52 Cups of Coffee: 417 Edition - Cup 44/52 - Doug Pitt

Here's the weekly boilerplate intro if you've already read anything from past cups of coffee skip ahead to the cup of coffee below the name!

After hearing about the book 52 Cups of Coffee on a Podcast, I thought it sounded like a great opportunity to connect to people in my community. Initially, my plan was to just have coffee once a week with someone I know. I was thinking of friends, family members, or colleagues with whom I could spend some quality time. But the opportunity to engage with my community is always in the back of my mind. So I thought it might be interesting to ask the same set of questions to a diverse cast of influential and interesting people in the 417 area and share them here on my LinkedIn page. At the end of the year, who knows what we'll have... at the very least it's 52 interesting conversations. It's a loose plan. I don't have any real intentions and I think that's the beauty of it. Curiosity. Community. And a chance to learn a little bit from each person. A big thanks to the folks at Travellers House Coffee & Tea for being willing to provide a place to chat and several cups of coffee throughout the year!

**I don't like taking notes while having coffee and conversation so I've trusted Otter to do the transcribing. Any editing issues are my own. I'm not a professional. :) I've included a list of books we discuss throughout the conversation at the bottom.

Doug Pitt - 44/52

Doug Pitt is one of the 417 area's most well know businessmen and philanthropists and for good reason! In the early 90s Doug started ServiceWorld here in town, and grew that from the ground up. After serving on multiple boards Doug founded Care to Learn with the goal of addressing child health, hunger, and hygiene needs. (You might remember that story from my interview with Krystal Simon .) He is also passionate about providing clean water to people all over the world, working closely with WorldServe International in countries like Tanzania, Ethiopia, and Kenya. He currently owns and operates Pitt Technology Group and Pitt Development Group . And if all of that didn't keep him busy enough, sometimes he rides mountain bikes down mountains. That's a short paragraph to say, he's a pretty interesting dude. And that's even without getting into all of the awards and accolades he's earned throughout his career. I had a great time catching up with Doug over breakfast, I'll stop the foreshadowing and just let you get to reading. Enjoy!

Rhett Roberson?

What is the CliffsNotes version of the story of you?

Doug Pitt

I kind of laughed and said a couple times in these kind of interviews, that I'm a gypsy. I do all kinds of stuff. So, obviously I'm a dad and a husband. I'm a business guy first, and probably recognize more in the nonprofit things that I do, but obviously I have the same lens and drive and focus there that I do in my business career. I also think that's the secret sauce to why some of those things work. But I'm a pretty casual guy. I can be a loner at times, but I need my tribe and my people at the same time. We're social beings. Yeah, that's me.?

Rhett Roberson?

Now, I know you grew up around here. Have you been Springfield, through and through? Where did you go to school??

Doug Pitt?

Yeah, for everything that I remember. I was born in Ferguson, Missouri, of all things. I knew I was St Louis, and when the riots happened there, my parents were like, "Yeah, you lived in Ferguson." My mom was a teacher there, but we moved to Springfield when I was three, and it's everything that I remember, and I chose to stay here.?

Rhett Roberson?

Was the computer business your first business that you opened??

Doug Pitt?

It was. I was a year out of college. As soon as I got out of college, I was trying to figure out what to do, and I went into a little apparel thing working for a guy, and got some experience, but I knew I wanted to do my own thing. I didn't know what that was, and back then I couldn't even turn on a computer, but I was talking to my dad about what they were paying programmers. I knew I didn't want to be a programmer, but it was kind of a cool time to get into it. I mean, this was DOS. It was kind of the wild west of what would be a standard. There's no Windows, obviously no internet, none of those things, and so it was really a fun time to get into it. I hired some smart people and put in a whole bunch of hours, and I was very much a tech guy for a good decade. Even though that really wasn't my skill set, you didn't have a choice. We were a small team, and just had to learn it and do it. It was a lot of work and it's good to look back. I wouldn't want to go back, it's tough, but here we are 33 years later. I'm 58. I sold it when I was 40, bought it back when I was 48, and I have a great partner that started working with me when he was 18, and now he's your age, and just crushing it.?

Rhett Roberson?

Very cool. As you said, a lot of people do know you for the nonprofit work that you're involved with, and you are involved with a lot of it. I would love to walk through some of that. Was that a focus while you were in the business as well, or did that take form after you got into your career??

Doug Pitt?

You know, early on, I didn't have any money. I'm just literally trying to swim upstream and keep this thing going, but at the same time, you've got to be a salesman out in the community. It was probably three or four years into the business, I joined Big Brothers Big Sisters board, and some cool things happened there. I had been a big brother to a kid when I was in college, and I was just fond of helping, and I thought it was cool. But the great thing is, I got to know 20 people on that board really well, and all of a sudden, we're doing business with each other. There's no sales pitch. It was about building relationships, and some of those are still clients and friends today. You've got to be on a board and take a seat for the right reason, but it was a great business move, too. But I did exactly what you're not supposed to do. All of a sudden, you're on seven boards, and you're trying to multiply and replicate what the magic from the first one, and not all of them were that way. I probably took some that I shouldn't have, and I'm very sensitive that now. I treat our board seats and our deals as gold. You produce and contribute, or you get out of the way, I don't care who you are. It isn't about a title or a reputation, you're going to produce. And that's only fair, right? We're there to help kids or whatever the mission is; water, whatever I'm doing. There's sacred space, and I was violating that rule early on. I was good for a lot of things, but I was great at none of them, because I was too spread out. You live and you learn. My heart was right, but the execution was wrong. So, I pared some of those down, dropped off, and really tried to focus on fewer. Today, I've multiplied that thought. Where really, I do my water in Africa with WorldServe, and Care To Learn obviously has a big portion of my heart, my time, and my wallet.?

Rhett Roberson?

(Laughs)?

Doug Pitt?

But outside of that, yes, I still get involved in other things, but not really from a time standpoint. It's really just trying to help in smaller ways, but I want to be really, really good at the ones that I choose.?

Rhett Roberson?

Yeah, easy to do. Easy to get stretched too thin. I'm in my third year with the board for the Foundation for Springfield Public Schools, and so I get to see the work that Care To Learn does. When we're going to schools I see the green bags, and it's cool stuff! It is easy to want to get involved with more, like you said. I've been asked about other boards, and of course, I've got the little one and full time job.?

Doug Pitt?

That's your priority.?

Rhett Roberson?

Yeah. I'm looking forward to doing more board work. I don't know what that's going to look like in the future, but it's cool to be involved in these things. As long as I'm contributing!

So, while we're going through the CliffsNotes, and I'm stretching the CliffsNotes into the full biography, apparently, (Laughs) can you tell me a little bit more about WorldServe, the clean water initiative, and how you got involved with that? And this is a side question, but it is in one of your bios online somewhere, but I would like to know more about mountain biking, specifically mountain biking down a mountain.?

Doug Pitt?

Yeah, we'll talk about it. When I sold my company, mentally, I was just needed a break. Obviously, that's why I did it. I was kind of just at a point, but it was also, I'll call it some divine intervention time-wise, because that's really when I started Care To Learn. I was really involved with the chamber as their chairman and then I got approached by the president of WorldServe, John Bongiorno . We went to the same church, but it was a very big church, and I didn't know John. My pastor called me and said, "Hey, this guy that wants to meet you. You care if I can give him your info?" And I said, "Of course." He came and was telling me about his work in East Africa and doing water wells, and he offered for me to go. You do the obligatory, "Yeah, sounds great. Love to." but literally, a week later, he's calling me booking tickets. So, I was kind of like, "Well, all right, let's go do this." And I'm glad he did. It's the best sales tool we have. I get you in a village to see the before and the after clean water. As a business person, it just spoke to me. It was tangible and wow, just to see it. You hear about life and death and suffering, but when you see it on a real scale, and especially with the mortality rates they have over there, it was a pretty easy one for me. It spoke to me. I'll always be involved in water, I can't imagine not being involved. I've been with WorldServe since 2006 and their Goodwill Ambassador of Tanzania since 2010. We're in Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Ghana, Burundi, and some other places. It's been a good ride. It's really cool.?

Rhett Roberson?

Yeah, that designation of Goodwill Ambassador is given by the president of Tanzania, right?

Doug Pitt?

It was. The president at the time, and it's an honorary position. And what it really does is just allow access. We have a lot of relationships with a lot of leaders in the government, and it's an ever changing government, a little faster than ours, so that's a moving target. But the nice thing about water is it kind of opens doors. I don't care if you're in malaria, if you're in irrigation, if you're in sanitation, whatever your ministry is there, it all starts with water, right? It's not going to happen without it. I mean, pick one, even telecommunications. It's not going to happen in a region unless they have water. So, water provides access. It provides access to a lot of leaders, and having those relationships is key. It is super hard to do business in internationally, let alone in a developing nation. Even we run through a lot of stumbles and issues 25 years after John's been in it, and the almost 20 I've been in it.

Rhett Roberson?

Yeah, that is interesting stuff from the perspective of impact. While you don't strike me as the type that does this type of work for any type of recognition, it's got to be pretty neat to have those types of titles handed over from the president of a country!?

Doug Pitt?

Yeah, it's a cool deal. I'm not keeping score, I just want to do the good work and it was a mechanism that helped us move the ball forward in a much bigger way. And so, we did.?

Rhett Roberson?

Okay, so rolling into this hobby we discussed. You're a big bike rider.?

Doug Pitt?

Love bikes. I got really into bikes about 12, 13, 14, years ago. I had some Colorado buddies that had me sign up for a big 100 mile mountain bike race. I didn't know squat, and I didn't know what I was signing up for, but it ended up being an amazing experience, and biking became a huge part of my life. It really did. It's a point of refuge for me. I would say 99 out of 100 bike rides are by myself, and it's just a time where I get away in the woods. It's peaceful, and I'm thrilled that became a part of my life, because it's something I can do for a long, long time. Obviously, there is a health benefit, but it's also a mental health benefit. I'm a big fan.?

Rhett Roberson?

How did riding it down a mountain get on your radar??

Doug Pitt?

Yeah, so riding down Kilimanjaro, I had a friend talk to me about it, and sounded great. Two cousins from the UK did it in in the 80s, and wrote a book on it, and it's called Bicycles Up Kilimanjaro (https://a.co/d/aK9Bdyf). So, I looked into it and found out bikes are illegal on the Kilimanjaro, you can't have them on the mountain. So again, having some governmental access and access to the President, we got permission to do a test ride on it to see if it was doable. Could we do it? The idea was to do a fundraiser. If I'm going to do anything, I'm going to turn it into a fundraiser, it's how I'm wired. So, there were four of us that went up and did a test ride and it was the greatest ride of my life. It was amazing. You have the glaciers of Kilimanjaro below you as you're on the peak. It was just big old perma-grin on my face coming off the top of that mountain.

Still today, it is the greatest thing I've ever ridden. We raised some money, even for the test ride, and then we turned around two years later and did a big ride where we had nine riders go. They raised $750,000, I believe. So that was fun. The third time I climbed Kilimanjaro, I walked down it. That's not near as fun. It's hard. It's hard on your knees that much walking down something that steep. Riding it sounds extreme. I've written a lot harder stuff in Colorado than coming down Kili, because the paths are pretty groomed. There are some rocky sections, and we did crash a lot. You just do. But I would do that every time. I will never climb Kili again and not ride it down.?

Rhett Roberson?

Better you than me. I don't know that I'd survive that.?

Doug Pitt?

It was good, it was good.?

Rhett Roberson?

I do enjoy my gravel bike as well, but I pretty well keep that to the gravel roads around here. More of a Greenway trail guy, myself. (Laughs) I think I probably have a good read on the answer to question number two, which is what brings you joy??

Doug Pitt?

Yeah. On the family side of it, my kids are 28, 29, and 30. One lives in Chicago, one lives in Venice Beach, California, and one lives in Austin. So, they're in three different areas of the United States. So, no question, my number one, two, and three answers are getting to spend time with my kids 100%. I miss them as young ones. You've got a three year old. Enjoy it. Take a lot of video. You'll appreciate their voice. It's the voices that are so funny and their inflection. The videos are the greatest thing I own. And luckily, my generation, we have the bigger video cameras. So, we've got 10 minute videos, 20 minute videos, not the little snippets. I'm so grateful. It's my greatest thing at home. That's number one for sure.

