EP: 08 | The Story of How Think Kindness Was Founded

Think Kindness wasn’t started on purpose. It started as a class project in a Marketing 301 class. But then slowly grew. And Grew. And Grew. The entire organization has been bootstrapped from the ground up. From their original 501c3 paperwork, web design, fundraising, videos. . . everything. During this episode you’ll here the amazing success stories of Think Kindness as well as the trials and tribulations. The biggest take-a-way from this episode is this [yes, we will just give it to you]. Never give up. Be resourceful. Chase Your Passion. Make a difference. 

 

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Unknown Speaker 0:00
Check, check one, two, yo, you’re looking to change the world

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Turn it up.

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Welcome to the charity, you podcast,

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a community of the next generation of world changers. Let’s

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change the

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world. So are you ready to keep listening for tips,

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tactics and strategies to

Jessie 0:16
create a lasting legacy?

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Now, your host, Brian,

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and Jesse.

Jessie 0:23
Hey, guys, we are so excited today, this is going to be an amazing podcast episode. It’s something that I’ve been pushing pretty hard to do for a little while now. And I have a feeling that I know why Brian has been just a little bit reluctant because he is so humble. And he does not like talking about himself. But that’s exactly what we’re gonna do today. I want you guys to hear his story, him as a human being, but also the journey of his nonprofit organization, because that’s what charity is all about. So I’m going to just do a really super quick little intro, but Welcome to the podcast, Brian Williams.

Brian Williams 0:58
Thank you. Now I have to step into the shoes of the guest on this one. And I am excited to see you. It’s the new year 2021. And yeah, I’m stoked. I charity is gonna explode. I can’t wait.

Jessie 1:16
I know, this year this year. It’s just gonna be great. We’re all moving on from a hard 2020 moving on to good things in 2021. So Brian, Brian Williams, you guys, he has been at this for over a decade. Speaking all over the country has given speeches to over a million students all over the country all over the world, actually outside of the US as well. And been running think kindness as a nonprofit organization for over 10 years. Right. Brian? When was it actually founded?

Unknown Speaker 1:46
founded in 2009? Okay,

Jessie 1:49
yeah, so well over a decade, and 13 trips to Africa, bringing shoes bringing a lot of assistance and resources. And I mean, he he invests so much if you guys watch my Insta stories, when I was just out in Reno to visit Brian, we were recording charity, you videos, I did a highlight on his, his hydroponics garden, like he’s experimenting in his own office of ways to help people in Africa, you know, create more more vegetables in their lives. I mean, he just like invests in everything that he does. He is like, good to the core, has two beautiful daughters that I am like crazy about, they’re adorable, I’m pretty sure we’re best friends. And his wife is just darling. He’s a good husband, good father. And I just want you guys to kind of get a sense of us, both of us as human beings and why we do this and, and kind of understand where we come from. So that’s what we’re gonna focus on today. Brian, are you excited?

Unknown Speaker 2:49
I am, I’m excited just just to be here. And, and to see your smiling face. It got the new year. And yeah, and to really kind of blow the dust off of the think kindness story. And, you know, kind of the way that we bootstrapped the organization. And for those of you who don’t know what bootstrap means, basically means with no money, you know, and, and going through everything and and you know where it is today.

Jessie 3:20
Yep. And we’re definitely going to talk about bootstrapping, because that’s a conversation that will benefit everyone who listens to this. Because you guys, you have to get creative. You got to get resourceful. Like, you have to figure it out. If you come up against a really huge barrier. You have to have problem solving skills, like that’s a muscle you can build inside yourself. How are you going to work around the problem? How are you going to manage that problem? Because it’s not going to be easy. It’s just not. So Brian’s story is a really good testament of that. So we’re gonna go way back to the beginning. I would love you to tell them the story of how the think kindness idea even began, let’s talk about your origin story.

Brian Williams 3:56
The origin story? Well, it was an accidental origin. To be honest, I had no intention really, of starting a nonprofit organization. I did want to be a speaker. I did want to speak to audiences and but I had no idea how to do it. You can’t go to college to be a motivational speaker, right? There’s no like, motivational speaking 101 course in college. And when I had a long stint in Los Angeles, I moved from Reno, Nevada to LA and was in LA, I had an array of different job positions. That mostly high level I when I was in college, I got ranked the number one business student in the country. And

Unknown Speaker 4:38
I did not know that.

