Education is Freedom, with James Keyes – Episode 471 of The Action Catalyst Podcast

James Keyes’ career has included serving as CEO of two Fortune 500 companies; Blockbuster Inc. and 7-Eleven, but he starting off working to be an astronaut.  Hear how, plus find out what Einstein called “intelligence having fun”, learn about what CEO really stands for, why 7-Eleven and Blockbuster were really part of the same business, what REALLY happened to Blockbuster (and why you may not have seen the last of it), the root of all commerce, the best way to prioritize your time, dealing with change and fear, and the key to true freedom, and how James narrowly avoided the mafia…we think.

About James:

James W. Keyes is known internationally as a business and social change agent. Currently spearheading several initiatives in the tech, art, and education space, his career has included serving as Chief Executive Officer of two Fortune 500 companies, 7-Eleven, Inc. and Blockbuster, Inc., and serving on numerous civic boards. Now, a best-selling author, Keyes has written Education is Freedom: The Future is In Your Hands.

Coming from humble beginnings in the small town of Grafton, Massachusetts, Jim’s father taught him “the absolute key to freedom is to learn as much as you can, every day of your life”. Keyes majored in political science at College of the Holy Cross, and graduated cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. He earned a MBA degree from Columbia University in New York, and went on to establish himself in corporate America.

On his quest of lifelong learning, and passionate about aerospace and aviation, Keyes has been a pilot for over 40 years. He is “single-pilot” certified in Textron C525 series Citation Jets, and is also certified to fly helicopters and floatplanes. He is a skilled sculptor, painter, musician, and composer. He enjoys playing a variety of sports including baseball, golf, polo, tennis, and skiing.

Keyes is the chairman of Key Development, LLC, an investment group that promotes growth and expansion in diverse business areas, and is involved in a variety of tech initiatives and new space startups, as well as cutting-edge AI and AR projects. He co-founded Back to Space, which promotes STEM education and enrichment, and serves as an advisor for Xenesis, a company producing nearly indestructible optical hardware designed for use in satellites. Keyes also serves on the board of HStar Space Transport, a start-up working toward the future of heavy space transportation services.

Through his lifelong commitment to education, Keyes is the founding director of the Dallas Education Foundation and is the founder of the nonprofit foundation Education is Freedom, a nationally recognized college, career and life-readiness provider. To date, Education is Freedom has raised $450 million for its fellowships, scholarships, and other programs to “pay it forward” to hardworking students. He wrote the book Education is Freedom: The Future is in Your Hands to emphasize the ​​importance of education for all mankind, the power of education to change our world, and the wisdom to unlock our personal freedom while reserving our democracy.

Keyes has had an enduring impact with service on the boards of: The American Red Cross, Dallas Symphony Orchestra (former Chairman), The University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, SMU Cox School of Business, The Cooper Institute, Dallas Performing Arts Center, Columbia Business School, and College of the Holy Cross.

Learn more at JamesWKeyes.com.

The Action Catalyst is presented by the Southwestern Family of Companies. With each episode, the podcast features some of the nation’s top thought leaders and experts, sharing meaningful tips and advice. Learn more at TheActionCatalyst.com, subscribe below or wherever you listen to podcasts, and be sure to leave a rating and review!

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(Transcribed using A.I. / May include errors):

Adam Outland
Today’s guest is James Keyes, a longtime business leader, currently serving as the chairman of Key Development LLC. His career has included serving as CEO of two Fortune 500 companies, Blockbuster, Inc and 7-11. His new book, Education is Freedom, The Future is in Your Hands, highlights his passion for lifelong learning, and is out now. James, thanks for joining us.

James Keyes
Sure. Yeah, you better call me Jim, though Adam. I put James on the book because I wanted to be more formal. But nobody will know who it is if youcall me James.

Adam Outland
Oh no, okay.

James Keyes
The nice part about Adam, at least nobody calls you like, Ad.

Adam Outland
Yeah, you can’t reduce it any further? Yeah, you know, I’m always curious what someone thought was going to be their wife path in their early days, and then what some of the twists and turns were that caused it to be quite different than maybe what they expected. So, what path were you thinking you were on? And then what changed?

James Keyes
That’s a really good question. I literally grew up in circumstances where I didn’t even know what options were out there. Business to me was the factory My dad worked at, and I didn’t want any part of that. So business was kind of dark and dirty and hard, or the alternative was, it was typing class. I remember in high school we had typing class, no frame of reference whatsoever. But I was inspired by the space program at the time. As a kid, I grew up watching, you know, the Apollo missions and Buzz Aldrin walk on the moon, and Charlie Duke and guys like that. And so I thought, okay, these guys came from nothing, and they become astronauts. So maybe that’s a path for me. I want to be an astronaut, and I can do really cool things. So that was my first dream to be an astronaut. Set out to do that fell a little bit short of the astronaut day, at least so far in my life. You never know, though.

