#182: Personal Resilience Tips From A Human Freedom Advocate With Mitzi Perdue

Welcome to The Conscious Pivot Podcast with international speaker, business mentor, bestselling author of Pivot, and your host, Adam Markel. The Conscious Pivot shares the stories and wisdom of people who have successfully reinvented some area of their business and personal life. You'll gain powerful insights into how you can fully embrace new opportunities, increase your performance, and master the art and science of innovation and resilience. So please join Adam as he guides you on your conscious pivot.

Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Conscious Pivot Podcast. I'm your host, Adam Markel. I am feeling giddy inside right now. That's what's going on inside my body, and in part because I'm vibrating from just having had a really good refreshing swim and because it's this gorgeous sunny day outside and the air is clean and have the time to have given myself even this little respite in the day to take care of my body, to go out and breathe some air and be in the sun and take a swim. Just feels good. I feel like I've been good to myself and that I'm like giving myself a little pat on the heart and the back and go, yeah, good, good, good, good. Because we're going to talk about resilience today. And I have this very, very special guest. So that's the other reason I'm giddy is that— Well, 2 reasons. One, because I get to spend time with this amazing woman. 2, because my wife is so— she was just so thrilled when she started to look into what this woman has done with her life and the way she's lived so many things that often we hear about or people talk about or you aspire to. And this is a person who's lived a life that I think is really quite something. So I'm going to read a bit of her bio and then we're going to get right into it. And you guys, Buckle up because it's going to be really great. I'm excited, like I said, vibrating with anticipation to speak with Mitzi Perdue. She is a science writer and a health writer. She holds a BA with honors from Harvard University and an MPA from George Washington University. She is a past president of the 35,000-member American Agri-Women. She's also a former syndicated columnist for Scripps Howard. That's right. And her column, The Environment and You, in the 1990s was the most widely syndicated environmental column in the country. Her television series, Country Magazine, was syndicated to 76 stations. She is the founder of— I hope I don't mess this up. If I do, you'll correct me, Mitzi. Cirrus Farms, the second-generation family-owned vineyards that sell wine grapes to wineries such as Mondavi, Kendall-Jackson, Bagel or Bogle and Toasted Bread. Bogle. Bogle, thank you. Mitzi combines the experiences of longtime family businesses. Her father, Ernest Henderson, co-founded the Sheraton Hotel chain, and her late husband, Frank Perdue, was the second generation in the poultry company that today operates in more than 50 countries. In 2019, she founded Win This Fight: Stop Human Trafficking. It is with great, great honor and tremendous pleasure that I welcome Mitzi to the show. Mitzi, great to have you with us today.

Yeah, I'm vibrating too. It's just exciting to meet somebody who's so warm and so inviting, and I'm loving this. Thank you.

Wow. Thank you. The bio I just read, I mean, I read a fair number of people's bios and introductions since I left the practice of law about 11 years ago. I've, I've been involved in both speaking and emceeing events where I've got, you know, amazing people to introduce. And that's one of the best— that's one of the most significant bios I've ever read.

Oh my gosh.

So with that, I have— I'm going to ask you this question. What's not in that bio? What's one thing that's not written in that bio that you would love for people to know about you?

I guess I'd like them to know more about human trafficking and what they can do about it and how to stop it and how I got involved with it.

Yeah, maybe we should start there then.

All right.

How did you get started in that? What was the— is there a story or something that— because I think what if I'm speaking for not just myself but for a lot of people, just to hear the term human trafficking, it stops you dead in your tracks because, you know, there's something awful there. You might not know what that even means. What does that look like? Maybe you've heard something about it or heard a celebrity or someone else who's, you know, made that part of their platform, but you might not even know what it is. So would you give us a little background and then how it is that it became something you're so involved in?

You just gave me the perfect setup for my story because up until April 11th of last year, I'd heard the term human trafficking. Didn't mean anything to me. It was just kind of, yeah, oh, this is something awful. But then I heard a lecture and it was by a guy named Paul Hutchinson. And in this lecture, I'm sitting in my seat getting like more and more just horrified about what I'm learning and realizing what I didn't know. What I learned is there are 40 million people in this world who are being trafficked, and that figure comes from the United Nations, by the way. But what is it like to be trafficked, particularly sex trafficked? Supposing— I don't know, I bet somewhere most of our audience knows Some 12-year-old girl, might be a daughter or niece or cousin or just one way or another, but think of a 12-year-old girl that you know. Imagine that she's been kidnapped, abducted, or lured into being trafficked. Here's what's going to happen to her. On average, she will have to have sex with strangers as many as 12 times a night, 365 days a year. Her life expectancy is 7 years. And what's going to take her is a drug overdose, murder, disease, or very often suicide. And I have a friend who's— his name is Dr. Bob Kankrow, and he's retired from, I think it's New York Medical Center. He was chief of psychiatry. And thinking of that 12-year-old girl, you know, it's— our minds can't grasp how awful this is. But I asked him, since he treats patients and helps with rehabilitation, Asked him, what's she feeling when she's being violated 12 times a night? And he said— he's a psychiatrist— he said, think of the worst depression you've ever had in your life. Maybe your mother died, or your best friend. No, I don't know what your worst thing that ever happened to you in life is, but how bad you feel or felt. And he said, that's how she feels every day. And he also said, that when a patient comes into my, you know, my office normally, that there's a beginning— or they're coming in with depression. In most— in the cases that aren't trafficking survivors, or let's go with the word victim, there's a beginning, middle, and end to their depression. On the other hand, in the case of a little girl who's being trafficked, there's no good days ever. There's— It's just the continuing worst depression that you've ever known. Well, I'm in the audience listening to speakers on this subject, and I'm thinking, oh my God, this is the worst thing I've ever heard of in my life. It's the biggest atrocity I've ever heard of. And I started thinking, I'm sitting in there in the audience, and I'm thinking, I want to do something. I don't have any expertise in rescuing or rehabilitation, but there is something that I could do. I wanted to write a check. That's what I thought I could do initially. But then I started thinking, if I write a check to the Child Liberation Foundation, it means cutting back on other charities that I support, because, you know, there's a limit to what I can give. And I'm totally at that limit. And I didn't want to cut back on the food bank or Red Cross or other organizations that I dearly love. And so I started thinking, who do I cut back on? And then came the idea that I want to share with everybody. It occurred to me it'd be really hard for me to write a great big check to the Child Liberation Foundation without cutting back somewhere else. But what I could do is I inherited a 17th century de' Medici desk that we think belonged to a cardinal. I could sell it, I could give the money to them, and then on top of that, there would be a lot of publicity associated with it. So I decided to spend the rest of my life, you know, the years that remain to me, and so that you don't have to guess, I'm 79 and proud of it. Well, I decided to spend the years that are left to me doing what I could to raise money and raise awareness about human trafficking. And what a long answer I just gave you.

