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So Tom Fox, tell me about your vision. My vision is twofold. One is I am a lawyer

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by professional training and I struggled for many many years about how I could

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use my law degree and be a lawyer really for good and I think all lawyers go to

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law school wanting to do that. Well I struggled with that for a long time and

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here's what I found. In the United Nations estimates that the world loses

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three trillion dollars annually to bribery and corruption and that what I

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found was that in the corporate world there is a way to fight that bribery and

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corruption. Now there are laws of course that prevent it and you could put

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programs in place to comply with those laws and that's certainly appropriate

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but I realized that I could be a part of this fight against bribery and corruption

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doing business in the corporate world and doing good and so I call myself the

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compliance evangelist because I believe compliance well first of all evangelist

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means the bringer of the good news in Greek ancient Greek and I believe

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compliance makes businesses run better it makes them run more efficiently it

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makes them run more profitably and it fights this global scourge of bribery

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and corruption so I'm a huge advocate for compliance I call myself the

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compliance evangelist I've written 33 books in this arena I have an entire

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podcast network dedicated to it but at the end of the day I'm passionate

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because I may push the ball forward an inch and to me that's progress and I

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wake up every day and I'm thrilled to do what I do so that's really my primary

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vision my other one comes from a personal experience which was I took off

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a year to race bicycles and I did that had great fun until one day I got hit by

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a Hummer that ended my cycling career and I was laid up for a few months and

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when I finally got enough energy to get on my walker and toddle into my office

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realizing I was gonna have to go back to work this was 2010 and at that point in

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my life I knew nothing about social media so I started exploring Twitter

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LinkedIn blogging etc and what I realized from that experience was I'd

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always known when the universe closes one door it opens another but what I

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didn't realize was you have to have the courage to walk through and that's what

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I had after that accident because as many people who've had life-threatening

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accents will tell you you know your give-a-flip attitude really changes and

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you become a little more concerned about things like purpose and vision and so I

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try to communicate to people that yes the universe will open a door but you

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have to have the courage to walk through and I admit sometimes that takes courage

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I was laid up with no work and new job so the courage was a little bit easier I

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had to do something but that was an incredibly valuable lesson and it's a

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vision I try to articulate to people as well thanks for sharing that so today

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which vision would you like to talk about or would you want to talk about

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both of them at the same time so the vision about walking through the door

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I came to compliance because I I did walk through that door and that's when I had

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the aha moment that you know I can make a difference literally in the corporate

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world and I don't think many people think about can a corporation be a part

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of your vision to actually do good in the world and I I believe that yes and

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so I try to help people understand you know you may be entering something in a

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excel spreadsheet but that's moving the ball forward an inch and for me that's

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motivation and so that's what I want people to understand find out whatever

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your passion is it doesn't matter to me but if you can engage in that in a

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professional life you will have a much more fulfilling life thank you for

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sharing that I'm excited to explore it more

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so how did you get started in this vision of you walking through the door

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so I literally was laid up like I said I had no work I had no clients I was gonna

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have to do something I decided that the thing I had enjoyed in my last job was

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building internal compliance programs inside of corporations in 2010 there

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were very few lawyers who did that and so I took that mantle and I became the

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nuts-and-bolts guy and that's when I began to learn about this international

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scourge of bribery and corruption and realized that what I enjoyed doing I

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could move from enjoyment to true passion and so it was it was that journey and I

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don't know if I would have had the courage to walk through that door if I

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hadn't been so badly injured but I don't have to answer that question because I

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was and so my experience tells me that the universe is out there and the

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universe will will be there for you whether you call that karma whether you

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call that a higher power it doesn't matter to me yeah you're right when it

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comes to the international corruption and your compliance how those two relate

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sure so international anti-corruption is the payment of bribes generally to get

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a contract to get access to work to get something and so what US businesses are

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required to do is not pay a bribe to get a contract it's to level the playing

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field and give everybody the ability to compete based upon the quality of their

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product or their service and their pricing and I'm a big believer in that I

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think that that's a system that works whether you call that capitalism or

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business whatever you want to call it I think that's the way you should do

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business so that people like you and me can compete with the exons of the world

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should we choose to and by leveling that playing field you give businesses a

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better opportunity to compete but there's a flip side to that which is and

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this we learned from fortunately from 9-eleven whose anniversary we were

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coming up on corruption leads to crime leads to terrorism and there's a direct

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link to all of that and we've seen that multiple times throughout the last 20

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years where people who live in truly corrupt societies they are frustrated

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because they can't get ahead they can't compete on a level playing field like

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you and I can and so they turn to crime and then they turn to blowing up things

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and whether that's terrorism in the United States or whether it's terrorism

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in their home country it's just as terror if it yeah you're absolutely

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correct that is you don't know it's about me but originally I was born and

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raised in India and even though it's a democratic country and even though it is

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you can say there's the opportunities there but when it comes to opportunities

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in the United States and India they do not even match up it's the amount of

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freedom we have in the United States is is amazing and most people don't know it

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and most people have never felt it and it's a sad world on the other side

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then and there's worse places than that there's worse places like where people

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don't even have any rights so I and it's all because of corruption and you're

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absolutely correct it started or someone wanted more power they were more they

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wanted to covet something they didn't have and so let me tell you my story

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about what you just said my grandfather came to America in 1890 and when he was

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70 I asked him why he came to America and he said exactly what you said there

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was opportunity for me here and there wasn't in Italy so yep that was 150

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years ago yeah and it's still true today than it was 150 years ago that's yet

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America has created more wealth than any other country in the world and that's

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that is something to say and there's a reason behind that and that's because of

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freedom thank you for sharing all that but I'm still having the hard time

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understanding how your compliance is and the corruption solve each other or use

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okay sure that problem yeah all right I'm gonna stick with the energy industry

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because that was the energy or the industry I worked in and of course we're

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both Texans so we get to talk about oil so in energy energy is in places like

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West Africa it's like Central Asia the Far East where there are there may be

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democratically elected regimes but they're corrupt and their corruption is

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they will sell to the highest bidder their minerals whether it's extractive

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minerals like oil whether it's extractive minerals like coal whether

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it's extractive minerals like tungsten or tin or manganese or some metal that

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needs to be used for a conductor chip or a gold watch or an anything they will

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sell the rights to that now the rights to those minerals are owned by the

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people of those countries it's an asset of those countries but those dictators

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those corrupt businessmen are literally taking billions and trillions annually

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to sell those rights which should be and the poverty we see endemic poverty today

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in many West African countries it's it's called the curse of oil and they are

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oil rich countries yet they are some of the poorest countries in the world and

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I don't want to pick on West Africa but it's the same is true in Central Asia

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the same is true in the Far East that where there are minerals to be extracted

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they are usually sold by corrupt government officials who don't own them

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those are owned by the people of those countries so that's the corruption part

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the compliance part for the energy industry is don't pay a bribe to get

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that mineral you can certainly bid for it openly you can bid for it fairly you

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can pay the highest price but you pay that money to the government of that

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country for the benefit of the people of that country you don't pay that money to

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an individual government official so Exxon may come in and pay ten times

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what's anyone else pays and people claim oh Exxon's is paying a bribe no no no

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Exxon is paying that money to the government of that country if Exxon

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wants to pay ten times to get something they see a value and they're paying it

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fairly openly and to the government that's fine but when you start paying

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it to the president of the company or the daughter of the president of the

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company country rather or oil ministers from that country that's bribery and

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that's corruption and that's what energy companies can prevent and should prevent

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and what I do is help them put a program in place to prevent that from happening

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you have you train employees not to do it but you have controls in place both

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internal financial controls and other controls so that money can't be used to

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pay bribes to secure those extractive minerals that is awesome but let's go

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to the next part of the situation but what if and I think that's comes to the

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choice because the people that these companies probably are bribing and they

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want to bribe are the people who want to be bribed because they want the extra

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money so is there some compliance that helps in that aspect as well you have

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to as a US company say no we are not paying a bribe we may pay your like Exxon

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we may pay ten times to your country that's fine we may pay a premium that's

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fine because the money is going to the government coffers and what they may do

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with you know the government coffers that's a different question and we can't

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control that but we can at least make sure the money is paid into the

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government coffers and that's what I try to help companies do legally and when

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you do that and when you have the reputation for saying no we're not going

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to pay a bribe eventually they stop asking for it what if they go to someone

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else and it's a same thing sure they always can go to someone else but here's

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the thing who are the best companies in the world to extract your minerals they

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are generally US or other Western companies or Australian who have been

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doing it for a hundred or a hundred and fifty years and not only are they the

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best they're gonna pay you near the top and they're gonna hire your local people

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to do on-the-ground work and if you if you do a same deal with China for

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instance they just bring in Chinese workers the country gets no benefit they

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may get may or may not get a functioning railroad or a functioning bridge or a

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functioning something but when it breaks those people are long gone and those

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workers who know how to repair are long gone and if US company comes in and

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builds infrastructure if a US company comes in and extracts minerals they're

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gonna have to hire local people to help do the work and those local people are

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gonna be trained and that's gonna be the next generation of literally workers

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from that country that is such a broad perspective that I did not think about

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thank you for sharing that Tom that was very insightful my next question for you

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is you talked about little steps and next steps where are you going with your

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vision well what I've tried to do is articulate my vision and a little to get

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on the highest mountaintop and shout it out and I've done that in written format

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blogging I've done that in book publishing I do that in the podcast

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world I have a podcast network dedicated to compliance I do speeches and

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interviews I'm gonna continue to do that I'm really invested in the podcast

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world which is kind of how we got connected because I think this is a

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format that really lends itself to this type of conversation you know we can

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take it any way we want doesn't matter I mean we've got some time constraints but

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we're gonna meander and wander just just as we have in this podcast and so I'm

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really committed to the podcast format to try to move my vision along but I'm

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gonna keep doing all of those other things as well as as long as I'm able to

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do so thank you for being here today I'm really happy that you tuned in to

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vision pros live I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes

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continue to move for this is gonna get more and more fun we'll have more and

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more engagement as well one by people to participate in the show and thank you

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for giving us your time and attention have an excellent time building out your

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vision and becoming a vision for yourself