- People say I'm nuts.
People are not waking up in the morning
and saying, ooh, let me be broke.
That's just a winning attitude.
Why are you hanging around with that guy?
Rainbows after storms.
You can't fall from the floor.
Confidence, well, half of success
is confidence and self-esteem.
The minute you think you know everything,
at that moment you know nothing.
If I gave the guy a fish, he'd eat for a day.
("Uptown Funk" by Mark Ronson)
He's an American financial literacy
entrepreneur and businessman.
He's the founder, chairman, and CEO of the
non-profit organization HOPE.
He served as vice chair on the U.S. President's Advisory
Committee for Financial Literacy.
He's John Hope Bryant, and here are
his Top 10 Rules for Success.
People say I'm nuts, and that's a compliment.
Because they said that Steve Jobs was nuts.
They said that Ted Turner was nuts.
They said that Bill Gates was nuts.
And they said that my hero
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr was nuts.
Let me tell you what, I'll take it.
People are not waking up in the morning
and saying, ooh, let me be broke.
Let me be poor and ignorant, let me be stupid.
Let me go into some deep, uncomfortable waters.
Because I thought I understood poverty.
If you haven't noticed, I'm black.
(audience laughs)
I grew up in South Central LA, in Compton, California.
I'm going to tell you a little bit about my story.
But I actually thought Dr. Franklin and I was poor.
I now realize I wasn't.
There's a different between being broke and being poor.
To be broke is economic, but to be poor
is a disabling frame of mind
and a depressed condition of your spirit
and you must vow never, ever, ever to be poor again.
(applause)
I was talking to Dr. Franklin and others
and there was an experiment that he was telling
me about about some gentlemen who were very well-meaning,
they were going out, hanging out with homeless people
to try and relate to their experience.
They dressed like them, they act like, they walk like them,
they talk like them, the live like them,
but the legitimate people who are homeless
knew that these were instigators.
They knew that they were not homeless.
Why? The twinkle was still in their eye.
The hope was still in their eyes.
I can give a homeless guy a million dollars,
he'll be broke in six months.
With the best of intentions, because
nothing changed here, and here.
The word capital comes from the Latin root word capitas.
It means knowledge in the head.
It doesn't even mean money.
I told you, the issue is confidence.
But if I can make you immune to failure,
not ashamed to trip and fall.
If you can have an opportunity to have somebody
invest in you at an early age, believe in yourself,
have some experience with free enterprise,
with starting something on your own, believing in yourself,
pursuing it, no matter what the outcome.
An entrepreneurial mindset works
whether you're running a household
or whether you're running a community center,
or city government, or your own life, or your own business.
It is the can do empowerment-based,
what I'm for not what I'm against mindset
that I will do anything from anywhere
for any purpose at any time
that is unique to an entrepreneur, that is always
reimagining everything and creating solutions.
That's just a winning attitude about life.
So here's a rule for you, talk without being offensive,
listen without being defensive, but always
leave even your adversary with their dignity.
Because if you don't, they'll spend
the rest of their life trying to make you miserable.
So help people win.
When George Bush was in office, my friends, oh,
why are you hanging around with that guy?
So what do I say? He's the president.
(audience laughs)
I talked to him for a while and I got him
to sign his executive order around financial literacy,
and I'm proud that he did that.
And by the way, I've honored to serve now three presidents
from both political parties, Republicans
and Democrats, I serve Obama today.
But I think we need to talk to everybody,
and you never know who your friends are going to be,
you should make friends everywhere.
People who you least expect to provide the sort
of leadership you need may be the ones that actually
end up doing it, so make friends everywhere.
You cannot grow without legitimate suffering.
Rainbows follow storms.
My last book, the favorite chapter was Loss Creates Leaders.
Nobody woke up in the morning and said I want
to start a cancer foundation.
People who start cancer foundations are people
whose lives have been impacted somehow by cancer.
Rainbows after storms.
I was homeless for six months in my life.
- And what did that teach you?
- You can't fall from the floor.
That I had to redefine failure as going from,
redefine success, actually, from going from failure
to failure without loss of enthusiasm.
That I had to learn to do for myself.
That PhDs were good, but PH dos were better.
And it made me get real with success and failure
in my life and made me resilient.
For you to sit here and ask me questions
or approach me this morning takes personal confidence.
For you to look me in the eye right
now takes personal confidence.
Well, half of success is confidence and self-esteem.
But if you're poor, you've been beaten down,
you've been depressed, you lack hope.
So it's very interesting, the very thing you need
as the first option to be successful
you actually don't have by virtue of the fact
that you've been in this poor environment.
Today my life makes sense, but the minute you think
you know everything, at that moment you know nothing.
I was in India and I was teaching a course on leadership
in India, and I had gone to this university and I spoke
there, and after I left, I got back to the hotel
and I realized I didn't have my wallet.
I called the hotel and I said would you please
bring the car back, they have my wallet.
They said, "I'm sorry, sir, we don't have a car."
"That was a taxi we used."
They tried calling the taxi company
and nobody answered the phone.
They tried again, nobody answered the phone.
I became a little cynical.
I went from hopeful, to skeptical, to cynical,
and I started thinking the worst of people.
And of course I said, well, my wallet is gone.
By midnight they called and said we're still trying,
he's not answering the phone, the taxi cab driver.
But at two in the morning they called and said
he answered his phone, his phone was off,
he's coming back to your hotel with your wallet.
So I get dressed and I run downstairs and a man meets
me and the bellman translates for me in Indian,
in the dialect, and I get my wallet
and everything is in my wallet, everything.
My passport, my money, my credit cards, it's all there.
I reach into my wallet and there's $70 US.
I ask the man, through a translator,
what do you make a month?
He says about 2500 rupees, which,
at that time, was about $70 US.
I reach out and I say let me give this $70 to you,
this is my way of saying thank you.
And the man says no.
I said, no, I don't think you understand.
I have one month's salary for you,
I want to say thank you, here's $70.
The man says to the translator, "No."
I said there must be a translation problem here.
I'm talking about paying you, I'm talking about giving you
a month's worth of your salary.
One more time, and this time he became a little
visibly angry, he said I told you no.
I didn't bring you your wallet because I wanted a reward.
I brought you your wallet because it's your wallet.
Now this may not sound like an incredible story,
but think what would've happened if I'd lost
my wallet in a taxi in New York City.
Or a big city anywhere in the world.
Think about the chances of me getting my wallet back.
Think about it and be honest with yourself, now.
This is a slum, they call it, in India.
So I said to the man what can I do to be thankful to you?
What can I do to say thank you?
He said well the next time you're in India,
come to my house and have tea, be my friend.
Whoo. Sometimes when you give you get.
Sometimes whatever goes around comes around.
And so ubuntu, as they say in South Africa.
Ubuntu, I am me because you are you.
I didn't give that man a thing,
he gave me a sense of purpose.
He let me understand that there's hope
in people and that you can believe
in the humanity and the decency of people.
And sometimes people just do things
because it's the right thing to do.
What if we all just made a commitment
to be someone's friend, to show up in their house
and have tea, or better, to invite them
into our house and make that connection.
You gain more by giving, you get more
by building, you learn more by listening.
We have a chance and an opportunity to change the world
because nobody changes in good times.
People only change in bad times.
No one changes when they're comfortable,
they chance when they're uncomfortable.
We have a chance now to change the world.
So here's my question as I wrap up,
and I'm now going to come right to you.
I'm going to ask you what kind of bird do you want to be.
But I want you to answer in your own
dialect, in your own word, but I'm going to start
with something easy and you're going to repeat after me.
I can change the world.
- [Audience] I can change the world
- I will be the change in the world.
- [Audience] I will be the change in the world.
- You guys sound really weak.
(laughter)
Talk like you got passion in your life.
(scream)
Oh, my god.
(applause)
Remember now, you're honorary black
people, you got to have some soul.
I'm going to ask you one more time.
I am somebody.
- [Audience] I am somebody.
- I can change the world.
- [Audience] I can change the world.
- I am
- [Audience] I am
- I
- [Audience] I
- Question, what kind of bird do you want to be?
- [Audience] An eagle.
- No, no, say it with passion.
What kind of bird do you want to be?
- [Audience] An eagle.
- Give them a round of applause.
(applause)
So if I gave the guy a fish, he'd eat for a day, okay?
But I taught him how to fish.
Not only is he eating for a day,
not only is his family eating,
his employees are eating, he's actually now
teaching other people how to eat.
And that ripple effect.
Financial literacy is the only philanthropic
or charitable or non-profit activity
that has leverage, that uses leverage.
Once I teach you, you're never untaught.
Once your rubber band is expanded,
it doesn't go back to the same size, it's expanded.
So your understanding, your appreciation for life
is different, and that is the special sauce, to me,
that is what makes this transformational in its potential.
I was a dancer on Soul Train.
(laughter)
And American Bandstand.
- Wow.
- They taped across the hall from each other.
I've never done this publicly.
Is there any music?
- [Interviewer] I'm going to get out of the way.
(disco music)
- Yes, please.
I hope none of my shareholders are watching.
My investment may go down.
No, no, no, no.
I need something with some beat to it.
That is far too...
(laughter)
That actually might have been like the
theme music for Soul Train, I think.
You know, I don't have to do this.
You can just cut the music all together.
("Uptown Funk" by Mark Ronson)
(clapping)
I don't need all that.
I've got many problems, self-esteem is not one of them.
(cheering)
I'm sure I'll be paying the price for that later.
(audience laughs)
Luckily, that show kept me in shape
and I stay in shape, so I have minimal pain.
I'm sure that was pretty unique amongst your speakers.
That pretty much falls in place
with my life philosophy, which is take life seriously
but don't take yourself too seriously.
Have a light touch.
One of the diseases that we have
in this world is seriousness.
People take themselves very serious.
People who take themselves very serious enforce
other people to also suffer from this disease of insecurity,
which is then connected to fear,
which is then tied to how you treat other people.
- Thank you so much for watching.
I made this video because Bishop asked me to.
If there's a famous entrepreneur that you
want me to profile next, leave it
in the comments below, and I'll see what I can do.
I'd also love to know which of John Hope Bryant's
Top 10 Rules meant the most to you, had the biggest impact.
Leave it in the comments and I'll join the discussion.
Thank you so much for watching,
continue to believe, and I'll see you soon.