Wally Hawley on American Dreams

Interview Transcript of: Wally Hawley on American Dreams

 

Alan
This is Alan Olsen American Dreams, the keys to life success where we talk about how to live the life that you want to live.

Nadine
And this is needing camera. What are your dreams? What do you want out of life and what define success?

Alan
Welcome back. Well, today we have another exciting show, we’ll have Wally Hawley. He’s one of the cofounders of Interwest partners of venture capitalists here in the the Silicon Valley.

Nadine
It’ll be exciting to hear about what he’s done and and how he’s become a success in life.

Alan
No, he has lots of good stories, I guess he’s been around since 19, the early 70s Seems venture capital and merchant to what it is today. But before we get to there, I want to talk about a leadership moment. Some people come to a point in their life where they realize that life does not go on forever. They want to find more meaning to their life. It can stem from some significant event like a health challenge, a career challenge, Family Challenge, you know, I have a friend whose health became very poor. And he realized that as he went through his health challenge that he wanted to spend more time with his family.

Nadine
Well, you know, I’ve had my share of health difficulties. And I understand what it’s like to actually face your mortality, and realize that it doesn’t continue. Even in my parents eyes, I watch them grow old, and see that they’re not the old mom and dad I used to have before my dad has since passed, but as well as myself, it’s interesting to see that and look back when I was young and thought I would live forever.

Alan
You know, isn’t that so true? And that the, you know, I remember in it right after high school, that feeling that I was absolutely invincible, I could jump off cliffs into the water and nothing would ever destroyed me. And, you know, when you get older, and it kind of settles in, you realize, you know, it doesn’t go on forever.

Nadine
It doesn’t. Alan, what is your advice? When people come to a point in their lives where they have the opportunity and desire to change? What do you advise that they do?

Alan
Well, there’s basically five steps that I see a person needs to go through to change your life. Change is not always easy. You know, it’s like, you know, if you if you want to get what you have the day keep doing the same stuff, and you get more of it. But if you want a different result in life, then you have to do something different. So the first place to start is gotta think differently, you must have a willingness to change in your life and not turn back to the past. The next area is focusing on relationships. Who do you know, who do you like, Who do you trust, you know, where you’re at today. And you when you’re looking for a change? You know, who do you want to seek a lot of people that are starting businesses may have financial difficulties, say I need some money, I need to do something different. And the best place for them to start is to join a network, you know, who has been successful in their field who can enable them to get to where they they need to be. Next area is to work smarter, rather than harder. You know, that’s always something that when you’re looking at working smarter, you need to involve other people. It’s not just about you. My advice and people starting a company, as I said, it takes more than one person, you got to engage somebody to be with you, and get them involved in the process. And the more people that you can bring along, then the more successful that company is bound to be if everyone stays committed into building a successful organization. fourth area is communicate, you know that you need to not only communicate, but you need to listen and persist. Your communication skills will be a factor in others willingness to work for you take the time to listen and communicate with others. And you know that a few weeks ago, we had on Liz Wiseman and Liz was all about motivators and multipliers and you know, people that that like to be around other people because they make them feel good. They make them feel like they’re worth worth a million. And then and that building that self esteem and inside of them really is what advances cars and it also gets other people engaged with, with with you. And then last year he is focused on success. So in order to be successful, you have to believe that you’re successful. And every company or individual whenever they’re going through, we’re all going to face bumps in the road, right? And and when we start to face the bumps, we need to be persistent about it. We need to stop and look at in order for me to succeed be successful and that come to this crossroads. Where do I need to reach out in order to overcome the obstacles that currently rest in my path? You know, and then also how you how you define your success there is, is success in the case of business all about the money. Most entrepreneurs, when they start businesses, they’re not focused on money, but they’re focused on change, disruptive change in the in trying to make a difference. So you need to look at your motivating factor what what your focus is on success? Are you focused on the money? Are you focused on fame? Or is it really making a difference in the lives of others? So those are the five factors again, or think differently, focus on relationships, learn to work smarter, rather than harder, communicate, listen, and persist and focus on success?

Nadine
Well, so for an individual that’s halfway through their life, what do you think the odds are for them, changing their financial circumstances?

