This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. Well, we have had dozens, if not hundreds, of I think great conversations across the course of these last seven topsy turvy work at home months, but few have resonated with us as much as one of our early pandemic conversations with John Hope Bryant. He is the founder and chief executive officer of Operation Hope. He joins us on the phone from Atlanta. We met him in person about a hundred and fifty years ago
at the Super Bowl down in Atlanta. He's been doing some phenomenal work in the meantime, as he was before that, and he's got a new book. It's called Up from Nothing. He joins us from the A T. L. John. Really nice to have you with us. How are you? I'm gonna be with you. We are. You're right, it's like a hundred and fifty years later, given given how much the world has changed. Um, we're sitting in a moment history now. But history doesn't feel historic when you're sitting
in it. It just feels like another day. But that doesn't mean in the moment is not truly special. So I want to thank you all for leaning in and continuing to give people get information and content during this time, keeping them inspired and you know, deeping out there in control in their lives. Well, John, one thing you know in saying that, you know, I think we spoke with you in early June, right, and the world was reeling and shocked by what happened to George Floyd in Minneapolis.
And so I have to say I agree with Jason, like your conversation really stayed with us on so many different levels, and we've referenced it and repeated it several times on our air. Has Are you seeing anything out there that's progressed since then? Yes, I think America's found our heart button. Um. You know, you can say you like what the protesters are doing, or you don't like what the protesters are doing, but what you absolutely have
to say is my god, they have heart um. And you can say you don't like what's happening with uh some of this candidates supporters are that candidates supporters, But my god, do we have an active democracy? And if this had happened in China, you disappear. If this has happened in Russia, you disappear so in the So that's that's the it's sort of the larger scheme of things.
And then specifically, I like that when this whole thing hit, I got a call from this administration's Treasury Department, who I actually I actually admire the Treasury department has in problems with the other parts of the government, respectfully stated but the Secretary of the Treasury, and they called it a job. We need help, we want to help small businesses, and so I helped them design parts of the p
p P program in a week. Um. Now, of course not we now know the nineties of all black businesses don't have an employee that they don't the bank or with a bank teller and didn't have the bank relationship to get in line and get the money. And that's another point we now have to solve. But I like that that it was one government. It may have been for two weeks, but it wasn't Republican Democrat. It was
for the two weeks, it was one America. And I like the fact that you have all these CEOs stepping up because the government leadership is unclear, and markets hate clouds, as you know, a Bloomberg, and you have the CEO stepping up, saying knock it off, America, let's stand up, and then making commitments I mean real money. Some of it's pr but most of the real commitments and real money. The CEO of Walmart, real dude, CEO of PayPal, real dude. You know, ladies and men, Uh, stepping up and doing
real stuff. Because ninety percent of all jobs come from the private sector and a d of the legitimate wealth comes from the free enterprise system. So when they stepped up, it reminds me of the Civil rights movement. Uh, it reminds me of what happened, and we had a last what I call the second reconstruction. This is my opinion, the third reconstruction, which is why this book I've got out now from nothing is so important for this moment getting our minds right. We need solutions that are larger
than the problems that we seek solutions. And John, you know, I'm glad you brought up the book because the timing is perfect in many ways, because I think we needed to be reminded in this pandemic. It's a moment of reflection for sure, and obviously the dueling pandemics that that we've all talked about in this national and long overdue reckoning about our history and and some systemic inequalities. But one of the things you remind us about in the book is that you can reflect, but then you gotta
go do it. You gotta get after it. And I do wonder sort of what you learned about or sort of relearned as you were putting this book together along those lines of kind of getting after it. I learned that my gut instinct was correct on this that even if you want to distribute money money like a socialist,
you've got a first collect money like a capitalist. Um. I learned that this country was made from poor people, struggling immigrants from all places and races, and people today forget these these yes, white mostly white immigrants were not allowed into the office buildings, and they were not giving
business cards and salaries. And the last major protests we had uh like this was a hundred years ago plus, which was the precursors to the New Deal, and these were all white people back then, I mean folks care protests, and the protests today looked like uh kindergarten compared to what was going on in the early nineteen hundreds. By all white or new immigrants, and then they were allowed to come in to the economy and they got the new Deal. And then later on it was a new
Martial plan. And these were government initiatives used to invest, not giveaway, invest in the population, which then created economic return for the country and a sense of fair play. So I was reminded that we really that we are our worst enemy in our best asset. Everybody wants to be an American, but Americans. But what's wrong now is our mindset? What's what? What's wrong now that we were
now pitted against each other. This is ridiculous. This only benefits China and Russia, and China and Russia who want to be us. It's crazy that we've got citizen against citizens against citizen, Republicans against Democrats, a black against white, rich against poor, capitalists against working class. What kind of crazy mess is this? The Bible says a house divided cannot stay and that's the Biblical and it's also common sense.
