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Transcript

Do Substantial Good · The Whigham School Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Jeremy, as always, it's great to talk with you again.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: I think a really fun conversation to have today.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's the idea of substantial good.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: You'll see it on our website, you see it in our view books, you see it everywhere in all of our communications to students, prospects, even to our our donors and investors.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: We want them to know about substantial good.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: That's the driving force behind what we're doing.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: Do you still still see it that way?
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: Have you actually said, nah, it's not important any longer?
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I I fully believe in that.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: I love that phrase in the in the mission statement about training global leaders to do substantial good in the world.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: What what does that mean to you?
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: When I first got started, I was talking to a marketing professional and she said, Why did you put the word substantial in there?
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: That's a big blob blobby word, and it seems like it just kind of slows the case down.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: Why should I say we're going to do good in the world?
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, uh, we wanted to have a differentiation between what how we're approaching good than what other people are.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: And the word substantial is that thing that pushes us into a good that really makes things better.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: A substantial good is what I actually affect, change people's lives, make things better for them and around them.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I know of not something substantial.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: Is that how you see it?
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: Or you have different coloring on it?
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: The the substantial is key because on the one hand, it's not that all leaders are going to become leaders of nations and affect millions of lives.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: On the other hand, it's not that you're just going to do go out and do one little good deed.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: Substantial is, of course, of a certain size, impact, importance.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, there's also the definition of the word substantial where it's real, it's tangible, it's not just imaginary.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: So there are our graduates are going out and doing something real, substantive, and with a with a high impact, at least on a certain community and group of people.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: I love that combination of those two words together.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: The reason why we emphasize it is that there is a natural tendency, uh, especially when it comes to higher ed recruiting, you have the power to do the things you want to do in the world.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: Get to the training so that you get the job you want and you create the w the future that you desire.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to make sure that not only are we saying something a little bit differently, but we're also substantially doing something differently.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: We don't want any of our students to walk out of the out of the Wiggham School program just thinking, hey, now I'm set to make, you know, a big, you know, a six-figure fat salary now, and I can do all kinds of wonderful things, start my own company, I can build my world, I can buy the second house, I can drive the fancy car.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: And they some some of our graduates are gonna do that just because the world will re reward them.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: And that's perfectly fine, no problems there.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: But I want their heart to be driven to and you can use this training and my capabilities and my skills now that I have that I garnered at the Wigham School to do something that I know is gonna benefit and help others.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's the kind of leaders I think the world's missing.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: There are those that are out there, I'm not saying they're not people out there that are not doing this.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: What I'm saying is that they're in short supply and we need to replenish the supply.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's a short supply because it it tends to be leaders working for their own good.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: And and by good, in this case, I mean in a fairly crass sense.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Self-interest, self-promotion.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, a lot of leaders will will slap on language of no, this is for the greater good, this is for society, but it doesn't actually pan out that way.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I and I really mean that across most sectors.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you look at technology, finance, politics, broadly speaking, military, industry, um, e and even in some cases education.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: I think education of of a lot of professions tends to be a little bit more outward focused.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: Which is why what we're doing.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: But it's just it's so hard to get people to work for the common good, much less to do substantial good.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now, of course, that does raise the question.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: So who gets to define what's good, right?
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, yes, do we do we need, you know, the elite up here, the the supposedly brilliant few or rich few or powerful few defining it for everybody?
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's a great question.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: We could probably talk for hours now.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: You just open up Pandora's box.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: We probably need to pull out some philosophy here.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: It needs to be said.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: We've got to It needs to be said.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: But I think within the heart of every one of us, we know what a what good is.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: And we see it in children when they say that's not fair, and all those kinds of things.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: There's a sense of something that happens within the heart of a human that we really do want a world that is equitable, that is treating others fairly and with uh the same respect, you know, that do unto others as you would have them do unto you kind of concept.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's throughout all of human history and all languages, all cultures, you see this kind of an idea overarching.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so our substantial good is geared toward that.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's second uh categorical imperative, you know.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: Would I want what I'm doing right now to be the law of the land?
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: I was on a customer service call yesterday, and I had this thought.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: They were inconvenienced to me, and I was getting very frustrated, and I was thinking, I can just lash out here and just absolutely blister these people.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I realized if I were in their situation, would I want that to happen to me?
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: And yes, and sometimes it makes us swallow our pride sometimes.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: But that I think is the good we're looking for.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so that's kind of the baseline for me.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: How is it for you, Jeremy?
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: Are am I hitting on points that you disagree with or you think need embellishment?
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think I disagree with any of that.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: I I do agree that something in us understands what's good, even if we have a very egotistical approach to leadership and and viewing of others.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: At a minimum, it's something what we want for ourselves is probably going to be good.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: So we should want that for others.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: And you mentioned do unto others as you do unto uh as you'd have them do unto you.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: So you got the golden rule.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: And you did a study on this recently, kind of across religious and philosophical traditions for for the book that's uh that's coming out.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um how how how many how many traditions did you look across that in some way define good as you know what others want?
