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John Shegerian: This edition of the Impact podcast is brought to you by Trajectory Energy Partners. Trajectory Energy Partners brings together landowners, electricity users, and communities to develop solar energy projects with strong, local support. For more information on how Trajectory is leading the solar revolution, please visit trajectoryenergy.com.

John: Welcome to another edition of the Impact podcast. Today we are going across the pond to the UK, we are so excited to have with us, Andy Taylor. He is the commercial director of GreenTech Global. Welcome to the impact podcast, Andy.

Andy Taylor: Thanks John, I appreciate the invitation. It is great to be so involved in what we are doing and learn wonderful opportunity to be engaging with you I have been looking at your business and it is a steam company.

John: The feeling is mutual and before we get talking about all the important work that you are doing at GreenTech Global, can you share a little bit about your history, in your background? What led you up to the formation of Green Tech Global? Why you are so interested in excited about the environment?

Andy: Absolutely, well maybe a little background you detect that I actually do not have an English accent, but an Australian accent, I grew up in Australia. So I come from the world of studying chartered accounting law, and I have got an MBA. So I come from that corporate background to give you context. My world started in big firms, like Anderson and KPMG. I came over with the Westfield shopping center group. So property MNA, big shopping centers, Benjie Capital, then Balfour Beatty which is a big largest construction company in the UK, and that experience of working with large corporates gave me a sense of the opportunity to really address how quickly companies at that multinational level can embrace changing the world for the better. And the challenge which I now overcome is the inertia of those companies to innovate and particularly to innovate in a way that addresses the ecological and carbon challenges that we all face. And so I have invested in Green Tech with my business partner, Nick Yeatman. Nick is a little bit polar opposite to me, which is how we complement each other. He grew up in the world of Brands and marketing and formula one and being in the music business and being in the events business. So he is very much about branding, sales, and consumer relations. And then I come at it from the idea of the the large corporate mindset of growing up in that space and understanding how large corporates function and how they think.

And so a little bit about us a Green Tech. So what we have got is a true impact investment company. So far, we have invested our own capital and what we seek is companies that have innovative sustainability solutions that are market-ready but have not yet generate a significant revenue because they are right at that cusp of having developed a pilot, having got their intellectual property resolved, having hopefully got their brand and their website resolve but not always. And then so we focus effectively what I call an hourglass model. So the top of the hourglass is the business development, the sales, the engagement with large multinationals. I have had 25 plus years of experience working with big companies. It helps to have that sort of pedigree when you are trying to connect with people of our vintage on LinkedIn, which are mostly the c-suite now. And so that helps, when we are working with maybe a technologist or an entrepreneur whose only had five or ten years experience but very smart. Well, we are relying on our experience to then be able to knock on their door and start a conversation about their technology.

John: Andy how long ago did you start GreenTech Global and for our listeners and our viewers out there that want to find Andy and Nick, they could go to GreenTech.global. When did you start it?

Andy: In about 2015, we launched. So we launched with a couple of very innovative companies which I can happily explain. One of them is, so these guys were focused very much on the infrastructure space. One of our very exciting companies is formed and founded by an ex-banker, a similar experience to us, a very successful banking career. He invested in a team of polymath scientists and what is fascinating is they have developed a way of making graphene very cost-effectively. I do not know if you have heard of graphene but it is quite a revolutionary discovery 10 years ago at Manchester Uni. They won a Nobel Prize for their work in the idea of taking pencil lead and shaving it and working out that graphene is the smallest form of carbon and it is one of the most conductive substances, one of the strongest substances known to mankind. And I feel it is genuinely going to revolutionize the future of our children. When you look at its capabilities, across a whole suite of different areas, this is in batteries, it is in carbon fiber, it is in polymers, and it is in paints.

So in broad concept, when you add graphene to any particular product line you end up with an outperformance result. In the battery space, they have resolved the chemistry. So it is not quite just graphene, it is not just as simple as taking it, but there are different grades of graphene and there is a debate as to what this graphene in the world, there are different discussions happening all the time. But essentially they created a formula that is a combination of different energy technologies that when you add it to the cafe, the electrolyte, and the anode of a battery, you end up typically with around a 30 percent increase in energy density for a lack comparison to say typical lithium-ion battery. And they are demonstrating that because our simple model to clients is you do not have to believe us. Just send in your current battery specification, we have a template for them to complete, he then works with his outsourced contract manufacturing partners.

Ostensibly in Asia, where they have got all the supply chain and very long-term established pricing, and they will give you a comparable outcome. In one case, a client of mine, which we have brought to him is a client in Italy whose designed his own mopeds with partners in China. He historically had a swap in swap out battery for the moped that was about 12 kilograms. So I need kilograms we are in the UK and we took that battery down to eight kilograms for the same power. Now that means your wife is an avatar John or your daughter can now lift the battery out comfortably, more comfortably and take it inside and charge it overnight. And, and that is the kind of delta in that instance. In other cases, he is doing some very interesting work in the domestic energy, battery, and solar market. Because he is a commercial banker, what he has done is he is now providing a complete turnkey solution of batteries, solar panels, and air source heat pumps and that is wrapped and delivered by his own installation company and that is allowing him to generate some very significant new market share in the UK in competition with some of the big established players. And in his case, his batteries are roughly 15% smaller than, 15% lighter, and 15% lower cost than the other incumbents in the market.

So, this is some of the exciting stuff we are working on and if you want to hear even more about what we are doing on this particular instance, I have broken another client out of the USA. He is a wealthy mining magnate, I will call him. Made a lot of money out of reprocessing old iron or tailings. He has invested a lot of his private capital with a team of our Believix Tesla engineers and others to create an electric drive unit. His mission is to convert existing diesel and petrol vans and cars into electric cars. But my client is doing is working on partnering with him to deliver a swap in swap out battery solution. So you can imagine, if you imagine taking a Ford Transit van, an existing diesel Ford Transit van that is currently used ubiquitously in most cities to deliver a lot of Amazon and other last mile delivery products, as a big source of pollution. Well, with this, the combination of these two companies and we homologate that in the sense of working through the mechanics of it, becoming a factory supply solution in the sense of, you put a Ford Transit through the process on day 1 and day 5 it comes out with not its ice engine replaced, its internal combustion engine replaced with an electric engine and our batteries and our vision is to put the batteries in a way that is possibly in the back of the van, so that the driver can now access them. And instead of having to worry about range anxiety, and get back to base somewhere to then charge overnight. Instead, they will turn up at various locations where they can access a locker, change the batteries over and five minutes. Now they have a commercial case you see for that same delivery company only having to invest maybe under $10,000 to do the conversion.

We will then lease the batteries to them and that means they are not polluting anymore, which means they are actually allowed into certain city centres, which are slowly banning these Elana petrol vehicles, delivery vehicles. I know they are doing that in the Netherlands already. And what we are doing is addressing the commercial drive, where they can now use that van 24/7. So if you imagine three shifts of eight hours, at the end of the shift, they will change the batteries over at least enough to carry on for the next eight hours, is the vision and that way the vehicle continues its journeys in a non-polluting way and we have solved the commercial case where people with a lot of existing fleets which has still got five or ten years of effective life of the vehicles unable to write them off and they are now able to repurpose them to generate another 5 or 10 or 20 years of life. That is one example, one or two or three examples of what we are doing in the thought space of solving it commercially you see. We have to deliver an ecological sustainable lower carbon and outcome now in the world we are in. You have to have a commercial business case underpinning how you engage a large group. They cannot afford to just do a token green outcome unless you are playing an optics game of planting some trees and claiming the next era, which is a nice debate in town of the month.

John: For our listeners and our viewers who just joined us, we got Andy Taylor with us. He is the commercial director of GreenTech Global. To find Andy and his partner Nick going to GreenTech.global. Compared to when you started the company in 2015 Andy to today 2021. Is to climate, no pun intended, is the climate and social political economic structures in Europe, United States, in Asia now more excited about ESG and circular economy behavior than ever before?

Andy: Absolutely I have to say. My observation is we are facing a green rush at the moment as in, you know in the 1850s whenever there was a gold rush, I can see right now that there is a green rush and in some respects I think Covid has woken up a lot of people to the idea of the environment is now can be malicious in a material way if we do not look after it. Historically, scientists have been warning about global warming and rightly so in Greenpeace that we are doing in WWF and have been doing a great job and those others to highlight the risks we face. But until it is really in your face, people are not really minded to change their behavior. Most people go about their day worried about how to pay their mortgage or their rent, worried about their job, worried about their family life and the environment has not had to factor too much because it is someone else’s problem. And what I feel is that the evidence of the science and the 2050 agenda in what the United Nations is doing to address this and obviously taking [inaudible]the scientist has now built up. I think you have got past the tipping point where governments are realizing the implication of and seeing the evidence slowly of what appears to be a shift in global warming patterns where more and more natural disasters are impacting significant populations. Heatwaves in Northwest America causing fires similar examples in Australia, they are under flood at the moment. So those scenarios I think are starting to engage a lot of individuals worried about their future. And that is now nicely feeding through into people who can in the form of pension funds and the big sovereign wealth funds now starting to take heed of putting pressure on large global corporations about now. How do they accommodate the investor, concerns about what they are doing on a global front? So the nice thing is you have got politicians slowly starting to wake up to the idea that their constituents are concerned about the environment and that if you do not address the green outcome, then they will get pilloried in social media. In the UK, we have had various action groups that are gaining a lot of publicity for the disruption they are causing in terms of sitting on the streets and campaigning around the environmental concerns that they have and so the government is having to address them there.

Our mission is again is about what can we do across the piece now to bring either a business case to a corporation to change their carbon profile. To either help, a company establishes a brand story that is true and genuine about what they are doing to save the planet. And I can take you through some of the stuff we are doing there and also we are moving a lot now into the consumer space where we are looking to address a lot of the behavioral science around what might motivate you or myself or my family and my friends to change their behavior in an ecological way. Can I give you a little anecdote?

John: Yeah, of course.

Andy: One thing that, I work in the space but quite a revelation is, would you believe the shirt I am wearing is made out of recycled bottles?

John: Right.

Andy: So this is one of the new products we are bringing to market. And I am wearing, not a client of mine but a third party, a gentleman who does recycled cotton yoga clothing for men. I am wearing his yoga pants at the moment and would you believe I actually feel emotionally better. I feel happier during my workday wearing my eco clothing.

John: How does it feel? How does the clothing feel on your skin?

Andy: This is just like a normal polo shirt that I have got three or four or five examples of from major brands. The recycled cotton is obviously stuffed and it is comfortable to stand up but you know recycled cotton pants if you can see it. So they are very comfortable to work in. I go walking in them. I got a few pairs. The other thing is psychology and maybe I am unique because I am in the eco-space but if you are going to tell your friends a good new story, if you are looking to chat to them about something, well actually I feel quite proud now to say, “Hey, I am wearing recycled cotton yoga pants.” It is something to talk about, right?

John: Right.

Andy: It is something to actually be a little bit proud of that I am trying to make as a little individual in the world of many millions and billions. I am trying to make my little difference and it is on brand. In some sense, maybe they have this little philosophical conversation for you in a moment. Maybe some of your listeners will be interested, which is, I feel the world should shift to a new paradigm, which is, no matter how rich or poor you might be, we should be celebrating minimalism. How minimalist are you in a sense of your impact on the world in terms of total carbon and total pollution and total waste? Why aren’t we as a culture celebrating people making that effort to minimize their carbon footprint in a meaningful sensible way as a point of kudos, as a point of personal reputation as a point of self-confidence? What we seem to do is celebrate, no disrespects, I am not trying to be a socialist far from it, but what I am saying is we seem to celebrate those people who drive the biggest, fastest, petrol cars. Who have the biggest homes for example, and have the biggest ocean-going yachts and things in the world seems to celebrate their idea of all of those classic examples of wealth is the way to recognize whether someone is genuinely successful to someone is not, as in terms of how much money they make. And my proposition is actually well, that is a statement that you actually do not care about the environment because you are a massive carbon generator, you just are.

What are we saying to people now about if you care about the environment well why are you not driving an electric car? If you can afford it, you should be driving electric car and there are some beautiful hypercars coming. There is the Rimac coming for two million dollars. That is fully electric and it is faster than most other things in the world that are powered by petrol, it just is. So if you got the money, celebrate driving an electric vehicle. If you got the money, celebrate having an eco-home that as eco as it can be, it can be the biggest home in the world, but it might have solar panels all over it. It might have ground source heat pumps and might have all sorts of ecology or deploy your resources into showing that you care. And for those that want to make a difference, go on brand, just not about necessarily wearing big brands, it is about wearing clothing that you feel comfortable in, and also you are making a statement that does not have a horrible supply chain around it in terms of everything to do with not only its carbon footprint but then obviously child labor and all those other things coming to play.

John: Well two points, to your point about you being in the eco-business, as I am, I still think that everyone really is in the eco-business because Andy, no matter who you are, terms of social status, economic status, or political affiliations. When you, and I have friends and relatives and other people around us who do not agree that we all want to drink cleaner water, breathe healthier air. So really, we all should be in the eco-business, number one. Just making the world a better place from wherever we sit. And to your point about bigger macro shifts, I think we really are moving from, thank gosh finally, a linear economy to a circular economy and that bodes well for what you are doing at GreenTech Global and what we are doing here at ERI and so many of our colleagues are doing so I think it is great. Have you invested in those companies of the shirt and the pants that you are wearing right now?

Andy: Not in the pants yet but in the shirt, we have a partnership with that company where we are helping to deploy their product range under our new brand. We are launching a new brand called Oshn, O-S-H-N. We have not launched it yet, we are still in developing our catalog if you like. What we are doing in the moment is trying to work with large corporates to encourage them to use these clothes as uniforms. So you see part of our strategy always is, with new technology we try and launch it first into our corporate relationships. Where it is on-brand for a company to then adopt the technology. Trying to sell into a corporate market is always a struggle for every new consumer brand because it is so frightfully expensive to try and convert people. You have to see something John seven times before you buy it as a standard protocol. This is why so many companies struggle to get their product into the market unless they are very well resourced or can tap into an automatic natural database of individuals. But through our various initiatives, we are slowly, we are going to be building our own considerable networks of ecoline individuals because part of what we are addressing on the consumer front is the behavioral science of motivating people through discounts and rewards and eco points to demonstrate their involvement in the full cycle of recycling and recovery economy.

John: But to your point also outside of the reward system, economic reward system, I think there is a huge psychological reward system that is for free that accrues the people that are actually behaving, more ecologically speaking and actually thinking about what they are doing and more responsible behavior than historically they have been doing.

Andy: But the challenge for them is how to demonstrate that to their peers and family and friends to get the kudos from. Historically, someone can wear a branded shirt and that makes a statement because of the advertising of that brand about how they correlate into being affiliated with that advertiser. My challenge, this is my point around the minimalist example, is that if we build an ethos and a personal recognition where I can say to you John, “Hey what are you doing about minimalizing your impact on the environment?” You can proudly say, “I am being XYZ, and you?” And that is my contribution. I can say, “That is amazing. I give you total respect for that.” When you having a beer with your friends, you are talking about these things around, and it is something not about your new car outside it for maybe electric of course, but you are talking about actually what difference you are making and then people giving you real respect for it.

John: Andy, talk about your thoughts around employing a head of sustainability delivery at companies. And what does that mean to you and why is that so important?

Andy: Sure. So what we have identified in engaging with a lot of multinationals, I am talking to some of the biggest brands, some of the biggest listed companies in the UK right now about some of our solutions in terms of promoting to them and I have been in touch with some we connected on LinkedIn and other places with some of the global heads of sustainability some very big companies. And if you look at the experience of heads of sustainability, they are often very educated and very, very capable in terms of the whole sustainability agenda, and they have grown up in that world. The challenge they face personally is that they may not have had a lot of corporate and commercial experience in their organizations. And my point is, let me just explain just a little bit of backstory. So part of when you are engaging with a very big corporation, my philosophy and experience are that CEOs are fundamentally the only ones given the [inaudible] about their shareholders and their board to innovate. They get paid to innovate. They get paid to see the future. And it is a high-risk, high-return relationship, if they are successful they can get remunerated wildly if they fail they get kicked out pretty quickly. And they are always betting on innovation and the future to grow their business and to prevent their business from being disrupted by outside forces. Very few other people in the hierarchy are given the permission to innovate and take risks. Most people, if you look at your organization, trying to go up the corporate ladder, they are paid to do the job as to what they did yesterday. They are bonused on last year’s numbers plus 10%. If they come to you with a new idea, let me give you this example, if they come to you with a new idea, like a new innovation, a new concept of reducing your carbon footprint, as a business owner, your concern will be if that fails and causes you brand harm, causes you commercial harm, causes you litigation harm if it is unproven, untested, untried. And if it will go all wrong that individual’s career just came to a screaming halt.

The only way that that person can prevent harm to them is to coalesce a number of other people in the organization, to sign off on the idea and they collectively take it to the CEOs as a concert. So if you play that forward, our vision is that if companies are meaningfully wanting to engage with market-ready sustainability technologies, the idea of a head of sustainability delivery is a partner to the head of sustainability and they will be someone who has five to ten years commercial experience within the organization. Having delivered operational outcomes in terms of delivering what they do for their clients. By function, that will have a natural network of a lot of peers in other segments of the business, as, in the legal community, the risk management community, the finance community, the HR community.

The idea of the head of sustainability delivery is that they will, first of all, be a gateway for new Innovative sustainability technologies to contact, to share their ideas, to share their concepts. They will understand what the sustainability remit of the company is and evaluate them quickly as fit the purpose or disregard. If they are worth exploring because it aligns to the company objective, they have the imprimatur and the permission of the CEO to then motivate the analysis of that technology across the different business segments. They can go to the head of engineering, the head of IT, the head of legal, and say, “Hey, I have got this new idea. What do you think of it? From your lens, what is the legal risks and associated with this, in terms of more warranties and indemnities and balance sheet you would expect if you are going to sue them?” From the end of our engineering, what are the risk of contamination or any other variables in terms of this risk management paradigm of solving for how you operationally deploy the technology, how you evaluate the idea? Because you see, most other people in the organization are going to be sitting and thinking, why did I not invent it? And it is only going to cause me more work because it is new and incremental to my current day job. So that is why you need a head of sustainability delivery to motivate those different business segments to get behind it because the CEOs ultimately buying them saying, “Hey, you are going to innovate and we are going to reduce our carbon footprint meaningfully, I need you to engage.” And so they marshal the different business segments and that collective very quickly rather than having to rely on personal favors because you got a good idea. I now have the the imprimatur of the CEO to make those people engage, and the idea is they quickly then collectively evaluate the viability of the business case of the technology. They very quickly agree, it has a business case, they quickly sign off on it being piloted within the organization. They very quickly, then evaluate the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats of that technology. If it works for them and the business case is sound, they can deploy quickly, you accelerate their carbon footprint and their waste outcome or whichever eco outcome this particular thing solving. And that way the head of sustainability is held harmless, they are held harmless for pushing the idea through the organization. They have the ability to motivate the whole organization behind the innovation and then the idea is accelerating what is typically a three to five-year buying cycle for a new entrant into a company, like a multinational, my goal is one year. Because then there is no point about, see if you think in 2050 terms, of 2030 terms, that is beyond the career lifespan of most of us today you can make a difference. So the people in senior management roughly had to have 20 years, 30 years experience, which is our generation, people between 40 and 60, right?

John: Right.

Andy: Most people at 2030 thinking I am retired. What can I possibly do to influence things? Might 2050 is like most of us will be in the grave, right? So depending on other conversations about lifespan. But the point is right, it is outside our influence zone, so you do not motivate. My point is, you are on watch today, let us make a difference on your watch. Most CEO careers, roughly five years on average, give or take, let us make a difference today. Show a meaningful act of mine by the way, if you want to appease your shareholders, get some great news about demonstrating your credibility and capability in the space. If you have got on an environmental social governance bond only your finance director is very happy because you have got the lowest rate of interest possible having tick all those boxes. If you have got a young millennial workforce, they really care about the environment because that is their future. They have seen what Covid has done to their families and particularly their parents and their grandparents, they don’t want that to happen to them. So they are very alert and awake being very, digitally aware to what the environmental damage is that their inheriting.

I feel emboldened by what I am doing in the moment because I have got a 13-year-old son and a ten-year-old son and I am giving them the legacy of what we are doing now. I feel our Generation X roughly, you know, the legacy of the last boomers are starting to retire, and wherein management now, it is our opportunity and our responsibility to deliver these outcomes for our children, because who else will. Not to be an evangelist about it is about, well, I have had 30 years experience, I have got the connectivity and the network to make these things happen. I have got the experience to have the conversation with you in a meaningful way to say, “Listen, here is a business case. I thought through the matrix of all of these legal concerns, warranty concerns, insurance concerns, let us make it happen.” And frankly, with the sort of stuff that we are being attracted to and seeing, I can guarantee making a carbon difference to pretty much every company we engage with or a waste difference. We have got a portfolio, not to be marketing because I mean frankly, it is our mission to market these companies. We put our money in them which gives you the confidence that we put our money in them, so they must be something worth it there in terms of why we are putting our reputation and our brand at risk with representing this technology. We must have due diligence it, we must have understood it. That is an important statement. We are not just sales, guys trying to make a bark and then be gone, so that is important. Two it shows that we are in for the long term, we are about the life cycle, it is about making a difference in terms of, our mission which is to make the world better. And so, that is what we are quite passionate about. If you detect any passion of mine, which is I am seeing these technologies, I am witnessing the business case in the brand case and the story that drives real outcomes. Now, it is just about finding the right people in the right companies to embrace talking to us and then evaluating it quickly. Rule the business case in or rule that out. In most cases, they should see the value equation of why it makes good business sense to engage with us. And keep in mind, our philosophy is inevitably we want to be manufactured direct. So commercially we are not working through three or four different middle people trying to take a margin. All of our companies, we own to be manufacturing directly which means we control the full vertical of the conversation around pricing and delivery and quality control. And we are therefore about, this whole conversation around making it a meaningful company John is the mission.

John: Andy like you said it is our responsibility because of our unique relationships in the historical track record to make a difference now not push it off on another generation and not take the slow approach. I love your approach of working with a sense of urgency that makes total sense. Given that, science is winning this tragic pandemic period that we are all living through around the world, including here in California, and the UK, and London. What do you foresee for you and GreenTech Global in the next 12 to 18 months as we become untethered from the pandemic and get back to the business of making the world a better place?

Andy: What is fascinating is we have been on this long journey with these clients like the iconic battery client and other technology out of France Danae, which has got a device that connects into air conditioning units and is proven to reduce the the energy cost of those by 15 to 50 percent. They have been through that piloting stage, so just out of total serendipity and coincidence and obviously, Covid has put a lot of them back a little bit, but we are very pregnant – I am saying to my business partners, “We are very pregnant now.” Where we have got pretty much a baby about to be born in the sense of a number of our portfolio clients with established credentials. They have got deployed solutions in a number of verticals. So we are actually very well prime to be launching all this now, just at the perfect timing companies are starting to address, “Okay, I have got a brand problem, I have got a workforce problem, I have got a stakeholder problem, I have got a investor problem around making myself be really green.” So frankly I am hugely excited by function of what we are building in the sense of it starting some real conversations with some clients where historically we produced it shown in them and idea and I said fine, but then radio silence. I am now being able to go back to them to say, “Hey check this technology out.” There. you can go and visit it in a house where you can see it on a moped or here is the vehicle or here is the the the van we just converted, it is real, it is here.

Do you want to taste it? Do you want to touch it? It is proof so let us have a conversation about how we can make this meaningful for you.

John: I love it. Well, Andy, the fun part about this show is that we have been doing this for 13 years and we love to have our guests back so you are going to come back as we move through 2021 and get into 2022. I want you to come back and share the success stories of Green Tech Mobile. I want you to know that you and Nick are always invited back to the show. And for our listeners and viewers out there to find Andy and his colleague, Nick please go to www.GreenTech.global. Andy really this has been a pleasure, I love what you are doing. I love your sense of urgency and I am so grateful to you for sharing your story on the Impact podcast today. But more importantly, making the world a better place. Thank you for joining us today.

Andy: John it has been a pleasure and we walk them engaging with anybody who would love to be a part of our story because it is genuinely about making the world better and we hope to be on a mission with people. So feel free to reach out, we will be delighted to have a conversation with anybody who wants to make a difference.

John: This edition of the Impact podcast is brought to you by the Marketing Masters. The Marketing Masters is a boutique marketing agency offering website development and digital marketing services to small and medium businesses across America. For more information on how they can help you grow your business online, please visit themarketingmasters.com.

John Shegerian: This edition of the Impact podcast is brought to you by ERI. ERI has a mission to protect people, the planet, and your privacy. It is the largest fully integrated IT and electronics asset disposition provider and cybersecurity-focused hardware destruction company in the United States, and maybe even the world. For more information on how ERI can help your business properly dispose of outdated electronic hardware devices, please visit eridirect.com.

John: Welcome to another edition of the Impact podcast. This is a very special edition of the Impact podcast because I’m honored and excited to have Fritzi Horstman with us today. Welcome to Impact, Fritzi.

Fritzi Horstman: Thank you so much. I’m so excited to be here. So great to talk with you.

John: Oh, yeah. And you are the Founder and Executive Director of the Compassion Prison Project. Before we get talking about that, I’d love you just to share a little bit about your background, where you’re from, how you got here, and how you decided where the lightbulb went off to start this beautiful and wonderful and important project that you’re working on right now.

Fritzi: I was raised in New York City, born in Chicago, and came to Los Angeles to be a filmmaker. I worked on a bunch of post-production in Hollywood for years, directed a couple of features, a documentary, a lot of short films, and worked on The Defiant Ones with Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine. I’ve always had this sense that something’s wrong. When I was a kid, I used to take photos of homeless people. I went to Brazil and took some photos of poor people, mostly Black. They weren’t African. They’re mostly Black people. About six or seven years ago, I had this feeling like what have we done to the African-American community in America. My mother was from the south and she was a racist. So there’s always been this racist tension in my house because I didn’t agree with her feelings.

I had a crush on a little black boy when I was six. His name is Alfredo. When I came home, I said, “Mom, I have a crush on Alfredo.” And she said, “If you ever marry a black man, I’ll never speak to you again.” So I was six, dealing with that kind of rage. That was rage. I think it’s displaced rage. I think a lot of racism is displaced rage because a lot of people are abused by their families. They don’t want to be angry at their family, so they take it out. And what I’ve learned is they’re taking out on people in prison. They are taking it out on addicts that the policies that we’ve created are based on rage. That’s my sense, anyway.

I’ve been watching the African-American world, and it’s like, “What is going on here?” So after The Defiant Ones, I started developing a lot of projects. One is about the Scottsboro Boys. Anyway, it’s a very famous story. Two landmark cases came from the Scottsboro Boys. Anyway, a bunch of things I was developing. And then one day, I volunteered to go to a prison. I went to a prison, Kern Valley State Prison. It is a maximum-security prison. Most of the men are in their cells 23 hours a day. They’re allowed out for sometimes two hours for their exercise. If they have education or classes, they’re led out, but otherwise, they’re in their cells. These are small cells and there were two people. Basically, imagine being in your bathroom for the rest of your life. That’s basically what we’re doing to 2.2 million people.

I went to this prison, and I walked in and I had just read a book called “The Body Keeps The Score”. I don’t know if you’ve read that book. It’s by Bessel van der Kolk, and it’s about trauma. He really spells out what trauma does to the body, brain and spirit, what happens to you when you’re in fight-or-flight, which is basically if you look around America, everyone’s in fight-or-flight. And when I realized that, oh wait, I’m not this crazy lady that is raging at people on freeways and unable to control my behavior with my son, yelling at him. When he drops things, I freak out. Like, what is this? I’m just on edge. And then I read this book, and it’s like, oh, I’m in survival mode. I’ve been in survival mode since I was born, basically, because of the abuse in my childhood.

I walked into prison and there were a hundred men. Some people said these are hardened criminals, and I’m like, “These aren’t hardened criminals. These are just men that are highly, highly traumatized.” I walked in there, cried all day. I heard some stories. One guy was in his bathtub. I mean, he was in his bathtub and his father tried to drown him. And I could see that he had numbed and repressed everything, and he was just like a shadow of who he could be. I introduced myself to the group, and I said, “I’m Fritzi. This isn’t a prison. This is a trauma center. Everyone here is just traumatized.” But I realized that all my behaviors, I’ve been a juvenile delinquent, basically. I was actually an accessory to a robbery. I had sold drugs. I was the worst of the worst, if you really want to see it. I’d shoplifted from Saks Fifth Avenue, and it was really easy back then. No, it was.

John: It was funny. Yeah. There were all these cameras and you are picking things from the shop.

Fritzi: No, and I was a white girl, so it was really easy. They didn’t think anything of it. We also shoplifted from the A&P. My friends got caught. I didn’t get caught. I’m saying it with delight, but this is what…

John: Right. Yes, you were into that world of acting out. You were acting out.

Fritzi: Yes. Exactly. And there was a gang called the “go club” down in the village. I don’t know if you remember them. I had a crush on this guy, rebel. So this is the thing. I had the same instincts and same impulses as the men that are in prison. If I had gotten caught and I was a different color or a different socio-economic group, bam, I wouldn’t be speaking with you today. So that’s the hypocrisy. There’re levels of hypocrisy. The prison says we want you to be accountable for your crimes. But right now, in every prison in the United States, we’re abusing and torturing men and women. Who is being accountable for that? So the hypocrisy is palpable, and it’s obscene. And so, I want accountability from everybody in prisons. I want people to be accountable. Why are we torturing people? We know there’s a 67% recidivism rate in the United States. If that was a business, it would have failed in the first six months. We would have been out of business.

So, it’s either that we just don’t know how to fix the thing or we like the idea that we’re punishing and destroying lives. But guess what, 95% of the men and women returned to us, eventually. So we are torturing them, punishing them, destroying them. And then what chance do they have to succeed in society? And this is the thing. We’re getting more victims. They’re creating more victims. Now, who’s accountable for the victims? The state should be accountable for the victims because they’re the ones doing the crimes. They’re not rehabilitating the men and women in prison. I know I just went on a long, long rant.

John: No, you didn’t. For our listeners out there who just joined us, we got Fritzi Horstman here. She is the Executive Director and Founder of the Compassion Prison Project. I want you to look it up at www.compassionprisonproject.org. Fritzi, the day you went over to Kern, why did you go? Were you invited on some other sort of mission there? How did that bridge you from West LA to Kern Prison to even just get this whole thing rolling?

Fritzi: There was a thing called Hustle 2.0. Cath Hoke created this experience.

John: I know Cath.

Fritzi: Of course you do. So I went there. And basically, when you are a volunteer there, she activates people. She wakes them up. She’s like, “Look at what we’re doing.” She activated me big time. I cried for eight hours. She sets up this step to the line exercise. I don’t know if you’ve done that, or…

John: Yeah. I haven’t been there with her, but I know what it is.

Fritzi: It was that exercise that woke me up. I was like I need an exercise that’s experiential, just like that. But dealing with trauma, specifically dealing with the adverse childhood experiences. I don’t know if your listeners know what that is. But there’s a quiz created by Vince Valetti from Kaiser and Robert Anda from the CDC in the 90s. They found that the top ten Adverse Childhood Experiences was a way to determine adverse health outcomes. So if you had been sexually molested as a child, the chances of you having cancer or autoimmune disease skyrocketed. So the ten Adverse Childhood Experiences are sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, physical and emotional neglect, parents getting divorced or separated, domestic violence, a parent or caregiver having drug or street or alcohol abuse, parent or caregiver being mentally ill or suicidal, and a parent or a family member going to prison. Those are the top ten Adverse Childhood Experiences, and there’re thousands more. Racism, bullying. What I really like to point out is traumatic brain injury.

Most of the men, I had them step inside the circle for their traumatic brain injury. Most of them have had their heads bashed. If you damage your prefrontal cortex, you can’t think straight. You can’t focus. You can’t learn. And so this is what we’re doing. We’re penalizing people for their inabilities to function in society when we have no tools whatsoever to function. There was a man on death row that I wrote to. He’s been subsequently murdered by the federal government. His name is Wesley Purkey. He did horrible crime. Horrible, horrible crime. But what was done to him was equally horrible. And that’s the piece that we’re missing, and that’s the piece that we don’t want to look at. It’s the crimes that we as a society know are happening. We’re allowing them to continue. And the cycle of poverty, the cycle of annihilation, of redlining, all the policies that we have in place are really designed to keep people in poverty and toxic stress and annihilation. So this is like a cycle of annihilation that we’re responsible for, and we got to take responsibility for now.

John: You were at Kern with Cath. You cried eight hours. You fell in love. You start realizing where your heart is, where you want to migrate your energy. How did you pick the path? How did you come up with the Compassion Prison Project and the path that you started on from there on?

Fritzi: I just read my journal about a month ago, and it said, “I am obligated to do something”. That was it. I walked out of there, and I was like, I got to do something. So I went to the PIO, the Public Information Officer. He is the guy who deals with things. I don’t know. And he said, “Yeah, create a pilot program. Let’s do it.” It was like during a window when Kern Valley was a little more open. Right now there these waves of progression and then we go backwards. So I wrote a curriculum. I didn’t even know what I was doing. I was like I research kindness, a research compassion, but I knew that was what they needed most.

Four months later, I walked. On January 5, 2019, I started my pilot program. I didn’t know what I was doing. The first two classes were ridiculous. You have to drive like two and a half to three hours to get there. It’s like a five-hour journey. So I go on a Saturday. I spend eight hours and then and come back three weeks later. So we did it. We started growing and these amazing volunteers came along. At first, it was really hard to get volunteers and now we have 500 volunteers on Compassion Prison Project who want to go into prisons, who want to do this work. Of course, they can’t, but that’s okay. Prisons are opening soon, so we’ll be in there. But within four months, it was like we have to do an exercise that really shows this trauma. And so, together with the 35 men that I worked with at Kern Valley, we created the Compassion Trauma Circle. For every one of those adverse childhood experiences that I listed off, you take a step into the circle, and what happens is we realize. And as the very articulate Sam Brown says in the film Step Inside The Circle, our traumas bring us closer together. The more traumas we have, the more we realize that we’re really in this together.

And guess what? Based on some statistics about spanking in the 70s and 80s, like 80 to 90% of the men and women have been spanked and they’re justifying this behavior. This tells a child that they’re not good enough. Spanking is not okay. Child abuse is not okay. But it’s been handed down for generations. I have eight of those ten ACEs. I have eight Adverse Childhood Experiences. The degrees that I experienced are sometimes not as much as the man Wesley Purkey, who was on death row. I wasn’t bashed in the head. I wasn’t thrown against the wall. My father didn’t blow his brains out in my bedroom wall. I didn’t experience that kind of adversity. But it’s the repetitive not knowing when the hit is coming, not knowing if my father’s drunk tonight, not knowing how my mother’s going to respond to my father, not knowing if they’re going to have a blowout, not knowing if she’s going to hit my sister, those kinds of things put you on edge. Those things put you in a state of fight-or-flight. I’ve been in the state of fight-or-flight since I was 55. I’m 58 right now. But until I knew I was traumatized, I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t know that my behavior was not who I am. And that’s like the big mitzvah in this world is to know that you’re traumatized.