Adam Outland
Yeah, like, what did that even look like?

James Keyes
Well, Adam, that would imply I even knew the path to be an astronaut. All I knew is that to be an astronaut, I better be smart. And so literally, I said, Well, if you really want to be an astronaut, you better study because they have to be smart. I dove into learning, and I dove into school, and I loved science, you know, trying to learn as much as I could. One of my failures, I said, I’m going to I’m going to learn how to be a rocket scientist, and that will be my path to be an astronaut. And a guy named Robert Goddard, like the father of modern rocketry, grew up in this town, not too far from where I grew up, so I was kind of inspired by him, and I said, I’m gonna work on my own rocket. So I took an old flashlight, and I put some fins on it, a nose cone on it, at the body of the flashlight, and I took a baggie and I put gas in it. I thought, well, you know, if I put gas in it, and if I control the flow of gas, I maybe make it lot, pretty silly. I was like, seven years old, or eight years old, something like that. So I set this thing off, almost blew myself up. Didn’t manage to get off the ground, but it did create quite a little fire. So I snuffed out the fire, and then left, came back and discovered I had nearly burned down half the neighborhood fire took off. So here’s a kid trying to learn, trying to be a rocket scientist, and I was dubbed a bad kid in the neighborhood because I almost burned the place down.

Adam Outland
But you know, it’s a good early lesson that failure is going to be a part of the journey.

James Keyes
It’s a part of the journey. I have a quote by Nelson Mandela that I use all the time. I never lose. I win or I learn.

Adam Outland
Yeah, the town survived. No one died in that explosion.

James Keyes
Exactly. And I learned I was not cut out to be a rocket scientist.

Adam Outland
Maybe not. But you found a way to reconnect with some of that passion, right? 40 years as a pilot?

James Keyes
I am a commercially rated pilot. I don’t fly commercial airlines. I fly a citation, which is, I’m at 40 to 45,000 feet above most of the commercial airlines.

Adam Outland
Wow.

James Keyes
Without a need for a co pilot.

Adam Outland
That’s pretty cool.

James Keyes
Yeah, it’s, it’s beyond cool.

Adam Outland
You know, you’ve had such a storied career between your time as a CEO, you know, at 711, Blockbuster, and we’ll get into a lot of that. But I thought something that really drew me was actually all of your, I think it almost goes beyond to say hobbies, but I mean, you composed and CO wrote a song that was performed. So composing, flying, sculpting, painting. You know, to me that that’s reflected of someone who is innately curious.

James Keyes
Yeah, it’s curiosity, creativity. Interestingly, Einstein called Creativity intelligence, having fun. And it’s so true. I mean, think about it, playing music is actually a form of mathematics. People think about it that way, but if you look at a score, it is mathematically correct in terms of beats and notes and structure and the way it comes together. It’s almost a subliminal use of mathematics when you learn how to play an instrument, but it’s also fun. And so it’s kind of it makes learning fun and curiosity is is that innate thing that we all have as children. I mean, how many kids do you know that don’t run around asking why, and they’re just curious about everything because their minds are just developing and they just can’t get enough want to learn more and more and more. And if we can learn as adults also to keep asking why there’s just so much more richness that we can enjoy, why just look at art? Why not practice it? And then the next time you go to a museum, after you had a canvas and played around with some paint and mixing colors, the next time you go to a museum, you look at a great masterpiece, it’s so much more meaningful when you’ve actually done it yourself.

Adam Outland
On the business side of things, taking on the role of president and CEO of a tremendously large organization, I can only imagine, comes with a certain amount of stress and pressure. What were some of the things that you felt were most preparational and taking on this role? What were some of the key things or events that you felt equipped to you to lead so many people?

James Keyes
Well I’ll share a story with you. I use this story sparingly, because honestly, it sounds a little flaky. Shortly after being named CEO, I ended up with a dream. Now you see why I don’t tell the story very often, but it was an incredibly powerful dream, and I was probably having that natural hesitation that we all have, maybe a little imposter syndrome, whatever it is that says, Oh my gosh, I’m the dog that caught the car. Now I worked my whole career to try to be a CEO. Now I am 1am. I able to do this? Am I capable of doing this? And in this dream, I was told I was going to get a gift, and I was given tasks, and I was sent off to do these tasks, and I came back from every task, then I woke up. Darn it. I woke up too early. I missed I didn’t get my gift, and I write down three words change, confidence and clarity. I said, What the heck does that mean? The next morning, I’m thinking about it. And this, I didn’t get my gift, and then I started talking about it. Virtually everybody that I shared that story with said, that is your gift. How do you think you got there? You were able to take the worst kinds of change from the time you were a little kid and turn that into a positive so you’ve recognized that change equals opportunity. That is the very acronym CEO. Change equals opportunity. That’s the role of a CEO, and you’re the best person we know at being able to deal with change good or bad, and you’ve got this weird sense of confidence that you can do anything. I realize now that all it is is a matter of learning. I learn do anything. And then they said the third thing is, you’ve got this weird sense of clarity that you break complex things into really simple terms, that you can then communicate it out clearly, change confidence and clarity. That was the gift of those three things that I didn’t even know I had, I think anyone can use to find their own personal or professional success.

