0 (2s):
Boom, shake the room, Fire Nation, JLD here, and welcome to Entrepreneurs On Fire brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network with great shows like my first million stories about companies that grew from nothing into legit businesses. Today, we'll be focusing on timeless secrets of success to drop these value bombs. I brought Mitzi Perdue on the mic, her father co-founded the Sheraton Hotel chain and her husband was the poultry magnets, Frank Perdue. She is the founder of Win This Fight, Stop Human Trafficking Now, and today financial we'll be talking about success, secrets, those that built the shirts and hotel chain, those that enabled Frank Purdue to go from no employees to 20,000 at the time of his death.

1 (50s):
And we'll chat about what human trafficking has to do with success by making human trafficking fail and so much more. When we get back from thanking our sponsors, customers want more from brands delivering more means owning the customer experience, taking control over data acquisition analysis, creative and delivery. Klaviyo calls this owned marketing, and they believe it's the best path to growth for more visit Klaviyo.com/fire. That's Klaviyo.com/fire. Looking for a business coach who has helped thousands of entrepreneurs, just like you to increase their profitability by an average of 104% per year, all for less money than it would cost to hire a full-time minimum wage employee. Schedule your free consultation today with Clay Clark, a former small business administration entrepreneur of the year at ThrivetimeShow.com/fire ThrivetimeShow.com/fire Mitzi say what's up the fire nation.

1 (1m 45s):
And what is something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree?

0 (1m 51s):
All right. Pretty much all my life. I've heard people say, you know, you really need balance in your life. Don't be a workaholic. Well, I couldn't disagree more. I, I love both in my late husband who was Frank Perdue, founder of a company that employed 20,000 people at the time of his death. Okay. He was somebody who I wouldn't describe as having a balanced life and my life father. I think he was a workaholic as well. And I kind of think that workaholism is what gets you to, to the great rewards and satisfaction in life.

1 (2m 27s):
It's kind of hard to change the world or even have a massive impact on the world, fire nation, if you're not willing to put in the work. And Hey, when we say the word work, what if you're doing something you love every single day? How else do you really want to be spending your time? I mean, I'm listening to a fantastic interview about Walt Disney right now and hearing his inspiration and how he lived his life till the very end doing what he loved. I mean, it's inspiring. And we're talking today with Mitzi about timeless secrets of success. And I want to talk about success secrets with you Mitzi, because you're going to share with us some of the success secrets that built the Sheraton Hotel chain, break that down for us.

0 (3m 7s):
All right. My, my late father was the founder of the share. Well, he was co-founder along with my uncle of the Sheraton Hotel chain. He was also president and speaking of, of work-life balance, actually I do think he got it kind of right, but he was, he was as much a workaholic as, as you can imagine, because as you pointed out, it's possible not to work day in your life. If you just love what you're doing. And I think that he really loved what he was doing, but he didn't start out being somebody that you would ever predict would be right for the hospitality industry. And when he started, and it was pretty much, I started the Sheraton Hotel chain in the 1930s.

0 (3m 53s):
But before that, up to age 26, he had never been able to stick with anything in his life. And at age 26, he had gotten engaged to my mother and my grandmother told my mother, her, her future daughter-in-law don't marry earnest. He can never stick to anything. And so how does somebody who seems like such a poor marriage prospect that his own mother says don't marry earnest? How does that person convert into somebody who is a major success? And I would love to share with you how he transformed himself. I'm worried that I'm monologuing too much.

0 (4m 34s):
Are you okay with a month

1 (4m 36s):
Mitzi? We're loving what you're kicking out here. Believe me. I will break in each and every time we need to have a little back and forth, but what exactly is those success secrets?

0 (4m 46s):
I have to get a little bit of background at age 26. You had this wake-up call from his mother saying to his future wife don't marry him because he could never stick to anything. So he went to a career guidance counselor and the guidance counselor spent eight hours giving him every test you can think of. And we're talking like 1923 right now. Well, the guidance counselor at the end of all this testing said, Mr. Henderson, I've never seen somebody with worse human relations skills. You probably could make a pretty good success if you chose a career in science, because you're a smart fellow, but it would be working in a laboratory and not interacting with anybody and promising start for somebody in the hotel industry.

