Dream Bigger: Janice Bryant Howroyd’s Success Code

0:00Mick:Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of Mick Unplugged. And this episode is very touching for me on many ways. I'm talking to the queen. She turned a$900 loan into a billion-dollar enterprise, becoming the first African-American woman to own and operate a billion-dollar business. She's a trailblazer in staffing, a fierce advocate for equity, and a leadership icon who's redefined what's possible. She's brilliant. She's bold, legendary. She is the queen. We're talking to none other. Miss Janice Bryant Alroy. JBH, how are you doing today, dear? Wonderful, Mick. What an introduction.

0:40Wow. Thank you. It's a revisit for me, actually. You mentioned staffing. You mentioned a billion dollars. And I think about what that meant when I first realized that was happening in the company. By the way, it wasn't just me. It was the incredible team of people who worked within the Act One group. And here we are now at a multi-billion dollar company operating in over 43 countries. And we're primarily providing technology solutions and the technology itself to enable companies to plan, to hire, and to retain workforces they desire. And we're also delivering agentic solutions as part of that how-work-gets-done environment that we operate within.

1:24So thank you for the revisit as well as an incredible introduction, Mick.

1:29Mick:Absolutely. So innovative, so cutting edge in everything that you do. And, you know, I've been a huge fan of you all of my life. Studied you. I became an entrepreneur a lot based on some of the wisdom and teaching that you were showing, not just telling. And that's why I love you with all of my soul. And I know that entrepreneurship for you didn't start in 1978 when you started the company. I know that you had a moment in the 11th grade when you realized there was something for you. I'd love for you to just talk to us a little bit about those beginnings, but in particular, when you knew that there's something bigger.

2:15You know, earlier I was talking with a gentleman who has had an amazing transformation in his life and by doing so has transformed the lives of others. And transformation is the big word right now. All companies are doing it. AI is encouraging it, sometimes forcing it, but always providing a support to it for us now. It's not a new thing, although people talk about it. It's new. It's been around for a while. And that's how I look at my journey of entrepreneurship. Well, I really became inspired that I would do something with my life that would be a light about who we are as a people. At that time, who we are was referring to us as Black people in the South.

3:00Today, it refers to us as entrepreneurial people who want to do good. I'm sitting right now in Conclave in Mexico with entrepreneurs who are looking at how we build democracy forward in an ethical and inclusive way. And so my journey, though, to entrepreneurship started before I was born. And I didn't realize it, Nick, until much later in talking with my mom. I didn't value back that when my grandma Dora and my grandpa Dan were running a barbecue house over on Panola Street in Tawar, North Carolina, and they served white people at their dining room table, and they delivered plates to black people based on what the black people's income was, not based on what the food cost, because they knew they'd get around to making it up somehow.

3:54I saw them practicing their version of ethical entrepreneurship. I saw them practicing their version of building forward for their family and taking care of their community in ways that certainly became a part of my emotional mindset. My academic mindset didn't capture it all until I I was later sitting in a class at North Carolina A &T State University. Aggie Pride. Aggie Pride.

4:25Mick:Let's go. The instructor gave some data that referenced what poverty line was. And just as you're doing, I tilted my head back and I thought, oh, my, according to this data, we are poor. Yet in my community, I actually thought we were rich. We certainly were enriched. by what mom and dad were teaching and giving to us. And we ate better than many wealthy people do now because we were growing food. We figured out how to grow stuff four seasons out of the year back there in the deep South. And I said often publicly, you know, my mama was planting these gardens in her yard long before Michelle planted one at the White House.

5:10And so, you know, I just really thought about life differently sitting in that class. And that was an epic moment for me that, again, as you mentioned, fed back to the 11th grade. When I was, and for your listeners who are not familiar with what you're referencing, my 11th grade year, I was one of the few students who participated in the integration of the schools in my hometown. And so I was it for the 11th grade. And it was probably the worst year of my life, aside from the year that people who I've loved have, the years people who I loved have transcended. But it was worse even than that in ways because it was the killing of dreams and my soul that occurred in that room.

5:58And my dad was so brilliant at building me back up. And dad had this incredible way. I think it was a blessing, actually, that he had a gift of not just with me, but in particular me in this moment, building a person up from a really low and sad place by painting the picture of their potential and giving them the evidence of how they could move forward. And that's what he did for me that year. It was one of the most building years of my life as a human. And I think it impacted how I look at humanity today. My dad taught me to love people who were actively, physically, socially hating me. And I learned something from him that later was epitomized in a couple of lines out of a book called As a Man Thinking.

