Personal Transformational Leadership | Rav Bains

It wasn't until one day somebody said to me, what are you, Rav? And I thought, I'm nobody, I don't have anything. I thought, I've got to get some education because you need it. I've got to grow up. Sometimes we need some spark, something that lights our fire. Hello, this is Raymond Aaron, New York Times top 10 bestselling author, bringing you Respark Your Light podcast, the world's premier podcast to ignite the fire, to allow you to live life on your own terms. Every single Thursday, I bring you a multimillionaire world famous celebrity to teach you about the most fascinating ways in order to live a far better life. Every single Thursday, you just need to subscribe by hitting the subscribe button. I'll see you every Thursday to Respark Your Life. Yes, this is Raymond Aaron, the founder and interviewer of Respark Your Life. And as you know, you've heard it so many times, I find stealth geniuses whose wisdom you could never get on your own. And man, have I reached for the top this time. This gentleman, his name is Rav Bains, is a visionary leader in social impact and organizational transformation. He's the author of Unlocking the Secret to Success, and he's a recipient of the prestigious Senate of Canada 150 medal, awarded for his outstanding contributions to child welfare and community services. This national honor commemorates the 150th anniversary of the Canadian Senate's first sitting, celebrating individuals whose work and dedication have helped make Canada an even better place to live. Wow, wow, wow. I know him well, I know his family well, we've dined together, we've gone on vacations together, but wait till you hear his powerful wisdom. He's here not because he's my friend, he's here because he's powerful. Rav Bains, are you with us? I am with you, sir. I am excited and I am looking forward to this podcast. And thank you so much for the invitation, it is much appreciated. Well, you deserve it. You deserve it, but right now, my listeners are saying, deserve what? What is he? Well, this topic is personal transformational leadership. And he has had such wisdom in this area. First of all, why don't we start soft with telling us about personal development? Well, personal development, unfortunately our education system really doesn't touch on personal development at all. What our education system and our social conditioning does two things really. One, it teaches us technical skills. If I write an essay, I give it back. The better I regurgitate what the professors give, the more marks I get. What it doesn't do is actually help us to, how do we live in the world? How do I go about doing the things that I want? How can I be at my best in wherever I am? So personal development really is self-education. And my view is either you have self-education or you're not educated. And I can share with you my personal story. Raymond, I got kicked out of school, I got nothing. I got kicked out of home simply because I was marrying somebody who was a different religion than me. I was homeless. I was drinking all the while. I managed somehow to find a landlord who would let me live free until I got a job, Irish person who's like a father. It wasn't until one day somebody said to me, what are you, Rath? And I thought, Jesus, I'm nobody. I don't have anything. And that one remark of this person got me onto the track of two things. One, I thought I've got to get some education because you need it because you want to get into an organization. They look at your resume, they just got a MSW, whatever. And the second thing was, I thought, and this is, I said, I've got to grow up. That was myself to me. I've got to grow up. And I was in, what, 24, 25 at that time. Got nothing. So I was very lucky that somebody had made that statement that actually woke me up. And sometimes we need some spark, something that lights our fire. And that got me onto the journey of education. And I went degree after degree, got up to the PhD level, et cetera, became CEO. But in the middle of that, I did not realize that my education was not going to make me a good leader. Oh. It was not going to make me a good leader. I realized how stressed I was, how leadership was out there, leadership was doing things, leadership was about strategy and performance and performance indicators. And if only people would behave themselves and do what they need to do, everything would be fine. And it wasn't until one day I was so stressed out, went into the office, put my head on the table. My in basket was this high. And there's a little card there waiting, just there saying, are you stressed out? Do you need to get to level? Free workshop, King George Hotel, 10 to 12 o'clock. It was on the day. I said to my secretary, Sheila, I said, Sheila, all phones are off. I'm going, anybody wants me. In those days, you had a pager. You didn't even have a cell phone, right? Page me if you need me. Go to this workshop, which was the Dale Carnegie course. Changed my life. And I thought, oh my God, it's all about me. It's all about me. And that's when the light bulb went off. And I thought, my God, I've been thinking how people are broken, organizations are broken. But if I don't fix myself, which is the biggest, most powerful thing you can do, is if I don't get my thinking straight, then I realize that companies are not, leaders are not managing companies. They're managing nervous systems. They're managing emotional human beings. But if I don't manage my nervous system, because I'm not only carrying this body around of who I am, but if I'm not managing my nervous system, then how do I manage 500 nervous systems that are in the organization? And that's what personal development and personal transformation is. It's not transactional. Let's get down to the real deep meat of this. You have my love and admiration forever because you entered an organization, Children's Aid, which sounds like nice. There should be an organization, part of the government, which if the parents die, there's gotta be an organization, take the kids, make sure they're safe. But it has turned into a suppressive organization, into a very, very ugly organization that does mean and horrible things to children and to their parents, and causes them hundreds of thousands of dollars of completely wasted legal fees. For example, let's just give one example. At the end of each year, the number of children under care is what determines how much money they get from the government for the next year. So in the last couple months of each year, no child is released, even if they should be released. And no matter how much money, the parents pour into wasted legal fees. And that's just one example. There's hundreds of others. I've been trapped in Children's Aid on two occasions, and they were both ugly and disastrous. And you were the CEO of one of those organizations, and yours was the only one that was humane and honorable and actually loved the children in such a way that the children were first, not the employees. Please tell us how you transformed one of the ugliest businesses around into such a noble one. Well, that's a really, really good question. And you're not the only one, Raymond. I hear that. I used to hear that all the time. The organizations are complex. Yes, you do need an organization that protects children. Number one, Children's Aid Societies are very poor at telling their story. The communication back into the community is very poor. Secondly is it is very, very compliance-led. You've got rules, you've got legislation, you've got regulation after regulation. The money is tied to where you can't spend it. So you're highly regulated, you're highly accountable, and your hands are basically tied. If you don't go and investigate a concern and something happens, you're in trouble. You're in the media. If you do something and you don't do it properly, you can still be in the media and you still get into trouble. So how do you do a very complex piece of work that is, as you say, humane, child-focused, community-focused, and parent-focused? Well, I'll share a little story with you. In England, in London, I used to sit at the end of the year with all the children that were in care. We'd have a whole morning, et cetera, et cetera. At the end of that, I would sit and we'd had over 100 kids, and I would say, how can I help you? I was head of Children and Family Services. And this one girl, I'll never forget, she was about 14, her name was Elizabeth. She stood up and she said, Mr. Baines, I know you think you are doing the best for us. All right? She said, young offenders are put in juvenile criminal systems. For us, this is therapeutic incarceration. And I thought, wow. I never thought that this is how children felt, that this is therapeutic incarceration, even though we think we're doing something. And that has stuck with me forever. And she said, so what are you gonna do? I mean, this is a 14 year old, 100 kids. I've got all my staff behind me, right? And I asked these questions and kids ask the most simplest and powerful questions that put leaders on the spot, right? Because they are asking questions from their heart and not from their head. And so I made a promise to that young girl. I said that we will work the hardest for as long as I remain the leader, we will have the least number of kids and we will do our damn bestest to keep children and families together. And I gave that young girl a promise back in 1989. And since then, I've been on a mission. Every organization that I go into is to transform it and actually have clear set goals. And that is number one, we keep children at home. Number two, you're passionate about the people that you work with. Number three, child protection cannot be done on its own. We've got to get the police, the education and health on board to be able to work together because it's a complex system. We can't achieve anything. So when I took over this very complex organization, I was very clear only on about five things. I knew that we had to be compliant, balanced budget, et cetera, et cetera. I made myself five, I made a report card for myself. Number one, we had 700 kids in care. When I left, 150. Wow. Number two was that we were in the region of Peel, the most diverse community in the whole of Canada, 1.5 million. And we were 80% wide organization, as they would say. We were 62% diversity when I left. They had not had a balanced budget for 30 years, 40 years. And I had a balanced budget for all the 12 years that I was there. Community participation. And the reason that I actually received the Senate award was that we covered the airport. So you've got children being smuggled from all over the country. And these children, we would pick up with the police, they would come into care, and they would drift in care. Nobody was doing anything for these kids. We would look after them, they'd age out to 18, no citizenship, and away they go, and lost forever. So I said, how can this be, that we pick up emotionally abused kids from the airport, we further damage them by drifting care, they can't have education, they've got no papers. So I gave a commitment to form the very first Child Welfare Immigration Centre of Excellence for unaccompanied minors. And a senator by the name of Senator O heard about this, came to see me, invited into the Senate to give a speech on unaccompanied minors. He changed the legislation to say no child should leave the care without getting citizenship. Wow. So now it's the only organisation in the whole of Canada, they have now round tables in Ottawa, how did we do it, how did we achieve it? And now those kids are the best looked after ever. But there's a couple of things, because your question was, how did you transform it? That's a really, really tough question. I think number one, you've really got to have a clear vision. As a CEO, if you don't have a report card, if you don't role model, if you do not try to be the teams that you want, the community that you want, if you don't act and behave like that, then you can't transform it. The other thing is, nobody cares how much you know Raymond, until they know how much you care. Nobody's interested. And you've got to be able to relate to people. You've got to be able to relate to people because people will forget how much you know, but they will never forget what you made them feel. And that's the key is that relationship. And the other thing is, people don't understand the difference between visible leadership and invisible leadership. Visible leadership is everybody has a strategy, they have objectives, they have committees, they have all of that. Yes, you're needed for public accountability, but that's not where the real work happens. The real work happens when you're connecting with people, when you're calling people, when you're actually inspiring, motivating. So you're not compliance driven, you're connection driven. Wow. And I was very clear with our people in a gentle, but a hard way. We only exist for one reason. They didn't hire Ralph Baines because he might be a good CEO or a good leader. They hired him for children and families so that we could offer the best service. So I made this Children's Aid Society number one in Canada. Yes, you did it and you did it brilliantly well. I still get CEOs call me today, I've got a phone call tomorrow in fact, she's in trouble and she said, I want to know how you did it. So in my workshop, these are some of the things that I kind of show people and I'm working currently with an executive leadership team of 15 people and that's exactly what I say to them. You're not managing an organization, you're managing a nervous system, but get your own nervous system correct first because if you don't hold yourself accountable to good leadership principles and values, then don't hold other people to higher standard than you hold yourself. Wow, wow. So I'm sorry that was long, but you can see how passionate I am about this. You are and the subscribers have caught it. My subscribers have said, man, this guy knows his stuff. He knows how to take care of people. He knows how to decide what's the most important thing in an organization. Can I share one more thing, sir? This is gonna shock you. Okay. I start off with a flip chart. You know, everybody has PowerPoints and you know what the title of my flip chart is called? Let's hear it. Raymond Aaron Box. Raymond Aaron. Box. B-O-X. Yep. Raymond Aaron Box. Yep. So what does that mean? You're wondering what the hell is Raymond Aaron Box and why are you using my name? Yeah. You did a presentation in England on your 1010 presentation. Yes. One of the things that you said in that presentation is what does being in the box mean? And you said it is the sum of everything that you know. And if it is the sum of everything you know, then the results that you are getting is the sum of everything you know and you've been doing. Yes. So the answers lie where? Outside the box. And I said not only are you inside the box with everything that you know, but what's keeping you in the box is your emotions. Because every belief system, every value, everything that you do is emotionally led. So if the answers lie outside the box, then now let's have a look at the answers that lie outside the box. So I call it the Raymond Aaron Box. Wow. Isn't that cool? It is. In retrospect, I now hereby give you permission. I know. I'm sorry I didn't ask for it, but I love you. We've spent so much time together. I love the Orbit and I'm telling you the amount that I learned off you. Honestly, Raymond, the Mulberry Hill gang, the High Point University, the communication workshop, all of those, you know, the time we spent in Mexico, I was able to bring all of that into the organization. And one of the words that I started to, and I shared with them, with the director of WOW at the High Point University. So I was using those learnings from your workshops, and I wasn't getting paid anything extra to actually stimulate. And do you know one of my biggest, biggest legacy that I have left? Yes. In 48 years, eight different organizations, I'm the only CEO that have created five other CEOs. Oh, wow. Five CEOs I have created through my mentorship, coaching, mentoring, and inspiring. Now, are you gonna win everything? Of course not. Are you gonna change everything? No, but the thing is you gotta keep trying because you can't motivate people. You can only create an environment where people can flourish and inspire and motivate themselves. It's like taking a horse to water. You can't make it drink. Even if you dunk its head, it won't drink. So you can take people to knowledge, but you can't make them think. That has to be personal. But you have the secret sauce, and I know, and I'm not gonna ruin it for you, but I'm gonna let you tell everyone the surprise. As proof of how sincere you are, of deeply, passionately helping people, you have the most extraordinary gift I've ever heard. No charge, no obligation, no strings. Tell my dear subscribers what you're offering. Raymond, my vision really is to help as many organizations as I can. Excuse me. And help as many individuals as I can. That is my vision. What I'm gonna offer you, and I have never done this before, two one-to-one sessions for one hour with me personally on how I can help them on their personal transformational journey. How can they be on their A game all the time? And the first thing I say to them so they can get ready when they come and see me is I always quote them, Rumi's quote, yesterday, I was smart. I was changing the world. Today, I am wise. I am changing myself. And that will be the beginning of those one-hour sessions, Raymond. And that's what I wanna do for your listeners only. I've never done it before. You're offering two one-hour sessions with you personally. Yep. Anywhere in the world by Zoom. Absolutely. And you charge for this normally. Absolutely. And you're giving two hours for free. Two hours for free. Let me tell everyone your secret private email address so they can inundate you. So I'll say it quickly and then I'll spell it. RavSBains1 at gmail.com. And Rav is R-A-V, then the letter S as in Sierra. Bains, B-A-I-N-S, the number one at gmail.com. It's also in the show notes. Email him, set up an appointment, two free one-hour sessions from the master of personal transformational leadership, emotional intelligence, and neuroscience. Ask him any question you wish. Yes. Through his two one-hour sessions. And what is the end result? What will they get from those two-hour sessions? The first thing that they will get is they will start to understand themselves. Wow. Because what we tend to do is to say everything around us is broken. If only that would be fixed, I'll be okay. And that's where real conversation happens. That's the conversation. And then I'll leave your listeners with one last quote. The real voyage of discovery is not in seeking new lands, but it is seeking with new eyes. Wow. And that's what it's all about. Wow. Rav, you are amazing. I loved you since I first met you so many years ago. And I'm so honored that you have agreed to be on my podcast. Wow. Thank you. I love you. And I'm going to stay connected with you. And I'll be honest with you. I need to get back hooked into you, Raymond. Right on. I need to get hooked back into you. Let's reconnect. Yes. Thank you so much. And you're amazing. I love you. Wow. I sure hope you enjoyed that fascinating episode. Please make sure you subscribe and please tell your friends, if you like it, that they will probably like it as well. For your information, this experience, this service, this podcast has been sponsored by the Orbit Coaching Program. All of my friends, all my world famous speaker friends, all have coaching programs. Mine has been independently rated as the number one high level coaching program. You cannot purchase it. You have to audition for it by me personally. If you're interested, please email me at respark at Aaron.com. Respark at A-A-R-O-N. Say that you're interested in being considered for the Orbit Coaching Program and include your cell phone numbers that I personally will call you back.