Matt Damon & Gary White On How A Small Idea Can Make A Global Impact EP 1248

Today's guests are Matt Damon and Gary White. Matt is the cofounder of Water.org & WaterEquity, as well as an actor, producer, and screenwriter. In 2006 he founded H20 Africa Foundation to raise awareness about water initiatives on the continent. Matt’s active participation in the work of Water.org & WaterEquity has positioned him as one of the world’s experts on water and sanitation issues. Gary White is the cofounder and CEO of Water.org & WaterEquity. In 1991 he launched Water Partners, now the international NGO known as Water.org. Today, he leads two organizations in creating and executing market-driven solutions to the global water crisis, driving innovations in the way water and sanitation projects are delivered and financed. Matt and Gary co-authored their new book, The Worth of Water: Our Story of Chasing Solutions to the World's Greatest Challenge In this episode, you will learnThe urgency of our global water crisis. How much time and effort is required for many people to access water. The amount of people who have benefited from the efforts of water.org. How much it costs to get one person access to clean water. And so much more! For more, go to: lewishowes.com/1248Check out their new book: The Worth of Water: Our Story of Chasing Solutions to the World's Greatest Challenge Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  All right, well, how could I help, right? What could I do? And so I looked at a lot of these issues and it was really to my shock and disbelief that the level to which water Underpins all of it. And nobody was talking about it.

• 0:12Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:36Lewis Howes?

  Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness. I am extremely excited about our guests today, Gary White and Matt Damon. Good to see you guys.

• 0:43Speaker 02

  Good to see you, Lewis. Great to be here.

• 0:45Lewis Howes?

  I'm excited about this because about 10 years ago, I started getting out of my own individual interests and desires of accumulating wealth and success and looking good and accolades and all these things. And I started to say, how can I serve the world in a better way beyond me? And I started to dive into charity, donations, certain water organizations, and also organization called Pencils of Promise, which helps build schools for kids around the world that don't have access to physical schools in particularly Laos, Ghana, and Guatemala. And it's incredible to be able to give back once you've generated something for yourself. It's incredible feeling.

• 1:30Lewis Howes?

  And there's so many problems outside of, you know, our bubble, whether it be in the United States or LA or wherever we live, there's so many other problems in the world that we take for granted. I was watching a lot of your guys' interviews on the water crisis over the last couple of days. And as I was brushing my teeth and shaving this morning and just drinking clean water so effortlessly.

• 1:53Lewis Howes?

  We take it all for granted. Can you guys share with me? So people actually understand because I think people don't understand how big of a problem this is. What is the water problem in the world? And why do you guys care so much about it?

• 2:06Speaker 00

  That's, that's great, Louis. That's a great question and, and I have to say that the kind of journey you've been on personally, um, is I, I would say exactly the same one that we've individually been on and, and it, you know, and for me, looking at, looking at all these issues of extreme poverty, I was trying to figure out where could I be of greatest service, right? And, and, and water just underpinned everything, just everything, I'm, you know, and, and to, to your point about, about, about building schools, um, you know, that's an amazing thing to do, but there are millions of girls who can't go to those schools because their, their job for the family is to collect water.

• 2:49Speaker 00

  And so, and it's obviously the most critical job there is because without water, we're dead. And so, and so these, these, these girls, and it was for me, it was, I, I was in Zambia in 2006 and, and, and the girl who opened my eyes to this was this 14-year-old kid and I went, it was the first time I'd ever done a wa, like a water collection. I was, I was trying to explore this issue and I was waiting for this girl. She came home from school and we walked together to get, to get water. And it, and it was me and her and an interpreter. And so I'm talking to this kid and she was great and, and I started to kind of push like, hey, are you, we were in rural Zambia, right? So she, she lived in a, in a hut that had a dirt floor, you know, she, and I'm going, are you, is this where you want to live?

• 3:34Speaker 00

  Like when you grow up and, and she, and she started to get kind of shy and she started going, no, no, I, I, I'm gonna go. And she kind of shared with me her dream of her life, right? Which almost like a secret. She goes, I'm gonna go to the big city of Lusaka. I'm gonna be a nurse. And I, and there was something about, I just connected to this kid because I remember being 14 and Ben Affleck and I, we were gonna go to the big city of New York. We were gonna be actors and like, and that thing that you have as a teenager, which is awesome, you have the entire world laid out in front of you and it's all of the potential. What, what might this life be for me, right? And I have some ideas about what I want to do and I have dreams. And it wasn't until I was driving away from there, kind of reflecting on this this connection

• 4:16Speaker 00

  that I had to this kid, that I realized, had it not been for somebody having the foresight to sink a borewell a mile from her house, this kid would not have been in school. She would have been spending her entire day trying to find water for her family. As it was, she had to spend about two hours. She had to walk there, fill up these jerrycan, the heavy jerrycan, and walk back, right? Which was, you know, you know, my kids would really complain about something like that. But but this girl was incredibly lucky because because she had this access, her life was a world of possibilities. And that was the thing. Because when you talk about this issue, there are the incredible things that just blow your mind, like 300,000 kids under the age of five will die this year because they lack access to safe water and sanitation.

• 5:01Speaker 00

  I mean, it's just mind blowing. But on the other side of it, there's this whole opportunity cost lost, right? Like, what are these lives that we're we're not allowing to become what they could be? And that was something that really kind of pushed me into this work.

• 5:16Lewis Howes?