Oh, it's a perfect— it was just the right length of time for that because it brought me, as I'm listening to you, brought me into that seat. I've been in the seat where I've heard someone share a story that brought me to tears or gave me an awareness of something that to that point I was just completely ignorant of and almost feeling embarrassed. And I'm not saying that's how you felt, but to me, to not— as I'm listening to you share about this, there's a level at which I even think to myself, how is it that I wouldn't know some of the things that you even just said? That, that's the experience of somebody—

Okay, I have an opinion on that. And it has to do with money.

It does.

It does. And here's what it is. The 3 largest criminal enterprises in the world, as far as money goes, are illegal drugs, illegal arms, and human trafficking. And they're actually quite interconnected. I mean, the people who are involved with one are often involved with another.

Yeah.

And just to give another statistic to put what I'm about to say in perspective, I'm going to share with you something that I learned from an NYPD Sex Crimes Division officer. And he told me, if you are a sex trafficker in New York City and you have a stable of 4 girls, your income can be $1 million a year tax-free. That's how much they're bringing in for you. Well, with that kind of money at stake, you know, the bad guys have every possible incentive in the world to kind of brush it under the rug and have— they actually pay spokespeople to come and say, yeah, I'm in the sex trade and I'm fine with it. You know, I should have my choice to be able to do it. Yeah, there are a lot of the people— I mean, documented cases of people who have made those statements publicly in the press and been on national TV. That they're actually— you know, they're told, we're going to kill your daughter unless you speak. The incentive to keep this as quiet as possible is enormous.

So there's been a concerted effort to not have this sort of become wider. I mean, and again, I don't want to get into areas that— well, for example, to talk about Jeffrey Epstein, it's almost to me, you know, you say his name and it brings up so many— I almost feel like you're supposed to spit or something after you say his name. I mean, it's really quite awful. And the fact that That so little was publicly known.

Look at the effort that they went to, to keep that quiet. Like, I have a personal girlfriend who wrote a book on Jeffrey Epstein, and she wrote it— she happened to travel in the social circles that he did. And when he was, I guess, is the word indicted the first time, or maybe convicted, whatever, when he first came to the attention, you know, big time of law enforcement, She decided to write a book on it. And she told me, I think she wrote the book in like 2005. And initially, you know, there were all sorts of publishers who wanted to publish it. They were so excited, you know, because she'd named names.

It's an exposé and it's, you know.

Total exposé. But yeah, she was kind of on the inside and she interviewed hundreds of people, whether it was law enforcement or former victims or society people who interacted with him. She said, Over and over again, the following would happen. She'd take her book to a publisher, they'd say, yes! And then a few days later, nope, we're not interested. And that happened so consistently that she's pretty sure that, you know, there were ways of keeping her shut up. But then once the dam burst, I suppose, with Roman Faro, with his exposé in The New Yorker, then her book did get published. But she said for years and years and years, there was just an amazing wall that kept her from talking publicly. And there are politicians who desperately wanted her not to talk. They were able to accomplish that.

Resilience. It's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about. And in times of massive change and disruption, the kind of rapid change that we're all experiencing as leaders, as business owners, as entrepreneurs, we have to learn how to not only increase our own resilience but that of our teams. So right now we have a powerful opportunity for you to find out just how resilient you are. Some years ago, my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken. And all you have to do to get your own free resilience leader assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes. And it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are. I'm not usually at a loss for the sort of finding the breadcrumbs in terms of a conversation to where we lead. And I always find it quite unusual the way in— if you're watching morning news or any sort of news shows, but those morning news shows in particular, like Good Morning America, where they go from one story that's this devastating story that you just got to— just your heart is in your throat. And then the next second they're talking about the sports or social media or this light segue. And I get it, that that's a skill set. Yeah. in that area and that you have to do it. But I'm just feeling in this moment even now how awkward that feels to me to move.

However, I'm not all about bad news because as bad as the problem is, there's an awful lot that is being done about it and that we can do about it.

Well, let's move in that direction then. Because I wasn't feeling so much like that it's an only bad news thing. I realize that with everything, awareness is the start. I mean, the start of any sort of change in someone's life for the better We'll begin with awareness, and that awareness often is a shock. I mean, when you become aware of something you were formerly unaware of, there's a bit of a shock factor in it. So I also want to just take my own moment to honor the fact that there are countless women and probably men as well who've been trafficked and people's lives that have been devastated. And yeah, just collectively, I'd say perhaps as people are listening to this and maybe even watching it right now, that they— Yeah. they send a prayer out to the families, that they just hold something in their heart for the people that have been impacted by something that has been kept silent for so long.

Well, I have a guess of how you're feeling, because I remember the first time that this— you know, my eyes were opened to it. I mean, it's just— well, it changed my life, but I'm not asking it to change anybody else's life. But I will make a comment. There are 2,000 organizations that are working on this that the UN recognizes, and there are probably 10,000 or 20,000 in addition to those. And I write a weekly blog, and my approach is to go to visit different organizations that are combating human trafficking. And I've discovered that with great frequency, the people who are actually on the front lines, they have to practice a fair amount of self-care, that they can't just spend their whole time diving into this or they'll jump off a bridge because it's so dark. All right, that's, that's one side, but the other side is When you know that you're doing something that can make such a difference in people's lives, it's— how about it's about as rewarding as anything that you'll come across? And then on top of that, the people who are caring enough to be working on this, I mean, doing anything for it, they're some of the nicest people you'll ever meet in your life. So my life changed totally April 11th of roughly a year and a half ago. But I would say for the better because It's a good feeling to know that people will have better lives because of efforts you make.

