James Rhee: The Power of Kindness in Business

Here's something remarkable and not in a good way. Disengaged employees cost US companies almost $1.9 trillion a year. That's a lot of zeros. Why? Because when teams lack the right skills, productivity declines, turnover increases, and strategies stagnate. But it doesn't have to be that way. At Project Management Institute, home of the PMP and globally recognized certifications, your people can learn to collaborate, deliver on time, and actually get things the cost of not upskilling way higher than the investment. Project Management Institute. Find the answers@pmi.org.

I'm Guy Kawasaki and this is remarkable. People, I want you to meet James Reed. He is a Harvard Law graduate, a former high school teacher turned private equity investor, and unexpected CEO. James blends math and management with emotions, and he marries capital with purpose. He's recognized by many organizations for his transformative leadership. His TED talk, the Value of Kindness and his podcast interview with Brene Brown has captivated millions of people. James was the chairman and CEO at Ashley Stewart. This is a testament to his resilience and innovation because Ashley Stewart was a struggling retailer for plus size black women, which doesn't exactly describe James beyond the private sector. James serves as the Johnson Chair of Entrepreneurship at Howard University and as a senior lecturer at Duke Law School. Plus he's affiliated with the MIT Sloan School of Management. His book Red Helicopter Lead Change with Kindness Plus A Little Math delivers great insights on catalyzing change. Join us as we delve into James remarkable journey. It's filled with wisdom, kindness, and a commitment to positive impact. I'm Guy Kawasaki. This is remarkable people. And now let's explore the world of James. Re. Actually give me a second here. I want to mention that Madison and I, the producer of this podcast, have finished and published a book called Think 9 Paths to Transform youm Life and Make a Difference. So in addition to James book, you should read our book if you want to make a difference and be remarkable. Now, here is James Reeve.

Foreign. How long have you two known each other? Like a long time.

Four years maybe.

Yeah, it's honest. You can tell. You guys have been doing doing a bunch together. It's good. It's fun.

Yeah, we met in the water. Which actually I read in your book that you never were successful in standing up.

Oh, man, I'll hold you to that. I'll come visit you if you give me a lesson. My kids won't teach me.

They're like, we'll make you better than your kids. It's not a them, it's the Guy In Madison Surf camp. The remarkable surf camp. We'll take care of that. You talk about a lot of Korean terms in your book. And I just want to know, is there a Korean term for sandbagging and excessive modesty and excessive humility? Because this whole story in your book about. I'm a second generation Korean American from a simple background. I happen to have a Harvard undergraduate degree. Harvard law degree, law review editor. I worked at McKinsey. I turned around a retailer for black plus size women. I started a private equity firm. I'm affiliated now at Howard, Duke and mit. But it's just little old me. Come on, James, be serious, man. You're an overachiever.

Ah, maybe. And I didn't go to McKinsey. My wife went to McKinsey. She wanted to go. I actually signed my offer letter and then she wanted to go. And I didn't think it'd be good for us to work together, so I ripped it up and went to finance instead. But it's indicative of kind of the decisions I make. I tend to prioritize my relationships with other people first. I think it's a quality definitely I have from my parents. No one's crying me a river, and I'm not asking anyone to. But as I've gotten older. Yeah, when I look back, it's. The path wasn't so easy. It. It wasn't. And there were a lot of things. I think that when I was younger, I. I guess I was an overachiever. And that's not a great thing. It causes a lot of stress and lack of self awareness. Right. So I think as I'm older, I give myself more grace to say, look, it wasn't as easy. It's not easy for anyone. But. Yeah, but I know from the outside, you know, give me a break. But I think a lot of the book is trying to show to everybody that there's a lot of remarkable people and they didn't have those things on their resume. And I admire them for it.

In a sense, as you struggle with this kind of reckoning about private equity and Harvard and all that stuff versus the concept of jiyong and caring for people and empathy, in a sense. Did you have to overcome your Harvard and private equity background to reach a different place?

I did. I think I've been fighting it for most of my life. After I graduated from college, I went and taught a high school and I think I am a teacher. I think that's my nature. I'm a caregiver. But I was in debt and Money is part of the equation. And I have testosterone too. And so I saw all these things happening. And for a while, I think particularly my 30s, I was. I was mistaking my identity for my professional identity. And it's easy to do when you come from a background where I didn't have anything. I was a public school kid and just, I think Harvard was the first quote brand I had. And that sometimes can be a pretty weighty albatross around a shoulder when you have, you know, you don't know how to wield it. Sometimes it subsumes you. Which I think it did for me a little bit during my late 20s and 30s. And I didn't like it.

Just backing up a little bit. The title of your book is Red Helicopter. Now I read the book, so I know the story, but can you just explain the origin of the story for people? I'm sure no one's ever asked you this before.

I think we all have a red helicopter story. For me, the literal story is that when I was five years old, I came back around Christmas time from my public school kindergarten class with this 2, 3, $4 toy that was a red helicopter. And there were all these series of misunderstandings, like, did you steal it? Did you take it from school? And then my Korean parents saying, oh, we screwed up. You're never going to make it this country because we didn't know you're supposed to give toys at kindergarten. Is that how it works? And I'm like, no, you didn't screw up dad and mom, not this time. But I'm the only, I'm the only one who got one. And they got frustrated with me, particularly my dad, about like, why I just wasn't sure. And so they found out later on. I've been sharing half of my perfect lunch created by my very devoted Korean mother who expressed her love through food. I've been sharing half my lunch with this boy who came to school without lunch a lot. And I found out later from my parents that, you know, his dad didn't have the time wherewithal he had just lost his wife. And so my friend was the youngest of four kids. And so my memory was mistaken. It wasn't the whole family who came in, it was the dad and the two older boy siblings of my friend. And they just gave it to me and they didn't say anything, they just gave it to me. And they remember the dad patted me on the head and it. And I think that's. It's good teaching because I figured out one, I was gracious but two is that he put responsibility on me to find out why. And once I found out why, it just stuck with me. And that sort of very simple, intuitive wisdom, it's really hard to keep it. And it's really easy to confuse Harvard degrees or whatever with wisdom. I think great leaders, great people, great brands are. They're transcending. Right, they're wise. For me, it's been that sort of mnemonic, just a symbol of. Just reminding me of that simple wisdom.

You lowercase the R and the H. Why are they lowercased?

Because I think a kid would write it like that. It's play. It's funny. In some pretty serious venues like MIT executive ed, where I teach some executives, or even in, like, boardrooms at Howard, I make people read Harold and the Purple Crayon. I just said, isn't this like fearless leadership and creativity? No matter what happens, no matter what trials and tribulations he confronts, he just takes out a crayon and draws something. When he's falling, he draws a balloon. And I just said, how brilliant is that? He follows the moon instead of the sun. You know, the lunar cycles are so unpredictable. He's not beholden to time in a different way. And then I love when he gets hungry, he makes pies. And then he shares that he doesn't want to have waste or muda in Toyota production terms. So he draws a porcupine and a moose and he shares it with them. I just think Harold and Purple Crayon. He's a great entrepreneur. He's a great leader. He's a sustainable leader. And so that's why. Yeah, lowercase R, lowercase H. I said it's childlike wisdom. Do you like it? You're the brand expert. Do you like how it looks? Was it appealing to you?

I love the story. Don't get me wrong. Earlier in my life, I started a company called Garage.com and Garage.com it was trying to be a matchmaker between two wings of the butterfly. One wing was all these entrepreneurs, the other wing was all these investors. And so Garage.com was going to be in the middle, connecting investors and entrepreneurs. And we lowercase the G in garage because we had this very clever thought. We could say we put the capital in you, not in our name, which I thought was very clever. But I got to tell you, that was a mistake. Because in all the news coverage and all that, God forbid, if somebody started a sentence with the name of our company, what do they do? Lowercase it or uppercase it? So that's that problem all the time. And, and then there were three or four other companies that did the same thing, but they had uppercases. So it was very easy to spot proper nouns. But when it became like blah, blah, blah, blah blah and garage.com, your eye not seeing the capital G, you start wondering, that's such a generic word. Is that a typo? Is that for real? That's what I think.

But hey, all right, we'll see.

Yeah, we will see.

But I, I have to come up with a fun slogan and it's like we put the. I don't know, I got to come.

Up with something then I can work on that for. On the side for you.

That would be great.

Well, I don't, I don't want to get read too much significance into the metaphor of the helicopter, but as you point out, a helicopter flies right, left, right, up, down, front, back. That's six directions. And also the hardest thing in a helicopter is to hover as opposed to fly forward, backward, up, down, right or left. So this flying in six directions and difficulty of hovering, that does this also apply to life?

It is, it's this red helicopter. In addition to getting people to really trust their intuition, see new patterns, not rely on just complete binary mechanisms which increasingly we seeming like people seem hell bent on going to. Yeah, I think it's a better trope for at least this 53 year old guy and like dad and husband and I've been an investor and I'm a life entrepreneur. I think it's a better trope for life. Like I think as kids or as maybe in school. If you ask people would you rather be a jet plane or a helicopter? I bet a lot of people say they want to be a jet plane. They want to fly fast, high, they want to have power, they want to be the pilot, they want to carry a lot of people. And I don't know if that's the right sort of visual. And so I'm asking people, maybe particularly in inflection points in society business, when you can't rely on patterns in chaos. I think I'd rather be a helicopter. I can fly in six different directions. I have vertical lift, I don't need a long Runway. I can land wherever I want to land. And I think it's a great symbol of agility and agency. So you can't carry a lot of people, but you are in control. And I'd rather be in control and have a great team around me. But that doesn't mean I fly them. It means I help them find their own agency too. And so if you look at the illustrations, I have the helicopters flying in bird fractal like formation. Right. It's. I think a great team is independently agile. Each member is buying in and is individually agile. And then the group from a physics standpoint is collectively agile. And so I. From an orgs theory standpoint or just from a growth standpoint, I think it's a pretty good metaphor for leaders to keep.

I think it's very good. Yeah. Maybe if they make a movie about this book and we can get Tom Cruise to play you and it'll be like Top Gun 3, the helicopter version.

There's been some inquiries over the years of turning this book or story, now that it's a book, into a movie. And I always say, hey, we don't have to exaggerate the story. It's a pretty simple story of a lot of people doing some decent things together. I said the only embellishment that I want to. I want if, if someone plays me, I want the guy to be shredded.

Somebody like Henry Fielding.

Is he. Yeah, I've met Henry before and I, I actually said that to him. You know, this doesn't come naturally, Henry. And by the way, for your listeners, I'm not shredded, okay. For your listeners who can't see me, I'm like the opposite of shredded. So that was. And people always laugh way too much when I say that. And then I'm like, hey, you're hurting my feelings now.

I mean, I could see it now. So it's Henry Fielding as you and directed by John M. Chu and Michelle Yeoh will be your mother. There, done. Everything cast.

There you go. There you go. And maybe like Viola Davis, right? That would be awesome if she played the counterpart heroine. But. And you know this the way this story is and I mean it, it's, I think the real protagonists and heroes of this story. It's the women that I worked with and my mom. They are.

Okay, let's go down that path. So give us the gist of how you went from leading a store for black plus size women who's Korean American, two degrees from Harvard, background in private equity. Those things don't fit together exactly.

No, that is like the Sesame street jingle. One of these things don't look like the other. I was at a place in my life. I think in a lot of ways it's a parable. It's where sometimes people get. You're thinking about things. I was dad, young 40s. Like I guess on the surface of It, I was quote what you were saying I was achieving. I was master of universe, whatever that is. And at the time, you know, my dad was dying. He died two years later after I made this decision. I admired my father. We had a complicated relationship. I admired him and he took care of a lot of people. He saved a lot of lives, my dad. And then I didn't love the way that this world that I lived in, which I didn't grow up in, were talking about the company or the women it served. And this is meant to be. We're going to have a fun conversation. But yeah, let's be real, like the financial markets and things, it's not conducive to plus size black women. It's just not. And I was in that place and I'm like, I'm a former high school teacher and I went to law school not to be a lawyer. I thought I was going to be a public defender. And so in many ways I am now, in a weird way, like, it's just the heart there, it just struck me as not great. And so I. Only just for your listeners. Yeah, I took six months off of my life. I said that I would go and be interim leader of this. Of this company that was about to liquidate. And I have a fair bit of experience in distress situations. And I thought that the Wall street connections I had would buy this company a little bit of extra time. Like it would be less bullied, less completely eviscerated. And I did. I bought a little bit of time. But much to my chagrin, after six months, I failed. No one came to help, and I was stuck. What am I going to do? I really believed in the vision of the future. I really believed in the math and the vision for the company. And I really believed in my friendship with the women that I had been working with for those six months. But no one believed it. And so I ended up staying for seven years. I called in some favors and yeah, showed up at the bankruptcy court and said, I guess I'm an owner and I'll stay and run it. That's what I did.

Let's take you back to the first day and you're in that makeshift conference room and you bring up the subject of kindness and math to a room full of black women who are running a retail operation. Like, how exactly does that work?

Yeah, look, I went down there and I think in the book I said I was wearing pleated khakis. It's also a fashion business. So that was the best I had think about Boston private equity attire. And I had no reason nor justification to put on any pretense. It was actually very liberating. I would just say, my name is James. None of my pedigree matters to you. Honestly, it doesn't. I am the least qualified person potentially in the world to be standing in front of you on every front. I've never run a company. Yeah, I used to wash dishes at Red Lobster, but I'm not a woman. I'm not black. I have pleated khakis. We're about to get. The hurricane of bankruptcies is coming at this company. No one cares in this moment. It's actually ironically, very. It's freeing. I didn't have fear. It wasn't debilitating fear. It was freedom to tell the truth. And that was the truth. And if I think. If I had said anything else, like, I know what I'm doing. I know exactly what I'm doing. Which a lot of leaders say, as when they get parachuted into something, they're like, do you know who I am? I'm. I. No one cares. And so I said I was going to learn a lot. So I asked people to help me. I'm like, then teach me. And I watched for people who could teach me, because if you can't teach someone, then you don't know it. And so I learned, and then I was very grateful for them. The reason why the Red Helicopter story came back, I buried that story for a long time. It was embarrassing, but the reason why I came back during that time, I was overwhelmed with how generous the women in the stores were to me. Just picture me, this guy in pleated khakis, Asian guy, walking into predominantly black neighborhood stores. And they've been burned a lot before, not just at this company, but in their personal lives. And they accepted me. They really. I can't emphasize enough how generous they were to me. And it. It felt great. I was grateful, particularly a dying father. And it's. That's not easy being that guy in Boston private equity. It's just not. And I've always tried to be. And I realized, and I'm like, look, this is who I am. All the things I'm good at, like quant music, whatever it is, law that doesn't go away, like, just because I'm generous or just because of myself. In fact, as I hope the readers will know, it made me smarter. It made me more capable of doing and seeing things that didn't exist before. And, yeah, that was the speech. Not that inspiring, I know, but in the moment. It was honest. It was the truth. And I think that did inspire people.

And I don't know if everybody realizes it, and you mentioned it in your book, but a black community and Korean people, they have this history.

Right.

So the Korean person owns the liquor store in the black community. Rodney King images appear. It wasn't necessarily a. A friendly relationship between Koreans and blacks back then.

Yeah. And maybe still. Right. Sadly, that's a lot of that still exists. But there's also a lot of stories that don't get told that while this was happening to me over the last 10 years, I've met so many people who are black and Korean who have wonderful friendships. Those stories, it just doesn't play to the ratings. And that's part of why I'm telling this story. And I just. This happens. This is not a superhero story. I believe this story happens every day. The women that were leading the stores do it every day. And no one tells those stories. My mom led every day. No one tells her story. The vast majority of the world, their stories are not told. And so I've taken this opportunity. I've written the book. I go through a lot of perspective change, and there are lots of moments of weakness. And I'm honest with people. I'm like, there were times I wanted to go home. I didn't want to do this. And I was cursing at myself and saying, what are you doing? You're idiot. I said that a lot in the motel room. And it also kind of sort of portend, I think I don't want to spoil the end of the book, but it's public. Yeah. I felt like I had done a good job. Not from the financial results or the gains on the private stock, but it was that after I had left that Howard University asked if I would be the Johnson Chair of Entrepreneurship, it was that phone call to me that I looked in the mirror, and I got very emotional. I just said, I think I did the way I did it. I think I did a good job. If I can be the Johnson Chair of Entrepreneurship and also teach at MIT and like, I think things are possible in this country. And I think that relationships between two schools that don't know each other very well, if I can play a small part in getting them to know each other well and engineering new solutions, that gives me a lot of hope for this country.

Yeah.

And I want to point out to listeners that Howard University, not Harvard, Howard University asked you to do this out of the blue. And Howard University is a historically black university, which I think makes it an even bigger deal. Arguably, it's a bigger deal than if Harvard asked you to do this. Right. It's more flattering, I would think.

Yeah. When MIT called me to teach, I was very excited, but I didn't cry when Howard called me. And Howard is the Mecca. This is arguably, this is in dc. It has a lot of. It is maybe the hbcu. Yeah, I cried. It was so shocking. And it felt like that chest feel that I felt when I was 5 years old when learning about why I got a red helicopter. It's when you earn it. It's when you didn't think anyone was watching and you didn't expect is nice when you do that, that down the road someone says, no, we were watching. We would really love for you to be part of this. And that took a lot of courage from Dr. Frederick. I'm sure that he had a thing. As I'm inviting this Korean, American, Boston based, private equity slash CEO guy to be the Johnson Chair of Entrepreneurship. The Johnson family founded ebony. I'm sure he had to think about it. So it took him to have courage to say, when you look through all of this, he is the right guy. And so I'm grateful to him.

I would say that is one of the most flattering things that could happen to anybody. I would have to say that. Thank you. Not that I want any HBCU to call me up and ask me to do that, but I'm saying that would just make my day. I don't know. More so than an Ivy League, frankly. I wouldn't affiliate with an Ivy League these days. I think they're so tarnished. And not by plagiarism, but by their graduates. But anyway, that's a different subject.

No, it is, but I'm glad you brought it up. You were right. It was funny in the beginning. You were teasing about, you know, having two degrees from Harvard and I was talking about the weight of it. Yeah. I'm really proud to be teaching at Howard and I'm really proud to be at mit. They're both in Cambridge. And I loved my time at Harvard. I think I wrote in the book that I think there's a big difference between. And I know there's a big difference. And you know this better than anyone. It's pedigree versus performance, but it's also wisdom versus, quote, education. And we are seeing that systemically in our country right now. I think there are a lot of people in this country who underestimate themselves. Pedigree, a credential. It is Important. But it's nice that those credentials and pedigree prereqs are getting less important over the next 30 years. Show me the person that just. They get it done and they're rawly intelligent. Curious. You don't have to go 250,000 bucks in debt to prove that to me.

Well, I. I would also say show me the Harvard graduate who underestimates himself or herself. Point a few out to me.

Okay.

But let's not go too deep on the anti Harvard theory when you got to Ashley Stewart, by the way, I never heard of Ashley Stewart till I read your book. But when I learned that it was named after Laura Ashley and Martha Stewart, I could only laugh. That is just hilarious.

It's the. I wrote. It's the irony of it, right. Is that it's a false aspiration for these women.

Yeah. Because those Laura Ashley and Martha Stewart, you couldn't be whiter.

Right? Yeah. And this is like it was founded in 1991, so this generation of young people, they wouldn't stand for that. Right. It's the standards of what it's of aspiration. They're very different. And I think it's healthier than it was when I was growing up.

Although you have to say, to her credit, Martha Stewart is hanging out with Snoop Dogg these days.

Yeah, Martha, I saw. She's cool. Yeah, I think she's cool. She's got. There's so many sides to her and it's. Yeah. The image that was portrayed to us, just cookie cutter. That's clearly. That's not her. She's a pretty interesting person. I'd love to meet her.

I would love to. I actually had her on this podcast, but I only had her for five minutes in the green room. But she's. She is definitely a remarkable woman. When you got to Ashley Stewart, what business did they think they were in? Fashion. Retail.

Yeah. They thought that they were selling clothes to size 12 and up plus size women. And I didn't. I thought that they had 3,500 square foot of space of safety. They were selling courage or selling permission, self permission, confidence. And that the way it manifested itself, in order to stay in business, they had to transact something. So they sold clothes. And I think in the book I write about capital P product versus lowercase P product, and that's something in your career, you've done incredibly well.

Right.

The capital P product. What is. Was really putting in a philosophy, Right. And saying, okay, once you have the philosophy, the brand, right, then you can have lots of lowercase P products. It took a while for that mind shift to happen to really take hold a couple of years. And the way I could convey it was through media. It was through song, it was through getting people to feel it and see it. And so that's why I built out a whole, like, sort of internal media department. But the other big way was just changing. This is where it gets maybe boring for your listeners, but I unleashed myself and the finance and the whole ops from Gap. Like, I wanted to create a beautiful consonant system. And accounting does not allow you to do that. It doesn't. It records. And so that's what we did.

And can you just mention, because I think it's such an important lesson, that at least my interpretation is that you truly understood what Ashley Stewart stood for, not by hanging out in the headquarters, but by going to the stores.

Yeah, the headquarters didn't know any of the answers. And they didn't know the product. They didn't know the customers. So, yeah, I just. I was pretty quick. I just left and just was hanging jewelry and trying on things, talking to customers, like, seeing their interaction with the kids, listening to the words that they were speaking with. And I'd done this a lot as a investor. This is my job. Before I did this, in my 40s as CEO, I would do this whenever we invested in Meow mixed cat food. And that was one of my first investments. And I remember back then, I think I was 29 at the time, 30. We bought it at a Ralston Purina, and we literally bought the ingredient list and set up a company from scratch in four months. And I basically was on second men. I just. I thought it was normal to do that. As a private equity guy, I'm like, okay, we got to set up a company. So I set up a company. But I remember telling everyone, every number marketing org, every decision we make, every employee has to understand, and it has to be consonant. That Meow mix is like Wendy's, not McDonald's. It's not burger King. I think it's Wendy's for cats. And once people were like, I got it. A bit of an attitude, a little bit different. The third part, third player. It made sense. Who we hired, what we said, what type of brand extensions we had. Like, why would Wendy's do that? Wendy's wouldn't do that. And anyway, that's what I do for a living. It's taken me a while to understand that it's sort of hearing the sound of a brand and then putting it into math and music and work. That's what I do.

I must admit that I don't completely comprehend the McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's metaphor. So what is Wendy's in that mix?

Wendy's has a little bit of. It's quirky, right? Even the signage and the branding with Dave's daughter, it's quirky. And even if you look at their Twitter account, there's a little bit of tude in the Wendy's Twitter account. It's not mean, it's not harsh, but it has a distinct voice. There's a point of view. And it's that third player that says, okay, big guys, big girls, you two can fight it out. To say, who's the best? That's fine. We're the best. We're Wendy's. That's who we are. So if you don't want that or that, come to Wendy's. It's fine. Square patties, right? Just baked potato. With what they do, they're different. And they've never tried to be better than McDonald's or better than Burger King. Those two have gone back and forth. Coke, Pepsi, back and forth. Wendy's. I think as an observer and as a consumer of it, I eat it too much. Still, I think they've always tried to be a really good Wendy's. And in fact, after word got out with Ashley Stewart, what we did in the local papers in Secaucus took three years, four years. The owner of the Wendy's franchise. I forgot about this. Sent me gift certificates to his Wendy's. Not the franchisee of McDonald's or Burger King. It was Wendy's. And he said, dude, you should come here. Here's some free food. You're working hard. Like, we're. We're proud that. Of what you've done. It's awesome. It was Wendy's.

Wow, that's a great story. Is that story in the book?

No, I did. I literally had forgotten about it. But, yeah, I got this really cool letter on letterhead. It had the pigtail girl on the letterhead. And Dear James, or Dear Mr. Re, we are watching. We're very proud of what you all did. Keep it up. And here's 50 bucks worth of free food, which I basically consumed in three sittings. So, yeah, I remember in the book, I said I gained a lot of weight. It was not an easy. It was not an easy run, but it was worth it.

That's like Madison and I sending you merger four socks. That's.

I'm wearing the socks. Look, I mean, I'm wearing them I got in the spirit, but thank you. They're comfortable. Yeah.

If you need any more for your kids, let us know. As far as a little piece of business advice, how can people understand what business they are in? Because I think that is one of the most difficult things to see, especially when you're in the business. And I would make the case that Kodak invented digital photography in 1975, but they, I think they thought they were in the business of chemicals on film, chemicals on paper, from the outside looking in, I would say Kodak was in the business of preserving people's memories, but they didn't see it that way. So how do people figure out what business are we truly in?

I think I would answer that in maybe two ways. And it's sort of my way. I'll answer it in counterpoint. So the first one is that I tell this to grown up executives who run major companies. You're running a lemonade stand. And it's in my book, chapter five, right? It's a lemonade stand of you always will be. It's if you can't get that you don't understand what the product is, it's not the lemonade in a lemonade stand, it's you, why people buy lemonade. And if you don't understand the basic P and L of a lemonade stand and like the balance sheet of a lemonade stand, how can you run a $20 billion company? So get the fractal rights, that's number one. The second thing. And people get it. They. It's amazing, the eureka that people sort of. I see in their face. The second thing is you have to solve a problem like, and you have to have a product that solves a problem and hopefully you're really passionate and intimate with that problem. It helps. And if you're not, I hope you're highly empathetic. But yeah, solve a real problem and care about it and then deliver it. And it doesn't matter what the product is. Over time it changes with tech, with consumer interests, but really try to solve a problem such that you do it so well. Maybe you put yourself out of business, but I think over time with the loyalty that you develop for actually doing something like having, not just talking about it, but like doing it, I don't think that your consumer base will really want you to go out of business. And they'll help you adapt and be agile. So those, that's my two, two pieces of advice. Solve a problem so well, that's so real that you care about that you solve it such that you put yourself out of business.

And so what business is your book Red Helicopter in?

I wrote this I think isn't a business. It's a tough question. Like I talk go back and forth with Harper one on this. Is it a business book? Yeah. Is it a memoir? Yeah. Is it a philosophy book? Sort of. Is it just a really compelling narrative? Yeah. I think it's why I wrote the prelude the way I wrote it. I think the business really, when you put it all together, it's about change. It's change and it's the change inside you. It's whether you are the CEO in charge with changing an organization or whether you are a part of a family and you want to change the family dynamics. It's change. It's just like before when I think that people are mistaught about what to be. Ryan, like you should be a plane versus I'm saying what about a helicopter? That's pretty cool. It's pretty agile. Handles chaos much better than a plane does. But I think that this, this book also does that for the concept of change. I think the way it's taught often and it is taught often and a lot of this is getting debunked in business schools now. It needs to be debunked faster. Change is not violent. It's not angry. It's not like, quote, like masculine, like on a horse change, like the best change. It's actually quite calm and it's relentless. And if you do it that way, it sustains and it actually ends up being much faster. It's like the tortoise and the hare. Right? You give people agency to find that change and to do it that way, you have to be very patient and you have to be able to really present your vision of change in a very multisensory way. Visual learner, quantum learner, legal learner, doesn't matter. Can you convey that same story, that same song of change in multiple quote languages? Not literally just languages like Italian or Korean or French. It's languages of money, languages of philosophy, languages of org, languages of anthropology. Doesn't matter. That's what the book is about. It's about just giving people also comfort and saying you can do it and don't get bullied.

Up next on Remarkable People.

And so a lot of why I wrote Red Helicopter and like the story of that, what we did, and I will not let anyone tell me something's impossible anymore. I just won't. We have a right. The group that did this together and sitting at my desk at Howard University. I can look at people and say, I'm sorry, it's not impossible. I'd rather you just say that you're choosing to not do it.

If you find our show valuable, please do us a favor and subscribe, rate and review it. Even better, forward it to a friend. A big mahalo to you for doing this. Welcome back to Remarkable People with Guy Kawasaki. If you were to ask me, Guy, what business is Red Helicopter in the book? I would say that it is Inflection points for Dummies. It's all about inflection points, how you navigate inflection points. To me, in that discussion you just had, this is a leading question, but aren't you basically refuting much of what private equity does? The image of private equity is like some Wall street guy goes in, buys something, cuts it up into various assets, sells pieces off, flips it, and makes a billion dollars. And none of that was what you just described. Are you refuting private equity?

I think there are many different forms of private equity and many different types of investors of private equity. In the most basic form, when I was first joining it and I didn't know any of this, I was a son of a freaking pediatrician who went and taught high school. So I was learning on the fly. But in the beginning, there were two types of private equity firms. There was ones that were more deal guys. Like, they came more for investment banking. And it was in, hey, how much ebitda, what's the leverage? Let's do deals. It's financial arbitrage. And then there were other people who came more from, quote, the consulting world that were more strategic and knew how to think about market share and margin improvement at the gross margin line. I think that as I've gotten older and wiser, and I think the industry has evolved too, and I think the west coast has done a much better job of this than the East Coast. In retrospect, I should probably should have lived on the West Coast. That's the other realization I've had. So I'd like to see more operators who also control the financial capital too. I'm seeing things change and that existed much less when I first started out in the business. But yeah, private equity, as worst, creates very little value. It's arbitrage. Not true arbitrage, but like financial arbitrage. But at its best, it does create real value.

Would you want your kids to go into private equity?

No, I like them to know the skill set of it. I would like them, if they wanted to learn it. I valued My career in it. I still manage money. I wouldn't want them to stay in it. I realized very late. I hope Guy you can glean this from. I'm a creative, I always have been. I think that just the way I look, the generation I grew up in. You got a few years on me. I wish I'd known you earlier. And I didn't understand what a creative meant. I thought it meant just someone who plays music or draws or sculptures and things, but it's not. I think that's the other thing. I hope that this book shows it's a mindset. I'm a creative and like Harold in a purple crayon, right. I have drawn a life for myself. I help other people draw life for themselves. And I want my kids to create. I think creatives create real value. By definition they do. It's something that didn't exist before. I don't want them to just move lawn chairs or deck chairs on a boat. That's not what I want them to do.

Well, while we're on the topic of kids, would you want your kids to work for Goldman Sachs or McKinsey?

Same answer in the beginning. Training, getting exposure. But I'm a pretty like you want to talk about the opposite of helicopter? I'm like the opposite of a helicopter parent. It's more the helicopter definition of agency. It's a lot of free will for me. It's informed free will. And so as part of being informed, if you want to try on lots of hats, do it for me. I've done that my whole life. People have always wanted to put me in a box. It's driven me nuts and I just don't do that to people. I'm like, okay, you did that and you paint here and you do that and you like that. That's cool. I will not put anyone in a box, particularly my kids. And so they should try on lots of hats and suits and get skill sets. I've done a lot of different things in my life. I think the book is really, really arguing for lateral education and it's systems dynamics. I think it's very dangerous to be a vertical learner, particularly when everything that's vertical, it's going to be automated. It's going to be all machine learned. And so humanity to me at its best is lateral. And I said this at the end of the book. I will not treat people as a zero or a one. I treat people like they're a two. And I don't want people to treat me like a 0 or 1 because as an investor you don't make money either as a 01 like you're supposed to be predictive and of a future. And so that's what I want my kids. I would like for everyone to have that ability to do that, to have the confidence, have the agency informed agency to carve out a future for themselves and then hopefully take a lot of people along for the ride.

Do you ever worry? I'm third generation Japanese American. My grandparents came to pick sugar cane. My father was a real estate broker, my mother was full time mom. My father became a state senator in Hawaii and now I have four kids. And I worry that, don't get me wrong, I didn't have this really tough life like poverty and not enough clothes, not enough to eat, that kind of life. So I'm not trying to make myself into a hero. I had a good lower class, middle class upbringing without trauma. And yet I worry that my kids, in a sense I could hand everything to them in their life. You don't need to work summertimes to afford college, you don't need to work during college, you don't need to work during high school. Do you ever worry that in the third or fourth generation of an immigrant's family that your kids are going to lose the edge?

Totally. And it happens, right? It's what happened in the 17th century to the Puritans, right. It was the third generation, 1670s where that happened. I think in some ways it's happening on a macro scale with this country. If they really greatest generations, you know, then you have the next generation. Next generation. Particularly if we cut off the immigration, legal immigration spigot. Not so wise, right? Yeah. So you want to hear something? It sounds like I'm going to get like the bad dad award. So I'm going to just tell the story. I'd like to tell you stories that make me look stupid. Long time ago there was a board game that my brother and I played all the time. It was like we had bonkers careers and Monopoly and we saved those games. We played them like every day but they were still in pristine condition because the way we grew up, if we lost pieces or broke it, we weren't getting another one. And so when my kids were like, I don't know, like 10, 8, 6, I gave them these board games and then within a day they lost the pieces to two of them. Okay. And I'm sitting there, I'm like, okay, these are like fully depreciated board games are worth like a dollar and like whatever. But I'm. But I was, I was mad and I said, your dad. I sounded like my dad. Your dad had this. These are the only games we had. I saved them for 40 years for whatever it was. And then my oldest was upset. I think the other two were too young to really get it. My oldest said, we're doing the best we can, dad. And I'm like, oh, you're a bad dad. But anyway, so like that story, I'm.

Like, was I bad dad?

Yeah, maybe I was bad dad. But that story captures what you're saying. But I'm glad in a lot of ways they're like outgunning me from a creativity standpoint. I realized it took me a long time and you have other guests who can speak about this more intelligently. But like it took me a long time, particularly during my 40s. I got it. To find that spirit of abundance again. It did. That red helicopter kid. I may not have enough. I'll give you half my sandwich. I'm not going to ask questions. You have. Just have it. We're fine. It's funny, like when you're in your 20s and 30s, you can lose that and you just, even though you're earning more, gaining more, it's. You become self centered and selfish and it really limits your creativity. And so my kids have much more of that abundant mindset too, partly because they don't have to worry about saving all the stupid pieces for bonkers. So in some ways it works in a good way for them. Are your kids driving all of them? Yeah. The youngest one just got her ability to drive alone. I love it. And it sucks too, right? That you don't talk to them anymore in the car and bopping along to music.

Okay, one bad dad to maybe another bad dad. You tell me. My youngest son, he has a car and it's an electric Hyundai. Hyundai makes great cars, I think. Not that because you're Korean.

That sounded like an advertisement right there. It's like a product placement.

Well, it's not like they're paying me, but I think South Korea or Korea is the new Germany. But anyway, so my son has this Hyundai and I go in the car sometimes and there's four empty cans of liquid death, four empty bottles of water, his clothes, his like, it's a freaking mess. And I look at that, I say, God, man, when I was in high school, I would have killed for a car. I would be washing that every week. It would be like I would win the Toyota Corona Concours the elegance. If that was my car. And you treat this car like shit. And I say, God, man, am I spoiling him? Am I ruining him? Is he going through the rest of his life thinking that life is a silver platter? So you don't need to be my psychiatrist, but you ever have thoughts like that?

Yeah. And I love this bad dad competition. We should have another conversation just who's the worst dad? I don't know. Like, all my kids, they work not during the school year, but one of them does, and they liked it. I think they have a healthier relationship with money than I did. I didn't have any. And then when I started having some, then it's like, oh, like I'm just in a different place now in my life in terms of the attitude toward money. It's really important you know how to use it. And it comes when you don't even think about it, seriously. And you know that. I mean, your whole just I'm tell. I'm telling someone that knows that and has lived it much longer than I have. So. Okay, yeah. What concerns me more, I live in a lot of different worlds right now. And one of the things that I should have said when we were asking about when I was begging for money for Ashley Stewart during that six months, I made some predictions about the world in College. I studied 19th century. I studied the 1830s, 40s, 50s, 60s. I studied when everyone thought the telegraph was going to and the railroad was going to exhilarate and bring humanity together in technology. That's what I wrote my thesis on was just people not being direct and addressing the problems. And ultimately we had a civil war. And it's a fascinating time. Like the founding fathers died 50, 50 years later. Think about our generation now, greatest generation. That generation's died off in terms of service. I went around after everyone rejected me in the world to get money. I also made the argument about the Zeitgeist. I just said, watch what's going to happen to this country. We are like, I'm telling you, as a humanities person, there's a reason why Margaret Atwood's book is so popular now. There are things happening and people behave in certain ways. There are cycles. America's not immune to this. It's already been through it. And I worry more about that for my kids, and they are too. It's these broader forces that I worry about for them. And so a lot of why I wrote Red Helicopter and like the story of that, what we did, and I will not let anyone tell me something's impossible anymore. I just won't we have a Right. The group that did this together. And sitting at my desk at Howard University, I can look at people and say, I'm sorry. It's not impossible. I'd rather you just say that you're choosing to not do it.

I had Margaret Atwood on this podcast. She is brilliant. I had to chase her across Canada in a train. But, wow, that was like, a really powerful interview. But anyway, she certainly has predicted the dystopia that we're now going through. And anyway, okay, the last big topic.

Are we going back to Bad Dad?

No, no, we're going to Good Mom. Okay. The writing you did about your mom, I think, was just so heartfelt and so brilliant. And about a week ago, we interviewed Angela Duckworth, and she had a very kind of similar feeling story where she said, when I was young, my father was the huge influence forced me to achieve and blah, blah, blah. And I never realized, however, that my mother was such a force that she came from Taiwan to America not speaking the language, not knowing anybody. She wanted to be an artist, but. But she subsumed her desires to be a mother and a wife and never really got the blossom. And then my father died, and now she's 90. But now she's just blossoming and becoming an artist and all this kind of stuff. And let's just say that most people don't ask Angela Duckworth, the mother of grit, about her mother. But I just want you to discuss the influence your mom had on you and how you came to realize this.

Yeah, it's a wonderful way to ask the question, because so much wisdom is in what Angela was saying. It was similar to the helicopter versus airplane or work versus light. It's perspective, just like an artist. The importance of negative space. Right. Or in leadership, what you don't say. Or when you're composing a piece of music, that you have the cello lead and not the violin. Right. It's these decisions of what doesn't get said. My mother, like a lot of great leaders, she did. She didn't speak or there were no histrionics. She did consistently every day. Yeah. I didn't appreciate it as much when I was in my teens. And then as I got older, you really watch what my mom did. My mom was so intentional about her life. Like, the thing that struck me is, like, the fact that she renewed her nursing degree in a second language 25 years after not doing that. Being a house mom in a language that made her very uncomfortable. English always did. And that she chose to use that to Go take care of the soldiers who fought in the Korean War, who saved her life when she was 10 or 9. My mom was so intentional about how she planned and lived her life. She lived her life in a giant set of concentric circles, which is one of the inspirations for the COVID of the book. She thought that way, and I didn't see it for a long time. I think we're all, you want to talk about bad dad. Like, it's also being an idiot guy sometimes when you're younger. And as I got older and older and I realized she's the one who took. She led our house. She took care of my father for 15 years with Parkinson's, she did it, and she never asked for credit. My mother was a great investor, not with money, but with other forms of capital. And when I look back, I learned some of my greatest lessons in being an investor and leadership from my mom. I miss her. It took me a long time to write this book because I had to get to a place where I could try to be objective about losing the most important person there was for me growing up.

It's a common theme, James, in many of the people we interviewed, that as they get older, they understand and appreciate their moms more and more and more. And it's happened over and over again in this interview. And I think you'll enjoy this story. I'll close with this story. So another Angela Duckworth story. So she's telling me about her mom, and she says, my mom is 89. She's living in a assisted living place, and she's now blossoming as an artist. So she went to the director of the assisted living place and says, I want another room. And he says, well, what's wrong with the room you have? Don't you like it? And she said, no, I'm going to keep that room. I want a second room to be my art studio. So at 89, she's doing that. And I think that is a great story.

That is a Great story. I'm 53 in about a month. And so, like, I'm thinking to meet for myself. I'm like, okay, from 22 to 52. 30 years, like one generation. That's a. It was an interesting life. Had a lot of. Learned a lot of things, met a lot of great people, met some not so great people, too, and stubbed my toe, made some mistakes. And I'm looking at the next 30 years of my life, like, when I'm 82. That's why I'm trying all sorts of new things at 52, because I suck at a lot of things I'm doing right now. But at 82, I don't know, maybe I'll be good at them and they'll keep me alive longer because my. The synapses in my brain are going to be forced to not be comfortable to learn some new things. What, like surfing? Like you, I'm going to take you up on.

Okay.

Like surfing.

Two last thoughts for you, James. So one is you should consider doing a podcast because 52 times a year I have to figure out a guest. I have to learn about private equity and selling clothes to black plus size women. This week I had to figure out Angela Duckworth. The week before, I interview Vivek Murthy. Surgeon General Bob Cialdini, Neil degrasse Tyson every week, Stephen Wolfram. Every week I have to figure out something completely new that keeps your brain active, I hope. And then since you mentioned the S word, surfing, you're 52. I want you to know that I took up surfing at 60. So if I could take up surfing at 60, you could actually wait another eight years. Although if you want me to help you with surfer and you cannot wait eight years, you better get your ass out here now. But anyway, that's part of the growth mindset, right? At 52, you take up surfing, by the time you're 62, I guarantee you you'll be very good. Now's the time, baby. Don't wait till you're 60.

I'm doing it. I'm gonna come out there, I'm gonna. I'm gonna take you up.

Okay? And if I can't help you, certainly Madison, because she's a very good surfer. So that's James Ree. It's a very interesting story. Be sure to check out his book, Red Helicopter. I want to thank the Remarkable People team. If you think this podcast sounds good, it's because of Shannon Hernandez and Jeff C. Sound design mavens, and my producer, Matazan Knysemer, who is also the co author of Think Remarkable. There's Tessa Knysmer, who's our researcher, and then there's Louise Magana, Alexis Nishimura and Fallon Yates. Until next time, mahalo and aloha. And I hope that you read our book, Think Remarkable, because I guarantee you it will help you make a difference and be remarkable. This is remarkable people.