How This $115M Nonprofit Overcame The Funding Crisis

[0:00]  when somebody walks through the door you owe them a debt of gratitude if they're going to work for in your organization even if they don't have many choices you owe them a debt of gratitude and that gratitude is paid in in my uh way of thinking in terms of investing in that person where do you want to be in six months in a year in five years time how can we invest in you so that you can do the best job possible now but invest in you so that 5 years from now 10 years from now you're going to be a senior leader this organization or by the way Keenan another organization you know we lose people often times be for promotional opportunities I don't see it like that I see it that we've developed somebody who has who is good enough to be a leader somewhere else in our community where there is massive need if you if you look at it like that you

[0:49]  don't get bitter and twisted about people leaving you just hope they'll come back someday um and that really is the definition for me of what a preferred employer is somebody who is the day you walk in we celebrate you if I put if somebody had put me in this position when I was 30 I would have lasted 3 days it's a lifetime of blows it's a lifetime of failures it's a lifetime of learning it's a lifetime of um expanding your um empathy uh making sure that you think about where people are coming from before you judge them all right guys welcome back to a brand

[1:46]  new episode of the heart and hustle podcast I'm incredibly excited to bring this brand new episode to you guys today because I have Peter Evers with me here today who is the president and CEO of bamy BSI uh nonprofit organization in the Behavioral Health and Human Services space that's doing about 115 million per year now the bamc mission is really simple our mission is to meet each other or to meet each person where they are to help them learn grow and Thrive Peter thank you for welcoming thank you for joining us on the show man I really appreciate it thank you Kenan thank you very much for thinking me inviting me absolutely so I want to start off today's episode on a little bit of a contrarian statement in 2004 you had a mentor tell you to shut up and reminded you that you're fighting for people's

[2:35]  lives you said that that had a huge impact on the way in which you approach the work that you do but also your leadership style as well why don't you tell us a little bit about that yeah yeah there it's funny because your your entire life and work is sort of made up with um small moments in some ways and and those moments are you they might be uh they might not be important at the time but they they tend to be and sometimes you can be insulted by something what that you will remember for a lifetime because of the wisdom um that comes with it and that's what happened with me actually I was working for a nonprofit in um in Boston organization called dimar which actually was the first Women's Hospital in America uh and also had the first um black uh female doctor um who was an obstetrician so a lot of history there

[3:22]  wonderful history and my uh Mentor at the time was Jackie Jenkin Scott and she was a woman of color who had um worked in the field and uh I was complaining one day about the state not giving us funding for something and she just looked at me and I I could tell she was going to say something momentous and what she said was shut up as you said and I I sort of tilted my head like a you know quizzical dog and said what why are you telling me she's shut up and she said because this work is all about fighting this work is fighting for every dollar nobody is going to put a pot of gold on your doorstep and say spend it as you want just remember you're fighting for people and these people have had nothing and you're trying to address that and everything you do is

[4:10]  about so social justice and it was I think probably the most moment I mean I've always known that but the way that she put it so succinctly and so uh brutally in some ways um has always talking with me and you know I've never had the chance to tell her that but I'm actually going to see her at a a celebration that's going to happen uh in October oober and I can't wait to to remind her of that well this episode will be out as well so you should definitely share it with her as well you know she's amazing woman you know it's really cool to think about how certain people have such a gigantic impact on our lives by telling us to do the work that is necessary you know that was incredibly refreshing when I was reviewing our first conversation and that really stuck in my mind because I feel like that message of shut up and do the work that is necessary fight for the

[4:58]  people who can't fight for eles is more needed especially in the community-based mental Behavioral Health and Human Services space I want you to spend a couple minutes talking about the overall impact and challenges that your organization is facing in your community and how are we navigating those challenges yeah those challenges Kenan I don't think of that much different they just they're just sort of repackaged challenges if you think about it and we have all of these things in front of us like technology for instance what that I'm sure we'll talk about in the um in a little while that come and help us with these things but if you actually look at U at what we're facing um we're facing basically a culture that has a Great Divide uh between poverty and wealth uh that stretches across race uh

[5:47]  but but particularly uh in terms of uh different parts of the country and in fact you can in Boston is a good example you can have poverty on one side uh of the river and on the other you can have the best uh neonatal and postnatal Hospital in America perhaps yet uh you're looking at um uh mortality rates for babies that are equivalent from a third world country so that's sort of we begin in many ways with with Injustice and so fighting for that isn't always uh the most popular thing to do I I'll give you an example we do a lot of work with people who struggle with the disease of addiction it's really hard to to raise money for that it's really hard to get a good rate for that because there's so

[6:34]  much stigma that goes with it many Americans to this day even though there isn't a family in America not touched by addiction believe that there is a choice there uh in addiction um and sort of un un unraveling some of that conventional wisdom is is a job that I think we've been doing for years we're still doing it we are always going to be under underfunded and that's how we kicked off but you've got to employ curiosity about this you've got to employ a different way of looking at it you've got to say I can complain and I can whine about things but these rates will never give me everything I want so the job really is to make sure that you're using uh your resources as well as you can as efficiently as you can you