Brian Williams 4:39
Yeah. And then after that, I after receiving that award, I was like getting a ton of job offers. And so I’m like, why finish college when I’m getting all these job offers. So I moved to LA and I was I worked in the film production industry for a while then as a marketing director for an all reality cable work. And then I was a marketing director for one of the largest commodity brokerage firms in Southern California. And then I was a another corporate fitness manager. So managing all there, some of you don’t know, I grew up in martial arts and, you know, working out in Alaska, so I managed a lot of over 120 fitness instructors across, you know, 13, or 14, gym locations, and those really, you know, ritzy gym, you know, like, you know, locations in Beverly Hills and things like that. And, and I just never felt fulfilled, and my dad got sick, and I ended up just moving home. And when I moved home, it was kind of surreal. You know, I was young, I was only I think I moved home at 24 years old. So all of that was like when I was like, 2122, you know, wow, wearing the suit, tie jobs. Yeah. So then being back home, 24 no degree and living back home with my parents. And I had a full ride scholarship to go to college, and I had 10 years to use it. So I still had time left. And so I decided, you know, I need to go and finish my degree. So I went back to school part time. And when I was in school, there was a, and one of the professor’s really cocky Professor like guy that his head’s way too big for shoulders type of, you know, ego, you know, type of guy, and he gave us his class project. And in this class project, we had to come up with a community event to get media attention. And we, we were in groups. So one team did a five k race, another team did a hot dog eating contest, my team, we decided to see if we can get a couple elementary schools, middle school and high school to band together to change the world in 15 days, right? And we’re like, let’s, let’s see if we could do this. And because at the time, what sparked that idea is my mom is an elementary school teacher, they’re having huge bullying issue. And so she’s like, what do we do? come speak to my school? And I was like, but I don’t want to talk about bullying. And she’s like, well, don’t talk about bullying, talk about kindness. And I’m like, good, done. That sounds awesome. And so we decided to not focus on the negative focus on the positive only focus on kindness. And so I could do two birds, one stone, I could go talk to our school, and I could do a class project out of it. So yeah, let’s do it. Right. So I got my team on board, we wrote a rough draft, we gave it to the professor writes it back, it says, if you want to make that big of a difference in the world, change your audience. And what he I went up to him after the class, like what do you mean, he’s like, if you want to make a big difference in 15 days, you need to focus on people that have the resources to make that difference. AKA don’t focus on kids because they can’t change the world focus on adults, adults have money, connections and resources. And in the back of my mind, Jesse, I’m like, you know what? Screw you. Like, who? Who are you to say that kids can’t make a difference? Like I was that high school student to believe I could change the world. And it was guys like you that put me down? Yeah. And so I was like, No, I’m gonna do it. And so I went back to our team, we took the paper, we showed it to the leadership team at the high school, like it’s written in red ink right on, I wish I still had it because like, it was that one piece of paper. And, and so that lit a fire in their butts. And so we set a goal to collect shoes. And we set a goal, like 5000 shoes in 15 days. And I don’t know where we came up with the number 5000. It just sounded huge. We wanted a big, audacious goal, one to aka get media attention. And then good news was newspaper came out, I did this massive assembly at the high school, at the middle schools at the elementary school. And, and they came out they covered it and I went to Starbucks that next morning to get the paper. And that in the article read local students think they can collect 5000 shoes. Like keyword there, right? thing. I was like, really, this is what the media is putting out like these kids think they can do it. Like the whole tone of the article was exact same as a college professor. And so that just even made all the kids go even more on fire. It was incredible. And then the two high schools that were battling who can collect more shoes divided that pretty much like their communities like our US zoned for this school, you better support us. If you’re zoned for this school, you better support us. They had a homecoming football game. And so they all brought their shoes to the homecoming game between the two rival schools. So all these shoes are piled up on the track. And then we had churches, fitness gyms, community organizations, and within 15 days we hit 8000 shoots 8000 was good.

