Randy Haykin, Founder of Gratitude Network | The Importance of Socially Conscious Entrepreneurship

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He interviews Absolutely everyone under the sun and speaks through their journey unpacks the biggest obstacles They've had to overcome to find success in whatever it is they've done in their life So he interviews academy award winners ex-cons holocaust survivors sports heroes you name it He interviews them and he himself also has a really interesting background So Michael Stein's a host. He's an entrepreneur writer actor filmmaker He's also a stand-up comedian so he kind of puts that all into the interview and then he gets into the how the why the secrets of why people do what they do It's really cool. I actually love the show. He reached out to sponsor But I don't take any sponsorships special for podcasts unless I actually like them listen to myself So I listen to it highly recommend you check it out. That is long shot leaders with Michael Stein Today my guest is Randy Haken. He is a serial entrepreneur venture capitalist angel investor philanthropist He currently runs the gratitude network. This is a 501 c3 not for profit. He founded it It provides coaching services to social entrepreneurs around the world He's been in the startup game for a minute in 1997. He co-founded outlook ventures They invested in over 30 growth stage internet and technology and software companies over a 10-year span his street training Came from executive roles that he held at IBM Apple and Paramount In 1993 he joined a series of technology startups and held senior sales and marketing positions at Yahoo electric mines and net channel He's been an angel investor for more than 20 years He's invested in over 30 early stage companies including early stakes in AOL Yahoo E-teams sherry's berries Napa pharmaceuticals I flew in stable.co fast pencil lay concierge Enter allies crowd-optic Employee qa symphony e-farmix and sculpt ecology to name a few So he's been doing this for a while What we focused on is why after working in all these tech companies why he is so Passionate about social entrepreneurship and why it's so important to invest and help people that are focused on socially responsible causes and businesses This is what the gratitude network is all about. This is what he's built up So we spoke about his experience and how Startup has matured over his entire career because he's been with it for he's been in it for a while We spoke about gratitude network what it's doing for businesses different strategies that For profit versus not for profit businesses have how to launch a socially conscious business Also how to look for help and this is lessons that could apply to a socially conscious business or entrepreneur founder or somebody who's just looking for help But how to find a coach to help your business what gaps should they fill what has more merit taking an MBA or continuing on education versus finding a mentor or a coach And some red flags that entrepreneurs should be aware of so a lot of great Entrepreneurship startup lessons but heavily focused on social entrepreneurship and how social entrepreneurship something that he wants to double down on and his Reasons for why it's so important to support these founders and entrepreneurs So let's jump right into it. This is a Randy Haken. He is a serial entrepreneur angel investor venture capitalist and philanthropist Well, I grew up on the East Coast apparently I was a natural-born entrepreneur because my parents tell me that age 8 I was already setting up businesses for all the neighborhood kids and and charging them, you know 25 cents for museum fees so they could come look at a bunch of bones and rocks that I put together, but I Ended up getting a good education after that though at Brown in Providence, Rhode Island and really enjoyed putting together a Independent study there on the area of organizational behavior went on to business school at Harvard and then Apple computer drew me out to the West Coast I went my first five years out here Cells and marketing for Apple including Creating the worldwide developer program for multimedia, which is sort of the dawn of the internet and digital media age so timing was perfect Couple years later. I found myself Introduced by Sequoia capital to Yahoo to the founders there and I joined the team as the VP of cells and marketing as part of that founding team And then after Yahoo went public just a series of startups at the COO and VP level Different roles that I enjoyed and eventually created a venture firm so that I could invest in the CEOs that I was already working with Outlook ventures which my partner who is a schoolmate from Brown and Harvard And I you know created lasted about 15 years. We did three funds About 250 million under management and a chance to really work with a lot of great entrepreneurs Which is what I love most and then in 2013 after 15 years of that I began the formulate plans for giving back and and that's when I created the gratitude network which I'm running today So you've you've done all of it you you've progressed past the venture state you or the operator you you invested now Now you're giving back so what was what was it that made you Leave the venture space and start this new like gratitude network What was the what was the thing that just caused you to need to do this as a next step in your career? Yeah, well, I know it probably sounds right but the word gratitude initially comes to mind and that I think I do very well career-wise and Financially and wanted to think about what I could how could I express my gratitude Actually, Tony Robbins had a major impact on me I I Chance upon meeting him when he was presenting at the TED conference and he invited me to work with him on a startup called my eLife And then you know spend a lot of time going thinking personally about My own situation he has a date with destiny, which I went through twice It was also another guy Bob Buford who's the author of halftime became a personal coach for me and helped mentor me through the beginning of the gratitude network And I think all of it kind of came together right around my 50th birthday. I had this crazy idea that I would Blog or post something I was grateful for for 365 days in a row and pull that off And somewhere in the middle of actually Looking around me and seeing what I was grateful for and you begin to run out of things after about a hundred posts So you really have to look around this idea Engaging my network. I've been very blessed with a good network of friends and colleagues and how could I engage them In giving back as well. And so that's that's how gratitude that we're kind of was born out of the Out of the old venture capital career in the sense of gratitude And and then you're in your mind after doing all this like what is so as gratitude Giving back or as gratitude Your definition of it like really understanding what you've achieved in your life or is it a combination of both Yeah, it really is a combination of of both initially I think more you know focus on me grappling with what can I do moving from success to significance But also just and and of course the network that I had and and how we could all work together to make impact But you know the gratitude network think you know the reason we called it a network is Really that um the idea is to get around social entrepreneurs who are making impact on children and on education and so You know the the network effect takes place by Finding coaches and finding expert advisors and oh and everyone's doing this work You know pro bono and then matching them with the most incredible social entrepreneurs around the world and You know coming from a venture capital background. I kind of I kind of realized Sorry, my earpiece keeps falling off here. Um, I sort of realized with venture capital that you can impact people with money But what it really comes down to is impacting people with um, you know one to one support um of the top leadership team that really makes a difference and so That's really what we wanted to focus on with gratitude network and right now The the current iteration of gratitude network. What what are you actually doing is it to the pain of picture people is like an incubator Is it a network of advisory? Is there a venture part of it to that actually invest so walk through the whole gamut and I want to then unpack some of the companies you work with as well Sure All right, well First of all, I think of it now we're evolving really as an accelerator so think of it like an accelerator for impact Just like an accelerator for startups might be focused on enterprise software or You know internet consumer internet This one's focused on any social entrepreneur around the world Who is focused on children youth or education so anything