In this episode, I’m honored to get some time with the creator and founder of Make-A-Wish Foundation, Frank Shankwitz.

Besides having revolutionized the way we can give to those in need, Frank is a the winner of too many prestigious awards to mention. He’s also one of the world’s most sought after keynote speakers and the subject of an upcoming film, Wishman.

What moves me the most is Frank’s generous heart and his conviction that anyone can be a hero… and here he shows you how to do that right in your own business and personal life! 🙂

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Listen to the podcast here:

Be Heroic with Frank Shankwitz

We’re talking about being a hero and I’ve got a guest who is an expert in that area, a friend and a colleague. Heroism, being heroic is an interesting topic. It got me thinking about what are the prerequisites to being a hero? What are the things that somebody will often demonstrate that can help you predict whether or not that individual has the qualities of a hero? Having said that, I firmly believe that anybody and everybody can be a hero. We all can rise to the occasion when the opportunity arises. What is it that causes some people to be more likely to do that than others?

Anybody and everybody can be a hero. We can all rise up to the occasion when the opportunity comes. Click To Tweet

What I’ve been pondering is the relationship between heroism and character. Somebody with character, somebody who has the qualities that we think of as the qualities of character tends to be the kinds of people who are more likely to step up to the challenge of heroism. I’ve been observing some interesting cross-species behaviors. This may seem a little off the track, but I’m going to share my thinking on it and you could tell me if this makes sense. A lot of you are aware that I share my life with my dog, Woody. He is my buddy, my best friend, my travel companion. He’s a remarkable animal. He’s almost a twelve-year-old Labradoodle. He doesn’t shed. He’s 30 pounds and he’s a very wonderful dog.

Woody demonstrates qualities as a dog that I would call character. What’s interesting about him is that we can go to the dog park, which we do daily. He’s getting on in age, so he’s not as playful as he used to be and he’s not as likely to jump into the fray. He has this interesting quality about him, I might also call it posture. He postures himself in a certain way. He’ll sit looking very regal and he’ll watch other dogs play. He’ll just look out into the sunset, watch other people or whatever it is he’s doing. He does it with great poise. What’s fascinating about this is other dogs will approach him. Sometimes puppies who are overly eager or bigger dogs who’ll get near him and they get within his orbit just a few feet of him.

When they get that close, suddenly they become deferential. They become respectful and approach him respectfully. It’s almost uncanny to watch this happen because a dog can be barreling down on him at 90 miles an hour. Woody will continue to sit in his regal pose, watching them coming towards him with his absolute conviction that they will come to realize that you don’t mess with him. You approach him respectfully. He’s like the king on the throne. They get close enough and then they sort of realized that once in a great while a dog doesn’t realize that and they’ve overstepped their boundaries. All it takes is a little sound on his part. That correction seems to set them straight. It’s a fascinating quality that he has this ability to demonstrate a regal or a high-status behavior.

We might call it a posture or consciousness and there’s a certain amount of character in that. I think of that in terms of human beings. As human beings, there are people that you know who have this quality about them that invites a certain kind of respect, that invites a certain kind of appreciation that dictates how you behave around them. Being somebody who has character, being somebody who has posture is an interesting combination of traits. Part of it has to do with the ability to set boundaries, to know this is how far it’s okay for you to come and you come no further. Part of it has to do with self-esteem, part of it is confidence and part of it is love. Woody is not putting out any hateful vibes. He’s putting out love, but he’s doing it within his boundaries.

There’s this quality of character that he demonstrates. I think that there’s a line to be drawn here. Years ago, I was studying a Buddhist meditation. I was attending an event and I saw Ram Dass speak. He’s a wonderful speaker and a funny guy too, who has been an inspiration for lots of people. He’s an American who went to India back in the early ‘70s and was given the name Ram Dass and came back with that moniker. He retained his humility and his humor and a very plain way of speaking. I was in a time of my life where I was hurting. I needed some intervention. I needed somebody who could help me.

