 to Inventing Our Future and Think Tech Hawaii. I'm your host, Brittany Zimmerman. And I'm your co-host Richard Hall. Today, we're going to do a deep dive into our L conversation about leadership. Getting into that first, though, how you doing, Richard? Oh, top shape. Very good. Good, good, good, good. So in the topic of leadership, I thought we would take this week to have a conversation about what that means. And we are coming off of this, I would say, pretty freshly. We just hosted a leadership camp up at Halei Pohaku in Manakea, here on the Big Island, where we brought students from all around Big Island, grades 9 through 12, to have conversations about what it means to be a leader, both of themselves, of their communities, and then what their grand plans for leadership are. They run out. And so Richard was able to come up and meet with us up on the Mauna, which was very exciting. So we'll dive into some of that. First, Richard, what were some of your takeaways from the adventure? The most important thing that I noticed was how smart they are. I'm just amazed. I just listen and see how the interact and stuff like that. I was really impressed. Without a doubt. It's always amazing to me, every time you have a leadership camp, just the quality of interactions that there are, and the ability to grasp concepts and really grab on to them, and build off of things that are new information to them, it's always amazing to me. And I feel like every year it gets better and better, which is a positive outlook for humanity. So in the development of some of these curriculums, it's been really magnificent. We do a lot to really pull the rug out, so to speak, from some of the, I'd say, misconceptions that students may have coming out of high school and then getting ready to move into college. They're getting ready to move into making big decisions for themselves in very new environments. And so we get to have really beautiful conversations around what are the academic hierarchies? What are the hierarchies of corporations? What does the hierarchy look like in the entrepreneurial business world? What do hierarchies look like if you're transversing in the political realm? So as we have conversations about what each of those hierarchies mean, we also have conversations about how do people get abused by those systems or those hierarchies. What kind of tools do we need to ensure that these individuals have so that they can get the most out of these systems and be extracted from the least? And so it's a really interesting process up there. And the first day, we really focus on how to lead self. Second day, we really focus on how do we lead small groups? And then from there, we focus on then how do we translate those sorts of leadership skills externally to larger communities? So it was really exciting, a phenomenal, I would say. You know, my thought was that I look at them and try to imagine where I was at their age. And it occurred to me, wow, at their age, a lot of the people in Vietnam, when I was in Vietnam, were the age. So I take myself back to that time. And man, alive, you know, I mean, they're so far advanced compared to me, you know, because I was just kind of cruising along, doing what I'm doing. At that time, you know, getting in trouble and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. And alive. It was eye-opening. Yeah, for sure. And it's one of those things, too, I feel like, sure, the people who are with us were from 9th grade to 12th grade, but I feel like the activities that we go through in some of these camps are just as important for adults to go through, you know, and the fact that they're going through it at such a young age is a step in the right direction, right? I feel like it gives them a little bit of a head start compared to maybe some of the other people who are just going out into the world for their first time. Because, for example, right, on the Focus on Me section, we really have conversations around how do you lead yourself, right? A lot of people have really good information. So it's not just about having information. How do you translate the information into action? For example, right, we could go ask just about anybody in the United States, in Hawaii, in any of the schools, we can say, what does it mean to be healthy? Like, what do you have to do to be healthy? People will know, right, Richard? You should work out. You should eat healthy. They know of things that they should avoid, right? And so they know what decisions need to be made to live a healthy lifestyle. Yet when you look at the populace, how many people are actually living a healthy lifestyle? And it has nothing to do with a lack of the information, right? They all just listed exactly what it takes to be healthy. And it's like, then what is the missing thing that can connect knowledge, right, of what to do to the actual action of doing? And so one of the things that we really work on there is the psychological part, right? How do we make that transition happen? How do we translate that information into a viable action? And that's an interesting thing, too, Richard. I mean, Richard, you've been doing your powerlifting. You're breaking state records. You're on track for world records. When you think about you individually, how do you translate? And I think of what you're doing in an extreme leadership quality, right, in your extreme leadership position. What do you do when you wake up in the morning? Like, what thoughts are you telling yourself that make you actually get up and go to the gym? Yeah, you know, it's really something because there was a point about a year ago that I knew that I was going downhill and it was going to be a one-way trip downhill. And I could tell over a matter of about several weeks, maybe a month, I knew it was going to be a one-way trip. And there just had been circumstances, you know, my