Dr. William A. Keys (3:42)

Thank you so much for having me. There's no telling what happens when a couple guys get together for pastrami and roast beef, huh?

Kevin Gentry (3:49)

Exactly. That is going to certainly be one of the most memorable pastrami sandwiches I've ever had. So let's get started. In 1978, you left North Carolina, your home state, where you've been educated, to come to Washington, D.C. i understand you went to work at the House Post Office. Tell us about your Start in Washington, D.C. and then we'll try to understand how in the world you got the idea to found the institute.

Dr. William A. Keys (4:19)

Well, thanks, Kevin. Well, first of all, let me just say I hitchhiked here from North Carolina with $5 in my pocket. I actually had $5 when I left North Carolina. I had even less when I got here because the truck driver who picked me up stopped for gas and I bought a soda and some cookies. So I had less than $5 when I got here. I had gone to school, was studying political science, got completely excited about politics, left school to go work on a U.S. senate campaign. My candidate lost, but I decided just because he's not going to Washington doesn't mean I can't go. So I hitchhiked here with the idea of working on Capitol Hill. Now, you mentioned I worked in the House Post Office. I clearly didn't hitchhike here to work in the post office. I wanted to work in a legislative position on Capitol Hill. But of course, I had not graduated from college. Remember, I was supposed to go back to school to finish the degree, and I didn't. I came here instead. No college degree, didn't come up from a family with political connections. The total of my political experience was that one unsuccessful campaign, et cetera, et cetera. And so people kept asking me, do you have any Hill experience? And I said, no, I didn't. And so you gotta eat somehow. So I'll try to rush through a 24 hour period in the life of Bill Keys in 1978. So I ended up getting a job working in a House post office. So from 2:00am until 8:30 in the morning, I sorted mail. Then I would go into the bathroom, wash up, put on a clean shirt and a jacket, and I walk around looking for a job. And ultimately, I realized the best thing for me to do would be just to volunteer. So from 2 until 8:30, I'm in the post office. Nine to three, I'm volunteering in a congressman's office. After that, I'm walking around handing out my resume to anybody who could fog up a mirror. After that, I would go to receptions. Gotta eat. Sometimes when I would leave the receptions, I would go into the Library of Congress, where I would sit and read everything I could get my hands on about how Congress worked and about the major issues that were being debated at the time. They would kick me out of the library at midnight. I'd go back into the Rayburn Building, sit on a big leather sofa for two hours until it was time to go back to the post office. So for that first month I was in Washington, I slept two hours a night and I ate one meal a day at those receptions. And it was an amazing experience. I remember one of my institute alumni saying, you know, Dr. Keys, I'll never forget that story you told us about when you were homeless. And I said, what? When did I tell you I was homeless? He says, you know, when you moved here and you didn't have any place to live, and I thought, oh, my goodness, I guess I was homeless. That's the definition of homeless. I didn't have a home. And so I'm thinking, I'm living the dream. They might see it as homeless. I'm thinking, I'm living the dream. I sat in a big lobby area on the Independence Avenue side of the Rayburn Building, living, looking out at the Capitol dome all lit up at night. And I thought, this is heaven. And so just, I think often if I had internalized the idea that I was homeless, where would I be now? But for me, I was living a dream. So that's how I got started in Washington. So the beautiful thing is, Bill, can I tell you this one thing, Kevin?

Kevin Gentry (8:01)

Well, yeah, I've interviewed a lot of people where they've talked about sort of struggles and adversity and early days, and. And I talked to Todd Rose, who got expelled from high school because he had a 0.9 GPA. And then he ended up going to Harvard. But this is pretty amazing. Keep going.

Dr. William A. Keys (8:19)

Well, so great Well, I never had a 0.9 GPA, so I can't top that one. But here's the beautiful thing. I don't know if you read Malcolm Gladwell, but he wrote a book called David and Goliath. And the premise was sometimes the things that were that we view as our greatest disadvantages turn out to be our greatest advantages. I didn't have money to go down Pennsylvania Avenue and drink beer and play pinball. So I was in the library studying, reading. Right. I was really, really focused. And four years after I left the post office, my title was Senior Policy Advisor to the President of the United States. And I often think most of those kids who had everything going for them, who were drinking beer and playing pinball at night, were probably still drinking beer and playing pinball. And so I don't, you know, stress out about any disadvantages I might have, because sometimes those disadvantages kind of catapult us into doing some things that are greater than anything we may have thought of.

Kevin Gentry (9:25)

Well, so ultimately, you moved into the senior role with President Reagan and. And then, Bill, you then had this vision for, at some point, founding what is the Institute for Responsible Citizenship. And another part of the Going Big podcast is people who've cast a big, bold vision for change that something they've got in their mind they want to go do. Did you have an idea at that point that there was a problem you wanted to address? When did you get the idea for the Institute for Responsible Citizenship? And then tell us about what that vision is.

Dr. William A. Keys (10:03)

Sure. I ended up taking a job years after the White House, taking a job with the Fund for American Studies, and I ran one of their institutes. And what I realized as I was doing that was that there are a lot of people who could benefit from the kind of experience that my students were having. But they weren't there either because they didn't have mentors in their lives who had recommend that they have that kind of experience or they didn't have the money to pay for it. And so I decided I would create a program where I would actually recruit the young people who I wanted to have in it. Right. And that it would be free to them. Not only would it be free to them, we would pay them to come. So they. Their housing and all of that's free meals. And then we also provide a stipend. So the problem. There were two problems that I was really concerned about. One was success rates for black men on college campuses were just abysmal. That really troubled me. And so I thought the young men who are working hard and doing well, we need to support them, to help them go beyond where they think they can go. And so that's a huge part of what we do. The other part of it was that I just saw a lack of critical thinking, and I wanted to really get bright people around the table and to teach critical thinking skills. And it wasn't that I was saying, here's how you think critically, but putting them in environments where they could see, all right, you just made a statement. What does that actually mean? And having other people around that table who could ask the same questions, what did you mean by that? What if this. What if that? And have this critical thinking? Because our country is in big, big, big, big, big trouble if we don't have people who can think beyond what they've read on their. Their Twitter feed that day. So those were two of the things that I was concerned about.

Kevin Gentry (12:04)

All right, well, we got a lot to unpack for the benefit of our listeners, because these are all the themes and subjects that we often address. And I want to get into a lot about what you've already mentioned in terms of mentorship and mentoring others, certainly the critical thinking skills aspect of it, but also how you start and build an institute and fund it and keep it going over time and then what you do to keep it going into the future. So we got a lot to cover. But to give more perspective on the institute, tell us a little bit more about that that I rattled off at the beginning in the introduction about the Rhodes Scholars and the Truman Scholars and the Fulbright Scholars, and. And maybe if there's a graduate or two or three you want to just describe, tell us, give us. Bring to life what it is. The Institute for Responsible Citizenship.

Dr. William A. Keys (12:57)

Yeah. So I'll tell you the frame of what it looks like. So you applied during your sophomore year of college. It's all African American men. Not just black men, but specifically African American men. You applied during your sophomore year of college. You can go to any college in the country, any major, any career goal. The only thing we care about is that you are someone who's ambitious to be extraordinarily successful for reasons that are bigger than yourself. It's a huge investment on our part. And I don't want to invest in Kevin just so that Kevin can make a lot of money and drive a fast car and live in a big house. That's not what this is about. It's about taking really talented people who want to make a difference in the world, who want to glorify God and Be a blessing in the lives of other people. That's what this is about. So we select really talented young men. They come and spend two summers with us the summer before the junior year, senior year of college. They live together in a residence hall at one of the universities here in town. They do high level internships and whatever fields they're interested in, whether it's on Capitol Hill or at a law firm or in a hospital or at a church, it just depends on their interest. In the evenings, they come and sit around the conference table at my office where they are taking courses on economic and constitutional principles and ethics. All right? Because we think those are the things that are critically important for us to have a society that is worth having. All right? That's the thing that's important. You can't be a leader in our society if you don't understand the Constitution or if you don't understand economic principles. Sure and simple. You can go to some of the best universities in this country and never read the Constitution once.

Kevin Gentry (14:45)

True. Absolutely right.

Dr. William A. Keys (14:47)

These are some of the problems that we're trying to address. So if you're not in class or at your internship, you might be going out to meet with a Supreme Court justice or a member of Congress or the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or the CEO of a corporation or whatever, you're meeting really, really high level people. And there are only 12 of you, either 12 or 24, 12 juniors, 12 seniors. And therefore those interactions are quite intimate. Right. It's not a few hundred people sitting in a big auditorium watching someone walk up onto a stage, give some remarks, take a few questions and walk out the door. A lot of these engagements last for hours because it's like being in someone's living room and having a real conversation. If you're not in class, not at your internship, not out meeting with someone, they're probably professional or personal development workshops that we're doing, whether it's public speaking or etiquette or any of those things. Because as you and I know, you can be brilliant. And if you don't have good people skills, you're probably not going as far as you would have the God given ability to go. So we leave no stone unturned that the most important part though is just the network of people who these young men become a part of. So you mentioned Rhodes Scholars. We just found out this weekend that the seventh member of our, they call it a brotherhood. The seventh member of this brotherhood was named a Rhodes Scholar. There's no institution.

Kevin Gentry (16:19)

By the way, my introduction was to say five Rhodes Scholars. And then I was corrected and then I said, no, no, there's a seventh that you just learned about just within the past couple days.

Dr. William A. Keys (16:29)

Yeah, yeah. Do you know that 83% of the colleges and universities in America have never had a Rhodes Scholar?

Kevin Gentry (16:36)

This is mind boggling. I mean, this is in and of itself something I want to dive into because I'm sure people are like, there's no way. There's just no way. And by the way, you have this amazing book which I'm going to get into in just a bit, and you have this. Just describe the picture that's on the COVID Not everybody can see it. But who is in that picture, Bill?

Dr. William A. Keys (16:55)

Well, the handsome guy in the middle with the red tie is me.

Kevin Gentry (16:59)

The man in Washington, as my wife likes to call you.

Dr. William A. Keys (17:03)

Thank you, Ann. The other five people in the picture are Rhodes Scholars.

Kevin Gentry (17:08)

Unbelievable.

Dr. William A. Keys (17:09)

How many people can walk down the street. Well, of course that's a stage photograph, but how many people can walk down the street with five African American young men who are Rhodes Scholars? No one, because it doesn't exist outside of this institute. This, they're now seven. It is pretty phenomenal, by the way, seven Rhodes Scholars. Who mentioned the other awards? Back In May, our 16th alumnus graduated from Harvard Law School for six straight years. They went to Yale Divinity School. They're doing some pretty extraordinary things. Kevin, when we were at lunch, one of the things I mentioned to you was a conversation that I had with a friend a few days before that where it just occurred to me that, that there are a lot of organizations that are trying to train young people to do certain things. And we're not focused so much on what they do, as much as who they are. And so we're talking about character and integrity and service to others, reverence for God, all of those things. And then it turns out we get a bunch of Rhodes Scholars.

Kevin Gentry (18:14)

Well, okay, so let me unpack this a little bit. Okay, so first of all, you've done this since 2002, 23 years. You've had about 250 young men in program 12 a year. So the success rate is just mind boggling. And so how do you recruit or select these students who turn out so well? Now an aspect of it is presumably what you offer to them in terms of this mentorship and this and the ethics and economics and the constitutional studies and how you're the critical thinking skills and treating people with dignity and respect and everything else that you're teaching them. But how in the world do you explain this success rate. I've never heard of anything like it.

Dr. William A. Keys (19:01)

Well, you were asking me about how we select them. That's the most important job I have.

Kevin Gentry (19:06)

That's number one.

Dr. William A. Keys (19:06)

Yes, that's the most important job. And then just focusing on what's important.

Kevin Gentry (19:11)

How many apply? How many apply.

Dr. William A. Keys (19:14)

So this is not typical, but our biggest applicant pool was 640 for 12 spaces. So it's pretty selective. A typical pool is in the 300, 350 range.

Kevin Gentry (19:27)

And how do you begin to identify 12 that will ultimately be spending not one, but two years? Two summers.

Dr. William A. Keys (19:35)

Two summers, yeah. That's another unique aspect of the program. I never heard anything about each other. Yeah, so it's an applicant application. It's probably more rigorous than a typical college application because they're now in college and they have a lot more to show. So it's essays, resumes, writing samples, you name it. We asked for SAT scores, you know, obviously their grades, letters of recommendation. So it's a pretty extensive application. We go through those, and then the team whittles that down to a certain number, and then we start interviewing them. And I'm giving away a little bit of a secret here for any young person who might be thinking about applying. But there's an application, there's an interview. And if they do well on the interview, they probably get. Get a few more phone calls randomly that they're not expecting. My attitude is anybody ought to be able to bone up, you know, do some reading, and then it's time for the interview. You sit up straight and you smile, Right?

Kevin Gentry (20:38)

The interview is notoriously challenging to navigate.

Dr. William A. Keys (20:44)

And how about the call that you get when you're walking across campus from class or you're sitting in the library studying and you get this phone call from a 202 number? Right? How about, you know, you're just not expecting the call and this call comes in. How do you perform then? That's pretty critical now. Nobody's going to not get in. Well, that's not true. Some people have not gotten in because they handled their random interviews so badly. Here's another thing. I know I'm not talking to a bunch of kids now, but how about your. Your. Your voicemail message on your phone? How about you've applied for this pretty prestigious program that's very selective, and we call you and then we get a voice message that is profane. We just don't call you anymore. We mark your name off the list, and they never even know that that's what happened.

Kevin Gentry (21:39)

Right.

Dr. William A. Keys (21:40)

I Mean, how we conduct ourselves is something that we talk about in the Institute all the time. And it's big things and little things. But anyway, we go through this process, and if we like you, we call you again, and then we call you again, because our goal is to get to know you well enough to say, kevin is someone who we like enough to be a part of this network that we've spent 23 years building, that is a seed in this Institute, is a very precious thing. And that's why it works. Because long after I'm gone, these men will be there for each other. They will be supporting each other. They'll be encouraging each other. They'll also be scolding each other if they're doing the wrong things. But bringing the right people into this. Why did we have six straight years? Young men went to Yale Divinity School because year of number one, the young man who went there, and he did what it is that I'm telling them that their job is to do wherever they go, and that is to bust the doors down for the guys coming along behind you. And so Elijah did that in year number one. Year number two, Christopher called me and said, Dr. Keys, I'm making a huge mistake. The Lord's telling me I'm supposed to be going to Divinity School. And I'm like, well, what's the problem? He says, I didn't apply to Divinity School. I ended up calling Yale Divinity School the next day and asking how Elijah was doing. They told me he was doing so great, they love him to death. And I said, well, if you love Elijah, you're gonna love Chris. Chris. And I had to explain to him, I just got off the phone with him, he's gonna complete his entire application today. It's gonna be sitting on your desk tomorrow morning. And if you'll read it, even I know the deadlines have passed. But if you'll read it, you will call me and thank me. So of course they said, well, if he can do a whole application today and he's anything like Elijah, we'll read it. So of course, Chris gets in, they give him a scholarship, the whole nine yards. And year number three, they call me and they say, okay, who do you have for me this year? And I told them, six straight years. In year number seven, the young man went to Emory, and the people at Yale lost their minds because I thought we had a pipeline. But that's the job. Your job is to bust the doors down for the guys come along behind you.

Kevin Gentry (24:02)

Well, Bill, I got to tell you, if you were telling me this, if I didn't know you and you told me this story, I would say, either you're making this up, but obviously we can account for these people. You wrote a book about them and they all have these remarkable careers. Now I'm even astonished that you could keep 12 not only for a full year, but for a second year because you naturally have drop off and things like that. So just describe one, just pick, pick one of the people that you describe in the book and tell me what this person is doing today. And then I'm going to ask you maybe about one or two more.

Dr. William A. Keys (24:40)

Okay. So I mentioned Elijah, who went to Yale Divinity School. So Elijah was a student at Hampton. And my very first recruiting trip was to Hampton. I called the head of their honors college. I told her about this idea and she said, I'll put together a group of young men for you to talk to. Elijah was in that group. And I mentioned that because since he got in, he is the person in this network who I've known the longest. And he's like a son to me, as many of them are. So Elijah came to the institute, did extraordinarily well. After the institute graduating from Hampton, he went to Yale Divinity School, as we talked about. Then he came to work for the institute. And when he was working here, he did an amazing job. And at the end of the summer, I would take each staff member out for dinner and. And we have a conversation, say, well, how do you think the year went? How was the summer? What are you thinking about your life? And Elijah, what's going on with you? And Elijah said, well, I have some big news. And I said, really? What's that? And I knew he wasn't dating anybody seriously, so he wasn't going to tell me he was getting married. So I said, what's the big news? He says, I'm ready to go get a PhD. And I go, wow, that's fantastic. So anyway, long story short, he ends up leaving, going to uncle, which is my alma mater, and earned a PhD, left there, moved to Charleston, South Carolina, where he basically built a new museum, the International African American Museum, which sits on the location Gadsden's Wharf in Charleston, where the majority of Africans were brought into the country. Amazing. Nothing existed at that point. So he basically built that museum, which is now an amazing facility. And while he was there, who was recruited away by one of their board members and major donors who was in New York. And Elijah now runs his family office, but he also serves on corporate boards and nonprofit boards and Produces films and does all kinds of really amazing things that are having serious impact in society.

Kevin Gentry (26:48)

All right, tell me about another one. Tell me about another one. Just pick another.

Dr. William A. Keys (26:51)

Okay, so let's see. I'll tell you about Lawrence Brown, who grew up in Stockton, California, went to Oakwood University in Huntsville, Alabama, which is an HBCU that's affiliated with the Seventh Day Adventist Church. He went to Oakwood after Oakwood.

Kevin Gentry (27:11)

And by the way, just for benefit of everybody that may not know hb, that's Historically Black College.

Dr. William A. Keys (27:16)

Historically Black, Exactly. So after Oakwood, he went to Meharry Medical College in Nashville while he. During his time in medical school, left, took a break from there, went to Yale and did a Master of Public Health, came back and finished his MD at Meharry. Now he is practicing medicine. He's a surgeon at Johns Hopkins, one of the top hospitals in the country. And. And while he's practicing surgery, he's just finished a PhD in public health from the Bloomberg School. So, you know, these guys are a bunch of underachievers.

Kevin Gentry (27:54)

Yeah, indeed. Just like you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Pick another one. I'll just. We'll just do. We'll do three, and we'll move on to the next question. Pick another one.

Dr. William A. Keys (28:02)

Jordan. Jordan. I met Jordan Thomas when he was in high school in Newark, New Jersey. He was participating in a program at Princeton where some of my institute alumni were serving as counselors. They invited me to come and give the opening lecture that summer. And here's this young man sitting on the front row with this huge Afro, and you'd never forget him. And a few years later, I get an application to the institute, and there's that kid with that Afro. And so Jordan went to. Grew up in Newark, New Jersey, went to Princeton for this summer program, then went to Princeton undergrad, was named a Rhodes Scholar. So he went to Oxford for graduate school. After Oxford and his Rhodes Scholarship came back to the States, where he did a joint program between Yale Law School and Harvard Business School, which he just finished. And I would be willing to bet money if I were a betting man, that he'll be on the U.S. supreme Court one day.

Kevin Gentry (29:07)

Well, that's three good guys. You've got one of that. You have performed quietly to develop one of the most powerfully impactful pipelines imaginable. So kudos to you. All right, so now I want to pivot now to some of the going big aspects back to you and vision and overcoming the challenges and adversity. So first of all, you are Dr. William A. Keys. But you told me at the beginning that you hitchhiked to Washington and ended up working in the House post office and hadn't finished college. When did you get your doctorate?

Dr. William A. Keys (29:50)

Got my doctorate in 2018. How? And not because I needed one. I mean, I was well into my career and all of that, and having a doctorate was not going to change things. But, you know, I spent a lot of time on college campuses, and I'm talking to Dr. This and Dr. And so I thought it wouldn't hurt for me to have a PhD myself. But I'll tell you the real reason I did it. I am constantly pushing these young men to do more, do more, do more, do more. Right? And so I just decided I was going to go earn a PhD, and now I can say to them, all right, I am a husband. I'm a father. I work about 9,000 hours a week at this institute. I serve on corporate boards, nonprofit boards. My wife has a pretty extensive social calendar that keeps me busy. You know, husband, father, grandfather. I've got a lot going on, and I earned a PhD.

Kevin Gentry (30:44)

What's your excuse exactly? Well, now, don't I feel inadequate. Well, Bill, you. Now I understand you. You were on the board of trustees of the University of North Carolina. You went to Chapel Hill. Did you get your doctorate there?

Dr. William A. Keys (30:58)

I did. So you mentioned me being on the board of trustees. The University of North Carolina is, I believe, 232 years old, and I have the distinction of being the only person who ever served on the board of trustees and earned a PhD at the same time.

Kevin Gentry (31:18)

Wow. Well, I know you've been recognized as a highly accomplished alum of the university, and just all that you do, that in and of itself is enough to be all about going big and certainly to get the doctorate. Kudos to you. Okay, so in 2002, you decide to launch this institute, and you said you'd worked at the Fund for American Studies, so you had some experience or awareness of that kind of programming or an institute. But if somebody listening says, you know, I have a vision to do something in the nonprofit sector, and I don't even know how to start, how did you launch? And just tell us a little bit about the journey. Was it all easy? Was it all just a nice slam dunk and just money rolled in, Tell us about that.

Dr. William A. Keys (32:09)

I wish. But the person who's interested in doing something, I would say the most important thing you have to do is just take time to think about it. I've seen a lot of people who come up with an idea On Monday and on Tuesday they're increasing incorporating and on Wednesday they're applying for tax exempt status. And they haven't taken the time to think it through. I thought about it long enough that there was no question that anybody was going to ask me about this project that I didn't have an answer for. And it really wasn't about other people asking. It's for myself what are the questions that I need to answer. And I just took the time to think right down to the name. Institute for Responsible Citizenship. Responsible Citizenship. What is that about? We're in Washington. We focus on issues that are critically important to all the things that we do in Washington. That's a huge part of it. But for me, the essence of Responsible Citizenship is that we use our enormous God given talents to glorify him and to be of service to other people. The service to other people part, using our gifts to be of service to other people. That for me, is what Responsible citizenship is about. I didn't just wake up one day and had that complete thought about what this was supposed to be. That took place over a period of time, two summers instead of one. I didn't just wake up one day and say, do two summers now. You look at it now and you realize that the depth of the relationships that these young men have, not just with the people who were part of their own cohorts, but, but the entire group. A lot of that's because when they come here, they become a part of a family. So there are many of those thoughts. So anyway, get back to your question. What would I recommend to someone? The first thing is that you just take the sufficient amount of time to think about what it is, what it's supposed to be, what the objectives are, and the best things for you to do to achieve those objectives. That's important to us because people will come along and say, well, Bill, why, why don't you do this instead? Or why don't you add that? And it's important for me to be able to say, because that doesn't help us meet our objectives and staying clear about exactly what this is about. A lot of people don't do that. I mean, the field that you've been in, Kevin, for all these years that I've known you, you know all about mission creep. You know, probably a ton of organizations that started out with the idea that they were going to do something that its founders thought was really, really important. And before too long, that organization doesn't even resemble what it was that the founder had in mind for It.

Kevin Gentry (34:57)

No, you're. I would say it's probably a majority of the organizations I've seen over time, which, by the way, there is something about staying small, as you have now, very impactful, but has allowed you to go big. There's something here. There are so many lessons. This is worth a huge case study in and of itself, how you've. How you've pursued this.

Dr. William A. Keys (35:22)

So I want to tell you two really quick things. This whole issue of impact is huge for me, right? As I said, this is about us using our gifts to be a blessing to other people. So I was talking a couple of summers ago, I kept talking about impact, and I didn't feel like the guys were understanding it. And, I mean, obviously people know what impact means, but they weren't getting the gravity of what I was saying to the enormity of what this process project is about. And so I came in the next night and I grabbed a whiteboard and I wrote all of their names down the left side. And then one by one, I said, okay, John, what's your career goal? And John would say, I'm going to be a lawyer. Okay, how many patients do you think you might treat over the course of a career? And they wouldn't. And they had to come up with a number. And then I wrote that number on the board, and I said, well, actually, let's triple that number, because all of those people probably have a spouse or a kid or somebody in their lives for whom you saving their life is going to impact other people, right? And we put that number on the board. Then the next person. The next person. The next person. I went through 24 young men, and when I got to the bottom, I said, all right, now somebody add up these numbers. And it shocked all of us. Nine billion people. Now, I know that's ridiculous. How do you get 9 billion people? All right, so the person who wants to do the research to find a cure for cancer, he actually impacts the lives of everybody else who lives for the rest of eternity if he's successful. That's impact.

Kevin Gentry (37:10)

No, Bill, no, no. This is. This is a big deal. And I. And I. And in your book, you talk about how in the early days, you sat beside a person from a prominent large foundation, and they challenged you and said, well, that sounds nice, but you're not big enough for our support. And, wow, they were pretty arrogant about it, too. And you challenged them back and said, how do you define big enough in terms of impact or size or staff or bureaucracy or bud. But in terms of impact, okay, well, keep going because you had a second point to make because I've got a number of follow up questions I've got to ask you.

Dr. William A. Keys (37:48)

Oh, so just about you were asking about size. One of the other reasons that we keep it small is just intimacy. So I remember our very first summer we went to see Congressman John Lewis. John Lewis was the only person who was still alive who had participated in the march on Washington with Martin Luther King Jr. So we take our first class of scholars to visit with Congressman Lewis. We get to his office and he greets us at the door and he says, I don't know why they scheduled you at this hour, because we have votes on the House floor. But come into my office, sit down, relax, I will get back as soon as I can. And I have all the Coca Cola products you can drink and all the peanuts you could eat. Benefit of being from Georgia.

Kevin Gentry (38:33)

Right? He's from Georgia.

Dr. William A. Keys (38:34)

And we sat and we waited and his scheduler came in and said, I am sorry, Mr. Keys, but we can't give you an hour. I can only give you a half hour. Now I said, I understand. Congressman Lewis came back and he walked into the room and he greeted these young men and he spent not a half hour, not an hour, four hours sitting in his private office having a conversation with these young men. And his staff was literally had their hands on his shoulders trying to pull him out of the room and he wouldn't leave. Now, as I said a little while ago, that doesn't happen if it's hundreds of people in a big auditorium. But sitting at his office having this conversation with young men who went to his office not to be entertained but to engage him, he just thought, I got the American Bankers association and the American Borrower Association. I don't care who you have after me, I'm gonna do, do this. And by the way, his staff always scheduled us at the end of the day after that happened.

Kevin Gentry (39:36)

Well, I'm so glad you touched on this. I think that people who focus on teaching and mentoring and stuff struggle with leveraging or expanding that kind of effort. But what you're doing or scaling it, but what you're doing is extraordinary. Well, so, you know, again, we just had lunch last week and you gave me this terrific book about the stories they hear. And the COVID itself has the pictures. You save the five Rhodes Scholars then, which is amazing in itself, but I really went through it this weekend. And you keep focusing on expectations, setting high expectations and you know, and tell us why you think that is important and how you believe setting high expectations helps elevate us to a new level.

Dr. William A. Keys (40:27)

And, Kevin, I don't know if I tell you the story about being invited probably more than 10 years ago now, to visit a very prominent Midwestern university who called me and said, our black male students are just not doing well. Maybe you can give us some ideas. And I went out and I spent two days just observing. I went to classes. I walked through the dining hall. I just observed for two days. And on that third morning before I headed for the airport, the provost had about 30 people, professors, deans and so forth. And I said to them, I think I understand what the problem is. And they all sat up, and I said, these young men are living up to your low expectations. And we don't have time for me to talk about that conversation. But I basically explained to them how they had such low expectations for these young men coming in, that those young men were internalizing what they were giving off.

Kevin Gentry (41:25)

Right.

Dr. William A. Keys (41:27)

For example, the provost who invited me to come started out by saying, we have these young men who come from these poor inner city schools and name the city. I won't name the city because I will give away the university. And I said that morning, I said, you know, I went to college, and I cannot imagine that I walked into class and my professor knew where I went to school, much less the quality of the school I had gone to. You don't know whether these young men are the most brilliant people you've ever met or the dumbest. You're making an assumption that they're not prepared. Right. And so you're not challenging them, you know, to work hard. I pointed out the thing about working hard, expecting them to work hard and do well. And there was this one professor who said, well, I'm worried that if I push them too hard, I will drive them away. And I said, well, that's interesting. You have a football team, right? And they look at me like, of course we do. I said, you think your football coach makes these young men work hard? Oh, they go. And they went on and on about how hard. How about basketball? Oh, yeah, they work so hard. And I said, okay, let me get this straight. Someone explained to me, if you push a young black man to work harder than he's ever worked in his life for physical pursuits, he'll thrive in that environment. But if you push him to work hard for intellectual pursuits, you'll drive him away. Explain that. The silence in that room was deafening, because that attitude is just indefensible. So we expect a lot from the young Men in the institute, right. We expect a lot. They don't have to all become Rhodes Scholars. They don't have to all earn PhDs. They don't all have to graduate from Harvard Law School. But they've got to do the best that they can with the gifts that the good Lord has given them. That's the expectation. And guess what? People live up to our high expectations.

Kevin Gentry (43:24)

Well, you've got a track record to back that argument up. And God bless you, Bill Keys. This is amazing. I hope people listening really just see some stuff here that they dig into and want to replicate in other ways. You said something at the beginning. You talked about how, you know, you weren't just helping people that were on a young men that were on a track record for success become, you know, wealthier and, you know, buy some. Some things that would be attached to luxuries like that. But you're really trying to deepen the whole pursuit of meaning and purpose and finding their gift and their contribution. Tell us just a little bit more about that.

Dr. William A. Keys (44:08)

So this book you mentioned, hopefully everybody will read it. People ask me all the time, what is the difference maker? What's the special sauce? All these things about the Institute. And I tell them we don't really do a whole lot that's different from what a lot of other organizations do. Internships, classes, and so forth. The biggest difference is the conversations we have around the dinner table. That's where those values are communicated. That's where those expectations are set and raised in those conversations around the dinner table. And I can't invite everybody on this podcast to come sit at the dinner table with us. So we wrote it down in this book so that you can read. Here are the things we talk about. Now, I'm going to give it away, but the very first page, the very first words are, God has blessed you with something special. And everything is based on that. That's the foundation that everything is built on that. God has blessed you with something special, and he expects you to work hard, to develop it, and use it for his glory, and to be a blessing to other people. So if I can persuade you that the Lord has put you on this earth for a purpose, getting you to work hard is not that difficult. It's about more than just, you know, like. Like you said, I guess you were repeating me. But it's more than just the latest pair of Air Jordans, you know, or what kind of car are you going to drive one day. It really is about making a difference in this world. And these guys work really hard. They achieve a lot. I am incredibly proud of them. They are proud of each other, and they've got reason to be proud of themselves. Because, you know, as I keep saying, the Lord put you on this earth for a reason. Find out what that is, and then work really, really hard to do it.

Kevin Gentry (45:59)

Now, this has just been terrific, Bill, and just God bless you for what you're doing. All right, I got two wrap up questions. These are the ones I generally ask every guest. The first is looking back now at all that you've done, looking back at an earlier version of yourself, maybe the hitchhiker coming to Washington. What would you now tell that younger version of yourself that you might have done differently just for the benefit of those, for all of us, as we're trying to figure out how to lead our lives better?

Dr. William A. Keys (46:31)

Yeah. So that's a terrible question to ask me because I wouldn't do anything differently now. I would tell my children, well, again.

Kevin Gentry (46:40)

By the way, you've got a good track record to back up the path that you've taken.

Dr. William A. Keys (46:46)

But. But I would tell my children to do things differently than the way. If they said they were gonna hitchhike someplace, I'd be very upset. So. But here's the reason I say that. If you look at my resume, we didn't talk about all the things I've done, but it would look random, right? A lot of it would look random. You did some of this and you did some of that. You did some of this. And then I ended up in this place where I am right now, where I feel like I am doing exactly what the Lord put me on this earth to do. I also feel like there's no human being on this earth who's better suited to do what I do than I am. And I am not the best in the world at any of the components of what I do, but in me is the unique combination of experiences, relationships, passions, failures, and successes. All of that unique combination that makes me the right person to do this. That's what I want for all of these young men I work with, that. Not that they get a good job, but that they do the thing that the Lord has situated them to be the person to do and be the best in the world at.

Kevin Gentry (47:49)

Right?

Dr. William A. Keys (47:49)

And so the reason I said I would. What I would tell them is, whatever it is that you're doing, pour your whole heart into it. So before political science, I was preparing to become a college football coach. Did you know that? No. Well, looking at how much money these guys make now, I probably should have stuck with that, but nonetheless, think about it. All the things that I learned when I was preparing to be a college football coach are things that I use now in preparing these young men to be surgeons and pastors. Okay. I worked in sales. All the things I learned when I worked in sales, I use today as I'm going out to find the resources to help keep this program going. Right. All of those things, they look random to you or me, but they were not random to God. God knew that I needed to do all of those things to prepare me for the place where I am now. So the advice to all those young people that I would be talking to is get the most out of everything that you're doing while you're doing. There's no such thing as. Well, I'm just doing this now until I find the job that I really want. No, no, get everything you can out of where you are right now. Work as hard as you can. Be the best you can at it, because you don't know how the Lord's going to be able to use that experience down the road when you do meet, get to the destination that you really want to get to.

Kevin Gentry (49:16)

If people want to find out more about you and the institute, what should the Institute for Responsible citizenship. Right.

Dr. William A. Keys (49:23)

Correct. Www.theinstitute.net theinstitute.net and then this great book.

Kevin Gentry (49:30)

The stories they Hear. And there's just so much here. Bill, the last question is similar, but just for anybody listening, anybody listening around the world, maybe they're young and they could be applying in a few years for your program, or maybe they're at an early stage of their life. They're out of college. Maybe they're later in life. Maybe they're trying to figure out what to do in a new season of life. What advice would you share for anybody listening about how they should consider going big in their life? And thank you for just, you're a great example of working to identify your gift and applying that to the service of the Lord. I mean, that's what you've done, and it's extraordinary. So what advice would you leave us with?

Dr. William A. Keys (50:17)

Well, thanks for saying that, Kevin. That means a lot to me coming from you. I don't know. Just think seriously about what's important in life. I mean, I run a nonprofit. I worked in government. I run a nonprofit. It all right, I will give away or use everything I have to be a blessing in the lives of other people. And yet somehow I have every single thing I need. And there's Nothing on this earth that I want that I don't have or can't get. And there's no way to explain that on a spreadsheet. Right. But God provides everything I need and even everything I want because my focus is on giving to others. And I know that might sound. I don't know how it sounds, but that's just the reality of.

Kevin Gentry (51:09)

That's pretty good.

Dr. William A. Keys (51:10)

Well, it's the reality for me. And I don't know how it might sound boastful or whatever it is, but that's a lesson that I try to give young people when I'm sitting in that intimate setting. That's another reason why. Because I can't tell these stories in a big auditorium to people who don't know me. But I can tell these stories in an intimate setting. Who. People who get to see that I'm genuine about the fact that I care about them as human beings and what they will achieve in life, where I'm telling them things from my own life that I'll say, you know what? I've had to make sacrifices, but I made sacrifices for things that were really, really important. I don't know. I don't even remember the question you asked.

Kevin Gentry (51:53)

Oh, you know, you answered it very well. I'm just so grateful you reached out and asked me to go to lunch, and I'm glad I said yes. So thank you very much. This is how we get these outstanding guests on the Going Big Podcast. I just need to be always on edge to be responsive. Bill Keys, it's been a great pleasure having you today, and it's a great honor to know you, count you as a friend, and look forward to many, many, many more years to come.

Dr. William A. Keys (52:21)

Likewise, Kevin, thank you so much and God bless you.

Kevin Gentry (52:24)

And God bless you.

Kevin Gentry (52:25)

Thanks for tuning in to the Going Big Podcast. I hope today's conversation left you feeling energized and ready to tackle your biggest goals. Don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review on iTunes, YouTube, or wherever you listen to podcasts. It really helps spread the word and it gets these inspiring stories out to more people. You can also find more content, resources and updates at our website, Going bigpodcast.

Kevin Gentry (52:51)

Com.

Kevin Gentry (52:51)

Remember, the only limits are the ones you don't challenge the limits that you impose on yourself. Keep pushing, keep growing, and above all, keep going big. See you next time on the Going Big Podcast.