Rand Stagen on Long-Term Leadership, Business, and Life

Investing rewards those who play the long game. While short-term trading can capture gains, true wealth comes from thinking in years, even decades. This applies not just to investing, but also in business, leadership, and life. This week, David interviews Rand Stagen, Managing Director of Stagen Leadership Academy, and one of David’s favorite people in business. Rand shares his wisdom on the long-term development of leaders and organizations, why conscious leadership is crucial for businesses today, and the lessons we can all learn from playing the long game in every aspect of life. Along the way, they’ll explore the balance of business, family, and legacy, and even tackle some Buy, Sell, or Hold predictions for the future of leadership.

 

Host: David Gardner

Producer: Desirée Jones

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Investing rewards thosewho play the long game.
Rule breakers know that whiletrading might capture short
term gains, true wealth comes fromthinking in years, even decades.
That's how you howI beat the market.
And it's not just investing,
compounding returnsapply in business,

(00:20):
leadership, and life.
My guest this week,Rand Stegen, knows this well.
His life's work isinvesting in people,
building enduring businesses,
and developing leadersfor the long haul.
Festinalente, the Latin phrasemeaning make haste slowly,
reminds us that steadyprogress beats quick fixes.

(00:43):
So let's make haste slowly withRand Stegen only on this week's
Rule Breaker Investing.
It's the Rule Breaker Investingpodcast with Motley Fool
cofounder David Gardner.
Ram Stegen is the managingdirector of Stegen Leadership
Academy, which he foundedtwenty five years ago,

(01:04):
nineteen ninety nine.
Stegen trains leaders acrossNorth America who are committed
to long term personaldevelopment and using their
businesses as platforms forpositive impact for good.
Before Stegen, Rand ledPresidio Media Group, a
publisher of newspapersand magazines.
He's long served on the boardof Conscious Capitalism.
Rand lives in Dallas withhis wife and two daughters.

(01:26):
A sought after speaker,
Rand brings his wisdom on consciousleadership to stages nationwide.
But this week, weget him for free.
Rand Stegen is one of myfavorite people in business,
so it's both a pleasure and anhonor to have him debuting this
week on Rule Breaker Investing.
Rand, welcome.
It is great to be here, andthank you for the invitation.
We've been we've been,threatening to do this for years,

(01:49):
probably twelve twelve or fifteenyears to do something together.
So I'm finally,finally, you know,
celebrating that wewere making it happen.
Thank you, Rand.
And and I it's becausewe're playing the long game,
and that that feeds really wellinto my first question for you.
I I I was thinking since Ioften say that this podcast is
one third investing, one thirdbusiness, one third life,
that maybe we would arrangeour conversation that way.

(02:10):
So let's let's kick off aninvesting discussion with with
my first question.
It's a big topic. It'sbeen on your mind recently.
Time.
In investing, we talk alot about the long term and
compounding returns.
Rule breaker investors, I think,
outperform traders becausewe play the long game.

(02:31):
Similarly, Rand, inyour work at Stegen,
you have a long term focuson the development of not public
company stocks,but human beings.
Could you help us by exploringinto the parallels between long
term investment in stocks andlong term investment in people?
Yeah. The, is as you know, thisis one of my favorite topics.

(02:52):
This this, this the wayin which we as investors
or as leaders in ourorganizations or as parents
with our children or asmembers of our communities,
what not what'shappening in the world,
but rather how are we relatingto what's happening in the world.

(03:13):
And this idea of whatis the way in which we
relate with time itself.
And so if we thinkabout the idea of
investing, if we Ihave two daughters,
as you said in the intro.
And when I talk to them aboutthe power of, the long game in
compounding investing,And I say to them,

(03:35):
if you look at the S and P forthe last twenty five years,
it's a fascinating exercise,especially when they were young.
We see a, we see a clear,
a clear picture whenwe're zoomed out.
And, obviously, when we zoomin in a more of a short term,
game, it becomes more volatile.
It becomes more, itbecomes more stressful.

(03:57):
But if you just stayin the investing game, the outcome
is is very evident.
Well, now let's takethis in my world.
So we run a a a leadershipacademy in Dallas,
Texas as you mentioned,
and we work with thousandsof leaders in practice based
programs every year.
And sometimes these leadersfly to us from across North

(04:18):
America, and sometimes weactually send our team,
our faculty out to theirorganizations to deliver programs.
And what we require
in every program that wedo is a commitment to a,
to a minimalthreshold of practice.
So when we work witha new organization,
we say to the organization,

(04:38):
not only are we gonna requireyour commitment to playing a
practice game withyour development as leaders,
but also your CEOhas to go first.
So leaders go first.
We don't work with anorganization unless the CEO is
gonna walk the talkand model the way.
And we expect the CEO tocommit to our flagship program,

(05:01):
which is a fifty two weekpractice based program.
And this is really important becausethe the pushback we get is significant.
People say, what areyou talking about?
What about a one day program?
What about a two dayprogram? And I'm like, okay.
Let me get this straight.
What are you actuallytrying to accomplish?
Well, Rand, we wanna helpdrive more trust among our

(05:22):
leadership team andthroughout our organization.
And I say to them, so youwanna promote a culture of
trust, and you want our organizationto do a two day program on that.
And they're like, yeah.
And, David, they're they're they'rethey're sincere in their request.
And so this is what what we'velearned, it's gonna back to
you, is the is the theway in which the average

(05:45):
potential customer of ours,
which we say no most of thetime to new opportunities,
they want the quick win.
They want the endorphinrelease that they,
that they got entertained fora day or two around the topic.
It could be communication.It could be trust.
It could be execution.It could be teamwork.
But the reality is thosetopics require a a a

(06:08):
discipline and a commitmentto the long game.
And fifty two weeks for us justgets our clients to what we
call a commencement ceremony, a,
an opportunity to now aftera fifty two week orientation to
the principles ofconscious leadership.
Now we can actually begin thereal work, which is a multi

(06:28):
decade journey of development.
I I love that, Rand.
And I'm curious, Did you alldid you start it that way?
Was that always how it was,
or did you learn your way into thatminimum threshold of commitment?
Yeah. I like I like your frame.Did we learn our way in? Yes.
We learned our way in.
And

(06:49):
when we started the business innineteen ninety nine, we were,
we were opportunistically,
engaging where anyonewas willing to hire us.
We worked with small businesses.
We worked withmidsized businesses,
and we worked with largeFortune one thousand businesses
within the HR andtraining budgets.
And what would happen isover the first three, four,

(07:11):
five years, we startedto see a pattern
where there was a,
demand from the large companiesin particular to go fast
and to go quick.
And the and the expectationsof the opportunity to have a
real compounding return weren'tthere because a lot of times

(07:32):
those executives in thebig companies weren't gonna
actually stay at thecompany long term.
And so they weren't eventhinking about what were gonna
be the implications of thistraining and development two
years, three years, four years,
five years from now because theywere not likely even gonna be there.
So everybody played the shortterm game in the in the big

(07:53):
companies that we worked with.
Now I wanna be careful here.
In the early years Iwanna say this again.
In the early years, inour experience, everybody
in the big companies wasplaying the short term game.
Now it's taken twenty fiveyears, and I have met two or
three CEOs of publiccompanies who actually are demonstrating

(08:15):
a long game orientation,
but it's taken decadesto find those outliers.
Wow. Yeah.
And the long game,fifty two weeks,
that minimum thresholdof commitment,
of course, for investing.
And anybody who's listened tome on this podcast for the last
week or last ten years knowsthat my view of the minimum
commitment to aninvestment is three years.

(08:37):
That's Yeah.
That's generally how wethink about The Motley Fool.
There are probably differentopinions because we're Motley.
But for me, anyway, I've alwayslaid down absolute minimum.
And when you buy a stock,
don't even touch it forat least three years.
And to think that the longgame is just fifty two weeks
initially for a lot of people,that you got them there,
that you helped them realizethat you need if you wanna work

(09:01):
with us, you have to workat our minimum long game of
one year does suggest
rampant short termism throughoutour business world and our society.
And I'm not here tofor you and me, Rand,
to stand up on themountain top and say,
what are all these people doing?
Because we're human too.
We get right into short termsituations and start to forget

(09:21):
that bigger picture of lowerleft to upper right that the S
and P five hundredyou mentioned earlier,
demonstrates if we just let it.
Yeah.
And the, and and, you know,
I even find myself cringing alittle bit when you are playing
back what you're hearing me sayabout one year being long term
because the reality is we, wethink at Stegen, in decades.

