From $0 To $30M: How To Scale Nonprofit Success

[0:00]  hey what's going on everybody welcome back to a brand new episode of the heart and hustle podcast now I've got a really special episode for you today I've got an amazing president and CEO named Mark doie now Mark is leading an organization called Kids in Distress and Family Central this organization has been serving over 20,000 at risk youth in Southern Florida in today's conversation you're going to hear me and Mark talk about the challenges of being a leader in a nonprofit space what it's like to innovate with resources in the community to meet individuals where they need to be met the impact that we're having on a younger generation but also the mindset that it takes to be able to overcome challenges in our lives and why that's so important let's get into the episode if you know that hey I'm going to make a mistake I'm GNA fall down but I was able to get up before and I'm going to do it again and that's when you become

[0:47]  Unstoppable and that's when meaningful change and and and and really being able to succeed is in my view inevitable all right guys welcome back to a brand new episode of the heart and hustle podcast I'm incredibly excited because I have Mark dogy with me here today now Mark is an individual who is the president and CEO of Kids in Distress and Family Central Inc now what makes Mark incredibly special is your dedication to the space you spent over 30 years now now in this organization and serving this larger mission for your community mark thank you so much for

[1:34]  being here with me man I really appreciate it Keenan it is such a pleasure thank you for having me on your show so Mark I have a question for you one of the things that we do in our to kind of tie our episodes together is we like to connect our previous episode with this episode by having our previous guest ask you a question and their question was for you was what can we do as individuals to better combat negativity in our community today wow you know one of my favorite it's an interesting question that you posed to me Keenan because one of my favorite quotes is from Coen Powell and it goes like this Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier right if we all can exhibit a level of positivity and optimism and quite frankly kindness and treat each other by you know essentially the golden rule is really what I live by you know then I think that that spreads from

[2:21]  Individual to individual and it just becomes contagious so I really feel that that Perpetual optimism you know shared with one person is going to carry on to another um you and I know that that sounds simple but it's not quite as simple and easy to do when you're faced with the everyday challenges of life what do you think about the framework of practical optimism I've been messing around with this a little bit in my mind over the last couple months because part of my brand is I really put a lot of effort into being someone who's optimistic and positive but I hear from some people often that there's something called toxic positivity and it's interesting to me that we've gotten to a place in society where people saying you're too positive about the situations that are going on and so I've tried to reframe that into practical optimism because what that means for me is I have the power to make decisions in the face

[3:09]  of adversity and to choose being positive what do you kind of think about that framework you know Kean I I feel very strongly that we're all going to be faced with adversity right but adversity builds character and I think at some times is that you know you're going to fall down you're you're going to have mistakes you're going to go down a path often times that perhaps you are not necessarily prepared for but if you can keep a positive mindset during all of those times that you fall down coming out at the other end is not only going to be uh have a positive response and have a significant change in you but it's going to give you the tools and the tool kit to be able to overcome any of that negativity you might see in the future and you know one of the things we do within our organization is that you know one of our Unwritten rules and I

[3:56]  know I've said it before is just a level of kindness when you walk in the door in the morning you say good morning to everybody and it's something that I practice and we have about 300 employees and what happens is that that becomes contagious people model after the folks that they want to you know they they want to be or they want to see or who they who they strive to be and so having that everyday level of just you know just having a not only a positive mindset but being able to treat people with respect and treat people in the way that you want to be treated goes a long way towards just everyday interactions again sounds simple in pra um in talk not so simple in practice but whether it's the Barista at your local Starbucks or the guy that swerves in front of you you know instead of giving him the middle finger just give him a wave say good morning it changes your whole

[4:44]  outlook on things believe me how would you describe yourself as a human without anything that has to do with work who is Mark who is Mark gosh that's a challenging question um you know I think oftentimes many of us that are in leadersh ship roles you know you've heard of impostor syndrome right um you know we you you get to a certain level and you always feel like dude did I deserve this or do I should I be in this role uh me as a person you know I try to be authentic in every interaction that I have with people um I consider myself a humanitarian um in that any interaction that I have with other people whether there are folks within my organization whether they are my neighbor whether they are the guy that drives by me you know um you know I the street is that I just I grew up in such a way um and take

[5:33]  on those kind of characteristics from my grandparents that it's just so important to be authentic and to be genuine and if you can be authentic and genuine your passion in whatever you do whether that's work related whether that is Charity related or whether that is relationship related that is going to come out to other people um as far as knowing who you are specifically and and what you stand for which I think in today's world is a very challenging aspect of us as individuals what do you truly stand for do you have core values that you stand for do you have a philosophy that you stand for um and that really identifies you as a person in this big world of of diversity right I mean I feel like the biggest thing that you can do for yourself is to be

[6:20]  proud of who you say you are you know one of the things that I always talk about with my team and other people is confidence is not built by shouting affirmations in the mirror but having a stack of deniable proof behind you that you are who you say you are and I feel like it's the consistent practitioners ship of being a good person in today's world that we need more than often and when I sit across the table from somebody like you I see how sharp intellectual and passionate you are for the space that you serve but I have a question why did you kind of pick this path can we kind of share your journey from being a deputy sheriff having a love for rhinos and then finding your space in community service can you let the kind of audience know about kind of your journey so we can let them know oh thanks Keenan you know my journey is really interesting in a lot of ways and I um you know I'm an upstream thinker

[7:07]  all the time you know how can we improve the lives of the people around us um in in any way possible but you know I started my journey not really you know when I went to college I thought I was going to be in the medical profession and that fell through and quite honestly when my undergrad was in criminal justice I wanted to help people you know quite honestly I wanted to help I I think I shared with you previously that I wanted to help animals at first but also saw how much more meaningful it was to be a change agent in our community um for folks and so I graduated from college in the late 1990s um with a criminal justice degree also had majors in biology and conservation so I did think that I wanted to move to Africa and save the Rhinos at one point my one of my thesis papers at um at the end of my college experience was in fact you know the the how to save the the Rhinos how to how to impact the White Rhino and the black

[7:55]  rhino and the Samaritan Rhino and all these rhinos that around the world but you know I couldn't work in conservation didn't have that opportunity so I was hired as a deputy sheriff a role Patrol cop um in the Upper Peninsula Michigan and did that work for a couple of years um very meaningful because I was always under the impression that you know you need to help people um what I found is that I was very young as a young cop I was exposed to a lot of um a lot of juveniles a lot of adolescent who were getting into trouble I mean quite frankly we would I would solve a lot of that crime why Gap in age you know I was a 21y old cop these F these kids trusted me and unfortunately led to arrests and a lot of these kids we would send down to um flint and to Detroit to lockup facilities and they would come back to

[8:42]  our community frankly worse than what we sent them down as they would be grain Affiliated they would learn behaviors that were you know much more violent than what we were used to you know in the Upper Peninsula Michigan and so after two years of that work I actually said hey this isn't working for me um met some folks at an organization U called teaching family homes of buer Michigan um affiliated with boy town and I quit my job as a police officer and actually moved in to a home with the same boys that were being reintroduced to our community from those juvenile lockup facilities and I got to tell you that was it was a big change for me but having the direct impact of a relationship with these kids and and believe me it's all based on relationship it's all based on trust if you can if you can establish the trust

[9:29]  with these kids um you can change their lives for a lifetime you really can and so I did that work for a little bit um won some national awards um don't like to talk a lot about myself but that that led to meeting some folks from Kids in Distress at a conference in San Antonio back in 1994 and they told me something that was very new at that time is that the organization that I currently work for Kids in Distress was working with young victims of abuse and neglect and really intervening at the earliest level possible um to ensure that those kids never got introduced to the juvenile system to the um you know to to systems that that might harm them more than make them productive uh you know productive have productive lives and so I moved down here um moved into a group home with boys between the ages of five and 10 who

[10:18]  had been through multiple failed posture placements and did that work for a couple of years when I arrived at Kids in Distress we had about 40 employees and what was really neat about the organization I work for now is that the two women who who really founded this organization their names hopefully will live in Legacy Gene Miley and M shaylor they were Visionaries in that they knew that children could not grow up and could not learn skills adequately by just being um essentially staying in a shelter right or staying in a foster home they needed early childhood education they needed Clinical Services to address their trauma and so that led to really the organization evolving into a full Child and Family Service organization with the PRI predominant mission of preventing child

[11:06]  abuse and going Upstream in order to find out why were these kids really ending up in situations with their families that they were and how we how can we prevent them from happening the whole goal of our organization is really to shut ourselves down you know how can we how can we address issues at the earliest level possible so that we can impact the lives of kids before they get into situations that be become more dramatizing um to their self I mean what an amazing mission is to put ourselves out of business I talked to a lot of my other mental and Behavioral Health Partners in large metropolitan areas and I've had a few CEOs recite that to me my biggest goal is to make sure that we are not necessary and in itself is kind of a a servant Leadership Model right in the community I want to reverse a little bit and talk about some of those early days

[11:53]  when you move into your group home and you're interacting with these individuals who maybe like you said have been arrested at one point in time they're either the same individuals or remind you of people who you actually put into some of those detention centers what were some of those early days like in the realization and kind of the human connection of needing to be supported and how did you kind of pour into those individuals you know I'm not going to say that they are easy positions right um you know there's a lot of stress I I know one of the things that we talked about early on was falling down you know you make a lot of mistakes you know early on when you um when you when you intervene with those kids but I have learned through many years and also during that early time is that and it it wasn't it didn't take long to learn that is that if when you start to get to the children's level or get to the teenagers level and all you have to do is develop

[12:42]  that trust trust is so incredibly important and as soon as you have that trust that you're there to help you're there to support you're there to Mentor um the kids you're not there to tell them what to do they're going to they're going to lead their own lives but you're there to share them share with them your own experiences as well as to just hold their hand you know many of these kids have never had a hug before you know that and again those are those early kids other 15 16 17 18 year olds who have never had the honor of having physical touch even sometimes from their parents and so you know being able to gently let them know hey I'm a pat on the back um you know let's go out and spend some personal time together shooting baskets you know running track and field just just spending quality time you know it's a shame because many

[13:29]  of the kids that you see that become juvenile delinquents they haven't had that one-on-one time they haven't had that quality time that has been shared with them that oftentimes will raise their own self-confidence their own you know how they look at themselves how they see themselves as a not only a positive member of society but actually attaining and having goals that are reachable and attainable and that comes later you know after that relationship is um is developed fully but if you don't start with meeting those kids where they're at and sometimes meeting them where they're at is doing some uncomfortable things on your you know on your own you know you know those kids might be very very you know much more talented on the on the basketball court than I am I might be pushed around but

[14:16]  I'm gonna expose myself to some of those uh you know those interactions because they might not have thought that I would and as soon as they see that you're willing to go out there and put yourself out there to be uncomfortable by frankly they're willing to be uncomfortable themselves do you have a story from those early days where you felt like you were able to kind of tear some of those walls down of resistance between one of those kids and yourself yeah you know I do and you know what of course many kids are faced with runaway stories right uh many kids you know many kids especially those kids that have been um either introduced or exposed to trauma or have had you know a trauma trauma filled lives is that we would keep kids that would run away and often times when they would run away and I remember this 17-year-old his name was David um grew up in a terrible terrible household um

[15:04]  ended up getting trouble with drugs and things like that this is going back all the way to 1994 one of the first um you know first kids in the home and you know he had a big huge issue with running away you know he would get home from school and often and what we found is that he was running away from his problems he wasn't running away from us he didn't want to deal with the he didn't want to tell us when he got an F right in school because bad things happened when he would told people he got an F previously so when he would run away I would follow him and and he would go you know get the F out of here don't want you he would you know he often times he would become physically violent a way but I would assure him that I'm not leaving you David you know if you walk five miles down the road I'm gonna be there right with you I'm gonna be beside you every step that you take um because this is about safety it's about your own safety and it's about your own

[15:52]  goals and then I would bring it back and oftentimes you know I would let him know that if you want to run away let's run away together you know let's let let's take a three mile walk and what that runaway turned into is it turned into a coping skill for him it was no longer running away it became eventually just taking a long walk which is exactly what he needed and quite frankly it's something I do today when I have a very stressful situation I learned from David that hey if I take a two- mile walk and I come back home I'm in a much more different state of mind um and so we develop that relationship through long walks and sometimes it would be long walks through the the woods it would be long walks down the highway but I would be with him wherever he went and it didn't take very long for him to figure out that not only is he gonna get rid he's never gonna get rid of me but I'm

[16:39]  gonna be there for him even if he does things that are you know quite frankly stupid you know what I mean because I cared about him I loved on him and he was very important to me Mark man you're you're the true definition of heart and hustle because there are so many things that you could truly contribute to and dedicate your mission to in life but your willingness to show up for others when they don't want to show up for themselves is something that those individuals like David to this day I'm still sure remember are you in contact with David at all or have you had any interactions with him since back in the day not David specifically you know it's it's interesting you ask that question because you know I was what 23 years old 24 years old and those kids were all 17 18 um so I know where one of those boys are you know so now they're you know I'm 57 those boys are all in their late 40s

[17:26]  I do know where every one of my boys are um from our our group home here in what matters and I'm privileged and honored they've had their own kids now and I'm the god parent to some of their those kids oh man that's so cool one of the uh subjects that I want to talk about today is is isolationism isolationism is something that we talked about in a previous conversation um one of the things that I think is one of the biggest problems that we see in society and back in 2022 the Surgeon General came on to a national broadcast and talked about the biggest problem that Society is is facing today is not another outbreak of the pandemic but rather isolation and loneliness let's talk about that willingness in society today to isolate ourselves and some of the downstream effects of that because it seems like we live in a society today where we're

[18:13]  running this Lone Wolf mentality I don't need anybody I can do my own thing I have connection that comes from my little device but I don't think that we really truly understand the impacts of isolation so let's kind of talk about that a little bit you know I believe quite frankly Keenan that you know isolation is probably the pandemic of our lives in a lot of ways and unfortunately the covid-19 pandemic only intensified that and exponentiated that you know because folks um be not only had to be isolated but they got used to being isolated and didn't realize how significant that impacts their lives you know the most important thing you can do for your health is not I'm a huge weightlifter right I I love lifting weights in the gym but that's not the best or and diet is real important but the most significant thing you can

[19:01]  do for your life is human connection it's having friends having connections having Confidant and in many many studies as you noted the human connection is the Catalyst towards having a healthy body a healthy mind a healthy soul in many ways and I think unfortunately because of the society that we live in people have almost gone the opposite way they feel like the less that I have to deal with Society or societal norms and I think a lot of is because of division quite frankly it would never get into Politics on your show right but there's so much Division and there's so much um you know non authentication of people that they don't truly want they want to they they share a false cell and you see that in social media and you see that on you know on

[19:48]  gaming sites and gaming sites are not you know that that that's not you know that's not connections it's a type of connection but it's not the connection you need where human touch and direct conversation we get so many folks that come to our organization now who have been trained and educated to be social uh social workers but yet they lack the skills to truly involve themselves in human connection and we almost have to retach them how important it is to develop trust to make sure that you're thinking outside of yourself and to hold a conversation where you're actually not just thinking about what you're going to say next but you're truly listening to what other people have to say because that alone can impact how somebody feels

[20:37]  about you and the trust they have for you um and I I think unfortunately that that's been lost in so many ways not only in society but in education in corporate responsibility and in many other areas it's it's really interesting to me that we are in a time where the solution for a lot of our problems is coming coming together as people one of the things that we were talking about in isolation is the downstream effects of a shorter less fulfilling life have you ever heard of blue zones before I have not okay so there's a thing called Blue zones there are five of them in the world they're located in the Middle East um Japan I want to say there's a couple other locations throughout the world right and the blue zones are where the biggest population of centurions live

[21:25]  people who live to be hundred years old and they talk about the societal factors in those zones the most common is a social network they use an incredible example of in Japan there are people who are 95 996 97 100 plus years old and they all have a tight-knit community because what they found is when you have social connection you have the ability to offload your stress onto a group they can support you but also they have the ability to uplift you and give you something to look forward to on a daily basis and I just get so worried about our society today because everybody is constantly spending time on their device it's very similar to what we're talking about in that gaming element we're sharing a curated version of ourselves a curated sense of connection but it seems like we're almost afraid to kind of take

[22:13]  our guard down to let people see the true vulnerable version of oursel does that make sense complete and 100% 100% in the blue you know I've heard of I didn't I've never used or heard the term blue Zone but I have actually read you know the statistics and in many of those cultures there's also a connection between Generations right yes where you have a connection between grandparents and great-grandparents that there's and and I think and and I don't want to put it in a gross way but it gives the elderly folks really the motivation to live because they know that they're still having impact and I I do think sometimes you know especially in our Western Society in America is that we almost don't respect or hold a respect or hold a reverence for the elderly folks who are grandparents who can share

[23:01]  stories about their own challenges and how they conquered them and how they you know how they persevered it there's almost a lack of respect there with some of our our our newer generations and it's just so incredible one of the things that we've done in our organization is that in our preschool we actually have grandparents from our local you know assisted living facility that come into the school and they're volunteers and they you know they they feel like you know they they're well they don't feel they are you know giving to the organization and they're you know they're they're giving up their time and they're they're just wonderful wonderful um wonderful group of people but they seldom realize the impact that this is having on them personally um and our children I mean don't get me wrong you know our kids benefit greatly from

[23:48]  having these folks here I think we have about 18 of them that are in our preschool and it it it but what it does when they go back is that we always get the feedback from the folks back at the assisted living facilities that there was almost a change in demeanor there was almost you know getting back to that optimism they have they they they have the willingness they have the desire to want to see tomorrow because they're going back to the preschool you know what I mean and so the impact it has on both our kids and on that that uh that aging generation is incredibly significant um and I think that that should be done in more you know not just in preschools it should be done in educational system there's so much that we all can learn from not only the greatest Generation but all the

[24:35]  generations that follow because you know I know one of the things we talked about earlier was you know as life gets easier and people have to go through less challenges I'm not so sure that's a good thing because if you don't have that sense of knowing that you are resilient that you've been knocked down and you have the ability to get up if you're knocked down and you're 55 years old you know I'm not sure how fast you're going to get up because you haven't been through all those other challenges that many of the folks that are older than you in fact have there was a study that we were talking about in our previous conversation it talked about gen Z being one of the least F the the Gen Generation Z has the least perceived of resiliency and efficacy on their world meaning they think somebody's going to come save them efficacy I can't change things somebody's going to have to come

[25:22]  save us but the other is resiliency and often the connection is made in the study that we were talking about previously when you have a isolated family group and you don't have exposure to your parents you don't have exposure to your grandparents or even your great-grandparents there's no ability for oral stories to be passed down one of the things that I really had a tough time with a couple years ago my grandfather passed away he was about 76 years old at the time so young on the scale of life and one of the things that I wish I would have been able to do is spend more time with him to hear the stories of what he overcame because those simple innuendos and tales of resiliency I had to overcome these challenges are things that we can draw back on for inspiration in times of tough times and I think that if you're

[26:10]  looking for stories of resiliency and determination on things like social media and from your peer groups you're often not going to get them and so it seems very easy to understand when we come across hard times why it's so easy to fold the cards because we don't have any examples of somebody who's actually overcome these challenges in the past you know I Keenan I think you know bringing another topic into the conversation is that suicide rates are at an all-time high right across our country and and higher among specific population groups and it's not something that we work with in our nonprofit specifically but we are exposed to in many ways and I do I have a strong belief that a partial issue as to why that is on the rise is because people don't have the skill set to deal with the adversity that we're talking about because they've never been knocked

[26:56]  down you know they' never they've never led a hard life and a hard life oftentimes is the most meaningful life and when you are able to persevere you know and have the resilience to be able to transcend when you get knocked down you know you're able to change you're able to evolve you're able to deal with small you know small and inevitable knockdowns in the future and unfortunately like I said when you get to be my age and you have a significant knockdown that happen happens and you haven't had all those smaller ones you know in the past and we all you know all of us deal with the fact that you know middle-aged and you know having breakdowns when you become a certain age it's a real thing you know you all kind of I think we all kind of wonder what our next is and you know are we going to

[27:43]  be fruitful and are we going to be able to succeed but I remember my grandparent for example my grandpa wolf um very tough life you know what I mean very tough life lost his lost his wife at a very very young age when you know before I was born um you know Liv in isolation for for many but had you know very strong friendships um but went through many many jobs and many Employments and that gave him the opportunity to be resilient and when you become resilient you become Unstoppable there really is nothing you can't do if you know that hey I'm gonna make a mistake I'm gonna fall down but I was able to get up before and I'm gonna do it again and that's when you become Unstoppable and that's when meaningful change and and and really and really being able to succeed is in my view inevitable I mean let's use this as an opportunity to kind

[28:31]  of throw a couple analogies in here if you like we talked about a little earlier we both like going to the gym when you first go to the gym it's very difficult to put up heavy weight but the more and more that you put your body through resistance and tough times the more weight you're able to push I heard an analogy the other day on a podcast and it was talking about resistance in life and the analogy was given imagine if your parents never wanted you to actually walk as a child because they were worried about the friction and the resistance that your bones were going to have when you were stepping across the ground imagine if they never let you play outside imagine if you extrapolate that across your entire life and the first time you come across any type of situation where you hop out of a chair your bones would literally break so resistance and overcoming tough times and experiences is part of life but it's not only just part of it it's necessary

[29:19]  to be able to overcome bigger challenges in the future and I feel like that's so important to be able to kind of recognize what do you what do you think about can I real quick before you answer another question of course because this is a story that I actually share and it's interesting that you brought up the whole workout uh workout analogy because one of the examples that I use for from a leadership perspective with our team is Progressive overload right that you're never going to grow unless you overload the bar and are able to and that you know physically you can't grow your muscles okay and as we're talking about isolationism I love to go to the gym I love to put my headphones in and listen to inappropriate music and have no one bother me because I deal with people all day long right but about I want to say about a year ago Young Gun comes up to me and he goes hey Mis what

[30:06]  are your goals in the gym and I told him buddy you know I'm 57 years old if I can if I could push up this 225 10 times when I'm 60 my goals are satisfied right but then I got to thinking I very much isolate myself at the gym right I'm not gonna grow anymore unless I get progressive overload so I enlisted this kid to spot for me right and what I found is that I was starting to push up 225 15 16 times I would not have been able to do that with myself I needed a spotter and every day in life and it goes back to our conversation about isolationism if you don't have a spotter in your life you're not going to grow because you're not going to be able to get the help when you need it and to rely on somebody and to push on someone but you're also not going to be able to get the guidance what if I'm pushing this weight up in the wrong way I'm

[30:52]  going to injure myself he's the only one that's going to be able to tell me I'm doing it wrong I'm not going to be able to identify that on myself so that whole analogy about you know Progressive overload and building and growing you've got to have somebody else to help you to do that otherwise it's not going to happen in the gym and in life itself you're a thousand per right because how much more willing are you to fail under the bar when you have a spotter right because I'll tell you I will push myself to that 11th that 12th rep but I won't go for 13 and 14 because I'm like I'm not going to drop this on my throat you know what I mean but when I've got a friend who's next to me I'm willing to push it because I know I've got that support and that's a perfect little small analogy that is just so powerful I would like to ask you a little bit about eighth place trophies over the last couple years we've heard a lot about eighth place trophies and how they'll be

[31:38]  the demise of these future Generations what's your kind of two Sense on the negative impacts of eighth place trophies and where do you think they really came from well you know Keenan I'm gosh I'm not a strong believer in trophies at all you know except for the folks that Excel you know I mean I that's kind of how I grew up and I I and I I would have to probably let you know that I you know I have been an athlete All My Life um even my wife says you know Mark you're an athlete I'm not an athlete you you succeeded in many ways but but I also feel that again disappointments happen in life and if you get a trophy for everything that you do Just for participating I'm not so sure that you're rewarding folks in the way that they should be rewarded and I know that's controversial very controversial especially when you're dealing with

[32:24]  young children but I would also say that I have a grand a baby grandchild name is Josephine um she's going to be one next week right and Josephine you know of course started to crawl and you know and very early on and then she walked and she fell down a lot and then she you know she ended up going back to crawling she I'm not gonna walk because I can't do it and her parents were so smart at that point that they said no we're going to help her walk and we're going to hold her hand we're going to show her what to do you know and they didn't use a reward system what they used was the fact that you know she's going to fail but she's going to get up we're not going to reward her with a cookie every single time she walks because the reward system then become if you reward too much what happens is that people then expect a

[33:11]  reward you know there's an expectation of that this is just G it's gonna come to me without doing the hard work and I gotta tell you success doesn't come easy it doesn't come easy in business it doesn't come easy personally it doesn't come easy for sure in athletics is that you have to um and you have to work at it and if you get a trophy just because you cross the finish line I'm not so sure you're rewarding the type of behavior that kids nowadays need to be rewarded for and again know that's controversial but I'm pretty strong um a strong believer in that yeah I mean I'm 100% behind that as well you know I always like to point the finger back at there's a lot of judgment the finger that gets cast at your generation got eighth place trophies but I always like to ask the question who was at the trophy store buying eth Place trophies

[33:58]  because it wasn't the 5-year-old who was standing on the t-ball field right we need to kind of look at the sense of accountability how do you kind of Leverage a sense of accountability in your own personal life as a leader and kind of the things that you do as Mark on a daily basis for your family and everybody else well you know I think discipline is very lost also in today's society we talk about isolationism um you know discipline is incredibly important to me uh I am probably more routine oriented unfortunately than most but that routine also tells me that you know motivation is often utilized as a tool for people I'm motivated to you know I use the gym analogy again I'm motivated to go to the gym well no you're not you're not motivated to go to the gym every day there's many days and and people look at me and they'll say you know I'm in decent shape well you must be really motivated to go to the

[34:44]  gym you have a lot of passion the number of days I drive home and I want to say the heck with this I don't want to do it today you know it's probably more often than not at my age but the reality is is that the discipline is what carries you through the dis of knowing that you know that that hard work is going to result in me not only looking the same but feeling the same then you translate that to work is that I have a lot of discipline around being at work at a certain time I want to be in my chair at8 o'clock in the morning you know why because I want to be ready for work work probably doesn't start until 9 9:30 but knowing that I'm here at a certain time and having that discipline to be in a routine that is going to set me up for success is very very very important I have a book on my shelf back over here it's called Atomic Habits by James Clear

[35:31]  have you ever heard of it I've heard of it but I haven't read it it's a a beautiful book because it talks about the compounding effect of small tiny actions on a daily basis and how they can compound into the future I very much like you have a huge Fitness habit that I've developed because back in the day I used to be motivated when I was 90 pounds overweight to go to the gym to lose weight but then I started building The Habit that turned into me showing up as my current version of myself because of the habit that I've built in going to the gym am I motivated to go there absolutely not do I want to put on my shoes and run my mile and a half two miles every single day absolutely not but I realize that when I do those things I'm doing right by myself which gives me the ability to show up as my best self for not only the individuals around me but also the team and the interactions that I have with you and so it's like a sense of confidence in

[36:18]  staying disciplined that nobody can take away from you which I feel like is so beautiful but so many people today often say that routine and habits make my life boring from my perspective I think about in the opposite way those routines and habits keep my life consistent so I don't have to think about going to the gym or muster up all that mental fortitude and power to get out of the chair and drive to the gym and do all that type of stuff if that makes sense makes perfect sense you know as as soon as last night I actually had a a pretty important mixer you know I was I was in Miami um at our our new office down there and I got a call and the call was we have this we don't have enough people at this mixure we really want you to come we really want you to go and all I could think in my head is that oh my gosh I'm going to miss the gym if I do that and I got the exact quote that you got well why do you always have to go you can't you just skip the gym once you

[37:05]  know can't you just skip that and what that leads to is it leads to what we were talking to me leads to what we talked about before is that then your habit doesn't become consistent and whether again it's work related it's workout related it's corporate related it's those tiny incremental changes and those tiny incremental activities that add up to this big Big Goal you know that that you'll appreciate yourself you'll be you you'll respect yourself and a lot of that is about respect it's about having the respect for yourself to know that this is the type of person I want to be and I want to continue to be um all that all of the conversations and all of the um the values that we've talked about are kind of all woven in together you know with these Concepts I want to talk a little bit about

[37:52]  overcoming challenges from the perspective of being a nonprofit so one of the things that we recognize is that when you're serving the community your the reward of it is kind of intangible because the instantaneous impact that you're seeing is not nationally televised and there's a lot of challenges that you face as a nonprofit when it comes to reimbursement services and everything else like that so let's kind of talk about from your perspective as a leader of your organization some of the challenges that come along with being in the nonprofit space well I know Keenan I think well there's a couple big challenges that have emerged more recently um I think traditionally with the nonprofit is that nonprofits and I've heard this analogy before is that you know said to people whether at corporate level or funer levels is that you have nonprofits at the trough right kind of eating The Leftovers all the time and that's that

[38:40]  that is true with some of us that are in the space and true with specific funding um but the reality is that those folks who get into nonprofit that think that government or funders are going to always take care of the problem or you or or you know have take care of the resources that we might have it's a false statement again you have to kind of pick up your big girl you know panties and you have to say I'm going to create my own inevitability my own goals in the organization because you know when we used to have a shelter here at organization um or at our organization at Kids in Distress you know we would always say that the Department of Children and Families the State of Florida what they pay for is three Hots in a cot right three meals and a place to sleep they don't pay for all the extra that our children need to truly

[39:30]  thrive in this environment will they survive absolutely will they Thrive absolutely not you know children need increasing ratios more staff to be able to hold their hand and encourage them they we need to make sure that our kids have birthday parties and so what you often have as a nonprofit is you have to create a whole lot of different funding streams from a philanthropic from the philanthropic side of the organization in order to keep your uh your organization afloat our organization has done pretty transparent about a$3 million budget we rais over $4 million to elevate our programs from adequacy that is government funded to Excellence that we believe in and we'll do that every single day or we're not going to provide the program because we have a standard

[40:18]  that we comp not only comply with but we expect um secondarily you know besides funding is that and and it's not only the case with nonprofits is that sourcing new Talent is such a significant issue um across the you know across multi- Industries but for nonprofits it's crippling in a lot of ways because you know even myself is that I got into this business knowing that I'm never going to be rich you know what I mean it's not GNA happen I'm not I'm not going to be the you know the million dollar a year 20 million dollar a year CEO that they have in you know you have in corporate but the work is Meaningful okay unfortunately with some of the new talent that we're that we're attracting you know that those dollars are significant and you can't pay them the level they go most people go to

[41:06]  Amazon work in the Amazon warehouse for what we're offering them as a clinician and that is a very significant challenge right now very significant in our um in in the nonprofit space because Talent is really hard to come for and then we're um we're competing you know with a whole lot of other nonprofits for that talent and it it's really challenging it's a challenging place to be especially when you've been been in this business for you know over 30 years like I have it's really hard because when I think about the societal forces that are against you we've got people who are of a younger age demographic who want something of an instantaneous reward for the work that they do and it doesn't seem like at your guys's organization that's something that you see instantaneously we talk about the financial pressure of today

[41:54]  when you've got students coming out of school with debt they need to be be able to pay their bills they need to be able to pay their loans off and if we can't compensate them then we're not going to be able to give them a place where they can feel psychologically safe to do the work that they need and then when we have competition in the private sector that says come work over here for XYZ dollars don't worry about the community but then when we have the government funding that isn't fulfilling the needs for excellence service right it's just outrageous to me that you talk about raising $4 million a year to get back to a state of Excellence right but in our previous conversation I had mentioned if you have somebody who's at a deficit you need to be able to give 120 150 200% to get them back to a point of adequacy and it just seems like you guys are fighting against some of the societal currents that might be pushing us in a different direction and I just appreciate the work that you do seriously every single day

[42:42]  because without the community- based organizations like yours there are so many more children on a daily basis who are going to fall in between the cracks that we're not going to be able to support and you guys just provide such a amazing safety net for your community thank you Keenan thank you you know one of that what we've established our organization uh to transcend the the issues of pay and and things like that is culture um you know I'm a very very strong believer in two things core values culture if you can spread that you know those core values here's what we stand for and we're not going to compromise oursel on our core values of compassion and safety and wisdom and tenacity you know that has to do with work ethic we're going to do whatever it takes to help people you know and sometimes that means we're working a lot of hours and sometimes that means we're going to get out of our comfort zone but

[43:30]  if we develop a culture that is willing to do that because they're passionate you know just like I was passionate about the Rhinos I still am quite honestly Someday I'm gonna go to Africa right and hopefully I can do something um but the reality is my passion now is children you know I want children to be safe I want children to be able to thrive I want children to be a to change their lives for a lifetime to be able to really achieve their dreams and that's my passion and if we can instill that in folks no matter what you know we're there's only there's only limited resources resources are finite you know in everything that we do and and unfortunately in South Florida it has kind of gotten to this toppling point because of the cost of living you know houses housing prices down here outrageous um and so the level that we

[44:19]  can actually pay people is now very compromised by the the level that they can actually afford to live here um and so we're losing a significant generation you know those folks that you know that would stay in their Community my son is one of them he would you know he's he was in the Army for 10 years um he actually is gonna be a history teacher now he was actually a military police officer so kind of followed to my footsteps a little bit now he's goingon to be a teacher and he would have loved to come back to South Florida but he can't afford to live in South Florida they have a beautiful home in South Carolina that's where he's going to stay but I I use that example because the emerging Talent of the next generation is leaving our community because of the C the cost is so high and salaries have not kept up and in the nonprofit sector

[45:07]  you know we're behind the curb in many many ways because we just don't have the resources um to really address that that issue significantly and it seems like that's almost a factor that contributes to the earlier part of our conversation and that isolation Factor right when you're disconnected from family you're disconnected from your social groups you have to go move to a new state it's very difficult to be unified and confident in how we're going to be able to navigate the future because we don't have that support group I hear so many people who are in my generation Millennials who graduate from school they've got 1502 200,000 plus dollars in debt and they have to take a job that gives them the ability just to be able to pay off their loans they can't think about the future they're not psychologically safe to say I'm going to hold this job down and contribute to a community- based organization because I can do these things buy a home and live the American

[45:54]  dream have you heard of um a topic called dinks it's dual income no kids households I have yep that has become so popular today and people think that Millennials and other Generations are being selfish in that manner but exactly like what you talked about there are some societal factors that push against the even the American dream of being able to own a home because housing is so incredibly expensive everywhere you go that unless you're making a lot of money you can't afford to invest into those type of things which is really scary incredibly scary um and I think that that the real realizing the American dream and that that dream is changing it's evolving it's changing um the number related to that the number of households or the number of couples that are having children later in life as well you know that and again I think

[46:43]  there will be studies done and there will be you know some generational issues that will address that but gosh we have several employees that are in their 40s having their first child um and I'm happy for them congratulate them they're having a child a wonderful thing but how does that change our societal norms and you know there's going to be positive consequences of that and there's going to be negative consequences of that um and many times they're waiting for that for that them to be older to have kids not because they want to do that but because they're forced to do it based on current econ economics and current conditions of the society and that just will change the way our society Works um and it will also influence something that we've talked about earlier which is the ability to share that those generational stories with the Next Generation because

[47:32]  you know just from as you age if you're having a baby at you know 45 your grandparents and great-grandparents are going to have le less access to those children so less access to those stories of resilience and coping and things like that so that will change you know who we are as a society pretty significantly I mean there are so many elements one of the big topics of discussion today is the cost of Child Care on average I think it cost about $36,000 a year for child care now and one of the things that I was blessed enough to do was live in Hawaii for a couple years and something I experienced about the culture there was something called Ohana homes so because the cost of living is so expensive there the communities and Society had to revert back to grandparents live upstairs family lives downstairs when everybody family starts

[48:20]  having children guess who takes care of those children the people who live upstairs and those are grandparents and so it almost creates out of NE necessity that home and that family culture that is so necessary and you can avoid some of those high costs but once again there's so many factors of the small things of not living in the same Community as your family having to pay for somebody else to take care of your kids now they're raising them and introducing their culture to them as well it's just very interesting I think we're gonna have to combat this in so many different ways you know it's I I love that model by the way absolutely love that model and it's very related to what we talked we run a preschool you know so having that next Generation in the preschool is incredibly important you know one of the and kind of on a personal Story related to that is that our kids um brought our son his wife bought their uh their their forever home there was the second home they purchased

[49:06]  about five months ago and one of the things they often think can you help us a little bit and we help them but we actually have a room in their home that we're able to travel and spend more time with it so we were a little bit creative in how we develop that but there was meaning again it wasn't just so that we you know that we we were helping them with the home and we have to have a space we wanted access we wanted access to the grandchildren we wanted to be able to share our stories with the you know with our grandkids when they when they when they grow up and so that very much what you're talking about is that I feel like the isolationism with some families is not not promoting you know that physical contact and that U that communication that again is so incredibly important in in sharing you know sharing resilience again it all

[49:54]  comes back to sharing their stories of resilience and modeling as as much as just as important modeling the resilience because when our kids see us fall down and get get back up that just gives them the encouragement you know the motivation and the realism that hey that could happen to me and I could persevere as well what's the biggest impact that you're hoping to have on your grandchildren what is like kind of the lessons you're trying to instill or a message that you want to kind of impact on them as they're kind of growing up um you know I would my core values are very very simple Keenan in a lot of ways you know I I I have a level I I expect kindness you know I mean it's not one of our core values I when I do our orientation here at kid I concentrate on our core values that I mentioned before and then I have two

[50:40]  others kindness and collaboration right I'm a big proponent that kindness can really change the world a lot of ways and when I'm talking about my granddaughter you know I want her to know that there's always going to be someone there for her you know but the level of kindness that you show to other humans is really going to be how you're viewed as a human it really is you know you're even when you're having a bad day being able to just say hello and i c i I grew up in a very rural you know Outback kind of place where you you know you waved everybody that's walking down the street and I I get some pretty weird looks when I do that down here you know in South Florida but the reality is that that's how you relate to people and if you can establish a relationship that is rooted in the fact that you care about them and come on that's what kindness is

[51:28]  about it's really communicating to others that you care about who they are as a person and you're willing to listen to them um and you're willing to spend time with them um and one my favorite thing to do with my granddaughter is go up there and just sit in her playroom and have her play around me and you know and and grab things for her and and do that and that again it's relationship development but there's a level of just helping her and um and modeling for her that if I can instill a level of kindness if you have compassion for your fellow you know and compassion goes a long way not only your fellow humans but the animals around you the environment around you you know then people are going to look at you as a world changer just because of the little things that you do you don't have to be a CEO you know I mean to do that you know you don't have to be the you know the Jeff

[52:15]  basos you know to to to Really impact the people around you all you really have to do is be kind and like you said earlier in our conversation when you are kind to others around you that is a multiplicative effect that kind of Echoes and ripples out from around you Mark it's been a such a pleasure in being able to host you on the show seriously um learning about your story your passion the core values that you instill in yourself but also in your organization and team and what you're doing for your community is truly the definition of a leader who exemplifies and lives what truly heart and hustle really is as we kind of land the plane here Mark I would love to give you the opportunity to ask a question of our next guest what would you like to ask sure you know one of the things we haven't delve a lot into Keenan leadership right I mean although we a lot of what we talked about is leadership um at least you how you

[53:02]  instill leadership in others but I'm always interested in you know people classifying and and and and know or asking somebody what is their defining leadership Behavior what do you see is the most defining behavior that you can exhibit you know to your followers and to your fellow leaders that will really Define who you are as a leader you know that's how an interesting it's a question that I pose to many of our team members when I I interview them um when I meet them for the first time um because everybody has their own definition of leadership and everybody has what they feel is the most important aspect of leadership and it's always interesting to me how how Diversified those responses are I love that man I want to give you the last couple seconds here to highlight

[53:50]  where people can learn and find more information about you personally if that's LinkedIn if it's a website wherever that is but also tell us a little bit more about how we can find about more about Kids in Distress and Family Central that'll be super helpful awesome ke awesome Keenan thank you thank you thank you um I'm on social media you know my name my last name is an odd name Mark doy d h o o g so all my social media handles are Mark doy um easy easy to find um and Kids in Distress of course we have a website um www.k in.org kc.org we uh we impact like I said about 20,000 children annually throughout South Florida to our continu of programs we have many specialized events that we hold down here our our most our most greatest is our duckfest Derby uh we throw 40,000 rubber duckies in the New River down here in Fort Lauderdale every

[54:38]  single year um and you know people from around around the nation so you know want to help a child buy a five dollar duck from us um you know down in South Florida and now those five dollars go a long way but you know we have an incredible team here at kid and I I gotta tell you I'm just so honored to be on your show and to you know spread a little bit about how I feel about the world and the impact that our agency has well you're doing an amazing job man once again for everybody who's watching and listening today mark thank you so much for everything that you're doing really appreciate you being on the show that's a wrap you're welcome ke