The Daily Stoic - Charles & Chase Koch on the Power of Principles

Episode Date: April 10, 2021

On today’s podcast, Ryan talks to Charles and Chase Koch about challenging assumptions and leaning on first principles, the advantages of a bottom-up approach as detailed in Charles’ new book Believe in People: Bottom-Up Solutions for a Top-Down World, how to make a difference by working together locally, their philanthropic organization Stand Together, and more. Charles Koch is an American billionaire businessman and philanthropist. He has been co-owner, chairman, and CEO of Koch Industries since 1967 and has released three books including Good Profit and The Science of Success. His son Chase Koch directs the venture capital company Koch Disruptive Technologies. Their This episode is brought to you by Beekeeper’s Naturals, the company that’s reinventing your medicine with clean, effective products that actually work. As a listener of the Daily Stoic Podcast you can receive 15% off your first order. Just go to beekeepersnaturals.com/STOIC or use code STOIC at checkout to claim this deal.This episode is also brought to you by Eight Sleep. The new Pod Pro Cover by Eight Sleep is the most advanced solution on the market for thermoregulation. You can add the Cover to any mattress, and start sleeping as cool as 55°F or as hot as 110°F. Go to eightsleep.com/dailystoic to check out the Pod Pro Cover and save $150 at checkout.Today’s episode is brought to you by Munk Pack, Keto Granola Bars that contain just a single gram of sugar and 2 to 3 net carbs—and they’re only 140 calories. Get 20% off your first purchase of ANY Munk Pack product by visiting munkpack.com and entering our code STOIC at checkout.This episode is also brought to you by Ladder, a painless way to get the life insurance coverage you need for those you care about most. Ladder makes the process of getting life insurance quick and easy. Go to ladderlife.com/stoic to see if you’re instantly approved today.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow @DailyStoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicFollow Stand Together:Homepage: http://believeinpeoplebook.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Stand_Together Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/standtogether/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JoinStandTogether/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCc3LKvNXVjc2NoHHvVFitiA See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoke podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoke. Each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stokes, something to help you live up to those four stoic virtues of courage, justice, temperance and wisdom. up to those four stoic virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. And then here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview stoic philosophers. We explore at length how these stoic ideas can be applied to our actual lives and the challenging issues of our time. Here on the weekend, when you have a little bit more space

when things have slowed down, be sure to take some time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with your journal, and most importantly, to prepare for what the week ahead may bring. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wundery's podcast business wars. And in our new season, Walmart must fight off target, the new discounter that's both savvy and fashion forward. Listen to business wars on Amazon music

or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to another very special episode the Daily Stoic podcast. My guest today is the one and only Charles Koch industrialist, entrepreneur, and as he calls himself the chief philosophy officer of Koch Industries, I also had on someone I am personally friends with, his son Chase Koch, a sort of a joint interview together, and we talked about the ideas in Charles's newest book, Believe in People, Bottom Up Solutions for a Top Down World.

Now, I know there might be some of you who have sort of an aversion to coax, you've sort of, at this idea of this sort of coke political boogie man. I've attended a few of their events. I've spent some time talking to them. It was fascinating here having this interview where we nerd out about ancient philosophy,

stoicism, serving the public good, making a positive difference in the world. And I've got my own different impression. And actually, I think this conversation is in line with something that the coaxes have started to build their philanthropic endeavors around, which is this idea of aligning and working with anyone to do right.

We have a politically divided world, a partisan world, a world that's quick to demonize. And look, there are certainly people that are demons. I'm not denying that there aren't bad actors in the world. But generally, I think we have a lot more in common with some of the people we disagree with, and we might think. And if we find areas where we have agreement

where our interests align, we can do good work together. We can do, as Marcus really said, works for the common good. And in fact, that's what Marcus said. The fruit of this life was. He said, fruit of this life is good character and acts for the common good. So that's what today's episode is about. And I think anytime you have someone who's been

extraordinarily successful at what they do, who's a bit iconoclastic at what they do, it's good to learn from them, it's good to ask them questions. You don't have to follow them and everything. You don't have to agree with them on hardly anything, but you should find what you can learn from them. And as a company, as Koch Industries does, that employs more than 100,000 people and does billions and billions of dollars a year in revenue, I think there's plenty to learn from

here. And that's what I focused on in this discussion. We don't really get into politics. In fact, we spend our whole conversation talking about principles. First principles, the principles that motivate father and son here, the principles that I think the Stokes would have agreed on. And then I push back on some things that the Stokes would have disagreed on, or some areas that I think they're thinking fall short. And I think that is also in line with what Charles talks about, the idea of challenging one's assumptions, challenging people that you talk to, not just focusing on where you happen to be totally aligned.

So it's a push and pull. I think you're gonna like this interview. And I do suggest you check out Believe in People, bottom up solutions for a top down world. They asked me to blurb it, which is not something I do much these days, and here is my blurb. If you don't believe in people, what do you believe in? This is a provocative book for the moment.

I highly recommend. So here is my conversation with Charles and Chase Koch. I hope you enjoy it. And this is going to require some stoicism if you are feeling that tinge of political bias creeping in. Control your emotions. Be calm. Be reasonable, be rational, and see what you can learn.

It is funny, I mean, obviously as someone who writes books, I get why I write books. But sometimes I wonder why someone who has anything else they can do, especially several billion reasons not to write a book. I got to wonder why go through the not always pleasant experience of writing.

What in reading your daily material and all your others on stoicism. It's been a long time since I've read a lot about it, but it just, I mean, it's amazing what I talk a lot about the principles of human progress and the similarities like your one today on being negative. That's Einstein's philosophy of science, as articulated by Karl Popper in his essay science's falsification. And we practice here by calling the challenge culture. So we practice exactly that. Now, we didn't, I didn't get that from the Stoics, but so many. And I think the other day when we talked, I went through some of our guiding principles. And I mean, it is amazing. And this is what I find, as I'll talk about today, that when I became dedicated to finding

principles that could help me, I found all the different disciplines, when there was a fundamental truth, it might have been expressed differently in another discipline or another philosophy, but they were similar. They overlap. And that's when I saw that, that's why I said, okay, that's got to be a timeless principle. If it shows up, it's so many different ways. So that's fascinating just to see this from reading your material. Yeah, I was gonna say, you seem like a person

who goes to first principles to use that expression. And I had Thomas Rick's on the podcast, the historian, not long ago, but the idea of sort of getting to the root of whatever you think, I've got to imagine part of the reason you wrote the book was just to not just to teach other people, but there's something about writing that forces you to examine what you think and why you think it. And is that sort of why you did the book?

