Leadership Through Service: Building Trust, Teams, and Impact

Overview

Dr. Kofi Smith shares his journey from a humble, challenging upbringing in Alabama, marked by bullying, low self-confidence, and a speech impediment, to becoming a successful CEO, entrepreneur, and leadership mentor.

His core message: leadership is rooted in humility, service, and trust, not ego or authority.

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

 

Kofi Smith

And at that moment, I could say, “Hey fellas, I got an idea. I know you’ve been doing these roles for a long time now, but I think if you trust me, if you just let me move you guys in different positions, I think we can actually win.”

Brian Betkowski

Welcome back to Jabian’s Strategy That Works podcast. I’m Brian Betkowski. I’m here with my friend and colleague, Ed Haines, and we’ve got a really fun episode today. It’s a little different. We’ve been traditionally probably 100% business focused, and we are going to focus on some business things today, but we’re going to focus on life as much as business. And we’ve got a really fun, special guest.

In life, when you meet certain people that have an energy, an aura about them, you just know that there’s something special and our guest today definitely meets that. And I was thinking, how exactly do I introduce this person? Because I have a lot of different, I guess, connections/relationships to our guests today. First and foremost, we’re friends, which is great. And we’re also colleagues. We serve on some boards together. We’re kindred spirits in a way. Our children have had a similar healthcare journey, so we share some of those. And if you’ve gone through that, you know what that means to go through that with somebody else.

At the same time, I would consider him a mentor and a teacher. And I’ve learned a lot from getting to know him, but most importantly, his leadership and that’s what we’re going to talk the most about today. Definitely an inspirational leader. So without any further ado, I’d like to introduce and welcome Dr. Kofi Smith.

Kofi Smith

Thank you, my friend. Thank you. It’s a pleasure. It’s an honor to be here. It means a lot, the words that you just spoke. I think of you as the same, especially in the mentor space of being able to watch you, the business that you’ve grown, even conversations that we had early on when I was thinking about entrepreneurship. And then obviously the journey with our boys and me being able to learn from you, both fatherhood and husband on how to support that journey. So it means a lot hearing from you that you see me the same way I see you.

Brian Betkowski

Good. Yeah. Well, I forgot about entrepreneurship as another thing we share as well as, I can’t believe I forgot, alumni at the same college, same institute.

Kofi Smith

Go.

Brian Betkowski

That’s right. That’s right. We’ll talk more about that, I’m sure. So let’s do this. It’s to introduce you to everyone. And we’ll get into all the different chapters of your life, but who is Dr. Kofi Smith at the highest level?

Kofi Smith

Yeah.

Brian Betkowski

Introduce us.

Kofi Smith

At the highest level, I share with everyone I can share with that I’m just a country boy from Alabama. There’s nothing special about me. There is nothing unique. I’m not the most articulate. I’m not the most strategic. I’m not the most business-minded. Everyone looks at me because I stand on stage. I get the pleasure of doing a podcast with an amazing business company. So they think all of these things, but the truth is that I’m just simple and God just breathe his favor on me. And that’s why I sit here with you today. That’s why I have a company that is growing. That’s why I was one of the youngest people or the youngest person to be in the position at the airport. Again, nothing about me. It’s just that I have amazing favor that is. My spiritual advisor tells me, “Favor is not.” He always says, “Favor is not fair.”

So there’s those of us who have favor and people look and say, “It’s just not fair.” And sometimes favor’s not fair. And I’m just thankful that I have it. When I was growing up, to kind of double click on that, when I was growing up and all my people from Alabama, they know just a country boy from Alabama. I was bullied like other people when they were growing up, had some of those tough times. I had a speech impediment when I was growing up, had that as a tough time. Very low self-esteem, very little confidence.

In fact, I adopted people to me because I was the big brother of my little sister in the household, but I always felt like I needed an older sibling. So guys that were in Florence, Alabama that I looked up to, that I needed coverage. I felt like I needed coverage.

So I started calling people my big brother. “Okay, you’re my big brother. You’re my big brother.” I get to Georgia Tech, felt the same way. “You’re my big sister, you’re my big sister, you’re my big brother.” So I just started adopting people to me and that goes back to that place of just not having a lot of confidence in who I was.

