Grow with Purpose, Give with Generosity: Turning Success into Lasting Impact

0:02 What's working on purpose anyway? Each week, we ponder the answer to this question. People ache for meaning and purpose at work, to contribute their talents passionately and know their lives really matter. They crave being part of an organization that inspires them and helps them grow into realizing their highest potential. Business can be such a force for good in the world, elevating humanity. In our program, we provide guidance and inspiration to help usher in this world we all want, working on purpose. Now, here's your host, Dr. Elise Cortez. Welcome back to the Working on Purpose program, which has been brought to you with passion and pride since February of 2015. Thanks for tuning in this week. Great to have you. I'm your host, Dr. Elise Cortez. If you don't know me yet, I'm an organizational psychologist, workforce advisor, Vistage Chair, and the founder of Gusto Now, which is your partner in growing your people, leadership, and culture. We are all about helping you unleash the energy and capacity of your people by accessing their gusto, the life force for performance that drives commitment, perseverance, and genuine ownership of a shared mission. You can learn more about us and how we can work together at gusto-now.com or my personal site, elisecortez.com.

1:10 With us today is Andrew Rausch. He's the founder and managing partner of Venture and Philanthropy. And for nearly 30 years, he has helped founders, CEOs, and mission-driven organizations grow with purpose, lead with courage, and give with impact. He helped lead iTexaco's growth from roughly 50 to more than 500 team members. Today, he's the voice behind the Be the Bison, a message about leaders who turn toward the storm instead of running from it. He joins us today from Dripping Springs, Texas. Andrew Hardy, welcome to Working on Purpose. Hi, Elise. How are you? As I may have mentioned sometimes today, happy Taco Tuesday. Great to be with you. And what does Taco Tuesday mean to you? Now that you've brought that twice, what does that mean to you?

1:51 All right. So, you know, in Texas, right, we love tacos. We do. And there's this big debate where tacos or breakfast tacos, where they started in Austin, Texas or San Antonio, Texas. So it's kind of a fun debate here in central Texas. So I'll go with Austin. Okay. All right. Well, I like it. I do like my tacos. No doubt. No doubt. Yes. So, you know, I'm a huge fan of yours. I forget how we met, but I trolled you on LinkedIn, and then we had a conversation, and I said, I have to have you on. You've got to talk about what you've been doing. So more than 30 years working with organizations, and specifically, you're interested in mission-driven, impact-driven organizations. So why this work? Why is this important to you? Let's start there.

2:35 Yeah, that's a great question, Elise, and thank you for that question. You It's like, what's really important to me? You know, what might be that impact or maybe even that legacy that I'm going to leave behind to the next generation? So right now I'm on a personal vision and mission to serve 100 founders by the time I'm 70, which is eight years from now. Good work in progress. But, you know, why do that? if there's an opportunity to help another founder grow their organization, hopefully they may have a view to, you know, leaving more impact or greater giving. That's going to look different for every founder. But, you know, if I can do that, I think we can make a significant difference in the remaining season of life, if you will, in the workplace.

3:26 And you know that we are comrades in arms in that, right? You have a different approach and such, but we are very, very aligned on that, which is one of the many reasons I had to have you on. Right. So, um, I, I really appreciate your idea of stewardship and you talk on your websites and various other places that where you talk about venture plus philanthropy, that's philosophy is summed up as, as growth is more than a business strategy. It's stewardship. So what does stewardship really mean to you? Yeah, it's a great question. Thank you for asking. So stewardship to me is, um, We are given certain talents, if you will, certain gifts, abilities, if you will. And so from a workplace perspective, let me use a little bit of an acrostic, something I often refer to as life capital. We all have life capital to either steward or to give. And so life or the acrostic stands for L is for leadership.

4:23 I is for influence. F is for financial or finance, and E is expertise. So a lot of times when I'm involved in organizations, and often in particular like on boards, I'll often ask the question, what do you really need right now for the organization? Do you need individuals that can give maybe more leadership or more expertise? And my experience, Elise, is more often than not, Everyone is not going to give all four of those to an organization, but imagine if you could. You can give of your leadership. You can give of your influence or your network. You can certainly give of your finances or financial ability and expertise. Wouldn't that make a huge difference? And if we can steward that well and balance that well in our lives, I think we could have a really amazing impact.

5:09 I like the crispness of that, Andrew. That's very accessible. I really appreciate that. It helps, you know, doing this kind of work around mission and impact. I have somebody coming on here soon, which who you will love. His name is Lori Lane Zucker, and he wrote a big book about the impact entrepreneur. So you're going to love that. It's going to align a lot with the work that you do. But that crispness I like because mission and vision and impact, sometimes people think that's kind of, you know, soft or abstract things. Yeah, I think that's right. And, you know, for me, you know, thinking about the next number of years, 100 founders, you know, to me, that's it's a little bit of a stretch probably.

5:51 But why not reach for that? And to me, imagine if I had that opportunity to, you know, connect them to, you know. Life givers, what I call life givers, right? You know, people that have significant leadership capacity or, you know, oftentimes they may need, you know, finances and connect them with people, you know, that are going to give them very strategic investment into their organization, right? Again, what an impact that can make if we can do that. Yeah, I really come from having drank from the conscious capitalism hose for so many years serving the board. I really believe that business can be a force for good in the world. And I'm out to help champion that, too. Yeah. I don't know if we talked about that. I actually led the Austin chapter of Conscious Capitalism.

6:38 We did talk about that, yes. Three years, yeah, post-COVID and time of rebuilding. Yeah, it was a good season. Yeah, there was no way you were going to get out of my clutches, Andrew. There was no way. You can run, but you can't run fast enough to outrun me. You're starting to sound like some of my Italian friends back home in New York. Oh, yeah. Okay, good. I'll take it all day long. I can speak just a little Italiano. Okay, we have to talk about this work that you did at iTexico. That sounded amazing. So when was this? You went from 50 people to more than 500 people. with more than 200 million in cumulative revenue impact. So let's talk about what happened. How did you get, how'd you get yourself into that opportunity? When was it? And tell us a little bit about what, what, what you actually did.

7:26 Yeah. Thank you for that. So a little context, um, a good friend of mine, his name is Anurag Kumar. Um, Oh yeah, I know Anurag, sure. From, from improving. Yeah. Yeah. So Anurag's a dear friend for about 30 years. And, um, So I've helped him with a couple of businesses early on in his entrepreneurial career. And as time passed, one of the personal things that happened to me is our oldest daughter, Olivia, is adopted from Mexico. And so that was a great season and a great journey in life going through that. But as Honorog was launching iTexco with a colleague in Guadalajara, Mexico, Guillermo Ortega, He called me up and said, hey, I've got a revenue problem. Can you help me?

8:14 I said, of course, honor. I'd love to work with you. I'd love to help you. So I began doing that for him. And then he said, hey, I've got this problem. So long story short, at least after a couple of problems, he said, hey, why don't you join iTexco full time, which I did. And we were about 50 team members down in Guadalajara. And so part of that was my personal connection to Mexico, having done an adoption of love there. the people and love the culture in Mexico and want to make a difference. And so I began that journey with with Honorog and about eight years later, actually in the pandemic, Improving decided they wanted to buy iTexaco. And that was a great end result for him, for us, for the team. But along the way, one of the things that was really awesome is that we helped employ the number 500 I give. That was the number of employees at the end. But people came and went, and we helped elevate salaries, We helped elevate women in the workplace, especially in technology in Mexico. We did a great job of working with the universities and the community down there.

9:24 So I think we really made a nice lasting impact on technology in Guadalajara, Aguas Calientes, and just Mexico in general and in the community. So it was a great experience. I love that. And of course, you know, I couldn't let you get off the show having said what you did without asking you, how did you do that without losing the connection, the expression of the purpose, the mission, values along the way? Yeah, it's a great question. And actually, every time, you know, I personally went down to our headquarters was in Guadalajara, but then we also in in a facility in Aguas Calientes. But every time I had an opportunity to be with the team, I talked about that. That why for me, you know, why am I involved with ITEXCO? You know, why here in Mexico? And, you know, I shared that personal heart connection. I worked on, you know, speaking their language, worked on connecting, invested time.

10:23 One of my team members went to a two-day wedding, right, and just got connected to the community and culture and people and, you know, invested time, energy, and effort with them and reminded them of, you know, why are we doing that? We're doing that because we can help give people better jobs. We can help. you know, people, you know, support their families in a better way. Or, you know, if you're a single mom and you're in tech, you know, let's find a way that you can have a flexible schedule, you know, and get you in a leadership role. So, you know, we saw a lot of those personal testimonies, a lot of that growth, both directly with individuals and, again, in the community at large. So what a great experience to. Integrate, you know, your work and your mission and, you know, making a difference.

11:08 Mm-hmm. It's a great way to live, isn't it? It is. I want to celebrate what you said there about integrating into the culture, learning the language and such. And it's the reason that my company is called Gusto now. I had the great fortune of living in Spain and Brazil for about three years total in my mid-20s. So I learned Spanish well, learned that I was in that culture, immersed myself in that culture, and just, you know, was enlarged by it. And the same thing living in Brazil, learning Portuguese and going all over South America and also Western Europe for Spain. Those cultures, learning those languages and those cultures expanded me. And because Gusto means about the same thing in English, Spanish, and Portuguese, that's why the name of the company is Gusto now, because I'm taking all of that that enlarged me, this ability to tap into passion and inspiration and purpose with that vitality. And that's what we do to help infuse into organizations that we work with. And it was because I got to live in those different cultures that gave me that gift of expansion. Yeah. Absolutely.

12:08 And as I think about, you know, our topic and what we're talking about, in the 90s, I had the fortunate opportunity to be involved with four startups here in the Austin area. And it was a great and exciting time in Austin as we were becoming the Silicon Valley, if you will, of the Southwest. And one of those four wound up going public. So, you know, from a startup venture perspective, 25% batting average is probably not bad. But I look back in that season, at least, and it was a season of, hey, how can I get more stock options? What's my next cool role going to be? You know, wound up flying around on a private jet evangelizing a company with a chief technology ambassador title. I thought I was, you know, the cool kid on the block.

12:56 But that was the mission in that season of life. And there was a lot of emptiness to it, actually. But I learned a lot. I got involved with some really good people, some good leaders. But then in 2000, when the bubble burst, all of a sudden there was a, okay, well, that really didn't work out as well as I expected, so what's next? And that became the genesis or the early onset of that vision and that mission of Venture and Philanthropy. Not only helping an organization grow, which I was able to do four times, but But now how do you integrate this sense of creative purpose or impact? And back then I used to say, how do we help an organization grow to give? And that kind of became the early on mantra.

13:43 But going back to the. Culture, another part or another side of that culture was Sabrina, my wife, and my two youngest kids would often come with us or come with me down to Mexico. So they got to experience the culture. They got to see something different other than beautiful central Texas. So that was a really good season for family as well and integrating my family into the culture and then getting them to know the team members and such down in Guadalajara and Douglas Calientes was great. I really appreciate that. So expansive. You said something about, you know, that whole jetting around on airplanes and having the big title, you know, the big fancy roles and such, and that in the end it sort of felt meaningless.

14:27 And so that was also my path, which is why I studied and went down the path of also becoming a logotherapist, which is Viktor Frankl's work, right? Man's Search for Meaning. So I think, I mean, you might also be a logotherapist too, Andrew. Just add that to your title as well. Yeah. Sounds good. Right? It's part of what informs the work that we do, too, and that's the meaning part of things. So I just had to call that out because people say those kind of phrases, but they don't understand how important what they just said is. When people say it kind of felt meaningless and empty, people don't understand just how critically important what they just said is when they utter those kinds of phrases. You bet. And you probably see this as much or maybe even more than I do today. I think I'm excited about the next generation of you know, that's coming up behind us.

15:14 I think that there's a sense of awareness and awakening, you know, about greater purpose and why do I want to work? Is it going to make a difference? Is it going to fulfill me? Am I going to be excited about it? So I'm excited about the next generation that's coming up behind us because I think, you know, there's, like I said, a greater awareness of, you know, why am I doing work? So I'm encouraged. I am too. And I'll comment on that because I have a perspective on that too. But let's grab our first break before I do that. I'm your host, Dr. Elise Cortez. We've been on the air with Andrew Roush. She's the founder and managing partner of Venture Plus Philanthropy. We've been talking about really the path to discovering meaning and purpose individually and through work and through your businesses.

15:57 After the break, we're going to get into leading through complexity without losing yourself. We'll be right back. Dr. Elise Cortez is a management consultant specializing in meaning and purpose, an inspirational speaker and author. She helps companies visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose-inspired leadership and meaning-infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite Elise to speak to your organization, please visit her at EliseCortez.com. Let's talk about how to get your employees working on purpose. This is Working on Purpose with Dr. Elise Cortez. To reach our program today or to open a conversation with Elise, send an email to Elise, A-L-I-S-E, at EliseCortez.com. Now, back to Working on Purpose.

17:08 Thanks for staying with us and welcome back to Working on Purpose. I'm your host, Dr. Elise Cortez, as I am dedicated to helping create a world where organizations thrive because their people thrive. And then we do business that betters the world. I keep researching and writing my own books. So one of my latest came out. It's called The Great Revitalization, How Activating Meaning and Purpose Can Radically Enliven Your Business. And I wrote it to help leaders understand today's very discerning workforce. What do they want and need from you to give their best and stick around? And then I offer you 22 best practices to equip you to provide that for them through your leadership and your culture. You can find my books on Amazon or my personal site, EliseCortez.com. If you are just now joining us, my guest is Andrew Rausch, who has nearly 30 years of experience helping CEOs, founders, and mission-driven organizations grow with purpose, lead with courage, and give with impact. So we were talking about your hope for the youngest generation, Gen Z, because they're really focused on purpose, doing something that's meaningful and purposeful. I like to say that every generation has made us better as a species, you know, the early generations were really big on the longterm. They stuck it out and, you know, they, they had that stability and they made a career and, um, and then that the boomers came along and that was important for them as well. And they did a little, a little bit more choicefully. Gen X's came along. That's, that's my, my generation came along and we were at first to be a little bit more independent about how we wanted to go about our lives and our work and a little bit more choiceful about where we put our energies. Um, And then the millennials or Gen Y came along and they said, hey, didn't you guys get

18:40 the memo that you don't have to work 60, 80 hours a week and you can actually live and work your values? Did anybody not tell you that? Right. And then here comes Gen Z along saying, hey, man, I don't want to do this if there isn't if there isn't if I can't feel like it's what I'm doing overall isn't meaningful or it matters somehow. And I think that that's what that's doing is it's elevating the consciousness of humans. So I'm completely with you on that, Andrew. Yeah, no, I agree. And as you were doing your intro, Elise, I apologize about that. I've got my phone turned off. I've got my watch turned off. But the only person I can get through is my wife.

19:25 Well, hello. Is her name Sabrina? Hi, Bob. Yeah, she's in Chicago on a trip. She was probably just updating me. Apologize about the interruption. So when you were doing your intro, you have a beautiful word that you've mentioned, and that's thrive. It's just a sweet and beautiful word. And one of the things that I'm seeing in terms of some leaders and the successful ones is they're really focused on helping others thrive in their work or in their life. And that's a beautiful thing. And why thrive? Why does that resonate with me? Because I think if we can make people thrive in what's important to them, what do they resonate with?

20:06 With what do they care about, what's their purpose. What comes out of that that I often see is great joy, right? And we live in times and struggles, not like a previous generation, not like the next generation. They're going to have their struggles and challenges. But if we could just experience more joy on a daily basis in our lives, what a beautiful thing that is. So anyway, I just want to share that thought with you, that beautiful word of thrive. And why should we try to help others thrive? Because there's great joy in doing that and seeing them thrive as well. So anyway, just want to share that little tidbit that you shared. I'll take it all day long and add another piece to that, that I think in order for all that to happen, then we need to be able to lead the whole human that has a whole life outside of work and aspirations, things they're dealing with, et cetera, in order for us to be able to surface that joy.

20:58 Yeah, it's a great way that you describe that. One of the things that I'm talking to leaders about, and this is through a good friend of mine, Daniel Mueller, who is founder of Solid Leaders, which I'm involved with. He's written a book called Portfolio Life. And it's primarily for men and women that have been in the workplace. Maybe they've been a senior VP or maybe they've been a CEO, founder, and they're. No longer in the workplace full time, but they're exiting out. What's next? And one of the beautiful things Daniel talks about is what's your portfolio of life look like? Are you serving maybe on a board or two?

21:38 How are you moving into maybe empty nesting season of life within your family? What kind of hobbies are you doing? And so I often reflect on that personally right now. And one of the joys that I get to experience, and I don't know if I shared this with you or not, but I'm actually a canine handler with Texas Search and Rescue. No, you didn't share that. So, um, uh, so I get to do that with a canine and I get outdoors a lot. And in my particular situation, I only work with law enforcement. So I get to work with other leaders and people that are serving the community. I get to do that through a canine. So I try to balance my portfolio.

22:22 I love that concept. Really love that concept. You're breaking up just a little bit, Andrew. Maybe you're coming back. Sometimes when you get far enough from the screen, you can sometimes lose that voice connection. Okay, you're back. Okay, so I do want to talk about helping leaders, right? I mean, gosh, I know we keep saying every year, it's never been more complex and more volatile, et cetera. But a big reason that I do the work that I do, and I'm guessing you do too, is to really help support those leaders that are dealing with so much complexity, so many burdens that a lot of people just don't really realize what they're dealing with. So from all the work that you've been doing with leaders over the years, help us understand some of the things that they're carrying that maybe nobody else on the team understands.

23:05 Yeah. Yeah, that's a great question. I think what pops top of mind for me is a sense of being alone. Right? The sense that, you know, if I go to my board or if I go to my leadership team and I tell them, hey, I'm struggling with this, right, how would that be received? Right? So there's a sense of, at times, at least my experience is they don't want to share that, but maybe they don't have another venue or opportunity to express that. They probably need a coach like you or somebody that they can share some of those concerns with, but they don't. So when you get into that situation of being alone at the top, and then all of a sudden you feel the weightiness of it and you're not sharing it, it becomes a little bit of a downward spiral, or it can, right, if you don't have those outlets. So I think it's incredibly important for leaders to surround themselves with key advisors or trusted advisors you know, where they can share their concerns and it's safe and, you know, they know they're going to get good counsel, wise counsel.

24:10 So that's something that I often see. And, you know, unfortunately, a lot of leaders don't press into that as much as they probably should. You know, Andrew, that is one of the biggest reasons that I chose to add my role of being a VISTA's chair, because VISTA does just that. It's a worldwide membership community. and it provides peer advisory services from, you know, other CEOs and business leaders so that you literally get that advisory group that you're talking about from, you know, in a confidential area. And then of course they get business coaching as well. But yeah, I mean, I, if you're, if there's no one you can talk to and you don't know what to do and now you're not sleeping and maybe your business is starting to go downhill because you don't know, you don't have somebody else to run this past. I mean, it's just, it's, I couldn't agree more that the loneliness piece is really, really huge, and having that community is really, really important.

25:03 Yeah, and you hit on something really vital. You used the word community, right? And Vistage does a phenomenal job of doing that. Right now, I'm with my peers. You've walked in my shoes. Maybe you've seen this issue or this challenge or this problem or this opportunity, and you can actually speak to it because I've been there, done that, maybe seen that movie, and that's hugely valuable, isn't it? It really is. And it's so incredibly fulfilling to see when members really start to open up and they share their deep, dark wounds and their sorrows and what they're dealing with, and then they get the benefit of their members to be able to help them through that. It is so beautiful, right? It's talk about humanity and joy and all those wonderful things that we're out to We're out to help surface.

25:49 Not easy to do, right? Because, you know, you have to feel like you're in a trusted place. You know, there's probably a good sense of respect that you need in order to do that. And it takes a strong leader to actually step out and do that. Yeah, and the chair needs to make it safe for them to do that. That's part of our job is to make sure that there's safety for them to be able to do that. Yeah, great. Another thing that I'm actually working through right now on one of the organizations I'm involved with and on the board. And a quick side note, I got voluntold that I was going to lead this CEO succession effort.

26:30 And I'm like, okay, all right, fine. But watching a founder or CEO that's grown an organization for 30 years. It's been their life's work. It's been their passion. And now all of a sudden, okay, how do we hand this mission over to the next person to take this organization hopefully to maybe new heights or new places or new impact? And it seems kind of easy to say, okay, we're going to do a CEO succession effort or plan but it's really, really hard to work with a founder and get them in a place where they have a lot of trust and confidence that, hey, the next person is going to take it forward, right?

27:14 Because it's been your life's work. So that's a really interesting place to be as well and something that I'm seeing in leadership. It's such a critical, talk about that handoff or that legacy that we've been talking about. And that brings me to the place that I really, really want to get your perspective on here too, Andrew. And that comes to this natural place in every organization over time when the organization's growth has outpaced the leader's capacity to lead. So, right, the leader is always the ceiling. And so recognizing when have I gotten in the way and how do I start to be able to continue to evolve so that I can keep stewarding my business forward. Can you talk to, you know, your perspective and your experience of how leaders recognize when they're now the ceiling and how do they really start to recognize that they need to grow to keep that business growing as well?

28:03 Yeah, it's a great question. I'll actually use, you know, we talked about the mutual person we know, Anurag Kumar is a founder and CEO at iTexco. One of the things that he did really well was early on, he was the face to the market. He was the top business development person. He was really good relationally. But there comes a point where that doesn't scale anymore if you continue to be in that role all the time. And so I think one of the things he recognized, and it was. Probably about a $ 5 million a year revenue mark, is he started to realize that I need to make sure I start serving my team well and make sure that I have good team members and leadership people in place that I trust and respect that can get things done even better than I can. And so he was really smart about recognizing, hey, I need somebody to lead sales or marketing or client experience or delivery. Somebody that's got more capacity or, you know, more skills or different skills than I can because, you know, that's ultimately I think how one of the ways that ITEXCO really scaled was when Otterog and Guillermo recognized that it can't just be about them and they need to serve better.

29:19 Yeah, I would say hats off for him being able to recognize that, because in my experience, it's so, and in my own business too, right? I mean, how do we recognize when we're, you know, we're the bottleneck, right? Oh, you know, the problem is it's us. It's humbling, right? And it's very, it's vulnerable, and, but being able to recognize that and then do something about it is critical. Yeah. I think you mentioned a really important word, humility, right? I've had the dichotomy of experiences where I've, I've worked with or teamed with or coached or mentored leaders that are not very humble, right? And, and they're in a place where you know it's about.

30:02 Me i grew this business right you know i can help you know raise the next round of money or you know get the next strategic partner or client it's about me well at some point in time that's not going to scale very well but the ones that are humble where they recognize hey i need to maybe. Move out of the place or you know move out of. The way a little bit or let somebody else take the lead in something, that humility goes a long way to, you know, making a big difference. Yeah. Humble servant leaders. Yes. Well, and that's another reason why probably you and I both love some of the work that we do is because we are helping to grow the overall human, right? In order for them to be more effective leaders, they have to become a more effective, full human to be able to do that. And I, you know, I'm an organizational psychologist, so I love that kind of stuff. It's the heartbeat for me.

30:52 Yeah so in your work um do you deal with a lot of the self or me challenges or issues oh. Yeah yes yes of course um although i would say though um not i i think the people that end up finally working with us have recognized somehow that that can't you know they've somehow gotten past that or else they wouldn't have the desire to work with us i don't think they would think that they need to work with us so i don't see that as much as maybe you're that maybe you you're you're you're wondering about. Yeah. Okay. Good. Yeah. You kind of need to be, you know, like you, like we, we tend to work with organizations that are, are more mission oriented, impact driven, purpose led. So those that there's a different level of heartbeat that comes with that, you know, right. So this right purpose is always about serving something beyond yourself. It's not about, you know, what you're getting at, but you get wonderful side benefit, but that's not the, it's not the focus.