No, no, it was, no, and I'll get into this if you're interested. Interesting is that I discovered my gift at a early, early age. And, but then I didn't know what to do with it. And I struggled with how to develop it and apply it and a way I could believe in myself for like 20 years. And even when I was successful, I felt empty and lost. And finally,

I said, I got to go find some principles that can guide me. And so I've been like a crass man on finding and applying principles ever since. And that was I discovered my gift, age seven. So it's hurting at 27. I've never since been guided by finding principles. And in today, principles we've had just had a meeting with whatever our business units, how now they're even applying it better and getting more innovations and empowering our people. And I mean, it's so exciting.

At 85, stuff I've been working on 60 years is just blossoming. Chase, I was going to ask you, these are probably ideas you have heard over and over again through your life. Is it weird to see them on the page? You must have a strange relationship with it because it's their ideas that I imagine you have a certain amount of agreement with, but then also when they're coming from your dad, you probably see them differently. No, I mean, I think we probably all have interesting perspectives here

and just hearing his story and getting to know you and your story as well, you know, when you started in business, working with American apparel and you know, becoming this kind of marketing rock star and the whole thing, like at some point, like my understanding of your story is like, you kind of said, hey, it's all about these ideas. And it's about these principles. And you're going to go all in on that and dedicate your life

to helping make stoicism actionable. So people could improve their lives. So it would so cool about you two kind of having this conversation is I see a lot of similarities. It's almost on candy. But yeah, but with, I guess, with my relationship with these principles, at the age of four or five years old, I had no choice. I remember at the dinner table, my sister and I, we had our five principles growing up, or love

courage, faith, honor, and loyalty. And so, like, you know, as a kid, you got to break it down, make them really simple. We weren't quite to stoicism at that level, right? But we had to every single night that we'd start dinner with, all right, tell me one principle, and how did you exemplify that over the course of your day? So that's kind of how it all right, tell me one principle and how did you exemplify that over the course of your day. So that's kind of how it all started. And then 9, 10, 11 years old, we'd be in his library on Sunday afternoons. And we'd be listening to books on tape from Milton Friedman and Hyak. And like, are you kidding me at age 10, 11? Like, we really forget it or Aristotle. Yeah, Aristotle as well. But yeah, and then over the course of my life, obviously, you start to learn the importance of the principles

and how to apply them. So when you have them, you're exposed to them as a kid, it all starts to make sense. Yeah, there's a Plutarch line where he talks about, you learn the words, and then you have experiences that bring meaning to the words. I've got to imagine you both, you know, this is sort of what you think and then you see these ideas play out in the business world or your personal life. So you learn them at 10, but then it's, it's a, it's a totally different thing to actually see, oh, you know,

dad wasn't just making this up and then Charles for you like, Oh, Aristotle actually knew what he was talking about 2000 years ago. One swallow does not make a spring. I'll never forget that one, but that is there's a lot more power in that than most people take it. It first glances or is in all of these. But I mean, it's what what you said is Michael Plyani, a philosopher of science, captured this book in his personal knowledge. He said, a lot of us have conceptual knowledge. We have concepts in mind,

but it's entirely different to make these concepts in extension of yourself. And he used someone who becomes a concert violinist. And the way you get there is by understanding the parts conceptually and applying them. And for example, the first thing she had to do is learn how to hold it, and then how to make certain notes, and then do it in a certain way. And then when you, when, when all those parts become natural and instinctive, then you can focus on the whole, on making beautiful music. And that's what we find for our, our management approach

and everything for our guiding principles and our five dimensions. When they all work in harmony in a reinforcing way, there is the power. And when we first started this, I was teaching concepts, okay, everybody get the now go do it. And nothing happened except people use it as buzzwords. And then finally when I read plonnie, okay no, no, we've got to find a way to make it personal. Now, so rather than just teach the concepts, we would help people mentor them, show them how to apply it and show by example. Here's, and then, and then I have to be the example. Okay, every, every meeting.

Okay, how are we applying this? And are you applying it this way? And that way? And then after awhile, now all our leaders and everybody does this instinctively to become personal knowledge. Yeah, I think like writing or playing the violin or, you know, being a woodworker or something, we understand sort of that that obviously is a craft and there's a certain skill to it And there's there's certain things you do what I get you know studying your company and and reading your books

Is this sense that you sort of applied that mindset? You know the idea of being a master violinist to managing people, and it must be something extraordinary to manage. I mean, how many people work for the Coke companies? Like a hundred thousand, a hundred fifty thousand something. Yeah, 130 thousand roughly. So yeah, so the instrument you're playing is hundred, enough people to fill a college football stadium.

That, you know, each one being an expert in something that they do. That must be an extraordinary feeling, but it also must be extraordinarily difficult. But it's been so satisfying, and it, as you can know, it's not instant pudding. It doesn't happen automatically. So everything we do is guided by these principles. I mean, they start with, okay, how are we going to be successful long-term? And it's by understanding what capabilities we have as an organization that will create value for others.

And of course, our customers, but fellow employees, co-workers, our suppliers, our communities, and society as a whole. And why? Because all of these groups are important to our success. And if we are helping them succeed, they won't want us around. They certainly won't, our customers won't pay us anything and employees won't be dedicated. It'll be like the old Soviet Union where they would say, they pretend to pay us and we pretend to work. They pretend to pay us and we pretend to work. And so what we have now, because we work at this and we recruit people who are contribution motivated and have some talent, some particular gift that can help us create value and then get them in a role that fits that rather than just stick them in a role that doesn't fit

their gift and passion and then give them the tools and then reward them for it at every level. And Ryan, I think on this idea that he's hitting on one of the most important things that I've learned in like how Koch Industries has been built, not only what he's talking about and having the vision and think about it from a capability-based mindset and then where can we capture opportunities and like how Koch Industries has been built, not only what he's talking about and having the vision and think about it from a capability-based mindset and then where can we capture opportunities based on our capabilities. It's this idea of focus on your gift

and this is highlighted in the book as well, like believing in people and understanding that every single person has a gift. Well, using him as an example, as A typical CEO, and the reason I say that is that he doesn't call himself CEO, he calls himself chief philosophy officer. Because his comparative advantage is, you know, put the philosophy out there,

come up with new ideas, and then if you can get those ideas across the 130,000 employees, they take you empower those people with ideas, and they run with it, and they innovate around those ideas in their own way. Versus a top-down approach where here's how you do it, here's the book, and that's how you grow a company. There's no way in today's day and age with technology moving so fast, you can have a top-down approach.

And so his role is very a good example of how we try to do that within the firm and how we believe that it works in society to unlock people's potential as well. So I love the idea of being a chief philosophy officer, obviously. What does that actually look like day to day? I mean, I imagine your role has shifted over time, but we have this idea of the philosopher being someone who just maybe writes books or reads books, but how do you come up with and continue to study

and engage with the philosophy that's sort of your job to come up with? Well, but I constantly read and look for new principles and then how to better apply these principles. And I mean, just like reading your mentor, okay, what ideas can I get for that on how we can more effectively apply them? And then every engagement I have with one of our businesses or capabilities, I ask him questions about, okay, how are you applying this?