0 (5m 33s):
Right? Okay. Well, father took this as a challenge because, and he told me this. He said, as far as he could see every success that you have, that comes your way in life, depends on being able to get along with people. And so pretty much the rest of his life, he studied everything that he could about what makes people tick. He read psychology courses. He took the Dale Carnegie course. She took salesmanship course. He took speaking courses and he told me that he read how to win friends and influence people every 10 years. He'd read it all over again. So, and he also, you know, he would read books in psychology and later on in life, when he became, you know, a success, you know, tightened in the hotel industry.

0 (6m 23s):
And by the way, he, at the time of his death, the family owned 400 hotels. Wow. Well, when he became a major league success, he was, he was eminent enough so that he could invite some of the major psychologists of the time for weekends at our country home. And so I grew up with, you know, these were famous at the time, but BF Skinner, Eddie Bernays, I mean, he'd made a lifelong study of what makes people tick. And the end result was he got so good at inspiring people at getting people to stay with him for life, being willing to go the extra mile.

0 (7m 4s):
In every case that at the end of his life, the mentor employed 20,000 people, each one of them who were playing as far as I can tell a major role in making the Sheraton Hotel, a success hotel chain, a success.

1 (7m 18s):
I mean Fire Nation. There's one thing that is absolutely true. Success leaves, clues, success, leaves, clues. And guess what? We are also as entrepreneurs, as human beings, standing upon the shoulders of giants, like I'm standing in this room today with lights on with electricity, with, you know, chairs and desks. Because people before me have come and perfected these type of things, we are all standing upon the shoulders of giants. I mean, Mitzi, where are you located in the world right now?

0 (7m 47s):
I'm in Salisbury, Maryland population may be 40,000.

1 (7m 51s):
I'm in Southeastern Puerto Rico. And yet here we are. And we feel like we're essentially in the same room together, having a live conversation that you Fire Nation are hearing in one of the 145 countries around the world that this podcast is listened to on a daily basis. So you need to just think that this is amazing and it didn't just snap our fingers and happen. Success leaves, clues, and what happened with what everything Mitzi is, sharing those people who she's learned from, and that she's actually implemented in her life as well. She's followed their success, their knowledge. She stood upon the shoulders of giants. Like we all have so Mitzi before we go on, I'd like your opinion on that. Like, what are your thoughts on that success leaves clues that we all stayed up on the shoulders of giants.

1 (8m 35s):
How have you seen that specifically in your life?

0 (8m 38s):
Well, I'm certainly standing on the shoulders of, of my late father, because he impressed on me, the importance of, of human relations and, you know, an interesting thing, both my late father who employed 20,000 people, my late husband, Frank Purdue also employed 20,000 people in both started with no employees and through their companies. And both of them, if you would ask them, which I did, what's the secret of your success? Both of them said, it's the employees at every level. And allow me to share a story that kind of illustrates, at least in my father's case, what it takes to inspire people to go the extra mile.

0 (9m 19s):
Please do. Thank you. Okay. My father told me that when he first would take over a hotel and he started during the great depression when there was 25% unemployment, the hotels that he would take over were always ones that were teetering on bankruptcy. The ones where you could buy a hotel for pennies on the dollar, because everybody was getting out of real estate and hotels as fast as they could. Well, he said, when he'd take over a hotel, he'd invite every single person who worked at the hotel to come into the hotels ballroom. And he said that he knew ahead of time that everybody in his audience would be totally demoralized and afraid.

0 (10m 3s):
You know, they're afraid they're going to lose their job. And if you lose your job during the great depression, you're not going to get another, that meant the bread line. And so, because he had studied enough human relations, I think possibly to have a better understanding of what makes people tick than any of his competitors did. He told me the first words out of his mouth were always to his audience. Yeah. When he's addressing them and meeting them for the first time, the first words out of his mouth were always, I want you to keep your job. And the reason I want you to keep your job is I know that you know, your job better than anybody else in the whole world. And my job in this grand enterprise is to give you the resources and the encouragement to show the world just how great you are.

0 (10m 51s):
And you'll see, in the next few months, this hotel is going to turn around. It's going to be the most successful, the most financially stable hotel in the whole city. And even better. Weren't going to be an example to every other company that darkest things are that things can turn around. And so, you know, he told me that part of his reason for taking that approach was he said, people have a compulsion to live up to or down to your expectations. And he wanted to show them that he believed in them, but that wasn't enough just by itself. He said, the next day the employees would see just dozens of work.

0 (11m 34s):
People like decorators or plumbers or electricians, and that I'll be coming in to refurbish the hotel, which you need to, if a hotel has been on the verge of bankruptcy, but the important part he told me of having these people come in to refurbish the towel is that they never first to the areas that the pain public would see now that go first to the areas that only the only employees would be part of like the employee dining rooms or living, or showers or lockers or, or corridors. Those were the first places that had ever spruce up.

0 (12m 15s):
And so of course, I asked him, you know, why do you do that? And he said, it's a leader's job to give people a better vision of themselves. And if he shows how much confidence he has in them, by putting the first money into refurbishing the employee areas that this gave people a better vision of themselves. Cool

1 (12m 39s):
Mitzi. That's so cool. And one thing that I love that you shared amongst a lot of things, by the way, but one thing I want to pull out is people will live up to, or down to your expectations, Fire Nation. Please think about those words. What expectations are you putting on your employees? What expectations are you putting on your business partners, your loved ones, your kids like people you interact with, they will live up or down to your expectations. And especially in that employee, employer relationship that Mitzi's referring to. And if you think we're even close to being done dropping value, bombs, fire nation, you got another thing coming. As soon as we get back from thinking our sponsors, looking for a business coach who has helped thousands of entrepreneurs, just like you to increase their profitability by an average of 104% per year, all for less money than would cost to hire a full-time at minimum wage employee, I, our nation meets Clay Clark.

1 (13m 33s):
Clay has been coaching businesses just like yours since 2006. Yep. Even through the great recession. And he does it for less money than would cost to hire a full-time minimum wage employee at a time when Inc magazine reports that by default 96% of businesses will fail. Within 10 years, clay is helping businesses like yours to grow on average by 104% annually. How's this even possible Clayton only takes on 160 clients. So he personally designed your business plan. Plus CLIs team helps you execute that plan with access to graphic designers, Google certified search engine, optimizers, web developers, online ad managers, videographers workflow mappers in accounting coaches visit ThrivetimeShow.com/fire, to see thousands of video testimonials from real people, just like you, who clay has helped over the years.

1 (14m 14s):
That's right. Do your research and view thousands, not hundreds of proven, documented and archived video testimonials from real people, just like you at ThrivetimeShow.com/fire, ThrivetimeShow.com/fire. Then schedule your free consultation with clay himself to see how he and his team can help you thrive. Are you working around the clock to build the business? You always imagined. Do you want to communicate with your fast growing list of customers in a personalized way, but also in a way that gives you time to work on the rest of your business? Do you ever wonder how companies you admire the ones that redefined their categories, do it companies like living proof and Chubbies they do it by building relationships with their customers from the very beginning, while also evolving in real time as their customers' needs change, these companies connect quickly with the customers, collect their information and start creating personalized experiences and offers that inspire a rapid purchase.

1 (15m 6s):
Often within minutes of uploading their customer data, Klaviyo empowers you to own the most important thing to any business, the relationship between you and your customers and the experiences you deliver from the first email to the last promotion. So learn more about how Klaviyo helps you own your growth visit Klaviyo.com/fire. That's Klaviyo.com/fire Mitzi. We're back. And let's be frank, human trafficking is an incredibly monstrous problem in this world right now today. So what on earth does human trafficking have to do with success?

0 (15m 44s):
My theory is that most of our audience would share what I think that you would feel in that. I certainly feel that at the end of your day, you want to look back on your life and think I've done something and preferably you've done something that's made the world a better place. And with human trafficking, I think it's one of the darkest activities on the face of the planet and anything that anybody can do, whether it's big or small to help get rid of this har I think if you've worked on it, you can look back on your life and feel the satisfaction that you did something important and the darker, the problem, the more satisfaction you get from fighting it

1 (16m 29s):
Mitzi. Why did you choose this battle to fight?

0 (16m 33s):
Yeah. It exists in a scale that unless you've studied it a little bit, you probably don't know, but human trafficking, the United nation says that there are 40 million people who are trafficked right now. And if, yeah, and if a person is trafficked, I mean, that's almost the same word as slavery, right? I mean, one person is owning another person and exploiting them and more than 40 million people. And just to put that in context, you know, the, the, the number 40 million I'm going to guess for most of us that that's sort of a nebulous number, but one way to grasp it is, think that, well, it's the population of every man, woman and child in the state of California, or another way to put it is I've read statistics that even during the Atlantic slave trade of several hundred years ago, the maximum number of people who were part of that was 15 million and horrible is that 15 million is just think that it's 40 million people who are enslaved today.

0 (17m 38s):
And, and of those, by the way, 8 million are sex trafficked and of the 8 million who are sex trafficked, a million are kids. And, and what trafficking say for a child, a twelve-year-old child may be forced to have sex 10 or 12 times a night with complete strangers, 365 days a year. And her life expectancy is seven years. And those seven years, well, here's, what's going to end it, you know, probably earlier than seven years, but on average, she's not going to live longer than seven years. She's going to die of suicide, a drug overdose disease, or organ harvesting that can you get more evil than that?

0 (18m 27s):
No evil. Yeah. And I asked her, I have a friend who's, he's a retired psychiatrist from New York medical, New York university medical center. I think it's called the Len gun medical center. And he told me, he treats both, both the people who do this and the people who've been victimized by it. And he said, if you want to imagine what it's like for him to say that 12 year old girl, he said, imagine the most depressed you've ever been in your whole life. You know, maybe somebody really loved died. He said, it's like that every single day until they do die, you're the worst person you can imagine.

0 (19m 8s):
And he said it differs from normal depression because he says when, or he told me that when somebody comes into his office with depression, he knows that there's a beginning, middle, and end to the depression in the case of a trafficked person, unless they're rescued, there's no end to it until death. So, you know, how can, how can you get more horrible than that?

1 (19m 33s):
It does not get more horrible. And you know, one thing that I experienced personally in my life was, you know, as an officer in the US army for eight years, I did a third point. Thank you. Appreciate that. And Betsy, I did a 13 month tour of duty in Iraq. And let me tell you, I met some amazing and wonderful people over my time in Iraq, for sure. But I also was exposed to some really sad. And what I can only really say was likely a human trafficking situation over there. And there's only so much that we could do because I mean, you know, this is the us army. We were there on a mission and, you know, we could only investigate so deep in a certain things, but it was really obvious that these types of things were happening.

1 (20m 20s):
And of course, this is just an, a small, you know, city in Iraq, let alone think about the whole sphere of this world, the 40 million people the Mitzi's talking about here. I mean, this is the population of California puts it really into, into just relevancy. It's like, wow. So can we talk about some, maybe bright sides of things Mitzi? Like, is there being these rescues that we're talking about? Like what kind of momentum we have in this area?

0 (20m 49s):
Okay. Well, first I'm really grateful to you for, for switching course, because you know, I've talked about the darkest thing that there is, but the fact that people are working on it, the United nations recognizes at least last, I looked, they recognized 2000 anti-trafficking organizations. And I bet you that conservatively, there are at least 40,000. And what I'm doing is I think you're never going to have the ability to rescue a child or, or anybody. I'm not going to be able to help restore somebody to a normal life. But what I can do is I can do fundraising and I can do awareness.

0 (21m 33s):
And one of, one of the great things is I've. I wrote a blog and by the way, I love any of our listeners to sign up for my blog. And if they've got a pencil and paper handy, I'll give you how to do it in a second right now, right now. Okay. Text WTF. And yes, I know how that sounds text WTS two 51, five, five, five. And that will take you to my website, which is win this fight.org and Quinn in writing these blogs. It means that so far I've interviewed almost a hundred heads of, of other anti-trafficking organizations.

0 (22m 16s):
And what I do for them is I tell their stories, including people who've been either rescued or, or restored to something close to normalcy, or I talk about organizations that are working to prevent this and it's, to my mind, it's a very uplifting thing, but I also tell how people can volunteer to help in particular aspects of combating human trafficking. So that that's one approach that I have, but I'll tell you people who, who read the blogs, they tell me yep. That it's inspirational to, to hear about good people who are doing good things. It, you know, to my mind, human trafficking, tears away at your belief in humanity.

0 (23m 1s):
But then when you see these people who are selflessly, marshaling, every skill and ability and talent and heart that they've got to fight this it's, I find it amazingly uplifting, but I also am involved with fundraising. And one of the ways for fundraising, well, COVID 19 Jean interrupted something, but I expect to, to include it maybe next year, the year after. But I thought that, well, my story is that a couple of years ago, actually March 11th, at 2:00 PM of 19, I heard lecture and human trafficking.

0 (23m 44s):
And I saw the faces little girls, you know, 12 year old girls who it turned out that they were just about to be rescued, but I felt, you know, when you see your faces frozen with fear and terror and despair, you couldn't unsee it. And so I, in the audience, listening to this lecture wanted to do something, but it occurred to me. And I bet a lot of people in, in our audience, our listeners might be in the same situation I was in, which is maybe you're philanthropic. Maybe you want to help, but if you write a check to the, to a new organization, it probably means cutting back on another organization.

0 (24m 27s):
And in my case, I didn't want to cut back in the food bank, which I love, but I did want to do something for about human trafficking. And then I had an idea I own because I inherited it, a desk that we think belonged to a Domenici Cardinal from 400 years ago. And I knew that if I put this up for auction, it could get a whole lot of attention because it's a historic thing. And it could probably bring a pretty hefty price. Then I started thinking, you know, I bet there are a whole lot of people who also might have property. That'd be willing to put up at an anti-trafficking auction and they could designate which anti-trafficking organization it would go to.

0 (25m 13s):
And it would raise money and it would raise publicity or awareness at the same time. And so I, I spent, Oh about a year, traveling the world, collecting insanely amazing donations that would bring fabulous amounts of money. And I'll describe one, I'll tell you the best I was in Taiwan and a man who was a jeweler, invited me to come to his, his house for tea. And we're sitting in the second floor of his apartment in Taipei. And he tells me, you know, Mitzi human trafficking is $150 billion a year enterprise.

0 (25m 58s):
It's the second largest source of funds for criminals. He said, yeah, they're not gonna like what you're doing. Aren't you worried that they may try to kill you? And I blurted out without even thinking about it. I said, I'm 78 years old. I believe in this. Cause I don't care. Well, the men got up and he walked around behind his chair and there was a wall, which I hadn't really noticed before that had a curtain in front of it. He pulled the curtain and there was a safe, he manipulated the dial, the safe, open the door reached in and there in his Palm was a Ruby about the size of a golf ball.

0 (26m 43s):
And he handed it to me and I'm looking at this thing. And you know, I have, in my hand, a five carat Ruby, it's about the size of your little fingernail. Well, can you imagine a 70 carrot

2 (26m 57s):
Roofing? Okay. There aren't there

0 (26m 60s):
Many in the world like this and it has a history. It belonged to a Ching dynasty emperor. And we think from the way it was cut because fashions and faceting stones change over the years, we think it's at least 300 years old. I don't know what it will go for it, but I've, I've heard people say 40 to $60 million, but that's not the only donation that's come in. One of the world's larger. Perfect. I guess it's a near perfect Emerald 12 plates from the year 1822 that belong to a Russian czar.

0 (27m 40s):
And these plates, there are 14 of them in the world. And two of them I've actually seen them are in a museum in Russia. There are two brothers who own the 12 plates and they say there's a Russian oligarch who would like to buy them. But instead they're contributing that to the anti-trafficking auction with the idea that the Russian oligarch can buy them at the auction, but we hope people are bidding against them.

2 (28m 8s):
Anyway,

0 (28m 8s):
There's the POS the, the stories behind the different donations are so amazing that PBS public television in the United States has already filmed or video graft a a half hour documentary on them. And so, and the purpose of this, you know, partly it's raising money for anti-trafficking organizations and somebody who has an expensive thing that they would like to donate to the auction. They get to say where the money goes, but it has to be something having to do with combating human trafficking or else preventing it. And by the way, that happens to be a very, very, very large spectrum of activities.

0 (28m 54s):
Because like, if it's a literacy campaign maybe in, I don't know, Namibia or something, or, or job training or education in general or health or sanitation, anything that makes people less vulnerable makes trafficking less likely. So anybody who has an organization that they would like to donate an object to with the idea that we're going to convert the tangible property into cash, that would then go to the anti-trafficking or prevention organization that they care about. Let me know a door to hear from you. And if you're in the United States, you can get a tax deduction the year that you make the donation.

0 (29m 39s):
So if you, if you happen to need a tax donation this year, pledge it this year, pledge it irrevocably. And, and you get the tax deduction this year. And I'm going to bet that in a lot of countries, there's something similar, but I don't want to make guesses for other countries.

1 (29m 58s):
Well, Mitzi, I really am glad that we ended on this high note with telling some really awesome stories and providing fire nation with some really great opportunities, how they can get involved. If it makes sense for them, if this is something that their heart is connecting to right now. So let's bring this home Mitzi. What is the one thing you really want our listeners to take away from our conversation today? One more time, give us that, you know, texting of WTF, any other way that you want us to connect with you, and then we'll say goodbye.

0 (30m 31s):
Well, I'd love people to go to my website, win this fight.org. And that by the way is where the initials WTF come from. And yes, I do know what WTF stands for, but I think it's just so appropriate for something so horrible. So texts WTF two five, five, five, one five, five, five, that will take you to my website or just go there directly. And I would love to hear from you. I'd love for you to sign up for my blog. And I think I can guarantee that you'll find the blog fascinating. It will tell you ways to volunteer. It will tell you ways to have an impact on this. And I just love to connect with you and you can connect to it through win this fight.org or five, five, one, five, five, five

1 (31m 20s):
Mitzi. You're inspiring to me. I truly hope that in 38 years, I am still doing amazing things in this world like you're doing right now. That is my truly one hope that you've given me here today. So thank you for that and fire nation. You know that you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with M P and J L D today. So let's keep up this heat and you can head over to eofire.com and type Mitzi, MITZI, and the search bar. The show notes page will pop up with everything we talked about here today. Of course, go directly to win this fight.org or text WTF.

1 (32m 1s):
And one more time Mitzi. Let's hear those numbers,

0 (32m 4s):
55 one five five five

1 (32m 8s):
Mitzi. Thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, the wonderful things you are doing in this world with fire nation today, for that, we salute you and we will catch you on the flip side. Hey, fire nation today's value bomb content was brought to you by Mitzi ends. If you ever thought about creating a podcast of your very own, the podcast journal is for you. It is a gorgeous, full other journal that will guide you. Step-by-step in the creation, a launch of your podcast, fire nation in a mere 50 days, that's five zero visits, the podcast journal dot use promo code podcast, free $15 discounts. And thank you for listening to my podcasts, and I will catch you there, or I'll catch you on the flip side.

1 (32m 50s):
Customers want more from brands delivering more means owning the customer experience, taking control over data acquisition analysis, creative and delivery. Klaviyo calls this owned marketing, and they believe it's the best path to growth for more visit Klaviyo.com/fire. That's Klaviyo.com/fire. Looking for a business coach who has helped thousands of entrepreneurs, just like you to increase your profitability by an average of 104% per year, all for less money than would cost to hire a full-time minimum wage employee. Schedule your free consultation today with Clay Clark, a former small business administration entrepreneur of the year at ThrivetimeShow.com/fire ThrivetimeShow.com/fire.