In this episode, we're joined byReed Shafer-Ray to talk about moral entrepreneurship, his new effort called Mountaintop, how to reshape the culture of American elites and a whole lot more.
Reed is a Harvard grad who cofounded Lead for America.
Transcript:
William Jarvis 0:05
Hey folks, welcome to narratives. narratives is a podcast exploring the ways in which the world is better than in the past, the ways that is worse in the past towards a better, more definite vision of the future. I'm your host, William Jarvis. And I want to thank you for taking the time out of your day to listen to this episode. I hope you enjoy it. You can find show notes, transcripts and videos at narratives podcast.com.
Unknown Speaker 0:42
Well Reid, Thanks so much for coming on today. How are you doing?
Reed 0:45
Hey, I'm doing pretty well. I'm calling in from Washington DC. I just moved here a few weeks ago.
Will Jarvis 0:50
Awesome. Awesome. That's That's great to hear. It's great to hear. Read. Do you mind giving us a brief bio and some of the big ideas you're interested in?
Reed 0:58
Yeah, absolutely. So I'll start by sharing a little bit about myself my background how I got interested in what I'm interested in. So I grew up in Norman, Oklahoma, had a wonderful childhood. There were Yeah, boomers sooner. Exactly. Yeah. So my dad was a professor of physics at the University. So I grew up right on campus, I could hear when there were touchdowns, I could hear them, like screaming and cheering like the fireworks going off. So yeah, it was just very much a faculty brat. So that was, you know, very good childhood. Two events happened in high school that changed my life. One is that my dad was diagnosed with leukemia and passed away my junior year. And then also my junior year, there was a tornado that hit more Oklahoma, which was the neighboring town, and tragically killed seven elementary school children during the school day, because they didn't have a proper storm shelter. So the school basically collapsed on them. So these two things taken together, kind of changed me from the happy go lucky kid who just played a lot of sports, and you know, watch TV, too. I think thinking about life a little bit more seriously, and realizing that, you know, there is injustice in the world. And there's things that you can do about it both. Thinking about kind of the helplessness of dealing with my dad's cancer, to the helplessness of watching these children passed away, tragically, led me to want to figure out, you know, what can you do on a policy lens or on a structural lens to help people. And so with the tornado incident, basically, the, the response from our state government was, you know, tornadoes don't strike the same place twice, it's not going to happen again, we're not going to do anything different to protect children and schools. And so at the time, I was very angry, I was motivated, I joined initiative to get onto the Oklahoma ballot, a vote on whether schools should, or be required to have storm shelters. And so I was spending my senior year of high school, going around to parades, to Walmart's to malls, basically trying to get every possible stranger, I could just sign this petition. And that was kind of my first taste of public service and about thinking about not only public service, but also how important leadership is at a state and local level, or any level, and how it can literally mean the difference between life and death. And these are things that oftentimes, you know, people don't seem to care about or don't seem to pay enough attention to. But you know, when it happens to you, or happens to, you know, the kids in neighboring town, it's very real. So that was my background in high school. I then went to college at Harvard, and was very involved there on similar stuff in the state of Massachusetts on legislative advocacy initiatives. So I was leading a club where we would take about 50 people every semester to the State House. And we would host these lobby days, where we would support legislation ranging from everything from like gun violence prevention, to economic development, and housing policies to environmental sustainability policies, all sorts of different things. My senior year, you know, we started actually drafting your own legislation, because we had strong relationships with our state representatives. And one of those bills that we drafted, was inspired by a family friend who lost their life, tragically from from suicide, from, you know, with a firearm. And so we were inspired to draft legislation, two bills, one of which was signed into law after the Parkland massacre. And so I was, you know, you know, very involved in in that scene with gun violence prevention and just legislative advocacy as a whole. So that was my background. I thought after college, I would want to continue doing things in the policy space. I was also very much interested in returning to Oklahoma at some point, because that was my home and that's where I felt like a lot of change could happen. My senior year of college, I saw basically in mass exodus of my friends, many of whom had, you know, wanting to make the world a better place who had you know, come to college doing all sorts of service things. You know, they aren't taking jobs at places like McKinsey and Google and Microsoft, and you know, you name these, you know, big companies. And they're going to San Francisco, New York, DC, Boston. And you know, these are people who are coming from literally all over the world and do like from communities that that need them and go into a few select industries that are, you know, definitely not focused on social impacts. And if they are making an impact, it's more of a collateral effects, I would say. And, you know, at that time, I was pretty frustrated at kind of that same sort of passion that inspired me in high school, I wrote an op ed in my student newspaper that basically said, Hey, look at this, like the Harvard administration is basically enabling and empowering these corporations that swoop in and basically systematically suck out our talent to these basically a, a political, amoral institutions. And what are we going to do? Like, how are we going to address the big challenges of this country if we're having this systemic brain drain from the communities and causes that that most matter? So after that, the craziest thing in my life happens, which is a student at UNC Chapel Hill actually reads it on season on Facebook, and reaches out to me and says, Hey, I want to start this organization called Lead for America, do you want to join my team? So at this time, you know, it was like, I just was writing an article, I had no idea that I could actually do something. But he convinced me to have me join his team. He promised me that, you know, even if we couldn't raise money, he would use his like, personal savings to support me in the first summer. So I was like, alright, well, I can tell my mom that, so I'll do it. So I jumped in. And that is the start of lead for America. It was me, Joe, who was the CEO and a student at UNC Chapel Hill. And then a few other recent college graduates, we all moved to Chapel Hill, we were living in a two bedroom apartment and way too many people and two bedroom apartment, you know, eating peanut butter and ramen, I mean, just exactly what you would imagine, and started building it, you know, and we were able to get things off the ground, we were scrappy. To date, we've we've grown, I would say past the startup stage. And now we've placed over 250 fellows in over 40 states through a fellowship program. And the way it works is it's National Service Fellowship through AmeriCorps, where folks who are some of the most remarkable people, young people in our country, people who were student body presidents, or Truman scholars, or Marine Corps, veterans or division one athletes, people who are very passionate about their communities, it's an opportunity for them to