June 19, 2025 • 45 mins
From Hollywood Hits to Finding Happy: Peter Samuelson’s Mission to Lift Others
Peter Samuelson could have stayed in Hollywood, producing box-office hits like Revenge of the Nerds and The Return of the Pink Panther. Instead, he utilized his storytelling and leadership skills to rewrite the script of his life, founding seven nonprofits that empower society’s most overlooked individuals, including those in foster care.
In this inspiring episode, Peter reveals the decisive moments that shaped him, like a life-changing nudge from a 10th-grade teacher and his father’s unwavering belief in education. We explore his journey from film sets to social impact, from co-founding the Starlight Children’s Foundation with Emma Samms and STARBRIGHT World with Steven Spielberg, to building First Star, a program that sends 90% of foster teens to college.
Peter also shares the wisdom behind his new book, Finding Happy, a field guide for Gen Z and Millennials navigating life’s complexities. Packed with insight, humour, and “madcap adventures,” it’s a reminder that long-term happiness isn’t about fame or fortune—it’s about helping others.
If you’re looking for hope, purpose, and 'finding happy', don’t miss this conversation.
Andrea Barrack returns to the show to talk about the role organizations can play to support individuals and communities.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:03):
I'm so blessed to do what I do, to have
these conversations every week with individuals.
Sometimes my heart bleeds for the trauma someone has to go through,
circumstances they have to overcome, and how they find a way to
chase their dreams and change their world and more often than not, change
ours for the better. Now the underdog and Cinderella
(00:26):
story. Someone that never believed in themselves and ends up standing on a
podium or winning an osc. Then there's times like my guest
today, Peter Samuelsson. Frankly, part of
finding happy is realizing if you have raised
people and lifted people up and helped people,
you live on forever like ripples on a pond.
(00:49):
Through them, I want to reach out and hug this
individual. I fall in love with their humanity.
I mean, this is a guy who's a very successful movie producer and
he could have just done that the rest of his life, but he had a
different calling. I think all I'm doing is giving them the
opportunity to find their empathy and do
(01:11):
something productive with it. Unpack that knapsack. The
tools you learn as a producer, your intellectual, emotional,
organizational skills, your ability to tell stories, to raise money.
And he's created 7 non for profits and each one
has had a material impact on individuals lives and their journeys.
I say to people, if you're a cpa,
(01:34):
don't just volunteer to lick envelopes. Go and do something where
they need a cpa. If you're an engineer, there's lots of
charities that need engineers. You know, leverage on your
skills. And he's just written this book, Finding
Happy. His name is Peter Samuelson. And you'll make
me very happy if you listen to everything he has to say.
(02:01):
Hi, it's Tony Chapman. Thank you for listening to Chatter that Matters, presented by
rbc. If you can please subscribe to the podcast and
ratings and reviews, well, they're always welcome and they're always appreciated.
Peter Samuelsson, welcome to Chatter the Matters. Honored to be
here. Thank you. So I wanted to begin with your book
(02:23):
Finding A User's Guide to youo Life with Lessons from
Mine. You describe it as a guide for young adults to
find their sort of unique and personal happy space. So
unpack that a little bit for me. One of my seven
nonprofits that I am the founder of
is FirstStar.org where we house,
(02:45):
educate and encourage high school aged
foster kids for four years each with the goal
of getting as high a proportion of them as possible into
college. In the United states, less than 6%
of American foster kids get a degree in the
most recent cycle, which is going on right now,
(03:08):
89% of our 12th graders
from our 12 academies across the country are
going on to college. So through First Star
and also through another organization called the Mentor Project,
I've done a ton of of mentoring. And I
realized a couple of years ago that there were
(03:30):
patterns of what mostly seemed to bother them,
like two dozen things that always came up.
So I thought, well, I wonder if those are the
titles of chapters in a book.
And I started getting up at five o' clock every morning, five days a
week and writing for at least an hour. I wrote a
(03:52):
book and each chapter, you don't even have to read it in order,
but each chapter ends with things to think about,
points for reflection. The next thing was they said, what do
you want on the front cover? My idea, but executed
much better by a graphic designer. A word cloud
of all the things that the book is about. And the more the book is
(04:14):
about it and how to get it, how to deal with it, if you're a
young adult, the bigger I'll make the font. And so
the big words are, you know, life and health
and success and social media and all these things.
But it's also got the smaller words like how to dare
and exams and support
(04:37):
and how do you get a mentor and all those good things. I
bought 600 copies of my own book and I had
them dropshipped to the students. We call
them the scholars of First Star.
And I'm starting to get feedback,
which I'm just incredibly moved by.
(05:00):
But I don't want anybody to think it's only for foster kids, kids who've been
abused or neglected. I think it is for
older adults to buy for any
young adult that they think could use a bit of
a hand up. Tell me a little bit about. Because you had this great film
career which we're going to talk about, and then you have this extraordinary platform you're
(05:24):
now using to help so many people in so many different ways. What do you
think the DNA, how did that happen? Like, was it as a young kid that
you were the underdog? You try to take the DIs at a disadvantage?
First I happened because I read the
UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and another
document, that's the biennial survey by UNESCO
(05:47):
measuring the developed nations, I think 14 of
them in descending order, by the
welfare of their children. And in that second document, the
United States ranks dead last. We are one of
only two countries out of 170 or
so that have not ratified the UN Convention on the Rights
(06:09):
of the Child. So I, doing research, always Good.
It's what you do as a film producer. You don't want to make the same
film someone else already made. I came to the conclusion
this is like the forgotten group of citizens. And
there's a lot of them. 500,000
citizens of the United States are in foster care.
(06:30):
By definition, they've been abused or neglected, and they're being raised
by strangers. And then we kick them out at age 18, mostly.
And we say, okay, Harry, have a nice life. Thrust
into an unforgiving world with their worldly belongings
in a trash bag. And we expect great things from
them. Well, guess what? We don't get it. I felt I needed to
(06:53):
do something. I know that in my
family, when Mr. Lund, my 10th grade
English teacher, said, see me after school, he said, now,
look here, if you work about twice as hard, Samuelson,
you can go to a really good university. I said,
I'm sure that's not the case. My dad left school at
(07:15):
14. I don't think anyone in my entire family
has ever been to college or university. And he said, oh, it'd be even better
then. Cause you'll be the first one. I was. And
particularly for underprivileged kids, it's a really good
idea because you won't be homeless for another
four years, and you have a community
(07:38):
when perhaps you don't otherwise have a family or a community of
your own. And so I just sort of invented this
program. I mean, the real miracle is I was able to persuade
ucla, the then chancellor, Gene Block.
I met with him for two hours. He stood up at the end, shook my
hand and said, I think we should just do this. He said, where is the
(07:59):
money gonna come from? I said, I think it is the single
most emotionally powerful, likely to succeed
story that I've ever had the privilege of telling.
And I tell a lot of stories because I'm a film producer. And that's what
we do. You have to raise $20 million for something that doesn't exist
yet. How do you do that? Well, you tell the story.
(08:23):
So we did it. And two weeks in, it's like watching
flowers grow. All the grades came up, all the
behavior improved greatly. The ambition,
the glass ceiling was shattered. And they're now
in the workplace, or they've got their masters, or they're in law school,
or they're in medical school, or they're gonna be an
(08:45):
architect, or they're doing really well in Silicon
Valley. And I realized, this is mad. Why
don't we send as many of our foster kids or
crown wards in Canada looked after
children in the uk. Why don't we send
as many as are capable of going and why don't we correct
(09:07):
all the things that are deficits in their lives? They're very
poorly educated because they're all poor and they go to
crummy schools in the main, why don't we have excellent
academics? Well, that's what you have at a university. You think they may know a
bit about teaching math and English and science and all the rest
of it. And then I thought it's not enough we have to teach life
(09:29):
skills because most of these kids have been raised
by wolves. Week one how to brush your teeth
for 13 and 14 year olds. Why don't they know how to brush their teeth?
Well, because nobody took the time to show them how to do
it. Why do you think you're wired this way? Because you're a very
successful film producer. You had a perfect career
(09:51):
selling stories that a lot where there's thousands of scripts that never get
financed. Everything's going well for you. What do you think happened? Was it early
in life or is it the teacher that said if you work twice as hard
you could go to school? Is there one individual that sort of said you got
feet, start climbing? I think it's two individuals. I think it's
Mr. Lund, that English teacher in 10th grade
(10:13):
and my dad. Because my dad left school at 14,
but he held post secondary education in
awe. You know, for him it was the thing that he was
deprived of because on his 14th birthday literally
he had to leave school, go and get a job and bring his pay
packet home in a brown envelope every Friday and give it to his
(10:36):
mom so that she could buy potato shows to feed
four boys. Single mom. What kind of
storyteller was your dad? Because it sounds like what you just described
in many ways is your calling, which is to
help people that have gotten dealt certain cards in life. In
your case of your dad, 14 years old, you're gonna put food on her table.