What innovations are you get? How are your supervisors at every level? Are they, is their primary goal to empower their people, to help their people self-actualize? So we get the full benefit of their knowledge ability and ideas and have them turned on. So it's mutually beneficial and rewarding or not. But another practical way that he does this

is he has two direct reports. Wow. So if you want to be chief philosophy officer, right, and focus on ideas and carve out time to think, as opposed to being in meetings all day, like a lot of CEOs you look at, that's what they've got, you know, 10 direct reports. He organizes his life and the structure of the organization so that he can spend the time on where he has the strongest gift. And so if you can apply that 130,000 times over and really get that right, that's a very

powerful model. I imagine that takes a lot of discipline, right? There's probably a lot of things you would like to be involved with or things given that you're, you seem very exacting and have high standards. There's probably things you'd like to get in there and micromanage. It probably takes discipline to be the owner or the head of a company and only have two people reporting to you. No, but see, I mean, what drives me and what caused me to be lost for 20 years after after I discovered my particular gift was that I am

contribution motivated. Unless I feel I'm contributing to the to the greatest stars. Maslow said unless I'm realizing my potential as he said if you're not realizing your potential and developing your capability you will be unhappy, no matter how successful you appear to be. And that's where I was. So once I got these principles started finding these principles and finding out when I applied them properly and helped people apply them, the power was so much greater than me going do it itself, than myself, that's what I want to do. So I tell our people, bring me in a meeting if you think I can help. If you don't, don't waste my time in yours, because I'll come in there and start asking, and if it's not going to help, don't invite me. And so they're very good about that,

because they know where I can help, where I can't. Yeah, I mean, I'd break it down to getting out of the way, where you don't have a comparative advantage and empowering others to do that, right? It seems like a simple concept, but hard to apply in morality. There's a story for Marcus is that I think you'd both would love he's he's an old man at this point. And he's, you know, the

emperor, the most powerful man in the world. And he's seen leaving the palace. And one of his friends is walking by and he says, you know, Marcus, where are you going? And he says, I'm off to see sex this the philosopher to learn that which I don't yet know. And his friend, sort of Marvel's the quote that survived just this is, here is an old man still taking up his tablets and going to school. You seem remarkably curious, like you're continuing, even though you're rating mostly old ideas,

you're always looking for something new. How do you stay intellectually curious? I imagine you've read thousands of books, you've seen it all. How do you stay curious? But see, I haven't seen it all. I mean, the amount of knowledge and wisdom and experiences out there are almost infinite. And so there's always more to learn. I mean, and that's what, I mean, that's why humility is one of our principles. And so the key, as I said, the key is find your gift, develop it and apply it in a way that enables you to see by helping others succeed. Now, but the other aspect of that is when you learn your gift, then you should also learn what you're not good at. And so in my life, what I have learned

the hard way is when I try to do everything myself and micro-manage, I'm trying to do a lot of things I'm not that good at. And so I failed. And I don't like to fail that much. So I now, I've learned a partner on everything. And on your thing, on being negative, whenever I have an idea, I think, okay, who can, following Popper's science as falsification? Okay, science's falsification. Okay, I look at it, I have a testable hypothesis and I want you to come and show me the flaws in it

to prove it wrong or better yet, show the flaws and correct it so it can be successful. Now why everybody doesn't do this is mystery to me because okay your little ego is going to be damaged. Somebody hurt a little bit, but if you go plunge out and something that has basic flaws and have this big disaster, how's your little ego going to feel that? And so I've never understood why.

What do you just want to fail? Got a quick message from one of our sponsors here and then we'll get right back to the show. Stay tuned. Raising kids can be one of the greatest rewards of a parent's life. But come on, someday's parenting is unbearable. I love my kid, but is a new parenting podcast from Wondry that shares a refreshingly honest and insightful take on parenting.

Hosted by myself, Megan Galey, Chris Garcia, and Kurt Brown-Oller, we will be your resident not-so-expert experts. Each week we'll share a parenting story that'll have you laughing, nodding, and thinking. Oh yeah, I have absolutely been there. We'll talk about what went right and wrong, what would we do differently?

And the next time you step on yet another stray Lego in the middle of the night, you'll feel less alone. So if you like to laugh with us as we talk about the hardest job in the world, listen to, I love my kid, but wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. It's tough, right? Because you only have so much time. So most people are, let's say, struggling to read,

to make time to read. So then they make time to read. This is something I think about, especially with young kids. You make time to read. And then you're like, wait, I'm going to read something that I don't agree with. I'm going to read something that makes me angry. I'm going to read something that challenges the assumptions I've built my life around. That's a hard thing for people to justify, I think. No, that's what I did. I mean, I read, I read, I read Marx, I read Canes, I read Mao, I read Lenin, I read all these people who were totally top down the opposite of what we try to do, bottom up empowerment,

people who had what Nietzsche called the will to power and were obsessed with getting power. And because they were successful. Now, so we can learn something from them. That doesn't mean we want to do it the way they did it, but what made them successful. And so I've learned from all these as you, as you may have noticed my book, I quote, I quote, marks who said, the philosophers only interpret the world, the point is to change it. So that's he's right. So you can't just be a philosopher who philosophies, you've got to go apply it. You've got to ours.

Lenin said, we learned through struggle. So it's exactly tied into obstacles the way? Well, I was going to say, Chase, sort of rubber meeting the road, how much does your dad enjoy being disagreed with or challenged? And how has that gone throughout your relationship? You know, I'll give him a lot of credit in that. Well, I'll start with the story. I guess when I was a kid in my first roll at Coke industries, so I came over, I told you this or not,

but I grew up a pretty competitive tennis player. I was nationally ranked. And by the time I was 15 years old, I just got burned out. It was one of the things I was playing five, six hours a day. And I just wasn't into it anymore. And I remember my mother coming back to my father and saying, look, this kid's going off the rails. He's not trying anymore. He's throwing matches and, intentionally, what's going on. And so he pulled me aside and said, you can either give 100% on the tennis court

and give it your all because you have a gift there or I'm going to get you a job. And I immediately said, I want a job. I am so sick of this sport. I just can't take it anymore. So I thought I was going to be like folding clothes at a clothing store here in Wichita and still hanging out with my friends the next morning. I was in an old beater pickup truck on the way to Syracuse, Kansas. Six hours later, I show up with 60,000 of my new best friends and they're all cattle. So I went from playing tennis to shoveling cow shit for 60,000 of my new best friends. But there was so much of a challenge process there with my dad, but I look back on that.

