Pod Insights The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos How to Build Resilience (with Ben Walter from The Unshakeables) About this episode In a special episode brought to you by Chase for Business, Dr. Laurie joins Ben Walter—CEO of Chase for Business and host of The Unshakeables podcast—to talk about resilience. Dr. Laurie and Ben explore the story of Benjamin Haugh, founder of All Nation Restoration in Austin, Texas.
Benjamin had a difficult start in life, and at a young age found himself stranded in Austin with no money or job. Despite massive adversity, he went on to become a pillar of the Austin community. Through his emergency restoration company, Benjamin is helping people rebuild and recover when disaster strikes—an experience that can teach us so much about being resilient.
See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:06 Laurie Santos? Pushkin.
0:11 Laurie Santos? Hey, Dr. Laurie Santos here with a special bonus episode and something a little different. I was recently invited on a podcast called The Unshakeables to talk not about happiness, but resilience. The Unshakeables podcast is created by Chase for Business. It focuses on small business owners who face crisis points and show the heart, humility, and hustle needed to propel their companies forward. I joined Ben Walter, CEO of Chase for Business and host of The Unshakeables, to explore the story of Benjamin Howe, who runs All Nation Restoration in Austin, Texas. Benjamin's story is pretty incredible. He not only bounced back from some serious business problems, he also started life facing some truly tough situations. Benjamin was born into a deeply repressive community, one in
0:54 Laurie Santos? which he felt unloved and unappreciated. Benjamin hated how he was treated, and he rebelled against his family, which landed him in trouble with the law. And that turned out to be a blessing. Ben, what I really loved in your story, especially during the hardest times, is you told this tale of how there was one person who really thought you were smart, and you'd never been called smart before. I just want you to reflect on that a little bit about how that really changed your perception of yourself.
1:20 Speaker 01 Yeah, sure. It came at a super impactful moment and from somebody with a lot of authority, right? So like, when I ended up in the juvenile system, I was actually in front of a judge. And it was interesting because my dad was a bit of a tyrant, and he was really the one that consistently had made me feel really insignificant and really stupid. But when I was in that courtroom, my dad was in submission to that judge. He could do nothing, he could say nothing. And that was really cool for me, just to watch him have to sit down and be quiet and listen to a judge. And so when that judge turned around and said, hey, what's happened to Ben is not fair. What's happened here is not right. And we've done an evaluation. We've taken the time to actually get into his brain, right? And I think up to that point, I thought
2:05 Speaker 01 I was not intelligent and that I was maybe dangerous or something was wrong with me psychologically in some way. Like, those were the thoughts I had about myself. My psychological evaluation took 12 and a half hours. Of course, for me, it was trying to prove that I was smart, right? It was trying to prove that I could answer the questions and solve the puzzles and all of those things. And when the judge heard that, that's when the judge said, he was like, he was like, what's happened to Benjamin is a complete travesty. And so to have that judge that didn't know me just actually stand up for me and say, no, no, we're not looking at a hardened criminal that's made a decision to be a bad person. We're looking at a kid. And because in my mind, I wasn't a kid. Man, it changed my life.
2:50 Laurie Santos? If that's what your appetite, then here's a chance to listen to all of Benjamin's incredible story of resilience on The Unshakeables.
3:01 Speaker 02 Welcome to The Unshakeables from Chase for Business and Ruby Studio from iHeart Media. I'm Ben Walter, CEO of Chase for Business. On The Unshakeables, we are sharing the daring moments of small business owners facing their crisis points and telling the stories of how they got through it. Today, we have a story of overcoming overwhelming adversity and a guest who somehow stayed optimistic through it all. His mindset is fascinating. I wanted an expert's opinion to really dig into this, so I brought in a special co-pilot for today's episode. She's a psychologist, the host of the hit podcast, The Happiness Lab, and also the professor of psychology and the good life, which is the most popular
3:42 Speaker 02 class in Yale's history. I'm thrilled to welcome to The Unshakeables today, Dr. Laurie Santos. Laurie, thank you for joining us today.
3:49 Laurie Santos? Thanks so much for having me on the show.
3:51 Speaker 02 Today's episode centers on themes of grit, resilience, and optimism in the face of obstacles. And Laurie is the perfect person to help us explore that.
4:00 Laurie Santos? I think there's two big inputs you want to build up if you want to become more resilient in business and in life. I think the first one is your mindset. The second thing, though, is I think you want to build up social support.
4:13 Speaker 02 Both of which play a critical role in Benjamin's story. So let's get to it. On today's episode, All Nation Restoration from Austin, Texas.
4:24 Speaker 02 Today, we're doing something a little bit different, which is to start with Benjamin Howe's upbringing. This is a business show, so we usually focus on business. But in this case, Benjamin's childhood is in many ways the foundation of his business.
4:39 Speaker 01 I was born into basically a conservative group. It was non-denominational Christian, super strict religious group. They would say, if you were to ask them, they would talk about the education system as being homeschooled. But the reality of the fact is, is those organizations, in my opinion, they operate by controlling the narrative. And so the real goal is no education. I didn't buy really the narrative. And I saw too many conflicts of sort of interest in the belief system. Leaving was very difficult for anybody. It takes a lot of bravery to leave, or it takes a method of sabotage. They had the systems to deal with the typical rebellion. And I took it definitely a step further, where it was radical rebellion. It was, I don't care one bit.
5:24 Speaker 01 If I'm dead or alive, I'm going to make your life hell, no matter what. When they realized they couldn't take me anywhere, they couldn't do anything, I was out of control, is when they said, yeah, we gotta ship him off.
5:36 Speaker 02 One night, Benjamin was out with his friends when they got pulled over. He tried to run. He was caught, detained, and taken to juvenile detention. Benjamin was 15 at the time.
5:48 Speaker 01 When I went to juvie, you know, I probably would've stayed there for a couple of days max, but I wouldn't go home.
5:54 Speaker 02 He wouldn't leave. His dad didn't want him to come home. It was a stalemate.
5:59 Speaker 01 We were in the standoff, which resulted in like a three-month juvenile stay for me, which was not fun. Through that process of going to juvenile detention and stuff, I started to see people that actually really cared, just like the general public. And there was a judge involved in my case in the juvenile court. And he just really put his neck out on the line and had my back. And the judge was like, no, I'm not going to take him and put him in a prison where he learns to be a criminal, right? He's smart. And it was the first time in my life somebody ever called me smart. He said, I'm gonna send you those boys home. They're not gonna be fun. It's gonna be hard. He said, you make a year commitment. You go there and when you're out, I'll file the paperwork to emancipate you.
6:38 Speaker 02 How old were you at this point?
6:40 Speaker 01 I turned 16 in the boys program in Houston.
6:44 Speaker 02 The program had a deal where, once the boys matriculated, they would buy them a one-way bus ticket to anywhere in Texas.
6:50 Speaker 01 I had told them I wanted to go to Bryan College Station. And they looked it up and they're like, yeah, there's a bus that leaves here at like 6:00 in the evening, headed to Bryan. And I was like, no, because I'll get off the bus and it'll be dark, right? And I don't know anybody there.
7:03 Speaker 02 But there was a bus leaving for Austin 45 minutes later. Benjamin got on.
7:09 Speaker 01 I didn't have a plan. I don't know if there's any way humanly possible to describe really the feeling and the fear and the excitement, the mix of adrenaline and emotion. But I haven't felt it since. We'll put it that way. I've had plenty of things happen in my life since that have been very scary or very exciting, but nothing that really hits that point. I tried to calm down, but it was starting to get towards the evening. I realized that I needed some form of transportation and I found a bicycle that was not being attended to at the moment, and I took it because I needed it. And then I started realizing that what I really needed is somebody I knew. I had to have connection because if you don't know anybody, right, you're kind of completely screwed.
7:50 Speaker 02 What happened next is a story for another day, but here's the gist. Benjamin needed to find someone, anyone, to throw him a lifeline. Remember, this is a 16-year-old kid with no money and no family. So he biked around looking for anyone he knew, and finding no one, he rode 22 miles to Round Rock, Texas, mainly on the highway access road. Unsurprisingly, the police pulled him over for biking on the highway and escorted him to a local hotel, where a young woman working reception took pity on him. She let him crash in an empty room for the night. We're going to pick our story back up the next morning. Benjamin was out of the room bright and early, and there were only a few other folks in the hotel parking lot, including one guy named Sean.
8:31 Speaker 01 A guy probably in his 50s or so. He was sitting on the tailgate of his pickup truck. I finally got the courage to go up to him, and I said, "Hey, quick question, sir. Do you have any work I can do?" And he said, "Well, what do you know how to do?" And I said, "Whatever you tell me to do. I need to work." And he's like, "Well, I got a couple of errands I gotta run first thing in the morning here, and I'll think about it and stuff." So he drove away. About 30 minutes, maybe an hour later, he showed back up. He had a house in Round Rock. I went to the house and helped him out. I cleaned his shed and changed a tire on a vehicle, and just the typical. And he's like, "I need to know who you are and what's going on." And so-
9:08 Speaker 02 You told him the whole story again?