Yes. And this is— you are very open in sharing your age, and not everybody's so happy to do that.

Oh, I'm proud of it.

Well, I mean, everybody who would be— have your energy, look the way you look, sound the way you sound, everybody'd be happy. I absolutely will aspire to that. And at the same time—

Can I break in and tell why I have this attitude?

Yes, please. Have you— all right, I got to ask this question before that. Have you always been this sort of light and vivacious and enthusiastic human, or were there times in your life when you were maybe not quite as inspired for yourself?

Yeah, there was a period. I've been married twice, and one was absolute bliss, and that was to Frank Perdue. But I did have a previous marriage where my first marriage was as dark and difficult as my marriage to Frank was happy and joyous. And during those 17 years, I mean, I think, I think if I'd stayed in one more year, I might not be here. So yeah, I, I know what it's like to be down and devalued and think that you don't have the right to take up space on Earth. So another comment, have I always— my attitude on age.

Yes.

I had an aunt who lived to 95, and somewhere like in her early 90s, I spent some time with her on a road trip.

Ah.

And I asked her the world's most indiscreet question, but we loved each other and I dared ask her anything because I loved her and she loved me. So here's the indiscreet question I asked her. Auntie, what's it like to be old?

Yes.

And you know, that's a really indiscreet question, but she didn't hold back. She said, as long as you've got your health and as long as you're not worrying about paying the rent, It just gets better and better. She said, here's what happens as you get older, and it certainly worked out for me. She told me that the older you get, the more freedom you have to spend the time the way you want, want to. She said, like, you're in grade school, maybe you're learning irregular verbs or the multiplication tables, something that's work and you don't really want to be doing it. Maybe you get through college and you're starting your first job. You're totally constrained. You're worried, are you going to get the job? You have to work like crazy. Even in your 40s, this is the way she put it, you have to spend a lot of time doing things you don't want to, like the way she put it was entertaining visiting firemen. And what that meant was, even if you've gotten fairly far in your job, you still have to spend time with people that wouldn't be your first choice. She said, by the time you're in your 70s and 80s, the proportion of time that you spend exactly as you want, maybe it's helping a charity, Maybe it's reading a book, maybe it's even taking a course. She said, there's just so much freedom. And then she said, and this is the kicker, she said, in my 90s, there isn't a moment in the day when I'm not doing exactly what I want. And very often it's service-related, but, you know, it's just total freedom to do what fulfills me. So, I asked her, Auntie, what happens when somebody comes by who's kind of mean and nasty, and, you know, you'd rather not be with them? And she said, oh, that's simple. I just act crotchety and people expect people my age to be crotchety and they go away.

Oh, that's brilliant.

But to me, it's true. The older you get, the more— the nicer the proportion is between doing what you choose and doing what you have to do.

Right. And you were saying earlier that you were taking a course. So, how often is it that you're finding yourself Still studying, still in courses?

Oh, I, I have a rule that a year doesn't go by where I haven't taken at least one course, and frequently 3 or 4. Like, at age 75, I decided maybe to follow in your footsteps, because you say you do a lot of public speaking. I thought to do the things I wanted in this world, it'd be really nice to polish public speaking. So the National Speakers Association has a year-long course It's like 8 hours once a month, but you have to do like 40 hours to prepare for each 8-hour class. And, you know, it was, it was a lot of work, but at the end, I loved it. It's opened so many doors for me. But other cases I take, other courses I take, like I'm always taking Red Cross disaster preparedness courses or first aid or, or recently—

You're life-saving.

Yeah, but recently I've taken courses in— oh, dare I admit this? Because, well, here goes. A 5-day course on— and I'm flunking it— but a 5-day course on how to be a good podcast guest. And among the things that they teach you is don't monologue for too long because people tuned in to hear the host, not you.

Wow, really interesting. Good advice, I suppose. I guess you could teach a course about emotional intelligence at the same time that you were teaching

Well, I love reading books on persuasion and psychology, and I'm close to an addict watching things on YouTube. Whatever you want to learn more about, it's there.

It's fascinating. I mean, it's leveled the playing field. People from anywhere that they can get a good internet connection can watch a video and learn something about something they're fascinated about or want to get better at. I mean, it really is remarkable. I have a question for you. Do you fancy doing a TED Talk someday?

Yeah, but— Would

you like to speak on? Would it be— Human trafficking. Yeah.

Because the reason I want to get better at communicating is because that's— I want an ever bigger platform to, to share what I know. And I did want to get into what I'm doing about human trafficking. And I mentioned that when I was sitting in that audience not knowing, you know, where I could get money to give to the cause, and that there was a 17th century de' Medici desk. I'm a public speaker and I often speak to family businesses, often about how to make your family business last, because the Henderson Foundation had— the Henderson family, we've been in business for 180 years and the Perdue family has been in business for 100 years. Well, I wanted to— I have access to a lot of high net worth people, including ultra high net worth people. And I began exploring, you know, I have a foot in the door 'cause I get to address their conferences. But I began asking people, do you have items that you would put up for sale if there was a giant auction? And some of the gifts that people have pledged, well, the biggest, although this didn't come from a family business conference, the biggest is a 69-carat perfect ruby that belonged to a Song Dynasty emperor. But other ones include like, There are 2 brothers who hate human trafficking, and there are 14 dinner plates that belonged to a Russian czar. It was Czar Alexander II, and his father gave him 14 dinner plates. 2 of those are in the Hermitage Museum in Russia, and 12 belong to these 2 brothers who hate trafficking. They've pledged them. Other pledges that have come in are one of the largest perfect emeralds, and it has a great story that goes with it. And the donations that have come in, they've attracted the attention of PBS, and they actually have done a half-hour story on the different donations. And the great part about that is the donations will raise money, but they also raise awareness.

Yes, exactly. Is there one organization in particular— I mean, you mentioned the Red Cross, for example, and they're They're among the most well-known organizations, charities that go into areas that have been devastated in some way by a natural disaster, for example. Is there one organization in particular that's more well-regarded or that you believe is the right one to donate to when it comes to human trafficking?

All right. My approach is— I'm just checking, somebody's buzzing me. My approach is whoever donates something and would really like great big expensive things, $1 million or more, and there would be an auction at Sotheby's, but it has to take place after COVID-19 is over. The donor gets to choose where his or her money goes.

Hmm.

So I'll give you an example. There's a man who has a million-dollar diamond necklace that belonged to Marlene Dietrich. he's giving it— the proceeds of it will go to the Child Liberation Foundation. So whoever makes a donation, they get to pick where it goes. And there are tax deductions to be had. There's— if you care about publicity, either for yourself or for the organization you care about, we can engineer that in a scale that you would— that's mind-boggling. It's global.

Yes. So Win This Fight, Stop Human Trafficking, is that an organization that you've— that you either—

It's what I founded.

You founded it. Yes. Okay. So that's one of the organizations that would be recipient of funds that, that come through an auction like the one that you're describing?

In general, if somebody loves what we're doing, yes, by all means. But in general, most of the donations that are coming in or the pledges that are coming in They're from people who already know about an anti-trafficking organization that they believe in.

Right.

And there are 3 major approaches to anti-trafficking, and one is prevention, and one is rescue, and one is rehabilitation. And I'm very excited about prevention because you don't want anybody to go through what I described with the 12-year-old girl.

No. So what is prevention? Does prevention Start— well, you know what, it's a very big topic. So what do you believe the most important steps are in prevention? If you can give us a couple that we could be thinking about and become more aware of.

All right, this— I'm worried about— I don't want people to hate me, but the police play an enormous role in prevention by— well, here's a statistic. And I have this from law enforcement people from all over the world. They all pretty much agree in this statistic. If you're a trafficker, and I mentioned like the trafficker in New York City who will have an income of $1 million a year, without effective law enforcement, that trafficker has almost no chance of ever paying a price for what he's doing or even being interrupted. Again, the odds are 1 in 100 of a trafficker ever paying any kind of price And that's where law enforcement comes in. If, you know, if I could wave a magic wand and do something really consequential rapidly, it wouldn't be defunding the pri— the police. It would be increasing their budgets, but particularly giving them the tools that they can interrupt trafficking and have the bad guys prosecuted.

It is inconceivable to me that, that we would have situations like this that weren't being addressed and weren't being aggressively addressed. And the question again becomes one of resources, as it almost always is, especially in publicly funded institutions like the police, for example.

I make it my business, because of doing public speaking, I've been on 4 continents in the last year. And I talk, you know, whatever city I get to, I'd love to talk with a member of law enforcement, frequently the chief of police. And the best, you know, the shining light for the whole world is in Taiwan. Taiwan, actually all of Asia, well, how about all the world has this problem, but Taiwan used to have a terrible problem with human trafficking. But the head of state of Taiwan and the head of law enforcement in Taiwan, and also the head of immigration, They all got together and they said, you know, they were hunting around for what can we do to have the biggest impact. And they realized that Taiwan, like the rest of the world, the bad guys pay no penalty. They make vast amounts of money and they don't end up in jail. So they started thinking, you know, the 3 who are working on this together, what can we do to change that? Well, one of the reasons that the traffickers pay no penalty, at least in Taiwan and presumably in Lots of other places in the world, is say you rescue a girl, she fingers who did it, she almost never testifies. And by the way, that's true all over the place, that the girls won't testify, or it could be boys, but since it's the majority is girls, let's just to simplify, focus on women for the moment. She's not going to testify because she's scared of her life. She's scared that they're going to kill her children. The consequences of testifying very frequently are just beyond imagination horrible. What Taiwan did is, there's a girl who's willing to talk. They have, I believe it's a very large hotel, which is completely dedicated to housing these women. And it could be for 2 or 3 months. It could be half a year until the case against the bad guy is solid and that they can testify and the guy will be put behind bars and then they're no longer in danger. But during that time, you know, they're getting an education, they're getting well fed, they're getting— they're getting a chance at starting life over again. And the results is this: our U.S. State Department judges countries throughout the world depending— according to how bad they are in preventing human trafficking. And how about Taiwan? It's just like at the top of the list of being a shining example. But they know how to do it. And oh, I mentioned the head of immigration. Here's what happens all too often in countries. The— you have somebody who will testify against somebody, but the bad guys, you know, if she's not in some hotel with, you know, with guards on the doors, the bad guys, I don't know whether they're going to drug her or threaten her or what, but they get her out of the country. And so she can't testify. Well, in Taiwan, I'm not sure the mechanics of doing it, but it's probably the equivalent of taking her passport. She cannot leave the country.

Right. So there's witness protection that really becomes the focus of how it is that they can make a case and keep a case. If the case falls apart, I mean, that's been the case, you know, that's sort of the repertoire in the United States as well, where—

Allow me to share what I know about Jeffrey Epstein. And my girlfriend who wrote the book on it. And actually, even, can we think of the name of the guy who had the, who let him off easily in whenever it was, the 2005, 2008, whenever it was?

You mean sort of the people, someone in Florida, it was a prosecutor or something?

It was a prosecutor. And everybody's just been, yeah, just really dead on the ball.

I can't recall his name, but yeah.

I can't remember. There was a specific guy, it might have been Gates, but a prosecutor who, who just seemed to give the tiniest tap on the wrist to Jeffrey Epstein. Well, here's the story on that. And I have it from 2 sources. Let's say the guy's name was Gates. I'm not sure if it was. Or let's call it Smith. But this guy, Mr. Smith, the prosecutor. He had an absolute water tight case against Jeffrey Epstein. He had all sorts of girls who would testify. He had people who worked in the— on the island who would testify. He had the best, most perfect case in the world. And then as they got closer to coming to trial, the girls began disappearing. The people who worked at Lolita Island began disappearing. The people who stayed recanted their testimony. He said, and people higher up told him, lay off. And so, you know, he was afraid that it was going to be a case where you come to trial and you don't have anybody who will testify against him. And Jeffrey Epstein just gets off, you know, clear as a bird. And so, as a prosecutor, he got the best that he could for the victims, but he didn't have— he didn't have the resources to stand up against the dream team that the other side had. And so, you know, what do you do if you're a prosecutor and your witness, you find out she's in Africa or she's in East Europe somewhere?