No, I gave you a choice. Yeah, you gave me a choice. But I looked back on that experience. And like this whole idea, this goes back to kind of the key principle, the book and believing in people and how do you help people find their gifts so that they can unlock their potential. Ironically, that first job that I had was the first opportunity I had to believe in myself. And it's strange that it takes a job like that to do it, but I was like, I was working with people of diverse

backgrounds and learned like how to work with people as a team and all that. First time I learned the value of a dollar, it was the first time I felt good about myself. So then I wanted that feeling over and over and over again. It also helped me discover a gift that I still use today in terms of what I do in business as I go originate, I build relationships to get access to technology and companies that we can help. And I started learning that at the feed yard at age 15, right? So anyway, it's just, I think it's one of the core principles is how do you discover your gift as early as possible in life and experiment a lot of different things to do that.

Yeah, it's a good, go ahead. No, you're good. a lot of different things to do that. Yeah, it's a nice one. Go ahead. No, you're good. No, I mean that in our relationship with anybody here, I'm not telling them what to do, but I question them, and I challenge them, and then I, as a supervisor, at a certain level, as we expect all our supervisors for their people to challenge them.

And if they don't do it, and we can't get them to get their people to challenge them, then they shouldn't be a supervisor, because they're not using the knowledge of the people. And so, I mean, Chase has done things that I couldn't have done, like I couldn't have gone and built Coke Disruptive Technologies in just a few years and have what, over 20 great investments. Now, by building these relationships and using,

and networking through Coke Industries to help tech entrepreneurs be more successful. And so we can become the preferred investor with them. I mean, I couldn't have done that because I didn't have his abilities. He has different abilities than I. So I learned from him and I learned from our daughter who has still different capabilities.

So that's why when we get together, we have fun, we learn from each other and we laugh a lot and insult each other in a loving way. And it's great fun. I think part of the Ryan is starting with an open mindset. And I think that's, if you look at what's happening in our country today with just the divisiveness that's been built up over time,

I think we all recognize that openness is the starting point to actually bring people together. Whether they disagree on things or not, that's how you get things done. And Elizabeth, my sister, has really helped us. She even has an organization called unlikely collaborators. That does nothing but this. Do your internal work first before you

think about the external work, because if you can't be open yourself to new ideas back to this idea of the scientific method, then you really have no chance of figuring out how to reach across divides and make things happen. Yes, very much what you teach. The only person you can really control is yourself, so you better start with that. And that's what, that's her whole effort is based on that approach. Well, let's talk about some challenges to assumptions. I generally agree with the premise of the book, right,

which is that bottom up is better than top down, and that sort of central planning tends to fall short. And when you give people the tools, the incentives and the freedom, they sort of come together and do the right thing. I'm talking to you from Florida, not from Texas because no power, no water. We just went through this insane sort of freak storm and then sort of electricity and water crisis. How do you feel? How do you feel some of these sort of top up, sorry, bottom up methodologies? How do you feel like they've weathered the last 12 months with the pandemic with some of the things we're seeing in the world? How do you feel like they've weathered the last 12 months with the pandemic, with some of the things we're seeing in the world? How do you see something like what happened in Texas and the market failures there? And where does that work with your worldview?

Well, let's go to the pandemic first. I mean, I mean, the role of the government, the primary role is to me is to protect equal rights, to establish a system of equal rights, and to have a system that prevents people from violating the rights of others. And so this would be to be secure. So if somebody's got a disease and running around infecting people, yeah, it needs to use force to prevent that if you can't prevent it by voluntary means. And so on the pandemic, so the question is, what should the government roll?

Well, it should be to set standards, but generalize standards, not details one, because every situation is different. So what we do here at Co-Centers and throughout Co-Centers, we set the general standards like spacing, don't come to work if you feel uncomfortable. Don't come to work if you've been sick, get tested. We encourage you to get vaccinated. And then within those general standards,

then each location encourages their people to innovate to practice that, rather than we prescribe in detail how to do it. And so we have one of the better records on operation through this than our competitors. So when we say bottom up, what we mean those who are closest to the problem should decide that, who have the best knowledge. And so, on how disease spreads would be established by scientists. Now, a lot of these top down though had nothing to do that like you can go along the beach, but you can't swim in the ocean.

What are you afraid of sharks, have it? I mean, this is ridiculous. Or let's stick all the people with COVID who are old in nursing homes. I mean, some of these things are crazy. So you got to be careful on top down down one size fits all because if you're wrong, you have a disaster where if one local does it, then you can cure it. No, that makes sense. I agree with the idea that the role of government is to protect

equal rights. I guess I would also say that the role of government or in a business as well, is to solve collective action problems. And so it strikes me that, you know, whether we're talking about climate change or whether we're talking about racial injustice or whether we're talking about a pandemic or in Texas's case, a power grid failure. But what we have are sort of these large collective action problems.

And it feels like both sides, whether it's the sort of free market approach or the top down approach, is falling short as far as solving these difficult collective action problems. Because it's not quite anyone's problem. And on the other hand, not quite anyone has the authority or the power to do what obviously needs to be done. Well, see, we would agree that what we look at that society as made up of a

four sets of, quirky sets of institutions, communities, education, business, and government, and they all have a role. Sure. But we would say that the role on each of them would be just to practice their art and their comparative advantage in a way that empowers people to want to do it rather than force them to do it. Because when it's based on force and sometimes you've got to use it, rather than force them to do it. Because when it's based on force,

and sometimes you've got to use force, if you go somebody going around shooting people, you've got to stop them and get them out of circulation. But at the same time, if you have every, as we had in this country for a number of years, anybody who makes a mistake, let's put them in prison and leave them there forever. Sure. And then that that doesn't work either. And so you're right, we need a combination, but what

we try to do is encourage all the institutions to help people to set up rules and practices that help people find their gift, turn it into valued skills, and then practices it in a way that they succeed by helping others succeed. And you find societies through history that best did that are the ones that, that well, changed the world starting about 1800. It seems like maybe Operation Warp Speed is a good example of that hybrid approach,

where you have the sort of the government or the central planners setting some incentives, setting some guidelines, eliminating some obstacles. And then there's the hybrid of the business community coming in and then the scientists creating something that's never been created and a timeline that's never been done with the sort of the things that might have ordinarily held them back worried who's going to buy them, you know, the risk of experimenting with this new vaccine. So it works there and then the rollout, which, you know, does require a certain amount of central planning and logistics, seems to have floundered

for the exact opposite reason. Yeah, I think Hayek put it in that, as you know, I'd like abstractions. And his was that what he called probably the greatest discovery in the history of mankind was that people, the discovery that people could live in peace, live in peace into their mutual advantage when limited only by abstract rules of conduct. So then that's the role of government, but it's also the role of a culture. Right.

Because if you have a culture, as John Adams said, this is a system for moral people that will work for no other. If you have people who aren't going to obey it and are going to be circularly trying to murder each other, you can set up all the rules you want. You can have police on every corner as I saw years ago when I was in Argentina and they were having their civil war. I mean, people are going to kill each other. So the culture, it starts with culture. And to me, politics and political system is derivative of that. So that's the main thing we have to work on.

