INTRO TONY: Welcome back to the podcast. You've got a vision. You're working very hard day after day. You're trying to scale your business, but sometimes it feels like the more you grow, the more complicated it gets. Your team isn't always on the same page. Culture is hard to maintain, and you wonder, how do the world's biggest brands build something that lasts without losing their soul? That's why you need to stick around for today's conversation. My guest is Howard Behar, one of the legendary leaders behind Starbucks for twenty-one years. Howard helped take Starbucks from just twenty-eight stores to over fifteen thousand across five continents. He served as president of North America and became the founding president of Starbucks International. But here's the real story—Howard didn't build success through flashy marketing or rigid systems. He built it through servant leadership, leading with values, empowering every person on the team, and never forgetting that people come before profits. He's the author of the bestselling book, It's Not About the Coffee, and his lessons have inspired leaders around the world. If you're an entrepreneur or business person looking for practical wisdom on scaling a business, building culture, and leading with authenticity, then this interview is your playbook. Stay with us. Howard's going to show you how love and business truly go hand in hand. Let's begin. Howard, welcome to The Tony D'Urso Show. HOWARD: Thanks, Tony. It's great to be here. TONY: It is an honor and a pleasure both to have you. I'm really looking forward to this. And with that dichotomy, I said an honor and a pleasure—it seems to be we have a little dichotomy here because you talk about how love and business go hand in hand. We're all ears. We would love to learn about it. But first, I'm very curious. Howard, what is your backstory? How did it all start for you?

INTERVIEW – PART 1 (BACKSTORY & IMMIGRANT ROOTS) HOWARD: Well, you're looking at a guy that barely got out of high school. I had a couple years of community college, and I basically started working when I was thirteen years old. I was the product of two immigrants that came to the United States in the early nineteen hundreds and couldn't speak the language. And my dad opened up a small mom and pop grocery store in the city of Seattle after working a couple of years in the Pike Place Market pushing a cart. And my mother came from Latvia as a nine-year-old, and they met in Seattle and they worked their rear ends off for their whole lives. And I watched them do that. And that was the model and that was the example. And the other part of that model was that they understood that they weren't serving customers, they were serving human beings. And so in my dad's grocery store, you know, he built relationships. In those days, they had individual charge accounts. There were no credit cards or anything. And so every customer had his own little booklet and they'd come in and they'd charge their groceries. At the end of the month, my dad would bill them, and if they needed it to be delivered, my dad would get a cart and go deliver it around the neighborhood. So I watched him get up every morning. Both of them get up every morning at four o'clock, go down to produce row, pick up the produce, the fruit and the vegetables. Come back to the store, clean it all up. Open the store at eight o'clock in the morning. Close the store at six o'clock at night. Come home. Eat his dinner in eleven seconds flat, sit down in his chair and go to sleep. And I watched him repeat that day after day. But the one thing I always knew about my dad is that he cared about people. And he taught me many valuable lessons. So, you know, I'm the immigrant story, pure and simple. And I learned it. I watched my mother's family who had brothers and sisters get into retail and serve people. And most of all, I watched my dad do it. So, you know, my introduction to servant leadership wasn't a formal one. I never even knew what the words meant. My introduction to servant leadership was just my dad serving people. TONY: I have a little similarity in that I come from Italy. We're immigrants and there's a different mentality between the Europeans and the Americans where it is more relationship-based, more culture-based. At least that's my observation. Is your big takeaway with the servant leadership, which we're going to go into in a moment, is people come first, which is that European attitude? HOWARD: Yeah, absolutely. Look, servant leadership is fairly simple. Here's what it stands on—three legs. The first leg is as a leader, you're here to help people grow as human beings. That's number one. Number two, you're here to help people become better professionals at what they do. And number three, you're here to help your people achieve their own personal goals in life. And when you do that well, then they're willing to help you. So it's always about serving somebody else. TONY: I understand that we have a little, again, a juxtaposition here or little dichotomy. The entrepreneur, the business person—we're all about, they're all about making money, taking a product or a service and selling it and just really going for the money. To me, the way I see it is it's a predominant point of view, especially in the American culture, is how much profit can you make? How fast can you make it? How fast can you scale? How much can you make? So it's all about that. It's not really about the person or giving something good to the person. In fact, the products or services could be not very good. HOWARD: Well, that's not what I believe. So I believe the profits are an outgrowth, and the money's an outgrowth of what you do for other human beings. Look, I don't care what you do in life. I don't care whether you're a widget maker, whether you're a doctor, a lawyer, whether you're running a big Fortune 500 company—there really is only one reason you were put on this earth, like it or not, is to serve other human beings. If you do that well, you're not guaranteed you're going to get rich, but you're guaranteed to have a fulfilling life. And most of the time you'll achieve your own economic goals. When the only thing is economic goals for yourself, it's a very empty life. And if you get to my age, right—I'm eighty years old—you'll find that out that you're not going to remember the amount of money you made when you were twenty-eight years old or fifty years old. You're going to remember the people and the relationships you built. And if you don't, then there's something wrong. I really like that a lot. Did your parents spend time instilling that in you to take care of people primarily, no matter what? Was that like your apprenticeship through the business world? HOWARD: Yeah. Let me give you an example. This is a small example, but my dad had this grocery store and I used to go there after school every day. My dad was fifty when I was born, so he was quite a bit older. He wasn't out playing baseball with me. So I would go to the store and I'd watch what he did. One day I was at the front counter and he was ringing up a cash register. This was in the days before—the cash register was a hand-crank. It wasn't electric. And so he rang up the cash register by punching the buttons and pulling the crank. He'd go, "Bing!" And then my dad said to me, "Howard, would you go get me a couple of baskets of strawberries?" And so I went in the back of the store where all the fresh fruit was, and I got a couple of baskets of strawberries and I brought them to the front counter. My dad took those baskets of strawberries, put them in the customer's bag, and the customer walked out of the store. Well, I was old enough to recognize my dad hadn't rung those up on the cash register because I never saw him pull the crank, and I never heard it go "bang." And I said, "Dad, you forgot to ring those up on the cash register." And he just looked at me and he said, "You know, Howard, not everything we do in life do we need to be paid for. You know, these people are not just our customers, but they're our friends and our neighbors. And I happen to know that they're struggling to make a go of it right now, and they can't afford fresh fruit. And it's just my way of helping them out." And, you know, I didn't realize that lesson till much later in life when I remembered it, but it was so true that it was about helping the people and they weren't just customers. They were his neighbors and his friends, and he wanted to do something for them. And you want to know something? That's how I got to Starbucks by that little lesson. Because when I met Howard Schultz, right, we had a year-long dance. And finally I said to him, "Howard, before either one of us makes a decision, how about if I come to work in the company for a week for free and you don't even put me on the payroll? I want to work in the stores for a few days. I want to work on the trucks. I want to work in the roasting plant for a few days. At the end of that week, you like me, I like you, maybe we can put something together." So you know that lesson about—you don't always have to get paid for what you do. Too often in life we think we have to be paid emotionally. We have to be paid with money. We have to be paid with awards and recognition. But when you really love what you do and you want to serve others, you don't need to be paid for that. You do it because you want to do it. And so, you know, that's the lesson I learned about serving others. Don't worry about what you get. Worry about what you give. And I promise you, if you do that well, you're going to get plenty.

INTERVIEW – PART 2 (JOINING STARBUCKS) TONY: We're speaking with Howard Behar, talking about leading with love. Also, a subtitle you could say is How Starbucks' Former President Built a Global Brand and Why the Heart of Leadership Is Serving Others. Howard, we're talking about how you started in Starbucks. So you spent a week working different jobs in a couple different places. What happened then? HOWARD: And, you know, I fell in love in that week. I realized early on—we were only twenty-eight stores, but I came into the company and they thought of themselves as a coffee company. And I got in there and I realized, right, almost instantaneously, it wasn't about the coffee. We weren't in the coffee business serving people, but we were in the people business serving coffee. And I spent the next five years, or actually twenty-one years, trying to convince people that was the way. And it didn't take very long before everybody got it. And I kept pushing that inside the organization. And so fortunately, Howard extended an invitation for me to join Starbucks, and the rest is history. I turned right instead of turning left.