And that journey really, really, and I tell you, sometimes I get criticized for being too much of a open book. I share everything, but I know that that’s one of the aspects of leadership that have made me so successful is because I’m completely vulnerable. So I don’t like trying to pretend that I’m something that I’m not. You’ll hear me fumble. There’s words that I still can’t pronounce.

And this journey of really understanding the low self-esteem, imposter syndrome, low self-confidence, all of that stuff really didn’t start going away in true form until I was 40. And I’m 50 now. So I turned 50 last October. So you’re talking over a decade, I mean, just less than a decade that I really started understanding who God made me and accepting who he made me, the good, the bad and the ugly, but understanding that there’s so much strength and power because I’m uniquely me, where I just didn’t understand that.

Brian Betkowski

Yeah. Any milestones or particular people that stand out that, to your point, you don’t never probably 100% get rid of any of those things. We all have a lot of that too, but are there any milestones or specific people that really stand out as a turning points?

Kofi Smith

Man, people, oh, my gosh, I have so many people. I listen to a lot of motivational speakers, a lot. So I’m a member of that pep talk app. I listen to it every day. When I’m in the gym, I don’t listen to music. I listen to pep talk. So Tony Robinson is in my ear. Les Brown is in my ear. All these amazing, ET is in my ear, all these amazing motivational speakers, all of them. I listen to all of them. And one of the things that I think I’m a little bit different than the masses is so many people try to put weight on you believing in yourself, right? You got to believe in yourself. You got to, you got to, you got to, you got to know that you are, you are, you are. And I understand that. I understand where they come from, but the reality of that and the science behind that is that you know all of your shortcomings, not everybody else does.

So in life, we have strong ties and we have weak ties. Our strong ties are our mom, our dad, our spouse, our brother and sister. Our strong ties are the people that know everything about us. So when you were starting your company or when I started my company, I didn’t talk to my strong ties because my strong ties would love me right out of my dream. I talked to my weak ties, and my weak ties are mentors, are what I call a board of advisors over Kofi Inc.

So those weak ties are my mentors, my spiritual advisor, my executive coach. Those people are the ones that I talked to as it pertained to starting this business because they only saw me for who I am and what I can do. They didn’t see me for all the past mistakes that I’ve made that my mom and dad know about.

Brian Betkowski

Yeah, true.

Kofi Smith

So I have a plethora of people that just come to mind. And I’ll just tell you, just when I talk about Keystone, which is my business, that was probably the hardest, biggest, scariest step that I’ve made because I had a young family. My wife and I just had, we have a one-year-old and we have a six-year-old at home. So that’s a big step walking away from a very solid, quote unquote, prominent position at Hartsville Jackson, the world’s most travel, world’s most efficient airport, and now I’m going to leave that position as president and CEO and step out on my own. And that moment by itself, because it was so challenging, there were three people that helped me. Really, they believed more in me than I believed in myself. And that’s why I kind of pushed back, or not pushed back. I bring a different perspective on you believing in you, believing in you, believing in you. I think that’s important. What I think is equally, if not more important, is that you have someone around you or several someones around you that believe in you more than you believe in yourself.

Brian Betkowski

That’s powerful. Yeah.

Ed Haines

So and you talked about Georgia Tech, sort of springboarder, I assume from there, and then Keystone. So tell us a little bit more about your journey from Georgia Tech and how you sort of ended up where you were at the Hartsfield-Jackson.

Kofi Smith

Yeah. So I wasn’t a star at Tech. I was a star in high school, but once I got to Georgia Tech, I was a star among stars. So my career at Tech was not the one that was a Joe Hamilton career or a Keith Brooking career at Georgia Tech. Mine was one in which in 1997, I had gotten on the field against Georgia and Corey Allen ended up catching the last-second touchdown pass on me. That night, I was going to commit suicide, the best way I knew how, and which was taking out a whole bottle of Motrin and taking 800 milligram Motrins. And that is a very pivotal moment in my life. I’ve shared that story. I didn’t share that story about the thoughts of suicide. I never put the pills in my mouth, but I was going to. And I started sharing that story, I don’t know, maybe five years ago, something like that.