(10:59):
Was it just the way he described his life or was it his
desire to make sure you didn't have to have that life that has
made you such a champion for others? He died three years ago at the age
of 97. He was my hero and he
was my exemplar. And I watched him do
his thing. I mean he made himself really successful by
(11:21):
sheer intelligence and hard work
without the benefit of ever going to college.
Just cause he was damn good at what he did. And he
did some very special stuff. He was the ultimate networker.
He could find the name, address,
description and in the end email address
(11:45):
for every person he had met in his
entire adult life. And he had them categorized on
index cards. He never got on mass
transit without talking, not just to one person
sitting next to him, but to the other one on the other side as well.
And he would. For the longest time when I was setting
(12:07):
up First Star in the uk, I would stay in my parents
house and we would talk over dinner and he would say, I had
the most fantastic conversation. I was sitting next to
a young woman on the bus, Nigerian.
She's a senior nurse down at Great Ormond Street
Children's Hospital. But it's a very interesting story
(12:30):
because her father, a Muslim from the north of
Nigeria, and her mother a Christian, which is a very
dangerous liaison for two people to have. And she's the product of that.
And I said, how do you know all this? He said, well,
you know, I was coming from Edgware and it's quite a long bus ride
and we talked the whole way. I learned from him to
(12:52):
listen. And I also learned that in the
end of the end of the end to find happy, which is
what the book is about, has to do with. Helping other people
again because there's a Hollywood note to it. Everybody
would go, why would you ever switch? I mean, you worked on Le Mans, the
Return of the Pink Panther with Steven Spielberg and stuff.
(13:14):
What made you journey this very successful career in film?
You're a storyteller, you love telling stories, you love helping
others. Sitting in a theater and having people feel happy is a wonderful calling,
but it wasn't enough. And that's one of the tension point in your story that
I'm fascinated with, where you said, I'm going to use my platform,
my intellectual, my financial and my emotional resources and I'm
(13:37):
going to do something different with my life. Turns out that the job
of a film producer is this idea enough for me to give
it two years of my life. What is the story? How do I
tell that story? Who's gonna write it? Who's gonna direct
it? Who do I think the demographics are of the audience? Who's
gonna distribute it? Where's the money gonna come from? What's it all gonna cost?
(14:00):
How do I crew it up and then how do I measure success?
Take that toolkit over from film producing
to some intractable, previously
unconquered social challenge. Starlight.
Seriously ill children are sad. When they are sad, their
T cell count is lowered, then they don't heal
(14:23):
properly. That's very bad. Why don't we just make them
happy? First star. 6% of foster
kids go to college. How do we jack up that percentage?
And in fact, the most recent cohorts across the country, it's
89% for the first 12th graders. So
we're on a bit of a roll. Or rather the kids are.
(14:45):
Or edar. Old ladies shouldn't sleep in damp
cardboard boxes on a rainy night. You can't
possibly build your way out of the challenge. Cause
it's vastly too expensive just to house the
unhoused people in Los Angeles county would
be $5 billion with a B. I have no idea how you raise
(15:07):
$5 billion. I said, I wonder what I could do that would be a lot
better than a damp cardboard box. And that led to edar.
Everyone deserves a roof. Edar.org and on
and on. I think a great deal of it is not some
great noble virtue. It's that it gives
me joy. It's how I find my happiness.
(15:30):
And in my mentoring. I say, what's missing in your
life? Well, I need someone to love me. You're absolutely
right. You need unconditional love. Any human does in order to thrive.
I say, well, where are you going to get it? Well, I'm on this
app and that app and the other app. I flip left, I flip right.
And I say, well, just think about it. Imagine you were an alien
(15:53):
judging the rational chance that you will meet your
soulmate by flipping left and right on an app
where the whole thing is pack of lies anyway. And they say, well,
well, what would you suggest? And I said, well, let me tell you how I
met my wife. I met my wife because
after my cousin introduced me to one dying child
(16:14):
whose wish was to go to Disneyland, and we flew him over
and his mom. Two weeks of amazing
wonderment that made him happy and his mom happy.
And they went home and he passed away. And at
least she was left with some memories of him full of
joy on the teacups at Disneyland and not wasting
(16:36):
away in a hospital bed and then dying. I mean, I thought
to myself, compared to getting a film made, this was easy.
So I called a meeting. Who do I need? Well, you always need a
lawyer, and then you need an accountant and you need a
publicist and you need a. I thought, I need a graphic designer because
we've got to do a logo, and I need someone who understands hospital
(16:58):
politics. And I had had one date,
and I remembered that she said she was an accountant. So I phoned her
up. I have a charity that's about to happen. And I
wonder if you might come because I really need an accountant. So she came to
that. And when the lawyer said, what do you want to call it?
And it was the accounting lady who said, you know the children's rhyme?
(17:21):
Starlight, star bright, first star I see tonight I wish
I may, I wish I might, I have this wish I wish tonight. She
said, why don't we call it the Starlight Children's Foundation. And the
graphic designer said, I can see the logo in my head.
It's a child reaching up for a star. So that was our second
date, me and the beautiful young lady who was an
(17:43):
accountant. And for Christmas we got a live
band and we threw a concert in the
auditorium at County USC Medical center in
la in the children's ward. And we had had
donated to us these big adult sized
animal costumes. And the accounting lady
(18:05):
was inside the dolphin, all the mascara had
run down her face. And I had a vivid moment where I
thought, oh my God, I love this person. To
me, the apples doesn't fall far from the tree with curiosity
about humanity. Any of your kids sort of inherited that.
How can I push water uphill and defy what everybody
(18:28):
says hasn't been solved before? Our youngest, Becca,
is a fundraiser for a boarding school in
Ojai. Why is she a fundraiser? Well, because from the
time she was little she was over
promoted to be the volunteer captain at
the First Star annual event.
(18:50):
And she got the bug. Our older daughter,
Pamela, she's a therapist,
entertainer, writer, blogger.
An extraordinary young woman and does things
because of what one ought to do and that she
perceives she can be helpful. And the two young men,
(19:13):
David, the oldest one, he's a financial planner, he was a
schoolteacher. And then he said to me, I realize I will
never be able to buy a house if I stay as a teacher. And he
represents high net worth people. But what does he do with his spare time?
He's on the board of an organization called Jewish Free Loan.
Don't Charge Interest and help people in a bad place. And
(19:36):
Jeffrey, who cares passionately, that's my youngest
son, cares passionately about the world and
social justice and he advises people on
healthcare. He may be the person on this
planet who understands American healthcare in all its
appalling complexity better than anyone else I've ever met.
(19:59):
And he just helps people. So yeah, I think there is a little
bit of a baton past, frankly.
Part of finding happy is realizing
you don't only live the life with a beginning, a middle and an end,
but also if you have raised people and lifted
people up and helped people you live
(20:22):
on forever like ripples on a pond through.
One of the areas that you branched out very quickly was the
fact that your talent as a producer could tell better
stories. Inconvenient Truth, I think even set up a whole film
production company and doing everything he can to
encourage Hollywood to be much more about positivity and possibility.
(20:46):
And to me that takes your talent and allows you to amplify that to
a large audience. But when I'm talking to you and I might be wrong, I'm
sensing that you get so much more from that phone call at lunch you just
had, or the individual you just
talked to, or that person that came to your apartment, the mother and
the dying child. Is that because you see and feel it more?
(21:08):
You don't know who's watching the stories, but you know that you're
personally vested in a story. Is that what defines it? Because you seem to spend
more time on where you're personally vested versus storytelling to
the masses. I think there is a huge negative going
on in this ridiculously polarized
world we inhabit, which is that somehow
(21:30):
empathy is getting lost. And
in the end I think empathy and feeling
things in your heart, believing in social justice,
believing that it's the God given right of every child
to make the most of themselves. I think when you lose
(21:51):
that, then we are a bunch of robotic AI on
legs. Arguably the loss of the greatest
attribute that separates the men from the
machines. There's no point having
that sense if you don't do something about it.
I think there's too many people who just sit and complain about
(22:12):
everything in sight. And I think there are so many
opportunities to find joy in helping others.
