Baby Got Backstory

Creator and Co-Founder of the Make-A-Wish Foundation, Frank Shankwitz is sharing how he went from humble beginnings and living in a campground as a child to becoming an Arizona State Trooper and having a near-death experience to becoming one of Forbes Top Ten Keynote Speakers and helping grant wishes of terminally ill children. Frank’s story is like no other you have heard and is filled with inspiration and motivation to do good. The recipient of numerous awards and now the basis for the motion picture “Wish Man,” Frank has been changing the lives of children around the world for 40 years. He’s sharing the most important life lesson he learned as a child and how giving back should be a constant practice for all.

Prepare yourself for the most incredible and inspiring story you will ever hear.

• Frank Shankwitz’s Story: From Campground Living As A Child To Granting Wishes

At the age of 5, Frank was kidnapped by his mother and moved to a campground for 5 years, until they made their way to Arizona. It was at their new home in Arizona that Frank met Juan who was a father figure to him and instilled the important life lessons of turning negatives into positives and the importance of giving back to others, even if you can’t give with money. Frank went on to serve in the US Air Force and later became an Arizona state trooper. It was while on the job that Frank was hit by a drunk driver and pronounced dead at the scene…until a passing-by nurse performed CPR on him for 45 minutes. It was then that he knew God spared his life for a reason and it was up to him to discover what that reason was.

In April of 1980, Frank received a dispatch call that he was to meet a helicopter carrying a 7 year old boy named Chris who had terminal leukemia. Chris was a big fan of the TV series CHiPS and wanted nothing more than to be a motorcycle officer like Ponch and Jon. Frank was his dream come true. Frank made it his mission to ensure Chris received a custom made uniform and upon delivery, Chris noticed the wings Frank wore, as every officer does. Chris said he wished he could have the same wings and it was that moment in which Frank realized the importance of a child’s wish. Chris received his wings along with wings that carried him to heaven. It was on Frank’s trip home that he realized that he wanted to make the wishes of more children come true.

Frank decided he wanted to find out what it takes to create a non-profit organization and since computers had yet to be available, he researched everything he could at the library. Frank enlisted the help of Chris’ mom, Linda Bergendahl-Pauling and with 3 others they formed the 501c3 that we know today as the Make-A-Wish Foundation. The first official wish was granted in March 1981 to Bopsey who wanted to be a fireman, ride in a hot air balloon and go to Disneyland. Today, a wish is granted every 28 minutes and over 500K wishes have been granted in the past 40 years.

Are you turning your negatives into positives?  

Frank Shankwitz’s Website

Wish Man Movie

Wish Man: Official: The Authorized Memoir of Frank Shankwitz

Little Bubble Gum Trooper by Linda Bergendahl-Pauling

Wildstory

• 32:51 – 33:52 (60 sec FS) – At that period, somewhat angry…is there any way he can meet one of the motorcycle officers?

1. Everyone can be a hero. When you can’t, give back. It doesn’t have to be money to give back.

BGBS 020: Someday I’ll be an Idea Man

How adopting other people’s perspectives allowed Michael Ventura to discover that empathy is the secret to success and build a world class strategy and design studio serving the world’s biggest brands.

Michael Ventura is the founder and CEO of the strategy and design firm, Sub Rosa based in New York City. He is also an expert on empathy and practicing empathy in business in order to produce real innovation. Later in the show we’ll hear Michael’s definition of empathy… how most people get it wrong and how applying empathy is the secret weapon for any business looking to innovate.

In this episode we talked about:

Quotes:

[7:38] “Then that night she said, when she laid in bed with my dad, the two of them were talking, they were like, what the hell is our kid talking about that he wants to be an idea man, he’s nine years old? What does that even mean?” 

[18:12] “What I ended up doing pretty quickly, was actually starting a business with a friend of mine where we were doing events at differen

BGBS 020: Someday I’ll be an Idea Man

How adopting other people’s perspectives allowed Michael Ventura to discover that empathy is the secret to success and build a world class strategy and design studio serving the world’s biggest brands.

Michael Ventura is the founder and CEO of the strategy and design firm, Sub Rosa based in New York City. He is also an expert on empathy and practicing empathy in business in order to produce real innovation. Later in the show we’ll hear Michael’s definition of empathy… how most people get it wrong and how applying empathy is the secret weapon for any business looking to innovate.

In this episode we talked about:

• Michael’s early aspirations to be an “Idea Man” growing up.

Quotes:

[18:12] “What I ended up doing pretty quickly, was actually starting a business with a friend of mine where we were doing events at different nightclubs and bars and restaurants, which probably you’re not supposed to do when you’re 19, but somehow we got away with it.”

[18:40] “Genetically I think I’m pretty always predisposed to bringing people together.”

[27:09] “I knew if I was going to turn this business into what I wanted it to be, I was going to have to get some humility and go have uncomfortable conversations. But it proved to be the best thing ever.”

[30:35] “I think that any good culture inside an organization operates like a magnet and if it is going to attract, but it’s also going to repel and places that are, something that for everybody, usually don’t have a strong point of view on themselves.”

[32:02] “It certainly wasn’t learned in a academic or in another employer’s setting, right? It was, it was learned on the battlefield, which I think is actually the way you learn the best. At least is the way I learn best because theory is great, but you know, theory goes out the window the second you get out in the real world and you see what works and what doesn’t actually, right?”

[32:44] “If you don’t get into trouble you’ll never learn how to get out of it.”

[38:24] “Empathy unto itself is really the act of perspective taking.”

[47:03] “Most people do think empathy equals being nice right? And so when you go in and you talk about empathy in business, people are like, Oh God, like more HR training, you know? And they’re not thinking about it like, oh, this might actually help us sell products differently or understand customers better or be able to retain our top talent or longer.”

Links Mentioned On Our Show:

How a passion for hospitality, writing, and business fueled Chip Conley to start (and eventually sell) the global boutique hotel group, Joie de Vivre, only to find himself as the “Modern Elder” at a crazy, high growth startup called AirBnB, and rediscover what it was he was always meant to do…

At 52 after selling the cool and rebel hotel brand he had started at 26, he could have retired. By today’s standards he should have retired… but the young founders of Airbnb came calling. He served as Airbnb’s Head of Global Hospitality and Strategy for four years — while also being CEO Brian Chesky’s mentor — and continues today as a Strategic Advisor to the company’s leadership.

Chip Conley is a New York Times bestselling author whose manifesto on ageism, Wisdom@Work: The Making of a Modern Elder, is inspired by his experience of being both a mentor and an intern in his 50s.

In this episode we talked about:

Quotes:

[9:46] “When I said to my father at age 12 that I wanted to be a writer when I grew up, he said he could send me to therapy.”

[16:07] “If I was going to start my own thing in the future and learning from somebody’s already doing it, it’s probably the fastest way for me to learn.”

[19:14] “I sort of history of proving people wrong and doing something that seems a

How a passion for hospitality, writing, and business fueled Chip Conley to start (and eventually sell) the global boutique hotel group, Joie de Vivre, only to find himself as the “Modern Elder” at a crazy, high growth startup called AirBnB, and rediscover what it was he was always meant to do…

At 52 after selling the cool and rebel hotel brand he had started at 26, he could have retired. By today’s standards he should have retired… but the young founders of Airbnb came calling. He served as Airbnb’s Head of Global Hospitality and Strategy for four years — while also being CEO Brian Chesky’s mentor — and continues today as a Strategic Advisor to the company’s leadership.

Chip Conley is a New York Times bestselling author whose manifesto on ageism, Wisdom@Work: The Making of a Modern Elder, is inspired by his experience of being both a mentor and an intern in his 50s.

In this episode we talked about:

• Chip’s story growing up, what his dad’s involvement was like, and how he became a brand builder.

Quotes:

[9:46] “When I said to my father at age 12 that I wanted to be a writer when I grew up, he said he could send me to therapy.”

[16:07] “If I was going to start my own thing in the future and learning from somebody’s already doing it, it’s probably the fastest way for me to learn.”

[19:14] “I sort of history of proving people wrong and doing something that seems a little odd at first, but it turns out it’s ahead of the trend.”

[22:14] “There are very few companies whose mission statement is also in the brand name.”

[40:16] “I came to realize we were not in the Boutique hotel business, but we were in the identity refreshment business.”

[51:14] “There’s something called pattern recognition and artificial intelligence is about pattern recognition, but human intelligence is about pattern recognition as is wisdom. Wisdom is another way to describe pattern recognition.”

[55:27] “What’s important to hear here is that the social narrative which is, you know, you hit your midlife crisis and then it’s all downhill from there, it’s not actually accurate.”

[58:50] “A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be. This need we call self-actualization… It refers to man’s desire for self-fulfillment, namely to the tendency for him to become actually in what he is potentially: to become everything one is capable of becoming.”

Links Mentioned On Our Show:

Today’s story features the husband and wife team behind Bonanno Concepts, Frank and Jacqueline Bonanno.

Frank and Jaqueline Bonanno have built a restaurant group in Denver on the values of Pride, Family, and Excellence. If you talk to any of their hundreds of employees they’ll all tell you the exact same thing. Not only with they tell you this but they believe it with all their hearts. They believe they are family. They have tremendous pride in what they do and know that the product they are providing is excellent.  It is clear that these values permeate their business and their culture because this is how they view food and it’s place in our lives.

Frank and Jacqueline Bonanno fell in love over after-shift drinks and romantic conversations centered around deeply flavorful food, nuanced service, and the business of restaurant excellence. In their twenty odd years as a couple, Bonanno Concepts built nine restaurants, two bars, a pie shop and a 16-venue marketplace.

Eighteen of their executive chefs and managers used their experiences with the Bonannos to springboard restaurants of their own, and in a very real sense, the Bonannos have shaped and elevated the culinary landscape in Colorado.

We conducted this interview, sitting in the wine room of their very first restaurant – Mizuna.

In this episode we talked about: