04:46
Speaker 5: see there's a theme you all had to find your
1:04:48
Speaker 5: own way, and I think that's powerful. And John, I
1:04:52
Speaker 5: want to thank you for bringing him here tonight because
1:04:55
Speaker 5: it really helped me to see another side of what
1:05:00
Speaker 5: I thought I knew, which you talked about. But I
1:05:04
Speaker 5: appreciate it and thank you. Continue to do the great work.
1:05:08
Speaker 5: Thank you, uh, and I just there's no question, just
1:05:12
Speaker 5: keep doing what you're doing. And I like what I hear,
1:05:16
Speaker 5: and thank you and curly that's great, Jack, Catherine, the
1:05:20
Speaker 5: entire team back there representing the co company.
1:05:22
Speaker 2: Well and for the sake of the audience around the world,
1:05:25
Speaker 2: say your full name.
1:05:26
Speaker 5: You were Leona Barr Davenport. I'm President and CEO of
1:05:29
Speaker 5: the Atlanta Business League.
1:05:31
Speaker 3: Wonderful, Can I make you absolutely sure? Leon? One of
1:05:36
Speaker 3: the one of the principles that we didn't get to
1:05:39
Speaker 3: talk about, but that was probably the single most important
1:05:42
Speaker 3: one to me over the course of my life. Again,
1:05:46
Speaker 3: whether it's in business or social change or failures that
1:05:49
Speaker 3: I've had in my personal life all come back to
1:05:52
Speaker 3: this principle of comparative advantage. And so when you were
1:05:55
Speaker 3: talking about you know, is that you did you have
1:05:56
Speaker 3: this job and that job. I had a lot of
1:05:59
Speaker 3: different jobs that weren't for me, and that was actually
1:06:02
Speaker 3: the first question that I guess I never answered. How
1:06:06
Speaker 3: I've fired myself as a president of one of our
1:06:09
Speaker 3: largest businesses at Coke. But this idea of comparative advantage
1:06:15
Speaker 3: in like understanding what your real gift is and trying
1:06:18
Speaker 3: to experiment with different roles and responsibilities over the course
1:06:24
Speaker 3: of your life to test like where are you where
1:06:28
Speaker 3: can you self actualize with what you do day to
1:06:31
Speaker 3: day and what you choose to work on. And so
1:06:34
Speaker 3: I think about it as what's your gift, what's your
1:06:36
Speaker 3: comparative advantage? What are you passionate about? Number two? And
1:06:40
Speaker 3: then where's a market opportunity? And when those three things
1:06:43
Speaker 3: line up in that Ven diagram, that the center of
1:06:45
Speaker 3: that Ven diagram, that is self actualization. And I can
1:06:50
Speaker 3: tell you I had so many different roles across different
1:06:52
Speaker 3: businesses where I wasn't self actualizing, but those failures taught
1:06:56
Speaker 3: me you have to figure out what you don't want
1:06:59
Speaker 3: to do, what you're not good at, to really hone
1:07:01
Speaker 3: in on the bull's eye of what you do want
1:07:04
Speaker 3: to do and what you're good at.
1:07:06
Speaker 2: And so he may have been different from what your
1:07:07
Speaker 2: dad had thought wants you to do. Yeah, your idea
1:07:10
Speaker 2: might've been completely different. That's right, enough courage to say no, Dad,
1:07:14
Speaker 2: I'm not doing that.
1:07:15
Speaker 3: Well. He gave me that courage and through these principles,
1:07:18
Speaker 3: and like I said, a lot of kind of family
1:07:21
Speaker 3: owned businesses and fathers don't have that mindset. It's like,
1:07:24
Speaker 3: look I did it this way, I was successful. I've
1:07:27
Speaker 3: got the template, do it my way, and he always
1:07:30
Speaker 3: gave me permission to be me, which was so important
1:07:33
Speaker 3: and I'm so grateful for that. But I would encourage
1:07:38
Speaker 3: you guys, if you are interested in these principles, really
1:07:40
Speaker 3: dig into comparative advantage and ask yourself what that means
1:07:44
Speaker 3: for you, because I think at some point in our lives,
1:07:47
Speaker 3: we've all been in that role that we know isn't
1:07:50
Speaker 3: for us, or maybe it's the right title and it
1:07:53
Speaker 3: feels good and you can tell your friends that you're
1:07:55
Speaker 3: in the right job or whatever, but it's not fulfilling
1:07:58
Speaker 3: you and you're not fully on locking your potential. So
1:08:03
Speaker 3: I always ask people is like, whether you have a
1:08:06
Speaker 3: business of ten people, one hundred, ten hundred thousand, whatever,
1:08:10
Speaker 3: imagine if you had every single person in their comparative advantage.
