Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason
Speaker 1: Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. Well, we have had dozens, if
Speaker 1: not hundreds, of I think great conversations across the course
Speaker 1: of these last seven topsy turvy work at home months,
Speaker 1: but few have resonated with us as much as one
Speaker 1: of our early pandemic conversations with John Hope Bryant. He
Speaker 1: is the founder and chief executive officer of Operation Hope.
Speaker 1: He joins us on the phone from Atlanta. We met
Speaker 1: him in person about a hundred and fifty years ago
Speaker 1: at the Super Bowl down in Atlanta. He's been doing
Speaker 1: some phenomenal work in the meantime, as he was before that,
Speaker 1: and he's got a new book. It's called Up from Nothing.
Speaker 1: He joins us from the A T. L. John. Really
Speaker 1: nice to have you with us. How are you? I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be with you. We are. You're right, it's like
Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty years later, given given how much
Speaker 1: the world has changed. Um, we're sitting in a moment
Speaker 1: history now. But history doesn't feel historic when you're sitting
Speaker 1: in it. It just feels like another day. But that
Speaker 1: doesn't mean in the moment is not truly special. So
Speaker 1: I want to thank you all for leaning in and
Speaker 1: continuing to give people get information and content during this time,
Speaker 1: keeping them inspired and you know, deeping out there in
Speaker 1: control in their lives. Well, John, one thing you know
Speaker 1: in saying that, you know, I think we spoke with
Speaker 1: you in early June, right, and the world was reeling
Speaker 1: and shocked by what happened to George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Speaker 1: And so I have to say I agree with Jason,
Speaker 1: like your conversation really stayed with us on so many
Speaker 1: different levels, and we've referenced it and repeated it several
Speaker 1: times on our air. Has Are you seeing anything out
Speaker 1: there that's progressed since then? Yes, I think America's found
Speaker 1: our heart button. Um. You know, you can say you
Speaker 1: like what the protesters are doing, or you don't like
Speaker 1: what the protesters are doing, but what you absolutely have
Speaker 1: to say is my god, they have heart um. And
Speaker 1: you can say you don't like what's happening with uh
Speaker 1: some of this candidates supporters are that candidates supporters, But
Speaker 1: my god, do we have an active democracy? And if
Speaker 1: this had happened in China, you disappear. If this has
Speaker 1: happened in Russia, you disappear so in the So that's
Speaker 1: that's the it's sort of the larger scheme of things.
Speaker 1: And then specifically, I like that when this whole thing hit,
Speaker 1: I got a call from this administration's Treasury Department, who
Speaker 1: I actually I actually admire the Treasury department has in
Speaker 1: problems with the other parts of the government, respectfully stated
Speaker 1: but the Secretary of the Treasury, and they called it
Speaker 1: a job. We need help, we want to help small businesses,
Speaker 1: and so I helped them design parts of the p
Speaker 1: p P program in a week. Um. Now, of course
Speaker 1: not we now know the nineties of all black businesses
Speaker 1: don't have an employee that they don't the bank or
Speaker 1: with a bank teller and didn't have the bank relationship
Speaker 1: to get in line and get the money. And that's
Speaker 1: another point we now have to solve. But I like
Speaker 1: that that it was one government. It may have been
Speaker 1: for two weeks, but it wasn't Republican Democrat. It was
Speaker 1: for the two weeks, it was one America. And I
Speaker 1: like the fact that you have all these CEOs stepping
Speaker 1: up because the government leadership is unclear, and markets hate clouds,
Speaker 1: as you know, a Bloomberg, and you have the CEO
Speaker 1: stepping up, saying knock it off, America, let's stand up,
Speaker 1: and then making commitments I mean real money. Some of
Speaker 1: it's pr but most of the real commitments and real money.
Speaker 1: The CEO of Walmart, real dude, CEO of PayPal, real dude.
