generosity enlarges the future for others. When we use our time, our skills or talents to encourage and to affirm and to help other people, it enlarges their future, but it also it enlarges our future and it changes our quality of life as well.
From we're for good studios and simple modern Welcome to scaling for good with Mike Beckham unlimited podcast series, giving you the playbook to start, build, scale and give generously. In today's episode, we're diving into generosity. When you inject generosity into a company, it'll flourish, as well as the people Mike has witnessed out in action, that simple modern tune in to hear how they fostered holistic generosity within the culture at simple modern, and the very beginning.
Welcome back, everyone. This is a podcast. It's intended to be a look inside of simple modern and really a look at how do you apply generosity in any kind of organizational context. We wanted to build a company that improved everyone's lives, that was involved, not just employees, but also the customers and the partners we work with, and the communities that we work in. And I'm hopeful that as we share stories about what that's looked like for us, that it'll be encouraging to you. And also, we'll give you some things that you can apply in whatever context you're planted. Today, we're going to be talking about the topic of generosity, and looking at questions like how do I create a culture where generosity is prevalent? And why do we strive to be generous? And how do we take a more holistic view of generosity than just cutting checks? You know, when we were going through March of 2020, it was pretty memorable time for just about everyone. You know, we built this company that was growing really rapidly. And we had this commitment to generosity. But little did I know that the next two or three weeks would really test our resolve in that area more than anything that had come before, I felt pretty confident at first that we were positioned well as a company that we were strong, we were going to be okay. And I remember really distinctly at the end of March 2020, having a day where for the first time I thought are we going to be okay, it wasn't actually completely obvious, because things were just so abnormal. And at the same time, one of the things that I saw was, there was unprecedented need in our communities and nationwide. And I just had a sense that if we're going to run an organization that's really about generosity, like this is our time to shine, this is when we should be stepping up. And yet we had the most uncertainty I think we've ever experienced within our business. And yet, we made the decision organizationally that we were going to go ahead and lean in on generosity and lean in to giving at the exact moment when when it probably felt the scariest. So that looked a couple different ways, we were able to give over a million dollars between cash and product donations to frontline workers and different people that had been impacted by COVID. And a lot of ways, it was a defining moment for us that we've looked back to several times as a company, as part of the stories that we tell about who we are. And one of the best parts of the experience was seeing the hundreds of pictures and letters that flowed in from people that we had given product to or that we had been able to give cash donations to and how it had been really helpful in a time of need. And one of the reasons that I love to tell that story is it's a great example of that generosity cost you something. And in that moment, I think organizationally, we were able to really solidify something that we had said from the beginning, which was we wanted to exist to be generous. And during a time where it was really difficult to be generous. We actually were. And as I thought about for me, what are the seeds of that? Like? How did I kind of come to the conclusion that I wanted to run a company that was based on generosity, one of the stories that comes to mind is from right after I graduated from college, after I graduated from college, my first year out, I got a job with a nonprofit, ministry organization, and I had to raise my entire salary. So I got maybe three or four weeks into fundraising. And I don't think I'd raised a single dollar. I had a coach with this organization that kept encouraging me, even though basically nothing was coming in. And I had kind of goals that I was supposed to be hitting. And I was way behind those. This was back when we actually like still open mail that came in a mailbox. And I remember going out to the mailbox one day and I had one envelope in there. And it was from my my support coach, the person who had been coaching me through trying to raise the financial funds. And she'd sent me a $500 check. And it was the first $500 Check I got. And I think that there have been events in my life like that, that have really been foundational in how I think about generosity, and that today we're trying to apply within our organization. So today, we're going to talk about practically what does that look like and how do you create a culture of generosity. When we founded the company in 2015. Many of the things look just like another startup you know, trying to find product market fit and doing experiments and testing But one of the things that was really unique and different was the way that we approached formulating the company culture. And we knew that we wanted generosity to be a cornerstone piece of that culture. We knew we wanted generosity to be a part of the company, before we even knew what product that we wanted to sell. We didn't start with what we started with why? And then we kind of worked backwards. So one of the ways that I described this to people today is that really, we're a company built on a particular culture that just so happens to sell water bottles that we started with why and branched out into what, when I define generosity, the way that I describe it as being open handed with everything you have, I usually share four reasons why I think generosity is crucial. And the first one is that every single person has been a beneficiary of generosity and your life has been irrevocably changed by the generosity of other people. The second reason is, we need it. We are all fighting a battle against our own selfishness. One of the things that I like to think about is that there's there's probably a pretty wide range of people that I could look like, versions of myself, so to speak, and that what I'm doing through the course of my life is trying to chase whatever the best version of me is. And when I make decisions to choose generosity, especially when they're difficult, it's like an antidote to my selfishness and my own self interest. And not only does it enlarge other people's future, and improve their lives, but it enlarges my future and improves my life, it helps me to grow towards the best version of myself. The third reason is that life isn't fair. We all have to wrestle with the question, when we look at the world of why do some people have the experience that they have, it's not fair that some people's kid gets leukemia at seven, it's not fair that some are born into abject poverty, and others are born into wealth. And yet, that's the world that we live in. And so we're all faced with making a decision of what we're going to do with that. And for me, and hopefully, for you, as well, the decision that we can choose to make is that we want to be a part of improving the lives of other people. And, you know, when we see those differences in those discrepancies, to try and do something about it. The fourth point that I would make is that generosity is a really clear way for us to make a redemptive and positive impact on the world. And all of us have a limited time that we we get to use. And you know, the hope is that there's something meaningful that's being done with that. And so one of the things that I'll do that's really a helpful, just kind of reorienting process. And sometimes it helps me to get back kind of on track is I will do a mental exercise that I call the 80 year old exercise, which is imagine what I will think when I'm 80. And I'm looking back on my life, that the weeks that I just lived, if I if I look at that week, through the eyes of an 80 year old me, what will I see and how I feel about the way that I invested my time and my money and everything else. And it's incredibly clarifying, because one of the things it does is it shows me the things I can get caught up in that don't really matter. And it really crystallizes and clarifies that. And it helps push me towards the things that I think have enduring meaning and purpose, and generosity making a lasting impact in the lives of other people through generosity is one of those things for me. So it's a question that all of us can be asking ourselves. If you evaluated the last month of your life through the eyes of 80 year old you, what do you see? What would you change? And how would you be more deliberate with the month to come in light of that? So here's some questions you can ask yourself to process this topic. First, what's an example of you receiving generosity in your life? And how it made a difference? What have you been given that you can be generous with? Like we talked about, it's not just the financial resources, or what's in our bank account, we all have a ton of different things that we've been entrusted with that we have the choice of whether or not we're going to be generous with. So what are the things that you have that you can be generous with? Finally, when you're 80, and you're looking back on your life today? What are going to be the things that matter the most to you? How will you think about generosity and the way that you've used the things you were entrusted with near the end of your life? And how can you take that knowledge and apply it to how you're living today?
Hey friends, taking a quick break to share a glimpse of generosity on the frontlines at some of simple moderns, amazing nonprofit partners. Simple modern is on a mission to give generously. They partner with nonprofit organizations all over the world to help make a positive impact in five core areas, water supply, human trafficking, education, marginalized communities and homelessness. Today, we'd like to introduce you to one of their nonprofit partners, the incredible restore OKC
Hello, everyone, I am honored to be with you. My name is Kaylee Dodson, and I am the founder and have the incredible privilege of continuing to direct a nonprofit ministry in northeast Oklahoma City called Restore OKC. A we like to say simply, our mission is to build relationships and reconciliation for restorative justice in northeast Oklahoma City. Everything we do, whether it is from supporting our schools, to creating jobs for neighbors to working on an urban farm with 22 high school students, it's creating an ecosystem of support alongside our neighbors focus in a very specific community. And we're watching it not only change our community, but change the whole city, we love for you to come visit our website, restore okc.org. Or if you are just loving the opportunity to jump in and get engaged, volunteer dot restore. okc.org can give you all the different ways you can engage. And we would be honored if you'd come serve with us.
I'm Becky Endicott with We Are For Good. And I'm joined here by my co founder Jonathan McCoy. And we are putting Mike Beckham back into the hot seat today with some q&a. And we hope you really enjoyed this really vibrant conversation around how to embed generosity into your company and into your culture. And so I just want to kick this q&a off by just asking you, How do we start to make our internal cultures as vibrant as that which we are expressing outward? What's some tips on that?
Yeah, so the ultimate, why I think that we can kind of tell ourselves is that when I get here, when we get to this place, then we will do x, then we'll prioritize x. And the reality is that it's kind of a mental jujitsu we do to kind of kick the can down the road, when in reality, we've got to apply things as early as we can and bake them into, as you said, kind of the foundation of what we're trying to build, it's so much easier to start early with some of these things than it is to to change a culture that already exists. Now many of us are probably working in cultures that we want to improve and that do require changes. It's certainly possible. But I think the main point I would make is, first and foremost, there's there's never a better time than right now to start applying and putting some of these things in motion. I think that at the highest level, what it is, is communicating to an organization, whether you're a for profit, nonprofit, however you're situated, whether you're profitable or unprofitable, you're in startup mode, you know, you're you're more mature, that there are opportunities for you to be generous with each other people in the organization, and externally, and it's about understanding how can we do that with how we're situated. So some of the things that I mentioned earlier are things that any team context, you can apply today, a culture and an environment where people are told thank you and people are recognized for their contribution, they're affirmed for the things that they bring to the team. It doesn't matter how much money you make or don't make or what kind of organization you're in. That's, that's appreciated. And that kind of generosity is always transformative. Another example that I mentioned are a couple of examples. When we sit, we share the knowledge and the skills that we have with other people, whether you're a 33 person team or a 3000 person team like that is going to be helpful in establishing a norm. That what we do with the things that we've learned and the skills and abilities we have is not only do we use them to kind of further our career and to accomplish our job, but also to help our co workers and to help other people level up and grow and to develop other people. So easily. There's, there's times when we'll be situated where we're like, hey, there's not a lot of extra money to give. But I think generosity, when you take this larger perspective, that generosity is also how we use our time how we use our talents, how we use our words, then you can start applying it today. And that probably my biggest encouragement for anybody looking to find ways to apply this. The one other thing I might say, that's that's a very easy, straightforward thing to do is create an organizational alignment around that that went and the easiest way to do that is to kind of codify your values and to express like, Hey, this is something organizationally that we want to be about. We want to be about generosity. You know, Becky, you mentioned that the nonprofit world and I think I'd make the point that in the nonprofit world this is probably more necessary even I'm sometimes in the for profit world because there's such a default assumption that what we do is we receive when we're in the nonprofit world so that we can go and do the important work. And it's, it's great when we're able to help communicate, you know, I've worked in a nonprofit context, that hey, generosity is still we're still called the generosity even more more on the receiving side. And I think the experiences that I had learning about generosity, while working in a nonprofit context, while raising my salary are actually some of the things that were the most impactful and shaping how I view it today.
I love that so much. Because everything that you just said, doesn't cost any money. And if you really zoom out, because I think sometimes a nonprofit, especially if you're a fundraiser that's listening to this podcast right now, we think of generosity so much as the expression of philanthropy. But I love just taking it higher and saying, How are we going to be generous with our people, in starting that even at an onboarding process at the soon as somebody walks in the door, and having this generosity of spirit actually could make mission delivery, so much more personal? And so yeah, I think that would be my question. Everybody out there. What are you doing to be generous in your organization's And, John, I think you do this great in our organization as well.
I think it's something that we love to talk about, because values is central to everything. And I hear that in every moment that we've gotten to spend with you personally and in your team experiencing here in the small modern office this week. But I think that y'all really embody this holistic generosity, because I see it come through the relationships, but also see it in how you partner up. I mean, outside of the walls, too. Can you give us some practical terms? Like what does that look like as you engage with stakeholders generously and your charitable partners generously? And maybe thread some examples of some of our money? And some of them are the opposite of money? It's just showing expertise, like I think, going deep that
Yeah, absolutely. Well, and I think it depends on how you're situated in the organization, how that expresses itself. Like one way for me that's, that's really straightforward. But a little bit atypical is that I leave a significant chunk of my schedule each week, to basically help other people that are running businesses that are students that are studying entrepreneurship, you know, with my teaching, to mentor other people, and to basically pour out into others. And inconsistently. The reaction I get is one of surprise, like, Okay, well, how can I pay you back? What, you know, what do you want? And it's like, no, I'm really, I'm really here to help. And I'm really, I've set aside part of my week to really just try and pour out into other people. Now, obviously, everybody in the organization isn't situated that way. And so, you know, I think when it comes to other people in their job, that's one of the things that I think you empower people to do is, hey, you're smart. You're a leader? How do you want to apply this, you understand your context, you understand the different partners you work with outside of the organization, and inside of the organization, the role that you have? So what would it look like for you to be generous and giving people the empowerment, to try things?
I mean, this whole conversation is so powerful, because it's about legacy. It's about like, what you really want to be known for what your business stands for. And as a fellow founder in the space, I was really moved by your story of generosity with COVID. I mean, you know, your transparency of facing that moment, when you're feeling stressed, you're feeling I don't know how this is going to work out. And you looked around as a leadership team, and you said, we're going to choose to show up generously. Like that is where the rubber meets the road.
That's, you know, old, that was bold. I loved it.
I mean, I know what that feels like. But I want you to talk us through like, how do you show up like that when it's hard? You know, like, how do you really make that decision when it maybe isn't the right financial easy decision? Because I think founders as embracing this and nonprofit executives embracing this can revolutionize how we show up together?
Well, I'll answer that kind of in an atypical way. The company recently has been very successful. And we seem to be on a great trajectory. But I've always taken a mindset with the company that you know, kind of the money's here until it's not. And that kind of bleeds down into a principle of how I run the company, which is, I'm going to try and run the company in a way every day that I'm proud of, and that if it went bankrupt tomorrow, I wouldn't have regret. I'd have regret if I bankrupted like my own stupidity, which is always possible, let's be honest, but what it does is because I try to run the company day to day where I don't have regrets than if it doesn't, there's not this sense of, of loss or the sense of I would go back and do something different. What we tend to want to do is tell stories where I did this and that led to these things. And now we've got this happy ending and so look, you know, I made the right decision because the happy ending and what that really is, is it's a results kind of oriented thought process that the The ends kind of justify the means. And this is really common in our in our culture is to have the kind of results instead of process orientation. If you think about, even like sports, the way that we watch athletics is, you know, we watch the game. And then after the game is over, we want kind of a story or a narrative to understand what just happened. And then, you know, that's what sports writers do, they come up with a story or a narrative. But but the reality is, a lot of times there isn't like a bigger narrative. It's just like, hey, this one guy threw a ball one inch, you know, further to the right on that one play. And that was the entire difference in the game. And there's not like some bigger story to tell about anybody's character or preparation or anything else. And what really successful people do is they focus on the process, and try and do the process as well as they can, instead of focusing on results. So like, the way that I describe it is, you can either use the results of something is the lens that you look back on the process with, or you can use how you approach the process of something to be the lens with how you evaluate it. But it has a pretty radical difference on how you remember events in your life and the weight, your judgment about whether or not you handled things the way that you would want to handle them. So is the story that I shared about COVID? Is it a great story, because simple modern is doing great now? Or is it a great story, because it was just like, hey, at that moment, it was the right thing to do. And what you have to do is create, I think, a mindset and a culture, where we're going to make the best decision we can the right decision in the moment with that story. Like, yeah, I'm really proud of that story. But the main reason I'm proud of that story is that there was real need, we had real ability, and we stepped up and we did it, even though it cost us something.
So I mean, I love this conversation is leading us into just this idea that generosity is holistic. And you said that specifically in some of your comments earlier. But I know y'all spending time here this week at simple modern, I see it in the way the team shows generosity to each other and show just kind of this camaraderie and I hear about with your suppliers, too, would you kind of walk us through tactically speaking? What does that look like? How do you kind of stand apart with this generous spirit?
Yeah, so there's a lot of really practical things that you can do to create a generous environment. I mean, starting with the some of the most obvious, like the way that you compensate people. It's it is the salary you pay, and you can be generous with the salary you can pay. But also, it's what are the expectations that come with that salary, in terms of boundaries with their personal life in terms of the hours that they work each day. So there are certainly ways that you can be more or less generous with that. And it costs something I mean, like, here's the thing about generosity, it always costs something. So if you're going to pay your employees better, if you're going to ask less hours for them, if you're going to give them you know, good amount of time, you know, outside of work, then that's going to cost something. And that's a form of generosity, something simple, you know, everyday people have to eat lunch, we bring in lunch for the entire team. And there's obviously a cost to that. But the flip side of that is our entire team eats lunch together, you know, every day. And the impact if you ask people about the culture is one of their favorite things about the cultures that we bring in lunch, because it breeds incredible relational connectedness. But that starts with, you know, the generosity of saying, Hey, we're willing to pay for food. I think that it's also are you willing to spend money investing in the development of your people, if they are working for 40 or 50 hours, how much of that is actually invested in developing them. And there are some companies that do an exceptional job at that. And there's some companies where it's, it's basically non existent. And all of these things are the type of trade offs that you think about, you know, when it comes to the way that we interact with people outside of the company, we we really try and take a relational as opposed to transactional point of view in business, it's not uncommon at all, for all of the interactions to be transactional in nature that if you do this, then I'll do that. And and then when one party doesn't do what the other party is expecting, it kind of breaks down. To give one more example, this simple modern has 70 employees, but there are literally hundreds of people that make the product that we sell every year, we're at that kind of a scale. And many of them work in China and other countries. So one of the things we started doing a few years ago is we offered to do a celebratory banquet every single year for all the employees that worked at our international manufacturing plant that worked on our product. And in fact that for the second one second or third one, I learned enough Mandarin to get about a minute and a half speech to the employees. Oh, man, I mean, I'm sure I'm sure I butchered the pronunciation of many many words. But what that banquet and even me trying to learn enough Mandarin to speak to them. What I think it communicated was, Hey, you are valuable to us and we appreciate you. And so we would give out gifts at the banquet. We paid for the whole thing, and it's just another time visible example of everyone that we interact with. Everyone has value everyone, we want to treat everyone with generosity and there are opportunities. And I think, just one other thing I'll add there, that when you step outside of normal behavior is immediately noticed by other people. And it makes a big difference that the contrast of how people usually handle situations for us when we like, when we talk to anyone in our industry in China, they will tell us, we've heard about your company, we've heard about how you treat people, because word gets around the way that we've expressed generosity to partners that we've worked with in that part of the world. They talk and not surprisingly, they want to partner with companies that have that kind of a mindset.
I just want to make an observation. And I want to compliment you on something, which, for anyone listening, I've known Mike, since we were in kindergarten together. And so I've known you for most of our lives. And I can tell you, that watching you grow up, build this company, you are the same person today, as you were in kindergarten, you have always shown up generously in that way. But you have such trust and generosity in the process. And something that I think is so beautiful about your story, especially as you're sitting here talking about how you would take those 30 minute meetings, or how you're going to mentor someone and ask them to pay it forward. It just works naturally in this cycle that when you give generously, it has an output and it has a duplication has a duplicative process to it. And so I want to go back to Caroline, in this story, you shared this incredible story. And I wonder if that was like the first pebble that was like tossed into your hand to really start this journey, she gives you this $500 For this crew investment. And I wonder, does she know what she's done to, to cast that ripple and how it has multiplied and divided in so many ways that are tangible and business but are intangible in the human to human?
Yeah, I mean, I doubt that Carolyn understood how big of an impact that gift made at the time. And I think that probably the reality is that when when we're generous, we it's, it's often difficult for us to comprehend, you know, like what the the impact that we're making, to some extent, that's the faith piece of generosity is that I'm going to do this thing without perfect knowledge or really any knowledge sometimes of like, what it's actually going to produce. But with the hope and the belief that it is going to, you know, some of it is probably not going to amount to much and some of it is going to be really transformative for people. And that my ability to even know, which is which is going to be really limited, just like Carolyn writing that check to me and the impact that made on me, some of the very best ways that I feel like I've been able to give and invest caught me off guard, you know, like one of the things that's great about having worked with college students for several years in the nonprofit world. And now, that was almost, I guess, almost 20 years ago, is that I've actually seen how that's kind of played out. And I've had a lot of people come back to me and share with me, hey, the time that you invested in my life, you know, here's how it made an impact. And some of it's very unexpected. The thing that you can do with generosity is that no matter where a relationship is at no matter what background somebody's coming from, you can start that cycle of trying to care for help serve build up the other person without getting anything in return. And for many people, they haven't actually experienced much of that in their life. And what it does is it enlarges their future because it starts to show them a model of hey, this is actually possible. So I think at our worst, we're transactional. And what generosity does is it pulls us away from being transactional, it pulls us towards being relational, it pulls us towards putting the needs of others first. And when we do that, the natural response of other people, I think, for most people there, I mean, this there are bad actors who won't respond this way. But the response of most people is actually going to be to respond with trust, and to respond with generosity. It's just for many people, it's hard to take the first step. And that's one of the ways that we can lead when it comes to generosity. When we are the people that take the first step. We create these environments, we create these cultures where people's natural response is that they want to reciprocate and they want to lean in.
I mean, that's a beautiful tie into all of this because trust is a bedrock is just a magnet for everything you know, and I think as you lock in generosity and luck and trust, like it all just kind of clicks together. So I'm so glad we had this conversation. We've got to figure out how to round out this topic of generosity. And you know, we got to throw it to Mike to do a final Mic drop. It's time for the mic drop for the mic drop moment. Leave us with a piece of wisdom kind of take us home with this
generosity in large is the future for others, when we use our time, our skills or talents to encourage and to infirm and to help other people and enlarge their future, but it also it enlarges our future and it changes our quality of life as well.
Thanks for tuning in to scaling for good brought to buy simple, modern, and we're for good studios. If you like what you've heard, leave a review, share with your colleagues or tweet Mike at Mike Beckham, SM. We're your host Becky Endicott and John McCoy. And this series was edited and produced by Julie confer and a special thanks to Chris Boyle and Erica Randall from the simple modern team who helped bring the series to life. Thanks for being here.