And then when we were sorting the shoes, we had a parking lot and I’ve got photos of this like it was and this is before I thought of using bags which you know, put the shoes and bags they don’t get separated right but 8000 shoes just sitting in a parking lot and then you got to sort and match them. It was a chaotic nightmare, but we had a lot of volunteers. And so but we use parking spaces, we have size fours and fives and sixes in different parking spaces, so we could sort them. And then the same same person that originally were coming up with our dia idea to collect shoes like, Hey, we should be the ones to bring these Africa. I’m like, let’s do it. I’ve never been African never sent that many shoes to Africa. And so I literally went on Google and typed in orphanages in Africa. Right? I didn’t know what to do. And then then like, well, if an orphanage has a website, do they even have websites, I’ve never, I’ve no idea. And so I found this organization, ran by two girls named hope runs, it’s no longer in existence anymore. But they’re two medical students. And they, after graduating medical school, they went to Africa. And they found a lot of kids didn’t have shoes. And because they didn’t have shoes, they weren’t allowed to go to school. And so what they decided to do is give everyone shoes, but then also fund a position a running coach, to teach them running to teach them life skills. And so I paired with them, they said, I know the orphanage, I have all the contacts, here you go, we’ll help you set you up. I was like done. And that was my first trip to Africa. And that that point is when it really kind of set in stone that we can make a difference. You know, the other anchor point to that is that one high school I spoke to, there was a student, you know, during their 15 Day Challenge wasn’t just collecting shoes about doing daily acts of kindness, and we scheduled community events and things. And there was a girl that sent me an email. And you can tell by the email that it was just one that she tried to keep anonymous, I didn’t know who she was as a random email, random name, you know. And she said, I’m taking up space in the halls, I’m running from life, I’m running fast, please help. Wow. And and I met with the counselors, I didn’t know what I should write back. And and we couldn’t identify who this person was. And basically, we asked her to join us at one of the events where we were going to go do give shoes to the homeless? And do we had a big meal and stuff like that for the local homeless. And we said, Why don’t you come and serve? And you’ll realize that you have purpose. And you know, and but at that event, we had no idea who that was. We had 60 students there, right? We didn’t know who was the one that sent that message. And like three weeks later, well, after everything’s done, I get an email back from her and saying, I sat down next to a homeless person. And he sat down and he had lunch. And he told me his story. And he cried and gave me a hug. Oh, and so at that point, I think it was the first realization that I’m like, okay, I can make a difference, you know. And then from that point on, think kindness kind of came to fruition, another city had a major flood, and they had a ton of people that came in to help, and they didn’t know how to say thank you. So they reached out saying, we want to just do a city wide kindness campaign. And, and we had to figure out what to name the campaign. And, and they said, We just want everyone to think kindness. And I was like, done. And then that became the name of the organization that is around today. And, you know, we kept I made a promise to keep going back to Africa. I’ve kept that promise. And yeah, we keep you know, Jimmy just got back today.

Jessie 13:21
I know. Oh, my gosh, it’s so incredible. Jimmy is on the board of directors for think kindness, he and I went to Africa together The last time I went, and I’ve gone to Ghana twice with the organization of think kindness. So anyone listening to this, if you are interested in going to Africa, we go all the time. So you can just sign up and take anyone you want. And it’s safe. They take such good care of us. I’m taking my my 12 year old son next summer 2022 It’s incredible. It’ll change your life, you can’t not change after having an experience like that and think kindness has, has made it possible for so many people to have that experience. So Brian, I haven’t even heard some of those details. Those are that like that’s an amazing orange origin story. Are you kidding me? I just love it. And and you guys, like, the cool part is that every single one of you are going to have an origin story. Like everyone listening to this, if you have a desire to do good in this world, you you want to be significant. You want to be able to look back on your life when you’re 19 you’re sitting in the nursing home eating your jello, and you want to be proud of what you’ve built and proud of what you’ve contributed you You left the world better than you found it, you’re going to have an origin story. So I mean, just think about it. It doesn’t have to be you know, as like as big maybe but like think of think of the catalysts in your life that have led you to be who you are, that have led you to even caring about people. Maybe your great aunt got sick and and maybe it was cancer and that’s why you’re passionate about cancer. Like that’s part of your story now and that’s beautiful. Maybe you got bullied yourself, and that’s part of why you you want to turn around and make the world Better so that other kids don’t experience what you experienced, you know, like, look for those moments because that that’s a powerful catalyst. Like I guarantee you, Brian thinks about those experiences he thinks about that college professor, he thinks about that, that girl that wrote the letter to him, you know, and those who are motivators,

