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Interview with Les Brown Hugh: Hi, this is Hugh Ballou again, and this is a very special episode of The Nonprofit Exchange. I have over here my good friend, Les Brown. And Les is going to share with you this movement that he has initiated. Over here, my new friend Tamara Hartley. Les? Les: Yes? Hugh: We have been capturing ideas on the storyboards about this project that you have got in mind. Tell people what this project is. Les: It’s a project that is designed to make a greater impact on people on the general population and helping people to develop the tools, mindset, skillset, and collaborative, achievement-driven relationships that will allow them to create the greatest version of themselves. This is the era that the late Peter Drucker calls the Era of the 3 C’s: accelerated Change, overwhelming Complexity, and then Competition. With all the changes taking place with technology—according to the Department of Labor, over 20,000 people are losing their jobs every day, and 50% of the jobs that now exist can be done by robots—when we look at the advance of artificial intelligence and cheap labor abroad, people literally are now in an entrepreneur’s era, and they have to begin to expand their skillset so they will be able to handle what is required to be in this global economy where accelerated change is taking place. Hugh: It is so true. You see it happening every day. Les: Yes. Hugh: Every day, there is massive changes. You have a special passion for those people who are incarcerated and continue to be incarcerated. Talk about that. Les: We incarcerate more people in America than anyplace else in the world. We are making people bitter rather than better. I believe that we have to develop a higher level of consciousness on how we deal with people that have made some bad choices. My goal is, to people that are incarcerated, if prisons will allow me, to have my programs in the prison that will change their mindset, teach them how to become an effective communicator, how to develop positive, collaborative, achievement-driven, supportive relationships, how to earn money online as entrepreneurs, and how to dress like a prospect rather than a suspect. Hugh: A prospect rather than a suspect. Les: Yes, because the truth is, when people get a criminal background, they are not going to get any jobs. If they do, those jobs won’t pay much money. These individuals are not going to starve to death. They are going to find a way to feed themselves. As a result, that is why the recidivism rate is over 80%. If you had a factory that was producing products, and 80% of the products came back defective, you wouldn’t continue to use that process. There has been a slight change in how we are dealing with people that have made some bad choices in our society. Rather than throwing money at caging them, they are now looking at the possibility of helping them to learn how to read because over 76% of them are functional illiterates, giving them the skillset and giving them some support to help them to be reintegrated into society. If you go to jail, you can’t stay in public housing. If you apply for a job, you have to put down that you have a criminal background. Most employers will say, “We’ll call you. Don’t call us.” They are penalized throughout their lives, even after they have paid their debt to society. That’s not fair. My mother was once incarcerated. She sold home brew and moonshine and wrote numbers when she could no longer work at the M&M cafeteria. That was a tough time. I became a man at ten years old as a result of that. Seven children in a house that no longer had the guardian, the person who took care of us. She adopted seven of us. She said that she made a commitment when she did that that we would never go to bed hungry, and we did not. We would always have a roof over our head, and we did have that. That was a gaff in our lives that was very painful and challenging. There are a lot of good people who made some bad choices, and I believe the world consists of the caught and the uncaught. I have made some bad decisions in my life. I did some stupid things when I was younger. Thank God I didn’t get caught. I believe that God was looking out for me because when I go to the bathroom, I leave the door open a crack. I do it all the time. What did Retta say? If you can’t do the time, don’t commit the crime. Hugh: Les Brown, you have this magical ability to put concepts into powerful words and to communicate it to people. I have been in groups that have just been so excited. I know that people write you and people speak to you about how you have inspired them. Something you said, and the content you gave them, gave them substance to get them out of where they were. It’s a mind shift, isn’t it? Les: No question. To put it in another context, you are expanding their vision of themselves. When people are going through a tough time, they have a tendency to expand and exaggerate the circumstances they are going through. When I speak, my goal is to expand your vision of yourself, to begin to see that there is greatness in you, that you are greater than your circumstances. You are better than anything you are going through now or in the future. You have to affirm to yourself. I have dealt with cancer on a regular basis for 21 years. My affirmation is: “This will not get the best of me.” I have to say this to myself, “I refuse to allow this to live in my life. I am stronger than this.” We have to, I believe, program ourselves and talk to ourselves to get through the stuff we are dealing with because things are going to happen to us. Forrest Gump is right, “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get.” Greater is He that is in us and the He that is in the world as a presence. There is a power that we all have within ourselves that we have not been trained how to access so that we can rise above what we are going through and live our lives from the inside out rather than living our lives from the outside in. You have to discipline yourself not to get caught up and buy into what I call the weapons of mass distractions. There are so many things that will distract you and tell you that you can’t handle this or deal with this. You have to harness your will. You have to say to yourself, “I am going to get through this.” When life has been kicking my butt, no matter how bad it is, I have an affirmation, “I am going to make it.” When I say that, I think about my mother because she went through some tough times, raising seven children that she didn’t give birth to. She had a third grade education, was a domestic worker, and had arthritis. She would say, “Arthur is bothering me.” I would ask her, “Mama, who is Arthur? You are always talking about Arthur.” She said, “Don’t worry. If you live long enough, you’ll find out.” I have Arthur in my right butt. In my behind. You know what I mean? On the right side. I was at a church service, and this lady was a healer. So I decided to get in line. She asked, “Can I help you?” I said, “Well, just touch me at the top of my head, and the healing power will go through my whole body.” She said, “I want direct impact.” I said, “Well, I have prostate cancer, and I have arthritis in my right butt.” She said, “Touching means the same.” She was not going to touch me in the groin. Hugh: Oh my. Les: This is real, I’m telling you. She gave me some prayer cards, which I still have in my underwear right now. I was going back and forth on the stage. I saw people laughing and looking past me. This was in Detroit. I asked, “What are you laughing at?” These prayer cards that I had paid $3 for had slipped out of my pants, and I had a line of prayer cards going across the stage. I said, “You all can laugh if you want.” I picked them up and put them right in my underwear. 21 years of kicking cancer’s butt. Hugh: Your whole life is changing the paradigm because of your determination and your vision for yourself. Les: Yes. Hugh: We are in Cleveland, Ohio. We spent a chunk of yesterday letting you download your vision. This is a foundation that you are starting, but it’s bigger than that. It’s more like a movement. You are talking about 80% return to prison. That is a crisis. Les: Yes. Hugh: And you’re doing something about it. This is an official notice. We haven’t named it, but you are launching the Les Brown Foundation that provides support. You are going to invite people to participate in this movement with you. We are in this room in Ohio, and we have had some really powerful conversations. This is a huge vision, Les. I have worked with charities for 31 years. This is the top of the heap. This is powerful. Why am I here, and why is Tamara here? Les: The two of you have a skillset that I don’t have. You are very knowledgeable and experienced in this area of how to set up a nonprofit, along with Sherita Herring. Part of what I want to do, two people that I know who have integrity and experience and the skillset and other relationships that I don’t have, and that can teach me. I have asked for help, not because I am weak, but because I want to remain strong. Ask for help, but don’t stop until you get it. I could have gone on to set up a nonprofit; a lot of people do that. But I wanted to do it in the right way. I wanted to have a system and a level of transparency. When people contribute to the work that we are going to be doing, they will know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the money is going where we said it will go. I believe that when you are going to do something of this magnitude, you need people in your corner that can help you do that, that know things that you don’t know, and can set it up the right way so you can accelerate your level of success. You and Tamara are two individuals I strongly believe in. I met you at CEO Space. When we look at putting something together that will outlast you—to me, greatness is living your life in such a way that the things that you create, as one Russian author said, will not be undone or destroyed after you’re gone. We are only here for a limited amount of time. I had a plan of doing an event with Wayne Dyer, and we talked about doing a PBS Special. We put it off for several months. He finally called me and said, “I am coming to Orlando. Let’s get together and do this PBS special.” Two days later, he had a massive heart attack. We have to seize the moment. I am 72. I look much younger because I don’t believe in gray hair. There is no shade in my gait. I travel around with mascara in my pocket. If any gray hair comes out, I will touch it up in a heartbeat. The only three gray hairs that show up are in my eyelashes because I haven’t figured out how to do that yet. But I’m thinking about working on getting me some Mary Kay and hooking this stuff up. My goal now is about leaving a legacy. What will be different because I came this way? I have been thinking about that as a 21-year cancer conqueror, because of God’s grace and mercy. My goal is to live a life that they could say, This guy, because of his passion and his commitment to help transform people’s lives, like somebody transformed his life, he made an impact. There are people as a result of going through his training or hearing him speak that they were never the same as a result of being in his presence. I want to make my life mean something. Most people after they die, about two or three weeks later, because their lives were so inconsequential, they just worked a job, paid the bills, and took care of the family. One day, they were out of here. I don’t want it like that. I remember talking to my daughter on the telephone, and she said, “Dad, I am here in traffic, and there is a policeman on a motorcycle in the middle of the road. He is obviously stopping traffic for a funeral procession to come by.” I said, “Okay.” She said, “I think I’m going to be here a minute.” All of a sudden, she said, “Whoa, wow.” I said, “What’s wrong?” She said, “Nothing’s wrong. A hearse just went through. Only one car was behind it. When I die, Dad, I want, because of how I live my life, there to be a long procession of cars and people coming out to celebrate my life, that I was here in the difference I made for them.” I said, “I understand that.” That is what I want. When I go, people will come out to celebrate my life because I did some good stuff. As evil prevails, a lot of good men and women do nothing. There is a lot of good that all of us can do. But one of the things that I think about often, a lady that flew over from Australia for me to train her in speaking, I asked her, “Why did you select me? There are a lot of people all over the world.” She said, “I saw you on YouTube speaking in the Georgia Dome, and you speak from your heart. Therefore, I want to learn how to speak from the heart as well.” I said, “I can teach you how to do that.” Then I stopped and said, “What is your why? What is the reason you want to discover your power voice?” She said, “When I saw Dylann Roof, a young white kid who went to an African-American church and killed nine black people, “I felt there should be another person on his side standing before the judge. He was not born with that level of hatred in him. Somebody was in his ear. Somebody twisted his mind.” Then she paused and said, “I believe the world is as it is not because a few people are violent. I believe the world is as it is because too many people are silent.” When she said that, that really grabbed me. That gave me goose bumps. I want my voice and the voices of the people I train to be a chorus to create a different kind of mindset on the planet. I believe that can be done in our lifetime. Hugh: What we are here to set up is a way for people not only to be at your celebration for your life, but to continue the celebration. In Africa, there is a saying, “When a man dies, they burn his library.” We are not burning your library. We are building it up. Les: In fact, put them in my casket with me. I tell my kids, “When I die, don’t let them do anything with me until you come down to the morgue to identify my body. To make sure that I’m gone, put a microphone in my hand. If I don’t sit up and say, ‘You’re gonna be hungry,’ you can say that Dad’s gone.” “How do you know he’s gone? Did you check his pulse?” “No, we put a microphone in his hand and his mouth was still closed.” Hugh: Oh man. You have touched the lives of so many people in person. Like you said, your YouTube and Facebook and videos that are online, people view them. When I say Les Brown to people, they are like, “Oh yeah, I saw that video.” That is one way to live on. But what I have discovered, I have known you for a number of years, and you mentioned CEO Space. I have had to follow you twice on stage. Les: You called me your opening act. Hugh: That’s right. You gave me a high five. I knew you’d either love it or hate it. Les: I thought you were quick on your feet. I saw another speaker, this former mayor of Detroit, Colman Young. He had to speak to a group of cosmetologists, all of these females. As he was coming up on the platform, he tripped and fell. Everybody gasped. When he got himself together and came up to the microphone, he said, “Obviously I have fallen for you.” I said, “You go, boy.” That was awesome. Hugh: In this last day, my appreciation for Les Brown has grown deeper, not only for your ability to recall tons of profound quotes that are relevant to what we are talking about, but also the depth of your knowledge, perception, and experience. You know what you’re talking about, and you have paid the price. I knew that. Now I really know that. I always believed it. I know because I had to follow you that you made me a better me. The first time you talked and left, and I had to come speak an hour or so later, I was getting dressed, and I was trembling. You had this group going, man. They cooled off and came back and were like, “Who is Hugh Ballou?” I looked in the mirror and I said to…
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