Kindness with James Rhee

A Bit of Optimism

The Optimism Company from Simon Sinek

Self-improvement, Careers, Business, Management, Education

4.8 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 8 November 2022

⏱️ 19 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

You went to Harvard undergrad, you went to Harvard Law, you became a hot-shot Private Equity guy. So your next move is obviously…? If you’re James Rhee, you walk away from all of it and discover what really makes a business grow: the intangibles. What started out as a six month project to help a company avoid liquidation turned into a seven year passion filled with new friends, compassion, and lots of goodwill. And the results were profound. It turns out intangibles can be measured and kindness is good for business. This is… A Bit Of Optimism.

Transcript

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0:00.0	James Rhee has quite the resume.
0:10.3	He graduated from Harvard undergrad and Harvard Law before becoming a teacher, then he settled
0:17.5	into a comfortable and profitable career as a private equity investor.
0:22.0	But that's not why I wanted to talk to James.
0:24.4	I wanted to talk to him because he left all that behind and did something that all his
0:30.6	peers thought was crazy.
0:33.7	He became CEO of a distressed company called Ashley Stewart, a fashion brand that serves
0:40.5	and employs predominantly black women.
0:43.6	He was only supposed to be there for six months just to help the company go through liquidation.
0:49.2	But instead, he discovered an opportunity to reinvent the company and serve a new community.
0:55.2	And he stayed there for over seven years.
0:58.8	And he did so by discovering something remarkable, the importance of intangibles, things that
1:06.4	are hard to count or put down on a balance sheet, but they make such a remarkable difference
1:13.2	that they can actually rescue people and rescue companies.
1:19.0	It's all about goodwill and kindness, two things that are grossly undervalued in our
1:25.0	society today.
1:26.8	James is currently a professor of entrepreneurship at Howard University and a strategic advisor
1:32.8	at the MIT Leadership Center, where he gets to teach other people about the importance
1:39.0	of kindness.
1:40.9	This is a bit of optimism.
1:46.1	James, you and I have something in common, which is we both believe it's nice to be nice.
1:53.9	Are we a dying breed, Simon?
	...

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