nieces and nephews started bugging me about lifting weights. And when I started thinking about that, so maybe I'll try. And what was amazing about doing that was just trying and then finding out that, hey, wow, I can do this. You know, I'm 29 years old, but wow, I can do this. Yeah, as long as your expectations, you exceed your expectations a little bit at a time and you take great satisfaction in that little bit. Yeah. It improves and every day you're happy and mental health lies and everything. Yeah. Why? It helps a lot. Without a doubt. So what are the thoughts that you, like when you wake up in the morning, right? You, you, you're very serious about making sure you make time for the gym. Yeah. Like what thoughts are you thinking, you know, when you're making the decision to go to gym? Right? How do we translate to other folks? Like how do we take a lessons learned from this? Like, are you saying positive things to yourself? Or is there fear that's motivating? Like help me understand what's helping you make the decision to go to the gym. I have a general plan, you know, a monthly plan and three days a week. And the first thing I tell myself is, you know, it's a very effective use of my time because at my age, I only have time left. How much time I don't know. But this is a real effective use of the time. 45 minutes, three times a week and you come out feeling so good. And then you're positive and you're thinking into the future and you wanna do all kinds of stuff. Right. It's that, you know, it's just that idea of feeling good is what is motivating. Yeah, no, that's good. So I'd say it's somewhere, is it fair to say then that it's somewhere of a combination between you knew what that decline started to feel like and you're not interested in that paired with the positive reinforcement of the benefit that you get from doing it, right? Which is the good feeling, right? The being mobile, the having the clear mental space, all of these things that you really get from the workout. Yeah, you gotta understand what your limitations are. You know, like joints, injury to your muscles and muscles have deteriorated. Some are more than others and trying to put all those things together so that it ends up in positive movement. So you kind of think through what are the different things you have to do to, you know, you don't wanna hurt yourself because you're just wasting time, right? Right. So it's all that kind of stuff that goes through my mind. You know, it's not, oh, I wanna set a record. It's not that, it's okay. If I'm gonna do, I'll say bench press, I need to get strong shoulders back and arms and stuff like that. And which is the weakest link? Oh, I better work on that. And you know what? I'll try to make that really strong, you know? And then even if it's such a little small increase, but the fact that at my age, you can actually increase and grow is amazing to me. And I need a limitation other than I do something that injures myself. Yep. So that's kind of what makes me happy. Yeah. No, and I think that's wonderful. And I think that's another part of leadership, right? What type of leader do you wanna be? Right? We have to first make good decisions for ourselves. So we have to be able to lead self. If we're not making good decisions for us, what gives us the right to tell anybody else, right? Any sort of direction, right? How can we lead other people if we're not leading ourselves effectively? And that's one of the things that I think you do a beautiful job demonstrating, Richard. Like there's a lot of people who have worked for you in the past, right? Who I think you've been a phenomenal leader too, because you lead by demonstration. But you don't ask people to do things that you don't do yourself, right? And I think that's a really important quality in good leadership. And so we see this, you know, we see this brought to life in so many different arenas, but I think in the corporate world, in places where there are coaches, in the academic world, why should we follow the leader, the direction of anybody who's not in a position that we would wanna be in? Or it's not making decisions for themselves the way that we think is the healthiest, right? And so I think when we have conversations about how leadership translates into culture, right, breeding positive culture in a specific organization or arena or community, I think all these things tie in extremely, extremely closely. And so let's say we have an organization, and in that organization, we have people in power, right? Who are in the highest positions of leadership, but they're in a position, maybe they're the VP of operations because their brother owns the organization. They don't know very much about operations. They don't know very much about the actual business, what they happen to be family, right? Or very good friends. What happens is you bring people into an organization and the people are looking up to the folks who are supposed to lead them and say, wow, they're not making very good decisions because they don't have all of the information. And let's say somebody is trying to share information because they have a lot of history in the business and that's not listened to. That's really where you start breeding a toxic culture, right? It's like, man, I really don't like working for this guy. I know a lot more than this guy and this guy is unwilling to listen, right? Why am I having to work in this way? And so one negative thing like that in an organization really starts to fester, right? These sorts of feelings of resentment start building. And so when you're looking at that, you're like, okay, that translates into poor leadership, right? I mean, we see that, we're like, okay, they don't know as much and they're unwilling to listen and they're making decisions that aren't what's best for the organization because of that lack of competency. Now