How do we get that? So we want to succeed by helping other succeed and we realize that that's the best way to succeed. I totally agree with that. I think there's this sort of stillic idea that just because you can do something, just because it's legally allowed, just because you can get away with it, doesn't mean that you should. That's this sort of virtue of temperance or moderation or self-discipline. That's a lovely way. It strikes me that culturally we're sort of reaping

the whirlwind of, it's like, you and I know what the norms are, we know what the rules are, we know what the abstract principles are because we we studied them, we've read about them, we fell in love with them through our books. And I think we're struggling when you have a culture where people haven't been taught these ideas. They don't know any of these thinkers, they don't understand why the system is set up the way that it was set up. And then so we see these, not only do we see bad actors sort of overriding the norms, whether they're on the left or the right, we see the public not able to fully understand why this particular norm is important. And then we're not able to enforce it politically or culturally.

And we're really not able to enforce it legally, and we kind of just watch the system crumble in front of us. No, that's right. No, this is, I mean, that's what we say. What in the book, what we're after is showing there's a better way than this divisiveness, and you're either in my tribe or the other, and we're going to try to hurt your tribe or you heard us and we have violence on both sides. And I mean, this is so, this is scary. And then, and then what what happens when we see that is the appeal of a strong man or a strong woman, but it's usually the bad guys usually a strong man and they

give all power to them because you got to stop the other side who's going to be worse. And the other side, no, you're going to, their side's going to be worse. So we need to be strong and we need to shut you down. And that's just, then that escalates. And then you have a civil war or hatred or destruction of society. We've seen that happen throughout history. And that's scary. That's the direction we're going. So we're being attacked by both sides, by right and left, daily now. And so it shows, maybe we're on the right track here. We've got a quick message from one of our sponsors here, and then're on the right track here.

Got a quick message from one of our sponsors here, and then we'll get right back to the show. Stay tuned. I'd be curious, and there's a question for both of you, this idea that just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should, it must be strange to become successful at a level where essentially anything that a person can do, you are able to do. strange to become successful at a level, where essentially anything that a person can do, you are able to do, right?

How does one have that sense of whether it's as a parent or a business person or just a human being, how do you manage that idea? Well, I could buy this. I could get away with this. I could just have the lawyers take care of that, but I'm not gonna do it because it's not right. It's not good for me.

How do you manage that idea of I can, but I'm not going to, because I don't think it's the right thing to do. Well, what I've learned since I was a kid is go back to first principles. If you have a framework for what principles are most important and what your own personal nor star is, which ties to your gift, right?

What am I gonna focus on? Because you have all these resources, what am I gonna choose? And is it the right decision? Does it add value to society? Does it harm society or whatever? That's, I guess that's the way I've grown up. But without principles, you fall into the trap that I think you're talking about,

right? You could go down the wrong path and do harm with resources. And you see that time and time again. But I think the way I'd answer your question is you have to start with a framework of core principles and then your own personal North Star of where you're going and then say note everything else. It doesn't fit. It doesn't fit into that. And so for me, I mean, I agree exactly what Jay said is that when I got into these principles and my North Star became working toward, working for a society based on equal rights and mutual benefit where everybody had the opportunity to realize their potential. And so I needed to behave in that way.

I needed to run our company that way. I needed to we needed to to run our company that way. We need to focus on how do we create value for others? How do we empower our employees? How do we make it good for them and reward them so they have a fulfilling life? And then how do we get that to spread? So people see, okay, we've got to come very successful by doing this. So you rather than short-term try to get subsidies or try to hurt your competitors or keep out competitors or stop innovation that's going to hurt you or put you out of business to you innovate. You do a better job of empowering your employees. And then we win and look, if everybody were focused on powering their employees and employees became self-actualized and wanted to succeed by helping others,

what would that do to the culture? We find our employees who no longer hear, they don't know me anything anymore. They call me, someone just called me this week, and he said he had to tell me what is done for his life, not just in business, but has changed the way he deals with his church or his synagogue or whatever, and his charity, his dealings with his family, and everything by living by these principles. So it is so powerful, and we just need to get that out, and that's what we're trying to do in the book, is get this out. This will make your life better, and you will feel so much better about yourself. Hey, Ryan, one example of this is a key kind of mental model or principle that we use on

who do you partner with. I think this goes back to your question whether it's in business or whether it's on the philanthropic side as well. We want to make sure that we have partnerships where there's one aligned vision in terms of where you want to go, what's the potential of that, two aligned values, which we've been talking about here, and then three complimentary capabilities.

So I'll use one example, and this is in the book, about a gentleman that we've partnered with, to really empower him from the bottom up, and it's around this key issue that we have a lot of focus on around overcoming addiction. And so I don't know if you read this, but Scott Strode is really the story, and he created an organization called The Phoenix.

And Scott's quick story is, you know, he battled addiction for many years and what he found that got him kind of over the hump and start to break through the problem was exercise. He get on his bike and that was like what made him alive again. And so with that idea, what worked for him, he said, okay, what if I can create a gym that has a community effect of everyone else that's going through the same problem that I can scale up the

solution that I created myself and do that in a gym and combine the power of exercise with the power of community. Let's see what happens. He created two or three of these gyms and the results that he got were something like 80% of the folks didn't have any relapse within the first three months, which is just mind-boggling results, right? It's an order of magnitude better than some of the best programs in the country. And so, in terms of, okay, what do you focus on? What do you don't? We want to go partner with Scott because he has a very innovative approach that gets real results from the bottom up

that we can help scale with capital and capability. So just when the last couple of years, he's gone from three locations to almost 60. And now he's using virtual with COVID, this massive discovery that people in France and the UK that are tapping into this now. So it's like a global solution that we believe

if we keep going with this can create a movement around overcoming addiction. So in terms of choices like we make and what we focus on, those are the partnerships that we wanna have. No, that's fascinating. The idea of finding something that's working and then putting more fuel behind that as opposed to trying to think, maybe

this goes to your point about ego Charles, I'm a genius. I'm going to come up with the perfect solution to this problem. And then I'm going to throw my resources and money behind it until it works. And that's probably the logic behind most philanthropic endeavors is, I've solved this problem. And now I'm going to do it as opposed to, I'm the investor model of like, who is solving this problem? And how can I support that? No, and that's, that's right. That's why humility is something you learn what you're good at. And then you accept what you're not good at, and then you partner with people who are good at all the other things that need to be done.

And so we're good at organizing and scaling and doing these things and having some money to help them along the way. And we done it, I mean, this is for our work in criminal justice reform. You look at who we've partnered with Dan Jones. He led a demonstration against one of our first events. And now he's partnering with us on that and we think other things.

And then we've partnered from everybody from the ACLU to the American Conservative Union on this and changed the country's perspective on lock them up and throw away the key to let's empower them. Let's show them that they can contribute and that they will be better off and use prison time, not to make them bigger, more bitter criminals who have no other choice when they get out, but to be a criminal, but teach him a skill and how to contribute the values and skills of success. And like Sean Peacca, who was founded, who was in prison at age 16 for murder, and life in prison, he started helping the other prisoners and now they, they, they, he has courses there. And rather than the normal recidivism rate of like 50, 60%, his is like 2%.

To, I mean, get the difference from empowering people rather than controlling them and limiting and stifling them. And Ryan, I think through these examples, you can tell, like, we believe the way forward and the better way is building these coalitions. And we may disagree on a number of issues, right? But getting past that, having an open mindset and being willing to work with anyone to do right,

criminal justice is a great example that. But can we apply that to immigration? Can we apply that to, you know, cracking the intractable problem of poverty with new solutions, right, overcoming violence, overcoming addiction? We're applying that same model across everything, and our message to everyone is, we're willing to work with anyone. Anyone that has an innovative idea, let's roll up our sleeves and figure out what we can do.

I wanted to go back to this idea of money for a second because there's a sort of an interesting philosophical tension in stoicism that maybe you can help shed some light on. So, Sena is the richest man in Rome other than Nero. And there's this sort of knock on him and somehow hypocritical for a philosopher to be rich. There's another great joke from Musonius Rufus. There was this super obnoxious, sort of unethical man in Rome,

and everyone was complaining about him, it was upset, and so Musonius orders him to be given a large amount of money. And somebody said, well, how could you, how could you do this? He's a horrible person. And he says, yes, but isn't money exactly what this man deserves? Being that the large fortune would be a punishment on this person, because he wouldn't know how to use it. How has, as someone who loves books, loves ideas, loves, you know,

as you said, doing right, how has your fortune, there's really no other word for it, how is wealth and fortune tested some of these ideas? How have you, how have you, you know, integrated that in your life? I imagine it must, to a certain extent, be surreal. to grade that in your life. I imagine it must, to a certain extent, be surreal. No, no, it's, I mean, having the fortune and, and constantly testing what we're doing and through trial and error, are we really empowering people? Are we moving us toward or north star of equal rights and mutual benefit? Or are we not? And we make mistakes.

But it gives us the ability to do that and to help many more people, not by what we think helps them. But by seeing they're transforming their lives. This helps them transform their lives. lives. This helps them transform their lives. So I mean, I mean, that's what we want. We want people who are helping people live better lives and having a better society that empowers more people, gives more people a lot of opportunity. We want them to be successful and have resources. Who do you want to have resources? People who use them for that or ill or to get power over people and stifle people and slay them. So, I mean, to me, it's not whether somebody has money. It goes back to this thing. How do people become successful?

Is it by empowering people or is it by controlling and limiting and trying to rig the system? That was Sena Kuzlani said, philosopher can be rich, provided that his money is not stained in blood. So I think that's the idea too. Did your success come from good principles, from creating value, or does your fortune come from extraction and sort of seeing the world as a zero sum place? Yeah, no. And see, and consistent with that, my philosophy is the end unjustified the means, the means

become the end. For example, we can't use to be successful in transforming society. We can't use the means of a Lenin or a Hitler. We have to use means consistent with our ends. Otherwise, we will not end up with the kind of society we're advocating. with the kind of society we're advocating. Yeah, it makes a mockery of the ends if the means are a contradiction of them. Absolutely. Yeah, and you will never get there as we see in all these countries who have these destructive means, then the end is destructive.

Ryan, I think it also ties to Joseph Shumpeter's principle of creative destruction and how we apply it back in your, how do you grow your business to be successful and do it in the right way? Creative destruction, which is basically the idea that the way you've done business in the past, you have to creatively destroy that or the market well. So you have to be drawing new curves in your business

all the time. And that's Co-Candistery's core vision, apply creative destruction and come up with products and services that are better than customers, alternatives, while always consuming fewer resources. So any product we make, Georgia Pacific toilet paper, for example, we've got to make that

in a more environmentally friendly way all the time, use less water, make it more efficient. So when a consumer walks down the aisle and they have a choice, they're saying, I want that one because it has the lowest environmental footprint and has the best features and benefits. I know it's kind of ironic I'm using toilet paper, but we make a lot of that stuff, right? And so if you have that mindset of continuing to drive creative destruction, then your products and services will be best in the market, and you're consuming the fewest resources possible back to your extraction question. You know, in fact, you're continuing to improve that every day, and that's the way we do business. And to go to this idea of ends and means, from what I understand of your lifestyle, from

what I've read about you, you don't seem like someone who was particularly motivated by a particular end. You seem like you genuinely love the process, whether it's like you love the idea, both of you, the idea of making the process more efficient, or the idea of building a slightly better culture. The idea is the idea when you're talked about, you know, sort of making things more efficient, you know, better principles. It's not to get Koch industries to a certain level

or to make a certain amount of money. It's that you love the craft of the machine and then you dedicated your life to it. Well, I mean, what I love is feeling, what turns me on the most when I see, I mean, it's about, not about me, it's about these ideas. And when I see people turn these ideas into personal knowledge and start living by them and

it transformed their lives, that's the most thrilling thing to me. And having Koch industries and stand together, do all this, and see what they do to help improve people's lives. That's it. And I just, what I want, it to spread more and more, so more and more people can benefit from these principles. And so that's what turns me on. And so sure, we want co-industries to be profitable, so we can continue to do it, and we can show that dedicating yourself to contributing to others and succeeding by that is the way to go rather than by rigging the system or hurting others. Yeah, a friend of mine, the videographer Casey Neistat,

he was saying, you know, we don't do the work to make money. We make the money to do more good work. That's great. And it's the loop. He's like, because if we were just doing this to make money, we'd all, he was saying, I just direct TV commercials. You know, like you just do whatever the most lucrative form of whatever your craft is.

The point is, you're making the money, you're building the business, so you can do work you actually like to do. Absolutely, that's fulfilling. That makes you believe in yourself. Yeah. Because that's a, I mean, let's, let's face it. We, our book is Believe in People. But believing in people starts with believing in yourself. Because if you don't believe in yourself, I mean, this is very much the stoic philosophy.

If you don't believe in yourself, how can you believe in anybody else? So you need to work on that first. And not by phony stuff, just, oh, you're wonderful and stuff. No, you're a bomb. You're a lous. You're doing bad things. So shape up. I mean, we need to do that to ourselves.

I need to be better. I need to ourselves. I need to be better. I need to do every day work at getting better. What I say is, if you don't believe you can do something, you're probably gonna be unable to do it, but just because you believe you can do something doesn't mean that you can do it. So you have to find something to be confident of in yourself. And that has to be based in the evidence. And the reading you've done, the work you've done, the relationships you've

built, the product you make, whatever that is. So how on your audience, your fans, how can this, any of these help them? I mean, would they like to, I mean, what are their passions? What are they, what injustices do they see? What experience do they have that they can help improve things and empower people? And I mean, you'd love to see everybody get engaged in that,

in any of the four sets of institutions, whatever fits their ability, their experiences, and their passions. Got a quick message from one of our sponsors here, and then we'll get right back to the show. Stay tuned. Yeah, it's interesting in In meditations of Marcus Realis, he uses the phrase, the common good more than 80 times. I don't think that he means that in the communistic sense. I think what he means is that the Epicurians, as philosophers, turn inward. You know, they

retreat to the garden and they study about, you know, they focus on their ideas and they think that happiness is in the sort of the intellectual and the spiritual pursuit. And I think there's something true about that. You go on a meditation retreat, you become a monk, whatever it is, there's something fulfilling about that. But what I find so inspiring about the Stokes is the belief that no, we have to contribute. We have to contribute politically, civically, from a business perspective, you have to contribute. We have to contribute politically,

civically, from a business perspective, you have to start and raise a family. You have to do something. And so I think, I think when I hear from the audience and I'd be curious for your advice on this, I think what people are struggling with is they go, things are obviously bad, right? Things are falling apart politically.

We've got environmental issues. The world looks like it's going through all these sort of different fits and spasms. I think people, they despair at the magnitude of the problems facing us. And perhaps the reason they despair is that they're thinking about it top down. Like, what can I magically do to solve this? What advice do you have for someone about making a difference at a sort of a small individual level? No, that's a great question.

And Maslow, I think, had a great answer for it. He said, he said, that's the problem today. There are so many people who see that things aren't right, many things aren't right. And they may have a vision of a better state, but they need a path to get there. And he said, and the problem with so many is they say, God, I'm only one person. What can I do? He said, that's all there is. We're all only one person and the way we can make

a difference is join with others who we share vision and values and that's what stand together is. It's a collection of thousands or tens of thousands of people who are working together and they're not working all on the same issue. One group is really passionate about criminal justice reform. Others are reforming education to empower people rather than one size fits all, teach to test. Others are want to get business to be more long-term focus, focus on creating, succeeding by creating value for others.

So we have different ones who focus on that. And that's the opportunity and that's what Stand Together provides is the opportunity to join with others and focus on what you're passionate about. Hey Ryan, one example that's that may bring this to life in terms of how we're really trying to innovate around this question and and bring more and more folks into this model that my father described is you know I was always really passionate about music. And always says, we have no element or no variable of music and stand together. And I believe, at least for me, music is there's nothing

more powerful as a uniter of people than music. You can disagree. You're in a concert. You disagree with 90% of the folks. But you're all there lined up around music and on the same wavelength, right? So I thought to myself, how can we take this idea and combine it with the power of stand-togethers ideas in this community that's been built?

So during COVID, launched a kind of a virtual stand-, jam together tour with a number of musicians that we didn't really have relationships with before, but they looked at and said, wow, you guys really have capability that are getting real results. And it's not something where, you know, I get asked to do a one-off concert for a benefit deal. And then it's one in done, and I have no idea where that money went. Sure. Right. So now what we're doing is partnering with this community of artists that are excited about one of these issues. I talked about addiction before, right?

So Matt Sorom from Guns and Roses is part of our group. And he's been on some of our stand together, Jam together, virtual shows. And he sees it as well. This is a platform. Like I struggle with addiction. I'm 13 years sober, but I have a voice. Kids like Love Guns and Roses, right?

They like the music side. And they'll listen to this. I have a new platform for my voice to get out there, but also a line with something like the Phoenix, a real concrete organization that is getting real results. And so we're now doing that. These are unlikely collaborations, like what we talked about before. We weren't doing this a year ago.

So how does this open up a whole new world of unlikely collaborations and coalitions to my father's point to just really open this thing up and blow the top off and get these ideas out there with bottom-up solutions and working with anyone to do right. It's working. I mean, we're just scratching the surface, but more and more artists are now coming to us, saying, I see what you've done with this artist

or that artist, and we think there's tremendous potential there. Yeah, there's a joke I heard they were talking about, you know, sort of despairing, you know, the great man of history theory, you know, the idea that people are now sort of down on this, the idea that an individual can't make a difference. And the joke is, you know, you think an individual can't change the world, talk to the person who ate a bat in 2019, right? Like somebody, so a single person it changed the entire scope of the world.

And so, you know, if it can be done negatively, of course it can also be done positively. I think about, I've been, I'm writing about this in my next book, the guy who starts the Ice Bucket Challenge, which has had, you know, a bigger impact on the race to find a cure for ALS than any person in history, it's just some guy who starts an internet video, right? And that an individual can make a difference. I think the stillic thing is like, you don't know if it's going to

work, but you try and you try and you try and you try and eventually, you know, it does happen. Something happens. It might not be you, but you're part of a tradition of people trying and something sticks. So Ryan, the way we think about it, to get more people engaged and asking, you know, your audience as well as, what's that issue that they care about, that they're passionate, that they see an injustice in?

And then how can we partner with them, to expose them to a broader coalition and then have all these unlikely collaborations to really get synergy behind it and Three making sure that everyone involved has the courage to act Right, and it's that's what you said before. It's like it's easy to say like wow There's all these problems, but not doing the experiment around the ice bucket challenge Right, it's easy to say I'm just gonna go through go through the motions and do it but not doing the experiment around the ice bucket challenge. Right. It's easy to say, I'm just gonna go through the motions

and do what I do every day instead of thinking differently. I'm gonna jump in and experiment and try something new. That can transform my life, but also transform many others' lives at the same time. Yeah, it's funny, like if it was a business idea you had, you'd start networking, you'd ask around, you'd look for investors, you'd look for collaborators. But then when you see a problem in the world, you do tend to default towards the model of the top-down solution.

What can I do individually as a mandate that solves this? And if we were a bit more entrepreneurial about it as you're talking about, it would unlock a lot more solutions and creative energy that otherwise sits unused. Yeah, so you look at the change in criminal justice system. I mean, it's not perfect, but particularly in certain states, we've made a big difference in change, the general paradigm about what should be done. I mean, we got a long way to go to deal with all the problems. But that started that same way. That is, we got together changed paradigms, and then it spread as people saw it work better.

And that's what we're doing with all of these, is like we have in to deal with communities, we have partnerships with like 200 social entrepreneurs. And each one is showing a better way. And as that spreads, then it gets in the culture. It changes the culture. It changes the national paradigm. And then it starts to change. And you look at all the successful social movements in this country.

That's the way they started, whether that was abolitionate, whether that was women's rights, whether that was abolitionist, whether that was women's rights, whether that was civil rights, gay rights, all of them started that way. There was no momentum for it until a few people got together and had the courage to act and look at Frederick Douglass. He was a slave and look what he accomplished because he had the courage to act and he was also contribution motivated. Even when he was a slave, he got a chance to teach, to teach Sunday school and he started teaching them the other slaves to read. And he says, last, I found a way to contribute. He was a slave, tortured, but he wanted to contribute. It's, uh, yeah, the, the, the frustrating thing about

America is that change happens very, very slowly and then very, very quickly. So all these movements that you mentioned, there were years and years of no progress and no progress and no very, very quickly. So all these movements that you mentioned, there were years and years of no progress and no progress and no progress. And then like that, it can all change. And so I think it's very easy to get depressed, to tell yourself it's broken and nothing's working, but you don't know that actually three years from now, it's gonna be, we're to make 30 years of progress.

And that is something I was going to ask you about. Maybe it's a good place to sort of wind down, which is, you know, the premise of the book, believe in people. And when I blur a bit, totally agree with the premise. But I think one of the interesting tensions in Stelicism is, and I think all of philosophy, the more you study human nature, the more you study history, it's easy to become jaded and cynical and a bit depressed. How, and I think the last year has been a little bit of that for me. How do you believe in people when people are showing you

in some ways, maybe that they shouldn't be believed in, right? Like how do you retain that optimism in human potential in that change is coming when, you know, when we just spent the last 12 months with people, you know, struggling to do, to take even the most basic health precautions for the sake of their neighbors. Right, no, no, and everybody isn't gonna to be on the right track and we're never going

to have a utopia. But we don't need that. All we need is a significant portion of the population who believes and practices these principles. And what that takes is an individual really committing themselves to it and practicing it in a way that reaches others. So I mean that's the key to social change and we see that everywhere through the people we work with. And so this is the encouraging thing to us. We see people who've across the whole ideological spectrum where you're

just peek including all the people who've endorsed our book is who yourself and you looked at the spectrum of them and they believe in this. They see this is a better way. And so the first thing is just to see that the hatred that both sides are showing is not productive, it's counterproductive. We have to find a way that we will get people to focus on helping each other and succeeding about that rather than hurting. So we got to show them a better way. And until we do that, until we empower people from the bottom up and show them a better way, they're going to double down on the old way because that's all they know. So that's our secret is to scale, get these ideas out, but not with theory, just with theory, but and with principles what I like to talk about, but with real live examples,

how it's changed lives, and how Van Jones can lead the demonstration and hate us and then start working with us. And now he calls our main guy working like a brother and he loves what we're doing. And that's in the same for them, you have respect. And then you start finding new ways to work together. And then the other people aren't total evil who need to be destroyed. They're people who haven't been shown a better way. And that's the only thing and that's what has happened throughout history. Every time societies have improved it's been through that mechanism.

Yeah, it's funny. Marcus opens meditations. He says, you know, the people you will meet today are jealous and stupid and angry and mean and frustrating He lists all the things and so you think you know where this is going, right? And and there's a certain sort of philosophical value and just anticipating how unpleasant things are going to be But then he says they're only like this because they don't know Good from evil and he's that they're the same as. And they're made from the same thing as me. And he says, and I won't let them implicate me in ugliness.

And I think that's sort of what I've tried to remind myself, because as a writer, you hear from fans, and you also hear from people who are definitely not fans. And you have to go, okay, that's them. They're this way for whatever reason, I'm gonna keep doing what I think is right. And I'm gonna try to connect with as many people who are on that same page as me

to do as much right as we can together. No, that's a... What Ryan would say is I wanted to thank you for everything that you do to take these ideas and present them in a very innovative way to your audience. And I'm one of those folks in your audience. That's a fan. And, you know, I've called you the modern day Maslow before.

And I truly believe that because if they're just ideas and you can't help people turn them into action to really improve their lives and then help other people improve their lives, then it's, it is not a lot of value there, but you have a very creative way of doing that. And the more people that you can reach, and I think that's what my father's been trying to do, turn ideas into action, whether it's in business with market-based management, how we do business, or how we believe in people through our philanthropy efforts and how we build coalitions, it's very, very similar. And if we can get more folks to internalize these ideas

and then act with courage, you can spark movements to change the trajectory of the country and overcome some of these huge problems that we've been talking about. So big thank you to you for your leadership in that. Yeah, just to add to that, I mean, a key is persistence. Because changing your paradigm means changing your mental models, changing the way your brain functions, because you have these mental habits. So your brain is wired to to

reinforce and protect those and be defensive about those. So the only way we change that, it's like when we change our body, if you're a weightlifter and you want to be a marathoner, it's not instant putting. You've got to work intensely over time to change your body, well while your brain and your mental habits are the same. It takes work effort over time. And so you have persistance. You're on it every day, reminding people. And after a while, then that seeps in.

And that's what we've found here. I mean, we at first said, as we really got into our framework, we can, well, we'll make this acquisition and we can change the culture and everything in a few months and everything would be good to go. No, we find it takes years with an acquisition. So as you pointed out,

to change the culture in the country, to be more loving and helping, rather than hurting, this is an instant pudding. And so we have to have persistence and patience and work every day at it. Yeah. Zeno says, well-being is realized by small steps, but it's no small thing. And I think it's about that sort of day to dayness of it. That's it, exactly. All right, so last last version of this question then for you and then we should wrap up. But so you know, you employ hundreds of thousands of people. I imagine, you know, millions of people have been through your organizations over the years. You've met all these different people through your nonprofit works. You've traveled all over the world. You have your fingers in every possible industry you could imagine.

You have this idea you believe in people. What is it fundamentally that keeps you believing in people? What gives you hope that things can get better? What is that core thing that you believe in inside people? It's that, it's that when people believe in themselves, when they find a gift, they're gift, and they can develop that and use that to contribute and succeed, then they believe in themselves.

And once they believe in themselves and see they succeed by helping others succeed, that transforms them. And we've seen that over and over. For example, my wife and I started this program in one classroom in a tough part of town in which talk was called youth entrepreneurs. And so it's not just a class teach them, it's to get them to build a business plan, start their own business, and you give them some seed capital and help them find what they're good at. And it's, once they've succeeded that and find they can and have somebody else who believes in them and helps them and mentors them, they're transformed and being throw away kids

as they're called or no good good kids, to being productive. And a lot of them now are very successful entrepreneurs or have gone on to college and have very successful lives. It's transformative. That's what I see. So because somebody's bad or made a mistake, they're not throw away kids. They're not, you believe in them and help them believe in themselves and you can help them transform themselves.

So it sounds like what you really believe in ultimately is not just people, what you believe in is potential. You believe in human potential. Absolutely. I love it. Guys, this was so great. I'm really glad we did this. I can't wait to see you both in person again. Yeah thank you. Thanks Ryan. Thanks Ryan. Thanks for

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