On a personal level, no doubt, if I'm just doing that on my own, biking would be a big one. We are at a golf course here today, so that's one. I'm at an age where I've had the luxury of a career that allows me to make some decisions on my own. In the morning, I like to play vinyl, I like I work from home, and I kind of choose my own pace of the day. I'm a night person just because of who I am. When the when the kids were young, I would grind and work until dinner time, I'd come home have dinner with the family and be with the family until they went to bed, and then at that point I was back on. I might go to bed at 10, I might go to bed at two. Saturday and Sunday there was still stuff to do business-wise, and I tried to handle that and do family. I was able to choose those fun moments with the family, because you're taking care of business at the same time. That's how I did it. It's what worked for me. I wish I were a morning person. I'm trying to rewire. We're not making great strides there, (both laugh) but at least I'm trying. I'm doing a lot of study on longevity and the health side of it. We're at a cool point in the world where we are going to live longer. We have those abilities and a lot of tools. So, I've traveled around the country doing certain tests, full body MRIs and CTs. I'm also studying about nutrition. So being back in the gym, lifting heavy, things that longevity researchers say are crucial, I really enjoy it. I've always been a gym guy, but I kind of have a purpose behind it now. I've become a little bit more militant about being in the gym.?

Rhett Roberson?

That's been a big part of this year for me. I really resonate with a lot of that, specifically the you know, kind of making time for the family when it's time for the family. I find myself working in the late evening hours. I've really tried to make this a "wake up at 5am" type of year, and I'm probably less than 50% on that one.?

Doug Pitt?

No, I'm not wired that way. I wish I were. There may be a day, but my biggest thing was just trying to get to bed earlier.?

Rhett Roberson?

What do you do when you need to recharge??

Doug Pitt?

I don't know that I'd be described as a loner, but I think my closest friends and family, would recognize and admit that I do like some alone time. I have 25 acres east of town, and I love being on the skid steer. I love fiddling out there and working on the property. On a skid steer, you can tear stuff up. Although that's where we're going to end up building our home, it's also been a place of refuge. It's a good place to go out and work and think.?

Rhett Roberson?

I'm a big fan of alone time in nature. I'm sure people who have followed along with these things throughout the year are sick and tired of hearing me talk about hopping on motorcycle and spending a night alone down in Arkansas somewhere, but that's really good for me.?

Doug Pitt?

I sold my sprinter, but twice a year I was doing big sprinter trips and a portion of that would be by myself. I've been all over the country in that thing by myself. I have the mountain bike on the back, and I'd stop through a town, and I literally might stay five minutes, I might spend the night there. I just didn't know.

Rhett Roberson

How would your colleagues describe you??

Doug Pitt?

My standards are really high. I'll give you a lot of rope. I'll coach you. I'll spend as much time with you as you need. But I want A and B players on my team, and sometimes that swaps. You can be an A player that goes through some B slumps and a B player that rises periodically to an A, but the idea is to get A players on my team. I want people who can think and work on their own, but also have some innovation and common sense. Unfortunately, there's a lot of nice people that won't be on my team. And this is in the nonprofit world too. Our standards are really high. We have a huge responsibility to the kids that we're helping, but also to donors when we're taking people's money, right? That's a huge responsibility. So, I say all that to say I'm a little intense at times. I'm extremely driven. I'm a data driven guy. I want good data and I change my mind all the time. I don't apologize for it either. I think some may see it as a frustration, but I see it as a strength. That was the data world I grew up in. Things change all the time in that world, and you had to be pretty nimble, right? So, as soon as I get better information, I may have told you something yesterday, but I found out something else, and guess what? We're going to change. I know that can be a little bit frustrating, but to me, it's super efficient because we've got a better plan. Hopefully it's not that erratic, but it can seem to some that maybe don't run at the pace I do.

For the most part, I let people thrive. I'm not going to beat you up for a mistake. We're going to talk about it and figure it out. The guy you're talking to right here has made plenty of mistakes. Guess what? I'm not done. But I want the common sense behind in the reasoning, and so I'll say that again, I'm a data driven guy. I expect good data. If I ask you something, the worst thing you can do on my team is give me a BS answer. It's not going to go over well. I would rather you say, "I don't know. I'll find out." That's a perfectly fine answer. We don't know everything. That's a much better answer than trying to phone one in or guess, because the same thing happens. I took your information, I went and made some decisions. If I did that with bad data, now you've got a problem.?

Rhett Roberson?

In my opinion, for what it's worth, walking that line between erratic decision making and not being stuck to one way just because we made that initial decision is based on and dependent on the quality of data. If that data that you were provided ends up being frequently wrong, then you are going to come off a little more erratic, because you're going to have to be correcting all the time.?

Doug Pitt?

There's not a business process that's sacred to me. There really isn't.? And I see a lot of success in that. And again, that's not for everybody. There are a lot of people that just think maybe my style is a little much, and hey, it is for some, and that's fine. We'll go out and have dinner together, but we're just not going to work together.?

Rhett Roberson?

