Entrepreneurial Empire
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Entrepreneurial Empire
🚀 Changing Perspectives: Power of Philanthropy
What if you could transform your perspective on giving and enrich your life in the process? Mitzi, Sheila, and Alan enlighten us with their personal journeys into philanthropy, emphasizing the power of collaborative efforts and selfless giving. They challenge conventional mindsets, offering a fresh take on philanthropy, and stress the importance of focusing on giving rather than outcomes. Sheila provides a stimulating perspective on the universe's role and how removing oneself from the equation can foster a purer form of giving.
Shifting gears, we also delve into their unique family governance system, a model that places a spotlight on conflict resolution and standing firmly on principle. This trio provides a masterclass on balancing a public image while engaging in philanthropic work adeptly. Alan, in particular, broadens our horizon on the need for a renewed mindset. Furthermore, they share their own philanthropic mission to empower other families in the art of giving back. Prepare to be inspired and gain wisdom that extends beyond business into personal life, all while understanding the joy and impact that true philanthropy can bring.
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Welcome to the entrepreneurial empire podcast. This is the place where you can find business and career strategies, techniques and real life success journeys of individuals who have built businesses to the million dollar revenue mark and beyond. I'm Jacquela Hernandez, life coach and business development consultant. I've worked with startups, fortune 100 companies, network marketing, direct sales organizations, churches, nonprofits and government agencies all to become the authority experts in their industry, lead with people and scale their revenue. Let's get started.
Speaker 1:The one thing that you hear a lot about in this conversation today is that these individuals were taught to manage super wealth from a very, very, very young age. As you see in some of the chats, people are talking about how their parents took them to business meetings. This is not an uncommon method and a common way to build your family and create that generational wealth, but also give them that true experience. As Sheila says, it best Hands on. Experience beats anything. And when we're talking about philanthropy in Mitzi's book she talks about going on the aircraft to London. She says you know, if it's a difference between getting a first class ticket or getting a coach ticket and that balance that would have cost me my first class ticket, I can send it to charity. I'm taking coach all the way to London.
Speaker 1:So that says a lot about who these individuals are here today with us. They're not about daunting, but they're about giving. Sheila says it best. You can't be. You know. You have to come from a place of giving instead of taking. You have to be a leader, not a what Fill in the blank in the chat box. Okay, so the next thing that I wanted to talk about is impact and measurement, right? So Mitzi and Sheila, I know you guys, we, I looked at a lot of articles. Addison, if you can go ahead and pop those articles that Mitzi shared with us in the chat box as well, definitely save this, download these articles. These are articles that she published and wrote. Sheila. Sheila, first of all, can you talk about your, your role as the billionaire founder of the billionaire foundation and what you have been able to do with 70 billionaire families in a philanthropic world?
Speaker 2:Yes, thank you. So understand that the individuals that came to us, there wasn't anything they couldn't be, have or buy Period, a rare distinction among many, but if you think of it, there wasn't anything they couldn't be, have or buy, but they came to a point of what I call half time, where all of a sudden in your life and I think, the Michael Jackson of the world, the, even politically, where I saw when I was educated in Argentina, the abita perones they all come to a place where it doesn't mean anything anymore. What am I going to do with the next half of my life? So one of the foundations that I had and one of the principles that my business partner and I discussed was moving families from success to significance Very important.
Speaker 2:They didn't know what to do with themselves. They didn't. They were so empty, so broken, so hurt, and Alan and Mitzi touched upon this lightly how do you get to your purpose? What is my purpose? What am I to do with the rest of my life? And a couple of lessons came out of this and how we worked with the families.
Speaker 2:One if you don't know what your purpose is, there's one way of solving that. Go back and ask yourself what are you curious about? We all know what we're curious about. We all have curiosity. Start there, start there. There are probably things you have been able to do. Say, be, start with your curiosity and see where that leads you. Doors started opening up just with that one question. And then they said well, I know I have the expectation my family wants me to give. I don't know what to do. Creating a family fun Right now. Look at green funds. You can do a catastrophe fun. Look at what happened in California with fires and devastation. We had Mother Nature wreak havoc on us. It would have been nice if people could have stepped up with family funds and done things, not to say that they didn't.
Speaker 2:But here's the most important thing Collaborative philanthropy. Many of them said well, I'll start the next. You know heart research and foundation and this. It's like whoa. Why don't you talk to the other seven families who have done this? Work with them and collaborate? Collaborative philanthropy is huge. That's how many of them pulled themselves out and did good things Very quietly and announced Take a six example Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, the. You know the giving pledge. That is the epitome of collaborative philanthropy. And from there it trickles down. So, working with these families, it was to get them more on giving back.
