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CEO of Homeboy Industries - Tom Vozzo
303 Plays3 years ago
Thomas Vozzo is a transformational leader, author, executive and changemaker. Today as the CEO of Homeboy Industries Tom leads his team into embracing and championing core values of kinship, empathy and social justice.
In this episode we discuss...
- His transition from Executive to CEO of Homeboy
- Spirituality
- What "Breaking The Rules" mean
- Having meaning in what he does outside wealth status
- Life at Homeboy Industries
- His book "The Homeboy Way"
Tom's book "The Homeboy Way" outlines an innovative and spiritually-driven path to a new bottom line. Leading with heart, authenticity and purpose, Tom shares invauluable business experience inculding 55 rules to break, bringing the Homeboy Way of life as the perfect antidote to the massive tidal currents of social injustice and inequalities in the workplace.
You can purchase "The Homeboy Way" on Amazon. Follow Homeboy Industries on instagram @HomeboyIndustries.
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Transcript
Introduction to Homeboy Industries and Tom Bozo
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Bigger Talks, Bigger Talks.
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Welcome back.
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We have another episode and this one is gonna be a really good one because it's about the homeboy way, but it's more about the CEO of Homeboy Industries, Tom Bozo.
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TV, he don't know, I just gave him that nickname, but Tom Bozo is in
Tom Bozo's Journey to Homeboy Industries
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the building.
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He's the CEO of Homeboy Industry.
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He's a philanthropist.
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He's a business guy.
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He's very intelligent, very spiritual, come to find out.
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And he's gonna share the homeboy way, his life,
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what he's been through, and what is it like to be where he's at today in his livelihood.
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So Tom, welcome to the Bigger Talks podcast.
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Glad to have you.
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Thank you, Eric.
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Good to be here.
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Yes, yes, yes, yes.
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How's your day?
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How's it going?
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Oh, it's going pretty well.
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I got up to my morning exercise, and now I'm ready to kind of put my brain to work.
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Yes.
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So to the people listening, because, you know, I think what happens in the world, it's easy to just go type a person's name in Google with the bio or the stats are like, who is Tom and where did you come from and how did you get into becoming who you are today?
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It gives a quick synopsis and we can get into the details of it.
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Yeah, so there's a lot behind all that, like everybody's story.
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But for me, I view myself as a committed, I still am a committed capitalist.
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26 years, I worked in the for-profit sector of our economy.
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I ran a $1.8 billion set of businesses, lots of employees, public company, private company, went public again.
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I understand what Wall Street's about.
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But then I sort of saw something lacking in what was really motivating me to keep going.
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And now I have this second chapter of
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of my life, of my career, and now I'm running
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a nonprofit organization, Homeboy Industries, we help former felons and gang members change their life around.
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And I've been doing that for 10 years, and I have learned so much more about being a homeboy than all my other years combined.
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And for me, it's very interesting to contrast
Corporate Experience and Transition to Nonprofit Work
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the two.
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So when you ask me what I am, sometimes I think of myself as a corporate executive, but other times I think of myself as a guy who's sort of in a community of people who are looking to change your life forward, which
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has helped me understand my own spiritual journey as well.
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And it's beautiful that you put it that way, because, you know, the 26 years of business experience, you know, because you get people who want to be entrepreneurs, like, oh, yeah, I just want to jump in.
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And it's like, oh, it takes time.
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It takes effort.
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It takes, you know, volume and experience.
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But for you, because we know we live in a world where everything is the material realm, the
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material currency and be successful in business.
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Who was your inspiration to be in business the way you are to have big businesses?
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And would did your relationship start with entrepreneurship or being successful?
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Or did you have someone who you looked up to as a child?
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Yeah, look, I grew up in New Jersey.
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My brother and I were essentially first-generation college graduates.
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My parents did not go to college.
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They worked two jobs to get us into college.
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And I realized I wanted to do well because I knew my parents were borrowing money to get me there.
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And so, but I had this natural affinity.
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I understand I had natural affinity for businesses.
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A little bit motivates me.
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I say it may come out bad, but I just hated being poor.
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I hated not having money to do things.
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You love money.
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Yeah, like you wanted money.
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No, we love that.
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I just wanted to kind of go forward.
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And so I'm like the type of guy who like, give me the rules of the game.
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I'm going to work really hard within those rules
Societal Impact of Business Ventures
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to succeed.
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And so I came out of graduate school.
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I started at entry level in a business.
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And I just kind of went up the corporate ladder.
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And eventually, as I said, ran a business with 18,000 employees and
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and really live that life of a corporate executive, it's private jets, Wall Street meetings, all that stuff, right?
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So that's what motivated me to be, because I love business.
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I think, listen, I want to be very clear, well-run companies are good for our society.
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Say that again, please.
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Oh, say that again.
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And sometimes it doesn't get enough credit, but like there are a lot of well-run companies out there.
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Well-run companies are good for our society because in my mind, what's the hallmark of a well-run company?
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Three things, three clear things.
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One is that it competes effectively in the marketplace.
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It does well for its shareholders.
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Secondly, it has products and services that people want to spend money on.
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You're not forcing people to buy from you, but if you have a good enough product, they'll buy from you, right?
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The third is very importantly,
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it's a great place to work for its employees, that their life dreams have come true.
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And so a well-run company has those three things in balance in that it creates quality jobs where people can move their life forward.
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Now, the businesses I was at, we had a lot of first-generation Americans as frontline employees.
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And so they worked really hard, just like my folks did, and they
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They worked hard to get their kids to go to the next generation to go to college.
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And that's sort of the aspect of a well-run company.
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What's good for our society is that it creates jobs, it creates a structure, and it's a much better environment all around.
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And it works, right?
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Like, if it works, it works because you believe
Joining Homeboy Industries
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it works.
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But you said a few things that I took heed to is that, one, you said when you were young, you didn't like being poor.
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Okay.
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That's one that stood out.
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Then you said, it wasn't that you value money.
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You wanted money.
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You just had a better relationship with money because you love business.
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So to people listening, you know, when you have a better relationship with things, usually that relationship with you is better.
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Right.
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So because of your, your, your, your technique or your gift in business, you were able to scale and do numbers and be well, but also provide opportunities.
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That's what people forget.
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about creating a product that can have 18,000 employees and people who are well taken care of.
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So I always like to harp on those things because I think there is a misconception in the public about big businesses, about money and these things, and it's not what people think it is.
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That connotation sometimes is bad because then people create this ideology that's false about people who are in a C-suite, right, who are owners, who have money, they work for it.
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but also because their intentions and attitude about it was different.
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So I'm glad that you said that and you shared that with the audience because people need to know that.
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And I appreciate you kind of like echoing that and putting positive efforts behind it because I really do believe well-run business are good for our society.
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But in this last chapter, this chapter of my career, I've kind of like looking back, there was something that always still bothered me about even my corporate job in that, well, I try to say everything is in balance, but there are often sometimes when push comes to shove, shareholder wins out over employee.
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And that sort of, I think, is a fatal flaw of our U.S. capitalist system.
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And so I've been trying to, so back in 2008, you're young, but 2008 was a great recession, right?
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Not because of a pandemic, just because the economy imploded.
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And I had this sort of seminal moment for me, whereas I was running my businesses.
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In that first year of the recession, we're still going to make a lot of money.
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And the chairman of the corporation called me up and said, Tom, you need to get back to the original plant because we committed to Wall Street.