That’s one of the things we are doing. We are creating a video series called Trauma Talks. We want this curriculum in every prison in the United States. There are 1,833 prisons. We want them in every prison. It’s bringing awareness about trauma and bringing healing modalities. Hopefully, we can share this with the world. I don’t care who sees this. So men and women can start getting into their prefrontal cortex, start not being in fight-or-flight, start calming down because you can’t heal when you’re in fight-or-flight. And did you know that the life expectancy of a correctional officer is 59 years old? Did you know that that presents as having six or more ACEs? Your life expectancy goes down up to 20 years when you have six or more ACEs. My mother died at 69. My father died at 61. And the correctional officers basically retire and then die. So something is terribly wrong in prisons. It’s not just what we’re doing to the people living in prison, but also to the people working in prison.

John: Well, as you say, just with the people information you just gave is itself compelling. But numerically, as you said, the 67% recidivism rate. It’s an absolute failure. Failure on every level. So a little bit about you, though. So you grew up with those kinds of traumas. I’m always fascinated by people that face this kind of trauma, some worse than others. Losing parents. I had Martin Luther King III recently, and we talked about him losing his father. His father is 39. He was 10. How did you get through that? It was the day after he passed I remember everyone in the house the amount of love and support that his family got from others in the community. Did you get that love and support outside of your core family? Were there other friends or other parents or other aunts or uncles that gave you support because you’ve had, as society goes looking outward in, a very successful career? Or did you just literally white-knuckled it until you started peeling back this onion of your life?

Fritzi: I’m going to say I white-knuckled it. My family was pretty insular. I had my best friend Julie. She witnessed some of the abuse that I endured. I would go to her country house and rest, basically. I got to get away from the stress.

John: Great. That’s good. As an adult, did you understand this in your 20s, 30s, or 40s? Did you get the professional help then, or is it just now that it’s all coming together?

Fritzi: Just now. I mean, literally 55 years old, that changed my life. And when I realized I was like, everybody has to know that they’re traumatized. Because it was like, “Oh my God, I’m this great human being underneath all this.”

John: Right. The sky opened up. All of a sudden everything opened up to you. It’s amazing.

Fritzi: Exactly. I want the sky for everybody because that’s the thing, and that’s what we got wrong about prison. It’s the behavior, it’s not who they are. They’re not the worst of the worst. They’re not hardened criminals. There are sociopaths in there. But with the people that really need to stay in prison, let’s do a brain scan. Let’s really find out what’s going on. If you read Bruce Perry’s book “The Child Who Was Raised As A Dog”, he talks about what neglect does to the brain, especially during the first years of life. You can’t really recover from that. There’s just some people that need to not be in society, but they don’t need to be destroyed. We don’t need to destroy people because they didn’t have a good upbringing. We can give them art classes and music classes and give them a sense of being human because that’s what we’re here for. There’s an algorithm. It’s like what you do to others, you do to yourself.

Societally, what we’re doing to others, we’re doing to ourselves. We are incarcerating ourselves. We are not taking care of ourselves. Because when you take care of the most vulnerable, which are the people in prison, the homeless, the addicts. Those are the most vulnerable people. When you take care of them, you take care of the part that you’ve denied, that you’ve abandoned. And that’s what we need to do. We need to shine the light in our own darkness and reclaim the parts of ourselves that we’ve abandoned. And this is what’s up for us as a society because we’ve also abandoned Mother Earth. As you know, in your work, in your other work, we’ve got to take care of this Earth because she is our mother. She is the woman, and it’s really the woman that’s been annihilated. It’s kind of a metaphor that I’m just uncovering right now. We are not taking care of the mother, the one who gave birth to us, who allowed us to thrive, who allowed us to survive. And if we don’t take care of our vulnerable people, if we don’t see them as human, as part of us, then we’re really not really seeing our own humanity. It’s an imperative right now.

John: It’s not okay.

Fritzi: But no shame. Here’s the thing.

John: I love that. I want to get to the no-shame issue. I just want to give a shout-out here. We’ve got Fritzi Horstman with us today. She’s the Founder and Executive Director of the Compassion Prison Project. Please go to the website. I’m on the website now. I’m going to tell you, first of all, it is an amazing website full of great information, but it also has a very important documentary Step Into The Circle. It’s a beautiful, beautiful video that I encourage everyone to watch. Because no matter where you are in your life, it’s going to move your heart in the right direction towards action to help some of these issues that Fritzi is discussing today. So, I just want you to go to the website, watch this video. Now, I want to go to the shame issue. Talk about it, because I love the t-shirts that are in your documentary. Talk about no shame, Fritzi.

Fritzi: The thing about shame is, if we shame people, they resist it and they want to double down on whatever it is that they’re doing that we’re shaming them for. Shame is the lowest vibration that we can operate in. And if you walk into a prison, you can actually feel the shame. You can feel the lowest vibration. By saying there’s no shame, and this is no shame about anything we’ve done in the past. I don’t care if you’ve murdered somebody. I mean, I’m really upset about the victims that have been created because of this societal structure that we’ve endorsed, but we’ve got to move on. We cannot keep living in the past. We cannot keep calling people who’ve committed crimes offenders. Let’s call them residents. Let’s call them citizens. Let’s get them back on their feet because they’re coming home. They’re coming home to us.

But the shame piece is, let’s just forgive everything. Let’s forgive everything. Everything. Let’s forgive slavery. Let’s forgive genocide. Let’s forgive redlining. Let’s forgive it all. We need to reboot. We need to just start over and just say, “Okay, look, this isn’t working.” Right now I’m going to talk about solitary confinement because that is what’s up right now. We’ve all lived in solitary, right? We’ve all been in our own little version of solitary in this past year. Imagine twenty-six years. Imagine forty-three years. Albert Woodfox spent 43 years in solitary confinement.

John: Explain what it is physically so we all can get. Because we’ve had our creature comforts in our homes and thought our heads about the pop off during the pandemic. Talk about what solitary confinement for those who haven’t been in a prison, what it looks like physically, and how it feels emotionally.

Fritzi: Imagine living in your bathroom, not a nice bathroom, one of those horrible bathrooms, 23 hours a day, five days a week, and then 24 hours a day over the weekends. That’s what we’re talking about. And then when they let you out, you can maybe see the sky, maybe not. And you’re in this cage, and it’s like a dog run, and you just go back and forth for an hour. That’s your exercise. And then you go back. No human contact. And what happens is, because we are social creatures, we have to be in society. That’s how we get our information as how does this person respond to me? Does he like me? Does he like what I’m saying? If you don’t have any feedback, you’re left with yourself. And yourself sometimes doesn’t have the best thinking. There are some people who have survived solitary and have thrived, but it’s not a lot of people. And what happens is these people, they’re told they have to do certain things in order to succeed, in order to get out of solitary. But if you get aggressive or if you make them do a cell extraction, which is basically you’re spreading feces or you’re cutting yourself, if you do those kinds of behaviors, you have to start back from square one.

There’s one man, Anthony Gay. If you look at some of our Instagram posts, you can see what he did to his arm. Its scars upon scars upon scars. He also cut his eyelids. He also cut his testicles. This is what happens when you don’t have contact with humans. He was in for stealing a dollar and a hat. He was supposed to be in for three years. He ended up being in solitary confinement for 20 years. So the thing about solitary is there’s no accountability. A correctional officer can put you in just because you have, let’s say, five extra envelopes. You’re supposed to only have 20. If you have 25 envelopes, he can throw you in solitary. If you look at him the wrong way, if he doesn’t like it, he’ll write up a report with all this kind of nonsense and suddenly, you’re in the hole for six days, six years, twenty-six years.

John: So there’s an ability on the prison guards that can reduce fine?

Fritzi: It varies. But if the prison guard doesn’t like you, and remember, he’s as equally traumatized as the men he’s serving. He has four or more ACEs. So he is in fight-or-flight. He is getting triggered. No shame. But no, you cannot put somebody. More than 15 days in solitary is considered torture according to the United Nations. Okay? It’s Nelson Mandela’s rules. More than 15 days. There are men right now that have been in solitary for 26 years, 20-30 years, 35 years. This is what we’re doing. I know a man. He is writing a story right now for me. He was in there for 30 years. I know a man that I worked with in Kern. He was in there for 10 years, and he’s just not right. Something is off. And remember, those men are going back into society and we don’t want them derange, cutting themselves. There’s a 97% recidivism rate for the men and women that experienced long-term solitary. And I’m going to tell you one quick story.

John: It was 30% more than the general population.

Fritzi: Exactly. I’m just going to tell you the story about Colorado. They let out a man directly from solitary. He was in solitary for seven years. He went, and he murdered the Director of Corrections in Colorado who was actually trying to reduce solitary. But he went and murdered the head of corrections in Colorado. His successor, Rick Raemisch, ended long-term solitary confinement in his prisons. He reports an 80% reduction in violence since he ended long-term solitary confinement.

John: Why can’t that paradigm then be publicized and then get across to the other 1,833 prisons across the United States? What’s the matter with us?

Fritzi: Well, that’s what I’m doing. That’s the word I’m spreading. I interviewed him on our podcast, Rick Raemisch. You can listen to what he thinks. And then his successor, Dean Williams, that podcast is coming out in a couple of weeks. I also just interviewed Christine Montross, who wrote a book called “Waiting For An Echo”. She is a doctor in Rhode Island who actually works in mental health but also has to report to the judges about suitability for trials. So, she has interactions with people in solitary. So please listen to that interview as well and read her book. Her book is incredible. This is the thing the public doesn’t know, and this is by design. Prisons are three or four hours, five hours, ten hours away from society. And so what goes on there, we don’t really know. We have a sense, but we don’t know. But it’s time that we know. It’s time that we know that the men and women are coming back to us and we need them to be leaders and change-makers, instead of homeless, addicts. Basically, a lot of people that experience solitary, they go to work, and then they go home and they stay in their room, just like they were in solitary.

John: Because they do what’s comfortable. They do what they know.

Fritzi: But it creates an impairment where they…

John: Oh my God, of course. Of course.

Fritzi: There’s inabilities.

John: I want to go for a circle on. You say prisons are far away and we don’t really know what’s going on there. Obviously, the media, that’s not fun for them to cover, so they’re not covering it that much. And then let’s go back to your bread and butter profession, Hollywood. Hollywood, when you talk to prisoners who come out, it’s more of a glamorized, non-reality-based version of prison that we all get to see. So our television version of prison, or even the cable version, the AWS version, is really still not like what you are sharing with us today. The reality-based prison.

Fritzi: There’s violence in prison, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Norway had the same problems we’re having in the United States with violence and with riots and abuse and annihilation, but they changed it and they said, “No. You know what? The minute this person walks into the prison, we’re going to find out what he needs.” Does he have an education? What’s his family history? What’s going on? Let’s set him up for success, so when he returns to us in society, he’s in great shape. He can be a really productive member of society. He can be a father. He can be a citizen.

But when you go into prison in Norway, the only thing they take away from you is your freedom. Everything else is there. You can still vote. You’re still a citizen. They do a thing called normalization, where every morning you wake up, you go shopping for your food. You do your laundry. The guards played volleyball with you. You go to work. You come home. You watch TV. Maybe you play cards. There are knives in your kitchen because you need to cook your breakfast. They trust you. There are some incidents where people go into fight-or-flight. Yes, of course. But they talk to them.

John: There are incidents in regular society when people go into fight-or-flight. So, it doesn’t mean it’s a failure with that new prison paradigm.

Fritzi: Well, it’s a 20% recidivism rate. And gosh, who knows what happened to those kids when they were children. But that’s a workable business model.

John: You’re saying there is a better way we need to get with the program here in this country. There is a better way. I want to go into the shame issue. First of all, you have wonderful t-shirts that say “there is no shame”. Explain what you mean by that messaging. I want to understand that. I want our listeners and viewers to understand that.

Fritzi: Okay. So you did something bad. You did something really bad. But first of all, you were in fight-or-flight, right? So you’re in survival mode. Who knows what went on in your body. I’ve had fights with my sister. I don’t even remember what I’ve said. All I know is that I was out of my mind. It’s kind of like being blind drunk. I know when I’m in fight-or-flight when I can’t speak words like my verbal abilities are impaired. I’m like telling my son to pass me the sugar and I just point, but I know I’m in fight-or-flight. I know, okay, I am not myself. But I didn’t have this awareness four years ago. I didn’t know why I wasn’t able to talk to my son and I was freaking out in the kitchen. But that’s the thing. So, I’m not going to shame myself for not being able to think four years ago in the kitchen when I’m yelling at my son or when I’m screaming because he drops the peanut butter. That’s my body reacting. This is natural. This is like how we were animals first, and then we got our prefrontal cortex.

The prefrontal cortex is what distinguishes us from animals. When that’s not on line, guess what? They call people animals, but we are in our animal instincts. But there’s no shame to that, right? There’s no shame to have your body survive, but the amygdala shuts down your prefrontal cortex. It’s not an important piece when it’s survival. It shuts down your digestion, and it sends adrenaline and cortisol so that you can fight-or-flight, but there is no access to. Your prefrontal cortex governs wisdom, the idea of consequences, the idea of morality, good versus evil. People say that’s a choice that you made when you killed that person. No, that’s a choice your body made. But you’re saying your prefrontal cortex was on line. No, it wasn’t. It’s not. It doesn’t do that. Your body is in survival first. That’s it.

I’m saying no shame is because who knows? I mean, there are some people that are sociopaths and did the stuff, and premeditated murder, all these things. But if you’re doing premeditated murder, there’s something really wrong, right? There’s something really wrong. Like legacies of trauma in your family. Who knows? And if you’re chopping a body up, I don’t care what happens. That something is really terribly, terribly wrong. And if your head’s bashed, you’re not thinking straight, anyway. Ask a football player. Ask if he’s thinking straight. But we give him a pass. We give some that’s passes, right? But if you’re not thinking straight, so that’s why there’s no shame. We have to start forgiving. We are such a punitive society. And why? Why? Because we’re angry. We’re angry we were abused. I really believe that.

So let’s start examining what’s the level of child abuse in our own lives, and why do we want this kind of punishment? But if we continue to shame people, we can’t move on. We’re just stuck in this loop. We’re in this loop of the past. And the only way we can create a new, vibrant, magnificent, glorious future is if we start right now, in this moment that we’re talking. There’s no shame, clean slate, let’s get everybody back on track.

John: For our listeners and viewers who want to join this movement and want to help Fritzi and her colleagues who want to become a volunteer or donate money to these important issues, go to www.compassionprisonproject.org. Fritzi, talk about solitary confinement and what we can do as citizens of this great country to activate change. In terms of our politicians, instead of sending them to DC to fight with one another, what can we give them proactively as public servants to do to really create change that could be lasting and actually impactful in this country with regards to solitary confinement?

Fritzi: Thank you for asking that. Please visit our website, as you mentioned, and we have some information on solitary. Right now our volunteers are gathering status in every single state. We want to know how many people are in solitary, why they are in solitary. We don’t really know why. But we want to know why they’ve been in solitary for 26 years, why they’ve been deprived of just sunlight. So, what we need is for people to start calling their Congressmen, to start calling their Senators, to say why is solitary on the table. And then that will get to the prison officials, and the Governor is also good place to go. And if you’re a really powerful person who knows the Governor, who knows these politicians, just get them going. Get them asking questions. Dick Durbin in Illinois has done some great, great work with solitary. He just asked our new Attorney General to put that on the agenda. So it’s happening on the Federal level. But remember, there’s only one solitary. That’s just a small portion.

Ending private prisons in the Federal and ending solitary at the Federal level is just the tip of the iceberg. Basically, that’s one state. We have 50 states plus the Federal. So, we’ve got a lot of work to do. But whatever state you’re from, get busy. And if you’re from some weird, obscure state, or if you’re from Arkansas and Texas, which is some of the worst solitary right now. It’s used just for control, but the thing is, it makes the situation worse. There’s more violence. There’s more violence in the prison than if you hadn’t done it in the first place. It disables our citizens. We’re creating disabilities. They had a brain when they walked in. Now, they’re going to be hermits for the rest of their lives. Is that what we really want to do as a society? Just take the fundamental things that make us human away from people. And for why?

Okay, they did something horrendous. I agree. But there are other ways we can restore justice. Let’s get with the victims. Let’s find out what they need. What do you need from me? How can I make this right? I know I can’t bring your family member back. But I can mow your lawn. I can get your groceries. Let there be a human exchange instead of this sterile annihilation that we’re doing. In tribes, when people do wrong, what they do is they put that man or woman in the center of the circle, and they all go around and say what’s good about you? What do I see that is good in you? And that’s how you change a person. You don’t change a person by destroying them in a room the size of a parking space. You don’t do that. I mean, this is what we’re doing. I cry every day about what we’re doing. I want to stop crying. I want to start celebrating what’s possible. Because I know those men and women in there know how to fix their communities. They’ve got the answers.

John: When you’re talking to politicians, are they open to these issues here in California and other states, or is this something that’s not sexy enough for them to really want to get involved? Because as we know, DC has become Hollywood for the ugly folks. And they all want to get on television. They all want sexy projects. Are we getting traction on this issue of getting rid of solitary confinement? Are politicians actually interested?

Fritzi: There are some people that are interested. There are some things we have to really understand in the industry of prisons and what money has done to people in power. Do they answer to the ACA, the American Corrections Association? Are they answering to these big businesses that are keeping the cycle of incarceration in play? Because what they’re doing when we create recidivism, we are creating more crime. We are creating more victims. We are creating more problems. We are creating more stress on the police force. So, it’s kind of obscene what’s being done. I’ve spoken to two Governor’s offices so far. They’re opened to this shift. They are absolutely open to the shift. But I also wonder, why haven’t they done something sooner? And why somebody in solitary if they know this is bad? Why are we still punishing the men in the maximum-security prisons? Why are these policies allowed? We need Governors to say, “You know what, we’re going to stop solitary. We need to phase this out.” And we don’t have to wait. We don’t have to wait for anybody to do a survey. We don’t have to wait. There’s evidence and there are ways to do it. We have people that do it.

Rick Raemisch actually consults on this. Every state in the Union now can call Rick Raemisch, and he’ll tell you how to do it. There are people that are really bad in prison. They are really scary and they are really violent because they have been really tortured and dehumanized. So what you do instead? They need timeouts. What will you do? Okay, you put them in the solitary cell, but you take them out for five hours. You take them out for seven hours. You have them played cards, or you have them just sit in the community even though nobody talks to them, but they are still in society. And that is so key because if you take them out, you were we’re taking out our own soul like the soul of America. What is the soul of America? Is it a punishing, annihilating soul, or is it a forgiving and regenerative, and restorative soul? And I’m voting for the forgiveness piece.

John: Listen, we both grew up in New York City. Statue of Liberty sat right off of our shores, and the presence of the whole Statue of Liberty, the mission was to bring us, everybody, you’re tired and you’re poor [?]. And that’s the country we have. Immigration nation is how this great country was built. There’s no argument to that. There’s no right or wrong, it’s just what is. That’s the truth. And so, to ostracize these people after they’ve, as you’ve already said, been already traumatized as children is just beyond nuts. To ostracize them already in jail and to isolate them, it just sounds like it’s adding insult to injury and just literally giving them no chance to even have any sort of normal life post-prison. None whatsoever.

Fritzi: I know. It’s like seeing your own humanity, right? I honestly think child abuse is one of the reasons we can’t see our own humanity sometimes. Like I’ve been a workaholic all my life. But that’s a symptom of trauma. I don’t want to face my feelings. I don’t want to feel anything.

John: It’s a normal and socially acceptable form of self-medication.

Fritzi: Exactly. And you get rewarded for it, right?

John: You get rewarded. But people like us who are workaholics, who are running from things from our childhood, could have gone the other way and gotten the non-socially acceptable medications. That’s where those people are right now.

Fritzi: Exactly. Right. So we are rewarded for our hard work, but we still aren’t feeling anything. We aren’t feeling. I can’t feel when my son would cry. I couldn’t comfort him because he reminded me of my sister. He reminded me of my mother. Like I can’t deal with this rage. It scared the heck out of me. Yes, we’re running. Still, we are all running. We are all running from our feelings. We are shopping. We are baking every night because we want to eat all that sugar or whatever it is. And no shame, though. That’s the thing. It goes back to this.

John: I’m with you.

Fritzi: It goes back to it. Look, we’re all just trying to get through the day, but so is everyone in prison. And gosh, it’s 30 times harder. I just got to read this text I got from a man who just returned, Darnell. He’s one of our employees. He said, “Every day I realized how much they took from me.” I mean, he’s just out there right now. He’s just out there right now, standing in line. He is so excited to stand in a line in the supermarket. But 14 years, my son is 14 years. So he’s been in prison as long as my son has been alive. He’s 35 years old now, this man. They took 14 years of his life.

John: He’s out, and he appreciates it. Thank God.

Fritzi: Absolutely. And the future is bright for this young man. But why are we doing this? There is a district attorney in California who is now getting rid of all the three strikes that we did. So there is some hope for some of these men.

John: There’s a lot of hope for [inaudible] you. So talk a little bit about what your young woman still and you’re obviously massively successful. What’s ahead now? Give me the next 12 months, the next 24 months for the Compassion Prison Project. What are you going to do?

Fritzi: Right now we’ve got Trauma Talks. We are creating a six-part video series, and we are going to get it into every prison in the United States. We need a lot of money to help pay for the workbooks because we want everyone to do that.

John: [inaudible], what do our listeners have to do?

Fritzi: We need 4 million for the workbooks. I guess, overall, we need about 10 million in the bank so that I can pay these people that are working for nothing. I mean, one of my volunteers is… She’s not a volunteer. We call her the editor-in-chief. She’s working for free and she’s like, “come on.” I’m like, “I know we need a check.” So as soon as we get a check, she’s going to get paid, but that’s the thing. So let’s go $10 million, so we can breathe, so we can just go. I don’t want to keep raising money. I just want to work. I just want to get this curriculum done. Because after we do this Trauma Talks’ first series, I know it’s going to go on Netflix, eventually. But after we get that done, I want I do a whole parenting series. I want everyone in the United States to know about ACEs and parenting and how to parent and how to deal with your trauma. Because the thing is, especially with poverty, when you’re so stressed out, you don’t know how to deal with it and so you lash out on your kids. Let’s shift that.

Instead, you call somebody. Or instead, you learn how to breathe. You learn about yoga. You learn about meditation. You learn about somatic healing. These are things which people know about, it’s time for everybody to know about it. So I really want to make sure that we’re taking care of our communities, we’re taking care of people in prison. But remember, those communities that are in prison, 90% have at least one ACE. That’s in the research we’ve done. So that means in all those communities, everyone has at least one ACE. And 64% in what we’ve done have six or more ACEs. In the United States, 64% have at least one ACE. So that’s the difference. In those communities, 64% have six or more ACEs. And that’s annihilation. That’s being annihilated as a child. That is toxic stress. That is fight-or-flight all the time.

I’m sorry. One more thing. I know you’re about to say something. But you put a policeman who’s in that neighborhood, that area, he knows he’s in fight-or-flight. He goes right into fight-or-flight. And then he’s killing somebody because he’s in survival mode. We are angry at the policeman, but we should just be angry at society because this doesn’t have to be. We can take care of people by giving them enough food. It’s not socialism, it’s called humanism. It’s humanism. We see something wrong, we help it out. It’s not that they don’t deserve it. Who doesn’t deserve a meal? Who doesn’t deserve a place to live? Nobody. We have the money. We have the resources to take care of everybody. I say we do it. Let’s do it now. Because you know what? If we keep waiting, we’re just going to destroy the Earth and destroy these communities. We already see what that gets us.

John: Fritzi, you are amazing. You are an angel. I want you to come back on the show and continue to share the journey that you embarked upon at the Compassion Prison Project. For our listeners, please go to their website to find Fritzi, to donate your time, to donate money. They need capital to make these things happen. It doesn’t happen by accident. It’s compassionprisonproject.org. Fritzi Horstman, like I said, you are an angel. God bless you. Thank you for taking on these important topics. And like I said, this is just the beginning of the journey where you and I are now friends. You are always welcome back on the Impact podcast to continue to share your important and amazing mission. Thank you.

Fritzi: Thank you so much, John. And to say, in three years, all prisons will be healing centers. Thank you for your time. I appreciate it.

John: This edition of the Impact podcast is brought to you by Engage. Engage is a digital booking platform revolutionizing the talent booking industry. With thousands of athletes, celebrities, entrepreneurs, and business leaders, Engage is the go-to spot for booking talent, for speeches, custom experiences, live streams, and much more. For more information on Engage, or to book talent today, visit letsengage.com.

John Shegerian: This edition of the Impact podcast is brought to you by Engage. Engage is a digital booking platform revolutionizing the talent booking industry. With thousands of athletes, celebrities, entrepreneurs, and business leaders, Engage is the go-to spot for booking talent, for speeches, custom experiences, livestreams, and much more. For more information on Engage or to book talent today, visit letsengage.com.

John: Welcome to another edition of the Impact podcast. I’m John Shegerian. This is a very special edition of the Impact podcast because we’ve got with us Mike Sarraille. He’s the founder and CEO of the Talent War Group. He’s also written this new great book that every leader out there should be reading. Welcome to the Impact podcast, Mike.

Mike Sarraille: Thank you for having me. I’m thrilled to be here and [inaudible].

John: Mike, this is great because our good friend, Dean Stott, introduced us. Dean’s been on the show. Dean’s just a wonderful guy and one of the great badasses that are out there that make the world a better place. You are very cut out of the same cloth and similar. But before we get talking about your new book, the Talent War Group, for people who want to find Mike and his great group of people, they could go to talentwargroup.com. I want you to share a little bit of the Mike Sarraille story because our listeners, readers, and viewers haven’t met you necessarily yet. I want them to understand who you are, where you’re from, and how you even got here.

Mike: Well, I’ve got to start with a shout out to Dean. You’re absolutely right. Actually, Navy SEALS turn to Dean Stott for a little bit of motivation. That’s who I listen to. I listen to his podcast in the morning. He’s a great individual. John, I was born and raised in the Bay Area. I did something very uncharacteristic from usually with the kids in my town. I came from a town called [inaudible]. I guess, the best way to say is very affluent. I enlisted in the Marine Corps. So, probably a black eye to the reputation of my parents. I’m joking. They were very proud. We’re talking about Talent today. The one thing we want is for all our [inaudible] leaders from the the top to the bottom of our organizations to be a representative of our organizations out in town. For me, I didn’t come from a military lineage. I met a Force Recon Marine. For the listeners, if you don’t know what Force Recon Marine, they’re a bunch of badasses in the Marine Corps. It was their Special Operations Community before it got renamed as known as MARSOC. I was an eighteen year old kid, probably a hundred and thirty pounds at the time. He was humbly confident. He smiled. He was respectful to everyone. The way he carried himself, you just wanted to be this guy as a young man. I basically found out what organization he was from, that made up my mind. I’m joining that organization. If that’s the product they turn out, then I want to be just like that. That’s what pushed me over the edge to join the Marine Corps.

I did make it into the Recon Community. I did become scout sniper in the Marine Corps. Then, I met some Navy SEALS. I’m like, “Okay, that’s my next challenge.” So, Marine Corps was good. After five years, they let me go try out for the Navy SEALS. I had entered into the Navy as an officer, [inaudible] the SEALS did ten combat deployments. The majority of those deployments was that an organization called Naval Special Warfare Development Group. It’s the Top 2% of the SEAL teams. It belongs to a organization known as the Joint Special Operations Command. I’ll tell you, I was surrounded by men and women that performed at a much higher level. So, on a day-to-day basis, I basically had to pay rent every day to just maintain a spot at that organization until they said, “Okay, you’re good.” Go off, and do other other things, and I retired out of the SEALS, and it brings me to the business world.

John: Got it. How long ago was that when you came into the business world?

Mike: So, my last tour in the Navy was at the University of Texas while Admiral William Mcraven was there. Admiral Mcraven famous for the make your bed speech, also in charge of Special Operations. I got my MBA from the University of Texas. I was with an organization which some people hail as the very best in the world in Special Operations. Quite frankly, it is. When I entered the business world, my business acumen was [inaudible]. That’s not the set of skills we used in the [inaudible]. We used a very unique set of skills, a lot of risk mitigation, very good intelligent planning, very good at details. So, I had to learn the business side, the business acumen. So, I went and got an MBA at the age of thirty nine, surrounded by a bunch twenty seven year olds. I learned as much from those twenty seven year olds as I did from the professors. Then, I identified for me entrepreneurship, value creation in front of my eyes, starting from scratch with an idea, and turning it into a business that provides value to customers, and customers are willing to pay a lot of money for it. I’ve only been retired for three years. I am loving it. I am making mistakes on a daily basis. I go with the Charlie Munger quote, “Anyone who tells you business is simple is an idiot. It’s one of the most complex things in the world.” I’m learning that the hard way and I’ve got a lot of growth come back to me in thirty years. I’ll tell you how I’m doing.

John: I’m going to come back to Charlie Munger in a little bit because I’m glad you brought him up. There is another famous quote that I want to go into, but before we get to Charlie Munger, let’s talk about the forward of this book. Again, it’s a Talent War book. You can find Mike and his great group at the talentwargroup.com. The Talent War, this book. Look at it here. Reading is an active form of education. I read my books. I mark them up both with Post-it notes and my pen, and this was a great book. We’re in the process right now. I told you this off the air but I want our listeners to hear this. We’re in the process of hiring a CFO now, a very important position at a company like ours. I’m going to tell you, this book upped our whole game, the level of responsibility and care that we’re going to be putting into this process. This is going to be our road map. This book is a great book. All leaders, entrepreneurs, or anyone else that’s considering being a business, sports, or any other type of leader out there, this book is the book. I read a lot of books because of this podcast and because of my own interest. This book is the book. You’ve taken it to a whole another level. Let’s talk about Jocko Willink, Mike. He wrote the foreword. He is Mr. Discipline Equals Freedom. I’d read his books. Talk a little bit about your relationship with him and the importance of him writing the foreword for this great book.

Mike: People tell us the best part of that book was the foreword. It doesn’t hurt my ego at all. Jocko’s a pretty inspiring leader. What makes you unique is he does what he says. He is disciplined. Again, he’s a leader that people emulate to be. Jocko and I served in the SEAL Teams. I was a younger seal. He was towards the end of his career, but we ended up in one of the worst battles of the Iraq War. The Battle of Ramadi in 2006. We cut our teeth together. He was my task unit commander. He’s a coach. He’s a mentor. I was involved with S-1 Front which is a leadership consultancy for the last two years. I’m breaking off to go stand up another company to which we will get into because it’s private equity backed, and pretty excited about that on top of the Talent War Group. We all need coaches and mentors. John, I’ll tell you a quick story. I remember attending a dinner in honor of a guy named Admiral Bobby Inman. Bobby Inman is a former de facto director of the CIA. Of course, he was a four-star admiral in the Navy. Bobby, I want to say, I think he’s in his 80s. Well, two keynote speakers were Mike Flynn and Robert Gates. Again, gentlemen who are not young, but still consider Bobby their mentor to this day. I don’t care if you’re the CEO of Fortune 500. I don’t care if you’re the CEO of Google. Even Sergei [inaudible] and the rest all considered Bill Campbell the trillion dollar coach and mentor. That’s one of the biggest parts of leadership. Again, Jocko has been one of my great mentors throughout my career.

John: Great person down as a mentor. Really, who you surround yourself with this who you become. So, tell you that. Let’s go back to Charlie Munger. Great guy, my family and I were investors in Berkshire Hathaway. We went to their National Conference. One of the great lines that Charlie’s partner, Warren Buffett, said which ties right to your book; when someone in from the crowd, he took question in the Q&A section, and they ask Warren Buffett, “How do you hire? What are the traits of the leaders that you hire for your portfolio companies at Berkshire Hathaway?” So, he said, “There are three traits we go for – brains, energy, and character.” He goes, “If they have the first two and not the third, will absolutely kill you.” This is a constant theme throughout your book. Literally, maybe the pillar of your book talked about the importance of leadership being based in great character.

Mike: Leadership not based in great character isn’t leadership at all. I’ll put it to you that way. We talked about nine foundational attributes. We went and studied high performers in every domain from professional sports, to Special Operations, to the business world in America that fuels the greatest strength in our country, which is the US economy. When it comes to integrity, it’s a yes or no criteria. You either have it or you don’t. If you’re on the fence as to whether somebody is filled with character and integrity, then I I think you have your answer. It doesn’t matter how smart somebody is, how high-performing they are, if they lack character, that is going to come back to be detrimental, to be catastrophic to your organization. Again, everyone uses the example, but Enron had four words on the wall. I think it was excellence, integrity, communication, and teamwork. Ultimately, your leadership foundation is not the words on the wall. It’s the behaviors that you exhibit on a day-to-day basis. Leadership is not a title. It’s not a position. It’s a set of behaviors. I think a lot of business leaders have to be very weary. I’d rather under-promise and over-deliver. Be very weary about what you preach because if you don’t live, if you don’t set the example of the values you preach, then your organization is going to flail, if not fail altogether.

John: I think you’re exactly right. You got it right. You make these big and bold promises and you underperform. That delta is going to be where people really judge you then. I think you’ve got that that negative delta is where they’re going to really judge it. I think you’ve got it right. One of the things I love about your book is not only it is well-written with great examples, but at the end of every chapter- again, for our listeners, and our readers out there, the Talent War has special operations and great organizations win on talent. Mike Sarraille, he’s our guest today. He’s the founder and CEO of the Talent War Group. Mike, one of the great things you did is you made it gettable. You made your book and the information gettable. So many authors forget that. So many authors just talk where they’re at and they don’t understand that we’re all at different levels of experience, of need, of education. They don’t make their information gettable. Your chapters all have key takeaways. So, either if you miss something when you were going through the chapter, or you didn’t understand something, there’s clear and concise takeaways at the end of every chapter. You mentioned the nine factors. Can you walk our listeners through those nine factors that really make up a great leader since you did all the homework and the study? I read it in the book but I’d rather you walk are our viewers and listeners through it.

Mike: Yes, absolutely. So, the first one is drive. Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett were really sort of relating to is that energy. That actually plays into curiosity, which we’ll get into. You cannot create drive where it does not exist. Again, in the Marine Corps, International Operations in the military does this very well. They sort of uncover the drive in young men and women like myself. I just didn’t know it was there. They gave me a sense of purpose. Out of that purpose, came drive. You can create it. It’s very hard to do. A lot of business leaders don’t have the time. So, you’re looking for somebody that is driven.

Resiliency. Who’s not going to fall? In Special Operations, which we talk in the book, we run our hiring process is called assessment selection. The training is designed to knock you down. And right when you get up, it’s designed to knock you down again, and again, and again. Now, the funny thing, John, is we have some pretty amazing people that show up to SEAL training from NCAA athletes who are Division 1 football players to gold medalists from the Olympics. Some of those people are the first to quit because they’ve never really faced failure like they’re going to face in the Special Operations training. So, when you design interview process, you really want to test for that resiliency. You want to dig in and see if somebody’s reflective in making discuss where they failed in life, and more importantly, where they’ve gotten up.

So, you’ve got things like effective intelligence. Again, it goes back to Warren Buffett’s “brains.” Everyone wants somebody with intellectual horsepower. That’s given. We talked to Tracy Keogh, the CHRO of HP, an amazing leader. She mentioned the same thing on top everyone. What Special Operation sort of codified is they said, “Yes, intellectual horsepower is a necessity but we’re actually looking for something called effective intelligence.” We don’t care if your IQ is a hundred thirty or your high IQ is a hundred. The person that has a hundred and thirty, if they can’t operate in a volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous environment, if they suffer from paralysis through analysis, they’re not going to be a great battlefield commander. Hence, they’re not going to have a spot in the SEAL Teams. We’d rather take that person with a hundred IQ who has the ability to apply what intelligence they have to real world problems for which no books solutions exist.

We talked about integrity. Integrity. All you need to know is yes or no. Are they a person with integrity? Simon Sinek worked with the SEALS. He came up with this thing called the performance trust matrix. You can have somebody that is a high performer, but if they’re low trust, they’re going to become a poison to that culture. So, integrity is a key thing. You have things like teamability. Teamability, ultimately, is the ability to put your self-needs to the side for the good of organization. That’s what we’re looking for in the SEAL Teams, much like every business leader. Somebody who really takes pride when the organization achieve things, not that they were the top salespeople, yet their company had a down quarter. No. They want their company or organization to always succeed. The realization that if the organization succeeds, we’ll all win from that.

You’ve got adaptability. Again, resiliency and adaptability during these times of covid, we all had to adapt. We had a set of constraints put on us. It doesn’t change the end state. It doesn’t change the end goal. We have to find a way to innovate and adapt given the circumstances we’re faced to win.

You’ve got curiosity. This was something that Tracy Keogh and even one of the the really founding fathers of Delta Force talked about, is they said their best employees are the ones that are in their 50s but still have this fire in the belly to understand how things work the way they work, why we do things the way we do things; not to question authority, but to see if there’s a better way. That curiosity really leads to a lot of innovation.

Those are just a few of them. If somebody’s going to have all nine of those foundational attributes to a high degree, no, that person would be the perfect human that doesn’t exist. I might be high drive. I might be low in teamability. So, ultimately for organizations, don’t come up with the interview process to look for all nine. Come up with the top profile for each role within your company and identify the attributes that matter to that role. Then, you design your interview process around that in order to elicit attributes from people and determine if they are right fit for the culture.

John: Let’s talk about you now evolving and transitioning from SEALS to your MBA, now to the private business world. You’re a young guy, still. You’re very young. What have you learned in these three years? What is the Talent War group mean to you? Why did you set it up? How is it different from other leadership organizations?

Mike: I’m doing a lot of reading on something called the Dunning-Kruger effect of late. Also, these last three years I’ve had a lot of time to reflect on what I did in the SEAL Teams. When you’re engaged in war and you’re going to war constantly, sometimes, you don’t have that ability to really detach and contextualize what you’re going through and what you’ve learned. These three years have been instrumental. I’m looking back in a lot of decisions I made in the SEAL Teams where I wish I could have done a better job. I’m going to make sure that I don’t make those same mistakes in the business world. That’s why we teach you leadership for a living. The Dunning-Kruger effect, the more I learn, the more I realize the less I know. I don’t have to have all the answers. I’ve learned from a great set of mentors and coaches that as long as I’m surrounded by great people, like in Proverbs 27:17 – iron sharpens iron, we will win. We either win as a team or we don’t win at all. So, I constantly look for these tribes of great people [inaudible]. Right now, I have one. We are very much a start-up, but our growth year over year over the last three years has been pretty impactful. I’m just taking the leadership principles I learned from the US military, which is one of the best leadership development programs in the world. I’m trying to apply them to the business world while I’m building my business acumen. The mistakes I make, as long as we learn from them and don’t repeat them, we’re going to do great.

Now, ultimately, the Talent War Group because I’m obsessed with talent. I’m obsessed with winning teams. When you look at winning teams, there is no one recipe. What made the San Francisco Giants win the [inaudible] two years in a row when arguably, you could say there’s more talent or better talent than another team? Same with companies. But ultimately, I want to take some of the lessons I learned from Special Operations community for which the business world has a fascination for good reason, and take those best practices, and give them to the private sector. Here’s why this may sound like a hyperbole and I’m being genuine. The greatest power in this country is not the US Military even though it’s pretty damn impressive. It’s the US economy. Our economy and free enterprise is what gives us the latitude to affect policies overseas to make sure that our military has what it needs if they have to go wage war. The business world has a lot to learn from the military in terms of leadership development and how they build teams. If I can help with that process, if I can start a small initiative that possibly grows and help small and medium businesses set a foundation to lead to success, then that’s what I’m going to do, John.

John: Are all your colleagues veterans?

Mike: No. Here’s the thing. If we’re not preaching that, “Hey, you got to be in the military to be a great leader.” You’re a perfect example of that. Bill Campbell is a perfect example. Warren Buffett-

John: Are all your colleagues in the Talent War Group veterans?

Mike: No. Tom Lokar, who’s one of the partners in Talent War Group, is a former CHR of Mitel. George Rydell happened to be in the military. Carly Walden, who’s the smartest of us all, was in the Air Force. A lot of our executive search consultants, our marketing team, never served a day in the military. That’s not a prerequisite for us. Talent comes from all places. You just have to look for it. So, we’ve hired a lot from St. Edward’s, which is a local University in Austin, people that never served in the military. Guess what? Day 1, we start teaching them leadership. We set the foundation. If they can assimilate to the culture, if they can understand and implement the principles, they’re going to be with us for a long time.

John: Got it. In terms of hiring practices, what’s wrong today with the traditional hiring practices in corporate America? If you were to say, “John, my one mission here at Talent War Group is to fill this gap,” what’s like the biggest gap that you’re trying to fill at Talent War Group?

Mike: Tom Lokar, Gorge, myself, and Carly, we all believe that the human resources function needs to be supercharged. The human resources function for a lot of businesses is not treated like a strategic function. John, your CHRO, should be one of the most high-performing people in your organization because they’re the one creating the processes and procedures for your hiring, your leadership development in your talent management. That’s a critical role to any organization. Now, what a lot of CEOs look at things directly. In Special Operations, they taught me to look at things indirectly. HR is not a revenue-generating function. It’s a cost center. Look at it indirectly. That’s actually the mechanism you utilize to feed the count into all your revenue-generating functions. So, when you treat your CHRO, when you bring your CHRO to the table for every single discussion. Because every single discussion you have, and every single decision you implement revolves around people. The biggest thing I’d say is treat your HR as an equal leader. Actually, empower them, set metrics and goals for them to bring talent and retain talent within your organization.

John: For our listeners, readers, and viewers out there, we’ve got Mike Sarraille with us. He’s the founder and CEO of Talent War Group. To find Mike and his great colleagues, go to www.talentwargroup.com. Buy his new book, The Talent War. I’ve read it as you can see here. Mike, when someone hires your firm, they’re hiring your firm, is it a start-up? Is it a billion-dollar company, or everything in between? What’s the number one reason they come to you to hire your firm to help them do what?

Mike: Yes, absolutely. Talent War Group is an executive search firm in Italian advisory. So, if you’re looking for senior leaders from the c-suite down the general manager, that’s what we focus on. We love, primarily, to focus on the HR function. If you’re looking for a high-performing, aggressive CHRO, Chief People Officer, Chief [inaudible] Officer, that’s what Tom Lokar and George Rydell do for a living. They know the space. Both of them have twenty plus years. They both have proven track records of creating world-class, best-in-class talent acquisition and talent management programs. From the talent consulting side, we would rather come in and help you set up the processes and procedures, again, to create a world-class talent acquisition program as well as talent management program, rather than just placing individual leaders in your organization. So, we do both. They’re mutually supporting, but we love creating long-term relationships with the companies by doing that talent advisory. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a Fortune 500. We do love working with small to medium businesses because that’s where my heart is. I want to see them set the foundation to grow into Fortune 500s, but we work across all domains. We’re industry-agnostic. Again, high-performers have the same set to the common thread, same set of attributes as anyone else.

John: You’re three years into it. You’re a young entrepreneur. You’ve got your whole life in front of you and your career in front of you with a lot of amazing and experiences that people would not necessarily get exposed to. What’s your vision and what’s your dream with the Talent War Group and where do you want to take this?

Mike: You know, I’ve got to tamper my enthusiasm and focus on being very good at few things. Once we fill that cup, move on to the next. I want Talent War Group to become the number one provider for- we call them Chief Leadership Officers or Chief Talent Officer, CHROs. People think, “Hey, we need our CHRO to come to the Talent War Group,” or if they want to talk about talent design, that’s when they come. John, veterans will always be dear to my heart. I can’t set my family and I up for success, and leave my brothers and sisters behind. One thing, and I want to be cautious here is I really like the search fund model where there’s a lot of baby boomers that don’t have succession plans that want to sell their businesses, and doing the due diligence to identify the right businesses providing the funding for veterans to buy those companies where they can step in as leaders. And like me, learn things the hard way, but knowing that their drive, their ability to adapt, to learn their curiosity, and their ability to deliver just outstanding customer service. I know they’ll grow those businesses. So, that’s sort of my five-year plan is creating the fund within Talent War Group.

John: That’s wonderful. We need more help with veterans. You know, I’ve learned the hard way over my adult life that we have all these heroes fighting for our freedom around the world in weird places against enemies that are real and enemies that aren’t real, actually. When they come home, they’re somehow the forgotten heroes of America. I don’t get that. I don’t get that as someone who hasn’t been to war and someone who hasn’t been in the military, but just as a person who loves this country dearly and loves people, I don’t understand how we’ve got gotten this far by acting that way.

Mike: You know, everyone has a part to play in this country. Whether that’s military, the private sector, if that’s serving the federal government outside the military. [inaudible] for serving this country in some way. I’ll tell you, and I don’t want to speak for veterans, but I know a lot of my brothers and sisters in arms, you don’t need to thank us. We were humbled to have the opportunity to serve our country and to go over there while you guys have created one of the strongest economies here. Again, it is not easy to transition out. You leave a tribe. It’s one of the strongest, most supporting teams you’ll ever be a part of. To leave that is hard. Then, to re-assimilate back into normal life… I don’t expect anyone to do that with ease. They again, they would be a superhuman if they did. But there are lingering effects from war, which is normal. General Mattis calls it traumatic growth where we have normal reactions to the abnormal conditions of war. That’s okay. It doesn’t mean somebody’s weak. For those listening, yes, if you can reach out and help a veteran, if you can [inaudible] them as they’re transitioning in, help them find their new passion, give them hard advice, and give them a hand up, not a handout. I think we can solve this problem together, these veterans’ transitions.

John: I love it. You know, Mike, you have a great book. Again, for our listeners and viewers, it’s called the Talent War. You got to buy it. To up your organization’s hiring skills and protocol, this is just a great book. Your HR Director, leadership team, the founders of your company, they should be reading this book here. Mike, during the pandemic, The Last Dance came out. One of the great sports leaders was highlighted in that ten-part series. The end of the eighth episode was the only time he broke down and got emotional. They ended that on his words as he got emotional. He said, “Leadership has a price and winning has a price.” Your book, what you’re preaching, and your whole approach to leadership is unique, and special, and bears being listened to about character, about integrity, and about the nine key elements to making leaders a success. What is that? What is Michael Jordan’s words of leadership has a price and winning has a price mean to you? I know you haven’t gotten this far and been the success that you are without paying a price.

Mike: It’s a one great series. When I heard that, the words victory comes at a cost sort of ran through my mind. Our soldiers won every battle they were tasked with during the global war on terror. The wars went a different direction, but every battle that they were tasked with, they won. Again, that comes at a cost. For business leaders, you can empathize with this, when you are so driven to grow something, it’s an opportunity cost. If I’m to give all my time over here to the Talent War Group to grow it into a multimillion-dollar organization, that means I forgo time with my family and the development of my children. That is something we all struggle with as human beings is that balance. I don’t have any good advice because at the end of my career, my CEO career, we had a very high divorce rate from where I came from, because we gave it our all. This sounds horrible, John, in JSOC, the men and women you served with were your first family. Your wife and children were your second family. Because we were always deployed in the war, that’s who you had to focus on. Especially as a leader, your whole focus was to get the mission done and bring all your people home. Again, that came at a cost. I didn’t balance my career well. Towards the end of my twenty-year career, I ended up in a divorce. I never wanted that for my children. So, the only advice I can give is you’ve got to pull back every once in a while as a leader. You have to reflect and you have to ask yourself what’s important. You don’t have to take everything on. If you do train your team so well, it starts to take more off your plate knowing as a leader of an organization that I have the right people in the right positions with the right training to seize opportunities at their level or solve problems. It’s almost what General McChrystal talked about in [inaudible] is creating the one culture that really matters at decentralized command. If you can do that, that actually helps you get back to balance, but that’s something I still struggle with to this day is how do I maintain that balance and not making a Pyrrhic victory.

John: Right. For our listeners and viewers out there, to find Mike and his colleagues please go to www.talentwargroup.com. You can buy the Talent War at Amazon.com, Barns and Noble, other great book stores. Mike, I’m going to give you the last word, but before I give you the last word before we say goodbye for today, at least, first of all, at the top of the show, I should have said thank you. Thank you, thank you. God bless you for the service. You’ve done a great service. You’ve done representing our country around the world, protecting our freedom. As an American, I just want to say thank you from our listeners and from our viewers. We don’t get to do this stuff without you doing your important work, and your colleagues, and other veterans doing their important work around the world. So, God bless you and thank you for that work. I also want to thank you for your time today, the generosity of your time today for coming on the Impact podcast, and sharing your journey, sharing your important and wonderful book. And hopefully, sharing your vision of great, great leadership, what that means, and what that should mean to entrepreneurs and other leaders around the world. It’s a very inspiring story. Mike, I’ll give you the last word. I just want to say thanks again for your time today.

Mike: Hey, John, thank you. The only thing I’ll say is we didn’t realize this when we started the book. George was now my co-author, but the best part about this book is the amount of people we’ve got to meet and to have a discussion about leadership and talent like we’re having here. So, we’ve expanded our network and we’ve met some amazing people. So, that’s the real reward that we got from writing that book. The only thing I’ll say to leaders is make sure that you’re taking time to step back when you can as often as you can. Contextualize what you’re doing to give yourself your own personal debrief, not necessarily about what you’re doing right, but where you can improve in life. Reflection is one of the greatest attributes of the leaders I’ve ever worked for They were always asking themselves, “Can I do this better? Where do I need to improve?” Then, taking steps or taking action to actually implement change into their lives, and ultimately, become better. When you become better, you make the people around you better.

John: Thanks again, Mike. Look forward to having you back on hearing the continued journey that you’re on right now, the Talent War Group. God bless you. God bless America. Thanks again for being with us today, Mike Sarraille.

Mike: Thank you, John.

John: This edition of the Impact podcast is brought to you by Trajectory Energy Partners. Trajectory Energy Partners brings together landowners, electricity users, and communities to develop solar energy projects with strong local support. For more information on how Trajectory is leading the solar revolution, please visit trajectoryenergy.com.

John Shegerian: This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by ERI. ERI has a mission to protect people, the planet and your privacy, and is the largest fully integrated IT and electronics asset disposition provider and cybersecurity-focused hardware destruction company in the United States and maybe even the world. For more information on how ERI can help your business properly dispose of outdated electronic hardware devices, please visit eridirect.com.

John: Welcome to another edition of the Impact Podcast. I’m John Shegerian and I’m so excited today because we have my good friend, Hubert Joly. He’s just written this great book, “The Heart of Business”. He’s also a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School. He’s also the past CEO of Best Buy doing one of the greatest turnarounds in American business history. Welcome to the Impact Podcast, Hubert.

Hubert Joly: John, it’s so good to see you. You and I have such wonderful memories of doing great things together. I am so excited about this opportunity to chat with you today.

John: Yes, and I wish we were together because we’ve spent so many wonderful times together before in-person. I know we’ll be back in-person again, as science wins this tragic period that we’re living in. But today, you’re in New York, I’m in Fresno, and we’re going to be together on this wonderful Zoom call.

Hubert: Let’s celebrate the opportunity to chat today and the future opportunities to be together.

John: Hundred percent. Hubert, I’ve read this book, my listeners and my viewers know I’m an active reader. When I read, I marked the book up. I write in the book. Your book, I got to tell you, it’s just one of the greatest business books I’ve ever read in my life. The Heart of Business, there’s so much in here. I marked it up so much because there’s just so much in here for our listeners, our viewers, and our readers to unpack. But before we get to this, I want you to share a little bit about your background first leading up to becoming the CEO in 2012 of Best Buy. Share a little bit about your education and your other work experience before coming to Best Buy.

Hubert: Thank you, John. Thank you for your very kind words about the book. I grew up in France and I had three brothers. I went to business school. I was classically trained, and in many ways and that’s part of the transformation. I got some wonderful gray cells from my parents. For a long time, I thought that being a good leader was about being smart and being the smartest person in the room fixing thing. I was deeply analytical and great problem solver. I think the story of my life has been this evolution from using my brain principally to now believing that as a leader, you need to lead with all of your body parts. The brain, of course, but also importantly the heart, the soul, the guts, the eyes, the ears, and what have you.

Hubert: My journey, after McKinsey, I’ve led a number of companies in a variety of industry sectors. I was the president of EDS, the Electronic Data System in France. I was the CEO of a video games company that produced games like Diablo II, World of Warcraft, and a greenlight World of Warcraft in 2000. We had an assembly plant in Fresno, California, so you’ll be familiar with that. I was part of the team in the restructured Vivendi Universal after Vivendi acquired Universal. I work myself out of a job because we sold Universal to GE NBC to form NBCUniversal. Then I was the CEO of another company that was supposed to die. Carlson Wagonlit Travel, a corporate travel management company that was supposed to be killed by the internet, Expedia, and whatnot. Instead, we tripled the size of the company and expanded profitability. Then I moved to Minneapolis in 2008 to become the CEO of Carlson Companies, which is a great Minneapolis-based company, not only in travel but also hospitality with TGI Fridays and hotels such as Radisson, Radisson Blu, Regent, and whatnot.

Hubert: What got me to Best Buy, when I got the call I told that the head-hunting is actually the first words in the book. Jim, you’re crazy, right? I don’t know anything about retail and this place is a mess. I said, “No, no, you have to look at it and your turnaround experience would be a great fit.” Life is not linear, John. There was no plan ever for me to move from France to Minneapolis and one day become the CEO of Best Buy. It just happens.

John: When you were walking into Best Buy, the General Media, the Jim Cramer’s of the world, and the other business pundits already writing it off and saying it was probably going to go the way of RadioShack and Circuit City and other retailers. You walked in and had a big mountain to climb in that turnaround. Talk a little bit about the beginning steps of coming into that.

Hubert: Yeah. So when I joined Best Buy, it was neither crazy nor suicidal and like what some of my friends thought. Because I thought that the world needed Best Buy. Customers needed Best Buy, a place where you could touch and feel and see the products and get advice. The vendors also need Best Buy because they needed a place where to showcase the food of their billions of dollars of R&D investment. The issue with Best Buy, the reason why everybody thought Best Buy was going to die is the problems were all self-inflicted. Meaning quality of service had gone down, the cost structure has been bloated. That was good news because everything that self-inflicted, well, you can fix it, right? You don’t need to ask anybody’s permission to fix it. So that’s why I joined it. I thought that we could turn this around.

Hubert: So, how did I start? Well, John, I spend… You’re not going to be surprised. In my first week at Best Buy, working in stores. I went to St. Cloud, Minnesota. And the reason why I did worked in our store, the reason why I did this is that it’s one of my colleagues at Best Buy told me that you’re not going to be able to lead this company sitting at your desk, looking at spreadsheets. You have to be on the front line, listen to the front liners, and really understand what’s happening. I think it’s general pattern. We said you cannot push a noodle. You have to pull a noodle. I’m not saying Best Buy was a noodle, but you get the point, right? You have to be in the front line. I learned so much, John, listening to the front lines. For example, one of the associates, I will always remember this, you know that the search engine on the Best Buy site is not working. I said, what do you mean? Well, type Cinderella, you’ll get Nikon cameras. I know it rhymes, but it’s not quite the same.

John: Wow.

Hubert: Nobody in the headquarters would have told me that. I also saw that the store layout was a bit antiquated. There was way too much space allocated to physical media, which was, of course, moving away. Also, so that we had not equipped the blue shirts with the tools to do their job, including why should customers buy from Best Buy. Also, there was this phenomenon of showrooming. People coming to our stores and speaking with the associates and then leaving because presumably they could buy online cheaper. And so, that’s the reason why we empowered the blue shirt to match online prices. That’s the reason why we fix the search engine. That’s the reason why we redid the floor space to allocate more space to the growing category. So, we really started by listening to people.

Hubert: So a turnaround, here’s a lesson. Often time for turnaround people say cut, cut, cuts. Close stores, reduce headcount. That’s not what we did. We studied with people, listened to the front liners, make sure you have the right team at the top, and then instead of going to head count reduction, see how you can grow revenue. That’s number one priority. And if you’re going to have to cut cost, start with what we call non-salary expenses, which is all the expenses that have nothing to do with people. So as an example at Best Buy, John, do we sell a lot of TVs at Best Buy? Yes, we do. They’re big and they’re thin, so they break. I like it when you recycle them, but maybe we should recycle them after people have used them. So at the time, we used to break about 200 million dollars worth of TVs everywhere.

Hubert: If you can reduce that by 50%, you’ve saved hundred million dollars, the customers are happy. We made a survey of customers, John. Exactly 0% of customers want to buy a broken TV. So good for the customer, good for the associates, good for us. And so, you only got it count as a last resort and in fact, you may admit positions but you may still want to redeploy people because we’ve done over. So it’s a philosophy that’s a positive philosophy. Start with people. Start with the customer. And the role of the leaders in that case is not to be the smartest person in the room. It’s to listen and then create energy. As leaders, that’s what we do. The way you create energies by co-creating the plan as opposed to telling people what to do it, and getting going and celebrating successes, talking about what’s difficult, being vulnerable, and in working together to solve problems. So in a nutshell, admitting sound easy, but that’s what we did.

John: Unbelievable turn around. Literally one of the greatest turnarounds in American Business history. Let’s unpack some of that. So, one of the first things you did was you went in the stores and you talk about this again in your new book “The Heart of Business”. This is a great book for our listeners and viewers out there. You talk about this terminology called “reverse mentor”. When I first read it in the book, I was not understanding it as much as the way you just explained it. The people on the front line teaching the people sitting in the offices really what’s going on and what time of day it is at that point and what needs to be fixed. Is this something you took from your McKinsey background, your Carlson background, or something that as now a newly mentee in retail that you came up with as you evolve as a leader?

Hubert: I think John, if we step back, the book itself talks a little bit about the Best Buy turnaround. It’s a bigger book. The subtitle is leadership principles for the next era of capitalism. I want to spend a minute on that. Because we have to agree that the world today is facing multiple problems. We have a health crisis. We have an economic crisis. We have social injustice. We have systemic racism. We have, as you all know, you and I, the planet is burning. John, what’s the definition of madness? Doing the same thing and hoping for a different outcome. Whatever we’ve been doing for the last 40 years is not working. We have to fix it. What we’ve been doing from a business standpoint in the last 40 years as a country, as a world, is based on two main ideas. One is shareholder primacy that was Milton Friedman. Two is top-down leadership, that was Bob McNamara. These two ideas, I believe, that’s my opinion, and I talked about it in the book. It’s the root cause of a lot of our problem.

Hubert: We have to change these things. We have to create profit not as the goal but as an outcome. Maybe we’ll come back to that. The companies like Best Buy or your company have to pursue a noble purpose. Do something good in the world. And from the leadership standpoint, yes, the role of the leader is not to be the superhero telling people what to do, but we have to listen. The reverse mentor idea that you talk about John, we applied it in particular when we say to focus on doing a better job with diversity and inclusion and doing our part to end systemic racism, in particular vis-à-vis black African-American colleagues, which is something I say to work on five years ago. Having grown up in France, there’s racism in France. Don’t get me wrong. But it’s different flavor of what we have here.

Hubert: And so, HR team was trying to support us in this journey. Gave me a reverse mentor, a wonderful, young woman, Laura Gladney [?]. A wonderful African-American woman, who was there to help me learn, and I learned so much from her. The pain that African-American black colleagues experience in their life, the injustice, all the thousands cuts, the fear. And of course, as we speak, we have this trial surrounding the killing or the murder of George Floyd. If you’re a Black man in this country, if you’re walking in the street, people are going to be afraid. So you’re going to feel that you’re being rejected. And I think for all of us as leaders, somebody said, I think a Buddhist monk, the longest journey that you’ll ever make in your life, that I will ever made in my life, is the 18 inches from my head to my heart.

Hubert: For too long, John, I’ll just be honest. My head was cut off from the rest of my body. As a leader, I thought I could lead with my head. Big mistake. If we can lead from the heart, you use all of our body, but head is a good thing, right? But better things can happen. If we can create an environment that our companies as leaders where everybody feel they belong and that they can be themselves, then something magical happens, which we talked about in the book which is we unleash human magic. And for me, that’s the greatest joy on the planet frankly.

John: I want to talk about human magic in a second, but let’s go back. I don’t want to glance over the massive difference and the success you had at Best Buy. Not only shareholder value, as you say, but that comes with your transformation of the culture of the company. But when you left Best Buy, you left a board that was predominantly woman and had three African-Americans on it. It was a much more inclusive board than you walked into in terms of diversity and inclusion, and that’s to your great testament. So, I want our listeners and viewers to know you just don’t only talk or write a good perspective, but you walk it yourself. You walk it yourself, and that’s to your great credit. For our listeners who just joined us, our viewers who just joined us, we have my good friend, Hubert Joly. He wrote “The Heart Of Business”. He’s a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School. He’s also the former CEO who turned around Best Buy. So welcome to this edition of the Impact Podcast. Hubert, you talked a little bit about human magic. You have five parts of human magic. Can you explain to our listeners what you put in your great book? The five-part principles that make up how do we get to human magic.

Hubert: Yeah, John. Again, there’s so much learning, right? The last century, you and I, we can agree that we were born last century.

John: Yes.

Hubert: I don’t know about you, but the methods that I was taught inspired by Bob McNamara is take a bunch of smart people. You create a smart strategy, a smart implementation plan. You communicate it to everybody. You put incentives in place, and you hope that good things happen. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t work as well as it could. The principal reason, there’re many reasons for this, but one of them is financial incentives is not what drive behaviors. If you ask most people, when you get up in the morning, do you engineer your day on the basis of how you’re going to maximize the bonus you’re going to get at the end of the year? Of course not. Motivation comes from within, right? Its intrinsic. It connects with what’s important to us, what we value, what we really care about.

Hubert: The second reason why this Bob McNamara type approach doesn’t work is none of us like to be told what to do. It’s very human. And so, I think the magic today for organization is this, first, you have to see that a company at the end of the day is a human organization made of individuals working together in pursuit of a goal. And that goal for me cannot be to make money. It’s an outcome. The goal, if you think about it philosophically, spiritually, humanly, it’s to contribute to the common good. Make a positive difference in the world. Right? That’s the philosophy we describe in the book. And if it’s a human organization, you have to think about what is going to mobilize human beings, people. And I think the five ingredients that we talk about in the book that certainly applied at Best Buy that I’ve learned so much about in the last several years, starts with number one, connecting what drives each employee with the purpose of the company.

John: Okay.

Hubert: Here’s a story. We learn with through stories, John, right?

John: Yeah.

Hubert: I’m going to give you two stories. Every quarter when I was the CEO at Best Buy, we would gather as an executive team to make progress on our strategy, our plan. We could do better with recycling, things like that. And one time we planned a dinner where I asked every one of the executive team members to come with a picture of themselves when they were little. Maybe three years old, four years old, five years old. And asked each of us to share with each other the story of our life and the meaning of our life, what drives us. That was a transformative dinner. Rarely in the corporate world you ask these questions, right? Because you see a colleague more as a professional as opposed to a full human being that is really driven by something. And what we discovered during that dinner is that all of us have wonderful life stories and were driven by a common desire to do good in the world, which inspired us. The ones we had turnaround the company, and we were asking ourselves how can we accelerate our growth, what kind of company do we want to be when we grow up? It inspired us to continue the transformation of Best Buy and focus on this idea of enriching lives through technology by addressing key human needs. And so, really connected us deeply in our work with our life.

Hubert: Another story, because you don’t need to be a CEO to do this. One of our store general managers in the Boston Market. One thing he does, he asks everyone of the associates in the store, hundred of them, what is your dream? At Best Buy or outside of Best Buy, what is your dream? It says, okay, let’s write it down in the break room and now my job as the store GM is to help you achieve your dream. It changes everything. So that’s the first ingredient is connecting dreams, you could say. The second one is building genuine human connections. So, here also a couple of stories, John. I ran into an associate one day in one of our stores and he told me that his life changed the day a manager recognize them and took an interest in him. So my compatriots, the philosopher Rene Descartes of the Cartesian philosophy, said once, “I think, therefore I am”. He’s wrong. He’s wrong. It’s interesting, but not fascinating.

John: Yeah.

Hubert: The better one is, “I am seeing, therefore I am”. As an individual, if I am seeing, I feel respected, I feel people take an interest in me, then I can be myself and I can feel that I can grow. That means its human connections. That means also vulnerability. One thing that can be scattered, the wonderful head of HR once did at the company is disclosed to everyone at the company that for years she had been suffering from depression. Who says a senior executive in a Fortune 100 company admits that you’re suffering from mental health or anxiety or depression issues? Nobody does that. Except 20% of any human population is suffering from some kind of mental health issue, and of course, at a time of COVID, the anxiety level of depression, burnout is very high. What it did with transformative, because it’s signaled to everybody at the company, is that we are all humans. She got hundreds and hundreds of emails from people saying, “Oh, me too. Yes, and here’s how I got out of it and so forth.” So it created a very human environment, which goes back to the discussion around diversity and inclusion. Everyone has to feel that they belong. So that’s the second ingredient.

Hubert: The third one is around autonomy, being able to do which we think is appropriate. Another story that will really capture the human magic. So I told you that when I joined Best Buy in 2012, the quality of service stores had gone down. In 2018, so six years later, one day, there’s a young woman who walks into one of our stores with her young child. He’s like four years old. During the holidays he had gotten a gift, which was a dinosaur toy. Okay? The problem is that the dinosaur toy got sick. Meaning the head got dismantled from the rest of the body. And, and of course, the child is sad. And so they go to the store because he wants the Dinosaur to be cured. Now, at most stores and maybe at Best Buy a few years ago, you would have been directed to the toy aisle. And with luck, they would still be a dinosaur for sale and you would have gotten a new dinosaur. This is not what happened on that day. With two Associates in that store, so what happens? Took the sick dinosaur when behind a counter, began performing a surgical procedure on the sick dinosaur, and if you are watching Good Doctor on Amazon, they walk the child to the steps in the procedure. Fully substituted the sick dinosaur with a new dinosaur and gave to the child a cured a dinosaur.

Hubert: Now, John, close your eyes for a second. Imagine the joy of the young child and his mother. Now, John, do you think there was a standard operating procedure at Best Buy on how to deal with sick dinosaurs?

John: No.

Hubert: No. Do you think maybe there was a memo from me telling the Associates exactly what to do in case a young child walks into the store with a sick dinosaur?

John: No.

Hubert: Of course not. These two Associates found it in their hearts to create this joy with this young boy and his mother and felt they had the freedom to do this. Right?

John: Right.

Hubert: And that the autonomy, and I think our role as leader, is to create an environment where this human magic can be unleashed in pursuit of the purpose of the company which is to make other human beings happy. So, at the end of the day, this idea of business, it’s pursue a noble purpose, put people at the center, and create this magical human relationships between the employees, between the employees and the customers, partnership with the vendors. You were one of our partners, John. The community, if the City of Minneapolis is on fire, you cannot run the business. So you have to take care of the community. If the planet is on fire, Larry Fink, the CEO of BlackRock, has told everybody this is the biggest risk for business for the next 30 years. And then really treat profit as an outcome as opposed to the principal goal of business. That’s the philosophies that’s at the heart of business, at the heart of the book that I’m excited. It’s now out and I hope it will help leaders.

Hubert: My goal in writing this book is principally to help leaders at all levels who are keen to abandon the old ways. And I think most of us are convinced that we have to change. It is a guide for leaders who are eager to embrace and are working on embracing this idea of leading from a place of purpose and inhumanity. True life stories, examples, practical advice, that’s what the book is about.

John: Hubert, share with our viewers and our listeners also, because this is so important, what are you doing with the profits from this great book. Where are the profits going?

Hubert: Well, it’s something that’s dear to your heart and my heart because we’ve been partners on this.

John: Right.

Hubert: A few years ago at Best Buy, we launched a program called the “Best Buy Teen Tech Centers” that are in the U.S., in underserved communities, focus on helping disadvantaged teenagers and help them have access to technology skills and hopefully a path to a job or higher education. And by now we have more than 40 of those in the country. Best Buy now has a goal to get 200. Your company John has been a partner in the one in Brooklyn, with my Foundation has invested also. My proceeds from the book, hundred percent of them go to funds of Best Buy Teen Tech Centers. The Teen Tech Center with these partnerships is a case of business mobilizing to be a force for good. We need business. Business is powerful. Business can make a difference. So, I’m excited about this. The more I talk about the book, it’s not for me to get famous or rich. It’s to help these wonderful kids. We need the next generation to do great things in the world, and you and I are partners in helping them.

John: We are partners forever in that mission and many other missions. Two last questions I have for you Hubert before I let you go today because I know how busy you are still in all the great work and important work you’re doing. One of the interesting parts of your turnaround involves something that everyone thought from the beginning was very counterintuitive. Everyone pitted you against the Apple Store and Amazon, of course, but you did something that seemed from the outset very counterintuitive. You partnered with them all. You partnered with Apple, with Samsung, with Amazon. And I do want to read this quote because this is from Jeff Bezos talking about your new book and it’s not only called, like you said, “The Heart of Business”. Its leadership principles for the next era of capitalism. Jeff Bezos said, “Best Buy’s turnaround under Hubert Joly’s leadership was remarkable. A case study that should be and will be taught in business schools around the world. Bold and thoughtful, he has a lot to teach.” Now, this is from someone who everyone thought was your arch rival and you brought them under your tent and you made him a partner. Can you share a little bit about how making these unique collaborations and partnership helped lead to your great turnaround at Best Buy?

Hubert: Yeah, thank you, John. You’re very kind. What we saw is that the world in fact needed Best Buy, right? Customers need Best Buy because many of us need help with technology. But the vendors, the tech companies, also need Best Buy. Companies like Apple or Samsung or Amazon or Google spent billions of dollars on R&D to develop their wonderful products. A world without Best Buy, if it’s just on a shelf or on a website, you don’t know what the product is going to do. And so, they need a place where to showcase the fruit of their R&D investments. Companies like the ones we’ve mentioned have a choice. They can open their own stores and of course Apple to a degree has done that. But the other thing they can do, I mean, opening stores is a long process. You need to find locations. You need to operate them. So the alternative is to do your store within the Best Buy store. And then in a matter of months, you have 1000 stores in the U.S. So the first deal we done was actually with Apple. Apple loves working with Best Buy because we give them a bigger distribution than we did we Samsung. It’s wonderful because for the customers, you can look at the Apple products and the Samsung products.