No, it creates an impossibility, a really impossible task.

I mean, people are really down on this prosecutor, but I think he did the best he could against really fabulously impossible—

Of guns.

Yeah.

Money and the power that's often associated with it, I think, is a big part of how these folks have been able to evade the kind of public outcry and public awareness that I think we're seeing more of now, which is in part due to people like yourself who are bringing it up. It's a difficult topic to talk about, yet you are doing that. I think it would be wonderful to see you create a talk that might find its way onto a TED stage or other stages, because this is something that I feel like people don't know enough about it. And when it's sensationalized, you know, through—

You said that I was looking up and I think, were you kind enough to use the word sparkly? It's because the doors that are opening for having good things come for spreading the word. I'm exactly at this moment talking with 3 different global organizations about having a podcast which they would sponsor. And it would— I'm not sure which one I will go with, but it's so darn exciting to have them come to me. It is. But the format of it would be, or at least for one of them, and the others are similar, for one of them it would be that I would interview people from all over the world who are working for anti-trafficking organizations. And I don't want to turn people off by having it too dark. I mean, that's a fear. So, I would talk very— I would interview them very briefly about what the problem is, and the first one is likely to be Botswana. Mm-hmm. So, what are the problems in Botswana? What are the unique things that are going on there? Then, what are you doing about it? And I'm only going to interview people who have success stories that can encourage other people, because this is not about making people throw their hands up in despair and say, ooh, I give up, it's too awful. And then the final part would be, what would you wish people would do? And as I said, there are 3 pretty large organizations that I'm negotiating with right now.

Wow. The pace of change over the last couple of years has been rapid. And if you're a leader, a business owner, an entrepreneur, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Every day it's something different and something new. But the one thing that I've learned in performing at the height of all of those roles has been that we must be resilient. In fact, it's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about. And it's the reason why my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken. And all you have to do to get your own free resilient leader assessment is Please go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes, and it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are. You used the word helplessness, and I think this— rather than going down that path of what helplessness or learned helplessness has looked like, The opposite of that is resilience to me. So let's talk a little bit about that, because for somebody that's as inspired as you are at this phase in your life to be taking on something like this, to be so inspired by it, you've got to be incredibly resilient. Not only because it's so much work to fight for any cause on any good day, even the best of days, I know that's really incredibly challenging. Develop your own personal resilience. You've got to have the energy to fight that fight and keep fighting that fight. I'd love to just turn the focus more on you now for a moment, because as you said, to be where you are in your life, what is it that you do on a ritual basis? I'd love to get your definition of what resilience is, and then I'd love to know what some of your rituals are to actually maintain that and create that resilience.

Okay, I'll give an overall answer, and it's one that I've heard from other people as well. If you focus too much on the absolute evil of human slavery, You want to jump off a bridge and can't do that. So I actually, I totally limit myself to how much I think of the horror that's going on. Instead, I try to focus on what I can do about it. And if I find my energy flagging or my commitment lessening, at that point I'll start thinking, yeah, there are people whose lives can be improved by what jointly we can do together. But I actually try pretty hard not to wallow in how awful it is. Instead, I want to get my energy from thinking, yeah, there are things that we can do. And they're not going to be done immediately. It's a long haul with as many people as possible in the world working together.

Yes. And again, I want to really dive into more than even the— I mean, I think the mindset that you just described is vitally important because even with regard to social justice and the movement and where we are in our country in the United States, Because I know people listen to this from all over the globe, but in the US in particular, where the movement for social justice is so deep and rich in our lives right now, there is a looking at that situation and being very disheartened by it. And you can almost even become resigned to the fact that it has gone on for so long and it is still going on. I mean, I watched a basketball coach who actually was the coach of a team that I followed in the past and I have respect for him. And he was being interviewed and emotion was coming up and he just said something to the effect of, it's just shocking to me, meaning him, that we could love this country, that I could love this country and other Black Americans could love this country so much and this country just refuses to love us back. That just broke my heart to hear it. Obviously, it had broken his heart long before he said it. And I thought to myself, okay. There's that aspect of it where what you said is right, where if we focus there, if that becomes— if we get stuck in that, I think it's quite difficult to get into momentum in making change happen, in seeing the problem as the actual solution and things like that that sound motivational, but they're also very, very true in terms of how things change in any area of our lives. Resilience is the word that we typically are putting to that, that The resilient individual, the resilient organization. In fact, that's a lot of the work we do is we go into companies, we help to see how it is that their workers are either being built up, made more resilient, that the culture is one that promotes resilience, or does that culture, that work culture actually promote burnout and exhaustion and the kinds of things that lead to helplessness or to the feeling of learned helplessness? I mean, we've got a pandemic on our hands. The statistics are very stark in terms of Just young people, age 18 to 24, 1 in 4, 1 in 4 young persons in the month of June considered suicide. If you can imagine that.

I've heard that. I've heard that.

Shocking, shocking statistic. So I think what I would love in this moment is you being somebody that has lived such a vibrant life and is now that much more sort of doubling down your energy for this cause that we've been talking about. How is it that you create resilience? How do you even— what do you think about resilience? And what more importantly do you do to cultivate it for yourself?

Well, let's start with the physical. I'm a huge believer in diet and exercise and mental attitude. And for diet, I have a very simple rule that's taken me a long way. And that is whenever you have a choice with what you're going to eat, pick the less processed. So supposing you're out with friends and Or maybe you're visiting somebody's home and they've made a fabulous dessert and you don't have a choice, or you do, but I would probably eat the dessert. But I would never do it if I have a choice where it's not going to hurt somebody's feelings. So I avoid sweets because that's highly processed. I'm somewhat low carb because bread is highly processed. The odds of my eating a candy bar are zero. The odds of my eating loads of fresh fruits and vegetables and Maybe beans and just unrefined stuff. That's what I do. And I think it's— I made a bet probably 40 years ago that eating unprocessed foods, or when you have a choice to eat the less processed food in favor of the more— oh, I'm twisting my tongue around. But what I'm trying to say is, when you have a choice, choose the less processed food. Right. And it's taken me a long way because I think I feel younger than, than I should. Then on top of that, before COVID-19, I would have described myself as a gym rat. So instead, I've— since I'm not going to the gym, I'm doing all sorts of floor exercises. And then I live on the 8th floor of my building and I do not use the elevator. I— 2 or 3 or 4 times a day, I'm using those stairs.