John Hope Bryant found a Cheran CEO of Atlanta based global nonprofit Operation Hope, and he does have a new book out just yesterday, Up from Nothing, The Untold Story of how we in parentheses all succeed And that's really important.
And that's where I wanted to start, John, because one of the things that I kept repeating after our conversation with you back in June was this whole idea of having a seat at the table, and after George Floyd and the protest, because I think you were having conversations with people about let's do this calmly, and and people were coming to you saying, we'll wait a minute. John. It's easy for you to say you have a seat at the table. We don't. So this is how we
get noticed. Are we going to get to make sure that everybody has a seat at the table. Are you seeing any signs of progress along those lines. Yes, I think that people, the leaders I'm talking to now get that this time is different. You know, this happens every hundred years or so. You know eighteen sorry, seventeen sixty to seventeen eighty, eighteen fifty, eighteen seventy uh sixteen, nineteen
fifty to nineteen seventy. We've killed the last two um great leaders by the way, who tried to push this innovation, Lincoln and Dr King. This is to me a third reconstruction um, that's gonna last for about ten years. And I think that it's also happened thirty years early. This shouldn't have happened. This should have happened, you know, thirty forty years from now. But people, people are tired. They're
tired of kicking the can down the road. And I think God has since the Humoris gave us a global health pandemic worse than a hundred years and economic crisis and afforded euro social justice reckoning and told us all basically to knock it off. On top of that an environmental crisis, I think we've got a chance for a reset here. We gotta get our minds back in the game.
We've got too many people with a surviving mindset that mean that tends to make you focus on me and not we are politicians all the way down to our protesters. I told some of the protesters who who I said, Look, I understand your pain, I'm with you, but you but blaming your neighbor doesn't make you any wealthier, and anger is not a strategy. We've got to get you from the sweet, from the streets into the sweets. The politicians can't keep cutting us up and dicing us and it's
spreading us because a house divided cannot stand. So we need to move back to the theme and made us who we are. That made Bloomberg what it is, which is a winning mentality and a winner believed they were a winner before they want any things. This is fundamental and that comes from the way you were raised to raise your culture, the way you were nurtured. We need
hunters more than we need skinners and cooks. We need winners who build things more than we need, and we can have have the survivors outnumber the winners and drivers. The middle class is fantastic, but they we need things for them to do, which is what the winners build so that they can sustain. And all this comes down to what I call the five pillars of success. All this is in the book, by the way, and I really, I really taken the emotion out of it and reduced
succeeding in America or any country in the world. I believe down the five fundamental principles. You get three or more those right, and you kill it, and if you don't, you're left behind. And we we need everybody needs to understand this is not charity or hand out, Racism is a tax, a levy on everybody's prosperity. And so John only got about a minute left and highly recommend this book. Couldn't recommend it more, and you'll have to check it out to get those five pillars of success. But bring
us back to Atlanta. What are you seeing there on the ground because it is the cradle of civil rights, you know that better than anyone. Are there signs of hope there? Because I feel like if these things are going to take root and I'm very biased to Atlanta is you know, it's my hometown, Like it's gonna start in places like that, what are you seeing? I'm seeing that we're doubling down on on our old business plan.
I was concerned that we would would continue to sort of splinter the Andrew Youngs and the ct Vivians and all the heroes and heroes here that they're falling away, they're getting older. Where's the next generation? I'm seeing them step up and I'm seeing whites and black sit at the tables and how can we produce more green? So so I love that we're trying to figure out how do we repair the breach? And that is very inspiring. It is the moral center for the country. Al Right, well,
we're gonna leave it there. We always love catching up with you. Thank you so much, John O'Brien He's got a new book. It is called Up from Nothing, Checking Out, founder and CEO of Operation Hope, and Uh. As we said at the top, he's a guy that we constantly go back to. Even when we're not talking to him directly, we're talking about him in many ways. And I know because his name comes up in lots of conversations that
I have with people. He is advising a lot of big names on how to think about all of these issues. And thank god, because you know the things that he says, Racism is a levy on everyone's prosperity. I remember from that initial conversation that this is a financial story, this is a wealth story, and we need to get to the heart of it to make sure we can make a change in all of this. All right, John O'Briant, man, I feel inspired.