Sure, sure. Can you describe the work that you do??

Doug Pitt?

Sure. So again, I started this off by saying I'm a little bit of a gypsy, in that my day... You know, phones can be a curse, but I think they're a huge blessing too. The fact that that thing's going to ring, and within an hour, I'm going to migrate between clean water, between IT, Kevin will call me, and we'll talk about something at Pitt Tech. Most of my daytime and what my job is real estate, and it's really what I love to do. Outside of that, Care To Learn, call back to real estate, call back to Care To Learn, jump in the water, to my kids, to maybe some other little project, who knows what I've got going on, it's pretty Helter Skelter, and I don't know any different. You create your own chaos, you know? People say, "Are you busy?" "Oh, yeah, so busy, so busy." That's kind of a dumb answer. We create our own chaos, and we accept in the levels that we want to do, right? So, I'm busy because I choose to be. I was probably, heck, an ADHD kid growing up, they probably would have had me medicated and labeled and all that other kind of stuff. There's probably still a little bit of that in me. I expect a lot, I work a lot, but it's also something I enjoy. So, to me, it's not a big labor.?

Rhett Roberson?

I was having that conversation this morning. Someone was saying, I was "always busy, busy" or something. I was like, "I think it's just well channeled anxiety, ADHD, whatever you may call it." (Laughs)?

Doug Pitt?

We create our own chaos.

Rhett Roberson?

Yeah, we do, yeah. We talked about this a little bit already. But how'd you get into this line of work? There are several lines here so answer how you will.

Doug Pitt?

So, again, the PC side, I had a friend working at a computer store, and back then, computers were $3,000 big old boxes. And he said, "You know, our service is terrible. It's all about selling hardware, and I'm the salesman. I'm getting yelled at because of our service. We ought to start a company that does the opposite, focus on the service and not the sales." I couldn't even turn on a computer, but he was right. For that time, where the world was at in computing, there really weren't a lot of standards, but a lot of that kind of melded and peaked when Microsoft took off, Novell on the networking side, a couple of things happened, and we had a good running head start, and the service thing worked out. IT, again, was never my passion, though. It really wasn't. It was a great business to be in. I knew we could make money in it, and we did, but real estate's a little bit different. I've been in it pretty serious the last 15 years, and that is more just out of a true interest. I've been in it all, single family, duplexes, apartments, and strip centers. I've concentrated all medical in the last 9 or 10 years, and we're still doing a lot of medical. I'll be in Lake Tahoe this week, we were in Houston just a couple weeks ago, and in St Louis. I'm kind of bouncing around, but I'm back looking at apartments, I bought some town homes in Republic. So, kind of back into a world I used to know, but I'm getting reacquainted with that side of it. I just like doing deals. Deals are fun. I love seeing things come out of the ground. I love the building side, but then, in true Doug fashion, I get bored and I'm ready for the next one. So, real estate works well for my temperament and kind of what I do, but it can be tough. Going through the recession in real estate and owning land wiped out a lot of people and I got my butt kicked. I really did. I was just fortunate enough to have enough runway to ride it out, and some good things came out of it with some clients, because we were all just trying to figure it out and meld stuff. That's really how I got into medical and that ended up being extremely lucrative. So, yeah, life happens.

Rhett Roberson

Yeah, that has been a constant theme throughout this project, that life just does what life does. And so many people have said, I never would have guessed I'd be here when I was back there trying to make decisions for myself. You've just got to put in the time. It's helped me not have such a stranglehold on what I think I should be doing or what I will be doing. It's being well prepared when the luck strikes, I think.?

Doug Pitt

Yeah, I'd like to think we were that smart.?

Rhett Roberson?

(Laughs)?

Doug Pitt?

But not so sure.?

Rhett Roberson?

Who's the best boss or leader that you've had the opportunity to work with and what made them so good??

Doug Pitt?

I had a neurotic boss because it was me all my life. (Laughs) I'm kidding. I love biographies. I don't care who it is, musician, scientist, artist, politician. If there's a biography, I've probably listened to it on audiobook. I do that because I just like learning how they started and how they got through the mud to get to the clean, good stuff. I'm just really intrigued by it. I learned a lot through those biographies, but early on my 20s, I wasn't afraid, I would call anybody and ask questions. From John Q. Hammons back in the day, to legends like James Anderson and Jack Stack . I just had some people that I was around that were gracious enough to answer my questions. My idea was, and truly, it's not me focusing on the negative, it was me focusing on what they did wrong. I really did. I would ask all kinds of questions on that side of the ledger, because that's what I didn't want to duplicate. Everybody talks about what they did right, right? But if I could avoid their mistakes, I'm two years, three years, four years ahead. Still to this day, I ask questions, even amongst my peers. My friends that are in real estate, we talk all the time. I'm learning all the time. The day you think you've got stuff figured out, bad things are going to happen. So, I've got to be learning, but I do that by asking questions and just talking about those that I think are better at it than I am.?