Yes.

And I, I think that keeps me younger. I love lifting weights at home and doing weird, strange yoga postures. And often I do this—

I love weird, strange yoga postures too.

And often I'm listening To podcasts, particularly self-improvement ones.

Filling your mind, you're filling your head with good thoughts, not just Pollyanna thoughts. Not again. I think some people— I grew up in New York and I was a lawyer for 18 years and a litigator. So, you know, I have a very practical and pragmatic side to me. And yet I realize how powerful it is that we hear, that we hear things that are enlivening to us, that are inspiring, that are forward-looking, that are innovative, that, that, that kind of thought is very, very regenerative for me. And it sounds like that's the same case for you. And you call that self-help. Man, I pick up a self-help book, you know, 6 times to Sunday, anytime I can get my hands on it.

Story of my life.

Yeah. Has that always been the story of your life? Have you gravitated—

Self-help books? Yes, because I mentioned that my father and my uncle were the co-founders of the Sheraton Hotel chain. Father told me that he would read Dale Carnegie's book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, every 10 years.

Wow. Every 10 years he would reread it.

He would. My mother also. And for that matter, even Frank Perdue did. Yeah. And, you know, speaking of resilience, a quick— or actually, I'll be honest with you, it's not that quick. Oh dear. I want to make sure that I'm not supposed to be doing something else right now.

I love it. We're— I mean, we might not even edit this out because this is just a real moment. So perfect.

Okay. Sorry about my father and resilience. When he was 26 years old, he got engaged to my mother. My mother was from West Virginia. She came to Cambridge, Massachusetts to meet my father— well, to meet her future in-laws. And my grandmother, my father's mother, Grandmother Bertha, told mother, don't marry Ernest. He can never stick with anything. You'll end up poor. Can you imagine what resilience it must take to recover from that? You know, his own mother telling his future bride, don't marry him.

Right.

Well, he took that as a wake-up call, and he went to the, whatever the equivalent of Yellow Pages back then was, and found the Johnson O'Connor career guidance counselors to try to figure out why he couldn't keep jobs, why he couldn't stick to anything. Yeah, because he wanted to get married, and he wanted, he didn't want his wife to end up poor. Well, Johnson O'Connor spent an entire day with him giving him Batteries and batteries of tests. And at the end of it, he said, Mr. Henderson, you have the worst human relations skills I've ever come across. Now, you're a really bright fellow, so you could have a career like in science, in a laboratory where you wouldn't have to interact with anybody. But meanwhile, you just aren't gifted at getting along with people.

Yeah.

Father took that as a challenge. He began taking every— well, and here's why he took it as a challenge, because he He calculated, and he's told me this, getting along with people is the most important skill that there is. I mean, almost nothing else matters if you can't get along with people. I mean, you're not going to have friends. You're not going to, you're just not going to have a good life. And so he began doing everything he possibly could to crack the code of how to get along with people, what motivates them, what makes them tick. And Dale Carnegie was one of the courses that he took. I mean, he actually took the course in addition to reading the books. But he took courses in public speaking, salesmanship, read books, went to lectures, read magazines. I mean, just studied everything he could about how to get along with people. And his greatest deficit became actually his greatest asset, because by the time when he started the Sheraton Hotels, and we're talking 1933—

In the middle of the Great Depression, the beginning of the Great Depression, really.

Yeah, actually, the Great Depression in the early '30s was so bad that there was 25% unemployment. But that meant that people didn't have surplus monies to go to hotels. And you could, you know, nobody was buying them.

Not an optimal time, you'd think, to start a hotel chain.

How about a perfect time? Because with his enhanced understanding of human relations and human motivation, Well, let me tell you what he'd do the first day that he'd take possession of a hotel. And I'll tell you ahead of time what this story is going to illustrate is a way of getting employee engagement and love and something that will— would make them stick with him for life and go the extra mile.

Hmm.

So the day he'd take possession, he'd invite them all into the hotel ballroom and he'd stand up there on the stage. And the first words out of his mouth was always, I want every one of you to keep your job, because I know that you know your job better than anybody else in the world, and my job is to give you the resources and the encouragement to show the world just how good you are. And you're going to see in just a few months, this is going to be the most popular, the most well-served, the example for the rest of the city that things can turn around, and you're going to be part of the team that does this. Well, you know, since there was 25% unemployment, you can imagine that they were, you know, initially they were afraid they were going to lose their jobs. So, you know, the first words out of his mouth is, I want you to keep your job. And then the next day there would be just cavalcades of like plumbers and electricians and decorators coming into the hotel. And Father told me they'd never go directly. They wouldn't spend their time, you know, for the first few weeks. on the areas that the paying public would see. Nope, it would be the areas that only the employees would see, like for example, the employee dining room, the employee kitchen, the employee showers, locker rooms. He would spend the first money on things that would show and communicate to the employees how important they were to him. And he told me that this was the best investment possible because It's the employees that are going to make the hotel a success or not. And he wanted to communicate to them how important they were to him. And the results were the, you know, the first hotel that he bought did so well that he had money to buy a second and a third until the time of his death, 400 hotels.

Wow. And when did he pass? What year?

1967.

Yes.

So a long time ago.

Yes.

Nevertheless, isn't that an amazing example of resilience? You're told by your mother that your wife shouldn't— your fiancée shouldn't marry him, and that his greatest deficit became his greatest asset?

Yes. So let's define that. What's— I mean, it well speaks for itself. I'm just a big fan of taking a story like that and encapsulating it in some way into one principle. So his resilience was born out of something that he, I guess, took as a sort of a personal mission or a calling.

I think so. Yeah. I mean, if you know that there's something that you really need and you're no good at, why not try to get good at it?

Turn the thing that is your deficit, or maybe even your greatest deficit—

Oh, without doubt his greatest deficit.

Into an asset.

Wow. But he became, I used to think that, you know, here he is in the hospitality industry, 400 hotels. And I'm going to guess that except for national politicians, there are few people in the country who interacted with more people in a more gracious, understanding, inviting, welcoming way—

Yes.

Than a person who's a star in the hospitality industry. Now, who would have ever guessed that somebody who had terrible human relations skills could be fantastic at it?

I think it often is that the teacher is, is often The great teachers are sharing things that they've most needed to learn in their lives. And even sometimes the things that they're most learning at the time is a very significant catalyst I found in teachers that are really passionate and effective, more than passionate even, but just very effective at conveying information about something that's vitally important to them. It's where we put our attention. Attention is love. You put attention to something, It feels— the recipient of that attention feels love, or the thing feels love.

Frank Perdue was a lot like that, and something that I had something to do with. We had a program that began when we had just gotten back from our honeymoon, and I told Frank— we're walking on the beach, it's a romantic area— and suddenly I stop and look up at him and I tell him, Frank, we should entertain every single person who works for the company in our home for dinner. Frank thought that was a completely crazy idea.

Was your father still alive at that time?

No, I wish they had met because—

Oh yeah, of course.

They had a lot in common. But, you know, initially Frank's reaction was no, and I pretended that I didn't hear the no, and I said, let's have them at 100 at a time. There were 16,000 employees at that time. And he said, no, that's way too many. And I said, I bet we could put it together and start in 6 weeks. Oh, that's way too soon. And

I feel like we're getting a relationship course now. I love that. Yes. Okay. Way too soon.

Well, we went round and round with me just going ahead and planning what it was going to be like. Because, you know, I grew up in the hospitality industry. We think that you solve everything by good human relations. And, and so Frank's initial reaction was, no, no. What galaxy did you set down from? But as we continued to talk, he started to think, or even to say, maybe there's something to it. And then finally, I like it.

I like it.

And for the next 17 years, roughly 3 times a month, would invite people out, 100 at a time, to our home for dinner. And at these dinners, the reason Frank, you know, eventually agreed to doing this was because it was yet one more way of showing the people who worked with him how important they were.

Right.

And, and Frank would, you know, there would be a great big long buffet table with several servers, but Frank would stand behind the buffet table and he would wait on his employees.

Yes.

At the end of the evening, he'd always thank his employees, saying in different words each time, but roughly, I know the company wouldn't be what it is today without you. Thank you.

Right.

And Frank grew up in a very rural area. I bet Salisbury population might have been 200 at the time, and he lived on a farm, and he was a shy country boy. And yet, he transformed himself from somebody almost too shy to speak to people to a marketing icon.

Wow.

And I found it just amazing that somebody who was inherently shy could, like my father, become extremely good at something that didn't come naturally to him.

I really hope you're enjoying this episode of the Change Proof podcast. If you've not yet gone out and gotten your own copy of Change Proof, it's not too late. You can get your copy right now by going to changeproof.com and not only getting the book and all the bonuses there, but getting access to our proprietary Resilience Assessment Tool. It'll just take you 3 minutes to do, and it's something that will really help you to utilize the book even more effectively to create practices and rituals and habits that will increase your mental, emotional, physical, and even spiritual resilience for the long term. Again, go to changeproof.com to get your copy today. There's an element of resilience in that as well, because it's so interesting that I think part of how we develop resilience in ourselves is that we challenge ourselves, that we face— not just face the challenges, but we go into them with great enthusiasm. So yeah, I'm an introvert a lot. When I say that to people, that when we train speakers, work with speakers or people that go on TED stages and things like that, I'll often say, you know, I see that you're shy. I see that your voice is quite restricted even. You know, it could be from early childhood when someone told you to better be seen than to be heard and things of that sort, right? So we all get that it comes from someplace. But I'm naturally more comfortable in small groups of people. And I have spoken to 15,000 people at a time in China and places around the world. And you go, I'm much more comfortable in the green room reading a book by myself or with one or two other people, or for that matter, not even being there. Because I get— I typically get my energy from, from that sort of introverted behavior. Whereas some people, they're more— they get their energy by being around a lot of people and they're much more— Extroverted. Almost every public speaker I know that I, that I've enjoyed and I respect very much are not the gregarious types naturally or outside of that environment. And so I call it being a situational extrovert. A friend of mine mentioned that to me years ago, and I was like, I love that term, situational extrovert. And the reason why I think that's important is that when you have something that's important to you, when you have a mission, So Frank, you're describing your husband as having this mission, that your dad had a mission, something that was more important than their own personal comfort. If you leave me to my comfort, I wouldn't choose to speak to 1,000 people because there's nerves involved. There's wanting to do well. There's ego. There's all the responsibilities of being in service, of not screwing it up, making it happen, make it happen well. And all the That's a lot of weight. It's exhausting. If you have your druthers, you sit home and you read a good book or you go for a walk or take a swim or something. So to put yourself out there like that, it really— I think the mission is what is a great driver to know that there's something that's bigger than you, that's much more important than you, that will help you to develop the kind of resilience to stand in the face of things that you're not good at. Because when you practice something you're not good at, at some point you become quite good at it.

But Frank used to have a saying which I treasure, which is, if you want to be happy, think what you can do for somebody else. If you want to be miserable, think what's owed to you. And so I think a lot of his life was about service.

That's what it sounds like.

And, and by the way, a little tale out of school, I think Frank had almost no interest in money other than the pleasure of giving it away. He didn't have yachts and racehorses. When we traveled, it was almost always economy. When we'd visit different cities, we would go by subway, whether it was Tokyo or Beijing or Paris or wherever, because he just didn't need the trappings of money, which I thought was neat. He would rather not spend it and give it away. And then allow me to tell you about my father.

Please.

My father said that the greatest pleasure his money ever gave him was in giving it away.

Interesting. I think people need to hear that. I really do. I'm very happy that you just said that because often, especially people that have not had great wealth or have no proximity to it, they think of it like many things that we think of that are unknown to us. We sort of make them into something that they're not or think that they're a great panacea or a great solution in their own personal lives where money for sure can do a lot of good for a lot of people, but for you personally, Personally, I think it magnifies— it can be a magnifier. So if you're generally, or you are a humble person, you have humility, you think of others, money will only help you to be more able to do those things. And if you're—

Well, to me, money is power.

Yeah.

And I want to use the power that came my way for good. And I do have a focus. And by the way, I live— I think I live fantastically below my means. I live in an apartment building and my neighbor, let's see, one is a librarian. One is a— she's trying to get a job, I think. What do you call it? She's on probation to work in the police department, in the sheriff's department. You know, this is not Millionaires' Row, but I'm happy as can be here. I don't need a great big fancy—

Here's what I can say with certainty, and I have the audacity— I'm gonna be audacious to say this, but in looking at you and listening to you, whatever you are doing, you keep doing that because you have this just light and wonder that's still so evident. And if people that are watching, if, you know, this is both a podcast as well as it becomes a YouTube video. So if you're watching this or you want to go to YouTube and check it out, just what you're seeing is a person who we— I mean, you have so much light in you, in your face and your eyes and your smile. And so keep— far from me to say it, I guess, but keep doing whatever you're doing because it is more than just working. Thank you. I

think I've just died and gone to heaven. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

No, I— and thank you so much for being on the show today.

I'd love them to come visit my website.

My goodness. So we have show notes, which is really great. That'll have links to the website, links to Win This Fight, Stop Human Trafficking. I assume we'll have that as well about the foundation. I'd love to check in and find out more about that auction. I think, yeah.

I should tell you that the auction, even though we've got the most Amazing, fantastic donations that are going to be famous throughout the world when it happens. It is on pause, so you can see the donations, but they're not going to be available unless you're in a real hurry to buy the 69-carat perfect ruby.

You know what? My wife is a July baby. She's a Cancer. I think that's the month that ruby is the birthstone.

Oh, well, buy it for her. It should go for around $60 million.

$60 million? Just $60 million?

Yeah, and I know that you want 2, but there's only one on offer. I could start the bidding at— I

wouldn't insult anybody if I started the bidding at $50 million, right? So, and we could talk about this offline, but maybe perhaps that auction can happen online because I think, you know, people will tune in right now to see something. So you can, you know, people often don't go to Sotheby's. They have somebody there as a representative and they might be watching it on closed-circuit TV or whatever it is. But I think that's entirely possible right now to do these.

Except I'm going to listen to the wisdom and experience of Sotheby's who said, yeah, you'll get some buyers, But there's so much economic uncertainty right now that you aren't going to get like bidding wars that would get it to the height that you want.

Yes, let's listen to the experts for sure.

Well, not a choice because they get to say when the date is.

Although I guess you could take the position that the stock market is at all-time highs and people that are invested are probably doing quite well at the moment. And we're also talking about often people that are spending money that's not their rent money, obviously. It's money that are in foundations and other places where their plan is to give it, is to give it to good causes. And so, you know, I'm always a bit counterintuitive when I hear things like that. I think now is an absolutely wonderful time if it was properly marketed and if they—

Okay, but then there's another issue, which is they will give a date that's a year in the future. So

yeah,

they've got to predict that a year in the future the stock market's still doing well.

That's true. It's so many moving parts here, right?

Yeah. But I'm very excited because in my life, one door shuts, another opens. And I mentioned that I do have 3 organizations that they're large and they have fabulous distribution that want me to do their podcast. Woo-hoo!

So, lots more in this discussion. And for our listeners, please leave a review. You can go to adammarkel.com/podcast. podcast to let us know your comments, your thoughts, your feedback, so valuable to us. If you've not yet subscribed, please feel free to do that as well. And I'm going to leave us all with a reminder. It's a reminder I get to do this each time for myself and to the extent that there's somebody that's not heard this before and those who have even, I think it's very important that we think about how it is that we create our days. What's the process? to create the day of your dreams, the perfect day. I think that that is possible when we start the day, as my grandmother would say, on the right foot. And the right foot is the right thought. And so I have a very simple process to create the right thought to begin the day. First of all, we all have to wake up. So Mitzi Perdue, did you wake up today? Yes. Yes, she did. And you totally get that, right? There's no question you do not need another cup of coffee to be awake. You are awake. And how lovely that we get to— if we're very, very fortunate, we get to wake up yet again tomorrow. Because when we go to sleep, we put our head on the pillow tonight, there's no contract for that, no guarantee. If it happens, when it happens tomorrow, we get to say, wow, what a blessing this is to be awake, to be alive. And even with the challenges that we face, the alternative is not even thinkable. So we can be grateful. So we wake up and we're in gratitude. Just even a moment in gratitude at the beginning of the day is so powerful. And then the third piece of it, this simple system, is starting the day on the right thought, the right foot. Often for me is the right thing that comes out of my mouth. The first thing that comes out of my mouth is usually the reflection of my first thought. And so, I have these 4 simple words that I start the day with every single day. And that was the subject of the TED Talk I gave. I love my life. That's it. I love my life no matter what. So the question for you, Mitzi, is what words will you start your day with tomorrow? And that's for all of our listeners as well. You could start with, I love my life, or you could start with something entirely different. I had a woman that answered that question a couple of months ago and she said, the first words I say are, I wonder what miracles are coming today. Judy Whitcraft was her name. And she's also a woman in her late 70s who I so admire. He says, I wonder what miracles are coming today. And I've started using that as well, that when I wake up, before I look at my phone, before I go do anything or take care of the coffee or anything, it's like, what do I want to say out loud as a way to usher the day into something really great? So, Mitzi, any thoughts on what you might say when you wake up tomorrow?

How can I better serve?

Wow. Epic. And thank you. Thanks for being a guest on the show.

I've loved every second. Thank you so much.

Beautiful. Ciao, everybody. Ciao for now.

Thanks for listening, everyone. We hope you now have the tools and greater insights to navigate your own pivot. Help us inspire others by sharing this episode and leaving your comments over at adammarkel.com/podcasts. For more tips, strategies, and support as you consciously pivot into a new business and lifestyle you love, join Join our Pivot community on Facebook at pivotfb.com.