Transcript:

Rick: You say leaders not looking for employees as much as players who want to play the game. And the important part are people who are serious in playing the game. What is the game of business?

Michael: The game of business is the game of life. Effectively everybody has to work somewhere. They’re either working for themselves on their own or they’re working for somebody else, and they’re working to make a living.

Effectively we know that, everybody knows that, you go to work to make a living. And everybody wants to make a living and better the…

Rick: Living with purpose, right?

Michael: But now we’re adding an extension to the story, because everybody’s got to make a living means whether you’re working someplace with a presumed purpose or not. Very critical first thing is I’m making a living.

Think about it, our working class American here in the United States today on average earns $12.30 an hour. That’s our working class. And our average worker in our working class isn’t working a full-time job.

Understand they’re not full-time employees, they don’t have to give them the benefits of the full-time employee, and they’re only earning enough to perhaps almost get by, but not really.

And that’s why there are 44 million Americans on food stamps. Effectively the government is providing the difference between what our corporations are paying and what somebody has got to have in order to in any way shape or form get by, make a living. It’s a staggering number.

Rick: Who owns that? Is it the business owner or the employee? What’s the solution? Who owns that?

Michael: The employer owns that. And the employee owns that, and the government owns that. Everybody’s got to take responsibility for their own role in that.

If I can’t change the employer, and I’m not here to do that. I’m here to change every single individual on the planet with my work. I’m here to awaken the entrepreneur within every ordinary person on the planet.

If I can’t do that then we’re out of luck. In short then we’re completely dependent upon what happens outside of them. Then the employer’s got to do it. Then the government’s got to do it. Then so and so’s got to do it. But effectively I have no control over whether so and so is going to be good with it or not. So you’re out to lunch.

Rick: Is it fair to say we all need to figure out how to add more value? As me as a business owner I need to create more value and I need to challenge my team to add more value?

Michael: I have to create more value but I also have to help the people who will join me create their own value. And that’s not to shirk my responsibility for what we do. It’s clearly and simply to take the responsibility for what we’ve committed of ourselves to do, which has become the employer of the people.

We’re employing people to enable us to achieve our corporate objectives. Then it behooves us to assist our people in achieving their personal objectives. And so that bargain has to be made. It’s got to be made or it won’t be. And when it’s not in creates conflict, such the conflict you see on the street all the time. It becomes political.