1:08:16
Speaker 3: Just think about that and the competitive advantage you would
1:08:20
Speaker 3: have if you do that where everyone's in their power alley.
1:08:24
Speaker 3: It's very easy to think about that in sports, like
1:08:27
Speaker 3: the Mario's maybe not going to be quarterback, you're a
1:08:32
Speaker 3: fantastic defensive back and you have a skill for that.
1:08:34
Speaker 3: It's more obvious in sports, but when we get into
1:08:37
Speaker 3: business and we think about that or running nonprofits or whatever.
1:08:41
Speaker 3: For some reason, titles and egos get in the way
1:08:46
Speaker 3: and it's about, well, I kind of want the job,
1:08:49
Speaker 3: I want the big job or whatever. Well, like, thank
1:08:52
Speaker 3: god I chose to fire myself from the big job
1:08:56
Speaker 3: because my life the last I would say eight to
1:09:00
Speaker 3: ten years since I did that has been completely transformed,
1:09:04
Speaker 3: and I think the company has created a hell of
1:09:05
Speaker 3: a lot more value because of that. So I would
1:09:08
Speaker 3: challenge everyone you know in this audience, like what is
1:09:11
Speaker 3: my comparative advantage? And if you're a leader, are you
1:09:14
Speaker 3: organizing your teams around the power of comparative advantage? So anyway,
1:09:18
Speaker 3: thanks for triggering that out of my head.
1:09:21
Speaker 2: I want to I want to let everybody know I
1:09:22
Speaker 2: believe it's true that everybody's not gets a copy of
1:09:25
Speaker 2: becoming a principal center leader, principal driven leader to get
1:09:31
Speaker 2: a copy, and I believe you get a copy of
1:09:33
Speaker 2: A Capitalism for All, my best selling book. By the way,
1:09:37
Speaker 2: Chase and I were I've read his book, he's read
1:09:41
Speaker 2: my book. Or since we're reading each other's books, that
1:09:43
Speaker 2: were so busy and we found enormous commonality. We found
1:09:48
Speaker 2: very few things to argue about. We actually we were
1:09:51
Speaker 2: tripping over each other like complimenting each other saying, oh,
1:09:55
Speaker 2: I believe that too. It's amazing when it happens when
1:09:58
Speaker 2: you talk to somebody. God gives you two ears and
1:10:02
Speaker 2: one mouth, so you listen twice as much as you talk.
1:10:07
Speaker 2: People just need to shut up and listen these days.
1:10:09
Speaker 2: Shut up and listen and ask somebody their actual opinion
1:10:12
Speaker 2: versus presuming and assuming based on what you've read or
1:10:17
Speaker 2: what you've heard, what you think you know about the
1:10:20
Speaker 2: other person. And I, you know, I am so glad
1:10:26
Speaker 2: that I've just nosy and got up all in your
1:10:29
Speaker 2: face and fortunate to be my friend. We have a
1:10:32
Speaker 2: last question here, or maybe we have one or two questions. Okay, yes,
1:10:35
Speaker 2: right here.
1:10:40
Speaker 3: Hi.
1:10:40
Speaker 6: My name is Terry Matthews wood All. This is my
1:10:42
Speaker 6: husband Lee. I have a question for you. You actually
1:10:45
Speaker 6: touched a little bit. There are seasons in our lives
1:10:49
Speaker 6: as entrepreneurs where success doesn't necessarily align with our purpose.
1:10:56
Speaker 6: Have you ever felt disconnected? Were success that you're having
1:11:01
Speaker 6: is disconnected from your purpose? And what principle in your
1:11:04
Speaker 6: book would you apply to that?
1:11:06
Speaker 3: That is a fabulous question, and I love to Mario's
1:11:10
Speaker 3: thoughts on this too. But I've felt that in a
1:11:13
Speaker 3: number of different roles. In fact, I so I just recently,
1:11:18
Speaker 3: about a year year and a half ago, switch roles
1:11:21
Speaker 3: within Coke. You could say I fired myself again because
1:11:26
Speaker 3: the business platform that I built Coke Disruptive Technologies, which
1:11:30
Speaker 3: was about investing in the most promising disruptive entrepreneurs are
1:11:35
Speaker 3: going to change the world. I did that for about
1:11:37
Speaker 3: seven years and I absolutely loved it, but then realized
1:11:40
Speaker 3: that it's getting more to an operating role again and
1:11:43
Speaker 3: I'm not very good at that. I'm not, and so
1:11:47
Speaker 3: I need to fire myself again. We have a gentleman
1:11:50
Speaker 3: that has been in the group since the beginning that
1:11:53
Speaker 3: is a fantastic operator. He needs to run the business,
1:11:56
Speaker 3: not me. And so what I switched to was a
1:12:00
Speaker 3: broad role across Coke that was about business development, partnerships, origination,
1:12:05
Speaker 3: and it's opening new doors. It's creating relationships with these guys,
1:12:10
Speaker 3: it's getting us into new areas of technology, opening doors
1:12:14
Speaker 3: that Coke hasn't been before. The reason I go through
1:12:17
Speaker 3: that is there's somewhat of an imposter syndrome that comes
1:12:21
Speaker 3: with that type of role and that I can't measure
1:12:25
Speaker 3: profit and loss on that, and I think all of
1:12:29
Speaker 3: us yearn for what's my scoreboard, and so, you know,
1:12:35
Speaker 3: I want to bring in new deals, I want to
1:12:37
Speaker 3: bring in new relationships and all those things, but I
1:12:39
Speaker 3: can't find that on the bottom line of coke. And
1:12:42
Speaker 3: so I you know, I've dealt with that, the anxiety
1:12:45
Speaker 3: of that, but realize that I'm now shifting into a
1:12:49
Speaker 3: role as leader. You're not the one getting all the contracts.
1:12:53
Speaker 3: You're not getting all the sales and all that, and
1:12:55
Speaker 3: you can't put clear points on the board. But what
1:12:57
Speaker 3: you can do is build preferred partnership and empower people
1:13:01
Speaker 3: with principles and create a bottom up environment and a
1:13:05
Speaker 3: culture to where thousands of people get to go do that.
1:13:10
Speaker 3: That's a lot more fulfilling than just saying, well, what
1:13:13
Speaker 3: do I get to do and what do I get
1:13:15
Speaker 3: credit for? Right? And so that's like I learned this
1:13:18
Speaker 3: again from my father, and I think so many leaders
1:13:21
Speaker 3: at co CAV as well. Even though he's been CEO,
1:13:24
Speaker 3: he articulates himself as like, I'm really kind of a
1:13:27
Speaker 3: CPO Chief Philosophy Officer. I study these principles, I read
1:13:32
Speaker 3: all the books, and I figure out how we apply
1:13:34
Speaker 3: that in business, and all he wants to do is
1:13:38
Speaker 3: empower people with principles, and that's how he's gotten the
1:13:41
Speaker 3: scale that he has, not only in business one hundred
1:13:44
Speaker 3: and thirty thousand employees. He just wants to empower leaders
1:13:47
Speaker 3: and let them take their gifts and go innovate and
1:13:50
Speaker 3: go add value to customers. It's the same thing he
1:13:52
Speaker 3: wants to do and we want to do with Stand together,
1:13:55
Speaker 3: and that's why we have scale in philanthropy and social
1:13:57
Speaker 3: change as well. So I don't know if I directly
1:14:00
Speaker 3: answered your question or not, but that's how I think
1:14:04
Speaker 3: about measures and success, and you know, I go all
1:14:08
Speaker 3: over the map on that that I think. As I've
1:14:10
Speaker 3: gotten older and had more failures, you learn about like
1:14:14
Speaker 3: what what good looks like and what creating value is.
1:14:16
Speaker 3: And it's not just the return on capital on the
1:14:19
Speaker 3: bottom line.
1:14:21
Speaker 2: By the way, Chase, I'm also allows the operator, and
1:14:25
Speaker 2: I'm like the chief inspiration officer. Chief.
1:14:28
Speaker 3: That's good, chief.
1:14:29
Speaker 2: Chief Aspiration Office chief, you know, cheap tree shaker. And
1:14:33
Speaker 2: my my one of my operators is right there, Brian Betts,
1:14:36
Speaker 2: my president, chief financial officer. So I he does a
1:14:39
Speaker 2: great job, and I know what I'm not good at Yeah.
1:14:42
Speaker 2: Well I can be good at if I wanted to.
1:14:44
Speaker 2: I don't want to. I was average at it. And
1:14:48
Speaker 2: I mean, DeMarco, jump in here if you want to
1:14:51
Speaker 2: with any of this, if you if you have something
1:14:54
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm not sure as anything you're not good at. Yeah,
1:14:56
Speaker 2: I've seen you.
1:14:57
Speaker 1: But to answer her question, and I think this is
1:14:59
Speaker 1: where or Charles would really come alive for this, as
1:15:02
Speaker 1: I've had a chance of trying to sit down with
1:15:04
Speaker 1: the principle that this is is actually something he just.
1:15:06
Speaker 4: Turned me on.
1:15:06
Speaker 1: The book is a life of meaning and synergy. That's
1:15:09
Speaker 1: the principle. And so he put me on a book
1:15:12
Speaker 1: by Victor Frankel with one line and it was if
1:15:15
Speaker 1: someone has a means to live but no meaning for
1:15:19
Speaker 1: which they live, then they're going to be off. And
1:15:23
Speaker 1: so I don't see those two as and I think
1:15:26
Speaker 1: what the principle will point to those who aren't mutually exclusive,
1:15:30
Speaker 1: they need to be synergetic. So you see him living
1:15:33
Speaker 1: it out with all the success of Coke Industries and
1:15:35
Speaker 1: everything that he's achieved in his life, but also with
1:15:38
Speaker 1: this purpose of moving through life and pouring in the principles.
1:15:40
Speaker 1: Nobody would care about the principles if he hadn't had
1:15:42
Speaker 1: the success that he had, And so you see those
1:15:45
Speaker 1: two kind of coming together. For me, My purpose is
1:15:49
Speaker 1: being a human potential unlocker. So yeah, I've been able
1:15:51
Speaker 1: to have success at the highest level on the football field,
1:15:54
Speaker 1: but that's just the platform. And people wouldn't care for
1:15:58
Speaker 1: me to come in and unlock their potentially if I
1:15:59
Speaker 1: hadn't had the success that I was put here to have.
1:16:01
Speaker 4: So those two kind of go hand in hand.
1:16:04
Speaker 1: I need the success, but but I'm not fulfilled if
1:16:07
Speaker 1: I'm not unlocking people's potential. And so that's the principle
1:16:11
Speaker 1: that will pointed to it. But it's it's enthused in
1:16:14
Speaker 1: the entire book. It's enthused in all the principles being
1:16:17
Speaker 1: lived at.
1:16:17
Speaker 2: To Murray as you're talking Chase murriw as we're talking.
1:16:22
Speaker 3: His answer was hell better than mine.
1:16:25
Speaker 2: In mind, he had that nail on the head. If
1:16:32
Speaker 2: you think about as we started this, we're as we're
1:16:35
Speaker 2: ending this conversation, I think there's one more question by
1:16:37
Speaker 2: the way rapids as were end this where we started it,
1:16:42
Speaker 2: I said, there's three types of relationships. Is giver and
1:16:46
Speaker 2: a giver that's exotic, A giver, a taker, and asterotic
1:16:50
Speaker 2: a taker and a taker, and that psychotic and just
1:16:53
Speaker 2: in talking, which what you keep saying is you're just
1:16:57
Speaker 2: you're just pouring, You're giving it, you're giving, Yes, you
1:17:00
Speaker 2: are receiving, but you're focused on the giving. And that's
1:17:03
Speaker 2: just a natural leader. And the humility and the authenticity.
1:17:07
Speaker 2: People trust that they want to follow that, And I
1:17:10
Speaker 2: think that's a real mark of a great leader. Both
1:17:13
Speaker 2: of you, I'm proud to call your friends in the
1:17:15
Speaker 2: fight to do what's right. I'm going to end with
1:17:19
Speaker 2: Michael Milkin quote, who is a Ford and one of
1:17:22
Speaker 2: the Fords of my book, along with that Bashor and
1:17:24
Speaker 2: Ambassador Young. He said that it intelligence is equally distributed,
1:17:30
Speaker 2: but opportunity is not, and so he spends his life
1:17:35
Speaker 2: trying to level the playing field on opportunity. And that's
1:17:40
Speaker 2: what each and every one of you hopefully leaves here
1:17:43
Speaker 2: wanting to do, is to level the playing field to
1:17:47
Speaker 2: whom much is given, much is required. If you succeeded,
1:17:50
Speaker 2: and I'm looking at each one of you now, public
1:17:54
Speaker 2: service is the price you pay for the success you've achieved.
1:17:57
Speaker 2: You didn't get here by yourself, and get here by
1:18:00
Speaker 2: yourself I'm looking at a man right here. I've never
1:18:02
Speaker 2: met him before. I'm looking right now. Just raise your hand,
1:18:05
Speaker 2: you looking up, stating you right now, Yes, raise your hand.
1:18:08
Speaker 2: You met somebody, and I know we gotta wrap this up.
1:18:10
Speaker 2: You met somebody when you were a young man. You're
1:18:11
Speaker 2: a businessman, corporate You met somebody. You saw somebody as
1:18:15
Speaker 2: a young man, a man, and you said, my god,
1:18:18
Speaker 2: I can do that. Yes or no? You see he said, yes,
1:18:23
Speaker 2: we've never met this young man right here. When you're
1:18:27
Speaker 2: coming up in business as a corporate executive, you met somebody,
1:18:29
Speaker 2: you saw a man and you said, I can do
1:18:31
Speaker 2: that too. I think I can do that. And then
1:18:34
Speaker 2: somebody gave you a shot, gave you a job in
1:18:36
Speaker 2: terms of with it, yes or no, I'm a mind reader. No,
1:18:40
Speaker 2: this is just I mean, this is human expirit None
1:18:43
Speaker 2: of us got here by our Yeah, so lean back
1:18:48
Speaker 2: and help somebody out. You think you're helping them, you're
1:18:51
Speaker 2: really helping yourself. Thank you all for being here for
1:18:55
Speaker 2: Money and Wealth podcast, and you get a free book
1:18:57
Speaker 2: when you leave. Make sure you shake hands with these
1:19:01
Speaker 2: two individuals. But I have one last special strange requests.
1:19:06
Speaker 2: Say hello to somebody you don't know. Meet somebody who
1:19:10
Speaker 2: makes you a little uncomfortable because two plus two has
1:19:14
Speaker 2: to equal six to eight or ten. I want you
1:19:15
Speaker 2: to leave here a little uncomfortable, which make you a
1:19:19
Speaker 2: lot better. We're better together when we stand together. Ladies
1:19:23
Speaker 2: and gentlemen, say.
1:19:24
Speaker 4: Thank you, thank you, John Alben, thank you, thank you,
1:19:27
Speaker 4: thank you, John, thank you. Oh good job, brother, thank you,
1:19:32
Speaker 4: thanks for having me.
1:19:33
Speaker 3: Thank you.
1:19:33
Speaker 5: Awesome than.
1:19:46
Speaker 2: Money and Wealth with John O'Brien is a production of
1:19:48
Speaker 2: the Black Effect Podcast Network. For more podcasts from the
1:19:52
Speaker 2: Black Effect Podcast Network, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
1:19:56
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
1:20:00
Speaker 1: Pet