Stories That Move
We've been dreaming about this for a long time... and now it's finally here!
Get a first look at DreamOn Studio's brand new podcast, Stories That Move!
When we create videos for our clients, there's often incredibly rich narrative that we can't include in the final cut. Being behind the scenes, we're fortunate to hear the depth and full context behind each story.
So in this podcast, we want to pull back the curtain and allow you to experience the extraordinary stories of extraordinary people we've been honored to connect with.
Go on an adventure with us.
Gain a new perspective.
Learn something new.
Be challenged.
Feel inspired.
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Stories That Move
Ben Higgins | Beyond the Bachelor: A Journey to Impact
Ben Higgins, familiar to many as a former star of ABC's "The Bachelor," joins us for an episode filled with insights and inspiration. Ben shares his journey from the world of reality television to leading Generous Coffee, a business with a mission to drive social change. By leveraging his platform, Ben has cultivated a life of purpose, marked by personal milestones such as his life in Denver, his marriage, and his anticipation of fatherhood. This transformation is both profound and relatable, offering listeners a glimpse into the complexities of fame and the fulfilling path of social entrepreneurship.
Listeners will find themselves engaged as Ben recounts the surprising twists of his life, from working in finance to unexpectedly entering the world of reality TV. He opens up about the casting process for "The Bachelor," the emotional challenges of the show, and the supportive role his community played during this upheaval. Through it all, Ben found space for self-reflection and growth, allowing him to reassess his life’s direction. His story is a testament to the importance of embracing unexpected opportunities and using them as vehicles for personal development.
Our conversation also highlights Ben's dedication to empowering communities through Generous Coffee. This venture, which donates all profits to nonprofits, exemplifies the power of generosity and small wins in enacting meaningful change. Ben shares his experiences with sustainable nonprofit fundraising, the impact of community involvement, and the creation of a unique business model focused on generosity over profit. His insights, combined with stories from his book "Alone in Plain Sight," provide a compelling narrative on the importance of community and the transformative power of giving. Join us as we explore how one person's actions can inspire and drive positive change.
If one life is better because of the life that you've got to live, it's all worth it. If one person in your life is able to take, you know, the next best step, one more breath, wake up the next morning and have one new day in front of them because of your life, it's all worth it. I think you start small and then you hope for big things. Those don't always happen, but you start small and you start to celebrate those small wins too.
Speaker 2:Welcome to another episode of Stories that Move brought to you from Draymond Studios. I'm Mason Geiger, here with my co-founder, matt Duhl.
Speaker 3:Today we're chatting with a guest who's no stranger to the spotlight but shines brightest in his efforts off camera. Joining us is Ben Higgins, best known for his role on ABC's the Bachelor, but here today is the president and co-founder of Generous Coffee.
Speaker 2:Ben wears many hats as a speaker, author and advocate for social change. We'll explore his journey from reality TV star to a leader driving impact through social enterprises.
Speaker 3:We'll discuss his early influences, the pivotal moments that guided his career path, and how he's using his platform for a greater good. It's going to be an inspiring conversation, sprinkled with a couple of never-before-shared stories from the Bachelor.
Speaker 2:So let's get started and welcome Ben Higgins to Stories that Move. Welcome Ben Higgins to Stories.
Speaker 3:That Move. All right, welcome back to Stories. That Move brought to you by Dream On Studios. I'm your host, matt Duhl, with me, as always, mason Geiger.
Speaker 2:Mason, how are we doing today so good, so good, so excited for today's conversation with a good friend?
Speaker 3:and yeah, absolutely, this is going to be a fun one. So with us today we have of the bachelor fame, season 20 of the Bachelor, ben Higgins, also co-host of the Almost Famous podcast, author of Alone in Plain Sight, president and co-founder of Generous Coffee, public speaker, golf pro friend, ben Higgins, with us today. Ben, so good to have you.
Speaker 1:You got one of those things right. I am a golf pro. Yes, In my mind I tell people I go to bed every night thinking that I'm a pro and I wake up every morning and realize it's not true. Hey, it's good to be with you guys.
Speaker 3:Great to be with you, and this is cool because Mason Ben, you guys went to high school together, so we're kind of going way back on this one.
Speaker 2:Go way back. It was funny. I found some old, old TSP and intros the other day on YouTube.
Speaker 1:That popped up on my feed. I was like man.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think that's where your video career really took off.
Speaker 1:You know I've thought about that so often. So this was a show that our high school did for like the morning announcements and it was a really cool opportunity if you think about it. The high school invested so much in kind of doing this on air broadcast and it took a lot of work to put this on every morning and I remember going back and like really loving hosting it and like really having a good time with it and feeling very comfortable doing it.
Speaker 1:Uh, I'm sure if I watched it it would be so cringy, uh, but I do think it like played a big role in kind of my comfortability in front of a camera and then also just my ability to try to communicate a message without, like, losing your words. I still do, but yeah, that's wild. I would love to go back and watch those.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's so cool. Well, you'll be happy to know that we still partner with the high school program and Scott Green, who's now the digital media teacher, and the students come here once a year and do the news out of the studio. So we'll have to have you come back sometime and do some news. High school news updates for us.
Speaker 1:I would love to. That'd be a blast.
Speaker 3:That is awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that'd be good.
Speaker 3:Well, for our listeners who have been living under a rock and don't know who Ben is originally from Winona Lake, here in the area. Ben, tell everybody a little bit about yourself and just what you're up to in the world today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sure, so I am from Winona Lake. I grew up there. My parents still live there. It's still, wildly and oddly enough, like a place. I've been in Denver for 11 years, but when somebody asked me, like where's home it still is all like my first thought is always Winona Lake. I have to remember that denver is home and has been home for 11 years, and I think that's just like a common sentiment with people from that area. It will always feel like home at some level and, you know, with some unique way. But I do live in denver.
Speaker 1:Now I'm married, I have my first child uh, I don't have, I mean, I guess I'm a part of that process but my wife is pregnant. She's due in February with a little girl. We could not be more excited for that. That's obviously going to be a big life change and probably the biggest life change in my you know that's ever happened to me. But I am working on a few cool projects, generous being the one that I care about the most and that I spend the most of my time on.
Speaker 1:Generous is a coffee company out of Warsaw now we just opened up in May and it was started seven years ago, kind of with this random idea with a bunch of people from Warsaw that we could start a for profit business, agree not to make money on it and then donate 100% of the profits to nonprofits. And seven years later, through a lot of dips and valleys and headaches and joys and everything that comes with, I think, starting a business, we still exist and it's still functioning and it's been a really cool way to create story and to get involved in cool organizations that are doing great things around the world. So that's a huge part of my life. I do also still work for iHeartRadio, so I've done that, for I just signed another contract, so I'm going to be 11 years with iHeartRadio by the time that contract is done, which is crazy. Wow.
Speaker 1:I started this whole thing back when we would call each this is iHeart right Big company, uh, should have everything to their disposal. When we started that show, I was calling my cohost on a cell phone and we were patching in third line iHeart to do the editing and recording of it, and we recorded it for a year and a half on cell phones. Uh, that is wild to think about that time. So that still exists.
Speaker 1:And then, um, the thing you know, I have a couple cool small projects uh, the restaurants are, you know, were something I got involved in way before the bachelor. Uh, I fell. I kind of fell into it because I had no friends and I bellied up at the same restaurant every night for dinner and finally the guy was like hey, do you want to like help pay for this? You buy a lot of food here. You want to like invest? And I said yes, and we've grown to 20 restaurants now over eight years, which is crazy. So that takes up more and more time and the kind of a fun, unique way and I, you know, right now that's kind of it, um, and it really, you know, I think when I say it it sounds like a lot, but the cool part is a lot of those things are pretty hands-off for me at this point, um other than generous and uh, you know, so it really isn't. I just gotten to be involved in some really cool things.
Speaker 2:So during that journey and yeah, I mean I guess back up a little bit into like schooling, college, like how did you ever think that this is what you would be doing? And helping run and lead multiple companies and organizations, and like what does this process in your journey look like?
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I mean, I think at some level I always wanted to have a seat at the table and I was never very good at following directions, and so I always felt like my unique place in the world had to be maybe not in leadership, because I don't think I was capable or had the character or character or the values for a lot of my life to be in any leadership position, for a lot of my life to be in any leadership position. But I knew I was going to have a hard time kind of kind of following along, working you know for the man all the time. And I learned that right after college I came out to Denver to work in finance and I was a business analyst and I my soul was like very sucked. I felt like a robot. I'd show up to work every day uninspired, kind of clocking in, clocking out. It felt like I was excited about time passing instead of enjoying the time I was in. I was really excited for 5 o'clock to hit every day, and I did that for six years of my life and even after I was the Bachelor, and it was not a good season for me and I learned then that I had to step it up in a lot of ways in my life so that I could get in a position where maybe I didn't have to clock in and clock out every day.
Speaker 1:Uh, I also think that I learned a lot. You know, even some of my most formative years were definitely high school, like for most people. But I had a very low level of self-esteem and at some time you know I still do also, but it's now as I get older I've, you know, developed some ways of kind of combating that and speaking better things into myself. But athletics were a big part of my life and then I got really hurt. I just totally destroyed my knee in a football game my junior year of high school, and so for something that was so like athletics were my identity, for that to be stripped away from me really caused me to ask myself, like, what is life about? Like, who am I outside of this?
Speaker 1:And it was a hard season of life for me with, you know, a lot of addiction, a lot of really struggles with mental health, a lot of questions of is this even worth it, kind of questions coming in, a lot of questions on faith at that time too, for and I think my friends and my family was. I got through that season? Uh, it wasn't easy, it wasn't um quick, but it was like this grind to kind of reform me into a better man and to a man that had to ask myself those questions. So, long story short, to answer your question, I think it was the bachelor them that kind of gave me this boost that I needed at the perfect time. I have no doubt that there was some divine intervention at that point in my life.
Speaker 1:I think it's a weird thing to say is, hey, the bachelor was a God-given gift for me, but I was so low that what the bachelor did was it allowed me three months of my life away from cell phones, away from the world, to reflect, to think a lot, because there's no, there's very little distraction to communicate my emotions, my feelings, my thoughts about myself. And then I came out of that and I think I had just a clear, like a clear, some clarity on who I am, what I care about, what I'm about, what my passions are, and that launched me into a whole new you know sphere after the show, where I was also just handed a platform and was allowed and kind of said hey, use this platform for whatever you want and for me it was well, let me take these things I've always cared about now and try to get more involved in.
Speaker 3:It was well, let me take these things I've always cared about now and try to get more involved in and so that gave me a lot of confidence and has kind of still been the defining reason that I'm sitting doing what I'm doing today. That's awesome. So one thing I heard you say is still now you still struggle with some of the self-esteem pieces and I think maybe some people would hear that and go wait a second.
Speaker 1:I mean, you're America's favorite bachelor, Like how in the world could you, with your platform, struggle with those pieces? I'm just king of the nerds. If I'm America's favorite bachelor, I'm king of a bunch of rejects and people that can't find love on their own. Um, you know, I I don't. I don't know necessarily why I struggle with it. I hear that and I understand it.
Speaker 1:I think the thing we're learning today more than ever is that we have to not assume things about people or define people by what we think and see, because I think it takes a lot of work to get to know somebody. Once you get to know somebody, I think you get to learn more about what they're for and against and what they're struggling with, but also what they're excited about. I think there's multiple things in my life that have caused me to kind of question my worth, my value, what I can bring to the world, what I'm offering to the world. Those questions come up in my life very often, and then I mean quite honestly, I think starting your own business, as you two know, for as exciting as that is and probably for as cool as that looks on the outside, it brings a lot more questions of can I actually do this than just working for somebody, the seasons that feel like failures, the seasons that feel like we're never going to see a brighter light at the end of the tunnel.
Speaker 1:Those questions come up all the time when you're starting a business and you're running a business and I think it oftentimes kind of, for whatever reason, it continues to remind me maybe you're not good enough for this, maybe you're not made for this. But, like I said, I think over time I've been able to develop some skills and some tools, based from counseling and from life experience, to continue to talk to myself in a more positive way, to tell myself yeah, you're made for this, you can do this. And even if you can't maybe this thing closes down on it it doesn't mean that you know you still don't have value, and I just had to learn that over time. So I, because I can't let myself continue to just dip down into the you know, dark nights of the soul every time something bad happens.
Speaker 2:So I'd love to go back a little bit. So you're talking about the, the six year window, you're in Denver, you're working in finance, um, and then you kind of a low point bachelor comes into play in that kind of six year like law, and this opportunity comes up. Yeah, I mean what were? Did you have reservations about going on the bachelor? Did you feel like, oh, yeah, this, yeah, I mean, what were? Did you have reservations about going on the bachelor? Did you feel like, oh, yeah, so something I could do or I want to do, like how'd all?
Speaker 1:that come about. You know I've for as low self-esteem about as I've always had. I've also had, uh had to combat a very big ego oftentimes in my life, and so I've always had a pretty big ego and I've always, for whatever reason, thought like, um, you belong. I've always had this feeling of me belonging, wherever that may be. And I was working and finance, like I was saying, in the basement of this office complex and I was in this cubicle and one day the chief marketing officer, she came up to me and she said hey, there are, uh, I love the show the bachelor, and I had watched it with my mom growing up, off and on. I think we caught like four total seasons in my life and so I knew of it, I knew what it was about. I didn't ever I'm a little slow and so I didn't know that like normal people did it. Like I didn't realize that that was something that like you just get picked off the street and all of a sudden you show up to a mansion and you're on a show. I never like process that or thought about that. But she's like there's casting calls in Denver, colorado, today. Uh, if I buy you lunch, would you go down and do the casting call. And I was like I am not standing in line at a casting call for a dating show. That sounds like, yes, I am pretty low in life, I'm not that way. And so she said, ok, second option If, if you came up to my office, would you sit with me and we signed you up online, would you go through the application process? And I said I would. That sounds fine. So I did, and it wasn't six days later.
Speaker 1:But let me let me go back a little bit. What she said to me was she said, uh, you're single, uh, you're not dating. I didn't have any friends in Denver at this point. I kind of moved out here just for the job. She's like you don't have any friends, you work all the time because I wasn't great at my job, so I had to work more hours to just keep up with everybody else. And she goes and I can tell you just don't like it, like you don't like your job. Um, she goes, so you need to try something different, like you need to mix this up a bit. And she goes. So there's a casting call. That was kind of her preface and I think, for whatever reason, all those things were true and must've been very clear to the outside world. They all had to feel so bad for me. Um, so I did the application and six days later they called and they said hey.
Speaker 1:So I did the application and six days later they called and they said, hey, uh, can you come to LA in two months, uh, and kind of meet with us in person? Uh, if you're still single at the time? And, uh, I was. And so I showed up to Los Angeles and went through this whole big casting process. I think there was 90 guys there and it's like this different rooms where they kind of walk you through this process, they ask you a bunch of questions about yourself. And I left there and it was another like three months later that I didn't hear from them.
Speaker 1:And then they called and they said hey, in two weeks would you show up to the mansion and be on the bachelorette? And so I said yes to that and I was so excited that, for whatever reason, I just felt like I had gotten accepted into something. So I called up all my friends, all my family. My family was like that's so wild, this is going to be so weird. And my friends, when I said it earlier, they're like uh, we'll see you. Like two weeks after the show starts, like there's a lot of studs there, they said Um, and I was like wait, that's cool, like yeah maybe and they're right, there were a lot of studs there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thanks for the thanks, for the encouragement, but I, I said I still started to question, kind of have buyer's remorse, I think and question if it was the right thing for me. And so I sat down. I don't want to get too Christian-ese on everything because that's not really how I function, but there are seasons of life that that does come up for me and it is a big part of my life. So I just said this prayer. I said God, I'm not smart enough, nor do I have the foresight I remember this prayer exactly to know if this is the right decision or not for me.
Speaker 1:So if it's not just close one door, and those three doors that I said out loud were my friends, my family or my work. I was not willing to leave my job because I was like I have health insurance. I can't leave, get fired and then try to come back and survive. I cannot leave my job. And all three of those groups said do it with open arms. My job was like take a sabbatical for as long as you need. I don't think they knew that it was going to be like six months, because I became the bachelor after that, uh, but they had agreed to it.
Speaker 1:So sorry for them. Um, but all of them said go do it shake it up a bit. And so I said yes and found myself in Los Angeles, uh, two months later, or whatever, um, showing up to the mansion to date a girl with 30 other dudes showing up to the mansion to date a girl with 30 other dudes, wow, wow.
Speaker 3:So what was the timeline from the Bachelorette to then learning you were going to be the next Bachelor?
Speaker 1:Well, the filming of the Bachelor always ends like the week before Thanksgiving, so it's like in end of November, and then the Bachelor starts filming its like first episode always at the end of this month, so like the end of September. So it's a pretty like long process. Now, granted, the Bachelor is done filming and then it airs. You know, that takes a couple months. I think it airs through August maybe, and then August is over and you start filming the Bachelor. That will air then four months later. So between filming, it's like seven, eight months, and then between airing of the show, it's about the same okay, okay I went back to work.
Speaker 1:Uh, I went back to my.
Speaker 2:I was typing user manuals for a software company in between, wow wow, it's so wild because what was it like for you coming off of filming and you're going back into like normal life, as people are just starting to watch it and you almost have this like you know the future.
Speaker 1:Yeah it's very weird. Well, you kind of do. I didn't really know what to expect. You know I wasn't an analyst of the show. I didn't know that 12 million people back then watched every season of that show. I didn't realize that 12 million people in the United States would all of a sudden have very have an interest in my life at some level, not only with like praise but critiques. You know, again, I was. I was a junior level analyst at a software company that no longer exists, so it was failing back then. It's now completely gone.
Speaker 1:So, like this wasn't an exciting world I was living in and it was a very like quiet world. So I get off of filming and only a few people really knew I had done in and it was a very like quiet world. So I get off of filming and only a few people really knew I had done it, and so those people were curious and, you know, asked me some questions like what was it like? How did it go? And you can only say so much.
Speaker 1:And then, once it started airing, I really didn't have my moment. I guess until like four or five weeks in my moment. I guess until like four or five weeks in. There was one episode where we went on a group date and we were teaching an elementary school class about sexual education and all of us were given a topic that we had to teach. And it fit perfectly for me, because in college I was a sex ed minor. I had this idea that I was going to kind of teach sexual education within the church space, uh, and try to do it in a healthy and, um, helpful way. So I had already gone to college for this, so I was like really well prepared, but I I was just excited about the opportunity to do it, so I did it and it it was good.
Speaker 4:Uh, it was good compared to those other dudes uh and I knew what I was talking about and they uh, and it blew up.
Speaker 1:It did it like all of a sudden. One episode one night it was really quiet, just kind of this fun thing that some people would talk about, and then all of a sudden it was like madness, um, uh in my life and a lot of people having an interest, and then that kind of obviously continued through the rest of the season. So it was a very weird time where you're like I have just spent three months in this bubble traveling the world, dating this girl that's now airing on national television. I've lived this, I've experienced this. This is my real life, yeah, but nobody else knows about it yet. And then once they started to, you know, it was months later. So I always have to like relive these moments too. It's like watching family videos back. I think is what it felt like the most Just family videos that people had a lot more of an interest in.
Speaker 2:So interesting, did they like, yeah, as you take on an endeavor like this, do they set you up with like media training of like hey, here's what to expect, or is it? You kind of go back and then, as these episodes launch, then you're just getting hit with this onslaught of people who are now interested in you and trying to figure out how to manage all that on their own. I don't know what they do today.
Speaker 1:I don't know what they do today. I'm assuming today they have a little more support because of the last few years the show has ran into some pretty big controversies that have made contestants have to respond to things more than they did back then. No, back then there was nobody paying attention to me from that franchise. I mean, I think they care about the lead and as the season continues I think they start about the lead and as the season continues I think they start to care about the next lead a little bit. So as the season ended, I had a team around me ABC and Warner Brothers that kind of backed me and supported me and walked me through it. But no, there was no help. You were kind of running your own race.
Speaker 3:Wow. So for you the choice to be the next lead, I mean, was that a slam dunk for you, or was that something that you just had to camp out for a little bit on it was pretty much a slam dunk.
Speaker 1:Let's be honest, hey, you're 25 years old and you're going to show up and you're going to have 30 people come and try to date you, and right now you're still working, you know, in a job you don't like. I was like, yeah, I'm in, it worked before, it worked now. And the question of could I leave my job for this was a little easier to answer, because they pay you to be the bachelor. They don't pay you to be a contestant. The contestants, you know, everything is on them. So for a bachelor or a bachelorette, it's becomes your full-time job for a year in a lot of ways, and so they compensate you accordingly. So it was, and it was a lot more than I was making, um, in my software job, and so I was like, yeah, this is, this is a pretty easy choice for me. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, anything out of that experience is is, you know, obviously it's, it's been a big part of your life. Anything you wish people knew about that experience, stuff that they don't see through the TV side of it. You're like I wish people understood this part of it see through the TV side of it.
Speaker 1:You're like I wish people understood this part of it. Um, I think I always wish, I've always wished, that people realize how real it is. Um, it is manipulated. You know producers can play, you know God at their own level. They see everything at all the times. They know who's arguing in the room and where you're walking into. Like it is manipulated, but it is very real and it's really difficult to walk through for everybody involved.
Speaker 1:Right, some people are leaving their jobs. You know, as the lead, you're breaking up with people every day for 40 days straight. That's awful, it crushes you. It opens you up to a ton of criticism because you're never going to do it right. It opens you up to a ton of criticism because you're never going to do it Right.
Speaker 1:So I and and I, I I've always wished and I'm guilty for this too, you know these are still very much real humans who are trying to function in this world and most of them probably have a story of your rejection or have a reason that they're there and how they and why they're wanting love so bad, wanting community so bad, and they haven't found it. And it's just wild. You're doing it for three months without any TV, any phone, any computer, any book. You're in this bubble and you start to just it like takes some time to get used to the world outside of it Once you're done with it, because you get so used to this kind of living in this fake bubble for so long that when you get back to the real world it moves so fast and you've lost touch with a lot, especially in today's world where information and new things are happening all the time. So I think just giving some people some grace on entering back into the world and how they're doing it is probably helpful also.
Speaker 2:So during that, like during filming, and you're in that bubble, it's like can you just paint like just like a brief, like picture, what that looks like, like what are you doing in between shoots and like what's your time going towards?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can give you a great picture. So I'm an only child and I'm an introvert, and I'm an introvert who, you know, obviously loves to talk and loves to be social, but needs for me to do that I need a lot of time away and alone.
Speaker 1:And so the show. When I was the bachelor, uh, hired on a handler to follow me everywhere I went. He slept in the same room as me, so they'd always get two beds. Uh, I would go to the bathroom and he would talk to me while I'm going to the bathroom. There was no hiding, because they wanted me to emotionally break. And I did, in fact, a story that people don't know. I don't think I've ever said it.
Speaker 1:I punched tried to unsuccessfully punch through a car window during filming because I was so mad. At one point, as the season got longer, I walked out of the day and I was mad at the producers for what they did and I was arguing with them and I tried to punch through a car window. It didn't work. The car window did not break, so that wasn't fun for me. So you start to lose it. Honestly, I'm not a violent human. I've never been in a fight in my life, nor do I want to or have any plan to. So you start to lose it a little bit.
Speaker 1:You wake up. So the normal day is wake up at 7 am is your call. 7.45 is when you leave, wherever you're staying, to start the date. So that probably means that you're going to see the women, you're telling them about the date or you're showing up to location for the date. Whoever you're going on a date with either leaves with you from the house that they're at or they meet you at the date and you kind of have that's. That date starts around 10 then. So you're getting set up with mics, you know they're getting everything situated, you know it's very much a television show at that point, and then you just have this kind of fun date that usually lasts till about 1230.
Speaker 1:You break for lunch and you split off, typically for lunch, and so the girl goes one way, you go the other way. If it's a group date, same situation Girls go someplace, you go another place. You eat lunch for about an hour and a half and then you show back up for like an afternoon portion which usually leads into an evening date, like a cocktail party. That ends for the lead. Usually I think we had to close down um, because it's two, 12 hour shift, 10 hour shift, so we had to close down around 1 30 AM. So you're in bed about two o'clock and back up at seven for it all over again, and you do that for 40 days straight.
Speaker 1:It is awful. A few years ago, when I was single I've been married now for a while, but when I was, it was I was single, I don't know what season this was they asked me to come back because I had I was single at the time, the relationship and the show had just ended. They're like would you come back and be the bachelor again? And I think I was 30, so that must have been five years ago, maybe 29. I was like, for no other reason, I just couldn't do it like that schedule's so brutal, I can't imagine walking through that again or even getting psyched up to do it again. Um, it's a long, hard, emotional experience from start to finish. Wow.
Speaker 2:And going through that experience like what was the biggest learning you found about yourself during that struggle.
Speaker 1:Well, I got. You know, I got known from the Bachelorette in this moment that I think may be the Bachelor, from the bachelorette in this moment that I think may be the bachelor. I um, there's probably eight guys left at that time we were in Ireland, um, and one of the producers comes up to me and he goes I don't like you. And that is probably the thing you could say to me when I respect it if somebody were to say that, because I feel like so oftentimes I just wonder, uh, if everybody hates me or not. At least he said it, but you could. It also like destroyed me, uh, inside, and I said my I'm. I responded with why don't you like me? He goes because you don't let me get to know you. Um, you hide out when things are difficult and you speak up when things are easy. Uh, you, you never like I, I've never gotten to know you, and so I kind of like sat on that and he goes how about you and I come, go and talk, and that's what they call, uh, an ITM in the moment? You know where you see, like your face, and there's a producer behind the camera. You're lit up, looking all pretty and beautiful, and we go in there and he turns on the camera and he turns on lights, and we did this thing for three hours. We just talked. This guy's name's Alon Gale. He's now doing horror films. He was a bachelor producer. Now he's doing horror films. Alon and I could not be more different in life. Right, he does not have a face tradition. He is incredibly intelligent. He's really creative. We were very different human beings with very different interests, but what happened was in this conversation I had with him he was brilliant and navigating and making me feel like I was actually just talking to a friend and at the end of that interview, what I admitted to him which was true to me, I'd never said it out loud was I feel unlovable, or what I think I meant was I feel unlikable.
Speaker 1:I feel like the more people get to know me, the less they like me, and so, as a result, I do I, you know say the right thing at the right moment to hide when moments are hard, and I, so I said this, and then he's like you need to tell the bachelorette this, all right. Well, ok, I know what you're doing, but that's fair because it's true, and it was this like kind of like breath of fresh air. When I said it, I don't think I'd ever been so vulnerable in my life, I think I'd hid so much in. So I say it to Caitlin, the bachelorette, and it airs on national television. So I tell her I feel unlovable and I explain why. Um and the.
Speaker 1:The response from the audience was incredible. Um, thousands upon thousands of messages of like me too. I've never I've always felt this way. I've never been able to put words to this like something I was probably most scared of airing actually became the thing that like was the best place for me, which, again, as I said, is now why I spend so much time time in my life trying to care for the outsider or trying to get involved in projects that are, you know, allowing people to be a little more vulnerable, allowing places to speak from. That's why I wrote my book alone.
Speaker 1:In plain sight, all that one moment defined so much of the next few years of my life, because it was true to me, but I think it's true to most, and so it's kind of, was my tagline, kind, uh, kind of going through. Then the rest of the process was this guy that feels unlovable Can he find love? Just let you know I did later on in life. I did not through the show, um, and but yeah, it was definitely the.
Speaker 1:I forget your question at this point, but I think it was something around like the most like defining moment or one of the biggest moments, like that. That was a hundred percent, it always will be. It changed everything for me and it it only happened because I had somebody, uh, whose job it was to care. But I just went to his wedding last week, um, he's cared since then too to just tell me really what he felt about me and then not just give up on that, actually like say I don't like you but I want to, but I don't like you because you don't let me get to know you. And that was a really cool moment for me to be able to explain myself and talk through it with him. But it also has been kind of a lesson learned in my life of hey, if I don't like somebody, it doesn't mean I'm just giving up on them. Let me give them the space to maybe talk it through with me.
Speaker 3:There's been some really beautiful moments since then. For me, that's awesome, that's so good. So, going through that experience coming out on the other side of the show you talked about, realizing I have this platform and looking for ways to use that Talk to us how generous came to be just uh, just through that moment for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so a couple of cool things happen. Um, in Warsaw, when I was younger, I went to a church called Warsaw community church and Warsaw community church used to go to Honduras, uh, every year. And my family took me to Honduras when I was in middle school and, uh, the organization we went with is a really great organization. I don't have any negative feelings towards them, but their identity was in disaster relief and so they got involved in Honduras, based after Hurricane Mitch, and what they found was like there was a pretty big demand for continuing to go to Honduras on on trips, which, for non-profits, is really important. It gets people involved, it gets them to see the mission, it's good for fundraising and it's just good for humans to go and experience different cultures, different people, different ways of life. However, I would argue today and the founder of that organization I I have a lot of respect for I would just argue they were, bet they were they were meant for disaster relief, which looks a lot different than sustainable change. I would just argue they were meant for disaster relief, which looks a lot different than sustainable change and community development. Those two things in the nonprofit space are hard to kind of align and both do well.
Speaker 1:At the same time, and back in the 90s and early 2000s, the way Americans viewed missions, work and humanitarian aid uh is a lot different than we do today. It was a lot. There was a lot less uh access to information, so it was a lot more like, uh, the prop, like these people are projects, kind of yeah, um, we're going to go down and show them what they need and what they want and we're going to help them get it. And it was very unsuccessful. But nobody understood why, like why aren't they adopting this new clean water program that we have available to them? Well, the reason was they had no empowerment in it, they had no ownership in it. They don't want to be treated like projects Like. These are real humans and they're very intelligent and they function very well in the worlds that they live in.
Speaker 1:So, anyways, I came back from this trip to Honduras. Not only was my heart broken, I was inspired, but I was also really mad because I was a food box and said, hey, good luck for the next month. It felt empty to me, it just made me angry, and so, um, but it was a righteous anger, I think. So, anyways, the couple of guys on the trip that I was on, uh came back and they came up with this idea, uh, for nonprofits now called Humanity and Hope United. And Humanity and Hope United's idea was what if we went into these communities and, instead of telling what they need, what they want, what if we asked them what do you need, what do you want, what do you dream of? And then how can we help? And that's how we guided the strategy, that's how we fundraised, that's how we picked the projects and the communities that we involved in. So this gets started, uh, this idea for humane help gets started, and it was super successful. Like, relationships were built, friendships were built. Uh, the programs that were going into these communities were being owned by the communities. They were being supported by the communities. It was an incredible thing to see. The problem was we were like in our early twenties and fundraising was impossible, was impossible. We didn't have any money. None of our friends had any money and our families were sick and tired of us calling them saying can we get another hundred bucks Because we really want to build a chicken farm. So the Bachelor happened and Humane Hope was still something I was very involved in and I was passionate about, and I get off the show and obviously I go back to my job, uh, at the software company.
Speaker 1:At that point too, I had started working for iHeartRadio and iHeartRadio was starting to pay me a salary that was, um, I guess it allowed me the consideration of leaving the finance job, but it was only taking up about six hours a week because I was just the host of two shows and so I was just recording, I was getting all the notes sent to me and then I was done and I was like I can't be just a host for six hours a week forever. I need something else to do. And I met with one of my buddies, riley Fuller, and I started telling him kind of my thoughts and you know where I was at in life. And I said you know, I'm going to miss working in business. I really love working in a business and I really love the idea of business and I really want to see I don't, I want to see a business grow. And we kind of talked it through and said what if we started a for-profit business that sold a product?
Speaker 1:At that point we had no clue, but we knew we wanted to be more in the e-commerce space or retail space and we donated 100% of the profits to nonprofits. Because what was happening at that time was Riley was running Humanity and Hope United. I was working for iHeart. I didn't necessarily need any more money or I didn't need to get paid, and I knew I wasn't going to be getting paid initially anyways. And so we had this crazy idea of what if we find a couple of people in Warsaw, or people that we know, who have maybe made it early in life, or maybe they're retired and they're just looking for a next like chapter, and we we sell them on this idea that we're going to build a business that gives back to nonprofits, that becomes a sustainable fundraising source source for these nonprofits that are having a hard time fundraising on their own specifically Humanity, hope United and we get their buy-in to invest into it, knowing that the return is not going to be financial but it's going to be the storytelling and the involvement. And so we started calling people that we knew that fit that category and we got a couple people involved, drew Scholl being one of those, and so we started Generous.
Speaker 1:We fell into coffee because we were at dinner one night and a random guy that we were at dinner with was like I got a coffee farm. You want to come see it tomorrow. And we're like, yeah, we went to see it. We're like we love coffee, we just love the. There's so much beauty to it, there's a lot of storytelling to it. The people producing the coffee are absolutely incredible. So we said let's just go back and sell coffee I don't know. So we got on my social and said if this is the idea that we have and if anybody wants to buy this coffee, let us know, and in a month we'll get it to you, because we didn't have any coffee at the time. So we bootstrapped it and we sold something we didn't have. And we went down and found a bunch of coffee, brought it back to the US, packaged it in my garage and shipped it off to all these people. And that's kind of how we started. That's how we got the capital to start.
Speaker 1:Riley and Drew are still very much part of the legacy of Generous.
Speaker 1:They're no longer involved because Drew had an other job.
Speaker 1:He was at the time pretty high up at Wildman.
Speaker 1:Riley still works for Humanity Hope United, and so then I kind of took it off on my own for a year and a half and then called up Tyler Silvius, who was the CEO in his 30s at Silvius Insurance and was living in Spain with his family at the time, and I said, hey, do you want to come back and work for free? And it's probably going to cost you some money to keep this thing going and he goes yeah, that sounds perfect. And he comes back and he moved back to the United States and Tyler and I have been running generous together now for the last three and a half years and it's been a really fun season, and so Drew and Riley have a huge part in the founding of it. And then I really have to give Tyler the credit for, um, how it's moved forward since then. Um, but that's really wild, we, we, I guess. In short, I just really gave you a long answer to saying we want to start a company that help nonprofits fundraise, and this was our way of doing it.
Speaker 3:That's awesome. That's so good. What are some of the results you've seen as going into that? How have you seen it grow? How have you seen it support some of the nonprofits? How has it gone in ways that you didn't expect?
Speaker 1:There's been many seasons of that. I don't want to shy away from the fact. There's been many really hard seasons of feeling like we weren't going to be able to keep the doors open because of our lack of volume of sales or lack of exposure, or probably entering into a space so saturated. Coffee is on every street corner, so it's really hard. Initially we thought we could get into a lot of households. We no longer really think that way. Right now it's a lot more wholesale accounts, it's gifting, it's promo uh, it's working with, you know, nonprofits and maybe creating fundraising campaigns for them. Today, uh, after this quarter, we're going to be able to uh say that we've donated over $250,000 to nonprofits which is pretty crazy in seven years especially
Speaker 1:for a business that hasn't been profitable for all those seven years and and has actually very few quarters of being profitable. That's what you get when you donate your profits, I guess. But $250,000 in nonprofits partnered partnered with over 35 nonprofits seeing you know our kind of brand get enhanced so that nonprofits are reaching out to us, maybe with clean water projects or with helping education and like school systems. On depression and loneliness, to gift, we are really a part of really cool campaign where we are able to donate money so that kids whose parents were incarcerated could get gifts for the holidays, like a lot of those things. I think we're kind of like just a conduit to a story that's created after us, which is really fun and we have to kind of be okay with that. And then now I think we're in probably the most fun season of generous, you know, with the shop opening up in Warsaw, business has really grown over the last few months. I think having a storefront and having a place that people can come into it's pretty wild, you know. I think for us we always thought we told our story to exhaustion and now, having this building, people are coming in every day from the community that we all live in going. I never knew you guys existed, what's your story? And so it's cool to now have that, because I think it gets people some more buy in. It gives us some legitimacy.
Speaker 1:We have a really incredible team there. I think what that team represents, and what we hope it represents, is always a very welcoming space for everybody. It's really close to the jail in Warsaw, and so the hope has always been like the mayor of Warsaw would be sitting in there having a coffee alongside of somebody just got out of jail the night before and that they would like be sitting in the same space, because those spaces don't really exist easily in the world. Um, and it's been this really fun chapter where you know we have this incredible team. That is welcoming, that is telling the story, that is bringing people in and, uh, you know, are motivated by something greater than money.
Speaker 1:Um, I and I think that might be unique to the community also. I think in Warsaw it is. I don't think anybody doesn't want to make money. I think that's a really fine and good thing. Like I don't want to ever like guilt somebody, but I think having a motivation behind that too, that's like I'm doing something greater for the world this is something bigger than me is also a really good like additive, and I think everybody that works there feels that way too. So not only do they want to like, provide for their families and provide for themselves and, you know, have a good time doing it that's great but they also, at the end of the day, are really doing it because they're like this is something good, and that, I think, is the ethos of what generous represents.
Speaker 3:No, I love that and and full disclosure for our listeners. So my wife Erica helps run the shop uh, the retail shop, and so I've gotten to run the shop.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, yes and so just the last few months of seeing the shop open, you know, as, as I've been there and connected with her, you know, coming in again from us running a business, it's like, hey, so, erica, how do they make the money here? And it's like they don't. It's not, you know, like that's not the point. And you know, just kind of digging into that and again seeing your posture, you and you and Tyler and the way that you have positioned this, to say, hey, we truly are about being generous and our desire is to open up this facility and just have people come in, Like you said, the mayor and someone who's got out of jail, local, you know, business people, local people off the street.
Speaker 3:There's a guy named Tom. He comes in every Saturday, wheels in on his wheelchair and he comes and he gets a free cup of coffee and sits and talks to Erica and the team and there's just this beautiful, just openness and generosity that's happening there every single week and I just I love it. I love that it's in our community. So really, really grateful for your desire to do that. So I think it's awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's, a beautiful space like what you guys have created there. It's incredible yeah and it's.
Speaker 2:it's a beautiful space, like what you guys have created there?
Speaker 1:Yeah, incredible, yeah, and it's really. You know, I live in Denver and so the idea of generous has always been a part of, you know, my world, at least for the last seven years. But the space itself, I think, is really fun and cool to see because it's not created by like any demand or vision that I've had or that really even Tyler's had. It's been created by the Erica's and the best and the Morgan's and the like. All these people who have invested time in that space are making it represent them too, and I think that can only happen in unique places in the world, and I think, as I said, kosciuszko County in general has a lot of people that not only could get behind the story of Generous, but hear about Generous and go.
Speaker 1:I want to make it a part of my life too, and I think that is one of the cool parts about if you walk into the shop.
Speaker 1:It is not this playbook of that I've created seven years ago about what this place could look like.
Speaker 1:No, that place is created by the people that are in there right now and it is beautiful, like it is absolutely gorgeous to see what happens there on a daily basis, and I think it would take. Sometimes it takes us a step back to look at it and be like, yeah, we have people who are living on the streets, we have people who just got out of jail, we have the school board meeting all in one place and getting along and talking about everybody's life. That is so cool and it's done in a respectful way, it's done in a way that lifts everybody up and that, for me, is just so fun to see. I think it represents the church really well in general, like I think it represents community really well of what a community can look like and so. But again I want to be clear I don't think that concept stands out and works everywhere. I think it really works in that town. Like it just seems like kind of platform he has, you know, tv shows, podcasts all of those things?
Speaker 3:What would you say to them about how they can use their life, their influence, no matter where they're at, to to lean in and to make a difference in the lives of others?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I think it's just taking a step. Um, I was back home in July and I heard a talk given about how to build community in a place that you're unfamiliar with, and the general consensus was, well, just get involved in any way you can. And I think you know the platform for me has been a great gift, but it's useless unless it's used for something greater than myself, and I think that same, like all of us have a platform because we have breath at some level and we have, we have this unique ability to be on this earth, and I think there is a lot to that that we take for granted and that you know, we probably we get one shot at this thing, and so my all, my all, we, my, my hope always is just take the next best step. We have this saying at generous, that we used to have to say all the time when the employees working for us we're really making no money, they were grinding to keep payroll open, and then we were also donating all this money away, and one day we had this team meeting and one of the team members goes. I'm feeling very unmotivated because we donate this money away but we never get to see any of the results. So, like we're just like a check writer, it feels very empty and we kind of talked through this on the call and what we came up with was this and I think this is a saying that stuck with me for my life since then and I think it's something that everybody should hear.
Speaker 1:So my first point was get involved. My second point is if one life, one life, is better because of the work or the time that we invested into it, if one life is better because of the work that we do at Generous, if one life is better because of the work that we do at Generous, if one life is better because of the work that you do at Dream On, if one life is better, it's all been worth it. Like that's the value we put into human beings and the value we put into this beautiful, you know, place that we get to live. Now I would like to say that many lives have been better because of Generous. Many lives have been better because of Dream On, but if one life, it's all been worth it.
Speaker 1:Lives have been better because of dream on, but if one life, it's all been worth it, and so I take that to say, if anybody's listening, if one life is better because of the life that you live, got to live, it's all worth it. Um, if one person in your life is able to take, you know, the next best step one more breath, wake up the next morning, um, and have one new day in front of them, uh, because of your life, it's all worth it. And and that's I mean. I think you start small and then you hope for big things. Those don't always happen, but you start small and and you start to celebrate those small wins too.
Speaker 3:Awesome.
Speaker 2:Love that so powerful, and when I think about taking that next step, I mean the moment that stood out to me as you're telling your story is that like you're selling coffee that you didn't even have yet?
Speaker 1:But it was like that. You came back.
Speaker 2:You're like, hey, we don't have this figured out yet, but we're going to send it out like hey, who wants coffee? And then we'll figure it out. But it was like that was kind of like the pivotal step of like we're going to do this and commit to it and see what happens. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I love that so good.
Speaker 2:So, good.
Speaker 1:We took in orders on social media and then typed them into an Excel spreadsheet and shipped them out. That way we didn't have, like, a payment processor. We had to collect payment afterwards. It was great. Yeah, don't take lessons from me on how to run a business. It's not pretty.
Speaker 3:It's awesome. That's awesome. Well, ben, you've been so generous with your time. We appreciate it so much for our listeners that want to just connect more with the work that you're doing, some of the things you're up to, some of the ways to connect with Generous. What's the best way for them to do that?
Speaker 1:no-transcript updates. I'm not great at it, it's not really the place that I'm thriving at. So you can probably follow my wife and get better updates on my life through her social media. But I think for me the ways that would mean the most would be, you know, going to generous coffee dot com and reading about the story. And then I think the second way of doing that would be picking up the book alone, in plain sight. It's probably I need people to start doing it sooner. They're going to stop printing it, and so you can probably still go to Barnes and Noble and find it. If not, it's probably on a resale website somewhere.
Speaker 1:But reading that, uh, for me is really meaningful because it tells my story along with the story of six other people who've had seasons of life or are in seasons of life where they're learning something really powerful, or they have had circumstances happen that have kind of made them learn things that are very powerful. And for me I just want to get their stories out there along with my story, because I think it would help people make a little more sense of who I am and who they are. And then my hope is at the end of the book they close it and just feel a little less alone. So alone in plain sight, uh, would probably be the best way to you know, understand my story Awesome.
Speaker 3:I love it Very cool. Well, we will provide links to those things in the show notes. Again, Ben, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for who you are, the way you live your life, the generous posture you have, the difference you're making not only in our community but communities around the world, and we really appreciate you so very much.
Speaker 1:Thanks for having me. This is awesome. It's fun to talk to people who I know so well and who are doing such cool things. So it's yeah, this is fun.
Speaker 3:Awesome, awesome, well to all of our listeners. Thank you for listening and watching along today and we will see you next time on Stories that Move. Thank you for joining us for this episode of Stories that Move brought to you by Dream On Studios.
Speaker 2:Make sure to subscribe so that you don't miss the next episode. And remember, if you or your organization have a story you're eager to share with the world, Dream On Studios is here to bring that story to life.
Speaker 3:Don't hesitate to reach out. You can find us on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook or visit our website at dreamonstudiosio. We understand how overwhelming it can be trying to bring your vision and story to life, but that's why we exist, and we've walked alongside hundreds of clients doing that very thing.
Speaker 2:We believe every story has the potential to inspire, to move and to make a difference. Let's make yours heard.
Speaker 3:Until next time, keep moving forward and keep telling those stories that matter.
Speaker 2:Take care, everyone. We'll see you next time on Stories that Move you.