Transcript of Howard Behar, Former Starbucks President: Putting People Over Profits for Lasting Impact

I don't need to be the hero. I'm willing to take the bullets when the bullets are flying.

Howard Behar, the president of Starbucks North America and the founding president of Starbucks International.

I've been fired 4 times. Sometimes we think we're taking a step back, but we're really not. We're just learning and we're growing. The whole time I was at Starbucks, not once did I ever ask for a raise. I was never happy working in a place where I didn't connect emotionally.

Everybody says it's about the coffee, but this is really about the people. When something goes wrong, I own it. You know, when something goes right, they get the credit. I've always been a believer in affirmations. 2 of my most important affirmations.

How do you always find the energy versus throwing the towel and giving up?

I had my 6 p's, how I do everything in my life. The first p is

Whether you are a coffee lover, an entrepreneur, a leader, or just wanna be inspired, Today, we are speaking with Howard Bihar, who is the president of Starbucks North America and the founding president of Starbucks International. Think about it. Opening the very first store outside of North America in Japan. How cool is that? And during his tenure in Starbucks grew from, I think, 28 stores to over 15,000, across 5 continents.

Like, I can't even fathom. But before we jump into your career, Howard, your books and how we got here, 1 of the hardest moments of your life actually came when you retired from Starbucks. So to everybody else, you look like you ticked all the boxes of success, but many of our listeners are high achievers, super driven, but they somehow lost their footing, right, and their purpose. Can you share your experience at this almost like a rock bottom moment? Can you share a little bit, Howard?

I used to always tell everybody at Starbucks, you are not Starbucks, and Starbucks is not you. You came to Starbucks as a whole person, hope you leave as a better person, but you're still a whole person. So when I left Starbucks, I forgot all of that. And I went into a severe depression for about 2 years because all of a sudden I went from being on a fast track, getting feedback all the time to 0. And it was difficult for me to deal with.

And I lost track of who I was. And I got to the point that it was so bad that I really thought my life wasn't worth living. I just thought, you know, I'm done and, I've done what I came here to do. And I was laying on the sofa, myself in Palm Springs reading a book and I was truly just down every day was gray and every day was painful and all of a sudden out of nowhere these words came into my head Howard your life's work is still your life's work I don't know where the words came from, honest to God. I was just laying there down and the words came in my head and it kind of struck me and I repeated them to myself.

Howard, your life's work is still your life's work. So I had to really dig in and say, okay, what really is my life's work? And I realized my life's work was about serving people and helping others and doing the things that helped others achieve what they wanted out of their lives. The difference was there was never going to be any feedback. I was going to do it solely because it was my life's work feedback or no feedback.

And so, I got on that track and I started doing podcasts. I started giving speeches and I started doing some coaching, and I started talking to other people. And I always gave my cell phone number and my email address when I did a podcast or did a speech. And people would call about anything. And I said, If you're just manager, boss, give me a call.

If you're struggling with life, I'm not a psychiatrist or a psychologist, but give me a call. I'm a good listener. And so I just started doing that. And the more that I did that, the more I attached to it. And I realized that I didn't need any feedback.

The feedback, it was enough feedback for me to just know that I was living up to my personal mission statements which goes like this every day I want to nurture and inspire the human spirit beginning with myself first and then for others and the reason why I said self first is just what we were talking about I had to be okay with me before I was able to do anything for anybody else and so it changed my life but it was a difficult time I mean it was painful and you know I had all the tools at my disposal that's the stupid part you know I've been going to counseling since I was 20 years old. So I knew to do that, but I wasn't doing it. I'd been using affirmations since I was very young, and I stopped using those. And I stopped meditating. All the things that I knew how to do to help myself, I just forgot.

And finally, I got back on board again. And it's not that every day is great. It's not. You know, I have down days. It's like I have days that are gray.

It could be bright sun outside and my day is gray. And but I've learned to deal with it and learn to recognize it. As my mother used to say, this too shall pass.

And I think this is such an important message, and thank you for sharing it so openly because I think sometimes, first of all, there's a little bit of a shame. Right? I mean, I have a roof over my head. That was for me. So I lost my identity at some point.

I was kicked out of my own start up. I lost my identity, And my identity was always attached to my title, to the company that I was with, and suddenly, it felt like a nobody. Right? But the problem is that there's this shame around admitting that something is wrong. I mean, you have a roof over your head.

I have 2 perfect kids. Why am I even complaining? How dare I? And then I think it's so important that you bring this out and that you are talking about it. And I think what you just mentioned is, yes, we have to put our own oxygen mask on first.

Otherwise, we can't help anybody else. And it's just amazing to see that though, you know, I think it's very inspiring to hear someone who is so successful has ticked all the boxes. Right? And it's inevitable for everyone, but look at you what you're creating now and how open you are and how incredible that that is.

It's the truth of the matter is this work is much more important than my past work because this work has 0 strings attached. It isn't about how many stores we're opening. It isn't about how much profit we are making. It isn't about any of those things. It's only about serving others, and it fills my soul.