It's one of the keys to the mysterious
nature of life. And pretty much anyone can do it.
I teach two classes in firstar. One is
videography, but also I teach a class in
(22:35):
generosity. It's called random acts of Kindness
and pay it forwards. And in the first class I say,
okay, here's a question for you. You're walking along the
sidewalk and there is an old lady, fast asleep,
face down in rags. Do you A
stop, put a dollar under her arm and walk on?
(22:58):
Or B, do you wake her up and give her the dollar?
Or C, do you look the other way and pay no
attention to her at all? We talk about most
humans that God do feel
empathy. And when we see social justice
is out of whack, we feel compelled to do something
(23:19):
about it. An old lady who was homeless took me by the
sleeve because I Asked her, where do you sleep at night, my
dear? And she took me onto some scrapland next to the freeway
out here. She showed me this gigantic cardboard box
and I thought, this is offensive. I've got
the refrigerator and this old lady is sleeping in the
(23:42):
box. What is the matter with this? It's out of
whack. That led to me inventing this
four wheel single user. Strange.
Basically a portable single user homeless shelter.
In the daytime, you push it around, you do your recycling.
At night, you park it, you let the front down, you let the back down,
(24:04):
and you now have a seven foot long cot off the ground.
That's where that idea came from. From the shock of realizing
that it was just wrong, it was out of kilter. So then I
say to the kids, each of you is going to receive
$200. But then you have to give it away.
We want you to write 300 words to
(24:26):
whom or to what you wish it to go
because you feel in your heart it would be worthwhile and help
someone else. Two, three weeks later, we're going to go back and
see did the unhoused guy buy the shoes or did he buy a big
bottle of brandy? Because sometimes philanthropy goes wrong. It
opens their eyes to the fact that there is always
(24:48):
someone that you can help and you are never the worst off.
Then I ask them, what does the second law of
thermodynamics say? Is that in any
closed system, what is a closed system? The motor
in your automobile, your family,
your planet. If you don't apply external energy,
(25:10):
if you just leave it alone, if you don't oil the
engine, nurture your family, if you do not take care
of your planet, it'll all fall to shit around you.
That will be very, very bad. How does Steven Spielberg
come around to you? And is it just through your power of
storytelling and conviction? Because I understand he's a big part of some of what
(25:33):
you do. The producer of ET And Star Wars,
Kathy Kennedy, told me I should meet him and she knew him very
well. So I pitch up at Amblin and the assistant says
everything to scare the hell out of you. Don't give the collateral
material to Mr. Spielberg. You give that to me. And you have 20 minutes
and he has an ambassador arriving on the hour and you'll need to be
(25:55):
gone by then. And anyway, so you're kind of discombobulated. You go
in, we sit and we talk. And I'm looking at my
watch and I'm thinking, I've been in here almost an hour now.
Don't Know what happened to the guy, the ambassador. But I'm still
here pitching away. And I'm still there an hour and
45 minutes in. And he says, okay, I'm in. What do you want me to
(26:16):
do? And I said, you're the chairman, I'm the
president. We'll put a board together, we'll raise some money,
and we will make seriously ill kids happy. No more
complicated than that. He said, done deal. He said, if we're going to ask people
for money, I better give money. He said, well, how much do you think I
should give? And I said, I'm not going to tell Steven Spielberg
(26:39):
what he should give. And he said, no, give me a number. I can always
say no. And I said, I'm not giving you a number. He said, well, then
you can't leave two and a half million dollars.
And I saw his mouth say, okay,
I'll do it. And I staggered out and I went into
the Amblin parking lot and I hid behind a tree. And
(26:59):
I phoned by then my wife, that accounting lady,
and I said, I just met with Steven Spielberg for nearly two hours.
He's donating two and a half million dollars. Oh, my God.
And there was a silence. And my wife said, tell me
exactly where you are. Do not drive. You aren't safe.
I will come and get you. And that was the beginning
(27:23):
of the charity.
We come back, Peter and I talk about othering
empathy and my three takeaways. And then a
final tribute to his father.
Hi, it's Tony Chapman, host of Chatter that Matters, presented by
(27:44):
rbc. Ideas matter. Ideas are the oxygen of human
endeavor. They breathe life into how we work, live and play. Ideas
let us create and innovate and overcome complex and often
challenging circumstances. Big or small, revolutionary or
evolutionary, almost every positive step forward begins with a good
idea. So bring your ideas to RBC because they matter, and they'll
(28:05):
bring theirs because you matter. Ideas happen at rbc.
The publisher thought I was nuts because I put my email address
in the book. They said, you must never do that. And I said, well, I
kind of want to create a feedback loop that's buried in the
book. So you would actually have to read the book in order to find the
email address. I'm starting to get emails
(28:29):
in. I love it. My guest today is Peter Samuelson. I could
have done the whole episode on his talents as a
Hollywood producer. We barely touch on it, because what
matters more is that we focus on such a magical
word, empathy.
Peter, you've been recognized with so many awards, outstanding Citizen
(28:52):
leadership from Ernst and Young. I mean, just time after time, does that stuff
matter to you? Is that just a way of getting your more people to know
about your platform? I mean, how do you sort of balance the
ego, the showmanship, getting the dollars and cents and still having time
to teach a class on generosity or
paying it for. First of all, I don't give a hoot about
(29:15):
certificates of merit and this, that and the other,
except that other people care about those things.
And in raising money for my nonprofits,
they help me. You know, it's a leg up if you like.
I'm blessed to be pulled down a peg not only by my
ever sarcastic wife, but also by my kids. I
(29:37):
said with great excitement the other night, Seibert and Schuster have got a
new retailer signed up. Target are going to have a
big display of the books. And there was a silence and my son
said, where are they going to put it in the store? And I said, I
have no idea. He said, well, I think you should tell them that
the best place they could put it is between the condoms and
(29:59):
the plastic cutlery. And I said, I think you're right.
I think that is its natural place in the universe. And I'm going to
tell them. And the other question, which is how do you
find time? Be hyper organized, discipline
yourself and on and on and on. It's all right there in the how to
get stuff done chapter. In my case, I'm blessed by
(30:22):
the fact that I don't sleep very much. And it's that old adage,
if you want something done, give it to a busy person.
Film producers are the ultimate entrepreneurs.
And it repeats on a one year cycle or maybe an 18 month
cycle. And you develop kind of pattern recognition
(30:42):
of how you solve crises. How do you help the crew
to work together? How do you keep them targeted on
the script, the mission, the budget, the
schedule? I went to Steven
Spielberg after we'd been working together a few months and I said, you know,
this is no good at all. Thank you so much for making the big donation.
(31:04):
But when it runs out, we have to raise money and
you don't want to meet anyone. I don't know, you're shy or something.
You don't want to ask people for money. He said, I find it very difficult.
And I said, well, we've got to get someone, someone tall,
fierce, who will just steam in and get us
donors and lead from the front. And he said, well, who? And
(31:26):
I said, I think General Norman Schwarzkopf would be really
great. Sure enough, we wrote A letter together, and Stephen
signed it. And the phone rang in my office, and it was
General Schwarzkopf's assistant who said, the general would be
happy to meet with you if you'd like to come to Tampa. So I
fly to Tampa. I get in an elevator at a high rise,
(31:48):
and it stops between floors. And a voice
in the wall says, please hold your driver's license
up to the camera. Oh, okay. So you hold up your
driver's license. He says, welcome, Mr. Samuelson. The general's
expecting you. And it jolts, and it takes you up to the penthouse.
And I go in his office, on his desk, he had the
(32:10):
largest revolver I have ever seen or
heard of in my life. I said, is that
because of terrorists? He said, no.
Journalist. So he leans forward and he says to
me, Mr. Samuelson, what do you know about the United
States Army? And I said, honestly, sir, you could
(32:32):
safely assume nothing at all.
When you enlist, you don't just get a rank,
you get a specialty. You're an infantryman, you're a
cook, you're a driver, you're a rifleman, you're a sniper, whatever
you are. He says, and it's a pin on your shoulder.
And no matter how much you get promoted, you keep your
(32:55):
specialty until, if you are a
brilliant leader in the ceremony where you get your
general's stars, they take away your
specialty pin because you are no longer a specialist.
