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Tell me about your vision.

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Well, first of all, thanks for having me. But it's probably easiest to start with our foundation. You know, we donate

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100% of everything we do, both on the coaching side and book sales, journal sales, course sales, etc., to our

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foundation, Send a Student Leader Abroad. And our goal, I sold my business a couple years ago. My life's ambition for,

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I call it Phase 2, is to send 1 million kids on life-changing trips. And they're, think middle school kids that go to

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Europe in the summer. And we're partnered with EF Tours, who is an amazing $7 billion company, but they've treated us

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like absolute gold. And we're partnered with them to facilitate the trips. But ultimately, it's kids that couldn't

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afford something like that. And the idea is to send them on a trip that they wouldn't be able to afford so that they can

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understand that there is no them, there's only us. And that the other 7, 8 billion people in the world want the exact

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same things they do. And what they look like and what they sound like and what they do isn't a real thing once you leave

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your bubble. And we want them to have that experience that they might not otherwise have, and then bring that back to a

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community that is not having those conversations. And our hope is that the ripple effect from that is massive.

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So in a few words, what would your vision be if you have a statement for it?

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That everyone understands that we are all one human family. That's awesome. Where did this vision come from, Rodrik?

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I was that kid. I was 13 years old and grew up poor and would never have been able to afford a trip like that and can

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distinctly remember hearing my mom and dad argue about it at the kitchen table that was 10 feet from my bedroom. And

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ultimately, mom won, spent money she didn't have to send me on that trip. And it, without a doubt, changed my trajectory,

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not just as a business person, but as a human being. And it inspired my love for travel. It taught me empathy and it

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taught me resilience and it taught me things that only travel can teach someone. And since then, I've been to 65

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countries on six continents. And I did all that while building my businesses. So while my primary work is in coaching and

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teaching others how to reclaim their time, sanity and profits, my passion is to help other kids that were just like me

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understand both what's possible and what the world really looks like when you step outside your local area.

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How did you get started on that path?

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The entrepreneurial path?

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Yeah.

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I mean, born and bred entrepreneur. I grew up with nothing. So I learned really early on that if I wanted a Nintendo or a

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bike or new shoes for school, I was going to have to figure out how to earn that money. And that started with mowing

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lawns and washing cars and collecting golf balls to sell back to the golfers on the weekends. And by the time I was 18, I

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had my first two legitimate companies. And fast forward to 42 years old, I had, you know, a dozen different companies over a

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variety of industries and was fortunate enough to exit one. And they gave me a lot of runway to be able to put these ideas in

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place.

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And when did this idea of you helping kids come to fruition? And when how did that take place? I know the I know because

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you went on trips, you want others to go on the trip. So how did that start?

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Honestly, the so when I sold, sold the business, I took a few months off, I was in Thailand, actually, when all of these

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ideas came about. But that's the book Million Dollar Flip Flops. That's where that idea started. And then I've always

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given a lot, whether it's time or money to different charities and organizations, mostly when I was in Charlotte, but

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Habitat for Humanity and the shelters and those kind of things. And so I knew when we did the next thing that we wanted

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to, so you know, all the profits from the book are donated, all the profits from that whole side of the business are

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donated. So we knew we wanted to go somewhere, but we didn't know where. And we, we honestly searched for a lot of

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different charities. And we just didn't quite, it didn't feel right. You know, it's like, Okay, we're gonna give you

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guys all this money. What are you gonna do with it? Where's it really gonna go? The same questions we all ask when we

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donate, right? And so we said, Well, why can't we start our own? And so we did. And that's, that was really the nuts and

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bolts of it. And it's, it's grown into, we have our first pilot program this year with a school in Texas. We had 100

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schools apply to be part of the program. And we'll be sending our first kids. They'll be selected by December this

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year. So this, this idea that we had on a beach in Thailand, the same time that I was decided to write that book,

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they've kind of built concurrently. And it's, it's been an education. It's been, it's been a lot of lessons along the

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way about how these things actually operate. And like most things, they look easy on the surface. And they're not once

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you dive in, but the end result is worth it.

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Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live. I'm looking forward to seeing

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your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward. This is going to get more and more fun. We'll have more

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and more engagement as well. We'll invite people to participate in the show. And thank you for giving us your time

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and attention. Have an excellent time building out your vision and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.