And so that's what I wanna do.

And I think there's a saying that says there's no amount of success that you can stand in it forever. Right? And I think there's something along that line that serving others is incredible. So let me, but then take you back in time as a child sweeping floors in your local family grocery store. Right?

Tell us a little bit. Where did you grow up, and how did that shape you?

Well, I grew up in Seattle, and I'm the son of 2 immigrants. My father was actually born in 18/95, and he came to Seattle as a 15 year old in 2,010. And he had 1 brother that was here but he left all the rest of his family behind in bulgaria never talked to him again never saw them again the only 1 he ever saw and talked to was his brother and couldn't speak the language he spoke a language called ladino and Bulgarian. And he worked in a place called the Pike Place Market, which is a public market in Seattle. And in those days, it really was just a public market.

It was a market where the farmers would bring in their groceries and sell them to other retailers who would take them to their stores. And my dad worked in that market pushing a cart. He learned the language, and slowly but surely, he saved his pennies, nickels and dimes and opened up a small mom and pop grocery store in the north end of Seattle. And that's how we lived. We never had much.

I think most my dad ever made was about $18,000 in a year. But we always had food on the table. We had The fruit was bruised and the vegetables were a little brown, but we didn't starve. And my mother came from Latvia in 1919 as a 9 year old, and they met in Seattle and ended up getting married and had 3 kids. And my sister was 14 years older, my brother was 10 years older.

And so every day after school, my parents were working on the store. I would go to the store. And it was fed fool around. I'd eat Hostess Twinkies. I was a fat little Jewish kid.

You know, I love those Hostess Twinkies. So I would try to do little things. My dad would give me a broom and just sweep the floor, do something around the store. You know, I learned so many lessons from my parents and particularly my father. 1 day, I was up at the front counter, and he was ringing up a customer on the cash register.

Now, this was in the days there was no electronic cash register. There was 10 buttons across, 10 buttons down and a hand crank, right and that's what he would ring he put them in and pull the crank and I would put on this little tape so my dad was ringing up a customer and he said Howard go get me a couple of baskets of strawberries so I went in the back and I got a couple of baskets of strawberries and my dad put them in the customer's bag and the customer walked out the door. Well, I was old enough to understand that he hadn't rung the strawberries up on the cash register. And I said, Dad, you forgot to wring the strawberries up. And he said, Howard, not everything we do in life do we need to get paid for.

You know, these people aren't just our customers. They're our friends and our neighbors. And I happen to know they can't afford fresh fruit right now. So, it's my way of just saying thank you and helping them out. And it was such a true statement.

I didn't understand it. But I always remember that not everything you do in life do you need to get paid for sometimes we wait around and pay comes in so many different ways trophies and recognition and monetary compensation but the key to fulfilling life is understanding that you don't have to be rewarded for everything you do. As a matter of fact, it's how I got to Starbucks. So I had met this young guy named Howard Schultz. He was looking for VP of Operations.

But at that time, I was looking to buy a small business. And I wanted to do what my family had done, all small businesses. So, we sat down for breakfast 1 day, and he had a list of 10 criteria. Do you have a college degree? I didn't have that.

Do you have food service background? I didn't have that. Finally, we got down to number 10. Can you breathe? That was the only thing that I qualified for, is that I could breathe.

So, we shook hands and parted ways. And about a year passed, and by accident, we met up again. And he still hadn't filled that position. And so we started talking. And I said, Look, before we get any further along, how about if I work in the company for a week?

I work for free. Don't put me in nothing. I'll just come in I'd like to work in the trucks for a couple of days I'd like to work in the stores for a few days and like I work in the roasting plant for a few days at the end of that week if we see something then let's think about moving forward and I fell in love in that week and I said hell with buying my own business. This is where I wanna be. Unfortunately, Howard extended invitation to join.

But, you know, I don't know that I would have been there if I wouldn't have said, let me work in the company for a week. You look at me, I'll look at you, and we'll go from there. But all because of my dad.

They feel this has been a theme for you all the time. You were jumping on opportunities to start a new site, to start a new region. You always been the person that is not afraid to say, you know what? Even if I need to now take a step back and I, you know, eventually we'll get to that story. But even if I need to take a step back, I wanna start a new site or a new international place.

So you've been always there. What do you think it looks like it's came from your dad. Right? But what do you see the difference between some people, and I think you mentioned it a little bit in your book. Right?

Some people that only look at, I need my title, I need my management, I need my people, I need to be paid, etcetera, versus people. And I think this is really important for people listening to sometimes just raise your hand because the opportunity is there. Say yes, figure out the how versus always try to find what's in it for me approach, Howard. Can you talk a little bit about it?

You gotta be willing to pick up the cigarette butts. I was really good at that. And clean the toilets and put the light bulbs in and not worry about it. There's an old saying that to put a nail in a piece of wood, you can't just push on the nail, right? You have a hammer, and the hammer has to come back before it can go forward to put that nail in partway.

And that's kind of like life is. Sometimes we think we're taking a step back, but we're really not. We're just learning and we're growing. I never worried about that. I always believed I could make a living.

Whatever it was going to be, I was not afraid to work. And I didn't worry about what my position was. I didn't worry about that when I went to work at Starbucks I didn't say here's what I need I said what can you afford to pay me that was my question and whatever it was it was fine I did want equity I'm not shy about that because you never can make it on a salary alone you never can save enough money but I always believe that if you can get equity and in the organization you're working at even if it's a small amount because it really attaches you so I just think that we can get too caught up in our own bs so to speak we think we've made it to here we're entitled to have this we're not entitled to anything The only thing that we're really entitled to is the entitlement we give ourselves to take that step back. And don't be afraid. Sometimes you got to get outside your comfort zone and do things that you're not comfortable with.

And that's how I got to Starbucks. Before I went to Starbucks, I was making $300,000 a year running a land development company. And the company got in trouble. We had to sell it, and we sold it. And I was trying to figure out what I was gonna do.

And so when I went to Starbucks, Howard said I can pay you a 100,000 a year. Now, I had to go home and say we're going to have to change lifestyle a little bit. And we did. The whole time I was at Starbucks, not once did I ever ask for a raise. Ever.

Ever. It came, or it didn't come. And I knew that if I produce for the company, then I'd get rewarded. I just trust it.

And it did for you. So you do have a famous quote that I think is probably 1 of the big reasons Starbucks has grown so fast. And you say we're not in the coffee business serving people, but in the people's business serving coffee. Why do you think this is such a critical distinction, and why do you think it helped Starbucks grow so much?

Well, when I first came to Starbucks, like all small entrepreneurial companies, it was focused on the product. Howard Schultz, everybody says it's about the coffee. And I said, yes. The coffee plays an important role. It's where a lot of our creativity comes out.

But this is really about the people. And if there was ever a business that's about people, it's the coffee business. First of all, we don't produce coffee. It was naturally produced on trees. People picked it, they roasted it, they served it.

So it was really really about people and people come into starbucks stores they sit and have a cup of coffee reading a newspaper looking on their computer over a conversation having romantic conversation with somebody else It's always about people. And I got that right away. And I was trying to convince people that it was about people. I was trying to convince the people at Starbucks. It was difficult for them because they were so attached to it.

It was all about the coffee. And I kept saying yes it is about coffee but it's much more important that it's about people and that drove the business because that set into motion everything we did at starbucks and howard and I and a guy named orren smith who were the 3 titular heads of starbucks we drove that home. It was hard to get fired at Starbucks for missing your numbers. It was easy if you messed with the people. And that's what we did.

And that's really what made it work. And the truth of the matter is there is no business, there is no organization of any kind from a family to a multi $1,000,000,000 business to a church or a synagogue that isn't about people and we don't recognize that It's not about what you're selling. Right? It's with who you're selling it to and why. Exactly.

So that phrase is still alive and well at Starbucks today.

It is. And part of the thing that I shared right before the recording, if that's okay, I'll share it as well. When my daughter was about 9 or 10, she learned that if she can actually dress up really creatively, she might actually get a chance at a free coffee in Starbucks. And the interesting thing and she you know, I always kind of was surprised why she feels like she needs it. But I think for her, it was more the achievement, and she was so creative about it.

Those are gonna see us on YouTube. I'll put some photos on for you. But, you know, it was so creative for her. But what I wanna say, as Starbucks employees, they could have basically kicked her out. You know, she's 9 year old.

They didn't have to show respect. The fact that they did, they created a client for life. She probably already bought at least 2,000 coffees since her entire school goes and meets there every single day. So by respecting the people, you actually buy them for life. And I think there is something so special about that attitude, and it's very clear that it's top down throughout the company.

Yeah. We're we weren't perfect, let me tell you. We made lots of mistakes and didn't always live up to that, but we always came back to it. And sometimes you forget. Sometimes you get inside your own head instead of the other person's, and you stop listening and stop paying attention, and it gets you in trouble.

So you do have a great story about that. Right? When you I think you became president and you realized the culture moved to a me culture instead of a we culture. How did you turn this around, speaking of that's not easy to do.

I retired once. I stayed on the board of directors, but I'd kind of retired. I promised my wife when she finished her PhD she's an oncology social worker and she finished her PhD. I thought it'd take her 8 years. It took her about 4.

I'd made a commitment that we'd take a year off and just travel. So I went to Howard and Orin, I said, Okay, I'm gonna take a year off. I You know, you may not want me back or whatever, but it's okay. And 1 day, I'm at home after we'd finished our year of travel, and I'm having a cup of coffee, sitting in the kitchen in my pajamas, and my wife, Lynn, is there. And I'm all of a sudden, the phone rings, and it was Warren Smith, who was then the CEO of Starbucks.

And he said, Howard, we need your help for a few months. The guy that was the president of Starbucks North America resigned abruptly. It was the week of September 11th. It was amazing. He just left.