let's take a look at a different type of leader, right? And I think this is the type of leader that you are, Richard. And it's the type of leader. What happened with me was when we were small kids, we went down to visit Makul, where, you know, Kamehile family lived, took a living, lived, and the reception we got from her, I never forgot. She didn't speak English and we didn't speak Hawaiian, but she just took care of us like nothing I've ever, I mean, it just lasted all my life. And then her son went into the Merchant Marines and came back to that subsistence farming, living that they had, which was fishing, growing stuff and having animals and stuff like that. And it was just basic subsistence farming and living. And many years later, when I went back to see Uncle Sonny, her son, I wanted to get some banana kiki to start a banana farm. And I spent many hours with him because he had such a strong personality. My auntie could only listen, couldn't say anything. But you know, while I was there, what came to me was that, you know, the values that I saw there, you know, was the values that my father basically told us when we were kids. But I noticed that. And I told myself, you know, I would like to share this with kids later on, you know, but then I realized that I had to go and prove myself first before I could say anything because, you know, otherwise I'd just be talking. So it took a long time to grow the bananas, to get up to planting, I mean, planting up 600 acres. We took at least steps and we had to look at four or five different options at any given time all the while having the future in your mind where you want to go. So you choose the different options and then make the decision that you have to make. But anyway, it took a long time, maybe 30 years to get to a point where I actually was in a position to be able to see now I can help. And, you know, so that was the journey I took. Anyway, that's how it happened for me. Yeah, and in such a perfect example, right, of being able to lead first yourself. But you started by being able to grow your information and your knowledge on a specific topic to the point where you knew that you were competent in it, right? You had done everything that you were supposed to do in order to gain that information and that knowledge, both probably through reading about it, through doing research about it and then actually implementing it yourself and going through the different life cycles of that. And so you knew already back then that that was something that you had to go through before you felt comfortable guiding, right? And so I think that's super important because a lot of folks really, I just really wanna lead this stuff and then they'll jump into a position of leadership prematurely. So as soon as you jump into that position of leadership prematurely, meaning you don't have the competency or the background or the experience necessary to guide or lead in these arenas, now you're setting yourself up for failure, right? You're putting yourself in a position where there's a resentment that's built within your governance or your organization or your community or whatever it is that you happen to be building your organization. And so it's beautiful, I think, Richard, to see multiple examples of it being done correctly, right? And so I think everything that you've done in multiple sectors of agriculture as an example and as an example of that. And I think we get to see that even in the tech world, right? We get beautiful examples of what happens if the person who's in the highest position doesn't have the competency and doesn't have the vision. I think a lot of people point to Apple as an example, right? When they had Steve Jobs in the range, holding the reins for the organization, they started developing all of these new products, all of these innovative technologies. And then what happened? The board ousted Steve Jobs out of his own company and the organization plummeted, right? Eventually they had to go back to Steve Jobs and say, hey, we need to bring you back on. And Steve Jobs then revived the company, revived the organization. And then of course Steve Jobs passed away and we haven't seen a lot of innovation out of Apple since Steve Jobs has been gone, right? I mean, we still are just having the next generations of the iPhones and the iPads, right? But when he was there, we were seeing the innovation of these things. We were seeing the iPads for the first time. So we're getting the iPods, right? The music players, we're getting all this stuff, this constant innovation. And then we see the leader, the person who's in the position of leadership who's fostering that creativity, who's pushing the bounds, right? Of the organization and of innovation. And with that person not there, look what happens to an organization even if they have millions and billions of dollars behind them, it takes that leadership. It takes that person at the top of the hierarchy with that vision to push. And Steve Jobs put his time in too, right? To be able to get to where he was. So we get to see these real-time examples of what it looks like in terms of fostering beautiful leadership. What happens when that leadership goes away? What does it look like when you have people in positions of leadership don't deserve to be in those positions, right? And then what are the short-term benefits versus long-term benefits, right? We see some short-term benefits. In my case, I look at Hawaii Island first and then the state because we're sitting in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, the largest ocean in the world, dependent on fuel from outside sources to bring all your food in. You take a step back and look at how the Hawaiians used to do it before. And when I think about how they operate it, they used the resources that they had in a very smart way. You know, like the modern day Ahipua, we talk about. It's based on water running downhill, first of all, gravity. And then it's based on trading, of course, here. People from upland and the lowland. And they did not have any metals, so they did not have any money, which forced reciprocity. I mean, the more I give, the more I receive. That kind of reciprocity. And they took it a step further. They included all living things to be part of the resource, you know, all the living things. That's why in their legends that they talk about, they have the tree people, the fish people, and bird people. That's the way of keeping humans and all living things equal. So the resources are in balance. I think, you know, when I think a step back and look at it that way, and I put it together with what my father taught us kids, and what he taught us was just attitude. The attitude was not no can can. Yes. Find two answers for every problem we're just in case, you know, that kind of thing. Yeah. It was never no can, you know. It was okay, you know. Yeah. I'm hoping to be able to influence youngsters to kind of take that attitude and see what it is they can become as leaders. You know, so. With, without a doubt, Richard, I love that. Right. And in your book too, that's one of my favorite parts. I love that part of your book, right? The not no can can and some of the stories passed down from your father. And one of the things that we talked about in day one, right, of leadership over president's day weekend at the leadership camp too, was making the conscious decision to select the philosophy and adopt the philosophy that's most beneficial to self. Right, because you can take a look at different ways of viewing the world around you. And if you're not consciously deciding what your philosophy and what your foundation is, then you're accepting whatever one is being given to you, right, maybe through media, maybe through parenting styles, maybe through friends, right? Maybe it's through school, but if we sit down and start thinking about why are we having the thoughts that we have and what are the implications of those thoughts and those philosophies, we get right down to not no can can or its alternatives, right? For example, I think we've brought a lot of nihilism into our recent generations. And that is the feeling that because what we see on media, that the government and big pharma and politics and big corporations have already stacked the odds against everybody, right? It's like a very difficult system to be successful in, right? Or to work against in terms of trying to breed cultures based on reciprocity, for example, like what you're talking about. And if we come into this at a young age thinking, oh, this system's rigged against me, what's the point? Any actions I take won't make a difference because it's already so far gone. That's nihilism, right? And that's the accepting of nihilism because of what we've seen on the media. But if we instead instill a different type of mentality, different type of philosophy, the exact type of philosophy that your father handed down while he's pounding on the table, right? That not no can can. That means if you're looking, right? If you're facing a problem and if you're looking at it straight on, don't just come up with two solutions, come up with a third one just in case and figure out how, right? And we do a really interesting activity on this. And we start by going up to somebody, Richard, for example, and saying something along the lines of, hey, can you go and flip my truck over? It's in the parking lot. And you'll have like a ninth grader look at you and be like, what? And I'll say, can you go flip over my truck? It's in the parking lot right there. I want the roof on the ground and the tires in the air. They're like, I can't do that. And then we'll have a conversation about mentality and how what we say to ourself and whether we're choosing the positive or the negative makes such a big difference. And just the words I can't hold so much power. What if we changed that to just what you were talking about, Richard, to how can I instead? And now if you say, how can I flip the truck in the parking lot over? All of a sudden the students offer up a lot of suggestions. They say, oh, we could find somebody with a tractor and they could come over and we could hire them to just, you know, stick something under the car and flip it over. Great. Oh, we could get a whole bunch of guys to lift up on one side at the same time. Oh, we could blow a hole in the ground on one side of it and just push it over right into the whole. All of a sudden there's so many ways that they can flip the car over and nothing has changed except for the mentality. I can't do that as the knee-jerk reaction and then just changing the words that are said to self to how can I? Yeah. And that's all it takes. So choose your philosophy, be the type of leader that you want, right? To stay in the world around you, start building those leadership qualities up by being conscious of what we've been taught, what we're accepting as information and what we know is best, most beneficial for each individual. And if we are conscious about that, then we can build up the leadership qualities to be good leaders of ourselves and the leaders of community and even further. So, all right, Richard. Any closing statements before we let people sit on that for a while? Not no can. Can. Yeah. Can we do it in sync? Ready? We'll do it together. Ready? Three, two, one. Not no can. Okay. Can. Can. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you viewers for watching. And if you want to get on our email advisories to see the complete listing of other shows, please feel free to sign up for those on ThinkTekHawaii.com. We will be back in two weeks. So please tune in then to do a deep dive into our M invention. So until then, I'm Brittany Zimmerman. I'm Richard Ha. Aloha. Aloha.