But that was a big moment in my life. God got me past it. My next year at Georgia Tech, I ended up scooping up a fumble, our last home game, and I took it back for 90 yards and it was a school record. So even in that story by itself of just not giving up and calling game over, lights out, I’m taking my life, although I understand how people do it. I never understood until that moment that you could lose so much hope and belief because if there’s no God, there’s no devil, there’s no heaven, there’s no hell, it’s just my pain. So why do I want to live with this? So I’ll just end it. I didn’t. Thank God I didn’t. And from there, I make it to that next year. But going back to your story, I still wasn’t a star. That fumble recovery was a great way for me to end my career, but I wasn’t going to the NFL, tour my quad, trying to get into the NFL.

And I went into Milliken & Company. So that’s where I cut my teeth at on plant manufacturing. Steve Alford, one of the people, when you talk about people, Steve Alford was my plant manager, and he looked at me when I was graduating or when I was interviewing, he said, “Do you want to be an industrial engineer? Time studies, cost analysis, run numbers behind a desk, or do you want to be out on the floor and me give you a team?” I said, “Give me a team.” Because I came from sports. Give me a team. Well, that was the turning point, that first job, him giving me a team was the turning point in my career, that moment because he looked at me, and he said, “You are going to sink or swim because I’m giving you the worst shift. I’m giving you C shift. They’re the worst in process reliability, they’re the worst in quality, that are the worst in production or, yeah, production. So I’m giving you the worst shift. You’re going to sink or you’re going to swim.”

And I was like, “Give them to me. Give them to me.” Now, I said that in front of him. When I walked out, I called my mom and said, “I don’t know what I just did. I don’t know what I just signed up for.” But in that starts my journey. So from Milliken, and I’ll just double click on this one point about Milliken, that shift became the worst shift. They broke records, they set records within six months. And from there, my journey was almost like a six-month thing. It’s a six-month theme. But the reason it happened is only because I came in, I assessed the situation, industrial engineer, right? I looked at what was going on and then I realized sports. I have guys that are amazing. They’re just in the wrong position. They’re playing the wrong role. That’s number one.

Before I could move them into different positions, because they’re looking at me as you’re some college kid, you’re coming here trying to tell it. Nope, I couldn’t have that. So I needed to build their trust. How did I build their trust? I got out on the floor and I started pulling jets with them. So I’m getting soaking wet as a Georgia Tech industrial engineer. I’m out getting dirty. I’m out getting wet. I’m out getting dye on me right alongside of them. That was number two.

Second thing that I did is that I would bring, still do it to this day, orange juice and donuts. And we would sit down before a shift, and I would start learning about them. Bobby, “Tell me about, what do you want to do? Big John. What do you want to do? Little John. Tell me about your family. Tell me about your siblings.” And then three months of that, they trusted me. I had earned their trust. And at that moment, I could say, “Hey, fellas, I got an idea. I know you’ve been doing these roles for a long time now, but I think if you trust me, if you just let me move you guys in different positions, I think we can actually win.” And they did.

Brian Betkowski

Oh, go ahead.

Ed Haines

Well, I was going to say on that, I mean, there’s two parts to it in a way on there. There’s the things that you do once you’ve made the decision to do that type of role, but then there’s also the decision to do that role, to your point about should I do an industrial engineering role or should I take a team? And so for those of people listening who are sort of in those early stages of their career perhaps, I suppose you really picked something that was about amplification of your skills as one. And then also making sure that you could take something and grow it and it was to have the ability to make big changes as opposed to incremental changes. Is that fair to sum it up that way?

Kofi Smith

Yeah, that’s very fair. I think that’s a good summary. The one thing I learned over time, and there was a pivotal moment when I learned this, but I should say, “There was a time when it was very clear to me the lesson, but I can take the lesson back to that first job at Milliken.” So for me, whenever fear steps in, whenever I’m scared to do something, I know that’s a God sign to move forward and do it.

Ed Haines

Uncomfortable. Yeah.

Kofi Smith

When it’s uncomfortable, when I have doubt, which remember I told you I had a lot of doubt, a lot of self-doubt. When I’m scared to do something, I know that means go do it. And leading a team of people, which remember, I am a Georgia Tech jock, right? Football player, 2.7 GPA, by the way. So I’m not graduating 4.0, 4.2. That’s not me. I barely got out of Georgia Tech. And now I’m being asked to lead a group of people, and I wasn’t a star on the football field. I wasn’t Joe Hamilton leading us to success. I’m just Kofi Smith special teams player, but I was scared to do it. So when Steve Alford asked me, “What do you want? ” I knew I could do the IE stuff? Said, “Give me a team.” One, that’s what I love, sports, but give me the team, even if I wasn’t confident, even if I didn’t know, because the stuff I just told you that I did, it’s not because I read it in a book. It’s because I didn’t know what I was doing.

All I knew is they’re out here working. I’m going to get out here and work with them. I didn’t read that in the book. I’m going to bring orange juice and donuts so I can connect with them because that’s what I would want. I would want my boss, my leader, to care about my family, to care about me as a person, to feed me. So that’s why I did that stuff.

Ed Haines

You unconsciously learned that right from your coaching or being part of the team, which you’re probably just not realizing it.

Brian Betkowski

No, no. I was going to say, “It’s funny, there’s so many aspects of that story that are meaningful.” And one of the things I think about is patience because I think there’s a lot of leaders in the world who on their first day, they bring donuts and orange juice and they put on the table and in their minds they expect, “I’m the boss. I brought donuts and orange juice. Now it’s time for you to do what I say.” And you said, “You did it for three months.” That’s a major difference. I think it’s just the way that you see the world. Again, one of the reasons why I think you’re special, but that patience is not very common, especially in the business world.

Kofi Smith

And I appreciate that. I think the other thing that has been maybe a part of me unspoken is that I’m not really. I do appreciate being acknowledged, and that probably has a lot to do with the self, the lack of self-confidence. So being acknowledged and getting positive words of affirmation means something to me when I get it. The difference is I don’t do things to get it. So when I walk into a company or into a team, then I don’t do things to garner your trust. It’s not the intent.

I’m coming in and I’m just being what I feel is the right way to be. And through that, they start to trust you when it’s just genuine and not bringing donuts as a strategy, but bringing donuts because that’s just the right thing to do. It’s not a strategy. I mean, I’ll bring donuts and orange juice to my students at tech now.

It’s not because I want great professor reviews. I said, “No, it’s on a Friday. They get sleepy.”

Ed Haines

Give them a little bit of sugar, right.

Kofi Smith

But it’s more about just wanting to do the right thing. And whenever you do the right thing, it just seems like it generates and creates more right things, right?

Brian Betkowski

Yeah. So we’ve hit a couple of the chapters. I want to make sure we don’t skip any chapters that you have any important thing to say because I feel like there’s the Alabama chapter, there’s a Georgia Tech chapter, there’s the early career chapter, the CEO chapter, which we do want to hear more about. And then there’s the entrepreneur chapter that you’re in right now. We’ll talk later about what’s coming after that. But any of those chapters that you feel like that we want to hit on, because I know this is a story that’s been building obviously from childhood.

Kofi Smith

And I’ll go really quick on this, but I think it’s important for the listeners to understand, okay, if he did it, then I can do it. And I think it’s important for them to understand how I did it. Again, if you anchor it into, wait a minute, this guy got bullied, he had a speech impediment, he had low self-esteem, low confidence. And a lot of my people in high school, they may not necessarily know that. And some of them would even be surprised, but too many of us, so many of us keep those things obviously for reasons to ourselves, right? So we have these internal battles of secrets or darkness that we’re going up against that nobody knows. So we look like a very good, well put together CEO, but then there’s challenges that are happening on the inside that we tussle and we fight with.

So part of that, I would definitely let people know one of the things as successful as God has made me, which I’m so very, very fortunate and thankful for, couldn’t have done it on my own, number one. Number two, counseling, talking to therapists, that is a big deal.

Now, a lot of people won’t say a lot of people embarrassed about it, but what I realized is getting with someone that understands how to get you through the dark places and hold your hand and not judge you will shatter the glass ceiling that you’ve placed upon your own head. And I’ve been very fortunate to have some, three really good counselors that have been there for me over these periods of time. So that’s one thing for the listeners to know, that a lot of people will stand in front of you and they don’t have it together. We all struggle, right? We all struggle.

So if you take this little country boy from Alabama, speech impediment, got bullied, low self-esteem, imposter syndrome, blah, blah. Well, how did he do what he’s done? How did he get here? And that Milliken story was duplicated over my years. So six months, that team went from last to first. You take me, I went and did my football journey, we can come back to that. But once I got back into the career, I started with Link Facility Services. Link Facility Services gave me a team that was actually losing the contract. I didn’t know this when I signed up for it, but they were losing the contract. They threw something against the wall and said, “We’re going to take this young engineer. Let’s see if you can change it with the customer.” Within six months, that team and I were able to win an award, which we went after the most improved utility plant.