Unknown Speaker 15:20
when you tell a story, you know, looking back, as you tell us driving that old story took place over several years, right theory, right? Oh, maybe like a year and a half. And, and there’s a lot of things out there that, you know, I didn’t know, if it was gonna work. And I didn’t even know where it was going to end up. I was just saying, if I’m, I’m doing good, I’m meaning to do good. something good will happen. And I had no idea the direction that would go and I had no idea if I, you know, speaking on stage for the first time, at a high school gym, you know, I wrote a speech and to be honest, now looking back as a, you know, seasoned speaker, I was horrible. But I still obviously, I you know, it’s still good. But my abilities now are night and day different, you know, and ironically, there’s a YouTube video of one of those speeches on one of my old YouTube channels, and it’s got, like, quarter of a million views. And I’m like, Oh, I don’t know about that. That was my elementary school. It was cheesy. But apparently, it worked. And, and also, I had the social stigma to you know, at that point, you know, at all my I moved back to Reno All my friends are there, what are you doing? Everyone’s graduating college and, you know, I’m back home living at my parents doing kindness night. And that felt weird and awkward, you know? And, and so I had to kind of battle those things as well.

Jessie 16:48
Yeah, for sure. And, and, you guys, this is important for everybody to realize, like, there’s just always gonna be a starting point. So him mentioning, having awkward moments and hard moments like you, you just start, there’s never going to be a point where you’re just perfectly ready. If Brian had waited until he was out of his parents house and like, kind of in a different situation, maybe it would be really different now, like, we can’t wait, time is the one commodity that we just we can never have control over. So you will

Unknown Speaker 17:22
never go right. Go intuition. like one of those high school students that came on that very first trip. I like to sit down with talk to our parents, like, Can your daughter go to Africa? Their parents? Like, Is it safe? I’m like, Yeah, I don’t know. We’ll stay away from the lions. But I think it’ll be alright. You know what I mean? And, and she ended up going over there. And guys, when you go to I mean, Jessie, you can attest me go to Africa changes you like, it’s something there is just magical and powerful. And she came back and she’s she went on that trip, she collected the shoes, and she decided to go become a delivery nurse. And, and went back after graduating and spent like four years in Uganda, you know. And then you have Martin’s one of our other board members. He was there. And in that college class, I was there. And now he’s one of our board members. Right? He was part of that team that said, Hey, Martin, so you guys know he’s from Nigeria didn’t get his first pair of shoes till he was 14 years old. Right. And now he’s some high level executive at Microsoft. And, you know, he’s killing it. And, and now it goes back full circle. Now he’s sitting on our board of directors like all these different relationships and friends and people that you come across. You don’t know where your journey is going. But just keep trudging along.

Jessie 18:40
Yep. Yep, I love it. So embrace your origin story, you guys it The story is, is gonna matter. And let it be a motivator for you let it let it remind you why you’re doing it when things get hard? Because they will. They definitely will. And that brings me to my next question brand. Let’s talk about like the good, bad and the ugly. In the beginning of starting your nonprofit, what was like, give us like one awesome moment where you’re like, Okay, this is working. I’m excited about this. We’re making progress, like a moment that was really like that propelled you forward. And then give us something that was really, really difficult for you right at the beginning.