31:51 So now that you mentioned it, as I think through it, the ones that are mission minded, there's a set of characteristics, if you will, like humility being one of them, that you. Tend to see in these leaders, right? A sense of humility, a sense of. How they want to make sure that other people are successful around them, that they thrive. So there's some good common characteristics that I can see in those leaders when they're mission-minded versus me-minded leaders. Right. Yeah. And they're a lot more fun to work with too, by the way. I know you would agree. All right.

32:31 Let's grab our last break here. I'm your host, Dr. Elise Cortez. We're on the air with Andrew Rausch. He's the founder and managing partner of Venture Plus Philanthropy. We've been talking a bit about how leaders deal with complexity and handle their ongoing growth and development to keep championing and stewarding their companies. After the break, we're going to get into generosity, wealth, and the meaning of success. We'll be right back. Thank you. Dr. Elise Cortez is a management consultant specializing in meaning and purpose, an inspirational speaker and author. She helps companies visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose-inspired leadership and meaning-infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and commitment within the workforce.

33:24 To learn more or to invite Elise to speak to your organization, please visit her at EliseCortez.com. Let's talk about how to get your employees working on purpose. This is Working on Purpose with Dr. Elise Cortez. To reach our program today or to open a conversation with Elise, send an email to Elise, A-L-I-S-E, at EliseCortez.com. Now, back to Working on Purpose. Thanks for staying with us and welcome back to Working on Purpose. I'm your host, Dr. Elise Cortez. If you are just joining the show, my guest is Andrew Rausch.

34:06 who has for nearly 30 years been helping founders, CEOs, and mission-driven organizations grow with purpose, lead with courage, and give with impact. So one of the things that I really think is interesting that I haven't seen a lot of, Andrew, is this idea of giving with impact. And that, of course, under that is generosity. So I'm interested in how the intersection of business growth and philanthropy sits, especially when it comes to generosity. If you could help us understand why you really champion this idea of generosity and giving? Yeah, thank you. It's a great question. In my own personal life, what I try to do is I try to lead with generosity or giving, maybe just to give a very simple example. So probably like you, people try to reach out and connect with you and maybe network together.

34:58 So I love doing that. And I never. It's probably not a good thing, but I often don't ask for anything from them. But I'm always thinking about how can I give or how can I serve them? Maybe there's a connection to somebody that could fund their business or maybe there's a relationship that they've recognized in my network that they've loved to want to connect with. And it gives me a lot of joy and satisfaction when I can get off a 30-minute call and I can give them three to five connections or contacts or relationships. Or potential relationships to, you know, to help them out. So, you know, that's a simple example of something that I do on a daily basis is trying to lead with generosity or giving. Oftentimes when I'm speaking with people, the first thing that comes to mind is, you know, how are you student generosity? The first thing that they probably think about is their bank account or, you know, what's in their 401k or their investment portfolio. Yeah, and sure, you know, financial is a part of that, but it's not, in my view, it's not the main thing.

36:02 It's just part of the equation. So I don't know if that helps a little bit. Yeah, it does. Also, what I hear when you talk about that is that you're expanding the pie everywhere you go. And I really, really appreciate that. And, you know, versus, you know, the idea of, you know, win-lose kind of thing. If you win, that means I lose kind of thing. So I appreciate the idea of the expanding pie. Yeah, one of the things that's really nice about financial stewardship, for example, it's monetary and you can account for it or you can measure it. But one of the things that I've experienced, especially over the last 20 years of this mindset of grow to give, is opportunity. I can't probably count, and you probably can't count, how many people I've helped serve, maybe with an introduction or maybe giving them free advice or what have you.

36:56 And I don't get to see the fruit of that work. And that's okay. But I know that it's going on, and I know that it's made a difference. And, you know, one of these days maybe, you know, a couple of people will come up and say, hey, you know, that time that you helped me, it really changed the trajectory of how I thought about leading. Or, you know, what I want to do with my business. So I think that's the hard part sometimes for us as individuals, me personally. Sometimes I'll feel like, man, I'm really giving a lot of my time, my talent, you know, my life capital here. but I'm not really seeing the return. But I can't get caught up on the results, if you will. Sometimes it's really important to make sure you understand and see results, but a lot of times I just don't see it.

37:42 I can appreciate that, very much appreciate that. Not to be on the rant side of things, but I am surprised at the number of people who don't follow through with what they say they're going to do. And it's one of the things that I can tell you that we help support our leaders with, because what we've discovered is that When leaders don't have a system to be able to remember or to do and follow through with what they say they're doing for their people, they forget or they get really busy or whatever, well-intentioned, but they don't follow through. And now what happens? They lose the trust of their people. And so helping– part of what I've found myself doing with some of the leaders that I've been working with is helping them to create systems to be able to capture what they tell people they're going to do.

38:22 Beautiful. Yeah, there's good– Word of let your yes be your yes and your no be your no. I haven't heard that before, but I like it. It's very crisp. Yeah, that's very simple. And if we do that more often than not, that's a good thing. But I love the fact that you're helping leaders remember, let their yeses be their yeses and their noes be their noes. And I've come to learn, actually, that. and sometimes I have this debate within my, myself is yes, as good as no, and no, as good as yes. I've come to the conclusion that they're both really good. Yes. And knowing which one is which for yourself is really important, right? That's right. Absolutely.

39:03 Okay. I want to talk about this notion of, you know, organizations, founders that are, how they can connect their value of what they're creating today with the impact that they really want to have tomorrow, whether that's within through their company and their stewarding it or they're passing the baton. But what I appreciate so much about the work that you've been doing, Andrew, is the idea of that longstanding, long-wielding impact that you're out to help more organizations to provide. Yeah. One of the interesting things that I'm seeing.... Gain a little traction, not huge traction in the U.S. with some founders is this idea of a purpose-driven trust, right?

39:44 So we're familiar, for example, obviously with trust, and you want to leave things behind, if you will, for the family or maybe in a foundation or otherwise. But Patagonia is a great example of a purpose-driven trust organization where they've got their vision and they've got their, more importantly, their mission statement and their values of what they want to leave. And they're operating their business with this idea of a purpose-driven trust in mind. And it's just a different way to look at the business in terms of how it's structured and what. It's going to do in the future. So that's kind of an interesting thing that I've been pressing into as well. But that's a good example of, hey, you know, we did a great job of becoming a billion-dollar business, but, you know, what does the next 20, 30, 50 years look like?

40:33 And what's the impact that we can have through this trust? You know, it's funny you bring that up, Andrew, because that's where I learned about that in Lorraine Zucker's book, The Impact Entrepreneur Breakthrough. He talks about the purpose trust that you're talking about. And a big reason I keep hosting the show is because my guests teach me so much and they keep elevating my thinking the way that we do our work and our consulting. And it's just beautiful, right? I think that is such a beautiful idea. Yeah. And I wouldn't be surprised. We were talking a little bit about the next generation and how we did things and how the generation behind, and you said something real beautiful that every generation is, is making a positive difference or making a positive change.

41:15 And I wouldn't be surprised if we see more or this. In the workplace and how leaders are viewing, uh, their business in terms of things like purpose-driven trust. So I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing more and more of that in our culture, in our next generation. I feel very confident that we will, in part because of what I learned from Lori. But we are seeing more and more of these impact entrepreneurs emerge. They care about this. But it's beyond social capitalism or social businesses, right? It's a whole. So for it to be social impact, I understand, you need to create a business that's actually healing the systems that it touches. That's what makes it a social impact business.

41:59 Yeah, and one of the important things that we can't lose sight of, at least this is my opinion, so the idea of venture and philanthropy. In order to do philanthropy, you have to have a venture. Right, right. And ideally, you're going to have a. Venture that is growing, that does have some profitability. But whatever the model is that you use, right, but you have to create value to the people that you're serving. We can't sustain everybody just giving to an organization out of. The kindness of their heart. Because at some point in time, is there really a model that's going to sustain and capture this for the next 30, 50 years? Unless you have a Buffett or Gates that's funding it, you have to have a venture that's creating value, that has impact, that has profitability so you can do the philanthropy.

42:51 Yes, yes, exactly. And I want to correct myself. What Lori talks about is the impact entrepreneur, not the social impact. I want to make sure I don't confuse our listeners and viewers. Okay. So I want to go next. I want you to talk to us about be the bison message that you have that encourages leaders to turn toward the storm rather than running away from it. I love that concept. I think that I love the, you know, just the whole image that you have of the bison on your website to be able to capture that. Yeah. Yeah, just real quick context on that. So I briefly mentioned in my service work, my volunteer work about being a canine handler. So one of the. Experiences that I had last year in 2025 here in Central Texas was the Kerrville floods. And for your audience, 2025, big floods here. Unfortunately, nearly about 100 people lost their lives in that.

43:43 And I worked. I worked out there with my canine for nine days. And so this idea of going into the storm or being in the storm kind of hit me right in the face. And the first successful startup that I was involved with, we started the venture in a bison meatpacking plant. And then I started getting around some other leaders, and they were talking about be the buffalo or be the bison. So it's not a unique concept that I've created. But what I've done with it, is with leaders, we do a great job of saying, hey, here's how I grew the business, how successful we were, here's the impact that we made. Those are all really good things. But I thought, wouldn't it be interesting to talk to leaders about an authentic time where they've gone into a storm in life, whether it's in their business or personally, right?

44:31 How did they get through that storm? And what was the message or what was the impact beyond the storm? So I've tried to incorporate that now into my brand, if you will, and getting with leaders and hearing their stories about, hey, here's a storm that I went through, here's how I got through it, and here's what was on the other side. And It's just a great way to share those really impactful stories. I love it. I love that. I love the whole concept and the whole premise. I align with that. You're more than welcome at any time when I host my weekly interviews. You're more than welcome to come on and share a story if you like. Oh, I love that. I'm in. I'm in. It's always going to be on the other end of the mic.

45:12 Yeah. It's a good thing. Okay. I'm in for that. Okay. So now I want to take us. We're starting to get into the home stretch here. I want to talk about your perspective and what you've seen and your experience in helping that relationship between a leader's inner life, their values, their beliefs, and their own sense of individual purpose that might or might not be directly connected to their business, and how the culture of their people experience every day. What's that connection? How can they ensure that that is a vital and strong connection, an authentically expressed connection? Yeah, I think of communications, right? The things that we say are important, but I think probably more importantly is what we actually do, right? So, you know, I can say, and you just mentioned this, hey, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that, and then you don't follow up, right?

46:08 It starts to erode maybe some trust or respect or what have you. But I think great leaders, not only do they share the vision, they share the passion, the mission, but they begin to demonstrate how they're living it out. And I think that's where you start to see the culture develop because then people want to come join that. Organization and say, hey, I want to be more authentic. Or, hey, I've seen the CEO or the chair of the board share a struggle that he or she is going through and then how they've gotten through that and how they lived through that. So I think it's really important that we, we live by example and, and let our yeses be our yeses, be our noes, simple things like that. But, you know, just demonstrate to others about how we want to lead and show it versus just saying it.

47:01 I so align with that. Okay. So to bring us home, Andrew, I have us finish here with this notion of something about success. And so there, If you could challenge every entrepreneur or executive who's listening to this conversation to make one change in how they define success, what would you ask them to do differently? I'd ask them one question is define what your legacy is going to be. To me, success is a temporal thing. And it's not a bad thing. It's a very good thing. Hopefully people are thriving and striving to be more successful But ask yourself the question is, what is my legacy going to be? So when I leave this earth, what is the enduring impact going to be to others that I leave behind?

47:52 So that's where I would start. It's a challenging question. It is a challenging question. That was a beautiful response. And of course, I align with that as well. And that would really radically change, I think, a lot of behavior if you focused on that. Absolutely. Wonderful way to finish. Andrew, I'm so happy to know you. I'm so happy to be connected with you and have you on the podcast to share your wisdom and experience across the globe. We need this message. So thank you. Thank you and appreciate the invite. I hope it makes a difference to your audience and listeners. And again, I'd leave with that one question for your audiences. What is my legacy going to be? Thank you, Andrew. Beautiful. Listeners and viewers, you are going to want to learn more about Andrew Rausch and the work he's doing at Venture and Philanthropy. You can start by visiting the website, simply ventureandphilanthropy.com. You can also check out his work that he's doing to support leaders and growing their teams at solidleaders.com. Last week, if you missed the live show, you can always catch it via recorded podcast or wherever you find them. We were on air with Dr. Gleb Sipersky. He's a behavior scientist and CEO of the Future of Work Consultancy Disaster Avoidance Experts where he helps tech forward leaders stop overpaying for AI while boosting engagement and innovation. We talked about his latest book, The Psychology of AI Adoption at Work, From Resistance to Results.

49:12 And one of the best pearls I got from the book and our conversation is how companies and leaders can win when they enroll and teach their employees how to build AI. gen AI, to power the organization rather than buying black box AI technologies and expecting employees to embrace them. In other words, build in-house. People will support what they actually create. Incredible advice. We'll see you next week for another nourishing, inspiring conversation. We'll be on with David Goldring. who will be sharing his insights from his book, Stand Up and Lead, Turn Comedy into Leadership. And he'll be sharing how much he's learned to draw from his own experience doing stand-up comedy to unite the audience that he's trying to make laugh to how that translates to leading the 200-person team that he runs today. Now, as somebody who today intentionally takes improv classes here and there, I do that to become a better listener, a better connector, and a collaborator. I can tell you that you're in for a treat. So we'll see you next week. Let's continue leaning in to help more people flourish, elevate your operating system as a leader, and create destination workplaces where legendary business takes place. Let's work on purpose.

50:20 We hope you've enjoyed this week's program. Be sure to tune in to Working on Purpose, featuring your host, Dr. Elise Cortez, each week on W4CY. Together, we'll create a world where business operates conscientiously, leadership inspires in passion performance, and employees are fulfilled in work that provides the meaning and purpose they crave. See you there. Let's work on purpose.