up to college age essentially And the thought here was let's surround them With leadership development as opposed to handing the money what we're doing is bringing them resources to be better leaders What the thinking is from a leverage point of view if we can even increase by 5 or 10% their capacity as a leader We could impact many many more children and so the that's sort of the leverage model that it works on It it's an annual program So we last year we had 1300 applications The same this year we just completed our application process and we narrow that down in 2021 To 33 out of 1300 so they're they're really exceptional Social entrepreneurs what they haven't common is that they are scaling up So most of them are not startups, but they have already proven themselves and now the issue is how do we how can we help them? You know accelerate accelerate that scaling and then They also of course have a common children you and education so there's a lot of camaraderie amongst them They get one-to-one coaching for a year When the coaches run out of gas on a particular topic that maybe it's not their expertise We have 70 plus Expert advisors who are volunteering their time on all different subject matters To jump in and spend a couple of sessions with those entrepreneurs on on what they might need You know anything from social media to product development technology legal advice etc And then we get them together throughout the year so they're in a peer group We divide them in the smaller groups. They meet every two months. They're supporting each other They're sharing their common challenges. We have a process called round table that they can actually solve problems on these on these calls as a group We also have a leadership summit during the course of the year, which is a lot of fun It was here in Pleasanton for several years, but with the pandemic we've held it virtually last year over 150 Alums and and current cohort went through it and it was a four-day A ton of fun and learning for everyone and a lot of connection So I think that's basically the program in a nutshell I just want to take a second and thank the sponsor of today's episode Peloton peloton is pushing you further with so much new on the peloton bike and peloton bike plus new classes new music New ways to keep your workouts motivating and exciting And if you're going to commit to a healthy lifestyle you have to make it part of your lifestyle It cannot just be a one-off So any way to make sure that it's fun and fresh that's how you stick with it now There's a few new additions for the new year the peloton is bringing boxing new artist series music selections and More daily workout variety with their boxing whether or not you've boxed before or you've never stepped into the ring You can now discover a fast fun and furious boxing workout with peloton instructors in your corner They're adding new music workout to a single artist for an entire class or from your favorite hits to the deep cuts There are over a hundred artists series to choose from find your favorite music and turn your next workout into a concert And more daily workout variety so key it's easier to stick to your goals when you keep your workouts interesting Peloton has a workout for every goal day and mood D-stress from a long day with 30 minutes of strength and 20 minutes of cardio or do a quick 15-minute total body class before work Stay motivated while having fun with bike workouts yoga meditation dance cardio and more So whatever your goals are if you're trying to see a better you a healthier you in 2022 Visit one peloton dot com to learn more that's one peloton dot com O-N-E-P-E-L-E-T-O-N dot com And what would you say the biggest different like the the biggest differentiator between Look gratitude network is and what all the other accelerators in the world would be yeah great great question so one it's a focus on youth Children and education said that in itself now isn't down pretty much there aren't that many accelerators or incubators too uh most incubators or accelerators are focused on early stage And we're focused on them the mid to later stage and really the growth stage and what you find is They already know how to get funding if they're non-profit. They're getting funding, you know Typically from corporations foundations families, right But what they are doing is kind of tripping on themselves either because they don't know what they don't know They many of these leaders were former teachers or people who just stumbled into an amazing You know non-profit or for-profit social enterprise, but they weren't trained, you know They don't have uh, you know 20 years of street smart as a business person. They don't have an MBA or Anything like that. So One of the leadership skills that we can bring to them and to their senior leadership team That would help accelerate and get them get help them get out of their own way to accelerate their programs and their and their work with kids So I would say those are different. Yeah, the other is we're we're both hyperlocal and global at the same time, which is a bit unusual So we've we're in more than 60 countries around the world over the last six years and um Our coaches are spread. We've got more than 30% of our coaches around the world and expert advisors now almost 20% of them are global And so each year the cohorts typically 60% um Global 40% US and within the US quite a bit in the major cities as you would imagine so a lot of inner city type work Um as some rural America work, but um in the Bay Area in particular Um each year there's typically eight to ten of our you know almost uh, you know 25% of what we do here So when we're going and looking for help or sponsorship We're able to tell local companies that hey, we've got a group of a highly concentrated group right here in the Bay Area If you want to support that or if your brand wants to support something global You know um impacting children worldwide we can support that as well. So kind of come at it from several angles So so the follow-up to that would be so you were working with these these These founder that have figured out an incredible idea. There is a social component to it as well But perhaps they don't have that background in business. So what are some of the things that uh you find founders are running into Uh some notable differences in Potentially just not knowing what they don't know versus somebody who would be you know MBA coming from McKinsey or have an MBA and then doing like a venture back software startup has worked in enterprise sales for the past You know x amount of years and then becomes a founder or an engineer focused Founder what are some things that you work with then you help these founders work with because I want to I want to unpack some lessons For people that do not have a traditional business background Um that you probably help people with with all the companies you work with and some things that we can sort of Maybe help people understand how they can sort of fill some gaps in their own In their own knowledge. Yeah, sure so Keep in mind About 90% of who we're working with are nonprofits. I'm gonna kind of frame it a little bit on that side You won't hear me talk as much about venture capital or you know How to attract the next round? It's more about how do you go for bigger foundations or you know? How do you come up with an internal income model? But I would say the main areas that I think of are people and talent Is definitely a big one and and we'll come back to that in a second then there's execution Just raw execution And then there's probably the what's the engine what's the financial engine that that fires this whole thing up And of course product and technology or use of technology for product So starting with the people front. I mean, I think a lot of the times These leaders are kind of figuring out as they go along who belongs where where are the gaps on my team We're what we can do with coaches is we can really accelerate how they think through um What the team is today and where it needs to be tomorrow So first of all there's that you know, they You've heard the the expression putting the right people on the bus in the right seats It's that kind of work and that seems to happen a lot now right now. There's a global talent shortage Or it's very hard to recruit people So a lot a lot comes up around recruiting How do you position your organization to really get the people you need and a lot related to Even what's the cadence of ongoing meetings? How do you communicate as a team? So it's a lot about team building a lot about leadership development of your team So, you know, what is the succession plan if you're if someone's going to move into a VP level role Who fills their Place in the org and says a lot of succession planning and making sure that the the