 

I reached out in desperation to an organization that Ram Dass is associated with, hoping to get an address to send him a letter and hoping he might write me back. When I called that organization, they gave me a phone number and I thought it was going to be a business phone. I called the phone number and I got his answering machine, “This is Ram Dass, I’m not here right now, leave a message.” I stumbled over my words but I ended up leaving him a message, not thinking I’d ever hear back. About a week later my phone rang and it was Ram Dass. He was very gracious and very helpful. I asked him, “How did this happen? What made it possible for me to reach you and for you to get back to me? It just seems like a stretch and I was blown away by it.” He said something that stuck with me for the rest of my life. He said, “I believe that when you’ve done the work, when you are a person of character, you’ve got your spiritual life in order, you tend to attract and detract people from your life. Only those who are meant to come your way, come your way and others stay away.” It works that way and he has faith in that process.

Getting back to heroism, one of the things that I think stops us from being heroes in life is this tendency to believe that if we put ourselves out there, we will be taken advantage of. People will want too much from us and so why start? That’s a big issue for a lot of people. Granted, some people just have no inclination in that direction at all. Some people don’t care enough about others to even put themselves out there. Other people are just afraid and then there are those of us who are struggling with self-esteem and we don’t think that we’ve got anything worthy of giving. All of these things, character, the willingness and ability to set boundaries, the belief that we can give and not fall into the abyss and never be able to get out of it, the sense of community spirit, all these things have an impact on whether or not we can be heroes.

Somebody who has the qualities of character tend to be the kinds of people who will step up to the challenge of heroism. Click To Tweet

Having said all that, I want you to think about those qualities and what they are that create heroism so that we can have those in the back of our minds as we talk to a true hero. I will be speaking with someone many of you know and admire. He’s the creator of one of your favorite charities. One of the few, for me anyway, that immediately brings a smile to my face, Make-A-Wish Foundation. What you’ll hear is going to help you up your game in your personal and your business life. I am stoked about this interview and our topic is heroism.

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I am thrilled to be introducing my guest, Frank Shankwitz. He is best known as the Creator and the Founder of the Make-A-Wish Foundation, an extraordinary charity that grants wishes to children with life-threatening illnesses. I’m thinking I don’t need to be saying it, you all know that it’s a remarkable organization. From humble beginnings, Make-A-Wish Foundation is now a global organization that grants a child’s wish somewhere in the world, on average, every 28 minutes. Frank himself is a US Air Force veteran and has a long-distinguished career in law enforcement. He began as an Arizona highway patrol motorcycle officer and retired as a homicide detective with the Arizona Department of Public Safety with 42 years of service.

Frank has been featured in numerous publications and television programs. He’s received several awards, including the White House Call to Service Award from George W. Bush and the Making a Difference in the World Award from the US Military Academy at West Point. In 2015, he joined six US Presidents as well as the Nobel Prize winners and industry leaders as a recipient of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor.

In December 2015, Frank was presented with an honorary Doctorate degree, Doctor of Public Service from the Ohio State University. He was identified as one of the Ten Most Amazing Arizonans in a front-page article in the Arizona Republic newspaper. In January 2016, he was identified in a Forbes magazine article as a Forbes Top Ten Keynote Speaker. In April of 2017, he was presented with a Unite4: Humanity Celebrity ICON Social Impact Award. His book is called Wishman and was released back in October of 2016. His life story will be featured in an upcoming motion picture called Wishman and it is in production. I am so honored and so appreciative of Frank giving us his time. Frank Shankwitz, how are you?

Thank you for inviting me to be on your show.

It’s such an honor to have you here and thanks for making a little time for us. Where are you now? Where have you been lately?

I’m in my hometown in Prescott, Arizona. We live just outside we’re at the 6,000 feet up in the mountains, so I’m just enjoying a beautiful day.

Suppose we start by getting the backstory on Make-A-Wish. I’ve heard the story and it’s just beautiful and inspiring. Can we go there first?

I have to go back when I was a motorcycle officer with the Arizona Highway Patrol. I was on a squad of ten men who worked the whole State of Arizona. Two weeks on one town, two weeks on another town in the two-man teams. During this period, the TV show CHiPs came on NBC. CHiPs was about the adventures of two California Highway Patrol Motorcycle Officers, Ponch and Jon. It was extremely popular with the younger set along with us motorcycle officers also. When we were riding to town, all of a sudden we’d see these young kids yell at us, “Hey, Ponch. Hey, Jon,” and start waving.