Rhett Roberson?

Yeah, I think there's really a lot of value to continued curiosity. I'll get to the "What advice you have for young professionals?" here in a bit, but that's always a good one for me or an important one for me. As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up??

Doug Pitt?

Of course everybody has the sports dreams, and unfortunately, my talent didn't make that happen, but in high school, I had a great psychology teacher, Mr. Wood. He was fantastic. I wanted to be a psychologist. So, my career is planned out, I want to be a psychologist. I get to college and the first semester, I take an intro to psychology class, and I hated it. I thought, "I can't be around this weirdness all the time." So, that kind of kicked me back on my heels. Here I've got my life planned out, and in one semester I'm like, "Nope, now I have no idea what I want to do!" So, that caused a little bouncing around between majors and deciding what to do, and I ended up with a communication degree, and kind of did it wrong. It was the fastest thing I could graduate with instead of working down a career path. But it worked out.?

Rhett Roberson?

Again, back to life doing what life does.?

Doug Pitt?

For sure.?

Rhett Roberson?

It turned out.?

Doug Pitt?

Right.?

Rhett Roberson?

What book has had the most significant impact on your life??

Doug Pitt?

Again, I do biographies a lot. I'm not a real sales book guy. The reason being, I see those books as a lot of bumper sticker and t-shirt slogans of people that really haven't done as much as I have. I'd rather learn from even some of the Iacocca's and the people that maybe were not respected in a lot of realms, and not saying he wasn't. But I love the biography side of things, those are the kind of books I gravitate to. But Jerry Weintraub has a great book called When I Stop Talking, You'll Know I'm Dead: Useful Stories from a Persuasive Man (https://a.co/d/9CMXrO6), and he is dead now, by the way, but it's a great life business book about the transitions of deals that he did working with Elvis, working with John Denver in the movies, and it's really practical advice.

Funny enough, in the last few years, 50 Cent has one of the best business books out there called Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter (https://a.co/d/cVcGI3e). It's a must read. I sent it to all my kids. It's super practical advice from a guy who's just figuring it out, but he is a grinder, and I love the pursuit of how he does life and does business. Is he the person you want your kid to grow up to be? I'm not saying you do, or you don't, but probably not high on a lot of parents' lists, just because of his occupation. But personally, I think he's awesome and that book really spoke to me. I've listened to it a couple times for that reason. So, probably not the answer most people will give. You know, the Good To Greats and all those books, they're fine. That's just not me. It doesn't motivate me.?

Rhett Roberson?

I think that answer is fantastic, because I'm 40 something interviews into this so far, and you're definitely the first one to mention 50 Cent's book on business.?

Doug Pitt?

(Laughs) I love it.?

Rhett Roberson?

So, I will absolutely put that on my short list of reads. What's the most important lesson you've learned so far in life??

Doug Pitt?

Relax. Don't take yourself so seriously. You are going to mess up. If you're out there trying, you're going to mess up. You know, we discuss athletes' failures as if that's something they should hang their head for. Absolutely not. They're in the arena. They got there and they did it. Well, that same thing with just being a person. We're going to mess up in our relationships. We're going to mess up with our friends. We're going to mess up in business. Unfortunately, in business, they're glaring and a lot more stressful and have money tied to them. So, I've learned to be a little kinder to myself. Just give myself a pass. You know, I would dwell on things. I love the wins, but you know what? We're just human beings. So, we celebrate the wins with "Yay, good job!", and you feel good for a short time, but the misses and the whoops, they carry on for years sometimes. It's just wrong. That's self-induced, self-inflicted, and it's not healthy. So, for your own mental health, relax, guys. Just relax. You're better, you're a great person. We just mess up, right?

I learned something one time, and this was just about eight or nine years ago. I was at a group dinner and there were 10 of us, five people I knew, and five that I didn’t, and we did a Jeffersonian Dinner. I don't know if you know what that is, but the host throws out a topic, everybody goes around the table, and you talk about just that topic. It can be fun, you know, baseball, and so everybody has to go around talking about baseball. It doesn't matter. This one was about a moment in life that changed you and by the by the sixth person, I think four out of the six had broken down crying. It just it became very deep, very quick. Even the host was like, "Wow, I've never had this happen or go this way." I learned a lot that night. There was a girl who, when we get there, of course, you meet and everybody's happy. You're having a glass of wine, and everybody's exchanging pleasantries, we're laughing, and you're doing all that. We sit down the table, and she has a babysitter/nanny for her two young kids, and this person was more than that, she was like a family member. She committed suicide, like three days earlier. And this girl was raw, just physically in a tough spot, but I never would have known, because she's all smiles and we're laughing and having a good time. Well, it gets to her, and she can't get through her speech, and it just spoke volumes to me. I read this girl 100% wrong, and I would have had no idea that she had this huge weight on her shoulders and this thing that was crushing her heart. So, you've got to give people a pass too. That person that cuts you off in traffic, that that person being rude at the store. Yeah, they're being an idiot. Yeah, they're being rude. Yeah, they probably deserve to be punched in the face. But the reality is, they've got stuff going on their life, too. And what a turn of events to say, "Is everything, all right?" I mean, we don't. We're not wired to do that. I'm not wired to do that. I'm more wired to punch you in the face.?

Rhett Roberson?

(Laughs)?

Doug Pitt?

But it spoke to me as just a human being, to give people a pass, to relax. We're all in this together. Life can be super hard. We don't get to pick those moments. You went through a family tragedy. You didn't pick that time, right? And your parents had to put on a brave face and go back out in the world and work and do all that. It's impossible. It's an impossible task, but they had to do it. So that's what I learned. I'm still learning.?

Rhett Roberson?

Yeah, that amount of grace is so important, especially if you've had... I almost said had the opportunity to go through that tragedy, but I think there's some beautiful stuff to be learned there.?

Doug Pitt?

For sure, but it starts with you. Give yourself a pass. Be nice to yourself. You're still going to be an idiot at times.?

Rhett Roberson?

(Laughs)?

(There is a fairly entertaining exchange where we fight over the bill here. If only I released audio! Short version: Doug wins and bought breakfast... thanks again Doug.)?

What advice do you have for young people entering the workforce??

Doug Pitt?

It kind of goes along the line of what we just said, "Give yourself a break." We're told you've got to graduate high school and then you got to figure out what you're going to do as a career or go to college and have this major and figure it out. Are you kidding me? We're idiots at 18. I mean, at least I was. There's not a chance I knew what I wanted to do. So, the idea that you know it at 25, that I know it at 58, you don't, and so you get permission to go out there and just grind and do it. Because what happens is, you put yourself in the arena, like we talked about. You're going to meet people, and organically it's going to happen. You're going to find things that you want, you like, that pay well, and that may mean slugging out at a job you don't like early on for a few years. You don't settle into that as though the die has been cast, and that's what you're going to do. Absolutely not, keep working towards something, meeting people, keep putting yourself out there. You do not have to have it figured out at 20. You do not have to have it figured out at 40. You get permission to change. You get a permission to try something new, switch it up. You know, as the family dynamic changes, if you've got small kids, you've got to bring home some money. That's it. So, you've got to be a parent and do your job first, but the reality that you're stuck in a job is not true. The anxiety behind having to have life figured out, you don't. Because you're not going to.

In my 20s, even running my own business, I learned a lot. I enjoyed that part of it. I didn't know any better, so I didn't understand the stress that was on top of me. It was a sink or swim deal. I borrowed money from my parents, and that's almost harder than a bank. If I lose their money, this is their retirement, super stressful. There was no option of failing. I had to put in the time and grind and figure it out. Luckily, I think that's a strength that I have, to go fix things.

During the recession, I had a shopping center. I had just built it. It was 15,000 square feet out in Ozark, it was 90% full, cash flowing. I got a nice offer right when we built it, and I was like, "I'm good." Then the recession happens and within four or five months I'm at 30% occupancy. It's not paying the rent, and there's no end in sight. I'm just having to make payments. That's a scary deal. Is this going to last six months? Is it going to last three years? That's just that one deal. That teaches you a lot, and you're going to jump in and learn some lessons. So, be careful, but at the same time, give yourself permission to go look. That's my advice. I hate that mantra of fail fast. I think that's stupid. Get in there. It doesn't have to be a failure. They can be micro wins along the way and if it takes five years to make that pivot and turn, so be it. But find something you can lock into and be happy about.?