skills of Of the team are are all kind of progressing so that the whole organization is buoyed by team development Um, so those are some of the people issues execution wise is You see a lot um a lot of the help that a lot of the discussions I think takes place around how do I better Delegate? How do I organize my team For accountability? You know, how can I make sure this team is by building accountable culture? I don't have that quite in place. What do I do to get that? What is the timing of our strategic planning versus our tactical planning? You know, what do I do at my annual meetings my quarterly meetings my monthly meetings You know, so that whole kids of getting together Um, what can I do to improve the communication skills of the team so that We're able to execute better. So those are some examples there and then on the Financial, you know, so the engine the the flywheel if you will what are the elements of the flywheel? Particularly as it relates to you know, can I develop some kind of income generating capability of the organization in a for profit 100% is income generating But in a nonprofit you're balancing the work that you're doing with kids which is programmatic where you you know Don't you can't you can't charge for for example School system might pay for it or government might pay for it But generally you're trying to balance that Non-profit work with some sort of income engine so that you're not always looking for Donations, but you also have you have a donation model and you have an income model So a lot of it happens around there. Sometimes legal issues come up. Hey, should we create a For profit entity that's an offshoot of our nonprofit or a nonprofit entities an offshoot of our for profit So we have that and then lastly How does my products my product mix change over time? And you know with the pandemic the last couple of years A lot of our entrepreneurs rented to trouble. I mean they were doing classroom-based Product or service and they had to completely rethink it and I think gratitude network was able to really help them Think about how to you know deploy technology better for their service and how to get in a different mind Of how they provide that service So everything you just mentioned That's a lot of stuff to think about as an entrepreneur When when starting a company growing company is already Right like it's that's not that's not easy I never even thought about the complexities of starting a nonprofit. I don't think I'd even know where to start Like how to even like or actually where would you even like how do you make that decision if you want to do a for-profit versus a nonprofit? Well, you know keep in mind a lot of these, you know take You know, let me take an example Give me a second here. I'll just pull up a poll for example. Yeah, here is a love this one So here's Jotie the a jargon who's in India in Bangalore and Jotie came through our program. I think it was three years ago And she had already a core team she'd been a teacher for four up to you know the age of I meant she'd been a teacher for many years like I'm gonna say 20 plus years and notice that the education system in India really Is not great, you know, so she wanted to come up with a better way of of giving teachers the resources and the processes that they needed And so she she found this company called Meg Shala When she came to gratitude it wasn't a real startup again. It was a scale up She already had a team of five to ten people and she already had some funding and she already had a model that perhaps were But she was a schoolteacher, right? And so what does she know about you know scaling a scaling a company? So at a certain point she ran into you know difficulties of all the things I just mentioned Now what we believe a lot in the power of the coach And that might be something we want to discuss here on this program What exactly is coaching but um, you know from where Where she's at getting her coach who would just sort of calmly ask each month Tell me what you're working on. Let's organize this a little more. She began the how you know organized these are my people issues These are my operating issues, you know, here's some product issues and so you know during that year She worked on um, you know the quality Of her program and adding technology to the program She connected with different peers on at our she was here in person actually in Pleasantton, California for our leadership summit And then she used a lot of what she learned from her peers. She was watching how they managed and borrowing management ideas from them But I think it was really the coach consistently with her for a year Now I was able to sort of get her to think through what are the things that I need to focus on as a leader So it wasn't so overwhelming the coach could really calm her down get her focus on the critical things And you know we go back and and measure how she done Afterwards and you know, I can tell you she went from 6,000 students that they were supporting and today she's approaching a million students She went from one state in India to almost all the states because we gave her the confidence to present to governments of other states what she was doing in In the state in the state the Bangalore is in and her revenue and grants increased by 50% about a year you're in half After she went through the program. So we you know, we try to measure these things by the way because You know with venture capital and for profits you measure based on What product has come out how your revenues are doing your profitability all that but with a non-profit You want to measure by how many children have you impacted how many teachers have you impacted? How how have your donations grown as your team grown things like that so for for all of our Entrepreneurs we measure those sort of things and For somebody who is for somebody who is listening who does have or who does have something that sort of falls under this sphere this this umbrella of of a type of product that is a social product are there things that When you're helping somebody scale are there different variables that you look for to decide whether or not they should focus on getting more grants or Monetizing a product or is there certain things that you look for that sort of point a company in one direction versus another? Oh, that's that really is a great question I would say That it kind of comes out by natural conversation. I mean, I look at my own case. Let's take in my case I was working with Tony Robbins and with Bob Buford Um Buford in particular would meet with me each month as my coach He just took it upon himself. He had his short list of leaders that he was impacting around around the country around the world and I made his short list so I think that he just had me talk and talk and talk until I kind of figured it out for myself like Where are the biggest gaps, you know, if you know what I mean and I think this is the the best kind of coaching Is where the coach gets you all the right doing is asking great questions kind of like what you're doing on the center view right but I think that that leads right because these are I mean here's another example. Lauren Bush Lauren came to us about five six years ago. She came through the program. She's president senior president bush His granddaughter and Lauren has a group in New York City called bead And my sense was that Lauren works intuitively the more you get her to think about things The more she will come up with her own ideas of where the gaps are and I think fine large that's that's a good you know because these are really bright Folks that they figured out how to get where they are already By hook or cook, you know to form some kind of nonprofit or for profit that's impacting children and it works So now the question is how do you use their own intelligence? How can you get them to just look in emigrate and try to figure out what is missing That's the best kind of coaching I think Which is want to take a second and thank the sponsor of today's episode trade coffee now. 