I don't know what was in his head, but he just left. So, I said, Oren, sure. I'm happy to help out. And I was still on the board. So, I got off the phone.

My wife said, What did you just agree to? And I said, Well, I'm going back. She says, Your what? So, I said, Yeah. Just to help, just for a few months.

Well, it turned out to be almost 3 years. And when I got back into the job, I realized that it was about had been about a year and a half. That short period of time, I'd kind of lost touch with what was going on. And they were starting to struggle a little bit. The comparable store sales were starting to flat.

And I couldn't figure out what was going on, what was happening. And a matter of fact, Howard came into my office 1 day, and I was beside myself. I was just angry at myself because I couldn't figure it out. I threw my glasses across the room, and I said, I'm failing. I'm not figuring this out.

And that night, I went home and I said to my wife, I said, I don't know what's wrong. I'm not in touch or something here. And she said, Howard, just do what you know how to do. Do what you know how to do. So I went in the next day and I called the whole team together and I just, I said, I don't know what's up here.

I'm missing something here. And everybody started talking and I started to realize the place that I took, I took over the job. He was a guy that believed in building resumes. And everybody that reported to him realized that in order to get ahead, they had to do something. They had to build their resume.

They had to show success. They had to show all this stuff. Well, it it turned from what Starbucks was, which was a we organization, which everybody was in it together, to he kind of built this me organization where everybody was doing it on their own. And all of a sudden, I realized that was it. And so I started talking about that.

I said, We're not going to get to where we want to go by just focusing on what we get. We're going to have to do this together. So I'm a goal guy. I set goals for myself. And so out of thin air, I made up this goal.

And I said the team has to increase average unit volume by $100,000 in 3 years now I don't know if we could do it or not but I just set out a goal I just pulled it out of thin air and I said every department and the whole team has got to contribute towards it. So I said, In 3 weeks, we're going to get back together and I want you to come to present to the team what your portion of that $100,000 is going to be and how you're planning on doing it. So we got together. Even human resources, supply chain, everybody came back and had their piece of the action. Of course, operations and merchandising were going to have the biggest pieces because they had the biggest leverage.

And so that goal, we set all of a sudden And we'd meet every week talking together how we were doing. How we were doing together. When somebody was struggling, other team members went in and helped him. And so we did it together. And that brought it back to we.

And not only did we achieve a 100, we achieved a 150,000. Totally blew the cover off the ball and increased the profits substantially. And it shows you what you can do when it's about we and not me.

Howard, I have to ask. Throughout your career all the way, there's always tough moments because that's inevitable. Right? Because every single person that will push themselves always gonna have challenges. And also life in general will have challenges.

Right? How do you always find the energy or the way to keep taking that step forward versus throwing the towel and giving up. What do you think are some of the things that help you?

Yeah. It's an interesting question as you were talking about that. I was thinking, you know, I've been fired 4 times. My brother-in-law fired me. My sister eventually made him hire me back, but I got he fired me.

So I had to recoup. And it was not easy always. You know, you get doubts and self doubts. But, you know, I had to make a living, and I've always been a passionate person I was never happy working in a place where I didn't connect emotionally you know I was on the home furnishing dynasty for a long time so it couldn't be bad just selling a sofa it's what that sofa was going to do for the people that bought it I was helping them to have a better home you know it wasn't a sofa and so I always had to connect and so every time I was struggling I always looked for the connection I always looked for that place that would give me the greater purpose and the passion to move forward and so I did that but you know it was not an easy road it was not an always easy road and sometimes like I said I had to go back to go forward and I had to get outside my comfort zone many times I had take do things that I wasn't comfortable doing and many times I'd get a promotion I thought I wasn't capable at the time I got the promotion but I found my way through it and I just dealt with those things and I always willing to push forward and I'm not afraid to do things.

I'm not afraid to do things other people want to. Look, I don't have a college degree. I barely got out of high school. I'm not the smartest guy on the block. Howard Schultz was the creative guy in the company.

I was the alchemist. Okay? And what I mean by that, I just listened to everybody. I've been a people guy since I was 5 years old. I was the last born.

My parents were taking to me. They took me everywhere. You know, on Saturday night, when they'd go to visit relatives and have dinner, and I was kind of always at the table and so I was always listening to what was going on and and I just became a really good listener so I became an alchemist I would listen to what people were talking about and then I'd say that's interesting and then somebody else would say the same thing and that's what I did at charbucks I mean, I had some ideas at Starbucks, but it was the people that had the ideas. I just implemented their ideas. I don't need to be the hero.

I'm willing to take the bullets when the bullets are flying. When something goes wrong, I own it. You know, when something goes right, they get the credit.

First of all, how do you know what to listen for? Because the truth is you'll get a lot of opinions and a lot of things, and some are completely b s, and some are you need to listen. So first, how do you decide what to listen for?

First of all, you listen to everybody. I have this saying, the person who sweeps the floor should choose the broom. And I came up with that saying because I was trying to convince all the leaders at Starbucks that when somebody comes into your office or you go up to them ask them what they're thinking about I had 3 questions that I asked everybody at Starbucks and I still do it today I've been retired for 13 years but I still ask baristas and store managers what do you like about Starbucks what don't you like about Starbucks what would you change about starbucks you ask enough baristas that question there'll be a place where it starts to tie together where somebody will have this idea I'm not pleading for anarchy here you can't do everything that everybody says but I didn't always know I mean we tried a lot of things that didn't work I don't like rules I don't like anybody giving me rules but I had 4 rules that everybody had to live by don't do anything illegal don't do anything immoral don't do anything unethical and sure as hell don't poison anybody if you can live by those 4 rules we can try it so what happens if you make a mistake as long as you don't poison anybody you don't bury the business try stuff and listen to your people who knows more about what kind of broom to choose than the person who's doing the work and too often as leaders somebody comes and says well I'd like to get a new broom and you roll your eyes and you can say you know purchasing chooses our brooms just use the broom that we gave you let's call him jim jim's excited

and he's been on the internet and he saw this broom and he thinks god if I could get this broom I can increase floor sweeping productivity by 10% and the floors would be even shinier and yet the boss just rolls her eyes and says you know maybe they don't even say it they just roll their eyes can't you see I'm busy I mean it happens so often that you just don't listen to our people the greatest story about listening was a woman named dina campion she was a district manager in southern california for storebooks and she invited me to come visit her stores and she took me to our stores and she took me to some competitor stores and she brought me a drink in a competitor store and she said howard we need a drink like this And I said, Really?

She said, I think we could sell about 30 drinks a day per store if we had this. Well, I didn't have a college degree, but it was selling for about $3. 30 drinks a day is about $90 a day. Times 7, about whatever, $600 or whatever it is. And I said really let me take that idea back to seattle I talked to a person they had a marketing person who had a product development so I brought the idea back and there was total rejection he says we're not in that business so I called dan I said you know there's no support for it let's give it 6 months We'll come back after it.

So about 3 weeks later, Dana pushes me again. She says, can you come down? I want to show you something about this drink. And I said, Dana, you heard the answer. Leave it alone for a while.

She says, really hard, please. I want to show you something. So I said, I'm not going to make a special trip, but I'll be there in about 3 weeks to look at some real estate I'll I'll stop by and so I did and Dana served me 3 of these 3 little sample cups that Starbucks has and she says take a sip of this and I took a sip I said Dana this tastes remarkably like that drink we had on a competitor store are you trying to get me fired and she said harriet please let us try this I'm telling you people are walking out of our stores because we don't have anything like this it was 1 of those times in every leader's career where sometimes you got to go against the rules the grain as long as you don't poison anybody it's not illegal unethical and moral and so I said okay let's try it and you know she and a barista and a store manager figured out the drink so they went out and they bought all the supplies and everything I said you call me every night tell me how many drinks you sold because if it's not selling we're going to get rid of it quick so the first week it wasn't 30 drinks a day per store but it was 50 drinks a day per store the second week it was 70 drinks a day per store I'm thinking to myself howard you are a genius So I took the idea back, and this time, I invited Howard Schultz.

And I had Dina come up with her team, and she made some samples and passed them around. And the head of marketing and product development was there. And he got up out of his chair, and he came over about 6 inches from my face and said behar I told you we weren't doing this you stop this now and he looked at howard chulch and he said could you tell behar to stop and I had this document and I'm kind of an emotional guy and I slammed it down on the table I said his name was George. I said, oh, yeah, George. Look at this.

It was gonna be a 30% lift in our sales and even higher in our profits. I said, Howard, give me 90 days. So you know what the drink is. Right? It's frappuccino.

Oh, I love Frappuccino.

Deena Camping and her broom. It was her idea. It wasn't my idea.

Amazing.

It was her idea. And it eventually became 20% of our sales in a $4,000,000,000 business, all because I listened and I took a chance. Now not every broom is gonna be worth 4,000,000,000. Most of them are worth dollars. But when you listen, it's amazing what can happen.

Oh, what a beautiful story, Howard. Oh my god. It's 1 of my favorite. What is your favorite coffee speaking of?

Oh, I drink triple tall Americanos every day, 2 of them. By the time I'm done with the second 1, I'm invisible. I have so much caffeine in it.

That's amazing. So tell me, the first time that you're promoted to president or even on the way, I mean, it's a scary move. Can you share a little bit what is the experience like? What does it mean? Because, again, at that point, you guys are growing at a pace that usually it's not even normal for any normal company.

What does it feel like? And how do you cope? How do you learn fast enough?

Well, you gotta learn fast, but the best way to learn is to bring people that's smarter than you are. Bring great people into your organization look at leaders responsibility is not to have the answers it's to have the questions and you ask questions of the great people that you bring into the organization so I didn't have to know the answers I just had to listen we thought that drive thrus would be good for the business we didn't know but I never operated a fast food place that had drive thrus so we had people on our team that had been through it and I said let's go find a site that has a drive thru havers schulz didn't want them we snuck at the first 1 in actually but we had a team of people that figured it out they opened the drive thru it doubled the volume of an average store but having said that I'm not going to tell you that I slept 1 night I didn't I have a lot of anxiety. I've always had anxiety. And so I've dealt with that my whole life. But I just kept pushing myself and I kept going.

But I do have a lot of energy. And I believe in people. And I believe that we could get through it but I wasn't always sure there were many times when I thought we weren't going to make it everybody thinks starbucks was a straight up shot up to that it wasn't it was like this sometimes we were successful sometimes we failed we had lots of product failures and we had to raise a lot of capital and we made mistakes on people and we did all the things but you just kept having to push and push and the people gave me the energy whenever I was down I would just go talk to the people. I'd go visit stores, and they would lift me right up.

Can you share a challenge? Can you share 1 of those challenges?

I got to Starbucks, and I was there about 4 months. And I said to Howard, We need to raise wages. We're paying minimum wage. This is not going to work. We can't get the kind of people we want at minimum wage.

I said, I want to raise it. I want to start everybody at least a dollar to $2 over minimum wage. And he said, Well, how are you gonna pay for it? And I said, I'll figure it out. And so I got the finance team together.

We did all the work. I went and poured over the numbers day and night trying to figure out what we needed to do to make it work. So we did it and we gave everybody a raise and everybody was excited and everybody was happy and so I go on vacation the month of the first p and l's that were going to reflect the new wage structure were going to come out so I'm on my vacation and I get this call from Matt Schultz and he said Howard you told me that we were going to be able to afford this well it's costing us double what you said it was going to cost us oh shit that's all I could think to myself I said to Len, I said, I'm out of here. And I left a vacation. I can't remember where we were.

I think we were at Sun River in Oregon with the kids. And so I went back to Seattle, and I got to work again. And sure enough, we'd blown it. We'd made a mistake somewhere, and we figured it out. But you couldn't go back.

Now, I thought I was gonna get fired over that because it was a significant hit to the bottom line. And fortunately, Howard didn't fire me, and we figured out how to fix it. And we stayed with it. We weren't gonna go back on it. We made a commitment, and so we stayed with it and we moved forward and we fixed it.

But, you know, I made 1 mistake after another. Most of the worst mistakes I always made were with people where I picked the wrong person, kept them too long or a person that I let go that I shouldn't let go. I mean, it's the hardest, most difficult thing. But you recover from it and you move forward and you hold yourself accountable and you live with it. You know, if you make a mistake, you make a mistake.

And, hopefully, get in a kind of organization that is okay with mistakes and Howard was. And he dealt with it, but I fixed it. You know, I went ahead and fixed it, and the rest is history.

And I think what you're saying is so critical to organizations everywhere because it was okay to experiment. It was okay to as long as you're doing your best and you're within integrity, it was okay to make mistakes. And I'm hearing a lot of things that are actually right now, we know they're instrumental to innovation. I don't know if we spoke that language in the 19 nineties necessarily. So why do you think we knew to experiment?

Somehow your instincts already told you that this is the only way to grow and to make it so successful.

I agree with you. What happens, companies start to get big and they lose their innovativeness. And they lose it because they start to they say, Well, we don't need this anymore. We're going. But the truth is, it's you've got to innovate all the time.

Look at HP. Look at Intel. They get rid of their engineers. You know they start to squeeze it down because they aren't doing so well and they lose their creativity and they lose that passion and the energy that's what happens and they start to raise prices because they're a public company and they want their earnings to look the biggest bs in all of business and particularly in the public markets earnings just go up like this they don't right that leadership and management is always messing with it So what do they do? They're not gonna make their earnings.

So what do they do? They have a little layoff to get their costs down, right? And then they take a 1 time charge. They say our EPS was really this without the 1 time charge. It's so stupid.

It's so wrong. It's 1 of the problems with capitalism, our kind of capitalism. The public markets seem to think and expect that it's a constant road up. It's not. There's going to be these ups and downs.

And then what happens is the public markets force these companies into making dumb decisions. Then leaders listen, and they they make the dumb decisions. My favorite leader in all the world is a guy named Jim Senegal. He was 1 of the co founders of Costco. And he's a gruff guy, the absolute merchant prince, but a great guy.

And his shareholders used to say, Why do you pay so much? They paid a lot of money for their hourly. And why do you give them all these benefits? And he used to say to him, If you don't like the stock, sell it. And I think we need more leaders that say, if you don't like the stock, sell it.

We're here for the long term. If you're not here for the long term, do something else with your time. But it's hard to do because you've got to perform over the long term. But it's what kills organizations.

That's such an interesting point when you look at a public company and you need to live quarter for quarter, you know, instead of looking at the 2, 3, 5 year horizon and really look further. What do you think, Howard, is, you know, maybe something that people don't know or something that you went through that built your resilience, your attitude, and maybe your love to people as it is today?

I've always was been a believer in affirmations, and I've used affirmations to correct myself, to hold myself accountable to live my life. And so 2 of my most important affirmations is I love myself unconditionally, And I have that sitting in my bathroom, in front of the toilet. I figure if I can love myself there, I can love myself anywhere. And it's hard to love yourself unconditionally. And I don't all the time.

And then the other 1 is, I am enough, I have enough, I do enough. Because that's always been a struggle of mine. Am I really doing enough? Am I getting it done? Am I achieving all that I wanna achieve?

But I think a lot of it's family of origin stuff. I was the baby of the family. I could do no wrong, so to speak. And so I had that unconditional love. I think that helped a lot.

You know, I had the opposite side of that. My mother was always trying to protect me. I'd come home and say I'm not very good at athletics. And she said, Howard, not everybody can be a good athlete. And no matter what I said I wasn't good at, she said, not everybody can be.

And I kind of internalized it, that I wasn't good enough. And it used to make me mad. Finally, it wasn't until my mid-20s that I just pushed back against it. And I said, I can. And I had Probably the single most important mentor in my life was in my mid-20s, a guy named Jim Jensen.

And he was a guy with an incredibly bright side, but all equally his dark side. He was a guy that introduced me to affirmations. He introduced me to, Robert Greenleaf's work on servant leadership. He introduced me to the belief that I could do anything if I set my mind to it. I didn't have all that.

He gave me the skills and pushed me to believe in myself and held me up when I was struggling. And it was an important part of my life. He changed my life. I look back at those times, and he did really change my life. So I I give the credit to Eilers.

I've always been a kind of a people guy, you know, from they called me happy howie, you know. I've had a smile on my face my whole life and people related to that. And so I was good at that. I didn't understand what I was doing. I was not a conscious competent.

I was just being Howard. But over time, as I learned about servant leadership and Robert Greenleaf's work, I attached to it and I became a conscious competent at servant leadership. Not only could I do it, but I knew how to teach it. And so that's what I did.

And it's incredible that you knew to find mentors at this age. So for me, it took me a long time to even admit that I need help and to not try to just persevere through everything on my own and think that if I'm asking for help, it means that I'm weak. Mentors changed my life. And I think for me, 1 of the things when somebody asked me what would be, you know, an advice to your younger self is to look for help early on. Stop trying to do it on on your own.

Like, if somebody has walked the walk and teach you, take their hands. What would be your advice to your younger self if you look back?

Get clear about who you are, what your core values are, what you stand for in this life. So I have I'll show it to you. I carry this around me. I've had this for almost 50 years. You can't read it all, but this is Howard in 50 words or less.

So on this document, it has my mission statement. It has my 8 core values and my 6 Ps, how I do everything. And I live by this. This drives me. So I won't go into the whole story, but I struggled at 1 time because somebody wanted me to change and it wasn't like they're asking me to change my color of my slacks they're actually changed howard was but the problem was I wasn't capable of having a conversation with that person about who I thought I was because I'd never done the work.

And so the same guy that taught me about affirmations and Greenleaf's work introduced me to this idea, that he gave me this book and it basically was 1 of those self help books. And the first chapter said you have to identify your core values in life. What do you stand for? And so in this book, there was a list of, 300 words that represented human values. And it said you need to get it down to 8 to 10.

So I got it down to 50 but I just got trying to get it down to 8 to 10 and finally over about a 6 8 month period of time I was able to work it down to the 8 to 10 core values for me it wasn't that there wasn't 50 or a 100 other words that fit me in some way or another but these are the things that absolutely matter to me my first core value is honesty so it wasn't enough that I said that my first core value was honesty that was an honest person I didn't define what that meant to me because everybody has told a white lie in their life so what will you not lie about what do you hold yourself accountable for and so I had to define each of these core values and then it said create a mission statement for yourself well the first mission statement I had was I I was in the home furnishings industry. I wanted to be 1 of the leading executives in the home furnishings industry. That's what I said. That was my mission. Didn't have much soul to it.

And I changed it when I plagiarized some of Starbucks because when Starbucks was working on this work with Jim Collins, you know, who Jim Collins, Good to Great Built to Last, before he did any consulting, before the books had come out, he came and helped us. And he helped us create our BHAG. And our BHAG was we've got 1 of the most well known and respected organizations in the world known for nurturing and inspiring the human spirit. When I heard those words, nurturing and inspiring the human spirit, I said, that's me. And so I just plagiarized it and created it for myself.

And then I had my 6 P's, how I do everything in my life. The first P is everything in my life has to have a purpose greater than myself. It's not about me. It's about serving others. And if I have a purpose greater than myself, then I damn well better be passionate about it.

I better get up in the morning thinking about it, be passionate about what I'm doing and scream it from the highest mountain tops you know below the shore and let everybody know and then the third p is persistence in these rivers we call our lives there are rocks and some of the rocks are below the surface of the water and we're going along and all of a sudden we're floating along boom we hit that rock what the hell happened and then some rocks are sticking above the surface and for some reason we see them out there and we hit them anyway it's like it's a magnet carrying us towards that rock and some rocks our parents tell us about and try to warn us or our coaches tells about and we ignore their advice and we got to learn to have the persistence to get either through the rock over the rock out of the rock or blow up the rock Right? So persistence pays in this life. And then the 4th p is patience. You'd say, well, patience, persistence, patience. Aren't they kind of opposite each other?

No. You gotta have patience. When you've got a team that you're working with that report to you, not everybody comes along at the same pace that you are. And not everybody comes along at the same pace that their coworkers come along. And most important person you have to have patience with is yourself.

Not everything is gonna come at the time frame you want it to come. It just doesn't and you know starbucks it didn't come at the time frame we wanted we had to have patience sometimes so patience is important and then the 50 is performance the facts are human beings don't like to be measured we don't like to be measured we don't like to be evaluated but the facts are that we are every day your significant other your spouse is evaluating you every day whether you know it or not they're giving you a performance review They may not say, hey. Today's your lucky day. You're gonna get a performance review. But trust me, you're getting a perform your kids are evaluating me.

They're evaluating your performance. If you say you're gonna show up at their soccer game or be there to pick them up, you better be there. That's performance. At work, if you commit to getting something done, then you better get it done. Or tell your boss or whoever it is, you're not gonna get it done and you need some help.

But performance matters in this world. If you get married and you commit to a monogamous relationship, then you either be either stay in a monogamous relationship or you have a conversation right but performance matters it just does and so I I take out the garbage you know in our house she my wife shouldn't have to yell howard you forgot to take out the garbage I should be taking out the garbage when I'm supposed to take out the garbage so you're getting evaluated so performance matters and like it or not and then the most important p the 6p it's always about people nothing you will ever do in your life isn't about serving another human being in a marriage it's about serving your husband or your wife or your significant other or your kids And work, it's about serving the people that you're working with first and then the sort of human beings we call customers. Whether you're a doctor, a lawyer, a fire chief, an architect, or you're a widget maker that makes widgets that goes into a printing press that gets sold to a publishing company to produce a magazine or a newspaper that gets delivered to somebody's home to inform or entertain them.

The lowly widget maker's purpose is to help people have a better life through making that widget. And sometimes we don't take the time to connect ourselves between the greater purpose, which is always serving people. And when you do that, you never burn out. You may get tired, but everybody gets tired. You'll never get bored because you'll always be serving somebody else.

And so whenever you start to get tired, take a rest, but remember, we're here to serve others, and that will give you the energy to go forward.

Wow. That is so powerful. And, again, you have so much wisdom in your books, the magic cup, and it's not about the coffee, which, you know, I was hiking and listening in the audible, and then I was like, oh my god. I need to take notes. So I kept stopping, but it was just incredible, like, how much knowledge and experience somebody like you have, and you're just sharing it with so much honesty and authenticity.

That is truly inspiring, Howard. Thank you so much.

Figure out who you are. Most important thing you'll ever do for yourself is figure out who you are, write it down, and then create a personal mission for yourself. Create 1 that has meaning that's soulful you know and it doesn't have to be perfect put something down that carries you forward and then always have goals I've been setting goals for my whole life about my marriage we have marriage goals we have goals for spirituality material goals, economic goals, travel goals, goals for our kids, personal growth goals, health goals. They don't have to be fancy stuff. You won't achieve everything, but have if you don't know where you're going, any path will get you there.

You've heard that saying.

How many times do you change this, by the way? How many times do you change your goals? How many times do you change your mission? How many times do you change this?

My missions, I've had maybe 3 mission statements in my life. This 1 has been with me for 30 years. But my goals, I'm always looking at. I always have a 1, 3, and 5 year plan. It's all written down.

Then do I achieve everything? No. I don't. But what I'm really committed to, I get done.

And we try actually with every single person on our team to do 1, 3, 5 year plans, personal, professional, and financial, and show them how Leap Academy can actually align with their personal needs. And I think only when it's a win win, people will be all in.

That's what servant leadership is about. That's why we call it servant leadership. A servant leader's primary responsibility is to, number 1, help their people grow as human beings. Number 2, help them grow as professional. And number 3, help them achieve the goals that they have set for their lives.

You do that first before you ask them for anything. You serve them before you serve yourself.

That's so incredible. Howard, thank you for sharing everything with us. I'm sure this has been an incredible episode for all the listeners here to get inspired, but also if they are down to realize that there is hope. And I think that's really, really, really important to start making decisions based on hope and dreams, not fear and doubt.

Before we leave, I wanna give anybody that wants to call me. My cell phone number is 206 972-7776, and my email address are my initials, hb@howardbr.com. I'm sometimes slow to respond, but I always respond.

You are such a special person, Howard. Thank you so much, and we'll make sure to also put it in the notes in the podcast. Thank you so much.

You're welcome.