Rhett Roberson?

Sure. Absolutely.?

Doug Pitt?

Everything has a season. There may be some seasons that are rough, but...?

Rhett Roberson?

There's something to be learned.?

Doug Pitt?

Keep looking for the good part and take some peace in that time when those hard times hit, because you know it's going to get better. It always does. Give yourself a break but be willing to change. Be willing to put yourself out there.?

Rhett Roberson?

Yeah, it's important to know that those things are temporary, that everything is temporary to a degree. Even in the good times, I feel like I'm in a pretty good part of my life right now, but I know that at some point there's going to be discomfort, you know? So, I try to be grateful. That gives me a sense of gratitude now. Then when things have turned it's easier to have a sense of gratitude as well, because that also is temporary, right? I don't want to be a guy that says, "This too shall pass," but you know, this too shall pass.?

Doug Pitt?

It's true. It's true.?

Rhett Roberson?

What are you most proud of??

Doug Pitt?

At the ages of my kids, 28, 29, and 30, there's a point where you don't get a say, and you just hope they turn out to be great people. The fact that they are, obviously, that's my greatest joy and the thing I'm most proud of. Outside of family, I love the work. I can look back on a career with the homeless task force, and the chamber, and Big Brothers, and some things that were the predecessor to the good stuff. To Care To Learn and WorldServe, and some of the things where we've really been able to make life changing, substantial impacts. That was a progression, and the early part set me up to be better at what I do. You get better at your job. You get better in the nonprofit space. You hopefully get better as a dad and as a husband and all that as well. I'm super proud of the work with WorldServe and Care To Learn will always be the number one thing in my heart. I see the impact and the stories here and around the state that are happening every day behind the scenes, that this many kids are being helped. Just restoring self-esteem and removing some barriers that a third or fourth grader, or a senior in high school shouldn't have to deal with but are dealing with. There's no question Care To Learn holds an extremely special part in my heart.?

Rhett Roberson?

That self-confidence part might be overlooked by people in their initial look at what you guys do, but what you have access to brings out a lot of self-confidence and self-esteem, and that really is powerful for kids. So that's interesting to hear you say that.?

Doug Pitt?

I say that a lot when I'm talking about Care To Learn, "We're in the self-esteem business." We really are.?

Rhett Roberson?

Yeah, when I talked to Krystal, she was giving me statistics across the state and it's hundreds of thousands of kids that are interacting with Care To Learn.?

Doug Pitt?

We're approaching 4 million shortly, and hopefully we'll get there pretty quick. it is great. Just a lot of great people making it happen.?

Rhett Roberson?

Last question, my favorite question, how do you hope the world is better for having you??

Doug Pitt?

You know, we've talked about what I've done, but I think the best thing that I can offer is, I got a lot of time left. I'm still at bat. So, what does that even mean? I don't know what's next. And that's the fun part. I've always said, right now I think Care To Learn is the best at what we do. If someone can do it better, I'll go support them, but until then, we'll just keep the hammer down, doing what we're doing. I love the fact we now have 48 chapters around the state, but I want 49. It's just the way I'm wired. Same thing in the clean water space, exponentially it's grown and gotten better. I give their staff a ton of kudos, but literally, when you think about millions of people getting clean water and what that means. It sounds kind of esoteric, and we kind of gloss over the life and death part, but the fact that parents aren't seeing their kids suffer and die, some of these remote regions, literally, two out of five don't make it to the age of five. It's just numbers that we as parents can't even fathom. The idea that they're used to it, or it's just a part of life over there, that's so stupid. A parent is a parent, and they experience the anguish of not being able to provide that help. So, like I said, clean water will always have a place in my heart, but what I have to offer the world is the fact that I'm in the game. And I think I'm better at it than I was last year, and I expect to get better next year. I'm excited to see it. I'm a numbers driven guy, and I want to create my own good data.?

Rhett Roberson?

That's great and a good way to wrap up! Thank you so much. I really do appreciate it, man.

Doug Pitt?

Good stuff!

Books:

Bicycles Up Kilimanjaro - Richard & Nicholas Crane

When I Stop Talking, You'll Know I'm Dead: Useful Stories from a Persuasive Man - Jerry Weintraub

Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter - Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson