“A Relentless Drive To Make Things Better For Others” with Pat Lawler

My guest this week is Pat Lawler. Pat is the CEO of Youth Villages. Founded in 1986 with the merger of two Memphis-based residential campuses, Youth Villages is now a nationally recognized leader in the field of children’s mental and behavioral health. From the early days of serving just 80 children a year, we’ve since grown to help tens of thousands of children, families and young people annually, with a complete continuum of programs and services across 24 states and 100 locations.   RECAP 3:00 My Father, where did this come from? 4:56 What drew me in? 6:39 You don’t want to sell tools do you?-- intro? 7:35 Gone back to school 8:13 Drawn to the kids with the biggest problems 8:50 Driven to get to the root 9:15 How to help people with the biggest problems 9:49 What caused these conditions? 13:37 Generational change. Always sticking up 15:27 Learning to be a good parent. Ups and Downs 19:07 Commitment to overcome what comes your way 19:56 Persistent until we get your support 20:50 Research, data, exhaust all options- no turning back 21:20 Not be deterred  21:38 The hardest thing is to change the way people think 22:25 Obsessive compulsive gene 23:05 Thousands of kids and families 24:18 The burden- the passion, the drive, the momentum, the enthusiasm, and the excitement 25:00 Clearly defined and measurable goals, hold accountable, talk experts and data 25:42 Relentless drive to make things better for other people 27:09 Horrible abuse, neglect that scars young people 28:20 Your passionate 29:28 Not now, maybe later. Failure with young people, what did we learn and do it differently learning and experience 31:30 We all need a support system- family is critical and data 32:50 They asked me to quietly close it down-- intro? 33:06 36:20 Pivot, change to support families 39:30 Peer group is key creating change 41:00 I couldn’t do other work 41:20 For the bad there is a thousand more good. Balance work and personal life 42:50 Be open to change, open to where other people are coming from, bring people along slowly, engaged in the process 48:45 The courage to try it 49:05 Committed and passionate- small steps impact their life 50:41 I don’t want to hear about your successes, I want to hear about your failures 57:29 Scaling that problem 56:14 Memphis, TN Murder rate is a serious problem 58:53 Data collecting around the country and scale. Meet needs and replicate it 1:00:13 Make it a safe place for people to live 1:00:55 Deaths across the country are overwhelming/ safe place for kids to grow up in 1:01:43 If people don’t have the opportunity to earn money they turn to crime 1:02:15 Very few cities have put together a comprehensive plan 1:03:55 I know we can do it. We will learn lessons align the way 1:04:51 Giving people hope and meaning into their life 1:07:40 we had passion but no expertise. We needed advice and counsel. These supports could read a balance sheet, help organizational chart, forecast a budget, could help us solve that specific problem and raised money before 1:10:14 Just excited today as I was 41 years ago and I still have that passion and commitment 1:11:00 Moving the organization forward. We need to identify the people that need us 1:12:18 We need to understand the capacity of the problem and scale it to meet the needs     RESOURCES AB JETS Youth Villages