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What profit numbers are we going to deliver?
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And I was within 5% of that number.
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And he said, nope, not good enough.
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And I knew to do another round of layoffs.
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I'm now laying off people who dedicated their life to the company
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People probably couldn't get another job anywhere else.
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And I'm thinking to myself, I'm doing this because, well, I know once the recession's over, I'm going to need those people back.
00:07:40
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So I'm affecting these people live just so we can brag to Wall Street that we were the best at financial acumen and delivering the results.
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And I also know that 5% missed, it wasn't going to have a hill of beans difference to our long-term valuation.
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So I'm thinking, cool.
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when push comes to shove, employees got put second.
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And so from there, I said to my, something in my brain said, look, there's gotta be a better way where you can balance off employees as equally as shareholders and move this forward.
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And quickly fast forward, lo and behold, I show up at Homeboy Industries, I can tell you how I got there in a bit, but I show up at Homeboy Industries and here's, I'm sitting there in the Homegirl Cafe for the first time having lunch and with a friend of mine,
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and I already left my corporate life behind and I'm having lunch and I'm realizing here's a group of employees that are working hard, enjoying themselves.
00:08:33
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And I'm realizing back in my old world, I would never hire them.
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Cause you know, not only do they have felonies, but they have tattoos on their face.
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I mean, just don't fit the profile of what we would have hired.
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And yet here's this workforce doing pretty well.
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And so when I, when they asked me to get involved with Homeboy, I realized, well, wait a minute, maybe in the context of a job,
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here's a homeboy helping people dramatically change their life for us.
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And maybe that's the way of actually having employees be more important than actually the business results of a company.
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And lo and behold, I joined Homeboy and it turned out to be totally true in that here we have in the Homeboy approach is that it's about people first, right?
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And I'm telling you, we run six social enterprise businesses.
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They are as effective and as good a workforce as anywhere else.
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And the only difference is that Homeboy gave them a chance and helped them heal from their trauma, incarceration in their earlier life and move them forward.
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So there's a lot to be learned at Homeboy, but I just want to say why I wrote the book and why I'm talking to a lot of folks is that our business community can do better and should do better and change a little bit their attitude and still be able to perform in the marketplace.
00:09:43
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Yeah, because it's a thing in the world is that we go off what something looks like or what we think it should be and then realize it doesn't feel the way it looks, right?
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Like you can have the nice things, you can have the money, you can have the nice body, but if you don't feel the way it looks, it's like, what is it all for?
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In my experience in life, it's great to have success, but what does it mean if I can't share with the people I love and care about or pass the baton, right?
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Share the information, share my experiences, write books, right?
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Like the homeboy way,
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a radical approach to business and life.
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This is a great book for someone to get a deeper perspective, what someone like you as a CEO, as a business and entrepreneur went from to who you are now.
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And I think it changes the perspective of how you develop and how you got there.
00:10:27
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So let's talk about when did you come into Homeboys and how did that connection happen?
00:10:34
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Yeah, so a friend of mine, it was about 10 years ago, a friend of mine, I serve on the board of Salvation Army of Los Angeles.
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A fellow board member there is also on the board of Homeboy.
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And he invited me to lunch at the Homegirl Cafe.
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And I will say, here's Homegirl Cafe.
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It's a Zagat-rated business.
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There's only seven other restaurants in downtown Los Angeles with as high as a rating and it's fully run by former gang members and people with felonies.
00:11:02
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So I just wanna say that on its own, this stands like we deliver a good product and it's a good workforce.
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So I'm having lunch with my friend.
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And at that time, Homeboy, it's a nonprofit organization.
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It was going through a financial crunch.
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And Father Greg Boyle, the founder, was out on the road speaking quite a bit on behalf of the organization, raising awareness.
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And yet the board
Spiritual Growth and Community Impact
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thought that they saw a crunch coming.
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And there was a consultant in place.
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And the consultant said, hey, Tom's having lunch over here.
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Why don't you see if we can get Tom involved?
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And so the board member asked me to get involved as a board member, but I hadn't done enough board work.
00:11:45
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Something beyond thought about like, look, I got all these business skills.
00:11:48
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Is there a way of using business skills to help people who are struggling?
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And so the values of the organization met up.
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I started as a volunteer helping the businesses, the social enterprise businesses get a little better.
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A couple of months later, probably Greg asked me to be CEO
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never thought I would be in charge of anything again.
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I didn't want to work full-time again, but yet I couldn't pass up the opportunity to be in the orb of Father Greg.
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He's amazing living saint.
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He's pretty amazing sort of how he has lived his life very authentically, and he puts everything in front of shining a light on his goodness of everybody.
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So I said yes, I'd do this for a little bit of time, and
00:12:29
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Look, I had all the hubris of a corporate CEO thinking, look, I can do this for six months to a year.
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I'll come in, fix things up and move off and do something different.
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And here I am 10 years later, just loving what I do and feeling like this has been so powerful for me.
00:12:45
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Yeah, and I think, you know, I don't know what your religion or your beliefs are, but, you know, to me, you know, God, the universe, the creator, I feel like gave you this gift of business, right?
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To know how to run business, to scale business, to be successful.
00:12:58
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But that was the bait to do what you're doing today, which is your more purposeful, meaningful life.
00:13:03
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And so you said two things.
00:13:04
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The first one was,
00:13:05
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when you were at a company, 2008, there was an opportunity where I guess you'd go public and with the shareholders and we're laying people off or we can impress Wall Street or whatever.
00:13:16
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And so that was a moment in your life.
00:13:18
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And then you said, I had all these business skills.
00:13:20
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How can I put these to use?
00:13:22
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So I wanna know personally, in those moments,
00:13:27
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Like where did that inclination, that epiphany or that thought come from?
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Was it where your spiritual journey started or have you always been spiritual?
00:13:36
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Did your wife tell you?
00:13:37
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Like how did that even come to mind to even think that way or you just was, you woke up one day and like, I wanna do this.
00:13:43
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Cause those are profound moments that were turning points in who you are and in your career.
00:13:47
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I think there's a phenomenon.
00:13:50
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Yeah, there's a couple of ways I wanna answer that question.
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First is,
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Look, in retrospect, I see how it all got pieced together, but at the time it wasn't so obvious, right?
00:14:04
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And so, listen, I left my corporate world behind.
00:14:06
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I had this yearning to think, how can business be done differently?
00:14:09
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I always admired family-run businesses because they're multi-generational.
00:14:13
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They think about the longer term.
00:14:17
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But then part of me, growing up, I grew up Catholic, but I was very light in my spirituality and understanding I wasn't a Bible reader, it wasn't any of those things.
00:14:30
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And yet, obviously, I invite all listeners to come visit us at Homeboy.
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You walk through the doors, you feel a vibe, you feel an energy.
00:14:38
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It's pretty great.
00:14:38
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And so even at that first day at that Homegirl Cafe, you can feel that energy.
00:14:43
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You feel like saying, oh, I want to get involved and see what this is about.
00:14:48
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And so I would come there the first several, obviously, weeks and months.
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And we start each day with a morning meeting where there's a thought of the day and announcements and all.
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And
00:15:00
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And while Homeboy is not a religious organization, we're a nonprofit, but we're, as Father Greg would say, we're soaked in spirituality.
00:15:07
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And then when I started seeing our homies, our clients, talk about how they've transformed their life and they found their own spiritualness, I started thinking, well, geez, if they can find it, well, maybe I should dig a little bit deeper and start trying to lean in as well.
00:15:22
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And listen, listen to the other thing I want to say.
00:15:25
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Here's a guy, a guy, 26 years in corporate world.
00:15:28
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Give me the rules, I'm gonna live by the rules.
00:15:29
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So, you know, like, you know, you get all this HR training, you kind of get like, you get everything drummed out of you.
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You know, you can't hug people, you've got to worry about what you say to people and, you know,
00:15:40
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all those things.
00:15:42
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And you never talk about God or religion in the business setting.
00:15:45
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I mean, you can almost push the boundary and talk about anything else.
00:15:48
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But once you start bringing in your own religion, then it's like, whoa, stay clear.
00:15:53
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And so then I contrast that to it is so deep at homeboy about how people talk about their own.
00:15:59
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It's not the same religion we're talking about.
00:16:01
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It's their God, the way they want to pray.
00:16:04
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And they talk about what they found
00:16:07
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their spiritual journeys, starting me saying, cheering inside saying, yes, this is what it should be about.
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People should feel free to express themselves.
00:16:16
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And so that sort of, it's actually not obviously Father Greg has sort of has terrific wisdom, but as equally as the clients who are changing our life, because listen, they've all been victims of conflict trauma, horrific trauma.
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They join a gang and think it's gonna be their family, false narrative.
00:16:36
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They go into prison.
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They come out of prison.
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They're tired of their life.
00:16:40
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Right.
00:16:40
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And they really change their life around once they learn to start loving themselves.
00:16:46
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Yeah.
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And they can only start learning and loving themselves once they learn that God loves them.
00:16:51
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And you put those two things together.
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That's how they move it forward.
00:16:55
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And so to me, I can say that so clearly now, but early on, I can see myself witnessing it again, but not really kind of connecting at all until time goes by.
00:17:07
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Yeah, I mean, that's beautiful.
00:17:09
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Because in order for, I always say, in order to be
00:17:13
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In order to be free, I must be me.
00:17:15
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And I think at Homeboy Industries, I don't think I know people feel more free than they can be themselves.
00:17:19
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They're not judged.
00:17:20
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They're not criticized for their past mistakes or their felonies.
00:17:23
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And it's like, come here.
00:17:25
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We're going to welcome you in open arms.
00:17:26
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We're going to give you agape love, unconditional love.
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And we're going to bring you in.
00:17:31
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And I think when people feel accepted by people they don't know, but they feel compelled to move, they feel free.
00:17:38
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So it's just a beautiful thing.
00:17:39
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You're right on.
00:17:40
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Yeah.
00:17:41
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You know, doing that homeboy.
00:17:42
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Yeah, I mean, right on.
00:17:42
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And that's the thing.
00:17:44
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We all grew up learning, right?
00:17:46
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But it's hard to implement.
00:17:47
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But you walk through the doors of homeboy, and it's like you see it right there.
00:17:51
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Yeah.
00:17:51
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And you see it right in front of you.
00:17:53
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That's what makes it so special.
00:17:54
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That's a great statement.
00:17:55
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Why do you think we all grew up learning, but why do you think it's hard to implement?
00:17:59
Speaker
Like, what is that?
00:18:00
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What do you think causes that second part to execute and implement or apply what we know we've been through?
00:18:06
Speaker
Well, I think in some ways it's the business culture sort of drums that out, that we're worried about, how do I say it?
00:18:19
Speaker
We're worried in the business world, worried about being fixed.
00:18:22
Speaker
fair and equal to everybody.
00:18:24
Speaker
And so you don't wanna sort of lean on one religion versus another.
00:18:27
Speaker
But I think what's so interesting about it at Homeboy, it's like we're fair and equal and equitable to everybody.
00:18:33
Speaker
And yet everybody has the freedom to express it the way they wanna express it.
00:18:38
Speaker
And so it kind of, it's the oddest thing that it actually works when you actually become freer and we're willing to talk about your faith versus trying to squash it in a certain environment.
Expansion and Influence of Homeboy Industries
00:18:51
Speaker
And that's good, you know, because everybody deserves to be heard, felt, and seen.
00:18:54
Speaker
And when you have a space and a place like Homeboy Industry, we can do that.
00:18:59
Speaker
You know, I think people listening want to know, like, I was, I want to say a great thanks to Melanie.
00:19:06
Speaker
I was telling her, I said, do they have a Homeboy in like every city?
00:19:08
Speaker
That would be pretty awesome.
00:19:10
Speaker
Like in Baltimore, I'm from Baltimore.
00:19:11
Speaker
I think we need a Homeboy Industries in Baltimore.
00:19:14
Speaker
It's tough out there.
00:19:15
Speaker
It's challenging.
00:19:16
Speaker
Philadelphia, we spoke on that.
00:19:18
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:19:19
Speaker
My question is, we got the book, The Homeboy Way.
00:19:22
Speaker
First of all, homeboy industries.
00:19:24
Speaker
Where did the title, the name of the company come from?
00:19:29
Speaker
You said, it's Dr. Gregg, right?
00:19:31
Speaker
It's the founder?
00:19:32
Speaker
Father Gregg.
00:19:35
Speaker
Yeah, let me give you a quick thing on the founding.
00:19:39
Speaker
So Father Greg Boyle, Jesuit priest, his first station as a parish priest was in early 1990s, actually late 80s, at Dolores Mission, which is the poorest parish in the whole archdiocese of Los Angeles, happened to be the epicenter of gang violence.
00:19:58
Speaker
And clearly LA in the late 80s, 90s was the epicenter of the country for gang violence.
00:20:03
Speaker
You know, there's over 200 different gangs in the county of Los Angeles, over 200,000 gang members in the county of Los Angeles.
00:20:11
Speaker
And so as Greg was a parish priest walking the streets, seeing these young men die and go into gangs and gang crime, and he wanted to come up with something to get them out of gang life.
00:20:22
Speaker
And he hit upon a simple notion that makes so much sense.
00:20:26
Speaker
If you can get them a job so they can make enough money for food and shelter,
00:20:31
Speaker
They're not even go running with the gang for food and shelter, make money for food and shelter.
00:20:35
Speaker
And so it began as a little bit of a jobs program, realizing that's sort of hard.
00:20:40
Speaker
Then it eventually became, we had opened up its first business was a bakery.
00:20:44
Speaker
And so they started baking bread.
00:20:46
Speaker
And there's nothing better than having, today we have our bakery.
00:20:50
Speaker
It's artisan bakery, handmade.
00:20:51
Speaker
It's nothing better than having rival gang members, rival gang members standing shoulder to shoulder, rolling dough.
00:20:57
Speaker
Fundamentally, Greg says, you can't demonize somebody you're in relationship with, and these guys have to make the dough and get a certain amount of bread done in a day.
00:21:06
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:21:06
Speaker
Right?
00:21:07
Speaker
And that breaks down the barriers, right?
00:21:09
Speaker
And so it's not, we deal with gang members, not gangs.
00:21:12
Speaker
And so,
00:21:13
Speaker
So one business led to another, and then someone had the idea.
00:21:17
Speaker
It was always called homeboy.
00:21:17
Speaker
Hey, let's call it homeboy industry.
00:21:19
Speaker
So while it's like a business type of name, we're a human services organization helping 8,000 people get out of gang life every year.
00:21:27
Speaker
And so now we have six or seven social enterprise businesses, which is an important aspect of our program.
00:21:33
Speaker
But more, it's about we do a bunch of reentry services when people leave the prison system.
00:21:38
Speaker
how to reenter back in society.
00:21:40
Speaker
We have all the services of, we have the case management, mental health services.
00:21:47
Speaker
We take off 12,000 tattoos a year.
00:21:49
Speaker
We remove tattoos.
00:21:50
Speaker
We have a charter high school.
00:21:52
Speaker
We have anger management classes, AA, NA.
00:21:54
Speaker
I mean, all that you have to kind of work on to heal from the trauma.
00:21:58
Speaker
So you can be resilient enough to take on what society throws at you.
00:22:01
Speaker
So businesses are important aspect in terms of pride structure, someone's day, but most of the day they're also working on themselves.
00:22:09
Speaker
And I think the biggest takeaway for me in that, you know, instance, which you were speaking was that I think it's not enough to reverse psychology.
00:22:17
Speaker
And I'll be versus psychology is kind of like, you know, you hear the thing that you said corporate America, they wouldn't even allow like religion in or certain things you couldn't do.
00:22:24
Speaker
You couldn't hug people.
00:22:25
Speaker
Right.
00:22:25
Speaker
Then there's something when you got code switching right when you switch your lingo so when you think of homeboy i'm from baltimore but when I came to la.
00:22:33
Speaker
Always people would say what up homie so it's actually.
00:22:38
Speaker
A phenomenal way to connect to people who understand the language, and I think most times people don't understand how slang language dialect matters in certain.
00:22:48
Speaker
cultures and spaces and it helps right because if you're not speaking someone language why would they listen to you so i think with father greg and you guys done for homeboy industry and the people that come there you make them feel comfortable because you're relatable and i think that's what life is about relating like you've been to the highest of highest in a wealth you know regime and it's like great but you're coming and dealing with people in a different space but you're relating to them so you're finding ways how can i relate to these people how can i help
00:23:17
Speaker
And how can I evolve within this?
00:23:19
Speaker
I know what that other world is like, but when it comes down to it, we're all the same, right?
00:23:24
Speaker
The challenges are different, but the emotions are the same, right?
00:23:27
Speaker
Emotions are the same.
00:23:28
Speaker
Let me add two things to what you said.
00:23:31
Speaker
You're exactly right.
00:23:32
Speaker
That's why the beauty of our organization
00:23:36
Speaker
over two thirds of our senior staff are former clients, people lived experience, people walked in those shoes, people who've been in gangs, people who've been incarcerated, who have transformed their life, moved their life forward.
00:23:47
Speaker
And they have all the expressions.
00:23:49
Speaker
I mean, I sometimes feel like I'm just the rube here.
00:23:54
Speaker
Things happen in front of me and like three or four of our guys would say, what just happened?
00:23:58
Speaker
And I said, I didn't see any of that.
00:23:59
Speaker
How did that work?
00:24:00
Speaker
What do you mean by all that?
00:24:01
Speaker
So thankfully, we have folks who've been in that lifestyle, who've changed their life and are great mentors to get the men and women out.
00:24:08
Speaker
The other thing I want to say is we have a global homeboy network where for many years, organizations have come and visited us.
00:24:16
Speaker
This is pre-pandemic.
00:24:18
Speaker
They've come and visited us, and we happily share what we do.
00:24:22
Speaker
and take our model, take our approach, but bring it back to your local community because just as you said, sort of the challenges of the gang issue in Baltimore are different from in LA and different words, different codes, all that stuff.
00:24:34
Speaker
And so it kind of has to grow from within as to having the leaders that understand the local dynamics, but take the homeboy model, which is as simple as love, kinship and compassion and apply that in your local community.
00:24:46
Speaker
So now there's 150 organizations around the country and the world who have modeled themselves
00:24:51
Speaker
after Homeboy.
00:24:51
Speaker
Well, that's interesting because maybe that just answered my question.
00:24:54
Speaker
So as you were speaking, you know, I get epiphanies and things just come up.
00:24:58
Speaker
And I was thinking like, this guy is so successful at building things and selling them or scaling them.
00:25:03
Speaker
I was like, I want to know if it's possible for Tom and Homeboy Industry to build an entire community in that infrastructure with
00:25:11
Speaker
you know, just say like, you know, you have the West Hollywood, you have the Hollywood, you have the Studio City, they have their own community, right?
00:25:17
Speaker
But there's a certain type of people, even in Baltimore.
00:25:19
Speaker
Just imagine, you know, like they got Chinatown, downtown, this is part of LA or anywhere, and that community is fluxed with
00:25:28
Speaker
you know, former felons, but people that come through your doors and you guys train them and you build up.
00:25:33
Speaker
But it's a community, though.
00:25:34
Speaker
Like, it's not just homeboy industry.
00:25:36
Speaker
No, that's right.
00:25:38
Speaker
And then I was like, I know Tom can do that if he was put to the test.
00:25:42
Speaker
But then I was thinking, I want to know, can someone not patent, but a franchise homeboy industries and put them like take you guys's IP.
00:25:52
Speaker
your infrastructure, your standard of procedural operations, however you guys produce what you guys have, and place that, like you just said, within, it has to start, and put those in the cities that need it, you know, over America.
00:26:05
Speaker
Maybe you guys can get funding and do that, but my mind is just always working because I know, coming from a tough environment, what's going on out here and what's happening,
00:26:14
Speaker
If people don't have that infrastructure or that type of structure to go to a place like that, it is the game.
00:26:19
Speaker
Some people go to jail at certain times of the year just to eat and have some place to sleep.
00:26:24
Speaker
You got it.
00:26:26
Speaker
It's amazing.
00:26:27
Speaker
I mean, for sure, it's heartbreaking.
00:26:31
Speaker
And some guys go to jail, they take the rap for somebody else.
00:26:35
Speaker
I mean, it's just...
Healing from Complex Trauma
00:26:38
Speaker
Listen, for the audience here, I just want to say a little bit of gang life.
00:26:43
Speaker
Again, I learned this all at Homeboy.
00:26:44
Speaker
I didn't know this was going into Homeboy.
00:26:45
Speaker
I was just a typical guy not really paying attention.
00:26:49
Speaker
But look, these men and women, mostly men in gangs, they don't think they're going to live past 30 years old.
00:26:55
Speaker
So tougher sentences, sentence reform, that's not going to change.
00:26:59
Speaker
That's not going to stop a guy from doing something pretty violent.
00:27:02
Speaker
I mean, he's violent because he's a victim of complex trauma as well.
00:27:07
Speaker
And so what we've seen is, you know, Homeboys helped a lot of people, thousands and thousands of people through the years.
00:27:13
Speaker
But in this pandemic, in that first two years of the pandemic, all of a sudden this sense of hopelessness was very pervasive out in our society, which then increased the lack of hopelessness for the folks we serve, you know.
00:27:26
Speaker
And then thereby that's why there's more violence out there and more crime out there, because there's a sense of hopelessness.
00:27:32
Speaker
And so as a society, we got to get back to getting people hopeful, got to get back to the programs that work.
00:27:38
Speaker
I just want to say that part of this thing, as I write this book and I'm really trying to talk to the business community, let's help people.
00:27:47
Speaker
Now there's only, Homeboy can only help so many people, but I think fundamental theme is
00:27:54
Speaker
Think about back to what we were talking about in terms of well-run companies, jobs help people, right?
00:27:59
Speaker
And so I was a guy who wouldn't hire that population where homeboy serving today.
00:28:05
Speaker
I'm saying the businesses hire that population.
00:28:07
Speaker
The working poor in America have such a hard spot.
00:28:10
Speaker
And to me, it's like there's two Americas, the privileged America that most of us live in, and then there's America of the forgotten and the poor.
00:28:17
Speaker
Poverty rate in America has been the same for 45 years.
00:28:20
Speaker
We have to do something different as society.
00:28:23
Speaker
And in our society, in the way Homeboy does it, they have a proven model of how to help people lift them up from being poor to being into a quality job and moving forward.
00:28:32
Speaker
So I want not only is that you need more homeboy type programs, but you need corporate America, business America to hire the population once they're ready for a job to move forward.
00:28:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:44
Speaker
And I think, you know, it's just, it's so important because there is a big gap.
00:28:48
Speaker
I mean, if you don't know, you don't know, but I've been on all sides, you know, from growing up in Baltimore, having men in my family that were kingpins, you know, being in LA, being on TV and then have clients more wealthy.
00:28:59
Speaker
So I'm able to see all facets of life, classism, perspective, how people think, how people show up, how people pick sides like, oh,
00:29:08
Speaker
I'm from the Jewish community, oh, I'm from a black community, oh, and it's like everyone justified their side, what should I get?
00:29:13
Speaker
But we're all human and we all experience life differently, but it doesn't mean that I can put you down because you don't believe what I believe, we grew up different.
00:29:20
Speaker
And so I was thinking, you said something about complex trauma.
00:29:24
Speaker
Can you elaborate on that?
00:29:25
Speaker
I've never heard that before.
00:29:26
Speaker
That was kind of unique the way you put it, or maybe that's just something you use to kind of like explain what it is for most people that come through your program.
00:29:35
Speaker
Well, listen, no, no, there's definitely, there's a very specific definition of complex trauma.
00:29:41
Speaker
So if any of your listeners are a sort of mental health therapist, I'll get it wrong.
00:29:46
Speaker
But essentially, you know, there's like this sort of scoring system, ACEs scoring system where, you know,
00:29:54
Speaker
Well, let me not, I mean, there's actually a scientific explanation, but the important part is they've never had these young men and women, mine, grow up without a family structure.
00:30:06
Speaker
They're abused as young people, whether they're sexually abused or emotionally abused or bullied, they're beaten, they've told them no good.
00:30:14
Speaker
The parents jump them into the gang.
00:30:17
Speaker
The mother jumps into the gang.
00:30:18
Speaker
The mother and father say, don't go to school in grade five.
00:30:23
Speaker
Go stand on the corner and be the lookout for our drug deal.
00:30:27
Speaker
And then the boy has to watch their mother sort of, you know,
00:30:30
Speaker
Robert B. Overdose on drugs along the way right so there's those are the traumas that people experience like there's stories and stories and so.
00:30:37
Speaker
Robert B. it's not just some of our folks are victims of that type of trauma all of our folks are victims of that trauma at a very young age that's what moves them into a into that.
00:30:49
Speaker
into the gangs.
00:30:50
Speaker
And then there's this whole different trauma that the gang, getting jumped into a gang.
00:30:54
Speaker
I mean, you're getting kicked and beaten and all that, right?
00:30:58
Speaker
And then they go to prison, they do a crime, they go to prison.
00:31:01
Speaker
There's a whole trauma in the whole judicial system and the whole prison system.
00:31:05
Speaker
And then they kind of come out.
00:31:06
Speaker
So you can see how people come out of prison
00:31:09
Speaker
just mad at the world, right?
00:31:12
Speaker
And no one's giving them a chance.
00:31:13
Speaker
They just want a chance along the way.
00:31:16
Speaker
And so how do you help people who've been victims of trauma?
00:31:21
Speaker
In this case, conflict trauma means multiple types of traumas, instances of trauma, is that you have to help them heal.
00:31:28
Speaker
And you heal with positive relationships.
00:31:30
Speaker
And so a lot of what Homeboy is about is building positive relationships, is that there is the theories around
00:31:38
Speaker
healing along the way.
00:31:39
Speaker
And that's a big aspect of it.
00:31:41
Speaker
You know, when I first joined Homeboy, I mean, to put it simply, I was trying to understand what is up with the population and Father Greg said to me, the difference is, him and I and them, is that we had at least one parent who loved us.
00:31:55
Speaker
You can almost say that's so clear.
00:31:58
Speaker
They didn't have somebody who loved them unconditionally.
00:32:01
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:32:02
Speaker
Think about that as a move.
00:32:03
Speaker
I could cry right now because I did suffer as a kid.
00:32:06
Speaker
You know, my family was around, but I also felt emotionally abandoned.
00:32:10
Speaker
Abandoned.
00:32:11
Speaker
So in moments, I became the leader of all my friends because I didn't want my friends to leave me like I felt how my parents did.
00:32:17
Speaker
And they didn't.
00:32:18
Speaker
My mom was 21.
00:32:18
Speaker
My dad was in the streets.
00:32:20
Speaker
He didn't know better.
00:32:21
Speaker
We wasn't poor, but there's circumstances.
00:32:23
Speaker
But I say that to say I had told my manager one day, I said, man, sometimes it's like,
00:32:27
Speaker
All you need is one person just to believe in that's it.
00:32:29
Speaker
Just one person.
00:32:31
Speaker
You get that one person.
00:32:33
Speaker
That's enough to keep going because you know, that person's on the sideline.
00:32:36
Speaker
Like you got it, man, keep going.
00:32:38
Speaker
And I learned that late in life, like, because I was so guarded, like, no, you can't love me, mom.
00:32:43
Speaker
People didn't love me.
00:32:44
Speaker
And people don't understand that pain if they haven't experienced it, but I can relate and know like what you just said.
00:32:50
Speaker
We had, you said you had one person that loved you unconditionally.
00:32:53
Speaker
And that's like,
00:32:54
Speaker
that changes everything and it's important.
00:32:58
Speaker
That's right.
00:32:58
Speaker
And that's what fundamental about our program is when someone walks through our door for the first time, we just go out of our way to say yes and to care for them because that's what they need along the way.
00:33:09
Speaker
And it takes somebody with sort of a stronger constitution.
00:33:13
Speaker
So how do you get, how do you help yourself get through all that, right?
00:33:16
Speaker
I'm sure you have your journey.
00:33:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:21
Speaker
Therapy, energy healing, books.
00:33:23
Speaker
I've read so many books.
00:33:24
Speaker
I've meditated.
00:33:25
Speaker
But the thing is, my anchor was my pain and my, you know, anger.
00:33:30
Speaker
I was so angry of what was happening around me.
00:33:32
Speaker
Like you said, you didn't want to be poor.
00:33:34
Speaker
Like we wasn't poor financially, but the circumstances, people were dying, getting killed, murdered.
00:33:38
Speaker
You even play basketball, you so dope.
00:33:41
Speaker
So it was this thing of,
00:33:43
Speaker
I was angry, like, oh, I want better.
00:33:45
Speaker
I don't want to live like this, right?
00:33:47
Speaker
So my thing was basketball.
00:33:49
Speaker
That was the vehicle.
00:33:50
Speaker
And I always tell parents, don't allow the sport to use your kid.
00:33:54
Speaker
Let the sport take your kid to a place of prosperity.
00:33:58
Speaker
And then from there, I did well in school.
00:34:00
Speaker
So basketball was a vehicle to keep me focused, to get me identity.
Challenging Conventional Business Practices
00:34:04
Speaker
And then school just took me to the next level because I was so curious and educated.
00:34:08
Speaker
I just started reading books and I was like, oh, Tony Robbins or Les Brown, Bob Pratt.
00:34:12
Speaker
Like who are these big time?
00:34:15
Speaker
What do successful people do?
00:34:16
Speaker
And I started studying them, you know, and I was like, thank you, grow rich as a man thinking.
00:34:20
Speaker
I started becoming what I was studying.
00:34:21
Speaker
Then my life started changing.
00:34:23
Speaker
I started attracting new people and new opportunities.
00:34:25
Speaker
So I always tell people information changes situations, you know, you know, because I always share this quote, you know, there's a, uh,
00:34:35
Speaker
about school because in America, we put so much emphasis on having a college degree and having, which is great.
00:34:41
Speaker
I think you should be educated in the field that you're passionate about and that you love.
00:34:45
Speaker
But they say the A student works for the B student.
00:34:50
Speaker
The C student owns the company and the D student owns the land that the company is on.
00:34:57
Speaker
And I always tell people that's a matter of perspective because you do have people who have imposter syndrome, right?
00:35:03
Speaker
Because they don't know that.
00:35:05
Speaker
The world tells us we have to do this and do that to feel like this, but it's actually not true for everybody.
00:35:10
Speaker
So...
00:35:11
Speaker
I just think information in general is important.
00:35:15
Speaker
And you said something and I just want to make sure.
00:35:17
Speaker
So we have a line at homeboy.
00:35:19
Speaker
If you don't transform your pain, you transmit it.
00:35:23
Speaker
And that's the whole key.
00:35:25
Speaker
You transform your pain.
00:35:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:28
Speaker
And everybody all, we all have pain just how we all handle it and move forward.
00:35:33
Speaker
Right.
00:35:33
Speaker
So I appreciate you sort of framing it up that way.
00:35:36
Speaker
My few questions I have left before we talk, I want to talk a little bit detailed about the book.
00:35:41
Speaker
So, so got like 15 minutes, but so the first question is, what was your relationship with struggle growing up?
00:35:48
Speaker
It don't have to be long as it could just be like, whatever comes to mind.
00:35:52
Speaker
You know, that's what's interesting.
00:35:53
Speaker
It's like, I feel like I've lived a charm life.
00:35:55
Speaker
Like I hated, like I said, I hated being poor.
00:35:58
Speaker
My brothers and I, we went to college.
00:36:00
Speaker
But like, compared to the population, I had like no big struggles.
00:36:05
Speaker
Like, I mean, life wasn't easy.
00:36:07
Speaker
You know, we had to work hard and all that stuff.
00:36:08
Speaker
But yeah, listen, I thought I was a big advocate.
00:36:14
Speaker
You know, it's like through my hard work, I did well.
00:36:16
Speaker
I was a big advocate of the American dream, right?
00:36:18
Speaker
But yet I come to learn at homeboy that people who are poor
00:36:21
Speaker
have known real shock at the American dream the way I grew up thinking about it.
00:36:25
Speaker
So it was clearly this different Americas have a different view of the American dream, how to put that forward.
00:36:31
Speaker
But yeah, I grew up with a loving family that worked hard, told me they took loans, got me to college and kind of kept always had that positive reinforcement.
00:36:40
Speaker
You know, life wasn't easy.
00:36:41
Speaker
It was at fallbacks, but it's just kind of moving forward.
00:36:44
Speaker
No, that's great.
00:36:45
Speaker
I mean, I appreciate the transparency because some people, you know, you know, you ask a question and someone just won't give you the answer.
00:36:49
Speaker
That sounds good.
00:36:50
Speaker
I'm glad you didn't do that, but thank you.
00:36:52
Speaker
No, no, it's just, it's just, yeah.
00:36:54
Speaker
What's your definition of pain?
00:36:55
Speaker
Because I know everyone has pain, but everybody sees pain differently.
00:37:00
Speaker
In your mind.
00:37:01
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, to me, to me, right.
00:37:03
Speaker
To me, it's pain.
00:37:06
Speaker
To me, it's more of a sort of a spiritual, conceptual thing.
00:37:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:13
Speaker
an emotion and then by tie with emotional thing right and so the the pain is rejection people rejecting you not agreeing with you not seeing you yeah who you are uh and you know as an older person now it's easier to kind of be well more balanced than that but clearly younger folks in my first i wish i know now but i know now which i know back then in my career right uh along the way but um but pain is not being respected as a person
00:37:40
Speaker
Oh, that's good.
00:37:41
Speaker
I've never heard that.
00:37:41
Speaker
See, you got a new definition, people.
00:37:43
Speaker
Pain is not being respected by a person.
00:37:45
Speaker
That's probably, I hope we, I know we can pick up some of these gems in this book.
00:37:50
Speaker
So how do you deal, personally, how do you deal and overcome hard times or adversity for yourself?
00:37:56
Speaker
Like, what should you go to when you're having tough moments in life?
00:38:00
Speaker
Yeah, this is something I've learned through Homeboy.
00:38:03
Speaker
It's really my spiritual journey, right?
00:38:05
Speaker
And so seeing how these, you know, to me, these guys come out of prison and they actually have depth of faith and depth of spiritual awakening and awareness and so push me forward.
00:38:19
Speaker
So really, for these past several years, I've kind of been on my own spiritual journey within the
00:38:25
Speaker
tradition of the Jesuits and nation spirituality.
00:38:28
Speaker
And so what I've learned is through meditation and through contemplation and through having a spiritual director to kind of humble myself and have the humble before God and ask God for help.
00:38:44
Speaker
And so I don't think I would have ever done that as a younger man.
00:38:48
Speaker
And so it's in that meditation side of just
00:38:52
Speaker
I need help, tell them, show me the way, something to sign and, you know, and through prayer gets me there.
00:38:59
Speaker
And it's, listen, let me pause for a second.
00:39:02
Speaker
Even saying this to you now, I feel like, oh my gosh, I've said too much.
00:39:06
Speaker
In the business world, I'm not allowed to say these things.
00:39:09
Speaker
This is good, man, because people look up to you.
00:39:12
Speaker
People want to be the next time.
00:39:14
Speaker
And, you know, I just think what I'm learning is,
00:39:18
Speaker
And I'll share some personal stuff in my vortex of living and life.
00:39:22
Speaker
You know, God has allowed me to see all walks of life from, I know gang members, I know gang leaders, I know people who really committed crimes and I know them all, but I also know highly successful people, people who do numbers, you know, financially wealthy.
00:39:38
Speaker
So when I'm inside these spaces with these people, I'm realizing like, oh, you know, you might have people on a, on a, on a, on a, on a,
00:39:47
Speaker
the dark side, I would say the dark side, not that it's not dark on the lighter side, but you know what I mean?
00:39:50
Speaker
That have more time getting to where they want to go.
00:39:53
Speaker
They can deal with pain and setbacks and adversity and challenges.
00:39:57
Speaker
They're more resilient, right?
00:39:59
Speaker
So they're able to kind of persevere.
00:40:01
Speaker
They're survivors.
00:40:02
Speaker
They have the survival instinct for sure.
00:40:04
Speaker
And then you have people who have the business and the wealth accumulation and things, but when they deal with pain, it's just like,
00:40:12
Speaker
It's so different.
00:40:13
Speaker
You might think the world is over the way they're responding.
00:40:15
Speaker
So I'm realizing like I came up with this concept of spiritual currency and I think everybody needs it and everybody should, you know, get to it at some point because I think that's what we all need.
00:40:26
Speaker
You can have the money, you can have the car, you can have the job.
00:40:29
Speaker
But even when you don't have as much, I feel like on a low end, in between, the only thing I can count on in tough moments, all high moments, was my spiritual currency, was my faith in God, my belief, meditation, gratitude statements, grounding myself in nature, being thankful for someone to be in my energy, to interview on BiggerTalks platform.
00:40:50
Speaker
I've always wanted a podcast.
00:40:51
Speaker
I've always wanted to write books.
00:40:52
Speaker
I've always wanted to do these great things.
00:40:54
Speaker
I have the ability to do it.
00:40:56
Speaker
I'm thankful.
00:40:57
Speaker
So if things are not going well, I know not to make it like it's the end of the world, but some people who don't have those assets or that understanding, it's a little harder for them.
Transformative Impact and Future Vision
00:41:10
Speaker
Yeah, exactly right.
00:41:11
Speaker
And that's what, so I say this to my spiritual director and other people say, why don't more people understand this?
00:41:16
Speaker
Because sometimes people act like it's the end of the world over like a silly thing that goes wrong.
00:41:20
Speaker
It's like, oh no, people gotta be grounded.
00:41:23
Speaker
I know you're asking questions, but I wanna ask you a question.
00:41:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:25
Speaker
And cause it's interesting.
00:41:27
Speaker
And so you talk about how you've seen guys who you've grown up with, right?
00:41:30
Speaker
Now you see folks on the West side and Hollywood people, right?
00:41:34
Speaker
And I think the middle class and the rich people have a lot of pretences.
00:41:38
Speaker
I think the poor folks in our society are the most authentic and generous people I've ever met.
00:41:46
Speaker
Does that work?
00:41:47
Speaker
Would you agree with that?
00:41:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:48
Speaker
And I will say I became a victim of what I thought I should be.
00:41:54
Speaker
Right.
00:41:54
Speaker
So I play all sides in my life.
00:41:57
Speaker
Right.
00:41:57
Speaker
Because I had to.
00:41:58
Speaker
I grew up in a city where it's tough.
00:42:00
Speaker
So I know how to maneuver in that.
00:42:01
Speaker
I've been on TV.
00:42:02
Speaker
I know the fake Hollywood.
00:42:04
Speaker
Like, you know, no one really cares.
00:42:06
Speaker
But if you're making the money.
00:42:08
Speaker
And then I have wealthy clients where I felt, oh, I have to speak a certain way or I have to code switch, you know, these things.
00:42:14
Speaker
And it's like, no, all you have to do is be your most authentic self, you know, to, to move, even though there's things you have to know and understand and be cordial and professional.
00:42:23
Speaker
But at the end of the day, we all cry.
00:42:26
Speaker
We all go to the bathroom.
00:42:27
Speaker
We all have fears and doubts.
00:42:29
Speaker
Like I said, the challenges are different, but the emotions are the same.
00:42:32
Speaker
And being your most authentic self is the best self.
00:42:34
Speaker
And I believe that is the homeboy way.
00:42:38
Speaker
You got it.
00:42:39
Speaker
Good.
00:42:40
Speaker
Because I want to have a little five, seven minutes about the book because you have something there called Breaking the Rules.
00:42:49
Speaker
And I want to know what does that mean to you when you say breaking the rules?
00:42:52
Speaker
I know what it means to me.
00:42:53
Speaker
To me is that you have to stand on something, right?
00:42:56
Speaker
If my gut and my intuition is telling me not to do something, but I have an authority for telling me to do something, let's just say a teacher or
00:43:03
Speaker
Your mother, my mom, like, I think you should go to that school.
00:43:07
Speaker
But my spirit is like, I need to go to LA.
00:43:09
Speaker
I'm going to stand on my spirit and say, my intuition says go to LA.
00:43:12
Speaker
So in hindsight, maybe I broke the rules of the norm.
00:43:16
Speaker
So what is breaking the rules?
00:43:18
Speaker
Some people can kind of understand that.
00:43:21
Speaker
Yeah, I appreciate that.
00:43:22
Speaker
And so I wrote the book.
00:43:24
Speaker
But really with the thought of I show up a homeboy and 26 years corporate career, very successful, all that stuff.
00:43:30
Speaker
I show up a homeboy and there's so many head turning, head spinning things I'm learning and seeing and being a part of that.
00:43:36
Speaker
It goes against conventional wisdom as to how to help.
00:43:39
Speaker
how we've helped people at homeboy, right?
00:43:41
Speaker
And so I always thought, well, let me write a book there, but I went back to the foreclosal world.
00:43:45
Speaker
What lessons would I take from working with gang members that take me back there, right?
00:43:49
Speaker
Leadership lessons.
00:43:50
Speaker
And that's part of the book.
00:43:51
Speaker
The other part of the book is recognizing there's two Americas, is the America of the poor and the forgotten.
00:43:57
Speaker
We just, society forgets that how to help, how to truly help people who are poor in our society.
00:44:03
Speaker
Then the third aspect of the book is my spiritual journey, how I learned
00:44:08
Speaker
how to take that journey because I view myself as just sort of a typical guy.
00:44:12
Speaker
I never really thought much about it, but now I've learned so much how to help other people learn.
00:44:17
Speaker
And so throughout the book, there's all these stories of homeboy, which is that sort of brings everything alive, the individual stories.
00:44:24
Speaker
All right.
00:44:25
Speaker
But I ended the book by saying there's 55 rules to break.
00:44:27
Speaker
So these are like conventional wisdom things that
00:44:31
Speaker
that we all grow up thinking and you learn in business and rules of what you want to call them, rules of thumb or just sort of just ways people think about stuff.
00:44:39
Speaker
They say, no, we have to not think that way.
00:44:42
Speaker
We need to swim upstream.
00:44:45
Speaker
Don't do the conventional wisdom.
00:44:47
Speaker
So let me do one.
00:44:48
Speaker
Rule number three we should break that people think.
00:44:51
Speaker
People think you just need to work hard to get ahead.
00:44:54
Speaker
Just got to work hard.
00:44:56
Speaker
You all hear it all the time, right?
00:44:58
Speaker
Let's work harder.
00:44:59
Speaker
Well, for us in society to wag our fingers about somebody who is poor and they've come out of being incarcerated for a number of years and they don't know how to work a smartphone or a cell phone, right?
00:45:11
Speaker
And they think, I just work harder at your job.
00:45:13
Speaker
They have so many stresses in their life.
00:45:15
Speaker
They want to work hard, but they have so many other challenges going on.
00:45:18
Speaker
They're going to get evicted because they can't make the rent payments and all these things.
00:45:24
Speaker
Wagging a finger on somebody to work harder is not
00:45:28
Speaker
going to help somebody.
00:45:29
Speaker
So it's like, that's like another rule of thumb, like money doesn't help solve, money doesn't solve problems.
00:45:36
Speaker
Like people who are wealthy say that all the time and money's not going to solve problems.
00:45:41
Speaker
I'm telling you for the foreign world, money solves problems.
00:45:47
Speaker
So stop thinking like you're going to hold back money.
00:45:50
Speaker
until someone does what you want them to do.
00:45:53
Speaker
Just be generous that people come around.
00:45:56
Speaker
It makes a difference.
00:45:57
Speaker
So there's like 55 of those.
00:45:59
Speaker
So you're saying like money does solve problems.
00:46:02
Speaker
People should be more generous and give more of it.
00:46:04
Speaker
You're saying?
00:46:05
Speaker
Yes, right.
00:46:05
Speaker
People who are poor money solves problems.
00:46:09
Speaker
So there's like 55 of those.
00:46:11
Speaker
That's great.
00:46:12
Speaker
I'm trying to bust up the way people think.
00:46:15
Speaker
Yeah, and then, you know, because, you know, coming from a, you know, intense environment like Baltimore, you know, my dad has always told me, at least these last few years, he would say, son, you cannot, he's talking about the world events of like a lot of stuff that's been going on since the pandemic and just in general with divide and disconnect and challenges that we all face.
00:46:34
Speaker
He said, people got to understand that you, you cannot solve a spiritual problem without
00:46:44
Speaker
was a physical reaction.
00:46:47
Speaker
You know what I'm saying?
00:46:49
Speaker
Yeah, sure.
00:46:50
Speaker
Like if you're using physical actions or reactions to solve a spiritual, it's spiritual.
00:46:55
Speaker
It's not physical that the problem is evolving.
00:46:58
Speaker
It's something spiritual that you can't see as an energy to pass life, all these things.
00:47:03
Speaker
But I like that you said that money does solve problems and it can help and people just need to give more because you got to circulate it, right?
00:47:10
Speaker
You can't hoard the money.
00:47:11
Speaker
You're going to hold on to forever and then you leave it and then what?
00:47:13
Speaker
I mean, of course you give it to your kids and you have more than enough, but I believe in sharing it and giving it when needed.
00:47:18
Speaker
And why not?
00:47:20
Speaker
You know, they tell us how these bank accounts and 401ks, if you need your money, you better use it.
00:47:26
Speaker
So one final question, well, two final questions I always like to ask is at the end is that for you in this moment, at this time, thank you for sharing all the info, insight, wisdom, gems, just everything, homeboy, your history.
00:47:40
Speaker
I love that.
00:47:42
Speaker
But on another note, what's working for you in your life and what is a challenge for you right now?
00:47:52
Speaker
Oh, working for me in my life, I know it sounds cliche and all, but it's true.
00:47:58
Speaker
It's to be in community at homeboy.
00:48:03
Speaker
It's, you know, Father Greg has sort of this way of saying that what we need to do is be willing to move to people who are on the margin of our society and be in relationship with them.
00:48:15
Speaker
It's not about telling them what to do and wagging our finger and fixing their problem and just be in relationship with them and
00:48:23
Speaker
Sounds easy to do.
00:48:25
Speaker
The hard part is making that first step, but when you do it, it's very fulfilling.
00:48:30
Speaker
And that clearly works.
00:48:33
Speaker
I've had more laughter and tears and joy in this time of home with them my whole life all around.
00:48:40
Speaker
What was the second question?
00:48:44
Speaker
What is your greatest challenge right now?
00:48:46
Speaker
What is something that might be a challenge for you right now?
00:48:49
Speaker
You know, it's...
00:48:53
Speaker
Listen, we're Homeboy, we're now a $35 million organization.
00:48:56
Speaker
We raised 35 million, spent 35 million.
00:49:00
Speaker
So there's a lot at stake making sure we raise the right amount of money.
00:49:04
Speaker
Because if we don't raise the right amount of money, we have to let people go.
00:49:08
Speaker
And we know when we let people go, that means they're running back out with the gangs and creating violence, going back in the jail system.
00:49:16
Speaker
So the cost of failure is very high.
00:49:18
Speaker
I mean, I've never been at a job where it's life and death.
00:49:21
Speaker
for our population, right?
00:49:23
Speaker
And so we all work really hard to make sure things don't go wrong, but sometimes things go wrong.
00:49:29
Speaker
And so the challenge is how to, it's always how we absorb, we absorb the pain and the trauma that our folks go through.
00:49:37
Speaker
And how do we kind of use that?
00:49:39
Speaker
For me, I use that as a motivator to push forward.
00:49:43
Speaker
That's amazing.
00:49:44
Speaker
And I appreciate you saying that the cost of failure and it's not easy and you guys are working hard.
00:49:49
Speaker
And I also like to say, too, to people listening and who will see this, that sometimes when things don't work out and they are a failure, it's really supposed to happen in a sense where whoever is experiencing it, of course, we don't want them to.
00:50:02
Speaker
But if they're in a position, it's for some type of spiritual growth, I believe, or development.
00:50:07
Speaker
You know, I've experienced things with friends and family.
00:50:09
Speaker
I'm just like, man, what is this?
00:50:11
Speaker
This keeps happening.
00:50:12
Speaker
It's a pattern.
00:50:12
Speaker
Some of us have to.
00:50:14
Speaker
go through things and learn things to become what we want.
00:50:17
Speaker
But in a business sense, I believe it's different, but I just appreciate you being on the front line, you know, leading a team to victory because I feel like the homeboy way is the way and you know how to break the right rules to stay in business, to sustain a great life.
00:50:32
Speaker
So, you know, before we get off here, how can we get this book?
00:50:36
Speaker
Where did we find a book and how do we stay connected to you and homeboy industries?
00:50:41
Speaker
Sure.
00:50:41
Speaker
So the book is on Amazon.
00:50:43
Speaker
So you can you can Google it and get there.
00:50:45
Speaker
But Homeboy Industries, we have a Web page and a big Facebook following that we a lot of our folks heal from owning their story.
00:50:54
Speaker
And so oftentimes we put videos up of people telling their stories and affirmations about how to move life forward.
00:50:59
Speaker
So it's really terrific.
00:51:01
Speaker
People people love getting on there and watching those videos and being part of the greater Homeboy community.
00:51:07
Speaker
That's amazing, Tom.
00:51:08
Speaker
I just want to say thank you.
00:51:09
Speaker
I appreciate everything you brought today.
00:51:11
Speaker
And this was amazing.
00:51:13
Speaker
The Homeboy Way.
00:51:14
Speaker
Break the rules.
00:51:15
Speaker
And tap in with Homeboy Industries on Facebook.
00:51:18
Speaker
Get the book, The Homeboy Way on Amazon.
00:51:21
Speaker
Are you on any social platforms?
00:51:24
Speaker
Like Twitter, Instagram?
00:51:26
Speaker
We have Instagram and LinkedIn and grab it out.
00:51:28
Speaker
Twitter.
00:51:34
Speaker
All right.
00:51:34
Speaker
Well, I appreciate you.
00:51:36
Speaker
Have a phenomenal day.
00:51:37
Speaker
And this was a big good talk.
00:51:39
Speaker
All right, Eric.
00:51:39
Speaker
Thank you.
00:51:40
Speaker
Cheers.