You are a general. And I sat there like a complete
idiot, thinking, of course, you gotta have a
(33:18):
generalist. And their specialty is leading
in order to get everybody to work together in a team. And I thought, that's
what we do as film producers. We are
mediating between the videographers and the
costume designers and the set decorators
and all the rest of it. That's our job. We are
(33:40):
the generals. We are the generalists. And servant
leadership, which is especially important in a nonprofit,
make people feel as though you listen to them and they
count. Make sure that you give people credit,
Give them face, give them space, take their good
ideas. That's the best kind of leadership. We're
(34:03):
living in a time where I would say words like empathy
and social justice are not necessarily roaring across society.
I'd say politically, it's quite the opposite. How do you
stay inspired and motivated to
keep up the battle? When you stick your head up and look
around, it looks like a tsunami of negativity and impossibilities crashing
(34:26):
down ugly. In human behavior is
on the ascendant for sure. I'm a
centrist politically. I got One foot on the left and
one foot on the right. I believe in capitalism, I believe in
social justice. Am I allowed to hold two ideas in my head
at once? Yes. Life is choices and so is politics. I
(34:48):
think a horrible thing that is going on is that
we have left empathy outside the door.
If we are ever to bridge this ridiculous gulf
between red blooded Americans
and blue blooded Americans or whatever the phrase is, those
to the left of center, those to the right of center, it is
(35:11):
empathy. I mean, if you actually get people to talk about
their children, their families, their hopes, their dreams,
their fears, they're all exactly the same. Unfortunately,
what we've allowed is some pretty awful leaders
to drive people down a rabbit hole. Very interesting
thing that we did as a family a few years ago, we went to
(35:34):
Perigord region in France and we went down into
prehistoric caves and there you are and you're looking at
the pictograms and there's a guide. And I was just
thunderstruck by the fact that it was cold,
dark, scary as hell. And I could
absolutely imagine stone age people
(35:57):
being there, scared out of their wits,
scared of hunger, the saber toothed tiger,
the tribe on the other side of the valley who might steal
your food or your women or whatever. Along comes a
leader and the leader says, you can count on me. You
don't need to feel scared. We hate those people
(36:19):
the other side of the valley. You stick with me and I'll keep you safe
from them. They are other, they are not like us.
And I think that othering, and it is
maybe more from one side than the other, but it is definitely from
both sides. It divides races, it divides
religions, it divides people socioeconomically and by
(36:42):
nationality. I think it's bs. Most
human beings actually want exactly the same things. They
want to have a happy family, they want their kids to
survive and thrive. They want to put food on the table, they want to
have a job that is meaningful to them. And maybe if
they're really ambitious, they might like to make the world a better place.
(37:05):
That's what my book is about. It's called Finding Happy
what is short term happiness for me?
Chocolate ice cream, big tub of it. What is medium
term happiness? Unlimited supplies of chocolate
ice cream over time. But long term happiness
in the end, I think you have to help other people because that
(37:27):
joy, those ripples on the pond that you send out from your
own life, that is the ultimate happiness. Sure, I get
pleasure from standing at the back of a theater auditorium and
my comedy is up on the screen and they laugh in the right place.
But really, really I don't think
being a film producer is a joy. I think it's a slog.
(37:50):
What is more joyful to me is
lifting people up and then seeing them thrive. We just had the
awards show in first star in one of the academies.
We gave an award for someone who just bought his first house.
We gave an award to someone he and his wife have
just had twins through IVF cause they couldn't
(38:14):
wonderful things. What did you call that? The difference that society
between my cave and your cave. Othering perfect.
It's allowing a charismatic
bully from both sides or either side to
say those people are the devil because they look a bit
different. It's kind of easy to be
(38:35):
persuaded that you aren't scared of them,
you hate them. Them. Peter I always end my podcast and my three
takeaways and the first one, I love what you say. Life is
not a beginning or a middle or an end. It's the legacy
you leave. If you help others, they'll go on and help
others. And that is a true mark of a life and time well
(38:58):
spent. I thought that was great advice. The second one is I wish I got
to know your dad. He must be in heaven looking down and going this
is the kid that I dreamed of raising. I can imagine
him on a bus. My dad was like that, just talking to anybody, having
conversations. That's made me a curious person. And then the third thing is this
othering which I believe in too. I think social media is a big part of
(39:20):
it because they make a lot of money herding you into that cave with other
like minded people liking each other's pictures and hating the other people. And
it's a manifestation in politics just, you know, why wouldn't I keep take
advantage of it to stay in power. But I think if we challenged
othering with empathy, as you say as
individuals and as a collective consciousness, I think
(39:41):
we could make a massive dent in the universe. I'm going to make sure as
many people as it can read your book and follow you. And I hope you
got another 30 years to go because your energy
and passion, I think you've changed. Steven Spielberg's
life has got higher purpose because of you. Even though he's probably got every
academy award you could win. And I would say the good general with his revolver
(40:03):
is happy you walked into that office one day because you're, you're
bringing other people into a cause that's not your cause or
your calling. But more than anything else is maybe the calling for
humanity. Right now, Tony, you do me great honor. One
of the greatest joys I've ever had is I taught a class this
random acts of kindness and Pay it Forward. I took my dad along
(40:25):
and he sat at the back and I don't know what was more wonderful, the
kids reaction and what they said or just just looking at
him beaming from the back of the route. So when I miss him a lot,
I hold that in my mind and I'm honored by
that.
(40:45):
Joining me now is Andrea Barrick. She's a Senior VP of Sustainability and
impact at rbc. Andrea, welcome back to Chatter
that Matters. Thanks Tony. So great to be here again. I think it's
important to unpack just the kind of of role that you're playing because you go,
sustainability and impact are really to me, very different words.
Every time I'm on LinkedIn and I see you, you're somewhere around the world
(41:08):
really bringing this sense of positivity and possibility. So tell me a little
bit more about your mandate. Sure. I mean, I think, you know, as a
corporation we live by our purpose, which is helping
clients thrive and communities prosper. And so my
job is actually helping the entire organization, wherever we are,
demonstrate that we are helping communities to prosper. So how are we having a
(41:31):
positive impact on society, on the communities that we're in
on the planet? So it's a pretty good gig.
I read the statistic that RBC and the RBC
foundation is the largest source of funds
and I would argue also emotional intellectual capital to mental health
in Canada, that you're involved in so many different aspects. Why
(41:53):
is mental health such a North Star for RBC saying we've got to
do more as an organization and collectively as a country to help
people that are suffering with their mental health. We came at it two different
ways. One is we have a huge history of supporting youth and making,
you know, providing youth with the skills to be successful in the
future of work. And what we noticed in that work is
(42:16):
that if you don't have strong mental health, you can't
actually get the skills you need to be like that is one of the skills
you need to be successful. So we came at it from that more sort of
skills and helping youth overall with their preparation to be successful
in their lives. We also had a history of
helping broadly all Canadians and
(42:37):
in any communities we're in have better access to
healthcare because healthcare creates the stability that people
need to then have the futures that they want
financially. And so one of the real gaps in our healthcare
system right now has been Mental health, which is why we sort of
stepped in. But it's in that bigger piece saying, you know, how do we help
(42:59):
more Canadians access the healthcare that they need so that they're better
able to then continue to live their fullest lives, be their best
selves, contribute to the economy, contribute to their families, their
neighbors? I would say it's not mental health in and of itself. I
think where RBC is sort of special in a way is that they
seek out where the gaps are and we listen to our
(43:20):
partners. So when we talk to all of our hospital or healthcare partners,
we don't tell them we want to fund mental health. We say to them,
what are you seeing as the need that you can't fill right now? You know,
I followed your career since you joined RBC and you had a shot
at being very successful in politics and you chose to
go into an organization to make a difference for people listening that
(43:42):
really want to make an impact, the positive dent. What advice
can you give them to find that place where they feel they
can chase that purpose and at the same time have meaningful,
make a meaningful difference? I mean, I have a job that
obviously has a positive impact, just the nature of the role and the work that
I do. But I talk to, you know, thousands of our colleagues at the bank,
(44:05):
certainly about that, about what each of them can do in their own jobs.
And the stories that they tell me are quite incredible. Local branch
employees, for example, that will notice a
family is struggling and will be able to
proactively step in and offer assistance so that they don't get into
trouble. That has an enormous impact. You know, we have people
(44:27):
who work in, you know, sort of risk and, you know, anti money laundering and,
you know, the work that they do helps stop child
trafficking. No matter what your job is, you can find
what that purpose is and how you can make a difference, even
if it is just being the best colleague that you can be and making people
around you feel like they belong and are included in your workplace.
(44:48):
Encouraging people to act in a positive way and
create a positive social discourse is something this country desperately needs. And
it's nice to have your voice added to the mix. And I know you
make a major impact working in the you do at rbc. But I
think it's these are words of wisdom that we can all benefit from. So I
appreciate you joining me in Chatter that Matters. Always nice to chat with you,
(45:10):
Tony. Once again, a
special thanks to RBC for supporting Chatter that Matters. It's
Tony Chapman. Thanks for listening and let's chat soon.
I'm so blessed to do what I do, to have
these conversations every week with individuals.
Sometimes my heart bleeds for the trauma someone has to go through,
circumstances they have to overcome, and how they find a way to
chase their dreams and change their world and more often than not, change
ours for the better. Now the underdog and Cinderella
(00:26):
story. Someone that never believed in themselves and ends up standing on a
podium or winning an osc. Then there's times like my guest
today, Peter Samuelsson. Frankly, part of
finding happy is realizing if you have raised
people and lifted people up and helped people,
you live on forever like ripples on a pond.
(00:49):
Through them, I want to reach out and hug this
individual. I fall in love with their humanity.
I mean, this is a guy who's a very successful movie producer and
he could have just done that the rest of his life, but he had a
different calling. I think all I'm doing is giving them the
opportunity to find their empathy and do
(01:11):
something productive with it. Unpack that knapsack. The
tools you learn as a producer, your intellectual, emotional,
organizational skills, your ability to tell stories, to raise money.
And he's created 7 non for profits and each one
has had a material impact on individuals lives and their journeys.
I say to people, if you're a cpa,
(01:34):
don't just volunteer to lick envelopes. Go and do something where
they need a cpa. If you're an engineer, there's lots of
charities that need engineers. You know, leverage on your
skills. And he's just written this book, Finding
Happy. His name is Peter Samuelson. And you'll make
me very happy if you listen to everything he has to say.
(02:01):
Hi, it's Tony Chapman. Thank you for listening to Chatter that Matters, presented by
rbc. If you can please subscribe to the podcast and
ratings and reviews, well, they're always welcome and they're always appreciated.
Peter Samuelsson, welcome to Chatter the Matters. Honored to be
here. Thank you. So I wanted to begin with your book
(02:23):
Finding A User's Guide to youo Life with Lessons from
Mine. You describe it as a guide for young adults to
find their sort of unique and personal happy space. So
unpack that a little bit for me. One of my seven
nonprofits that I am the founder of
is FirstStar.org where we house,
(02:45):
educate and encourage high school aged
foster kids for four years each with the goal
of getting as high a proportion of them as possible into
college. In the United states, less than 6%
of American foster kids get a degree in the
most recent cycle, which is going on right now,
(03:08):
89% of our 12th graders
from our 12 academies across the country are
going on to college. So through First Star
and also through another organization called the Mentor Project,
I've done a ton of of mentoring. And I
realized a couple of years ago that there were
(03:30):
patterns of what mostly seemed to bother them,
like two dozen things that always came up.
So I thought, well, I wonder if those are the
titles of chapters in a book.
And I started getting up at five o' clock every morning, five days a
week and writing for at least an hour. I wrote a
(03:52):
book and each chapter, you don't even have to read it in order,
but each chapter ends with things to think about,
points for reflection. The next thing was they said, what do
you want on the front cover? My idea, but executed
much better by a graphic designer. A word cloud
of all the things that the book is about. And the more the book is
(04:14):
about it and how to get it, how to deal with it, if you're a
young adult, the bigger I'll make the font. And so
the big words are, you know, life and health
and success and social media and all these things.
But it's also got the smaller words like how to dare
and exams and support
(04:37):
and how do you get a mentor and all those good things. I
bought 600 copies of my own book and I had
them dropshipped to the students. We call
them the scholars of First Star.
And I'm starting to get feedback,
which I'm just incredibly moved by.
(05:00):
But I don't want anybody to think it's only for foster kids, kids who've been
abused or neglected. I think it is for
older adults to buy for any
young adult that they think could use a bit of
a hand up. Tell me a little bit about. Because you had this great film
career which we're going to talk about, and then you have this extraordinary platform you're
(05:24):
now using to help so many people in so many different ways. What do you
think the DNA, how did that happen? Like, was it as a young kid that
you were the underdog? You try to take the DIs at a disadvantage?
First I happened because I read the
UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and another
document, that's the biennial survey by UNESCO
(05:47):
measuring the developed nations, I think 14 of
them in descending order, by the
welfare of their children. And in that second document, the
United States ranks dead last. We are one of
only two countries out of 170 or
so that have not ratified the UN Convention on the Rights
(06:09):
of the Child. So I, doing research, always Good.
It's what you do as a film producer. You don't want to make the same
film someone else already made. I came to the conclusion
this is like the forgotten group of citizens. And
there's a lot of them. 500,000
citizens of the United States are in foster care.
(06:30):
By definition, they've been abused or neglected, and they're being raised
by strangers. And then we kick them out at age 18, mostly.
And we say, okay, Harry, have a nice life. Thrust
into an unforgiving world with their worldly belongings
in a trash bag. And we expect great things from
them. Well, guess what? We don't get it. I felt I needed to
(06:53):
do something. I know that in my
family, when Mr. Lund, my 10th grade
English teacher, said, see me after school, he said, now,
look here, if you work about twice as hard, Samuelson,
you can go to a really good university. I said,
I'm sure that's not the case. My dad left school at
(07:15):
14. I don't think anyone in my entire family
has ever been to college or university. And he said, oh, it'd be even better
then. Cause you'll be the first one. I was. And
particularly for underprivileged kids, it's a really good
idea because you won't be homeless for another
four years, and you have a community
(07:38):
when perhaps you don't otherwise have a family or a community of
your own. And so I just sort of invented this
program. I mean, the real miracle is I was able to persuade
ucla, the then chancellor, Gene Block.
I met with him for two hours. He stood up at the end, shook my
hand and said, I think we should just do this. He said, where is the
(07:59):
money gonna come from? I said, I think it is the single
most emotionally powerful, likely to succeed
story that I've ever had the privilege of telling.
And I tell a lot of stories because I'm a film producer. And that's what
we do. You have to raise $20 million for something that doesn't exist
yet. How do you do that? Well, you tell the story.
(08:23):
So we did it. And two weeks in, it's like watching
flowers grow. All the grades came up, all the
behavior improved greatly. The ambition,
the glass ceiling was shattered. And they're now
in the workplace, or they've got their masters, or they're in law school,
or they're in medical school, or they're gonna be an
(08:45):
architect, or they're doing really well in Silicon
Valley. And I realized, this is mad. Why
don't we send as many of our foster kids or
crown wards in Canada looked after
children in the uk. Why don't we send
as many as are capable of going and why don't we correct
(09:07):
all the things that are deficits in their lives? They're very
poorly educated because they're all poor and they go to
crummy schools in the main, why don't we have excellent
academics? Well, that's what you have at a university. You think they may know a
bit about teaching math and English and science and all the rest
of it. And then I thought it's not enough we have to teach life
(09:29):
skills because most of these kids have been raised
by wolves. Week one how to brush your teeth
for 13 and 14 year olds. Why don't they know how to brush their teeth?
Well, because nobody took the time to show them how to do
it. Why do you think you're wired this way? Because you're a very
successful film producer. You had a perfect career
(09:51):
selling stories that a lot where there's thousands of scripts that never get
financed. Everything's going well for you. What do you think happened? Was it early
in life or is it the teacher that said if you work twice as hard
you could go to school? Is there one individual that sort of said you got
feet, start climbing? I think it's two individuals. I think it's
Mr. Lund, that English teacher in 10th grade
(10:13):
and my dad. Because my dad left school at 14,
but he held post secondary education in
awe. You know, for him it was the thing that he was
deprived of because on his 14th birthday literally
he had to leave school, go and get a job and bring his pay
packet home in a brown envelope every Friday and give it to his
(10:36):
mom so that she could buy potato shows to feed
four boys. Single mom. What kind of
storyteller was your dad? Because it sounds like what you just described
in many ways is your calling, which is to
help people that have gotten dealt certain cards in life. In
your case of your dad, 14 years old, you're gonna put food on her table.
(10:59):
Was it just the way he described his life or was it his
desire to make sure you didn't have to have that life that has
made you such a champion for others? He died three years ago at the age
of 97. He was my hero and he
was my exemplar. And I watched him do
his thing. I mean he made himself really successful by
(11:21):
sheer intelligence and hard work
without the benefit of ever going to college.
Just cause he was damn good at what he did. And he
did some very special stuff. He was the ultimate networker.
He could find the name, address,
description and in the end email address
(11:45):
for every person he had met in his
entire adult life. And he had them categorized on
index cards. He never got on mass
transit without talking, not just to one person
sitting next to him, but to the other one on the other side as well.
And he would. For the longest time when I was setting
(12:07):
up First Star in the uk, I would stay in my parents
house and we would talk over dinner and he would say, I had
the most fantastic conversation. I was sitting next to
a young woman on the bus, Nigerian.
She's a senior nurse down at Great Ormond Street
Children's Hospital. But it's a very interesting story
(12:30):
because her father, a Muslim from the north of
Nigeria, and her mother a Christian, which is a very
dangerous liaison for two people to have. And she's the product of that.
And I said, how do you know all this? He said, well,
you know, I was coming from Edgware and it's quite a long bus ride
and we talked the whole way. I learned from him to
(12:52):
listen. And I also learned that in the
end of the end of the end to find happy, which is
what the book is about, has to do with. Helping other people
again because there's a Hollywood note to it. Everybody
would go, why would you ever switch? I mean, you worked on Le Mans, the
Return of the Pink Panther with Steven Spielberg and stuff.
(13:14):
What made you journey this very successful career in film?
You're a storyteller, you love telling stories, you love helping
others. Sitting in a theater and having people feel happy is a wonderful calling,
but it wasn't enough. And that's one of the tension point in your story that
I'm fascinated with, where you said, I'm going to use my platform,
my intellectual, my financial and my emotional resources and I'm
(13:37):
going to do something different with my life. Turns out that the job
of a film producer is this idea enough for me to give
it two years of my life. What is the story? How do I
tell that story? Who's gonna write it? Who's gonna direct
it? Who do I think the demographics are of the audience? Who's
gonna distribute it? Where's the money gonna come from? What's it all gonna cost?
(14:00):
How do I crew it up and then how do I measure success?
Take that toolkit over from film producing
to some intractable, previously
unconquered social challenge. Starlight.
Seriously ill children are sad. When they are sad, their
T cell count is lowered, then they don't heal
(14:23):
properly. That's very bad. Why don't we just make them
happy? First star. 6% of foster
kids go to college. How do we jack up that percentage?
And in fact, the most recent cohorts across the country, it's
89% for the first 12th graders. So
we're on a bit of a roll. Or rather the kids are.
(14:45):
Or edar. Old ladies shouldn't sleep in damp
cardboard boxes on a rainy night. You can't
possibly build your way out of the challenge. Cause
it's vastly too expensive just to house the
unhoused people in Los Angeles county would
be $5 billion with a B. I have no idea how you raise
(15:07):
$5 billion. I said, I wonder what I could do that would be a lot
better than a damp cardboard box. And that led to edar.
Everyone deserves a roof. Edar.org and on
and on. I think a great deal of it is not some
great noble virtue. It's that it gives
me joy. It's how I find my happiness.
(15:30):
And in my mentoring. I say, what's missing in your
life? Well, I need someone to love me. You're absolutely
right. You need unconditional love. Any human does in order to thrive.
I say, well, where are you going to get it? Well, I'm on this
app and that app and the other app. I flip left, I flip right.
And I say, well, just think about it. Imagine you were an alien
(15:53):
judging the rational chance that you will meet your
soulmate by flipping left and right on an app
where the whole thing is pack of lies anyway. And they say, well,
well, what would you suggest? And I said, well, let me tell you how I
met my wife. I met my wife because
after my cousin introduced me to one dying child
(16:14):
whose wish was to go to Disneyland, and we flew him over
and his mom. Two weeks of amazing
wonderment that made him happy and his mom happy.
And they went home and he passed away. And at
least she was left with some memories of him full of
joy on the teacups at Disneyland and not wasting
(16:36):
away in a hospital bed and then dying. I mean, I thought
to myself, compared to getting a film made, this was easy.
So I called a meeting. Who do I need? Well, you always need a
lawyer, and then you need an accountant and you need a
publicist and you need a. I thought, I need a graphic designer because
we've got to do a logo, and I need someone who understands hospital
(16:58):
politics. And I had had one date,
and I remembered that she said she was an accountant. So I phoned her
up. I have a charity that's about to happen. And I
wonder if you might come because I really need an accountant. So she came to
that. And when the lawyer said, what do you want to call it?
And it was the accounting lady who said, you know the children's rhyme?
(17:21):
Starlight, star bright, first star I see tonight I wish
I may, I wish I might, I have this wish I wish tonight. She
said, why don't we call it the Starlight Children's Foundation. And the
graphic designer said, I can see the logo in my head.
It's a child reaching up for a star. So that was our second
date, me and the beautiful young lady who was an
(17:43):
accountant. And for Christmas we got a live
band and we threw a concert in the
auditorium at County USC Medical center in
la in the children's ward. And we had had
donated to us these big adult sized
animal costumes. And the accounting lady
(18:05):
was inside the dolphin, all the mascara had
run down her face. And I had a vivid moment where I
thought, oh my God, I love this person. To
me, the apples doesn't fall far from the tree with curiosity
about humanity. Any of your kids sort of inherited that.
How can I push water uphill and defy what everybody
(18:28):
says hasn't been solved before? Our youngest, Becca,
is a fundraiser for a boarding school in
Ojai. Why is she a fundraiser? Well, because from the
time she was little she was over
promoted to be the volunteer captain at
the First Star annual event.
(18:50):
And she got the bug. Our older daughter,
Pamela, she's a therapist,
entertainer, writer, blogger.
An extraordinary young woman and does things
because of what one ought to do and that she
perceives she can be helpful. And the two young men,
(19:13):
David, the oldest one, he's a financial planner, he was a
schoolteacher. And then he said to me, I realize I will
never be able to buy a house if I stay as a teacher. And he
represents high net worth people. But what does he do with his spare time?
He's on the board of an organization called Jewish Free Loan.
Don't Charge Interest and help people in a bad place. And
(19:36):
Jeffrey, who cares passionately, that's my youngest
son, cares passionately about the world and
social justice and he advises people on
healthcare. He may be the person on this
planet who understands American healthcare in all its
appalling complexity better than anyone else I've ever met.
(19:59):
And he just helps people. So yeah, I think there is a little
bit of a baton past, frankly.
Part of finding happy is realizing
you don't only live the life with a beginning, a middle and an end,
but also if you have raised people and lifted
people up and helped people you live
(20:22):
on forever like ripples on a pond through.
One of the areas that you branched out very quickly was the
fact that your talent as a producer could tell better
stories. Inconvenient Truth, I think even set up a whole film
production company and doing everything he can to
encourage Hollywood to be much more about positivity and possibility.
(20:46):
And to me that takes your talent and allows you to amplify that to
a large audience. But when I'm talking to you and I might be wrong, I'm
sensing that you get so much more from that phone call at lunch you just
had, or the individual you just
talked to, or that person that came to your apartment, the mother and
the dying child. Is that because you see and feel it more?
(21:08):
You don't know who's watching the stories, but you know that you're
personally vested in a story. Is that what defines it? Because you seem to spend
more time on where you're personally vested versus storytelling to
the masses. I think there is a huge negative going
on in this ridiculously polarized
world we inhabit, which is that somehow
(21:30):
empathy is getting lost. And
in the end I think empathy and feeling
things in your heart, believing in social justice,
believing that it's the God given right of every child
to make the most of themselves. I think when you lose
(21:51):
that, then we are a bunch of robotic AI on
legs. Arguably the loss of the greatest
attribute that separates the men from the
machines. There's no point having
that sense if you don't do something about it.
I think there's too many people who just sit and complain about
(22:12):
everything in sight. And I think there are so many
opportunities to find joy in helping others.
It's one of the keys to the mysterious
nature of life. And pretty much anyone can do it.
I teach two classes in firstar. One is
videography, but also I teach a class in
(22:35):
generosity. It's called random acts of Kindness
and pay it forwards. And in the first class I say,
okay, here's a question for you. You're walking along the
sidewalk and there is an old lady, fast asleep,
face down in rags. Do you A
stop, put a dollar under her arm and walk on?
(22:58):
Or B, do you wake her up and give her the dollar?
Or C, do you look the other way and pay no
attention to her at all? We talk about most
humans that God do feel
empathy. And when we see social justice
is out of whack, we feel compelled to do something
(23:19):
about it. An old lady who was homeless took me by the
sleeve because I Asked her, where do you sleep at night, my
dear? And she took me onto some scrapland next to the freeway
out here. She showed me this gigantic cardboard box
and I thought, this is offensive. I've got
the refrigerator and this old lady is sleeping in the
(23:42):
box. What is the matter with this? It's out of
whack. That led to me inventing this
four wheel single user. Strange.
Basically a portable single user homeless shelter.
In the daytime, you push it around, you do your recycling.
At night, you park it, you let the front down, you let the back down,
(24:04):
and you now have a seven foot long cot off the ground.
That's where that idea came from. From the shock of realizing
that it was just wrong, it was out of kilter. So then I
say to the kids, each of you is going to receive
$200. But then you have to give it away.
We want you to write 300 words to
(24:26):
whom or to what you wish it to go
because you feel in your heart it would be worthwhile and help
someone else. Two, three weeks later, we're going to go back and
see did the unhoused guy buy the shoes or did he buy a big
bottle of brandy? Because sometimes philanthropy goes wrong. It
opens their eyes to the fact that there is always
(24:48):
someone that you can help and you are never the worst off.
Then I ask them, what does the second law of
thermodynamics say? Is that in any
closed system, what is a closed system? The motor
in your automobile, your family,
your planet. If you don't apply external energy,
(25:10):
if you just leave it alone, if you don't oil the
engine, nurture your family, if you do not take care
of your planet, it'll all fall to shit around you.
That will be very, very bad. How does Steven Spielberg
come around to you? And is it just through your power of
storytelling and conviction? Because I understand he's a big part of some of what
(25:33):
you do. The producer of ET And Star Wars,
Kathy Kennedy, told me I should meet him and she knew him very
well. So I pitch up at Amblin and the assistant says
everything to scare the hell out of you. Don't give the collateral
material to Mr. Spielberg. You give that to me. And you have 20 minutes
and he has an ambassador arriving on the hour and you'll need to be
(25:55):
gone by then. And anyway, so you're kind of discombobulated. You go
in, we sit and we talk. And I'm looking at my
watch and I'm thinking, I've been in here almost an hour now.
Don't Know what happened to the guy, the ambassador. But I'm still
here pitching away. And I'm still there an hour and
45 minutes in. And he says, okay, I'm in. What do you want me to
(26:16):
do? And I said, you're the chairman, I'm the
president. We'll put a board together, we'll raise some money,
and we will make seriously ill kids happy. No more
complicated than that. He said, done deal. He said, if we're going to ask people
for money, I better give money. He said, well, how much do you think I
should give? And I said, I'm not going to tell Steven Spielberg
(26:39):
what he should give. And he said, no, give me a number. I can always
say no. And I said, I'm not giving you a number. He said, well, then
you can't leave two and a half million dollars.
And I saw his mouth say, okay,
I'll do it. And I staggered out and I went into
the Amblin parking lot and I hid behind a tree. And
(26:59):
I phoned by then my wife, that accounting lady,
and I said, I just met with Steven Spielberg for nearly two hours.
He's donating two and a half million dollars. Oh, my God.
And there was a silence. And my wife said, tell me
exactly where you are. Do not drive. You aren't safe.
I will come and get you. And that was the beginning
(27:23):
of the charity.
We come back, Peter and I talk about othering
empathy and my three takeaways. And then a
final tribute to his father.
Hi, it's Tony Chapman, host of Chatter that Matters, presented by
(27:44):
rbc. Ideas matter. Ideas are the oxygen of human
endeavor. They breathe life into how we work, live and play. Ideas
let us create and innovate and overcome complex and often
challenging circumstances. Big or small, revolutionary or
evolutionary, almost every positive step forward begins with a good
idea. So bring your ideas to RBC because they matter, and they'll
(28:05):
bring theirs because you matter. Ideas happen at rbc.
The publisher thought I was nuts because I put my email address
in the book. They said, you must never do that. And I said, well, I
kind of want to create a feedback loop that's buried in the
book. So you would actually have to read the book in order to find the
email address. I'm starting to get emails
(28:29):
in. I love it. My guest today is Peter Samuelson. I could
have done the whole episode on his talents as a
Hollywood producer. We barely touch on it, because what
matters more is that we focus on such a magical
word, empathy.
Peter, you've been recognized with so many awards, outstanding Citizen
(28:52):
leadership from Ernst and Young. I mean, just time after time, does that stuff
matter to you? Is that just a way of getting your more people to know
about your platform? I mean, how do you sort of balance the
ego, the showmanship, getting the dollars and cents and still having time
to teach a class on generosity or
paying it for. First of all, I don't give a hoot about
(29:15):
certificates of merit and this, that and the other,
except that other people care about those things.
And in raising money for my nonprofits,
they help me. You know, it's a leg up if you like.
I'm blessed to be pulled down a peg not only by my
ever sarcastic wife, but also by my kids. I
(29:37):
said with great excitement the other night, Seibert and Schuster have got a
new retailer signed up. Target are going to have a
big display of the books. And there was a silence and my son
said, where are they going to put it in the store? And I said, I
have no idea. He said, well, I think you should tell them that
the best place they could put it is between the condoms and
(29:59):
the plastic cutlery. And I said, I think you're right.
I think that is its natural place in the universe. And I'm going to
tell them. And the other question, which is how do you
find time? Be hyper organized, discipline
yourself and on and on and on. It's all right there in the how to
get stuff done chapter. In my case, I'm blessed by
(30:22):
the fact that I don't sleep very much. And it's that old adage,
if you want something done, give it to a busy person.
Film producers are the ultimate entrepreneurs.
And it repeats on a one year cycle or maybe an 18 month
cycle. And you develop kind of pattern recognition
(30:42):
of how you solve crises. How do you help the crew
to work together? How do you keep them targeted on
the script, the mission, the budget, the
schedule? I went to Steven
Spielberg after we'd been working together a few months and I said, you know,
this is no good at all. Thank you so much for making the big donation.
(31:04):
But when it runs out, we have to raise money and
you don't want to meet anyone. I don't know, you're shy or something.
You don't want to ask people for money. He said, I find it very difficult.
And I said, well, we've got to get someone, someone tall,
fierce, who will just steam in and get us
donors and lead from the front. And he said, well, who? And
(31:26):
I said, I think General Norman Schwarzkopf would be really
great. Sure enough, we wrote A letter together, and Stephen
signed it. And the phone rang in my office, and it was
General Schwarzkopf's assistant who said, the general would be
happy to meet with you if you'd like to come to Tampa. So I
fly to Tampa. I get in an elevator at a high rise,
(31:48):
and it stops between floors. And a voice
in the wall says, please hold your driver's license
up to the camera. Oh, okay. So you hold up your
driver's license. He says, welcome, Mr. Samuelson. The general's
expecting you. And it jolts, and it takes you up to the penthouse.
And I go in his office, on his desk, he had the
(32:10):
largest revolver I have ever seen or
heard of in my life. I said, is that
because of terrorists? He said, no.
Journalist. So he leans forward and he says to
me, Mr. Samuelson, what do you know about the United
States Army? And I said, honestly, sir, you could
(32:32):
safely assume nothing at all.
When you enlist, you don't just get a rank,
you get a specialty. You're an infantryman, you're a
cook, you're a driver, you're a rifleman, you're a sniper, whatever
you are. He says, and it's a pin on your shoulder.
And no matter how much you get promoted, you keep your
(32:55):
specialty until, if you are a
brilliant leader in the ceremony where you get your
general's stars, they take away your
specialty pin because you are no longer a specialist.
You are a general. And I sat there like a complete
idiot, thinking, of course, you gotta have a
(33:18):
generalist. And their specialty is leading
in order to get everybody to work together in a team. And I thought, that's
what we do as film producers. We are
mediating between the videographers and the
costume designers and the set decorators
and all the rest of it. That's our job. We are
(33:40):
the generals. We are the generalists. And servant
leadership, which is especially important in a nonprofit,
make people feel as though you listen to them and they
count. Make sure that you give people credit,
Give them face, give them space, take their good
ideas. That's the best kind of leadership. We're
(34:03):
living in a time where I would say words like empathy
and social justice are not necessarily roaring across society.
I'd say politically, it's quite the opposite. How do you
stay inspired and motivated to
keep up the battle? When you stick your head up and look
around, it looks like a tsunami of negativity and impossibilities crashing
(34:26):
down ugly. In human behavior is
on the ascendant for sure. I'm a
centrist politically. I got One foot on the left and
one foot on the right. I believe in capitalism, I believe in
social justice. Am I allowed to hold two ideas in my head
at once? Yes. Life is choices and so is politics. I
(34:48):
think a horrible thing that is going on is that
we have left empathy outside the door.
If we are ever to bridge this ridiculous gulf
between red blooded Americans
and blue blooded Americans or whatever the phrase is, those
to the left of center, those to the right of center, it is
(35:11):
empathy. I mean, if you actually get people to talk about
their children, their families, their hopes, their dreams,
their fears, they're all exactly the same. Unfortunately,
what we've allowed is some pretty awful leaders
to drive people down a rabbit hole. Very interesting
thing that we did as a family a few years ago, we went to
(35:34):
Perigord region in France and we went down into
prehistoric caves and there you are and you're looking at
the pictograms and there's a guide. And I was just
thunderstruck by the fact that it was cold,
dark, scary as hell. And I could
absolutely imagine stone age people
(35:57):
being there, scared out of their wits,
scared of hunger, the saber toothed tiger,
the tribe on the other side of the valley who might steal
your food or your women or whatever. Along comes a
leader and the leader says, you can count on me. You
don't need to feel scared. We hate those people
(36:19):
the other side of the valley. You stick with me and I'll keep you safe
from them. They are other, they are not like us.
And I think that othering, and it is
maybe more from one side than the other, but it is definitely from
both sides. It divides races, it divides
religions, it divides people socioeconomically and by
(36:42):
nationality. I think it's bs. Most
human beings actually want exactly the same things. They
want to have a happy family, they want their kids to
survive and thrive. They want to put food on the table, they want to
have a job that is meaningful to them. And maybe if
they're really ambitious, they might like to make the world a better place.
(37:05):
That's what my book is about. It's called Finding Happy
what is short term happiness for me?
Chocolate ice cream, big tub of it. What is medium
term happiness? Unlimited supplies of chocolate
ice cream over time. But long term happiness
in the end, I think you have to help other people because that
(37:27):
joy, those ripples on the pond that you send out from your
own life, that is the ultimate happiness. Sure, I get
pleasure from standing at the back of a theater auditorium and
my comedy is up on the screen and they laugh in the right place.
But really, really I don't think
being a film producer is a joy. I think it's a slog.
(37:50):
What is more joyful to me is
lifting people up and then seeing them thrive. We just had the
awards show in first star in one of the academies.
We gave an award for someone who just bought his first house.
We gave an award to someone he and his wife have
just had twins through IVF cause they couldn't
(38:14):
wonderful things. What did you call that? The difference that society
between my cave and your cave. Othering perfect.
It's allowing a charismatic
bully from both sides or either side to
say those people are the devil because they look a bit
different. It's kind of easy to be
(38:35):
persuaded that you aren't scared of them,
you hate them. Them. Peter I always end my podcast and my three
takeaways and the first one, I love what you say. Life is
not a beginning or a middle or an end. It's the legacy
you leave. If you help others, they'll go on and help
others. And that is a true mark of a life and time well
(38:58):
spent. I thought that was great advice. The second one is I wish I got
to know your dad. He must be in heaven looking down and going this
is the kid that I dreamed of raising. I can imagine
him on a bus. My dad was like that, just talking to anybody, having
conversations. That's made me a curious person. And then the third thing is this
othering which I believe in too. I think social media is a big part of
(39:20):
it because they make a lot of money herding you into that cave with other
like minded people liking each other's pictures and hating the other people. And
it's a manifestation in politics just, you know, why wouldn't I keep take
advantage of it to stay in power. But I think if we challenged
othering with empathy, as you say as
individuals and as a collective consciousness, I think
(39:41):
we could make a massive dent in the universe. I'm going to make sure as
many people as it can read your book and follow you. And I hope you
got another 30 years to go because your energy
and passion, I think you've changed. Steven Spielberg's
life has got higher purpose because of you. Even though he's probably got every
academy award you could win. And I would say the good general with his revolver
(40:03):
is happy you walked into that office one day because you're, you're
bringing other people into a cause that's not your cause or
your calling. But more than anything else is maybe the calling for
humanity. Right now, Tony, you do me great honor. One
of the greatest joys I've ever had is I taught a class this
random acts of kindness and Pay it Forward. I took my dad along
(40:25):
and he sat at the back and I don't know what was more wonderful, the
kids reaction and what they said or just just looking at
him beaming from the back of the route. So when I miss him a lot,
I hold that in my mind and I'm honored by
that.
(40:45):
Joining me now is Andrea Barrick. She's a Senior VP of Sustainability and
impact at rbc. Andrea, welcome back to Chatter
that Matters. Thanks Tony. So great to be here again. I think it's
important to unpack just the kind of of role that you're playing because you go,
sustainability and impact are really to me, very different words.
Every time I'm on LinkedIn and I see you, you're somewhere around the world
(41:08):
really bringing this sense of positivity and possibility. So tell me a little
bit more about your mandate. Sure. I mean, I think, you know, as a
corporation we live by our purpose, which is helping
clients thrive and communities prosper. And so my
job is actually helping the entire organization, wherever we are,
demonstrate that we are helping communities to prosper. So how are we having a
(41:31):
positive impact on society, on the communities that we're in
on the planet? So it's a pretty good gig.
I read the statistic that RBC and the RBC
foundation is the largest source of funds
and I would argue also emotional intellectual capital to mental health
in Canada, that you're involved in so many different aspects. Why
(41:53):
is mental health such a North Star for RBC saying we've got to
do more as an organization and collectively as a country to help
people that are suffering with their mental health. We came at it two different
ways. One is we have a huge history of supporting youth and making,
you know, providing youth with the skills to be successful in the
future of work. And what we noticed in that work is
(42:16):
that if you don't have strong mental health, you can't
actually get the skills you need to be like that is one of the skills
you need to be successful. So we came at it from that more sort of
skills and helping youth overall with their preparation to be successful
in their lives. We also had a history of
helping broadly all Canadians and
(42:37):
in any communities we're in have better access to
healthcare because healthcare creates the stability that people
need to then have the futures that they want
financially. And so one of the real gaps in our healthcare
system right now has been Mental health, which is why we sort of
stepped in. But it's in that bigger piece saying, you know, how do we help
(42:59):
more Canadians access the healthcare that they need so that they're better
able to then continue to live their fullest lives, be their best
selves, contribute to the economy, contribute to their families, their
neighbors? I would say it's not mental health in and of itself. I
think where RBC is sort of special in a way is that they
seek out where the gaps are and we listen to our
(43:20):
partners. So when we talk to all of our hospital or healthcare partners,
we don't tell them we want to fund mental health. We say to them,
what are you seeing as the need that you can't fill right now? You know,
I followed your career since you joined RBC and you had a shot
at being very successful in politics and you chose to
go into an organization to make a difference for people listening that
(43:42):
really want to make an impact, the positive dent. What advice
can you give them to find that place where they feel they
can chase that purpose and at the same time have meaningful,
make a meaningful difference? I mean, I have a job that
obviously has a positive impact, just the nature of the role and the work that
I do. But I talk to, you know, thousands of our colleagues at the bank,
(44:05):
certainly about that, about what each of them can do in their own jobs.
And the stories that they tell me are quite incredible. Local branch
employees, for example, that will notice a
family is struggling and will be able to
proactively step in and offer assistance so that they don't get into
trouble. That has an enormous impact. You know, we have people
(44:27):
who work in, you know, sort of risk and, you know, anti money laundering and,
you know, the work that they do helps stop child
trafficking. No matter what your job is, you can find
what that purpose is and how you can make a difference, even
if it is just being the best colleague that you can be and making people
around you feel like they belong and are included in your workplace.
(44:48):
Encouraging people to act in a positive way and
create a positive social discourse is something this country desperately needs. And
it's nice to have your voice added to the mix. And I know you
make a major impact working in the you do at rbc. But I
think it's these are words of wisdom that we can all benefit from. So I
appreciate you joining me in Chatter that Matters. Always nice to chat with you,
(45:10):
Tony. Once again, a
special thanks to RBC for supporting Chatter that Matters. It's
Tony Chapman. Thanks for listening and let's chat soon.
Popular Podcasts
United States of Kennedy
United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club
Welcome to Bookmarked by Reese’s Book Club — the podcast where great stories, bold women, and irresistible conversations collide! Hosted by award-winning journalist Danielle Robay, each week new episodes balance thoughtful literary insight with the fervor of buzzy book trends, pop culture and more. Bookmarked brings together celebrities, tastemakers, influencers and authors from Reese's Book Club and beyond to share stories that transcend the page. Pull up a chair. You’re not just listening — you’re part of the conversation.