SPONSOR BREAK – INCOGNI TONY: What an incredible conversation with Howard. He has so much wisdom on building a business with values at the core, and that really makes me think about the world we're living in today, where trust and integrity are more important than ever. You know, one of the biggest threats we face today isn't just hackers breaking into bank accounts. It's something much quieter and much more common. It's your personal information being collected, packaged and sold online without you ever knowing. Think about it—your home address, your phone number, even details about your family members all exposed on people search sites and in giant databases. Anyone—an employer, a landlord, or even someone you cut off in traffic—can type in your name and find you. Criminals use this for scams, stalking, identity theft, and worse. I actually signed up for a service that takes care of this problem for me. It's called Incogni and let me tell you, it feels good to finally fight back. Here's how it works. You create an account, give them the bare minimum of info so they can locate your profiles. And then with your one-time approval, Incogni contacts hundreds of data brokers on your behalf. Not just once. They keep going back over and over to make sure your data doesn't pop back up. Within literally about one minute when I clicked on my emails, I found a compliance from a broker that actually removed my information. Wow, that was fast. They even have a custom removal feature where if you find your data on some random website, you just send them the link and they'll handle it. What would take you hundreds of hours of frustration, Incogni does automatically while you get back your privacy and peace of mind. And here's something I really respect. Incogni is the first and only data removal service independently verified by Deloitte. That means they actually do what they say—removing your personal data from hundreds of broker sites and tracking it every step of the way. So if you want to reduce the risk of scams, protect your family's safety, and simply disappear from those shady online directories, try Incogni. They even offer a thirty-day money-back guarantee so it's risk-free. Take back your personal data with Incogni. Go to Incogni.com/Tony and use code Tony for sixty percent off an annual plan. That's I-N-C-O-G-N-I dot com slash T-O-N-Y. Because the truth is, they can't harm you if they can't find you. TONY: And before we dive back into this with Howard, I want to take a quick moment to thank you for being here. Thank you. Your support means the world to me and I truly appreciate you following and listening to The Tony D'Urso Show on your favorite podcast platform like Spotify and Apple Podcasts. If you're enjoying this conversation and gaining valuable insights, please hit that follow button and tell some friends about what you've learned. It helps us continue bringing you these incredible guests and impactful discussions. And one quicker note, if you're loving the insights you're hearing today, make sure you're getting my twice-monthly Elite Entrepreneur newsletter. It's packed with actionable strategies from the show, highlights from top books and podcasts, and special shoutouts to our community. No cost, no gimmicks. Join us today at TonyDUrso.com/News. Let's grow together and keep rising. That's TonyDUrso.com/News. And now back to the chat with Howard talking about leading with love. It's not about the coffee.

INTERVIEW – PART 3 (THE THIRD PLACE & CULTURE) TONY: You know, I think back several years or actually decades on Starbucks. And one of the first things when they first came to the Los Angeles area that really surprised me was the culture. People were just, you know, there were desks and chairs and couches and people would just sit there. And I thought it was the most unusual thing in the world because I came from retail. And usually you don't see people sitting around. They buy, they eat their food or whatever they're doing, and then they go. And here this was very unusual. People were just hanging out, lounging. It was a very unique culture there. And I began to later see that in other stores, but that really hit me in Starbucks where you could just relax and be there for an hour or two just drinking a coffee. It was unheard of then. HOWARD: Yeah, we called it the third place, the place between work and home. Think of Cheers. If you've ever seen the TV program Cheers, think of Starbucks in that context. It was about people and a comforting place to be. Except we weren't serving beer or wine. We were serving coffee. TONY: And with the stores that you worked with and helped grow, one of the things that I think is very challenging, almost impossible, but yet you pulled it off, was keeping that culture intact while the store is growing. Because once it starts growing to a point, generally a store wants to usher people out right away to fill the chairs with more customers. But that never changed in Starbucks. HOWARD: Well, it did after Covid hit and we screwed it all up and we totally blew it. We didn't know what to do, so we took the chairs out. Didn't want to get people sick. They caused all sorts of things to happen. And now, of course, they're going back to that because they realize that that's what we're about and that that's the core. It's a place for people to be, to be with themselves, to be with each other—a romantic conversation, a philosophical conversation, or just a conversation with yourself. And I think it's really critical and that's what really made it work. And we were the first to put in internet so people could use the internet. And it became a place for people to stay and sit. And I think that's the valuable thing of Starbucks. And it took us a while to realize that we made a mistake when after Covid we started taking those things out, but now they're back at it. TONY: I just have to comment on it again, because it was just so odd to see people lingering around the place. Today's people, maybe the generation that are listening to this may not seem at odds, but in my day, that was just unheard of. Like, "What are you doing here?" sort of was the attitude. But anyways, that was always very weird. But it shows how important people are in building any culture.

INTERVIEW – PART 4 (THE PERSON WHO SWEEPS THE FLOOR) TONY: And also with that, I think that might have a part in this next thing. One of you have multiple lessons. And one that caught my eye and attention is the person who sweeps the floor should choose the broom instead of being told how to do it. You sort of like empower and let that person do things. Is that the philosophy that people choose themselves? HOWARD: Yeah, absolutely. You go out and you spend a lot of money recruiting people to come into your organization. You bring them into the organization. And then what most companies do is give them the handbook that has two hundred pages in it, and it says all the things that you shouldn't do on threat of being fired if you do them, right? Exact opposite of what you should be doing. You bring them in, of course, you give them the handbook stuff, but you talk about why you brought them in and you talk about the greater purpose of the organization, why we're all here, and then you talk about what we're hoping for them and what responsibility we want to make sure that they have. And then you say, "You know, we have five brooms for you to choose from. You're the floor sweeper. Choose any broom that you want. Right-handed broom, left-handed broom, straw broom, plastic broom, push broom, whatever broom." And most companies would say, "Just use the broom I gave you." We always wanted to have our people be able to choose and participate in the work and make decisions in what they were trying to do. And so that's what we did. And so, you know, you can imagine somebody—one of your people is in charge of keeping the floors clean, comes in one day and says, "You know, Howard, I think I could increase floor sweeping productivity by ten percent because I was on the internet the other night and I found a fantastic broom." You know, many bosses would just roll their eyes and just say, "Use the broom I gave you," instead of listening and saying, "Well, okay, let's try one of those brooms. Purchasing may not like it, but let's get one of those brooms for you. Put it on my Visa, and let's see what happens and let me know how it works." TONY: I'll give you a broom story. Probably the biggest broom story ever at Starbucks.

INTERVIEW – PART 5 (THE FRAPPUCCINO STORY) HOWARD: So a young woman named Dina Campion, who was the district manager in Southern California when we first opened and we had about eight or nine stores at the time, she called me and said, "Howard, can you come down and visit?" I said, "Sure, I'd love to see what's going on down there." Nothing like getting out of the office and being in the stores. And so I went down to visit her and she took me on a tour of our stores and then some competitor stores. And in one of the competitor's stores, she bought me a drink and she said, "We're getting thirty customers a day come into the store asking for a drink like that, and we don't have anything like it. I think we ought to try it." So I took her idea back to Seattle and I said, "Here's what Dina thinks." And there was zero support for it. Marketing and product development said, "Howard, we're in the coffee business. We're not going to do that." And I begged and pleaded, and I was going nowhere. So I called Dina up and I said, "Dina, there's no support. Let's give it six months and we'll come back after it." So Dina was responsible for growing the business, taking care of her people, taking care of those human beings we call customers, and making sure everything was operating well and being aware of what was going on in the marketplace. So Dina was disappointed. But about two weeks later, she calls me up and she says, "Howard, can you come down again?" I said, "Dina, what is it that you want?" She says, "I'd like to show you something about that drink." I said, "Dina, you remember our conversation. Just give it six months." Well, Dina was an Italian like you are—big brown eyes. And she had these little sharp teeth that she would sink into your calf. And when you tried to shake her off, you couldn't get rid of Dina. She was persistent as hell. So I said, "Okay, I'm not going to make a special trip, but I'll meet you down there in about a month. I have to visit some real estate sites." And so I made an appointment to see her, and I went into this store, the Third Street Promenade store in Santa Monica. And I sat down at one of the bar stools, and she brought me over these little three little sample cups that we have. And in it were these little drinks. And she says, "Try this." I took a sip and I said, "Dina, this tastes remarkably like that drink you bought me at a competitor store. Are you trying to get me fired?" And I laughed and she laughed. She says, "No, but Howard, really, we need to do this. We're losing customers left and right." Dina and her broom. So I said, "Dina, okay, you want to try this? You can try it." She figured out how to do it with a barista and her store manager, and they created a product. And I said, "You can try it, but don't tell a soul, and you have to call me every night with the results, because if it's not working, we're going to get rid of it really quickly before anybody finds out." So she did it. It wasn't thirty drinks a day she was selling per store. It was fifty drinks a day she was selling per store. By week number three, it was seventy drinks a day per store. This was going to be a huge lift in sales at Starbucks. So I was thinking to myself, "Howard, you're a genius, you know?" And so I invited Dina up to Seattle with her team, and we got the group together. And this time I included Howard Schultz, and I had her bring in the samples. And the head of marketing and product development stood up, and he said, "Behar, what the hell are you doing? I told you we weren't going to do this." And I looked at Howard and I said, "Howard, give me ninety days." And I had this document, this piece of paper with all the numbers on it. This was going to be a ten to fifteen percent lift in sales and profits in our stores if this worked. So I said, "Give me ninety days. If you don't like it in ninety days, we'll get rid of it." Dina and her broom. So what do you think Dina's broom was? What broom do you think she chose? What was the product that she wanted? Got any ideas? TONY: One of your dragon fruit iced tea drinks? HOWARD: No, Frappuccino. TONY: Frappuccino. Oh, I had to go back further in time. HOWARD: Yeah, way back. This is over thirty years ago. That was a popular name everywhere. And so Dina created Frappuccino. It became twenty percent of our business at one time, and it became a four-billion-dollar business, all because I took a risk as a leader, broke some rules, maybe broke a little glass along the way. But I would take the bullets if they came flying and she tried it. And if I weren't willing to listen to Dina, if I wouldn't have been willing to back her up, we'd have never had Frappuccino. So, you know, they're not always that big, but most of the time it's little brooms. But every once in a while, you get a big one. TONY: Yeah. Well, one of the takeaways is if there's something that you feel very strongly about that can make a difference, run it as a special project perhaps, and monitor it very tightly. HOWARD: Yeah. Monitor it tightly. But be willing to take the risk. I had four rules. Don't do anything illegal. Don't do anything immoral. Don't do anything unethical and don't poison anybody. If you could live with those four rules, we could do anything.

INTERVIEW – PART 6 (INTERNATIONAL EXPANSION TO JAPAN) TONY: Now, so far, we're going through the history here. We're in California and North America. And then you wound up opening up a store in Japan. What kind of challenges did you have? Was this also similar to the broom? Like don't go out of the country, but yet you did? Tell us how that happened. HOWARD: Yeah. We did. Well, nobody—the board wasn't in favor at that time. We had about five hundred stores and I made the pitch for me to take and develop the international business, take it outside of North America. And so I didn't have the credibility because I didn't have a college degree. So I hired Bain to come in and help me put the business plan together. I got them to do it for almost for fifty thousand dollars. I mean, they don't even blink for fifty thousand dollars, but I got them to do it because they thought they were going to get a lot of future business, which they eventually did. But so we put together the business plan. I presented it to the board and I wanted to go to the UK and Asia simultaneously, and they said, "Pick your shot, you can't do both." So I picked Asia Pacific and we went to Japan first. And we went to Japan first because I'd spent a lot of time in Asia looking at the marketplace. And Japan was a big coffee-consuming country. And, you know, there were already some coffee players in Japan and I thought we had our roasting plant in Seattle so we could get a container of coffee to Tokyo in a week. We couldn't get it to Europe in a week. And so we just decided to go to Japan first. And we did. You know, that made a huge difference. And that company in Japan has over two thousand stores. TONY: Any reason you picked Japan? Was it something that you were very familiar with culturally? Because it's a very unique and different culture as well. HOWARD: No, I wasn't that familiar with it. I just went and learned. And I'd always been on the buy side in Asia, never on the sell side. But I just did my work and we found a great partner to make it work. And because of that partner, they were the operators and we had a board. I was in Japan once a month for seven years and I was all over Asia. And that was the first—you know, we went to Japan, we went to Singapore, we went to Korea, we went to Taiwan, we went to China, we went to Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, India. And we have a huge business across Asia Pacific. TONY: I'm just thinking of what challenges you had in that because everywhere is a language barrier or cultural barrier. So many things. HOWARD: People are people, right? And we have different languages. We have different cultures, we eat different foods. But when you wipe all that stuff away, we all want to love and be loved. We all want to grow as human beings. We all want more for ourselves and for our families. And I didn't find—were there differences? Sure, there are cultural differences, but you know, I had open ears and shut mouth, and I listened and asked questions. And when people said, "I think we have to do this," I listened. And, you know, we brought what we knew. And then we adjusted, adjusted, adjusted. And so, you know, it worked because of that. And I'm still so proud of what happened in Japan. And then of course, we went to Europe. And, you know, we've had success and failures all over the world. Some countries have been great, some haven't. But that's the way the ball bounces. But overall, it's been very successful. SPONSOR BREAK – SHOPIFY TONY: What a powerful perspective from Howard. I love how he reminds us that real leadership is about people first. You know, every successful entrepreneur I've interviewed on this show started out exactly where you might be right now—with an idea, a dream, and plenty of questions. How do I turn this into something real? How do I build a professional online presence? How do I actually reach the people who need what I offer? Well, that's where Shopify comes in. It's the platform built to help you launch, grow, and scale with zero guesswork and total freedom. Whether you're selling a digital product, physical goods, or a brand new business model, Shopify gives you everything you need to start, grow, and scale all in one place. Shopify is the commerce platform powering millions of businesses worldwide, handling ten percent of all e-commerce in the US, including household names like Mattel and Gymshark, as well as countless entrepreneurs just getting started exactly like you. Worried you can't design a website? No problem. Shopify has stunning ready-to-go templates that perfectly match your brand's style. No design experience needed. Need a little extra help along the way? Shopify has powerful AI tools created specifically for commerce, helping you enhance product images, write compelling product descriptions, and even generate discount codes effortlessly. Concerned about marketing your new brand? Shopify makes it simple to attract customers through easy-to-run email and social media campaigns, turning casual visitors into loyal fans. And here's the best part—if you ever feel stuck, Shopify's award-winning customer service is available twenty-four/seven, ready to help whenever you need advice. So stop asking "what if" and start saying "why not?" Turn your entrepreneurial dreams into reality with Shopify by your side. Try Shopify today and bring your business dreams to life. Sign up for your one dollar per month trial and start selling today at Shopify.com/Tony. Go to Shopify.com/Tony. That's S-H-O-P-I-F-Y dot com slash T-O-N-Y.