go back to their hometowns or home states and work on critical challenges in their communities. So usually, with local governments, sometimes with nonprofits, working on all sorts of different issues, from environmental work, to education, work, economic developments. And it's all very much nonpartisan, it's very much, you know, we're getting people to go to communities that look very, very different from one another, we have people go into New York City and Los Angeles, but we also people go into Alito, Illinois, or Arcata, California, or, you know, rural places in South Carolina. And so our program has always been about bringing people together who are passionate about their communities, get them to go back to those communities. And not only just do it for the one year fellowship term, but actually find people who are committed to doing this for the rest of their careers or lives, because that's where the real impact comes is what they're going to do afterwards. So we select people who are really committed, and they want to become leaders, their long term, the people that we brought on, have gone on already, in our first four years to start nonprofits in their communities run community centers, become elected city councilors run for state house, you know, Vance, to senior leadership and their local governments. And most of them very much do plan to stay in their communities for the rest of their careers and will go on I'm sure to become governors, Congress, people, etc. So very proud of our work, at least for America. And we're continuing to grow. We've, you know, been fortunate to raise a lot of money recently, through AmeriCorps, which is a federal national service program, we've also been fortunate to have some great philanthropic support. And we've also been able to expand our executive team significantly in the last six, nine months. And we're at a great sort of transitional point from, I think, building a scrappy program to being able to really focus on quality and making an art programs, an American institution, something that if you are an aspiring young public servant in this country, that lead for America could be a top option for you to go back and serve your community. So that is lead for America. I I can talk a little bit now about the new work that I'm starting, if that would be helpful, too.
Will Jarvis 9:22
Yeah, I want to dive in first, before we get to the new work, which I do really love. You mentioned some really interesting things there, which is, you know, you've got all these students, ultra bright students at Harvard, who, you know, senior year comes around, what are we going to do? Most of them end up in banking, finance, you know, I finance consulting, big tech firms, etc. I'm curious, why do you think and they all seem to go to the same places right? You know that you go to San Francisco, you go to DC you go to New York City if you don't go anywhere you go those places, you know, sudden you've done something really wrong. Exactly. Which I find very surprising. You know, I was reading a file Under novel recently, and there's that you know that one of the kids goes off to Harvard. And then he comes back to his small town to practice law. He was like, I think it was the weirdest thing that really jars you, you know, when you're reading this book, you're like, wait, this would this would never happen today, unless you read, you know, like that this might happen. But this is this is a very rare occurrence. What do you think has changed over time that, you know, had the agglomeration effects of cities just become super powerful? Why aren't people returning to their local communities to give back as often as they used to in the past?
Reed 10:32
Yeah, that's a great question. Well, and I think like, you know, there are so many books and, you know, things you could read about about this topic. And there's some great books, there's one called the tyranny of merit, there's another one called the meritocracy trap. These are books written by, you know, tyranny. merit is written by a Harvard philosopher meritocracy trap is written by a Yale Law School professor, and they both very much, I think, dissect this larger culture, some through kind of a Marxist lens of basically this idea that we're as young, capable, talented people, and just in terms of our economy as a whole, you know, the value is coming from us as people and our talents and skills and our intelligence, and the investment in us is where the real value is coming from. And, and the kind of Marxist, you know, critique is, you know, we're basically appropriating our labor for, you know, the sake of like, we're working crazy hours, we are sacrificing connections to place connections to family, hurting our mental health, all in service of basically some larger, you know, employer or some larger cause that isn't really serving our own ends. And I think you see that too. And I'll just say, right now, I'm not a Marxist, but I do appreciate the, the lens that they use to think about this, I think in terms of what our society values, you know, there's clearly, it's a lot more than just money. It's also about status, it's about privilege, it's about, you know, how do you what can you tell your friends when you're at a party, and clearly the way our society thinks about serving a local community right now, is, you know, that that isn't for these people who are from maybe the more elite parts of society. And, and so a lot of the work that we do for America is, is really, at the end of the day, we're a fellowship program, we're never going to scale to create a systems change. It's really about narrative change. At the end of day, it's about cultural consciousness. It's about creating counter examples of people who are fighting against that culture, and showing that you can be an amazing, you know, competent person, and you can overturn that narrative that success looks like leaving and never coming back. And you can actually go back and serve and become very invested in your local community. And that's what success can really look like. And I think the other piece too, is I want to lift up that, you know, this is very much an elite problem. There's, you're at the local level, like most of the like, one of the biggest employers in most small communities is the local government. There's tons of people who are, you know, highly educated, really smart, successful people that have spent their lives and careers working at the local level in small towns and medium sized towns. There's also this narrative that smaller places are all failing and dying out, and there's no young people. And that's also just empirically not true. You can also read great books like our towns that talk about very successful midsize and small town places that have really done incredible work and have, you know, been very innovative in the way that they've brought tourism or economic development to their communities. So I think a lot of the work of wheat for America is also spotlighting some of the amazing things that are happening. A few years ago, our organization moved our national headquarters to Dodge City, Kansas, to help spotlight that and also be invested in the work ourselves of trying to serve communities that do struggle to attract and retain talents, and also serve communities where the founders are actually, you know, we're almost there much closer to having been from. So I'm from Oklahoma Joe's from Kansas, and Dodge City, Kansas was featured in the book, our towns by James and Deborah fallows have as a place that was innovating and doing amazing stuff at the local government level. So we moved our headquarters there, we had a hub of our our staff, working there on education initiatives, leadership initiatives, we brought fellows there. And that was very important to us, as an organization to kind of live into our values, and also just, again, highlight the amazing things happening in places like Dodge City.
Will Jarvis 14:17
I love that I love that read. How did you personally escape the morass of McKinsey and Company and Bain or BCG or perhaps these like, you know, elite finance firms when you were at Harvard? You know, you escaped this, but it doesn't seem like many people can. Is there something you make? Like is it just your experience in seeing, you know, problems at the ground level? That that made you more inspired to like, go pursue something a little different, or was there something else? Is there something special about you? Or is there something that we can kind of impart on other people who perhaps thinking you know, should I take this job, that elite consulting firm, where should I go do something that's more meaningful?
Reed 14:57
Yeah, well, I think again, I I think my personal experiences really shaped me and my dad and his experience, seeing the folks who died in the tornado really shaped me. Also, I came from a place like Oklahoma, where I, I'm not one of those people who will ever match, you know, like flyover country, I think it's amazing. I think there's incredible values, I really enjoy spending time with people, and I just so appreciate the culture of a place like Oklahoma. That being said, of course, there's many issues, and there's all sorts of challenges in Oklahoma. But, you know, I do just love, love Oklahoma and love where I come from, and I wouldn't be who I am without, without that community in Norman. And I think the other aspects that I think is important is, you know, when you've actually been trying to do the work for many years of, you know, community organizing or legislative advocacy, you start to understand how important that stuff is on a more maybe more tangible level. And you also, I think, just the practice of doing that makes it hard to to give up. That being said, I think it is a good question. Because there are so many people who do spend, you know, their college careers doing a lot of great, you know, advocacy work or public service work or, you know, they're doing the like, local government internships or whatever else, and then they end up still succumbing to the I think the pressures and the forces. And again, that's not I'm not in a judgmental way, I think it's just a very attractive thing to go go the corporate route. And I think the reason I mean, there's so many reasons, and we talk about, at least for America all the time, like and leave America, we've designed our fellowship to be competitive as an alternative, because at the end of the day, it is a lot about money, professional developments, networks, the fellowship of other people who are young, and, you know, motivated, like most local governments, like mostly, like they call it the silver tsunami and the local government space, like it's a huge, huge problem, where there's just not enough young people going into those spaces. You know, it's just, it's the culture needs to modernize. So there's a lot of like structural barriers, there's also just the money, right, like the corporations have so much more money, they have so much better recruitment infrastructure. So I think it's more of a systemic problem than anything, but I will say, I do think at the end of the day, if we're going to change these things, then it is about a change in consciousness about what's important and about what it means to be a good citizen or a good person. And so I do think I do want to say that we can't just absolve our responsibility to help. And we can't just say, we need to donate money, we also need to think about how we're spending our time, our careers, our commitments to place. And that's the only way things will change. You know, at the end of the day.
Will Jarvis 17:27
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And it does seem like, like you mentioned, the tides are at some level, I guess, you I think you can hack the prestige thing, which you've done with leave for America, which is really good. But it does seem like, you know, you can be eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, trying to save the world and the two bedroom apartment, where you can be making, you know, 150k a year working McKinsey. And it's like, man, like, you know, especially if you're you're coming out of college, you haven't made much money more, that's a lot. That's a lot of cash. Right, you know, and that is tough to fault anyone for it for, you know, understanding you seeing that and making a choice. But on the margin, we need more people who are like trying to go out there and do new things. It seems.
Reed 18:06
Yeah, definitely. And I will say that there is also this. There there is there's certain cultural elements that I think even from the young people themselves that kind of reinforce, reinforce the values challenges, because I think if you're someone who tries to say, hey, like, I actually don't think you should be working at that company, I think you'd be doing more things like that's like very, you know, that's very judgmental, that's very frowned upon. You're being pretentious, you know, you're being you know, an asshole. And I have a friend actually at Yale Law School. And actually, you know, I'm going to, sorry, I'm just gonna pause. I don't wanna tell her story for her. So I'm gonna, gonna cut that part out. But, yeah, I definitely think there is like that, that culture of, you know, avoiding judgment on people. And I think, you know, that's overall a very good value to hold. But, but I think there, there's also, I think, in many conversations I've had with people, and consulting and finance and tech, I think there is like, there's like, almost like, a performative aspect to, like, feeling insecure or guilty about doing those jobs. Like I've had many conversations with people who are like, yeah, like, I don't know, I'm not really making a difference. I'm not really doing as much as like, I wanted to when I was like, 18 years old, but, but you know, it's good money. And that's usually where the conversation ends. And I think, you know, if there was more counter examples of great people doing great things in you know, whether it's through weed for America or otherwise, like I think there could start to be a little bit more pressure like there actually isn't alternative. It's not just like, you can't just, you know, get away with that in the same degree. And I do I want to say all this with like the most love and care I have so many great friends who are doing, you know, awesome stuff and are great people and doing corporate world I stuff and I also think there's a lot of really good work to be done in the corporate world like this. You need people on the inside who are reforming and who are moving corporations in the right direction. I think there's all sorts of good arguments to do that. But At the end of the day, I think most people don't even think they don't even step back to think about like, okay, like, what what do I actually care about? What are my values? How can I actually spend my time or my career in ways that are meaningful? And I think that point of reflection, and that accountability, I think, are the pieces that are really missing. And I think we need more of
Will Jarvis 20:17
I love that. I love that. Do you think there's also some kind of systemic push towards people, for people to go into these high paying careers, straight out of college, perhaps because of increased student loans, you know, lower rent growth in the US so that there's less opportunities that some real level? And so there's more like, you're almost more scared coming out? Because the consequences seem a lot larger than they did perhaps in the 70s?
Reed 20:41
Yeah, I think that's definitely part of it. So I don't want to say it's not but I actually think if you look at, you know, service, it's really interesting. There's still, like, so many young people who are doing service. And AmeriCorps is, you know, a national service program, you know, hundreds of 1000s people do America every year. And there's plenty of people working at the local government level, there's plenty of people doing nonprofits, many of these jobs didn't pay very, very little. But the demographics, I mean, it's like the people who are actually doing it, it's a smaller slice of society. It's like the people that we basically deemed as like, okay, these are the people who do these sorts of jobs. And like, you know, the elite people who go into the fancy schools, they don't do these sorts of jobs. I almost like that's almost like the sense I get, maybe people wouldn't say that. But I think that's kind of how it is like, and I think you see, like, in public service jobs, it's mostly woman, like, it's like 70% Plus woman who are doing these sorts of like, lower level public service jobs as young people, and then local government, state government people, it's tends to be people who are from those communities who have generally, you know, strong roots there who may have gone to a university in the area, or maybe didn't go to college, and they're living wonderful, meaningful lives doing really important work and are very qualified for what they're doing. And so I think it's almost more of a class gap, I would say, a class and like demographic gap than anything, I don't think it's and all those people have student loans, too. I guess that's my point. It's like almost the lower income people who are doing the jobs that pay less and sure part of it's probably because maybe they aren't as qualified, on average, to get the higher paying jobs, but also, you know, their, their, their I think their value set is different. Like, you know, you always hear about teachers who were like, are getting paid terribly. But you know, they're like, Yeah, well, obviously, I'm doing it because I love my kids, and I want to do everything I can I'm drowning in student loan debt, but I'm still doing it. So I yeah, I definitely want to say like this policy, and the structural pieces are a huge part because at the same time on the st. The, the flip side of that, of course, is there's a lot of teachers leaving teaching, because it is so difficult to be a teacher, but there's still lots of people who are doing it. So I just want to point out that people have agency, people have choices, people can do these things. And even if it's like less glitzy, if more people actually valued what's most important, which is in my mind service and taking care of your community and, you know, friends, your family, your neighbors, then I don't think it would be as important.
Will Jarvis 22:49
Yeah, can you say that one more time, like you do have agency, you can make choices, and you can go out and help your local community do better.
Reed 22:58
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So you know, people, we all have agency, we all can help our community, we can all make sacrifices, you know, people are doing every single day and millions of people in America are doing this and making it work. So I think for us to, you know, as people who may, you know, as people who may have gone to fancy colleges, or might have fancy careers like to say that, Oh, I can't afford to do that. I mean, there's plenty of counter examples to that. It's probably not true. It's probably just that the culture and the value sets that you're surrounding yourself with, make it seem like that's impossible, when that's really not true.
Will Jarvis 23:32
Yeah, I love that reminds me of this Peter Thiel line where he's talking about, you know, he goes through elite undergraduate education because the law school he ends up at, like Sullivan Cromwell to this very, like, white shoe, very, very well known law firm. And he's been there for seven months. And he's like, this is terrible. You know, everyone wants to get out. But everyone from the inside, everyone wants to get out. But from the outside everyone wants to get in. But you can just walk out the front door at any time and just not come back. You know, but but people wait, there's something psychosocial that is so difficult to overcome. And many of these cases, were to just just leave at some some point.
Reed 24:07
Absolutely. Yeah, that's, that's exactly right. Kind of
Will Jarvis 24:11
prison of our own mind. It's wild. Read, can you talk about your new effort right now? I'm really excited about it. And just how you originally had the first idea had the idea for it, and what its gonna be and how it's gonna help the world.
Reed 24:23
Yeah, yeah. Thanks for asking. Well, so I'm so in terms of lead for America, co founder and CEO of that organization, I've been overseeing partnerships and operations and recruitments and helping out wearing many hats in the startup life, but I feel like I've learned many things from lead for America. The first is that this idea of being able to build a countercultural program, I think it does work. You know, in our first year, we really didn't know if anyone was going to want to apply like, Oh, we're gonna, like go after really smart, capable people. And we're gonna ask them to go back to their hometowns and like rural communities, or, you know, wherever, like, who's gonna even want to do this. And so it was kind of a gamble. But in that first year, We had 1800 applications, there was a huge demand. And there was an amazing number of people who, you know, would say like, I didn't realize that a program like this could exist and that now that I know it does exist, it's totally changed my entire paradigm. And my career trajectory, many people who weren't even selected would email us afterwards and say, because this program existed, I realized I could go back to my hometown and work in local government or do these things. So I think there is a lot there. And of course, I think we've just impacted a lot of lives and communities through the program itself. So I think there's power in a fellowship model, both in terms of the impact of the program, but also in the way it can change, it can be a vessel a very effective and cost effective, a cost effective vessel to make take to make narrative change. So I've realized that and then I think another thing that I've been thinking about, one is, with the COVID-19 pandemic, just the almost unfathomable amount of suffering that I've witnessed or watched across the world has broadened my awareness of international issues of, you know, how is terrible and heartbreaking as it's been to watch what's happening in America, especially in communities of color, where lifespans have drastically decreased, and just completely unconscionable ways. You know, it's only it's only worse in lower income countries. And just the death toll is astounding. And, you know, reflecting on that thinking about okay, like, what could I have done? Or what what can society have done? You know, I've realized, with my work, at least for America, and just in general, that at the end of the day, it's actually not that we don't have the policy solutions. You know, there was plenty of people, you know, before the pandemic, even saying, Hey, here's what we need to do to prevent pandemics. We need to like, you know, regulate what markets, we need to regulate, you know, the production of these viruses and labs, we need to do all these things. Of course, those things did not happen. There were still tons of leaks happening leading up to it. There's all sorts of examples of basically like the knowledge and science and all the policy ideas that people have just not been implemented. And so what's that about, then? Well, it's about leadership. And it's also I think, at a more fundamental level, it's about morality, it's about our values. It's about like us as people, you know, both as democratic citizens being able to vote and elect people and also advocate for things, as well as our leaders. Basically, dropping the ball, you know, dropping the ball on what's most important and not living into moral values, not having moral integrity. So I think at the end of the day, like, when you think about, you know, solutions to challenges the world, you know, we have a huge bias to think about technocratic solutions, we like to think about technical fixes of, you know, we need to have this policy on climate change, we need to have this follow up policy on pandemic preparedness, we need to do this about like global poverty. But you know, those, those ideas are out there, and they've been there. And that's an amazing thing. And they definitely are making difference. But there's just, that's only one side of the coin, at the end of the day, if you don't have the people to implement it, if you don't have the political will the collective well, and you don't have just the general care, it's just not going to happen. So this is my ambitious vision for what I want to build is a program that is trying to carry this vessel of building moral integrity on a global scale, and bringing that to communities all over the world. And at the end of the day, of course, like the work that I would be doing would be only a small chunk of that. But I would hope to be a field builder in a larger effort to think about moral integrity and moral leadership. Because I think just starting to frame it in that way, and getting people both people that are secular or people that are faith based that I think are more than ones that talk about things like morality, I think getting more people to think about these things as a really important part of how we fix our world's problems is key. And so what mountaintop is to describe it more, more concretely is an international leadership fellowship program similar to lead for America, but focused on people anywhere in the world applying, getting a $60,000 stipend, going back to their home countries and working in governments or nonprofits on critical challenges facing the world. But they would be the ones the young people, ages 20 to 25, would be the ones to say, this is what I want to work on. So maybe it's on, I want to work on pandemic preparedness in my country, I want to work on climate change, I want to work on food security, I want to work on poverty, basically been able to convince us that what you're working on is going to be a very high impact high leverage thing. But then the actual training and the curriculum of the fellowship, unlike most leadership programs, because there's so many of them, like clearly, it's like a very popular thing right now, the whole point of the program is actually not on developing their leadership skills, so much as developing their moral integrity. And so what I mean by that is talking about the five moral values that I think are most lacking from our society, that are also I think, necessary and sufficient to bring our society as a as a globe, to a place where we can build a beautiful, loving world for everyone. And those five values. One is compassion for all suffering, no matter who it is and where it is. So being able to transcend borders, transcend race, color, you know, gender, ethnicity, ideology, and you know, whoever it is, you know, there's there's so much like struggle with that right, just thinking about how to truly have compassion for While suffering and think about the people who are least among us, there's this concept of loving everyone, which I think is actually maybe the most controversial one, I have to share this idea that, you know, not only gonna love across race and gender, ethnic boundaries, but also ideology. I mean, it's just torn my country apart in America, this idea that you have to, you know, hunker down on your side of the political aisle and, and basically hate the people on either side, or else you're almost out of the mainstream. I think that is, you know, again, I think, a fundamental flaw in our society, and there's no way we can coordinate and collaborate and, and be able to solve collective problems. And also, I think it's just an unhealthy, immoral way to live is due to hate in general, which I know is, maybe it wasn't would have been a controversial thing to say 50 years ago, but nowadays probably is. A third one is wisdom. So being able to think about evidence, being effective, being historically informed, the Effective Altruism is a movement that Effective Altruism is a movement that I've been personally deeply inspired by, and I think they get the wisdom part, they definitely think about wisdom, I think a lot in terms of like how to be evidence based, effective. And if you are trying to make a difference, like what's the best way to do it. But I think there's also plenty of other traditions, like, you know, if you look at history, if you look at faith traditions, there's a lot of wisdom, and also just being able to look at what other people are doing different countries. So I think being able to have that wisdom. The fourth one is commitment, I just don't see any way that people can make the world better if they're not really committed to either a community or a cause. So whether that's the community you're from, whether that's a community you've moved to, it doesn't really matter. As long as you're really dedicated to it, you're really going to be there for the long haul, you're not just paying a few bucks, or you're doing a GoFundMe, and you're like, Okay, well, that's my contribution, like, we need people who are really going to hunker out and dedicate, hunker down and dedicate themselves to something, whether it's a community or cause. And then the fifth one is courage. And I think if you have all those other four ones, but you don't have the courage to actually step up and be uncomfortable and say things that are going to put you at risk, or maybe even endanger you, then I just don't see again, how we're going to be able to overcome the status quo. Or, you know, even in the basic example, we're talking about earlier of like people from like places like Harvard wanting to go back to their small town, it does take courage, you have to basically go over, you know, the judgment or the doubts that your friends or your family members might have about that decision. And even those small acts of courage are so sorely lacking. So those are the five values that I would want to try to permeate through the leadership curriculum through more clearly leadership fellowship program, basically inculcate these values. So these fellows could spread it as ambassadors, but also so the idea can just get out into the world application, people, when they're applying will learn about the value so they can spread it that way. And then hopefully, if the fellowship is successful, to have it serve as a flywheel to launch other regional fellowships in different countries to watch education programs, policy, advocacy, and just build more of a field building effort to talk about moral leadership and this moral integrity value that I think is so sorely lacking.
Will Jarvis 32:53
I love that I really liked the concept. I'm curious, it seems to me like the best moral entrepreneurs, that they find this $20 bill on the sidewalk, where, you know, it's something that's true that people agree with him with the time, but you know, they are able to convince everyone that they that this is true, and then spread it throughout that, you know, I think of Martin Luther King, right. Like, very, you know, at some level, you know, everyone loves him now, but we went back there are a lot of people who really did not like J. Edgar Hoover's, like trying to dig up dirt on him. And all this stuff until I was wacky, was why these white things. I'm curious, how do you think about that in the lens of what you're building now with mountaintop? And because it seems to me like one of the one of the challenges you'll have, and I'm sure you'll be able to surmount this. But one of the challenges you will have is that a lot of people that are moral entrepreneurs, when you're first getting them started, it will appear to a lot of people or the majority of people that you know, what they're saying is wrong, or not quite correct. Does that make sense? And how do you think about overcoming that?
Reed 33:56
Yeah, absolutely. Well, you know, I think that's absolutely true. And I think that's kind of the point. If it wasn't true, then like, what am I even doing with any kind of entrepreneurship or at least with nonprofits, if you don't have a sharp enough points? If you're not really like, then you're not really saying anything? And so I think that's an important point. I mean, there's also I can't recall, recall the exact Bible quote, but it's like, you know, the prophets are never listened to in their own lands kind of thing. And I think, well, there's that just kind of elements of like, you have to get people to really see it for a while and really get used to it, most people. And so I think that's a huge element of, you know, what I'm trying to do, like, even the fellowship program itself, like I basically the way I've thought about is like, what's the most cost effective, like simplest, like straightforward way to just like, get this idea out there? I could try writing a book, but like, who's gonna read it? I could try running education program who's going to do it? I think fellowship programs are a great way to spread values and to create a following around an idea because we've done it at least for America, and I think we've been pretty successful with it. So I think that's how I'm thinking about it.
Will Jarvis 35:03
I love that how important our founder effects to fellowship programs, just generally. So it seems to me like one of the big values, you know, is, is putting a lot of people together for the first time they go on this journey together, and then they've got all these interconnections that they can take with them, kind of for the rest of their lives. It's kind of like what elite business schools do. A lot of colleges do it very effectively. How poor important are those founder effects within initial cohorts to get things started?
Reed 35:30
Yeah, oh, 100%. I think I think it's incredibly valuable. And again, I can speak from my own experience. But I mean, you can just look around and see, like, you know, the hundreds, if not 1000s, of fellowship programs that have popped up in the last 1020 years, they're everywhere. Because I think people do see, again, in this economy, this society we live in relationships are everything. And skill building, networking, it's just, it's so key to becoming a leader or being successful in general. And again, like, I think, in my my perspective, with this kind of moral leadership aspect, it's also incredibly important for collective accountability. Again, if you're, I talked to several friends who were in the Schwartzman Scholarship, which is, you know, US China, prestigious fellowship for Americans and Chinese people to come together and like, learn about US China relations, it's a really great idea, talking to the folks from that community, oftentimes, you know, there's a huge, almost like expectation that you're going to just take a job in finance or consulting. And that's what most of them do afterwards, which I don't think was the founding intention. But for whatever reason, that's where people end up going. But I think, again, like if you have a critical mass with a different fellowship, where everyone is like staying in their local community and interested in service, and they're doing MPa and MPP programs, and they're, you know, wanting to run for local office, then you have like the reverse type of like, very positive, collective accountability, which we've seen, at least for America, you know, 95% plus of our fellows are planning to stay in their communities, the rest of our lives outside of like, maybe going to graduate school, and a lot of them are already doing amazing things. And so I think the same idea would be here, too. It's like, you have like the network effect, which is typical for a fellowship program, but you also have that collective accountability of like, I'm going back, I'm serving my home country, I want to follow the tradition of Martin Luther King and Mandela and Gandhi, Jane Addams, Dorothy Day, you know, you name the moral leader that you most look up to these people who again, embody compassion, love, wisdom, commitment, and courage, I think, you know, all the more leaders I look up to are, you know, embodying all those, then, you know, if those are your, your kind of North Stars, and you're also in a community of people who are also, you know, doing this program, because they suddenly wanted to do that, then I think you start to have some, some real like, like a, like a safety net, or some sort of net that basically stops people from like filtering out.
Will Jarvis 37:35
I love that that does seem to be important. Right there. There's, there's these group dynamics where, yeah, if you there's social pressure to do the right thing, people are more likely to do it. How are you thinking about selecting people for fellowship? I know, you haven't quite gotten kicked off yet. But how have you conceptualize doing that? Right now?
Reed 37:54
Yeah, definitely. So I think you know, very much would be again, driven by the values, like I would be looking for people who could be the ambassadors of this. So while I think in future programs, there could be more of like the training education for people who might be less on board with it. Because of course, that's really important, too, I'd be looking for people who have already shown their capacity or potential to be people who are going to be great spokespeople for this. So people who are very committed to their country committed to their cause who have already done great leadership work, generally good communicators, and are able to articulate an idea whether through writing or speech, again, the moral leaders that I mentioned earlier, I think they all are incredible communicators. And then they also have a compelling idea for how they want to spend their life. So part of the selection process would be them saying, here's basically my theory of change for my life. And here's like, what I want to do. And here's how I'm going to spend the year in the fellowship with the 60k grants, like working on important issues. And yeah, being able to basically convince us that yeah, this is someone that we can really see, you know, not only changing society through their actions directly, but also inspiring others to live into higher values, which at the end of the day, is, I think, even more important.
Will Jarvis 39:00
I love that. I love that. What what are the biggest challenges right now with getting mountaintops spun up? Is it fundraising? Is it gonna find that initial cohort? What do you see as the biggest challenges you're facing at the moment?
Reed 39:11
Yeah, that's a great question. So I'll be honest, it's just been two weeks that I even be able to do this, even 20 plus hours a week, I'm in the process of transitioning from wheat for America, but I'm now you know, focusing most of my time on it. And so I think the, you know, I think you can talk about the practical considerations of I just need, you know, what I'm talking about is quite ambitious. And it's also doesn't fit cookie cutter into existing funding priorities for most funders, or, and it's also international, so even if you're interested at the American level, like, you know, there's all sorts of things that I basically almost constructed that make it like less palatable to I think your average funder, but you know, I think basically I'm just looking for champions people who are really behind the general idea who are behind what we're doing and are excited to, you know, invest in this pilot and then letting like the work at Self like prove the concept. So I'm still very confident that and my hope is to not compromise like this overarching mission and vision and this idea. And even if that means having a little less funding and making the pilot class a little smaller than I'm willing to do that, I think on the more like theoretical or philosophical level, I'm afraid that you know, and I talk to my mentors about this all the time, like, I'm afraid that I'm going to create maybe a good program, but not a great program, and just be one more leadership fellowship program, because there's so many of them. And at the end of the day, I don't want this to be another, as as important as having fellows do leadership programs are, and I'm certainly a firm believer in it. They're not transformational unless they're actually changing the values of our society, in my opinion. So I would want to do that. And that's a high bar. And it's going to require a lot of accountability for our team for, you know, our fellows. And it's going to require, I think, a lot of courage as well to again, transcend I think some of the funder and partner dynamics and things that I've experienced at my time at LEED for America to be able to hold true to the core mission and vision.
Will Jarvis 41:01
I love that. I love that. What do you think the key is to making making it a great program? Is it on the selection side is on the training side? Are there special things you need to do their? Where do you think the real wedge is? is in the beginning?
Reed 41:17
Yeah. Oh, sorry. Well, can you just repeat that question? I kind of zoned out there.
Will Jarvis 41:20
Yeah, yeah. So to make, you know, mountaintop a really great program, and not just a good, good program, where is the the, the the wedge to isn't on the selection side for selecting Fellows is on training, you know, do you need to do something special there? You know, is it on like raising people's ambition, like encouraging them to really do something that's transformational? Like where do you see the big wedge is to make you know, mountaintop truly a great program?
Reed 41:49
Yeah, I would actually, I would say, I would say the selection training are definitely the two pieces. I think what I'm trying to build in terms of the program design is something that I know from experience, and from talking to fellowship advisors at selective colleges is attractive enough to get really, really talented people, a 60k stipend, being able to work on basically any public service challenge you want that is incredibly important and critical. And then this network and all this, like investment and training, I know that's going to attract great people. So I'm less worried that we're going to find capable people, I'm more worried that we won't find people who are fully invested in all five values, because I think it's still just a very rare breed, right? We're talking about, like, people at the caliber of like, you know, again, whether or not they go on to lead a civil rights movement, but people who are they have the moral integrity of the Martin Luther King, I mean, that's, that's a rare thing. And so finding those people, I think, is, at least at first, and hopefully not in the future, but at least at first will be like needle in the haystack. So definitely, that's one place. So being able to really network and also do proactive recruiting in places that are less commonly, you know, you know, easy to network with, like, Sure, it's easy to post your things with fellowship offices at selective universities worldwide. I'm not worried about that. But to find people who are in lower income countries who've been already doing great work and doing great leadership stuff, that's a lot harder and more work to do. So that's definitely one part. It's very, I think surmountable challenge, though, the other piece is the training itself. And I think this is where partnerships and collaboration with people who really get the mission is going to be important, like, I'm not an educator, I'm not someone and no one could lead a training that would cover you know, all these moral values, as well as like, talk about you might my plan with the curriculum would be show bios, and profiles of some of the most amazing world leaders throughout history. And let's talk about what sorts of decisions they made, how they lead their lives, let's take lessons from it. Let's talk about the grand challenges facing our world and like at the system's level, and then think about, you know, within our home countries, like what we can actually do about it. And let's also be able to build, like the leadership skills and capabilities to actually, you know, over time really make a difference, and also communicate our ideas and moral values. So that's a lot. And obviously, again, like something I will need great partners with people who really get it who are elite and world class at, you know, their expertise. So I'll need historians, I'll need great leaders, I'll need CEOs and entrepreneurs and people who can serve as role models and mentors to these fellows. So, again, I think those are maybe the two pieces where, you know, very surmountable challenges, but definitely the two places I'm going to be prioritizing my time.
Will Jarvis 44:12
It makes sense makes a lot of sense. Reid, I want to shift now a little bit and talk a little bit about, you know, state and local governments, you know, you've got a lot of experience. And when he mentioned your bio, you talked about how you've spent a lot of time in lobbying state governments, you know, changing laws. Practically, what does that look like? You know, if you want to go fix a wall, let's say in North Carolina here, there's something that's egregious going on, and I'm sure there's quite a bit. Sure. How would I go about doing that? Is it just going and forging relationships with legislators? Is it through ballot initiatives? I know you can't do that in every state is. How do you think about conceptualizing that and how do you get started?
Reed 44:50
Totally. Well, it's a really good question and I'm certainly no expert but for my for my experience. I think there's there's just a I'm trying to think of like a high level advice, I think first you have to really know, like what the issue area is. And I think you can look at like particular, like issues that you might care about, like, for example, gun violence prevention is one that's very near and dear to my heart, because I have a family friend that, you know, lost their life to it. And, and but like, I think there's like, there is some issues that are so entrenched in our politics and are so polarizing, that the amount of work it would take to change some of those laws is like 1000, or 10,000x, more than certain other types of policy solutions. And so one particular policy solution on that piece for it as an example is, you know, people talk a lot about like mass shootings and homicides, but they talk a lot less about suicides and suicides are actually 60% plus of, you know, firearm deaths in our country. And they're much more preventable in my mind, because you can bypass a lot of the Second Amendment concerns through mental health reforms. And one bill that I've been really excited about and supporting and there's actually a bill now in Congress that I'm, you know, very excited about is one that's focused on do not sell this. So people who are bipolar or depressed can basically put themselves on a list saying I cannot I should not buy a firearm, completely voluntary. They can take themselves off when they want after a cooling off period. But you know, this could save tons of lives. And there's actually laws in Washington and a few other states now that actually do this. And that those bills themselves like those, those those could save, you know, just as many lives as the more popular red flag laws, which are basically laws, or otherwise known as extreme risk protection orders, where police officers or spouses, whoever can basically like get a court order to prevent someone from buying firearms, both important but one is much simpler, and it takes way less effort and money to change. So I think that's one way to think about policy changes, like maybe there's ways to look at things that could be more bipartisan, and perhaps more overlooked, and then you just need to bring more attention to it. That's some area that I've become very interested in. Also, with organ donation reforms, organ procurement organizations, oversee our organ, our deceased organ like transplant system, essentially. And, you know, I've been involved now in advocacy there. And again, I think, a place where we could save 10,000 Plus lives a year, through reforming the system. And it's something again, that, you know, it's very bipartisan and can make a huge difference. So that's like, that's one piece of advice. And then the other piece of advice would certainly be, you know, you have to be able to know who's doing the work on the ground and build trust and be committed that commitment piece is so important. You have to be able to work across the political aisle, you have to be like, rational about it, you know, you can read all sorts of books about like, no matter how ideological you are, if you're not getting like the right people on board or excited, then there's no way you're going to do what you want to do. And I think like, again, like, you know, it's very, like, you know, more sparkly or glitzy or whatever to go out in the streets and protest and march and stuff. But, you know, that's usually not how these things change, even when there are the protests and marches like there was with, you know, after parkland, or after George Floyd, you know, there are then people in the back rooms, like actually making the deals with legislators that are actually making the, you know, the systemic changes. And that's where I think a lot of the change does actually happen is with policy and with those government reforms. So yeah, I would just say like, for those who are interested, definitely just start talking to people, there's people who are very knowledgeable in probably any state or any community that's actively already working on these issues, talk to them, network with them. If there's not people already working on it, then go talk to your state legislator and find some champions. Having a champion on the inside is so important. So finding people that really care about it, and will support you and give you the connections you need. That goes a long way to
Will Jarvis 48:30
That's great. That's great. So it seems to be a lot of coalition building of forming relationships with with other, you know, legislators, and then over time helping craft legislation in that way.
Reed 48:40
Yeah, absolutely. I think I think it's, again, about commitment, like you really have to be able to and again, and I'm making it sound like this is something that a lot like is unique or like not known, but there's so many people in this country every day, usually not oftentimes not young people, oftentimes people who have families, people who have a lot of other commitments, they're the ones who are at the Statehouse testifying and you know, doing the hard work. And I think just following those those people's examples and not not pretending like you know everything or that you somehow are going to fix things just by yelling and screaming and protesting, like, you know, at the end of the day, like that's usually not how these changes happen.
Will Jarvis 49:14
Right? That's not how it actually works in the real world. That's That's great. That's great. Well, Reid, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show. Where can people found find mountaintop? Where should we send them? If they listen this podcast? They find it really interesting?
Reed 49:29
Yeah. So I again, just two weeks in, I don't have a website yet. There will be a website soon it's going to be mountain top bellows.org. That being said, I would love emails from anyone who's interested. You know, my email, it's my name, read dot Schaefer re at Mountain Top fellows.org. And I would love to talk to anyone who wants to learn more and I love their feedback on the ideas on on my materials, and learn about opportunities to partner.
Will Jarvis 49:56
Love that love that. Well, thank you. We're really excited to see how this turns out. I'm really bullish on the project. Sorry. I'm glad you're working on it.
Reed 50:03
Thank you so much. Well, it's pleasure to have this chance. I'm so glad that we met in San Francisco and best of luck with the podcast.
William Jarvis 50:12
Thanks for listening. We'll be back next week with a new episode of narratives.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
123: Reed Shafer-Ray - Moral Entrepreneurs, Mountaintop and Social Impact