9:09 Speaker 01 You got it, Ben. I told him the whole story. It's funny, because when I told him the whole story, he listened. And he said, "Okay. I'll tell you what. Don't ever tell anybody that story again." And he's like, "Well, I don't want to make you feel weird or whatever, but you're welcome to stay with me." He had four boys and was married and stuff, and-
9:26 Speaker 02 He invited you into his home?
9:27 Speaker 01 Yeah, he did. And I accepted it.
9:33 Speaker 02 I want to pause a second here. This moment is extraordinary. Again, this is a 16-year-old kid with a bike and no education approaching a business owner just looking for a lifeline. The courage it takes to do that is staggering. And Sean was kind enough to hear him out and give him the bridge he needed to start this new life. This stuff doesn't just happen every day, but I've seen time and time again that small business owners show up for their communities, especially in time of need. If anything, I hope this inspires all of us to look around our own communities and take a chance on someone who may desperately need it.
10:07 Speaker 02 So you moved in with him, you went to work for him.
10:10 Speaker 01 Yes.
10:10 Speaker 02 So tell me about the business. What was his business?
10:12 Speaker 01 Water, fire, mold, and crimes and cleanup. Those were the main pieces of what he did.
10:17 Speaker 02 And you learn all about how to restore physical property, right?
10:21 Speaker 01 Yeah, there's always this big question mark with education for me. Like, how am I going to be successful without the tools of education? Not being able to read and write and like, how am I going to be a benefit to this company and how am I going to be a benefit to this guy's taking his chance on me? And so coming into his world and seeing that you could replace a lot of the standard education with your willingness to learn and your willingness to work.
10:44 Speaker 02 You got an on-the-job education?
10:46 Speaker 01 Absolutely, yeah. It was basically an apprenticeship. I got to see the good, the bad, the ugly. I got to see it in real time. He was a real support to me. He taught me that industry inside and out.
10:55 Speaker 02 Sean's restoration company was called A Best. Sounds like a Yellow Pages play.
11:00 Speaker 01 Yeah, it was 100%.
11:02 Speaker 02 I'm old enough to remember that.
11:03 Speaker 01 Okay, yeah, that's exactly what it was. And when you could easily search stuff online on your phone, the Yellow Pages overnight dried up and blew away.
11:14 Speaker 02 Soon, A Best went by the way of the Yellow Pages and Benjamin found himself once again out in the world without a real plan. But this time, he had connections, employment history, a little bit of cash saved up, and skills he could leverage. He went out looking for a job. He got lots of interviews, but every time he went in, he was asked to fill out a job application.
11:35 Speaker 01 I can't fill out the paperwork, but I'm really good at my job. Like, I will work really hard. I'll be on time. And the guy looked at me and was like, look, man, if you can't fill out the paperwork, how are you going to do your job?
11:46 Speaker 02 Benjamin was stuck. Then Chris, an old coworker from A Best, reached out.
11:51 Speaker 01 He's like, hey, can I come work for you? And I just literally started laughing. I don't know if it was because I thought it was funny or because I was in a complete panic myself, but I just cracked laughing. I think I was 18. And Chris is like, well, look, man, if there's anybody that I think can do this, it's you.
12:06 Speaker 02 So you decided to start the company? Or is that too much of a stretch?
12:09 Speaker 01 I would love this to be more of a hero story, but really, it was a lot of fear. I truly did not believe I had what it took to run the company.
12:16 Speaker 02 You just needed income, so you got to go.
12:18 Speaker 01 Yeah, and that was pretty much it.
12:20 Speaker 02 Benjamin called Chris back. He still wasn't sure, but Chris was. Chris was so sure that he offered to work for free.
12:28 Speaker 01 I mean, that was the offer. He's like, you can't pass that up, Ben. And I was like, yeah, you're right.
12:33 Speaker 02 Benjamin quickly realized that starting a business takes capital, a lot of capital, and he had much less money coming in than he had before.
12:41 Speaker 01 One of the lessons for me was if I was going to start a company, I need to lower my expenses like big time.
12:45 Speaker 02 How do you do that?
12:46 Speaker 01 Well, one, my girlfriend didn't like the reduction in income. That problem resolved itself. She left.
