Hey, hey, John Hope Bryant here. This is the Money and Wealth podcast series on iHeart Radio on Black Effect Network, season 3. This is a very special podcast that you're about to witness. It's one of the few live podcasts that I have ever done. And as you know, again, when I bring on a guest, they're always special. This ended up different than I thought it was. This interview with Chase Koch, who is the heir apparent of one of the wealthiest private companies, most successful in the world. I think it's grown 9,000 times since its founding in the 1960s. It's one of the biggest private companies in the world. They have 8,000 employees just in Georgia alone, 120,000 plus employees around the world. And not to tell their business, but I think his father's worth about $70 billion. So, you think that Chase might be a jerk, you know, because it's hard not to be for some people. It's hard for him to be. He's a really decent, good guy. And I was prepared actually not to like several years ago based on some of the things I'd heard and seen a few years ago, the political dynamics, and to see them self-correct and come into what I call the middle of America on their own says a lot to me about their true character and that I just gained a lot of respect. And so this meeting that we had both behind closed doors, in the green room, conversations leading up to it, and the podcast that was recorded live with no editing. I mean what you see is what you get. I mean it just shows you should never prejudge people. Be nosy. Give everybody a shot because you never know where you're going to meet a friend or meet somewhere in the middle and build bridges versus walls. And that's what happened. I mean, you had every race of people in this podcast, every class structure, Republicans and Democrats, blacks and whites, rich and poor, billionaire, and somebody trying to buy some air. And it was just really, really inspiring. And he was there to promote his new book, which is, I would tell you, fantastic. I'm reading it now. And I was there for my podcast, but also my new book, Capitalism for All. And he wrote a book with his father. And I wrote a book with my spiritual father, Ambassador Andrew Young, his father Charles Koch. The book, his book is called Becoming a Principled-Driven Leader by Charles Koch and Chase Koch. And my book is Capitalism for All by me and forward by Ambassador Andrew Young. I also put him on the phone with Ambassador Young. Ambassador Young really liked him as well. And we would find it hard to agree to argue on something. I mean, we found ourselves in massive agreement on things that really matter and it inspired me like maybe we can bring this country back together. Anyway, I want you to watch the podcast and listen to it for yourself and make your own determination. But I think it's going to make you cheer for the country to feel like we're not hopeless to see that people still listen, even the most powerful in the world listen because his dad who's now I think 90, who's brilliant obviously for running, built, and by the way, and you'll hear about challenges they've had in their own family. I mean, they sued each other, not Chase and his father, but the brothers and whatever. They almost destroyed this empire over power and money and other things. So, everybody's got problems. Everybody's got drama. But life is about how you deal with that. How do you come out on the other side? How do you punch through? Rainbows only follow storms. You cannot have a rainbow without a storm first. And what drives that? What centers that? And for them, for Chase and his dad, it's the last men standing so to speak in the company are principles and values. And so this book, Principled-Driven Leadership, they have 41 principles and they even have an app, it's called the Principle Companion. I've downloaded it and you should pull up the app, it's pretty cool and it has all of the principles and you can ask questions like what are you trying to solve and how do you solve it? And you can literally just type in your question. It says overcome your problems by taking principled action and use the principles that they have outlined. None of which you'll have any problem with. They're all just really good common sense things very much like things I talked to you about and 100% nonpartisan, non-political, non-drama to help you just move your life forward. As I say, PhDs are good and PhDs are better. So download the app. That's free. Get the book. I'm endorsing it. Yes, I said endorsing it. It's a good book. And I think I've got a new friend. Like, I really like this guy, Chase. Like, he stuck with me. So, this is going to be a longer podcast than normal, particularly with this little intro. But, I think you'll be inspired, fascinated. You'll learn something about business, learn something about building something, growing something, making something, sustaining something, working through problems, admitting you're not perfect, falling forward, punching through to your greater version of yourself through principles and values that are timeless. We were there with this great NFL pro, Demario. He's also written I think a forward for this new book or he's one of the endorsers for this new book from Chase and he's a friend of Chase's and he's got his own story. Yeah, be inspired, be encouraged and this is part of money and wealth because this is a wealth mindset that we all need to get. There's some things that he said that inspired me and I learned from and yeah, hope it inspires you, too. Let's go. This is John Hope Bryant, Money and Wealth. And let me introduce you to my new friend, Chase Koch.
Demario, come on, give him some love. You know that the Bible says, 'Be hot or be cold.' Hey. Hey, mommy. Bible. Bible says, 'Be hot or be cold. If you're lukewarm, I'll spew you out.' Translation: Even God is not like mediocrity. You're going to do something, do it with both feet or don't do it at all. I didn't have any idea what this group would look like when because we have, you know, I've been in the back running my mouth. Before I do anything, let me acknowledge my beautiful wife who everybody thinks is my daughter. Shadra Bryan, can you stand up? Shadra, that's her mom and dad. So look, this is Ambassador Young, who wanted to be here, but he had a speech at 94 years of age. He had a speech in Monterey. But he talked to Chase on the phone about an hour ago, and he likes him, by the way. But Ambassador Young has a quote, 'Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous.' And I had no idea what this is going to look like. But as I come out and I see this, this is America. I mean, look around you. This is exactly what we should want in every room in America. Every race, every place, every space, gender. And so it's a really beautiful and elegant way to start this conversation. Just so you know, this is going to be on my Money and Wealth podcast. So it'll go around the world, but we're going to ignore that. Have a natural conversation. I want to introduce Demario Davis, who any sports aficionado already knows is a legend, a linebacker, and team captain, which means he was a leader. New Orleans Saints, that's what he's most known for, a founder, a devoted Dreamers Foundation. His wife is also here, who's also his, I thought was his daughter. Demario Davis is a five-time All-Pro linebacker and six-time team captain currently with the New York Jets. He is one of the NFL's most respected leaders on and off the field. He and his wife founded Devoted Dreamers Foundation in 2013 and running youth leadership academies, mentorship programs, and community development initiatives across New Orleans. He has been nominated three times for the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year Award and the league's highest individual honor. He contributed the forward and endorsement to Becoming a Principled-Driven Leader. Demario is a good brother. Honored to have you with us and I want your hair.
Thanks for having me, brother.
And they met in 2019, these two. Chase Koch is my brother from another mother. I really like this dude. Most, I mean, I'm going to just say the obvious. Most billionaires and billionaire kids, the children of, are sort of jerks because life just comes too easy and he's just so normal and approachable and kind. And here's the most important part, authentic. I met him and I can't say where we met because there's no website for this meeting, but I met him in the middle of the country and I walked up to him and I just started talking to him and we had an instant comfort and I said, 'You're just so abnormal because you're normal.' And what I meant by that is what I said earlier that people who are insecure and uncomfortable with themselves and who are impressed with themselves spend a lot of time walking around with sunglasses on at night. And he has no need for any of that. He's just reasonably comfortable in his own skin. And I was fascinated how he formed his own personality in the midst of this entirely overwhelming legacy. And I'm going to read you his bio, but just to give you some context of what he had to overcome to become himself, his dad is reportedly worth just his dad about 70 billion. Now that means he's baller adjacent. And it'd be very easy just to fold in and to become somebody else's personality. And I just want to say in public in front of everybody, I think you're a really cool guy.
Oh man, I didn't pay him to say that. I promise.
So, here's the official, official introduction. Chase Koch is the co-author of Becoming a Principled-Driven Leader and the fact that you and your dad like each other is also extraordinary. You, the audience, really needs to loosen up. Hey Curly. 41 principles to build an enduring business which is from Simon and Schuster. The book draws on 60 years of real world experience at one of America's largest private companies. So nobody really knows what it's worth actually, which I think is pretty cool. Chase is the founder of Koch Disruptive Technologies within Koch, which I love that, and served as executive vice president of origination and partnerships at the parent company. Georgia has a second largest company presence in the country within the company. Approximately 8,000 employees across Koch businesses including Georgia-Pacific, Flint Hills Resources, Infor, and Vista Guardian, Koch Engineering Solutions. You get the gist. It's a lot. And I didn't, well, first of all, I feel a little similarity with you because my play father is 94, Ambassador Andrew Young, and your dad, and he's a legend in the world. Your dad's 90ish.
90. Yeah. And both of them still going to work every day. Yeah.
And they both live for something larger and more important than themselves. And they both have this humility that they're willing to admit they're wrong. And I didn't really feel in your family a few years ago because of what I thought I knew. And then I heard them course correcting themselves. I like, 'Oh, that's somebody I can get with.' And to me, it's how somebody manages failure and not just success that defines their personality. So let's now get to that and then tomorrow you just jump into this whenever you feel so inclined. So talking about failure, this is extraordinarily interesting to me. You fired yourself as an executive within the company. What principles gave you the courage to do that? You fired yourself within your own family company.
So before I get into that, I just want to say like your intro, I really appreciate that. But to your point on it took you a while to warm up to the Koch name and Stand Together, Koch Inc., the business side, and I think a lot of people have that because we believe what we read in the media and we made a lot of mistakes over the last I'd say few decades where we let the media define us as opposed to getting out there and defining ourselves. And being a private company out of Wichita, Kansas, and we just wanted to put our heads down and do good work and create value. But if you're not out there telling your story, someone's going to write the story for you. And so, my father, to just give a little background on this for the audience, because sometimes it's the elephant in the room, just deal with it, right? And my father would say, he's been working on social change for 60 years of his life. And he avoided politics the first 40 and he didn't want to get into it at all. But what he realized, there's so many bad policies that are holding people back. I've got to get in the game to see if we can get principled leaders in government that make good decisions that create principled-based policies that actually help people as opposed to creating more barriers in their lives. And so got involved in that and one of the biggest learnings I think in terms of our involvement in politics and policy and all of this is picking one team and just thinking about it from a Republican versus Democrat situation. And we all know if you have a tribalist mindset and you're thinking about Republican, Democrat, black, white, whatever, pick your tribe, you're never going to grow. You're never going to learn. You're never going to get beyond that. And so we were thinking short-term versus long-term. Long-term is what built Koch. Thinking about long-term value creation. And the political game sadly is very short-term. So we learned from that and said, 'Okay, it's not about picking a team and just going all in on that. It's about what Frederick Douglass taught us.' And Frederick Douglass is like my dad's number one hero. He's read everything about Frederick Douglass and studied him. And the biggest takeaway I think he learned by studying Frederick Douglass is this idea of working with anyone to do right. And that's such a big idea, right? And thinking beyond a party or whatever tribe you're in and thinking even when Frederick Douglass, what he went through in life to overcome that and said, 'I'm going to help everyone.' It's absolutely incredible, right? And so I think my father learned and we learned that to just have this more kind of libertarian mindset and just preaching to the choir and thinking about it through that lens, we're not going to get anywhere. We're not going to drive the social change we want. You have to really get out there and build preferred partnerships with everyone and listen to Frederick Douglass and be able to work with anyone to do right. So huge opening for us just from a mindset and a principled standpoint and we changed a lot since then.
Anybody who's unfamiliar, Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass in the 1800s had this unique, sometimes troubled friendship, constructive friction and they didn't agree on a lot of stuff but Lincoln learned from Frederick Douglass and ultimately became his strongest adviser and it appears your dad has learned from you. Yeah. And has opened up and become, I mean he seems to be like an endless learner now. And tomorrow, we were in the back talking, the three of us were talking about what really matters, how you got connected, how we got connected. And by the way, I really think this is the future of America right here. Because we may not agree on everything, but we agree on the most important things. And we're focused on what we agree on versus what we don't. And one thing I'm going to throw out here as I ask you about your relationship with our friend and can somebody bring me the book? I want to promote the book. I actually like the book. There's 41 principles in the book. Everybody should know. Somebody bring the book. I'm going to put it.
I signed it for him in the back and he doesn't even bring it up here.
I don't want anybody taking my book. I don't want anybody taking my copy of the book. Thank you very much. And this is the real boss here, by the way. Yeah.
Yeah. She agreed, by the way. She agreed that she's the real boss. She said yes. Thank you.
So in the back I said that in a relationship 2 plus 2 should equal 6, 8, or 10. If you're not better together what are you doing? And a giver and a giver is exotic. A giver and a taker is neurotic. And a taker and a taker is psychotic. And most of our relationships are the last two. And it appears that you and your dad have, you like me and Ambassador Young, Ambassador Young and I, we like each other and respect each other. He allows me to disagree with him. You and your dad seem to have that good relationship and you like each other and you respect each other. You and I have had wide-ranging conversations. I'm going to just say it right here. I've intentionally sort of messed with you. I've intentionally...
You just wanted to see who you were, you know, you can confirm you are who you are and I loved it and we have not had one uncomfortable conversation with you and we've talked about a lot of stuff and none of it was edited or prepped or there was nobody else around us, you know. And my guess is and I want you tomorrow to frame this in your own words, your experience from a completely different perspective, he passed your test.
Well, all of it helped me to really understand this thing of mutual benefit that you guys talked about, Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln. When you really look at their friendship, Abraham Lincoln couldn't win the war without Frederick Douglass because he needed those black soldiers and he had the voice to him.
And Frederick Douglass couldn't end slavery without Abraham Lincoln because he had the power and access. How I even got into this space long before I met Chase and Charles Koch.
And by the way, businessman in his own right, an investor. I mean, much more than an NFL pro. This is a really, really...
Listen, we up here talking about mutual benefit. I don't know what mutual benefit they getting from me. I'm getting a bunch of wisdom from these guys.
I just sat in the back. I wish I had my notebook out. Can I just turn AI over my record?
Before you go on on that question, you're the cool factor, bro.
No, he's way more than the cool factor. He's got that too, of course. But like the book Becoming a Principled-Driven Leader, from what knowing Demario the last 6 years, there's like no better example of a principled-driven leader and someone that's constantly thinking about the world whether it's his craft with sports or helping others through the lens of these principles and I wanted to make sure the world hears because he is an example.
Well, thank you for having me. So when my journey started was in the country streets of Mississippi. My grandmother had 10 kids. My mama was the youngest and it was pretty much a single mother raising me in between my mom and my grandmother. And that's where I learned a lot of principles on humility, putting people first and all these things. And though I played sports, my mom also had me reading books and doing all these different things. So by the time I got to high school and got a chance to get a scholarship, what I noticed was the first time I saw a separation between me and my peers. I was going to take the ACT and I was scoring 24, 27 and I didn't really study and my friends were trying to get scholarships but they were scoring 13s and 14s. So that just stuck with me. That was the first time I saw an abnormality. I didn't know what was going on. I mean we did everything together. So by the time I got to college and then going on to make pros, I always wanted to have a solve for that gap. And I realized that a lot of those guys were struggling with reading comprehension I would later find out. And so it really was just about me making it to a place and saying I didn't do anything different than my peers. Not much. I made a lot of the same bad decisions, did all these things not right but here I am in a place and I always said I think God brought me to this place because he knew I would go back. And so it was about what could I do to create a solution? That's what Devoted Dreamers was birthed. Me and my beautiful bride right here of 14 years, this beautiful black angel right here on the front row. We started that in 2013. And it really was just to have a solve for a problem that I had experienced in my life that I had solved. Well, years later, I get a chance to hear about, learn about Stand Together at a Super Bowl event. I had been part of Players Coalition. We had got a chance to continue to do that human thing just looking out for people. I meet him at an event and I read up a little bit about Stand Together. I hear about the principles that they say, bottom-up empowerment and I'm looking at this gigantic empire. With all this access to resources, people capital, all these different things. Well, if you guys live out these principles that many people know on the bottom in these places of power and I didn't really know Chase and Charles at the time. I walked up to him the first day. I shook his hand. I said, 'Hey, if you guys live out these principles, it's going to work.' What shocked me was I was just saying in general if you live out these principles, going to help people with organizations, small organizations that are doing it right, those people closest to the problem are the closest to the solution, if you go empower these organizations, going to work. Within a couple of weeks they were sitting down with me and my wife, what are you guys doing at Devoted Dreamers, how can we help? With pen and pad and trying to figure out how they could supercharge and 100x us. And that work hasn't stopped and that is who he is, that's who his father is, that's who the organization is, that's who the community is, and that's why we've been premier partners with Stand Together since then.
Well, and John, Stand Together, the organization that he's referring to, just to give your audience some background, as I mentioned, my father's been working on social change for 60 plus years. It was in 2003, he realized that if I just try to do this on my own, I'm not going to drive any change. Like maybe help a little bit on the margin, but if we stand together, hence the name, stand together with partners like Demario that have completely different organizations, different networks, different communities and we can help supercharge that and stand together at scale, then you can drive movements, you can drive change around things like poverty, addiction, transform the education system. And that's what we've learned over the last 20 years. I mean, we make a lot of failures and a lot of mistakes. I talked about the one on politics. You know, we learned a lot through that. And we've learned a lot. But back to this, I would say one of the single most important principles that we talk about in the book is bottom-up empowerment. And the whole partnership if you look at Demario and Stand Together is about how do we supercharge him and bring the platform and help him push the easy button because Demario and his wife Tamila have their own platform that if we can help them with capital through our network, the Stand Together community of a lot of business leaders and principled-driven approach and capabilities and network hopefully that we can make them go thousand-x and we want to do that over and over and create a virtuous cycle.
Yeah. So, let me back up a little bit. So, great testimony to Demario for what we've said earlier which is authenticity for Chase. But I didn't know everybody else. So, I knew Chase. I thought he was cool. But the Stand Together group, Brian Hooks, he's really quiet, you know, the guy who runs it. And I'm trying, he's checking me out. I'm checking him out. You know, are you real? He's asking, I'm sure he's asking the same question about me. I said to somebody earlier, Brian Hooks is like a slow burn. He just keeps staring at you until he makes up his mind. Then it's all in. Anyway, so I'm just used to people trying to play games with me and so I'm waiting there for the shoe to drop on the conversation. You know, by the way, look at it. Charles has donated like $8 billion to charity. They've endowed Stand Together. I didn't know this until later and was one of our largest, I call it nonprofit venture capitalists in the country and I'm just waiting for this to be like some partisan drama, you know, and it's just the drama never comes. I'm sitting there having these meetings and meetings, I'm telling my people like, you know, we don't play these games. We're just right down the middle and they're like, John, it's pretty much what you see is what you get. And we entered into a partnership with them. It's been very successful. And all I can tell you is it's the real thing. It's transparent. It's straight, straight, no chaser. And to me, that says who your dad's character is. And you and the whole family right now more than anything else is what Stand Together is doing among, I mean, it's one of the biggest national platforms of philanthropy in action that I've seen in the country. And I encourage people to access it. And I can say without a flinch that it is the real deal. And right now we need real deals and we need, you know, rainbows only follow storms, people. You cannot have a rainbow without a storm first. It's a scientific fact. Also, we're living in a moment in history. Right now, I call it the third reconstruction. First one was freedom, civil war. Second one, Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln. Second one was civil rights movement. By the way, all three of those movements rooted here in Atlanta. Civil War ended in Atlanta. The March to the Sea, the Battle of Atlanta and that was Black and White together, by the way, Republican and Democrat together. That got Lincoln reelected, little is known, the battle here. Then the civil rights movement for which my mentor Andrew Young of course was right in the middle of that with Dr. King. Bernice King, I believe, might be here somewhere, by the way. She said she was coming tonight and who's still doing her dad's work and that was black and white together, Republican and Democrat together. But it was a difficult time for the country and we were trying to figure out who we were going to be when we grew up. And I think the third reconstruction is about ownership from the streets to the suites. And the color is not black or white or red or blue. It's green, economic green. And the country once again is having on the 250th anniversary of America an identity crisis, one huge colonic. You audience, you guys are really tough. This is some good stuff I'm giving you and it's one huge family fight and we're going to get through it. We're going to be better together. We're going to stand together. But I think we got to come back to each other after we've gone so far out. Come back to each other with some common sense principles to help people prosper together. I guess the question is if this is a third reconstruction, if this is a moment in history, and if the only way we succeed to be the light on the hill, the biggest economy in the world for 50 more years, because if we don't get this act together, we speaking Mandarin in 20 years. You get that? Like everybody wants to be an American but Americans and no one can win in a fair fight. We got to give this away. So we got to stop arguing with each other and find Stand Together and find some common ground and build an economy together with all groups of people. I guess I want to know because Koch had 9,000, is some crazy thing like 9,000 turns of growth since 1960. It's unbelievable. But defined really these values, defined more from his failures than his successes. What people don't know is that the family had a huge blowup and fell apart and sued each other and had to come together and your dad was not feeling good about that for a few years because it was personal to him. But these values rooted and I think if we can find some values from these 41 that Demario and I and everybody here, you know, Phil Ward over here who's running a business, all these businessmen and women, if we can find a way to root ourselves in shared values that even when the tree, when the storms come, we're still rooted in something that brings us together and keeps us together. What jumps out from either of you from this book that are things that are practical and literally and I, you know, I have a book out right now that's a bestseller, but I wasn't smart enough to do what he did. If I was going to reprint this, I'd steal his idea. What page is this where the graph is? This thing is amazing.
I think it's 21, 22, something like that.
I mean, this is, here we go. This is just brilliant. Literally all 41 principles just laid out and I don't, you know, and there's not one of these I disagree with by the way.
Can I grab one of those principles?
To your question. And this speaks to how we think about talent. And by the way, as you're saying this, Chase, I want both, I want people how can they become as massively successful as your family has so they have the resources to do good in the world. That's why we wrote the book. Amen. We want that. I mean, a lot of people ask like this principled-based management framework, why would you offer that externally? That's Koch's biggest competitive advantage. Why would you take all these principles? You've codified it. You run your organization. You solve problems with it. Clearly, if you grew 9,000-fold, it's a huge competitive advantage. And I would say this is our secret sauce. It's the principled-based approach. This is it. And the reason why we wrote the book and why this is my dad's fifth book, this is my first, is because we want to help as many people as we can. We certainly didn't write a book to make money. We wrote a book to get these ideas and tell our stories of the failures that we have. Right. I think that's one thing that's different about this book is that we talk about, there's sure, I mean, it's failure turns success but we want people to see themselves in these just day-to-day failures that you go through in business whether it's having the wrong vision, picking the wrong talent, having the wrong culture, all of those things and it only takes one or two principles to transform a business, transform your life personally, I've learned that myself. And so what I would say, I'll just pick one principle in here. Contribution motivated.
Contribution motivated. And so we've learned this through a lot of different failures. Having the wrong leaders in the wrong roles. If my dad were sitting here and you asked him like what's your biggest failure at Koch? He would say leaving, promoting the wrong leaders into like the big job and then not moving fast enough to get them out. Because they look great on paper, you know, or they've got a great resume, they've got a great network, but they don't have the mindset of what I'm going to go back to sports here a little bit. What Jack Clark, I don't know if anyone in the audience has heard of Jack Clark. He's the most winningest coach of any sport of all time and he was the coach of Cal's rugby team. He's won 30 national championships. And his thing about leadership is it's very simple. It's making those around you better. That is your job as a leader. And so I've watched my father do that, you know, over the course of time. And then he sets the example for others. And through back to contribution motivated, it's the idea that, well let me back up. Our talent model is very simple in terms of who we hire and who we don't hire. We want someone that wants to come in and make a contribution and has a very unique skill that we need. Two things. The opposite of that is someone that comes in more deficiency motivated. And so deficiency motivated, and we see, I'm sure many of you business leaders have seen this, where they've got a fancy resume, 40, Ivy League school, whatever. And they come in and they feel entitled to a certain role, certain title, a certain salary without coming in and actually earning it. Right. And one of the reasons why, frankly, we like being in Wichita, Kansas, our headquarters, and why we like being in Atlanta, and why Georgia is our second largest employer state is because we can hire kids with values, right? So our whole talent model back to this contribution motivated is hire first on values, second on skills, last on credentials. A lot of companies flip that completely upside down, right? And being a Kansas boy, I call it the farm team. I want the kids that grew up on that have that mindset of working on a farm with grit, work ethic, and just want to come in and make a contribution. And then I would say on top of contribution motivated is preferred partnership. And so I've been able to live out both of those principles.
Guys, just get the book and if you don't do anything else, just go to the back where it goes through all the principles one by one.
If you don't have time to read the whole book, if you just go and sit with a principle a day, it's going to change your life. But two of those, so contribution motivated and preferred partnership.
So for me, I was contribution motivated at the time when I started Devoted Dreamers. It was how can I contribute to society something that doesn't exist. And then there was this word around innovative education. And then when preferred partnership, what preferred partnership is is someone that has shared value, shared vision and complementary capabilities. That's what Stand Together has 10x and close to 100x our work with Devoted Dreamers. Well, all we wanted to do was holistic development around students and now we have the ability to reach the entire country just because of different schools. We all over the country. My wife is traveling more than me now going and visiting with different schools. We have an app that's getting ready to come online that are teaching kids this five-strand model that we started in 2013. If we didn't have the preferred partnership, we wouldn't be able to do that. So, you have to be okay with working with people who don't look like you, people who don't have the same things as you, a different skill, and be able to make those connections. And when you do that, it allows you to accelerate your impact at rapid rates and have more influence or affluence that you would have originally thought you could have imagined. And so that's what I would say is the key for our country going forward is people having a contribution mindset. How can I contribute to society but then forming unlikely partnerships with people on different sides of the track. And if you can create that, it's going to accelerate and it's going to bring our country together.
See what he just said? There's no difference between running the business and also what we need in society from our views. I mean that's why it's at the principled level. These are not detailed business rules that top-down you want people to follow. It's empower people with these principles and let them run. And if you're contribution motivated like Demario is to go build his own organization and look what he's doing.
From a leadership standpoint within the NFL and helping so many NFL players, like, you know, there's beyond the game, what are we going to do? How can I help you succeed whether it's in business or in philanthropy? What do you want to do with...
Yeah. That's what has happened is we become friends. We hang out now and so we get a chance to connect and we co-create. So that's what's happened with the philanthropic locker room. We co-created that Stand Together and us and other athletes, we co-created this. How can we serve athletes of today? Well, athletes can't sustain their impact most of the time when they're done playing if they don't put the right system, structures, and partners around. And so we put together complimentary capabilities again and we came up with something. But that was a principle from bottom-up empowerment and this understanding that those closest to the problem aren't the problem. Those are the solutions. The leadership team that Stand Together, we have more that are here today. They sat down with athletes, got on phone calls and said, 'What are the issues? What are the pain points? How can we fix them?' And that humility allowed for vast change to happen in our game. And what we're doing inside the NFL is looking to be modeled in the NBA and MLB.
