In this episode, Dwayne J. Clark shares his insights on the importance of forming meaningful relationships, the impact of his mother’s Alzheimer’s on his perspective, and his holistic approach to longevity. From his roots in poverty to becoming a leader in senior living, Clark discusses resilience, the role of high-quality managers, and the pursuit of purpose.
Key Takeaways:
- High-Quality Humans (HQH): Surround yourself with people who uplift, support, and inspire you.
- Longevity Studies: Genetics only play a 22% role in longevity while purpose and relationships play a significant part.
- Leadership in Senior Living: Competency and trust are crucial for effective management and high-quality service in senior living communities.
Guest:
Dwayne J. Clark, CEO of Aegis Living and author of “30 Summers More.”
Resources Mentioned:
- Dwayne J. Clark: LinkedIn and Instagram
- Aegis Living: Organization and Facebook
- Dwayne J. Clark’s Book: ”30 Summers More”
- Full Court: The Spencer Haywood Story (Documentary)
- Brain Scientist John Medina’s Book: ”Brain Rules for Aging Well: 10 Principles for Staying Vital, Happy, and Sharp”
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Transcript
The following transcript is not certified. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. The information contained within this document is for general information purposes only.
[00:00:00] Mark Wright: Dwayne Clark, welcome to the BEATS WORKING podcast. It’s great to have you here.
[00:00:03] Dwayne J Clark: Thank you, Mark. Great to be here.
[00:00:05] Mark Wright: Dwayne, if you’re getting in an elevator and somebody turns to you and says, so what do you do for a living? You’ve done so many things in your life and in your career. Well, what’s the answer these days, Dwayne?
[00:00:18] Dwayne J Clark: Depends how much time I have, I think. it depends on who’s asking in the situation. Sometimes it’s, uh, it’s confusing to say, hey, I operate, you know, assisted living, senior housing, because people are like, well, what is that? What do you do? Is that nursing homes? You know, Sometimes I tell people I’m in real estate.
[00:00:34] Dwayne J Clark: Sometimes I just tell people I’m an investor, right? So it’s, uh, it’s, it’s funny. So it just depends.
[00:00:42] Mark Wright: Yeah, we have a lot to cover in our time together. And I’m so inspired by the way that you show up in the world and especially how you show up in the world of work. Let’s start though, at the beginning, Dwayne, uh, of your childhood. Um, I heard you speak recently and you’re very candid about your life as a kid and the [00:01:00] adversity that you faced growing up.
[00:01:01] Mark Wright: But what I’m hearing you say is that made you who you are today. Take us back to that time and how those experiences shaped who you are.
[00:01:11] Dwayne J Clark: Well, my family had a lot of poverty, Mark. And, growing up with an abusive dad and physically and mentally abusive and, him kind of deserting our family when we were seven, when I was seven years old, I’ve. Three siblings, all much older than myself, my brother, 12 years older, my sister, almost 11, my other sister, seven and a half.
[00:01:30] Dwayne J Clark: And so I was the baby and kind of the oops child. And, you know, my, my dad took off. And essentially we hardly heard from him. I probably between seven and 25 saw him three times. So there was no child support, you know, back then in the sixties, there weren’t food stamp programs, you know, so we had it, we had a rough time.
[00:01:51] Dwayne J Clark: , my, all my siblings were going to college. They got married fairly early, had children. and so my mom was trying to help them work in two jobs, helping [00:02:00] me and, she would go to work as a, as a line cook at, uh, in an airport restaurant and, um, she couldn’t afford a babysitter for a seven year old.
[00:02:09] Dwayne J Clark: So she’d bring me along and, and, uh, I became the dishwasher. My S my 15, six year old sister was the server. And, and, uh, you know, I couldn’t reach the big handle on the, uh, the dishwasher. So I’d have to stand on two Darigold milk cartons to reach up and grab it. And I, I feel like that’s such a blessing in my life.
[00:02:29] Dwayne J Clark: And, you know, I’ve told this story before, but you know, a great day in my life, I’d watch my mom come home from work at 10 5 or 6 o’clock and, you know, if she had the, the little doggie bag with the poodle on it, it would be a great day in my house because she’d take all the food off the plates that were coming back that was uneaten and surgically carve out the bite marks and, and then put it in the poodle bag and, and, that was, that would be dinner.
[00:02:57] Dwayne J Clark: And she’d tell people at work, I have three big [00:03:00] dogs, I got to feed them. And while most people may say, Oh, that’s horrible. I say, God, what a blessing, because I think, you know, these experiences that we have in our lives, this adversity is really training us for something in the future, right? And it’s a matter of how you use it and how you choose to define that experience in your life.
[00:03:23] Dwayne J Clark: You need to say, Oh, I’m a victim. And my life’s been hard and it’s been terrible. And, We can go look and say, Hey, that’s wrong. One rung on the ladder that I’ve conquered. Right now I can go to the next row. And, too often, I mean, the greatest fear I have with my grandchildren now, I have nine grandkids, they don’t have enough adversity in their life.
[00:03:42] Dwayne J Clark: I, I want them to suffer. And, you know, I, I say that with, I guess, great love, I want them to suffer so they know what suffering is and then what joy is. If you just have joy and victory in your life. You’ll never really value joy and [00:04:00] victory.
[00:04:00] Mark Wright: And when you struggle with not having enough as a kid, it really does make you appreciate, when you do have enough as an adult and that gratitude, right? Yeah. Yeah.
[00:04:09] Dwayne J Clark: Oh, absolutely. It helps you live in the present. I mean, just sitting and pausing, you know, my wife and I were in our sixties now. And so , we talk about this a lot. And, I’m writing a new book right now called miracle mornings for seniors. And one of the things I talk about is getting up every morning and just Spending 60 seconds in gratitude, three things in gratitude.
[00:04:32] Dwayne J Clark: Hey, I’m glad I woke up this morning. I’m glad I feel good this morning. Jeez. I’m, glad that the flowers are turning, you know, beautifully colorful this morning. I’m glad that, you know, my family’s safe. I mean, whatever it is, I’m sitting out. And in my home now looking out in my garden is the lushness and the greenness and just, you know, we get so busy, we just don’t stop and absorb those things.
[00:04:55] Dwayne J Clark: And, it’s a gratitude is a great thing. It’s great for our immune system.
[00:04:58] Mark Wright: Dwayne, I’d love to talk about [00:05:00] your early work life. I heard you speak recently and, it sounds like a very non traditional way of getting into the, to the niche that you’re in right now. What were your early jobs , and how did that prepare you for what you’re doing today?
[00:05:16] Dwayne J Clark: Well, that’s a very good question, Mark. This could be a three hour show, but I’ll try to make it, try to make it quick. You know, as I said, I, I worked from the time I was seven, not every day, obviously, but you know, maybe five, six, seven hours a week. And, worked in a lot of restaurants.
[00:05:33] Dwayne J Clark: , when I was young, there was a program that the government put out called the CETA program for low income families, for their kids to work. And they would put kids to work as young as 12. And so I worked in a recycling center. They taught me how to drive a forklift. I worked on a, on the highway department, setting speed limits.