I took this opportunity to ask our commanders in our slow time can we go to the local grade schools and talk about bicycle safety to the kids? They gave me permission and we did that but the kids could care less about bicycle safety. All they want to do is get on the motorcycles and play with lights and sirens. In 1978, while working out of Phoenix area, I was involved with a high-speed chase with a drunk driver 80 miles an hour and another drunk driver who ran a stop sign, pulled right in front of me. I was pronounced dead at the scene. My partner tried to revive me. He couldn’t do it. God sent down an angel in the form of an off-duty emergency room nurse who worked on me for four minutes and brought me back to life. It took me about six months to recover from that. I had a massive brain injury, skull fracture, all sorts of broken bones, and a lot of missing skin.

Just before I went back to work and talking with the psychologist and the therapist, he said, “God spared you for a reason. Now it’s up to you to find out that reason.” I found out that reason in 1980. The Arizona Health Patrol informed me about a seven-year-old boy named Chris. Chris had terminal leukemia. Chris’ heroes were the Ponch and Jon characters from the TV show CHiPs. Chris told his mother, “When I grow up, I want to be a highway patrol motorcycle officer just like Ponch and Jon.” The friends of his family contacted the Highway Patrol and said, “Is there anything you can do to this little boy? Can he meet a motorcycle officer? Our department went above and beyond with the permission of his mother and Chris’ doctors. We arranged for our State Police helicopter to pick up Chris from this hospital, fly him to our headquarters building in Phoenix and I happened to be the motorcycle officer chosen to standby to meet Chris when they landed. The helicopter landed.

I expected our paramedics to help this little boy. I have never met him. I knew he just came off IVs and a little pair of red sneakers jumped out of that door and ran over to me, “Hi, I’m Chris.” This little boy was smiling and giggling, “Can I get on your motorcycle?” “Of course, you can, Chris.” Our equipment was identical with California highway patrol. In fact, we did our initial training with CHP in Sacramento. Chris got on the motorcycle. He said, “This is the siren, can I turn it on? This is the red lights, can I turn it on? This is your flashers. Open up your saddlebag. What’s in there? Is it the same with Ponch has on his?” This little boy’s just static. I looked over to his mother and she was crying. I couldn’t understand that at first and then it dawned on me, she has her typical seven-year-old boy back.

He’s just having so much running and playing. Just about then, we were allowed at that time to take the children for a ride on a motorcycle in the parking lot. I said, “Chris, would you like to go for a ride on a motorcycle?” He got very nervous, his voice was shaking, “No, I don’t want to.” I said, “Chris, you just rode in a helicopter.” He looked at me and said, “Helicopters have doors.” I realized that doors were very important to Chris. Just about then, one of our squad cars came up. I said, “Would you like to help drive in the squad car, it has doors. He jumped on the sergeant’s lap. He’s going around in the parking lot, red lights and siren. While he was doing this, he was blowing a big giant bubble gum. I looked at his mother and said, “There’s our bubble gum trooper.” She wrote a book available on Amazon titled, Little Bubble Gum Trooper.

Chris went on that day to meet our commanders who presented him with his own badge, sworn him in as an official honorary highway patrol motorcycle officer. They gave him the silky hat that the troopers wear. He got to go home that night. His doctor who was with him said, “I don’t understand, his vitals are so good. Let him go home.” We felt good about what we did for Chris and we said, “We’ve got a highway patroller that needs a uniform.” We went to a local uniform shop and it was just about closing. We said, “We’ve got a seven-year-old boy about this high, this wide. Can you make a uniform for Chris?” Two ladies spent all evening making this custom uniform for Chris.

We went out the next day to his house. I led a group of other motorcycle officers, several squad cars, red lights, and siren. Chris came running out. We presented him with his uniform. This boy was just jumping up and down. He runs in and comes out, now he’s not running, but he’s strutting a little bit in his new uniform. He came over to me and asked if he can get on my motorcycle again. I said, “Of course you can, Chris,” and he kept rubbing the wings, touching the wings that our motorcycle officer wears on our uniform. He said, “I wish I could be a motorcycle officer.” That’s the first time I heard that word wish. I started teasing him and said, “Chris, this is a training we go through. If you have your own motorcycle, we’d set up traffic cones in your driveway and we test you right now.”

Chris was a step ahead of me. He ran into the house. He came out riding on a little battery-operated motorcycle that his mother had got for him in place of a wheelchair. He was serious as he can be. He got on the motorcycle helmet that we gave him. I have no idea where he got the aviator glasses. What cracked me up and I did laugh out loud, was he had on what we call the ranch, a pair of monkey rubber boots, a very high top rubber boots that looked like the boots that the motorcycle officers wear. He said, “I’m ready for my test.” Then we set up traffic cones. He came through and said, “Did I pass?” “Yes, you did, Chris.” “Am I a motorcycle officer now?” “Yes, you are.” He smiled, then he looked at me very seriously, “When do I get my wings?” We learned that was very important to Chris. I said, “We will order those. It will take a couple of days to get those orders. They were custom made.”

Just as I picked up the wings a couple of days later, I got a phone call. Chris was in the hospital. He was in a coma and probably was not going to survive the day. I asked permission to go to the hospital and I received that. Just as I walked into the room, I saw his uniform hanging by his bed. I pinned on the wings and just as I pinned on those wings, he came out of the coma. It’s like a movie scene. He looked at me and said, “Am I a motorcycle officer now?” “Yes, you are, Chris.” He asked for his uniform and he rubbed the wings. He was giggling and showing his mom a big smile and then all of a sudden, you could see him fade away. He died a couple of hours later. Our commanders learned that Chris was going to be buried in a little town called Kewanee, Illinois and they came to be this, “We have lost a fellow officer. We would like you and another motorcycle officers to go to Kewanee, Illinois and give Chris a full police funeral as we would any police officer,” which we did. I was so surprised that the press picked this up that we’ve granted the wish for this little boy to be a motorcycle officer.

When we got in there, we were met by Illinois State Police, City Police, County Police, who all helped bury this little boy. In fact, his grave marker reads, Chris Greicius, Arizona Trooper. While flying home, I started thinking about, “Here’s a boy who had a wish and we made it happen.” That’s why I and Linda came, “Why can’t we do that for other children? Let them make a wish and we’re going to make it happen.” That was the idea that started to create this whole foundation that is now worldwide.

This story is so moving and so beautiful. I think about how everybody came on board and everybody rose to the occasion. All the troopers, all the officers who came in and participated in that process. I think about what that made them feel like? What did it make you feel to be the person basically playing with him, indulging his fantasy and being part of it yourself? It’s not just you giving, you’re certainly receiving something too.

The hardest part was finding people that would agree with the idea that this Make-A-Wish Foundation is going to work. It took me six months to find the right people because everybody said, “This idea is not going to work. We’ve never heard of anything like this.” We started the board. It took six months to get nonprofits. To find Board members was the most difficult part, but we finally did. I was chosen as the first president and CEO. We got immediately national wide press about, “Who is this group? What are they doing? We can’t believe it’s something for these children,” which made the growth immediate. However, in a couple of years I had to make a decision, am I going to be the CEO of the Make-A-Wish Foundation or am I going to be a police officer? They always say, hire people that are smarter than you. Our board made a decision, the greatest decision ever because none of us ever got paid. We never took a salary. All the money went to the foundation. It was time to start hiring experts in the nonprofit field, let them take this over and see how they could make it run which we did and they did and look at the success all these years later.

Do you have any highlights, any particular stories, once the organization got started? What were some of the things that told you that you were moving in the right direction?

Our first official wish was a seven-year-old Hispanic boy with terminal leukemia. I was his wish granter as we call it. We go out and interviewed the children to see what they want, not what families want, and tried to figure it out. It was based on forensic interviewing that we learned with children. When I talked to this little boy he said, “I want to go to Disneyland.” We thought, “We never thought about a travel wish for some reason.” Our secretary at that time called up Disney and told them who we were. All we want is free admission into the park and maybe the front of the lines because this little boy was in a wheelchair. She couldn’t get through.

 

Of course, Disney never heard of us. We’ve learned later that they get these requests all the time that are not legitimate. She kept saying, “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to handle this. They won’t talk to me.” I said, “Let me call.” I called Disney asking for the director of public relations. They said, “Who’s this?” I said, “This is Frank Shankwitz, Arizona Highway Patrol,” which got their attention a little bit. They said, “What is this about?” I said, “I have a warrant for one of your people.” The minute I got the director on the phone, I said, “I lied to you. Here’s my name, here’s my badge number, here’s my supervisor’s name and his telephone number. All you have to do is call them and I will be terminated immediately. Will you please listen to my story,” which he did. Now, 38 years later, Disney is one of the biggest sponsors over the years. Sometimes you’ve got to lie a little bit to get what you want, but at least qualify that lie right away.

Before I brought you on, I was talking a little bit about some of the qualities of heroism. What it takes for somebody to be a hero? I mentioned that you don’t want to be the kind of person who’s afraid that you’re going to be overwhelmed by demand. You can hold your own and you give as much as you want. I’m curious what your experience has been in this whole thing. Have you ever felt overwhelmed by it? Has it been something that you’ve been able to always meet the demands? What’s that piece been like for you?

I have to go back to my childhood, where the Wishman movie was based on. It started when I was a child about ten years old and we were homeless. My mother and I, that was her lifestyle which she chose. We were living in cars, living in tents, one town to another and ended up in a little town called Seligman, Arizona when I was ten years old, which is on Route 66. We lived there for a couple of years and my mother said, “I can’t afford you anymore,” and she just left me. I was taken in by a mentor in that town who passed away, Juan Delgadillo. He was the one who taught me to change all the negatives to a positive. For instance, when my mother left, where am I going to go? He arranged for me to live with a widow lady, Esther Sanchez.

He said, “This is the first time in your life that you’re going to have your own bedroom. You’re going to have indoor plumbing, which we didn’t have. Esther is the best cook in town. You’re not going to have to scrounge for meals anymore. Remember, when you can, give back, you can be the hero.” I said, “Juan, what are you talking about? People are bringing me beans and tortillas. I’m barely scraping a living here.” He said, “You don’t have to have money to be a hero or to give back. You can give back through your time. For instance, look at Mrs. Sanchez. Her yard is full of weeds and you’re staying there. You can get out there and clean that up and make that look nice. Look at Mr. Ortega, they’ve got an old caboose from the Santa Fe line that was wrecked that they brought into town and that’s going to be the family home. They are trying to fix it up and paint. You can help that. You can be the hero. You can give back by helping scrape and paint and so on.” I just remembered that lesson my whole life that you can be a hero but don’t have to have the money. You can be a hero by giving back to your community helping somebody.

You don’t have to have money to be a hero or to give back. All you need is your time. Click To Tweet

I always think that people will often make the excuse, like as you said when you were a kid, while I barely have enough of my own, how could I give back? A lot of people do that and they never get beyond that. They think, when I finally get to this point or when I get finally get to that point or when I’m finally a homeowner, then I’ll have enough to give to others. I find that the people who are philanthropic, the rich people I know who are philanthropic started way before they were rich. It was part of their mindset. It was part of their lifestyle. It was part of their commitment.

The quote that comes from Les Brown is, “Fill your own cup first.” That’s a principle that as an adult I got into. What he means is financially take care of yourself, your family, and once that cup starts to overflow a little bit, that’s when you can start helping others out.

It’s like, “Put your mask on before you put the mask on for your child in the airplane.” We’re also blessed. We all have so much more to give than we realized. It’s not always money. For you, that lesson has remained with you in your entire life and you continued to be somebody who gives and you continued to be the hero.

 

Any chance I get. During my tenure, first with the highway patrol. The first time I was able to professionally give back was a town called Yuma, Arizona. I have taken college courses and they said, “You are pretty good at baseball that we saw, how about helping out with Special Olympics?” I didn’t know what Special Olympics was and they explained it to me. They said, “We’d like you to coach these boys with the baseball throw to see how far they could throw up. I said, “I’d like to do that.” I had so much fun doing that working with these kids.

That was the first time I’ve thought about, “I think I’m finally starting to give back.” I coached this one little boy and we were in a city park. He threw that ball so hard and it broke a car windshield that was driving down the street. When I got working with the school children, I was able to give back. In my senior years, on several advisory boards for foundation all over the United States I’d give back my time. I was trying to get them where they can better their foundation, make it grow, ideas for financing. That’s my mode that I was taught by my mentor when I was ten years old, Juan Delgadillo.

Thank God for Juan.

What’s so good is we’re close friends with his son and his family. Juan passed away. Juan ran what was called Snow Cap restaurant in Seligman, Arizona. Nobody knows where Seligman, Arizona is, but if anybody saw the Disney animated feature Cars, Radiator Springs is in Seligman, Arizona. The animator stuck Seligman and made it into Radiator Springs, that’s the idea. That whole thing was where the interstate bypassed the town and how the town was dying. Juan built this little thing called the Snow Cap, it’s like a Dairy Queen. It was so popular. Now tour buses from Las Vegas go to Seligman which is 200 miles away just so they could go on the Snow Cap and see what this iconic thing was.

That’s a great segue because I always like to look at these principles like generosity, heroism, and various things that we’ve talked, how can they be useful in business. A lot of my audience are in leadership positions. A lot of people in leadership positions, they’re thinking about the bottom line. They’re thinking about how am I going to make more money, put more units out there, sell more, and their problems are very much inside of their own walls. You and I know that people who are more global thinkers and who give back, there are benefits. Talk a little bit about that.

An example I’ll give is in my hometown near Prescott, Arizona is a nationwide realty company. The lady came to me and said, “How can we get more attention of ourselves or maybe give back?” because they know my term on that. I said, “You’ve got the perfect storm to do this.” I said, “We have got several widows. We’ve got several veterans that need special housing, that need these ramps and so on. To get the community organization together for a weekend or a week, whatever it might be, but especially the weekend, go to this yard, clean it up, paint the house. You know every contractor in town. You can get these materials. You can get these contractors to come and help. The biggest thing is the press is going to eat this up. The media is going to love this, look what so and so real estate company is doing for our community, is doing this for an individual.” They did it and they got coached for over a week. Local newspapers, radio stations, Phoenix TV stations came up to cover this. It’s a win-win, obviously, the person they’re helping, but look at the good get back feeling they’re getting into the community.

Fill your own cup first. Click To Tweet

Even for the people out there who might be initially a little bit self-serving, you can start to make a good case for how being a global citizen can be self-serving too. It can help you have a better business, be more vibrant.

Another example is I’m an advisory member for what’s called US Vets. It’s not part of the Veterans Administration. We have a local chapter here in Prescott. The mission of US Vets is to find homeless veterans and try to get them into our housing. When we had them in our temporary housing, we get them counseled, we get them job training, job placement and eventually their own housing. What can we do to help the community on this? They needed a van to transport these guys to different job interviews, to doctors and so on. We go to the local Honda dealer and said, “We want a van.” If you’re in a nonprofit world, you never say, “Can I,” say, “I need, I want.” They said, “Why are we going to do this?” I said “We’re going to plaster all over ‘Donated by so and so Honda for US Vets.’ It’s going to be all labeled on your van, and everywhere you go, people will say, ‘Look what they’re doing.’” All of a sudden, this Honda dealer may be getting more business, which they did. That’s just another example of how business can give back or it can be monetary donations obviously. You always want to make sure that the press is involved because it’s a win-win for everybody.

This may be so long ago in your life that you’ve always lived this way, but do you notice that being heroic, being generous, being somebody who’s helping out in the community, that it’s contagious, that other people are drawn into that spirit?

I’m so fortunate to have his new career as a speaker. I travel all over the country and give my message and I have so many people who come up afterwards. The meet and greets are usually an hour to an hour and a half. Half of that, which resonates with me is when people come up and say, “I’m the mother, father, grandma, sister, brother, cousin of a Wish child.” The other times is when the adult come up and say, “I am a Wish child.” That’s my payback for all those years. The other thing is several people come up and say, “I’ve got this idea. How do you think I could do this?” These are the business people, about how I could get this in the community? What do you think about this and that? Can I have your business cards so we can talk about this? I consult people. This was some ideas and that’s all literally all over the nation.

Have you seen companies that have taken this thing and taking it to the next level and it’s improved their business? I know you mentioned that last one.

Yes, it has. The biggest thing is that business recognition. All of a sudden, it’s not just a company in town and a business in town that’s doing this.

I’d like you to say a few words about the movie. I’ve got to see a couple of clips of where that’s heading and anybody reading this right now can see that Frank’s got a great life story and a lot of great stories. There’s this movie that we get to see at some point soon. Talk a little bit about that.

I laugh because it’s still all surreal to me, this whole movie thing. I was approached by Hollywood by a director and a producer who said, “We want to do a story about your life.” I said, “No, you don’t,” and they said, “Yes, we do.” I thought they were talking about a documentary and they said, “No, we want to do a full motion picture. We’ve heard you speak. We’re reading a draft of your book to a publishing company and we want to highlight it from you as ten years old up until when you started the Make-A-Wish Foundation. The events, the people and so on, in your life that influenced that. It took us about four years to finish the screenplay. I was smart enough to ask for script approval and we had a lot of hard time getting that approved. Hollywood wants to really embellish some things.

It takes for somebody not to fear being overwhelmed with the demand to become a hero. Click To Tweet

Even that, it starts out and it says, “Based on a true story.” I learned that whatever movie you go to, usually it says, “Based on a true story,” that means we’ve embellished it a little bit but not that much, so it’s based on a true story. We finally got the screenplay out and I was hired as a location scout. It took about a year and a half to find the locations. They wanted to do it in Northern Arizona, in my area. We finally got that nailed down. Then we’re going to move to Missouri and New Mexico because Arizona doesn’t give film credits to film companies anymore. I grew up in this town and I know so many people that I just said, “I need this.” I’m so used to that with the non-profit world. “I need this, I want.” Like a warehouse, we’re going to turn into a Highway Patrol Office building. A downtown local bar that I know the owner, he usually charges $10,000 just to come in there and film for a little bit.

That money that we saved on that lured the film to this area. I wanted to do that to pay back, to give back to all the people that helped me during my youth, during my high school, during my years here, which we did. We started filming in August of last year. We completed filming at the end of October of 2017. It is now into post-production editing. They finished the full-length movie type at it. Now, they’re enhancing scenes as far as lighting, background noise and music. They’re working on actual feature songs for the movie, but maybe someone would be needle drop, meaning somebody’s popular song like Willie Nelson or somebody writing an original score, original theme for the movie. They hope for an October release. Toronto Film Festival is interested in. Of course, you can make all the movies you want if you don’t get the distributor that just sits on the shelf. Several distributors have shown interest. We’re hopeful, we’ve got our fingers crossed.

From the little that I’ve got to see, this is a winner and I have every bit of confidence that this is going to be something that people are going to want to see. You’re probably going to make the circuit at those film festivals along with the film event.

Sundance is interested in that. Of course, we get the major distribution. We had so much fun working on this. They also hired me as decorating adviser, consulting producer. It sounds like if you’d ever been on a movie set, it’s the most boring sixteen, eighteen-hour days.

Basically, you’re shooting maybe three minutes of footage a day if you’re lucky and it’s a whole day and get three minutes in the can.

One touching thing on this movie is everyday myself and the script supervisor would usually be the first ones on the set outside of the design people to look over the script for the day, to look at the designs, to look at everything that’s going to match what we were filming that day. The script supervisor, a very attractive young lady named Kennedy. She was standoffish in her mid-twenties. I didn’t understand that because I’m usually the personable guy and we’re just talking. In the third day, we were both there early.

It was one of those chilly mornings in Arizona. She came up, gave me this big hug and started crying. I said, “Kennedy, what’s wrong?” She said, “I’m a Wish child.” Even saying that right now, I’m getting tears in my eyes. I learned her story of when she was fourteen, had a life-threatening illness. She’s from Artesia, New Mexico. Her wish was to learn film school. Her wish was someday to be a script supervisor. She had that figured out. The Make-A-Wish in New Mexico sent her to Las Vegas for a month-long school. When she finished school and when she finished high school, she went to Hollywood. She started as a novice and apprentice. One day the script supervisors didn’t show up for a major shoot. The director said, “Do you know how to do this?” She said, “Of course, I do.” From then this great career and that one wish led her to this beautiful career. She’s in total remission and it’s the greatest happening, that small world thing.

Why was she being standoffish, was she shy?

She wasn’t shy, maybe a little bit, but she just didn’t know how to approach me. She didn’t want to boast it, she didn’t know how to handle it. Just the emotion after those days just build up.

There are people who had that wish and there was every expectation that that person was terminal, was going to die and then a lot of people didn’t. A lot of people have recovered and have come through their challenges. I wonder if you wonder how many of those kids got a new lease on life, actually were healed by the wish itself where that experience was so powerful that it gave them a new charge of healing.

When we started the foundation, it was for terminal children. The children with leukemia were not surviving. Through the grace of God and modern medicine, more and more children started surviving. I was involved in a study with a doctor group where we have what we call a rush wish. The doctor approaches the family and says, “If you’re going to do this wish, it’s got to be within the next month because the child, unfortunately, is not going to survive.” The child goes on the wish, whatever it might be, comes back and goes into remission. The doctors are saying, “I can’t figure this out.” We call it the power of a wish. You just said the thing, this child is so charged up about what they did, so happy about what they did and in their own mind I can say, “I’ve got a lot to live for, the heck with this illness.” Again, the doctors cannot explain. They go into total remission. I know it’s amazing just to think about that.

The mind-body connection and our ability to turn ourselves around with the right provocation, the right attitude and all that love coming at you. All the people that you’re bringing to bear, that it’s not just the wish, it’s all the people that are helping make that wish come true. That’s got a lot of power.

We have the ability to turn ourselves around with the right provocation, action, and love. Click To Tweet

Make-A-Wish Foundation is worldwide with 63 chapters in the United States, 36 international chapters. It takes an army and this army of thousands and thousands of volunteers to make this happen.

Maybe what you’ve got to do is just give us a quick rundown and if somebody wants to participate in Make-A-wish, what would they do?

First of all, go to Wish.org and you can click on the site there that says your local chapter. Put in your zip code and it will direct you to the local chapter in your area, United States, and worldwide. They’ll give you all the information on how to contact that chapter and see if you want to be a sponsor or a donor or especially a volunteer. As someone out volunteer opportunity, the most difficult volunteer work as I call it is being a wish granter. After several months of training, you’re the one with a partner that goes in to meet the child to find out what that wish is for that child. I say that’s the hardest job because it’s most rewarding when you watch that child receive that wish because you’re a part of it as you present the wish to them. The other thing is a lot of times you lose that child and that’s the hardest part because when you come so close, you’ve bonded with the child and the family.

If you’ve enjoyed this show, please send your comments to me at SteveTaubman@Gmail.com. Feel free to suggest a topic if you’ve got one. If you’d like to learn how to bring me to your company and create a mindful holistic organization of conscious leaders and fearless salespeople, contact me through SteveTaubman.com. As you know, I like to end all of my shows with a metaphor, a quote, and a challenge. It occurred to me that might be fun to have our guests issue the challenge. Let me share my metaphor and quote and then, we’ll let Frank issue a challenge your way.

 

The metaphor that came to mind for me is I think of the ocean. The water in the ocean is essentially infinite as far as we’re concerned. When we think about being generous and giving of ourselves, sometimes we think that what I give, I then don’t have anymore. If you could start thinking in terms of going to the ocean, scooping out some water to give to somebody else. It doesn’t matter how big a bucket you bring to the water, if you give, there’s plenty more to replenish it. This idea that there’s an infinite supply and the more you give, the more there is to give. There’s never a reason to shut yourself down or turn yourself off or to protect yourself from the so-called negatives of giving. Keep that metaphor about the water from the ocean in mind.

For the quotes, there were two things. One was similar to what Mark Victor Hansen, who was one of the co-authors of Chicken Soup for the Soul, used to speak at a conference I would attend monthly. He would always talk about prosperity and he said, “I’m standing under the spout where all good things come out,” which is silly and cute. This is an idea of an endless supply of goodness. If you could bathe yourself in this idea of an endless supply of goodness, it leads to a much greater likelihood, the greater propensity for being somebody who’s going to be a hero, who’s going to be generous. My final quote is from Eleanor Roosevelt who said, “We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, discovering we have the strength to stare it down.” You can find out more about Frank on his website, which is Wishman1.com. There are lots of interesting things to see there. Frank, how about issuing a challenge to our guests?

The challenge is how can you be a hero in your own community? It doesn’t have to be money for the general populace. How can you help out? How can you build a little league field? How can you pick up trash on the side of the road? For the business people especially, how can you be the hero in your community? How can you sponsor an event? How can you donate to an event? The biggest thing I see in the business thing is there are so many communities that have the big gala for the nonprofit, for the Boys and Girls Club, for the veterans, whatever it might be. To give a nice, silent auction, a live auction price, because again, the press picks this. Look what so and so donated and it’s a win-win for that business community.

That’s a great word to the wise out there and take that challenge up and usually with all the challenges we say, “Do it this week, get the paper out and see where the needs are.” There’s always a need. Remember to share this with your friends, subscribe to my podcast, visit Executive Zen on iTunes or just find the replays on my website, SteveTaubman.com. Thanks so much to our guest, Frank Shankwitz, for being part of our program.

Important Links:

• Ram Dass
• Make-A-Wish Foundation
• Wishman
• Little Bubble Gum Trooper
• Snow Cap
• Wish.org
• local chapter
• SteveTaubman@Gmail.com
• Chicken Soup for the Soul
• Wishman1.com
• Executive Zen on iTunes

About Frank Shankwitz