Alan
Well, I don’t think age is the barrier. I think Colonel Sanders, when he started Kentucky Fried Chicken was 67 years old, there’s a lot of people that have started late in life, and they’ve, they’ve used their passion and the motivation to, to make a difference towards, towards defining a new and new life for them. Wow. It’s, you know, you really gotta measure when, when your end game comes up, all of our rope and mortality will eventually run out. But you got to look at what do you want people to say about you? After you go out of this life, they’re not going to care about what kind of car you drove or what type of house you live in how much money you had in the bank. You look at Steve Jobs recently passed away within the last four weeks now he made a difference. But in all the commentary that that I’m hearing out, there rarely was, well, how rich was the guy? Right? Yeah, yeah, what did he make, and a few people care but but they’re certainly caring about the differences that he made into their lives, right? The Apple iPhones, the iPads, and all this newfound technology is just really changed life.

Nadine
So whether or not you’re you’ve been ill, or facing financial circumstances, the fact is that individuals can create the type of life that they want. Everyone’s circumstances might be different, but

Alan
absolutely choose how we deal with them. Absolutely. And I met an individual today who she’s been through three heart surgeries. And just born with a defect and, and and so we talked about and I said, well, so what’s it been like this individuals 16 years old, oh, dear. She says, you know, I’ve learned to have a lot of gratitude for my life. And, and, and viewing life much differently. Because of the the perspective that I’ve been given about DNA being given a second chance, I had three friends at the Children’s Hospital with me that did not make it. So

Nadine
wow, what an amazing story.

Alan
So I think when you look at life, you start with the end in mind, and ask yourself the question, how do I wanted to find success? What do I want people to look at? In my life? And how do I want to you know, spoke about? Yeah. So well, this is Alan Olsen is America dreams, the key to life success. We’ll be right back in a moment with Wally Holley, the co founder of Interwest Partners.

Alan
Welcome back. Today we have with us Molly Holly, the co founder of Interwest partners, one of the largest venture capital partnerships in the United States. While it can you tell me what you do with your position in the company?

Walley
Well, of course, right now, I’m out of Inner West, it continues, but I’m doing angel investing on my own. But when I was there, I was one of the two co founders, so we sort of overlooked the various investments that the fund was making, and then help raise the money for them.

Alan
So how many years have you been in the venture industry for

Walley
started in 1972? With a Dutch company, and then in 1979, we decided that venture was going to get big, although we had no idea how big and we formed in our west in 1979.

Alan
Wow. And that’s located here in the Silicon Valley. It is are on their 10th farm. Wow. So you’ve seen a lot of change over the years, then. Yeah, absolutely. So if we bring this password up to date, what recent trends that you’ve seen in the venture capital industry in the last couple years?

Walley
Well, I think you can divide that kind of into three segments, the money coming into the venture capitalists, the money that venture capitalists are investing, and then the money that they get back when they get initial public offerings or whatever. The money coming in. The venture capital is declining, and it’s been declining because the returns were not that good in recent years. But there’s still a tremendous amount of money out there available for the companies So there’s no shortage there for that. And there’s a lot of activity. But I would say that the venture capitalists are a little more sensitive to how much time it will take to get to exit, because of the difficulty in raising additional money. And then the third, for companies and entrepreneurs, it’s a wonderful world, because there’s many venture firms 1000s, more than there were when I formed Inner West, and a lot of money available to these people who want to start these companies. And that’s really the good news.

Alan
So now you’ve focused back into angel investing. And for the listeners, angel investing represents basically the seed capital,

Walley
know what angel investing is, as you are doing your own money, as opposed to going out and raising money from other people and then investing there’s mostly angel money or from people who have done well, either as like CEOs of companies, or general partners and venture funds. And then they decide I don’t want to run somebody else’s money anymore, I’ll just do my own.

Alan
So someone’s coming to you, Ali and saying, Well, I need some money. What are some of the things that you look at? And going through the process of making a decision? Am I going to be involved with this investment?

Walley
Well, first of all, for me, and this isn’t just typical for venture capital, I’m concentrating on education. So you get my attention if you have something in education, and if you don’t, you may have a very good company, but it’s just not fitting the profile of what I’m looking for. Beyond that, it’s people first, second. And third, I want to know who’s leading this and what they’re like.

Alan
Okay, so we so educational companies primarily. So let’s go to this topic. What trends have you seen in the education market? Maybe can you go elaborate on recent trends, and sure, developing

Walley
Sure. If we go back about 10 years, and somebody had an education company, and he came to a venture capitalist for money, they would say, well, I might as well throw it out the window, because I’m not going to make any with this. And so I’m not going to do anything in education. This is really changing rapidly. And there’s been a great interest in education because of the need for change. And that’s at both the K through 12 level. And it’s also at the post secondary and postgraduate school record. And what we’re really seeing is right across the board, there’s all kinds of educational companies being formed. And a lot of it relates to the fact that technology is permitting us to do education differently.

Alan
Interesting, do you see a disruptive technology now in this market,

Walley
very much so at the college level, somewhat at the K through 12. But at the college level, a lot of these colleges were formed on the basis of things that were developed centuries ago, not decades ago, and they haven’t changed. And what’s happening is because of the difficulty of getting money, high tuition is, first of all, for people who can’t afford it. But in the case of state universities, the money isn’t coming from them from the States. So in disruptive technology, they really need to change their approach.

Alan
Now that the timing seems very, very much needed for disruptive technology. We see all this in the news about the states running into their budget crisis. And the teachers are, you know, wondering, are we going to get paid or what’s going to happen to pensions and all this financial crisis? So could you elaborate on some of the the solutions that are coming out there where maybe technology can fill in gaps?

Alan
Probably the most important one, for me anyway, is distance learning. And the vantage of that is that you can take someone who can’t go to the college geographically, but can go dip through distance learning. And also for the colleges, they don’t have room for more people, they don’t have seats. So what happens here is we are working with distance technology and a couple of companies that I’m involved in with the idea that we’re trying to accept people not reject them coming in. And so I’ll give you an example with the teachers. If you want to get a master’s a teacher’s program, under the old thing, you have to leave your job, go to a university, pay maybe 30 or $40,000 to get a master’s, with our system. You can get it from a great university like Texas or Arizona State are Purdue, they use our distance learning system, they stay in Teach where they are. And in one case, the cost of a master’s is $5,000 $5,000. Oh my gosh, and and you get the certificate with the name of that school and same teachers, same instruction, same curriculum. And it’s with our technology that we’re doing this so we are doing this for state universities and it allows them them then to help their funding as the states give them less money. They are getting more by adding students through this distance learning without any additional expenses on their own.

Alan
So what stage is this is this? Are we just at the beginning of this trend now?

Walley
Early, we just had a conference of the state a future of universities. And basically, it was this disruptive technology was the whole theme. And a lot of it built around this distance learning. We had over 100, state universities come and hear about what was going on. And we’re getting a lot of people in our company signing up to have us do this for them. And I would say in the state universities, it’s still a small part. But everybody’s becoming aware of it. When you have 100 of these presidents and provosts coming to hear what’s going on. You know, they’re looking at it.

Alan
What drives a university to say, we want to go to this more online, obviously, they build out the infrastructure and classrooms and, you know, but what is the, you know, from, from your opinion that the primary factor of why are they pushing in this direction, I

Walley
think you need to divide that Allen between the state universities and private universities, the state universities, it’s very simple. They’re not getting the funding. University of California has 40,000 students that are eligible to go and they can’t take them, they don’t have room, you do distance learning, they can start taking those and these are fully qualified people. So it’s money in the case of the state universities. In the case of the private ones, some of them just think that this is an opportunity to share the talent they have in their professors. with others. MIT is doing this where you can go on in and take their courses, you can’t get a degree, but you can take their courses for free. Stanford has a professor in the engineering department, who teaches one course, on artificial intelligence, they have reached 135,000 Students with this course.

Alan
Now we’re beginning to see the scale of this information age coming available. Absolutely. And I guess they can be in anywhere in the world? Yes.