Speaker 2:Giving how do you Alan said it very, very clearly with if you don't have faith, you don't have patience and you're a patience boy, do I know will be challenged, and how do you get through those moments? It is really having that faith that it's all being taken care of. And I think the most important thing that we need to really focus on in business and also even in our giving, let go of the outcome. You don't control that. You do not control that. You control what. You will never in a million years control the who, the how and the when.
Speaker 2:That is the fine timing that is not in your hands. And if you can get that clear, life becomes a lot easier. And I always say the universe holds the scorecard, it keeps count. You don't have to do that. The misalignments God doesn't make excuses. That's what I call a misalignment. So it's kind of start to think like he does and really start to put this into your philanthropy. And this is how kind of giving back my contribution was. Working with my fellow billionaires, or at least philanthropists, are saying why don't we relook at this? Reshuffle the deck, take yourself out of the equation, kind of barring from my family. Put their happiness before yours and watch what happens.
Speaker 1:Round of applause, please. Well said. Thank you so much for sharing that. Sheila Mitzi, you're up. What do you have to say about that? Well, how do you follow that?
Speaker 3:I'm close to speechless, because what I really want to do is have hit record and play it back again, because, sheila, that was just earth shattering. Mine's going to be shorter and less inspirational, but I'm thinking of the role that philanthropy plays in the two families that I'm part of, and there's a saying that Frank often said and that I think impacts all of us, and that is you want to be happy, think what you can do for somebody else. The other hand, if you really want to be miserable, think what's owed to you.
Speaker 1:This is so true.
Speaker 3:Briefly, the role of philanthropy in the two different families that I'm part of.
Speaker 3:It's interesting to me to see two approaches to it, because in the Henderson family there is a Henderson foundation and the Henderson families, of which I mean they're like 70 of us, the branches of the family don't have to agree on what the others spend their philanthropy on. We discuss it, but each family branch has a chunk and then that can be divided up among that branch's family and I think it works beautifully. The Purdue family has a different approach, the Purdue foundation. It's much more focused, which means that it can have a much greater impact, and we all spent possibly years even figuring out what our deepest values were, where we could contribute the most, and so the produce focus. In our case it's in the environment and food security. But to me it's interesting that two different approaches really work pretty well for creating family cohesion. And again back to Frank saying if you want to be happy, you can do for somebody else it would be miserable. Think what's owed to you. So I'm totally in favor of a giving approach to life.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Thank you so much, and I just want to read one of the comments that were here from Chuck Roberts. He says so. True, sheila, reinventing the will is expensive, but collaborating with others makes success far more likely and reduces the risk. That is so, on point Collaboration, I know that Alan really emphasizes and talks a lot about collaboration and making bigger things happen with a collaborative effort. Alan, if you could add to the question in regards to impact and measurement, engaging philanthropy and just how do you measure the impact of your contributions and the support as a society?
Speaker 4:Well, I think that, first of all, it's all about collaboration and I'm in the process of. As I look at society today. It's filled with a lot of contention and division, with people polarizing at points of view, and essentially the polarization happens because of selfishness, greed. They see their own needs before the needs of others and we're really built as individuals to collaborate, but we're fine with all the changes going on in society and the nervousness and the anxiety what's in the future? We're doing the exact opposite from what we're built for. So I'm looking at creating a series of groups called the Giving Groups, where we take collaboration and there's no cost to join and but the only thing that will cost you is that when you go into a group, you have to give. You have to give something into the life of somebody else, and it's all about lifting and building those around you.
Speaker 4:There are three areas that I say for action I'm to take today. I said number one every one of us, in spite of all the changes that we see going on in the world, we need to have faith. Faith is paramount to looking into our future and we need to have, in our faith, a trust that God has a plan and that we will live a life, a purpose, knowing that we take nothing to the grave. The question is what is it that we want to accomplish during the years of our life? Once we understand the purpose that we want to spend the rest of our life with, it's taking a renewed mindset. A renewed mindset will mean that we're not necessarily can conform to the patterns of others.
Speaker 4:When we give into the life of others, it's not just about writing a check. It's about learning how we can make an impact into not only one individual's life but the life of many. And then the third area once we do faith, a renewed mindset, we have an empowerment to gain, and that empowerment will gain greater confidence to rely on the foundation of life that we're currently living with passion and to find purpose. I think the more that when we meet individuals around us and we can let them know what our purpose is, what we stand for, and also when we learn from our own communities and learn about the needs of others, how can we help lift and build into the lives of others. It's a lifelong process, but ultimately what we're trying to do is we're trying to ascend the ladder. We're at the bottom. There's the natural man or woman, the contention division, and at the top is the love of God and it's building love and purpose to build and make our world a better place.
Speaker 1:Love and purpose, definitely. I mean you look on the news, you look around you. There's not a lot of love and purpose going around in the world today and these three individuals are definitely iconic in giving, but not just giving to give, but giving to make an impact, giving to change lives all around the world. And if you look at the articles, mitzi's doing a lot of work nationally, but not only in that globally, along with Sheila as well. Everything that Alan just talked about he's opening up his program so that there is philanthropy, but there's also mentoring as well. So these are really great ideas, techniques that they're using.
Speaker 1:We're going to go into the breakout room here in a minute and in this breakout room they have their own individual tables. So there's a table for Sheila and it has her name on it. There's a table for Mitzi with her name on it and the same for Alan. Jump into their tables, switch in and out, get to know them really, talk about but don't go and talk to them about what they can do for you. Talk about what you can do for society, what you can do for your community, no matter how big or no matter how small, and how you can start out that impact around you to make other people happy and I love what she said over here Create joy. It's time for us as a society to start creating joy and others, and so that's what this event is about. It's about that impact that you can create in the circle around you, and if that circle extends and it gets bigger and it goes global, like these individuals, then so be it. And then guess what? You'll be on this panel, collaborating with them as well and making bigger impacts.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I am going to gear you guys to look to the right of your screen and where the chat box is, you can see that there's a button that says Q&A. We're gonna spend just a couple minutes on Q&A specific questions that the audience has and I will go ahead and answer them. So if you have any questions right now, go ahead and pop it into the question box for Q&A. I'll give it about 10 seconds. Let's see your questions pop up there. Ask the panelists any questions that you wanted answered throughout the presentation. Okay, 10, nine no pressure folks, no pressure. Okay, going once, going twice, okay, so we're gonna go ahead and head out to the break room right now. Again, jump onto the. Oh, let's see I got a chat, but oh, okay, besides keeping problems within the family, what other big recommendations would you suggest? Mm-mm, so Sheila, you kicked that one off. Besides keeping the problems in the family, not on the news, what other big recommendations do you suggest?
Speaker 2:So, in regard to problem solving, I'm not quite sure I understand the question.
Speaker 1:Oh, let's see. Chuck is the one that answered the question. Chuck, do you have a specific topic for her? Okay, well, I think what I'm getting out of this is we talked a lot about and the emphasis on keeping problems in the family and solving them, instead of taking it out to the public. What's another big recommendation that you have? Oh, big problems to avoid.
Speaker 2:Big problems to avoid. Well, if we put it more in a modern day context, I'll kind of go to the past, and the present Past would be. I think it's really important and I think we all touched upon this in different ways Part of your family governance. You really need to have firm policies on conflict resolution. That is a must. You must, you must clearly define how you are going to resolve these conflicts. Mitzi brought it out very well it's perfectly fine to quarrel within the four walls of your house, but don't bring it out in public. And I think the next thing is be very clear. You're posting on social media Gee host, that that is another way of airing your stuff out in public. And honestly, you know my grandmother would say if what you're doing you don't want people to read it in the newspaper, then don't do it. And she would add if you don't think small things matter, then you've never been bitten by a mosquito.
Speaker 1:This is true? Oh my gosh, yes, Right See. Do you want to answer that question?
Speaker 3:I'm thinking of an additional thing that we try to in the Henderson's and the Purdue's. This is a way of avoiding conflicts, but the idea of standing on principle within the family, for the following reason if you say I'm standing on principle, that probably means you're not listening to the other side, and to me, one of the best ways of diffusing morals is to really listen to the other side. And if you're saying I'm standing on principle, it's really hard to listen to the other side. So one recommendation I have is don't get totally entrenched in whatever your point of view is. Listen to the other side.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. Well said, Ellen. How about you? What other insights can you give in regards to and recommendations?
Speaker 4:I think, yeah, within the family. I can emphasize more, as we covered earlier, is that a little bit Mitzi said is about seeking to understand the other person's point of view rather than putting your point of view first. And I think, yeah, just avoiding conflict. You know how can we get along? And as a parent, you know I often get concerned with you know, am I teaching my children the right value system? I mean, I think all parents want to. When they pass on, they want to make sure that their kids are getting along, that they're taking care of each other, that they're looking for each other's needs, but also, beyond that, that they're also good contributors to society. And I think that, from the standpoint of how we come across, as you know, are we builders, are we takers into this world? And I feel that the more we can instill a value into our own family units about making sure that they're contributing and that they're giving back.
Speaker 4:Mitzi, you know, told me about when she came on the show. We talked about her value system of win this fight, which they were, yes, she was out to. You know, help, empower people, try to do, go against the human trafficking, and I remember one thing that Mitzi said is that people warned her. Well, you know, if you do that, you're going to have all sorts of problems. And Mitzi basically said I don't care, this is my value system and this is something that's important to me. Sheila, when she went and started the co-founder of the Billionaire Foundation, she had a mantra about helping to solve the world's problems. She wasn't out to make money on this thing. She was out to use a collaboration of individuals who are capable of putting back and lifting it to the lives of others. And I feel the whole empowerment and the value system is so important when we use our communities for collaborative purposes that we're more givers than takers. We're more builders than destroyers.
Speaker 1:Yes, definitely. Okay, I have one more question for you, and then we're going to take it to the floor in the breakout room so that you guys can hop around on the tables and join them in discussion. So this question is how do you find the balance between managing your public image and engaging in philanthropic work effectively?
Speaker 3:Oh, that's a good question.
Speaker 1:That was a good question.
Speaker 2:I'll start, I think, primarily for me. My mantra is I'd rather be Houston and not the astronaut.
Speaker 1:Yes, I love that. Did you guys hear that I'd rather be Houston and not the astronaut?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I am not a photo op leader. I have been taught very quietly to give and not to do it for the wrong reasons. I have that legacy of just so much wisdom and so much knowledge. But primarily it goes back to what Alan was saying. It's giving for the right reasons, god will bless you. It's talking care of. Don't have to worry about that. You couldn't possibly out, guess them or outnumber them. Literally put him first in all that you do, and I think anything else involves, naturally. But I trust that it will all be taken care of and for my public image, you don't need out there that much. I'm very, I don't want to say guard it, but it's family protocol.
Speaker 2:This is what we were going to family governance. The driscoffs are out there pounding their fists on their chest. We do it very quietly. We've done it for 150 years. Yeah, we're out there, we know, but I dare you, we're not on Wikipedia, we're not, not, not, one of our family members is, and there's a reason for that and I think it's really. We were taught be humble, be gracious, be grateful, and here was the one word. It's gratitude. How do you embody that and how do you teach it? And, like I said I'd rather be Houston than the astronaut.
Speaker 1:Well said, alan. Oh, you're on mute.
Speaker 4:Yep, here we go, OK. So I love it that the people that practice philanthropy understand full well that the more they do things quietly, the greater the rewards in heaven. There's always a blessing that comes to the giver, but it's not necessarily a blessing that they seek. And I want to tell one quick story that it always deals with faith, and I have one individual family office that I was working with. They were giving donations in excess of $10 million at the end of the year, and I looked at the patriarch of the family. I said you know what's going to happen here. He goes what I said you're going to get it all back and plus some. And he says OK, but I want to do all this quietly. And so the individual we made the donations in December, by March this individual had received back fourfold in money from what he had donated and he had not expected this to come back to him. And so the people that practice philanthropy and quiet, god knows, god knows. And when they do it to lift and build the lives of others, the blessing can come in so many ways, but Sheila said it so well that being Houston and not the astronaut being collaborative.
Speaker 4:But there is one word of warning I do give is I seek philanthropy. You know, a lot of times people are well-meaning and in giving gifts, but the receivers of the gifts if they're not following the direction and they're implementing the programs of the giver. I think it's something that to note in for the future. I have given gifts before and sometimes the receiver feels an entitlement to do whatever they feel and not follow instructions. But that's the end of my giving to that organization. It's make sure that, as things are done, that there's a way to smartly give to impact the lives of others.
Speaker 1:Yes, thank you so much, ellen. Ok, lots of hand claps over here. I love it. Ok, mitzi, how do you find the balance between managing your public image and engaging in philanthropic work effectively?
Speaker 3:OK, I find that just a seminal question. I'll first say how Frank handled it. He used to Frank Perdue. He used to have a string attached to his gifts which I mean, he's the most philanthropic person I ever met in my life and the string was you can't tell anybody. So that was one approach.
Speaker 1:And then yeah, they love it, thank you.
Speaker 3:And then there's me, because here's what I keep discovering and I wrestle with this. I don't have an answer and I just sort of I don't know. I'm a pinball between bumpers Because I think it's right to copy Frank and not be public about it. On the other hand, I'm so aware that at least in the East Coast I've got a famous last name and if I'm helping a philanthropy they want it known and because having a famous last name, it can help with other donations. So don't have a great big, wonderful answer to this, but I'm not a fan of cars. It's true that, say you have an anchor donation or something it can make a difference.
Speaker 1:Awesome, I love it. Thank you guys so much. Please, everybody in the chat box, show them your love. What do you want to say to them? Just put in one word comment what did this event do to you today? And put that in the chat box. Beautiful, humble, gracious, gratitude, thank you Could totally relate. Beautiful, thank you. Thank you Value. Thank you for your wisdom. Oh my gosh, sharing the love. This is amazing. Thank you everybody. Thank you so much for listening to the Entrepreneurial Empire podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, do me two solids Subscribe to the show so that you never miss an episode, and leave us a review so that others can find this life changing content that we provide here. This show can be the very difference for someone you might know struggling in their business, and we need your help to bring us together. And thank you again for being a part of our entrepreneurial community and for tuning in each and every single week Until next time. Bye for now.