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: I think about probably about three or four dozen that I started with, and I narrowed it down for the books to some interesting combinations that hit kind of the the panoply with all all of what we had in human conversations about what we call the golden rule.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: I loved what um one philosopher was calling it is the universal moral code.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I was reading Jane Goodall, the Book of Hope, that was just written right before she passed away.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: And she talks about that in a chapter.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: It felt so good hearing her talk about in such very plain language about you know what the universal moral code is within all of us.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: And we went through everything from ancient Chinese philosophy all the way through the Middle East and up and up into the Norse traditions, and of course we ended up with our final conversation just about some of the Western traditions that we all know in the Western part of the world.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: And it's been a universal thing.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: That's why it's called the Universal Moral Code.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: That book, as I should call the the The Leader's Guide to Tomorrow, it will go through that whole ex exploration for you.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: But that's the basis of our substantial good.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: At least the way we were defining it within the Wiggum School.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: And here's one uh one thing I want to say.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think it's mutually exclusive for you to get to attain the good of life that you're looking for as a person and the good and the substantial goods you can create as a leader.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think they walk hand in hand.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: Definitely.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot a lot of people think it's can if I'm too uh too worried about the world and uh and the needs of the world, I will lose what I should should be coming to me if I work hard and pull myself off my own bootstraps.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: What I'm saying is those things are not warring against each other, and one's not robbing energy from the other.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, they are building energy together and they're stronger by working together.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't I don't buy that.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: So let's say I'm a billionaire miser.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I have almost no real friends, and I really don't want to do good with my money.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: How how would we help that person understand that real good, even for them, is gonna be to do something, even if it does mean ending up with a little less money?
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: If I do what we're saying, I'm probably gonna end up with, I don't know, one billion when I die.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: And and in and in my way of thinking, that's less good than ten billion.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's always does that go against what you're saying, where they don't have to be competing interests?
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: They don't have to be competing interests.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: I do agree with that.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's hard.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: Inside the human heart, it's hard to make those kinds of value judgments.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: But I tell you what, uh, Charles Dickens really attacked that problem in the in the Christmas Carol.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: That was a major focus.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: It deals really with the heart of a miser who has everything and just starts to look at life with that in mind.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: So he was able to see exactly what choices he's made by the looking through looking at himself through the lenses of other people.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of times we don't take time to do that.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: Say, what is my life, my contribution, the things I'm doing, how is it being viewed by others?
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: Basically saying, would I like myself if I were not me and I saw me?
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: If I were lesser than the current me that I am, if I looked at myself, would I would I could say that an admirable person or not so admirable person?
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think that's a a real mental battle that a lot of us need to need to kind of work through.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it will get us to that objective good.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: Could be some some trade-off, but it doesn't mean you just have to completely give up on on yourself because if I take an interest in others, it's gonna make me a better person.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: Probably make me happier.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: And in the end, I mean, does it really matter if I die with 10 billion or one billion?
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think that that actually matters if we're you know keeping score.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I in in the book, The Leader's Guide to Tomorrow, we talk about Robert Bosch in that book.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: A huge, wonderful German company.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: Robert Bosch's life was defined by a wealthy man who did incredibly philanthropic things in his life.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's really a phenomenal story.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: He's the guy that gave us eight-hour workdays.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: He's the guy that gave us health care for employees.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: And one critic said to him one day, Well, you're able to be generous with your people because you're rich.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: And Robert Brosh turned it around and said, Oh, no, no, no.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: I'm rich because I've been generous with people.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that there's a lot of recali recalibration that we need to do in our brains.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think our modern culture helps us make those value judgments and distinctions.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: We want that for the Wiggham School graduate.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: We want them to be able to see with a much more solid lens that they can be successful, do remarkable things, become completely financially independent, and be a contributor to the good of others.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: And that would make us all very, very happy.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why we're doing this.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: And it gets us up in the morning.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: So so if we pull all that into the context of what we want to do then at the Wiggum School, this makes me think of something else that substantial good means for us.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: If at the base level, of course, doing good for myself, but also doing the same thing for others.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: I think another way that we're going to be training students to understand what substantial good is by sending that into the world all over the world, all kinds of cultures, many other languages, and they're going to have to understand other people who are very different from them.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then those people, those communities, are the ones who are going to tell us this is substantial good for us, for our community.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think that's going to actually be hugely different across human societies.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, there are parameters to it, because if you can imagine a hypothetical society that says, well, once we can eradicate everybody else and wipe them off the face of the earth, that will be good for us.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we have to draw some lines somewhere, right?
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: This has to be for humanity as a whole.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: But that's not, we're not going to run across that for the most part.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: That's so true.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: But but teaching our students to go and listen, teaching leaders to go and listen to other people.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: What does your community need?
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: That would be a positive for your community.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to help you achieve that.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: That humility and that intellectual curiosity will lead them to a substantial good.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's what really excites us.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: So our program is baked with this end.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: This isn't something that's just we talk about with uh in a in an ethereal way.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to make it very tangible in the whole warp and woof of what we do with the Wigham School program.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: I think this is something that is desperately needed in our times.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: I think we need people who've been calibrated this way.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: They will lead us to much better times if we create them.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: And we need more than one, we need more than ten, we need more than a hundred, we need more than a thousand, we need more than ten thousand of these kinds of people who can help us moderate and build a substantial good mindset, and that will make, I think, tomorrow much better than today.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: And that's our hope, and that's our work, and that's what we're going to do.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: I was gonna say we should probably tell people too that we actually have a we do have a complete definition of our phrase substantial good.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: Do you mind if I read that?
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, go ahead and read that real quick.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we've we've codified it.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's a high degree of good that leads to significant and sustainable net positive benefits on behalf of the people being served.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: In context of the Wiggham School, it would include home populations as well as people from all regions of the globe.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: The Wiggum School characterizes the scope of its reach of substantial good as everyone, everywhere.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: Wiggum School itself will do that, but our graduates could go out and do it.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and then the influences they have, yes, are the things.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's been great talking about this, and we'll keep the conversation going.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: But if anybody, any of you have questions on this stuff, make sure you visit the website, Wiggamschool.org.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're interested in the book, The Tomorrowleader.com, you can actually secure a copy.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks a lot, Jeremy.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for sharing all this.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: All right, talk to you soon.