Howard Behar
speaker
126 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Nov 2024
last heard Nov 2024
Howard Behar’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
I don't need to be the hero. I'm willing to take the bullets when the bullets are flying.
I've been fired four times. Sometimes we think we're taking a step back, but we're really not. We're just learning and we're growing. The whole time I was at Starbucks, not once did I ever ask for a raise. I was never happy working in a place where I didn't connect emotionally. Everybody says it's about the coffee, but this is really about the people. When something goes wrong, I own it.
You know, when something goes right, they get the credit. I've always been a believer in affirmations. Two of my most important affirmations.
I had my six P's, how I do everything in my life. The first P is...
I used to always tell everybody at Starbucks, you are not Starbucks and Starbucks is not you. You came to Starbucks as a whole person, hope you leave as a better person, but you're still a whole person. So when I left Starbucks, I forgot all of that.
And I went into a severe depression for about two years because all of a sudden I went from being on a fast track, getting feedback all the time to zero. And it was difficult for me to deal with. And I lost track of who I was. And I got to the point that it was so bad that I really thought my life wasn't worth living. I just thought, you know, I'm done. And I've done what I came here to do.
I was laying on the sofa, my sofa in Palm Springs, reading a book, and I was truly just down. Every day was great, and every day was painful. And all of a sudden, out of nowhere, these words came into my head. Howard, your life's work is still your life's work. I don't know where the words came from. Honest to God, I was just laying there down, and the words came into my head.
And it kind of struck me, and I repeated them to myself. Howard, your life's work is still your life's work. So I had to really dig in and say, OK, what really is my life's work? And I realized my life's work was about serving people and helping others and doing the things that helped others achieve what they wanted out of their lives. The difference was there was never going to be any feedback.
I was going to do it solely because it was my life's work, feedback or no feedback. And so I got on that track and I started doing podcasts. I started giving speeches and I started doing some coaching and I started talking to other people and always gave my cell phone number and my email address when I did a podcast or did a speech and people would call about anything.
And I said, if you're just mad at your boss, give me a call. If you're struggling with life, I'm not a psychiatrist or a psychologist, but give me a call. I'm a good listener. And so I just started doing that. And the more that I did that, the more I attached to it. And I realized that I didn't need any feedback. The feedback, it was enough feedback
for me to just know that I was living up to my personal mission statements, which goes like this. Every day I want to nurture and inspire the human spirit, beginning with myself first and then for others. And the reason why I said self first is just what we were talking about. I had to be okay with me before I was able to do anything for anybody else. And so it changed my life.
But it was a difficult time. I mean, it was painful. And, you know, I had all the tools at my disposal. That's the stupid part. You know, I've been going to counseling since I was 20 years old. So I knew to do that, but I wasn't doing it. I'd been using affirmations since I was very young. And I stopped using those. And I stopped meditating.
All the things that I knew how to do to help myself, I just forgot. And finally, I got back on board again. And it's not that every day is great. It's not. You know, I have down days. It's like I have days that are great. It could be bright sun outside and my day is gray. But I've learned to deal with it and learned to recognize it. As my mother used to say, this too shall pass.
It's the truth of the matter is this work is much more important than my past work because this work has zero strings attached. It isn't about how many stores we're opening. It isn't about how much profit we're making. It isn't about any of those things. It's only about serving others. And it fills my soul. And so that's what I want to do.
Well, I grew up in Seattle and I'm the son of two immigrants. My father was actually born in 1895 and he came to Seattle as a 15-year-old in 2010. And he had one brother that was here, but he left all the rest of his family behind in Bulgaria. Never talked to him again, never saw them again. The only one he ever saw and talked to was his brother. And he couldn't speak the language.
He spoke a language called Ladino. and Bulgarian, and he worked in a place called the Pike Place Market, which is a public market in Seattle. And in those days, it really was just a public market. It was a market where the farmers would bring in their groceries and sell them to other retailers. who take them to their stores. And my dad worked in that market, pushing a cart.
He learned the language and slowly but surely, he saved his pennies, nickels and dimes and opened up a small mom and pop grocery store in the north end of Seattle. And that's how we lived. We never had much. I think most my dad ever made was about $18,000 in a year. But we always had food on the table. We had the fruit was bruised and the vegetables were a little brown, but we didn't starve.
And my mother came from Latvia in 1919. as a nine-year-old. And they met in Seattle and ended up getting married and had three kids. And my sister was 14 years older. My brother was 10 years older. And so every day after school, my parents were working on the store. I would go to the store. And it was, I'd fool around. I'd eat Hostess Twinkies. I was a fat little Jewish kid.
You know, I love those Hostess Twinkies. So I would try to do little things. My dad would give me a broom and to sweep the floor, do something around the store. You know, I learned so many lessons from my parents and particularly my father. One day I was up at the front counter and he was ringing up a customer on the cash register. Now this is in the days, there was no electronic cash register.
There was 10 buttons across, 10 buttons down and a hand crank, right? And that's what he would ring. He'd put them in and pull the crank and it would put on this little tape. So my dad was ringing up a customer and he said, Howard, go get me a couple of baskets of strawberries. So I went in the back and I got a couple of baskets of strawberries and
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