  And was that the first time you really witnessed this in 2006? Or were you aware of this kind of crisis before then?

• 5:22Speaker 00

  I had no idea. I really, I and it just was so striking. Because as you as you alluded to, it's it's really difficult if you're a human being who's always had access to water, right? Like, you know, we go to the kitchen sink, we go to the bathroom sink, the water in our toilets is cleaner than than these 800 million people I'm talking about have access to. So it's something, as you said, we take for granted. And yet, if you don't have access to it, and we've met thousands upon thousands of these people, it's the first thing you wake up thinking about. And your day is built around making sure that you can get it because or else you just can't keep going.

• 5:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and I think the thing you're talking about is is buying back time so that we can go to school, we can play with our siblings or our friends, we can dream. And I think if you're spending two, four, six hours a day is what it sounds like a lot of these young girls and young boys are doing. It's hard to develop skills that can get you out of a situation or or just the enjoyment of life of what's possible for yourself. So I think that's it's really interesting. I'm curious, Gary, why did you get involved in this? I know you're the brains behind everything. I saw all your degrees and you know, all these different things that you're that you're extremely talented in, but why was water so important for you? Was it something you saw? Was it something your parents inspired you to do? What was

• 6:42Lewis Howes?

  the the mission behind making this your mission?

• 6:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, for for sure. And we talked about this in the book a lot about, you know, what formed us even at young ages for both Matt and, you know, his, his mother and my mother actually were tremendous influences on us that that inspired us to, you know, give back to the world. You know, when you see a challenge or a problem, don't just walk past it, but but try to solve it. And I was studying engineering and when I kind of looked at, you know, what engineers could do with respect to what some of the world's greatest needs were, I landed squarely on water and sanitation. And so for me, it was that expression, you know, your life should be about the intersection of the world's greatest need and your greatest passion. And that's where I I found this intersection.

• 7:28Speaker 02

  And so, you know, I never looked back. That was over, you know, thirty, thirty-five years ago. And to me, as an engineer and someone who is trying to make a social impact, you you don't look at a problem like this and say, okay, it's it's seven hundred and seventy-one million people, one point seven billion without sanitation. So let's go drill some wells, right? It's like, okay, we can solve this for a few people that way. But like, what if we really want to solve the crisis? That takes kind of a dogged determination and entrepreneurship and innovation. And that's that's kind of really the story of water.org is how we've used the insights from the people we want to work with that

• 8:10Speaker 02

  experienced this problem, turn those insights into new ideas and then pioneered things like Water Credit, where we're looking at this from a perspective of getting people access to small loans, because there's never going to be enough charity in the world to get all those people water. We've got to use charity philanthropy in a smarter way. And so that's why I do this, because it is a huge need, but it also kind of fits with kind of who we are as social entrepreneurs.

• 8:36Lewis Howes?

  There's a lot of organizations out there trying to tackle the water crisis and people that have wells and other, you know, filters that they give to people in communities, things like that. What is the difference between offering a loan for someone to develop this themselves as opposed to someone donating and building a well for a community that that brings clean water for however many people in that community? What's the difference between what you guys are doing and some of the other charities, which I think are, they're all great, but what's, why do you think it's important to follow this philosophy and method you guys are doing?

• 9:10Speaker 02

  Well, I would, I'd just jump in first and Matt, feel free to comment. I think, first of all, this is an all hands on deck problem. I, I think it's great that there's so many people who care about this issue, that they want to go out and try to, to get an impact or make an impact, and they are. But I think what's different about us is looking at this from the perspective of the financial side of this, right? And recognizing that there are a lot of people who are in such extreme poverty, they need that free well, they need that handout. But what we discovered is there's hundreds of millions of people, if not more than a billion, what they really need isn't just a handout. What they, they know what water solution they want. They, they know there's a water filter in the shop down the street that they want to buy.

• 9:55Speaker 02

  They know that there's a toilet that would be right for them. They know that there's a water tank that would be best for them. And so it's empowering them to be able to procure the best solution that they want.

• 10:07Lewis Howes?

  They make their own choice as opposed to, as opposed to just say, here, take what we're going to give you.

• 10:12Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 10:13Lewis Howes?

  They may not want that.

• 10:14Speaker 02

  Exactly, yeah.

• 10:15Lewis Howes?

  So break it down for me. If I'm going to be making a donation today, and I hope a lot of people will be making a donation today at the end of this, and they'll feel inspired to do that. If they give a hundred bucks, 500 bucks, a thousand dollars, whatever it is they want to give today, what happens with the money? Who's it go to? Are they able to track any of this? Or is it just? It's, you know, people are gonna get access.

• 10:35Speaker 00

  Great question, and so to answer it in its entirety, let me step back for one second and just backfill. So Gary had an insight fifteen or so years ago that he's very modest about, but it was a really incredible insight, which was that the people in these communities, some of the poorest, the poor in the world, were already paying for water, right? And so the idea, so he had this epiphany.

• 10:57Lewis Howes?

  How were they paying for that? Were they like going to the store and buying bottled water?

• 11:00Speaker 00

  Buying from a water truck, sometimes water that wasn't even clean. Sometimes they were paying with their time where they'd go stand at a community tap and have to wait for three hours and they'd be taking time away from a job that they, you know, they couldn't do because they had to go stand in this line. So there were all these ways, there are all these coping costs, right? What they didn't have were savings, but what they were doing was paying every single day for these things, sometimes up to twenty-five percent of their income. And so Gary had this idea that if you took the concepts of microfinance that Mohamed Yunus pioneered in the Grameen Bank, you could actually apply it to water, and it wasn't a traditional loan because it wasn't an income generating loan, but it would be an income enhancing loan because you'd actually be buying somebody's time back and they could work those extra hours and they could...

• 11:44Speaker 00

  And so, so that was a really key and critical insight, and what that did was, look, it was a hypothesis and it just turned into our pipe dream where these, our borrowers are ninety-seven percent women and these loans pay back at over ninety-nine percent. And that is the story. It's like, some of the poorest people in the world, if you just give them a chance, if you just nudge a market towards them, they will do the rest, and it's like, we get out of the way and these people solve their own problems. And then what happens is, to your original question about the money and, you know, five hundred dollars or one hundred dollars. Traditionally, if you're gonna build a well, the costs were kind of assumed to be, or they were known to be about twenty-five dollars to get somebody clean water for life.

• 12:29Speaker 00

  So, per person. But with these loan programs, what happens is because they pay back at such a high rate, right, the money just gets recycled and goes back out. So at water.org, you can get somebody clean water for life for $5. Because these women, these heroic women are one after another paying these loans back. And we've now reached, you know, I mean, had we just done direct impact work, we could, we would have reached thousands of people. We this month have hit 43.7 million people that we've reached.

• 12:58Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 12:59Speaker 00

  And I know, and that's the story. It's and that story isn't us. It's these incredible women who are one after another paying these, paying these loans back, despite the fact that they live in circumstances that we couldn't, we couldn't even fathom.

• 13:13Lewis Howes?

  So break it down for me then. So these women in these different communities, they're able to go to water.org and say, I need a loan. Is that what, is that the process? Or do they apply for something? How does it work?

• 13:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, I mean, we wanted to make sure we had a little bit of humility. We weren't going to go out and set up all these banks around the world. What we did is like who they're locally are banking people, you know, who are providing loans to them for these income generating things. And let's work with them to nudge them towards water and sanitation loans. And so that's what we use that philanthropic money to go and develop these partnerships with them. And these guys, at first, when we said, we want to do water and sanitation loans, they're like, no way, you know, people aren't going to pay these back because they're not, you know, they're not making something, they're not buying a sewing machine with the loan and sewing clothes and having a revenue stream. They're getting a toilet or they're getting a water connection. And so what we did with the philanthropy was to de-risk this for them.

• 14:10Speaker 02

  So these hundreds of financial partners that we have around the world now, we use that philanthropic capital to help them train, to help them develop new types of loans, to then take on the risk of these loan portfolios. And then that's how it turns into the capital that they go out and get from the commercial markets and then reloan to people in poverty. And because, you know, the loans repay at 99%, the risk that we took, you know, didn't really come to fruition, right? So we're able to making this happen. So that's how, that's how we multiply the philanthropy. And now it's been about $3.5 billion in these loans that have been made around the world.

• 14:51Lewis Howes?

  Wow. Wait, $3.5 billion? In donations or in loans?

• 14:56Speaker 02

  No, that's the beauty of it. We use the donations to leverage the capital.

• 15:01Lewis Howes?

  Ah, I see what you're saying.

• 15:02Speaker 02

  The capital markets come in and lend and that's, you know, we'll get to it maybe today too, but that's why we created Water Equity, which is a separate organization. It's an asset manager. So investors can come in and invest in Water Equity. We use those funds to lend to these financial partners and they break it into millions of microloans. And those loans get repaid, Water Equity gets repaid. And so investors actually get a financial return on their investment.

• 15:31Speaker 00

  While having a massive social impact.

• 15:33Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 15:34Lewis Howes?

  Well, now is there a way for people to make money with the water solution they're getting? Or is it more you're buying back your time to then go work and then pay back the loan? Is that what it's?

• 15:44Speaker 00

  Well, they do end up making money, right? Because once they pay off the loan, all of that extra income that they have is just, is found money for them. It's theirs. So now if we've given them a loan to connect to a water source, they might have a water tariff, right? But it's tiny compared to what they were paying every month for their water, when they had to pay every single day for it.

• 16:06Speaker 02

  You know, we should tell the story about Lina Riza in the Philippines. They really break this. So Lina Riza is this woman lives, you know, outside of Manila in this slum really. And, you know, she was paying one of these water vendors that come around and sell water off the back of a truck. You know, $60 a month, you know, $2 a day. She had her $2 each day that she could pay and she needed this water. And so what she did, she took out a loan, $275, used that to connect to the water utility because you had to pay a fee upfront. And now she has water right there at her home. Her loan payment is $5 a month. Her water tariff is $5 a month. So do the math, right?

• 16:47Speaker 02

  $50 more every month she has in her pocket. And all she needed was that nudge of that loan to get over the hump. And but for us having water and sanitation loans for her, she would have been stuck in that forever.

• 17:01Lewis Howes?

  It's making it more affordable and instant as opposed to spending time, yeah, spending time and money to get it. I love this.

• 17:08Speaker 02

  I say that this problem contains its own solution in that sense, right? It doesn't take charity directly to her, but it takes charity to set this all in motion.

• 17:17Lewis Howes?

  How long you guys been doing this together now? How many years?

• 17:21Speaker 00

  What year we founded?

• 17:22Lewis Howes?

  Two thousand nine.

• 17:23Speaker 00

  Two thousand nine.

• 17:24Lewis Howes?

  Thirteen years?

• 17:25Speaker 00

  We joined forces, yeah.

• 17:26Lewis Howes?

  What's been the biggest challenge you've had to overface in the last thirteen years? And what's been the biggest win so far?

• 17:34Speaker 00

  The biggest win without question has been our ability to accelerate this process. You know, it was an idea when we got together. And I remember we had an event about ten years ago in New York and Bill Clinton came, President Clinton came and President Clinton looked at our model. We hadn't hit a million people yet. And he just went, he got it. He was like, this is gonna work. And then he just goes, you guys, you just run those numbers up. You run them up. Because his philosophy was great. If we can, you know, if you keep proving and proving this model, it becomes, you know, it becomes so attractive to, and that's how we've been able to create this asset manager.

• 18:15Speaker 00

  Because we can go out and really go after this big capital and go like, look, we can build you in a return and you're gonna have this massive social impact, you know? And these loans pay back at ninety-nine percent. And at this point, we've done so many millions of them that you can't, you can't deny it, right? And so it feels like we're rolling downhill now, you know? And it feels like we've hit this inflection point. You know, we passed forty million and then we're at forty-three now. And by the end of the year, we'll be at fifty. Gary started in the early nineties. It was twenty years to get to the first million, right?

• 18:47Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 18:48Speaker 00

  And, and now it's in the last ten years, you know, we're cooking and we're accelerating. And so, so that I would say was the big win. The challenge is that we've had so many failures. I mean, that's one of the kind of the barriers to entry that I think might keep people out and that we encourage people to just push through. Because when you learn about something that's new and complex and you're dealing with different cultures, you're dealing with different, different, different systems, you're dealing with all this new stuff.

• 19:14Lewis Howes?

  Governments and, yeah, backdoor channeling and all those things, yeah.

• 19:17Speaker 00

  Yeah, you just can't be proud. You know what I mean? You gotta come in with some humility and you gotta know you're gonna make mistakes. I always think about this, we were in Ethiopia twelve or thirteen years ago and we saw these kids were drinking out of this hand dug well, right? And the water was like, it looked like chocolate milk. It was the water, you would slap it out of your kid's hand, right? But it was the only option that they had. And not fifty yards from this hand dug well. There was a state of the art well that an NGO from India had come in. And you know, it must have cost $10,000. You know, you can imagine there was a dinner somewhere in Mumbai or you know Delhi and and these guys raised the money and everyone's cheering and it's awesome what they did.

• 20:00Speaker 00

  They put this thing in, but they didn't train anybody in the community how to use it, if it broke, how to fix it. Right? And and and so when it broke, as all these things do, it just kind of went to seed. It just sat there as almost.

• 20:14Lewis Howes?

  No one was using it.

• 20:15Speaker 02

  No, it was defunct.

• 20:16Speaker 00

  It was defunct.

• 20:17Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man.

• 20:18Speaker 00

  So they went back to the system of a hand dug well. So we've had so many like, you know, of those trying to troubleshoot how to make these things work. Because half of the water projects classically have failed.

• 20:32Lewis Howes?

  Wow, interesting. Now, Gary, you mentioned a few minutes ago about the influences from growing up. I don't know if you said your your parents or you had an influence that inspired you to want to do good in the world and want to use your talents to make an impact. Can you share maybe one of the most influential people in your life growing up? That inspired you to say, you know what, I'm going to make the most of my talents to to serve and to find a solution towards something. Maybe you didn't know it was going to be water when you were 13, but who was that person? What was the lesson they inspired you with?

• 21:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, there there have been so many great influences, you know, over the course of my life. You know, Matt mentioned Mohammed Yunus and microfinance, certainly that was one. But if I rewind back to that that time and that age, I think it was really my mom. And, you know, she was always the one volunteering at our church. You know, I remember there were in the seventies, a lot of Vietnamese refugees came to the US. And, you know, they transported to different cities around the country. My mom was one of the ones who was like helping, you know, this family get settled. Or, you know, there were these fundraisers, you know, for for soup kitchens. And and I just absorbed it, you know, I would tag along, you know, when the church was having the rummage sale

• 21:48Speaker 02

  for raising money, you know, I was up there and she was sorting clothes and old toys to to sell. So it's just all of these influences there that like, you know, she never had the opportunity really to to see much beyond the Midwest, United States, but to take that that those lessons instilled in me and to amplify them globally, I think is is something that it's all rooted in in that upbringing.

• 22:11Lewis Howes?

  Where'd you grow up? What state?

• 22:13Speaker 02

  Kansas City, Missouri.

• 22:15Lewis Howes?

  Okay, cool, yeah. I'm from Ohio, but I lived in St. Louis, which I think I saw you went to Missouri University for a while. So I went to St. Louis school for a little bit, too.

• 22:22Speaker 00

  Gary's got three engineering degrees.

• 22:25Lewis Howes?

  I saw like North Carolina and Missouri and frigging Harvard or something.

• 22:28Speaker 02

  I'd trade two of them for an MBA at this point because it seems to be about finance more than engineering.

• 22:33Lewis Howes?

  Right, yeah. I'm curious, what was the, you know, you got to witness a lot of this stuff with your mom and tag along. What was the greatest lesson she taught you then? Whether it's something she said to you or something you witnessed? What would you say is that greatest lesson?

• 22:45Speaker 02

  I think the greatest lesson is, you know, and I'm borrowing this from somewhere, I don't know where, but this is what I saw in her is that unless a life is lived for others, it's not worth living. And whether that be your kids or your family or your wider community, that's what makes life worthwhile is thinking and living for others.

• 23:06Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, I love that. I make the claim that success is about us. Greatness is for other people. It's about the service for other people. I love this mission. Matt, I'm curious about you. If you're open to sharing, maybe someone who was influential growing up at a younger age that was inspired you to want to serve and give.

• 23:27Speaker 00

  Absolutely. At the risk of sounding redundant, it was also my mother, who was really the person who took me, you know, she took me to Mexico, to Central America, you know, in the eighties. And that was my first brush with extreme poverty, you know, down in rural Guatemala. And it just absolutely changed my life. And she was very deliberate about it, you know? She wanted to show me issues of social injustice, of political repression, of extreme poverty, and leave it with me in a way, you know? Because it's so much to see when you're that age. Your senses are being bombarded because the lifestyle is so different from anything you understand that it had just a profound effect on me.

• 24:10Speaker 00

  And I knew, look, I went into my, as you say, success is, you know, I went into my twenties completely devoted to my acting career and my writing career. And, you know, my twenties were really dominated by Good Will Hunting. It took us about half that decade to get the movie made. And, but once things started to go well enough for me, I went back to this internal conversation that I'd kind of abandoned for a moment, you know, or left while I worked on this career. And realized this was a time where I actually now I have I actually have this platform. I actually have an ability to really get involved in a meaningful way and be of some help.

• 24:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's it's interesting. I'm curious. I'm assuming, you know, let me know if I'm wrong. I don't want to sound out of line here, but I'm assuming as you were rising in your success in your movie career, you were getting opportunities to go to lots of charity events and galas and all these different things in your, I'm assuming twenties and thirties. When was the moment you said, you know what? I've had, you know, I've had a lot of success now. I want to really start making a part of my time towards something, something of giving back or being of service. And I'm assuming you were giving in certain ways and, you know, using your platform before and not just neglecting service. But when was it like the moment you said, I gotta do more for more than just myself?

• 25:28Speaker 00

  It kind of happened over that period of my early thirties where and and it was really, I think that's a common situation people might find themselves in if they wake up with some level of celebrity. It's like, oh, I feel like I I I I'm obligated to do more. I feel like I I'm compelled to do more and I should do more. And I was very lucky that Bono has this organization, had this organization called Data. And and they would organize these trips for people like me that, you know, it's like, I just had to pay for it. And they curated a a trip through, you know, throughout a few countries in Africa. And each day had a different learning focus. And and so it was all about just kind of a deep dive or it was more like a mini, a college mini course, right?

• 26:13Speaker 00

  On on extreme poverty. And today we're going to learn about AIDS in in an urban environment. Today we're going to learn about AIDS in a rural environment. Today we're going to learn about water. Today we're going to learn about microfinance. And it was this amazing trip. And so I was taken on the trip by a few people who worked at Data, Taylor Emery, Aaron Thornton. And they just, they had done these trips before. They just, and they just kind of opened my eyes to everything that was going on. And it was more about helping me absorb and kind of take this all in and metabolize this bigger world. And then to go home and think about, all right, well, how could I help? Right? What could I do? And so I looked at a lot of these issues and, you know, education and, you know, AIDS, I was weighing all this. And it was really to my shock and disbelief that the level to which water Underpins all of it.

• 26:58Speaker 00

  And nobody was talking about it. Taylor, I think, the guy I was on the trip with said, said, this is the least sexy issue there is. And I was like, that's me. I'm in, I'm in.

• 27:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's interesting. I kinda had a similar, obviously I didn't have the, the success that you had. But I had a business and I was making money for myself and I was, you know, building my own little brand or whatever in my industry. And I realized, okay, I have enough money for me. Like, I'm good for a couple of years. I wasn't set for life, but I was like, okay, I can provide for myself for a couple of years. And I remember you're starting to think outside of myself. I think it's, I think I was suffering a lot when I was just thinking about me, me, me. And when I started thinking about others, I really started to find a lot more fulfillment and joy and giving and service. And I went on a trip with Pencils of Promise, this organization that helps build schools, because I was, I struggled in school my entire life. I was, you know, dyslexic and was in, you know, all the

• 27:52Lewis Howes?

  special needs classes until seven years it took me to graduate college. Like, the whole time, it was a struggle for me. So I was like, for kids to not even have school, I want them to at least have the opportunity. Because I know what getting through school meant for me for other opportunities. So that's why education became something that was meaningful for me. And I think it's important for each person to figure out what excites them. They wanna get involved in, whether they're donating for something, whether they wanna be a part of something theirself. Um, and that, and I, and I, we can't solve all the world's problems. You know, you can't do everything, Matt, right? And Gary, but it's, you guys went all in on this thing, which I think is really cool. What advice would you have or suggestions would you have for people that

• 28:32Lewis Howes?

  want to start giving? Maybe they don't have the money, but they have some time. Um, how can they discover what excites them? I know you, you went on a trip, Matt, and, and taught you a lot of these different things.

• 28:43Speaker 00

  I was very lucky to be able to go on that trip. So that was a ma- massive opportunity for me. But yeah, I think I would go back to and just say, one, touch on one more time, the, uh, don't be afraid of looking dumb, you know? Don't let that be a reason you don't do it, right? And there are all kinds of ways to help, but you know, uh, and as you say, you can't solve all the world's problems, but reflect on what you feel you can help with. There's so many local issues you can get involved with, right? And, uh, in your, in your communities. And so, you know, it really is about a personal journey. And, and I think of humility and a, and a feeling of, you know, sometimes, you, you know, you don't always have to be the smartest person in the room. It's okay to not know. And that's how we learn and that's what we're here to do. We're here to learn and grow and hopefully be better in 10 years than we were 10 years ago.

• 29:27Speaker 02

  And that's why we wrote the book, actually, right? I mean, we wanted to have other people have that ability to come on that same journey to see how we responded to to different needs and challenges. And so I think, you know, that is, you know, a very concrete step someone can take. If that story can help them understand the water issue and take action, then that's that's what we we set out to do. And it can be so simple. I mean, certainly, we would encourage people to buy the book. You know, Matt and I, as authors, have turned all the fees over to to water.org. So this is all going to help more people get water. And like be a water ambassador. I mean, that we like this long format so that people could, you know, take it to their book club, right?

• 30:11Speaker 02

  So be a water ambassador, you know, take it to your book club, you know, buy a copy, pass it along, and and then use that as a template if it if it helps whatever you're working on to to be entrepreneurial, to to tackle these big challenges, because we've got to tackle the big challenges. They're not going to go away by themselves, and there's ways to get it done.

• 30:34Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely. And Gary, I'm not sure who between the two of you comes up with the goals or the mission for the goals you want to accomplish. But I I watched a video where Matt said by 2022, you want to reach 60 million people and impact 60 million people. And I think you just said you're at 43 million now, Matt, if I'm if I'm remembering this. And you're hoping to get to, what was it, by the end of the year?

• 30:58Speaker 02

  Well, by 50 this year and 60 next year, by 2023.

• 31:01Lewis Howes?

  Okay, okay. Well, I don't know if he if he made this goal or this number up four years ago, Gary.

• 31:07Speaker 02

  Gary put this in front of us four or five years ago.

• 31:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:11Speaker 02

  Um, and everyone went, well, all right, let's go, you know.

• 31:16Lewis Howes?

  What's it going to take? Because you said you projected around 50 by the end of the year. What's it going to take to go from 43 to 60? And and and live into that vision from what you said four years ago, what I heard on this interview. By the end of 2022, what would it take from you guys and from communities in the world to help get you to 60 million lives that have access to clean water now?

• 31:39Speaker 02

  You know, we do need to continue raising that that philanthropic capital that kind of sets this huge flywheel in motion. So that we can then use that. You think of it as that. It's like that's building the engine to solve this problem. Right? Because there are all these kind of market failures or these assumptions about why you can't do things a certain way. And we use that philanthropic capital to go out and and de-risk this and to kind of correct those market failures. And then we use water equity as the fuel in the engine. Right? So this is how we're going to reach 60 million and beyond is by combining water.org and water equity. And now, you know, we've we've raised $200 million in assets with water equity that's being deployed, providing financial return and social impact.

• 32:22Speaker 02

  Our sights are set on a billion dollars of of demand that we see where we can leverage these capital markets. And that's when it's going to happen. That's when we're going to go beyond 60 million. And I like to think about, you know, solving the crisis. If we can be that that, you know, I think of it as the financial plumbing of connecting the global capital markets to women like Lina Riza, who I talked about, who needs a $275 loan. That will then set this in motion and it'll be self-sustaining. And that's how we'll really get there.

• 32:55Lewis Howes?

  I'm a big fan of challenging my guests to get them to. You guys are already thinking way beyond, you know, so many things. But I'm a big fan of challenging people to reach and accomplish their goals when they say they want to accomplish them. And if they don't, it's okay. You're still doing incredible work. There's no judgment if you don't reach 60 million by the end of this year. But I'm curious, what would it take from both of you? To go from the projected fifty-ish to sixty instead, how much, like, give me real data. How much money would you need to raise? How many, you know, how many books would you need to sell? What is the?

• 33:29Speaker 00

  I'm almost positive that I said twenty twenty-three, we'd hit sixty, because that projection has been consistent. But if I'd said twenty twenty-two, I misspoke, but, but we're, we're, I mean, we're, it's going as well as we hope. We're on target right now. Yeah, can we reach more people? Yes, the more people who get involved, the more people who jump on this with us, the better. Through either a donation, or if you're buying one of the books, which is, you get the book and you're giving a donation, that is incredibly helpful, to come into our website, to start to learn about the issue. It's endlessly fascinating and interesting, and, or also to investing, right? And that water equity idea was born out of a trip that we had to India seven or eight years ago, where we were kind of independently polling all of our microfinance partners,

• 34:12Speaker 00

  and they all reported back, I mean, all of them, that their biggest bottleneck was access to affordable capital. And that's when we started to think about, well, wait a minute, we could, we could pull money into this, like, there are people who would accept a less of a return, still, there's a return, there's a significant return, but knowing how many lives they were positively impacting. So it's hopefully an attractive investment deal. You know, as Gary said, we've pulled two hundred billion dollars into this, but, but we're trying to, we're trying to get a lot more.

• 34:40Speaker 02

  And if I could just come at it from a different perspective, and I get your question, like, how are we going to scale? What are our objectives? And, and how are we going to meet them? And it's goals around systems change, as much as it is, like, what are we going to do, right?

• 34:55Lewis Howes?

  System change, you meaning like, the system of the, the country, or the community, or the government, or what's?

• 34:59Speaker 02

  Yes, thinking about the system of how poor people get water, and the mindset that we have, that we have to, like, raise money, drill the well, cut the ribbon, and then move on. Mama Florence is a woman I met in Uganda. She goes, I, you know, she's a grandmother, she just introduced herself as Mama Florence to me. And I sat down and was talking with her, because she had been riding a bicycle, you know, for hours each day, going around trying to find water, you know, water holes and things for, for her family and her grandchildren. And she took out a two hundred, uh, her, yeah, her loan was about two hundred and fifty dollars. She put in a pump, she put in a storage tank, and she's using that water now to grow a garden.

• 35:44Speaker 02

  And so she's got vegetables for her family now that she didn't have. She's feeding some of the vegetables because she has some pigs now that she's raising to sell. And of course she has safe water to drink. But then she also, you know, took some of the water and the clay that was near her house and made bricks and was selling the bricks. Then she used the bricks to build some rooms onto her, in her little compound, and she's renting those rooms out. And she's repaid the loan. What happened to that loan? Well, because she repaid it, somebody else now has the opportunity to do the same thing for themselves. That system's changed because we're out of the way. And so I like to think of it as we don't even know the ripples that's gonna happen for this because of the, the way that this all unfolds.

• 36:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, there are millions of these loans, but in the case of that particular loan, we just unleashed this entrepreneur, you know what I mean?

• 36:36Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 36:36Speaker 00

  And rather than spending her time riding around on her bicycle looking for water, she was spending her time, you know, now she's raising pigs, building rooms, renting rooms, making bricks. You know what I mean? It's like, oh my God, she's, you know.

• 36:48Speaker 02

  And she's paying for her grandkids to go to school.

• 36:50Speaker 00

  Right, with the, with the extra money she's paying, she, her grandkids are in school. So it's an amazing story and one we've seen repeated thousands of times. It's people wanting to solve their own problems, right? And if we don't look at it in this paternalistic sense of here, let me give this to you, but rather, hey, how can we figure out a way to nudge this system towards you just a little bit so that you can go off? You know what I mean?

• 37:12Lewis Howes?

  Take ownership.

• 37:13Speaker 00

  That's right, and solve your own problem. Like, and we just get out of the way and let you solve your own problem. I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's really incredible what these women do. It's just, it's awesome.

• 37:23Lewis Howes?

  And if they wanna get the book, they can go to water.org or is it, is it everywhere as well?

• 37:28Speaker 02

  It'll be everywhere, yeah.

• 37:28Lewis Howes?

  Specifically?

• 37:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. It'll be, you know, Penguin Random House is a publisher and so they'll, they'll have it out lots of places.

• 37:35Lewis Howes?

  Very cool. And I told you guys beforehand, I'm making a donation today. I'm just gonna go right to the website and make a donation. So I recommend people to buy the book and also make a donation. Nick, I'm assuming people can make a donation as little as five, $10?

• 37:46Speaker 00

  Absolutely, yeah. That's a significant donation for us, cuz that's, that's one human being, right?

• 37:52Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely, $5.

• 37:53Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 37:54Lewis Howes?

  So I encourage everyone listening and watching to go there. We'll have everything linked up and we'll talk about this before. In the intro and the outro, but five dollars. Go, go take action, at least five dollars today. You know, everyone listening should have access to five dollars. And that can be one step to help this mission. How much will it take? Obviously, there's systems that need to change and other things need to happen. But how much money will it take to be able to leverage to get the loans and all these different things you guys are doing with banks? To end this, like, when could this potentially be ended by so people have ownership of their own? Water resources and then I'll have to rely on two, four, six hours a day of looking for water.

• 38:34Speaker 02

  You know, if you really want to zoom out, you know, the engineer in me has the numbers. It's a trillion dollars, right? It's a trillion dollar problem to be able to get access to safe, sustainable water and sanitation to everyone in the world. And that's why, you know, we recognize, you know, I talked before about how the problem contains its own solution because of all these coping costs. Right? The coping cost of like not being healthy, walking to get water, paying these inefficient water vendors. That's more than $300 billion a year right now. That's sloshing around in this system. And it's about redirecting that $300 billion to, and that's why the problem does contain its own solution because it's, it's so inefficiently done.

• 39:19Speaker 02

  And so that it is a trillion dollar problem, but a lot of the money is already there. And it's just about using entrepreneurial approaches to kind of nudge it in the right direction so that Mama Florence gets her loan. And so that an investor gets a financial return and then the whole thing can take off.

• 39:37Lewis Howes?

  Okay, two final questions for each of you, the same question and an acknowledgement. Let's start with the first question. This is something I ask all my guests at the end of every interview. And so Gary, I'll start with you. This is a question called the three truths question. It's what I ask everyone at the end. I've done over 1,200 episodes and there's some, there's some really cool stuff that comes from people. So. I'd like you to imagine Gary, a hypothetical. Scenario. It's your last day on earth, many, many years away. You get to live as long as you want to live. You get to accomplish all your goals and dreams. You see everything you want to accomplish come true. Live a happy, healthy life. But for whatever reason, all the information you've put out in the world.

• 40:18Lewis Howes?

  This interview, the book, anything you've ever said before, your content has to go with you to the next place, or it's just gone. No one has access to your, your content anymore, your words or your information. But you get to leave behind on your last day, three things you know to be true. From the lessons you've learned in your life, that this would be your three lessons you'd share with the world. And they can be simple or crazy lessons, whatever comes up for you. I'm curious, what would be those three truths? For you that you would share with people. And then Matt, you have time to prepare, so you're next. Yeah, okay.

• 40:53Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, I would go back to one of the things I mentioned earlier that, you know, unless a life is lived for others, it really isn't worth living. And I think on the last day, when I checked out, if I hadn't, you know, lived that, I probably would have felt like it wasn't really worthwhile. The other one is that no matter how big the problem or the challenge, there is a solution. There's always a solution if you think about it hard enough and, and work at it hard enough, there is, there is always a solution. And on the third, the arc of humanity bends in the right direction. I do believe, you know, I'm an eternal optimist.

• 41:35Speaker 02

  And that the arc of where we're going, despite all the things that we might see day to day and climate and things like that, the arc is going to take us in the right direction.

• 41:46Lewis Howes?

  Love that. Those are powerful three truths. Thanks for that, Gary. And Matt, what about you? What are the three truths for you? If it's the last day, many years away? What would you, you've got a lot of work that people don't have access to your movies, your, your writing. They don't have access to anything anymore. Some cases, that's a real benefit to them.

• 42:04Speaker 00

  I would say we're all in this together. We are all in this together. That would be something that I would want to say. You know, there's a great line in a U2 song where at the end, Ibanez sings, "There is no them. There is no them. It's only, it's only us." Right? And so that would be, that would be one, one message. I think another thing would be just a life, words to live by would be to say yes. Say yes, right? Because I, a friend and I were talking about this recently. Because if you say no, you know exactly what's going to happen. Nothing. Right? You're going to sit on your couch. Right? Say yes. And then you don't know where life's going to take you and what you're going to learn.

• 42:46Speaker 00

  And then at the end, I mean, I know I'm going to kick myself when we stop talking and think of other things. But I, but I really do believe just in being kind to one another. I mean, I, you know, I know it's simple to say the golden rule, but if only we could live by that. So many of these, these problems that seem intractable would just go away immediately. So that'd probably end with that one.

• 43:05Lewis Howes?

  I love that. You guys have the book, The Worth of Water, your story of chasing solutions to the world's greatest challenge. I definitely believe it's, one of the biggest challenges out there right now is everyone having access to it and having their own responsibility and ownership of clean water. So they can dream and go live their life, doing the things that can help them generate money or be with their family or do activities that I think we all should be able to have the access and the ability to do. Like so many of us have in growing up in the USA and most of us have been able to do here. So I'm really inspired by the mission. I'm really inspired by your dedication to service. And I want to acknowledge both of you, Gary, for, for using your talents

• 43:45Lewis Howes?

  and, and really continuing to research and learn from all the schooling you did and obsessing over this for a life focused on solutions towards this problem. I think we need more people like you, Gary, and it's really inspiring to see that. You've also been able to put yourself out there. I know it's hard to put yourself out there and enroll the world. And so for you to get someone like Matt to come on board and really be enrolled in your vision and have more people to help with marketing and Promotion is really inspiring well as well. So Gary, I really acknowledge you for the gift you are in the world. For the talents you've been able to utilize and develop and being of service with your talents. It's really inspiring Gary.

• 44:26Lewis Howes?

  And we need more people like you. And Matt, I want to acknowledge you for a moment for there's so many celebrities in the world or people that can keep focusing on themselves. And obviously, you're extremely talented at what you do in many different levels. But to use a big portion of your time and energy and efforts. When you have, you know, multiple kids and a family and career and people wanting things from you to make this a big part of your mission. To invest in it, to spend time writing a book that you don't get any benefit from personally, because all the donations are going towards this cause. Is really inspiring. So very inspired by both you acknowledge you both. We have one final question that I'm going to let you guys go.

• 45:09Lewis Howes?

  So I'll start with Gary and this is the final question I ask everyone is what's your definition of greatness?

• 45:15Speaker 02

  Just knowing that you have taken what has been given to you. And because we're all given different things and different amounts and different talents, opportunities. And have turned that into all that it can be. And fundamentally, at least leaving the world a better place than you found it. And if you can, if you had the opportunity and the tools, you should leave it a much better place than you found it.

• 45:45Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, love that. And Matt, for you, definition of greatness?

• 45:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, I would say I completely agree with what Gary said. It's about being in service to others in all sorts of ways and ultimately, like, you know, as my day job as an actor and writer and storyteller. It's about trying to share your humanity. It's about trying to, you know, as I said before, believing that we're all in this together. It's about. You know, it's about, it's about trying to give of yourself so that people feel that connection. So that, so that we all solve these problems together and grow and evolve.

• 46:23Lewis Howes?

  I love it. Gary and Matt, I appreciate you guys very much. Thank you for your time and thanks for the mission you're both on. It means a lot.

• 46:30Speaker 00

  Thanks, Lewis. Thank you so much for having us and using your platform to help people engage and push this out there. We really, really appreciate it.

• 46:37Lewis Howes?

  Of course. Appreciate you guys. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's show with all the important links. And also make sure to share this with a friend and subscribe over on Apple Podcasts as well. I really love hearing feedback from you guys, so share a review over on Apple and let me know what part of this episode resonated with you the most. And if no one's told you lately, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.