And this is a national award within Link. We went after the most improve and we won the best. The next year, we went after the best over the most improve, which was us, or we went after the most improve over the best, which was us, and we won that. That was two times, had never been done in the history of the company. Then the client who was going to kick us out, right, the contract, they extended our contract, then gave us a customer hall of fame award. That happened in six months. Then the company Link took me from there, we had another client that they were having trouble with. I went in, got with the team, in six months it seems like the senior vice president of corporate real estate, instead of taking our contract, they extended our contract. And that’s actually how I then got over to the airport.

So that same gentleman who I owe a lot to, who saw something in me, again, that I didn’t necessarily see in myself, had me interview for the board of directors at AATC. They interviewed me, said, “Hey, we love him, but he hasn’t run a company. Run divisions, run departments, hadn’t run a company. Let’s give him 12, 18 months to learn up under the interim guy.” They allowed me to do that. And within six months, they said, “Hey, we think you’re ready.” I said, “I’m not ready. Give me three more months, three more months. I know business, I know leadership, I know all of that, but I don’t know politics. And this airport is very political.” At least the environment was very political.

So they gave me three more months. So within nine months, I was promoted to the CEO position. But that theme of six months, six months, teams, within six months of making changes. I read this book, The First 90 Days by Michael Watkins, and understanding that concept of building value quickly, instead of 180 days, you can do it in 90 days and understanding what your people need and what they don’t need.

What do they want and what do they not want? What is it that they need? And those six months, that was me just trying to understand what do they need, how can I help and then fit in where I’m supposed to fit in and then those changes and those transitions happen. Orange juice donuts, understanding, talking to them, getting out and working with them. As CEO at the airport, and any of my people at AATC, they will tell you, “During snow events, he’s out there on the tarmac. He’s staying up 24 hours, 36 hours to make it happen.”

My team right now at Keystone, they’ll tell you, “When we have major snow events in Boston,” we have major snow events in DCA that we just came back from. They take pictures of me out there shoveling snow with them last weekend, two weekends ago in DC. So my playbook hasn’t changed. Take care of people, understand what they need, and then figure out how do I fit into that need.

Brian Betkowski

Yeah. I think that genuine nature is just an important part of your success. And I think sometimes people think, well, yeah, I hear all that. There must be some other secret. And it sounds like the secret’s just like you just do the things that you know are right and you work hard and get up and you keep suiting up every day and that’s an important part of it. Well, tell us more about that chapter going from CEO to entrepreneurship. What was that journey like?

Kofi Smith

We did it in 2020. So we did it during COVID. I have one of the best, I think I have the best business attorneys out there. And I remember talking to Doug and he said to me, Doug Krevlin, just a phenomenal human being and obviously an amazing attorney. But he said, “Dr. Smith.” I’ll never forget. I was walking down the north side of the airport. He said, “Dr. Smith, are you sure you want to start this company? Are you sure? Because companies are going out of business right now and small companies are getting evaporated and you’re trying to start a company. I know we’re new in this relationship, but I just want to make sure this is what you want to do.”

And I said, “Doug,” it’s true story, quote, “Doug, if anybody thinks it’s crazy, it’s me. And I know you’re not going to like this answer, but God told me to do it. That’s all I can tell you, Doug.” That’s it. And it’s true. Literally, going back to that God told me to do it, remember I started off saying, “There was three people that were very pivotal in this moment of transition,” because I didn’t think I could do it. I honestly didn’t think I could do it. And there was three people who believed I could do it more than I did. So that first person was Ms. Mikesha. She was at the airport with me, and it was kind of a Jerry McGuire moment, not quite, but I’m like, “Hey, I’m leaving.” I didn’t raise my head and say, “Who’s coming with me?”

But I said, “I am leaving.” And she went to her husband, talked to her family and said, “I’m leaving with you.” Now, before that though, when we were walking and talking, we were on the south side of the terminal talking and I said, “I just don’t believe I can do it. I don’t believe I can do it. I know there’s these accounts, but I don’t believe I can do it.” And she says, “That’s okay because you don’t have to do it, but we will do it.”