(09:43):
Yeah.
We we created a term for this,and and a distinction between
a short termer and a decater.
And a short termer evaluatessuccess in quarters and years.
A decater evaluates successin decades or lifetimes.
And so there is an existential,
dimension and a,

(10:06):
let's call it a transcendentdimension to the work that we
do as it relates to timebecause we simply have
chosen, not thatit's, that it's bad
for other organizations,but for us,
we will not work inenvironments where there are
artificial time horizons.
And so what that basicallymeans is and this took us many

(10:28):
years to create the clarityon what I'm about to say.
We work with owneroperator businesses,
which means mostly families,
founders, and ESOPs.
Owner operators who havea commitment to their
stakeholders, totheir and to their

(10:48):
investors, to theircommunities, to their
employees, to theircustomers, to their, you know,
strategic partners and vendors.
And and this is the big one.
Owner operators with acommitment to stakeholders
and have an indefinite timehorizon for the business
platform that theyare stewarding.
So that doesn't mean aforever time horizon.

(11:10):
It means an indefinite.
They're operating,
as Jim Collins might havesaid back in the nineties,
they're operating with anorientation of a built to last
company building approach.
And so will someof our clients sell
their businesses?
It occasionally happens.
And the good news is that'snot what their goal was.

(11:31):
Their goal is not tosell the business.
Their goal is to builda great enduring profitable successful
business thatcreates compounding
returns through time.
And we are afforded theopportunity to often be a
partner along that journey, not justfor a year or two or five,
but we are now incontinuous partnership

(11:53):
with dozens and dozens of companiesin the decades in our partnership.
Partnerships that arenow fifteen, twenty,
twenty five years oldcontinuously the same companies.
Which is wonderful.
Fred Reichheld, the Harvard BusinessSchool professor who wrote, well,
he's he he actuallyhelped develop,
Net Promoter among other things,but the the loyalty effect.

(12:14):
Organizations thatcan count not just
using Rand's Steigen parlancehere, not just in years,
but in decades, decaders,
the the number of years thatthey've worked with their
customers, with their employees,
with their partnersand suppliers,
with their shareholders.
Yes. Not all money ishot money out there.
But speaking of, like,landscape views of the world,

(12:35):
Rand, when youdescribe your business,
looking for these owneroperator companies that are
truly building somethingas as you say of indefinite
but definite value,
how many are out there?
Is this can you just shake thetrees and they just drop down
and, you know, and Stake andAcademy just keeps growing?

(12:55):
Or is this the one percentof the one percent?
Like, I'm just I don't havepattern recognition across all of
business to know howoften or rare this is.
Yeah.
We would we would answer that insaying that in the United States alone,
that there are several hundred thousandprivately held midsize businesses.
And they're becausethey're private,
the data's a little bitelusive to all of us,

(13:17):
but hundreds of thousands.
And what is midsize?
In midsize, we would say a couplehundred to a couple thousand employees.
That sort of might what mightbe called the lower mid market,
by, by, you know, anenterprise organization.
Like, a software company mightcall this the lower mid market.
So you're talking aboutcompanies with hundreds of
employees to thousandsof employees.

(13:38):
Most of the time, they arenot yet professionalized.
They're still, they're still run by thefamily or they're still run by, the founder.
And within those hundreds ofthousands, we believe that
there are tens of thousands that fitthe profile that we're talking about.
Now.
They care abouttheir communities.
Now people will say, you know,so Stegen's partnered with

(14:01):
academics and think tanks,
and we've we've we we'rewe feel very confident in the,
in the in the caliber of ourcurriculum design based on,
based on the cutting edgetheories and research around
leadership andhuman development.
On the coast, let's call thisour some of our partners like,
you know, professors atHarvard and other think tanks.

(14:23):
Now the the assumptionwould be if your
curriculum is cutting edge,
you must be working withcompanies on the coast.
You must have a lot of clientsin San Francisco and in Seattle
and in New York and in Boston.
And the reality is while we haveclients all over North America,
we have very few very we have a verysmall concentration on the coast.

(14:46):
Where we thrive isin the heartland.
So our typical clientis in Texas, Louisiana,
Arkansas, Oklahoma,Ohio, Illinois.
We've just started todo more work in Alabama.
We're moving more into Florida.
And so people arealways surprised.

(15:08):
Why do you work in these sortof heartland states where
there's that why?
And we say because when weshow up and we talk about the
values of takingcare of your people,
taking care of your communities,
being an unapologeticcapitalist,
but also feeling like and thisis the the my private equity
friends, you know, havea double take on this.

(15:29):
What what we say is theway to maximize profits
is to focus on morethan maximizing profits.
I mean, this is this is thethis is the magic. Right?
Is if I actually focus on thelong game in taking care of my
customers and creating valueand taking care of my employees
and retaining that talent andtaking care of my vendors.

(15:49):
And, yes, I have tonegotiate with my vendors,
but doing it in a way whereit's sustainable for all of us,
and they can continue to makemoney so they can reinvest back
in their operationand better serve us.
That dynamic tensionin stakeholder management.
If we actually focus on all ofthat, we can actually make more
money through time than just beingmaniacally focused on the profit.

(16:11):
And when we show up andtalk to a second generation
distribution businessin Louisiana,
they're like, thatjust makes sense to me.
Like, why wouldn'teveryone think like that?
And so there's this almostnatural fit in these more
traditional, environments
than, you know, relative toa Seattle or San Francisco.
You get the customersyou deserve,

(16:32):
certainly a truismin this world,
also the suppliers andpartners you deserve.
And and we're talking in and aroundconscious capitalism a little bit,
and I wanna move our investingdiscussion briefly there, Rand,
because conscious capitalism iscentral to the philosophy at stake.
And you have been on the board.
I was on the board for, Idon't know, eight years,
and you were on the board,like, five years before that,

(16:54):
and you're still on the board.
So, Rand, you are oneof the on the board.
You are one of the greatliving conscious capitalists,
and I and I mean that sincerelyand in in the most beautiful way.
And I've learned a lot,
and so many of us havelearned a lot from you.
And I've never even beenthrough the Leadership Academy.
You have touched so many lives.
What does it meanto you, Rand Stegen,
to be a conscious investor?

(17:15):
A lot of long time rule breakerlisteners kind of already know
in some cases, but we'realways reaching new people.
You're alwaysreaching new people.
And when you say somethinglike conscious investor,
that just sounds like froufrou language to some people.
So how do the principlesof conscious capitalism
shape the way youthink about investing,
whether it's in companiesor people or society?

(17:37):
Yeah.
I'll I'll just simply swapout the word conscious,
and I'll use a coupleof other synonyms.
Deliberate,
intentional,
choiceful.
And so it's sort of like, well,
do we wanna do our investing in a deliberateand choiceful and disciplined way,

(17:59):
or do we wanna do itin a more reactive
scrambling way?
I would say Random.Like, random.
I would say that, you know,
conscious that a consciousapproach to investing whatever
we're investing in is aform of playing offense
as opposed to defense,
and it's a form of playingoffense continuously.

(18:20):
And this is important.
This is this is Idid not understand the difference
between the wordcontinual and continuous
until just a few years ago, andI thought they were the same.
And I can tell you thatif someone plays golf
and they play let's say they'rea junior high or a high school

(18:41):
golfer, and they play justduring the golf season,
And, and she playsgolf, you know,
golf season in freshman yearand sophomore year and junior
year and senior year.
So that would be an exampleof an athlete who only plays golf
during golf season.
That's a continual
orientation to golf versussomeone who plays golf year

(19:02):
round, includingtheir, their season.
That's a continuous
approach to the game of golf.
And so continuous
is like a infinity symbol,
and it's just aconstant commitment.
So, yeah, I say a consciousinvestor is a deliberate

(19:23):
investor whose whose commitment
to whatever they'reinvesting in is continuous.
Rand, you and I have talkedover the years about business.
We've talked alot about culture.
We haven't talkeda lot about stocks.
Let's do that briefly here.
Many people don'tinvest in stocks at all.
They just they index and I andcertainly at The Motley Fool,

(19:45):
we have endorsed that,from our very first book.
We totally agree and get theidea to index your investments,
especially if you're payinga very low fee and you're not
putting your money instead in overpricedmutual funds that underperform.
So we're huge fansof indexing, and
I love stocks. I loveinvesting directly in stocks.
I think that being choiceful,

(20:07):
your words deliberate aboutpicking good companies,
not just all the companies,
which by the way is what index fundsdo they have to buy all the companies.
That's reallyworked well for me.
Rand, do you investin individual stocks?
Do you have a story or twohere? Do you just index?
Share with us.
Yeah.
I would say that I,
I primarily orient myinvesting outside of

(20:29):
the stocks and bonds world,
and I do have a more of an indexingapproach just with my personal,
with my personal investments witha wealth manager that I
just trust, and we invest there.
We also do privateinvesting in, in real estate
and in other,
in other private equityopportunities that are a little

(20:50):
bit longer term.
And the and the real estate mightbe ten years of orientation.
And, and then I, forfun, will invest in individual
stocks not as a way ofgenerating long term wealth,
but as a way of justbeing in the game.
And so thanks to youand your brother,

(21:12):
I found Markel Corporation, and,
and that would be an example ofan individual stock that I own
that I will not be selling.
That's fantastic, Rand.
And and that that's more creditto Tom who's been more the
Markel fan over the years.
Lots of Motley Fool Markel fansand lots of people listening
right now who own Markel.
And I I totally get that,and I appreciate that.

(21:35):
And I'm curious, Rand.
You you meet so many greatHeartland businesses.
You just spoke tothat and coasts too.
Do you have a do you have a standardwhere you never invest in your clients?
Or since you have an incrediblewindow into your clients now I
know a lot of them are privatecompanies where you it would be
a special investor.
Do you ever investin your clients?

(21:55):
Well, I don't have the opportunityto invest in my clients because
the very nature of the,
client profile that we targetis private, businesses.
And so You can still pickoff five percent, Rand.
You can still say we need a onepercenter to to work with you guys.
We're that big.
We I would say that I feel agreat sense of ownership and,

(22:17):
and mutual commitment withour long term clients,
our partners, that is,that I am investing, David,
to be honest with you.
It's I might not be writinga check, but we invest
our time and energy.
And and this for us is an actof love, the work that we do
with our clients.
We are we are,

(22:38):
and you and you would youtalked a few minutes ago about
the warm and fuzzyinterpretations of consciousness.
If if consciousnessis about awareness,
yes, it's aboutbeing deliberate,
but it's also about being aware.
And and this idea of, youknow, with awareness, we have choice.
Without awareness, only habit.

(22:58):
So so when we'rewhen we're conscious,
the way we become choiceful isbecause awareness creates choice.
And without awareness, onlyhabit, habituation, reactivity.
And we're sort ofin the those of,
those listeners out there thatknow the movie The Matrix,
that's the idea of being asleepor being awake to our lives.

(23:20):
And so when I say loveand people are like, oh,
that just sounds so squishy.
You're gonna go hug sometrees in California.
It's like, really?
So let's talk about the theactual pragmatic part of
love, the way that we lookat all of us with children,
those of us who have children,
how we create the conditionsfor an expression of love

(23:42):
that's supportive,a feminine love,
and a a version of lovethat is, a more masculine,
a more challenging, amore advocacy expression.
And so we are willing to be inrelationships, and we pursue
relationships with our clientswhere there's an opportunity
for that extending of ourselvesto our client and for our
client to extendthemselves back to us.

(24:03):
And that gets into trust,and that gets into intimacy,
and that gets intovulnerability.
All of theseattributes, by the way,
if we were to look atsome of the highest performing sports
teams, these are the attributes.
The the the trustdrives performance
and drives resultsand drives return
within organizational life andwithin any kind of team dynamics.

(24:27):
And so people are alwayslike, oh, you know,
Rand's such a treehugger. Real really?
So so so let's lookat the performance.
Let's look at the success ofthe clients that we have the
opportunity to workwith long term.
And these are these are notstories of philanthropy.
These are stories of excellence.
These are stories of, in somecases, of dominating industries.

(24:50):
Southwest Airlines would bethe cliche of the old days of,
you know, wow.
They were all about lovewhen Herb Kelleher was leading it.
It.
That was their ticker symbol.
That was their tickersymbol. Still is.
And and they and theyare and they and they are
one of the great examplesduring Herb's leadership of a
commitment to, a reallydifferentiated way,

(25:12):
a strategic moat of how we'regonna use the quality of our
relationships to actually drivereturn for our investors and
drive results.
And and and that's and we'renot afraid to say that.
And because we don't workwith public companies,
for the most part, a fewexceptions as I mentioned, we,
we don't have to worry aboutthe HR people saying you can't

(25:32):
talk about love.
You can't talk aboutintimacy. Yeah.
We can because the people wework with own the businesses.
Yeah. Full stop.
Really appreciate reallyappreciate that point, Rand.
And, you know, I mean,I I love the word love,
and I take it as love.
And I don't need it qualified,
although we've oftenheard the Greeks.
The ancient Greeks had twentynine different words for love,
and, you know, there are many differentforms that it takes, of course.

(25:55):
I think of oftenother centeredness,
which by the way is alsoknown as customer centrism.
That's right.
And Jeff Bezos has donea pretty good job loving
customers in that way,
creating maybe the greatbusiness of our time by saying,
at the very start,
we're gonna become Earth'smost customer centric company.
Whether we don't even needto debate whether that's true or

(26:16):
not, that was the vision,and look what it became.
So I think love recommends itselfas well as the ticker symbol.
Southwest Airlines, not afantastic stock last ten years,
but you mentioned the forty orso years before that and in an
industry that was veryhard to make profit,
Southwest so admirablein so many ways. So yeah.
And I wanna I wannaI wanna jump in on,
on a little different anglethan just love because we can

(26:38):
use a word care.
And and that's whatSouthwest extend it.
That's what Chick fil Aextends in a much more,
in a much morerelational sense of care.
And that's what JeffBezos and Amazon extends.
And people are always like,Rand, what do you mean?

(27:00):
Jeff Bezos and Amazon doesn'tseem like a caring company.
And I say, well, when I amwashing my dishes a couple of
days ago and my, and the thebrush I use in the kitchen
sink breaks that I'mwashing my dishes with,
and I go to my laptopand I order a new brush,
and that night, okay,when I'm doing the dishes,

(27:21):
I'm actually I'm actuallyusing a new brush.
That is a form of care.
It it is a the speedand the, efficiency
of in the selection.
I mean, I feel very caredfor when that arrives in that
kind of, tight window.
And I also feel a differentform of care when I walk into

(27:43):
Chick fil A, and there'sa sixteen year old that's
extending this kindof radiating smile.
And I'm like, that'sthat's just like you said,
love has different expressions.
Care is expressedin different ways.
And some people care,at a systems level,
and some people care atmore of a relational level.
And and there's a there'sa beautiful quote that,

(28:06):
that I love thatcomes to mind here.
It's not attributedto any one person.
It's more of a a big idea.
Tell me what you care about,
and I will tell youhow big you are.
Tell me what you care about,
and I will tell youhow big you are.
How big can you playin this lifetime?
And are you able to actuallyextend care to your customers

(28:28):
and to your stakeholders andto your employees in such a way
that gives you a unfaircompetitive advantage?
And and, like, this is it's it it continuesto come back surprisingly to a lot
of people to a very pragmaticreality of performance through time.
But if I'm only gonna beleading a business at a public
company for threeyears or four years,

(28:51):
I don't think, this is easylogic for somebody to try on.
And I and I I used to I usedto get very frustrated until I
became friends with a lotof public company CEOs,
and I started to empathizewith what it's like to be them.
They're they'reput into the seat.
The incentives are
are short term in nature.