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They've been featured by new york times wired gq They've delivered over five million bags of fresh coffee. I'm a huge coffee nerd and anyway I can get better coffee that I regularly enjoy on game 4 the subscription is no hassle You can skip shipments you can change your frequency you can cancel anytime you want and for all success story podcasts listeners They set up an intro offer to get you off the ground. They're offering a total of $20 off your first three bags when you go to drink trade Dot com slash success story, but you have to get started So to start take their quiz figure out what coffee works for you go to drink trade dot com slash success story Start your journey to your perfect cup. That's drink trade dot com slash success story get $20 off your first three bag I think so let's let's talk about that. So You said that coaching obviously is one of the things that has unlocked a lot of a A lot unlocked some things in your life, but also something that now gratitude never does. Let's talk about coaching Let's talk about what what it is what it isn't what type of coaches to look for what type people should stay away from So what is your what is your let's let's do it because I know that this is obviously something that people always Trying figure out, but it's it's everybody and they're and they're, you know, grandma's a coach So I'm an entrepreneur. I want to work with somebody. Right. What am I looking for? Yeah, so you've got you have like in my mind three or four options, you know I used to teach so I taught at UC Berkeley and Cambridge University at the MBA level and so one option if you're looking for learning is Take a class right do an online class or do an in-person class like the ones that I taught In that case, it's kind of like the group Soking in the lecture, soaking in the reading maybe discussing amongst the group professor throws out the right questions It's not so much coaching there. I think of that more of you know sort of a little bit mentoring combined with course Okay, then you go to a level, you know, where might a um Consultant versus a coach be then to me a consultant is someone that you would hire to solve an issue that you're not able to solve yourself You know to actually do the work for you Coaching the difference is you're doing the work as the individual leader the coach is asking all the right questions for you to Assuming that you have the knowledge about your own space and about the work you're doing that they're trying to get you to realize what's the next step in what you need and Often because you're closest to the activity like you know the personalities of the people on your teams of the coaches asking the right questions It kind of you have your own internal conversation or with that coach you'll want one the one conversation and Come to talk out and come to you know decide on your own what is the right outcome There's also this mentor, you know, what is a mentor at we call at gratitude? We call mentors expert advisors because we found that the mentor word was confusing for folks Some people view a mentor as a coach. Some people view a mentor as an expert is sort of all over the place By calling people expert advisors it makes it clear it's about the subject matter expertise that they have So a gratitude we have coaches and expert advisors and we don't have anything We used to have mentors, but we don't call anyone mentors anymore due to the confusion So perhaps that helps a little bit in terms of what what you might use for what type of thing now if I'm if I'm trying to grow my business and I like I'll take right now for gratitude network. I would like to figure out how to approach foundations So as a nonprofit my choices are either I can hire internally someone who understands foundations and we attack it work and hire a consultant If I hire someone internally, either I'm going to coach them or someone ought to coach them in terms of their day-to-day Activities how they work with the rest of the team They have the knowledge about foundations, but what they might not have is how does it fit into my organization So that's where I think coaching could be useful on top of knowledge With with by the way with our program this one two punch of coach expert advisor works great Because the coach is getting you to think about your your challenges as a leader or getting the leadership team to Communicate about their challenges, but when we all hit a wall none of us have like we wanted to help a new technology product Okay, let's get an expert in to help you know Consult and be the expert in that area and then that might lead us to Either decide that we we need to hire someone to do the work or we need to hire internally to get that work done But let's start with the expertise that we're missing Okay, I understand and if somebody Does see value in a coach because obviously coaches are not free How far should they take their business before working with somebody that can provide some expertise? Well, let's see In other words, where do you run out of coaching gas and you need to call on the experts? Yeah, because we'll also because it's gonna cost the money too, right? So you want to make sure that you have you know, it's unless somebody has a lot of money But let's assume an entrepreneur doesn't have a lot of money yet. They're trying to bootstrap an idea Mm-hmm Yeah, when would they bring someone in? I think well a general coach would be so with your with a general coach you'd be you'd be realizing We got a gap here We are lacking knowledge on foundations, for example, right? So at that point, you know you're going to need to bring in some expertise So I think it's at the point where you realize due to the coaching That you just don't know what you don't know or that you're going to need some short-term expertise to Bridge the gap and get you to the next step now a lot of nonprofits rely on pro bono Health so you can get experts you can and particularly if you're working with gratitude network It's all pro bono. By the way, we don't we don't charge our Social entrepreneur. I didn't know that. Sorry. We don't charge it. Yeah, we're an accelerator that provides services For free to the social impact entrepreneur So They aren't getting so our experts fill that gap, you know, what they would do is they will let the coach know She you know, I'm feeling like we've identified an area Foundations that I just don't have the expertise in and you as a coach don't either Can you can we request a an expert in foundations and so gratitude would provide that but in the real world without gratitude You you would reach out and you could use LinkedIn or you could use friends and connections and you'd reach out to an expert and say hey We are doing great work with kids and in education We don't have a lot of money, but we love your background Could you give us a couple hours of your time to help us with this Issue that we're that you're an expert and so I think that's how you would go go about doing it Would there be and to follow up with that just to sort of I guess this is a good conversation and just like for entrepreneurs on on coaching But is there things that you should also Be wary of when you're trying to find somebody to work with and to coach you are the red flags That you would tell people to to stand and look at for Yeah, I think Overly prescriptive folks who are immediately jumped to a prescription when you're trying to explain the problem is usually a red flag Because they're not they're not And pathically listening to what your challenges are before making a suggestion is like they have an idea already before they even get going So that's one thing to look for that would be a red flag another would be someone who seems to be Leading you toward their service So, you know, you you you talk to an expert and they're kind of like it's the hammer nail theory They're looking for you know everything to the hammer everything looks like a nail And so you're trying to tell them about your issue and they keep moving you toward the thing that they do Um, and it doesn't feel like the right bit so that can be another red flag A third would be particularly if you were if you're a nonprofit if They appear to be moving you toward you know trying to sell you on their services as opposed to just helping you solve an issue Out of out of you know The goodness of their heart, you know, just to provide help to an nonprofit which a lot of people do out of the goodness of their heart So those would be the a couple of things that I could think of And then I guess just one more one more question on this because I just find this interesting as well because you've been on both sides because you've taught At MBA programs and notable institutions, but you're you've also coached individuals so do you feel as though an entrepreneur Would gain more value from one versus the other or do you think that a traditional MBA program still has a lot of merit to somebody who wants to start a business eventually Great question. Um, I personally loved Harvard Business School I absolutely and I loved my brown undergrad as well where I was able to craft my own major or concentration Browns very liberal and that as many people know in that way Um, so I'm a big believer that School of hard knocks combined with a little Pre-education is a great combo Um, I felt like apple five years at apple and a couple years at paramount which I didn't mention earlier But uh the media kitchen what I was invited to be a director at the media kitchen for paramount uh the technology group paramount and so working with all kinds of content and movies and um, um, you know CD-ROM in the early days and Great on the street experience. I think it's a combination of both Um, I think getting that you know a lot of our entrepreneurs that we work with are former teachers That gives them some really great insight as to what Kids and youth really need and want so I love seeing that But um, you know having some Education in business doesn't hurt You can either learn it on your own It probably takes a little longer some people are quicker than others Um, Mark Zuckerberg seemed to be really quick at you know figuring out how to run a business where he he didn't you know You never completed his education. He didn't feel he needed it Um the same with the Yahoo founders. They were getting mastered degrees Uh, I think both of them At that time didn't finish their masters and they created Yahoo in the middle of it um, so It really is up, you know, it depends on the individual but having watched A young people in the classroom and then see where they end up five 10 15 years later. It couldn't hurt I mean most of the MBAs I've worked with at UC Berkeley and many at Cambridge Um, have had spectacular careers. I mean they they'll email me 10 years later Telling me what they're up to and they're in the you know, it's very senior positions in well-known Companies, so it couldn't have hurt But uh, you know, do you have the money to spend on yeah, you know formal education or you or you wanted to you know Go get the experience hands on there. I think there there's both camps. I like the combination myself and I always felt that that's most useful Um, no, I was gonna I just wanted to I wanted to ask uh, so Was there any other on any other points on coaching that I didn't bring up um because I know you're in this world Most more than I am so any other things that uh Either either on coaching or on on nonprofits Entrepreneurs that are in that space that they should just think about be aware of Um, that you you've seen people experience over their careers with gratitude Well, you know, I didn't want to maybe mention a little bit on mindset, you know, the okay. Let's do it I mentioned earlier you and I or You I alluded to this idea of success versus significance and I don't know if you wanted to jump into that But a lot of that does have to do, you know, it's funny I've literally stamped the word gratitude of my forehead if you think about it. Yeah You know, if I'm if I'm demonstrating lack of gratitude to my children grandchildren or my wife I will hear about it immediately because I was You know right on my right in my forehead You know, how does that how does that really relate to this whole I know I pick a lot of your listeners Probably think about success. How do I define success and some of them are now, you know I think as we get older we think of what's the impact I'm leaving on the world What's the significance not just the signal the success and for me I looked out in that that word gratitude was sort of in the middle of all of that and I used the gratitude to push myself, you know ever so slowly over to the significant side and You know Cicero the Roman order said, you know gratitude is sort of the root To a lot of human Elements, you know, if you're grateful for things you can find love if you're grateful for things you can find happiness Etc and I really believe that's true So being grateful to some extent has helped me a lot But when I think about this mindset of success versus significance it always intrigued me that You know many of the people in the Silicon Valley that I have worked with over the years Are defining their life based based on possessions and based on stock options and based on how many second third and fourth homes They can own and and this kind of thing and Then they're happiness depends on you know that bar that that expectation that they've set on success But they never seem to be able to get to the bar so they always seem a little bit anxious You know like they're not quite happy and I noticed this early on you know my wife and I would go to Different parties that apple would have and we noticed you know all the other couples all they want to do in the Silicon Valley is talking about How much money they were making how many stock options how what car they're driving all the possessions right and at a certain point You run out of possessions, you know is like okay, we got enough what and you're grateful for what you've been given So now how do you lead a life of significance? How are you going to impact others? How are you going to leave a legacy If you want to you know have to I mean you can leave a legacy with your children or your grandchildren That's huge You can leave a legacy globally, which is what we're trying to do with the gratitude network. We're impacting Underprivileged children that would have no ever help globally and social entrepreneurs who are working with them So I always encourage when I'm you know, I'm doing a lot of one-to-one coaching outside of gratitude right now with Very seasoned and senior CEOs said they're running you know 100 million dollar billion dollar for profit companies And a lot of the coaching is like they're kind of tired of chasing success And what will a life look like the next 20 years for a significant? So how do they shift that do they Focus more on family? Do they focus more on church or synagogue? Do they you know? Do they focus more on community? So they want to take trips globally and impact people globally I'm always trying to get them to think about what are the what are the things that are kind of you're born with this desire to You know that you might have been born with a desire to make an impact Let's go back to when you were younger What is it you wanted to change or what is it you wanted to create or what is it you wanted to leave in the world? And get them to come back to that simple this simple before we got all caught up with the boats and the cars and the houses What was the simple thing that we wanted to do to impact the world that we make us happy doing it for each day So that's my little mindset, you know I feel that that's an important part of the whole entrepreneurial journey Was it hard for you to make that shift? And you're only? Probably not you know is right I was I was born to a very creative Father and a very loving mom and so I had this great combination of like this highly creative Dad who is like run from one thing to the next doing all kinds of creative stuff I try to follow him and yet my mom was very emotional and very you know People oriented and I think like even I remember at Brown and at Harvard. I was writing papers on Impact I was writing I was thinking about dual career couples. How can they spend time with their kids? How do you have two careers in a family and still have a meaningful family life? Um, you know things like that So I think balance was the word I used to think of it back then instead of significance Is like how do you create life balance? Um, so I'm probably one of the luckier ones in that for some reason Early on it just struck me that um And I got to say I definitely fallen into the privileged category so there's no doubt about that I would it would be a lot harder for me if I'd started off in a different family situation different neighborhood different level of education etc Different skin color different race. It's set you know anything Anything other than who I am would have been Potentially harder. So I was wonder, you know, I don't really know how to I can only be me I can't put myself in in in the place of an underprivileged child But I can do the most I can do given what I've been what I've been dealt And in my case being fortunate is like okay and at the age of 50 enough enough of the making money and now what do we do for the next 40 years on the giving back part Hopefully a lot of other people a lot of other people reach that um Sometimes it's through unhappiness. I think that people reach that they talk to their friends or therapists and like I've got like this mansion over house three boats five cars, but I'm not happy Okay, I'm divorced twice, you know What's going on? Well, what are you chasing? What is your measurement of success and is it is that Something society has gotten you to chase is that truly what you want to chase where you if I'm meeting and significance in life And this is where you know, unfortunately with social media and and um Digital media these days young people it's really hard for them to differentiate differentiate between That huge amount of data coming at them From the world that tells you this is what you should be versus this is who I am And I've had people in my classes at you know, Berkeley you could tell from day one that person knows exactly who they are The 19 22 25 years old they know exactly who they are and they're already trying to figure out how to Put that to work for good work And then you can tell who's a little lost, you know, it's like well, I think I need a job that's what for example Harvard Business School is amazing how many people wanted investment banking and consulting jobs And if you talk to those same people two years after we all left and ask them if they're happy 80% of them were miserable because they were they were being you know, used all their time and energy being used up by these large Larger organizations that they were working 80 hour weeks and not for themselves for somebody else And lost their purpose their sense of purpose. So It's amazing how you can kind of get in that mode of I kind of get to I gotta have this I gotta have this versus what do I what do I want truly to be you know for happiness for myself By the way, you work with a lot of yeah, I want to add having a great life partner I will say my wife patty has been a wonderful life partner If you're able to figure that out early and find that great life partner It helps tremendously It really does because you know that person may be the compliment that person will remind you who you are And they're probably going to know you best So they'll remind you who you truly are so that you can come back to that center when you need to um I was gonna ask you like when you were when when were you happiness in life is it now because you've gone through like that So that's what I that's what I think I'm hearing you say you you got you've gone through this massive amount of success with career With investment and and when were you the happiest? Well, I'm definitely I would say I'm definitely have calm down. I'm Happiest now as they get older. I would say for a lot of people that's true that you know the kind of mellow out over time But I don't know I look back each period. I'm sure my wife would remind me no you were You know you're itching for a change you weren't that happy But I look back you know and each thing now and I go well, what was the lesson that I learned in that period and it seemed like I seemed like there were elements of happiness at each point but that um I was slowly figuring out where you know, what are you truly need to do to be happy and I would I'm not I'm not saying I'm a hundred percent happy every day Now either I mean I think part of what drives me is I want to make impact and so I won't be you know I'm I said a bar You know, but at least it's a bar that's helping others as opposed to a bar that is the next home in late Tahoe Now I just want to take a second and thank the sponsor of today's episode grin now grin is the number one Creator management platform helping e-commerce brands connect with their audience through the power of creator Partnerships now influencer marketing. 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They all run influencer marketing campaigns at scale and work with thousands of creators at the same time They're all using grin. So you need to treat your creator like your brand revolves around them because in the creator economy It does experts believe that influencer marketing will become a 15 billion dollar industry by 2022 So this isn't going away anytime soon. You have to figure out how to use influencers and creators at scale Find out how grin can help you grow your brand watch the demo at grin.co That's grin.co influencer marketing is easier with grin find out why at grin.co that's grin.co Mm-hmm very good Um, do you think that do you think that that's something that actually you were with a lot of entrepreneurs so This is all about mindset Do you think that there's some merit to having this mindset when you are starting a company Having a mindset of gratitude versus Having a mindset of how big can I scale this how much money can I make when can I exit when can I IPO it and if so How do we teach more entrepreneurs that when for example in the non in the non Non-profit space and they're venture and they go and raise money and venture bet it the for profit It's all about it's all about how fast you get how much money you can make Yeah, that is that is that is a really a conundrum isn't it? I I don't have an answer for that one because you know be foolish for me to say if I look at some of the greatest entrepreneurs of all time they were driven by perfection of their product like in the case of Steve jobs or Or to make more money or to grow just love the idea of keep growing keep growing or to con or conquest You know even like the I won't I wouldn't say the current Bill Gates, but the old Bill Gates I think and you know you look at Microsoft in the early days It seemed to be more about the conquest than about anything else it just you know just being The operating system that everyone used and just and beating out the competition So you know everyone has something that drives them it be hard for me to say no you have to be completely Altruistic as an entrepreneur. I don't think that'll work for a lot of the entrepreneurs But I do appreciate the entrepreneurs who have built wonderful cultures along the way And you know, I lived through one myself, you know watching Jerry Yang and Dave Philo at Yahoo. I think they really purposefully and Tim Kugel who came in as the CEO Not long after I joined They really built a nice culture in the early days of Yahoo I really believe the culture at Google was something extraordinary and exceptional Even from the very beginning the culture of Netflix Totally different You know a lot of you know You work your way out of a job and if you don't have the next project you're gone All that got posted that early culture So I think that there are entrepreneurs who give thought to meaning And building meaning and purpose into into the organizations But I would say in a for-profit company you kind of have to have both you've got to have that drive to Be the competition and make you know make a business model that's going to be effective and Convince the venture guys that they should invest and you know I don't think you can do all that altruistically In a nonprofit I think you have more opportunity as a leader to to to have that more Altruistic approach because you're really appealing to the heart Of your donors and you're trying to appeal to foundations in the impact that you're making So they're there it's a little more aligned Very good. No, that's it. It's just a very interesting thought experiment Because I do believe that if you if you have the minds that you have now you can be happier long term Which is really what everybody wants anyways? Yeah, that's really what the majority people want They want to be happy But how do we how do we get there? So it's almost like you have to be cognizant of you have to play the game a little bit to get to the point where you can Be happier and be giving more back and then having more of an altruistic view on life Yeah, and you know Scott a lot of us are parents as well and I think you have a real opportunity as a parent To think through what can I do to help my child understand who they are and what truly makes them happy and when they're little You can really see that you can see what things See them make them happy and giggle and have fun You know as they get older and then you get the you know school pressures in it's a little it becomes a little harder but even there Encouraging them to to follow a passion like you know a silly one that my dad encouraged in me Um, which by the way wasn't very cool with the kids It wasn't very popular with the kids, but he encouraged me as a puppeteer It's intriguing about puppeteering if you think about it. It's theater staging voice lighting Performance all these really interesting things combined it you know if you look at broadway stage doesn't even have Totally what puppetry has is is you you've got to make the puppets you make the costumes create this you know all this so He got me engaged in a very creative thing. I don't I don't I don't you know today I do it with my grandchildren just for fun, you know little puppet shows and things But I think that kind of creative thinking that right brain thinking really helped me a lot For example, I was attracted to apple Because I knew that that's where a lot of the creators were I was attracted to paramount again That's where all the movie producers and directors and and content creators were so early days of my digital media career It really served me well to have the right brain thinking which you can encourage in a child and then if they're if they're also left brain thinking on Show them how to apply that rigor and and the details that they may be good at or the math Mathematics or physics or whatever that they're good at You know, how do you combine the left and the right brain? I call it the intersection um of Of the two brains and all the different things you can do with your life is like find that in intersection between what you love doing And you're good at and where the world needs you That by the way is called ekigai. There is a theory a Japanese theory of ekigai i k i g a i ekigai And that theory is sort of uh, you know, where is the overlap between Doing what you love doing doing what you're really good at doing Doing what the world needs you or you know where there's a gap in the world and then Maybe the fourth circle Economic doing something it makes money so you can survive if this is the career that you're pursuing That's that's the ekigai um theory I love that um Do you have do you have a when you work with entrepreneurs do you find like what you just described with like the left brain right brain Do you find that many people who are successful have a combination of of both And that intersection You I can't think of at the moment. There are a lot of engineer backgrounds who become CEOs and have successful Companies, but I think if you look at them the highly engineering oriented type There was a creative side to them too It would be hard to create the company to create the excitement that attracts others to create the market that you have to create to create the product and the Feature said you know, so even and even when you're trained as an engineer I've even seen lawyers of a great example is one of the fellows. I worked with at Yahoo Was working for venture law group which served Yahoo in the early days. He later became a senior VP On the operating side of Yahoo using his legal background and then he later became an entrepreneur His name is Jim Brock and Jim is a great example with someone who with you know legal skills is very rich Very right brain thinking he was good at that But when he applied the intersection of his creative area He was able to run as a senior VP a major chunk of Yahoo and partnerships and things like that And then eventually do several startups where he had to create from nothing Pure startups. So, you know, I think and I do Find that a lot and then come the other direction a highly creative person Usually their best bet is to partner with an operator Right, so if you look at let's take You know in a way you the Google founders Um, I'm trying to think of a better example of where you have a highly creative person with with a more of an operation style But I think in the case of Google you had two highly creative guys and they pulled in Eric as as the third in the triumvirate Eric brought that operational experience and CEO experience to to them But you often will find the Somewhere in the leadership team you've got in the founding team a Someone who really understands the subject matter that of what they're focused on and that person tends to be more The right brain are the left brain creative and then you've got the operational person that helps them along Help some set the company of helps hire all those people etc Think of it like the CEO and the COO Uh, no, no, no, you know, you know, no, what you don't know know your gaps and then You know fill that gap accordingly basically But that's yeah, and I I always counsel entrepreneurs when they're starting something if they clearly are Having trouble in even the left brain or the right brain thinking I tell them look it's probably worth your while giving up a piece of the pie to bring a partner in who is good at those things because you're just going to lumber along here um, you know, and you know trying to figure this out was not your forte So if it's someone who's highly creative or specialized in an area I tell them go find an operating or a technology partner if they're not strong in technology Um and give them a part of the equity just to get them on board early so they so they buy into this concept you're going to have a bigger pie at the end of the day Um, then try to do it all yourself Uh, Facebook is a great example. I think at some point Cheryl Samberg joining Mark Zuckerberg was like a stroke of genius because he reached a point where he did what he could He's highly creative in what he set up and how he dealt with the venture world and the angels Some of these angels were the top angels in the world that he's dealing with and he's, you know, not even through school So you learned all he could and then it's like I need someone to help on the operations side and found spectacular partner early on I just want to take a second and thank the sponsor of today's episode HubSpot now It's hard to build the business hard to make your dreams a reality when it feels like you're spending all your time Working on your CRM working on Mundane admin tasks, but the HubSpot CRM platform is purpose built for scaling with your business and those big dreams of yours So it's impossible to outgrow now HubSpot has intuitive visual workflows It has bought builders the HubSpot CRM platform can automate campaigns across your website email social media Digital ads and chat for clear communication across all your channels Zero mixed messages with the HubSpot teams feature you can organize your account by teams and segment leads Sort through content and easily view team performance reports and KPI dashboards and thanks the sequences You can create flows that automate sales outreach follow up timed personalized emails You can scale your customer relationships like never before the HubSpot CRM platform is easy to implement and ready to scale So dream big learn more about the HubSpot CRM platform and how it can help your business grow better at HubSpot dot com Very good goes no, those are just good examples because um I don't I don't think many people understand That if they are Especially your first startup, right if you are very creative You have to share a bit of that pie just to get just to get some momentum if you are highly process oriented Maybe it does help to bring in somebody is more creative I think that people when they're first starting their first company. Maybe this is just a gross Generalization, but a lot of people want to hold on to that thing because it's their baby And they you're scared about giving away equity or giving out too much of that company early on But well, you just mentioned was very smart You know, it's better to have a little bit of something than all of nothing So and by the way, it's usually more than a little bit because the founder would generally keep controlling interest But that doesn't mean you can't bring in a solid partner for you know 10 15% early on of the business where they feel like they have a substantial peace and a substantial say Another of my favorite examples is there's a company that I was fortunate enough to work with called iFluence And iFluence was founded by Jim Margraf who's highly creative He's a technologist MIT trained Very very creative in his product design and ideas for growing markets And he got you know, I was able to introduce him early on to a COO Dave Steer Who is also creative, but he's very good keeping the trains on track And he's very good with the details that perhaps Jim would not want to deal with So put the two of them together and they may magic and google and that of buying iFluence three and a half years later Now they've gone off to start a new company called canoe Together because they realized what a great one to punch And they brought a third partner in on that one early who could specialize in the digital media and Children's side that that the two of them wanted to have in there so that it was like three of them They learned the lesson on the first one Then they said well, what's missing on the second one? We've got another great idea, but we're missing xyz So they brought in a world class person who could fill that role Amazing, okay, I want to I want to pivot into some rapid-fire questions just to close this off But I didn't want to just say like if you're if people want to reach out to you If people want to go check out more about gratitude network Where are they going? What's social website all of that for yourself or for the network? Yeah, really easy So if they want to reach out to gratitude They just pop into Google gratitude network will take them to our website All the content you know the way that site flows through if you're interested in coaching It will eventually ask you to put a little bit of information in that goes directly to our director of coaching I see your director of coaching they want to reach me I'm my first name at my last name.net Randy at Haken.net And so if someone's interested in being coached Which I do continue to do with senior level folks love I love doing that And a lot of one-to-one coaching when I'm not running gratitude network during the month and They can reach out at Randy at Haken.net on that Okay, perfect Okay, so these are these are I say rapid-fire, but like you can choose to Strap later you can keep a simple if you like whatever you want The biggest challenge that you've had in your career what was it and how did you overcome it? Biggest challenge I had was a little company. I started right after Yahoo where I thought I knew it all And it was called electric mines with a pioneer in The whole area of social communities. He wrote the original book on What today is just you know a part of our everyday life but social communities his name is Howard Rungold And so I played the COO role he played the creative role And we just hit the dot com bubble at the wrong time ran out of funding and man I took that to heart because we had such a great creative and technology team And we had technologists all over the world working with us on Building a community called electric mines. So that one Definitely hit me hard, you know We had soft bank involved in that and quite a few angel investors and that was challenging What I learned from that of course was What are some of the mistakes you can make along the way? How do you pre-think your next round of funding so you don't run out of gas and who are the key players you want to have Involved early in the business so that you have a lot of help in getting to these future stages So learn my lesson on that one and and it got a little better the next couple and then with the venture firm I ended up trying to coach that type of thing to a lot of the CEOs I worked with Very smart a tough tough lesson, but but at least you learn that but that's really bad luck too That's incredibly bad luck Yeah, it is what it is You know, what can you do? You know, the best thing you get out of a situation like this is what was the blessing that I got out of this because many years later You'll look back on something like that and you'll realize Man, my whole career Actually would have not been the same if it weren't for that negative that thing that I thought was so negative So there's always a silver lining You just have to put yourself in that positive frame of mind to see If you had to choose one person in your life, there's obviously been many But somebody who has had an incredible impact. Who is that person and what did they teach you? Uh, well a lot of people I'm sure choose their parents. I have was very I was very blessed to have someone in my life. He is still in my life and this is now 40 years later 35 40 years later and that is his name is Barrett Hazeltine and Barrett Hazeltine is an incredible person he Started teaching 62 or 63 years ago at Brown Barrett has been teaching for more than 60 years at Brown University, which is not you know at Ivy League level and His his his whole focus was on helping in a liberal arts school People that were interested in organizations and entrepreneurship and business There was nowhere for them to go in a liberal arts school. There were no business courses So he invented something called engine nine Where he had you know all kinds of speakers come in he did case studies But it was all related to business and entrepreneurs And I remember seeing John Scully from Apple come in and John John's a Brown alum and John came and spoke one day at at the class And I just thought this is so cool that this professor has opened up the world, you know of all these incredible people and bring them in to proud And then you know, I stayed in touch with Barrett over the years what was most inspirational about him is during the summer He and his wife Mary would dedicate themselves in Africa To teaching at universities starting with Malawi and then several other African nations And they would just give their time teaching and trying to impact Youth in in less privileged Countries around the world that really sunk into me or you know learning about that when I was a student of his And fast forward, you know 35 plus years later He is an ambassador for the gratitude network and we still are in touch on almost weekly Recently basins and it's just wonderful to you know have a mentor And a coach like Barrett over the years. So I was really really fortunate to stumble into him amazing If you had a resource book or something that you'd recommend people go check out is there anything in particular that you wanted to Recommend that's had an impact on you. This back here is my my favorite books. So if you I mean we're talking I know I feel like I have to ask you just because you got like Neil Stevenson snow crash here, right? We're talking We're talking Tony Robbins, you know Ray Kurzweil This is my my recent favorite and and you know here's why I would recommend this book So this book is on coaching and you know those of us who are leaders the thing is we're we're really coaching our team You know you're or you're coaching your children Or maybe you're coaching little league or soccer, you know every one of us has some element of coaching in our labs and This book boils Michael Bungay Stagne is is if coach and it boils things down to Five questions the kickstart question the all question the focus question the foundation question the lazy kid So he's got all these different interesting questions and boils it down You know something you can literally keep in front of you when you're in a coaching session or with one of your leaders Even with a venture capitalist you're pitching to a VC It's interesting how you can use some of this you just you're asking questions, you know asking great questions You're going to get great results great solutions The better the question probably the better the solution so I'm a big believer in in this and he's done a great job You know putting that together My my favorite of all time though. I mentioned it earlier If you want to talk about going from success to significance Half-time by Bob Vuefer So Bob is my mentor. It was really something special, but the book is Short and fantastic and really gets you thinking about how to move from success to significance I'm sorry. I said those are two both. I gave you three or four books. You asked for one I know Like I'm going to complain about more books and both and actually all those none of those have been on the show yet So those are all new those are all new recommendations. I appreciate it. Yeah, that's great. Great Um If you could tell your 20-year-old self one thing what would it be? Shut up and listen It's good advice true empathy and listening skills do not come to most 20-year-olds especially if they're on their way somewhere Right and However, if you could If you could put on your you know sort of listening hat more often before responding To me that is like the single biggest thing you can do to kind of it doesn't necessarily slow you down It just means you're more informed because instead of blurting the first thing that comes in mind or having a pre You know a lot of us when we're listening to somebody else talk We already know what we're going to say is you're not even really listening to the person talk So You know Zip it and do more listening. We're probably would be the number one thing like that immediately came to mind when you asked The other the other thing I tell my my 20-year-old self is good job I pat myself in the pack good job marrying patty patty grant who became patty haken nice work good job I love that good good. Yeah. No, you're you're 100% right if you can find that If you find that partner and and they're there for you the whole time That's a that's a blessing that is that is a life hack for sure 35 35 years we're going for we're doubling that we're going for 70 We've decided on a yeah, so we're going for 70 We're at 35 well Congratulations Congratulations, that's very good And then last question you kind of already answered this but I'll ask that anyways ask everyone as the last question to the show What does success mean to you? So I think success means Defining a life for yourself and a mindset That are you are you know to be true to you and that You know have some impact um and maybe the impact is not on yourself Necessarily it could be impact on family could be impact on others in your community or impact globally But I think um leading a life of success means Coming the grips with what are the things that Are most meaningful to you in life and making sure that you wrap your day-to-day and your month-to-month and your year-to-year activities Slowly but surely you know kind of like an onion over time So that when you get to the end point you look back you go Yeah, I wrap myself with the right things and you know if you feel like you're not doing that Immediately then shift and start wrapping yourself with things that are More meaningful early as early as you can you know if you're 50 years old. It's never too late 60 whatever If you're 20 and you figure this out hey hats off to you because you are way ahead of your peers You