INTERVIEW – PART 7 (LOVE AND BUSINESS) TONY: Howard, in my show title I talk about love and business. You just mentioned love in business and we talked about it earlier in this interview. How it's important to serve others, to love. It's part of love. It's under that umbrella. And we also talked about this, but I want to go further into the love part, the serving part, because as we mentioned earlier, businesses, they want to hit their goals. Some have been very ruthless in the corporations that I've seen or have witnessed in my several-decade corporate career. And it's not everybody, but you see that. And it's like people are more important than just profit. I know we talked about it, but I want to drill deeper into having that as important—to serve others and instilling that to your people, to your team. Because that's fine that you may think people are important, relationships are important, but how do you get that love-your-neighbor type of thing? As a first point, how do you get that across your teams? HOWARD: You need to do it yourself. You can't say, "I want you to love the people you're serving" if you're not loving them first. You can't expect trust from your people if you don't trust them first. You can't get love if you don't give love. Look, when I talk about love, I'm not talking about the familial love. You know, the love that we have for our children and our wives and our parents. I'm talking about the love we have for other human beings simply because they're human beings and they're worthy of our love. And so that's what I believe. And, you know, people are afraid to use the word love. Look, businesses are not unlike families. They're people in relationships trying to accomplish common goals, trying to live good lives, trying to earn enough to be able to support themselves, to feed themselves, put a roof over their head and put a little money in the bank for savings. Businesses are exactly the same way as families. And so, you know, you don't go into a marriage thinking about how much money you can get out of the marriage. You know, you go into a marriage and you have kids because you want to contribute to the world in which you live and you want to have people, young people that grow into better people that serve the world better than you did. You know, that is really what it's all about. Look, we get too caught up in the money side. I like to make a profit. I'm a capitalist pig. I'm the first one to get it. And if I have money, I buy myself things. If I don't, I don't. And I give money away, lots of money away. But my driving force is not getting up in the morning and saying, "How much can I earn today?" And I've been in sales my whole life. I'm a sales guy at core. I sold furniture for twenty-five years commission-based. So I understand money and I understand the work that it takes. But I always found that when I serve people without thinking about what I was going to get, the getting was always more than if I did the opposite. It just works that way. I can't explain it any better way. Greedy people—I'm not saying greedy people won't get rich. They do. We see it all the time. You know, we see it in our country right now. It's all about the money. And that is going to tear the soul out of this country. It really will. TONY: Yeah. I mean, if you think it won't, get ready because that's what's coming if we continue on the same course we're on—that it's about us. The country was built on "we," not "me." HOWARD: We built Starbucks on "we," not "me." And every time we made a mistake at Starbucks, it was because we forgot about "we" and we focused on "me." And I can almost take you through every mistake. Some cost us a lot. Some of that "me" cost us—got us a union in some of our stores because we weren't focused on "we." And if you want to go down and you look at the history of companies around the world, you'll see the ones that have lasted the longest are the ones that really have been "we"-based companies. The ones that have gotten in trouble—you know, look at Wells Fargo, look at how long they were under the gun. Why? Because they were focused on "me." What can I get from my customers? Not what can I give to my customers. Enron. Same way. You know, Volkswagen lost its lead. Why? Because it cheated on emissions. You know, I mean, it's always about "me," not "we." And so you want to build a great business or a great organization, or you want to build a great family? Focus on "we." TONY: Well said, well said, I love it. And I think that ties in, of course, about your book. It's Not About the Coffee. It's about people. It's about culture. Right? What else can you tell us about your book, Howard? HOWARD: Well, you know, the title is It's Not About the Coffee: Lessons from a Life at Starbucks. You didn't see—I didn't say from a career at Starbucks because Starbucks was my life, right. And I loved it. And I loved the people in it. I loved what we did. And I was committed emotionally to it. And the greater purpose of Starbucks was to build a better world by how we treated our people. We were the first company to give people healthcare benefits in the quick-service industry. We gave everybody equity in the company, from baristas to vice presidents. Everybody had the same healthcare, from baristas to the CEO. People get college—free college degrees at Starbucks. Everybody gets a pound of coffee a week for free. You know what I mean? We did things that other companies wouldn't do. And did they cost us money? Yes. But you know what? We thought it was the right thing to do. We didn't want to build that business on the backs of people. We wanted to build that business with people. And that's what made it work. And that's what I was committed to. And I'm still committed to the same thing every day. I wanted us to be about love and profit, not love or profit. TONY: I really like that. So well said, so well said. And as you talked about where this country is headed and we talked about the push for profits—running people over, you know, whatever it takes to make more money—we see that. And you and I see that when we do, we know it's not going to last. It's obvious to us. We've been around the block a few times. You've been around quite a few times more than I have. We see it that there has to be something more for sustainability.

INTERVIEW – PART 8 (THE SIX P'S FRAMEWORK) TONY: And what I like to do is kind of talk to today's future entrepreneurs, business people and encapsulate some of this—what they need to learn, what they need to do, how they should build. Perhaps not "how they should build"—there's, Howard, as you know, there's a zillion books and webinars and seminars and courses on "how to do this." It's an overload. Nobody can get through it in one lifetime. It's just not possible. HOWARD: Impossible. TONY: So what I want to try to focus on is some of the key points here that we want to leave as a legacy to business people and entrepreneurs the world over. HOWARD: Okay, so here's the number one. I don't like rules, but here's the number one: Live your life with intention. What are your intentions? What are your intentions in your family? What are your intentions in your work? What are your intentions in your company? Non-profit. I don't care what you do. What are your intentions for yourself? So what does that involve? Well, the first thing you need to do is define what your eight to ten core values are. These are words that represent actions, decisions that you'll make in your life, and you'll measure your actions and decisions against those core values. So my first core value is honesty. So I have to define what honesty means to me. That means I tell the truth no matter what. Somebody asked me a question, they're going to get my truth. It may not be their truth, but they're going to get the truth, according to Howard. And they can disagree. And so define eight to ten core values. Define what those core values mean to you, and then start living your life by those core values. Evaluate your performance based on those eight to ten core values. Now, there might be in a list of three hundred words that represent human values, there might be fifty or one hundred that you could identify with. I'm just talking about the core ones. These are come hell or high water, you're going to live by these. Then write a mission statement for yourself. Why are you here? What do you want to leave behind? What is it you're trying to do in this world in which we live? So my mission statement goes like this: Every day I want to nurture and inspire the human spirit, beginning with myself first and then for others. And the reason why I say self first—after living as long as I've lived, I found out if you're not okay with you, it's very difficult to help somebody else or nurture and inspire their human spirit. And so I focus on doing that. That's my core of servant leadership. And I have found when I do that well, people want to help me. You know, they accept my help and they want to help me. So then third, after you've written your mission statement and you live by your mission statement, then write a paragraph or two about how you want to live your life. I did it in six words. The first one is purpose. Everything I do in my life has to have a purpose greater than myself. It has to be bigger than Howard. It's not about me. It's about we. The second P is about passion. If you're going to have a purpose yourself, then you damn well better be passionate about it. Scream it from the highest mountaintops. All your energy has to go into it. And then the third P is persistence. Nothing in life comes easy. In this river we call our lives, there are rocks. And some of those rocks sit out there and you can see them. You can see them just out over the waterline. And for some darn reason, we as human beings, we see that rock and we hit it anyway. And then there are rocks that lie below the surface. We don't know when they're there. We get surprised. We hit it. We smack into it. "Oh, what happened?" And then those rocks that our parents or our coaches or our teachers or our mentors tell us about that we ignore and we hit those rocks. We have to figure out how to get over, around, through or below those rocks. Because in life, persistence pays. If you want to achieve something, you gotta be all in. You can't give up. And then the fourth P is patience. Nothing comes in life in the timeframe we want it to come. It always takes a little more, sometimes a little less. But usually it takes a little more. And you have to have the patience. You got to let it come to you. Don't quit just because it hasn't happened in a week. If you haven't made your million dollars yet, don't quit just because it hasn't come in your first year of working. You know, give it some time. It's okay to set the goal—"I want to have a million dollars." Nothing wrong with that. Okay, but patience pays. And then the fifth P is performance. Look, every day we get measured. We get measured by our spouses. We get measured by our kids. We get measured by our bosses, our coworkers. And like it or not, we're getting measured. Get used to it because performance counts. When you commit to do something, then you committed to do something. If you can't get it done, tell somebody early that you're struggling. Ask for help. But performance matters in this world, you know. Little things in life, but performance counts. And the most important person you need to perform for is you. And you should ask yourself every day, "How did I do today?" Against my values, against my mission statement, against what I call my six P's. So performance counts. And then the final P is people. Like I said at the beginning, there's nothing you will do in your life that isn't about serving another human being. If you're a widget maker that makes widgets that go into a printing press, get sold to a publishing company that produces a magazine or a newspaper, gets delivered to somebody's home to inform or entertain them—that lowly widget maker is about serving other human beings. And it behooves us to figure out what that greater purpose is, what our service to other human beings looks like, and stay focused on it. If you do that, I promise you you're going to have a fulfilling life. You will achieve your goals if you're intentional about them. And then the final thing about all this—have a plan. Set specific and measurable goals across all aspects of your life: spirituality, material, economic well-being, personal growth, health and well-being, family, children. I don't care what you want to do—money, whatever your headings are. And then have three to five goals under each of those and then go about achieving those goals. And when you write them down—first of all, all this needs to be written down. If you don't write this stuff down, it's just wishes, hopes and dreams. You write it down and you commit. Doesn't mean you'll achieve every goal on your goal list. It doesn't mean you will live up one hundred percent of the time to your values. Doesn't mean you will always be true to your mission statement. No. But if you're constantly pushing towards that and holding yourself accountable, you will get most of it done. And I have found that it works. I have lived for the past almost fifty-five years writing down my mission statement, my values, and having specific and measurable goals and I hold myself accountable. Have I done everything? No.

OUTRO TONY: You've done a lot and you've done what people consider accomplished, successful because you created some milestones. And at the core, the biggest takeaway—we've gone over this multiple times—is really putting others first, serving others. That's what you've got to put first. Just like your dad with the strawberries. HOWARD: Yeah. Yeah. They're your friends. How can you charge your friends? You know they're struggling. Give them a basket or two of strawberries. I totally get it. You're serving others, and those friends become more endeared with you and more loyal. Not that you're trying to buy loyalty, but that's part of it. TONY: Yeah, it's part of it. And you know, you feel better about yourself when you're helping somebody else. It's just a fact. HOWARD: Absolutely. TONY: I love it. Once again, this is Howard Behar talking about leading with love. And you can find him at HowardBehar.com. Howard, I just want to thank you. This was refreshing. We call this old-school mentality in a way. I want to bring this back. I want people to get your book and get this into their soul, because you don't have to give up your money. You don't have to give up your life. You don't have to sell your soul. Serve others first. And that income, that sustenance will come back to you. HOWARD: I want to give all your audience—I want to give them my cell phone number and my email address. I'm not in the consulting business. I just—if somebody has a question, they can call me or send me an email. So my cell phone number is 206-972-7776, and my email address is HB, that's my initials, at HowardBehar.com. I may be a little slow getting back, but I always respond to everybody. TONY: Howard, with that offer, is there anything in particular that you would like or would enjoy to hear from people, or just that they like this interview? HOWARD: Oh, yeah, they don't have to—they can like it. I mean, if it works for them, they see something that's good, then put it into practice. If not, I understand. It's just I'm being me. And I don't expect everybody to be Howard. And nor should they be. But, you know, I want people to live a fulfilling life. And I just believe this is the way to do it. TONY: You're a good man, Howard. I really, truly enjoyed this. I just want to thank you so much for coming on the show. It was absolutely great. All that information will go in the show notes as well. What a great episode. I absolutely love it. And to our audience here, please share this with your friends. Tell them about Howard, tell them about Starbucks, what he's been through. Tell them about his book, It's Not About the Coffee. And you have access to him directly. You have his phone. You have his email. Reach out to him if you have something that you'd like to speak about. He's open. This is the first guest I think I've had in ten years that's been like this. This is really something. He is a servant. And do us a favor. Wherever you're getting this, please follow the show. It helps to bring more amazing guests to you. All right, let's use this and let's help you move on your journey to success. Remember, just take action. Success awaits those who persevere and remain steadfast despite the odds. So sow good seeds, serve your fellow man, do good deeds. And I'll see you on the next episode.