6:58I gained the right to rewrite that book into As a Person Thinking. And what those two lines say is, we think in secret and it comes to pass. Environment is but our looking class. And he taught me that if I didn't like what I was seeing around me, that it was within my capacity and my responsibility. And we were very Bible based and Christian then, as I remain today. And so he taught us that it was a responsibility as well as an ability to build forward and to be inclusive. And don't hate people because you hate them, because that's a sickness and that's an illness they have. There was no pushover, mind you.

7:42You didn't want to get on the wrong side of Mr. John Hardy Bryant. He could do what he needed to do. I think importantly, he loved his family and he taught us to be together. One of the main themes in my company throughout the years has been Together We Win. That started, that was formulated in my home. There were 11 kids, one mom, one dad. That's how we did it back then. And together we went was kind of a Bryant household theme. And that meant that if your siblings weren't getting good grades in school, then you couldn't brag about the grades you got until you helped them get it. If somebody didn't finish cleaning the kitchen properly, then you had to get in there and help them.

8:23And each of the older ones had a younger one who we were responsible for. And it wasn't just about getting homework done. It was about making sure they were clean, they were properly practicing hygiene, that they were completing their chores. And primarily, they were holding a positive attitude toward life. Never did I imagine how mom and dad, so, so absolutely fanatical about us keeping a positive attitude, would impact my life as I journeyed away from that small hometown. And now, as I've said, have opened in over four. I said 43 countries were actually in over 47.

9:02Mick:47. That's amazing. You'll never had a girl from Tarboro, North Carolina. Let's go. Let's go. Tarboro, stand up. JBH, you don't know this, but you're probably the most quoted person in my household. I have looked up to you, like I said, as a business leader, as an entrepreneur for quite a long time. And you have something that's a core pillar in not just my household, but the four companies that I run to. You have this quote and you say, never compromise who you are personally for who you want to be professionally. And that's a pillar for who we are in my businesses as well, because I need all of my teammates.

9:47Mick:I don't call them employees. I need all of my teammates to understand. I want you to be the best human being that you can be first and foremost, because that's a part of our culture and culture runs our business. Not me, not you. It's who you are as a human being. And I would love for you to elaborate on that quote because it changed my life. It made me when I started my first company, it made me understand you have dreams, you have visions, but don't compromise who you are. And then who I am is who my business is too. You're so on point there. And thank you and thank God that you find something that I do that is worthy of expressing that forward in how you live in your home and how you live in your business.

10:33That examples a lot about your own personal culture. May I, in preface to talking about that statement, because that is my life mantra, just talk a little bit about culture. Culture is often referred to as something we can get around to or something we can have a marketing team designed for us when we're in business. It's often referred to as a very social singular thing when we're talking about communities or individuals, when in fact it encompasses everything about us. It is how we live, you know. And so culture is important because it also is a very threadable and a very expanding thing for us.

11:24And you try to sell something into a community without understanding its culture, you're going to go flat broke. You try to sell an idea. You try to sell a relationship into someone's home or someone's person without understanding their culture. and you're going to get closed down. And chances are you'll be closed down long before you realize that your trying is in vain. And so how that feeds into who we are personally is about making certain that we don't, you know, there's a lot of conversation about appropriating as well. And we can get so granular in how we look at relationships. What I found in my life, Nick, is that we need to get in touch with who we are.

12:13That's where all the strength, that's where all the growth, that's where all the pain can be healed is when we understand who we are. And so I came to I'm sitting in Mexico right now. I left the East Coast for the West Coast in the 70s and the 1970s. And I arrived in Los Angeles in the middle of what was a very exciting time for my sister and her husband. They were in the entertainment industry and I met so many stars, people who I read about in Jet Magazine and seen on the cover of Ebony Magazine, the scene on TV. I was meeting these people and I was meeting people who were mixing, marrying, working, building across races as well as across their talents.

13:05And so it was an exotic time for me as well. And I looked at them and I felt so different than them because here I was, as I mentioned earlier, a navvy-headed colored girl from Taver, North Carolina, talking very Southern. And my husband used to say he could tell when I'd been on the phone with my mama because it took me two or three hours to get my standard American English cunt back in place. And I look at them and I realize I'm not going to be these people. I am me. I ain't going to have straight water wave hair. I ain't going to have bright white skin. I ain't going to have light eyes. And, you know, I'm probably going to keep the hips and boobs, too, you know.