[7:21]  know a lot of people say Well it must be easy to work in the nonprofit uh sector and I've heard that a number of times it it's it's a different kind of hard key and you know you have a certain amount of money and you know you have to treat you have to provide services for a a number of people and in your heart and in your soul you know that you don't want to leave anybody behind and we still struggle with that and we still Advocate and we still go down to the state house every day every so often and rattle cages and say this is a priority and then you look around and there's another hundred people saying this is a priority so being quiet about what your mission is is not going to get you anywhere you've got to really take to the streets Advocate and and we've always done that and that remains a difficulty with us and I would the last

[8:10]  thing I would say about that really Kevin is when we have a downturn in the economy and we're a boom boom and bust economy there's no doubt about it the first thing that gets cut the first thing are services to the poor services to people who have mental illness we've just seen it in my own country 14 years of a government who have just been pushing austerity down the throats of people who don't have anything uh while you know other people do okay um you've got to be in it for the long Hall and you've got to have youve really I heart and hustle is such a good name for this because you hustle all the time and it's because you have the heart to do the work I mean I couldn't agree with you more you know one of the I had a guest recently on the podcast he is a CEO and a leader of a nonprofit organization called um Child and Family Focus and it's out of North Carolina and the one

[8:59]  thing that he brought to the conversation was the mission of nonprofit leaders today is being challenged more so than ever did you know that there are extremely high levels of burnout with nonprofit CEOs now when we had that conversation that kind of struck my heart in an interesting Factor because I thought about the responsibility to show up and advocate for others every single day and often our nonprofit leaders don't get the encouragement and recognition for the great services that they leverage so my question for you Peter is how how are you avoiding those feelings of burnout knowing that you're fighting such a consistent uphill battle with all the challenges that you're facing in your community but also in other communities as well it's such a good question and there is the potential for Burnout and you know as I said before you know life is not just seen as this long Continuum

[9:47]  it's it's you know there are some days where you think I don't know how much longer I can do this and then and then something happens in that day um we had for instance it was our annual golf tournament yest today and we um you know we put a uh on the tournament and we have lots of people who give us money and it's really very nice the best thing about it was that we had two of our person served um and I participate in our person- served Advisory Board I know so many of them and they are so they are so inspiring and Stephen got up and he made a speech to all of the golfers at the end uh appreciating them and talking a little bit about what it was like to be born with such severe hand handicaps that left him having to be in a brace for the rest of his life uh and and

[10:34]  seeing what he's made of that but also seeing what we collectively have done to help that person on that Journey those little moments um are gold uh and sometimes we decide to work in in fields where there isn't much recognition and there isn't um there isn't a big successful moment is you know like when you uh like win a championship or something like that um and and the sooner you recognize that I think the better you avoid burnout but one thing that I think I like to do is be in be in the mix be you know be getting to know the people we serve getting to know uh our staff being at staff meetings hearing from people what it's like to live on a lowi income

[11:22]  working two and three jobs um and you know to be honest with you um that's how I began I came to this country I think in our pre- interiew K I told you I was a really great uh U planner because we arrived in this country you know pregnant and without a without a house without a job and there's nothing that focuses you like uh like that in terms of well you better get your act together um but it but it's hard you take it you the on the bottom of the ladder or the first step on the ladder you're not you you're going to be paid $19 an hour in a country that is experiencing extraordinary in inflation um and you know you you you've got a lot to learn um I always remember that I always I

[12:09]  always like to sort of speak to people about that and I always hope that I can be an influence that allows people to see you know there's a pathway for everybody and you know I I absolutely understand that that pathway is more difficult for some people uh and I think that what that keeps me humble and it and it's it's hard to burn out when you know that you're you're working to support all of those people and the people that we're serving um it's easier to get burned out if you if you lose direction and if you become more um separated from from the mission you know we you talked about mission to begin with you've got to have your eye on on the mission and and when you focus on the mission layser light and you focus on focus on your vision to get there and you have a strategic plan that helps you

[12:57]  along the way that incremental change can seem enormous at times and I'll give you an example we had our Qi meeting today quality improvement meeting our overall scores in terms of quality the appreciation of the people who use our services are increasing 6.8% year over-year over the last three years that is real progress if you think where we were three years ago you know in deep in covid and yet we have people so dedicated that they're improving the lives of people it's hard to be burned out when you hear that it's hard to be burned out when you think wow I've played some small part in that um and I think that keeps me going and it's not I don't think you have to be have a history of doing the work to be the

[13:44]  leader of an organization but in my case it's really really helped me along the way because there is some authenticity about that um and it's a really really hard job to be a clinician or to be a um third shift residential worker with people who um who need attention to their physical needs all the time it's it's a really really tough job in our previous conversation you told me about a story when you were a child you would go down to I'm going to call it the Fishing Harbor and you would see a sign that says hands wanted in our previous conversation you talked about how instrumental that sign was because you recognize they wanted hands to fulfill a job but you have a different culture in your organization where you're trying to

[14:32]  attract the whole person let's talk about the difference let's start off with that story first of all because people need to hear that and let's talk about the difference of how you're attracting the whole person to come work with your organization yeah yeah I mean you know by by an accident of birth I was born in a place called Hull and there are many hulls as I've uh decided but the British one's the original um but but you know in the 1980s '70s it was the biggest fish important in the world actually uh and so down at the dock there were a lot of uh companies fishing companies and when I would ride my bike my dad was on the trollers and he was in the in the Navy and when I would drive my bike down uh to the docks there would be a sign on each of the troller owners um uh buildings that said hands wanted and it just struck me as a really strange thing to put but it's a

[15:19]  pretty common thing in in England that all they need is the hands right and and it really made me think at a yearly an early age I not sure if I want to work with someone you know just wants my hands and I will tell you Kenan as I told you before my dad said you are not going to see I mean it was a very dangerous uh it still is um it's the I think it has the highest mortality of any job being on the trollers and and and back then you can imagine it was pretty bad many of the trollers didn't come home so it didn't take much persuading me that I I wouldn't go to seea um but I carried that with me really and when and it's it's really a philosophy you should always have you know especially of course in times when it's difficult to hire people because you want to be a preferred employer but this is applicable at any given time when somebody walks through the door you

[16:08]  owe them a debt of gratitude if they're going to work for in your organization even if they don't have many choices you owe them a debt of gratitude and that gratitude is paid in in my uh way of thinking in terms of investing in that person where do you want to be in six months in a year in five years time how can we invest in you so that you can do the best job possible now but invest in you so that five years from now 10 years from now you're going to be a senior leader in this organization or by the way Keenan another organization you know we lose people oftentimes be for promotional opportunities I don't see it like that I see it that we've developed somebody who has who is good enough to be a leader somewhere else in our community where there is massive need if you look if you look at it like that you

[16:55]  don't get bitter and twisted about people leaving you just hope that come back someday um and that really is the definition for me of what a preferred employer is somebody who is from the day you walk in we celebrate you you know you don't everybody remembers a day when they came to start their new job and there was nothing for them the the supervisor was out for the next week you didn't know what to do you didn't have all the equipment that you needed and you just think what am I really going to stay here if they care that little about me on the other hand we all remember a day where there's a big welcome Keenan sign you know as you walk in and you know somebody buys you a cake or something like that those things are really important and we move from hands wanted to we want the whole of you and you can have the whole of us and what we

[17:44]  can offer you so that you can grow in this career because there's many reasons why people leave Keenan and many of them leave because they can't afford to feed their families and so they they they'll go and get another job somewhere else it really is making sure that we let them know that we care about all of them and their families and everything they bring into work because you don't leave your problems at the doorstep when you cross the threshold of your employee train them so good that they can leave but treat them so good that they don't one of my favorite leaders um is a younger female CEO of a family office and she says don't judge me on the results of what we do here but judge me on the results of how much my team has grown around me and I feel like over the recent years we've seen a huge Paradigm Shift where a lot of people say we were

[18:32]  in the recent years in an employers market now we're in an employee market and we say that with pride but one of the things that I think about in 2022 the Surgeon General came onto a national broadcast and said the biggest problem that is facing our society today is not another outbreak of a virus and a pandemic but an epidemic of isolation and loneliness deep down in my heart Peter I truly believe that there is a deep yearning for people to find a sense of connection and the word family I'm going to use that intentionally in the work that they do why because it doesn't seem like we're getting it in our personal and our social lives because it seems like although we might be together because of things like this little device we often found ourselves isolated and alone and I think great organizations and great leaders like you

[19:19]  are the future of building business culture here in the United States again to have people be proud to be a part of an organization that has an amazing Mission and a group of people that they do great work with again and I'm really hopeful for the future but I don't feel like a lot of people have that intuitive I would say perspective on where I think we're going yeah yeah I know you know I read that vivet Mery um uh piece um the Surgeon General and of course he's back as a Surgeon General he's he's wonderful um and it really is it gives you pause for thought and initially you know when when I read that Keenan I thought oh well he's talking about Elders you know and and we have a problem in this country about how we treat our elders and you know you only have to go to some other countries not mine by the way not not not Britain because we don't do a good job with it either but you know OD

[20:06]  oddly you know um Russia for instance they they they hold their Elders in great esteem but it's not just that is it it's you know I was working up in New Hampshire and um 50% of the young people who were in jobs in New Hampshire felt lonely and isolated and New Hampshire had a real problem because young people were just getting the hell out of town they you know they just didn't want to stay in the state and I think it is I you know we can blame everything I suppose on the um supercomputer that we have in our in our left hand you know all the time but we got to do better as a society and making and giving people opportunities to for Fellowship I would say and you know our work is very

[20:56]  stressful um and we have to give give people the ability I'll give you an example we've just changed the way that we bring people into the organization during covid I'm sure everybody's did the same thing we had uh teams and and um Zoom uh orientations so I would be on a Monday morning staring at a celebrity squares group of people and and it was fine um but we've gone back to uh we changed our orientation process entirely and now every other week people come in for 4 days to get to get their training and it's pretty intense but the best thing that happens in that group is they are a cohort they spend time together you know you go in initially and everybody's staring at their phones and nobody's talking to each other you throw

[21:44]  them a bone of a conversation like I I used to do this I said think of a time when your customer when you had a customer service uh um interaction that was awful and then think of one that was really good and you it I'm not kid everybody should do this get people together people who don't want to talk to each other you can't stop them talking about it by the time they finished everybody loves to talk about that kind of thing I remember the Verizon guy sorry Verizon I didn't mean to but but usually it's about your TV service or whatever um but that but bringing people together creating a cohort I think I did tell you when I first came to this country in 1990 um without you know a house or a job and when I finally got a job with the state um I was in a group a cohort

[22:32]  of probably 23 people and the commissioner of child protection came and talked to us and made me feel really important that three of the people I was in that class with in September the 23rd 1990 are still my close friends um and that is what we're trying to create here it's not just a place to come it's a place to meet you know most of the relationships that happen romantic relation ships that happen um in life not most of them a significant proportion of them come from the workplace right why are we fighting that why why I mean great point it's where people learn to love right in difficult circumstances learning the same thing I mean it's a passionate thing and and why should we why should we look down on

[23:19]  that why shouldn't we just be saying this is a place where you know I mean I don't know if you remember Ashley Madison which was the um which was the website that uh encouraged people to cheat on each other it was a big Scandal about it but there and I would encourage anyone to watch that documentary because it's absolutely brilliant but you know that their their sideline was our main competition is the workplace well the workplace is where people get to know people and fall in love and you know uh why should we fight against that and we should absolutely make sure that people have the ability to come together uh to know each other to become friends because you know most of my friends are people that I've would met through work so you know change that I I say change that uh perspective a little bit on work I mean how much time do we spend working

[24:06]  you know what I mean if you're showing up as a leader of your organization you're probably showing up early and leaving late and team members who are fully bought in are often doing the same thing it's a huge portion of Our Lives I always have had a a little bit of an intuitive rub against the idea that work is bad you know that's a lot of the social media narrative and other things that we see in the media people don't want to work anymore but if you think about finding passion and finding love in the things that you do the cheesy saying is when you love what you do you don't work a day in your life and it's an interesting perspective you know with the duality of an amazing mission that you guys have at your organization how do you think about the difference of work life balance and here's a little framework that I like talking about when you love what you do it's not work life balance because that's a really tough game but rather it's work life integration and you have to figure out

[24:54]  how life integrates into your work and vice versa yeah yeah I mean it's you know it's tough isn't it and there's a generational rub with that as well I think but but Kenan I would I I don't like to talk about generational differences because you know you can make people make all sorts of U sort of uh observations about Millen Millennials for instance right well do you have that observation about Millennials who joined um you know the Army and the Navy and the Air Force and fought for our country you I I don't I don't buy into it um but I do think that there's that younger places in your life you're more likely to want to have a a work life balance or integration as you say um I do think it is important I think it's important that you don't um that you

[25:43]  don't neglect your family I mean of course when you know when you're the poorest in your life usually is when you have babies right which I always thought that's really unfair it should be like Benjamin botton you know you get your money early on and then so true but um and that was my experience you know I had an overnight job I had three jobs because you know we had no money um and you you got to be there's there's a line of a wonderful song um uh called when you're my age by Lori McKenna and right at the end of the song she said she says uh and I hope you don't work too much over time and I hope you spend it with your kids um that is true but as you say I think if you find your passion um um it is integration um but we don't

[26:31]  want people working 80 hours a week uh it's you know it's just it isn't good for you doesn't matter how much you love it and you really do need to strive for it and there can be times I think when there are differences of opinion about age um but it that's all it is it's not generational I think it's where people are on the A on the on the Continuum of their own uh journey in life well Peter don't you think it's so easy for the generation that had judgment cast upon them to then say it is just for me to cast judgment on the Next Generation I feel like we see this cycle and I often have these conversations on the podcast about I wish it was more appropriate for us to think about the three fingers that are pointed back at you when you point a finger at somebody else you know I mean there's a sense of accountability that

[27:17]  comes back with that you point a finger at somebody else you better look at the three coming back at you and and if we're going to be able to break some of these generational cycles of casting judgment like Millennials right eighth place trop was a big one when I was coming up then we talked about gen Z not being able to have conversations and technologically you know overindulgent gen Alpha is going to have the same thing it's conversations like this that help us get ahead of that curve and I love the stance that you talk about not casting judgment on other Generations because it doesn't serve anybody well does it make people feel better about themselves I I don't know I mean but I will I will say and I I won't say where it was but I remember in a job that I had a while ago um my uh the the CEO thought it was great to bring somebody in to talk about cross-generational um working and this person came they were

[28:04]  probably in their mid-50s and she did nothing but tear down Millennials and by the way the vast majority of people you know the biggest Workforce group now is Millennials right as it was then and they were getting up and walking out and she just kept on going about all of these stereotypes about Millennials and I just thought well we're probably going to lose a percentage of the workforce because you indulged yourself in you know a conversation that maybe made you feel better and and it's just it's it's it's false it's it's not it's not real we're just we're humans we're all humans and some of us work really hard some of us work less some of us ambitious some of us not so ambitious somebody want to some want to help people some want to make money it's it's the same through time there's two ways to build the

[28:52]  biggest building in town one is to tear down the other buildings around you the other is to actually build the biggest building in town and I prefer to do the ladder yeah you know you're you're touching on a sense of selfawareness there which I feel like is an amazing soft skill that we need to develop not only in our leaders of today but also in the next generation of leaders as well how do you emphasize or practice your hone sense of self-awareness because I love the way in which you kind of navigate this conversation yeah I mean I think it's I mean most of what you do you know I think leadership is a really interesting point and and I was thinking about the other day and you know curiosity curiosity is something that goes throughout your whole life but your Innovation period for instance isn't something that you carry into your 50s

[29:39]  and 60s necessarily right in in in the hospital where I work they they used to call the old um the old docks Silverbacks right and I love that expression because those are the gorillas of the who are the leaders of the pack yeah yeah yeah that's our logo is a gorilla for exactly that strength right oh but it's such a wonderful expression is it these are the silver BS they've seen it all before they've been through residency they understand that and they're always the people that you come to to say I've got this thought and I don't know if it's stupid but will you hear it and the good silver back is that yeah let's hear it because in some ways I for instance have passed my Innovation phase and my phase now is exactly um is much more about bringing on and helping people with their innov not with their

[30:29]  Innovation but their application of their in in Innovation their selling it to people their soft skills and I had no soft skills when I started this and I and I I I sort of look back and cringe at some of the things I said when I was when I was had my first leadership job if I put if somebody had put me in this position when I was 30 I would have lasted three days it's a lifetime of blows it's a lifetime of fa failures it's a lifetime of learning it's a lifetime of um expanding your um empathy uh making sure that you think about where people are coming from before you judge them um you know we just we just had an an interview and and

[31:18]  with with somebody and and they were wonderful um but they haven't lived enough of that life to be able to be that mentor and be that person now they may it's not really about age Keenan but I think it's a lot about age but when you get to when you see yourself as somebody who is more of a uh a teacher and a mentor um that means I think that you you're just in a different phase um and being able to teach people soft skills is possible I believe and we spend a lot of time here um doing you know we do new supervisor boot camp which is you know how to fill out time sheets and things like that we pay equal attention to look these the people that are coming into this field need to they

[32:07]  have a passion you just need to bring it out and you need to keep asking them and referencing them how are they doing and and what's you know what's floating your boat and what's sinking it and let's you know and and what are your thoughts and what are your ideas I mean so many of our our best ideas come from the shop floor they come from people have done the work before and giving people a pathway we just had a listening session today um that we had 60-some people in um and you know it it was great you know anybody can say anything that they want to say people get used to and by the way in workplaces people aren't people's first thought is if I say something negative it's going to count against me you can change the culture so that people can say things that are on their

[32:54]  mind without any fear of Retribution you're really moving in the right direction because your best ideas your you run this by the field see what they think about it and I I haven't done that before and I paid the price for it so it's that experience of failure I think that helps you um you know really work with people and develop their soft skills um and there's nothing like being a mentor I mean it really it I find it extraordinarily um helpful to me and helpful to me in my journey it's a it's a really interesting maturation process I can't tell you how many leaders and I ask the question what is the most filling part of your work and it's not the impact that we're having in the community but it's how I'm seeing my

[33:41]  team grow and Blossom around me because I know that I'm doing right by them and they are bringing ideas with curiosity they're willing to have healthy conflict to help us get different perspectives have you ever heard the saying if you want to go fast go by yourself if you want to go far go with the team yeah it's absolutely true and there's so many examples in in my lifetime where that we we you know putting in a new HR System and the HR department you know and this is years ago the HR department says you know we know this with the HR professionals without asking the field you know how is this going to impact you now if you you know you can you can end up with the you know with the product that nobody uses and I question the utility of that you know but if you

[34:29]  bring people along it's going to take you longer uh but but people embrace it and you know somebody once said to me the greatest trick about management is allowing people to know that it's their own idea and there's a little cynicism in that but it's absolutely true right allow people to think yeah yeah I thought that and there's there's no ownership in in success I mean if I think about some of the greatest sports teams that I've ever grown up watching it was the players on the court or the players on the field that got the job done it wasn't the head coach that was saying see what I did at the end of the year it was all the guys who were on the CLT doing the things and making the plays and I feel like that's a beautiful analogy you know one of the things I I do want to talk a little bit about is diving a little deeper into that sense

[35:16]  of curiosity you know what got us here is not going to get us there how are you thinking about curiosity in the space of Behavioral Health and Human Services what are some of the things that are kind of on the front of your mind as a leader who's kind of steering the ship these days yeah I mean again I I don't think we move the rock without curiosity and you know and um sometimes I think that big state agencies or big Behemoth sort of Industry lacks a little bit of curiosity and partly because they're resting on their Laurels partly it is you know you know that old adage you know if somebody says we've always done it that way when you ask why you do it then they're wrong and I think it's best to stick with that right because that shows that there's a lack of curiosity

[36:04]  and it's easy to be drawn into that you know um you know I remember I got a job at wimpy in England which is the McDonald's of of of England it's really bad by the way I'm sorry wimpy but it's really not very good um and but but it was a job that I had in college and I um moved the apple pies into a different um f fryolator and I got in trouble because you don't put the apples in there and I said but you know if you put the apple pie in with the fish you know the the the the fish thing surely the apple pie Taste of of of of fish and they went and they just said you know what I don't care about that that's the way we do it and I thought well you know you're not going to get the benefit of my inspiration then but but again you know we if we're

[36:53]  not curious and we're not and we don't have an eye to how things work um you know if if my dad was an engineer and he always used to encourage me and I wasn't very good at practical things but he he would constantly take things apart there'd be a clock and and the clock would be in a thousand pieces and I would go what are you doing and he goes oh I just wanted to know how it worked and I said and you have the confidence to put that back together and he said yeah and and I thought wow that is the that is a definition of a curious mind right that maybe you won't be able to put it back together but you'll know how it works and I think um I think if we keep that Curiosity and by the way you have to nurture it right you have to keep telling people to be curious or else you get into a situation where you

[37:42]  begin to make decisions that are so rigid they look ridiculous from the outside so the ability to have somebody check in with you and say have you really thought that this is a good idea surrounding yourself with people who can say I wonder if you thought this way because we don't individuals don't think of all the answers together they think of them when you're when you're spitballing when everybody's equal when you have what they call in operational excellence you know kaizens I I love the idea of a Kaizen everybody gets in a room everybody's equal you know we did one on um uh time to clean the operating theater um in um in the hospital and it was the it was the people that came in and did the cleaning that had all answers and and we reduced it from 20

[38:30]  minutes to 10 minutes and you can imagine that the efficiency that that that that gave to the next person coming in the next person they were ending up doing three or four more procedures a day because of the time they spent that's because there was a curiosity about how do we make that better rather than saying 20 minutes not bad you can always do that and it's it's curiosity that does that and and giving people the opportunity to make decisions and giving people the opportunity to fail I mean we learn I learned we all do way more from screwing up and another mentor of mine said I came in one day I don't know if I told you this before Kenan but I came in to the to the organization I've got this great idea Mary this is what we you do and she just sort of put her hand up and

[39:17]  she said uh for you it's easier uh to ask for forgiveness than permission and it was the it was incredibly empowering to me the reason she said that was because I'd earned her trust I'd earned her trust by being curious I'd earned her trust by asking a lot of questions about the way we did things and by taking projects and and and and fulfilling them and some of them didn't work by the way but she knew because because she knew me quite well that I would never do anything deliberately to harm the organization and once you have that trust that curiosity is given this fertile ground just to grow and grow and people love it people love to be curious when they're allowed to be so it's all about having an open line of

[40:05]  communication and not shutting anything down just being and it takes a little longer right uh and sometimes you you know you're going to make a decision or sometimes you're not going to go with that idea um but I I honestly believe that all of our all of our um moving forward all of our Improvement is is based in the Curiosity of the human Spirit really the leader's ability to cultivate trust is a superpower I mean one of my favorite leaders that came from My Generation Um was Marcus Zuckerberg right the founder of Facebook one of their core tenants when they were first getting Facebook off the ground was move fast and break things because if you're not moving fast enough and breaking things you're not pushing the boundaries enough and I feel like when you can cultivate that environment it

[40:52]  creates so much opportunity for exploration and fulfillment in the work that you do I want to harp on what you said there because I want the audience to really tune in on this the willingness to create an environment to help people fail forward what an amazing element I'm not sure if you ever been familiar with uh the work of Carol DW she's a PhD from the University of Stanford she pioneered the idea of a growth mindset a growth mindset is about continuous Improvement and one of the things that she uses in her book where she talks about the growth mindset in general she says there's example when children are come home and they'll say I got all A's on my test this week dad and the dad responds that's great but it sounds like you're not being challenged enough because you're not getting things wrong let's remember getting things wrong and not bad but always look for

[41:40]  that next level of adoption that next level of progression and that comes from being willing to set up the mindset that comes with willing to fail forward I've been failing for the last 10 years as an entrepreneur and the lessons that have been the most impactful were the mistakes that I made because I never made them again it's better to mess up and understand why than to win and not understand and that in itself is a beautiful message as well yeah and actually it it flows beautifully into the work we do as well with people with uh developmental disabilities and and with uh with severe and persistent mental illness you know two or three generations ago nothing was expected of those people nothing so they weren't allowed to trial and try to try to do anything now you know we've totally changed that around you know we we teach sexuality for people who have

[42:27]  developmental disabilities and so we should because this is the The Human Experience right how do you manage that there are plenty of people that live in our homes who enjoy lovely relationships because we're allowed to do that and they also suffer the the pain of losing a relationship as well again The Human Condition um and we call that the Dignity of risk you know everybody everybody should be allowed to take risks and you people talk about risks and there's a little bit of um hypocrisy about risk in this country right you know for all of those people for all of the Bill Gates and all of the uh Steve Jobs there were thousands and thousands of people who went into that business who probably were as bright who took

[43:16]  those risks and they failed there is the possibility of failure in in life and if you don't face up to that what you said before if you win and you win and you win in you're never going to experience that and you're never going to learn what that feels like it also increases your ability to empathize with people as well um it also uh really concentrates on what you have uh and the Privileges that you have um and and if you can put that in perspective of your failures and your and your successes I think you begin to understand other people a lot better I I couldn't agree with you more I think the Dignity of risk is something that applies to all of us as you've gotten a little bit older when you think about the things that you regret this is a little bit of a personal question kind of off our framework here do you think about the things that you tried and

[44:05]  maybe failed or are the biggest regrets of things that maybe you didn't do yeah it's such a great question Daniel pink has written about this and he's just such a a wonderful communicator and um and it struck a cord with me I was at I was at the National Council of um mental Wellness last week last year and he was talking about it um I have many regrets and those regrets uh make up the fabric of My Life um which is really funny when you hear all these songs that say you know Edith PF s regret Brian how can you regret nothing you how do you live if you regret nothing it's it's a false concept of of humanity um and I do I you know I I mentioned before I've behaved in ways

[44:56]  that are not becoming to a human being because I haven't because I've been selfish um because I haven't considered the feelings of others because I've had uh bad ideas that I didn't run by people but I've also have regrets about things that um that could have gone better but I'm glad that I did them I know that's a bit of a weird way of coming at it um but regret for me is something that inspires our ability and drive to try again and to try and and succeed and to pick up the pieces of whatever that regret is and then put them back and then there's personal things that happen in your life um you know like a failed relationship for instance that that is that is a natural regret and to not

[45:45]  regret that for instance is not human um and so I I see it as a very important motivating fact in self-improvement um and so regret is Regret is on the table for me it's it it it it's it's a very important thing it is there was a an experiment that was run by a psychologist he had 6,000 people he asked a simple question to he said think of one of the worst experiences that you've ever had in your life if you had the option to remove that experience from your life but at the same time you also removed everything that came because of that experience would you eliminate that from your life not 99% of those people said no absolutely because the experiences that we go through they build us they

[46:32]  make us they are our entire life experience and without I uh was fortunate enough in in the future I'll be uh moving back to Hawaii and it's known as the rainbow state right and the one thing that I recognize there is silly and as cheesy as it sounds but you cannot have a rainbow without the rain and that is one of the most beautiful things that of living there is you see all these dark clouds that come but on the other side of that cloud is a beautiful rainbow and it's the duality of Life there which I think is beautiful yeah yeah very nicely put and anyway you know you know you often think about people who um oh it's fun I'll tell the story but um I was at a I was at a meeting the other day and I met somebody who uh is second generation wealth right so their father had built this business

[47:20]  um and this particular individual said to me you have no idea how difficult it is being the child of somebody who started a business and then you inherit it and I thought I could think of a number of things more difficult than that my friend you know uh not that I want to put myself in in your position but isn't that a great privilege rather than it is I mean but Peter let's think about it this way imagine growing up and living a life knowing that you didn't have to work to accomplish anything and if I think about my own personal experience it's the times of struggle that build us to be the people who we are G Gary vaynerchuck I shared a book in our last conversation together he talks about this all the time the people who are the worst off are often the ones who are blessed with

[48:06]  everything because they never know the contrast of life and I would hate to find myself in the situation where I've got everything in the world that I want but I'm still unhappy because then it means the unhappiness comes from here it's not out here and that's a scary accountability to kind of deal with I think that's Keenan that is such a wise thing to say you know it's funny just sort of popular culture wise um I I you probably remember last year when Johnny Depp was in court every day with um like Amanda somebody I can't remember what her name was um but it struck me that like both of these people were beautiful people you know and they and they had probably wealth be beyond my imagination um and you know and had been so successful in so many things yet they found a way to be

[48:55]  miserable you know and it's our responsibility right to to tackle that and to to take on our misery and to grow and and it's also our responsibility to to lift up those people and help them through that but it but it was one of those things that struck me wow you know you can have everything in your life and and you can still be this miserable and hate each other so much that's just really sad I mean I often think about um something called the hero's journey if you think about the stories that are the most popular through time the Epic of Gilgamesh all these different stories that we see it's always about the hero's journey which is coming from nothing building yourself and accomplishing great things when you ask some of the richest people some of the most successful people in the world would you give it all up to go back and be a kid again they often say absolutely I would

[49:43]  because it was the journey where you find the Fulfillment there's a beautiful book and I'm not sure if you've ever heard it there's an individual um named Mike Sullivan or Dan Sullivan is his name he's an executive coach the G the name of the book is called the G in the gain and he says the one thing that high achieving mindsets often find themselves falling trapped to is their mindset is always in the Gap now the Gap is where you are right here and the thing that you're trying to accomplish the finish line and he uses the Horizon as the Finish Line he said if you've ever been a high achiever you're where you're at right now but you always think about the Gap from where you are to where you're trying to get to and if you have a run Sprint driving a car or flying a jet towards the horizon you can never catch it the inverse of that is a practice of gratitude ude called the gain if you turn around and see how far you've come

[50:31]  to get where you at you have a completely different perspective and where you are in this moment and I feel like it's so beautiful to really pause and think about the gain and I want you to kind of use this moment to think about all the things that you've accomplished Peter the Journey of coming over to the United States without with with a pregnant wife with a pregnant partner not having a job finding it out all the accomplishments all those small steps that you've made have made you the person who sits in front of me today and that's a beautiful thing yeah yeah well as I've already described there were so many people that helped me along the way so many people who were willing to share with me what they um what they thought um and you know there it's funny because I have a friend who has been in recovery for 50 years now she's in her 80s um and she has a lovely I used to work with her

[51:19]  at uh at dimmer in Rox in Boston and when I first met her I was in her office and there's a little uh saying on the on the door and it says um the people who love who who need love the most of all often to appear to deserve it the the least and that is so true if you ask me so I'm I have I I think I have a fairly friendly you know sort of outlook on life and and I engage with people relatively well and I was able to benefit from that because people were were more willing to help me I think because I because of that that doesn't mean that a person who's who's not quite engaging that that is Gruff and not engaging doesn't deserve that kind of attention as well and you know I I I have many Privileges and i' and I've

[52:09]  um I've utilized those um and I'm I'm very grateful for all of the help that I got along the way because nobody gets anywhere without a ton of people holding you up and and that is unless you unless you're King Charles who's the king of England which is weird then then there's a there's a there's a thousand people that have helped you on that journey I want to use the last couple seconds here for you to tell us over the next one two to three years what are we hoping for your work that you're doing with your organization and just the nonprofit sector who's serving human services and Behavioral Health what are we hoping for over the next couple years well I mean I think part of it is making use of your uh size of our size you know I mean there it is true

[52:58]  that um you know there are going to be less and less nonprofits around and those are going to be bigger and bigger and that's sort of what the state want to do there's a there's a real sense of loss in that by the way especially you know in terms of diversity in terms of lingual diversity in terms of um you know minority owned businesses that kind of thing um but we have to be able to leverage some of our size in order to get contracts that are um worthy of the people that we serve um any nonprofit should have a mission to serve as many people as you could possibly do and we're a multi-service agency so we better provide a lot of services we provide 120 different services in 110 different places and each one of those is wonderfully crafted to the needs of that population the needs of this population

[53:47]  aren't going to disappear in the next five years 10 years three generations four generations we are always going to need to be around and as long as we remain f Al strong as long as we remain able to Advocate and change the minds of the politicians and the people that have the pur strings um we need to get better at that and as long as we're doing that we're going to be relevant in this space the worst thing that could happen to us is to remain the same and become irrelevant to the people that we serve uh we always have to innovate we always have to elevate we always have to be striving for Q quality scores that are better than last year because if we're not and you're sitting on your your laurels you're going backwards um there's much much work to be done there's different

[54:34]  work to be done you think about the number of kids that are being diagnosed with uh autism syndrome now we've got to change we've got to be able to provide services for for a big population I don't think that I don't think autism is more prevalent in our society I think we're just better at identifying it so you know look out for New Opportunities because New Opportunities new problems are unities that come along for us remain curious you know and and keep passing along hope um and and you know healthy optimism I mean you know you you cannot be a pessimist in this field you have to have your chin up all the time and you have to be able to pass that along to people and make them feel that there's hope you know Harvey Milk is one of my favorite characters political characters said um

[55:22]  you know you can't s you can't you can't fix everything with hope but without it you fix nothing and I I I that really stuck with me and and and it is absolutely true in the work that we do Peter one of the traditions we have here on the podcast is closing by having a previous guest ask you a question their question was who inspired you to do what you do well it goes back to my mom um you my mother was a um a nurse she was a a health visitor she was a midwife um she worked three jobs um and uh and knew I remember I asked her once I said when did you first realize you wanted to be a nurse and she said I know I was five years old I think you know somebody

[56:09]  like that who dedicated their life to as she called it catching babies um uh was was somebody who really I think set me on my way it was ironic really because my father told me don't do what I did but my mother never told me to do what she did but I think it was a um I think that there was a blueprint there and so I think it began there but it but you know Keenan as I said before you just you meet people who inspire you in a little way or a big way every day and all of those things add up to the point where I thought well what else am I going to do and another one of my bosses once said to me and it was a real backhand cont compliment but she said um she's never leave this field and I said why and she goes because you're not good at anything else you're just good at this

[56:59]  and I guess that's all I've known so I mean Peter I just want to say once again man thank you for everything that you're doing leading from the front building the Next Generation fighting for those who can't raise their hand and don't have a voice your hard work and effort does not go unrecognized my friend so thank you once again for joining the show for everybody who's watching and listening that's been episode again of the heart and hustle podcast Peter Evers thanks man really appreci thank you very much Kenan great questions too thank you