Nadine
Well, if I had, if I was someone that had an idea, I needed an angel investor and creating some type of company or business and education, what would be the cornerstones of building my business plan that you would want to see as an angel investor?

Walley
Well, first and foremost, again, as I said earlier, it’s people I want to see an outstanding leader. People talk about that, they always violate it and get mesmerized by the size of the market or the technology. I want to know who you are, what your capability is, first, or your team could be a team. Beyond that, I want to know that you have something that is significantly different rather than me to, there are a lot of content companies that yours is a little better than someone else that didn’t do it. It’s got to be something that changes the system. And I think the other thing I want to see is that it’s really scalable. I don’t want to see something that’s fairly small or narrow. I want it to be applicable around the country, if not, as you say, Allen internationally.

Alan
So let’s go back to this education market. Because I’m intrigued with this, this online learning system and the fact that you’re becoming, you’re getting involved at the ground floor. Answering the question, Who is behind this? In other words, any software programmers say I have an online education system, you know, what differentiates what you’re doing? Maybe who is that? Who’s at your conferences, talking about online learning and, and pushing for this?

Walley
Well see, we are not a software package, we are a system of smile grading on so the people that are using our technology are actually seeing the professor live. It’s not a canned program, okay. And what we’re doing is we’re saying, all right, Where can this technology be used? So I mentioned the US one, we have another company run by the same group of people that are actually buying universities down in South America, and then putting the distance learning on so we own universities in Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Chile, Colombia, Panama, Paraguay, and we buy those, and they don’t have distance learning. We put it on. And through that, we hope that we’re going to move up the percent of people in South America who have a university degree, it’s very small right now. So not many of them can really work effectively in the community if they don’t have an education. Well, we’d like to take that percentage up through the online learning.

Alan
You know, I heard a comment recently that we kept talking about demographic trends and the baby boomers aging and They mentioned that the way it’s gonna get solved is to bring these third world countries into the pictures by lifting their education level. And and so you’re just confirming that right now and you know, some of the South American countries Africa, or they

Walley
are we’re not doing anything there yet. You know, you have to pick your choices. I mean, South America is a pretty big shot to go after.

Alan
No, I agree with that. I agree with that. So well, while he this has been, you know, enjoyable to listen to the online education, we gotta take a quick break. And we’ll be right back after these messages. Welcome back. This is Alan Olsen as American Dreams for we have with us today Wally Holley, he’s the co founder of Interwest partners and an active angel investor, we were talking about education. We just learned from Wally about factors that can affect venture capital and getting involved with different organizations. And while he’s had a passion for the education, one thing I’d like to know while he though, what are the criteria that you use when determining whether or not you’re going to become involved with this company.

Walley
And this would be involved, both for companies and nonprofits, I have a very clear template, which allows me to sort things out pretty quickly. There are three things I’m looking for. I’m looking for an outstanding person or team. That’s number one. The second is I want to see something that can be scaled. Because I’m a scale kind of guy, I don’t want something that’s small. And the third one I learned from Peter Drucker when he told me Don’t get involved in fixing things, because you’ll put in a lot of energy trying to do it based on what you’ll get, get involved in joining something that is growing and successful and build with it. If I see those three things, I’m interested, if any one of those are missing, we go on from there.

Alan
While I would you agree, it’s true that success begets success, or those individuals that have done something went successful usually tend to continue on that path?

Walley
Well, the example we used earlier on the education companies, both the one with the state universities and the one in South America, and it was one he did before that in literacy, same guy, he’s on the second and third successes.

Alan
It’s amazing. So does the structure the organization or the group that you’re looking to become? You know, really the determining factor?

Walley
I don’t think so. Structure is more like boxes, and you know, who reports to who and how it’s organized. Remember, boxes represent people. So I got a lot of flexibility on how you want to structure it, but I want to know who you’re structuring it with, and the people. So I don’t have any kind of a formula that says a structure ought to look like this many different structures will work.

Alan
That makes a lot of sense.

Nadine
Well, Wally, I understand you’re involved with Stanford University and also young life. Can you tell me a little bit about your involvement?