13:50And so I just thought that was so surface about how I was looking at myself, because that was how people got the opportunity to move forward in that industry. How you look matter a lot. And Peaches and Herb, who went out on the road singing, were Peaches and Herb who were singing in the studio. And so, you know, I thought to myself, what am I going to do? And my brother-in-law said to me, you owe it to yourself to prove yourself before you go back. Mind you, I come to the West Coast on a vacation. Still on that vacation, Nick. Look at life. Look at God. And so I determined that I couldn't value myself out of opportunities because of how I look.

14:40I had to understand about whose I was and not just who I was and the disrespect to my parents, to my ancestors, to my creator and to my opportunities by devaluing me and changing me to look a certain way or behave a certain way in order to get ahead in life. And I'm so glad that my sister and I had many evenings, many of them with tears, many of them with laughter, working on me, doing the work on me to help me to realize that that person who I was in Tawgore, North Carolina, was the person I was designed to be. And it's how far I saw I could take her that made the difference, not how far someone else saw.

15:33And so I decided that I would never compromise who I was personally on my values in order to become who I wish to be professionally. And it enabled me by doing that to let go of the hostage I held myself to. to around things like appearance, things like personal culture. I was able, once I accepted, my culture was good. And then once I celebrated that it came from a strong and enduring place to be able to identify who I was inside. And some people, that's a flip side journey for them. When I arrived in Los Angeles back in the mid 70s, it was a very visually stimulating place. And so it threw me in the face and it gave me an opportunity to decide who am I?

16:36What do I stand for? And in my company today, we have a have a credo that we stand on these feet and that's how we grow forward. And FEET, F-E-E-T, is F, freedom to innovate. E, excellence in delivery. E, because everyone and everything matters. T, invest the time to understand. F-E-E-T. Now, when you give a person freedom to innovate, you are basically saying you have permission to make mistakes. Make them fast. be transparent about them and let's all learn how we grow from them. Sticky note pads that many people use to this day, even in this digital age, we're an accident at one of the national entities where we do exploration.

17:38And it was an attempt to look for how to put planes together with glue. And some folks from 3M walked in and they said, wow, this we can commercialize, we can monetize it. They didn't see the value in it as scientists because it wasn't achieving what they looked at having it to solve. But 3M said, this is exactly something we can innovate from and built a multimillion dollar empire on somebody else's mistake. And so giving people the freedom to innovate and allowing everyone that opportunity is valuable, whether you're doing that in a personal or a business relationship. Excellence in delivery.

18:25The young man I talked with earlier today, Shaka, said it better than I can. And I paraphrase him, but he said, why settle for good enough when excellence can be yours? You know, and so we look to deliver excellence by encouraging each other to be our best in our company. And I think it works well in your personal life. And then everything and everyone and everything matters. It's in the details, Mick. It's in the details. You think you're rolling. You think you're doing so great. But it can be that one little thing that you were thoughtless to, unaware of, or had no knowledge about that can paralyze the opportunity, can hurt somebody, can lose you the deal.

19:19And so everyone and everything matters. Years ago, when I would go into San Francisco on an early morning United flight from L.A. and then catch the United flight back that same day, you could do that in, you know, a matter of a couple of hours. Now it takes you a couple of hours to get through security. Wow, those were the days. I mean, I'd go into the large buildings there and I'd notice people rushing by and signing in. They had receptionists at the front entry. And I never noticed people saying hello or engaging well with the receptionists. And we'd always stop. my team and I, we take time.

19:54How are you doing? You know, how's, how's Joe, your little boy? Oh, last month you said he did, he did, he make it, did he get, make it on the team? Those kinds of things, you know, and one lady said, oh, you always smell so good and your breath is so fresh. I never thought about the impact of people's breath on a receptionist, right? And I handed her a packet of gum that I had. I said, this is what I use. And she loved it. And, you know, So when I came back, she said, I look at you chatting with it. She also told me everybody who've been in before me to make a presentation, what their energy was, you know, et cetera, et cetera.

20:30And I didn't ask her for that. She felt that we were in a community. She felt we had a culture of shared experiences. She bothered to read about me. She knew that I come from humble beginnings as had she. And she knew that I was an example of who she could become. But most importantly, she knew she mattered. She knew she mattered in my life. And boy, did she prove it because actually we won a contract in large part because of that young lady being so thoughtful and so caring to help us to understand that one of the people we were going to be going in to present to had a particular crisis they were dealing with.

21:04And we were able to be sensitive to that, that showed that company that we were going to be sensitive to how we demonstrated our expertise and not just go in there and try to, you know, show them stuff. And that kind of leans into time to understand, you know, time is the most precious commodity, yet it is one that all of us have. And we share that same amount by day, depending on how we separate our days. Sometimes I think we work five day weeks and have longer hours than a day when we blur the lines of when we start and finish. Time is something that is so important. We have but amount of it, but a certain amount of it on earth.

21:47And I think how we invest it is so important. I no longer spend time. I invest time. When I talk with my employees, I remind them, you know, it's okay if you want to spend stuff, but make sure you're only spending 10 % of it. 90 % of it has to be invested. You have to be thoughtful. You have to be intentional. You have to be caring about how you invest your time. It's one of your most precious gifts. And I'm really grateful for the time that you're allowing me to share with you, Mick.

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23:10Mick:and we're going to talk about feet. Oh, beautiful, beautiful. You know, it's a measurable thing for us. Oftentimes you go into environments and you see things on the wall, especially pre-COVID, and you see how people brand themselves. And, you know, it's kind of sad when those occurrences happen that they are purchased ideas, but they're not practiced ideals. And companies put logos and mottos up all around because they're catchy. They catch the attention. They catch the niche that someone's looking for. Or you're giving it all to your external customers and never delivering it to your employees who are your internal customers.

24:03We're all customers to each other, you know? And so we measure feet. It's how we get paid. It's not just what we tell clients about how we operate.

24:14Mick:I love it. I love it. I mean, again, this is something I'm going to incorporate because it's one of those must have things. If you really have a culture of trust, if you have a culture of transparency. To me, it starts with your feet, no pun intended. Absolutely, that's how you get each step of your growth is determined by your feet. Yes, absolutely. Again, this is a masterclass. You know, I normally ask this question at the beginning, but I wanted to ask you this now. You know, I asked my guest, what's your because? That thing that's deeper than your why, right? Simon Sinek wrote a book, Start With Why, I think it became a phenomenon.

24:56Mick:We talk about your why. To me, that's cute. But your because to me is deeper. Your because is your purpose. It's that mission that drives you. Right? If I were to say, you know, what's your why? People tell me their kids, their spouse, their family. But when I say, but why? It usually starts with, well, because blah, blah, blah, blah. I care about the because. So if I were to say, Miss Janice, today, why do you keep doing what you do? What's your because? What's that purpose that keeps you igniting and inspiring the millions that you do? It's because I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

25:42staying close to my basic belief we started our conversation mick around my personal mantra never compromising who you are personally to become who you wish to be professionally the beauty the joy the freedom of shaka said to me earlier today you know I was in prison when there were no walls and I was free when the doors were locked. I get to decide. He learned from his studying of Mandela that his mind was so crucial to how he saw himself and how he saw himself was crucial to how he elevated himself. above the circumstances, above the past, and beyond the limitations. And that's so important to know.

26:49I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. That's my because. That's my because, Mick. And when you do things through Christ, you've got to study the whole text and the context.

27:11Mick:Yes. Okay. I'm not saying I can do all things because some things aren't proper for me to do as me, you know, but I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. When I seek to, and you know, I'm Bible based and we're taught, seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added unto you. People often will speak about me in terms of what they see I've done in my life. I measure my success by what I've done with my life. And I do believe that it's so important for us, no matter where we find ourselves, whether that is in the context of society, in the context of politics, in the context of finance and business, wherever we find ourselves, seeking first the kingdom of Christ for me is important.

28:22If that's not your measure, find out what that thing is that is higher than you, that is bigger than you, and that is embracing of you, that you can aspire to. Years ago, a young man in my company, Zia Islam, shared something with me that I've kept forever. And I asked Zia, how do you find your strength, Zia, during certain circumstances? And he shared with me, his father had taught him, Zia, never chase the money. Let the money chase you. And I've thought on that for years because people so find it complimentary, think it complimentary, and find it so casual to speak about my success in terms of the billions of dollars that my company generates a year, volumes out at a year, or the billions of dollars that the entrepreneurs who I've mentored aggregate over a year.

29:34the truth is if those entrepreneurs aren't happy if they're not going home to families they treasure and who know they are treasured if my grandbabies don't know me because my children don't want to know me if those things are occurring in my life then any measure of gold is not going to satisfy success for me. Success is the worthy realization of a worthy ideal. And I learned that through study. That wasn't me, you know, who thought of that. Earl Nightingale put that in front of me years ago. And so when you live with that measurement, make no mistake, we've got to do the finance. We've got to keep the numbers.