Unknown Speaker 19:21
Well, my hardest thing is balancing How do I turn this into something that can be granted? Keep in mind, I’m in college, I’m working at a group home. I mean, I’m running a group home for troubled teens in Lake Tahoe. And so I’m working full time there. I’m going to school a little less than full time, and then trying to figure out on how do I make this a full time venture? You know, how do I get paid speaking? How do I make think kindness or reality? How do I do website design? How do I do grant writing? How do I get it all the things that we teach and share to you I had to figure out how How to do on my own. And I remember my aunt, she was the development director, a grant writer for St. Mary’s Hospital, nonprofit, a large nonprofit hospital here in Reno. And the executive director of the foundation, his name was Paul laxalt. a really high level, individual, well networked, individual, and she says, I want you to come and meet Paul. And I was like, great. And then through random discord thing, communication just got lost. He was busy. I was, you know, doing my thing. And he was busy just so a year went by that we never met. I got back to Africa, went to Africa came back the day after I came back. And this part was hard is I drove by my aunt’s house. And there was a ton of cars at my aunt’s house. And I was like, I, you know, I live right by her house. Normally, I just stop in. But I don’t know, when you go to Africa, and you get back, everyone asked you tell me about your trip to Africa. Tell me about your trip to Africa. Tell me about your trip to Africa. And I wasn’t quite ready to, to I haven’t processed it. Africa is an emotional experience. really emotional like you, you, you meet kids. And I hadn’t processed it enough to be able to talk about it yet. So I drove past her house. And I went home that next morning, my aunt randomly passed away by it was an asthma attack. And she couldn’t get to her insulin in time. And in my cousin in the house woke up to firemen breaking down the door, because she had was had the ability to call 911 by the time she got, they got there she was gone. And, and that hurt really bad on like, maybe I should have stopped. You know. And then Paul called me a week later, and says, I’ve heard a lot about you. It was what you want. And it’s wish that you always wanted me to meet you. And so I want to meet you. And I was like great. And so we went we met, and he loved everything about think kindness, and he hands me a $20,000 check.

Jessie 22:09
Holy crap.

Unknown Speaker 22:11
Wow. And so he goes Now, what I want you to do is do is I want to inspire kindness within all of our employees, how would you do that? I’m giving you $20,000 to figure it out, make it happen. And so we started this whole kindness crew campaign for the hospital, we did quarterly kindness challenges, we had different, you know, jeans days that we did so much. I did all the videos and graphics was a really uplifting part. And then then the hard part was is like, well, I wasn’t able to still do it full time. You know, cuz I use the 20 grand into the campaign into like, the stuff that you would use to run the business and I never paid myself. And then I had the in, they sat me down again. And he was one of those like, you know, uncles that says, you know, cut cut straight to the chase. He’s like, how are you doing? Why aren’t you bigger? And I was like, ah, like, why are you working somewhere else? Why aren’t you doing this? I’m like, Why don’t have enough money. And then he hands me a $50,000. Check. And word. And so he goes I want on your board. And this money is for you quit all your jobs. And so and that was the first point that literally I probably would have went and done something else hadn’t been for that, you know, so that allowed me to quit and really dedicate my time to think kindness. And the check wasn’t coming from him. I was coming from the St. Mary’s foundation. And so to still keep doing what we were doing, and what we were doing in the community. And so that was the first time that I really say like, Okay, this is this is going to take off, you know, I’m going to make it happen. And there’s been a lot of ups and downs, obviously since then. But yeah,

Jessie 23:58
incredible. Good Night Nurse, thank you for sharing that both both of those experiences. It’s incredible. Do you like I don’t? I don’t know. Do you? Looking back on all of that, do you feel like because I guess what I’m getting at is like, that’s probably not the typical trajectory for for anyone listening to this, you know that? That? That’s a unique experience, which is so weird. But the weird part about it, Jesse is that since then,

Unknown Speaker 24:29
I could probably count at least 10 times vividly that think kindness. Okay, just so you guys know, I really got diving into the high level of a nonprofit. You know, we have operating expenses, rent overhead, you know, sometimes if we have employees, we have to pay them. And so we need a certain amount of money, obviously to pay our bills. And then we have money in the savings account. So we usually have a reserve and basically we Calculate like, Okay, if we didn’t make get any more donations or didn’t make any more money through our services or anything like that, how long can we survive? Right? If you’re relating this to your own personal finances? You know, how much money do you have in the bank to survive? Assuming you lost your job? Right? A lot of people had to deal with that with COVID. Typically, I want to say statistically, most nonprofits have six months in reserves. If they have more than that, then that is amazing. Right? majority of my nonprofits, you know, probably have less than that. Right. And so for us, that thing kinda is a bulk of what we do is school assembly. So from, you know, may all the way through September, we have no revenue or grants or things like that coming in. And so there’s been a handful of times where we’ve literally been like, a month away from having $0 left in our bank account. And but for some reason, every single time, something comes up, that’s just out of the blue. Like Frito, lay, or big donation, or whatever it may be. One person donated a car to us randomly. Yeah. And I’m like, Am I allowed to sell the car is like, yeah, you can sell the car, sold the car, Mike, bam, okay,

Jessie 26:25
if you guys want to learn more about what he’s talking about, just go follow his Instagram stories, you check out the charity you app because like, it’s incredible. He’s giving away a Tesla. And the Frito Lay thing he just mentioned, he just got a $250,000 grant from the Frito Lay company. It’s incredible. So and this is so great for anyone to listen to, because you guys, like I believe in karma. I absolutely believe in karma. If you put good out into the world, if you are looking for good, if you are creating good, good is going to come back to you. I believe that with every like fiber of my being. And if you believe that also, I promise you like you’re gonna want to manifest goodness.

Unknown Speaker 27:09
And the one thing I want to say most charity you students, or any, you know, even if you’re not, you’re just a teenager out there that you have going for you is the fact that you are a teenager, exactly, in and what I mean by that is is when an adult if I see a teenager, email me saying, Hey, I am starting an organization to do X, Y and Z. That’s not common. That’s not what typically teenagers do. They’re worrying about how do I get the iPhone? 12? Right? Yeah. And here you are saying that you’re gonna do something epic and awesome. And that’s not normal. Right? So. So the journey, I don’t want to say it’s going to be easier. But it’s going to be where doors should open, a little bit easier than they would have been they did for me. And it’s one of those things that you just have to have faith in what you’re doing. And one of the girls in Africa. Her name is Grace. And I sat down. And I don’t know what this is like trip two or three. And I asked her we were drawing pictures of like, what’s your favorite animal? I like cuz you’re in Africa. Like they have some the most amazing animals. And ironically, most of the kids in the orphanage never seen him because they can’t afford to go on safaris and stuff. But they’ve seen pictures. And she said a rhino. Like, oh, which you know, why a rhino? And she says, because rhinos remind me to never to have faith. And I was confused by that. I’m like, okay, I why, how? How is that? And she says, well, rhinos can only see 35 feet in front of them yet, they can run 30 miles an hour. So when they run full speed, they don’t have enough time to stop. They have to have faith and where they’re running, they’re not going to run into something. Hmm. And so she says, I’m running full speed. I don’t know if I’m gonna, I have to have faith that nothing’s gonna get in my way. Why not? Like, that’s powerful. And that, to me describes exactly kind of my philosophy. I’m just gonna go hardcore as fast as I can, and have faith that you know, something good will happen.

Jessie 29:16
Absolutely. And you guys, if you’re scared to death, to try to do the thing that you’re wanting to do, and while you’re listening to this, like, just let that exactly what he just said, Be your mantra, because none of us know. None of us know exactly where we’re going. We have no idea what barriers are gonna come up. We have no idea what challenges we’re gonna face. But do we let that stop us? Do we live in fear? Nope. Nope, we don’t that’s not what we do here. Charity you let’s absolutely be the rhinos, you guys for real, because I get scared to death all the time. Like I’m a mom and like, I have to take care of my kids. I need we need money to do that. Like there’s a lot of realities of life that could absolutely hold all of us back. So the only thing we can do is have fun. I seriously, that is the only thing we can do. So hold on to that. And then give yourself permission to like, lean on it a little bit, and then trust it, and then move and keep moving forward. So I love that. Thanks, Brian. Okay, so we’ve talked about like the origin story, we talked about the good, the bad, and the ugly. What are what are some things that you have learned as a human being, like, how has running a charity affected you as a husband, a father and just a human.

Unknown Speaker 30:29
So I think it’s impacted me in a couple different ways, both good and bad, and also created some bad habits as well. And what I mean by that is, is Jesse even with you as IV girls, and pretty much everyone that’s starting their own nonprofit, that’s part of the charity program, is we’re bootstrapping everything, right. And meaning that you don’t have a lot of money to do, it is what you want to do. So you have to figure out how to do it yourself. You want to do website? Well, you better learn how to use Wix or Squarespace or something like that. And so the downside of that is that when it becomes time to hire someone, or to figure something out, that you want to do it yourself, and you have to realize what your superpowers truly are. That’s one. Number two, you have to come to the realization that you can’t help everybody. And that’s hard. Because you want to, there’s a time where you want to say yes to everything. And I call it charity add, right, because you’re like, Oh, that’s an awesome, cause. I want to help. Ooh, that one’s awesome, too. I want to help with that. Right. And you have to focus. And that’s a hard thing to also kind of go over even when we help the orphanages in Africa is because how do you say no to a homeless? child that’s homeless and hungry on the street? Right? Yeah, how do you do that. But at the same point, an orphanage has to realize they can’t help everybody. If they try to help everybody, they’ll help nobody, right? Meaning that you can’t exhaust all of your resources in two days, because then nobody flourishes. instead focus on five kids, those five kids will get an education and help out and then come back, and then they’ll have you know, and it’s short of build. And so, at first, I really tried to help everyone. So I had to learn how to focus. And I think it’s also put a big priority, or I won’t say priority might be the wrong word, but emphasis on what’s important in life. And that if something happens, in our world, where you wake up one day, and the world’s just different money, doesn’t matter. Resources don’t matter, the size, your house doesn’t matter. At the end of the day, what do you have? You know, and all you have is you have your character, you have your family, and, and your faith. And that’s pretty much the most important things that you have. And at the end of the day, I think, you know, when you see a lot of people struggling online, or you see even celebrities, you know, that are, you know, committing suicide, you wonder, a lot of people wonder, like, why you have everything? And I will know that they don’t they, in their minds, maybe they didn’t. And the thing is, is you have to realize that, you know, sometimes you just need to hit pause and look at your life. And by going to Africa, it’s been very humbling for that.

Jessie 33:32
I love that. Thank you, Brian. Because that’s, that’s like the biggest thing when, when I was really just first experimenting with charity, you I had a few adults say, you know, it’s not gonna make that big of a difference, like teenagers can’t make that big of a difference. And you know, there’s people like Brian’s college professor, that really, they believe that. But you guys, that’s just a belief that’s not an objective truth. Because we we know, Brian, and I know for sure that teenagers can absolutely make a difference. It’s not even a question. But like, at the beginning, I just remember thinking if even if they just help one person, if they help one person or one cause or one animal or do one thing for the environment, one, literally one that will benefit the cause. And it also benefits the kid because you guys know, my focus is you, whoever’s listening to this. Teenagers. I’m I personally, Jessie, as a human as a therapist. My focus is you like you guys learning leadership skills, you guys building character, you guys building your own confidence, and then learning the skills that you’re going to need that are going to help you in every relationship in your life and every everything you do besides your charity, that everything you’re learning by running a charity will benefit you as a human being. And that is like my main focus. And if you even if it’s very, very small, it still matters. totally love that story, Brian, that’s exactly what it’s all about.

Unknown Speaker 35:03
And, you know, when I tested for my fourth degree black belt, we were, I want to say forced to memorize. But we were required to memorize two poems poem, and they’re not poems. paragraphs is what they were. One is about success, and one is about mastery. One of them I still have memorized To this day, the other one is rather long. And so, I guarantee you everyone listening to this will be able to relate to both of these. The first one was by Ralph Waldo Emerson, and it’s what is success. Success is to laugh often and much it’s to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends. To appreciate beauty to find the best and others to leave the world a bit better whether by a child a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition. To know that one life has breathed easier because you have lived this is to have succeeded. And so that last line to know that one, life has breathed easier, because you have lived is an awesome way to look and define success, especially on a daily level of what can you do today that you can say you help someone breathe easier today because you are in their life. The other one is really I think, could be the we should actually make all the charity people memorize this as well.

Unknown Speaker 36:30
That challenge.

Unknown Speaker 36:31
Okay, so this one’s mastery. And this one’s a lot more high level you ready for it? Yeah, okay. Um, this one, I all go back and memorize it too. But I’m reading it right now, because this is a little bit longer, but I did have it memorized at one point. Mastering in one careers in consciousness growth simply requires that we constantly produce results beyond and out of the ordinary. mastery is a product of consistently going beyond our limits. For most people. It starts with technical excellence in a chosen field and a commitment to that excellence. If you’re willing to commit yourself to excellence to surround yourself with things that represent this, and miracles, your life will change. When we speak of miracles, we speak of events or experiences in the real world which are beyond the ordinary. It’s remarkable how much mediocrity we live with surrounding ourselves with daily reminders that the average is the acceptable our world suffers from Terminal normality. Take a moment to assess all of the things around you that promote your being average. These are the things that keep you powerless to go beyond the limit that you arbitrarily set for yourself. The first step to mastery is the removal of everything in your environment that represents mediocrity, removing those things that are limiting. One way is to surround yourself with friends who asked more of you than you do yourself. Didn’t some of your best teachers and coaches and parents do that as well. Another step on the path to mastery is the removal of resentment towards masters. Develop compassion for yourself that you can be in the presence of masters and grow from the experience. Rather than comparing yourself and resenting people who have mastery. remain open and receptive. Let the experience be like the planting of a seed within you that with nourishment will grow into an individual mastery. You see, we are all ordinary. But a master rather than condemning himself for his ordinariness will embrace and use it as a foundation for building the extraordinary rather than using it as an excuse for an activity, you will use it as a vehicle for correcting which is essential in the process of attaining mastery, you must be able to correct yourself without invalidating or condemning yourself to accept results and improve upon them. Correct. don’t protect correction is essential to the power of mastery.

Jessie 38:58
Nice. Yeah, let’s have everyone memorize that. That’s a great idea.

Unknown Speaker 39:02
I like it from the biggest my favorite sentences that is our world suffers from Terminal normality. Yeah, and, and I think that a lot of people feel that like there’s so many people around you that are going to remind you that what you’re doing is too extraordinary. And then you need to be more you need to settle down a little bit.

Jessie 39:19
Right? Exactly. Don’t ever ever buy into that crap, you guys. The crabs in the bucket. If you have like a bunch of crabs in a bucket, one tries to crawl out the other Crabs will pull it back. That that is real. And I know so many teenagers will relate to that. Like I got bullied. I was a bully. Like, we don’t like to see other people shine because it threatens how we feel about ourselves. And that is crap. That’s just not okay. So don’t ever Don’t ever let anyone pull you down into terminal. What is it? normality? That’s beautiful. Yes. That’s so beautiful. I love that brand. It’s really fantastic. Well, this was a lot I wanted everyone to really hear your heart and your story and why the why you do this. Because we’re charity was all about the how and we’re going to teach you guys how to do everything but I wanted you to understand the why, and why Brian and I care about this so much. And there’s just so much to it and a lot of depth, a lot of substance, things that you’ll all be really really proud of. So I personally would love everyone to really get to know Brian Williams as a human being so go follow him on Instagram and Brian, you need to post more people need to know you a little bit more. He focuses so much on think kindness because he’s really too humble to focus on himself, but like, get to know him. He’s just a good dude. I’m so honored to call you my friend.

Unknown Speaker 40:48
Thanks. And just so you guys know Jesse isn’t getting off the hook. So the next episode, she will be sitting in the gesi and we’re gonna drill I am going to draw her on questions about how she started IV girl Academy. So Jesse? Yeah, it’s coming back. Um, all right. Yeah.

Jessie 41:06
All right, Bring it. Bring it off. All right, you guys. We’re gonna wrap up this episode. If you have any questions, comments, ideas, concerns, let us know we want to talk to you. We want to build relationships with you. There’s a lot of details in the show notes. You can follow both of us on Instagram. We want you involved in the app. So go to join charity you.com. And we would love to have conversations with you please engage with us. And if you want to make our entire week Brian and I, you could leave a review and a rating it would just mean the world to us. So thank you so much for us.

Unknown Speaker 41:38
Awesome, guys. Well, as always everyone, thanks for listening to our podcast. And remember, be brave, be kind, and we can all change the world. See

Unknown Speaker 41:52
ya.