(29:12):
Some would even say, you know,pathologically short term.
And and the CEO will sayto me, you know, Rand,
I'm probably gonna get firedonce the once the market
winds turn anyway.
And so there might be an activistinvestor that comes on and fires me.
My own board may fire me.
So since they'reprobably out to get me,

(29:33):
I need to take care of myself.
And so, yeah, I'm gonna operate ina quarterly to one year orientation.
Mhmm.
Because at the end of the day,
I even if I wantit to stay here,
I'm not even gonna have theopportunity to stay here.
So why are you talkingto me about ten, twenty,
thirty years from now?
That's not relevant for me.
And so so they'replaying a different game.
And it's a there arewe've talked about the different

(29:57):
qualities of love.
We've talked about thedifferent qualities of care,
and we can also talk about thedifferent qualities of urgency.
So there is a pathologicalurgency in the in the,
in our country and in theworld right now that is, most,
you know, it most clearlyillustrated by social media.

(30:19):
The social media, the theTikTok and the Snapchat,
it's just this constant alertsof, like, you know, of, like,
give me yourattention right now.
Now now now now now now now now.
I see it with my kids,which is so so disturbing.
And then there's a differentkind of urgency that can be
called an existential urgency.
And so when Martin LutherKing took a stand in the civil

(30:41):
rights era and said,we're not waiting.
We're gonna actually act, andwe're gonna make change now.
That's that's urgency,but it's existential.
And so what we work with ourclients on is how can we tease
apart the differences and the
distinctions and not conflatethe qualities of care,
the qualities of love,the qualities of urgency.

(31:03):
And this requires complexity.
And I I was I didn't wannause that word initially,
but if you say, you know, Rand,
what's another way of talkingabout conscious leadership and
conscious investing?
I would just say amore complex approach
to leading and a more complexapproach to investing.
Because when I'm higherup on the mountain,

(31:24):
I actually, thiselevated approach,
a conscious leader is aboutour our conscious capitalism
nonprofit of which we'reinvolved in together is,
and so many of usaround the world,
our purpose statement is toelevate humanity through business.
That's the purpose ofconscious capitalism,
to elevate humanitythrough business.

(31:44):
The elevation idea of ofmoving up vertically, up the mountain,
means when I get higher up,
I can actually see more.
I have more I have more breath.
I can see more tomy right and left.
I can actually see farther.
And and and here's the coolest partpeople don't often think about.

(32:06):
The higher up I go, the morelife experiences I actually
have to draw uponthat are beneath me,
so the depth is actuallygreater the higher up I am.
So that's more wisdom.
I think, I think,you know, obviously,
your listeners are fansfor the most part of,
of Warren Buffett,and this this is a,

(32:28):
using this sort of ideahere as a backdrop.
This is an investor who Ibelieve has an elevated view,
an investor who can seewhat others can't see,
an investor who plays big.
And and that's whythis isn't some,
you know, some, warmand fuzzy, you know,

(32:48):
unicorn conversationwe're having.
This is a conversation againabout performance and results.
And you just said so manythings there that could take us
seventeen different directions,and we probably only have,
I don't know, like,thirty more minutes.
Although, you gottacome back, Rand.
I I well, how could I have waitedto twenty twenty four to have this
conversation, whichI'm enjoying so much?
Let me just underlinea couple things.

(33:10):
Statistics, most of which Imake up just to make a point,
but they're generally true.
Statistics say things likethe average public market CEO
becomes CEO at the age of sixtythree and will be on for three
point seven years.
And I again, a madeup, but generally,
directionally true statistic,
and that's that so underlineswhat you're saying.
And we understand how that personmight be trying to hit every quarter.

(33:32):
And, and just think interms of a year, ironically,
even though they're well up themountain of their own lives,
that's where they're behaving,
and you describethat as pathological.
Let me shift because I saidwe're gonna do investing
business and life, and thatsupposedly was all investing.
But there was a lot of businessand some life packed in already.
Let me slightly more formally aim atbusiness now in this conversation.

(33:56):
And our mutual friend,Heath, said, you know,
here's the thing with Rand.
You can have him on, andyou could just say, Rand,
what's been on your mind lately?
And the whole podcastcan go from there.
Well, that's not the case becausewe're in the middle of our
tether right now.
But, Ran, what's beenon your mind lately?
Well, I,

(34:17):
I would say that there's alot operationally in my own
business of leading anorganization like many of the
listeners, lead,
whether it's a fullorganization or a department or
or leading even a family unit.
I would consider tobe an organization.
So I I'm I'm I'mconstantly confronted

(34:37):
with the, the challengesof just being me.
Okay? And people ask, youknow, what's it like to be you?
And I say it's,
it's fulfilling.
It's
meaningful.
It's rich.
Sometimes it's inspiringand fun, and sometimes it's,

(34:59):
confronting and terrifying.
And so I I used toreally work hard
to pursue
a day when I wouldbe, quote, happy.
If there was a rubber bandbetween my hands right now and
that rubber bandrepresented the anxiety
of being alive.

(35:19):
And someday, when I make the rightinvestment and I have the right
return and I have the rightmarriage and the right kids and
the right clients,
someday that that that thetension in that rubber band
will actually disappearbecause as human beings,
when we experiencedistress and we experience
anxiety, we assume thatsomething's going wrong,
so we wanna actuallyrelieve that tension.

(35:43):
And so in the last decade,it's a relatively new, sort of
journey for me in this, domain.
I've really builtremember I said earlier,
it's not what happens.
It's how we relatewith what happens.
I've started to builda new relationship
to this idea of anxietyand how can I start to see

(36:03):
the difference betweena productive distress?
Like, I went to the gym thismorning, and I worked out.
And I worked out with a trainer,and he pushed me really hard.
And during the exercise,I was saying to myself,
I don't think I'd be doingthis if I were here without a
workout partner or a trainer.
Like, this is really hard.
So and so at the same time,
I realized that I'm going to getthat's a productive distress.

(36:26):
I'm gonna actually mymuscle's gonna grow from that.
And so I've started to,
I've started to reallyrecognize that when I when I
have anxiety with my, with my team,with my clients, with my family,
that that's an opportunity toactually see the only reason
that I'm feeling anxious,defensive, insecure,

(36:47):
threatened is because I have noother way of dealing with that
particular moment thanfeeling those feelings.
What a gift, David.
What a gift to actually be,like, seeing myself in a
mirror when I'm around people,
and I'm and I'm I'm I'm feelingI'm feeling defensive or anxious.
And, like, oh, what a gift.

(37:09):
It's like being in the ringwith someone, and I'm a boxer,
and it's a sparring partner,
and I I keep getting smacked in thehead with a left hook, and I'm like,
I need to keep practicing defendingmyself against a left hook.
Like, so the people that are inour lives who actually we find
ourselves most frustratedby actually are the greatest

(37:30):
teachers that have beenbrought into our life.
And so it's like,wow. How cool is that?
So that's on my mind right nowof, like, how can I continue to
be in a place ofdeep appreciation
for all of the experiences I'mhaving that I'm not actually
equipped to handlebesides complaining
and being, andbeing in reactivity?

(37:52):
So that's likethat's like a meta.
I don't know if thatmakes any sense,
but that's It does make sense.
A past guest on this podcast,
certainly a friend of thispodcast, Sherzad Shamine,
who wrote a wonderful bookcalled Positive Intelligence.
And there's so manybooks out there, Ran.
I'm not gonna assumeyou've read it.
I mean, you might have.
You're very well studied.
But one of the the great pointsthat Shirzad makes is he says, okay.

(38:12):
There's a flame in front of you.
You've put your handjust above the flame.
It hurts.
Is that good or is that bad?
And the correctanswer is that is good
because your nerves aregoing to your brain,
and they're telling you to takeyour hand away from the flame.

(38:34):
But Shirzad says,
it's amazing how few peopleunderstand that with their
emotions or their psychology.
Yeah.
They keep in that bitter ordark or victimized place,
and they return to it.
They keep theirhand over the flame.
So it's really good,positive intelligence,
the title of Sherzad's book.
It's really positivelyintelligent to as quickly as

(38:57):
possible pull your handback from the flame.
But what that requires in lifewhile also appreciating the
flame, which I think waspart of your point, Rand,
What that requires in life isself awareness to recognize
what's happening.
That is a flame. I have a hand.
I am reacting in a way Ineed to react in a way that
preserves me andand that is healthy.

(39:19):
And it's physicallyobvious to us.
Psychologically, it's often not.
Emotionally, it's often not.
But something that I'veappreciated about you, Rand,
you were the one of thepeople I was telling my wife,
Margaret, before startingthe podcast today.
Rand is one of thosepeople the ratio of, like,
love the guy and have spent littletime with the guy in the denominator.
You're, like, about ashigh as anybody on earth.

(39:41):
Like, I love you, Rand,
and and we haven't spentenough time together,
but the ratio is amazing.
So I I I've seen in myinteractions with you a self
awareness and a a willingnessto confront being uncomfortable
and to express anxiety in away that we can all relate to,
and I only can imagine howbeneficial that is for your clients.
And I'm not talking aboutone or two day off sites.

(40:03):
Yep.
I'm talking about decadeers.
So really appreciate that.I wanna underline that.
I just wanna we're not gonnahave time for all the questions
I wanted to ask, Rand,
but I do wanna ask a littlebit of the Stegen story here.
You're an entrepreneur.I deeply appreciate that.
You're in yourtwenty fifth year.
If you reverse the numberstwo five, you get to five two,
which is that minimumcommitment weekly that you want

(40:25):
people to be There you go.
There you go.
With you.
So twenty five years, I'm notasking for the full story,
but how did it start, Rand,
and maybe one or two inflectionpoints or things we can all
appreciate and learn from?
Yeah.
Well, I mean, the first thing I would dois say that we're twenty five years in.
We're a start up, full on. No.
I don't I don't say that,I don't say that lightly.

(40:47):
It took us two fulldecades to run the warm up
lap of our business.
To, like, just like Iwas telling someone,
that, you know, imagine, like,back in the seventies with,
like, the red, white, and blueheadband and the red, white,
and blue, like, wristbands.
And, like, I'm stretching. I'min, like, that movie semi pro.

(41:07):
And, like, I'm like,okay. I just warmed up.
Twenty years warmed up,
got the fundamentals of thebusiness model, pricing,
segmentation, ideal customerprofile, technology.
We are doing something inthis business which is,
which is in in some waysincredibly exciting because
it's never been done before.
And in other ways, it's,

(41:28):
it's terrifying becauseit's never been done before.
And so there'sthere's a pioneering
sort of spirit towhat we're up to.
What are you doing that'snever been done before?
The the stand thatwe've talked about of,
recognizing the differencebetween training
and development.

(41:49):
There's nothing there's nothinginherently good or bad about either.
They're just different.
Training is something thatwe do that is a now need.
So we hire someoneinto our company,
and we have Salesforce as ourtech as our technology platform.
We need to trainthem on Salesforce,
and that needs to happenwithin a couple of weeks.
And the ROI onbuilding that skill

(42:12):
is immediate and is beautiful,
and we all want toactually use training.
But that's very differentthan development.
Development is somethingthat we do for the long term,
and it's something that we doaround, around true growth.
And so let's let's give a a verysimple way of describing this.

(42:32):
An acorn, if everyone can justvisualize an acorn, an acorn,
if I were holding itup in front of you,
inside of an acorn exists theentire blueprint for an oak tree.
Right?
So and this is a littlebit of a cliche, like, oh,
an acorn has everything itneeds to become an oak tree.
Still amazing to think about.
Now let's talk aboutwhat is not discussed.

(42:53):
If that acorn falls out of atree onto a piece of, onto a,
you know, a a a brickroad, a piece of cement,
nothing happens withthat latent potential.
If you plant that acorn ina courtyard that's got four
feet by four feetsurrounded by cement,
but it has some nice soil andyou water it and make sure it's

(43:14):
in it's in light conditions,
within several years, abeautiful tree will emerge in
that, in that let's say it'sin the back of an office,
in that courtyard.
And and if we were to take theexact same acorn and we were to
put it into an open field andwe were to have no physical
constraints and we wouldallow it to grow for not just

(43:35):
decades, but forhundreds of years,
we would see anenormous angel oak,
which we have around theUnited States, these these huge trees.
What's the differencebetween the cement, the small
courtyard, and the angel oak?
It is the environment.
It's not the cliche of theacorn. It's the environment.

(43:56):
So as leaders, what kindof environment are we creating
to to actually set theconditions for the latent
potential to actually emerge?
Now with our children,
we absolutely understanddevelopment because
we see what's possible in ourchildren when they're seven
years old, and we say, Icould see a seventeen year old here.

(44:17):
I have a seventeen year old.
I could see a twentyseven year old here.
I could see a twentyseven year old.
I could see a fortyseven year old.
And so we have thisnatural capacity
to be oriented to development
with our familyand our children.
And what Stegen is doing isbringing these same timeless
principles into organizationallife and saying,

(44:38):
how do we create the conditions
for something magical
to emerge fromthe people who are
ultimately under our care?
And and it's like, you know,you and I know Bob Chapman,
and I don't know if he has hashe been on the, the podcast?
Bob has not beenon this podcast.
Another neglectfulmove on my part.

(44:59):
And so he's, he's BarryWeimiller is his organization,
and he's, you know, thousandsof employees, and it's amazing,
you know, familyof organizations.
And he talks aboutthis idea that,
we when we think about ourchildren and we think about our
children going off to work,eventually, they leave.
Like, they we empty nest.
We send them off,and they go to work.

(45:21):
And we think about, like, whatdo we want for our own children?
We in the context oflong term development.
Well, the reality is thatthe people who work for us,
and this is Bob's idea,they are someone's children,
and they are someone's childrenwho are actually under our care.
They are acorns thatare working for us.
What are we doing to actuallycreate the conditions and take

(45:43):
on that responsibility?
And so when we talk toorganizations and leaders,
in particular, theCEO, about this,
if this is dismissedas something,
that has nothing to dowith business performance,
we just we just say no,
we don't work with those peoplebecause they are not our they
are not a fit for us.

(46:04):
And this is about customersegmentation and customer fit.
And this is this is this iswhat's new and different.
And so if you were to say,let's mention another,
another Conscious Capitalismboard member, Greg Massey.
So I met Greg, and it was,it was many years ago.
And they the bank, FirstUnited Bank Community Bank,

(46:26):
was one point sixbillion in assets.
They were just inOklahoma at the time,
second generationfamily business.
And I talked withGreg, and I said,
Greg we had a threehour initial meeting.
We were introducedby a mutual friend.
I said, Greg, when you thinkabout the future of First
United, how far out do you see?
And even back then, he heknew my commitment to long termism.
And he said he paused.

(46:48):
And he he said, you know,I actually have a sense for
the next twenty five yearsdirectionally what I want for
First United Bank.
After twenty five years,it gets a little fuzzy,
and then he paused,and he wasn't joking.
And he said, is that a long enough answerfor us to consider working together?
Okay? And I laughed,and I said, absolutely.

(47:11):
Well, David, that wasseventeen years ago. Okay?
We have been continuouslypartnered with Greg and his
organization, myfaculty, his team,
for seventeen years continuouslywith no interruption.
And so the abilityto ride shotgun,
just like you ride shotgun onan investment that you make or

(47:33):
your listeners are actuallyable to stay with a company for
five, ten, fifteen,twenty years.
You betcha.
We've been withFirst United Bank.
They've gone from one pointsix billion in assets.
They've just hitabout sixteen billion.
They're on their wayto twenty billion,
and they are currently thefastest growing private bank in
the United States.
Now here's the here'sthe the fascinating part.

(47:55):
I told Greg fifteenyears ago, the day's
gonna come when people aregonna start coming from around
the United States and visitingyou like they did with
Southwest Airlines and HRdirectors and leadership teams
to try to find out whatis it that you're doing,
what's your secret sauce,and that is now happening.
There are people visitingtheir corporate headquarters

(48:16):
constantly wantingto learn from them,
and and it's like the you know,it's another cliche, you know,
the twenty, twentyyear overnight success.
Now let me let me just finishthis story with Greg because
it's all about Greg.
You talked about,
we get the customers wedeserve and we get the,
the stakeholders we deserve.

(48:36):
We say that leaders get theorganization they deserve.
And so the organization couldn't
evolve beyond Greg.
Not no organization can evolvebeyond its top leader or its
top leadership team.
That's the that's they're the they'rethe they're the glass ceiling there.
And so nine yearsinto our work with

(48:57):
Greg, I was at the ConsciousCapitalism CEO Summit in
Austin.
You were probably at that eventthat I that I had this conversation.
And a guy comes up to me andsays, I just met Greg Massey.
He says he's been workingwith your Leadership Academy,
him and his team, broadlyfor nine straight years.
Oh my gosh. That's a longtime, this guy said to me.

(49:18):
And he said Would you do atwo day offside for us, Rams?
Exactly.
So the guy the guy was alittle bit, like, perplexed,
and he goes he goes,like, nine years.
How's it going with Gregfrom your perspective?
And I took a I took abreath, and I wasn't joking,
and I looked at him and Isaid, it's too early to tell.
It's only been nine years.

(49:40):
If you were to sayto me today, Rand,
seventeen years inwith Greg and his team,
how are you feeling?
I'm really encouraged.
And we're almost at that first twentyfive year, you know, milestone.
When Greg talksabout First United,
he talks multi generationally.

(50:02):
Greg is not trying to figureout how he's gonna sell this to
a strategic buyer.
Mhmm. What he's alreadygot an ESOP component.
So it's already gothis business family as
stakeholders, asequity stakeholders.
But this is a qualityof leadership.
This is a commitmentto the long game.
And if anyone wants to go,because it's all public,
and see the performance ofFirst United Bank relative to

(50:23):
their peers, this is notsomething to take lightly.
He is a high performing, andhis return has been phenomenal.
So it's like peoplepeople think, oh,
I'm either gonna be this warmand fuzzy, philanthropic,
make the world better person,
or I'm gonna be thishardcore capitalist.
Nope. Nope. Do both.
We're gonna do both.
We're gonna integrate, andthat goes back to complexity.
How do we pursuean integrated life

(50:48):
as opposed to acompartmentalized life?
Because when wecompartmentalize our life,
we have to spend all thisenergy putting these walls up
between our work and our familyand our and our spirituality
and our and our hobbies asopposed to how do we how do we
pursue an integrated life.
And that's so eloquent,and what a great example.
You just shared Greg Massey andFirst United, and, and I love

(51:10):
the the twenty five year answerthat he initially gave and that
you're coming upon that.
And, Rand, you're at twentyfive years for your own company.
And, again, this is not adeep dive on the story, but,
congratulations on a aremarkable first quarter
of a century for whatyou started Yeah.
Twenty five years ago.
Again, there are there are seventeendirections I'd like to go and dwindling time.

(51:34):
We're gonna be playing buy,sell, or hold to close,
so I already know that.
So probably, I only have twoawesome questions left to ask
you, and I have topick from eight.
So I'm gonna go with,
the role of businessin moving society
forward.
Some of this could be construedby the alert listener from what

(51:55):
we've already talked about,
but I want you to take usforward from anything we've
already said, Rand Stegen.
It's often said we livein a polarized world.
By the way, if we keepsaying that all the time,
I'm not sure howwe get unpolarized.
If everybody keeps sayingwe're hyperpolarized,
I don't know how we don'thow we stop saying that.
I'm a little tired of saying that,but it is an election year, etcetera.

(52:16):
Rand, you've saidthe businesses,
particularly theleaders within them,
must be the agents of change.
Again, a lot of people think it'sthe vote they cast in November.
That's gonna be the mandatefor change or preservation.
Rann, how do you see privatebusinesses playing a role in
moving society forward?
I I think many of yourlisteners already know the,

(52:38):
the broad data onthis around trust and,
the Edelman TrustIndex and, you know,
where are the trusted,
stakeholders in society.
And, Americans no longertrust, our politicians.
Americans do not trust the, thenonprofits and the NGOs the way
that we did back, you know,thirty, forty, fifty years ago.

(53:01):
And so the highest trust inleadership is actually within
corporate leadership and inparticular within private
businesses where they knowthey're actually being led by
someone who has a commitment to,
the long term ofthat organization.
So there is a you know,we say it at Stegen.
We say with awarenesscreates choice,

(53:21):
and we've alreadytalked about that,
and we have a a one more build.
With awareness, there is choice.
And with awareness and choice,there is responsibility.
So when we get higher up on themountain and we can see things
that other people can't see,
and we're business leaders whohave the trust of our employees
and our stakeholders,

(53:42):
we are we are responsible.
There is a a a noblesse oblige.
There's a noble obligationhere to actually,
to actually lead, notjust lead my business,
but lead my my teams and leadmy stakeholders in service
of a, a future on the otherside of this hot mess,
which is our current state.

(54:02):
And I'll and I'll give youa very, you know, powerful,
very simple, a very powerful,
slightly academic wayof thinking about this,
sometimes called the dialectic.
And there's threeelements of the dialectic.
There's the thesis,there's the antithesis
to that thesis, and then thereis a here it is, elevation,
a higher order synthesis.

(54:24):
And so the part of Americathat is American exceptionalism
and the the foundations of,
classical liberalism that we arethat this country is based on,
there are people in that camp thatlet's call that the thesis camp,
that actually are committedto protecting and preserving
what's right with America.

(54:46):
And I wanna honor those people.
There are things that needto be protected and preserved
about America, and that'smore on the political right,
the conservatives to conserve.
And then on the political left,
we have the progressives withtheir fists up in the air saying,
there are things aboutAmerica that are not working

(55:06):
that we need to fix.
And it's like I Ihonor those people.
They want to fix what'swrong with America,
and other people want topreserve what's right with
America.
Now the shadow of that isthat instead of seeing the
partial benefit and truthin both of those sides,
we actually see those sides onlyseeing the worst in each other.

(55:30):
They only see theshadow in the other.
And then there'sthis third group,
which is where we're trying totake our clients and which is
what I'm trying to,in some small way,
help consciouscapitalism create,
which is that higherorder synthesis camp.
That camp that says, weactually see the value and the
beauty in both ofthose positions,

(55:52):
the conservative position,the progressive position.
And we actually are going tosynthesize and create something.
It's not a this isnot a centrism move.
We need to find some commonground around our common
humanity to create the to createthe the the the the foundation
for us to then use togo to higher ground.

(56:13):
Okay?
And so the the common groundcreates the solid ground
that then allows us to move up toa higher ground, to a synthesis.
And this is a we have toask ourselves, all of us who are
on, who are on thepodcast right now.
And I don't want to say thatthe higher ground is the is the
right camp because if wedon't have the conservatives and the

(56:36):
progressives banging into eachother like tectonic plates,
we don't have the energy fortransformation and change.
So we need bothof those spirits,
and we also needthe synthesizers.
I am not going to surrender
to the to to this deconstructingmoment of our, of our country.

(56:57):
I do not believe that Americaneeds to be deconstructed,
destroyed, and start andwe need to start over.
I believe we need to reconstruct
America based on the parts ofour country that need to be
preserved and the parts of ourcountry that need to be changed
and transformedfor, for the future.
And so this is,David, if you're like,

(57:17):
what's really on my mind?
What's really on my mind ishow are we gonna mobilize,
I don't care if you call themconscious leaders or if you
call them higher ground leaders orif you call them integral leaders.
Labels are not important.
What's important is thateveryone listening recognize
that we don't have theluxury to simply, you know,
be in the standsand just watch this.

(57:37):
We've gotta get in.
We've gotta participate,and we've got to find
our common humanity in eachother because that is the place
that solid ground exists.
And there is a future, andthere is a beautiful future
for, for for a generation.
I don't know if it's gonnabe ours or our kids or our,

(57:58):
you know, our unborn grandkids,but this I'm I'm remaining, very,
very committed to the roleof business leadership
in healing, transforming,and advancing our world.
Beautifully said.
And Arthur Brooks who wrote haswritten many wonderful books,
writes for the Atlantic,the happiness column,
but Arthur Brooks wrote a greatbook a few years ago called

(58:19):
Love Your Enemies.
And we talked aboutit on this podcast.
And in particular, hewas underlining contempt.
Yep.
Which by definition basicallymeans talk to the hand.
I don't even think of you ashuman person on the other side
who just disagrees with me.
I'm not going to treat youwith dignity or respect.
That is the fundamental problem.

(58:40):
Sometimes being modeled byleaders in our society and
often then getting the clicksby the media companies that for
profit and I like forprofit, but let's face it.
A lot of this is being forcefed to many through the media
that they are choosing toconsume that has them treating
other people in adehumanized fashion.
We know that at itsworst, humanity does that.

(59:02):
That's what leads to all kindsof horrific crimes against
humanity over the centuries whenwe don't treat the other as human.
So I totally appreciate thatpoint about our common humanity.
I think most of uslistening get it,
and yet it's not asyou just said, Rand,
it's not enough to get it.
Get in the game, and Ireally appreciate that point.
And maybe one other pointthat comes to mind, Rand,

(59:24):
this is a perhaps a petpoint, not p, point,
pet perk of mine.
And that is a reminderthat often in America,
but many othercountries besides,
people tend to look atthe government as if it's this
massive thing.
And it certainly is a largerbureaucracy in the United
States today than it was ahundred or two hundred years ago.

(59:45):
But often, I think peopleforget or just don't know that
the private sector is so muchlarger than the public sector.
I grew up in wash I'mborn in Washington DC.
It might look like WashingtonDC is a big deal in the federal
government and yourstake over is a big deal.
They are incrediblyoutnumbered by businesses.

(01:00:05):
And indeed, businesses every dayare delivering the products and
services that brushthat helps you wash
your dishes tonight,
that's being deliveredby the private sector.
So we have proliferatedin a beautiful way,
especially in the US,
but many other countriesbesides solutions, products,
and services every daythat enrich our lives

(01:00:27):
and enable us to flourish.
And it the vast majority of thatis coming from the private sector,
and most of us work for theprivate sector creating those
products and services.
So and and by the way,
some of the biggestmultinational corporations,
Apple comes to mind,
have larger cashhoards than many other
sovereign governments.
And I don't thinkthat's a bad thing.

(01:00:48):
I think Apple has been wellmotivated to care for me as
Amazon has and has built up thegoodwill in the form of strong
balance sheets in a waythat many governments don't.
And ironically, and I'm not gonnacontinue this rant much past this.
Ironically, multinational corporationsare so much more powerful than
governments because theycan go across borders.
Yep.
There is a remarkable capacityfor the private sector.

(01:01:09):
I'm not talking about thefuture. It's already happening.
It's been happening for decades.
And when you see those marketcaps roll up to trillions of
dollars these days, that'sfor very logical, I believe,
generally good reasons.
And we're invested as fools andrule breakers in those companies.
So I do wanna point outin this election year,
while so much of it,
especially because it's it'sput out there by the media for

(01:01:30):
understandable reasons,
it seems like it's allabout a day in November.
It really isn't.
The day before, your private sectoris delivering you the things that
you probably love and needand the day after as well.
Rand, we're about to go toour final pregame section,
but I wanna give you anopportunity just to react to
anything I just saidthere, tie a bow on it.
I I don't have much to add,and this is a, you know,

(01:01:51):
you and I are both unapologeticcard carrying capitalists.
And we recognize thatcapitalism has a light and
a shadow, just like everything,
and that when the shadowis portrayed as the
totality of something,
which is what is often thecase when when capitalism is
criticized, we'rebeing portrayed,

(01:02:12):
as the worst parts ofcapitalism, which by the way,
there are externalities andthere are there is greed and
cronyism and there are alwaysenvironmental destruction.
These are true.
And there are so many positivesthat outweigh those negatives.
And so I, I, like you, willcontinue to stand for the continued

(01:02:35):
progression of capitalism,and this is the idea.
How do we have capitalism
not replace capitalism,not deconstruct capitalism,
not destroy capitalism,but to evolve capitalism?
And your idea of the you know,
in recognition ofthe multinational,

(01:02:55):
and and and let's global
nature of this this onemarket that we live in,
This you're makingmy point again.
The responsibility to be aleader of even a midsize or
even a smallbusiness in America,
it used to be your scope ofconcern would only be in your
geographic area that you served.

(01:03:17):
But now small businesses are havingcustomers all over the world.
And so what is theresponsibility to lead in a
global marketplace?
It's back to private businesses.
So I would say, hallelujah.
Hallelujah indeed.
We have two last partsof this of this conversation together.
We're gonna close withbuy, sell, or hold.
You don't know what's coming.
I'm looking I'm alreadyrubbing my hands together.

(01:03:38):
You're gonna play the game.
But before that, I asked youbecause, again, our mutual
friend, Heath, said I don'tknow if you know this about
Rand, but he loves great quotes.
He's got them.
He's been building up his he's adecater building up great quotes.
And you probablydon't know this, Rand,
because I I wish you did,
but I don't think you listento my podcast every week.

(01:03:58):
But Every week.
Over the course of five hundredor so podcasts every week, Cal
Ripken, never taken a day offhere for into ten years now.
I have done nineteen separateepisodes called great quotes
volume x.
So one through nineteen,
and each of those is about aforty minute thought trotting
out five quotes that I lovethat I wanna explain for

(01:04:20):
investing, forbusiness, and for life,
for fools and rule breakerswhy I love this quote.
And as soon as I heardfrom Heath, Rand has this.
I'm like, it's this is nota new great quotes episode.
This is a sampler.
But, Ran, I asked you,
would you bring maybe upto five beautiful quotes?
And we don't have time reallyto do much more right now than
just listen to them,

(01:04:41):
but I would love for youto share up to five quotes.
And, yeah, sure.
Add a sentence or two ofsteak and context if you like,
but that is a chapter I've beenwaiting for for this conversation.
It's the penultimate chapter.
If I've properlycurated my quotes,
I will need to add no commentary
to, to my quotes.
So Wow. Not to worry about this.

(01:05:03):
I,
I I printed out
about ten, and I'm gonna pick fivebased on our conversation wherever I
feel wherever I feelcalled to to go.
Alright.
Number one, ifyou're not confused,
you're not paying attention.
Tom Peters.

(01:05:26):
Number two,
reality
is an acquired taste.
Robert Fritz.
Number three,
and this one's new to mycollection just last week,
Only the future is certain.

(01:05:47):
The past is always changing.
Douglas Schofield.
Number
four,
cherish those whoseek the truth,
but beware of those who find it.
Voltaire.

(01:06:12):
That speaks to our righteousnessin our society right now.
And this last one,
I'm gonna go six because Igotta I gotta smuggle in Bill
Gates.
You know what? This isthe Rule Breaker podcast.
You can do that.
Okay.
So this one, I've been savingthe entire podcast for the end.
Most people overestimatewhat they can do

(01:06:34):
in one year andunderestimate what they can
do in ten years.
Bill Gates,
how might we all be underestimatingourselves as future decaters?
And last but not least, theexistential philosopher,
Peter Kastenbaum, oneof my personal heroes,
ninety seven yearsold, still alive.

(01:06:55):
I don't know him.
And he's he's if if ifAristotle were alive today,
he would be reincarnatedas Peter Kastenbaum.
And here it is.
The only problem rests withpeople who do not have a
commitment to greatness, who driftrunning on idle most of the time.

(01:07:16):
They do not value thefact that they are alive,
and they feel no obligationto make sense of their lives.
They coast, slumber, anddo not wish to be awakened.
They are not the artists inbusiness, the reformers in
life, or the missionariesin organizations.
They live below the line.

(01:07:38):
Peter Peter Gaston Bum.
Yeah.
So we we are readers.
We just came off of August,
which annually on this podcastI call authors in August.
And, is there a a book?
Is there a title that comesto mind of Casaubon's work?
Again, I don't I'm not familiarwith I obviously should be.
He's Aristotle, andhe's ninety seven.
He's I've been living alongsidehim for fifty eight years.

(01:08:01):
Or or is he is he more somebodywho emerges through academia,
through white papers, etcetera?
Randy, do you have areading recommendation?
He's more of an academic, and Iwouldn't want people to try to
tackle his work.
Right.
However, if everyonewould go to Google
and Google his name,Peter Kosenbaum,

(01:08:22):
k o e s t e n b a u m,
and Fast Company magazinefrom two thousand,
a very short four pageinterview that he did with that
magazine with Polly LaBaer,conscious capitalist.
And Polly told me when Imet her fifteen years ago at our
conscious capitalismCEO summit, I was like,
you did the interviewwith Peter Gastenbaum.

(01:08:43):
I've read it now over ahundred and fifty times.
I still don't understandit. It's four pages.
And she said she was one of thefounding editors of Fast Company,
and she said it was the mostchallenging piece I'd ever done
in my career up to thatpoint because he was he is a
Harvard physicist.
He's a psychologist.
He's a philosopher, andhe has a PhD in theology.

(01:09:07):
This is one of theworld's leading
thinkers that's that'sstill breathing,
like literally on planetEarth in my opinion,
and this Fast Company interviewwritten by Pauli Lebert will
blow your listeners' minds.
I can't wait. Yes.
I can't plus, you you Iwas asking for, like, you know,

(01:09:27):
two hundred fifty four pages.
You gave us four. You're a hero.
Who doesn't love a goodfour page espresso shot?
I'm really looking forwardto that, and thank you.
I was gonna misguess thespelling of Kastenbaum,
so really appreciatethat as well.
Rand, are you readyto play buy, sell,
or hold on RuleBreaker Investing?
Ready to play buy,sell, or hold.
Alright. Great.
Good shakes.

(01:09:47):
These are not stocks.These are things.
But if they were stocks, RandStegen, would you be buying,
selling, or holding?
Let's get started.
The first one up,
long termism in businessovertaking short term thinking
by twenty thirty five.

(01:10:08):
Hold.
Why?
It doesn't warrant ananswer. It's so clear.
I mean, I was having fun putting atime frame on it that was ten years.
I mean, I'm not even sure how we'dmeasure whether long termism in
business had overtaken shortterm thinking by twenty thirty

(01:10:29):
five, but I just wantedto lead off with it.
We're holding.
Oh, we're holding, baby.
Next one up.
The rise of AI meansthe CEO of twenty
fifty will be an AIprogram, not a human.
Buy, sell, or hold.
Sell.

(01:10:49):
AI is going to be a tool, and,
obviously, there's concernsabout what happens if AI,
becomes sentient.
And, and I believe inhumanity's ability to innovate
our way through those,you know, real dilemmas,
but I believe, I'mlong on humanity.

(01:11:10):
And, I can't, I can'tget behind anything or
anyone who says thatwe're we're at the end.
I'm not we're not I'mnot I'm not going into,
into the Terminator land.
I'm not going there.
Let's stick with humanitynumber three of five.
Ted Lasso, is it the greatestleadership show on TV with lessons that

(01:11:31):
rival any business school TedLasso, buy, sell, or hold?
I would say season one,buy. And just keep it there.
Keep it there on DVD, baby.Just season one. Amazing.
Watch it over andover and over again.
Well said.
And no spoilers for thosewho haven't, like me,
actually finished the show.
I think I mired somewherein season three.

(01:11:52):
The mustache, obviously, adistinctive thing about Ted
Lasso.
Rand, I've known you as a clean-cutguy here for the twelve or
thirteen years I've known you.
Have you ever tried the stash?
I have never tried the stash,although my, my hair stylist
said to me on Saturday, maybeI should grow for Movember.
I should grow out a mustache.

(01:12:13):
And, and so it maybethis is synchronicity.
It's the second time in forty eighthours someone's asked me about this.
I'll keep my eyes peeled.
I I know I'm gonna see youin October at the Conscious
Capitalism Summit beforehandso we can talk more about that.
Number four, buy, sell,
or hold Rand Sagan in thefuture that most leaders will
have embraced afour day work week,
but still secretly

(01:12:35):
work six days,buy, sell, or hold.
That's a complex one because I threw acouple of things at you in one question.
You did.
Am I am I gonna is thatgonna be the future
reality that I wanna
I sell that. I don't I don'tthink that's gonna happen.
I I think that I thinkthat we're gonna get to a really

(01:13:00):
productive four day week inwhich we're gonna be so aided
by AI and technology.
We're gonna be so productivethat I think that we're gonna
maybe for the first timein the history of American
kind of capitalismand and workforce,
we may actually find ourselvesin a much healthier version
of work.

(01:13:22):
Mhmm. And I'm I I seethat on the horizon.
So I really appreciate that.
And, again, it was almost an unfairquestion because I'm asking you
both, is the four daywork week a thing?
And yet, there can be the tendencysometimes for leaders publicly
to embrace something,
but then they themselvesare not working four days.
They're working seven orat least at least six.
But Well, I mean,

(01:13:43):
this is the this is the this isthe the the the the lamb like
here for your question.
I think your question hasincredible flaws in its logic.
Thank you.
We're suggesting that my workand my play you're welcome.
My work and my playmust be separated.
Remember I said earlier, if wecompartmentalize our lives Yep.
You know, andRobert Frost has a,

(01:14:03):
has a poem that has alignedsomething to the effect of
where my two eyesmake one in sight,
and work is playfor mortal stakes
is the deed ever truly done forheaven and the future's sake.
So we I actually believe thatwe can have a way of being

(01:14:24):
on a much more integrated lifewhere we don't go to work,
clock in, clock out, andthen have three days off,
where where ourwork and our life,
our our vocation andavocation are one.
And this is really my visionand hope for the future of
humanity that it's not thatwe don't have this separation
that's so artificial.
So I I refuse to answer.I I rescind my answer.

(01:14:46):
I do not I do not I do notagree with the question.
I truth be told, I didn'treally like the question either.
Although it was awfullycomplex, and I know earlier,
anyway, we were embracingcomplexity on spot.
That's right.
Let me And the and thereligious scholar at Stegen,
Vid Davo, has a quote.I'm sneaking another quote in.
Complexity has a PR problem.

(01:15:08):
Nice. Complexity has a PRproblem. Yeah. And so, so yeah.
Alright.
Well, let's stick with the futurefor our final buy, sell, or hold.
We're asking Rand's taking thecast his eye toward the year.
Let's go with twenty fifty.
Buy, sell, or hold Rand,the concept of retirement
disappearing by twentyfifty replaced by

(01:15:32):
lifelong learning andpurpose driven living.
Buy.
Why?
That's I that's that's to myearlier, you know, statement.
I, I feel like we are evolvingand becoming more complex
and becoming a moreintegrated species,
and I think that the daysof compartmentalization and

(01:15:53):
unnecessary separation are,
are are gonna be inthe rearview mirror.
I think we're gonna I thinkwe're gonna we're gonna be a a
pretty incredible there'sgonna be an incredible future.
Now I don't think we're gonna getthere just like up into the right.
When we zoom out andlook at the S and P, oh,
it's a great picture.
But when we zoom in,it's really rough.

(01:16:14):
I think we're infor a rough decade.
I think this isgonna be a painful
decade or two, geopolitically,culturally, like,
even with all my optimism, I,
I feel like one of the needthe reasons that we need to stay in
the tension is that thisis gonna require resilience in
leadership that is

(01:16:35):
operating not from the finite gameas author James Kars would say Mhmm.
But the infinite game.
You know, the finite game,we wanna win the game.
The infinite game, we wannaensure the game continues.
Humanity keeps Wewanna keep playing.
Yeah.
Well, one thing's for certain,
people are certainly livinglonger than ever before and
probably even more thanthat in the future.
And I think it's fair to saymore and more of us are craving

(01:16:58):
more fulfilling lives.
So that concept ofretirement, you're right,
kind of compartmentalizes
the work portion ofour time on earth.
And then the I don't workanymore, and we try to narrow,
ideally, a lot of usthink, the work portion,
and then we try to havethis great long retirement,
except that a lot of people,once they hit retirement,
finally get bored ofgolf after six months,

(01:17:19):
and they're trying to figure outwhat they should do That's right.
Next.
Anyway, Rand Stegen,
you have been generouswith your quotations,
with your insights,with the love,
and I mean thatwith the capital l,
and the help that you gave meand our rule breaker listeners.
I'm delighted this wasyour debut on this podcast.
This will not beyour only appearance.
I wish you the best, my friend,and I'll see you in October.

(01:17:40):
Thank you so much.
And I, and I I loved thatI got to break a few rules,
and I would like to comeback and break some more with you.
As always, people on this program may haveinterest in the stocks they talk about,
and The Motley Fool may have formalrecommendations for or against.
So don't buy or sell stocksbased solely on what you hear.
Learn more about Rule BreakerInvesting at r b I dot fool dot com.