Speaker 1: You know, ladies and men, Uh, stepping up and doing
Speaker 1: real stuff. Because ninety percent of all jobs come from
Speaker 1: the private sector and a d of the legitimate wealth
Speaker 1: comes from the free enterprise system. So when they stepped up,
Speaker 1: it reminds me of the Civil rights movement. Uh, it
Speaker 1: reminds me of what happened, and we had a last
Speaker 1: what I call the second reconstruction. This is my opinion,
Speaker 1: the third reconstruction, which is why this book I've got
Speaker 1: out now from nothing is so important for this moment
Speaker 1: getting our minds right. We need solutions that are larger
Speaker 1: than the problems that we seek solutions. And John, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm glad you brought up the book because the timing
Speaker 1: is perfect in many ways, because I think we needed
Speaker 1: to be reminded in this pandemic. It's a moment of
Speaker 1: reflection for sure, and obviously the dueling pandemics that that
Speaker 1: we've all talked about in this national and long overdue
Speaker 1: reckoning about our history and and some systemic inequalities. But
Speaker 1: one of the things you remind us about in the
Speaker 1: book is that you can reflect, but then you gotta
Speaker 1: go do it. You gotta get after it. And I
Speaker 1: do wonder sort of what you learned about or sort
Speaker 1: of relearned as you were putting this book together along
Speaker 1: those lines of kind of getting after it. I learned
Speaker 1: that my gut instinct was correct on this that even
Speaker 1: if you want to distribute money money like a socialist,
Speaker 1: you've got a first collect money like a capitalist. Um.
Speaker 1: I learned that this country was made from poor people,
Speaker 1: struggling immigrants from all places and races, and people today
Speaker 1: forget these these yes, white mostly white immigrants were not
Speaker 1: allowed into the office buildings, and they were not giving
Speaker 1: business cards and salaries. And the last major protests we
Speaker 1: had uh like this was a hundred years ago plus,
Speaker 1: which was the precursors to the New Deal, and these
Speaker 1: were all white people back then, I mean folks care protests,
Speaker 1: and the protests today looked like uh kindergarten compared to
Speaker 1: what was going on in the early nineteen hundreds. By
Speaker 1: all white or new immigrants, and then they were allowed
Speaker 1: to come in to the economy and they got the
Speaker 1: new Deal. And then later on it was a new
Speaker 1: Martial plan. And these were government initiatives used to invest,
Speaker 1: not giveaway, invest in the population, which then created economic
Speaker 1: return for the country and a sense of fair play.
Speaker 1: So I was reminded that we really that we are
Speaker 1: our worst enemy in our best asset. Everybody wants to
Speaker 1: be an American, but Americans. But what's wrong now is
Speaker 1: our mindset? What's what? What's wrong now that we were
Speaker 1: now pitted against each other. This is ridiculous. This only
Speaker 1: benefits China and Russia, and China and Russia who want
Speaker 1: to be us. It's crazy that we've got citizen against
Speaker 1: citizens against citizen, Republicans against Democrats, a black against white,
Speaker 1: rich against poor, capitalists against working class. What kind of
Speaker 1: crazy mess is this? The Bible says a house divided
Speaker 1: cannot stay and that's the Biblical and it's also common sense.
Speaker 1: John Hope Bryant found a Cheran CEO of Atlanta based
Speaker 1: global nonprofit Operation Hope, and he does have a new
Speaker 1: book out just yesterday, Up from Nothing, The Untold Story
Speaker 1: of how we in parentheses all succeed And that's really important.
Speaker 1: And that's where I wanted to start, John, because one
Speaker 1: of the things that I kept repeating after our conversation
Speaker 1: with you back in June was this whole idea of
Speaker 1: having a seat at the table, and after George Floyd
Speaker 1: and the protest, because I think you were having conversations
Speaker 1: with people about let's do this calmly, and and people
Speaker 1: were coming to you saying, we'll wait a minute. John.
Speaker 1: It's easy for you to say you have a seat
Speaker 1: at the table. We don't. So this is how we
Speaker 1: get noticed. Are we going to get to make sure
Speaker 1: that everybody has a seat at the table. Are you
Speaker 1: seeing any signs of progress along those lines. Yes, I
Speaker 1: think that people, the leaders I'm talking to now get
Speaker 1: that this time is different. You know, this happens every
Speaker 1: hundred years or so. You know eighteen sorry, seventeen sixty
Speaker 1: to seventeen eighty, eighteen fifty, eighteen seventy uh sixteen, nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty to nineteen seventy. We've killed the last two um
Speaker 1: great leaders by the way, who tried to push this innovation,
Speaker 1: Lincoln and Dr King. This is to me a third
Speaker 1: reconstruction um, that's gonna last for about ten years. And
Speaker 1: I think that it's also happened thirty years early. This
Speaker 1: shouldn't have happened. This should have happened, you know, thirty
Speaker 1: forty years from now. But people, people are tired. They're
Speaker 1: tired of kicking the can down the road. And I
Speaker 1: think God has since the Humoris gave us a global
Speaker 1: health pandemic worse than a hundred years and economic crisis
Speaker 1: and afforded euro social justice reckoning and told us all
Speaker 1: basically to knock it off. On top of that an
Speaker 1: environmental crisis, I think we've got a chance for a
Speaker 1: reset here. We gotta get our minds back in the game.
Speaker 1: We've got too many people with a surviving mindset that
Speaker 1: mean that tends to make you focus on me and
Speaker 1: not we are politicians all the way down to our protesters.
Speaker 1: I told some of the protesters who who I said, Look,
Speaker 1: I understand your pain, I'm with you, but you but
Speaker 1: blaming your neighbor doesn't make you any wealthier, and anger
Speaker 1: is not a strategy. We've got to get you from
Speaker 1: the sweet, from the streets into the sweets. The politicians
Speaker 1: can't keep cutting us up and dicing us and it's
Speaker 1: spreading us because a house divided cannot stand. So we
Speaker 1: need to move back to the theme and made us
Speaker 1: who we are. That made Bloomberg what it is, which
Speaker 1: is a winning mentality and a winner believed they were
Speaker 1: a winner before they want any things. This is fundamental
Speaker 1: and that comes from the way you were raised to
Speaker 1: raise your culture, the way you were nurtured. We need
Speaker 1: hunters more than we need skinners and cooks. We need
Speaker 1: winners who build things more than we need, and we
Speaker 1: can have have the survivors outnumber the winners and drivers.
Speaker 1: The middle class is fantastic, but they we need things
Speaker 1: for them to do, which is what the winners build
Speaker 1: so that they can sustain. And all this comes down
Speaker 1: to what I call the five pillars of success. All
Speaker 1: this is in the book, by the way, and I really,
Speaker 1: I really taken the emotion out of it and reduced
Speaker 1: succeeding in America or any country in the world. I
Speaker 1: believe down the five fundamental principles. You get three or
Speaker 1: more those right, and you kill it, and if you don't,
Speaker 1: you're left behind. And we we need everybody needs to
Speaker 1: understand this is not charity or hand out, Racism is
Speaker 1: a tax, a levy on everybody's prosperity. And so John
Speaker 1: only got about a minute left and highly recommend this book.
Speaker 1: Couldn't recommend it more, and you'll have to check it
Speaker 1: out to get those five pillars of success. But bring
Speaker 1: us back to Atlanta. What are you seeing there on
Speaker 1: the ground because it is the cradle of civil rights,
Speaker 1: you know that better than anyone. Are there signs of
Speaker 1: hope there? Because I feel like if these things are
Speaker 1: going to take root and I'm very biased to Atlanta
Speaker 1: is you know, it's my hometown, Like it's gonna start
Speaker 1: in places like that, what are you seeing? I'm seeing
Speaker 1: that we're doubling down on on our old business plan.
Speaker 1: I was concerned that we would would continue to sort
Speaker 1: of splinter the Andrew Youngs and the ct Vivians and
Speaker 1: all the heroes and heroes here that they're falling away,
Speaker 1: they're getting older. Where's the next generation? I'm seeing them
Speaker 1: step up and I'm seeing whites and black sit at
Speaker 1: the tables and how can we produce more green? So
Speaker 1: so I love that we're trying to figure out how
Speaker 1: do we repair the breach? And that is very inspiring.
Speaker 1: It is the moral center for the country. Al Right, well,
Speaker 1: we're gonna leave it there. We always love catching up
Speaker 1: with you. Thank you so much, John O'Brien He's got
Speaker 1: a new book. It is called Up from Nothing, Checking Out,
Speaker 1: founder and CEO of Operation Hope, and Uh. As we
Speaker 1: said at the top, he's a guy that we constantly
Speaker 1: go back to. Even when we're not talking to him directly,
Speaker 1: we're talking about him in many ways. And I know
Speaker 1: because his name comes up in lots of conversations that
Speaker 1: I have with people. He is advising a lot of
Speaker 1: big names on how to think about all of these issues.
Speaker 1: And thank god, because you know the things that he says,
Speaker 1: Racism is a levy on everyone's prosperity. I remember from
Speaker 1: that initial conversation that this is a financial story, this
Speaker 1: is a wealth story, and we need to get to
Speaker 1: the heart of it to make sure we can make
Speaker 1: a change in all of this. All right, John O'Briant, man,
Speaker 1: I feel inspired.