First
met him a few months ago so the you know I said that's great and he's like okay
you know we're up to out of a hundred thousand I'm so wanna things he's trying
to do is with the new administration is trying not yet have a change in policy
to literally airlift out not just out of Iraq but at the neighboring countries
qualifying refugees not a lift and directly in the united states they have to
be processed in screen at center but airlift them to Guam where they can live
and be processed make sure we're not letting anyone is dangerous to the country
or anything like that arm but some so we're crossing our fingers and hope
hopeful that the new administration will do they will do the right thing here soon
let me just get back to why this is why I would argue that this is self
interest and I hope it might nom encourage and inspire others one at one of the
reasons that I sort of a lot about all these various activities is to tryin
robe others into my activities arm it's not because I will not argue to you
that it has made me more successful professionally there somehow.
The
business contacts and there are business contacts and networking if you're
involved in philanthropic stuff that can help your business but net spending
half my time on these various activities rather than reading more annual report
to center has no doubt cost me some to grieve investment returns and I would
probably be wealthier today are my bank account would be larger my fun would be
larger if I had allocated all of my time toward are my primary business at
managing money coming for those you who later here Alice Schroeder talk about
Warren Buffett in her book about magnificent book about of it snowball arm for sixty
odd years he has been investing machine ominous spent you know to hours a day
doing absolutely nothing but focus on investing in that combined with a lot of
other factors and his is a the fact that he's a genius and so forth but his the
fact that he's been so single-mindedly focused to investing is translated into
his incredible track record being the world's richest man.
I
will never repeat that are in part because the way I've chosen to spend my time
and that's okay because what I would argue is the self-interest I'm talking
about is na financial self-interest but rather I'm really happy arm and if you
think about it once you re every study ever done a show once you reach a
certain level of happiness I'm sorry certain level income and you can take care
of your basic needs people who make are no hundred thousand dollars a year
whatever new measure their happiness and then you measure people who have who
make millions and millions or even be who billionaire's new measure their
happiness actually billionaires are no happier then and people who are sort of you
know reasonably well often don't have to really worry about money arm and trust
me I know some really unhappy billionaires are so I guess so arm if not nom you
know so what's the self-interest is that if you if you study the research on
happiness and you say it's self-interested to want to be happy and to go to
sleep feel good about yourself every night crime well if not money if that's
not gonna get you there what years and the answers as I'll leave you with a
book recommendation are Victor frankel are man's search for meaning which I
give Kenny credit for he's the one who steered me the book it's a very quick
read Viktor Frankl is an Auschwitz survivor.
The
first half the book talks about his experiences and how he survived house which
in turn out the people who survived and didn't survive in part was just
randomness but in part was the people who gave up versus the people stayed
mentally strong and I he ended up arm having a career after the war up
counseling people and doing a lot of research on happiness money founders is
that would determine happiness once she reached a certain income level was
whether you felt like your life had meaning and purpose on that it wasn't just
mine was pursued have your own our self-interest to making money and there are
a lot of different ways people can find meaning and purpose often it's been
very involved with your family raising kids et cetera arm but I would argue
that that's people who spend time and pick in the area that the really passion
about to make a difference in the world.
Somehow
make a difference in one other person's life I would argue that the people in
this room can probably aim higher that you can you think about leverage not the
leverage in the financial sense that we've been talking about today but think
about you know I've been involved with starting organizations are from Teach
for America nineteen years ago coming at a college or serve employee number two
after Wendy Kopp starting that to starting your whole handful of organizations
like people in this room have the entrepreneurial ability the access to capital
cetera to think bigger then I just being a Big Brother Big Sister for example
making a difference in one person's life by tie-dyed I'd encourage you and
inspire you to take advantage for the gifts the that all of us in this room
have arm to not to make a bigger difference arm so you know I guess with that
I'll alarm all stop and again thank a thank you for this are tremendous Award
Dinner and hope that my example I would encourage you to be quite as extreme as
I am hi it can be very stressful but pick one or two areas and really try make
a difference in the world and you're not and you will it is in your self-interest
as you feel very good about yourself so thank you thank you and you know when I
add my congratulations as well and now I'm wanna take this opportunity to make
sure we mention that the Print Center Foundation is a primary sponsor the
conference so we appreciate that