Going Big with Doug DeVos: Belief, Potential, and Purpose

You know, we have the ability to dream. We have the ability to see things that aren't existing yet and figure out how to help make them exist, how to put them in place again in our material sense in the world where we live. There's so many things that we can do, and so my encouragement is to everybody to go big, to go back to unlimited potential, believing in people and believing in yourself. And with that idea, that world creates so much opportunity if we're just willing to do something about it.

Absolutely, absolutely. Love it. I'll go anywhere you want to go, Kevin, because it's just so fun to have this chance to do this with you and to be with you. As you said about the years that we've known each other and the experiences that we've had together, it's really fun to talk about going big and how we build on all these ideas and these principles that have been part of our lives and that we've shared and that we've worked on together.

Any person's potential? I mean, that is sort of the core of believing in people. But how do you think about our mind, yours, anyone's potential to do something with their life? Yeah, sure. Well, to unpack some of these things as we talk about these principles, I'm going to go back to probably mostly Amway stories, if you don't mind, and talk about the business that I grew up in and that I was part of for virtually all my career. Well, I guess I'm still part of it. I guess you never really leave, right? So it really kind of comes down to believing in people and believing in potential. One of the things that my dad and his business partner Jay Van Andel, the co-founders of Amway, that they talked about all the time is that when you would give somebody an opportunity, they believed people would do something with it. And that just the expression of giving them an opportunity, they believed in the potential, in the talents and the skills and the determination of the individual. And they never wavered on that. They were always believing. They spent all their time, and we've spent all of our time in the Amway business, finding people from all walks of life, saying, 'You can do it, we believe in you.' And that the performance of people that you never would have expected, that you would have thought, 'Oh, you know, you're in a meeting and you see somebody and go, well, this person over here, I bet they're going to be really successful. They have this educational background, they have this sort of business background, and I bet they're going to be great.' And maybe they were great in those areas, but they weren't very good at Amway. And then you'd find somebody else who maybe didn't have the same sort of background or the same sort of experience, but boy, they had something inside of them and they were ready to learn and they were going to work hard, and may have turned into some of the greatest leaders we've ever seen in our business. And so you always have to look at the individual and say, somewhere in there is incredible potential.

And I don't know what it's going to be to unlock it. Now, there's a lot of great people who joined Amway who weren't successful, who are still great people outside of our business, right? Absolutely. They've done great things. But you believe that in everybody, and I believe it so strongly because that's been my experience, where you see people from different walks of life and you see what they do, and you see how they work, and you see what they create, and you see how they add value, and you see all the different ways in which people can do that with different personality types, different skill sets, different objectives. And it just solidifies this belief in the potential of all people to achieve great things and to really have impact for their own futures and their own life and for the people around them as well. So that's where it kind of all comes back to.

Sure, sure. So, you know, this was many years ago. The Amway business had just started in Malaysia. This is in the late 1970s. And we had a good start, business was going well. We were there. I happened to, I wasn't in this meeting with the Prime Minister, but I happened to be there for the Amway meetings. And the conversation was just very cordial, talking about business. And the Prime Minister relayed to my father that it was a tough time economically for Malaysia, that the price of copper, tin, and oil, which were Malaysia's greatest natural resources, was depressed on the global market, and that was impacting their economy. They talked about that a little bit, and then he turned the subject and said, 'But your business is growing. You're going to have thousands of people at this meeting tonight. Your business has been growing wonderfully well. You're investing in our country. So what's the secret?' And that's when he said, 'Well, Mr. Prime Minister, you may believe your greatest natural resources in Malaysia are copper, tin, and oil, but in Amway we believe your greatest natural resources are the people of Malaysia. In Amway, we invest in people.' And that was just the fundamental elements again of investing in people and believing in people and finding people. And from that business, those early days, so many people and their families are still with Amway today. They've built big businesses, they've built incomes for themselves and for others that have stood the test of time and are continuing. Many of them continue to be active, or their families or their descendants are being active.

You know, it can be a variety of things. And a lot of them are real. There are real barriers that we face in life. Somebody puts a barrier in front of us, whether it's an education barrier, or maybe it's more personal, it's a family barrier where you had an issue with your parents, or something that's happened in your life, or you have a genuine health issue. There are a lot of genuine things that will hold someone back from achieving their potential. And the tough part is, it feels like sometimes when there are those real barriers, people get stuck, and they kind of every time they look, they see that barrier. And what we've always tried to do is say, well, okay, there's a barrier, I get it, it's real. How do I get around it? How do I get over it? How do I get under it? How do I do something different? How do I partner with somebody to learn that skill or to overcome that barrier, whatever that may be? And so sometimes it's persistence, it's determination. It's this idea that barriers are real, they're everywhere, and there's a lot of things to hold people back. But it's the fact that you don't let the barrier hold you back the whole time or keep seeing it right in front of your face. Change your perspective, move around, do something different. You'll find, Kevin, and I think you know already from knowing me, all I do is tell dad's stories about him because they prove to be so good.

Well, they are pretty good stories. I learn a lot from him. He's done pretty well. But he was speaking at a college graduation, and it was a tough economic time. A lot of the people were talking about how tough the economics were and it'd be hard for your graduates to find a job, and be careful, and this and that. And then it was his turn to speak. He said, 'Don't listen to them. Don't listen to any of those people. Yeah, it's a tough time, but it's the only time you have. So figure it out. You have this education, you have these opportunities. Figure it out. You're going to be an entrepreneur. Maybe don't get a job, maybe start a business, maybe do something else. But this is the only time you have. You have this education, go do something. You have this determination that you're achieving something. You've graduated, move forward.' And try to encourage people in that sort of way. And I think what holds people back is they just get stuck, and that's the toughest thing. I sympathize with people when they're in that place because I get it. There are barriers. We've all been stuck to a certain extent. But we don't have to stay there. That's the biggest thing. You don't have to stay there. If you're stuck, maybe you take a few steps back, you regroup, you look at things different, you put it together in a different way, and find a different path and try something new, see if that works. And so we've just, while those barriers can be real, our experience has always been those barriers can be overcome, and you can find ways to achieve success, to add value to your family, to your community, regardless of the barrier.

Absolutely. So they struck up this relationship in high school, buddies in high school, and always talked about getting in business together. There were a couple things behind that. Jay's father was in business for himself, and my dad's father had a difficult relationship with his employer and would always say to my dad, 'Get into business for yourself.' So the two of them always talked about it. The timing was such that right after high school, both of them went to serve in World War II. But they wrote letters back and forth to each other: 'Someday this war is going to end, someday we're going to be able to get in business together, someday we're going to come back home.' They would exchange these letters throughout their time in the service. And they got back, and actually Jay returned a bit earlier than my dad did, and had a business opportunity. I can't even remember what it was, but it needed some money. And Jay said, 'You know, we're 50/50, we're partners, so I think we should do this. I'll get it set up so when you get back, we'll be able to do this.' I often thought that Jay could have just done that on his own, but talk about the principles of a friend. He said, 'No, we always said we're going to do something together, so I'm not going to start something on my own just because I'm back earlier. We're going to do it together.' So eventually their first real business was a flight school. They taught people how to fly. And the most interesting part about that was that neither one of them knew how to fly. No. And so that's the fun part of the story. Aviation coming out of the war was the way to go. They both were kind of watching it, and so they got in, but they didn't know how to fly. But they thought that'd be a great business to get into. So they started a flight school. They hired pilots, they went out and got customers. That was their deal. They were doing the marketing and sales and the business side. They hired the pilots because if you're a pilot teaching people how to fly, most of your time is in a plane with one person, you can't get the next customer. So they went out and got customers. They dragged airplanes, they took the wings off and they would tow the airplane through the downtown streets of Grand Rapids, advertising to go flying. There are some great photos of it. They would try to bring people in. That was what they did while the pilots that they had hired were teaching the students how to fly.

The other aspect is the airport in the north part of Grand Rapids wasn't complete by the time they opened. But it was right next to the Grand River. So their first pilots, they bought floats for the plane, put a dock down to the river. And the first pilots they trained in the World Warina Air Service, which was the name of it, learned to fly off the river and were trained on water. And that went to... They said, well, we can fly at... They couldn't fly at night, they could fly in the daytime, but they needed to work at night. And I remember my dad said that it's not the first 40 hours a week that you work, it's the next 40 that you work to get ahead. So at night they started a drive-in restaurant. Neither one of them knew how to cook. And my dad would tell you that everyone should be in the restaurant business once. It's hard because everyone wants to eat at the same time. If they could just spread it out throughout the whole evening, it would be great. But they had a Riverside drive-in restaurant. So they did the flight school in the daytime, they did that at night, and then they did a few other things until they kind of found a way. Now I understand why principle number one is unlimited potential. Okay. All well, you see, you just find your way around it. Airport wasn't done? Oh, we'll fly off the river.

Absolutely, absolutely.

Well, it's the idea of accountability really comes through the fact that you're given a set of gifts and talents. We believe we're created by God, and we have these gifts and these talents and opportunities in our lives to do something with them. And we need to be held accountable to do that. In the most basic thing is just being a person of your word. If you say you're going to do something, do it. If you say you're not going to do something, don't do it. And just be honest with people and be honest with yourself. There are so many stories. We've all been there. Say I need to lose 10 pounds, I'm going to go do this, and we fail. There's a bit of that in life. But I think we want to hold ourselves to a higher level. If I'm going to set a goal, I'm going to work to really achieve it. I'm going to do something about it, and I'm going to hold myself accountable to do the things necessary to achieve that goal. That's the element. Especially, it's one thing to do it for yourself, it's another thing when you're on a team. Any sport, a teammate is looking at you. Okay, are you going to catch the ball? I'm going to throw the ball. You're going to tackle the person, you're going to hit the ball, whatever the sport may be. You have illustrations. Well, that's your job, my job, but we're working together to make it happen. And you're going to always maximize your capability when you're working with other people who can round out your edges, who can cover your blind spots, who can add value to things that you may not see or that you may not know. So I think the accountability is really be a person of your word and to live your life accordingly. And I think if you take the whole concept of Believe, it's okay, that's what I believe. It's easy to talk about it, then how do you do it? Behavior has to follow belief. And so I think that's where the accountability piece comes in.

Well, you have to understand the principles and you have to work for it. So for freedom to work, you got to say, okay, how do I make sure that freedom is then a better method than something else? So I need to be more productive, I need to be more creative, I need to be paying attention to these sorts of things, I need to be educated about it, and turn it into all that it can be. But I can't take it for granted. And I can't just assume that everyone's going to continue to act in the way that was supposed to be done in the history books. You got to assume somewhere along the way that voters need to vote to preserve the freedom, that fighters need to fight to preserve the freedom, that all of us have a role to play to preserve the freedom. If we're talking about the USA, we all have a role to play to make the economy work and other elements. Years ago, I had a chance with the Local Economic Club here in Grand Rapids to interview Madeleine Albright and Colin Powell for our annual dinner. At that time, as in any time, there are always world issues going on. They talked a lot about the idea of diplomacy through the economic strength of our country, not just the military strength of our country. So all these elements go into protecting freedom. It's not just one element. It's the idea of being a citizen, and in your responsibility as a citizen, as a neighbor, as a productive member of society, that you're adding value to society. You're going to work every day, you're making something happen, you're starting a new business, whatever that talent that you may have, you're contributing it. We're part of a contribution society. We're accountable to do that. And when we do all these things and we understand how they work together, we preserve and protect our freedom, but also build a stronger foundation so that it can be even better for more people going forward.

Well, it starts to, for us again, it dives into some of the elements behind the business success, the productivity of a nation, of a business, of a system, of an economic system. The productivity of any system happens when the decisions are made more and more by the individuals, those closer to the opportunity, those closer to the actual work going on, those closer to the problem that's trying to be solved. And in front of Amway, gosh, I go back to 1964 at the New York World's Fair. There was the Hall of Free Enterprise that was part of the New York World's Fair, and in front of it were the pillars of economic wisdom, the 10 pillars of economic wisdom. In the 1970s, when we built our headquarters building at Amway, Dad and Jay bought that exhibit and they placed those pillars — not the actual pillars, but the phrases on those pillars, these principles of free enterprise — in front of our headquarters building. They're still there today, and I think about them often. Then my father gave a speech often called 'Man's Material Welfare,' which was your material welfare, not your spiritual welfare, but in an economic sense.

Material welfare is determined by a few things: human energy, and you add human energy to natural resources. So it's the things that everything comes from the world around us that's been created around us. We figure out how to turn it into a stone, a tool, a plant into food, whatever it is. That's an easy equation, that's an addition equation. Then the next part of the equation was you take that and you multiply what can be done between natural resources and human energy by tools. Then it's the ownership of the tools, and it's the creativity of the tools, and the productivity of the tools when they're in a free society and individuals can make decisions about those tools and how we're going to use that human energy and natural resource to create products and services and goods and all these other sorts of things that's going to take us to the next level. So Dad's speech, 'Selling America,' when we compare our free enterprise system to socialism or communism at the time, that's what sets us apart. That's why the US is more productive. That was why in many stages in the old Soviet Union they couldn't produce enough food to feed themselves, because they had the state-owned farms and somebody in Moscow would tell people how to farm and when they should do it and how they should do it. And we in the US just had farmers who knew what they were doing and fed our families, fed our country, and fed the world. So it's the ownership of those tools. And as it says in these pillars of economic wisdom, even when people are well-meaning, even when they're really smart, highly educated, well-meaning, trying to do the right things, nobody can do for you what you can do for yourself. So that's the idea that you have this ability, and free enterprise allows you to take your talents and gifts and turn it into something that's productive, that adds value, and turn into success for yourself and for your community.