And when she said that, I was like, “Okay, I felt more comfortable.” And that whole thing of thinking that you got to do journeys on your own and you got to motivate yourself and you got to be able to stand, I just don’t 100% adopt that theory. I don’t. People are important. We’re social beings and community is important.

When she said, “We can do it,” I knew I wasn’t alone. And at that moment, I had all the confidence in the world. The second person was my spiritual advisor. So when I told Doug, my attorney, that God told me to do it, it came from my spiritual advisor because he told me, he said, “Dr. Smith, listen, God told me to send you a message. And the message is he has a package to deliver to you, but you are at the wrong address. So until you change addresses, he can’t get this package to you.”

So what he was telling me in that moment, at least the way I received it, is that I got to change my work address from AATC to Keystone, and then I’m going to receive this package. And I’ll be honest with you, with the growth that we’ve had two times, man, Pacesetters, ’24 and ’25 here in Atlanta, which is amazing and the blessings that we’ve had, I still don’t believe I’ve received the package.

It’s like Amazon. God just keeps bringing some packages. They keep showing up on my doorstep, right? Well, the third person was my business partner. So he saw something in me from just day one when he met me, and it took us two years to really form this relationship. I left the airport without having a contract with my business partner, but I knew that if he, as successful as he is and the amazing things that he’s done, if he thought that I could do it, Ms. Mikesha believed that I can do it, my spiritual advisor told me that God said, “Move.” At that point, I believed more in all three of them than I did myself. And I said, “I’m going to anchor my faith on God, but my belief in these three people that you brought to me, and I’m going to go out and I’m going to do it.” And it’s been a hard journey, but it’s been a great ride.

Brian Betkowski

That’s awesome. Tell us a little more about, you mentioned your professorship, and you have obviously a lot of business leadership, but now you’re able to mentor and lead other Georgia Tech students. Tell us a little bit about that.

Kofi Smith

And this is full circle because remember I told you, Georgia Tech, football jock, 2.7 GPA, right? Well, what business-

Brian Betkowski

D is for done, man. D is for done.

Kofi Smith

What in the world am I doing teaching anybody, right? But the first class I was able to teach at Tech was leadership and communication, a master’s class in the School of Building Construction, College of Design. In that first class that I’ve taught for that semester, 17 weeks, I felt more alive than I’ve ever felt. So I’ve always loved sharing. One thing I didn’t tell you all about is that I would consider myself a very well-read person. Part of it is because of the insecurities. So when I was at Milliken, even before Milliken, at Tech, I was reading Dennis Kimbro book, Think and Grow Rich: A Black Choice. Through his book, I found out about Napoleon Hill. Think and Grow Rich. Who’s this Napoleon Hill guy? So I started digging into Napoleon Hill. Then I went to Robbie Kiensaki. Then I read the Theory of Constraints, The Goal. So all these books I am reading while I’m traveling from Nunan down to La Grange.

And during one of these journeys, I remember saying, “Why am I reading all these books? I’m just a production manager on the plant floor. Why am I reading all these books?” And I remember, and I’m not saying this was God and angel. I’m not saying it could have been me hallucinating. But I remember just hearing, “One day you’re going to see the investment in reading all of these books.” So I read all of Malcolm Gladwell’s books. I read all of Jim Collins’ books. I am a ferocious consumer of knowledge, partly because I always thought that I was lesser than. So I need to study, study, study to become better than. So it’s a double-edged sword, but it’s proved to be a gift. So now when I’m teaching this leadership and communication course at Georgia Tech, that first year, everything that was coming out of my mouth was things that I’ve done or I’ve lived and things that I’ve learned from others.

So I was able just to pour out to these students. At the end of the year, they gave me this Georgia Tech card. All of them signed it, talked about how great the class was. And I just think, did we ever do that for any of our professors? I mean, they spent the time to create this nation, right? So I went and framed it. I had it professionally framed and it’s in my Keystone office right now. But my point in telling that story, since then, Tech allowed me to teach culture and leadership in our PMASH program. I did that for three years. I just stopped teaching that course this year, and I started teaching entrepreneurship in building construction.

So at one time I was teaching three courses. And so I only had the summers off while building a business. So now I only teach the leadership and communication in the fall. I teach entrepreneurship in the spring.

Ed Haines

Going back to your reading, what I was thinking when you were saying that was, it’s really about curiosity at the end of the day. And curiosity didn’t really kill the cat. I mean, I suppose in some instances it does, but for the most part it’s a positive thing that really leads to the lead. I mean, it’s a trait of leadership. I mean, you’ve got to ask the right questions, the different questions, and knowledge comes as an enabler of that.

Kofi Smith

And it also creates a sense of confidence in the leader. If I’m willing to humble myself and learn from those that are great or doing things that I want to do, or leading the way I want to lead, if I’m able to humble myself and better myself, then I’m becoming even more confident that I can share leadership principles. When I go to my team and I’m able to lead them, I’m leading them not from a, “You must do what I say.” I lead them from a standpoint of, “Here’s what I think. Here’s where I learned it from. What do you think about it?” And try to get everybody moving in the same direction, not by force, but by inspiration.

Brian Betkowski

AI is such a hot topic, and I was thinking, “Well, is that really going to fit in today’s conversation?” But when you were talking about knowledge and your thirst for knowledge, I feel like, I mean, AI is such an interesting value because one could argue that we all have almost all the knowledge of the world at our fingertips, but it’s not about, do you have it? It’s about what you can do with it. But I’d love just to hear your thoughts on how you see just AI and just the technology things that are happening right now. Do you feel like it has applicability to leadership and the stuff you’re talking about, the people sides, or is it more of a technical thing?

Kofi Smith

One of my good friends that I was sitting with, we both know Jay Stewart, and he mentioned that, “AI should not be looked at as the thought leader, but the thought partner,” and that’s how I view it. And just really, really quick is, I grew up on Skynet and Terminator, right? Me and my boys, my family, we’re a Marvel family, so Ultron. So when I think about AI and how bad AI can get off the map and what it could look like, it actually scares me. And I think that the growth curve has been so fast that it’s not regulated, there’s no controls in place, and that thing is out the box.

So at this point, it worries me because of how fast it’s learning. And I mentioned to you all earlier, I went to this one week course at MIT, and it was myself and some other Goodwill CEOs that were there at this course, and it was the most amazing course. I understood how much I did not know and how much I did not understand, but I asked the professors, “What worries you about AI?”

And they’ve been in this game for a long time. And there’s two things that I remember. One is that they said that, “There is a language right now that the AI models are communicating and we can’t decipher it.” So that’s number one. So there’s language now that’s being cross-communicated through AI engines that we can’t decipher. So now we have machines talking to machines, Ultron. Okay. Then, he said, “I think it’s a thousand years of chess being played and all chess masters, true chess masters knows all of the different moves that can be made. That’s why they’re a chess master. And there’s not a chess master on earth that can beat AI at chess right now.” So those two things really, really just worry me, Skynet, Terminator, Ultron.

But at the same time, there’s the power of the and, and it’s not, and the or paralyzes us, right? So how can we properly, with responsibility, utilize AI to advance the human race or advance business? And that piece by itself, if you can do that and figure that out, then we’re all just going to be better, right? We’re all going to be better.

But we got to understand that steam can burn, but steam can push locomotives as well. So we got to know how to utilize it. Right now in my company, I’m going all in on it. I’ve taken classes, I’m taking more classes. There’s a class at Georgia Tech that I’m signed up for because if you don’t as a business, you’re going to get left behind. You’re going to become obsolete and I can’t afford to let that happen to my people. So even though I’m a little apprehensive, I’m a little scared, AI, AI, I also recognize that I have to adopt it or I’ll become extinct or my company will come extinct.

Brian Betkowski

Yeah. That’s cool. Going forward, you should continue to refer to MIT as a Georgia Tech of the North just in case, wonder next time. So we talked about all the chapters leading up to where we are now. Let’s maybe round it out with what’s next. What are the next couple chapters for Kofi?

Kofi Smith

So here’s what I really want. And this will be the first time that I’ve shared it publicly, but I’ve been on a speaking tour with my company, is that I want to create impact with scale. I want to create impact with scale. So I no longer view Keystone as a company. I view Keystone as a financial instrument for me to be able to leverage it in a way to create impact at scale.

So what does that mean? I want to dig wells in Africa where people need water. I want to build grocery stores in food deserts. I want to build urgent cares and rural areas that don’t have it. I want to build parks and recs and things that help children to have something to do with their time as opposed to making a decision to do this with their time. So I really, really, really want to create impact at scale.

And this is something where I’m going to die doing it. And you’ve heard, I’ve heard the two most important days of a person’s life is the day that you’re born and the day that you know why. And I finally found my why at 50.

So God has given me this company, and I want to utilize this company as a financial instrument. So Keystone, we’re not going to go sticks and bricks and build a urgent care. We’re not going to do that. Children’s knows how to do that. So Keystone is going to come behind that as a way of supporting. We’re not going to go dig wells in Africa. We don’t know anything about that. But there’s a company that came into Buckhead Church years and years ago before I had any money. They were talking about building wells in Africa. So I want to call, find out who these companies are and say, “Hey, how much does it cost to build or whatever.” “Oh, it’s 10,000 dollars. We need something.” Then I want to build five. I want to support you. We’re going to build five. I know nothing about building a grocery store, but there’s several companies that do, but they just need financial support or they need to leverage an influence of someone that can bring financial support.

So I want to use Keystone as a financial instrument to create impact at scale. That’s me partnering with others who do it the right way, but they need some assistance. So that’s really what’s next for me. Ultimately, and I’ve talked about this, Ms. Mikesha is the president of the company. I think she’ll be phenomenal as the CEO of the company. I really want her to become the CEO of the company, and I want to step away and be president of our foundation. I want her to make all the money and I want to give it all away. That’s what I really want to do.

Brian Betkowski

I love it.

Kofi Smith

Yeah.

Brian Betkowski

I love it. Chuck Feeney, you need to read the book. There’s a book about him. You’d love it. He made a couple billion dollars and gave it all the way before he died. It’s pretty amazing.

Kofi Smith

Chuck.

Brian Betkowski

Chuck Feeney. Yeah, check it out. Well, this has been awesome. Have we missed anything today? Is there anything that you want to leave folks with that we didn’t get to cover?

Kofi Smith

I would leave your listeners with one thing. So we kind of talked about my journey and all of that. And if you anchor, hey, he had all of these issues that maybe some of them have, right? Maybe all of us.

Brian Betkowski

We all do, yeah.

Kofi Smith

So yet God has blessed him to do this stuff. And now he’s sitting on a podcast. What I would share with them is that I would want everyone to think of yourself as a company. So this is what I share with my students. Think of yourself as Brian Inc. Think of yourself as Ed LLC. I’m Kofi Inc. Well, if I’m a company, the number one most important thing and objective of a company is to increase shareholder value. Who are our shareholders? Anybody that we come into contact with is a potential shareholder. So this goes back to give, give, serve, serve people, take care of people.

So if I’m a company, and I’m looking for my stock price to increase, I have to take care of my shareholders. Who are my shareholders? Anybody that I might bump into. So how can I serve that person? That’s what I would share with your listeners because that six month, six month, six month, that journey up was me just serving the people that God blessed me to lead. So anyone that I bump into, it doesn’t matter. Homeless people, unhoused people, doesn’t matter.

Whoever I bump into, I’m just trying to figure out how can I serve them. How can I pour into them? How can I increase their shareholder value? So I would just share with everyone, think about yourself as a company. Think about yourself as You LLC, You Inc. And if you think about yourself that way, then the most important thing for you to do is increase shareholder value. And those who are your shareholders, anybody that you come into contact, all ships rise at the same tide. All ships rise are the same tide. The more and more you create waves to raise other people boats, your boat will raise as well.

Brian Betkowski

Yeah. Like I say, “If you’re out there and you’re wondering what the definition of servant leadership is, just put this transcript into AI. And I think that’ll be the definition of all the stuff you’ve talked about today.”

Kofi Smith

I appreciate it.

Brian Betkowski

I’m proud to know you, and I appreciate everything you’ve done for us, for the world, what you’re going to do. I’m actually more excited about the next chapters. It sounds pretty awesome.

Kofi Smith

Thanks.

Brian Betkowski

But, yeah.

Ed Haines

It was wonderful. Yeah, wonderful to talk to you and thanks for coming on.

Kofi Smith

Yeah.

Kofi Smith

Thank you for giving me the space. Thank you for giving me the space. I appreciate it, my friend.

Brian Betkowski

Talk to you soon.

Kofi Smith

Yes, sir.