Hubert: And the other thing of course John is that I don’t know anybody that only has one brand in their home. Tim Cook, you think that Tim Cook only has Apple products in his home? No, because he’s refrigerator, Apple doesn’t do refrigerators or TVs. So, all of us need multiple brands, how they can all work together. In the case of Amazon, yes, it’s the irony because they were supposed to kill us. We always sold Amazon products. It seems like the Kindle and then the Echo products and so forth. Because we thought it was good for the customers, and Amazon felt that having a physical distribution was important. And then one day, we went one step further. Amazon gave us the exclusive rights to the Fire TV platform, which is the Smart TV platform, to be embedded into Smart TVs. And any Smart TV powered by the Fire TV platform would only be sold at Best Buy or by Best Buy on Amazon. And when Jeff came to our store in Bellevue, Washington to announce the deal, media was was there and he was very clear. I’ll just quote him saying a TV purchase is a considerate purchase. We need to see it and the best place in the world where to buy a TV is Best Buy. And for him, the 10 years we’ve been working together had built the trust between the two two companies.

Hubert: And what is the lesson from all of this? Forget about Best Buy for a second. Is that you have to refuse zero-sum games, right? In business, you first focus on the customer. You try to do something very unique for the customers and then you try to partner with others to do great things in the world. Everybody we know is afraid of Amazon. Amazon is going to kill everybody. No, Amazon, they’ve got their own way of doing business, their own specialty. Best Buy is a unique role to play. And so you’re not afraid of the others. You’re focused on your mission in life, and then you pursue these win-win-win relationships. You see, whether it’s your employees, your customers, your vendor partners, the community or shareholders, as other human beings, not as enemies. And what do you do with other human beings? It’s the Golden Rule, right? You try to do good things in the world and you try to do them together.

Hubert: And the relationship, I want everybody on the show to know how much I love you, John. The good work that you and your company and your wonderful family are doing in the world, this recycling program. All right. Let’s do an infomercial. Everybody in the US, and of course you’re expanding globally as well, can come to Best Buy, bring back their old technology and then, of course, we need to partner. So, we’ll partner with John. We will recycle so that the minerals, the rare earth, the metals, the plastic, the glass, all of this can be recycled. So that we contribute to minimizing the damage on the planet. So that’s an example where traffic in our stores, that’s a good thing for us. Recycling, that’s a service to the customers, and it’s a good thing for the planet and it keeps John and his family a little bit busy. So that’s not entirely…

John: Hubert, I love you too. You have been an inspiration to my children who have had the honor to meet you. To my wife, of course, who loves you dearly, and I shared a story with you before we started. I’m going to ask you one last question and let you go for the day. Besides your book, which again, it’s “The Heart of Business: Leadership Principles for the Next Era of Capitalism”. Please read it. I read it twice, and you won’t regret it. This book has so much. Unpack this book and it will help you for the entirety of your career and how to lead better than we are leading before you read this book. Talk a little bit about what you’re doing at Harvard as a senior lecturer at Harvard and Harvard Business School. How are you enjoying that and what are you getting out of that experience as well?

Hubert: Yeah, John, so two years ago roughly, I decided to pass the baton of my responsibilities at Best Buy and I’m thrilled that my successor, the wonderful Corie Barry. A wonderful human being, woman, great leader. She’s doing such a great job. I had been CEO of different companies for about 20 years and I felt it was the time to to pass the baton. So, the question in what was I going to do with the next chapter? So first, I was not going to move down to Florida to play golf with an aging man. I don’t know how to play golf, so that’s was the end.

John: It’s the two of us. That’s why we [inaudible].

Hubert: Okay. Good. Two, I don’t want to be a CEO anymore. Been there, done that. But three, I wanted the next chapter to matter. There’s always this question in life of what’s our purpose. What gives us meaning? For me, my purpose in this next chapter is to add my voice and my energy to a good number of people who are working towards the necessary re-foundation of business and capitalism around purpose and humanity. As we’ve discussed, the finish goal of madness is doing the same thing we’ve been doing for the last 50 years and hoping that it’s going to get to a better outcome. We are facing multiple crises. We need to change the way we lead and the way we behave. So, I back this for you. That’s why I wrote the book. That’s why I’m talking about the book. That’s why I am with my wonderful wife, Orthos [?]. We’re coaching and mentoring a number of CEOs and Senior Executives who are eager to do the best they can to move the world forward.

Hubert: That’s why I joined the faculty at Harvard Business School. My view is that business education has been too focused on techniques. Alright? And last time you and I looked, the reason somebody is a great leader is not because they are the best at spelling out the four Ps of marketing or because they’re the best at calculating the Net Present Value. It’s important, and I think these are valuable techniques. But I think we also need to have leaders who are able to unleash this human magic, who can be a force for good. Frankly, the role of leaders has changed so much in the last several quarters, right? The mission has changed. It’s no longer about just optimizing shareholder value. It’s about making a positive difference in the world. The scope has changed. Now as a leader, you need to deal with not only employees and customers but also community, planet, and of course, shareholders. The Leadership Model has changed. We talked about it. It’s from the top down superhero kind of a leader to know a much more human purposeful leader who is there to create an environment that can unleash human magic.

Hubert: I think these things sound soft, but I think they are actually hard to do. And I think it’s critical that we equip the best we can, that we equip the next generation of leaders or the current generation of leaders to do the best they can to help us move forward. So, I’m teaching in the MBA program and also teaching in Executive Education. It’s a great joy for me. This stage of life, where it’s about giving back. And for me, that’s how I can give back is help the next generation of moving things forward.

John: Hubert, you’re always welcome back on Impact. For our listeners, again, on barnesandnoble.com, amazon.com, and other great book stores around the United States and the world, buy “The Heart of Business”. This is the book to buy if you want to be a great leader now and in the future to come. Hubert, I just want to wish you good continued great health and say God bless you. Thank you. You’ve been such an inspiration in my life and I just want to say I love you and I can’t wait to see you in person.

Hubert: John, you are a dear friend. Thank you for this opportunity to chat and to see you. And yes, we have to celebrate soon in person. You know I’m a big hugger. No hugging during COVID. And by the way, in the world there’s two types of people. Huggers, non-huggers. Very important to make the difference.

John: That’s true.

Hubert: But I love hugging. I’m a hugger. I have to admit. Good to see you, John. Thank you.

John: This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by the Marketing Masters. The Marketing Masters is a boutique marketing agency offering website development and digital marketing services to small and medium businesses across America. For more information on how they can help you grow your business online, please visit themarketingmaster.com.

John Shegerian: This edition of the Impact podcast is brought to you by ERI. ERI has a mission to protect people, the planet, and your privacy; and is the largest fully integrated IT, and electronics asset disposition provider, and cybersecurity-focused hardware destruction company in the United States, and maybe even the world. For more information on how ERI can help your business properly dispose of outdated electronic hardware devices, please visit eridirect.com.

John: Welcome to another edition of the Impact podcast. I’m John Shegerian. I’m so excited to have my longtime friend with us today, Leo Raudys. Leo, welcome to the Impact podcast.

Leo Raudys: Thanks. Good to see you again, John.

John: Leo, I’ve known you now thirteen-fourteen years. Before we go into what you’re doing today, can you go back and talk a little bit about your history? You’ve been one of the sustainability rock stars of the the United States since I’ve known you. You’ve been a great inspiration to me. I want our listeners and viewers to learn more about you before we get talking about Call2Recycle and what you’re doing right now.

Leo: Yes, thanks. That’s very kind of you. Well, I’ll just take you way back. I mean, I’m an immigrant’s kid from the south side of Chicago. It’s great because you and I have always bonded, and the fact that we both grew up in these big cities in Chicago and New York.

John: Right.

Leo: The way I found myself into this field is just pretty circuitous. I mean, I’ve always been just kind of an explorer, searcher; not really knowing where next step is going to be. Through sheer luck, I ended up in Minnesota, got involved in environmental regulation. I was a regulator for a number of years, then I went to Best Buy where you and I met. I got in pretty deep in sustainability, pretty much kind of in the early days when things were getting going. That was pretty exciting. I’m back in a non-profit, the Call2Recycle; but in between, worked at Microsoft for a few years in our data center, the Cloud business, which is just a ridiculously interesting industry. So, government, private sector, nonprofit; I’ve pretty much seen it all at this point.

John: You really always had a heart and a passion, and were inspirational to me with regards to sustainability and making the world a better place. Not just us using up the resources for our own benefit while we’re here, but actually doing something about the problems that exist. It’s been your heart, it’s been your passion. I’ve been good friends with you for, now, over a decade. For our listeners who want to find Call2Recycle, it’s really easy. It’s www.call, C-A-L-L, 2, the number 2, recycle.org. call2recycle.org. What was its mission statement when it was set up, Leo?

Leo: We’re [inaudible] about twenty five years ago by the battery industry. Essentially, it was because the industry saw this sort of issue looming, which is what’s going to happen to all these batteries that we’re putting into the market. This is a rechargeable battery industry. Back at that time, the concern was about metals getting up in landfills and leaching into the groundwater, et cetera. So basically, a few pretty innovative thinkers got together, and they created us, and we’ve existed to this day. When it started out, we were primarily a compliance-driven organization. I was trying to figure out how to actually responsibly meet regulations, do the right thing, all that; but we’ve grown substantially over that time to the point where… The way I tell people, when I tell my mom… So, this is the way I could explain to her what this new gig was [inaudible]. So, the best way to think about it is if you’re recycling a battery somewhere in the US or Canada, odds are we’re doing it. Because we collected over fifteen thousand sites across the US. That didn’t happen by accident. I mean, there’s a lot of hard work, a lot of the staff at Call2Recycle have been with us for pretty much the entire ride. We started out as a small compliance-based organization. Now, we do voluntary recycling all over the place- rechargeable, also alkaline. I would say the best way to think about it is we’re sort of the logistics back in for doing battery recycling.

John: I love on the website, under the Call2Recycle logo, “Leading the charge for recycling.” I love that.

Leo: Endless ponds in the battery world.

John: Endless ponds in the battery world. Leo, last time we were together in person, we had this lovely dinner in Seattle where you now live. You were at Microsoft. Walk us through a little bit about leaving Microsoft, one of the greatest most iconic brands on the planet, to go take over this great brand Call2Recycle. What was on your mind? What was your thought process on leaving something very comfortable, amazing brand, you can stay probably the rest of your career if that’s what you wanted; and then coming over here, and taking on climbing a new mountain?

Leo: That’s a great question. Microsoft is a tough place to leave. They treat their employees extraordinarily well. On the sustainability side, they’re just really doing amazing things. So, made a lot of great friendships and some of my former teammates is just great long-term colleague. So, it was a great experience. As you know, the data center industry is just booming like mad. So, I learned a ton. I’ve known Call2Recycle going back to when I was a government employee, back when I was just fresh out of grad school. I know the organization pretty well. I’m super, super passionate about the mission. It’s just an opportunity, like this does not come around very often. If you’re lucky, it will happen once in a lifetime. Great organization, great people, great mission. On top of that, I saw this little bit when I was in a cloud industry working at Microsoft, the whole world is just moving to our batteries. So, just think about it. The next is climate change. This is where the action is. It’s often to make a pretty big impact to work with some great people. I mean, that was really impossible to say no to.

John: That’s actually [inaudible]. We got in the business in 2004. I met you over ten years ago. We didn’t talk. When you and I had meetings, it was about electronics, it was about reuse. Batteries wasn’t a big issue back then, fifteen-sixteen years ago, and during your tenure at Best Buy either. But now, for us, and as you said, it’s where all the action is. It’s literally the last mile of electronic recycling and the circular economy. So, you are literally probably in the hottest spot in terms of electronic waste recycling and energy. Every news story seems to be about batteries now and how to appropriately handle them when they come to the end of life. So, I really do think you’re at the cross-section of impact, and circular economy, and ESG behavior. So, that’s exciting to be taken out. Now, you’ve been there sixty days. How has the first sixty days been? Has it gone to plan in your mind when before you actually started on January 1st? Or has it been somewhat different than what you actually thought?

Leo: Well, this is your opportunity to use the famous Mike Tyson quote, but it’s been pretty exhilarating. So, yes, it’s been a couple of months. Again, I knew a number of the people already walking into the job. So, you know, that was a known quantity but I’ve met a lot of people that I hadn’t known before. So, that was great. I’d say it’s a very steep learning curve because it’s just a dramatically changing, rapidly growing industry, new battery chemistries, new players coming in, especially on the processing side. So, it’s been a pretty big learning experience for me but it’s pretty exhilarating. So, I came in with this notion that, you know, we had a certain amount of opportunity in front of us because of what’s happening across the economy in terms of electrification and batteries. Everything I’ve learned is just, you know, the opportunities [inaudible] ten times what I thought it was.

John: Wow! We were talking off air before we started today’s podcast. When I asked you that question, I said, “Yes, it’s like Mike Tyson’s old saying goes, ‘Everybody has a plan until they get hit in the head.'” So, I assume the first sixty days was a little bit of a hit the head for you, but for good reason. I mean, it’s a brand new mountain for you to climb as well.

Leo: Yes. I mean, you’re right that just batteries everywhere. Going back to what excited me about this is… Like you talked about, I’ve been in corporate sustainability now since 2009. People have been talking about carbon but there’s been just so much increased emphasis, right? We sell and pretty hardcore goal-setting around net-zero and things like that. Reality is that none of that’s going to happen without batteries. Solar installations, renewable installations, what have you. I mean, batteries are basically the key to cart, you know, to reducing carbon emissions. Back to your question about what I learned the last couple of months, that’s just become super, super clear to me. I mean, people will talk to your partners, et cetera.

John: Well, let’s talk about the frontend, the backend. The frontend, you’re already the leading brand, as you said with fifty thousand or so locations, aggregating batteries on the frontend. The reason why you and I get along so well as friends is, you know, good is never enough. So, now that you’ve come in and you’re leaving this whole brand now with fifty thousand location, what’s great mean? What does the opportunity look like for you in the months and years ahead in terms of more aggregation on the frontend?

Leo: I’d love it for it to be fifty thousand. It’s actually fifteen thousand.

John: Oh, sorry. Okay. That’s a big number still in America. That’s big in the recycling industry.

Leo: That’s thanks to all the retail partnerships we had. For us, it’s going to be about continuing to solidify those partnerships, and keep growing that network, and make sure that consumers actually continue to have places to recycle batteries. It’s like the rates of recycling are still lower than we’d like it to be. It’s not for a lack of opportunity and access. I think there’s still work to be done there. But honestly, things like electric vehicles, electric bikes, scooters, data center, batteries, [inaudible] by all this stuff. All this stuff that traditionally has been sort of an afterthought are hitting the market, pretty, pretty heavy. Three, four, five, six years down the road, we’re going to have to figure out actually what to do with these when they come out of service. I mean, you’ve seen this in the e-waste industry. People were really weren’t thinking about what to do with all these big TV CRTs, et cetera, until it was too late. Next thing you know, you’ve got all this glass that people are concerned about. So, we don’t want that situation. For us, it’s just making sure we continue to keep our eye on the ball, and our existing network, and consumer batteries, keep growing that; but really figure out how we can help the industry figure out the backend, both reuse and recycling these bigger batteries.

John: For our listeners and viewers who’ve just joined us, we’ve got Leo Raudys with us. He’s the president and CEO of Call2Recycle. To find Call2Recycle, Leo, and his colleagues, please go to www.call C-A-L-L, the number 2, recycle.org call2recycle.org. Leo, fifteen thousand locations, more and more batteries are coming. Explain the magnitude of the problem. As you and I both know, e-waste is the fastest-growing solid waste stream in the world by an order of magnitude of maybe five times more than number two, but only 18%, 17 and a half to 18% according to the UN numbers of electronic waste around the world is being responsible to be recycled. Is the problem that big with batteries and is there a huge delta for us to try to climb in terms of more battery recycling as well?

Leo: I would actually break it down into a few different pieces. So what I think, think on the processing side, there are pretty good processors out there who actually do the right thing in terms of Environmental Compliance regulation and all that. Where I think there’s a gap is on the carbon side. I talked bout that a few minutes ago. Nobody’s really paid that much attention to what the carbon intensity of battery recycling is. I think that’s an issue. We’ve got to get our arms around as an industry, and a lot of that is around transportation. So, we’ll definitely benefit from electrifying transportation in that part of the supply chain. The way I like to think about it is if you’re trying to reduce the global human carbon footprint, right? So, by doing all these great things that, you know, renewable energy installations, reducing our energy consumption through efficiency, et cetera. So basically, you’re squeezing that balloon of carbon. Unfortunately right now with batteries, there’s a risk that we’re just going to basically squeeze that balloon. It’s just got to pop on another end because we’ve got carbon emissions coming out of our recycling supply chain. So, I think that’s still an opportunity. I don’t worry so much about like creating new Superfund sites or things like that. I think that’s pretty locked down. I think we’ve got some work to do on the carbon side. Aside from that, I’d say, you know, it’s making sure that people have awareness of what to do with these things so that they’re not actually causing problems at places like waste-handling facilities because with these lithium ion batteries, if they’re not handled properly, they’re are fire risk. So, it’s been actually a pretty big emphasis for us for the last couple of years to try to educate people on how to properly recycle these batteries. Because if you don’t do it right, you know, if they come in at contact with each other, that’s an issue. I would say the last piece is- and I’m sure you used to do this as well is all the embedded batteries. It’s hard to find a piece of electronic equipment these days that doesn’t have a battery in it. If you’re an e-waste recycler and you try to figure out how to responsibly meant, you know, it’s like you got to worry about the batteries inside and ways that you didn’t have to in the past. That’s pretty big challenge.

John: Let’s go back to the carbon issue because you’re much more experienced and versed in that than I am. Section 933 of the New Climate Bill introduced by the Congress included carbon credits for the safe disposal and recycling of batteries and other forms of electronic waste. Is this going to be a new era that we’re walking into? Is carbon credits going to be available for the responsible recycling of batteries now?

Leo: Potentially, I don’t know what’s going to happen with that bill, but I would say this is going to be a variety of market signals coming in the play that’s going to push the industry toward less carbon intensive solutions. Because right now, everybody’s competing just purely on price, and that price does not include the embedded cost of carbon. Let’s say you’re a data center company and you want to get rid of your batteries. You got a room full of batteries. You try to figure out what to do with them, right? Lithium ion batteries. You’re going to go for ease of use, right? You’re going to find a provider that’s going to make it easy for you, and possibly take it off your hands for free. But if they charge you something, you’re going to go on price, right? But that price doesn’t include carbon. Maybe that cost is going to get affected by carbon credits entering the market. So if somebody is able to compete in that space, they’ll be able to be more competitive on price. Maybe they’ll actually be an actual price on carbon. So if you’re able to transport those batteries more efficiently from a carbon perspective, you’re more cost competitive when you take into account carbon. That’ll give you an advantage in the markets. I think there’s going to be a variety of things. I don’t own a crystal ball to tell you which one’s actually going to have the most impact. I did see that bill. I thought it was pretty interesting. It’s a good step in the right direction. It’s here, we got to deal with it.

John: Right. With regards to the new administration, how much does that help your efforts as the new leader of Call2Recycle to achieve the goals that you’re going to be setting out in the first couple of quarters of this year?

Leo: That’s hard to say. As a non-profit, we were pretty focused on our mission in collecting battery. So, we really don’t get involved in like advocated for this or that policy aside from just being able to provide technical expertise, but we do keep a pretty close eye on what’s happening. So, having spent many years in government, seen many administration’s come and go, I’d say over the first six to twelve months, it’s a period of a lot of change and a lot of momentum. We’re starting to see that. I’d see the encouraging signs. It seems like there’s a focus on investment in renewable technologies, emphasis on advanced battery technology. So that kind of thing, I think, is going to feed more and more momentum toward figuring out the cleanest battery technology solution. So, I think it’s all good, you know, the proof’s in the pudding. I think it’s pretty optimistic.

John: For our listeners and our viewers out there, Leo, give some shameless promotion to people who want to do the right thing with their small gadgets or batteries. Where can they drop these off? Who are your retail partners? So, people just don’t throw this stuff in the trash anymore. So, they responsibly recycle it using your Call2Recycle network.

Leo: Home Depot, Lowe’s Staples. You can basically, I would say, you know, municipalities. What I would suggest anybody to do is go to our website which you graciously given the people the address here. You could pretty easily figure out what the closest recycling center is for you. We’ve got great partnerships with retailers who just take this pretty seriously. You can make sure that they actually get back to where they need to go to be responsibly recycled and safe. So, the best thing to do is just go to the website and check it out.

John: That’s great. Fifteen thousand locations is great. We’ve talked about the frontend a little bit. In twenty five years, as you and I know in sustainability, many things change. Talk a little bit about the backend. When you bring in all these batteries, has the backend side of who gets your batteries and how they recycle responsibly in the beneficial reuse of the materials inside of them change dramatically? How hopeful were you about that part of the equation as well?

Leo: I’d say the processes are getting more efficient. I think a lot of it has been driven by cost, but also, you know, frankly corporate partners and governments are really pushing toward more circular solutions. I think we’ve still got a long way to go in terms of truly getting to a certain sort of a circular economy for batteries. I don’t know that anybody’s figured that out quite yet. They’re definitely some interesting players out there that I think are going to be… We’re going to look back a couple years now and say there were innovators that really pushed it. My view of it is over the last five-ten years, I’ve seen incremental improvements with existing technologies. Nothing really quite like certain new… like that next big thing, like the the change from the horse-drawn carriage to an automobile. I haven’t seen that kind of thing, but I feel like it’s coming. I think it’s going to have to because the scale. Again, going back to these big batteries, within just the next four to five years, there’s going to be about ten times the number lithium ion batteries being installed at renewable green solutions. It’s already quite huge. To be able to actually handle those on the backend, we’re going to have to have solutions at scale. I think we’re all going to have to change it; figure out how to do sorting differently, go to more automated sorting, less reliance on just pure manual labor which is the way it’s been done for a long time. It’s to just really figure out how to keep up with the pace of what’s coming at us.

John: Leo, we were having a nice conversation before the podcast. I said to you, you’ve been a constant form of inspiration for me. You’ve always wanted to make the world a better place in your public servant work in the State of Minnesota, in your leadership work at Best Buy, in the electronic waste sector there, and at Microsoft. Now, you have this unique position as the CEO and president of Call2Recycle. Just from an ESG circular economy sustainability point of view, I feel like we were early ten-twelve-fifteen years ago in our career work and what we were doing day-to-day, but I feel like the world is caught up with us. It’s easy to get discouraged and become sort of, you know, change career paths or something. When the whole world is not lined up, you feel like almost the world’s working against you. Do you feel the same way that all the stars are sort of lining up now on ESG and circular economy, both from a business and nonprofit governmental political site, and that really it’s a great time to make the world a better place from a sustainability point of view and circular economy point of view?

Leo: It’s dramatically different. Back when I was working at a publicly traded company, I would ask our investor relations department like, “Okay, how many times you getting [inaudible] investor calls,” you know, about environmental issues, social issues. As much as all of us in sustainability wanted to believe that it was on investors’ minds, in reality, it just wasn’t. It never came up on quarterly [inaudible] calls. It never came up on the private investors calls. When I talk to those same folks today, because I still know folks on the network that work in the space, it’s dramatically different. Especially in the last twelve to eighteen months, I don’t know what the data are, but the percentage of times that you actually have somebody who raise any issue in an earnings call has gone up considerably for sure as part of the conversation. So, you know, it’s you follow money, and it’s dramatically different. When I was at Microsoft, I saw that the level of commitment and just the true engagement on these issues and really putting, you know, their money where their mouth is, that’s happening all across the private sector. Big, big difference.

John: Leo, because of your unique career path- nonprofit now, leadership of nonprofit, publicly traded companies, government leader, public servants you worked, what can you share with the new generation of young people that want to make the world a better place, that want to be the next Leo Raudys, what can you share with them in terms of how to get involved, what to do. Do they start their own company and try to go into the recycling or sustainability world on their own? Do they join a bigger firm? What kind of advice do you share now with the retrospective that you have with so much experience you have underneath your belt already?

Leo: Actually, I’ve had many conversations like this. [inaudible] to teach the University of Minnesota for a few years. A lot of students are asking the same thing. “Where do I start?” My advice apply sustainability to any kind of field which is, you know, build your network out. Get to know people, reach out, don’t be afraid of being told no. If you ask for twenty informational interviews, you get one yes, that’s a success, right? And just to really build those networks. One, you’re going to learn things that you don’t necessarily know before. You’re going to find out about opportunities. The things that you think you want to do may turn out to be the things that actually turn your crank in where you want to go. So, that’s the first piece of advice. As it relates to sustainability, I still think the absolute best way for somebody to get connected and to understand the field as a student, as a young person is net impact. So, get involved in a local chapter, go to meetings if you can, once we can be meeting again because that’s where you’re going to find people basically on the same situation. You’ll meat professional acquaintances. You’ll find those opportunities. The other thing I would say is just be pretty fearless in terms of pursuing the opportunities you think are the right ones. Don’t necessarily listen to what people are telling you what the right or wrong things. You should trust your gut. More often than not, you’re going to be right. And if you’re wrong, you’ll learn something in the process, right?

John: Right. For our listeners and viewers, to find Leo in all the locations, you can recycle your old batteries and small gadgets, go to call2recycleorg. Call, number 2, 2, recycled.org. Leo, last thoughts. When I interview you again a year from now on Impact, where do you think we’re going to be in terms of your journey at Call2Recycle? Where do you want to be?

Leo: That’s a real good question. I’m two months in. I don’t know the answer to that yet. I do know that the scale on the pace of change is unlike anything any of us have seen before. The way I best describe it is is to think about what the world looked like before the industrial revolution and after it. That’s pretty much what we’re going through right now but in a very, very much faster pace. The industrial revolution took about a hundred years. [inaudible] ten-twenty years where we’re basically going to have a completely electrified economy with cleaner energy sources. That’s happening right now. I think in the next year or two, it’s going to look very different from what it looks like today. Part of that’s going to be investment from the federal government because the change of administration. I don’t know the answer to that. If you were to ask me in three to four years, I would hope and expect- I’d be disappointed if we didn’t actually figure out how to have a cleaner reverse logistics supply chain for batteries. I think that’s we really need to do that because again, batteries are a key to solving climate change. We better make sure that this part of the supply chain actually is clean as it possibly can be. So, give me three-four years, I think it’ll look different. We’ll see.

John: No problem. Well, you’re always welcome back on the Impact podcast to share your journey at Call2Recycle. Again, for our listeners, to find Leo and his colleagues, and Call2Recycle, go to www.call, 2, number 2, recycle.org. Leo, every organization you’ve touched, and I’ve seen you at over the last ten plus years, you’ve made better, you’ve always made the world a better place. You’ve been a great inspiration to me. I want to thank you again for being on the Impact podcast today.

Leo: Thanks, John. Happy to be here.

John: This edition of the Impact podcast is brought to you by Trajectory. Energy Partners. Trajectory Energy Partners brings together landowners, electricity users, and communities to develop solar energy projects with strong local support. For more information on how Trajectory is leading the solar revolution, please visit trajectoryenergy.com.

John Shegerian: This edition of the Impact podcast is brought to you by Engage. Engage is a digital booking engine revolutionizing the talent booking industry. With hundreds of athletes, entrepreneurs, speakers, and business leaders, Engage is the go-to spot for booking talent for your next event. For more information, please visit www.letsengage.com.

John: Welcome to another edition of the impact podcast. We’re so excited and honored to have with us today, ESPN host and sports personality, Israel Gutierrez! Welcome to the impact podcast, Israel!

Israel Gutierrez: Hey, thanks, John! I really appreciate it.

John: Hey, listen. Before we get going, you know, I’m a huge fan of yours. I was just telling that to you off the air. I have just finished watching you on Highly Questionable today while I was on the treadmill. I watch it every day if I can, whatever show you’re on. Can you share a little bit of your background? How you even got here before we get going on some of the other things we’re going to talk about today.

Israel: Yeah, of course. Absolutely. So, it’s funny because I tell this story often in terms of how I got into journalism. It really was just because I wanted to be in a class with my older sister in high school. You know, I was a sophomore at the time. Sophomore, junior, and senior were the only years in high school in the mid-90s over here. But, I’ve gotten to the class. She was a senior and I was a sophomore. I just wanted to be in the same class. We had, like, similar friends. By the very next year, I was editor of the yearbook. I did it a year after that as well. And so, it just kind of created that idea of wanting to do something that I just find fun, right? As opposed to my initial thought which was trying to be a lawyer. So, I went to the University of Florida. I happened to be wearing my gator stuff right now.

John: I see it!

Israel: I went to the University of Florida, majored in journalism, and did a lot of freelancing over there for newspapers and news services around the country, or around the state, rather. And then, I got my first job right out of school. They actually called to hire me about a month and a half before I graduated. And I asked, “Are you sure it’s okay that I finish school first?” They said yes. And so, I started off at the Palm Beach Post. I covered the Florida Marlins for a year. They were the Florida Marlins then, now they’re the Miami Marlins.

John: Right.

Israel: I covered the Miami Heat for two seasons, then moved over to the Miami Herald. I got hired there and I was there for 9+ years. I was the Miami Heat’s beat writer for 6 of those years and then a sports columnist for the other 3+. Then, right around 2012, ESPN came calling with just the right job offer. They’d had a couple of other offers in the past that just didn’t really fit what I wanted to do. But, you know, NBA columnist is where they sort of got me in. It’s been sort of a transition over the last eight years from, you know, doing a lot of writing and a lot of NBA-centric to more General Sports talk shows and not writing as much. But I think that, currently, I’m at a place where I’m going to try to meld all those together and maybe make another adjustment to my career. Let’s see.

John: What do you enjoy more? Do you enjoy the writing or the on-air stuff more?

Israel: Well, it’s all different, right? I feel like I miss the writing stuff a lot since I haven’t been doing it as much and that’s really where you can, sort of, get in and know subjects, sports, or trends. If you’re just reacting to them on TV, yeah, you’re having a great time, you’re talking to friends and entertaining people, hopefully. But when you really get to the nitty-gritty and just start doing the reporting, the research, and just getting to know the subjects a lot, I think that’s probably my favorite. Whether it’d be a TV feature, whether it would be a writing feature, I think, just getting really personal information from athletes, whoever it is, from the front office people. I guess that’s probably my favorite part.

John: Got it. Well, you’re wearing your cut-off shirt today. So, this is a fair question because you got the guns out. I mean, wait a second. Israel, is this, you know, from a Darwinism point of view, is this nature or nurture, dude? Let me know because I want your trainer’s phone number.

Israel: Yeah, you know what it is? I mean, it’s definitely not nature. This is no disrespect to the rest of my family but we are not an athletic, shredded group, if you will. It’s definitely a nurture thing. I was actually a heavy kid growing up. I was, like, 200+, I guess, at 13 years old.

John: Really?

Israel: Yeah. And you want to get to the psychology of it or what have you. It’s probably because I didn’t want to look any sort of attractive in any way. That was closeted and brought, you know, didn’t want any attention and so. Or, it was just some version of childhood depression. Who the heck knows. But, I was a bigger kid. There was a point, in my sophomore year of college specifically, when I decided, “Hey, I need to trim down.” I think I gained the classic “Freshman 15” and got even heavier. So I was like, all right. And then I trimmed down a lot and then just over the course of like, my 20s, I just didn’t really have a motivation. I was kind of just meh. And then, at one point, I think it was like 2008, a friend of mine asked to do a half marathon. I tried to sign up for it but it was already filled. So, I signed up for the full marathon.

John: Holy!

Israel: Yeah. I pressed send and paid for it before I could change my mind. I trained by myself, having never run, even a half marathon. I just trained by myself for several months and did that in 2009. It was just one of those challenges where I said to myself, “Wow.” Never in my life did I think that I could run a marathon. I hated it. I hated the idea of running. But, once I did that, I was like, well, there are really no limitations to what I can do. So, rather than be jealous of that dude with the 8-pack over there, let me see if I can go get one. And, it probably helped that ESPN allowed me. The affordability. They allowed me to afford a trainer. So it definitely helped. But, it’s definitely just a lot of work. If you really want to get into the psychology of it, I don’t know how happy I was as a person at the time. So, maybe this is sort of me getting out some anger and some disappointment at the time. But, hey, it seemed to work out okay. Because, you know, now I just tell people, “All I want to do is live until I’m 120.”

John: That’s good!

Israel: If that means trying to stay in shape, then that’s why I’m doing it.

John: Well, you look amazing, you look super young. I’m also seeing a new trend. I’m 58 years old right now, Israel. And my hair, this was like, supposed to be winning. But now that I look at your hair… and last week, I interviewed Ryan Searoth[?] I’m realizing now, all the hot thing is to be, like, your kind of gray. And now, look, I’m zigging when I’m supposed to be Zagging again.

Israel: It’s so funny. I laugh about this all the time for a couple of reasons. One is when I was a kid, my dad had similar hair but he would dye it all the time. And… it would just look terrible. Not because dyed hair looks terrible, it’s just because he would never pick the same color twice. It would just be like, all of a sudden he looks like me right now, and then the next day, it’s jet black. And then, three weeks later, it’s, like, a brown. I’m just, you know what? I’m just going to go ahead and lean into it. I used to do it even shorter than this. So, you couldn’t really fully tell how gray I was. But, now that I grow it a little bit more, people just ask me all the time if it’s my natural hair color. Initially, I just started laughing. I was, like, why would anybody dye their hair this color? But apparently, it is the thing. So, I sort of stumbled into a trend that I am [crosstalk]

John: Now, you’re leading the trend! It’s awesome.

Israel: Your hair, by the way, John, your hair looks great. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t know what you did to it, but for 58, you said? 58-year-old head of hair, that stuff’s envious, right there.

John: This was supposed to be winning, but now I see you, I see Ryan Searoth, I see Anderson Cooper, and I’m like, I’m not winning anymore. These guys are winning. You know, I’ve had so many of the great ESPN folks on. Sarah Spain, Shelley Smith, Jessica Mendoza. Now, with you. Who’s been your favorite interview in your career?

Israel: You know what, that’s a great question. I think, my answer right now is disappointing because the interview has not been aired in any way. It was an interview I did in 2018 with Billy Beane, a former MLB player. Now, he works for MLB. When I was in high school in my formative years, that’s when he eventually came out. Right? And, he told some stories about playing while being closeted and everything else. He wrote this great book. At the time, it was a real tug at me. It was, “Wow.” This is a major league baseball player or a former major league baseball player, depending on when you listen to the story. For the first time, I realized, “Okay, wow. There are more people like me, perhaps.” There’s a representation and while they’re closeted and fearful, there are. I’m not alone out there. That was something that I, sort of, carry with me for a long time. I definitely followed Billy just because. It’s not like he continued an athletic career, but he continued to be a presence in the LGBT community. All to the point to his job title now with MLB.

So, I spoke to him in the beginning stages of a project that I was working on. Which again, it’s just kind of stalled a little bit, but it’s still in the works. And so, we sat down in the offices in MLB, in New York, New Jersey area. I don’t know what it was, it was just very comforting. It was just, you know, sitting down with somebody. He didn’t know that he had been a, kind of, I wouldn’t even say mentor. But just, kind of like, a light, a guiding light, if you will. So, we sit there and talk. He didn’t know anything about my fondness for him. It was just an amazing interview. He cried a little, I cried a little, and I know he went into it not really knowing what we were really going to talk about. By the end of it, I had the person I was working with say, “Hey, I feel like we’ve maybe taken too much of Billy’s time. He thought it was going to be a 20-minute interview.” And Billy’s just said, “No,” he took a breath and said, “This has been great.” Again, I haven’t even released anything of it yet. I will eventually. But, it was just, to me, the most personal and powerful interview that I have been a part of.

John: Well, I’m so glad. I hope it comes out. I want to watch it. I knew I was interviewing you some weeks back. Whenever I’m interviewing someone who I’m really excited about and really interested in and who’s had a fascinating journey, I’m always working it over in my head weeks in advance. I’m sure you do the same. Hey, I loved your article here. Israel Gutierrez on taking flight after coming out, this was a great article. I want to get into that but last night, I was doing some prep work for this interview and I read one of the most interesting stories I’ve read in a long time. It was today’s New York Times on Glenn Burke and no one can say I didn’t make it. I got to tell you, Israel, it was semi-heartbreaking because it talked about his struggle, his journey. Dying of AIDS in 95, which is only a mere 26 years ago, but almost seems like forever. Definitely, in terms of where we’ve come in society, maybe a lifetime ago. I love the line here. “No one could say I didn’t make it. I played in the world series, I’m in the book, and they can’t take that away from me. Not ever.”

Israel: John, you’re really, just touching on it. Really. It’s a soft spot for me because, actually, the Burke family is one of the several people that I interviewed for this project that I’m working on. To hear the story… And for those who don’t know, Glenn Burke was a major league baseball player who played for, basically, just the Dodgers and A’s[?]. He was, effectively, the first openly gay baseball player because, while he was in public about it, it wasn’t sending anything in the media or would have you. He was in his own locker room, openly gay. In his own Clubhouse, openly gay. I mean, there’s a lot to this story and I won’t bog you down with all of the details but some of them, being that they believed that the reason he was traded from the Dodgers to the A’s. Mind you, this was a player who, retroactively, was compared to Ricky Henderson, which is funny because Ricky Henderson essentially replaced him in Oakland. They were people saying that he was the greatest baseball player they’d seen. He was, effectively, the Michael Jordan. I’m not just talking about baseball. He was the Michael Jordan of the Bay Area at the time. Whenever people show up at pickup games and basketball, they would want to play against Glenn Burke because he was the greatest player out there.

Part of the reason, supposedly, according to his family and according to Glenn, told that why he was traded was because he ran into some LA Dodgers Executives in a gay bar. That’s how: A, they found out he was gay. And that’s how they found out that he knew that they were gay. Then, soon thereafter, he was traded to Oakland. There’s a lot of history and you can read it. Look it up on Tommy Lasorda and his relationship with his child who was openly gay. He was a player for Tommy Lasorda and is actually friends with Lasorda’s son. Again, it was mostly mistreatment and just get him away, despite being a great player. Then, in Oakland, you had his manager,, Billy Martin, at the time. Can I use expletives?

John: Yeah, of course.

Israel: So, he would basically introduce Glenn Burke as “our faggot.” It just became like, this was a guy in the prime of his physical life, just getting beat down constantly. He would have people over for the holidays and it would be other gay men who didn’t have a family, who were abandoned. His family never, obviously, turned on him. So, they would welcome him over for holidays and everything else. Eventually, he quit. He couldn’t take it anymore.

You know what happens when you’re in that situation when you’re alone, and especially, in that time and that era, you maybe get into a little bit of casual drug use, which he did. The HIV virus, at some point, was something that he picked up and, eventually died of AIDS. But, he was the picture. He was the first real example, at least in baseball. There’s probably another one, David Kopay in football, who was out. It showed you what the world would do, at that time. If anybody knew the story of Glenn Burke and was closeted in professional sports, why would they want to come out? It literally killed him. That history is something that people don’t know. Right now, if you were to ask people, Glenn Burke, they’d probably feel like they’re impressing you by telling you, “Hey, that’s the guy who invented the high five.” They credit him with inventing the high five. That’s the least interesting part of his life. I can’t wait for that to be common information for a lot of people.

John: I hope you tell that story. I’m going to come back to this article because there’s a line in there that I want to come back to you, but I know you’re a basketball guy. Obviously, as a report sports reporter. Michael Jordan, during this pandemic, came out with his 10-part series on him. I want to go to the 8th episode, the last part of the 8th episode, where he got emotional. He said, “Leadership has a price, and winning has a price.” He got emotional. The only time in the whole 10-part series that I saw him emotional. I want to take it back to this whole issue of coming out. Last week, I was re-listening to an episode of Howard Stern. That was taped during the pandemic with Anderson Cooper. And, Cooper talked about Tim Cook, the guy who arguably leads the most valuable company in the entire planet with hundreds of thousands of employees, and talks to the media on a regular basis. He called Anderson Cooper to understand how to navigate the process of coming out. So, Glenn Burke dies with his sister and his family around him but still, in a very tough spot, in a very lonely place, in the middle of the 90s. Israel, you went through this just years ago, a few years back. Have we really evolved that much if Tim Cook’s calling in Anderson Cooper? Are we that progressive? Have we come that far? Or, do we still have a long, long way to go?

Israel: I mean, the short answer is that. Right? It’s that we still have a long way to go. The first thing you mentioned there, with the Michael Jordan, and this is where I can bring these two together here, is that leadership does come at a cost, right? There’s a price for it. I can only speak for me, but I’m saying for us and I’ll just speak for the LGBT community, but, for us, I can navigate my own life. I did it closeted. I was successful at it. I did not have to address my minority status as an LGBT person who, however many or whatever percentage of people in this country and the world thinks, thinks of me lesser. I didn’t have to really do that. This is where, I think, the leadership thing comes with a price.

So, you take accountability for yourself at one point. If you come out and you say, “Alright, I can deal with me and whatever daggers come my way, I can fend them off. I’ll deal with me.” But if you’ve done that, and I happen to be fortunate enough to do that with a safety net, with a lot of people around me, and with a career already in hand, but if you do that and then say, “Man, I don’t want this to happen to other people. If I have a child that ends up being LGBT and all of a sudden, they have to go through the same things, what was the point of me going through it, right?” So, that’s where it says, leadership comes with a price. I said this after I came out to anybody who would listen, my bosses, whatever, that, if people want to pigeonhole me as the gay sports reporter, I’m fine with that. That’s more important to me, what happens at the end of my career, my life, in that area, and helping other people, means more to me, than slightly entertaining people in the sports field. So, I think that when I say that it comes with a price, it really does. Like, I could sit here and just worry about myself. Or, I can try to make a movie, try to make a documentary about it, which is part of the project that I was telling you about. Or I could, and not to get too behind the scenes on stuff, but where I can fight for certain things within a company, within an organization, within anything really. So, when you take on that burden for other people, as well, it could be draining. But you also have to think a couple of things: One, the good fortune that I happen to have had to be in this position without a lot of scarring, right? But also just that, I want to do that.

You know, I have a lot of children in my family, I don’t have any myself but my sister’s all do my cousins do and I’ve always grew up around kids. It’s always been this idea of you just want what’s better. You want life for them to be better than it was for you. That’s all I can think of. This is probably TMI, but I had a niece recently come out to me. That was heavy stuff. It’s one of those deals where it’s just, am I going to even do enough to make her life better in her lifetime? So, yeah. [crosstalk]

John: Did she come out to you first, to help her navigate the process? Or, was it a family deal?

Israel: She technically told her mother first but she told her mother with the idea of, “Hey, I want to talk to-” they call me Elito, “-I want to talk to Elito about this.” So, yeah, it was a heavy situation and it just made me realize that I wish I would have had that. I wish I would have had the ability to be able to say that to someone at that age but also that, yeah, it just comes with a responsibility. And… I’ll be more than happy to just open people’s eyes.

When you say, “How much farther do we have to go?” Well, I don’t know if I’m going to see a resolution that I would like in my lifetime. So… it’s going to be a long time but, you know it’s going to be a long time when basically, if you just break it down, and boil it down to the essentials of the argument, it’s going to be real life versus religion, and the centuries and centuries of background and resume that religion has. You’re not going to win that argument. So, it can’t be an argument. It’s got to be a clarification.

I think a lot of the responsibility frankly falls on leaders in religion and leaders in government to say, “Hey, maybe we haven’t seen this properly and we followed this down the road that we shouldn’t have. Let’s try to clarify.” Whether it be a translation of the Bible. You know, that’s something that you could do a deep dive on the internet and find several different translations on several different topics in the Bible. I happen to have done one on this topic and recognize that, “Hey, a lot of the issue is strictly translation. If you just go with what the consistencies are in that book. This is an anomaly, this is something that’s different.” Again, not to get bogged down in the details, people can do the research on their own, but, I think that’s where the crux of the issue is. It’s just, the belief cannot be stronger than the fact that my life is real and not my choice. Until we get to that understanding, I don’t think we’re even going to be on the same plane in terms of the conversation.

John: Great point. For listeners and viewers who just joined us, we got Israel Gutierrez. He’s a reporter, a sports personality on ESPN, and you can find him all over the place. I just watched him today on Highly Questionable. I’m a huge fan of Israel. If you want to find him, you could also find him: @izgutierrez on Twitter and on Instagram: @mrizgutierrez .

Putting those two points together that you just brought up on religion versus reality, in the Glenn Burke article in today’s New York Times. The true story of Glenn Burke. Father Richard Purcell, when he eulogized him said, “He died in truth. He told the truth. He didn’t live a lie. And I believe the truth sets people free.” You feel that way still?

Israel: I do. Because it’s been interesting, just checking in with myself. The more of my truth that is revealed, right? I came out personally in 2009 to my friends and family. I could tell a shift in me, my friends could tell a shift in me. When I got to ESPN in 2012, I had just started doing Around The Horn again that year. I stepped back in 2009, and so there was a three-year gap. Even on my first show back to a new reality, and I don’t know if this was intended for me to hear, whether he was talking to a preacher[?] and I overheard it, but he was just saying how different I seemed and how much more confident I felt, and… it’s a hundred percent true. When I came out publicly again in 2015, it was another level.

I think, right now after a lot of these, my personal things that I’ve gone through, I now start to feel what I imagined most people my age – I’m 43 – start to feel like. It’s like, “Wow.” Like you’re just starting to figure life out a little bit. Right? I think the more you speak your truth, the quicker you get to that point. The more you can sort of, soak in and compare yourself to others, and just recognize your place in the world, just have a clearer view of things, where, I feel terrible saying that in the context of Glenn Burke, though, because it cost him his life. It’s probably unfair to say, frankly, because who knows, he could have gotten HIV/AIDS, even if he wasn’t treated… But, you can’t imagine that he would try to isolate, right? You can’t imagine that he would feel so down.

Frankly, the reason he got worse, health-wise, is because, and he has been playing in the gay leagues, and it was a source of life for him because it was just like, “Wow, I can be myself out here and not have to worry about all these.” Then, one night randomly gets hit by a car. It ruined his leg, can’t play again. So now, it’s everything crashing upon him. I just can’t imagine he would have had that look if it would have been, supportive while at work, stayed in the major leagues, and didn’t have to play in the gay leagues, he wouldn’t be crossing the street at the time that he didn’t. Who knows what would have happened. He could have been a beloved person, who, when he actually announced that he had HIV or Aids, everybody would have rallied around him. Who knows what that would have resulted in.

So, it’s hard to say definitively without a sort of, you know, generally you can’t just say, “Hey, the truth will set you free.” Because for some people, the truth, people aren’t ready to hear that truth. At that time, that was certainly the case for Glenn Burke. I don’t know what situation we’re talking about now, whether it’d be somebody who’s transgender and people don’t understand. Who knows what path that takes them. In general, I believe in that saying and I think it’s the way to go. It’s the way toward progress but sometimes, man, it’s just depending on the context you’re talking about. It’s not always true.

John: I hope the project that you refer to is real. If it does come out, I think there’s going to be a lot of value to it. If you can get that produced and get that out, I think there’s a lot to it. When you think about, just as a sports reporter, what’s the one get that you want to get, that you haven’t gotten yet? Who do you want to get? Who do you see on television or a player in a sport who is doing something really different and you’re just dying to get in front of that person?

Israel: So I kind of just want to spend a day with Serena Williams. It’s really just curiosity, right? Everything about her life, from when she was a child until now is wildly intriguing. The way she carries herself and the way that she’s done everything has been very impressive. I just kind of want to be by the person for a little bit, you know? This is more of an interview, not necessarily spend the day with, but I, and probably going to do this at some point, hopefully, they’re still together. Sue bird and Megan Rapinoe are a couple that I would like to talk to at the same time. I was thinking about representation growing up, right? I mentioned Billy Beane and I cannot imagine how awesome it is when you’ve got Megan Rapinoe and Sue bird. Two lesbian women hosting the ESPYs. Now, I know the ESPYs is kind of, like a contrived award show, whatever. But it’s been around for a long time. There are people in their twenties right now, who know the ESPYs is just a regular awards show. It’s just part of the others, right? Almost as much history as the Oscars. And, you have them hosting it, talk about just normalizing, right? They’re two of the greatest sports figures of our time but also just happened to be really likable people. And as a couple, here they are presenting all these other amazing athletes to you. It felt really, really cool and, you know, that’s an interview that I feel that, in terms of groundbreaking, in terms of people who, in the long term of the story, of our story, who’s going to stand out to me. I mean, those two women, definitely stand out to me. Not just for everything that they’ve done individually, but, even at that moment, it was a wow thing, for me.

John: Tomorrow’s the championship game of any sport you could choose. NHL, NBA, MLB NFL, Tennis, or the Masters. Where do you want to be?

Israel: Tomorrow? Wimbledon final. It’s basically the only event that’s on my checklist that I haven’t done yet. I did Olympics in ’08, which was great. It checked off a lot of boxes, mostly because I’m a huge volleyball fan. The men went on an indoor run to gold, the women, silver, and then, you had Misty May and… don’t make me forget Christie… Oh, man. Misty May-Treanor, I can even give you her full name and I’m forgetting the other. Oh my god. Anyway, the most popular women’s volleyball beach duo ever. I was a big fan of her when she was at Stanford, too. Why her name is escaping me is driving me crazy.

So, I got a lot of things checked off there and the only thing that, as I said, tomorrow I would want on that list, would be the Wimbledon final, or the Wimbledon, in general. So, that’s the answer you’re getting today.

John: That’s awesome. I love it. 10 years from now, you’re still very young. Obviously, with the way you look, you’re going to live to 120 as you said at the top of the show. When you’re 53, I’m interviewing you and I’m a lot older, hopefully, gray by then so I look like you, good like you, what are you going to be doing? Like, what’s your role going to be then? And, how are you going to evolve your career?

Israel: Ideally, I would love to be done with the Daily Sports World in my early 50s and just, sort of, moving on to using, even if it’s sports figures or would have you, as just a way to get information out there and, that’s doing it through, whatever it would be, interviews and some of the stuff that I was talking about that I really like doing, to begin with. I mean, you want to joke and say it’s like a Roy Firestone situation or whatever, I just want to talk to interesting people. Just get little nuggets of information out there or just thoughts that people don’t think of every day I thought about this the other day, too.

Because, I don’t want to get into detail on this, but I was basically explaining to someone, why something would feel bad or be unfair to an LGBT person. And the person that I was speaking to, you would think, would recognize these things. But he didn’t. So, after me explaining that to this person, it was very eye-opening to him. That was one of the many reasons why, I just think, there’s a lot that we don’t know and there’s a lot we assume. There’s so much information and there are so many ways to get it all that I think we just assume too much. A lot of times people mess up and say things that they’re not supposed to say. And, you realize that “Oh, we’re all just all judging them, castigating them.”

It’s just like, they haven’t had time to think about that subject. Especially when you talk about some of these professional athletes who have spent almost every minute of their day, focusing on their craft and not really worrying about the outside world so much. Maybe they slip up on the lesson. Oh, you’re not supposed to say that word, and it’s still teachable, right? But, if all these things are out there and accessible more often and you get personalities that people recognize and just to talk about it, then it’s in your brain. You can download it, register it all. Then, down the road, you won’t use an offensive slur or you won’t treat somebody a certain way.

That’s basically what I can see myself doing. Just dropping in and doing some interviews, doing some podcast, doing something with people who are either underrepresented or have a little bit of an Underdog Story. Or, just anything that’s heartfelt and unique because I think that’s where people… I mentioned Roy Firestone and you think of like a Tom Rinaldi or something when you think of the heartfelt stuff. I get it. It’s a soft voice, it’s great delivery, and it’s a soothing story, but I think, just really getting to the real heart of a lot of people, everyday people, in sports. That’s probably where I just want to be. I just want to open up the lines of emotion and sensitivity when it comes to this animal that we call the sports world.

However that manifests itself, whether it’d be me doing occasional interviews for, interview shows or having my own content, network, what have you. That’s what I would love to do.

Outside of that, probably just throw some money in real estate and not really have to work very hard for the second half of the 120 years.

John: Are you going to stay down? I know you’re a gator and I know you’re down in Florida now. Are you going to end up staying in Florida? Or, are you going to look to change your venues down the road?

Israel: I’m down to move. I love South Florida because it’s where I grew up. I’ve been down here since I was 2 years old. The weather, we get about two weeks of winter, and then it’s summer the rest of the time. I’ve gotten used to that, I kind of enjoy it. I can definitely move though. I just got a lot of families here. All those nieces and nephews I was talking about and sisters, they’re all here. So, it would have to be something really important to sort of pull me away from here.

John: What’s happening with your old crew? I miss you and the crew, Dan Le Batard and Stugotz. When are you guys all coming back together? I’m dying for… give me an exclusive here.

Israel: I mean, honestly, if I were to answer that question, it’s probably a breach of contract. I don’t think I’m allowed to talk to that company but it’s interesting to watch. I know ESPN’s a little bit less joyful without them. But, I just love the idea of and, you know, it might not be an ESPN place, but the idea of just bringing your friends together and talk. That’s kind of what we do in sports. Dan Patrick did that, as well with the Danettes. The way they’ve done that, it was just fantastic. I just really hope I can still hear it for a long time, whether or not I’m part of it. I’ve sort of interjected my voice into a lot of the conversations, anyway. Nobody needs to hear what I have to say, necessarily. But, it’s just a fun group. I think I’m lucky because I can, if I really needed to, just invite any of them over and just hang out.

Eventually, who knows if we’ll ever be on the air together again, but, I feel like they’ll always be a part of my life.

John: Yeah, I hope so because you guys are all great together. It’s always great to watch you with them and then with you. Israel, I’m going to give you the final call here. I know we have a little bit of a hard stop and I want to be sensitive to time and everything like that, but, I want to give you the final word and I want to thank you again for coming on today and being so open and true to everyone about yourself and about some of your thoughts on some of the most important topics that are out there today.

Israel: Yeah, I appreciate it. Again, thanks for having me on and, you know, most of the time I just say yes to any sort of interview because I feel like in large part if they’re getting to know me then we can sort of veer off into some other topics. I really appreciate you, sort of, hitting the ones that I feel like really matter to me, and I didn’t ask you to. So, I appreciate it.

I think, what we’ve got going here in sports media right now is just a really cool, sort of, melding of personalities, right? So, I considered Dan Le Batard, when I grew up, and by grew up, meaning from my 15, 16-year-old, I considered him, this is going to sound crazy… my conscience. Because, I always thought I was like, I mean, I read him and I knew him a little bit and I’m just like, man. It was almost like, what would Dan do in this situation? I tried not to emulate him in terms of writing and everything else because that’s impossible. But, just in terms of decisions in the real world. As I mentioned earlier, I never felt like I was fully formed. Because I hadn’t gone through all the normal things that most kids go through, you know, the relationship part of life, the breakups, and the personal stuff. That really wasn’t part of my life. So, I just kind of look to others a lot. I feel like we have that in sports media right now. If you really wanted to, you could just create a collection of people that are going to give you amazing sports information and they’re going to entertain you a little bit. But, they’re also going to be a little bit of a direction, a little bit of a nudge, a little bit of a, “Hey, we know this is a good group of people. If we learn a little bit from them, I think we’ll all be a little bit better.” I only say that because of the people who reach out and ask these questions and are very thankful about that. If people weren’t interested in us and what we were outside of our jobs, then, we wouldn’t get questions like that. Hopefully, that’s just kind of where we’re at right now and a little brat pack at ESPN. Hopefully, it doesn’t get broken up too much more. We can all have, a sort of grow up together if you will, in this industry.

John: It’s fun watching you all together. I tell you, all the stuff, it’s actually really fun. You make sports journalism something it wasn’t years ago. It was a little more stuffy in the days and I grew up with Howard Cosell, Dick Schaap, and all those legends. Now, you guys have made it really fun.

Israel: But there’s a place for all of that. I don’t want people to just think that “Oh, it’s just going to be a bunch of clowns trying to make everybody laugh.” I was on the Sports reporters for almost a decade and it felt stuffier, but it felt necessary, too. Because on a Sunday morning you just want to hash it all out and not have to worry about having to crack somebody up. I think there’s a place for all of it, and fortunately, I’m a part of a group that sees that and you can balance it out and play both sides if you want.

John: For our listeners and viewers who want to find Israel Gutierrez, it’s @mrizgutierrez on Instagram, and it’s @izgutierrez on Twitter. Israel, you’ve inspired me, even inspired our listeners and our viewers. Thank you for doing what you do. You’re constantly making positive impact in this planet. I know you’re making the world a better place and you’re always welcome back on the impact podcast. Thanks again.

Israel: I feel like there’s plenty more to say so whenever you want me back, just hit me up.

John: We’re going to be back, take care.

John: This edition of the Impact podcast is brought to you by The Marketing Masters. The Marketing Masters is a boutique marketing agency offering website development and digital marketing services to small and medium businesses across America. For more information on how they can help you grow your business online, please visit, www.themarketingmasters.com.

John Shegerian: This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by Engage. Engage is a digital booking engine, revolutionizing the talent booking industry. With hundreds of athletes, entrepreneurs, speakers, and business leaders, Engage is the go-to spot for booking talent for your next event. For more information, please visit letsengage.com.

John: Welcome to another edition of the Impact Podcast. I am John Shegerian. We are so honored to have with us today Brent Gleeson. Brent just wrote a book Embrace the Suck. He is already a New York Times bestselling author with his book Taking Point. Brent, welcome to the Impact Podcast.

Brent Gleeson: John, thanks so much. It is an honor to be here.

John: It is an honor to have you. True honor. You are American hero like so many other great people we have had the honor to interview before. Before we get talking about your new book, Embrace the Suck, which I loved and I have in my hand right here. I really welcome our listeners, our readers, and the people who watch this podcast to buy and read this book. Before we get talking about this book, tell us a little bit of a Brent Gleeson backstory. Someone does not become you just from being born. Explain where you were born and how you even got to this point in your life.

Brent: Sure. I grew up in Dallas, Texas. I had to represent with my Forbes from the teaser. I grew up in Dallas and did my undergrad education at Southern Methodist University. I earned degrees in Finance and Economics there. Actually, upon graduation, I took a job as a financial analyst with a global firm based in Downtown Dallas. During that time, I had a very close friend of mine at SMU who was a year behind me in school and one of my fraternity brothers., He was actually one of these young men who had a lifelong dream of passion and a vision of one day graduating and joining the Navy and at least attempting to be accepted into the notorious SEAL training pipeline. While I thought that was a very admirable, of course, of call to serve, and I keep in mind, this was just before 9/11. It was peacetime a little bit. Obviously, not a little bit, but very different environment and a bit of a different mentality when it comes to the idea and concept of military service. He and I started training together.

For me, it was just a way to stay fit and have a purpose and accountability partner. Help my friend prepare for his arduous journey in preparation for just the entrance physical test just to get in. We sort of spent a lot of time together and having a lot of dialogue about the implications of this journey. That piques my interest, of course. I started reading books about the history of the Naval Special Warfare community, our forefathers from the underwater demolition teams in World War II and how we essentially cut our teeth as ability to solve force in Vietnam.

That gradually, if not rapidly growing interest, coupled with the somewhat boring nature of my entry level financial analyst position led me to the culmination of the decision to basically live a life of no regret. The spreadsheets and pivot tables would be there for me later and gave to a cause greater than myself. I decided to join him on his journey. Let my parents know that I was quitting my job, much to their dismay. He and I moved up to Crested Butte, Colorado where we train for an additional six months or so at about eleven thousand feet altitude to get in the best physical condition that we could, and then join the Navy. After that, it was just the speeding freight train. 9/11 occurred. I will briefly explain the training pipeline, which is well over a year of training and selection. You start with BUD/S, which is an acronym, of course, that stands for Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL. That is typically what you see in documentaries and movies. The depiction of BUD/S and hell week, which is only the fifth week of this sixteen to eighteen-month training pipeline.

Then, you go on to Advanced Training or SEAL Qualification Training (SQT). Between that week gap of BUDS and SQT was when 9/11 happened. Going into Advanced Training, we knew that we were transitioning quickly from peacetime SEALs into wartime SEALs. I went on to graduate with the SEAL Team 5. By that time, we are about nine months out from rumors of conflicts in Iraq spinning up. My task unit, we call it a troop now that it is essentially two platoons out of forty SEALs and platoons of support staff. Our troop was actually the first troop of SEALs in Iraq in early ’03. We are the very first troop in Iraq to perform what we call capture or kill missions, especially hunting down terrorists on the deck of cards or the blacklist and other various and certain faction leaders. I did combat deployments with five. I spent a lot of time in Iraq, Africa and some other theaters of war.

How do you plan on doing it as a career? I will say in full transparency, looking back, I was like, “Well, I should have done more. I should have stayed longer.” But back then, there was no concept that these conflicts could possibly go on as long as they have. We were looking back at Desert Storm and how quickly that came and went. We were wrong. Nonetheless, I transitioned out. I went to graduate school, and then go head first into the world of entrepreneurship, which essentially, I believe, has about the same failure rate as SEAL training at about ninety-percent. I built and sold a couple companies, and then my current organization TakingPoint Leadership as well. We are a leadership and organizational development consultant.

To your point, my first book Taking Point. The strategy there was to write the book, and then build organizational development principles around the principles in the book, and build a company and team around that, which we have done. Of course, the new book Embrace the Suck with a great gut punch of a foreword by my former teammate and friend David Goggins. Many, if not all of your listeners or viewers, will know who he is, a former retired SEAL and a world renowned ultra athlete. It has been quite a journey. I have got a wife and four kids. Our youngest is three weeks old. We had a New Year’s Eve baby. We figured 2020 was not chaotic enough, so let us throw another human in the mix.

John: Wait a second. Let us break it down. You were really on the path. You did not have any military members in your family prior to this.

Brent: Well, my dad had been a marine reservist during Vietnam. He had not deployed and we did not really talked about it. They never pushed military service on my twin brother nor I. It was not really a thing that was discussed as a potential career path.

John: This was not the path. You really want to be a business person growing up and that is how you went to college. As a Layman, what is the fail rate when you go into with your body to become a Navy SEAL. First, the Navy, and then the Navy SEAL for deployment. How many really make it? What percentage really make it? Obviously, you were training like you really did it. You leaned in . You just did not say I want to be a Navy SEAL. You were putting in the hard work. What percentage really make?

Brent: It is interesting. I will kind of give you a full answer there. One is that what people do not talk about often is if you break it down, probably, we run six classes a year, so every two months. There is roughly, if you break down the numbers, they might even be higher these days. About a thousand applicants if you just average it out per class. Of that, you will probably start with, let us say easy math, around two hundred students in a class. You will typically graduate twenty to thirty of those students. You will weed down to, give or take, your graduating class by the end of hell week, so about the end of the fifth week. Obviously, that is intentional. We are not trying to spend hundreds of thousands of tax dollars on students that are not going to successfully navigate. Of course, there is multiple reasons, but that is being one of them. It is really interesting because when you get there and it kind of starts as we are the teams, SEAL Teams, but no. The first couple weeks is kind of an individual exercise, sizing each other up, and you are trying to think about who is going to make it and who is not.

If you try to handpick the twenty or thirty or so students that are going to be standing tall at graduation, you would be lucky to get one or two of those correct. It is such an interesting social experiment when it comes to the mental, emotional physical, and cognitive attributes of students that are more likely to navigate this course. We have actually, of course, been intentional just like any well-run organization, too. From a talent acquisition stand point, I try to identify those attributes, so that we can bring students in who are more likely to graduate. We would like to have more SEALs, but it is arguably the hardest training pipeline with Special Operations. It is one of the things I focus on in the book. It really comes down to the data points that initially the narrative that that data might paint is not what you would think, extreme physical capability, high levels of academic capability and intellect. Of course, fitness and intelligence are critically important. It really comes down to the less measurable data points of great resilience and a deep passion to serve. Not just serve in the military, but to serve as a special operator as a SEAL. If we think about any walk of life, any lofty goal you have never achieved in your illustrious career.

First of all, it did not come without pain, suffering, adversity, and anxiety. It took passion and an emotional connection to the long-term vision to drive you through those inevitable obstacles. That is what drives these students to succeed. It does not have anything to do with being an Olympian or Stanford lacrosse player. We get a lot of those, and then we get people who come from no real significant background, who end up being rock stars in the class.

John: What you are saying is it is truly rare air, but it is based on other factors than what us, laymen, would think, like strong physicality and things. It more comes down to resilience and the ability to just keep moving forward.

Brent: Yes.

John: That is so interesting. Let us go back to Goggins, who I am a huge fan of. I have read his materials and I follow him. This is in the foreword. This is the quote in the foreword. “The pain that you are willing to endure is measured by how bad you want it.”

Brent: Kind of what we were talking about.

John: Exactly. You have a few men in this great book Embrace the Suck. Again, for our listeners and our viewers, we have got Brent Gleeson with us. You can find Brent at takingpointleadership.com or by his book and read this great book. The ability to get comfortable with being uncomfortable, unpack that and unpack Goggins’ quote, so our viewers and our listeners can understand what is the core of what makes you so great, Brent.

Brent: Sure. I will take it back to the one step further up. Well, Embrace the Suck, catchy title. What does that mean exactly? It is a phrase born in the military and obviously adopted in the ranks of Special Operations and Special Operations training, and just the lifestyle in general. Essentially, it is saying look the battlefield. We can be talking about the literal battlefield of the figurative battlefield in this context. The battlefield is tough. Do not just accept it. Lean into it and move more quickly from the normal human emotion, that bunker of human emotion that impacts us when we face adversity of the surprise, anger, depression, and eventually, hopefully, acceptance, enlightenment, wisdom, and taking action. Moving more quickly through that path towards action-oriented execution and developing a plan, taking stand of your current reality, and stepping back onto that battlefield of life.

That is essentially what the Embrace the Suck philosophy is. It is not just accepting life’s inevitable obstacles, the pain, the suffering, and anxiety we face, but leaning into it. Saying, ” You know what? Great.” Because adversity, with the right mindset, of course, is the mother of success. It is the mother of reinvention, of reassessment, of transformation. Think about all the things we have all been through personally and professionally over the past ten months. I mean, talk about the necessary reinvention for all of us or just reassessment. We face these very unforeseen obstacles like COVID. I can guarantee you, someone with your background did the same thing I did. I started taking stock of my current resources, what I need, where are we going as a business and where we are going as a family. Look at all the waste and things that we were not paying attention to. It really is all about reinvention. That phrase “Get comfortable being uncomfortable” is very similar philosophy to embrace the suck was born from the Naval special Warfare community. It just means being more intentional in the fine and subtle art of comfort zone expansion. Expand your comfort zone intentionally. The more you do it, the more you lean in and the more you embrace the things that maybe you are not all that good.

If you approach life with a growth mindset as opposed to a fixed mindset, you are being intentional in expanding your comfort zone. The things that used to live outside that comfort zone, the goal is that used to seem insurmountable for the obstacles that made you cringe become part of your everyday life. You can change that lifestyle and you keep moving the goal posts and doing it again. We just came into a new year. People are making their New Year’s resolutions. You and I would both agree that any goal should be measurable, concise, achievable and time-bound. I joked about this on The Today Show because they call me out about. In the book, I say, “New Year’s resolutions are for losers.” What I mean by that, I am not talking about goals and how you approach life and work, but it is about making incremental choices every single day to be in a constant state of improvement. Not saying like, “Well, come January 1st, I am going to start A, B and C. I do not know who is doing this research, but shows that these resolutions fall off by mid-February. That is six weeks.

John: That is right. It is really true. Brent, let us pause there because before we went on the air, you and I were having a great catch up. We were talking about today. You and I are doing this interview today. You are down in the San Diego area. I am up here in Fresno and we get to do this interview, but the Inauguration is happening today. America is turning over today. It is, in many ways, a wonderful day to celebrate, but we are still living through this pandemic. One of the messages that I have given our team — we have about one thousand two hundred employees here at ERI — goes to your point. It is a choice. Right, Brent? If you want to come through this. When people talk about being a new normal when we get to the other side, I feel that is such a defeatist mindset and mentality. My message here has been, “We are going to get to the other side, and as a company and as people, be a new better. Is that really the message you also want to give people. That you get this book and you embrace these principles. Embrace the Suck, which I just love the title. You can be a new better as well. Is that really some of the core of what you are trying to get at?

Brent: Hundred percent. For a while, many of us, I am probably guilty of this as well. We are saying, “when this is all over,” or “when things go back to normal.” Then, we started to graduate to “Well, this is the new normal.” Still not even quite there at the mindset of no, this was what we call an inevitable life ambush, a business ambush. Nobody had this in their 2020 contingency plans. Many of us have 2020 projections shot to hell. At the end of the day, yes, it was a bit of a shock at first, but the organizations like yours and like many of our clients, and like we have done to a degree have pivoted very rapidly by really good planning and really good engagement of all of the majority of the organization.

Like I reckon my first book, organizational change or transformation efforts in a normal chaotic business environment still typically fail or fall short of meeting their objectives, according to McKinsey of Deloitte year-over-year of the research and data. Macro changes or micro changes are done to the project level or business unit level, but the organizations that get it, and you have seen this, are going to come out of this stronger, more sustainable; more fiscally responsible; probably with one or two new revenue streams of how they interact with customers and how they interact with their employees; their ability to leverage technology and digital transformation to engage with teams. It is really the permanency in a lot of this is going to make organizations — the ones that have been tackling this head-on as opposed to those with a wait-and-see mentality — are going to possibly be even more profitable in a way if they put all these resilience principles in place and create scale from the forced innovation.

John: Is resilience something that you are born with, Brent, or is it learnable and is it then become a muscle that you keep having to exercise and grow?

Brent: Sure. It is a great question. I get that a lot. I touch on this in the book. Actually, the concept of resilience, which has been studied in various settings, does still pose a challenge to psychologists and behavioral scientists. Whereas, some are in this tool that certain people have more zillions great mental fortitude than others. I argue with the questions of like, “In our resilience bank account, do I start life with a higher balance than you do? How do I make more deposits? Do we have more than others?” Take David Goggins and me, for example, showing up in the same BUD/S class. Now, arguably, this was his third BUD/S class because I used to joke that he just loved hell week because he just kept doing it over and over. Two wildly different backgrounds. I grew up in an upper class neighborhood in Dallas, Texas, went to private school my whole life. Whereas David grew up with relatively extreme adversity, racism, childhood obesity, learning disabilities, and an emotionally and physically abusive household. You have read about it in the book. It is gnarly.

You might think people in that situation might naturally develop more resilience than others. Sometimes, those situations are debilitating and it depletes their ability to have that sort of natural grip resilience. To some degree, it is a choice and it was a choice for him. And you know for me it was a choice. For me, it was a choice to engage in what I refer to as purposeful suffering. We all have that sort of flame burning inside of us, so either snuff it out or we look at it. We listen to it. We touch it. We feel it. We use it to channel us down to the road less traveled or taking calculated risks or trying to set off to your stretch goals as opposed to staying in our comfort zone where things are good. But you stay too long in your comfort zone and the ultimate outcome will be regret, possibly depression, and just overall mediocrity.

I mean even study show that you know people who take more risk or who have been through hardships that they did not plan for come out stronger or emotionally more mature. They have a different outlook on life in a positive way. They are happier. They are more inspirational to others. They give to causes greater than themselves. Obviously, my philosophy is that resilience is like any muscle and if you were intentional, pushing its boundaries, making tough choices, and doing hard stuff and obviously, things that are in line with the goals you want to achieve in your value system. But then, you will continue to develop it more and more over and over. Being more intentional t in that journey, you will get there quicker.

John: For our listeners and our viewers that have just tuned in, we are so honored to have with us today American hero Brent Gleeson, founder and CEO of TakingPoint Leadership. To find Brent and his great company and colleagues, you could go to takingpointleadership.com. His clients or just a who is who of what is what, from Bank of America to Raytheon to Boeing. You can hire Brent to work with your firm or you can read his book Embrace the Suck and learn the principles that have gotten him to be a big success besides an American hero. Brent, I have two children now. They are actually behind me in that. That is when they were much younger. They are thirty-four and twenty-eight, and then I have one thousand and two hundred employees who become sort of adopted children in many ways if you are doing a good job as a leader. One of my core messages, and you tell me if I have got this right or wrong, is no one gets through this journey unscathed. Is it right to expect that we are all going to face challenges and it is really how we deal with those challenges that really defines who we are, how how we get through this thing and how we get success or failure?

Brent: Yes. I try to weave in some quotes that I really liked and inspired by throughout the book. One of them is “The most massive characters are seared with scars.” It is a really powerful quote because it really answers the question you just asked and the character that we develop over time. When I transitioned out and became an entrepreneur, my first two companies were more technology-focused companies, therefore in digital media analytics, etcetera. My employee base was largely younger. Let us say out of my last company, we got a couple hundred employees across three offices in New York, Vegas and San Diego. I would say seventy percent were millennial. I had to really work hard at adjusting my leadership style and my management capability in learning how to — this is what we teach our clients as well — learning happens connect and motivate different people. We all have different needs. When you look at motivation theory, between autonomy, mastery, and purpose, you still have to boil that down into the individual.

Now, it is even more complex than ever managing and leading remote teams. At the same time, I have always tried to bring it back to you having been blessed with the opportunity to serve in the capacity that I did. I have a unique ability or platform when it comes to our employees to share some of that perspective, if you will, when it comes to hardship and anxiety. I joked in the book about I tell my SEAL buddy, good friend Jason writing his story. Great battlefield commander, got ambushed, got shot seven times in the face, chest, and arm. He almost died, walked by himself unaccompanied to the Medevac helicopter, and then got so annoyed when people are coming into his hospital room and they were crying over his scars, what he could not do, and the things that he would not be able to do the rest of his life. He is like “Time out, people.” He wrote this amazing inspirational sign I share in the book. “Stop right there. If you are coming into this room to cry over my loss, my scars, and my injuries, go elsewhere. This is a room of happiness and of rapid regrowth. I will recover a hundred and ten percent and more. Then, I will push it another twenty percent of that obscure mental tenacity.”

He is like, “If you are not prepared for that, go elsewhere.” He signed it “The Management.” It caught the attention of the then President George W. Bush and hangs in the wounded area of Walter Reed. He was brought to the White House and things like that. After sharing the story, say feel kind of stupid because you just stepped on a Lego and screamed a bunch a flurry of expletives. Again, bringing back to that perspective that we all need. All of us, all the time. I need it, too. My wife is really good at bringing me back. You are worrying about things that are out of your control. When you are over stressing about something, she is like we got this. We all are at a natural human emotion when stress, anxiety or uncertainty inevitably hit us, but it really is a unique opportunity. You are pointing to take a leadership angle in that when it comes to developing teams and employees. We obviously use that with our clients, too.

John: Brent, something tells me, although you and I have not met personally yet and one day we will, that you were going to be a success regardless if you had gone to the SEALs or not, you were going to be a business success, which was your original dream. Unpack a little bit about getting out of the SEALs and starting your first two companies. Now, as an entrepreneur with your graduate degree, and how your SEAL training and what we are learning in this book Embrace the Suck, and also in your other best seller Taking Point. How did that made you more successful and how those companies succeed in more than they would have if you had not become a SEAL?

Brent: I guess I can answer that in the sense of if I had two to three core takeaways from my relatively comparatively brief time as a CEO. I have got buddies have done fourteen combat deployments in his career SEALS or twenty plus years. Even in the brief time and spending time in combat and spending time with great combat leaders and learning from them, I would not even pushed back. I do not know what success would have looked like had I not been in the military. I am sure with my normal drive, curiosity, and sort of appetite for taking risk, I would have done some some cool things.

At the same time, I really have no idea because I attribute much of my success, however we want to define that, comes from the mindset transformation that occurs, for certain, in the military service, but also, in the upper echelons of Special Operations, and then using those skill sets that you develop — both actual skill sets and mental skill sets — on the literal battlefield. One of the things that I take away from a leadership standpoint, any good leader or effective leader will say as a lifelong learner or a humble and never satisfied with the status quo, especially when it comes to ourselves, we want that feedback. Sometimes, it makes you cringe a little bit but we quickly move to like “Great. Roger that. I am going to apply that.” or “Great. I am going to take stock of that, and make sure that I am in that consultative development.” Not just how I perceive myself as a person or leader, but more importantly how your twelve thousand employees see you as a leader.

One is personal accountability. That is critical. We are human. We are not always perfect at that, but having the discipline to continually be able to debrief with yourself. I talk about that after action review model in the book, but instead of a team or organization, let us use it on ourselves, to not just celebrate the wins, but kind of take stock of the loss. Where did I fall short? Where did I deviate from my core values? Where did I disconnect from my emotional connection to that goal? What distractions got in my way? One is that level of discipline and accountability. Probably even overarching is anxiety and stress management are a little easier because of the perspective you gain just on the world in general, and the reality of how freaking good so many of us have it despite the dumb stuff that we complain about day in and day out, myself included. Continuing to remind ourselves, remember the stuff that you saw down range, remember the stuff you did or did not do, or the guilt you carry for this or for that. Put all that in a bucket to remind your support over your head every now. Wake up. Someone has it worse than you do. Many people have it worse that you do. That perspective when it comes to anxiety, stress or the inevitable obstacles of life.

Also, I would say the third thing, and this might surprise you or the listener or viewers, is greater levels of empathy and humility. If you do not have that going in the SEAL training alone, it will either be beaten into you or it will push you out of that pipeline organically. Experiencing what you do, seeing what you do, doing what you do, experiencing the loss of teammates and friends time and time again, you gain this really heightened sense of empathy or being in a combat zone and seeing non-combatants or children or grandparents in situations where one minute we are blowing the door off and run a gunfight. Two minutes later, I had my rifle slung and I am carrying two four-year-old girls across the room because there is glass all over the floor. Having that ability to dial down your very intense intensity and focus up, but also dial it down to a heightened sense of emotional intelligence, self-awareness and empathy is a good skill set. I think you would agree to have it just in life so good and so as a business a business leader.

John: So good. Talk about the importance of friends, and also, who you surround yourself with. Are you good friends still with a lot of the SEAL members that you became brothers with along the way?

Brent: They are. It is such an interesting community. Even while you are in to, you made great friends in the SEAL training pipeline. Then you go to different teams, and then your teammates are like family. Like family, you do not always get along, but you respect the hell out of each other. When it is time to work, there is a switch that is flipped, and you would intentionally dive into a hail of bullets just to save the person to your left and right without second thought. It is a fascinating thing. Very hard, if not impossible to replicate in the civilian world, just because the training and the actual stakes are as high as they can possibly be. When it comes to friends and your social circle, my social circle is pretty small right now. The funny thing about it and I always joke about this with my teammates or some really good SEAL friends. We are all kind of guys guys so we could go for three years without even seeing or talking to one another. You can text me, “What is up, bro” “What is up? How are you doing?” “Good.” “Good. Okay. ” And then, that three years is erased like you never skipped a beat. It is really cool.

I keep in touch with those guys because it also gives me that continued emotional connection to the community. I am on the board of the SEAL Family Foundation. I have been on that for seven years and it helps me stay connected and continue to serve. I connect with the team to that capacity as well. But, that point, if we think about the importance of our friends or our social circle as it relates to our life, our aspirations, our goals and our core values, one easy explanation is when I made that decision to transition from financial analyst to train to become a CEO. One of the things I looked at when assessing my current environment to develop that plan of action to train is my social circle. I looked at, “Okay. There are some people here who I know are going to support me . A lot of researches are more secured for children, but children who become eventually experts in certain fields during their most developmental years, they had a very supportive family, social circle and an emotional coaches who would push them to that next level of performance. I removed people from my life that I knew… Obviously, we all have the haters. We wanted to go down that path, but also just the people who either do not wish you well or are a distraction. Most of the people I am close with, I have a pretty tight small social circle of actual friends. We all have a lot of acquaintances.

John: Anecdotally, I have always read that you really become your five closest people that are to you, besides your wife and children. That is really what defines you, so having good people that support you is really a necessary part of the journey, whether they are SEALS or people that believe in your values and what your journey is. It that not true? Having distractions really is not good for people’s development.

Brent: It is not. Again, hopefully, we are all busy doing great things. There is no time for the nonsense. There is no time for spending time, emotion, or thought on either people who do not have your best intentions in mind or even worse. It is just a waste. Like you said, having that circle of four or five people that you know you can always count on and that will always lift you up is extremely healthy, but anything outside of that is just kind of a waste of emotion.

John: If you have just joined us, we have got Brent Gleeson with us today. He is the founder and CEO of TakingPoint Leadership. You can find them at takingpointleadership.com. He also wrote the best selling book Taking Point. He has also written Embrace the Suck. There is nobody that would deny, Brent, that this pandemic, as you said at the top of the show, is not only unexpected. It is not only tragic. It sucks for all of us, no matter where we are, whether we are sitting here in the United States, but also around the world. This pandemic has sucked. What I would like you to share with our viewers and our listeners is if we are all living through the suck right now today and we are going to get to the other side. Science is going to win. The vaccines are coming. We got it. Still, we are six months minimally up to a year away from getting back to some sort of knew better. How do we embrace this suck period still and come across a new better? Can people really read your book, and given that they are just civilians, get to the other side and learn one, two or three great points from this book and really be better on the other side of this pandemic, this suck period.

Brent: Yes, absolutely. When I started down this path, admittedly, I did not realize 2020 would suck so bad. Selfish would be the timing is wonderful for me, but one thing. I never read a book that technically falls in this genre before, so I started doing some research and I found some really inspirational words, good books and popular books. Not a lot of books that were really actionable. That is what I really did try to do on my first book Taking Point. It is to make sure that every chapter has a very specific application to business leadership and culture or organizational development. I want to do that, so each chapter has a mental note. I think we have all now graduated from the “When this is all over” mindset to “Okay. We are in this. We are going to be in this for a while, and we need to start moving away from the causal thinking of why me, why this and why now,: into action-oriented execution.

If I had to pick one or two things from the book to really take away this current environment — we are kind of in a transitional period — would be like, “Okay. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. We are ways out from that, so life and business must go on. One of the pitfalls we, as humans, typically fall into is we waste a lot of time, emotion, and energy focusing on things outside of our control. One of the countenance of resilient people and a growth mindset is they focus predominantly only what is in their control and sphere of influence. In that way, they can do greater impact. They are more confident, and they achieve or exceed more of the goals they set. Also, the subset of that is they are happier and more fulfilled, etcetera. They can build upon that momentum. Whereas a fixed mindset typically focuses on things outside of our control, less on what is in our control, and we stay in that environment for far too long or permanently.

Therefore, there is no development. There is no growth. We rarely sometimes get out of that swamp or quicksand of mediocrity. What I would say is… A lot of people have done this already. A lot of business has done this already, but to continue down that path is take a tactical pause, take stock of your current reality, and develop a plan of action for your family, your personal finances, for your business, for your career, and possibly even for your own mental health as well. Develop a plan and design that plan based on what is in your control. One of the things we teach our clients and I write about it in the book is sort of your own thinking from a team mission planning perspective to more of a personal mission planning perspective. You can do it for your family or your business, but also just for your own personal goals, whether it be a fitness goal, a business goal or career goal. Identify your core objective. What is your objective statement to navigate the next year or so related to this pandemic, related to family, business, etcetera.

When you could look at a lot of business, like the objectives and key results, or the OKR model. A nice clear and concise objective statement is powerful. You can connect to it. It gets you excited. A few sample of points or KPIs that say, “Okay, here is how we are going to execute this.” and taking go from X to Y, equals Z by such and such a dat. But then identifying what are my resources? What do I have now or need to acquire to achieve this objective? What are our threats and blockages? Well, we have already identified most of those. One of the things about this transition now is it is going to be hard. It is going to be very similar to last year minus most of the surprises hopefully. Anything can happen, but you still want to take stock of the threats, blockages and obstacles that do or could possibly pop up and stand in your way of achieving that objective. Apply some of the lessons learned we have all inevitably absorbed over the past ten months. Then, you have a plan. I always recommend with any plan whether it is your personal plan team or organization, is apply a red team model.

Basically, have a small team, committee, or one accountability partner who pokes the holes in your plan and ask you have you considered this? Have you considered this? Have you considered this? You do not debate it. You just take notes if there is a gem of wisdom in their reply to your plan. Then, you develop your actions, the what, the who and the when. What am I going to do? What needs to be done? When am I going to do it by? Continue to develop these action plans whether it is for your family or whether you are a business owner, a leader, manager or direct contributor, and so this might apply to your career. Have this planned. Then, you have a sixty percent to seventy percent plan, you go back. You apply some contingencies, then you have an eighty percent plan. That is as far as you go. There is no such thing as a hundred percent plan. You would not have gotten where you are with that because they do not exist.

John: Right. That is so true. You are so right. Like I always say, man plans and God laughs. That is that twenty percent. I love your website, Brent. When our listeners go to your website, is that for hiring you to give this kind of training to their companies or do people hire you even one-on-one to help themselves improve one-on-one? How does it really work besides reading your book?

Brent: We are a full-service leadership and organizational development consulting firm, especially in its highest level. Building higher performing teams that drive better business outcomes. As well as ask the question what drives profit in an organization, assuming we are talking about a for-profit organization. You get all these different answers. Essentially the number one thing is customer retention. How do you retain customers? Well, through high quality products and services. Where do you get those from? Well, great people doing cool stuff and highly engaged employees who are passionate about what they do. Where you got that from? Well, you get it from good leadership. Not just at the top like folks like yourself, but passing it all the way down to the frontline contributors. We have that environment where essentially everybody meets. That is what is great about the Special Operations community itself. On the battlefield, in training or off the battlefield, you are expected to be a leader regardless of rank or title. That is my other core foundations of a high performing team mindset. You get great leaders by developing them. It really comes down to that progression when you think about the success of an organization. It is identifying those people in your organization that you can continue to develop to create higher levels of performance. I think I got off that tangent, but I want to make sure say that.

John: That is great. Brent, when I interview pilots, I asked them about the level of difficulty of what solely pulled off on the Miracle on the Hudson. Most pilots will tell me like he was the perfect human being to do what he did, but still the odds were long and wide. Million to one. Hundred thousand to one. It was truly miraculous when he pulled off. Given that, we are almost ten years removed from the SEALs taking out Bin Laden. What were the odds going into that when leaders like Obama and the other great leaders that run our country in the defense department had to make that call to go do that and they called on the great SEALs who pulled that off? I know there is so many other missions we never hear about. That one was a very public. Level of difficulty and danger on that kind of stuff.

Brent: Well, it is interesting. One thing we do not think about is the squadron from that group, we are not supposed to say the name. our Tier 1 Special Operations Unit. Everybody knows the thing. What we do not think about is the fact that they have done probably a dozen similar missions the month before and they did a dozen similar mission the following month. This was a high-profile mission per se. One of my closest friend and former teammates at Team 5, Mark Owen who wrote No Easy Day and No Hero. No Easy Day being the first book written about the Bin Laden mission. You can read the book about the same insight that I have that you will get from the book that I do for him. A lot of who gets what mission in the Tier 1 World Special Operations comes from who is in the country, availability, who can get there fast, some capability obviously, and this one, by the grace of God, many other factors fell onto steals. They respond a couple weeks prior, but they, just like we did in the regular teams from any of our missions, they trained for two weeks day and night. I believe it is about two weeks or even shorter on a more or less two scale replica model of the compound.

By the time they hit these targets, that is what is fascinating about Special Operations, you rehearse every mission if possible. Does not matter if you are doing [inaudible]. You dirt dive and rehearse. Lessons learned, kind of work out the kinks over and over again. Just like any high performing team or individual. Does not matter how many times you done it. Going to rehearse, rehearse rehearse. You can envision your role and responsibilities, everybody else’s role and responsibilities, and what the winning outcome is going to look like. By the time they executed the mission, everybody on the team knows where they are supposed to land, how many steps from land zone to the first reaching point, the internal structures work in the room. Of course, they practice for contingencies. What was the first thing that happened when they got over that target? [inaudible] does that. But they had, in some capacity, practiced for a helo crash or some type of other major event like that assuming that Murphy is going to show up, which he usually does.

As you know, I am going to thank the Lord, nobody was killed in that crash that the pilot really made a very solid media tactical decision to bury the nose down quickly, so that the helicopter once the tail hit the wall did not roll. When helicopters roll, that is when people die. Again, your adrenaline is going so high that Mark, for example, did not even realize that he fractured two vertebrae in his neck and then got shot while he was on target. It was not a lethal wound, but nonetheless, he still got shot. He realizes his back was broken more or less total like a week later. Point being is a high-performance teams practice, practice, practice, practice, practice. I have been firm and individuals do this, regardless of the fact that you have done it a million times. You always have a very rigid and disciplined approach to the execution of what you are going to do.

John: That is awesome. Brent, I have one last question before I let you go today. You have been more than kind and generous with your time today. One of the great quotes in your new book… For our listeners out there, Embrace the Suck. I really highly recommend this book. We are living through a sucky period in world history. Hopefully, we never have to live through this again. This will help you make it through it, and not just make it through it, but also make you better in the process. I love the line, “Do something that sucks every day.” We are all conditioned. There is not one of us that would not love to buy a pint of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream and watch Seinfeld reruns on the couch every night. What do you truly mean by “Do something that sucks?” Give something to our listeners right now that is actionable, that they can start doing right now before they even read your great book.

Brent: That phrase is not intended to elude the fact that we do the wrong things that suck. It is about being intentional in setting the right goals, taking the right amount of calculated risk in these personal goals, professional goals, fitness goals or whatever they might be, and then identifying the things, the obstacles along that path to the achievement of that goal. Whatever that goal might be, there is going to be things that you do not like doing, things you are not that good at, things that make you cringe, and things that you really just have a distaste for. Think about growing a business. As a business leader, we do not love every aspect of what we do. There is things were not good at, things we got to develop, and things we just hate doing so typically we delegate. However, in this case, I am talking about identifying the things that stand in our way and the things that were not good at, and being intentional in practicing those things. For example, one of the things, as a leader, I have had to work on through feedback and just my own developmental opportunities and growth opportunities. Ironically, on the literal battlefield, I will run towards a hail of bullets.

In a business setting, as a leader, sometimes, I have a tendency or have had a tendency to avoid the difficult conversations, the angry board member, the client that I know is about to cancel their major contract, or the employee that I have to let go. I have to do I do that on Thursday. Come Thursday, I am like, “I am really busy today. Probably need to push that to next week.” It is like no. My wife tells me, “Honey, just right between the eyes, just do it. Get it done.” Then once you start intentionally practicing those things that suck at I do not like doing, I find that one, it is not that big and scary. It is not that hard. The more you do it, the more confident you get within that skill set, whatever it might be. Then, go find the next big, scary, audacious obstacle and tackle that one. Make that part of your lifestyle, and do something like that every day. You have some developmental opportunity every day, whether it is a fitness goal, pushing yourself a little bit harder each day. Doing something that is a little more uncomfortable each day. That signifies mental and physical growth. If we are not growing, we are essentially sort of dying a slow death. That is great.

John: Well, for our listeners out there, we got Brent Gleeson with us. Go to his website to find him, takingpointleadership.com. Read his New York Times best-selling book Taking Point. Read his new book Embrace the Suck. I was already going through it. Brent, really truly, God bless not only Texas, but God bless the great people like you who serve this great country that we live in. Today is the Inauguration Day. I am so happy and so honored to get to celebrate with someone like you and your life, and the wisdom that you have and you shared in this book today. Thank you for being a guest on the Impact Podcast. I am truly honored to have you on. You are making great impacts every day. Again, God bless you and the other young men and women who have served our great country.

Brent: God bless you, brother. Thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed the conversation. Let us do it again sometime.

John: Anytime with you. Anytime.

Brent: Thank you.

John: This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by Trajectory Energy Partners. Trajectory Energy Partners brings together landowners, electricity users, and communities to develop solar energy projects with strong local support. For more information on how Trajectory is leading the solar revolution, please visit trajectoryenergy.com.

John Shegerian: This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by ERI. ERI has a mission to protect people, the planet, and your privacy. It’s the largest fully integrated IT and electronics asset disposition provider and cybersecurity-focused hardware destruction company in the United States, and maybe, even the world. For more information on how ERI can help your business properly dispose of outdated electronic hardware devices, please visit eridirect.com.

John: Welcome to another edition of the Impact Podcast. A very special edition of the Impact Podcast. I’m so honored and lucky to have with us today, direct from Barcelona Spain, Bernat Añaños. Thank you for being with us, Bernat.

Bernat Añaños: Thank you for having me and having Heura because I’m representing the whole company like the forty people that we have behind. So, thanks a lot.

John: It’s an honor and I think this might be our first podcast in thirteen years. We’re reconnecting Fresno, California, and Barcelona Spain. So, thank you for staying up late tonight to do this interview. It’s truly an honor. Before we get going into your wonderful brand and all the impacts that you’re making with these important products that you have, can you share a little bit about your journey and something about yourself so our listeners can learn about you and how you even got here?

Bernat: Cool. How can I do that? I would say I’m a very sensitive person and I think these came with me the whole life in all the decisions I made throughout my life. As you said, I’m from Barcelona so I have this heat inside. I always want to do more and to try to change things. Throughout my life, I tried so many different things and I was not finding my spot. I was always frustrated. I don’t have the impact I want to see in the world. I’m spending a lot of time working on projects that don’t have a positive impact. I’m learning a lot. I’m meeting great people. They are not bad products, but I’m not exactly doing what I wanted to do. Since I was a kid, I always imagined myself being the president. I always played Lego and doing these elections and stuff because I thought that you can change things from politics, but then, I learned not just from politics. You can change a lot of things from the corporate. You can actually change more things from the corporate and I learned that when I was doing six months traineeship at the European Parliament. I have seen how slow things are there, how difficult it is to change regulations, and how a lot of steps have to happen to actually see the progress. So then, I said, “I need to create something. I need to create something that has this impact I want to see.” And then, it’s where I met the other co-founder and we actually matched perfectly because he was at the same position like, “We need to create something. A tool that helps a lot of people to transition to a plant-based protein.

John: Are you already a vegetarian or vegan before you founded this company, or that because that was part of the journey and process?

Bernat: I was. I was vegan before, and Marc as well. Marc, for many years, was smaller than me. Since we were seventeen, I think? I was a vegetarian for many years as well. But it came, actually, very connected in time. I was in the process that I became vegan, but I had some troubles becoming vegan. I miss some of the products, and then, I said, “Giving tools through food that are delicious, nutritious, and sustainable, obviously, we can change so many people because my transition was very long.” I spent six years when you think about the amount of animal proteins.

John: Right. So, it was a process and a journey. Yours was a process and a journey.

Bernat: It was a journey. Yes. I thought that we have to make products that help a lot of people that want to do this transition without losing anything, but having the impact they want to see in the world.

John: When did you and Marc get together and have your ‘aha’ moment to create this amazing brand? For our listeners, our viewers, and our followers that want to find your amazing brand and all the products you’re making that look so delicious, I can’t wait to try them myself, please go to www.heurafoods.com. I am on the site now. The food looks amazing. When did you and Marc come together and have your ‘aha’ moment? Your joint ‘aha’ moment.

Bernat: It was in 2015 that we met in an entrepreneurial course. He had this idea of making plant-based meat, but he did not have the tool on how to make happen, how to communicate it, or how to deliver it to the world. I was a bit lost after these other jobs I had and I was, “Yes, actually, it makes a lot of sense.” Just as a friend, I was trying to help him. And very naturally, we said, “We’re doing it together. You are helping me every day.” That’s actually doing something together. And then, from 2015 to 2017, we worked on, obviously, RND. We spent a lot of time there on communications, branding, and everything to make it happen in 2017. We launched in April.

John: April of 2017?

Bernat: Yes.

John: So, now we’re four years into it. It’s almost April of 2021. Talk a little bit about the products you have now. I was telling you this off the air or not. I was so excited preparing for this interview today with you because I had the same buzz and the same spiritual feeling way back in 2010 when I was preparing to interview a young man named Ethan Brown. I have that same feeling about you. Ethan was just starting Beyond Meat then and he came back on the show in 2013. I just knew Ethan was going to go to the moon, and now, look at Beyond Meat. Their market cap is in the multi-billions, and Beyond Meat is becoming ubiquitous around the United States and around the world. I have that same buzz about you. I look at all the beautiful food you’ve made on your website. So, tell me, four years in, what’s your products, what’s become the most popular, and where are you selling them?

Bernat: Before going to the products, you mentioned Ethan. For us, Ethan was an inspiration. When we were looking at how we can change the world, we’ve seen people that were already changing the world. But they were very far. They were in California, most of them, and we were like, “We have to do something from Barcelona. We have to do something from the Mediterranean so we have more alliance.” I would never see, and it’s something that we are very clear about in the office, we never use competitors. When we look at Beyond or any other plant-based around in the world, where we say, alliance. Yes, we have different provinces, and obviously, consumers will make decisions. In the end, they are alliance because they have the exact same mission. After that, I will go to the products. In 2017, we started with chicken because chickens are the most numerous animal groups to go to livestock, and obviously then, to all the process of making food. We wanted to put out as many animals as we could from the equation of meat production. So, we started with chicken also because it’s a very versatile product, and it goes everywhere. Now, we also have meatballs and beef. We are almost planting now sausages, nuggets, and minced meat. So, we really want to put all the favorite meat products in a successful way. We use ‘successful’ because we don’t want to be a substitute. We want to be a success because this means we are better in every single vertical. So, we are far more sustainable when it comes to plant-based. It is very easy. We are the same delicious. So, people enjoy the texture, people enjoy while cooking, people enjoy the flavor, and people enjoy everything. And also, we are much healthier. Anyone in the world can look at our label and say, “Oh, God. I cannot complain about this. I’m looking at this nutritional profile and I cannot make any myths that, “Plant-based meat is bad.” Because there’s this like surrounding bashing that goes into plant-based.” So, we put a lot of effort there.

John: That’s incredible. My listeners and the people that have followed my story on this podcast for the last fourteen years or so know I’ve been a vegetarian for about forty-one years and a vegan for about twelve years. I’ll tell you what. It’s not political. It’s not ideological. It’s just personal. I just feel better when I eat clean. I just feel better. I sleep better. I work better. Life is just better on a plant-based diet. I’m so excited and looking forward to one day being vaccinated, I told you, and coming to Spain again. I love your country. Sharing a plant-based meal with you and your partner, I know it’s going to be just mind-blowing because I see all these great products and talk a little bit about what countries you are in. Where did you launch? I assume you launched in your home country, Bernat, in Spain. And then, where did you go from there?

Bernat: We started in Spain because we thought it was a very good way to show and to prove that if we can conquer the mouths of Spaniards, which are hard meat lovers, we could go anywhere in the world. First, we focused a lot on Spain, but now, we are also in Portugal. We are starting next month in France, Italy, the Netherlands, the UK, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Chile. In the following month, we will also enter Mexico and Poland. We are placing a lot of effort on expanding and being a global player as Beyond. We always think that without options, there is no freedom. We have to deliver options. People have to find Beyond, they have to find Heura, they have to find many other brands, and try good labels. I don’t care. Options.

John: There is such a huge void in the marketplace for great products like yours and Beyond that there’s going to be so many winners here because the market desires it. As you said, it’s not a zero-sum game. Together, you’re the changing world. Together.

Bernat: Definitely.

John: I’ve so many entrepreneurs that watch and listen to the show. Was it hard for you and Marc to go raise money initially and how difficult is it now? Explain some of that journey on the fundraising side of it.

Bernat: In terms of fundraising, I think it’s not something that’s difficult to start with very few money. Just family, friends, and us to do everything. So, we are kind of surrounded by people that wanted to change the world the same as us, and they’ve seen, “These guys want to change it. I can put help here. I can put my knowledge and my know-how.” We’ve done it like that. We also collaborated a lot with universities where they had students in it that wanted to change the world. We didn’t use a lot of money at the beginning. The good thing about Heura is that we sold products from the very first day. We started from vegan shops, and then, supermarkets, restaurants, and food truck. We kind of got revenue from the very first day. Last month, we did not fundraise money. We have done it through banks and sales. Obviously, banks helped here. It’s a fact. But now, we are in a moment, also, like plant-based movement and the whole scope of what’s going on in the world. It’s in the moment that we are so honored to be contacted by so many people that actually want to change the world. Not just get money, but give money for something that changes the things they want to change in the world. This is like finding partners in mission. It’s not just getting money from a bank. It’s getting money but, in the end, this person is going to be a partner that will help this to be everywhere in the world in a more accessible way, more democratic, making all the big steps we need to do.

John: For our listeners and our viewers that have just joined us, we’ve got Bernat Añaños with us. He’s the co-founder and chief social movement officer of Heura Foods. To find Heura, you go to www.heurafoods.com. It’s in Spanish. It’s in Espanol and English Hey, listen. What I love about your website is that you call people who want to change the world. This is something I’ve learned from your website, but I’m going to use it and I’m going to give you the credit. A Good Rebel. That’s awesome. That’s an awesome term.

Bernat: Yes. We were looking for these words for this concept that puts a lot of people together. I think good rebels don’t have to be the ones that buy Heura. They are the ones that fight for the mission. Beyond Meat eaters or whatever plant-based meat eaters, I don’t care. We are all good rebels, and the good news here is that every day, we are more. The start of school is starting to get a bit nervous because there are still millions and millions of people that want to change the world and they’re not just Hippy Dippy Green stores now, it is everywhere in the world. Athletes like Lewis Hamilton and, also, Joaquin Phoenix, all these people that have a voice, when they raise it, they change things faster.

John: Hundred percent. People of my generation, Boomers, and young people like you, your generation.

Bernat: Everyone. My grandma.

John: Right. What people don’t understand, and you tell me if you’re finding the same thing, is you don’t have to eat plant-based seven days a week or twenty-four seven if you just want to change a little bit of your diet. I have some friends who eat plant-based all day and at night. If they go out with others, they eat whatever they want and they still feel much better. Much better. It’s great.

Bernat: I always say step by step. You don’t have to be perfect. I would like to see a lot of imperfect people but not very few perfect people. So, something that we have to learn as well that people that we are trying to push this movement is to not point people when they commit mistakes. If you can understand? We don’t have to point people. We have to be happy and applaud, right? You’re making a step further. It’s a good thing.

John: Right. Now that you’re so successful, you and Marc, I’m sure you’re being approached by so many. How do you change the world and do it on your own terms? Do you go public one day like Ethan did so you can make your brand everywhere from New York City to Fresno, California to Barcelona and Singapore? Or, do you stay private and you can still change the world on your own terms? How are you being approached? What’s your vision on that?

Bernat: In the end, we are at a very early stage. We are almost four years. I think we will go public. I think this will happen. Now, it’s going to be the first round this year, and I think this will boost the plans of being in so many countries, delivering a lot of new products, and improving the ones that we already have in the market. Plus, we have plant-based meat products, but we have a second product and that is consciousness. We put the same resources, the same effort, and the same team on consciousness. Consciousness means democratizing information because we know something. We are very disconnected from food. We don’t know the impact that food has on the planet, animals, and in our house so we have to democratize this information. There we are trying to make it.

John: How many employees do you have now? In the beginning, it was in April 2017, and it was just you and Marc. How many employees does Heura have now?

Bernat: In April 2017, we were in a library. It was our office launching the product because we didn’t want to spend any money in an office because we’re like, “It’s just the two of us. Why are we spending money in an office?

John: Right. Smart.

Bernat: But now we are thirty-nine, I think, today. I would say thirty-nine or forty because every week we are growing. At the end of this year, we have to be more than eighty. So, we have to double this. Big plans there, and we have the challenge of creating a culture that brings the people that enjoy this culture. This culture has to be freedom and responsibility. People like little entrepreneurs inside an entrepreneurial company, because this is the way that we understand that we can change things faster.

John: So, talk a little bit about this tragedy that we’ve all been living through, Bernat. We’re all living through called the tragic COVID-19 period in world history. This is not American history or Spanish history. This is world history. How has that affected you and Marc as entrepreneurs? How has that affected your brand? What changes have you made in your corporate culture and in your messaging, if any? I’d love just to hear what lessons have you learned from this whole tragic unique period that, hopefully, we never have to live through again in our lifetimes.

Bernat: Yes, hopefully, not. I would like to start, for me, when COVID came, obviously, it was very bad news. Everything. The consequences that have had in the household of so many people. It’s the bad news. But for me, at that moment, the body was claiming for like, “Stop a bit. You are at a fast pace. You have to stop.” So, for me, it was like a week of, “Okay. This is too much for me now and I need to relax.” This, personally, was a moment to stop, to listen to myself, and to reconnect with the mission because sometimes when you are in the loop, you are just working and doing tasks anyways like, “Yes. I’m in the place I want to be. I got the power and I’ll continue it.” In terms of business, forty-three percent of our business that day was coming from food service, so, from restaurants. We are very strong in restaurants because we believe that through restaurants, we can deliver great experiences that will show people that plant-based meat means enjoying the same as traditional meat. Obviously, we have had to change a little bit of the team and try to put some people more in retail and trying to restructure. Also, be a help to restaurants because they were suffering. Trying to get the best out of it. I have a positive mindset. I think something that has happened is that we connected the dots. We’ve seen that the health of humans connects with the health of animals and with the health of the planets. When one is missing, we are all interconnected, so, the other one is affected. So, we have to take care of the animals. We have to take care of our health. We have to take care of the health of the planet because if not, the consequences, in the end, affect your ego as a person because it will come to you. In these terms, I think people kind of like stopped and seen the consequences of the current system. It’s obvious that we have to change the current system. It’s broken.

John: Do you know Bernat? I tell my company that I don’t like the term ‘new normal’. When we’re all vaccinated and going back to our lives again, God willing, science is winning, six or eight months from now, things are going to go back to some sort of normalcy. But I don’t like the terminology ‘new normal’. I really think that’s a white flag and that’s a surrender. I love the terminology ‘new better’. I use ‘new better’ as a leader here at our company, but also, just in my conversations with great people like you. And so, I feel that good leaders have gotten better during this period, and also, good companies have gotten better in terms of working together, becoming more resilient, and coming up with more opportunities than they ever dreamed of before. Do you feel the same with your company?

Bernat: Now that you are saying these, I was thinking about how many things have happened that would not have happened without this actually.

John: Right.

Bernat: We actually created alliances with so many project NGOs. We created something great. The first plant-based lobby at the European Parliament that pushes for plant-based and, actually, stopped one big regulation that wanted to call plant-based burgers ‘veggie discs’. So, we stopped that.

John: Oh my gosh.

Bernat: That was very awkward. Actually, a lot of alliances started from this period and I am very hopeful that we’ll stay in this ‘new better’ that you say. Hopefully, it’s a ‘new better’ and not the ‘new normal’ because the normal wasn’t working.

John: It wasn’t working. You have to go to a new better to make the world a better place. I bet your team is even closer than ever before. I bet you your thirty-nine people today are closer than they were on March 1st of last year.

Bernat: It’s crazy because I am a very people person, and I was very worried. The thing that worried me the most when we closed the office was, “We will lose this. We will lose this vibe that we are here to change the world together.” We did not, actually. We are there and we have so many new people. They came and we met online but we are there working.

John: The vibe is still there even though you’re not sitting next to them.

Bernat: Crazy.

John: I feel the vibe from you so that’s why. You put the vibe out there. I feel the vibe from you and we’re sitting in Fresno and Barcelona right now.

Bernat: Thanks. Hopefully, I have some good vibes.

John: You have some great vibes. For our listeners who want to learn more about Bernat and his great vibes, go to www.heurafoods.com. You got to love a brand that has a smiley face in its logo. You got to love that kind of brand. I mean, there’s no not having a good vibe. Just looking at your logo makes me smile. Eating the food is going to make me so smiley and happy. Have you learned out of this COVID-19 tragic period or not? Do you think people now have taken more self-reflection and are realizing they need to live some form of healthier lifestyle which is, ultimately, going to benefit Heura and other great brands like yours? Because they’re going to just eat better, live better, and want to be healthier in general. Is that something that’s going to come out of this tragic period?

Bernat: I think it is for sure. I’ve seen it in my group of friends and my family. I’ve seen how they’re changing, and it’s crazy. Changes that you would not have imagined in the past are happening now, and it’s happening because, also, supermarkets and restaurants now have a delivery option. I think this is very important because Marc comes from activism like animal activism, recording farms, and seeing what is happening behind the wall of the farms and all the vibes that’s going on there. At some point, he came with, “Yes. People are getting more conscious. People are getting more information, but people, when they go to a supermarket, they find a white block of tofu with no attractive communication. How are we going to change the world like that?” We need tools. We need to deliver attractive products. because, in the end, we have to be honest. When I think about my past and the favorite moments in my life, a lot of those moments have meat on the table, have meat on the barbecue, or, “Is my grandma cooking meat?”

John: Right.

Bernat: This is very cultural. It’s so difficult to replace those moments. So, that’s why we do plant-based meat. We think that through plant-based meat we can change the world faster than through legumes or through lentils. Lentils are great and, hopefully, lentils could change the world, right? They’ve been there, and they did not. So, we have to find those tools to accelerate these things.

John: I never heard of it that way, but you’re so right. You and I are both ethnic. You’re Spanish and I’m Armenian. All the great events in our lives, both happy and sad and celebrations and parties and family events, are all around meat-based products so that’s such a brilliant point. I’ve never heard anybody say that but you’re so right. Makes so much sense.

Bernat: It’s so cultural I think everywhere in the world. Talking about my Mediterranean culture, we like to share with people who enjoy cooking to talk about food and meat is always there. We just need to provide better meat because the meat is great. I love almost everything about the meat my grandma used to make for me. I just don’t like the consequences of it. Now, my grandma cooks the same dish with Heura, and it’s great. It’s the same. It tastes the same.

John: How proud is she to use your products? How proud is your grandmother to cook with your product?

Bernat: I would love to show you her Facebook profile. She is very nerdy and she always shares the recipes and cooks for these eighty years old neighbors. They talk about plant-based meat and how to reduce the amount of meat they eat. It’s like eighty years old grandmas talking about this and I’m so hopeful the change will come.

John: That’s so great. Next time we do an interview, I want you to bring your grandma with you and I want to talk about it. Come on. We have to do that. That will be really special because it’s going to show generational acceptance about what you’re doing. It’s amazing.

Bernat: It’s great. I’m very proud of her as well because I think someone that is her age can stop making changes all the time.

John: How old is she?

Bernat: Eighty-one.

John: And what’s her name?

Bernat: Monserrat.

John: So beautiful. You just showed that even at eighty-one, after a lifetime of doing something, they could change their mindset to make an improvement.

Bernat: Crazy.

John: People think we just get fixed in our ways and there’s no changing. You just proved that that’s not true at all.

Bernat: Yes. You can always have a step forward.

John: Okay, we’re going to bring her on next time. Listen. Any other places you want our listeners to be able to find you on social media or anything else, please use this time to give a shout-out before we have to say good night for today.

Bernat: Cool. We use, mostly, Instagram. You can go to @heurafood. We are in all of the rest of Twitter, Facebook, TikTok.

John: But you focus on Instagram. So, our listeners and viewers who want to follow your messaging and the democratization of information that you’re putting out there on good plant-based eating, or if they just want to join your movement to be a good rebel, they go to the Instagram page.

Bernat: Yes.

John: Awesome.

Bernat: Hope to see you there.

John: Well, this is great. Bernat, you’re just a joy. I got such positive vibes from you. I’m now joining the Heura Foods movement. I’m going to be a good rebel now and I’m going to use good rebel. We’re going to all become good rebels in this planet. Make the world a better place. You for sure are making major impacts, you and Marc. You for sure are making the world a better place and I’m so grateful. I wish you a continued successful journey, and I can’t wait to have you and your grandma back on with us again. I can’t wait to share a meal with you and Marc in Spain eating your delicious plant-based food. Thank you again for your time today. Continued success.

Bernat: Thank you. We made a success, as you said, but without the platform of yours, it would not happen. We did not have a lot of resources and we had the help of so many people that wanted to together to share the Heura voice around the world. So, thank you very much because, without this, Heura will go much slower than it is going.

John: It’s an honor. It’s an honor, Bernat. Till we meet again, which will be soon.

Bernat: Yes. Thank you.

John: Thank you.

John: This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by the Marketing Masters. The Marketing Masters is a boutique marketing agency offering website development and digital marketing services to small and medium businesses across America. For more information on how they can help you grow your business online, please visit themarketingmasters.com.

John Shegerian: This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by Engage. Engage is a digital booking engine revolutionizing the talent booking industry. With hundreds of athletes, entrepreneurs, speakers, and business leaders, Engage is the go-to spot for booking talent for your next event. For more information, please visit letsengage.com.

John: Welcome to another edition of the Impact Podcast. I am John Shegerian, I am so honored to have with us today. Dr. Daryl Gioffre, welcome to the Impact Podcast, doc.

Dr. Daryl Gioffre: Hey, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it and it is great to be here with you and your incredible audience.

John: Hey, listen doc, you are from New York City. We are going to be talking about your new book today, Get Off Your Sugar, it is a great book. I have read it as you can see with my markers and I loved it. Before we get talking about your book, I really want you share a little bit about you, you yourself for my audience that has not met you before and I want to get to know you. I know you are another native New Yorker, share a little bit about your background and your journey leading up to becoming a very successful doctor and also best-selling author.

Daryl: Oh, thank you. I can tell you this John always was not about health for me, that is for sure and what I mean by that is I had a massive addiction of sugar. Ever since I can remember going back to like age five, when you are a kid and even it is a high school you kind of get away with these things.

John: Right.

Daryl: I really looking back, I did not get away with it. Growing up, I would get chronic ear infections, every couple of weeks literally, I had tubes in my ears not once but twice. As a high schooler, I will never forget I had horrific acne at all these black spots on my face. I will never forget the time my mom took me to a dermatologist and what do they do? They gave me a bunch of bleaching cream and a night, I literally had 50 little black white spots all over my face that try and bleach these brown spots.

Looking back now, it is like none of these doctors as well intentioned as they might have been. They never really went far enough upstream to find out why were these things having. Your skin is the third kidney, is the largest detox organ of the body. So it does not matter if it is acne, melasma wish I had, dermatitis, psoriasis, whatever the word is, it is all coming from inside the body. It starts in the gut and what starts in the gut, starts in the mouth, what you put on the fork, so that is kind of my story and I played soccer at Boston College, I was on the other 20 national team and my senior year, I did not really know what I wanted to be or what I want to do, so I just joined the pre-law program.

I figured I kind of go in the footsteps of my grandfather, my uncle, and my brother, but it really was not something that I was passionate about or really wanted to do, not that there is anything wrong with that. I just did not know at that age what I wanted to do.

Then my senior year, I had a really bad injury and one of my soccer games. It was one of those injuries where I am like, oh-oh, and my dad dragged me to the chiropractor by the way, it was after I saw seven different doctors that said I would never play soccer again. Just put a little footnote on that one. So I had nothing to lose but I heard all the things. Once you go to the chiropractor, you got to go the rest of your life, so I was a little timid, a little scared but my dad was going for years.

He went for colds and things like that and not just back pain and literally after two adjustments it was incredible, I was back on the field playing soccer. What amaze me most about that doctor was he did not put anything in my body, he did not take anything out of my body, he just remove the interference to the way that my body was working. Once that interference was removed to my nerves which had a lot of stress from the injury that I had, my body healed itself. For me it was like one of those lightning bolt moments where your body can heal itself, you have this power to heal yourself, this is what innate intelligence is.

So my senior year, I decided to switch from pre-law to pre-med and I went to chiropractic college, became a chiropractor, and I was really a game changer for me. Again, the skeleton in the closet was my addiction to sugar and over the years in my 20s I noticed that I started gaining more weight and it got to the point that I was 42 pounds heavier than I am today. I have a lot of willpower, John, but my energy was completely depleted.

I could adjust 50 people in a day, but at the end of the day I was gone because my willpower was with driving me through that, but I never had enough energy because the sugar just depleted my body of its energy of its life for. I would say the straw that broke the camel’s back was I was leaning down to adjust the patient and my pants literally split right down the back side.

It was a painful moment but for me it was really what made me finally come to terms with my sugar addiction and I ditched the deprivation mindset which we could definitely talk about how most people go about it and I just started adding, things that alkalize my body. I learned about the alkaline diet. I started with one green juice because that is really right row at the core of a strength eating diet. It tasted like swamp juice when I started because my taste buds were so acidic and so used to sugar but something new when I put into my body, I knew that it was right.

No one ever drinks a green juice and after it says, you know that is not good for me. Literally I just started stacking and that is the approach of the new book and within 21 days my cravings were from sugar was completely gone. I am talking about a lifelong addiction and in just under 4 months I had dropped about 42 pounds. It became my new mission in life and here we are now many, many years later talking about it and that is the goal, we want to help as many people get through this.

John: That is fascinating. Now walk me through. Let us go back to school though, your classic schooling to become a chiropractor. When I talk to my nephew, he is a doctor. He is my godson and when I asked him about how much did he get about nutrition in medical school, a great medical school, not far from where you sit right now. He said to me Uncle John not a lot. Not a lot. How about you? Was your focus on nutrition obviously was a personal thing to you, but did you have any classic training in nutrition over in chiropractic school at all?

Daryl: Yes. We did have some classic training but at the time John, I did not know the impact that nutrition was going to have on my body. This was something that evolved as I was a chiropractor, but you are right. I mean the average medical school is 14 to 18 hours, they do not get any of it really and chiropractic we definitely delve more into it but it was more textbook nutrition.

You definitely got the good foundation, but not what we really need now to really address what the true issues that people are having. Inflammations never been higher, we have never been more toxic as a human species especially here in the United States in human history. The toxic level is what is really driving us to be sicker and more overweight as a nation and those are the two things. We are deficient and we are toxic.

That is what we have to really address and so we start to really go underneath the surface and address the real reasons, why we are gaining weight, why we have no energy, why we are addicted to sugar, why our hormones are out of balance, and why chronic degenerative inflammatory diseases are skyrocketing and epidemic proportion. I mean, we are never going to change this. So…

John: For our listeners out there who just joined us, we have got Dr. Daryl Gioffre with us today. You can find the doc at www.getoffyouracid.com, that is his first New York Times best seller, now his new book is on its way to becoming another best seller, Get Off Your Sugar, I have read the book, it is amazing. You can find it on his website. You can also find it on amazon.com, Barnes & Noble and other great book stores.

Doc, first of all, what was really shocking to me when I first started reading the book is that Kelly Ripa, who is an icon here in America probably around the world who looks from the outside like a healthy beautiful thin woman. She wrote the forward because she had the sugar addiction. So can you go on about how looks can be deceiving and how all of us in one way shape or another could be a sugar addict and not even know it?

Daryl: Yes. Kelly Ripa is one of my most favorite people in the world. She walks the walk better than anybody that I know. She looks like you just said, she feels it, to keep up with a busy demands of her lifestyle, you got to be healthy, you got to really take this thing serious and that is what she does and just like you can see it with her on the outside, that is how it is on the inside her as well. We have done her live blood testing in my office.

We did what is called an epigenetic test last year and she actually wrote about this in the forward of the book, it was really cool. Now she turned 50 this year, I mean how incredible that she looked but her biological age was 35, so her chronological age, that is our number. Right? The biological age which is basically your age based on how you eat, how you think, how you move, how you manage stress, and that is a key thing right now. I mean, I think we have never been more stress out ever last year ever right?

Last year was the year that we stress ate the most so my question to everybody is, are you managing stress or are you letting your stress manage you? She is able to keep up with those demands and manage the stress, so it does not take her out. She exercises every day, every time she puts foods into her mouth, its strength foods and then she backs all that up with a really solid purpose. When she does something, she does it. She does it to the enth degree, right? That is why I appreciate about her so much. I call her my energy filled acid kicking machine.

To your point it always was not that way and she talked about this in the forward of my first book Get Off Your Acid. She came into my office because of her daughter and I could talk about this because she wrote about it. Her daughter had come back from summer camp and you know what they feed kids at summer camp it is not health food, right? Stress foods, and she just was not feeling great.

As I am talking to Kelly and her daughter about what is going on, I noticed that Kelly was kind of moving around the chair. Then we just started to having an open conversation about it and she started to tell me that she is been having all these unusual aches and pains and Kelly is the energizer bunny, the alkaline energizer body, but her energy was not really up to the standards that she typically keeps it at. So we just really started to kind of look at both of them because they were going to do this together.

So in solidarity with their daughter, they did my sugar detox which now we call the acid kicking sugar detox and literally after the third day, she went on her show. I had no idea she was going to do this, it was wild. She told her whole audience that it changed her life. She is not in pain anymore. She ate more on the detox than she did in her real life and she was response. She felt that this was responsible for everything that she felt and just three days, it is so incredible. This is the cool thing is that when you look at sugar, sugar is the most acidic substance you can put into the body. It is not even a food, it is a drug. In fact, I call it America’s drug of choice and this is what we need to know about sugar. Sugar equals acid and acid equals inflammation.

She was eating a lot of good health foods, but there were some things in the diet that she did not realize that was driving up the inflammation inside her body, in her joints, and things like that. So just after a few days of getting off her acid and eating strength foods and being on the alkaline supplements, it is incredible how everything just turned around.

That is the thing. I think you nailed the head is that a lot of people think that if you are skinny you can be healthy, but I am going to tell you people who are skinny. I mean, even fit people who have high levels of inflammation and acid, it is actually more dangerous than someone that is a little bit overweight, because fat in the short run is actually going to protect the acids in the toxins in your body. Now in the long run that is not good because it is actually corrosive. That is what acid is, it is so corrosive.

It could burn a hole through metal. So think about what that does inside your body, but your body wants to protect itself. So it literally takes the fat cell and it attaches itself to the toxin and then what it does, it lodges it in all of our tissues. What I call the acid magnets, the acid catcher. So the stomach, the butt, the legs, and things like that, and it keeps it there to protect yourself. So the problem though is as those acids accumulate and accumulate you are going to gain more weight, but those acids are going to rust and rot you from the inside out. Someone that is skinnier, it is going to have more effect on them because they do not have that fat as a buffer.

So with the body starts to use is the minerals and the body will literally pull out the minerals from your bones, from your muscles. Number one cause of osteoporosis, not a calcium deficiency, it is an acid problem. The body rubs Peter to pay Paul and it does that to protect itself because it does not want us to die. So it does not matter where we are at. Everybody is exposed to acid from the environment, from diet, from water, and we got to just really start to be more proactive and start to add things into our diet to deal with the acidic effects that we know we are going to encounter.

John: Doc, I love it. Talk a little bit about ulcers and cancer. I have friends that look from the outside like movie stars, but were you sugar addicts and they developed lymphoma, other types of cancer. I have other friends that look like movie stars and they come to me and say, “John, do you know what doctor to help me? I just thought I had diagnosed with an ulcer.” Talk about the relation to ulcer and other inflammation diseases such as cancer or autoimmune diseases that relate back to sugar.

Daryl: Yes, this is something that really hits home for me because I lost my father to cancer just a few years ago. In fact my first book Get Off Your Acid was dedicated to him and all the people out there who are suffering with this horrific disease, but the first thing we have to understand about cancers that ninety-five percent of all cancers are not genetic, it is epigenetic. It comes from toxicity. Again, one of the top toxins on a list is sugar. Sugar literally feeds cancer.

Cancer loves sugar because it requires sugar for to be alive. I will never forget, this is the opening story of Get Off Your Acid and I am not going to get into the story now, but it will blow your mind the way how you learn how my dad was diagnosed with cancer. It stems around a car accident that he was driving my mom and he basically, my mom sees the car bearing over 70 miles per hour right on one of the heaviest highways in Hartford, Connecticut. She looks over at my father and he was passed out against the window like that.

So why and what happened was the car went up the divider, she pulls his legs off the accelerator, the car comes back down. John it is a miracle that they did not die from a car accident in that moment. The car goes back up. She pulls the keys out of the accelerator, car comes back down, comes to a grinding halt. She thought that he was dead of a heart attack or a stroke. She calls 911 and 18 minutes later, by the way a few minutes after he comes too, start sweating profusely and regains his consciousness, but the ambulance comes 18 minutes later. They take him to the hospital in Hartford. I had gone up later that day because I was in New York City.

I was actually training for the marathon, New York Marathon a week later. They were driving down to actually watch the marathon. So it is kind of, the whole thing how it happened was crazy, but I will never forget when they ruled out stroke, they ruled out aneurysm, they ruled out heart attack, they found out that he was having some blood in his stool from what they told them, and of course my dad being the stubborn old Italian father never told us anything about what is going on with him.

He had ulcers in his esophagus because he had this silent reflux for years, which he never told anybody about and therefore never took care of it, never treated it. If you look at in the first book, I talk about the five stages of acidosis. The first stage, you get food sensitivities, food reactions, inflammatory reactions to the food that you are eating. The second stage is inflammation. The fourth stage is ulceration and sclerosis and the fifth stage is chronic degenerative disease, like heart disease, the number one killer. Number two, cancer, which by the way has now overtaken heart disease as the number one killer in 21 states including California where we built right now.

So it is a progressive thing and what happened was from all that acid that he had in his body from just the lifestyle, the sugar addiction he had, which is another reason why I am so passionate about this, think about again what I just said acid is corrosive. So a literally eats you alive and that is what it was doing to his stomach and his esophagus so much so that he was bleeding from the inside out that caused the dark stools and that is what made him pass out.

Then they gave him the PET scan which is radioactive sugar and I will never forget this image of this big pink glowing ball there because why, the sugar feeds the cancer and that is why we saw that picture right there. It was a crazy moment, but that is what we have to focus on right now, which is all these things build up and they stack and they stack and they stack and the endpoint is one of those roads. It could be heart disease.

It could be cancer. It could be Alzheimer’s which are now calling type 3 diabetes of the brain, which is insulin resistance of the brain, which happens from inflammation of the brain. Well, what causes inflammation of the brain? Sugar glycation and also these inflammatory omega-6 fatty acids, which are the bad fats that were consuming in just the highest proportions.

John: For our listeners and viewers of just joined us we have got Dr. Daryl Gioffre, he is a best-selling author. He is just written this great book Get Off Your Sugar. You can find it of course at Barnes & Noble, Amazon and also getoffyouracid.com, you can get in contact with Dr. Daryl Gioffre. Doc, you say in your book here, which I have read.

Sugar is to cancer as gas to fire. Besides cancer, autoimmune diseases as you say, we have environmental burdens at an all-time high. We are living through an unprecedented pandemic, if we are feeding ourselves the wrong thing right now, we are playing with fire because if it does not end up as, as you say some skin disease such as psoriasis, or some ulceration inside, or cancer which you just walked us through your father’s situation, horrific situation. Even autoimmune diseases now are at an all-time high and sugar are leading to acidity and those auto MS Parkinson’s, and rheumatoid arthritis, and all those kind of horrific diseases. Correct?

Daryl: A hundred percent. One of the things I specialize is in got help we do some really advanced testing. That is one of my mottos we got to test not guess because we are all unique bio individuals and John what might work for you maybe might not work for the next person. So at the core of this we have to really improve our diet.

We all need to take some form of supplements based on things you are deficient in and we got to start to really remove the lifestyle factors, these blocking factors that is causing all the stress. So we got to manage the stress, but at the core of this when you look at autoimmune diseases, leaky gut is at the core of every autoimmune issue. I do not care if it is rheumatoid arthritis, if it is Hashimoto’s hypothyroidism. Because yes, what is leaky gut? Leaky gut I say is the cause of all disease with a hyphen because the more disease, lack of balance due disease.

So the question is what is getting into the blood that is living in the gut. We all have stealth pathogens inflammation and at the core of every issue we have every health issue everyone that you just named plus so many more is inflammation. What is the primary cause of inflammation? It is sugar, grains, dairy, and leaky gut. So we have to really look at what is causing these craters in our gut that is allowing these toxins and inflammation undigested food to leak into the blood and then once it gets into the blood, it becomes a systemic highway to the entire body. What happens is the stress area of our body is what accumulates all these toxins and inflammation.

It could be the brain, it could be breast tissue, it could be the prostate, it could be your back. All right, so we are only as strong as the weakest link in the body, it knows how to find those things. So we got to really address the leaky gut and if we go one step further, what is the prime driver of leaky gut it is these acidic foods that are punching holes in the gut and not just the foods. The number one cause of leaky gut is antibiotics. Sugar and grains which is a big one. Grains are like those stealth foods that are going to really cause so much inflammation. So we got to be wary of the pasta, the bread, even things like oatmeal but there are other things that can cause that.

They punch holes in the gut but an antibiotic is like a napalm bomb going off in the gut. It literally causes leaky gut for two years. Now, I am not here to tell you what to do as far as how you take care of yourselves but the research shows the only time we should really have an antibiotic is if we are going to die. There are so many other things that we can do in its place that is selectively going to go after viruses and bacteria, fungus and things like that. These are things we can get into but it is really incredible how this traces by the diet.

John: I love what you say on the bottom of the book and we are going to get into that now because I want to give– I mean what is great about you is that you not only talked about the problem which we just talked about the last 15 to 20 minutes, but it says at the bottom of your great book here Get Off Your Sugar, stress-eating which every one of us for the last 11 months have been involved with some form of stress-eating to strength eating. You talk about in your book, but I loved is you made it easy to remember, even a guy like me, 58 year old guy can remember, weed, seed, and feed. Can you talk, explains to our listeners how we go to strength eating, weed, seed, and feed your style?

Daryl: Yes. Well, everybody understands which stress-eating is and I think the example you gave was the perfect example. I mean think about last February, March when we learned about the pandemic because we were all blindsided by the pandemic. No one knew that this was coming and then we had this quarantine I was slapped upon us. I was in New York City at that time early on which became the epicenter was like a ghost town.

You will walk out on Park Avenue right by my office and not worry about anyone hitting you because there was no one there. What happened was all of us or most of us we literally crawled into our foxholes and we never came out and we started stress-eating, and we know what that is. So stress-eating is basically what we do to soothe our body. Our physical bodies and I say more so our emotional minds with the foods that were eating. Think about that, we call them comfort foods, but they are not really comfort foods.

They might give you that instant gratification, but they are not giving any comfort to our body. In fact, it is the opposite. They are stressing our body. They are stressing our energy, they are stressing our immune systems. So most people would think the alternative to stress-eating is to not eat at all. That is impossible. We have to eat. I could wake up is important as exercise is it is a seven step in my book. I could wake up and say, you know what? I am not going to exercise today. It is not a good choice, but I can get away with it, but we have to eat. So the solution is to not, not eat, it is to strength eat, and that is the focus.

It is about adding. So the matter where you are just like me, it is not about deprivation, it is not about the cold turkey approach because it is not going to set you up for success. It might get you two weeks, it might get you 2 months, but you are not addressing the underlying deficiencies, which is minerals, especially magnesium, why you are craving sugar in the first place and that is what most people do, John, they remove the poison, but they do not give the body, the antidote which is the things that it needs to address the real reasons why we are stressing in the first place.

So there are 7 steps in the book and each step stacks on the next one, and it is 21 days program. So for the first 3 days, we are talking about remineralizing because mineral deficiency and I mentioned magnesium is the number one reason why we crave sugar, why we get inflamed, and why the body is really stress eating in the first place. So we start talking about adding more things like green juices, as I mentioned that is where I started, the core of a strength eating diet, green smoothies, green soups, salads, stir fry, steamed veggies, more of those things. It is not about like saying wherever you are at, like you got to do less of that, it is about more of this.

Then the goal is as you add more of the good, you are going to outweigh the bad. Then on day 4, we move into step 2, which are healthy fats. So now we start adding in things like avocados with a little extra virgin olive oil, little sea salt, some sprouts, some cumin, and other forms of healthy fats. What happens is the first three days we keep on doing those foods as we go on to step 2. So each step, it builds and builds and builds. So step 3 is all about protein. Step 4 is about herbs and spices. Step 5 is such an important topic. It is about timing your meals because the reality is that the average American eats 17 times a day.

That is what stress eating is and that is how you are addicted to sugar. Can you go more than 2 or 3 hours without eating something? Because sugar is a fast dirty burn, you eat it, the body burns it, and then you crave it. So the goal is to do what we call metabolic flexibility, add more of these health strengths foods. That is not going to basically allow your body to burn sugar but allow your body to start burning fat.

We teach you how to go from 70 meals a day or no matter where you are at, to intermittent in fasting which I believe is one of the most powerful bio hack you can do for your health and your longevity and then we talked about the rice supplements you need to take in section 6 and then section 7 is all about exercise. Motion is emotions, moving your body. We even have an eight-minute acid kicking workout by my very good close friend Anna Kaiser. She is Kelly Ripa’s trainer and also Shakira’s trainer. She is just a total acid kicker and we created this amazing eight-minute workout, HIIT that splits about guys. It is about stacking and as you stack you are going to feel so good as you go through this. You are not going to want to go back.

John: That is so awesome. Doc, you talk about swapping foods and also no deprivation. You know, that is important. When you say you commit a fasting, we have heard other people talk about intermittent fasting. Ferris has a big fan of it. I think Rogan is a big fan of it. How many hours a day do you fasting? How many hours a day do you eat? What is ideal and what do you like getting your clients to?

Daryl: It is a great question because intermittent fasting to your point has become very in vogue. It is one of the top search words that along with the ketogenic diet that you had on Google but it does not mean that everybody is doing it the right way and what happens is people start doing it because they do not really understand how to take their body from where they are at. Two, intermittent fasting I will tell you what I think the ideal hours are and then what happens is after a couple weeks they just give up on it and what they do, they blame intermittent fasting for not working.

It always works but if you do it the right way. So we teach you the right way to get there in a way that is not going to be hard on the body and that is not going to be too of an extreme switch over. I would say the most common intermittent fasting form is what we call 16-8 and what that means is that you are going to be doing the fasting zone for 16 hours and then you go into the feast zone where you are eating for 8 hours. When I say the fasting zone, you can still obviously drink water, lemon water will throw scoops of our green powders into the water which will no break your fast, you can have black coffee.

We have acid kicking coffee, which basically neutralizes the acid in the coffee. You can do herbal teas. I give you creative ways or bio hacks to cheat your fast so that you are not hungry in the morning because you do not want to struggle through this. That is the problem is that I want you to enjoy this. This is about your life. This is not about like having a miserable time doing it. So if you are waking up in the morning and you are hungry, we give you some great bio hacks. For example, you can do 2 tablespoons of chia seeds in a glass of water, you can just mix that up, and drink that.

Now that might not be as exciting as a smoothie but what that chia seeds are going to give you is omega 3 fatty acids. Those fats are going to hold you over, they are going to suppress your hunger. They are going to satiate you, there is protein, there is mineral which is going to cut down the cravings for the sugar. So what you will find is that when you drink that in the morning that is going to get you through until you break the fast which is for most people around twelve o’clock, one o’clock and there are different ways to go about it. You do not have to do it every single day.

For me, I determine fast on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday, I do a warrior fast where I actually extend my fasting time by a few more hours whether that is 18 hours or 20 hours and then I go back into the 16-8 schedule on Thursday and Friday and then on Saturday and with my family, I will do what is called the feast day. I will do 3 meals a day. I will increase some of my healthy carbs like wild rice and quinoa and sweet potatoes.

So it is really just about diet variation, which I think and this is what the research shows is actually more important than the diet itself. This is about fitting this into your lifestyle. It does not matter if your paleo, keto, vegan, vegetarian. Everybody can do this. Everybody can get off their sugar and it is about making this on your time schedule so that it is doable, it is not really so hard on your psychology you will want to stick with it.

John: Doc, I have been a vegetarian almost about 40 years now, vegan about 12 years, and since not for political ideological reasons, I just do it because I feel much better, drink about 50 ounces of green juice a day on something but I have a lot of friends that are getting on the vegan trained or the vegetarian train now with great brands like Beyond Meat and Gardein and everything else that is going on out there, and possible burgers, but I still they tell me, “Oh, John, I am a vegan but I am eating an Oreo cookies. Oh, John, I am a vegan and I am eating this vegan ice cream.” I look at the vegan ice cream, which is delicious of course, but it has a lot of sugar. Talk a little bit about being a vegan or vegetarian or doing even keto but still busting the sugar, sugar limits that you are recommending to help keep us in better balance.

Daryl: Yes. I have so much respect for vegans and vegetarians. In fact, I married one. My wife is a vegan. With a little asterisk, she does use fish oil. I am going to talk about why this is so important in a second I think that…

[crosstalk]

John: I do not think about it. Like I said, it is not about being perfect it is just feeling better.

Daryl: Exactly. I do not believe that we should classify. It is okay to do this, but I do not classify myself into any specific category.

John: Right.

Daryl: I am ninety-nine percent plant-based and I choose to have some wild-caught fish few times a month. So I guess that would be called a pescatarian but I am healthy. I listen to my body and I give my body based on the things I feel, based on my energy and based on all the things I have learned about my body through all my own ups and downs to my own struggle with sugar addiction. I know what works for my body, but what works for me is not what works for my wife.

We have to understand is that what makes us vegan or vegetarian the philosophy is that we do not eat animal protein. Again, I have such respect for that. We should probably talk about that as well. When we remove the protein, what do most vegans that I coach a most vegetarians do, they start eating sugar and carbs to your point. So they basically take out one acidic food and they actually put it in something that is even more acidic. So it is very noble as far as the reasons why they do it, but it is actually making them more inflamed. I test so many people in my practice.

Many vegans and vegetarians I am going to tell you, I talked about this in both of my books. I give this research to you guys. Vegans and vegetarians tend to have more inflammation than meat eaters. Now, not all, this is within aspects, right? Because there is a healthy way to be a vegan and there is a sick way to be a vegan. My wife, Chelsea, she is the healthiest vegan I have ever seen. In fact, this test is called an omega-3 acid inflammation test. It is on our website. It is an at-home test where you get this kid and you take a little drop of blood from your fingertips, just like a glucose stick. You put it on the little card and then you let it dry for five minutes.

You put in the envelope, there is a stamp on it. It goes right to our lab and it is going to tell you one of the most important bio markers for inflammation ever, it is called the omega-3, omega-6 ratio. Now, we all know that omega 3 fatty acids are anti-inflammatory. That is what is in wild-caught, salmon, and trout, in anchovies and herring and sardines. That is also why we need to take fish oil because the inflammation levels have never been higher. Omega-6 fatty acids are pro-inflammatory, those are the bad ones.

I am going to say that is probably even worse for sugar because when you eat sugar, sugar is so toxic the body wants to burn it off right away. The body does not need sugar. It is not an essential fuel, but those omega-6 fats cannot be burned off. So they just get stuck in the body. So you can actually measure the ratio of these bad omega-6 fats, which you find in things like sunflower oil, corn, soy, safflower oil, hydrogenated vegetable fats, grapeseed oil, the worst ratio of any food out there of omega sixes, two, threes.

Any processed food you find out there in a corner you can, I can pretty much guarantee you, you are going to see corn oil, you are going to see cottonseed oil, you are going to see soybean oil, those are the ones that drive up inflammation. So that ratio guys, it is critical. Everybody should know what their ratio is. How many doctors out there have talked to you about testing this? I would assume not many effect probably none.

So the ratio should be one to one. If you look at our ancient ancestors, that is what they were based on the ancient diet, right, which was a healthier diet. It should never be more than 3 to 1, 6 is to 3. The average American has 20 times the amount of these inflammatory omega-6 fats compared to omega 3s and vegans and vegetarians are actually higher, there about 26, 27 to 1. I have actually tested clients. I have seen 50 to 1, the highest I have ever seen is 88 to 1 and here is why that is so bad because omega-3s and omega-6s they compete for the same enzymes especially in your brain.

Before I said that all timers the main cause of that is inflammation of the brain. So what happens is the brain is sixty percent fat. So if you have so many more of this omega 6s compared to 3s. What do you think is going to win every single time the omega 6s and literally what it does it just inflames your brain. In fact, I interviewed a doctor who did all this research and he showed that the average murderer and people in his in the insane asylums had the average ratio of 7 to 1.

What he was saying above and beyond, obviously psychotropic drugs the reason why they have gone so insane and crazy not making conscious choices and decisions is because their brains are so whacked, their brains become hijacked by these inflammatory omega-6 fatty acids. So we got to know what these numbers are and what is the main driver if sugar and omega-6 fats. So we got to test, we got to know what they are. So there is a healthy way to do it John which is the way that you are doing it, which is the way that my wife is doing it. So we want to get lots of healthy greens, dark leafy vegetables, lots of cruciferous vegetables, lots of sulfur-based vegetables.

So that should be the main staple of our diet, lots of healthy fats. Now, I am talking about the fats that heal, not the fats that kill. So avocados, raw nuts, raw seeds, raw oils, coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil, avocado oil, things like that. Then we want to do moderate sources of protein. If you are vegan, vegetarian plant-based sources of protein and then you got to get those fiber-rich slow burning carbohydrates in, that is like your sweet potatoes, your quinoa which is not a grain, it is a seed, wild rice, which is a grass not a grain, butternut squash, and winter squashes, and things like that. So that is the core of a strengthening diet. If you do that instead of all these other things, you are going to see your health change before your very eyes. It is incredible.

John: [inaudible], vegetables being, brussels sprouts, cabbage, broccoli, type of stuff.

Daryl: Yes, exactly. Cauliflower, we got a lot of great recipes in the book with all those, yes.

John: Now doc, you have a lot of celebrities like Kelly Ripa’s your clients. You have a lot of very healthy people like you, marathon runner and young people and also older people, but I want you to give some hope out there because our listeners are obviously the world is made up of so many people. Your book is not just meant for the celebrities, for the healthy people, this is a book of hope. So no matter where anybody is in their journey, whatever they are suffering from, if they follow your methodology here and get off your sugar, go from stress-eating to strength eating. There is a lot of Hope for them, no matter what if they have cancer or some sort of other type of disease or an ulcer, there is hope by reading your book. Explain why?

Daryl: I just got the chills when you said that John when I wrote my first book, I dedicate it to my father’s I mentioned before but it was right when my daughter was born and thankfully my father was kept alive long enough to meet my daughter, but we actually named, my daughter’s name is Alia, her middle name is Hope. We named her that for the very reasons you are talking about. I got chills again. It is never too late.

This book was about me and my story. It became bigger when I lost my father to cancer, it became bigger from the two kids that I have and this is about all of you. This is about your life. This is about your family. This is about what you want to do with your life, and I think the biggest message is never too late to change. It does not matter how old you are. You could be seven. You could be a centenarian. It is never too late to change your life, but you got to start now. We got to stop procrastinating. Procrastination is the killer in dreams.

There is a saying if you want to take the island, you got to burn the boats, but when you are going to burn the boat, you got to start right now. Make the commitment right now, draw that line in the stand, in the stand raise your standards and when you raise your standards and you create a powerful purpose and why, something that is compelling. Because here is the reality, the book I give you the strategy. I did not give you some ways to help you develop your why but strategy it is the MAP, the Massive Action Plan, that is twenty percent of your success. Eighty percent of your success is your why.

There is a saying if the why is big enough, you are going to find the way the how we will find a way. So what I recommend everybody does right now when after they hear this is stop for 5 minutes, go to a room where you by yourself, take out a journal and notebook, whatever, and for five minutes to start to brainstorm. What is your purpose? Now, losing weight can be a why but that is a superficial why. Why do you want to lose weight? It needs to be something like when you said that word hope, John, I got chills.

It needs to be something that gives you chills, something that moves you down to your very soul and I promise you, it does not matter if we are hit with a pandemic or whatever is coming because the reality is we do not know what is ahead but we got to be ready for it. Anticipation is the key to health. I can tell you this, my clients who were kicking acid, who were strength eating, exercising, managing stress, when this pandemic happened they were the ones that tend to feel better. If you have a hurricane, you go to the beach the next day, the one the houses that were not well maintained that were just basically just sitting there they are the ones in trouble, but the ones that were reinforced with steel that were kept up and maintain those are the ones that are still there. We are no different. We got to think of ourselves just like that and start now. Just start with one thing. John drinks 50, I mean, how much green juice to drink a day, like…

John: 50 ounces.

Daryl: 50 ounces, just start with one green juice, make it easy, and then commit that you are going to do that for seven days, and then go to the another thing, and then another. So master one thing and then move on and before you know it, you are going to start to stack these things into your body. You are going to feel better. Your energy is going to get better, but you just got to keep going and you got to start now.

John: Hey, Doc you are the best. I cannot wait to have you back on to continue your story, continue your journey, and share more great tips. For our listeners and viewers out there, listen, this pandemic is not over yet. Science is winning but we have still 6 to 8 months to go before we get back to what people are saying is the new normal, do not go to a new normal. I think that is a defeatist way to go here.

Go to a new better, buy the Doc’s book. This book will change your life. I learned so much for and I thought I knew a lot about nutrition. Being a vegetarian and vegan, this book is going to change your life. So you go become a new better when we get through this pandemic, which has been a massive tragedy for everybody in one way shape or another. Doc, you are really the best, you are making great impacts for our listeners out there, go find this book, go to amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, other great book stores, or getoffyouracid.com. Dr. Daryl Gioffre, you are making great impacts. You are making us better in our health nutrition and therefore making the world a better place. Thank you for joining us today on the Impact Podcast.

Daryl: John, thank you so much, and I just want to thank you. I appreciate you for first and foremost having me on, but more so for who you are, what you do, you live this, you walk it, but you are helping so many other people out there get this information. I just, I want to thank you for everything that you do, you are changing so many lives and I just appreciate you for that. So it is an honor and a privilege. I cannot wait to get you down here and we are going to test you biological age. You are going to be way younger than that, for that number that you said before I said.

John: We are going to talk about my test results when I started with you and as I start working with you on the next show and next time you are back on the Impact. How is that?

Daryl: Beautiful. All right, I cannot wait for it. Thank you so much again.

John: Thank you doc, continued health and success.

Daryl: You too.

John: This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by Trajectory Energy Partners. Trajectory Energy Partners brings together landowners, electricity users, and communities to develop solar energy projects with strong local support. For more information on how Trajectory is living the solar revolution, please visit trajectoryenergy.com.

John Shegerian: This edition of the Impact podcast is brought to you by ERI. ERI has a mission to protect people, the planet, and your privacy. And as the largest fully integrated it and electronics asset disposition provider, and cybersecurity-focused hardware destruction company in the United States, and maybe even the world. For more information on how ERI can help your business properly dispose of outdated electronic hardware devices, please visit eridirect.com.

John: Welcome to another edition of the Impact podcast. This is a very special edition of the Impact podcast because today I have my good friend with us today. Dr. Brent Moelleken, welcome to the Impact podcast, Dr. Brent.

Dr. Brent Moelleken: Well, thanks for having me.

John: Lovely to have you today. And you are a world-renowned plastic surgeon with offices in Beverly Hills, and in Santa Barbara. But before we get talking about what you do, as a plastic surgeon, talk a little bit about your background. You went to Harvard and Yale that is very well known. But for most people, those are massively aspirational schools, just one or the other. Talk a little bit about growing up. And what made you want to become a doctor to start with?

Brent: Well, I think it probably started in sixth or seventh grade when we were dissecting pigs. And a lot of people were fainting and I was not fainting. So, I figured I had to be a doctor after that. But I just liked the anatomy and, and everything was kind of pretty to me, even inside the pig, you see all the organs and how everything works. And it was just this whole machine inside that was new to me.

John: Got it. And then so when you were as you were evolving as a teenager and everything, I mean Harvard’s a big swing at the ball, what made you say I want to go to Harvard?

Brent: Well, I never thought I would get into Harvard. I never, I did not even think I would get into medical school. So, I just worked harder than anybody else thinking that this was in the day when it was really hard to get into medical school. Remember the backi case?

John: Yeah, yeah.

Brent: So, he was an older doctor. And he got admitted to medical school. And, he had to fight it in court. And I remembered seeing a documentary once. Well, it was a sort of a documentary on this or a biopic about this blind man who was applying to medical school. And for some reason, I really bonded to that to that picture, because the blind guy who got into medical school is the end of the story. But I remember his trials and tribulations and he interviewed everywhere. And they were saying, “How can we take a blind guy and make him a doctor?” So, it was just something I never thought I would really do. So, I just worked hard all through high school in Davis, California. I got on my bike whenever I could. And then, I got into some universities, and because we moved to West Lafayette, I ended up going to Purdue University for a couple of years. And I was pretty young. So, I graduated when I was 17. I do not recommend that, but I did.

John: Whoa!

Brent: 17 from high school and 19 from college. So then, I had to do something with my time. So, I went to graduate school at Harvard and studied literature, that was actually the graduate school program, in literature in German and English literature. So, I spoke German at the time and, and I loved literature. So, I knew I was probably never going to read a book again, once I got into medical school, which is kind of true. I am sad to say, I have read very little, my wife gets on me for that. and rightfully so.

John: And then you applied from Harvard to Yale medical school.

Brent: Yes. So, then I applied to medical school because I always love medicine. And literature just was not for me. It was too much time in the books and not enough time with patients. So, I applied to medical school, and I got into Yale medical school. So that is where I went for four years.

John: So now you have this amazing and very successful practice. in Beverly Hills in Santa Barbara, how many years have you been actually practicing as a plastic and reconstructive surgeon?

Brent: Well, so after four years of medical school, so after college, you go to medical school, right for four years, and then after 10 years of residency, I did that at UCSF, I know it is a long, long time. So be careful what you wish for but I got into the programs I wanted and UCSF and then UCLA, lots of research and in wound healing, and then then I am in Beverly Hills. So, I have been there 25 years, so 25 years in practice since I graduated.

John: God. And for our viewers and our listeners that want to find Dr. Moelleken, you can go to www.drbrent.com. I am on your website now. It is a beautiful website. There are a lot of before and after pictures, but on our website on the Impact website. Along with this show, we are going to be showing a lot of your before and after pictures that are not even on the website. Doc, one of the things that I like to just start with is, I have always heard about facelifts, I have always heard about tummy tucks. But is a facelift just a facelift, or a tummy tuck just a tummy tuck? Or are there new innovations that have happened during your 25 years of practice? And how have you helped evolve those innovations in the facelift than the tummy tuck?

Brent: Well, when I was a resident, so I was still a resident in training. And I had a very famous professor and we were doing a facelift together. And I said, Dr. Mathis, “Boy, you really got this down.” And he looked at me and he said, Brent, what I want you to do is in 20 years from now do everything differently from what we do. Now, I want you to innovate, I want you to do everything differently. So, for example, the facelift we did at the time, yeah, there was a high on the side approach. Right now, we take the skin back in a more normal anatomic direction, we were able to lift the deep tissue, which we really were not able to do at the time. Especially in this area of the highest mass, we did not have laser back then now we have a laser. We did not have life though, which is grafts that you put in the face. Now we have those, we did not have hair and nerves during brow lifts. So now we have those we did not have the cheek lift. We could not do anything for the mid-face, the area below the eye. And the other day I was looking at the way I did a facelift with Dr. Mathis, which is still a very wonderful procedure. Nothing is the same. Absolutely nothing is the same. Every single thing is different. So, then I remembered his words. And I thought he is not around anymore. But I bet you he would be proud that we do everything differently.

John: Now, is not that a little bit, almost opposite of what typical medical schools teach you in terms of you do something one way you sort of stick to that methodology, he actually encouraged you to innovate. And that that sounds a little bit more out of the box than typical medical professionals that I have heard before.

Brent: Well, he was an incredible innovator. And he developed many of the flaps that we still use today for reconstructive surgery, and he had the definitive work on how to reconstruct using flaps. So, he was a big innovator, a huge innovator. And he just taught me You do everything with the patient’s own tissue if you can. There is a way of doing reconstructive surgery where you do the least invasive thing that gets the job done. So, all these principles are, they are kind of those are kind of the principles you want to learn. Now in medicine, like in any other field, many people finish training. And they are well, they are very well trained, but they do not keep up. Now, keeping up does not mean just you, you learn what is going on in the meetings, and so on, keeping up I would say would be innovating yourself. So, if you come up with your own procedures, when you see, look, when I am doing it this way, it works better. Or, gosh, there has got to be a solution for this problem, we have to come up with something, for example, for the lower eyelids. So, when I got into practice, everyone’s lower eyelids did not look good. They were all pulled out. So, I figured, gosh, there has got to be a better way of doing the lower eyelids than just taking skin away in fat and pulling the eyelids now because everyone looks done. So, I saw an operation done at a meeting. Did not make sense to me. But it was brilliant. It was lifting up the skin below the eye, like a cheek lift. So, I went to the anatomy lab at UCLA. And I worked on it a little bit on people who did not care if the result came out or not. Those were cadavers. They never complain. In many respects, they are the best patients of all. Anyway. So that is where I perfected the G-clip that I published it and then things were started but that is how I think you want to innovate.

John: You have many things that you have innovated over the years, the 360 facelifts, the face light fill of the natural ear, those are some of the things that you have innovated. Is that not, correct?

Brent: That’s true. So, all of these arise from, I am looking at the facelifts and a lot of people have their ears pulled down. So, you can tell that people have had a facelift or their sideburns really high especially in women but also in men. Or the ear just looks funny as pulled forward. It looks like it is windswept or done. So, all those things have a mathematical reason that you can look at and you can kind of change around. So that is what happened in each one of these things where it really bothered me how it was coming out. I was looking, you have to come up with something new that.

John: Interesting, for our listeners and viewers who have just joined us we have got Dr. Brent Moelleken with us he is a plastic and reconstructive surgeon with offices in Beverly Hills and Santa Barbara to find Dr. Brent, go to www.drbrent.com. Like I said at the beginning of the show, Dr. Brent, not only one of the great Plastic and Reconstructive surgeons with offices in Beverly Hills in Santa Barbara, but he has also been my friend for about 10 years. And that happened because I had gone into an accident and actually got a concussion, which actually broke my nose in the process. And I needed 40 or 50 stitches on my face that were put into my face in an emergency room setting. And my friends in Beverly Hills said the best guy who does faces and does reconstructive surgery is Dr. Brent Moelleken. They sent me to Dr. Moelleken, 10 years ago, and people who meet me or do not know me and they hear about the surgery after he reconstructed my face and fixed all the stitches, and re-changed my nose around. They say it is very hard to see all the work that Dr. Brent did, which I think he did a miracle job on my face. And I am 58 years old and very grateful for all the great work you did, Dr. Brent, on me. And I also got to know you over the years and I know you do not only just practice for money, which of course we all like to do, and make money to feed our families. But you also have a huge charity side, philanthropic side, you created the about-face surgical foundation and also you do volunteer surgery on Veterans at the West LA Veterans Hospital. Can you share the philanthropic side of Dr. Brent Moelleken for our listeners and viewers, please?

Brent: Yes. So, when I do facelifts, that pay the bills. But it is the reconstructive surgery that I really love. Yeah, and that is when I worked at the VA for 20 years, I am a professor at UCLA. So, my UCLA rotation was to take the residents through surgery and the veterans now the residents are super, super busy. They just are working. You have heard about how hard residents work well; it is all true. But I get a chance of the attending to talk to the patients and it is amazing, these veterans, what they have gone through is just amazing. We talk to them and they are just they had the stories they have to tell just you cannot imagine is as tough of life as we think we may have had. You just cannot imagine what these veterans have done. So, I am honored to have reconstructed some of them there. Many of them have war injuries, many of them have son-based injuries where they got cancers from sun, if you are on a navy ship for year after year after year, and they did not know about sunscreen in the various wars. Or maybe they did not wear it or whatever, but they have cancers everywhere. So that was a big part. And that is how I really learned to reconstructive surgery is operating on many of the people who came through the wars. So very gratifying to do that my surgical foundation. What I like to find as children are victims of violent crime or accidents, and then, I supply the money usually, I am not a very good fundraiser. So, I am the one who funds my charity.

But it is nice to know we had one lady just a couple of days. We had one lady; she was a police officer up in Santa Barbara. And no one’s going to mess with her. Now she has a gun, she has a badge now no one’s going to mess, right. But when she was a teenager, her boyfriend wanted to have sex. And she would not do it. So, he bashed her in the face and broke her nose, and she had this crooked nose that she had to live with. So, she is going all through life. Now she is a tough guy, a tough girl. Right? And she deals with the people that are at-risk kids. But this knows she had she just never had a fixed so she came in to see me and I said, “You’re the perfect person for my charity. We’re going to do this and my charity.” So, we did the surgery. And she was very emotional about it. She was very open about it, too. It was in the newspapers, everything but it changed her life, just changing that nose back, it was not just changing the broken nose back to a nose that looked normal. It was revisiting the event that happened that gave her that nose and every reconstructive surgery that I do every dog by every car accident. There is a story behind it. And often the people are just hiding it within themselves. And it is nice to fix something like that. Because you are not only fixing the wound, you are fixing the person underneath it and you are not completely erasing the memory of the traumatic event that caused it. But you are diminishing. And that is very nice to see. I had a company president, 300 employees, nothing for you. I am sure, you probably have any more than that. But he had about 300. And he wanted me to fix dog bites. So sure, we will do under local, no big deal was not that bad of a start. So, where I am putting the local in, and I hear this, [inaudible] I said, “Are you okay? in trouble breathing?” and he, “I do not know what is happening, I am just very emotional, I don’t know what’s happening.” So, he started crying. And I said, “It’s totally normal, you’ve been through a trauma that you just never really meant it.” So here I am fixing on this is Titan of industry, fixing a lousy little scar, and as for him, but when he was a kid, it was not just a lousy little scar, he is a huge dog had been on the nose and on the face. And when you are a kid is basically like, might as well be as Tyrannosaurus Rex, or a huge monster or something, because that is the way he viewed it.

So, every reconstructive surgery I do has a story behind it like that. So that is why it is so gratifying to do this reconstructive surgery. And if I can do it, I benefit much more than the patients are doing. I know, that’s cliche, but it is totally true. The veterans, I still can tell just days and days and days and story about what they did. But there is one fella, he was a sniper, sniper in the war. And he had all these confirmed kills. So, I asked him, gosh, did not bother you. And he said, no. So, I am just doing my job for my country. Just the same as the other guy. He is doing the job for his country; I am doing the job for my country. So, I did not lose a wink of sleep over, because that is just my job. And I did my job. And I have always thought that scar, I really do not know what to think of it, it is just, but that is the way he looked at problems. I wish I could look at problems like that. Without letting it you know, because I will probably be a cardiac surgeon, you are not plastic.

John: It is so great thing to work on, not only on people’s faces, because faces, we have become such a society of vanity dogs. And it has even happened in our lifetime. We are about the same age, and our lifetime with Instagram, and Snapchat, and all these social media things. Looks mean even more than I think they did when we were kids. Not that they did not mean a lot when we were kids. But faces are so important to people’s sanity well-being self-worth, and veterans, our group of people that that group that you work on, are people that we have typically left behind American heroes that have protected the great freedom that we all get to share and enjoy in this country. But when they come back home, somehow, they have been a group that has been left behind historically. So, the fact that you work on them, and you donate your time and energy, and efforts to help fix their problems, I think is just beyond amazing and speaks volumes about your character and who you really are. And not just the Beverly Hills in Santa Barbara, plastic surgeon, and reconstructive surgeon, but you really give back a lot and you make an impact on people’s life. And that is the real exciting reason that I wanted to have you on the show not only to just talk about the impact you can make on people’s lives that can afford your services, which is huge itself, me included but also the other work that you do the philanthropic work that you do that is so important, that keeps everybody moving here in society and keeps us all moving in the right direction. So, I am really thankful for all the work that you do on the philanthropy side of your life, Doc.

Brent: Well, I know you understand, you do a lot of philanthropic work yourself. And, I think we both know we get a lot more benefit from our patients than we do for our clients. When we do philanthropic work, it is good to give back and make it feel good too.

John: Doc, we are going to be showing it on our website. And like I said your website has a lot of before and after and for our listeners, viewers to find Dr. Brent’s website is drbrent.com. But on our website as well, we are going to have a lot of being linked to your before and after pictures of moving from the face. Can you go into a little bit of what you have innovated with livefill and how you use life livefill to also make an impact on people’s looks and self-worth and, and reconstruction surgery?

Brent: So, what is life livefill? Life livefill is basically a strip of tissue that you take from a patient’s own body. And then you put it in places to augment the volume. Now, of course, we can do it for cosmetic reasons such as the smile lines, or the temporal hallway, or the jawline or cheeks, because we get more and more hollow over time. And then I do a lot of lip augmentations with my pill tube because it is a very natural feeling it is the patient’s own tissue. It is a better way of doing it, I think than fat injection. So, I have done a couple of studies and published them. Now fat injection, what is a fat transfer? Well, harvesting fat, you put a syringe, you can take it canula, which is a metal tube, and you under a vacuum, you pull the fat from the patient, and then you put it in a centrifuge and spin it down, then you inject it, well, that fat has to go through the needle has to go into the centrifuge, and then it has to go out of the needle again, into the patient. So, as you would expect most of those cells are dead. That is the problem with that injection most of the cells are not living by the time you start. So, then you have to exaggerate the amount you put in. And then how do you know what the volume is going to be? Is it going to be the same on both sides? Well, it turns out that I did experiments you take, take the fat, and then you put it on slides, and I give it to the pathologist and I said well tell me how many are live. So, we put a die, and it only gets into the dead cells, like if the doors open and the die gets in the cells dead. Because the cell with the door open doors dead. So, it turns out that it’s very variable, which cells are alive and dead in fat injection. So sometimes you hear people with that injection saying, I am not happy with the surgery I had because that went away. Well, you have dead cells going to go away. Or it is more on the left side than the right. Oh, if you have in one single syringe, you can have great variability in what you are alive in which are alive. So how do you know when you are injecting the fat? Where the live cells are going? Where the dead ones are going? You do not? So, it can be different from one side to another. And lumpy. Why is it lumpy? Well, if you have dead things that the body cannot take away, it is just going to wall it off. So those are the main complaints with Phanatic. So, I figured there has got to be a better way. So, let us go to the bottom of the album, let us take strips of tissue, the tissue is on nothing has been done to no aspiration, no injection, nothing with this strip of tissue. And when making a pocket and put it in, that’s life. And if the graft is sufficiently small, as good enough surface area, it is going to live if you put it in a place with a good blood supply.

So that is the whole premise of life is no miracle. It is just a graph that you put in. And now I started to use it for scars. So, we had a piece we did once on a model who had a terrible scar on her face. And the scar was depressed and it was disfiguring. Even for a normal person to look at, you would say, Wow, that was a big scar. But she had a lot of trouble with her model. So, if you lift up the scar and revise it, but then you put in the live fuel to fill in the lost volume, you will get a better result. So that is it is perfect for that I have people with heavy facial atrophy. It is a condition where this one side of the face does not grow fat. So, you have this really strange-looking face for one side is super hollow, and the other side is normal. lupus can produce that to a very hollow emaciated book. So, I have used livefill on those patients to fill in the missing tissue that was in the reconstruct applications, of course, lots of cosmetic applications also. But now I am using my field and I am really excited about this for breast augmentation. Really if I am doing a tummy tuck, right so at first, I started I put the live fuel just above the muscle, but it is all the patient’s own tissue and it all lives and then I put it above and below the muscle. Now it is not like getting a 300-cc implant. It is more like half a cup. But for patients who are not, I do not want an implant. Do what you can I just do not want input.

What do you think? And I say, “Well, let’s think about livefill”. If we can put it in those two planes, there is lots of blood supply there. Now, grass is not anything they have been around forever; everyone is heard of skin grafts. skin graft, you take the burn. If someone has a burn injury, you cut it off, and you replace it with the patient’s own skin. That is how a graph works. Now, the graft works best if the skin graft is nice and healthy, cannot be damaged. So, if it is nice and healthy, then it is going to survive. And if the blood supply where the graft is going is good, it is going to survive. So those are all the same premises as I use for life. It is nothing new. It is just a different way of doing it. And the graph that that there is a super-smart, Dr. Diamond, but he came up with a dermis that actually took the dermis of the skin or the dermis of the skin. That is the top layer of your skin. Very, very inflexible. Also, it is it needs an incredible amount of fuel to keep it alive. There are all these things going on in the nervous so I figured let us not use the dermis. So just the fat mustache.

John: How many years ago did you innovate the livefill?

Brent: So that was 20 years ago, and I have been using it ever since.

John: So, when someone like you innovates that do have do you teach that to your students at UCLA and or do other doctors with similar experiences as your start barring that innovation or learning that from you? Or how does that work in your profession?

Brent: Well, anyone’s Welcome to use a technique. Mostly it is the UCLA people who would see me do it or I teach the residents. So, the younger doctors that I teach at UCLA, they will have that technique and they will be able to use it. They cannot call it lifestyle, but they are welcome to use it.

John: Got it. Doc, I know you have also innovated and you created the hybrid tummy tuck. What does that mean? Compared to the classic tummy tuck that used to be done in plastic surgery?

Brent: A classic Tummy Tuck is still done. So, if you have a ton of extra skin and it is just hanging down there, then the classic Tummy Tuck is perfect. But what about for all these fit marks, they barely gained weight during their pregnancy, they kept their weight down. They are very fit many of them jog or worked outplay tennis, ride your bikes. So, they go to the doctor’s and 99% of doctors will say, “Well, what you need is you need a full tummy tuck. So, we’re going to make this super long and soon that’s going to go head-to-head.” And the women just about drop their jaw, saying like, “Look, I barely need anything, I just have this pooch from my babies.” They say, “Well, sorry, we can do the mini tuck, which starts at the belly button, or we can do the full tummy tuck and you’re going to have the wall scar, that’s what we offer.” I figured there has got to be a better way. So why not use the C section incision, and tighten the whole fashion all the way up and down. fashions the lining of the muscle, that’s when ladies have babies, there is usually a bulge because you put a basketball in there, you take it out, and God forbid you do it two or three times, there is going to be some trouble.

So that is what the hybrid Tummy Tuck is good for. So, it is a smaller incision, it is low down. And now there are all sorts of in-between operations between the full tummy tuck, and the hybrid tummy tuck that I use also, hybrid tourniquets with a vertical, full tummy tuck with, with modified incisions. It all depends on the patient. So, it is nice to be able to offer especially fit moms, this operation where they can have basically a low incision that involves tightening silver for fashion. So, the first time this happened one of my patients came to me gorgeous, had two kids. She was unbelievably disappointed that her 24-inch waist went to 26. I know, right?

John: Good problem.

Brent: Good problem to have, but she did not like it. She did not like that bolts. So, she said, “I want to fix this. And I do not want a full tummy tuck. And I have a C-section scar. So, I want you to use the C section scar and figure out a way to tighten that fashion. And I’ll see you Monday.” So, I was chewing my fingernails. There is a big pile of fingernails on my desk all weekend. So, I told her this has not been invented, what am I going to do? So, she came in Monday and I said I thought about it a little bit. So okay, I am going to try to tighten this as far as I can no promises. So, I opened the C section I tightened it all the way up to the belly button, which is when you are looking up in this little tunnel, there right in the middle leg. This is the belly button. So that is what you see is nothing but a belly button.

John: Wow.

Brent: So, you have to get to one side of the belly button and the other side of the belly. So, I figured a way to go opened up two tunnels, one to the one side and one to the other side. And then I took a stitch on one side, and I passed it underneath where the belly button shadowed, and then picked it up from the other side, and then passed it backward and I tied a knot. Okay, that was the first one, I got about an inch above the belly button. Let us do another one. I got two inches above the garden, I got three inches above the garden, I got four inches above the bed. And luckily, I had this surgical technician who was a bodybuilder. But by the end, he was shaking like this, because you had to hold up, hold up the surgery the entire time. So, he is a big guy, he was literally shaking like this with his hands because he had to hold up the retractors. So since then, I got some robotic arms that I fit into my table they are making in Switzerland. So, I got these robotic arms, which lift up things for me. And for a while, I used an endoscope, an endoscope, and something where you look in the camera and you are doing the surgery. But you can do it that way also. So yeah, it has been a fun journey. But the hybrid tummy tech people come from all over and they are always fit moms, they even told by their doctors. So eventually the doctor is going to get tired of and start doing high returns.

John: And there will be pictures of the before and after of those tummy tucks on the impact website. And also, on you can find those same pictures of before and after on Dr. Brent’s website www.drbrent.com. You talked about people coming from all over, I have been in your office so many times dozens of times over the years. And there are always people in from all over the world. Doc, when you are at conferences or meeting other great Plastic and Reconstructive surgeons from different parts of the world and also the country is what the clients are looking for similar, regardless of region or are doctors in South Beach doing something different from doctors in Dallas, our clients in New York asking for something different in Beverly Hills? What do you see on a regional and international basis because I have met people and patients of yours from all over the world in your office?

Brent: Well, every plastic surgeon is different. It is almost like artwork. So, one style may not fit all. But some patients come in, let us say a facelift, some patients come in and I want my face so tight, you can bounce a quarter of it. Well, I am not your guy. Because it does not look natural. And my first premise of every surgery is if it does not look natural, I am just not going to do it. I am not going to harm the patient. The enormous buts count me out. Besides the danger from the surgery, it is not a good look, for me. It is not something that I want the patients to have to contend with later when they gain a few pounds. And they have this, and then the Kardashian, their influence will not be forever. So, when that happens, and people are walking around with enormous bubble butts, what are they going to do? So, I do not want to be the doctor who is creating those.

John: What are people asking for most right now? And not as a secondary question. We are still living during this tragic COVID-19 period. Talk a little bit about the COVID-19 in the weight gain that people are doing? And also, what is being called the zoom boom in the plastic surgery industry. Are you seeing some of that? And will we see more of that in the months and years to come? Because zoom is going to obviously stay with us? And we are taping this over zoom today? What are your thoughts on what do they ask you for currently? and What does COVID-19 mean to your practice now and beyond?

Brent: Well, let us start with the zoom boom, the zoom, everyone has to look at their own picture. It is not just a glance in the middle in the morning and a glance in the evening. But you are looking at that picture all meeting. And for most people, or for many people, it is sort of a horrifying experience. Because we all think of ourselves, we work out we take care of ourselves, and do all this stuff. And yet, the person in the zoom looking back at you come on this is the bad joke. It must be the lighting. Right? Right must be the lighting. And I too. I had my eyes were getting very heavy. And I said, I just had some salt yesterday. Maybe it was a glass of wine I had. But then I realized it is every day. It is not going away. It is me. So, I had my eyes done and I had them conservatively done, but that is the way it is. So, zoom, now it is ubiquitous, all the students are using it and all the business people are using it, meetings are conducted over Zoom. Now, you mentioned a bunch of things that plastic surgeries use, you know the appearance of competence, things like that. Sure, but there is a big, big role for beauty and youth as a commodity. It is like money, right? So, if you have beauty and you have youth You come to the meeting with more than if you did not have that. That is the sad truth of life. But beautiful people get treated better. And young people get treated better than old people, that people assume if you are old that you are lazy, you are behind the times you do not innovate. Well, nothing can be further from the truth what many of my patients, they are just some of the titans of industry and huge innovators. And they have foundations, and they are just the most interesting people, but they are not perceived that way they have to overcome this, this pre-ordained thought that they are not worthy of the job or the right contract, or the whatever.

So, they look at it as it is just something you do, you got to wash your car and keep it clean. Otherwise, people think you are a slob. So, the same thing with your face, they keep their face up, they do periodic procedures. Now many of the people in Los Angeles in Hollywood, they are in the business, in the business of entertainment. And if you are in the business of entertainment, you are not usually playing your age, you are usually playing under your age. So, you have to look beautiful, you have to look well taken care of. And that is a necessity. It is not a luxury, it is not, you want to look good for the parties. This is the necessity of business. If you do not look good if you do not look well taken care of. If you have had bad surgery, you do not work anymore. It is true. You literally do not get a phone call, it does not ring, no one will tell you that the phone will not ring anymore.

John: I know you are always thinking and you are still a young man and have many, many more years to practice. What do you foresee as some of the next trends, not only what the clients are asking for, but from the innovation side of what you are doing? What are you excited about what gets you out of bed in the morning, in terms of innovative plastic surgery and reconstructive methods, and what is going through your mind right now that you can improve upon in the next five or seven years to come?

Brent: Well, the biggest innovation right now is in the field of minimally invasive things like lasers, radiofrequency, all therapy, things like that, that are done through the skin or with minimal invasiveness. Now, I think we have all the devices of course, and we use them when appropriate. But the companies get a little overboard in hyping what these minimally invasive techniques do, we do all the techniques from Botox and filler to minimally invasive procedures, to full-on surgeries. For me, I like to offer the patient the very best. And I will say, “For your minimal problem on your jawline, and a little fat here, let’s do some neck tight, with a little wand underneath the skin to tighten and some light, perfect, you’re funny.” But then for the person who has very looseness of the muscle, then we want to offer them tightening of that muscle also. So, it is not all one shot, one method fits everybody. You have to graduate things and be able to do all of them and offer them all to the patient.

So, if I adjust minimal advice with all the surgeries bad because I do minimally invasive, or like was a, “Whoa, minimally invasive bad because I just conservative.” Well, if you do everything, then you can offer everyone the right thing. So minimally invasive is, is really increasing. But to some extent, it is predatory thinking that is making itself successful. So, the doctors and maybe they believe it, I do not know, but they tell patients to look, you do not have to have a Facebook, you can have this device that tightens your skin through the skin or underneath the skin and it will be just like a face. Well, of course, it is not. But they have had the procedure once they find that out. So, everyone I see now who has a facelift, they have got some threads in they have had old therapy, they have had some, you know, whatever, laser light bows to the neck, some tightening attempts, and now they are 12-$15,000 for an even facelift, which they need in the first place. And it was predictable they needed in the first place. So why not tell people the honest truth. I think people appreciate it more if you are honest with them when you tell him like this is the best thing for you. This would get you this result that result, but it will not be the same as this. So that is, that is my thing, but that is definitely the new up-and-coming area in plastic surgery.

John: So minimally invasive, using some of the new technologies that exist that are being invented out there in combination with some of your other classic surgeries and giving the options to your patients. So, they can understand the spectrum of opportunities that they have in front of them.

Brent: Well said, well said! You must have gone to Harvard too.

John: No, I have not I am not a Harvard guy at all. But I have been with you enough. I have learned from you how to understand this stuff, that is for sure. So, Doc, I had you on the show, because now that you are my good friend, but you really do make a big impact on someone’s life. I am a business person, I do this podcast and even when you change my life and made an impact on me by fixing my face after my accident, just normal people have accidents, accidents are part of life. And they also have tragic other events that happen as you said, with veterans and other events like that the policewoman from up in the Santa Barbara area. So, I am just so grateful for all the important work you do. Both on the philanthropy side, and also on your day job in Beverly Hills in Santa Barbara, but your work with the about-face surgical Foundation, working with the veterans in West LA is so important. And I want to give you the last word for our listeners out there they can find you at www.drbrent.com. I want to give you the last word before we have to sign off for today.

Brent: Well, I get contacted a lot by people coming up in the medical field who know students or, or even residents and they and they want to know like, what is it like? What is it like being a doctor? So, I tell them many of the things that we have talked about today and the interesting stories now I can talk all day about this. It is just so interesting in these people, you are dealing with people, people with problems, and you can fix a problem that a person has if there is just nothing more gratifying. It is just I do not know; it is just a great deal. And you can never do it well enough. That is the thing about surgery. There is always a better way.

John: And I get to talk personally about you because you have worked on me with great results. And I am very grateful my family’s very grateful to you. But also, I know a lot of other people in LA that sent me to you, originally 10 years ago that also sing your praises, and I have met your other patients and, in your offices, and you just do great work. You are very special. You are not only a brilliant scientist but also a very talented artist. And I know what you do is both art and science. And that is very unique. And for our listeners out there again to find Dr. Brent, go to www.drbrent.com. Doc thank you for making a positive impact on my life. I encourage all listeners and viewers if you want to change or make a positive impact in terms of your own looks going see Dr. Brent, thanks for making the world a better place, Doc. You are really a special person. And thanks for joining us on the impact podcast today.

Brent: It was my pleasure.

John: This edition of the Impact podcast is brought to you by the marketing masters. The marketing masters is a boutique marketing agency offering website development and digital marketing services to small and medium businesses across America. For more information on how they can help you grow your business online, please visit the marketingmasters.com