Latest / Project Candor: Ordinary People. Unexpected Stories / Hot Mic. Radio Suspended Him at 17 with Robert White | Ship's Log #49

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Hot Mic. Radio Suspended Him at 17 with Robert White | Ship's Log #49 · Project Candor: Ordinary People. Unexpected Stories

0:03
Robert: The only unique role of a CEO, of a leader, is to facilitate the creation, the communication, and the maintenance of a commonly held purpose, vision, and values that all else should be and can be delegated.
0:20
Robert: So that's my tip for aspiring leaders.
0:27
Jeanne: Welcome aboard Project Candor, the show where we set sail with everyday people and discover the unexpected stories that shape who they become.
0:35
Jeanne: I'm your host, Jeanne Andersen, your Admiral of the Unexpected, and today we have a wonderful conversation ahead.
0:42
Jeanne: Robert White is a mentor to executives, a serial entrepreneur, a keynote speaker, and the author of Living an Extraordinary Life.
0:51
Jeanne: He spent more than 30 years helping people break through the barriers they put in their own way and the ones the world puts in front of them.
0:59
Jeanne: He's lived and worked overseas for over two decades.
1:03
Jeanne: And he said the work of becoming extraordinary starts with one look in the mirror.
1:09
Jeanne: Robert, welcome aboard Project Candor.
1:12
Jeanne: Thanks for joining us today.
1:14
Robert: What a wonderful introduction.
1:15
Robert: Thank you, Jeanne.
1:17
Jeanne: You're quite welcome.
1:18
Jeanne: You've done quite a lot of things.
1:20
Jeanne: I'm really excited that you're on here.
1:22
Robert: I get a lot of nice introductions, partially connected to gray hair, I think, and uh maybe to some accomplishment and stuff like that.
1:30
Robert: But one of the things I like to remind audiences of is that the most special thing about me is I'm really an average person.
1:38
Robert: I'm sometimes undisciplined.
1:41
Robert: I struggle with my weight.
1:42
Robert: I've been incredibly successful at getting married and incredibly unsuccessful at staying married.
1:49
Robert: You know, I'm an average person, but I've been blessed with good coaches, good mentors, good information that changed the course of my life.
1:58
Robert: So it's a pleasure to do the work I do because I'm a product of the product.
2:03
Jeanne: Oh, that's honestly a good answer, and I'm sure everybody appreciates that.
2:07
Jeanne: We all have our flaws, but you don't focus on them, and I like that aspect of everything you're doing.
2:12
Jeanne: You like extraordinary people, and so do I.
2:15
Jeanne: So are you ready to get started with the questions?
2:18
Jeanne: Because I have a lot for you.
2:20
Robert: Well, I'm uh ready to rock and roll, too.
2:22
Jeanne: Awesome.
2:23
Jeanne: You described yourself as an essentially average person in many ways.
2:28
Jeanne: When you look back at the kid you were growing up in Green Bay, what was it about him that made him believe a bigger life was possible?
2:36
Jeanne: And where do you think that belief came from?
2:39
Robert: You know, I don't know if it was the stars or the moon or the, you know, the lines on your hand or God.
2:46
Robert: But, you know, my experience, you know, I've been in front of a lot of people and worked intensely with a lot of people.
2:53
Robert: And one of my learnings from that, and observing them while observing myself.
2:58
Robert: And Jeanne, I spent a lot of time not doing trainings, but being in the back of the room training a trainer, you know, where I observe and then I coach on the breaks and stuff like that.
3:09
Robert: And one of the things that happens when you're in front of the room is you're busy thinking about the student, about the participant, and not about yourself.
3:16
Robert: If you're in the back of the room, and frankly, this is not a good quality that I have, but thinking I could do that better than that guy in front of the room or that woman in front of the room, right?
3:25
Robert: I don't want to be in the back of the room.
3:27
Robert: I I could do this better.
3:29
Robert: But in between those thoughts are thoughts about myself, am I living what we're teaching here?
3:34
Robert: And that exercise, that constant awareness of where I am in regard to positive life-affirming values and attitudes and behaviors, that's been good for me.
3:47
Robert: I didn't get it at the time.
3:49
Robert: I really looked at observing trainers as a chore.
3:52
Robert: And what I now realize is it was a priceless gift to me, because it gave me an opportunity to be with our material in a very different way, in a very personal way, to really apply it to myself.
4:04
Robert: That's also true with uh being with you in our our conversation a few days ago.
4:09
Robert: You know, I turned the computer off and I thought, wow, that was really interesting.
4:14
Robert: That was of value to me, you know, and in some ways that's kind of selfish, but you know, that the difference between selfishness and greed, I learned that a long time ago, you know, greed is wanting something for nothing, you know, but selfishness is wanting something and being willing to pay the price for it.
4:32
Robert: I think that as I grew up in, you know, and again, many people make different choices.
4:38
Robert: Uh many people have had, I mean, I grew up in poverty and and abuse, but many people have had it even worse.
4:45
Robert: I adopted two of those children that have had it even worse.
4:49
Robert: But a choice gets made about whether or not you're going to retreat from life.
4:54
Robert: And, you know, I think this is the heart as I'm learning more and more about addiction, this is the heart of addiction, this is the heart of major crime, is people make a choice to retreat from life, not to engage in the incredible joy of living successfully.
5:10
Robert: And other people, I don't know if it's you get angry, I did get angry.
5:14
Robert: I made a choice when I was very young that I'll never be poor again, and that I I could accomplish something despite being told I couldn't.
5:22
Robert: And I don't know where that came from.
5:25
Robert: So, you know, it just depends on kind of your wiring, right?
5:28
Robert: How you abscribe that, where did that come from?
5:31
Robert: I don't know where it came from, but I do know that I'm blessed that I did have that attitude that, you know, things could get better.
5:38
Robert: You know, I had my own income when I was eight years old.
5:42
Robert: And then that list of things, you know, when whenever they describe entrepreneurs, I go, oh yeah, that's me.
5:48
Robert: You know, for good here for bad, that's me.
5:51
Robert: And so I got started early with an income.
5:55
Robert: I started early learning that you got back out of life from what you put into it.
6:00
Robert: And maybe I didn't have the words as a young person, but I think a lot of what's happened for me has been a combination of, first of all, you mentioned Green Bay.
6:09
Robert: You know, my parents didn't do a very good job with me, but the city did.
6:13
Robert: Neighbors, friends, friends of friends took care of me, put opportunities in front of me.
6:19
Robert: And when I look back on that today, I'm I feel so blessed that I grew up in a there was roughly 50,000 people in Green Bay, so it it was still a lot smaller than it is today.
6:30
Robert: And the city took care of me in a lot of ways.
6:34
Jeanne: That's fantastic.
6:35
Jeanne: I would never have guessed that about Green Bay, because all I know of it to be is a huge city.
6:40
Jeanne: But you said something that made me think right away of Scarlet O'Hara and Gone with the Wind.
6:47
Jeanne: Do you know uh when she was everybody was starving and you know, Lana had burned?
6:53
Jeanne: I believe it had already burned, and she's sitting there tealing the fields, and she says, as God is my witness, I'll never go hungry again.
7:01
Jeanne: And that might be the time that she ripped the curtains off the wall and made a dress out of it and went out and got some money.
7:08
Robert: Well, I had a few moments like that.
7:10
Robert: I just wasn't as attractive as as her.
7:13
Jeanne: Oh wow, Vivien Leigh.
7:15
Jeanne: But yeah, I mean, it's some kind of thing inside of everyone, I think.
7:20
Jeanne: It just depends on how they can call it out.
7:22
Jeanne: But, you know, I'll always remember her in that line.
7:25
Jeanne: And it sounds like you had one of those moments too.
7:28
Jeanne: It was like, I'm not standing for this.
7:30
Jeanne: What did you do at eight years old?
7:33
Robert: Well, in the summertime I cut grass, in the winter I shoveled snow.
7:37
Robert: I cleaned out milk cans.
7:39
Robert: You know, Wisconsin is the dairy state.
7:42
Robert: And at that time it wasn't the big tank trucks, it was individual milk cans that had to be rinsed before they were uh, you know, really brought to the point where they could use them again.
7:53
Robert: And the truck drivers didn't like doing it.
7:55
Robert: I learned that, and I learned that they would tip you if you did the rinsing for them.
8:00
Robert: Uh so I did that.
8:01
Robert: I sold greeting cards door to door.
8:04
Robert: You know, I did anything to bring income into the family.
8:09
Jeanne: Oh, that's great.
8:10
Jeanne: Well, I shouldn't like digress into my own stories here, but you just keep bringing them out.
8:15
Jeanne: My aunt told me that when she was little, this is my dad's sister, that um her father would pay her to clean out glass jars.
8:26
Jeanne: At that time, I guess he had glass tops too.
8:29
Jeanne: I don't know.
8:30
Jeanne: But anyway, she would give them to them.
8:32
Jeanne: And uh he was a bootlegger.
8:34
Jeanne: I had no idea, but he'd give her 10 cents or five cents a jar.
8:40
Jeanne: So she had her own little income.
8:42
Robert: Well, and teaching entrepreneurship.
8:45
Jeanne: Yes, exactly.
8:46
Jeanne: I didn't know that he was a bootlegger until years later and found out that you know there was a big family split, and um, my dad was a preacher, her his uh grandfather was not.
8:58
Jeanne: Oh, it was her great-grandfather.
9:00
Jeanne: I mean her grandfather, my great-grandfather.
9:02
Jeanne: Anyway, back to you.
9:04
Jeanne: At 46, you retired to a 15,000 square foot home on 76 acres in Aspen.
9:13
Jeanne: Now my mouth is dropping when I read that.
9:17
Jeanne: For most people, that would be the end of the story.
9:20
Jeanne: The prize you spend a lifetime chasing.
9:24
Jeanne: What did sitting on top of that mountain actually teach you and what made you eventually come back down?
9:30
Robert: Well, first of all, I did semi-retetire to Aspen for uh 12, 13 years.
9:36
Robert: I remarried, I raised two birth children and two adopted children.
9:41
Robert: I uh skied 60, 70 days a year, one year 80 days.
9:46
Robert: I traveled with the late John Denver for six months, presenting a program on creating an environmental future.
9:52
Robert: I had a lot of fun and focused on me and my family instead of on, you know, the 24-7 entrepreneurial journey that I had been on for 20 plus years.
10:04
Robert: So it was great in that regard, and I met some wonderful, wonderful people.
10:09
Robert: There's a competition in in uh Colorado between these ski areas, and particularly between Aspen and Vail, Colorado.
10:18
Robert: And uh part of the competition I realized is that the people that are in Vail are retired corporate people.
10:26
Robert: These are people that earned a great deal of money and have a wonderful retirement, and they choose to spend all or part of it in Vail.
10:33
Robert: Aspen has the crazy people, the entrepreneurs.
10:37
Robert: And uh, you know, there are a lot of there are many mega rich people there.
10:42
Robert: And I got to meet some of them and and kind of dance with them a bit, you know, and and learn from them.
10:49
Robert: So all of that was good.
10:52
Robert: And uh just kind of a break in my life and a blessing that the work I had done, particularly in Asia, allowed me to have, you know, a lot of money, more than I ever dreamed of.
11:04
Robert: And I, of course, I was the typical nouveau riche, poor kid from the wrong side of the track, suddenly making an unheard of amount of money and you know, for me, and spending it sometimes wisely and sometimes not so wisely.
11:19
Robert: So it you know, it was an important part of my life, and I made some great friendships.
11:23
Jeanne: Wonderful.
11:24
Jeanne: If only I'd known you then.
11:26
Jeanne: Uh so uh you don't let us sit on things very long.
11:31
Jeanne: So you said you worked alongside John Denver on making a better environment.
11:35
Jeanne: That fits you being in Denver, but um, tell us a little bit about that.
11:40
Robert: Well, first of all, our trainings are very experiential, and our access to the authentic self is is through your emotional body and not your thinking, but rather how you're feeling.
11:53
Robert: And one of the tools that we use in our trainings is music.
11:57
Robert: We also use theater and lighting and uh trickery and all kinds of things that really come out of theater, but done in service of you really accessing who you really are.
12:08
Robert: So we had used John Denver's music in Asia and with an interpreter, consecutive interpreter doing the music with the music, and of course we weren't paying for it, it was illegal, but we got away with it.
12:23
Robert: And you know, he did he recorded 330 songs, uh, most of which he wrote or co-wrote.
12:31
Robert: And about one third of them were about nature and uh the wind, about the ocean.
12:37
Robert: Uh, you know, he was very close to the late Jacques Cousteau and uh you know, that kind of thing.
12:44
Robert: You know, went out on the calypso for a week, you know, on the boat.
12:49
Robert: And you know, he did amazing things with the environment and and a real commitment to it.
12:54
Robert: And one third were about love, about falling in love or falling out of love.
13:00
Robert: And one third were our work about the human potential, about our blocks, our barriers, but also about our breakthroughs.
13:09
Robert: And so we used, you know, he had a song called What One Man Can Do.
13:13
Robert: He wrote it to celebrate the late Buckminster Fuller's birthday, What One Man Can Do.
13:19
Robert: And we used that in our trainings as a general statement to everyone about what one person could do.
13:25
Robert: He had a song called I Want to Live, which is a stirring anthem for the human potential.
13:31
Robert: So we used his music illegally, and I now admit it uh openly, and I admired him from a distance, and I actually went to see him in in uh Tokyo, and this was before we were successful, and we had no money.
13:45
Robert: So I got a seat way up in the rafters at the Budokon.
13:48
Robert: So it was an intimate group of 17,000 people with every seat filled.
13:53
Jeanne: That is someplace.
13:55
Robert: He sold out seven concerts in six days, sold out.
14:00
Robert: Uh he was hot.
14:02
Robert: In Japan, of all places.
14:03
Robert: And then, you know, very few people spoke English in Japan at that time, and and still a relatively small number do.
14:10
Robert: And yet they all sang along with his music.
14:13
Robert: It was an amazing experience.
14:14
Robert: But he looked like a peanut, you know, down there so far from me.
14:18
Robert: But I I enjoyed it.
14:19
Robert: It was a great show.
14:21
Robert: And then I wrote this, I wrote the essays for for a photo book, a coffee, so-called coffee table book called One World, One People.
14:29
Robert: And when we completed it, I was proud of it.
14:32
Robert: And uh, you know, nobody reads the essays, by the way.
14:35
Robert: That's what I found out about that kind of book.
14:37
Robert: They just look at the beautiful pictures of people around the world, uh, done by a very gifted Japanese photographer.
14:44
Robert: And uh, but when I got the book, I was proud of it.
14:47
Robert: So I networked around, I found an address for John Denver.
14:50
Robert: So I sent him a copy of the book, and I'm and you know, I didn't hear back from him.
14:54
Robert: I found out later that he was getting 7,000 pieces of mail a month.
14:58
Robert: 7,000.
15:00
Robert: So whether it was a gift or a letter or whatever, he's not going to respond to 7,000 people a month.
15:07
Robert: And so I, you know, if you send a gift, that's it, right?
15:11
Robert: The joy is in sending the gift, not getting acknowledged.
15:14
Robert: So it didn't bother me that I didn't hear from him.
15:17
Robert: So years later, I moved back to the U.S.
15:20
Robert: and one of our trainers comes into my office one day and says, I'm involved in this uh charity called WindStar, uh, about creating a sustainable future for the planet.
15:30
Robert: And it's uh founded by the by John Devver.
15:33
Robert: And the organization is a mess, will you help?
15:36
Robert: And what that led to was it's attending a board meeting of Windstar and taking a few risks in telling the truth about what I saw and felt there, which created a friendship with John personally.
15:49
Robert: And he took me to his home after the meeting for more conversation, and uh he had a mezzanine above his living room in this beautiful home with a grand piano and it was also his library, and there were uh I think thousands of books on the shelves.
16:07
Robert: Only one book was out, it was on the piano, and it was one world, one people, my book.
16:13
Jeanne: Oh, how wonderful.
16:15
Robert: He didn't know that was my book.
16:17
Robert: He didn't know that was the guy that was speaking at his board meeting.
16:21
Robert: It was his favorite book.
16:22
Robert: And John, by the way, when he died, had 17,000 pictures cataloged that he had taken.
16:30
Robert: It was his hobby along with golf as he toured, was to take pictures.
16:34
Robert: And uh, you know, gifted photographer, actually.
16:38
Robert: And so he loved the book.
16:39
Robert: And that so that deepened the relationship.
16:42
Robert: Then he convinced me to move to Aspen and build my home there, and I joined the board of Winstark and to further the work, kind of to combine what he's was good at, which is first of all attracting a crowd, but secondly, uh that incredible ability to sing and tell a story with song.
17:01
Robert: So we created this program called Higher Ground, you know, about having a higher sense of purpose about the future, and we presented it all over the world.
17:10
Robert: And his deal was I'll appear, but you have to go, you know.
17:13
Robert: So we co-led those programs and uh incredible experience.
17:18
Robert: I think we woke a lot of people up, it was great.
17:21
Robert: But we also became personal friends, we sang Christmas songs together in the barn, you know, we did a wonderful trip to Spain together.
17:30
Robert: I still haven't been to Greece.
17:32
Robert: I've been to forty, forty-seven countries now, uh, and I have not been to Greece, and I want to go, I'm going to go.
17:39
Robert: And uh John went with Addie, finished on a European tour, and then he contacted me and he said, join us on a yacht.
17:46
Robert: It was a huge yacht, a huge, beautiful luxury yacht.
17:50
Robert: Join us along with the band for this tour of the Greek Islands.
17:54
Robert: And I honestly, Jeanne, I don't remember why I didn't go, but I didn't go.
17:59
Robert: I was busy with something.
18:01
Robert: And uh I thought, you know, I did discover that when you adopt two special needs kids and you have two birth children, four children under the age of eight at one point, we were busy.
18:13
Robert: Yes, you were.
18:15
Robert: So maybe they were my excuse.
18:17
Robert: I I actually don't remember.
18:19
Robert: But I, you know, I got we got to travel together.
18:22
Robert: We had a little retreat routine when either of us got off the road.
18:27
Robert: We would go down to the vapor caves in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, and cook and talk and decompress, just stuff like that.
18:36
Robert: So he was a dear friend.
18:38
Robert: I miss him a lot.
18:39
Jeanne: Oh, that's a wonderful story.
18:41
Jeanne: I had no idea about that.
18:42
Jeanne: So thanks for sharing that today.
18:45
Jeanne: You talked about a moment in your career when you had to close 15 offices in seven countries and let 240 people go.
18:53
Jeanne: That's the kind of failure most leaders never recover from publicly.
18:58
Jeanne: What did that day actually feel like, and how did you find a way to get up off the floor?
19:03
Robert: You know, my first stay in uh Japan was uh 12 years.
19:07
Robert: And then I came back to the U.S.
19:09
Robert: And then I went back uh when the Japanese economy melted down, I went back to kind of do a turnaround.
19:15
Robert: And I was staying at the Park Hyatt in Tokyo, which is, I believe, one of the finest hotels in the world.
19:22
Robert: Bill Murray did a uh movie that was kind of set in that Park Hyatt.
19:27
Robert: It's a lovely hotel.
19:29
Robert: And uh normally I wouldn't want if you're doing a turnaround, you want to set an example of not spending too much money on yourself.
19:36
Robert: But I had a zillion points on Hyatt's program.
19:40
Robert: So I had a beautiful suite in the Park Hyatt, kind of free.
19:45
Robert: But they had a restaurant on the top that had become the hottest restaurant in Tokyo at that time, the New York Grill.
19:52
Robert: And it was sold out all the time.
19:55
Robert: But they would get me in again, you know, that level of Hyatt, I could get a lot of things there.
20:00
Robert: And you could sit at four seats that looked into the kitchen.
20:05
Robert: You were almost in the kitchen, and this is a huge restaurant.
20:09
Robert: And I what I observed there, Owen, they had a female American chef, which breaks two rules in Tokyo.
20:18
Robert: Number one, you know, Japanese chefs uh and uh of all forms of cooking are brilliant, so to import an American, that was odd.
20:27
Robert: But secondly, a female chef, that's unheard of in Japan at that time.
20:32
Robert: And this woman was winning all kinds of awards with that kitchen.
20:37
Robert: So I watched her work, and she didn't cook anything, nothing.
20:42
Robert: She never touched a grill.
20:44
Robert: She stood in the middle of this huge kitchen, and her assistants, sous chef, or uh, you know, all of those people, they brought the dish to her and then she said yes or no.
20:56
Robert: And right next to her was a huge garbage can.
20:58
Robert: And I watched her take beautiful plates of food and just flip them upside down into the garbage can and swearing in English.
21:07
Robert: That was the other thing I noticed.
21:09
Robert: And uh, but before that food was put in a waiter's hand to go to a customer, she had to say yes or no.
21:17
Robert: And I'm watching this and I'm thinking, this is a wild woman, you know.
21:21
Robert: I've never seen this kind of passion.
21:24
Robert: And now and she's swearing of a street, you know, like a expression like a sailor, you know.
21:31
Robert: I haven't heard men share swear like she swore.
21:34
Robert: And uh so I noticed this.
21:36
Robert: And then I wanted to have a meeting with our key graduates.
21:39
Robert: And so I arranged a meeting room at the park, you know, a place that many people never see, really, you know, these beautiful meeting rooms.
21:47
Robert: So I arranged a meeting for about 30 people and I wanted to do something special.
21:51
Robert: So I went to the manager of the hotel and I said, I want that chef to come and speak to our graduates.
21:57
Robert: I want to know how she does this.
21:59
Robert: You know, what's her attitude?
22:02
Robert: What's her habit?
22:03
Robert: What's her behavior?
22:04
Robert: I saw what her behavior was.
22:06
Robert: And uh she said no.
22:08
Robert: You know, he showed up with a bottle of wine and a bunch of snacks and apologized and said, she said no.
22:15
Robert: And I said, No, I want you, I want her there.
22:18
Robert: You know, arrogant American.
22:21
Robert: And uh so she came and she came with her arms crossed and her eyes crossed and angry.
22:26
Robert: She did not appreciate being ordered to appear at this thing.
22:31
Robert: And that lasted about five minutes because when she started talking about her work, she came alive.
22:37
Robert: And so we get near the end and we have questions and answers, and one of the Japanese participants said, All right, so you win all these awards, and I understand how you get one day of excellence, of greatness, but how do you do it every day?
22:53
Robert: And she said, You have to source your vision every minute of every hour of every day of every week of every month.
23:02
Robert: You have to source your vision.
23:04
Robert: Now that long story is to tell you how I moved to Aspen, I had a wonderful experience, I raised some great kids, and I stopped sourcing my business.
23:16
Robert: I stopped being the thought leader, I stopped being the energy source, I went to Asia two or three times a year for a couple of weeks each time, and you know, toured our offices, you know, in uh from Japan to Taiwan to from the Philippines to Hong Kong to mainland China to Australia.
23:38
Robert: And I stopped being the leader that my company needed.
23:42
Robert: And what that led to was a story being told in my own company that Robert White is just a rich guy living in Aspen, living off of our hard work.
23:52
Robert: They didn't mention the eight months I spent sleeping on a friend's sofa to start that company.
23:58
Robert: Uh they didn't mention having no salary for two years.
24:01
Robert: You know, the list goes on and on like that.
24:03
Robert: Our origin story stopped being told.
24:07
Robert: And, you know, we hire a lot of high ego, very powerful trainers who they love a good story, especially if it features them.
24:15
Robert: So within a month, the seven top people in my Asian business spun off and started their own companies, and uh two of the people in the U.S.
24:28
Robert: culture change company did the same all within the same month.
24:33
Robert: So I went from incredible income, incredible fame, recognition in the industry, you know, all that stuff, big introductions, you know, like we started this conversation, to scrambling and you know, putting a significant amount of my personal wealth back into the company in an attempt to rescue it.
24:56
Robert: So I was unsuccessful.
24:58
Robert: Uh you know, I had lost the most important thing, which was the culture of the company had been violated and and destroyed.
25:07
Robert: So that's how you lose $30 million.
25:10
Robert: Oh, and then the love of my life left me for a lawyer.
25:14
Robert: It was not a good year, Jeanne.
25:17
Jeanne: Oh, I'm sorry to hear that, and I know it's a struggle to share it, but hopefully it wasn't your lawyer.
25:25
Robert: No, it wasn't uh someone she met in Hawaii.
25:28
Jeanne: Oh.
25:29
Robert: Not a good year.
25:30
Jeanne: Yeah, that wasn't a good year at all.
25:31
Jeanne: Uh yeah, let's move on.
25:34
Robert: But lots of learning, and a lot of what I learned in that process is what I do with business owners and CEOs today.
25:42
Jeanne: But you shared about this, you know, shift.
25:45
Jeanne: So you learned a lot when you were traveling and, you know, moving around in Asia.
25:50
Jeanne: So you spent more than two decades living and working abroad.
25:55
Jeanne: So living that long outside your own country tends to either harden a person or crack them open.
26:00
Jeanne: What did being a stranger in someone else's culture teach you about yourself that you couldn't have learned at home?
26:06
Robert: I think the big thing is that whether I really understood it conceptually at the time, reality forced me to realize that I was in a different game.
26:16
Robert: You know, an example would be that in America, something that you know and I know and that we grow up with is that what powers us quite often is guilt.
26:26
Robert: If we do something that we judge as a violation of our values, let's say, and we feel guilty.
26:33
Robert: Well, throughout Asia, they don't feel guilt.
26:37
Robert: There were 3,000 companies in China that copied my stuff.
26:40
Robert: They had our scripts, they had our examples, they had hidden cameras to take a look at how we set up an experience.
26:47
Robert: They just, you know, they went to the train, they liked it, they saw the opportunity, they started a company.
26:52
Robert: Most entrepreneurial country I've ever experienced.
26:55
Robert: But they don't feel guilt about that or about anything, really.
27:01
Robert: But they feel shame.
27:03
Robert: So when we started doing the training, not in English, we started in Japan doing trainings in English, but when we switched to Japanese, we found that it wasn't connecting in the right way to people in terms of the issues, the barriers, the things that stopped them in their life, it was shame.
27:24
Robert: And there's a big distinction between shame and guilt.
27:26
Robert: So it's not like I was brilliant or whatever.
27:30
Robert: It's just that it didn't work anymore.
27:33
Robert: And I I you know I have a lot of faults, but one of them is not failing to recognize in reality.
27:40
Robert: So if we put something into the training and it worked, we did more of it.
27:44
Robert: If it didn't work, we fixed it.
27:47
Robert: And so I'd say that's a strength that I've had personally, along with all of my, you know, talk to my ex-wives and they'll tell you what a terrible person I can be.
27:56
Robert: But that's a strength.
27:58
Robert: I do recognize reality and I'll fix it.
28:01
Robert: So that forced awareness almost served me well.
28:08
Robert: And just learning that, hey, this is a new game.
28:11
Robert: Whatever I learned growing up in Green Bay is great, but it isn't everything.
28:17
Robert: And different people around the world have a different perspective.
28:20
Robert: I mean, the work we do is loosely described as transformational.
28:24
Robert: That's one of the ways I learned that was by uh living and working abroad.
28:29
Robert: I mean, in addition to the 23 years of living abroad, in between those periods, I mean I've gone to Asia almost monthly for all of my working life.
28:39
Robert: I've crossed the Pacific so much that uh, you know, it's the classic, like flight attendants know my name.
28:45
Robert: Say hello, Robert.
28:47
Robert: You know, it's that's like that.
28:49
Robert: So it has helped me be more aware, helped me learn that I'm not always right.
28:56
Jeanne: Yeah, that's amazing.
28:57
Jeanne: I I haven't lived abroad truly.
29:00
Jeanne: I've visited and traveled in the Navy.
29:02
Jeanne: I stayed within the United States.
29:05
Jeanne: Hawaii, though, was kind of abroad, but it was still United States.
29:09
Jeanne: But I've learned something.
29:11
Jeanne: What I learned was that, you know, they've been doing what they've been doing all my life.
29:16
Jeanne: They don't need me to tell them they're wrong.
29:18
Jeanne: So I went over there and I didn't like some of the things that I saw in Hawaii and some of the foods and things.
29:26
Jeanne: I got used to it after a while, but I realized in that that, hey, these people have been getting along without me for all this time.
29:34
Jeanne: So I'm not gonna make a dent in what they're doing.
29:37
Jeanne: Um, and that's helped me a lot.
29:39
Jeanne: So acceptance, I think, in being and traveling and being somewhere outside of your comfort zone or where you, you know, establish your true goals.
29:49
Jeanne: So I like your story.
29:50
Jeanne: That's wonderful.
29:51
Jeanne: So your book carries a bold promise that any ordinary person can live an extraordinary life.
29:57
Jeanne: After all the people you've worked with over the years, what's the one thing you've watched stop the average person most often from actually crossing that line?
30:06
Robert: Uh, you know, that word extraordinary, the the Buddhists don't like it, by the way.
30:11
Robert: And I think there's a lot in the in uh the Buddhist lexicon that's of value, real value.
30:17
Robert: Many people get a lot of value from Buddhism, but they don't like the word extraordinary because that extra ordinary, they think everybody's the same and all of that stuff.
30:27
Robert: My experience is that in the Western world and in the developed world, which includes the Eastern world, the developed parts of the world, one of the downsides of that culture, and we're talking about macro here, the bigger picture, is we resist change.
30:45
Robert: As an example, whatever our self-image is, anything that threatens our self-image, we'll fight it.
30:51
Robert: You know, we don't change gracefully.
30:54
Robert: And so there is a body of thought that says, well, you have to change gradually.
31:01
Robert: And there's an exercise that a dear friend from Aspen is a guy named Tom Crum, and a lot of company people know him because first of all, he was John Denver's closest friend.
31:11
Robert: He's the co-founder of Winstar, and he did security for John Denver, was how they became close, for many years uh in these large crowds, because he's uh some kind of built in Aikido, you know, that kind of peaceful martial art, uh, but very effective martial art, uh, was his hobby, and then it's now kind of his business because he teaches executives how to kind of roll with the punch.
31:39
Robert: He's an incredible teacher.
31:41
Robert: And he taught me an exercise, which is to have me and another participant, and I've done this lots of times, to illustrate this point about how gradual change is a problem.
31:53
Robert: Because what you do is you get the other person and you put hand to hand.
31:58
Robert: And then me doing the exercise, I start to apply pressure.
32:03
Robert: What does the other person do?
32:06
Jeanne: Move?
32:07
Robert: No, they push back.
32:08
Jeanne: Oh.
32:09
Robert: And then I say to them, I ask you to just follow instructions.
32:12
Robert: I did not give an instruction to push back.
32:15
Robert: It's automatic.
32:17
Robert: That the moment we feel pressure, we push back.
32:20
Robert: The moment an idea comes up in front of us that conflicts with our belief system or our habits, our behaviors, we push back.
32:28
Robert: So this is why people don't change.
32:31
Robert: They push back.
32:32
Robert: They make themselves right.
32:34
Robert: That's another exercise in a lot of our trainings, is about being right.
32:38
Robert: And so my experience is that something extraordinary has to happen to live an extraordinary life.
32:46
Robert: You need a wake-up call.
32:48
Robert: You know, uh an example that many people I know identify with, and it's certainly true in my life.
32:54
Robert: When you have a baby just born and put into your arms as a guy or as mom, I suggest that something extraordinary happens that is beyond thought, that's beyond belief system.
33:10
Robert: Your whole life changes the moment that baby is born.
33:13
Robert: It changes everything for you.
33:16
Robert: And that's an example of something extraordinary, an experience.
33:21
Robert: So in our work, what we're looking at is how could we arrange, you know, in a conference room, an experience so vivid that it interrupts your patterns that causes you to look anew, that you really see the world in a different way.
33:39
Robert: And so that's what we're going for.
33:42
Robert: That life can be extraordinary, but something extraordinary has to happen for you in order for that to come true.
33:49
Robert: And I have this long before I got involved in these trainings, I just had a series of extraordinary things happen in my life that changed everything for me.
33:59
Robert: So and I've seen that with you know, now a million four hundred thousand people are graduates of our programs.
34:06
Robert: And so I I get to see a lot of examples of it.
34:09
Robert: I have a friend who did our training 25 years ago, a corporate training.
34:14
Robert: He happens to be a Brit who was doing business in Japan and went through our training.
34:20
Robert: He sends me his list of goals every year for 25 years.
34:25
Robert: He talks about that experience of 25 years ago and how it changed his life for the better.
34:32
Robert: So that's kind of where the extraordinary thing comes from.
34:35
Robert: So, you know, I'm doing my best to brand it.
34:38
Robert: I'm also being copied a lot.
34:40
Robert: There are now four books called Living an Extraordinary Life.
34:45
Jeanne: Oh.
34:45
Robert: Mine was the first one, and then three other people apparently thought that was a good title, so they named their book the same.
34:53
Jeanne: It's a different subtitle, but yeah, well, that's that's just super.
34:57
Jeanne: Like if somebody was listening to you today, uh, how would they do your training or how would they get to do training with your company?
35:05
Robert: Well, I exclusively now work with small and medium-sized company teams.
35:11
Robert: I work with their top team.
35:13
Robert: And uh generally it's a uh three to five day experience, either in person or on Zoom, if necessary, uh, hopefully in person, where we take a look at their awareness, at their own personal responsibility, at their own ability to communicate on a mastery level, to tell the truth to each other, to learn to really express excellence in all that they do.
35:38
Robert: And uh so I work with uh teams, and then what comes out of that sometimes is some executive coaching where there's something specific for an individual that they want to work on.
35:50
Robert: So that's what I do.
35:52
Robert: And uh, you know, I think I've mentioned to you that I have this little gift that I give and which helps create relationships, and that is uh I for 17 years I've done a an extraordinary minute, an email that can be read in one minute or less of whatever I'm thinking about and and learning, and sharing that with uh several thousand people.
36:14
Robert: So if you go to extraordinarypeople.com, that's free.
36:19
Robert: You can sign up for it, and that puts me in relationship because you hit reply on that email, I read every one of them, and I answer most of them.
36:29
Robert: So let's get in relationship, find out if we should be doing something together, is is kind of my approach.
36:35
Robert: But even if we don't, I make new friends, I learn things from them.
36:39
Robert: You know, it's all about relationship at this point for me.
36:42
Robert: But I work uh me and my team, we are work exclusively with top teams.
36:47
Jeanne: That's awesome.
36:48
Jeanne: So I do have that information, and we'll show that later, and it'll also be in the show notes if people didn't catch exactly what you said right then.
36:56
Jeanne: But I do want them to know how to get in touch with you.
36:58
Jeanne: But now it's time for us to transition to our signature game, two truths and a lie, here on Project Candor.
37:04
Jeanne: Are you ready to go?
37:06
Robert: I'm ready.
37:06
Robert: You're the you're the only person I know that's ever done this before.
37:11
Jeanne: I just think it's fun because I get to know a little bit more about you and maybe hear something funny that I didn't expect.
37:18
Jeanne: Um, so for those listening, what happens here on the game is the guest has provided us with three headlines about themselves.
37:26
Jeanne: Two of them are true.
37:28
Jeanne: Uh one of them is a lie.
37:30
Jeanne: I hate to say lie, but twisted truth or an exaggeration.
37:34
Jeanne: And uh sometimes they're an out and out lie, but I'm gonna read you those headlines and then I'm gonna guess which one I think is the lie.
37:42
Jeanne: And then Robert was gonna take us through each of those without revealing which one is the lie until the very end, and he'll give us the big reveal.
37:50
Jeanne: So play along with it.
37:52
Jeanne: This episode is sponsored by Rebel 180, the home of brave pivots and fresh start.
37:59
Jeanne: Rebel 180 is all about helping you rediscover what's possible when you stop settling and start listening to that little tug inside that says, Life can be different.
38:09
Jeanne: Whether you're navigating a career shift, dreaming about a new direction, or standing at the crossroads wondering if it's time for your own 180-degree turn, Rebel 180 is a reminder that you don't need permission to change your story.
38:23
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38:58
Jeanne: Thank you to our sponsors.
39:01
Jeanne: So here we go.
39:06
Jeanne: Number one, Robert started in Radio at 14, had the leading top 40 show at 17, and made more money than his father ever earned.
39:18
Jeanne: That's story number one.
39:19
Jeanne: The story number two, our headline number two, is Robert bought an award-winning New York media company because he loved the idea and made millions as a result.
39:31
Jeanne: Hmm, interesting.
39:33
Jeanne: Number three, with 1.4 million graduates of Robert's training, he's been banned from doing his work in China, and he's on the Scientology enemies list.
39:44
Jeanne: That one's wild.
39:46
Jeanne: All right, they all sound kind of crazy nuts, uh, especially the last one, because at 14, wow.
39:54
Jeanne: All right, I'm gonna say number two's a lie, but I don't know.
39:57
Jeanne: So just mark, that's my guess.
40:00
Jeanne: But Robert, you take us through each of those stories.
40:04
Robert: Well, I did start in radio as a control engineer originally at 14 years old, re-jiggered my high school schedule so that I could uh do the morning drive time with the announcer, and I'm behind the scenes making it work.
40:17
Robert: That, because the announcer turned out to be an alcoholic, I ended up on the air quite often.
40:23
Robert: And uh that led to my getting nights and weekends, which of course is a teenage audience, and I was one at uh 16.
40:32
Robert: I started doing nights and weekends at that station, and uh I had the number one show, the number one Nielsen rating in my market, and uh made a lot of money, more than my father ever earned.
40:45
Jeanne: Oh, and the top 40 show, was it like pop music, rock music?
40:49
Robert: Pop music, you know, it that it was called the top 40.
40:53
Robert: There was a list of the top 40 shows that week, and uh so those were the that was the only restriction on me that I could only play music from the top 40.
41:03
Jeanne: Yeah, but there's a top 40 country that's the top 40.
41:06
Jeanne: Maybe there wasn't back then.
41:08
Robert: It was pop primarily.
41:10
Jeanne: All right, so pop.
41:11
Jeanne: So how many girlfriends did you get from that?
41:15
Robert: I didn't get girlfriends.
41:16
Robert: I worked all the time and I was horrible.
41:20
Robert: I'm an introvert and I was horribly shy.
41:22
Robert: So I didn't have a girlfriend all through high school.
41:25
Robert: However, as a result of that, I was elected most likely to succeed.
41:31
Robert: I was the commencement speaker representing a class of 300.
41:34
Robert: I got a lot of recognition.
41:37
Jeanne: Oh, that's wonderful.
41:39
Robert: I made a mistake one weekend on Sunday night, and I forgot that the mic was on.
41:45
Robert: I mean, you we now know that a lot of people that have had the mic is on problems recently.
41:50
Jeanne: Yes.
41:51
Robert: When you're working at night and on the weekends, and particularly with my background, the station would not hire a control engineer for me.
42:00
Robert: I ran, they call it running your own board.
42:02
Robert: So you're running everything.
42:04
Robert: You're you're playing the music, you're turning the mic on and off, you're you're doing everything, and you're running the show.
42:11
Robert: And I forgot the mic was on, and I said a swear word.
42:15
Robert: And two things happened to that.
42:18
Robert: Number one, I got suspended for 90 days by the FCC at that point.
42:22
Robert: If you swore on the air, you got kicked off for 90 days, and so that happened.
42:27
Robert: Uh, but the other thing that happened was I went to school the next day, the word that I used was bastard.
42:33
Robert: And I said, You bastard.
42:35
Robert: You know, I'm yelling at my own error, right?
42:38
Robert: And I walked into school the next morning a little bit late, and I'm walking down this long hallway and lots of kids in it.
42:45
Robert: All of a sudden I hear this group of guys, my friends, yell out, you bastard.
42:50
Jeanne: You know, you got notoriety.
42:54
Robert: I had notoriety, but not girlfriends.
42:57
Jeanne: Oh, okay.
42:58
Jeanne: All right, what about number two, award-winning New York media company?
43:03
Robert: I went to a client's annual meeting, a corporate meeting.
43:07
Robert: They were utilizing computers.
43:08
Robert: This is the early days of the use of computers for presentations.
43:12
Robert: An IBM 360 that was driving 15 slide projectors at once.
43:18
Robert: And it almost creates motion.
43:20
Robert: It's because this is pre-easy video days.
43:25
Robert: And they also had at one point the the incredible violinist Jascha Heifetz performed live under a single spotlight.
43:33
Robert: The show was so dramatic, I fell in love with the whole idea and bought the company.
43:40
Jeanne: Well, that sounds believable.
43:42
Jeanne: Well, that was my guess.
43:43
Jeanne: I don't know.
43:44
Jeanne: Well, let's go on to number three.
43:47
Robert: Uh well, there are in fact a million four hundred thousand graduates between Life Spring, the company I originally founded and sold, and then with Arc International, and now extraordinary people.
43:59
Robert: You know, if you're teaching on the good side of things, if you're teaching freedom in China, that's against Communist Party rules.
44:07
Robert: And also in those 3,000 spin-offs from my company, there was a lot of what I call Chinese army style interpretation of our training experiences.
44:21
Robert: And some really bad stuff happened.
44:23
Robert: And uh when they uh when the Chinese owners of those companies were called to account by the Communist Party, said, Where well, where did you learn this?
44:33
Robert: They said Robert White.
44:35
Robert: So uh I got banned, even though uh, you know, my trainers would never do things that were not of value to people.
44:43
Robert: And uh with Scientology, it's kind of a long story, but you know, they kind of think they own all of this training material, and a lot of it, by the way, that they teach is very good material.
44:54
Robert: But one of the things is a formula for results, and the the formula is pretty simple.
45:00
Robert: Understanding it deeply is not so simple, but the formula is simple.
45:03
Robert: You want results?
45:04
Robert: Well, it's your what you do, you know, you you take action, but it's also who you are, your being.
45:12
Robert: So the formula is be plus do equals have.
45:15
Robert: That who you are being in the matter, your consciousness plus your action, that's what brings the results.
45:22
Robert: And uh so that's part of Scientology's teaching.
45:27
Robert: I didn't learn it from them.
45:29
Robert: You could say I learned it from the Greeks 2,000 years ago because it's it's in the writing of Diogenes and others.
45:37
Robert: That B plus two equals half, more than 2,000 years ago.
45:42
Robert: So because I was using it in our trainings, and because I got onto a Scientology's mailing list or ended to their computer, I got the honor of being on their enemies list.
45:53
Robert: And I'm very proud of it, actually.
45:57
Jeanne: Yeah, I've seen some of those shows with Lee Remini or whatever about Scientology, and I don't want to be on their enemies list.
46:03
Jeanne: Okay.
46:05
Jeanne: So, Robert, tell us which one is a lie.
46:09
Robert: Well, you got it.
46:10
Robert: I think it's number two, because yes, I did buy an award-winning New York media company.
46:16
Robert: I love the idea.
46:18
Robert: I lost millions as a result.
46:20
Robert: That's the lie in that.
46:22
Robert: It was uh very painful.
46:25
Jeanne: Oh, well, you know, the only reason I guess that one was because you were making millions in your other companies, so we it would have been a big stretch to be over here doing media uh in New York when you're building your other companies.
46:39
Jeanne: But I don't know, that was my thought, but I got it.
46:43
Robert: A big stretch is very kind way to language me just being really dumb.
46:49
Robert: Uh no.
46:50
Robert: And but you know, it said in more of a kind of an MBA kind of way of saying things, I did not do due diligence.
46:59
Robert: I didn't do the investigation.
47:02
Robert: I fell in love with it and did it.
47:04
Robert: You know, and it just did not turn out well at all.
47:08
Robert: On the other hand, I made a dear friend for life.
47:12
Robert: Uh there was a guy on the board named Stuart Matlins.
47:15
Robert: And uh if you're Jewish, you kind of know the Stuart Matlin's name because he founded Jewish Lights, the largest publisher of Jewish thought in the world.
47:25
Robert: And he's a dear friend now for many, many years.
47:29
Robert: He was on the board of that company, and uh he's the one that blew the whistle on it right after I bought it.
47:36
Robert: I mean, I was happy with buying the company for about one month.
47:40
Robert: And then it Stuart and others started blowing the whistle on so uh so I made a dear friend, and you know, I also formed a publishing company that actually turned out quite well.
47:52
Robert: We published nine books about the national parks, uh coffee table books that won a bunch of awards and sold well.
47:59
Robert: I later did sell it because it was publishing is just a crazy business for me.
48:06
Robert: I was proud of the work we did.
48:08
Robert: I loved getting the uh attention, I guess, of uh publishing books that won awards.
48:13
Robert: I met wonderful people in the sustainable environment field.
48:18
Robert: It kind of fit in terms of an interest that I have, which is in a sustainable future.
48:24
Robert: And we made some money, not a lot, but some.
48:27
Robert: It was a great experience.
48:29
Jeanne: Fantastic.
48:30
Jeanne: All right, so I know this has been such a fun episode, and I know people are listening to you and they're gonna want to get in touch with you.
48:38
Jeanne: So as I promised, I would have information down here on how to get in touch with you.
48:43
Jeanne: I also ask you for a quote, something that meant something to you, either your own or from someone else, and you did provide one.
48:50
Jeanne: So do you want to talk about that a little bit?
48:53
Robert: Well, I'm often asked for, you know, a five-minute answer to a five-day problem, you know, a tip, you know, that's going to change things for people.
49:02
Robert: And uh, you know, the great bumper sticker is that everybody wants to go to heaven and nobody wants to die.
49:08
Robert: But the quote that I provided to you is that the only unique role of a CEO, of a leader, is to facilitate the creation, the communication, and the maintenance of a commonly held purpose, vision, and values, that all else should be and can be delegated.
49:30
Robert: So that's my tip for aspiring leaders that your primary job is not paying attention to the huge number of people problems that get brought to you or the decisions on marketing and you know, all of those things, particularly those things, frankly, that are taught in an MBA program.
49:48
Robert: Your primary job is your culture.
49:51
Robert: And that comes from a focused, aligned, and committed workforce around purpose, the company's purpose, its vision, and its values, and and its strategic intent.
50:03
Robert: So that's your job.
50:05
Robert: And uh it's challenging.
50:07
Robert: You know, the people that I work are smart, they're hardworking, they're inspired in lots of ways.
50:14
Robert: And the most common complaint I hear is my people don't have the same commitment to this that I do.
50:20
Robert: That's an interesting statement, right?
50:22
Robert: The reality is, of course, they don't.
50:24
Robert: If they did, they'd have their own company.
50:27
Jeanne: That's true, very true.
50:29
Robert: So your job is to get them enrolled in your purpose, in your vision, in your values, and in your strategic intent.
50:37
Robert: You know, what are we up to in the next 90 days?
50:40
Robert: And to get the maximum number of people enrolled in that is the effort.
50:44
Robert: I mean, if you want a shorter version of how to get there, you hire somebody like me.
50:49
Robert: I'm not the only person that does that kind of work.
50:52
Robert: Uh frankly, a lot of my former employees are my competition today.
50:56
Robert: But my team, that's what we do, is work with executives to help them do something that's not normally in their toolkit.
51:04
Robert: You know, your toolkit is normally not about how to facilitate a meeting.
51:09
Robert: You have meetings, but it's different to have skills in facilitation.
51:14
Robert: And, you know, that's what we help with.
51:17
Robert: But you know, Jeff Bezos was a genius at purpose, vision, and values.
51:23
Robert: You know, became beyond wealthy, you know, insanely wealthy.
51:28
Robert: Same for Elon Musk.
51:30
Robert: These are people that build cultures of excellence.
51:33
Robert: Uh it's a tough thing for some leaders to get, is they're used to driving the company and the rewards are there.
51:40
Robert: They get paid more, hopefully, they get more recognition, all of that stuff.
51:44
Robert: But if they really want extraordinary results, they're gonna have to become masters at building the culture of extraordinary results.
51:54
Jeanne: True, very true.
51:55
Jeanne: So that's a great information for everyone.
51:58
Jeanne: And I have right here the contact information to get in touch with Robert after this call, um, Facebook, Instagram, website, YouTube, um, but he also gave you his call to action as well.
52:09
Jeanne: It will give you uh 28-page PDF if you go to the extraordinary people sign up for free report and also that um extraordinary minute email, which uh I think I'm gonna have to sign up for that after we get off this call.
52:23
Jeanne: So I think it's been such a wonderful episode, and I appreciate you being on the show, Robert.
52:29
Jeanne: For those listening, this is Jeanne Andersen.
52:32
Jeanne: I'm your admiral of the unexpected, and I hope you join us next week for another guest.
52:38
Jeanne: And until then, I wish you all smooth sailing.
52:42
Jeanne: Thanks for joining me on Project Candor, where the doors are open, the stories are unexpected, and the treasure is always real.
52:50
Jeanne: If today's episode made you laugh or think, follow the show and share it with your crew.
52:55
Jeanne: Otherwise, I might just make you swab the deck.
52:58
Jeanne: I'm Jeanne Andersen, your Admiral of the Unexpected.
53:02
Jeanne: See you on the next voyage.