Authors On the Road, Changing the World – John Hope Bryant

Filed under: Big Ideas,Social Responsibility,Social Responsibilty — Aaron @ 3:31 pm

In the rapidly changing world of technology and the way we utilize that technology, we often forget many of our institutions were built over the phone, forming relationships with the people with whom we wanted to do business. In a group meeting here this week, our retired founder and president Jack Covert made the argument that if we want to maintain our current relationships better than our competitors and add something to their lives that others don’t, we need to pick up the phone and have a real conversation with these people we value. We are fortunate that our business is still very much a people-orientated service company that really enjoys those breaks in the email or social media chain, and we’re lucky to have formed relationships with authors and institutions who uphold that same type of “old school” ethos.

In 2009, I had the privilege of taking a call from an exuberant, passionate, caring man by the name of John Hope Bryant. I’d started at 8CR five years prior, taking notes from Jack, watching him educate every person he spoke to on the phone about the publishing world and how our team of people could help. I learned how to talk to really intelligent people about the nuts and bolts of selling books, promoting their ideas, and making their platform a success, but up until that day in 2009, I honestly hadn’t talked with many people who weren’t trying to figure out how we could help sell their book.

What John was truly passionate about was making a real change in public policy to help those who had had the chips stacked against them by the system; he had a platform and a product in his book Love Leadership to make that vision a reality. That day gave me my greatest life lesson: the main point of why the people in my world do what they do is to help people and to possibly make the world we live in a better place. This past June, John released his second book How the Poor Can Save Capitalism, in which he radically redefines poverty and wealth while offering a real way forward. The HOPE Plan, a straightforward, actionable process, helps build financial literacy and expands opportunities for the poor or working class to join the middle class. Talking with John on the phone a few months ago, I was energized by his sincere enthusiasm as he said, “I honestly believe that this book and the work we’re doing has the chance to finally create real domestic policy changes,” and I for one am excited to see his work accomplish that dream. As John states in a recent feature for our “Thinker in Residence” series, “It’s not like we delivered ‘the memo’ and poor, working class and middle class folks flubbed it and failed the test. We were simply never given the memo.”

Read, share and comment the complete and original article here.

 

Watch the 4-minute movie on How The Poor Can Save Capitalism here.

Listen to the first national interview for How The Poor Can Save Capitalism, on the Steve Harvey Morning Show here.

Join the national HOPE 100-City Book Tour here. 

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