Walley
Sure. Stanford, I’m on two boards there. One is the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. I’m chairman emeritus, which I now realize emeritus is over the hill, as near as I can tell, that is a nonpartisan group that impacts economic matters in our country. I really enjoy that it has scale, it has impact on what we’re doing. The second one, which is more recently, I’ve been put on the Stanford Alumni Board. So I’ll be working with Stanford on a number of things through the alumni, which they have a very aggressive and, and robust program. It’s giving back is match what it really matters

Alan
is interesting. Last night, I was at a dinner with the president of Stanford President Hennessy, and Eric Schmidt, the CEO and Chairman of the Board of Google. And it goes along that Stanford has really done a tremendous job and contributing a good feeder system for the venture capitalist.

Walley
Absolutely. Not in the KC young life. This is a Christian youth organization. I’ve been involved with this many years. And I’ve also been chairman of that, as well as on the board. We have weekly meetings with junior high and high school people where we expose them to the gospel, but also have a lot of fun. Young Life reaches a million people every week in the United States. And we are now in 70 countries. And our target is to go to 2 million. So here we come back to scale, but it also plays to my interest in the Christian world. Okay,

Nadine
now is Young Life involved with any particular religion? So it’s not Catholic or Baptist?

Walley
No, it’s just exposing people To the gospel to the Bible,

Alan
and what? And so with young like, then as you got a million youth out there, you got a chance to really make a difference in, in putting an organized group together. And if you could give a message out there, Wally, which you do to the youth today, and let’s let’s take somebody who’s kind of just getting out of school. Okay? What would it be?

Walley
Well, I hear people coming out of school, if they have a, they’re talking about a wonderful game plan of 10 years from now, I’m going to be here and here’s my career. My general advice him forget it. None of us really know where we’re going to be 10 years I didn’t I never heard of venture capital. I, my recommendation is you find something that you really love to do, and do it well. And if you love it and do it, well, the opportunities are going to come and they may come within the organization that you’re doing it, or they may come from others. And I think the successful people, maybe their careers have wandered all over the place, but it’s essentially been success to success. So do what you love, and do it well. And don’t over plan.

Alan
With with the young life. Do you have any additional criteria? I heard about a gospel centered getting a foundation for the kids? How are the youth doing today, though, overall?

Walley
Well, I’m encouraged that how many people are coming into this? It’s growing? I mean, we’re just one of a number of Christian organizations, I think they’re doing well, youth has a real problem in terms of the rapidity of our technology and the demands on him. It’s a tough time to grow up compared to when I was growing up. But I think if you get these bases of Well, I’d say, systems or ethics principles, you know, that works. And I’m encouraged about that part. But I’d like to see it a lot larger than it is now. And so in the case, a young wife, we are moving from just being in Junior High in high school, to putting it on college campuses as well to extend it out.

Alan
And they use this as a base, basically a social group to hang together. And do they have a gospel study and stuff together for the Bible, and what,

Walley
yeah, we have not only the weekly meetings, but we have very sophisticated camps in the summer that they go to. And our message in Young Life is every kid should have a right to hear the gospel. But it’s a sin to bore a kid with the gospel. So we have a lot of fun while we’re doing it.

Alan
You got it to keep you to keep me engaged. Well, if we, if we come back to this on the I’m going to switch over a little bit of there was a book that you were quoted in by Bob Buford called Half Life or half time. And, and you know, he was talking about that the basically the first part of your life you you spend acquiring things and money and the second giving back.

Walley
Yeah, well, halftime was actually the book about Bob’s thing, the thing where he quoted me was in a book he wrote called finishing well, and the finishing well was about people who had done, quote, well, generally financially, and then decided to spend as Dumai a lot of your time giving back and helping, and it’s just very, very satisfying. I mean, I had a chance to continue to continue with my fund and venture capital. And the question was, why sign up for another 10 years, just build a bank account? There has to be more to life than that.

Alan
You know, I really love that perspective. In fact, I’ve known you for a number of years, but you know, hearing about, oftentimes you hear about people you need to give back. And they’re like, why, and I’m getting a save for my retirement. What Tell Tell me about your experience, what have you really found in the giving back?

Walley
Well, for me giving back it’s not just money, we don’t write checks, our Family Foundation has a guideline that if you’re going with the family to give, then you need to be involved in the board are active is giving of your talents, your experiences, your wisdom, if you have it, your Rolodex, whatever, helping these people. So it’s a hands on, kind of giving back, not just write a check.

Alan
So you see that people are really committed into into the organization.

Walley
And that’s where you get the pleasure. I mean, just writing a check. There’s not a lot of joy in that.

Alan
You do a lot of travel around the United States and you’re involved with young life or

Walley
no, that’s why I got good people was under me as chairman who did the traveling.

Alan
Well, that makes sense. You know, so what other what other messages would you give to the youth today?

Walley
Well, I think how you Use your time. We’re all very busy. We all add things of, to our life. And I think you need to think about how are you spending your time and your priorities in that. And they have less time to make these decisions than we had when I was growing up. So pick the things that you really think are important, hopefully, from a ethical point of view, and work on that and don’t get involved in too many things.

Alan
That make sense, you know, with this advancement of time. It Yes, that’s disruptive technologies out there, they these kids have to move quickly. And they don’t have that opportunity to wait.

Nadine
And it’s interesting that you had raised the fact of managing time because we were just speaking about that earlier in our segment, about the importance of making goals and actually planning out your time, you know, win for the day or 90 Day plans or, you know, one week plans, and organizing your time so that you can be the most productive with your with the time that you have.

Walley
Well, I think the key there is making sure that what you’re doing is useful. People say, you know, I’m very busy. Busy is not an outcome. It’s a condition. So when somebody says a busy,

Alan
yeah, so tell me anything that’s got it.

Alan
Got it? Well, well, this has been a pleasure having you here today on the show. And thank you for all the insight about venture capital nonprofits. This is Alan Olsen’s American Dreams. We’ll be right back after these messages. Welcome back. This is Alan Olsen. And it’s been fun fun having Wally on this show, while we Khalid we just got done talking to him, the co founder of Interwest partners, has had a very successful venture capital career and is now in the angel investing mode where he’s looking to revolutionize education by not only doing the funding of some of these companies, but also staying involved with their boards and sync to it that the education market can expand to individuals that would not otherwise have opportunities.

Nadine
Yes. And while he was involved in Young is involved in young life, and he gave some interesting comments, Alan, he, when you asked him what he would advise youth of today, he said, have a passion for what you do. And I thought that was very important. So I’m going to ask you, Alan, if once we find that passion for what what we really want to do in life, how would you put time management principles into action, so we can really develop that plan?

Alan
You know, since you’re saying that, the more you we go through life, and as technology increases, life just gets to be more complex every day. You know, it used to be you can write a letter, and it would take two weeks for the return to come back. Now there’s an email or even texting kit. My kids don’t answer your phones, they text, you know, what do you need to add? And, and there’s this immediate responses just in time responses. So it, you know, the burden there is that the obviously we’re coming more efficient in what we do. But our time is so valuable. And so when we look at this, this area of of having a passion for something, I think the focus there is, is not letting time get in the way of us pursuing what we really want to do.

Nadine
Exactly. And that’s when you have to put some management principles into into place. Do you have any personal plans that you use for your family?

Alan
Oh, absolutely. We do. You know, when my wife and I were married, we’ve been married for a long time. Now. I want to say 2026 years is coming. Now. So 2027, year since December. Congratulations. Thank you. And you know, when we first got married, we we kind of work life backwards. And we said, Well, where do we want to end up? And we looked in the 80s You know, when we’re the mid 80s, or the twilight of our life, we said well, we realize that, you know, what we make doesn’t go with us. But we want to focus on things that really mattered. And so we felt family. And we decided that it wasn’t going to be a better kids but our grandkids so interesting principle we had to we had to to make sure that the odds are with us. So we had seven kids. And and it’s been a wonderful experience, but we’re hoping for lots of grandkids.

Nadine
Well with seven I’m sure you’ll be blessed with quite a few

Alan
fingers crossed, you know, in fact, it just seems to come on once this summer, we had two of our children to get married 10 days in part and we had four different states involved with weddings, receptions and houses. It was it was it was a time management time. Yes,

Nadine
good quite, quite a bit. chaotic, I’m sure as well,

Alan
well, let me let me walk through. So our family, we have what’s called the a family plan. In terms of, you know, looking at defining where we want to end up in life, you know, where’s our values at what’s the process. And so we’ve, we’ve kind of defined that in our life, we need to make sure as we go through time that we need to manage it properly. So we put basically four quadrants into place, we have our family time, every Monday night, we have what’s called a family home evening and family councils, we get the group together and everyone participates at some different level. And and then we make sure that that we spend at least a meal a day or in the morning, we read scriptures, that we spent some time together with the whole group.

Nadine
That’s excellent. So someone, a high powered executive, like you still finds time away from work and all the complexities of managing a CPA partnership, still find time to put that back with your family, you know, it’s

Alan
easy, it’s easy to lose track about what’s really important. But people that have a near death experience are not asking how quickly can I get back to the office, all of a sudden, this realization comes to them that, you know, you know, maybe I need to look at really what’s important back in life. And, and so we’ve always tried to build and to make sure that family time is an important just as important role. We also have a as a spiritual section where we look at, you know, what do we want to deal with our kids in helping to teach them values and principles and ethics in life. And we have another section that talks about our health, you know, trying to stay healthy, to live longer and working on, you know, a program or eating right and exercising. And then I had the last section of work. And so as we as we measure time, we put an eye in a 90 day plan and say, what are the things that we want to do within the next 90 days, and by all means, we’re not perfect, but but we got a process that works. And that leads us in a direction a pathway in our life that we want to pursue. And so the people that plan their life out and have a balance in life, I feel in the end, they it ends up being more fulfilled, because they move like, with through life with intention,

Nadine
and how do you have that 90 day plan? How do you assure that the items on your plan are accomplished?

Alan
Well, we actually, we actually put a big poster on the wall, we put all of our 90 Day plans and goals up there it sits in our bedroom. And when my wife and I have a discussion, and we’re trying to come to resolution of an item, we’ll go back to the wall and you know, look it up and say, Okay, this is what we said we wanted to do, are these core values still true? And if they’re true, then how does this decision? get resolved?

Nadine
Excellent. So you go back to the plan to make decisions. And and as far as making your children accountable in your family plan? Because I’m sure this, this personal plan is for everyone, not just you and your wife, correct? Oh,

Alan
correct. Yeah, yeah, we have to well, our stewardship is basically overseeing his parents to make sure that our children are taught proper values. And, you know, if the parents today have that responsibility, or your kids are with you for so short of a time, you know, so they get up the high school, and when they get to teenager years, all sudden, you realize, I have no more control over these kids.

Nadine
And they’ll be leaving home soon to college. You know, if you really realize how short your time is with them,

Alan
you have to start you have to start early. And you know, but but that’s the way life is. And so we’re going to see these different stages and the kids growing up on us and but but as we move through it, and we prepare ourself the goal there is have we taught the child everything that they need to know. Well, there’s time.

Nadine
So what are the benefits of creating a time management management plan? Such as what you have,

Alan
I think, going through going through the process and with intention, you’re picking your pathway versus just wandering through life from crisis to crisis and running to soccer meets or to you know, the swim of answer, you know, that means life can control you if you don’t, if you don’t take it by the reins.

Nadine
Yes, it can. And personally I when I look at the plan that you have, I see that it helps to create goals. I have a similar plan at work, where we write down what we’re doing and we plan our days we plan our weeks. So that an end in that plan is also my personal time with my son, with my family. And then it helps us to focus on what we’re doing and where our goals are. Keep focused on our goals and our values.

Alan
You need to take the time my father in law said that when he retired he was gonna retire to you was surely at the age of 63. Because all of his friends before him when they had retired, their health failed shortly thereafter. So he says, I’m going to do this differently. And I’m going to take advantage of retiring while my health is still there. Well, six months after he retired, he found out that he had a tumor in his colon. And I ended up passing away and not too many years afterwards, but Nadine has been a pleasure being with you today again, on the show. Yes. Well, thank

Nadine
you for having me.

Alan
This is Alan Olsen is America dreams, the keys to life successful. Be right back with more information after this short break. Welcome back. You know, Nadine, we started off the show discussing how we individuals can change our lives. And leveraging time is just one way that we can do that.

Nadine
You know, time is a precious commodity. And I remember in a previous show, we were discussing how everyone just has 24 hours in a day. And whether you’re a CEO, with with many responsibilities on your plate, or a CPA like you managing large, profitable CPA firm, as well, as a realtor like mean, we each half 24 hours, do you know someone that you have seen use time, their time management skills to change their position in life?

Alan
You know, it was interesting. Last night, I was at a dinner with Eric Schmidt. He’s the chairman of the board and CEO of Google. And talking about this process of change he was talking about, you know, how the Google had just announced that they were going to put music on their their Android phones, and bring it Eazy E said it’ll bring us some parity to Apple’s iTunes, and you know what the iPhone was doing. But one thing that he was bringing out in making the point for the developers, he says, you know, we expect to have a billion users of our, you know, our smartphone. Now, could you imagine that developer putting an app on a phone, in selling for 99 cents, and just now working with the percentages and say that 1% of the users have a iPhone, you know, subscribe to, you know, this app, I made the money, it’s inside that it’s absolutely insane. There’s no more marketing budget or anything else is just that, you know, you know, getting a good app that gets exposure up there. And it’s really changing lives. It is. And one thing that we don’t know, three, four years from now what, you know, is it going to be something other than the Android probably. But the change in technology is it’s happening so rapidly. And also as technology change, so does the demand on our time.

Nadine
It does for you speak about technology and phones, I have an iPhone, where you touch it and you can speak and my son just loves this thing that you speak into, and it tells you, you can command it what to do. And now he doesn’t even want to text he wants to just speak it’s because it’s easier than to type and so even that is changing the time you know, when there’s so much pressure on us to make more time even that is assisting in saving time. Well, I

Alan
gotta tell you a story. So this technology you mentioned the younger generation your son, last week I gave my wife and I phone I said here honey look at you can get your email you can text me and use this and and so I handed her the phone she threw it on the table and was walking out the door. I said what are you doing? You can iPhone now? She goes, Why do I need that? I said technology because now she goes if I want you on lower to get

Nadine
the ball It was great being here, Alan and I certainly enjoyed speaking with Wally.

Alan
Yeah, it was a lot of fun. Today had Wally Holly talking about education, venture capital, time management, we cover quite a bit today. But as we as we go through life, it’s always a good thing just to remind yourself, that our time is limited. We we don’t know how long we’ll be here. But so take advantage of each and every day. Excellent, then I think that also along the line is it is the remembrance that you really do stay in control of how you feel, and how you react to the situations that come before you and you can make a difference in your life and also the lives of people around you. And I think as you take advantage of that and follow your passion, you’re going to have a more fulfilling life. So this is Alan Olsen’s America dreams where we talk about the keys to life success. Talk about how to live the life that you want to live. What are your dreams? What do you want out of life and what defines success? Nadine, it’s been a pleasure being with you today.

Nadine
Thank you, Alan. Thank Thanks for having me. My pleasure as well.

Alan
Stay tuned and join me this next week here on America dreams.

About Wally Hawley

Wally Hawley is a co-founder of InterWest Partners (1979), one of the larger venture capital partnerships in the United States, formed to make equity investments in diversified U.S. growth companies. His prior experience includes seven years as President of SHV North America Holding Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of a Netherlands corporation, and seven years with McKinsey and Co.

His current affiliations include Chairman Emeritus of the Advisory Board to the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research; guest lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business; former Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Young Life; Board Member of Stanford Alumni Association; Advisory Board Member of Rosewood Venture Capital; and Director of several educational companies including several online companies.

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This transcript was generated by software and may not accurately reflect exactly what was said.

Alan Olsen, is the Host of the American Dreams Show and the Managing Partner of GROCO.com.  GROCO is a premier family office and tax advisory firm located in the San Francisco Bay area serving clients all over the world.

 

Alan L. Olsen, CPA, Wikipedia Bio

 

 

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