Dr. Abraham George - Shanti Bhavan Founder | The Life That Actually Matters

You made millions, specifically, to give it away. Why? I had made up my mind to spend my life on social service. To do what I had decided to do in my search for purpose. He left behind corporate success to solve problems most people never see. Dr. Abraham George is a social entrepreneur whose life has spanned battlefields, boardrooms, and villages in rural India. Lying in the hospital thinking about what had happened apart from injuries, I was quite okay. That was a miracle. Asking yourself, now that you have a second life, what should I do with it? People early in their careers, they want to be successful in their business and they want to make a lot of money. The purpose of your existence can't be for making more money and it's an endless game. He could have built a comfortable career, but instead he chose a different mission. Championing, education, health, and equity for the most underserved. His story isn't about comfort, it's about conviction. You need to find agents for change. People who have a heart, you don't need a lot of people. If they are really committed, they can carry on the others. It is not whether you came from a poor home or not. It is the opportunity you have. You have to believe that human beings have the potential. It's a matter of using that potential. Dr. Abraham George, you made millions specifically to give it away. Why? Well, I didn't make millions to give it away. That would be a wrong assumption. But I had waited my mind to spend a good part of my life on social service. I knew that I need to make enough money. I had worked for my own company and otherwise for 25 years and made a reasonable amount of money. Apart from living aside enough for my wife, my children, I felt that I should use most of it to do what I decided to do almost 30 years earlier. The reason is that I had found in my search for purpose to my life. I had come to the conclusion that the best way to achieve that and be happy with what I am doing is to serve those who are deprived. I had 200 acres of banana farms to employ all the women, poor women in the villages, surrounding 13 villages. I am building houses for the poor where they are broken down hearts. I am every two, three months I supply food rations to some 5,000 people. Every day we serve large to all women and men who don't have families. So there are so many different things I am doing at this time along with my work with them. Yeah, I realize that of course when you are building your businesses, you are making money to survive and to live. But you had altruistic tendencies from a very young age and obviously there is quite a compelling story that led you to think that way. But you mentioned years and years and years ago. So from what I understand, a lot of your world view and your inclination to want to give back. I came from a very early near death experience. Is this correct when you were 18? That is correct. I was a military officer stationed in the Himalayas. And actually 14,000 feet above sea level, quite a high altitude. That was the highest battleground anywhere in the world at that time. Very cold and short of oxygen and so on. And I lived there for 11 months and I used to climb some of the nearby hills and sit there and watch this guy go under me. The clouds under me and a lot of time to think and reflect and before that I had read two books that had a big impact on me. One was by veteran Russell, modern day philosopher and he writes about many things but one line caught my attention and that was he said. There is nothing right about war. It's about who is left. Oh, I that's I said, look what I'm what am I doing? I am spending my time and the years to come training to go to war. And I didn't think that was the purpose of for my existence. And the other was by Albert Schweitzer, you know, he's a German doctor. He was a German doctor who won the Nobel Prize later on. He went in a small canoe type of boat all the way to equatorial Africa to a country less known, Gabon. And he went into the jungle, cleared some portion and established a clinic for the tribals there and he lived among the animals that I found it very fascinating. And he writes about the reverence for life that every life is very important and that also had a great impact. So those had set up my earlier inclination or impact on me. And then I almost met with death in a dynamite, dynamite accident. I could have been killed in, you know, blasting rocks in the Himalayas and I escaped by noticing the blast that was have worked to blast. Fracture for a second before it happened and I turned around and jumped and I was injured and but then obviously I escaped. So then I like the hospital bed. I asked myself why was I somehow saved and and that was the purpose. But that's where I decided that I should spend a good part of my life later years after making some money on service to humanity. You were right beside this blast that should have killed you because there was a, you were basically setting up this fuse for dynamite blast to blow up rock and you were, you didn't have as much wire as you should have had. So basically the blast went off literally right beside you. So there's a really good chance you could have died in this situation. What happens when you go through an experience like that when you realize that there was a very good chance you could have died. The feeling is thankfulness that you had escaped and the second is asking yourself why did that happen and then now that you have a second life, what should I do with it? How can I somehow reward the blessing I had and I was thinking about how I should spend the rest of my life. And obviously I had to get out of the military and start my career from the scratch. I had to get educated. I had to make money to start on social ventures. So I was thinking about all those things, but it was another two and a half years before I could get out of the army. So you still had to serve for a period of time? Yes, I finally got out on medical grounds. So as you move into the next stage of your life, I think a lot of people, I believe a lot of people want to serve, want to help people that aren't as fortunate as them. I genuinely believe that it hurt, but it's given the opportunity they could. But how did you decide to do that? So now you have this sort of new lease on life in your mind because you were so close to death in this explosion. What's next in your life? What are the steps you take? The next thing is to make money so I can do what I have to do. And the way to make money is to come to America, come to America and go to school, do a couple of masters and their doctoral degree and work for a major bank, JP Morgan for two years and then start my own company. It all had a purpose that is that I wanted to make money, live comfortably and enjoy some of the joys of living at the same time, save enough money to embark on what I had to do. So when you came to America, that was a goal, make money and then at some point you can sort of give back. You get lost in the making money part of it for a period of your life where like the money sort of consumed or took over because I know there was a period in your life where you were living very lavishly, like you were enjoying the money. So there has to be a point where you have to go back to giving, but obviously for a period of time, you completely just what's the word. Everything about money, capitalism, all of it, you were living it. So walk me through that period of your life because you speak about in your book, living very lavishly and understanding that maybe this wasn't the reason why you were making all this money. But you knew why you were making the money before, so like I'm trying to figure out what happened. Why did you sort of fall off the path for a little bit? I'm not sure I would use the word lavishly. I would use the word I was living a comfortable life, enjoyable life, traveling around the world, living in a nice home, bringing up my children right. All that I was doing and at the same time I was reading up on how to do what I wanted to do, which was go to a remote part of the world. Initially my thought was to go to Africa just like Albert Schweitzer, but do something in the educational arena because I didn't have experience in the medical area. And so I was reading up on developing the economics that said subject I took at NYU Stern and I was reading up on stories of people who have done tremendously great work. And how did they go about doing and preparing myself and at the same time I was striving very hard to make as much money as I could in the 25 years I had my own company. Is it hard to when you are living in an entrepreneurial world where you're growing, you're making money, I think at one point, you sold your company, you exited to a fortune 500, so obviously incredibly successful. Is it hard to pivot your whole life and to go to a remote part of the world and to start to give back? Like that's a massive shift. It depends. In my case, it wasn't all that hard. In fact, towards the end of my business career, I was depressed. I realized that I had fulfilled my dream, my promise to myself, and my great desire to make an impact on others was my driving force in making all that money. Of course, I wanted to enjoy the fruits of my labor and to put my children both boys in through good schools and so on, but it was a means to an end, all of that. So, for me towards the end of my business career, I felt that I needed to get out of this. There is no end to it. I can keep on making money. My company was doing very well. And so, in fact, I was so depressed that I used to get up in the morning at 12 o'clock or 1 o'clock in the morning and go to the music room and play the music and add you for strings. It's called music, barbers and add you for strings and I would listen to it very quietly and think of what I should do next. You know, it's so interesting because you had this mission from like a very young age that you knew exactly what you wanted to do when you made the money. Do you feel like a lot of people who are successful, probably some of your peers as well, they make X amount of money and then they don't really know what their purpose is? Is this something that you'd actually advise somebody who's earlier on in their career young entrepreneur to sort of figure out before they start playing the entrepreneur game? That is hard. That's hard. People early in their careers, they want to be successful in professionally or in their business and they want to make a lot of money. They can't be thinking about the work they do social work or anything else they do later on. So, but somewhere along as they start making money, you're the purpose of your existence can't be for making more money and it's an endless game. You make 10 million, they're 100 million and 1 million. Where does it end? And that's a choice they got to make. I don't think most people would have had the opportunity as I had almost near death experience and so on to think of it much earlier in my life. I think that you're right. I think when I'm just thinking back to like one even I was young, but you know, young friends of mine that are really successful is still young entrepreneurs. When they start, they don't think about, you know, what they're going to be doing after they exit, but I do think it's important at some point to know your number and to know what kind of lifestyle you're going to live because I think that most people think they need more money than they actually do and they don't realize it. I don't know if you felt this, but maybe that's maybe that's part of why you felt like a little bit depressed. Scott, you know, there is something else. If you're always in the midst of the fluent society, you know, moving in the midst of milleness and so on. Or you are traveling to only Europe and where there are, you know, lifestyle is very different from, you know, most parts of the world. If you have had the experience of traveling to some parts of Africa, good part of Asia and even South America, Latin America, and you are among the poorest to the poor and you see that life, what they go through and the suffering they face. And then you will begin to ask, what can I do for them? How can I make their lives better and more than half the world is suffering? And then you begin to ask those questions. But if you are amongst the rich all the time and then you probably won't come to think about these things. Yeah, it's very valid. I actually, I was speaking to Peter Cunio who is, he was a CEO of Marvel and he's done several big turnarounds in his career. And I just asked him, like, what would be the advice that you would give to your children? And he said, just travel more. Travel more and just get exposed to more reality because obviously I think that if you don't like to your point, that's a really, that's really wise. You're never going to see how good you have it and you're never going to understand, you're never going to understand what life is really like for the majority of people. If you're in this sort of bubble of success and wealth and what Americans consider to be achievement, right? And I say Americans predominantly because even when I go to Europe, people are way less, way less focused on work than the average American is, right? We always want more and more and more and more and more. And I think that even when I go to Europe and Europe is not difficult spot like Europe, nobody is really struggling significantly compared to Africa when you go to Europe. But even then you notice like a mindset shift away from work and more towards life. And I think that's something that most people could probably internalize. That's correct. I run into a number of people, executives in companies, entrepreneurs who come to visit our projects. And I asked them, do you have any children? They say, I got an 80 year old or a 12 year old. I said, listen, why don't you consider the possibility of setting your kid once become across 16 or 18 to a place like ours and live among the poor in a remote area. For a couple of months, it will be a life changing experience, a transformation will take place. And I've seen this happen. In some cases, the subkids who have gone astray in the opinion of their parents, they don't know what to do with them. They have no plus, they're not going to attending classes and all that. And they somehow got this kid to come and spend two, three months with us. And he goes back changed, a changed human being because then you would have seen what poverty means, the suffering that people go through. And then you would ask himself, boy, I have so much going for me and I wasted it. So I know you said you weren't like living lavishly, but objectively compared to poverty, you were living quite well when you're building your company and life's going well. There was never a point, there was never a point where you said, you know what, life is very good right now. I am rethinking my objective. There was never that point. You were always always thinking at some point in my life, I will give a lot of this back to people who need it the most. I wasn't thinking of how much I give back, I was thinking of what do I have to do to improve the lives of the people. And I was looking for a strategy to make a difference and whatever it would take, no matter how much money it would take, I wasn't thinking about it. But then I thought I would make it my business, but my whole focus was developing a strategy I met with a number of people including my professors at NYU and the great professor by the name Robert Hawkins with whom I had numerous conversations. And he directed me to the kind of things that people in developing countries that he had visited, what they're going through. So apart from my own personal experience, you was communicating to me what he had seen. And so I was more engaged in developing a strategy as opposed to thinking about oh, I'm going to spend so much money. Money can just disappear if you are not careful, but you really need to do the right thing. And the people who you were building this company with, did they know what your life plans were? Did they think you were crazy? Were they supportive? I never revealed it. I never told them that this crazy thing I was going to do until the very end, I called them all up and said listen, I want to sell this company. He said what, you know, they were more concerned about what will happen to them. They'll be quite okay in the new company. No, they didn't have a clear understanding, but often I would talk about the subject of poverty and things like that, that experience. So in that sense, they knew I had a heart for this. What is the first step that you take? Because there's so many, I mean, you're speaking to your professors, you have an idea of all the different problems that, you know, plague the world and in poverty countries. There's a million different ways that you can try and help and support people that aren't as fortunate. But where do you start? What was your mission? What was the way that you wanted to do this? Very good question. In my case, I had taught through the reason for poverty. And in many cases, it's the social injustice. People, the bottom of the society don't have an opportunity to rise up. They've discriminated. They've, you know, in India, there's a caste system where people on the lower caste are treated like subservient, very subservient. And I felt the way to bring about social justice is through education. And I need to do that right from the beginning. There's no point in throwing some money at some schools and getting them some education. I felt that in order to compete in the marketplace with children going to excellent schools, I had to bring them up from a very early age. So the strategy was, again, I'm coming back to the strategy was to get the children to live with me from the age of four. And that needs some convincing of poor people, even poor people, you know, they care for their children, they don't want you away. And so I had a school, a residential school, and I was bringing them up with three things in mind. The first is, how do I offer the best education possible? The second is, how do I give them leadership skills, communication skills, so that they can shine just like anyone else from, you know, influences. And that was something very personal, and that was how do I turn them into people with character, the humane values. I'm distinguishing it from leadership qualities, how to be humble, to be kind, generous, those humane qualities, that was very important to me. That's a very difficult thing also in schools, they don't teach you that, they leave it to the parents to bring them up that way. Here I had taken ownership of the children in a way, I was a guardian and I had to do that too. So those three aspects of one's personality, I was, and development, I was involved in. And so this was my mission. Quick question, what's your go to when you got 10 minutes before a meeting or a workout? For me, it just used to be whatever I could grab, which usually meant skipping meals entirely or just grabbing something that left me crashing an hour later because it was just full of garbage. That's why I'm partnering with Hule, this black edition ready to drink is a complete meal, so it has 35 grams of protein, 6 grams of fiber, 35 essential vitamins and minerals. 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Was this something that, because I mean, I think a lot of people think about philanthropy is they're giving money to food or housing or poor communities or clean water. These are sort of like the things that people would assume that's where you put your money. You weren't throwing money at everything. You were building a system really that didn't exist. So you did not have a background in education. How do you do this properly? Because it seems like a huge undertaking. I understand that and obviously you spent your whole life thinking about this. So obviously you had some time to plan, but you take kids four years old. Obviously these kids are coming from very poor families. And you are basically educating them from four to I think what 20 years old, if I'm not mistaken, for almost 17 years. So where does this strategy come from? It's total care. They have nothing to spend. Everything was covered. After they finished 14 years in school, I sent them to good colleges and I'm still with them. And until they land their first jobs and the children, some of them go to Indian colleges, some of them come to America. And you probably have read in some of the colleges they currently are enrolled in in America. So remember they are coming from a one room hut attached roof, leaking roof, no toilet, no kitchen. And from that environment, ending up in Harvard or Stanford, he's never happened before. So that is the challenge that I had taken on and that's what I was doing. I know it's a huge challenge. It's incredible. So with a strategy, you take kids at four. Why such an early age? Why is four so important? What are you trying to solve for when you take somebody who is, I mean, four is what I'm trying to think. Is that like kindergarten? We're one year before kindergarten. Okay, so preschool. So why four years old? A preschool. And in our case, these children had never used a paper or a pencil, never played with a toy. They have no language skills, other than their own local language. So they don't have to use a toilet. They don't have to brush their teeth. So you're talking about totally immersion. And if you don't bring them up an early age, it's very difficult to change habits and outlook. And some people tell me even four years is too late. You should probably take it at three. So I find three would be very difficult to bring them up. So four was the number that I came up with. And you have to put a housemother or an auntie, as we call, for every four to six children, you have to have one adult looking after them in the dormitory. Four times, obviously. Only four hours, you know, all kinds of things happen, bed waiting and, you know, all kinds of problems, human beings have. And they have to be willing to take care of the kids just like they take care of their own. And that is the effort that is needed. And then, of course, education is another thing, teachers, whole classes and so on. And then they go for games and they fall sick and tend to get it. You know, you know, if you bring up a kid, what all things will happen to you? So this was something that, and you funded this yourself because from what I understand, I mean, the results, like the results, which is that child eventually growing into an adult and going to like an Ivy League school and then securing a job. Again, 17 plus years, donors probably wanted and or investors probably wanted like a return sounds like an inhuman metric to apply to this kind of situation, but it's hard to convince somebody to give you money for a result you're going to get in 17 plus years from now. And I don't even know how you how how you measure this because I'm assuming most, most nonprofits, they operate in quarters and annual reports, not in 17 year timeframe. Absolutely right Scott. You hit the nail on the head. But luckily I had made enough money in the first 15 years or so. I did not have to go around asking others for money. I wanted to do it my way and this was not a model the rest of the world was doing. Nobody wants to spend their time and money in a remote village bringing up somebody else's children for all this time. And so I didn't have to go to anyone, but only when I ran into some financial difficulty, the 2008 financial crisis, I had to go to others and ask for it. But fortunately by then my children had grown up. They were almost in 10 11 12th grade and they were doing extremely well. So I had a model that was, you know, it was improving yet they haven't got a job yet, but people could come and see what I had done. So when I asked for money, the biggest hurdle was when will we see a return? You said the right thing. People want to know within maximum one year, how many people who have benefited, how many people who have fed, how many people, you know, they're cured of some illness. But I am telling them you are the weight 18 years, no 200 in the right mind is going to give you money. Luckily I had a few people who did help. What made you decide, like I know that now in hindsight, it all makes sense. You focus on early early early childhood education. That brings somebody all the way through to getting their first job. You basically guide them through their whole young life. But what at the beginning made you commit, want to commit to somebody for over 17 years when you had no proof this would work? I had a conviction. I was absolutely convinced that if I do the right thing, bring them up the right way and bring them up with love and caring. And bring them up as though they are your own children. They are likely to succeed. So even though at the first board meeting I had, all my board members told me, this is doomed to fail. And I said, no, you wait for 18 years and they were saying 18 years. This is crazy. But you have to have the staying power. My conviction was the way to convince others. Is the thesis true? Is it true? Like does this help the community that they come from? Like what happens when somebody goes from a, you said like a one bedroom high, like truly like poverty to Stanford to getting a job at wherever? Absolutely Scott, right from a very young age, their burning desire, their burning desire is to change the status of their families, bring dignity to their lifestyle, the parents lifestyle. They have been insulted and treated very poorly. So they know that if they can live well in a nice house and dress well and so on, they don't have to go through this indignity. And so that's a burning desire and every kid who has got a job, they start improving their parents homes, they build a new house, they provide food rations every month, bring clothing, put the parents in the rest of the family siblings on medical insurance, pay for their sisters, you know, dowry, there is a dowry system in India. So there's so many things they have to do and it takes them two, three years to fulfill all of that and without exception, every one of the children are doing it or have done it. Listen, a lot of my audiences in the US and I don't, I'm sure some of them understand, but I don't know if all of the audience understands the caste system and we're talking about poverty, but maybe explain also why outside of just being, you know, not financially secure. Obviously, when you say one bedroom hut, you truly, you're not being, you're not exaggerating like that is truly the life they're living, but the caste system in India, from what I understand, it is a 1500 year old caste system that is not just about poverty, it is about discrimination, it is like it's very bad. Is there, is there any other, I mean, if it's 1500 years old and it's still alive and well in, in 2026 now, obviously, it's not being fixed anytime soon, but this is, this is one way that you can slowly start to fix and repair the caste system, correct? There may be explain like what that, what that is for people who don't understand it. It's a very large number of people, those who belong to the very bottom, there are 200 million of them, very bottom. There are other levels of caste and if you consider those who so-called low caste, some two, three levels of low caste, there are some 600 million people. So it's not a small number. And the government, this way of approaching this is to say, okay, we will provide government schools where you have to pay a very small fee. Or we will provide medical care in substandard hospitals at a very low rate, or we will assign quarter for jobs and admission to colleges. So the government is doing something, but my take was this not going to break the caste system. The only way to break the caste system is those who are at the bottom, they themselves get empowered, not by somebody handing out something from the top. So that's why this educational model that I came up with was to make them immensely successful through a quality education proper bringing they can move in any society and they carry not only their families, but the neighbors, the community and so on. The multiplicative fact that I am focusing on each child in their lifetime would impact 100 others. That's what I hope would happen. And if that happens, and then they in turn multiply that, the effect of this will be very large and the cost of this program will be very small. I think that also to your point, like the multiplicative effect, when people, when you see your neighbor and you see what they have accomplished and you see what's possible. It reframes your perspective with the world and from that person who's living in a very poor village, what they can achieve and what they can accomplish and how much money they can make and what they can do. I think that's probably one of the most important things. It's like the influences that these people are going to have on all the other people that they grew up with. Absolutely. When the children go back to their village for the summer vacation or, you know, whatever holiday and they go back, the whole village crowds around these kids. If you got this speaking beautiful English, their mannerisms are very different from the rest of the village. They're admiring these kids and their confidence level is very high and yet they're polite. So it does it tremendous impact on others in the village too. This is incredible because it's not just that you've put your money in your life and the education system, I guess, is this is what Shanti Bhavan is. This is the program, this is the education system, but this is also like where you spend most of your life. So for people to understand, you don't just sort of fund this and then just observe from, you know, off site. Like you live, you live on campus, you still live on campus, you spend hours daily talking with the kids that are still going through the program. So like you have fully immersed yourself in this. This is not something that you are, you know, you're funding and you're living in like a penthouse in New York or you're, you know, you're going to South of France and you're spending, you know, six, ten months out of the year. All over Europe, partying and enjoying life like you live in this right now, right? It's not a check signing exercise sitting in New York City inside a million dollar check and something magical happened, your million dollars will disappear. That's for sure. You need to find agents for change, as they call it, people who have a heart, people who are the right people, train them, motivate them, you know, treat them well and make it exciting for them. And some of them may have a religious reason that that's God's work. Some people say others feel that this is the way they, you know, they find their purpose in life. So there are different different motivations and that there are some people who just want this gallery, you know. But if you have, you don't need a lot of people, I have in the school, 150 or so people working to bring up these children, I would say 10 or 15 of them, if they are really committed, they can carry all the others. It's not like all 150 have to be truly, truly driven by the cause. Over time, they too feel good about what they're doing and they will be motivated to do a good job. So that is a trick. So sitting in New York will not work. You have to be there or you have to find the right people or agents like me who are willing to give their lives to the cause. Then you can get this job done. And there are enough people like that. How has this changed you? Like you always assumed that you were going to do this with your life, but how has it really changed you after living it going from US entrepreneur building a business background and finance to. So this is sort of one version of Abraham. And then the second version of Abraham is living probably in a, you're not living lavishly now for sure. If you are living on this campus, you're giving your life and your time and your energy to these kids. How has it changed you? Was it everything you wanted? Was it everything you expected? Was there things about this that you didn't expect? I'm a happy man. I wake up every morning with no worry other than how to solve a problem for a kid who is not doing well in class or whose behavior is not right or a staff member who needs to improve the work. You she's doing. I got it doesn't know more, you know issues to handle. And I'm preoccupied from six o'clock in the morning to 11 o'clock at night. I don't feel tired. I'm quite old, you know, but I don't feel tired. I this is some form of energy that I get and the satisfaction of seeing improvement. And I often tell people when you help a poor person, you know, on the street and you stop by, you know, your car, it's a red light and some woman with a, with a baby on a hip and she hasn't eaten for three days and come to the window and ask you you rolled on the window and give some money for enough for a breakfast. Okay, you can see in a rise the joy. And that is what you're going to get. And the same thing is true for what I do. The happiness, you know, for small things I say to the kids or the work that I do, how happy they are this mile and their love for you. And of course, you're love for them. That's what makes a difference. And for me, that I found tremendous joy in doing what I'm doing. What was the hardest point when you were building Shanti Bhavan? I mean, I know that in 2008, there was a financial crisis. That's when you started to look for more money. Obviously, that was a low point and a difficult point for sure. Just because I know that that's stressful when you, you're trying to build this thing out and you had this money committed to it. And now life happens. Was that the hardest point? Was there other hard points? Talk to me about something that, you know, I don't want to ever say, made you question if this was worth it. But definitely what caused you more stress than you expected. Right. There was no point in my years, now almost 30 years. There was never a point where I asked that question. Is it worth it? It was a question of how do I make it work? It was a question of how do I overcome this hurdle or that hurdle? Having said that, there were many hurdles working in a rural area. You know, there are many power blocks, landlords who want to control the poor and they would say something like this. Or if you bring up all these kids of poor people and my kid can't join there because you say they are not qualified because we are slightly richer than the others. What will happen 10, 15 years from now? They are all going to be our bosses. Okay. So they want to stop this project. And then there is of course a bureaucracy and corruption, you know, you have to overcome that. And you know, I shouldn't talk too much about it to annoy anyone. So I wouldn't. But you have to deal with the environment in which you are doing your work. Then there are superstitions, habits, you know, religious beliefs. There's so many things that, you know, they are playing the dynamics of that. You have to deal with all of that. But at the end of the day, the challenges, the success of the kid. And when that doesn't happen in a few cases, you feel very sad. I'll give you a little story. There was a woman who had a husband, both were blind. I don't know. They married each other. They were blind. And they put a kid in a school. And at one of them, you know, assemblies I had of all the parents. At the end of it, they came up to me and thank me and sort of touching my feet and so on. I lived there, but I said, don't worry, you know, she's your daughter is being taken care of. And she thanked me and I said, I know you're blind. One day, you'll see through your daughter's eyes. And that was moving point for them too. The first move also from the line I came up with, it was in the pre-plant statement. And then what happens three, four years from now that woman said, I can't look after myself. I need my daughter back in my house to take me to the toilet and this and that. And she pulls the kid out broke my heart. Now you ask me, what are the hurdles or what are the difficulties. These are emotional pain that are many stories like this. And that you have to stomach. These are ramifications of poverty. And the poverty is not hunger alone. You know, there's so many, so many aspects to poverty and you have to deal with it. What is your hope? I mean, is your hope? I mean, it's a very, it's a very big goal. But what is your hope for tackling poverty? Obviously an India to start tackling the caste system. There's so many hurdles to overcome, like you're mentioning that people don't even consider when you're trying to solve a problem as big as this. Do you think you'll even make a dent in the problem? Do you feel like if this continues over the next 50 years, you're going to actually shake up the caste system and it's not even going to be a thing anymore? Like what is you've probably thought about this? Like how big an impact can you have? You're asking me a very profound question. I came to India 30 years ago with the hope that I will impact the caste system and I will impact poverty. And the way I thought apart from my own schools, now I have two schools and in my lifetime I probably would do another two or three more. But that's nothing. I had thought that I would create 100 schools and they're producing 300, 400, 500 kids. And they multiply or effect in 50 years, it'll completely change society. That was my model. But now I know that I can't do 100. Now I have to expect people with substantial wealth. Having agents were changed working for them and I could be one of those agents who could train the two manage those schools. So I'm looking at different different models and I'm also looking at transition from myself. I'm not going to live forever. My son Agit is already taking over many of the things that I'm doing. For the last 15 years he has been working with me and I have a number of others who are not my family members who were extremely dedicated. And I am trying to pass on what I have accomplished to them. And so for the next 50 years or so, I have a model working. But beyond that, I'm already talking to them how to carry it on for 100 years or whatever. And the answer to that question is it will make a debt a substantial debt if I can motivate enough people with wealth to contribute to the cause either through people like me or they are to take their own. Indeed is a success story partner. If you're hiring, indeed is all you need. Let me give you an example. If I needed to hire a new editor for this show, I'd go to indeed and be super specific. Not just can you edit audio, I'd say I need someone who's edited a conversational podcast for at least three years gets our style and knows our software. Someone who's done this before. And here's the thing with indeed sponsored jobs. I'd get people who fit that description. I'm not digging through resumes from people who've edited one YouTube video. I'm getting actual podcast editors who know what they're doing. People who've worked on shows like ours and can prove it. That's what makes a difference. You get people who actually are what you're looking for. According to indeed data sponsor jobs posted directly on indeed are 90% more likely to report a higher than non sponsored jobs and people are finding quality hires right now in the minute that I've been speaking to you companies like yours have made 27 hires on indeed according to indeed data worldwide. Spend more time interviewing candidates who check all the boxes less stress less time and more results now with indeed sponsor jobs and listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsor job credit to help you get your job. The premium status it deserves. At indeed dot com slash Larry just go to indeed dot com slash Larry right now and support our show by saying you heard about indeed on this podcast indeed dot com slash Larry terms and conditions apply hiring do it the right way with indeed have spot is a success story partner. If you're into this show, you're probably someone who likes learning from people who've actually done the thing. That's why I want to put create like the grades on your radar. It's a great show. It's hosted by Ross Simmons part of the Habspot podcast network. Ross breaks down some of the greatest creations and creators of all time. They built how they thought the actual process behind it and he's not just talking theory. He's been doing this stuff for over a decade, but I appreciate is that he makes it practical like how do you actually systematize creativity. So you're productive, but you're not burning out. So if you like learning from history, understanding how great work gets made and you want something that's easy to listen to, check it out. Listen to create like the greats wherever you get your podcasts. I think that more people have to know this story like when I first when I first sort of found out about what you've done and then I went down the rabbit hole and I just want to read this because the effectiveness of this first of all the idea itself is very impressive. And I'm sure that would get a lot of people excited about what you're doing, but it's the effectiveness that I think is the most important. So from what I understand, you have a 98% college graduate graduation rate. You have students at Stanford, Princeton, Dartmouth, Duke, Harvard. You have people that are working at Goldman Sachs, Google, Mercedes, Benz, Ernst & Young. These are people that came from one room huts with no kitchen, no bathroom, parents earning less than $2 a day from this untouchable quote unquote untouchable caste system. This has never happened in the history of India really ever. So that that alone is incredible effectiveness. I think that that's probably the most important thing people to take away. This is not just a feel good initiative. I think that these graduation rates are probably some of the highest graduation rates of a population and community of people globally. Like I don't think that the average, I have no idea what the average data is, but I can't imagine that the average US upper middle class community that goes to college has a 98% graduation. I don't think that's the case. I could be wrong, but I genuinely don't believe that's true. So these kids are outperforming people that have significant privilege growing up. So that's I mean, congratulations. You're doing an incredible job. And I think if more people understand the effectiveness of the program, not just the fact that it's doing good, which should be that should be enough reason to get involved. But if they understand how effective it is, that's just even more reason to sort of support and to and for someone else to take it and run with it if they want to. Yeah, Scott, the fact of the matter is, you know, it is not whether you came from a poor home or not. It is the opportunity you have and what others, how they are helped and the commitment and love that you give. And you have to believe that human beings have the potential. It's a matter of you using that potential. And that's what I have done. I haven't done anything else. I have given these children love and the care that is needed for them to succeed. And whether they are poor or rich, it's the same thing. Of course, you have to work harder because of their backgrounds, you know, to overcome their superstitions and many other things. But at the end of the day, it doesn't matter where they come from. This is one quote from you that I thought was really powerful. And I just want you to explain it for me. So some people have empathy. You see someone suffering and feel bad. That's not enough. Some people have compassion. You want to help. That's also fine. But it's not enough. You need compassionate action. You have to actually do something. So speak to me about where that idea came from. It came from my own experience. I have run into lots of people who feel a lot of empathy, sympathy, empathy or even compassion. They want to be involved and they tell me they want to be involved. But when it finally comes to doing something and spending their own money for doing it or sending their time on it, they're back off. So what is the point if you are not going to have the impact on the beneficiary? See, you can feel sad about all these people who are suffering. That makes you happy. I make you feel that you're a good person. Oh, I'm feeling sorry for someone. You know, it's your self gratification. You know, it's not doing everything with the other guy until you act on it. So all the other stuff, empathy, sympathy, compassion, they mean nothing under their willing to act on it. And I say to people, you know, when I go from my village to the city, I tell my manager, keep a few rupees in my glove compartment. So when I stop at a light in some woman or some old man comes to me, I should be able to give enough for a breakfast. I have to go prepared for it. I can't say I don't have money. You have to prepare yourself for it. And that's what I mean by compassion and action. When you chose to write mountains across, what was your goal? If several goals, one, I wanted to tell the story. It's almost like a secret. Nobody had really come to Microsoft a few. And people need to know what was accomplished and coming from New York and a corporate environment, Wall Street and so on. How I ended up where I am. And it's possible for others to may not be my model, but some other model. And they can impact thousands and thousands of people. So I wanted to tell them, hey, I am not just a do good. I landed on Mars or something. I came from the same type of place like you came from just that I wanted to make a difference. That's one thing I wanted. I wanted to tell them how I did it. And so the entire book is full of stories. You probably every chapter is got a lot of incidents. So that way they can see how I overcame those, those incidents or the setbacks and it is how I reflected on them. And I wanted people to see the way I dealt with it. And the third, you just said, what is needed, you know, the compassionate action. I wanted people to realize that that is absolutely the driving force that has to be there in you. And then in talking to the children in my conversations, I want people with children, maybe they will see that is one aspect that we are not probably giving enough attention. And that is how you turn our kids into good human beings who are going to transform society. How they're going to reach out to others in need. Those were suffering. The world is suffering. So I wanted to give that message. And these are some of the goals. And of course, I want to leave something behind for others who follow to carry this model forward. Now you're in your seventies. You've lived an incredible life. What does a life well lived mean to you? It means a lot of satisfaction that I use my life meaningfully if I was just making more money in the corporate world. I don't know what I would do. I can only eat so much. I can, you know, I can drink wine somewhere on the beach or something. And what happens after that? Here I am a happy man. As I said earlier, bring joy to so many others. And then you have a community. You know, you are in the midst of people who love you and you love them and not one hundred of them. And where can you get that? It's such a such a rewarding experience. That's what I have achieved for myself. What do you know about achievement and success now that you wish you knew when you were 20 years old? 20 years old, though I had this great idea of service, my thought was all about how to make money and how to succeed and so on. So I have to admit, I wasn't deeply thinking at 20, maybe 30s and 40s, I start thinking how I can serve. So making money was my goal. When you look at what you've built and you wake up tomorrow morning on that campus, what makes it all worth it? What do you see in your day that just makes you realize, yes, I made the right decision? I hope is what I offer. I offer hope to those children, the hope that they can transform their families from poverty to a modest life, the hope that themselves can succeed in their careers. I hope that they can have a good life for themselves. So I am in the hope business. I am giving these children the hope for a better day, one day. If somebody reads Mountain to Cross, and they only take one thing away from it, what would that lesson be? That lesson is that they will find happiness and satisfaction and contentment with their lives, in their lives, if they reach out beyond themselves. They can't be talking about me, me, me all the time. They have to say to themselves, how can I help someone else? And the power of that, the transformation you create for others, that will make you a very happy person. If you ask me one source of joy in your life, that's what it is, that you have lived a meaningful life, that you have helped many others. Their lives have become far better because of you. They don't have to suffer the effects of poverty, the various ramifications of poverty. You have helped them overcome them, and you have brought hope and joy to them. Abraham, I appreciate you so much. I want you to just let people know where they can connect with you. So, websites, socials, anywhere you want to send them. Obviously, like I mentioned before, Mountain to Cross is going to be available wherever you can get books, I'm assuming. Amazon or a variety of other different, it'll be on your website as well, all the links where they can purchase it. So where can they go and learn more about you, your life, your work? Well, very simple. Instead of me giving a website, they can't remember. I hope they can remember Abraham George, Abraham for Abraham Lincoln and George for George Washington. You got all the presidents. So, you type those Abraham George and you're going to hit a lot of websites. And my personal pride, Dr. Abraham George.com will tell you all about it. I bought the book. And of course, you can go to Amazon and ask for mountains to cross. You'll get the book. The book has my story from actually the childhood to today because a lot of people ask me what made you what you are and making your Abraham George, you know, what prompted me to be the person I am doing this work. I don't want to elevate myself, but I'm just saying that so many influential factors, how my mother brought me up and what she told me and so on. And all those had tremendous impact on me. So my story is there in addition to what I have done and then my message to the world is there, all of that in the book. The book would be a good source, a cookbook for you. If you want to get into this business, this cookbook will tell you what are the recipes for this. And I would urge you to buy. And by the way, all the money that comes to the order is used for charity for this purpose. So you start giving a website just Google my name Abraham George and you'll hit the book. I'll make sure to link your website to in the show notes so people can find it easily. I guess the last thing I'll ask, you know, you've given over a lot of different wisdom. If you could pass on just the most important lesson, most important life lesson, business lesson, philanthropic lesson, you can pick one. Pick one that you would want to leave your kids with because that's usually the most important lesson. What would that lesson be and why? Be humble, be caring and ask one simple question all the time when you face an issue that you have to deal with. Simply ask the question, what's the right thing to do and do the right thing. So humility and caring and doing the right thing will get you ahead. This is my all the time. That's what I tell very young people. I know a lot of your focus has been on Chanty Bhavan in the school but you've done a lot of other things for India and I think that those things, even when I was listening to other podcasts that you've been on, they're not highlighted as much and I think that they just deserve a mention. And also to your point, you can help in a variety of different ways. Don't think that just because you're listening to this podcast and Dr. George has helped India with this specific sort of strategy doesn't mean that you have to follow that exactly. The point of this conversation is just encourage action and encourage empathy and encourage really take what is the word you use, compassionate action, I think is the word you used towards cause. So just to help people understand the scope of what you do because you live it, you truly live everything we're talking about in a really big way. What are some of the other things you've taken on and sort of put your time and energy and effort and money into? I came to India because I look like an Indian, it's easier there than say Africa. So that's the only reason and somebody asked me to come there but I could have gone anywhere, I would have been just as happy anyway. But anyway, my goal was to bring social justice. That was very, very important to me that people are treated equally with dignity and so that was that was a driving force and associated with that is poverty. So the path to social justice is through opportunity and through an education, that is the model actually the path to social justice is an economic opportunity you give through education that will empower them and they will succeed and they will then achieve some greatness in terms of professional and monitorally that the social stigma will disappear. That was my model. Now obviously we, I didn't know a lot of things with Chandibowan that we talked about but all the other things I did, I just fell into it, I don't know how it happened when I was there. I was falling sick, the pollution was so bad in the city, close to where we were working and I found out that India was using lead and gasoline in vehicles. And I tried to see whether there was any plan for the government and there wasn't any. So I went back to America, I met with the Oxity environment agency and then went down to CDC and then met with World Bank, WHO, US EPA, everybody and they taught me what to do. I carried with me some leg points of poison testing equipment for blood lead, how much of lead is in your blood and we carried out blood testing of 22,000 children all over India. It's the largest study according to CDC ever conducted on lead poisoning and the results were published and we had a conference in Bangaloo, some 25 countries sent their representatives to that conference and at the end of the conference, the oil companies, the three largest oil companies, they're managing directors turned out without telling us to announce that within 15 months, they will remove lead from gasoline in all over India. Amazing, something I never thought would happen and in year 2000, India became unleaded. It has helped hundreds of millions of people throughout the country, all the urban areas. It probably was one of the least cost projects I had undertaken. So it's certainly always money that you have to spend, sometimes think back can be very large. This is one of the others, it's banana plantation, I was trying to empower women living in these villages who didn't have jobs or seasonal jobs and modern farming in 200 acres of banana farms. But unfortunately, that project didn't succeed after five or six years because we went into a drought season. For three or four years, there was no rain and without rain, bananas, wood, groups, succeeds, the ground level water was going down and our wells were not producing water. So I had to abandon that project. And journalism, journalism school, I started going because I wanted investigative journalism and good governance and transparency, repress and all these things. I was very idyllistic, I went about doing all these things and they were all very successful. That was, we turned out the best postgraduate, journalism school in India. So, number of things I did, I found time for all these things. You know, somebody says it doesn't have time, I don't believe it. You have time for everything if you want to do. It's just got to get the right people around you. And it's incredible what you can do. I mean, even the gasoline story, that's a really interesting story because all it took was awareness. Right. Right. And you never know like when you start to bring some of these issues to light, how many other people are going to end up supporting you. Correct. And it had a worldwide impact, worldwide impact, all those 25 countries who came to the conference. I'm sure they did something in their own countries. I have no doubt. I think that sometimes, you know, something like lead in gasoline causing lead poisoning. But what year was that? That was 1999, 1999, 2000. I feel like there are still in 2026 probably some pretty bad issues around the world that we aren't aware of or that we ignore just because people aren't putting making enough noise about them. And we, I mean, like in the world that I'm in, everybody is focused on innovation, right? Innovate this, innovate that AI, which is fine. That's great. It's going to hopefully change a lot of people's lives for the better. But there's so many things that maybe aren't that complicated that we should try and solve as well. Yeah. You know, see, we have this PC and it's got parts to it and it's got quite dangerous metals in it in there. And when you dump this PC, somebody is, you know, breaking it apart and taking things out. I don't know what they do with it. I don't know how these PCs and all computers disappear from the surface of the. This is true of car batteries, you know, car batteries have lead panels in there, you know, and the previously it was a cottage industry poor women in villages would break these batteries and take out this lead and sell it. And they all died by the age of 30, 40. That was that was a situation. I don't know how they do it today. Maybe mechanized. They break these batteries. So there are smelters or, you know, soldering various things they you still use lead and other metals and they are, you know, they're dumping a lot of things into the rivers and people are drinking that water. You know, you can kill bacteria, but you need to remove trace metals from water. It's a very hard thing to do. So if you dump chemicals or met in a fine metals, they don't go away with radiation or killing bacteria. This is totally a different purification system, which is very expensive. So there are so many things that we are not aware and I need this polluting and we know we are people are talking about organic food and so on. You know, chemicals in the fertilizer, chemicals in the pesticides, you know, pesticides that do you have so many sources of environmental damage. I've been causing environmental damage. And causing human health conditions too, not just environment, but yeah. Endless number of issues and plastics and so on. Do we have time for all these things to solve? Yeah, somebody has to do it, you know, and I got myself involved in lead, but there are 100 others. 100 others, all in different countries around the world. I would actually ask you for somebody that is inclined to want to help and give back with their time and their energy and money. What would be your advice to them? Because like again, this this world can be overwhelming. This like getting involved can be overwhelming. You don't know who you should spend. First of all, you don't know not a lot of people, not I don't say not a lot of people. There are less people who are as entrepreneurial as you who would feel comfortable starting an entire school system or trying to remove lead from an entire country's, you know, gas supply. That's those are very big, big project. Now, obviously there's some people that are fully capable and fully comfortable taking on big projects like that because there's a lot of other people like you, but they're not not everywhere. So if somebody's just trying to get started, not they're like this is overwhelming. I don't want to build the whole school system and have four year olds that I'm being, I'm taking care of all these four year olds in like a residential school. It seems like a lot for me to get involved in from from day one. What would be your advice for somebody who wants to get involved, which causes should they work with? How do you audit whether or not a cause is good or not, right? These are all questions that people have when they have some money and they don't know where to go. Right. First, starting point is you have to ask yourself an honest question. What's your motivation? Some people feel for whatever reason that's God's calling. He's a religious, you know, after all, you know, Christians believe that Jesus said, you know, help your neighbor. So people, they, they get involved for that reason. There are others who feel sympathy, empathy, compassion, whatever reason and they want to do something. But in many cases, people don't want to dirty their hands. They are more comfortable finding somebody they can write a check to and all that they want to be sure about is that that person is honest. So trying to find the right NGO who's willing to do or if you are willing to be in a hybrid mode and that is you do spend some time in the project. And the rest of the time you are in New York or wherever and you monitor and today it's very easy on the internet you can remotely monitor everything you can watch what is going on. Everything is possible. You don't have to be physically there. Of course, physically there is important for human touch. Okay. And that's very important too. So I would argue I would say that choose the area that you have some passion for. It could be medical, for example, taking care of the health care health of poor people who don't have the money to go to a good clinic or a hospital. How do you how do you prevent diseases? How do you intervene in early stages? How do you make sure that poor people they have women have safe delivery? It could be watched in my case, we were involved in preventing infanticide that is killing girls when they are born, you know, that was a prevailing thing that was in the villages we were in. We don't want too many girls. They were seen as a burden they have to give dowry and so on and so on. So we overcame all these things we put the right people to monitor when the child is being born so they don't kill. So it could be any number of projects you ask they have to ask themselves what fires them up. It could be education could be health care could be any number of things and choose that and then what is the level of involvement that you want to have. And of course if you have the money you can make a big difference. So I would urge anyone young people especially when they ask me I like to start with an NGO I said don't don't do it don't do it you go and work real hard good college make some good money and then get on with it. But in the meantime learn about what you want to do visit a few places during a summer vacation learn about it and make some contacts networks choose the right endure to work with and do your job when you have the money. I would definitely tell people to make money for us. I might just sound like a you know this corporate kind of guy. I think I think I know I agree with you I think you need money to help I think that's you have to have money to help or you're not going to help much right nobody will listen to you. I think it's wise I think it's wise work hard make money do something good with that money. Correct. He's like the fisherman you know you go fishing you know the next the exercise are catching the fish with the fly fish you know throwing it at and finally after one or two hours of trying to catch the trout you got it and then you put it back into the water it's same thing.