[00:05:51] Dwayne J Clark: Uh, for curves, that was my favorite job because we’d drive three hours to nowhere, you know, drive 50 miles an hour and had this little gauge on the dash, go, Oh, that [00:06:00] curve is supposed to be 35. And then we get out there, get 35 miles per hour sign and bolted to a post and drive back. So that was a, that was a fun job.
[00:06:08] Dwayne J Clark: , but. When I went to college, I thought I would be a criminal defense attorney cause I was very, uh, very, very in love with law enforcement. And I think it was too much one Adam 12 and dragnet and Perry Mason that I watched, you know, so highly influenced , by my television days and, uh, got to my, about my junior year and I ran out of money.
[00:06:32] Dwayne J Clark: I was going to Gonzaga and, uh, A buddy of mine said, Oh, you know, you grew up in Walla Walla. Why don’t you go work in a prison? He said, you, he actually said, I think you’re too nice a guy to be a criminal defense attorney. Why don’t you go work in the prison and see if you like working around criminals.
[00:06:49] Dwayne J Clark: And I thought, and I go, ah, first, you know, I’d like, oh, that’s a dumb idea. You know, I’ll get a job. So that’s nice. That’s actually a pretty good idea. You know, it’s like beta testing , your demographics, you know? So, so I [00:07:00] thought, oh, I’ll go work in this prison for a year and, be done with it.
[00:07:03] Dwayne J Clark: And lo and behold, I spent seven years in the department of corrections just doing crazy cause , I was fairly intelligent and every six months I was getting promoted. And so, you know, and then by then I started to have a young family and I had two kids and so, you know, great benefits and great health care.
[00:07:22] Dwayne J Clark: And so. I spent seven years doing all kinds of crazy stuff for the Department of Corrections, being on the tactical team, running the armory. I ran, my last job was running a clinic. So I actually ran a little clinic. I was the healthcare officer and that got me really interested in healthcare.
[00:07:41] Dwayne J Clark: And so after almost seven years working in that environment, I was going to quit, go back to school, get my law degree. And my sister said, you know, you should go. You should go work in senior housing. I’m on the advisory board. She had worked for the Department of Aging Services. She goes, you should work for senior housing.
[00:07:58] Dwayne J Clark: I’m like, are you kidding me? I’ve [00:08:00] been working with murderers and bank robbers and, thieves and I don’t know anything about old people. And she goes, yeah, but , you’re in an institution, you run meal service and healthcare and so on. So I listened to her and I, I went in for an interview and, and, A great company called Leisure Care and owned by a couple, by the name of Chuck and Karen Lytle, who.
[00:08:20] Dwayne J Clark: Ironically as life would have it are my next door neighbors. I’m looking at their house right now. And so that was in 1985 and, probably the greatest thing that ever happened to me. They hired me and I spent seven years with them and then got recruited away by a company called sunrise, who was actually a little smaller than leisure care at the time.
[00:08:40] Dwayne J Clark: This was in 93 and, The CEO said, I want to be the biggest company in the world and senior housing and that company, I went with them and did a private placement than an initial public offering. I was 33 years of age. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing on Wall Street, and, uh, it in fact did become the [00:09:00] largest senior housing company.
[00:09:01] Dwayne J Clark: The world grew to, I think, 555 communities. I spent five years there. and then founded Aegis in 1997.
[00:09:08] Mark Wright: Wow. So Dwayne, back in the penitentiary, I mean, this is Walla Walla. This is where the hardest criminals, the most hardened criminals are sent. What was that like being in an environment having to I guess for lack of a better term, show compassion and empathy for these people who, many of whom are just really, really well, bad human beings, or they made some really bad choices in their lives.
[00:09:34] Mark Wright: How did you develop as a leader and as a caregiver in that environment?
[00:09:40] Dwayne J Clark: oh, that’s a really good story. I’m not sure I’ve ever been asked that question in all the hundreds of interviews I’ve had, but I’ll tell you a story. you know, so I’m going to Gonzaga and, you know, I’m leading the college life. You’re going to keggers on the weekends and parties and basketball games and so on, and, like two months later.
[00:09:58] Dwayne J Clark: I’m working in Washington state [00:10:00] penitentiary. So, I just turned 21 the week before I started cause you had to be 21. So I go from this environment of college dorm life and in the first six months in Walla Walla, they give you the worst possible jobs ever, right? Cause they want to see if you have the character and the courage to really do this.
[00:10:20] Dwayne J Clark: And it’s, When I worked, it was the worst possible time in Washington State Penitentiary’s history. In fact, Jean Dixon, I don’t know if you remember her, she was the famous horoscope woman that had predictions all the time. She predicted that, the place would riot in that hundreds of people would be murdered.
[00:10:39] Dwayne J Clark: So that’s the, month I started my mom’s, waving this paper in front of me and saying, what are you doing? You know, why aren’t you going to law school? So they put me in a wing that was called six wing, my first day, on the job. Well, they put you through training in my first day, put you through the Academy and then you go there.
[00:10:57] Dwayne J Clark: Now six wing had 325 [00:11:00] African Americans. Okay. No white people. It was all black. And so, and they, they have what’s called a day room and that’s where they go and play cards and play pool and ping pong and dominoes and so on. and they put you in there and they lock you in there with these people and, and they give you a whistle and that’s it.
[00:11:20] Dwayne J Clark: Nope. I mean, you don’t have any weapons. You don’t have
[00:11:22] Mark Wright: Oh my goodness. You were probably just scared spitless.
[00:11:27] Dwayne J Clark: Well, I can still remember this. Like it’s yesterday. They lock the door and I think, how do I get out of here if these guys try to kill me? Right? , and they give you a little notepad and a pencil so you could write what’s called infractions, citations of people. And there was this one back then we called them con bosses, it was an inmate.
[00:11:48] Dwayne J Clark: You know, boss, and he was, he was a big man. He was six, four, two 30. He looked like he could play linebacker for the Seahawks. And, uh, he lights up a joint, a marijuana cigarette and looks at me [00:12:00] defiantly. Right. And, uh, it was my moment of truth. Right. And everybody’s watching me to see what is he, what’s this young, they call a rookie a fish.
[00:12:10] Dwayne J Clark: They said, well, what’s this fish going to do? Right. And so I thought, well, this is my defining moment. If I let him get away with it, you know, it’s going to be, this is going to be the norm for my character, right? So I walk over to him, Mr. So and so, that appears to be marijuana.
[00:12:26] Dwayne J Clark: I’m going to have to take you into custody. And, and he looks at me and he gives this big smile, this big toke off his joint. And He’s like, I could have you killed right now. Right. And he goes, watch this. And he claps his hands and the lights go out. Now I’m in this, in this dark room with, you know, all these inmates, I can see no one.
[00:12:50] Dwayne J Clark: And you, and they’re shouting like, kill him, kill him, kill him, you know? And, and then he claps his hands again, the lights comes back. He says, see that. And you know, I’m sitting there, [00:13:00] trying not to tremble, cry, wet my pants, whatever, you know? And I said, Well, I’m still going to have to write you up. Right.
[00:13:07] Dwayne J Clark: And he goes, I like you. Right. And I won’t say we went on to become friends, but we went on to have an understanding of, courage and character and packing orders and so on. And, uh, and he, he led the black community that, that man led. Hundreds of black men. So if I wanted something and I became very valuable because if I wanted something done or something out to the population, I would go to this guy and say, Hey, I need your help here.
[00:13:35] Dwayne J Clark: So.
[00:13:37] Mark Wright: Wow. What an, what an interesting story, Dwayne. And he, he was really just testing you, right? New
[00:13:42] Dwayne J Clark: Oh,
[00:13:42] Mark Wright: Let’s see what we can do.
[00:13:44] Dwayne J Clark: Yeah.
[00:13:45] Mark Wright: Yeah, I guess. And you also learned in that environment, it sounds like there are rules, but then more important possibly than rules are relationships, right?
[00:13:55] Dwayne J Clark: Yeah. I think, despite why these people were in here and certainly I wouldn’t [00:14:00] condone why they’re in here. but. I mean, you can’t treat people less human because they made a mistake or did a crime or whatever. So what I found is treating people with respect and dignity, which is a mantra, with our residents today, looking at them and having candid conversations.
[00:14:19] Dwayne J Clark: We, I, with my staff, I say having the courageous conversation, because oftentimes we avoid the truth. We avoid the courageous conversation because it’s too hard, right? Right. Just too hard or painful or conflictual or whatever. So having those, courageous conversations, I think built respect and, open some lines of communication that a lot of people in my position didn’t have with those inmates.
[00:14:44] Dwayne J Clark: And, I think, Created some admiration about who I was as, as a human being. And as a person that, you know, was trying to do their job the best they could.
[00:14:55] Mark Wright: And I’m just guessing, Dwayne, sorry for laughing, but I’m guessing in terms of [00:15:00] management that you, like what could happen in management for the rest of your life that would be more threatening or intimidating?
[00:15:07] Dwayne J Clark: Well, it’s funny you say that because I mean, I I’ve had worse things that happen. I’ve, been in the middle of riots. I’ve had people, you know, lock me in a wing and try to, I won’t say hold me hostage, but essentially try to commandeer me in during a riot. So I’ve had some bad things happen.
[00:15:24] Dwayne J Clark: So when my staff comes and says, Oh. The banks did this. I go, nothing’s going to rattle me. There’s not much you can tell me that’s worse than being taken hostage and said, you’re going to be killed. Right. So, you know, I have a high tolerance for, drama. Let’s just say,
[00:15:42] Mark Wright: So Dwayne, as you entered the senior living world and you’re asked to help this company scale, I think a lot of society sees, you know, we call them rest homes, or at least when I was a kid, that was a nursing home, whatever. But our society kind of sees those places as simply warehouses [00:16:00] for people to stay until they die.
[00:16:02] Mark Wright: , as you entered the industry, I’m guessing you didn’t see the industry that way, but what was, How did you get your head around this as a career option and how you were going to show up?
[00:16:12] Dwayne J Clark: Well, I think sometimes, there are things that happen to you in your life that you may not realize at the time. It’s going to be, Predictive in terms of what you do. So my grandmother came and lived with us from the time I was probably five years old until she broke her hip when I was about 12 or 13 and moved into a nursing home.
[00:16:32] Dwayne J Clark: And one of the greatest women influences in my life, her and my mother. And, she spoke four languages. She owned a business in the thirties. She had 13 kids. I mean, she was a rock star. And, you know, when she moved in this nursing home, they treated her like, you know, she was a derelict. Right. And I w I was puzzled by that.
[00:16:51] Dwayne J Clark: You know, here I am, 12, 13. I’m like, you know, you just can’t walk in my, my, my grandma’s room and just start. Moving her and adjusting her like she’s a doll, [00:17:00] have some, you know, ask if he can enter the room, have some dignity about her, treat her as a human being. So that left an invaluable.
[00:17:08] Dwayne J Clark: Impression on me about how I saw this industry. When I got into the industry, luckily I made a very good choice and picked one of the best companies in the industry at that time, which was leisure care and leisure care really looked at this as a hospitality industry. And so they, they really wanted chefs instead of dietitians.
[00:17:32] Dwayne J Clark: They wanted, cruise directors instead of, activities coordinators, they wanted people that had, you know, a concierge at the front desk and so on. And so that, that’s how I was trained from the time I was 26. When I took that job, Hey, this is a high service industry. This isn’t not, isn’t, isn’t a high healthcare industry.
[00:17:53] Dwayne J Clark: Now, when I went to Sunrise. they did really, really well is they built [00:18:00] really incredible buildings. They have a Victorian model, uh, like that looks like grandma’s house. And, you know, I built dozens of those buildings and it was very high end, like, you know, like you’d see a Swiss five star hotel. Right.
[00:18:14] Dwayne J Clark: And so when I formed ages, I took the best of both companies. I said, Hey, I’m going to have high, high level of service like leisure care and build really cool buildings like sunrise. And then we put our own spin on it. So for those people who’ve never been in an ages, you know, I welcome you first of all, to go in any one at any time.
[00:18:34] Dwayne J Clark: But in the last 15 years, we started building a really creative buildings and have won national design awards, like eight times, like the best in the United States and we’re, we’re opening one. This month in Laurelhurst, a block from university village, kind of across the baseball field from UW baseball field.
[00:18:52] Dwayne J Clark: And it, people like, what is that building? , everyone from, it looks like Harry Potter’s house to a castle to, you know, whatever. But the cool [00:19:00] things that we, the cool thing that we do is we build it for a neighborhood. So you’re never going to find an ages that looks like another ages, right?
[00:19:08] Dwayne J Clark: So the one in Laurelhurst, we wanted it to look like a big frat house or a big sorority house. So that’s, we took this Gothic architecture, but we took it a step further. We, inside our Alzheimer’s units, we actually have a mini Husky stadium. We have a football field in our Alzheimer’s unit. I mean, it’s like one 10th the size, but it’s got goalposts.
[00:19:27] Dwayne J Clark: We have a helmet car. We have, a variety of amenities in there from a rooftop bar that looks like almost something out of the Don James center. we just opened a property in Ballard last month and Ballard’s a Scandinavian Swedish community. So when my staff said, all right, Dwayne, we know you’re going to come up with a crazy idea.
[00:19:46] Dwayne J Clark: What do you want? I said, I want a Viking ship hanging from the ceiling. And you know, they always look at me like I’d been on a drunken binge for five days. Like did he just say a Viking ship hanging from the ceiling? And I go, yeah, absolutely. And, and so, you know, they never say [00:20:00] no. They just like, okay, this is going to take us a while.
[00:20:02] Dwayne J Clark: So they built a skeleton of a Viking ship hanging from the ceiling, right? And the place is all nautical. It’s got, you know, ships, wheels, and, boat ropes and, things in it that is super cool, right? And it’s, it’s a nod to, well, you live in Ballard because you want this environment. So why would we build something that’s incongruent with the neighborhood you live in, right?
[00:20:24] Dwayne J Clark: So that’s what we do. That’s different. And it’s, it’s your community. It’s your neighborhood. And it’s. people love it. They’re like, Oh my God, this is nothing like this. Right. So that’s kind of how my influence has taken shape.
[00:20:37] Mark Wright: Yeah. It’s interesting. Are you familiar with the work of a brain scientist, John Medina here in Seattle?
[00:20:43] Dwayne J Clark: Yeah. John Medina has actually come and spoke. We have a conference called Epic that we do every year and uh, we’ve had presidents speak at it , and John came and took about brain science and he spoke at Epic. So yeah, I know him well.
[00:20:57] Mark Wright: Yeah, it’s interesting. He was one of the early guests, [00:21:00] uh, on this podcast. And I remember during the interview, he quoted, a significant study on aging where they recreated. A living space that hearkened back they took 80 and 90 year olds and they put them in this place to live for a while and they put media from the day like old newsreels playing They put pictures on the wall and they basically recreated.
[00:21:22] Mark Wright: The scenes from their youth and they discovered it had a profound impact on these people in terms of their energy and mental clarity and just their overall happiness, because it took them back to that time in their life, where they were young and they, they had no cares. Right. Hmm.
[00:21:41] Dwayne J Clark: things that we do. If, if you go, uh, let’s say to our property in Bellevue, it’s called Aegis of Overlake. if you go on the Alzheimer’s unit, we have a, a float plane and a mock Roche Harbor, crab shack in the Alzheimer’s unit. And, because that’s where people went that lived [00:22:00] in Bellevue all their life.
[00:22:01] Dwayne J Clark: They went up to Roche Harbor and hung out. So we actually got a Kenmore air float plane. We actually took care of the founder of Kenmore, but we got an actual float plane, cut it in half and put it in our Alzheimer’s unit. In addition to that. We have a wandering path that you go around and we create this little arboretum and it’s got a newspaper stand in it and we got newspapers that digitally.
[00:22:22] Dwayne J Clark: Are printing the headlines from the 1950s, right? So people with Alzheimer’s they’re living, you know, in years gone by, are looking at that and it’s, topical for them, right? It’s familiar, right? So they’re not frustrated for what, you know, president Biden’s doing today cause they don’t know who president Biden is.
[00:22:38] Dwayne J Clark: But one of the coolest things we ever did is we have a theater and the theater has a, candy stand, a concession stand, right? And, I said, you know, these people don’t realize what kind of candy we eat today, but let’s give them a moment of joy. So we found a candy company that would package things.
[00:22:57] Dwayne J Clark: from 70 years ago. [00:23:00] I mean, the candy is not seven years old. Let me be clear on that. But the packaging seven years old. So, you know, if you want jujube beans or milk duds or whatever, they packaged it the way it was when it was seven, when they were 10 years old. Right. And so I have stood there so many times because like, Oh my God, where did you find that?
[00:23:20] Dwayne J Clark: You know, is that the real thing? I go, no, the candy is still good, but it’s been packaged like that. And the reason we do that is we have this expression at ages. Let’s give people a moment of joy, right? If we can just give them that moment of joy, that’s like it was when I was seven years old. It brings back this memories and these stories.
[00:23:38] Dwayne J Clark: And my dad took me and so That those little details are what we’re so really good at,
[00:23:45] Mark Wright: Yeah. I’d love to talk about how you scaled the company, Dwayne. In the beginning, I’m guessing it wasn’t easy to get off the ground, but I’d love to know what, the key was to getting off the ground and then scaling. Cause how many, what do you have? Like almost 38 [00:24:00] properties today? How, what, what’s
[00:24:01] Dwayne J Clark: uh, with the ones in development 41 It’d be 30 38 open next month and three in development.
[00:24:07] Dwayne J Clark: Yeah. So what was that like in the early days? I mean, it sounds like a really cash intensive, land intensive, people, intensive industry.
[00:24:15] Dwayne J Clark: Yeah, super hard super super hard , I don’t wish the way we had to start the company on anyone. I found a partner who was a developer And so, he brought a skill that I didn’t have on the construction side and and the financing side and I didn’t want institutional money. I didn’t want to go out and raise money from, REITs or, other private equity or any other institutions.
[00:24:38] Dwayne J Clark: So we made a vow that we’re going to do this from friends and family. And, we went out and raised 10 million in 1997. And we thought, well, we’ll build our first property and get it refinanced. And, if that’ll help us build a second property and about six months, I, we thought this will last us about 18, 19 months.
[00:24:59] Dwayne J Clark: We went [00:25:00] through it in six months. Because we were developing and paying staff and having no revenue come in. And so we said, okay, well, let’s go out, raise another 5 million. That should get us through to. The 18 month mark raised 5 more million. We’ve run through that in a year in, in another six months. So it totally appear.
[00:25:18] Dwayne J Clark: And so my partners and I talked like, man, let’s make one more round. And so he said, I don’t think I can do more than this. And he went out and raised seven and a half million. And, that seven and a half million ran out at about 18 months, from the initiated initial start of the company. And we had about two months to go before we were refinancing our first building.
[00:25:43] Dwayne J Clark: And, um, he’s like, we can’t make payroll. What, what are like, man, we’ve mortgaged our houses. I have three maxed out my credit cards. I don’t have, I don’t, I don’t have anything left. He goes, you’ve got to have something. I’ve, you know, he didn’t have anything. I said, the only thing I have is my son’s.
[00:25:59] Dwayne J Clark: And I’m not [00:26:00] using that because he, he’s going to UCLA and that’s expensive because we have to use it because we’re not to make payroll. And I said, there’s no way I’m not going to use my kid’s college fund. He goes, Oh, we’ll pay it back in a month. So guess what? Use my kid’s college fund. He didn’t, it didn’t get paid back.
[00:26:16] Dwayne J Clark: He’s a proud alumni of the University of Washington because the tuition was, you know, a third of the price of UCLA and, uh, those are the sacrifices that you make. And, I bought my partner out in 2008. we essentially got a divorce and, you know, now, . My friends and family totally own the company and you know, it’s the best thing that I’ve ever done.
[00:26:37] Mark Wright: Yeah. And, and you finance today by just friends and family. And I watched a speech where you told the audience that you don’t waste time on creating financial reports for prospective investors, because that’s not the relationship that you have. I mean, literally your friends are financing your expansion now, right?
[00:26:57] Dwayne J Clark: Yeah. And it’s, it’s a very, very capital [00:27:00] intensive business. So, I mean, you know, if you’re building a building and it’s a hundred million dollars, you probably need 35 million in equity in today’s environment. So, it’s not like you’re, Raising a million dollars, you know, you have to raise 35 to 40 million dollars of property and we have about 335 investors now, I think 75 of those are staff current staff or previous staff and but you know, 250 are just people I know and friends and family.
[00:27:31] Dwayne J Clark: I would say over 200 or close personal friends. And you know that in itself, Mark is a motivator because you never want to ruin relationships. Right? So I just, I, I’m very careful about the deals that I get into about the returns that I promise. I tend to under promise my returns that I promise.
[00:27:52] Dwayne J Clark: Give to people because I want people to be delighted and what we’ve been very successful at is being able to you know Turn those properties give [00:28:00] people back a very healthy return and then guess what they want to do Hey, I want to give you back the money, right? And so it’s just recycling capital with the people over and over again now It’s become a little bit more challenging today with interest rates because that’s a cog in the wheel that I haven’t seen in 30 years You know, we used to do construction financing it at 3 percent and now it’s 7.
[00:28:23] Dwayne J Clark: 2 who would have thought, and that’s millions of dollars, tens of millions of dollars. So, I think pretty much everyone’s pushed the pause button on new development till rates come down. But, we’ve been through so many. lifestyle crisis. I just had an investment letter yesterday and I talked about these things to our 300 investors.
[00:28:44] Dwayne J Clark: I said, we went through the initial capital stages of not being able to raise money and then, we’re, we’re get on our feet. And then guess what happens in 2001 the world trade center happens, right? And the world freaks out for two years, the investment community freaks out, and then, by [00:29:00] 2003 we’re starting to gain some steam.
[00:29:01] Dwayne J Clark: It. What happens in 2007, we had the great recession, right? And that lasts not one or two years, but five years. And then we get on our feet and geez, by 2020 we’re cooking. And Hey, guess what happens COVID, right? And COVID in our industry was devastating. I mean, you couldn’t give tours, you couldn’t have move ins and people die.
[00:29:19] Dwayne J Clark: So the industry census fell 15%, which means you went from a profit making company to, you know, not making money. And it’s just recovering from that just now, just at this point starting to recover. So, like growing up when you have these tragic things happen to you, you can go, Oh my God, will this ever get better?
[00:29:40] Dwayne J Clark: You know, my life’s miserable. You can go, Hey, we just, we just gained a little courage here and a little resilience and we’re stronger for it.
[00:29:47] Mark Wright: Was that something, Dwayne, that you had to literally take control of in your earlier days when, when some catastrophic or bad news came in? Was it more of a, like, A reflex, or was it kind of a [00:30:00] strategy that you learned to deal with by what? Taking a breath, taking a step back, giving some thought.
[00:30:07] Mark Wright: I mean, when you get hit with something unexpected like that, what’s your best strategy?
[00:30:11] Dwayne J Clark: Well, I think a lot of it is an environment in which you grew up in, right? And the greatest gift my mom ever gave me was the gift of confidence. She, would tell me every day, you’re going to be president of the United States, right? And, you know, here we are in our little rental house with sometimes no electricity and no food.
[00:30:26] Dwayne J Clark: And I’m like, really? She’s like, yeah, we’re just like the Kennedy’s, you’re going to be the next Irish Catholic president. I’m like, really? Why doesn’t that pretty blonde lady come sing happy birthday to me then? You know, and, uh, so, you know, I had a great gift of confidence and when I would see bad things happen to my friends, I would, you know, and I don’t know if this is innate or just a weird trait of mine, but I would study how they would react to it.
[00:30:52] Dwayne J Clark: And I would, feel bad for the people who could never get out of that trench of misery, right? They just, they just like living there. [00:31:00] And my motivation was poverty, getting away from poverty, running away from poverty as fast and as far as I could was my secret to life. That’s why I feel so blessed to have the upbringing I did.
[00:31:15] Dwayne J Clark: And so I knew that if I, if that was my life goal, that I wanted to run away from poverty. That I couldn’t live in the trench of despair, that there were no, there were no millionaires that lived in that trench. Right? So I didn’t want to live in that trench. I wanted to say, okay, that happened to me. What’s next?
[00:31:31] Dwayne J Clark: Right? And, you know, I was a high school athlete, not a great one, but I was a high school athlete and things happen in sports, you know, that, you lose a game and you feel really down and you go, okay, well, that happened. Now I got to move on to the next game. And so all these little things that happened to me in life, I think develop a perspective on how I wanted to succeed.
[00:31:52] Dwayne J Clark: And I, I was talking to a friend, a very successful friend one day, and he was said, I’ve never met a billionaire [00:32:00] that, you know, worries about his last loss. It just, it never happens. Right. It’s like, Hey man, that was a great lesson. Let’s move on. Right. And, If you just wallow in the last loss, that, that will be your legacy.
[00:32:12] Dwayne J Clark: That’s, that’s your life, right? So you gotta, you gotta use that loss and go, Hey, let’s, how do I not make that mistake again, or how do I avoid that situation and then get smarter and do the next deal?
[00:32:22] Mark Wright: So our podcast is dedicated to redeeming work and that is really to make work honorable. And a good thing for everybody on all ends of, of the equation. I was. So not surprised, but refreshed when I heard you speak on general managers and their importance to your organization and the fact that you pay your general managers way more than the market says you should.
[00:32:47] Mark Wright: , when did you come to that realization, Dwayne, that that role, at least at every property was so critical.
[00:32:53] Dwayne J Clark: Well, I think CEOs a lot of times fall in love with themselves. And I, and I mean that quite literally that you [00:33:00] think you’re the smartest guy in the room and, you know, all the answers and you can sway the, the customer satisfaction one degree or another degree. I think that’s all baloney, quite frankly.
[00:33:11] Dwayne J Clark: I mean, your job as a CEO is to position the company in the best possible way for success. And. you have to realize what are your pivot positions, right? And a general manager, as well as many of our line staff are the pivot positions in our company. And the reality of the situation is You know, I can make all these great policies and give all these great speeches, but I can’t be at 41 locations all the time and, monitor the customer service.
[00:33:46] Dwayne J Clark: So I have to, hire great general managers that believe in what I say, believe in the values and the morals and the ethics of the company. And. And then deliver them in the way that I would want to deliver myself and to [00:34:00] do that, you have to hire people at a high level competency. And again, we don’t hire many people from senior housing.
[00:34:06] Dwayne J Clark: I think right now out of our. 40 general managers, maybe six are from senior housing, maybe seven. So we either homegrown them, from the ground up, or we hire people from, four seasons or Marriott or one and only, or, you know, wherever Rosewood and. And then we teach them our industry.
[00:34:26] Dwayne J Clark: And we’re, we’re the only company in the industry that I know of. If someone knows of this, please let me know. But we’re the only company in the industry that essentially gives 100 days of training before we give a general manager the keys. Unheard of. Most people get three days, five days, but not 100 days.
[00:34:44] Dwayne J Clark: And one of the things we have them do is we have them go to multiple locations because what I tell them is I want you to develop a recipe book. And they’re like, well, what do you mean? I go, well, you may go to this building and they may do really good entertainment and activities really well. And you, I want to model that.
[00:34:59] Dwayne J Clark: Then you go to [00:35:00] this place and it has a really good food service program. And then the Alzheimer’s program in this place. So you can take the best of everything and build your own program, but you also then have, you know, six or eight. Peers that you can call it. So you don’t have to ask your boss a dumb question, right?
[00:35:19] Dwayne J Clark: You can learn from those people and they’ll be supportive. They’ll be your big brother, big sister for life. And so that’s created, relationships and bonds and training that most companies don’t have. And it’s, you know, it’s given us a leg up.
[00:35:32] Mark Wright: And you took a page out of the Navy SEAL playbook. When you evaluate people, at least in terms of trust and competency. And, you know, I spent 35 years in, in broadcast news and I saw many, many people get promoted just because they were good at a job, whether it was. You know, sales or whether it was, you know, producing, writing, whatever.
[00:35:56] Mark Wright: And I think a lot of industries don’t understand that value [00:36:00] of having a super qualified person that you can trust as your manager, because. That nothing else matters, right?
[00:36:09] Dwayne J Clark: It’s so true. I’m, you know, I’m feverishly looking for a graph that I would love to, Show your people. But there was a Navy SEALS guy that, we were big supporters of the Navy SEALS and they developed this graph that how to evaluate, their staff. And here it is. And, um, they essentially, I don’t know if you’ll be able to see this or not, but, That one is competency.
[00:36:33] Dwayne J Clark: The other access is, trust, right? And so on the left access, it’s, trust on the right access. It’s competency. So the question that’s super prevalent is what happens if you have someone that’s a nine on competency and a four on trust, right? Well, what I did is took that philosophy and said, well, they are a cancer.
[00:36:52] Dwayne J Clark: They’re a person that holds the company hostage, that probably a narcissist that will, kill their neighboring general [00:37:00] manager to have success, probably don’t have the resident’s best interests. And so we can, we will fire people who are a nine on competency, even if they make you a ton of money, right?
[00:37:10] Dwayne J Clark: The irony is then on the Northwest quadrant of that. You have people that are high, high, high, high in loyalty and trust, but low and low in competency. Well, equally as bad. We call those loyal duds, right? I mean, the people that like know your kid’s name and we’ll bring you coffee and bleed ages blue.
[00:37:30] Dwayne J Clark: And, but Hey, you got to execute the plan, right? So , when I did this graphic for people, you know, they’re like, Oh my God. And I said, now you can’t unsee this. now you have to go back and you have to chart where your people are, where your key people are. And they’re like, Oh God, I got three loyal duds I gotta deal with, but they’re so nice.
[00:37:51] Dwayne J Clark: I love these people, but they’re loyal duds. I’m like, Hey, you can’t unsee this. you have to be courageous here and go make that decision. And the same with cancers, you know, [00:38:00] high confidency, low trust, you got to deal with them.
[00:38:03] Mark Wright: Yeah. I’d love to shift the conversation, Dwayne, to your study of longevity.
[00:38:07] Mark Wright: And that is just something that you have become so passionate about. You’ve seen what north of 60, 000 people come into your properties and live and die. And, and you’ve learned a ton from these people. What, when did that journey sort of, when did that light bulb come on that you, You have a business that can teach you so much about longevity.
[00:38:31] Dwayne J Clark: Yeah. I have a business that teaches me so much about life. I mean, when you hold the hands of people that are taking their last breath and they tell you what they do different in your life, it’s pretty profound. But you know, beyond that, and it’s, the number is now getting closer to 70 because, you know, I’ve done this for almost 40 years.
[00:38:48] Dwayne J Clark: And it’s, you see how people die and I’m, I, I don’t remember if I spoke about this when you heard me speak, but I, I’m doing a thing now called 100, 100 interviewing, 100, 100 year [00:39:00] olds and you know, It’s funny because it breaks all , the societal norms of how we live a long life, right?
[00:39:08] Dwayne J Clark: You know, it’s just like, Hey, you eat your broccoli and you exercise every day and you’re lived to a hundred or it’s my grandmother lived to a 99. So I’m going to live to a hundred, right? Well, genetics is only about 22 percent of the reason that you live long. Right? And so. it’s caused this, you know, this journey for me that I got really, really curious about.
[00:39:30] Dwayne J Clark: And I ended up writing a book called 30 summers more that became a bestseller and multiple categories that about why we live to a certain age. Right. And yes, I mean, we all have to move and exercise cause you know, we don’t die. Ourselves die. That’s how we die. I mean, by the time you’re 30 years old is when you start to die.
[00:39:52] Dwayne J Clark: And the reason for that is because the production of cells at 30 decreases more than the cells that are made. [00:40:00] So, you know, that’s why at 25, you can go out and drink till five in the morning and go to work at seven o’clock. Right. Yeah. Cause your, your body’s like, Hey, I’m just going to give you more cells and you can recharge.
[00:40:08] Dwayne J Clark: You can go do this, Mark, go do this every night. Right. Then you try to do it at 32 and you’re like, man, I don’t know what happened. I can’t do that
[00:40:15] Mark Wright: I’m having a flashback right now.
[00:40:17] Dwayne J Clark: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Well, there’s a physiological reason why you can’t do that because your body can’t keep up with the production of cells that you’re damaging and if you do certain things, you’ll damage those cells at a much greater rate.
[00:40:29] Dwayne J Clark: Alcohol is one of them. The lack of sleep is another one of them, processed foods is another one of them. So, you, you look at this and you start to go, Hmm, that makes sense. And then people say, well, stress. Stress is what kills us. That’s why we live a long time. So I thought, well, that’s interesting.
[00:40:46] Dwayne J Clark: I’m going to do my own studies. So I did a study called the president study. I studied every president from 1972 on from Nixon on. And I looked and said, well, what, why are these people dying and [00:41:00] how old were they supposed to live to based on their date of birth? Right? Almost every one of them lived three decades longer than they were supposed to live.
[00:41:07] Dwayne J Clark: Every president. I did the same with popes. Popes, same thing, right? So you look at that and you go, well, it’s not stress. That’s the most stressful job in the world, either being the president or the pope of the Catholic church, you know? So how did they live? So I, I interviewed, Carter, I interviewed Clinton extensively.
[00:41:24] Dwayne J Clark: He goes, they both said, we don’t have a magic president pill, not like we go to the Mayo clinic every day. We go to Walter Reed, that’s our hospital. And, but it’s, it’s, it’s purpose And that’s the thing that we don’t really value enough is like, I mean, the longest study in the history of man on longevity is what was originally called the grant study or the Harvard study.
[00:41:48] Dwayne J Clark: JFK was in it. And it’s, I think it’s now 82 years old and they found that, Your relationships by the age of 50, especially your marriage, if it’s healthy and positive, you have [00:42:00] two, at least two or three friends that you can combine anything to, you’ll live seven years longer. It’s that simple, right? And then purpose is the other thing, people who want to go, you know, Oh, I’m 65 now.
[00:42:10] Dwayne J Clark: I’m gonna go golfing and fishing and this is all I’m gonna do the rest of my life. They die early. It’s, it’s scientifically proven. So, I’m, I’ll be 66 this year, no plans at all, retiring, love what I’m doing, writing two books right now. I have a movie company. I’m making two movies. I mean, running ages.
[00:42:27] Dwayne J Clark: We have 250 million worth of properties opening up. I mean, there’s no way I’m going to retire. Right? So you look at these things and say, okay. Well, these are the secrets to, you know, growing old and growing wise and growing old health in a healthy way. It’s about not life span anymore. It’s about health span and health spans living as long as you can with a quality of life that you possibly can.
[00:42:51] Mark Wright: Yeah. And there’s some amazing research going on in terms of regenerating cells. I heard someone, maybe it was you quote. If you [00:43:00] live one year now today, like every year that I live longer, I’m going to live a third of a year longer than my predicted lifespan was when I was born in 1964.
[00:43:11] Dwayne J Clark: Yeah. And it accelerates once you get into your sixties. So, because there’s so many things that happen pre 60 that can take you out, you know, I mean, disease, especially childhood diseases before the advent of penicillin in the old days. But now when you get an, and a lot of it is if you don’t have a critical disease, You know, you don’t have cancer or diabetes or heart disease or something before you’re 65 that adds even more health to your lifespan
[00:43:37] Mark Wright: . What have you learned from people in foreign countries about how we age well?
[00:43:42] Dwayne J Clark: Ah, it’s such a great story You know i’ve been to about 80 to 83 countries and brought back a lot of that knowledge both in longevity and to ages But one of the stories that I love , is one of the favorite places that my wife and I go is Capri, Italy. And, or as Americans say [00:44:00] Capri, but in Italian, they say Capri.
[00:44:03] Dwayne J Clark: And so we stayed in this little hotel and it’s got a veranda and it’s down by the Harbor. And, I was out on the, . On the veranda one day, and I noticed this elderly lady, she had to be in her eighties and she had on like a wool coat and a big heavy purse. And if you’ve ever been to Capri it’s on a mountain.
[00:44:24] Dwayne J Clark: And so there’s like a one and a half mile hike to the top. I mean, it’s, and it’s significant grade. It’s like. And so I’m like, Oh, I wonder where she’s going. So I stand there, I look at her and she goes up the hill and I can see almost through the top of the town, up the hill. And I’m like, holy cow, she’s really booking.
[00:44:41] Dwayne J Clark: Right? And so, Next day I come out, I’m reading my paper. Same lady, same coat, same bag up the hill. So I, the third day I go, if I see that lady, I’m going to run after and see where she’s going. Right? So lo and behold, like 8am, same [00:45:00] lady, same coat. So I get on my tennis shoes and my wife’s like, what are you doing?
[00:45:04] Dwayne J Clark: I’m like, I’m gonna run after this old lady that’s walking up the hill. She’s like, what? So I run out of the hotel, run after, and you know, I’m about maybe a hundred meters behind her and I see her duck into this store and, And I, I’m getting there and then she comes out of the store and she goes back up the rest of the hill.
[00:45:20] Dwayne J Clark: So I go into the store, you know, I’m huffing and puffing and dying because I ran a half a mile up, up, up this hill. And I go in the store, do you know who this older lady is? Oh yeah, she come in every day. I go, why does she come in every day? Oh, she buy milk. I go, man, she must like a lot of milk. Oh no, she no like milk.
[00:45:38] Dwayne J Clark: She liked to climb hill. You know? So the whole point of the story was she didn’t care. She just stopped there to say hi to Giorgio who was selling the milk. She gave the milk away. Once she reached the top of the hill, she just liked to walk up this damn hill every day. I said, well, yeah, I learned the storekeeper’s name.
[00:45:55] Dwayne J Clark: I said, Giorgio, how old is she? Oh, she 92.
[00:45:58] Mark Wright: Oh,
[00:45:59] Dwayne J Clark: And so, I [00:46:00] mean, here it was, 87 degrees, wool coat, walking up this hill to buy the milk, to give the way, that’s just the way it is. Right. And you look at the Italians, well, they live five to six years longer than Americans, right? It’s not because they have this super wealthy lifestyle.
[00:46:16] Dwayne J Clark: In 30 years. It’s just because they move their bodies and you know, they have, this lifestyle of life is sweet and meant to be sat and good relationships and drink wine and sit in the square. And, you know, we, we just don’t do that as Americans.
[00:46:32] Mark Wright: yeah, you had a personal health crisis in your life with some internal bleeding and I take it that kind of gave you pause and also gave you motivation to do things differently What was the biggest thing you changed Dwayne after your personal
[00:46:46] Dwayne J Clark: Well, I think it goes back to, I always thought exercise was the key to being healthy. Right. But , I’ve been a big kid all my life. I was 200 pounds in ninth grade. I was a wrestler. I was a nose guard on the football team. I’ve always been. [00:47:00] 200 pound plus. And, uh, and usually the mid twos. And so, I, at this time I was, I just come off a retreat with my staff.
[00:47:10] Dwayne J Clark: I was working hard trying to keep up with these kids 20 years younger than me in the gym and lifting weights and running and popping six Advil a day and, and had this GI bleed that they couldn’t stop and had to go in the hospital and almost have emergency surgery and, and it was reflective of. That’s when I, I started to write 30 Summers More and changed the whole format of it because you know, I was probably 53 at the time, 54 at the time and it, it just said, Oh, it’s just not about exercise.
[00:47:38] Dwayne J Clark: It’s about other things, you know, how I deal with stress. So I started meditating religiously, you know, so I meditate 20 minutes every day. I’m a big fan of Wim Hof breathing. So, because, Oxygen and breathing helps ignite your cellular life. So I’m a big fat fan of Wim Hof breathing. I started writing a gratitude journal, just being in gratitude, [00:48:00] um, started taking my sleep very seriously.
[00:48:02] Dwayne J Clark: There’s, if anybody wants to change anything about their life. It all starts with the foundation of sleep. So if you don’t get seven hours of sleep every night and you don’t have at least an hour and 10 hour to 15 rem and an hour and 10 hour 15 and deep, your lifespan is going to be shortened.
[00:48:19] Dwayne J Clark: There’s, and people can say, I don’t need it. I can, I’ll sit down with you. I’ll show you 30 studies. You need it because what happens is sleep is the factory going to work. And what I mean by that, Mark, is two things happen when you sleep, your body gets rid of these senescent cells, which are cancer causing, diabetes causing, heart disease causing cells.
[00:48:42] Dwayne J Clark: They’re dead cells. That you have to expel, it can’t get rid of them. It can’t take them through the lymphatic system unless you have seven hours of sleep and mostly deep sleep. Cause that’s when the factory is most efficient. And the other thing is it needs seven hours to produce the new cells to take the place of them.
[00:48:59] Dwayne J Clark: So if you [00:49:00] cut the factory short. You know, I tell people it’s like, throwing your muddy jeans in the wash and turn it off the spin cycle halfway through and expecting them to be clean. It needs a certain amount of time to do the work and the amount of time minimum is seven hours, eight is better, but seven is sufficient.
[00:49:18] Dwayne J Clark: So, you have to get that sleep if you want to have a good quality of life, because everything after that is, exercise, diet, lifestyle, whatever. It’s all insufficient to catch up with sleep.
[00:49:30] Mark Wright: Yeah. I, I have to ask you about your documentary on Spencer Haywood.
[00:49:34] Dwayne J Clark: Mm
[00:49:35] Mark Wright: was a kid, we didn’t have television up in Ferndale up by the Canadian border. So we listened to, um, Bob Blackburn do the Seattle Sonics games. And I just have such fond memories. And Spencer Haywood was just a legendary basketball player.
[00:49:48] Mark Wright: How did you get into that space? You’ve created a number of documentaries and
[00:49:52] Dwayne J Clark: Yeah.
[00:49:53] Mark Wright: , take me to that.
[00:49:54] Dwayne J Clark: Yeah. I mean i’ve always been a huge movie buff and I I got [00:50:00] involved with sif and I really liked true stories And so I started my own production company called true productions And I just wanted to tell cool stories that were out there. And so i’ve done 13 documentaries now through true productions and You know, many have won all kinds of awards.
[00:50:20] Dwayne J Clark: And I, I was at, a Russell Wilson golf tournament. Russell was a good friend and got introduced to Spencer Haywood. And, he started talking to me about, Hey, I think there’s a chance I could get into the hall of fame. And I said, has anyone ever approached you about doing a documentary? And he’s like, no, I go, we’re going to make a documentary for you.
[00:50:42] Dwayne J Clark: And, uh, I, I really, in my naive little mind, I really didn’t know what that would take or how much it would cost, which it was substantial. But I, I footed the bill for it and did a movie called full court, the Spencer Haywood story, which, [00:51:00] has been an incredible, story. It’s on Netflix now.
[00:51:03] Dwayne J Clark: And, You know, his rise from being this poor man in the South picking cotton that had an extra joint in his finger that could, you know, essentially be, they told him you’d be the best cotton picker around because your hands are so big. Right. And he practiced on, baskets that were, That were basketball hoops.
[00:51:20] Dwayne J Clark: They were, cotton picking baskets and, balls that were made out of twine and so on. And, you know, became one of the greatest basketball players of all time is now a Hall of Famer. And, it was great pleasure to do that movie. In fact, I’ve got the, movie poster sitting here right by me.
[00:51:35] Dwayne J Clark: And, you know, it’s, uh, I mean, Charles Barkley was in it. Uh, Lenny Wilkins, Pat Riley. Bill Bradley Just a whole number of people that were in the movie and helped me with it And it’s it’s narrated by his godfather who was Chuck D.
[00:51:50] Dwayne J Clark: So yeah, so fun fun experience for me
[00:51:53] Mark Wright: Yeah. So Dwayne, as we wind things down here, I’d love your perspective [00:52:00] on what we’re trying to do. And that is to redeem work. What advice would you have for either that person entering the workforce or maybe that middle manager who’s been there 20, 25 years to make work a place that honors people?
[00:52:14] Dwayne J Clark: Yeah, I think you know, I Kind of process this question as advice that I would give to my grandchildren Right and 17 graduating this year You And, you know, the thing that, that I always tell my grandkids is first of all, be what I call an HQH, a high quality human, right? And to be an HQH, you have to surround yourself with other HQHs, right?
[00:52:41] Dwayne J Clark: And that means the company you choose, the people, the friends you have. the person you date, eventually the person you pick to be your spouse. It all starts with that. And oftentimes we make decisions for money or prestige or [00:53:00] imagery or whatever cause our parents told us to, and it gets you off the track of being with that high quality human.
[00:53:07] Dwayne J Clark: And that’s one of the things that I’ve learned from the 70, 80, 000 people that I’ve cared for is that’s one of their biggest regrets. That I took this job because my parents really wanted me to, or, I married this person because she was pretty and I didn’t really love, it’s all these regrets that we have that we didn’t follow our heart about, how do I live this purpose and live with high quality humans?
[00:53:32] Dwayne J Clark: And because at the end of the day, it’s really not about the monetary things or the things you buy at Bellevue Square, which you’ll 10 years. It’s about the people in the relationships you have. And that’s why the Harvard study has been so profound for me is that that’s what life is all about.
[00:53:52] Dwayne J Clark: It’s a, that’s what legacy is all about. It’s how you impact and affect other people. And I mean, if somebody came to me and said, [00:54:00] Hey, I can make you a billion dollars, Dwayne, but you have to work with these three evil people. It wouldn’t take me a millisecond to say, Go leave. So I think the advice I can say is, just look for high quality people.
[00:54:14] Dwayne J Clark: They’ll make you better. And that’s the secret for longevity as well as those relationships that you have with quality people.
[00:54:20] Mark Wright: Yeah. I read that your mother dealt with, memory issues at the end of her life. How aware was she of your success in terms of how, far along the spectrum you got in terms of, your business when she was still able to, to
[00:54:35] Dwayne J Clark: Yeah, she, she got Alzheimer’s probably in about 2002. She died in 2010. So she had it for a fair amount of time. When I left college, she, Bought me this necklace that said my son, the lawyer, and she’s like, you’re always going to go back to law school. And, you know, I remember taking her into an ageist building and, very similar story to Howard Schultz told me about his mom one time [00:55:00] when he, when he brought her into the company and she’s like, who’s paying all these people?
[00:55:04] Dwayne J Clark: And he’s like, well, I am mom. And it’s like, Oh, come on. very similar to that. My, my mom was like, well, who, who owns this? You know, and you’re trying to explain the, The corporate, structure to her and she’s not quite getting it. I think unfortunately she, she probably got dementia before she saw, you know, the peak of my career, me rising that, but you know, she always had great faith.
[00:55:27] It’s, it’s interesting, you know, how the world works because she, she became a customer of mine. She lived and died in an ageist building in the last six years of her life. I kind of tell people I’m, like the men’s hair club guy. I’m not only the CEO, I’m a, I’m a customer, right?
[00:55:43] Dwayne J Clark: And that was, you know, as hard as that was, and it was hard to believe me on a number of accounts, it gave me incredible perspective about what our families go through. Right. And, you know, how hard it is for them to give up control of their parents and [00:56:00] to see their decline. And so that’s been a gift, that I look at that and go that, God really gave me a good lesson there.
[00:56:05] Dwayne J Clark: So that’s been a gift.
[00:56:07] Mark Wright: , well, Dwayne, what you’re providing the world is just simply inspiring that people are able to spend the end of their lives in a place that feels good, is, You know, honoring who they are as a human being. And, uh, I just, I just don’t think there’s more important work in terms of how we make the world a better place.
[00:56:27] Mark Wright: So, um,
[00:56:28] Dwayne J Clark: Thank you, Mark.
[00:56:29] Mark Wright: yeah, I want to thank you for, for what you do in the world and how you show up. We didn’t get a chance to talk about your philanthropy work, but, uh, maybe for a, future episode, but you
[00:56:38] Dwayne J Clark: All right.
[00:56:39] Mark Wright: one of those human beings making a difference in the world by showing up the right way. So thank you so much, Dwayne.
[00:56:45] Dwayne J Clark: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.