12:52 Speaker 02 That took care of itself?
12:52 Speaker 01 Yeah, she left. And I realized that the idea of faking it until you make it, it wasn't going to work for me. I went on a mission to sell basically everything that I had. I bought a camper and I moved it to RV Park in East Austin. And Chris moved in with me. So we lived in this little camper. We split the rent in the camper and we worked our butts off.
13:19 Speaker 02 Dr. Santos, what did you think of Benjamin's story?
13:22 Laurie Santos? I mean, what an incredible human and what an incredible story, right? It's amazing because it violates the intuitions that I think we usually have about what makes for a successful business person. A successful business person gets an MBA or they go to some fancy school or they're the kind of person that like has had a straight path to where they're going now. Benjamin's story really reminds us that hey, there's so many different paths to being a successful business person. And you don't necessarily have to worry if you're kind of missing one of the things you think you need, right? You might not have that fancy college degree. You might not have that fancy experience. You might not necessarily even believe that you're able to do what you're doing. One of the things I found so compelling about Benjamin's story is that at one point when he's handed the keys to this new business, he says, I definitely don't think I'm going to be successful.
14:08 Laurie Santos? There's no way I'm going to run this business as well as the person before me. And you know, look at the amazing things he's done. And so I think it really reminds us that a lot of the ideas we have about successful business people, who can be a good leader, some of those ideas are really mistaken and we might really need to visit thinking about them differently.
14:27 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's clear from Benjamin's story that starting and running a business, whether you come from a background like his or not, if you list all our stories, takes a certain level of resilience. How do you develop resilience as an asset, as a tool in your life? What are the inputs that help people build that muscle?
14:41 Laurie Santos? I think the first one is your mindset. He had a mindset that things were going to work out. It wasn't so much kind of blindly hopeful, but he just had faith in his own abilities to push through things when things were tough. And this is really a mindset of optimism, something that's really important for resilience. You realize, hey, it's not that tough stuff's not going to come up. I'm not blindly hopeful that no problems will ever come up. I just, if problems come up, I have faith in my ability to push through. And I think that was really inherent in Benjamin's story, but I think it's something that all resilient business leaders need to build in because we can't blindly think that no problems are going to come up. They're going to come up, right? This is what we hear on your show a lot, right? The problems come up. But I think we need to have a mindset where we just have some faith in our ability to get through it.
15:25 Laurie Santos? It turns out that that belief, believing that you can do it, is kind of half the battle for getting through things. And so I think that's resilience ingredient number one, the right mindset of resilience. The second thing, though, is I think you want to build up social support. You want to have people that you can ask for help. You want to have businesses that can help you out when things get really tricky. I think you want to build a set of social supports around you that can really take care of you when times get tough. And I see this in Benjamin's story a little bit too, right? He really made good use of the opportunities he had socially, of the people who did believe in him. He kind of locked on to that and really used those individuals to fuel his success.
16:03 Speaker 02 Yeah, I really want to hear what you think about the rest of Benjamin's story. Let's listen. At this point, Benjamin and Chris are living in the RV. They had lots of small residential projects and slowly built up their name and their reputation. Finally, they got a big break, a contract with a research and development lab in Austin. Not only did it help them financially, but it also gave Benjamin the nudge he needed.
16:27 Speaker 01 That's when I kind of realized that there was a good chance we could line up more of those and actually start to build a business.
16:32 Speaker 02 So, once you really got it going, then there's a point at which you really started to invest, right? You started to buy equipment, you started to buy everything you needed, and then you bought some vans. Tell me about that.
16:41 Speaker 01 I started investing in the company from day one, just buying restoration equipment, vans, DUs, and the things we needed in box trucks and used vehicles.
16:49 Speaker 02 Their transportation inventory reached a critical moment in 2020.
16:53 Speaker 01 We realized that our fleet was just aging out. It was just one disaster after the other.
16:58 Speaker 02 One broken belt away from whatever.
16:59 Speaker 01 Yeah, and turbos and being late to customers' houses, all that stuff.
17:03 Speaker 02 This was Benjamin's chance to get his beloved $80,000 to $90,000 vans.
17:08 Speaker 01 I was gonna kind of rip the Band-Aid off and replace the fleet with these vehicles. I told the sales guys, we want to replace our entire fleet of vans. It's about 15 vans we're looking at. He's like, we're not gonna get those allocated to us.
17:22 Speaker 02 If you remember anything about the car shortages during 2020, then you know what Benjamin was facing. Unlike many Americans, the shortage actually worked out in his favor.
17:31 Speaker 01 I didn't want to do it all at once, but let's put that in one at a time. When they come in, we'll trade it out for one of the vehicles that's in rough shape with the company. So, he calls me about a month later, he's like, hey, good news, I was able to get all of those vans allocated, and I started the order on all of them. And that was a panic moment for me, because that was well over a million dollars.
17:53 Speaker 02 You didn't have a million in cash to just help on it?
17:55 Speaker 01 No, I didn't.
17:56 Speaker 02 Okay.
17:57 Speaker 01 So, it was a total panic. I got with my banker, we started looking at everything, financials, and he just helped me recast my financials, and he kept coming back to me like, I don't know how we're gonna make this happen, but we're gonna make it happen. And I was like, okay. So, sure enough, those vans are rolling in, just one after the other, every day. I was getting stretched pretty much to the limit, and then COVID had a huge impact on all businesses. We were no different. And so, like, from when the order went in, to when the vans became available all at one time, the company was also not doing fantastic.
18:32 Speaker 02 Somehow Benjamin got all his vans. The van panic was almost over. Almost. Just after he got the final van wrapped and road ready, he got a call from the guy next door to his business property.
18:45 Speaker 01 He's in complete panic. He can't even get a straight word out. Ben, oh my God. And I was like, no, dude, what's going on? He's like, all of your vans are floating away in the creek. And it wasn't even raining. And I was like, stop joking with me.
18:58 Speaker 02 It wasn't storming.
18:58 Speaker 01 Uh-uh. And it hadn't even been raining. The ground wasn't saturated. And I was like, you have to be kidding me.
19:04 Speaker 02 What happened? Was it raining upstream? Like, what happened? Here's what happened. Benjamin and the All Nation Restoration Facilities were near Walnut Creek in Austin. Surrounding the creek is a large natural area with miles of biking and walking trails. It also has a large flood plain. All Nation Restoration was in that flood plain. And today was Benjamin's unlucky day.
19:27 Speaker 01 So it took all these vans off the creek and it took them down the creek, some of them miles, and just obliterated them. And then it's also just embarrassing, super embarrassing. Like, the restoration company that usually helps people with floods loses all their vans in the creek, right?
19:41 Speaker 02 Did you think the business was going to survive at that point?
19:43 Speaker 01 No, I was pretty sure it wasn't. We bought in the middle of COVID. So prices were elevated from all dealerships. So we were paying over what the vehicle was worth. On top of that, we didn't put gap insurance on stuff when we bought them. We were in such a hurry just to get this to happen. And then because of the cost increase on my insurance premium, which I really didn't fully take into consideration when I bought all these vans. Yeah, I didn't really think about it. I had opted for a high deductible, $10,000 per vehicle, because in my mind, there was no way that I would lose all of my vehicles.
20:16 Speaker 02 So how did you resolve this? What'd you do?
20:18 Speaker 01 Well, it's interesting because I think things resolve themselves if you stick in there, if you persevere through them. We went through the normal things, getting all of the equipment that was in those vans out and back up onto dry land and then working with a towing agency to get all of the vehicles out of the creek, which is a huge effort, filing claims on all of it, and then trying to negotiate with our insurance company on all the vehicles. We went to rental companies. And we rented vehicles and there's a company in town that does our lettering. They felt bad for us. They put temp lettering on all of our rented vehicles and then offered to take them off, clean them up when we were able to return them.
20:52 Speaker 02 Wow. I love when I hear stories like that, like small businesses supporting other small businesses.
20:56 Speaker 01 Yeah, it was super Austin Sign Co. Has been really good to us. But then came the interesting thing, and I thought to myself, you don't deal with something like this for no reason. There has to be something that we can learn from this and some way we can grow in a positive direction through this. And so although I still believe that the Mercedes Sprinter van is the best for restoration, there is also negatives. And then some of the negatives are that they're high roof, which is good to work in, but they're not good for overhead damage. We had a lot of overhead damage claims that were coming in. Then just the weight of the vehicles on the road and the impact on the environment.
21:30 Speaker 02 Burn a lot of gas and yep.
21:32 Speaker 01 Tires, more tires.
21:34 Speaker 02 Tires for sure.
21:34 Speaker 01 All of it. And then the insurance costs and everything else. So I went back to the drawing board and I said, we're going to go way smaller on vehicles and we're going to buy cash. So we're going to rent. And then we're going to start knocking out those rental vans and getting them returned back to the rental company by replacing as fast as we can, replacing these vans with cash vehicles.
21:53 Speaker 02 At that time, Benjamin was also spending a ton of money on marketing the company, trying to drum up business and replace what he lost during COVID.
22:01 Speaker 01 I ended up moving my marketing dollars out of promoting the company digitally. And instead I bought a dumpster company and I logoed out the 25 dumpsters with full graphics.
22:12 Speaker 02 So they became a marketing vehicle for you because the dumpster sits outside and everybody drives by it.
22:16 Speaker 01 Yeah. So I was like, I can basically purchase this company outright with my budget.
22:20 Speaker 02 And it'll make money and do marketing at the same time.
22:22 Speaker 01 That's right. And then it allowed us to buy smaller vehicles.
22:25 Speaker 02 It's a good ninja move.
22:26 Speaker 01 Well, I look back and I was like, hey, pat myself on the back. I figured something out, you know? And then I bought all these little transit vans and I used the insurance company to get out of the debt with a van as best as possible. And then the debt that was remaining, we went to the banks and we were just like, look, this is the situation. Here's the pictures. Can we consolidate? So we actually came back from this whole thing a lot stronger. So at first I was like, man, nobody's going to believe how stupid I am, parking all my vans. In a floodplain. And then, once we solved all these problems, I started thinking, oh, man, I hope nobody thinks this is insurance fraud. Like, I intentionally dumped my fleet to switch gears to do something better. So I feel like really blessed that it actually happened, which is really weird, because I think we came back so much better and on a different
23:10 Speaker 01 trajectory, a much more sustainable trajectory, a much easier trajectory to grow.
23:18 Speaker 02 Laurie, we talk a lot about mindset on this show, but I gotta say, Benjamin's mindset is next level. Even when he's panicking, or he's in a really tough spot, he's able to keep showing up. It would be so much easier to quit, but he doesn't. Can you give us a little insight into what it takes to have a mindset where you can keep going?
23:36 Laurie Santos? You'd be surprised how becoming a little bit more other oriented and purpose driven can give you the resilience to push through when times are tough for yourself. That's providing a foundation, that's boosting your happiness, that's boosting your sense of self-worth, that can kind of help you out when things get tough. So I think becoming other oriented in an odd way is a way of sort of selfishly protecting yourself. That said, I think you also need strategies when the tough times come up to help yourself. And a big one is really mindfully noticing how things are going. Mindfully noticing like, oh, I'm feeling really overwhelmed right now. I'm feeling really stressed out. I'm feeling a little lonely, like I haven't had a chance to see my family in a long time. I often tell my students that negative emotions are like the dashboard light on your car. You know, if your tire light goes on or your engine light,
24:20 Laurie Santos? you have to notice that and pay attention to it, not necessarily immediately, but at some point, you've got to rectify the situation and fix things. I think our own negative emotions and mindfully noticing those negative emotions work like that. If you want to be a resilient business leader, you have to take time to notice when you're feeling a little overwhelmed, you're feeling a little stressed, you're feeling a little down, maybe feeling a little angry or anxious, right? These are all emotions that push us towards some behavior that we can use to resolve things and feel better. That sort of mindset research shows can really be good for getting through tough times, but also making sure you're motivating yourself in a healthy way.
24:57 Speaker 02 I mean, those are really forms of emotional preparedness, right? I spend a lot of time with clients and guests on the show talking about financial preparedness, risk preparedness, thinking through what could happen. What I hear you saying is you have to do the same for your own mental health and emotions.
25:12 Laurie Santos? Exactly. And I think that sadly, this is something that we don't teach people very well. I mean, I think Benjamin's School of Hard Knocks has really taught him to develop that emotional preparedness. I think just as we have lots of courses on financial literacy, we actually need equivalent business courses on emotional regulation literacy, right? How do I regulate my emotions, notice them, and tackle them in tough times?
25:33 Speaker 02 Yeah, and I think that's become a lot less taboo is the good news, right? Mental health in general has become less taboo, but it's also the hard one because I can't put it on a spreadsheet like a lot of the things that I do.
25:42 Laurie Santos? Yeah, but it is going to be the kind of thing that business leaders take into account because I think more and more you recognize that mental fitness, and by that, you know, the ability to regulate your emotions, having a resilient mindset and so on, mental fitness winds up mattering for your business performance. We want teams that can regulate their emotions. We want teams that have a positive mindset that are going to keep pushing and persevering when times get tough. And so I think more and more, we're going to be seeing businesses paying attention to all these so-called squishy psychological topics more.
26:11 Speaker 02 It's squishy when it's everyone else's, but it doesn't feel squishy when it's yours, right?
26:15 Laurie Santos? Definitely, definitely.
26:17 Speaker 02 Does the research suggest that there are any conditions or tools or anything else that can help us when we go through tough times, experience growth as opposed to trauma?
26:26 Laurie Santos? Yeah, well, one tool really is the right kind of mindset. And I think Benjamin exemplifies this really well. He seems to have this really lovely ability to look for a silver lining in the midst of all these things, to be grateful in the face of really bad times. Research has shown that having a grateful mindset, noticing the blessings, can be one path to having a mindset that can help you through bad times. And that's in part because our natural instinct is to focus on the negative, to notice only the bad stuff. When we train our mind to focus on the blessings, that means that even in the midst of terrible things, we can notice stuff that we can be grateful for. And that can give us a kind of motivation to sort of push through. So I think that's one thing. He really has this mindset of noticing the blessings. Even though he went through such
27:08 Laurie Santos? a terrible childhood, he was able to make great use of the social support that he did have from the judge, who gave him a little bit of a benefit of the doubt, to the hotel owner who helped him out a little bit, to business owners who gave him a chance, right? I just want a job. I just want... Want to jump in, I'll do anything. He was able to make good use of these moments of social support. And one of the things we do know is that if you're going through a tough time, whether that's in your personal life or in a business, having that social support, noticing that it's there, asking for help, these kinds of things can matter a lot, too.
27:38 Speaker 02 I mean, that's even correlated with a longer life, right? Having healthy social connections.
27:42 Laurie Santos? Exactly, and there's study after study really showing that if you look at longevity, people who have and maintain their healthy social connections wind up living longer and living longer more healthfully. So you don't just like live for a long time, but you avoid things like heart attacks and so on. Social support winds up helping us out a lot. And it's a great stress buffer, right? And I think we see this a little bit in Benjamin's story as well. Times that would normally hit us really hard didn't hit Benjamin as hard. I think because he was relying on his team. He was relying on the social support that he'd grown to love. And I think that that's a lesson for a lot of us, too, right? It's not just having these social supports. It's really maintaining them, putting time in, and being willing to go to them when times are tough.
28:23 Speaker 02 Thank you for those insights, Lori. Now, we've heard about All Nation's past and present, but I wanted to ask Benjamin about the future. We've been talking a lot about succession planning on the show recently, so much so that we dedicated a bonus segment to it. So please go take a listen. You can find it in the show's feed. In 20 years, what's your wish for All Nation?
28:43 Speaker 01 As the company grows and expands, I want its focus to remain on helping people that are less fortunate. I think a lot of times companies start selling out to shareholders and people that are really interested in that profit, which I understand that path. But as we grow as a company, I want to give back to those type of kids that are getting out of those programs or young people that are struggling with addiction. And I would like to do it in more than one city. We're doing it in Austin, but if we can grow into multiple cities and give people an opportunity for employment. I think for me, the biggest struggle wasn't changing my life in the Boys Home. It was what to do once I got out. And I think that path to a career that can support yourself is a key piece. I think that's missing in so many places.
29:24 Speaker 02 And my final question, I ask every guest on the show, if you had one piece of advice for a business owner or aspiring entrepreneur, what would that one piece of advice be?
29:31 Speaker 01 Don't give up. Do not give up. Persevere. All the time I see people that have the answers. They have the solutions to grow. They have it. They just run into a problem. They run into a moment in their life when it's impossible, and they throw in the towel. And if they persevere through that, a lot of times they come out so much stronger.
29:49 Speaker 02 Thank you very much, Benjamin Howe. It's been a pleasure having you on The Unshakeables. Thank you for sharing your story.
29:53 Speaker 01 Thank you, Ben.
30:01 Speaker 02 Laurie, the thought that kept going through my head is that I think we have this one-dimensional definition of education. But I'm sitting across from this guy who's incredibly articulate. I was lucky enough to meet his wife and daughter. He has this great family. And so I think, you know, we have this one-dimensional education means I graduated from this and I can do X and Y. And he just kept making me think, do I have that definition wrong in my head? Is that too limited?
30:25 Laurie Santos? He really shows the power of the School of Hard Knocks, for lack of a better term, right? He's learned a lot from running his business, but he's also learned a lot from the kind of failures and the difficulties that have come up. And I think this is something that we get wrong about success. We think success is about figuring something out the first time, right? Getting it right all the time. We forget that our biggest teachers can be the awful times, the traumas, when things don't go well, when all your vehicles are flooded, and like you have to figure out how to get the right insurance and what your business does after that. And that means that sometimes as business leaders, we avoid those risks, right? If there are possibilities that might seem risky, we don't go for that because we're worried about the failure. But what we forget is that if we mess up, we might not necessarily mess up, but if
31:08 Laurie Santos? we mess up, that mess up might be our biggest teacher. It might be the thing that allows our business to grow in ways that we couldn't have expected. And so Benjamin's story can really remind us, avoiding risk completely, or worrying that if you hit a hard time or something comes up, you won't be able to handle it. That's just not what research really shows. What research shows is that trauma can sometimes make us grow. And that's trauma in life, as we've seen with Benjamin, with his upbringing and so on. But it's also kind of trauma in the context of business. When things go just as bad as you could possibly imagine, sometimes that comes with some good, too.
31:42 Speaker 02 Laurie, can you talk to us a little bit about more modern psychological frames for advantage, disadvantage, how we approach others? A lot of people in society would judge because he can't read and write. Now, that's not his fault. He grew up in an environment where that wasn't taught to him. And if I'm honest with myself, I was on some level surprised that he has been able to be as successful as he has been when he can't fill out a form. And I sort of feel bad about feeling that way, but I'm being honest about it. How does stigma and other things play into societal expectations around these types of things?
32:17 Laurie Santos? Yeah, well, I think they play in a lot in two ways that are really important. First, these kind of cultural notions of like, well, who's educated? Who belongs here, right? Who can fit into business world? Who has the skills to do it? I think those expectations affect the opportunities that we give to the people that come our way as business leaders. You know, if someone can't fill out a form, you might not give them the benefit of the doubt to become one of your team members. But just like Benjamin, it might be an amazing individual. And so I think it reminds us that we need to give folks grace, that the normal stereotypes we have about the kind of person who belongs in our organization might be wrong, and that we might want to rethink some of those. But I think Benjamin's story also shows a second way in which some of these beliefs can really affect productivity, which is the beliefs that an individual has about themselves.
33:02 Laurie Santos? If you're disadvantaged, if you have something that is stigmatizing, like the fact you can't read, or the lack of formal education, or something like that, that can affect the extent to which you yourself believe in yourself. I was really taken by Benjamin's story of kind of what switched where the judge was like, a smart guy like you, you should have had these opportunities, X, Y, and Z. He was really changed by the fact that there was somebody else out there that believed in him. And I think this is something that we neglect as business leaders, right? A quick, one-off compliment about you did such a great job, or you're actually really good at this, or you're a really hard worker. Those quick kind of one-offs can actually change a person's beliefs about themselves. It can make someone more resilient over time.
33:45 Laurie Santos? And I think it just reminds us as leaders that like, sometimes we think those kind of compliments in our head, but we don't often share them. And I think that's especially true for individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds who might have a stereotype against them that causes them to have a threatened belief about themselves. Just these small kind of things, especially to individuals in disadvantaged groups, can mean the world of difference, like literally can change someone's life.
34:09 Speaker 02 Yeah, we spend a lot of time at the bank thinking about how to serve all different types of people. And it's pretty resource intensive. You can imagine we have language barriers. Obviously, we do have people who can't read and write, and we have to be able to serve them as well. We have people with physical disabilities. And that's not a small investment. I'm incredibly proud that we're able to do it. But it takes work, and you have to do it intentionally.
34:29 Laurie Santos? I mean, I think what the research really shows is that work is probably paying off. Allowing individuals to get through the door, kind of democratizing access to these opportunities, really changes the face of what's possible in business.
34:42 Speaker 02 Dr. Laurie Santos, thank you so much for being on the show. This was really insightful, and I appreciate the time you've spent with us.
34:48 Laurie Santos? Thanks so much for having me.
34:52 Laurie Santos? I hope you enjoyed that deep dive into resilience building. Benjamin How's story offers such valuable insights on how to meet life's many obstacles and come through them stronger, healthier, and happier. The Unshakeables podcast is full of such wisdom. So check out more episodes from Ben Walter and the folks at Chase for Business on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your shows.
35:20 Speaker 03 Real customer compensated.
Previous Can You Become a "Practical" Optimist? Next Reducing the Stress of Parenting with Dr Vivek Murthy Page updated November 3, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated
