- Speaker #0
You can be an asshole and build a profitable company, and you have to choose how you're going to live your life and how you're going to contribute to the world. And I just chose that path. I chose the path of being a servant. I've seen both sides of the ball. I've worked in both types of organizations. And I'll tell you, the one that is the healthiest emotionally, the best cultures are the servant-led companies.
- Speaker #1
One of three things people want when they communicate. They want to be hugged. They want to be heard. or they want to be helped. And if you can ask in your mind when they're communicating, which one does this person want? 99% of the time, you're going to have a better, more effective conversation.
- Speaker #0
There's an old saying, if you don't know where you're going, any path will get you there. If you don't know what your values are, what you stand for, how you want to live your life, then how do you know where you're going?
- Speaker #2
Raw, uncut, and unapologetic. Welcome to Men Talking Mindfulness. Welcome back to the show. Today we're sitting down with Howard Behar, the man who helped explode Starbucks from just 28 stores to over 15,000 stores across five continents, all by leading with a people-first mindset and servant leadership approach, which he discusses in depth in his book It's Not About the Coffee, Lessons on Leadership from a Life at Starbucks. If you've ever wondered what it takes to create a workplace culture that helps men and all humans thrive. in work and in life, then you're in the right place. This conversation will change the way you see leadership forever. Howard Behar, thank you so much for coming on the show. It's really an honor to have you speaking to us about yourself and leadership. Thank you for being here.
- Speaker #0
Well, John, thanks for having me.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, we're very excited. And yeah, quick announcements, and then we'll get in a one breath practice before we get into the meat and potatoes with with Howard Behar. So... Spartan Race, October 19th, down in the Dallas area with me and Will. If you'd like to join our team, check out the mentalkingmindfulness.com website. And that's about it. Check that out for everything that we're doing. So one-breath practice for Howard, just so you know, we just do a one-breath grounding practice to ground all three of us and to ground our audience. So that said, if you would be so kind as to join us in that. Uh, go ahead and get comfortable, whatever that looks like and feels like for you. And that's for us here, the three of us and for the audience. And I can hear Will letting all that air out. Go ahead and exhale, feeling empty at the bottom. And then a nice, long, slow, deep breath in. Hold at the top and let that go. Let that go and just feel your body in the here and now. Bring yourself to here, bring yourself to now. And all right, now let's get into this conversation with Howard. Howard, again, so great to have you here. Very excited. Will, I'll turn it over to you for our first question.
- Speaker #2
Yeah. All right, Howard, we would love a little like kind of a brief history about, you know, Starbucks when you started, what was the size and condition of Starbucks and what was it like when you left?
- Speaker #0
Well, I started when there were 28 stores. And it was definitely an entrepreneurial driven business. It was focused on the product it sold. And I came in and I said, the product's important, but it isn't what's really important. It's the people that are important. And people make great coffee. Some people may think that coffee makes great people. There's some mornings I get up and I think, but I came in preaching the gospel of servant leadership and the idea that we weren't. in the coffee business serving people, but we were in the people business serving coffee. And I stirred up a hornet's nest.
- Speaker #2
Yeah,
- Speaker #0
good for you. It wasn't that these were bad people. It's just that all typically entrepreneurial early stage companies are totally focused on the product or service they're providing. And they think that's the business they're in. But the minute one entrepreneur hires one individual, now he or she is no longer in that product or service business. They're in the people business. And so that's what I brought to bear. And I was relentless about it. I just, I was in my mid forties by the time I got there. So I was pretty firmed up in what I thought was important in life. And I just, I have believed since my late twenties that there's no reason any of us are put in this earth except to serve others. And if you do that well, then you're going to get what you need out of your life. You may not end up rich, but you're going to have a fulfilling life. And so that's what I tried to bring to Starbucks. And I just kept driving it home, driving it home, driving it home. Even when I got tremendous pushback, even from the CEO at the time, from Howard Schultz, I used to drive him nuts. I'd come to the meeting and I'd say, Howard, what business are we in? Right. And he'd get mad at me because he wanted me. He wanted to be in the coffee business. And now we're in the people business. But eventually we all wind up and got we got in sync with each other. And and that's what we drove at Starbucks. And the truth of the matter is, whenever we've gotten trouble and Starbucks has gotten trouble a few times, we've taken our eye off of that ball. And when and the only way we recovered is by getting our eyes right back on that ball that we are in the people business serving coffee. Wow.
- Speaker #1
Love that.
- Speaker #2
Well, was there a, was there like, what was that? You said you discovered this servant leadership philosophy, uh, you know, in your, in your twenties, like what, what led you to that philosophy? Was it a bunch of mistakes? Was it, you know, uh, just a lot of failure in your life? Like what, what was the story there? Well,
- Speaker #0
I'd had some failure and I had some, I was working in a company that had a CEO that wanted me to be something different than I was. And that caused tremendous internal strife within me. to the point that I got depressed over it and almost quit my job. And eventually I ended up staying, but not that long. I stayed for another year. But I realized that Howard didn't know who Howard was. Oh,
- Speaker #2
okay.
- Speaker #0
And because I couldn't have an intelligent conversation with that CEO about who I was and what I stood for and why I stood for those things. It wasn't like he was asking me to change the color of my pants. He was asking me to change who I was as a human being. And so... That began my journey of trying to discover who I was as a human being. And somebody introduced me to Robert Greenlee's work on servant leadership. And I had been an unconscious servant leader. I was a kind, generous person that I expected performance of people that reported on me, but I never thought that my responsibility was to build the organization on the backs of people, but with people. But I had no words to describe it. I was just unconscious about it. And somebody gave me this little pamphlet called The Leader is Servant by Robert Greenleaf. And I read that and it made sense to me. And so I started to research and to try to discover. And over time, I became a conscious competent on servant leadership. In other words, I understood it, I could practice it, and I could teach it. And so that's what drove me. And and so it was that conflict with that CEO that really got me to go there and other people helping me and giving me resources that I had never discovered on my own before.
- Speaker #2
Yeah. And I got to thank you for that, because, I mean, even other organizations I've seen have kind of pivoted off this servant leadership style. Like I used to be an ambassador at Lululemon and it's all about, you know, people first kind of thing, you know, and it's just like and so it just spills out. All over the place. So thank you for bringing that to the world, Howard, because we need more of that.
- Speaker #0
What do you say, Lululemon, because a person that ran Lululemon for a while had come from Starbucks, Christine.
- Speaker #2
Exactly. There you go. There you go. Right. Yeah. I'm not surprised. I didn't know that. But, you know, I know that, you know, I was I was part of that organization for a couple of years and it was all people driven, all servant leadership driven. And and here we are talking about it.
- Speaker #1
All the companies that I've ever read about that have done. exceptionally well. I mean, certainly there's some that do well that do not practice servant leadership, but the ones who have done exceptionally well have servant leaders at the helm. And I've always found that term servant leader somewhat redundant. It's not exactly redundant because not all servants are leaders, but I feel that all true leaders, some people may call themselves leaders, but they're really not. The ones who are true leaders are servants. They understand that their people work for them, not the other way around. Or sorry, that they work for their people, not the other way around. Exactly. Right? Yeah.
- Speaker #0
I mean, look, you can be an asshole and build a profitable company. And you have to choose how you're going to live your life and how you're going to contribute to the world. And I just chose that path. I chose a path of being a servant. And I've seen both sides of the ball. I've worked in both types of organizations. And I'll tell you, the one that is the healthiest emotionally, the best cultures are the servant-led companies.
- Speaker #2
Yeah.
- Speaker #1
For sure. And I would say, you know, with my military background, I've seen that as well. You know, I've had examples of good leaders and bad leaders. And the good leaders have always been, hey, what can I do for you? Yes,
- Speaker #0
and that's the way it is.
- Speaker #2
Yep.
- Speaker #0
Even in the military, everybody thinks the military is. is tell them what to do and, and tell them what they don't do it. Right. The great military leaders have always been the servant leaders. They're the ones that have unified their organizations around serving people. And even though they've had, it's, it's a tough job and, and you may have to shoot somebody and it's a hard conflict to put your mind around. Right. But, but, but it is what it is. And, and the great leaders in the military are the ones that say, Here's the hill. Here's what we're trying to accomplish. Here's our greater purpose. Tell me what you need.
- Speaker #1
Exactly. Exactly. So, so tied to that, um, that servant leadership piece, when, when you reached out originally on LinkedIn, you mentioned that you'd been a long time practitioner of mindfulness. How, how do you see those two tying together mindfulness and servant leadership?
- Speaker #0
Well, they're kind of one in the same because, you know, because they're the mindfulness is about. awareness of self, right, in a sense, and so is servant leadership. And, you know, the mindfulness, learning to manage yourself and manage your emotions and dealing with those things are the same things that happens in a servant leadership-led environment. And, you know, I'm not here to say that I'm an expert on mindfulness. My daughter-in-law, she teaches it to children in grade schools and high school. And she set up an organization to do that in the Seattle area. And it's been incredibly successful. It's taught kids how to manage their emotions in stressful times and how to manage themselves. And that really is it. And so I put the two together. I don't find, I think the same tenets that, look, the most difficult person you'll ever have to lead your life as you.
- Speaker #2
Yeah. No kidding.
- Speaker #0
Servant leadership is a pathway for doing that. And so is mindfulness.
- Speaker #1
Yes. Agreed. Agreed.
- Speaker #2
Agreed.
- Speaker #1
Yeah. I just wish that we had had something like your daughter's program when I was in grade school, because I know it took me decades and I certainly am no expert or pro at emotional regulation. I still lose my...
- Speaker #2
temper but i lose my shit too john you can say shit john it's okay i lose my shit too especially when i'm hanging with my family oh my god oh my gosh they had to push some buttons huh yeah those buttons get pushed oh they certainly do sorry will i cut you off there brother what were you gonna say no no no i was just you know and and i'm so glad that you know we're seeing more of this mindful approach to business is mindful approach to education there's more you know, more like, and mindfulness really, just really just being aware of how you're showing up, how you're feeling, how you're thinking, you know, how, you know, maybe this habit works, maybe this one doesn't. And then having the willingness to change those habits, which I think is so incredibly important. And, you know, we've had, I mean, obviously we're men talking mindfulness. So we've had, you know, several different, you know, leadership approaches. Uh, and it's all comes through just that, that self-awareness. And it's like, when you access your self-awareness, you access your heart. When you access your heart, you access your humanity and you can actually begin to see, feel, and be with the humanity of other people.
- Speaker #0
I mean, how many people know who they are? Not many. I have, I mentored every year. I mentored eight MBA students at the university of Washington. Right. And I, the first question is we got together as a group. I went around the room. I said. Would each of you tell me your top three core values and how those values inform your decisions and the actions you take in your life? How many people do you think could answer that question?
- Speaker #1
Zero.
- Speaker #0
Hardly any. Every once in a while, I'd get usually maybe one out of the eight that could get there. And the rest couldn't even kind of understand. And, you know, there's an old saying, if you don't know where you're going, any path will get you there. If you don't know what your values are. right, what you stand for, how you want to live your life, then how do you know where you're going? And you're just going to, at the end of your life, you'll be looking back and say, what the hell happened? I don't want that to be my life. And so you got to look at your life and say, what do I stand for? What are my eight to 10 core values? What are the things that really drive me that come hell or high water? I'm going to live up to these things. Doesn't mean they have to be written in stone. They can be written in pencil and you can change things anytime you want. But you need to know who you are and you need to know what your greater purpose is. And those things go with mindfulness because it allows you to be you. And that is one of the most critical things. I call it wearing one hat. Wearing the hat that you put on in the morning that reflects who you are as a person, not the roles we play, but the hat that we wear that informs our actions and our decisions. It's tied to our values. It's tied to our personal mission statement. You know, it's tied to our greater purpose.
- Speaker #2
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, love it. And that was a really big core principle in the book is wearing your one hat. And another thing that we talk about. consistently on the show is like you know being your authentic self and sometimes it takes time to develop and understand and dig into you know what does it really mean you know for me to be authentic you talk about core values uh you talk about like what you really are aspiring to and what you want to leave and the kind of legacy you want to leave in the world and you know without that one hat uh and that that guiding force then you're and i think that you know we're so easily uh persuaded and shifted and moved in so many different ways if we don't know what our one hat is.
- Speaker #0
I mean, there's people that are jerks and that's their hat. You know, they're absolute asshole. And I just, I just want to know that so I can make a choice to be a random or not.
- Speaker #2
Right.
- Speaker #0
Right. And that's, that's critical because, you know, people that are like that, they do damage, right? People aren't kind or loving. or caring or authentic or vulnerable, you know, they do damage. You know, you can see it going on in our country right now. I mean, like we were talking before we got on air, what the fuck is going on? What happened to kindness and caring? What happened to acknowledging our mistakes and owning them? What happened to being able to deal with that? You know, all this stuff is crazy. You know, it's... It's a... Look, you know, it's this whole issue with, I'm kind of getting off here a little bit. No,
- Speaker #2
no worries.
- Speaker #0
But DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion, right? You know, all of a sudden those are bad words. Why are they bad words? What's wrong with diversity? Anybody that's watching this program that has kids and has more than one child has a diverse family because each kid is different. And each kid has different needs. so and And so what is equity about? Equity is about helping each kid to their own needs, not to your needs, but to each child's needs, not to the first child's need, not to the second, but each to their individual needs. And then what is inclusion about? Is making them part of the family, having them understand that we love them, we respect them, we're kind to them, and they're part of this organization we call family. That's what DEI is about. And sometimes one kid needs more help than the other. One kid struggles with dyslexia. Are you going to ignore it or are you going to get a teacher to help them? Right.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, definitely get that teacher.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. So one child born in the ghetto never has had a role model for somebody that's built a business or anything. Well, sometimes you've got to help that person get a role model. that you're not helping the person that father has run a billion dollar business. Yeah. And sometimes, you know, everybody says, well, you can't, it's to the person. Yes, it's true. But, but, but there are people that live in communities where the majority of the people in the community of our certain skin color or certain gender or whatever it is. And sometimes that group hasn't gotten the advantages that other groups have. And if you can't acknowledge that there's something wrong with you. The Army and the Air Force and all the military acknowledges that. And they help each person to their own.
- Speaker #1
Right. Absolutely. And I fully support that. And, I mean, breaking it down to the simplest level, like you mentioned, the family and the children, you know, a child's most important needs, aside from clearly food and water and shelter, is that they feel a sense of significance and they feel a sense of belonging. And that's not just children. That's people. People all want to have this sense of significance and a sense of belonging, a sense of belonging to family, a sense of belonging to an organization, to a team. And then coming back to what the fuck is wrong with this country, Howard, we mentioned this before. I think it all boils down to money and ratings. So news media and social media. What sells on those channels is conflict, is, hey, saying the drama, saying the right, the right are, you know, so far right, this is what's happening. And the left is so far left, this is what's happening. And then blaming one another and saying that other side, whichever side you're on, that other side, the other. is responsible for where the country is. And it's not that. It's taking some responsibility and saying, you know what, let's work together to improve what we have. So I could go down a rabbit hole all day long.
- Speaker #0
But we can choose. That's what mindfulness is about. We can choose. We are in charge of our own destinies. What is it that you choose to do? Do you choose to be kind and caring and loving and generous? Or do you choose to be greedy, mean, and abusive? And, and don't, don't tell me what just happened because when you, when, when you choose the, the, I'm just going to say the wrong side of the track, you're making a conscious choice. You're not a victim when you choose to be mean.
- Speaker #2
No. Yeah.
- Speaker #0
And so you can be kind and caring and, and, and, and still get the things you need.
- Speaker #2
Yeah. Well, I think this, this, what we're having, this conversation here leads us to what I feel is, you know, I think. feel the best and most important part of your book. Uh, and here's the book here. I'll show everybody. It's not about the coffee. I mean, probably this is, I got to say, Howard, we obviously talk, uh, and have a lot of books and authors on about leadership. And this was one of the best books I've ever read on leadership. So anyone out there read about a read, it's not about the coffee. And, uh, there's a section of the book that, uh, again, it really comes back to what we're talking about here. and really about people first and people first and servant leadership style and business is a chapter that you have about compassionate emptiness. And we're going to break down what this is, Howard, with your help. But leaders get, you know, they often get in trouble because they're always trying to solve every problem immediately and often by themselves. Instead of rushing to solve problems, you offer compassionate emptiness and say in the book, but most of the time people are not asking for help. They're asking to be heard. Yeah. Right. Why is this method of leadership so important and so much more effective?
- Speaker #0
You know how I learned this lesson? So my wife is an oncology social worker. Every day she'd come home with her day's work. Now she's dealing with people that are dying of cancer, children dying of cancer and their family. And she'd come home. Somehow she deals with it. She'd come home and start talking about her day. And I'd immediately go into solution mode.
- Speaker #2
Yes,
- Speaker #0
exactly.
- Speaker #1
Right?
- Speaker #2
Okay.
- Speaker #0
And she'd get mad at me. And I never could understand. I'm just trying to help, honey. I'm a man. I'm supposed to have solutions. I'm supposed to tell you what to do.
- Speaker #2
Right? Right.
- Speaker #0
Exactly. Yeah. And so, and I couldn't get it. And it was blowing up with me and my children. I have two children now who are in their 50s, older than you guys probably. But, but, and. I was doing exactly the same thing. And I was reading this book. And in the book was this quote, I can't remember the book now. And it was a two-word quote, compassionate emptiness, right? And I said, compassionate emptiness. And then I want to explain what compassionate emptiness was. And I said, okay, I'm going there. And then when my wife started coming home and talking about her day. I didn't go. I said, I'm not going. I had that desire. I'm not telling you. I didn't. But I said, I'm not going to go there. And I said, so tell me what you're feeling about that. Right. You know, you know, and if I thought, is there anything I can do to help you or just need an ear today? You know, and I started to do with that my kids. It changed my relationships completely with my kids and my wife. And. I'll give you a, here's one story of my youth. First time I was ever vice president of a company, a young woman comes to my office and I had a table and she sat across the table from me and she starts crying. I mean, tears coming down her eyes. And I just looked at her and I got up and I took the box of Kleenex and I went around the table and I put the box of Kleenex down and I put my arm around her shoulder. She about ripped my head off. You know why? Because she wasn't sad. She was mad. And that was the way she was showing her anger. The tears were her anger. And I backed up. I pulled back really quick. And I said, what did I do? And she said, I don't need you to put your arm around me and try to comfort me. I need you to listen to me.
- Speaker #2
There you go.
- Speaker #0
And that's what most people need. It's just an error. They don't need your solutions. Great leaders don't have the solutions they have. They have the right questions.
- Speaker #2
Right. That's a really good point.
- Speaker #1
Allow people to find the solutions that most of the time they already have.
- Speaker #0
If your kid comes home, he's dealing with a problem, you know, and don't make your immediate thing. Well, did you do this? Did you try this? Ask how you're feeling about it. What do you think you should do? What can I do to help you get through this? Is there anything or would you just want to be left alone? It's okay. Men are guilty, guilty, guilty.
- Speaker #1
Oh, for sure.
- Speaker #0
We are guilty, guilty, guilty. It's part of our DNA. We're hunters. We're out there. We're going to kill the deer, bring it home for family to eat. There's high expectations. We've got to get over that stuff. Yeah. We're not the only ones in this world that can bring home the bacon. My wife brought home plenty of bacon. Put my kids through college.
- Speaker #1
I've heard this. I forget who it was. There's this fantastic video on YouTube. It's a TED talk about how we as men and women, or it's not even men and women. It's like the masculine and feminine energies. And he said there's really three things. one of three things people want when they communicate they want to be hugged they want to be heard or they want to be helped and and if you can ask in your mind when they're communicating which one does this person want
- Speaker #0
99 percent of the time you're going to have a better more effective uh conversation and then you can ask them yeah yeah absolutely yeah yeah you know what would you like right now what could what what would serve you the best yeah you know Yeah. There's nothing wrong with asking them. It's like good sex. If you don't ask what pleases the other person, how the hell would you know? And if you're not comfortable talking about it, how are you ever going to know?
- Speaker #2
Right. Exactly.
- Speaker #0
It's the same exact thing. Ask. There's nothing wrong with not knowing.
- Speaker #2
Yeah, that's very true. And a lot of leaders feel like they must know all the... you know, the problems to, or all the answers to every problem, because they then, you know, we kind of get often in this show about like, you know, what, uh, about men, like just looking or seeming or feeling weak, you know, whereas like, you know, that, that when they're weak, it's like, that's when vulnerability comes online. And that's when you are at our most magnificent part of our humanity is when we're being vulnerable and don't know the answer.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, exactly. We don't need to be the machismo guy that has all the solutions and has got to protect everything all the time.
- Speaker #1
And I think if you are the person who has all the solutions, all the answers, then you're sitting in the wrong room. Well,
- Speaker #0
you're not a leader. You're not a leader. You're an autocrat. You're a dictator. Absolutely.
- Speaker #2
Well, I thought, like, let's put a little more context around this compassionate emptiness. And you quote, Joel Goldstein here, and he says, compassion and emptiness are not two different things. Compassion is not a stance, but a simple responsiveness to circumstances from a place of selflessness, right? The emptier you are of the self, right? That's usually often ego, the more responsive we are. So, you know, so why is this such an effective means of leadership within an organization?
- Speaker #0
Well, because it allows... each person to be themselves. It allows each person to be vulnerable and there'll be their authentic selves. It's like another quote that I have, the person who sweeps the floor should choose the broom. I don't have to, I can be empty of types of brooms, right? To choose from. I can just say, go choose a broom and I'll buy it for you. And so it's being understanding that your role in life is not to is not to tell everybody what to do. Your value in life is not that. Your value in life is the love you give to others, the kindness and generosity that you give and show to others. That's your value. And so when you're empty of solutions, right, that's what you're giving. It's you're giving respect that the other person is capable. And compassionate means understanding and listening and caring.
- Speaker #1
Let's talk more about that caring piece. You break down the nine tools to experience and practice compassionate emptiness so that you can listen with less of an agenda and more caring. So the first tool you break down is doing it in person. Why is that so important?
- Speaker #0
because there's nothing like touch. We're struggling right now. The whole battle of people not wanting to go back to the office. It makes a difference. Now, I'm for I don't believe that people have to be in the office every day to be to be productive. You know, it depends on the work they do. But when there needs to be conversations, there's nothing like face to face. You can you can feel energy that I can't get on the tube here. Right. You can you know, there's something you can you can see the sweat or you can see the you know, the first whatever it happens to be. And so. it just makes a difference. And, you know, the hallway, there's more great decisions made in the hallways, right? Why do, why do men go out and play golf?
- Speaker #1
Exactly.
- Speaker #2
It solved all the problems.
- Speaker #0
What the hell? You could be home. We could do it. We can, one of those golf games on the internet, we could do that. Yeah. We don't have to be walking on the grass and pulling our cart and hitting the ball. And, you know, but why do we do that? Because there's, it's. it's much better. There's more meaning to it. And, and so that's why in-person is really important. And it does, when you're in person, it's hard to get away with the garbage.
- Speaker #1
Yeah. You can't hide. You can't hide. Right. I mean, we all, that's one thing that, uh, John and I have been doing, you know, we've been at the show for five years and the last two years, we have a summit like where we get together for, you know, we, this is virtual, obviously John is in Colorado. I'm in New York city, but we have a summit where we. get together, uh, John and I and, uh, our business advisor, David, and, you know, we, we throw down for like three or four days, you know, at Airbnb, because like we, again, it's like, it's like, this is a big hallway for us in which we really, uh, can, um, you know, move in a direction that we want to, but also have the conversations that need to be had that, you know, just an hour virtual meeting just does not cover even near.
- Speaker #0
What's more valuable watching your son daughter's soccer game on on a tube or go on to the soccer game.
- Speaker #2
Go on to the soccer game.
- Speaker #0
Why is that?
- Speaker #2
Yeah. It means more to the other person.
- Speaker #0
Yes, that's it. It's not about you. It's about what it does for the other person. And, you know, performance counts. When you make a commitment to be at that soccer game, show up.
- Speaker #2
Yeah. Show up and be present.
- Speaker #0
Be present.
- Speaker #1
Yeah.
- Speaker #2
I've shown up. Yeah. So look, oh my gosh. Exactly. So I've shown up to the soccer games. for my eight-year-old and you know i am trying to do business while at the soccer game which is total bs i shouldn't be and i see her look up from the soccer field and she's like does this with the thumbs indicating get off your phone dad yeah watch the game watch me watch the game watch me because again watch me exactly i again the kid the child all of us we want to feel a sense of significance and belonging and we want to be seen yeah exactly well that's the significance piece. Right. If I'm paying attention to my phone, then my child feels insignificant. So that's the next tool in that toolbox, the nine tools, is listen for the meaning below the surface. Can you expound on that?
- Speaker #0
Yes, because there's always a conversation that goes on that isn't being said.
- Speaker #1
Yes.
- Speaker #0
On both sides, the listener and the speaker. And you have to tune in. to what's not being said, not what is being said. And that requires that these little antenna that we can't see, but that we have as human beings, we have to tune into them. I used to say to people, our social workers, look, I mean, our baristas, your social workers, you've got 10 seconds to determine where that person is in front of you. Do they just want a hot cup of coffee, hot and no conversation? Do they just get a traffic ticket that's going to cost them $200 on their math. Or did their son or daughter just get a full ride to Harvard and they can hardly wait to tell somebody? You have to tune in. And that means you have to put yourself aside. And because that person isn't saying anything. But, you know, when a barista says, how are you doing today? You can tell if somebody's mad or something's gone on or they're happy. You seem like you're happy today. Something good must happen. Or how are you doing today? Right? Tuning in. And, and that's, that's what, that's what those antenna for is tuning for the conversation. That's not being said.
- Speaker #2
Well, I always get asked by the baristas at Starbucks. How are you doing? Yeah. And I've always,
- Speaker #0
let me ask you a question. Both of both of you have a significant other. Are you married or not right now? Okay. So you've had significant others in your life.
- Speaker #1
Of course.
- Speaker #0
Will, have you ever lived with anybody? Uh,
- Speaker #1
yes, I have. Yeah.
- Speaker #0
Okay. So when you come home and you walk through the front door. and you meet your significant other, your spouse, do you need to really ask them how they're doing?
- Speaker #1
You could just feel it.
- Speaker #0
You know it, don't you? You can feel the energy in the place. That's what we're talking about. Yeah. Nothing needs to be said. And you know, something's happened or what's going on.
- Speaker #1
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
- Speaker #2
I agree. But you got to tune in.
- Speaker #0
You got to tune in.
- Speaker #1
Well, you got to, so you got to tune out from the ego. You know what I mean? From like your agenda, from whatever your selfish needs are at the time. And really like, again, emptiness, right? So just coming clean, just being in the space, being present. And that's where we really begin to like, and it's a skill also, Howard. Like, you know, you're obviously very skilled at this. in being able to write this book. But a lot of people, a lot of men as well, like we're always so, again, rushing to solve solutions that, and to kind of put forth whatever our ego is, is trying to get us to do or say that, you know, we don't have the skills to slow down, to relax, to be more mindful, to be more present. And again, it's a skill like anything else that, you know, that's why meditation is so important. That's why getting control your breath is so important that's why it's so important to like you know just detach you know for some time and get away from your work so you can plug in a little bit more intently when you come back but when you do do that and you really begin to access more of like instead of the mind is obviously very important but it's a tool right but really makes a big difference is is the heart and that's another thing that you talk about here let's silence fill your heart Most people struggle and often speak up when feeling an uncomfortable silence, right? But you are recommending let silence fill your heart. So how do we get into that frequency?
- Speaker #0
Well, it's just that. It's quieting your mind. That's what you guys teach is mindfulness, is quieting that mind for a moment. Walking in the front door and not yelling, Honey, I'm home. What the fuck's for dinner? What the hell is for dinner? You know, or walking in silent, walking up. God, it's good to see you.
- Speaker #1
You know,
- Speaker #0
you know, how was your day? I had a tough day, if you want to know, you know. Yeah, you know, and that that that hug, that immediate caring, that, you know, paying attention. It just makes a difference. I don't care what kind of day you had. Your boss just chewed your ass out for something that you didn't do. And you're mad and you come home. If that's how you walk through the front door, if you can't put that away for a minute, you know, you're going to have a problem at home.
- Speaker #1
Yeah. Agreed. Absolutely. Yeah. And you even like, you know, you keep going with this. It's like, you know, what about like asking ask. Right. Like what. Yeah. What is this? Why are good questions so important? You know, obviously in the home life, but even in the workplace. Like why are asking good questions and gathering others opinions?
- Speaker #0
Because that's how you learn and that's how you grow. And that's how you know where the other person is at.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, very true. Exactly.
- Speaker #0
Being curious. At the end of the day, I can use my antenna, but I need to hear where that other person is at. Because if I ask them, how are you feeling? Or what's anything going on that you want to share or whatever it is? It makes them feel like they're cared about.
- Speaker #1
Yes, exactly. Right?
- Speaker #2
Yeah,
- Speaker #0
for sure. And that's what it's about in leadership. When somebody comes to work in the morning, you know, you come into one of our stores and a store manager's there, you know, you don't immediately say, hey, we got to really get going fast today. You say, you know, how are you doing this morning? Everything going okay? You know, and then listen.
- Speaker #2
Have you ever watched Ted Lasso?
- Speaker #0
Yeah. Oh, God.
- Speaker #2
I love that show. He is a perfect example of asking and you will hear he's always curious, always asking.
- Speaker #0
I'm always curious.
- Speaker #2
Yeah. And there's a great, great scene. Dart. I'm just going to tell my audience, if you've never watched Ted Lasso, go check it out. But there's this fantastic scene where he's throwing darts. It's a dart competition and it's all about curiosity. So just look that up on YouTube. Curiosity and barbecue sauce darts. Fantastic scene. But I had a friend, I don't know where she got it, but there's a saying where she said, be interested. Not interesting. And I thought, I was like, oh man, that's so perfect. Asking, asking, being curious, seeing how your people are doing. So, and with that, we talk about psychological safety, right? You always want to make it safe to speak up. So that's the next thing. So we've talked about, what have we talked about so far? Doing it in person, the meaning below the surface, let silence fill your heart. Ask and you will hear. So we've got four. Number five is making it safe. Can you talk more about that? Well,
- Speaker #0
making it safe means that that anybody can say anything at any time without you being offended. And and they know it that that that I. I had open forums that I brought to Starbucks. Open forums were like town hall meetings, right? But there's some leaders that when they think of a town hall meeting, they want all the questions beforehand. They don't want any surprise questions. I always wanted surprise questions. I wanted people to be able to ask or say anything they wanted to in the meeting, period. I don't care what it was. They wanted to know how much money I made. They want to know what kind of car I drove. You know, whether or not this is really my hair or is it a hairpiece?
- Speaker #1
It looks like skin to me, Howard. Yes,
- Speaker #0
skin. I wanted people to feel free and there was never any blame and I would never hold anybody. I would never challenge anybody to what they asked. Every question was fair. Every comment was fair. And some leaders can't deal with that. So here's here's was it probably the best example of this. So we were having an open forum at Starbucks and this was in the early days. And we had these bar stools up in the front and we had about a thousand people all surrounding this big room that we had. And we were, you know, they all got, had their coffee and we would have about a 10 minutes of presentation. Then we'd open it up to the floor. And so the guy, his name was Daryl Collins. You know how long ago this was? 30 years ago, and I can still remember to this day. His name was Daryl Collins, who was a young African-American guy. And sitting on these five bar stools were five white guys. There was one white woman, sorry. Five, four white guys and one white woman. And Daryl got up and he said, when am I going to see a face like mine sitting in one of those chairs? Wow. Took guts.
- Speaker #1
Oh, yeah. To do that.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. You know? And the room went dead. I mean, like, I mean, you know, you could hear a pin drop. You really could hear a pin drop. Everybody thought, oh shit. Right. And God bless Howard Schultz. He gets up and he looks at Daryl and he says to Daryl, that's one of the best questions I've ever had at an open forum. I don't know the answer to that, but would you help me figure that out? That began the journey of diversity with inside the organization. Because, you know, we were not very diverse. We were just a bunch of white guys in the senior positions. And yet 75% of our store managers were female. We were operating in African-American communities, but we hardly had anybody that was African-American. until we did a joint venture with Magic Johnson to help us go into diverse communities. And Magic had a lot of influence and he helped us. And that began that journey. So it's why it's important because, look, we live in a diverse country. In fact, it's just the fact of life. And not everybody has been treated kindly in these 400 years. That's a fact of fucking life, like it or not. And don't say that's not true because it is true.
- Speaker #1
Yeah.
- Speaker #2
Right. If you're if you're saying it's not true, you're probably a white man.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. You're probably a white. Yeah. So get get comfortable with that. You don't have to take all the blame for what happened beforehand. Don't look at it that way. Ask a different question. What can I do to make this better?
- Speaker #1
Right.
- Speaker #0
Right. And so here's Daryl asking that question. So what did we do? We went out and we hired some consulting help to figure it out. And it totally changed the company. And it created a healthy culture, a diverse culture that everybody was respected. And we didn't have, say, we had to have 50 black people or 200 women. We didn't say that. We just said we need to look more like the country and the communities in which we're working. And there's nothing wrong with that.
- Speaker #2
Well, and also the making it safe, right? I mean, he would not have been able to ask that question if you guys didn't make it safe.
- Speaker #0
We made it safe. And he was honored. People and I have remembered that story to this day. What message do you think that sends in the organization? It's okay to be critical of things that are not right. It's okay to talk about things that need improvement. It's okay to give any idea that you want and without judgment. And you know where Frappuccino came from?
- Speaker #2
No idea.
- Speaker #0
Frappuccino was a business that was created by a woman named Dina Campion. She was a district manager in Southern California. And I won't go into the whole story, but it's in the book. She had this idea because at a competitor store, she saw something like this. And she pushed and pushed and pushed until we finally agreed to test a product like that. And she did because it was safe for her to do it. What happened to Frappuccino? It became 20% of our business and a $4 billion business, all because Dina pushed.
- Speaker #1
Right. Yeah. And Dina felt safe to push. And she felt safe to do it. Yeah. That's huge.
- Speaker #2
You know, the next piece, and this is what, man, I've seen people make the environment safe. but then they screw this part up all the time, is once the question is asked or recommendation is made, it just kind of falls on deaf ears or falls into the ether and goes nowhere. Once you hear a question, you hear a comment, you have to be responsive. So we talked about making it safe, but now what do you do with that?
- Speaker #0
You've got to be responsive. Well, I'm not pleading for anarchy here.
- Speaker #2
Yeah,
- Speaker #0
sure. Just because somebody says something or asks a question, I honor the question. I value the input and value the question, and I want to learn more. We needed to learn more about what Daryl was talking about, why he felt that way. Were there other people in the organization that felt that way? Amazingly enough, there are a lot of other people that felt exactly the same way. So, no, it was about making it safe for him to do that and then responding to it. But that didn't mean that everything that everybody brought up We just went out and immediately did. Hell, we were getting, I had a wall in my office. It was about 30 feet long. On that wall was divided into three sections. There are white three by five card, pink three by five cards, orange three by five cards. And then there are subject headings like operations, technology, product development, human resources. At any time, anybody could come in my office and take a three by five card, an orange three by five. card, write something on it, an idea, a question, something, and pin it to the wall, right? Now, every, about every two or three weeks, I'd get my team together. We'd look at all those orange cards and look for new things or anything that was new. And if we said, hey, there's some merit to this, we would go to that person and say, tell us more about what you're thinking. And if we thought, gee, let's take this a step further. We take that orange card. put it on a pink card, and put it in the pink. Things that we're taking to the next step. And then let's say that we took it to the next step. We say, this is a great idea. Frappuccino is fantastic. Let's really get out there and let's get behind this thing. We put it on a white card. That became focus. Now, there might be two or three hundred orange cards. There might be 50 pink cards, and there might be 10 white cards. But we always responded. We used to have this thing called mission review at Starbucks. It went in every paycheck. And there was one question, is there anything we have or not done that either goes against our mission statement or lives up to our mission statement that we should do more of? And they could send those back. And if they put their name on it and a way to get a hold of them, we had to respond in 72 hours once we got it. Wow. Wow.
- Speaker #1
Yeah.
- Speaker #0
it really made a difference. If people, you know, all that adage of people, people don't care how much you know, they want to know how much you care. And the way you show caring is by being responsive and acknowledge their value and their input, whether you agree with it or not. It's not the issue. You can say to a person, I hear you and I want to hear more. But at the end of the conversation, you may say, John, I hear you either, you know, and I'll put it, we'll put it down on orange card. Or we just don't have time for that right now. But if you want to bring it back up later, fine. Or John, I just disagree with that. And here's why. Nothing wrong with that.
- Speaker #2
But they still feel seen and heard by your saying that you're being responsible.
- Speaker #0
Because you don't penalize them for bringing it up.
- Speaker #1
Exactly. And this open dialogue you're talking about leads to feedback, which is so important in an organization. So talk about providing good, honest feedback and receiving feedback.
- Speaker #0
So Starbucks has a union today and about 600 stores, right? Why did that happen? Because people weren't, leadership wasn't listening. So we had, it happened during COVID. Well, what was going on in COVID? Companies were all over the place. And a place like Starbucks, where you're face to face, you know, one foot from somebody, they constantly were jerking the chain. Let's do this. Let's put up plastic. Let's not do this. Let's close stores. Let's get rid of chairs. Let's bring chairs back. Let's get rid of condiment stands. Let's keep all the stores open. Let's close the stores down. We were jerking our baristas' chains without asking them what they thought. We never opened the question, but what should have been the answer to COVID to our people? Okay, we got a problem. Here's what we know. Here's what we don't know. Tell us what you think. What should we do?
- Speaker #1
Yeah,
- Speaker #0
yeah. And there might have been things you agreed with, might have been things you disagreed with. You could say, here's why. We disagree with this, but we'll review it again. And here's why we think this is the right way to go that you told us. And then we respond back. Here's what most of you said to us. So we're going to go down that path. Nothing. You don't have to have the answers. See, leadership at that time said they had to have the answers. They should have had the questions.
- Speaker #2
Right.
- Speaker #0
I love that. So they got what they, you know, you always get what you deserve.
- Speaker #1
True. Yeah. and like and get what you asked for yeah yeah what you asked for and we have another one here we got two more right i mean and you have commit the time to give alignment you know which requires a little more face time so what do you mean by alignment as far as like uh you know and committing to that alignment well alignment
- Speaker #0
means that that together you know where you're going it has alignment has to do with greater purpose right with understanding why we're all here right we We were all here. Our alignment was this. We wanted to be one of the most well-known and respected organizations in the world. And we wrote that when we were tiny. And we laughed about it in the world. That was too big for us, but we put it down anyway. Known for nurturing and inspiring the human spirit. Known for nurturing and inspiring the human spirit. That aligned us towards how we treated each other, how we treated those human beings we call customers. how we served each other, and being well-known and respected, right? And so that gets alignment. Everybody knows what that means, right? It was difficult to get fired at Starbucks for missing your numbers. You could three years for missing your numbers in a start, you know? You know, that happens. As long as we were sure you were giving it your all, you know? But if you mess with the people... If you didn't nurture and inspire the human spirit, we would help you. We would try to coach you. But that was a way to get uninvited to stay at Starbucks. Now, when we asked you to leave, we did it with love in our hearts. You got to love people going out the door as much as you loved them coming in the door. And so that's what alignment really means. And that's alignment in your family. Why are you married? I have my wall out here. You can't see it. But I have on our, we, my wife and I did what's called a statement of purpose for our marriage.
- Speaker #2
Oh, I love that.
- Speaker #0
And it has about eight or 10 things on it. Why we're married. And we revised it a couple of times over time as we, we've been married for 48 years. But why are we, why are we married? What's our purpose?
- Speaker #2
That's, I'm sure that is something many, many people do not think about. Many couples don't. No.
- Speaker #0
And what happens is all of a sudden they get mad at each other. they fall out of love because they don't remember why they fell into love. And they're not reinforcing the things that made them love each other at the beginning. And you have to have conversations about it all the time. It's because things change. My wife wanted to go back to school to get her PhD in social work. Well, at that time, it was actually you get her master's and then her PhD. Her father got away with murder. He didn't even get her an undergraduate degree. I had to pay for all three, you know, but. So we had to figure out a way together that we are going to make that work.
- Speaker #1
Yeah,
- Speaker #0
yeah. And we did. We did it together. My job wasn't to tell her no. My job was to tell her, let's figure out how to do this because that's what you want. And she did the same for me. When I was at Starbucks, I was traveling 70% of the time. That's not easy, you know, to do in a marriage and particularly if you have kids at home. But we found a way because we worked together on it.
- Speaker #1
Yeah. And also it comes back to. Well, yeah, your last principle is your get to flow, right? Communicate about the right things, right? Yeah, right. You know, so that's, I mean, it sounds like this dynamic between you and your wife and her getting her degree and you like being a businessman and, you know, and getting out there and traveling a bunch. Like it requires a lot of communication and getting to the flow of the communication. Yeah. What do you mean?
- Speaker #0
Here's another practice that we did early on in our marriage. And, you know, I'm a business guy, strategic planning, so I'm important. She was a social worker. She wasn't thinking about out there. Her people that she was treating were thinking about, can I survive for a week with this cancer? The family's dealing, going on. But I kept pushing her, say, honey, let's have a planning session. Let's get in sync with each other. So we decided how we were going to do it. And we will... First, we worked on all the different headings, the subjects, spirituality, material well-being, health and wellness, children, family, personal growth, education and development, vacations, environment, all the different religion, all the different headings that were part of our lives. And different people have different headings. And then we went away for a weekend. We took some great wine and we got a two-room place. And we took the big sheets of paper, you know, with the sticky on the back. And when we wrote headings on these big pieces of paper for each of the headings, and then each of us took those and put them up in our own rooms. And we would write. Our job was to write three to five goals under each of those headings. What things that we wanted, marriage, spirituality, whatever. the goals for you. You didn't have to think about what I wanted, just what you wanted. What are the goals that you had? Right. So we did that. And then we came back and we presented to each other. Okay.
- Speaker #2
I love this.
- Speaker #0
Only ask clarifying questions, right? No judgmental questions. We had a nuclear family. So it was our second marriage and each of us had a child and we were struggling to bring those kids together because they weren't, you know. They didn't grow up together. They grew up a little bit together, but, you know, and each of them would try to separate us, right? And so we had to figure out a way to deal with that. Well, it caused some conflict in our marriage. And finally, we said, what can we do about this? So we decided we were going to go to a parenting counselor together to try to figure out a pathway to deal with this conflict we were having. And so we did that. And we, during that time, we figured out a pathway to deal with it. And I had to go to my daughter and say, look, honey, I love you with all my heart. And you're important in this family. And I want you to feel comfortable here. But Lynn is my wife. And long after you leave, she's still going to be my wife. You will always be my daughter, but you're going to go on your own pathway. And believe it or not, she was 18 when we did this. And we had been struggling with this forever. And it changed the whole dynamic because we identified it as an issue in our planning. We set a goal to change it. And we went and got the help we need. And so we, you know, we've been married for 48 years. I'd like to tell you, we do it all the time now. We do it every three years, maybe. And I still have a plan here. Let's see.
- Speaker #2
I love the intentionality behind it.
- Speaker #1
I know. Go ahead.
- Speaker #0
All right, here it is. My five-year plan. Okay, everybody out there, this is a document in here. And it has all the things that we want to do, that I wanted to do. So I had economic and material well-being. How much I wanted to earn on our money after tax. A new car. This was material things for Palm Springs. What kind of car do I want?
- Speaker #2
What kind of car do you want, Howard?
- Speaker #1
I'm curious. Yeah, me too.
- Speaker #0
What kind of car does she want? Charity. Give away 5% to 10% of our income each year. Where are we going to give that to? So all these things. And then we had goals underneath all of these, right?
- Speaker #1
Wow.
- Speaker #0
Friendships. We had a heading called friendships. Who did we want to make better friends out of? Yeah.
- Speaker #1
Wow. Incredible intentionality.
- Speaker #0
What did we want for our marriage?
- Speaker #1
Right.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. Anyway,
- Speaker #2
so it's right here. You need to write another book.
- Speaker #0
I look at it all the time. I don't have to read it all the time because I know a lot of it. But anyway, here's where we are.
- Speaker #2
And it works. And those for those listening who are not watching, Howard literally just turned to his side at his desk and he pulled a manila envelope and inside that. that envelope was everything he just mentioned there. So he's very intentional. And Howard, I think you need to write another book, another thing.
- Speaker #1
Oh yeah, please bring it on Howard. You're so impressive. Thank you.
- Speaker #0
Here's a picture of Howard in 50 words or less. Okay. So let me tell you what's on this page. This is my mission statement. which I plagiarized from Starbucks when we did this because I felt so attached to it. I did it. I said, I want to live my life every day, nurturing and inspiring the human spirit, beginning with myself first and then for others. And the reason why I say self first is what I've grown to understand. If I'm not okay with you, with myself, it's very difficult to be to help you. It goes to mindfulness. And then my core values, honesty, fairness, respect for self and others. responsibility, integrity, trust in self and others, caring and love. And then how I do everything, my six Ps. Everything I do in my life has to have a purpose greater than myself. And if I have a purpose greater than myself, then I damn well better be passionate about it. And if I'm passionate about it, I got to be persistent because there's lots of rocks that we hit in this river we call our lives. And we got to get through them, over around them, or blow them up. And then sometimes it takes patience to get the things that you want in your life.
- Speaker #1
And that...
- Speaker #0
performance counts. You got to do what you say you're going to do. If I've set goals out here, then I got to do those goals or, or cross them out. If you're not committed to them, get rid of them because you're not going to do them. And, and performance counts at home. If I promise to do something at home, I better damn well do it. If my job is to take out the garbage, then I better take out the garbage. And I hear when I don't, because I hear from across the room, Howard. I know what she's yelling about. The garbage is overflowing. Okay. But performance counts with your kids. Like I said, if you commit to be at a soccer game, don't make excuses why you can't be there. I mean, tell the truth if you can't and apologize, but don't do it twice. Yeah.
- Speaker #1
Yeah. Okay.
- Speaker #0
And then the most important thing, and then performance at work counts. If you commit to your teammates to get something done, you commit to your boss or your shareholders, get it done. Or tell them early why you can't. and ask for help. Nothing wrong with asking for help. Nothing wrong with saying, I'm struggling. Not a damn thing wrong with that. I struggle with lots of things, even today. And then the most important P, everything you do in your life is about serving another human being, period. I don't care whether you're a widget maker that makes a widget that goes into a printing press, that publishing company that buys to produce a magazine or newspaper that gets delivered to somebody's to inform or entertain them. That widget maker is serving people. And our job in life is to recognize what we do to serve people.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, yeah, it's humanity in others, right? And step up in service of others and their needs.
- Speaker #2
Wow. And here again, for those who are listening and not watching, Howard has that list. What was it, the six Ps, Howard?
- Speaker #0
Yeah, my six Ps.
- Speaker #2
Six Ps. He had that list right there with him. So he's living what he's preaching. Do it now.
- Speaker #0
Write it down. If you don't write it down, it's wishes, hopes, and dreams. If you don't write your goals down, it's just wishes, hopes, and dreams. Write it down and make it real. You can cross it out anytime you want. Again, it's not written in stone. Do the work. Do the work to figure out who you are, where you want to go. Live your life with intention.
- Speaker #1
Totally. Hope is not a plan. A fucking plan is a plan. No, it's real. No,
- Speaker #2
trust me. I know that all too well. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So what do we got there? So we got the nine rules to the compassionate emptiness. So those were do it in person, listen to the meaning below the surface, let silence fill your heart, ask and you are here, make it safe, be responsive, provide feedback, commit the time to give alignment, and then get to flow, communicate about the right things. And then on top of that, we've got the six Ps. All of that seems as though it's all tied to mindfulness, Howard. It's the intentionality behind things. So I love that you've been so intentional with Starbucks and the people within Starbucks. I love that you've been so intentional with your marriage. I mean, wow, I've got some worth the dude fantastic stuff fantastic so Hey, Will, I'm happy with where we're at.
- Speaker #1
I feel like I've had so much to process. I know. I feel like I've had a wonderfully satisfying Frappuccino in my body after listening to Howard for so long.
- Speaker #0
I'd like to give everybody watching a couple of things.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, a couple of things. Close it out, Howard, please.
- Speaker #0
The first one is my cell phone number.
- Speaker #2
No way.
- Speaker #0
And my cell phone number is this, 206-972- seven seven seven six two oh six nine seven two seven seven seven six my email address is my are my initials HB at howardbhar.com. Now, I'm also going to give everybody listening a personal guarantee. If they do this work, if they take the time to identify their core values, to figure out what their mission is, and whatever their six Ps are, it doesn't have to be Ps, it can be Ns or As or whatever you want it to be, and live your life with intention, you will have a fulfilling life. You may not be rich. You may not accomplish everything you set out to do, But I promise you, you'll have a fulfilling life.
- Speaker #2
You're rich in a more important way.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, exactly.
- Speaker #2
Having that rich life. So amazing, Howard. And that's very, very bold of you. And we very much appreciate you sharing that information and your personal cell phone or your personal phone and your email. I'll probably be texting you sometime soon. Yeah.
- Speaker #1
And is there inspiration, Howard, if someone feels a little stuck or, you know, why would they be contacting you?
- Speaker #0
They can contact me. I'm a little slow to respond. I'm getting older now, but, but I get back to everybody. So I'm not a psychiatrist, but you know, I'm, I'm a good, I'm a good ear.
- Speaker #1
Yeah. And a good ear and a, and a beautiful heart of which we can hear talking about, you know, the way that you conduct business as well as like the way that you are in your relationships, you know, to your wife and to your family and everyone that you come in contact with, which is so, so important. It's like, I think that's one thing that people, you know, really forget. is or or or are scared to kind of access is the power within the heart you know and this is what connects us as human beings and and it kind of uh you know the heart is is so much different than the head and the ego and we're working from that heart space we really are you know we're already wired with so much absolute fucking brilliance from the heart right and like what does it take to get down into the heart and all these nine things that we just explained today uh, you know, really lead to, you know, accessing the heart, living in the heart, leading through the heart. And, um, and you can just really make a huge difference, whether it's in your family or, or, and they go and Starbucks is one of the largest companies in the world. And like, and it's all heart driven instead of head and ego driven.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. And you know, something else we're off, we're all flawed. Oh,
- Speaker #1
yeah.
- Speaker #0
I am exceptionally flawed. Everything I talked to you about today. Everything I've said today at one time or another, I've broken.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, well, that's part of the flaw.
- Speaker #0
It's a fact of life. And I've tried to always get back on the track again, but I've broken everything at one time or another.
- Speaker #1
Well, but what's interesting, Howard, because you're heart-driven, heart-centric, heart-oriented, you know, and everybody knows when they work from that place, you know when you go off and you do things incorrectly. Because you have this internal compass. You have, like, this is part of your one hat philosophy as well. You know, when you deviate from the one hat, it's like, wait, something's off here. This doesn't make a lot of sense. How do I get back to my one hat? How do I get back to the, you know, I guess the hat, the heart within my hat, if you will. That's awesome, Howard. I don't have anything else here, John. Yeah,
- Speaker #2
me neither. I'm going to go back and process this and write it all down in my journal. And then I'm going to take my bride out and get her a separate hotel room and me one. And then we're going to come back and compare notes.
- Speaker #0
Get her her favorite bottle of wine and buy two really nice Rydell glasses.
- Speaker #1
Oh, Rydell glasses. Even better.
- Speaker #0
Spend 50 bucks a piece on the glasses.
- Speaker #1
Oh, that's awesome. Yeah.
- Speaker #2
Wonderful advice, Howard. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for being here today with us, Howard. This has been fantastic. Yeah. Exceptional is the perfect word for it. So we'll, I'll turn it over to you to wrap it up. No,
- Speaker #1
I mean, just, just big thanks over here, Howard. Like I really love the book. Here it is again. Everyone can see it. It's called, it's not about the coffee. Right. Uh, and it says, uh, that as subtitled leadership principles from a life at Starbucks. And, you know, I'm sure everyone listening out there has had Starbucks coffee before. And there's a reason that it's in 15,000 or 15,000 stores in five different continents. And it's really because of this man. Howard that we're speaking and Howard shorts, the H2O, right. Part of, of, uh, Starbucks. Uh, but, um, Howard, I really appreciate your time. I mean, thanks for, you know, even offering your number and your email, uh, for other leaders out there and men and people, uh, that would just like to, you know, uh, bring more of your wisdom into your life. So it couldn't be happier, Howard. Thank you so much for your time.
- Speaker #0
Thanks Will and John. I appreciate the opportunity.
- Speaker #2
Yeah, absolutely. And, and for our listeners, thanks for tuning in. I'm sure you're going to take a ton from Howard and apply it in your lives and be a better version of yourself because of it. And that's all we have until next time. Take care, everyone.
- Speaker #1
Yeah. Thanks, everybody. Peace. Thank you, Howard.
- Speaker #2
Thank you for joining us today. We hope you walk away with some new tools and insights to guide you on your life journey. New episodes are being published every week, so please join us again for some meaningful discussion. For more information, please check out mentalkingmindfulness.com.