Adam Outland
No, that’s fabulous. Yeah, I love that. You know, you came into Blockbuster during a tough time. I wanted to know, and maybe Blockbuster’s not the right place to ask this question. But where did you hit a wall?

James Keyes
Well I’ve hit a lot of walls in my career. People forget that 711 was bankrupt and back back in 1991 shortly after I joined the company, and I thought, Man, what a bad career decision. I went from a major oil company to 711 thinking that it was going to be a great career trajectory, and I find them now bankrupt. This is one of those things that change equals opportunity. The company had 10 years of same store sales declines. Was really on a difficult trajectory. It was growing still, but it was having trouble keeping up with competitors, and it ultimately had to file for bankruptcy, but that gave it the opportunity to reinvent itself. We were able to look at the success of our licensed operations around the world, places like Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, bring those learnings back to the United States. So we were able to reinvent the company and come out of bankruptcy as successful entity. For me personally, it ended up being a great opportunity, because I thought I was going to lose my job like everybody else, but we came out of bankruptcy and I ended up with a promotion and was put in charge of strategic planning for the new enterprise. Led to then a career trajectory that gave me an opportunity, ultimately to be CEO of 711 so we took adversity, crisis and then turned it into the next 10 years, 15 years of significant success, which when we sold the company in the year 2005 gave me the opportunity then to take on the challenge of blockbuster so I went into blockbuster eyes. Wide open. I knew it was going to be a challenge. Didn’t know the kind of challenge we would face. Yeah, because no one thinks about blockbuster 711. Is the same thing, except they’re two iconic brands, right? Think about the nature of blockbuster’s business. It wasn’t renting DVDs. That wasn’t their business. Their business was convenient access to media entertainment. It’s a convenience business. Not unlike 711 they made the pivot from VHS tapes, which is where the industry started, to DVDs. DVDs were more convenient access to media entertainment. So they made that pivot successfully. The digital transition was coming. Clearly it was coming. I wanted to take the company there. The very first act as CEO was to buy a streaming video company called blockbuster on demand. So we had a massive competitive advantage versus Netflix, because Netflix had DVDs by mail, very little else. They had streaming, but they had very old movies. Movie link had new releases, which is was 80% of the blockbuster business. So we had a much better offering, arguably a streaming platform, DVDs by mail stores. In case you didn’t want the one you got by mail, you could exchange it. We had kiosks. So we had something called total access, which is any way you want your media entertainment. We have it pretty compelling competitive advantage, right? So you say, what happened? Well, we also had a billion dollars debt that occurred from an IPO in other words, a public offering that Viacom once owned blockbuster, and they spun it out and created a new entity, a public company called blockbuster in 2004 put on a billion dollars of debt, third of which was due in 2009 now, if you remember what happened in 2008 something called Lehman Brothers occurred. Financial market collapsed around Lehman Brothers failure and others, and we had a refinancing that we had to get done. It’s like being in a commercial airline or at 40,000 feet, and all of a sudden the air gets sucked out. You have a decompression. That’s what happened to Blockbuster. We had to put the aircraft in a bit of a dive, if you will, preserve cash and get to a safe altitude to be able to then climb back up. So we took it through a restructuring and had a successful sale of the entity to dish networks. So in spite of popular belief, Blockbuster didn’t liquidate. They didn’t go away. They were sold the Dish Network, who ultimately had a different strategy, or 100% streaming and 100% streaming via mobility. They were a bit early and their strategy and ultimately closed the stores down. They still own the brand. You never know it may come back one day.

Adam Outland
Yeah, wow. So you know, this is something I’ve thought about over the last just few days, thinking about this interview, is a reluctance of leaders to be honest with their CEO. But I’m kind of curious how you dealt with maybe some of those challenges, or how you generated a culture and the leadership teams that you formed where you got reality.

James Keyes
There’s an expression for that technical expression. I’ll give you the technical business term. It’s called a grinf***. Yes, sir, yes, sir, that’s a good idea, sir, that. But it’s true. It occurs, and it’s just so frustrating. You know that? Look, the root cause of that is fear. People are afraid they’re going to lose their job. Fear is the biggest killer of careers, of companies, even societies. They’re coming to get you to take something from you. They’re gonna they got something that you don’t have. Isn’t that unfair? Fear is the lowest common denominator. It works. It’s a motivating tool. There’s only two ways to motivate people. You motivate them through hope and through inspiration, or you scare. So take that same reaction now. Put yourself in a corporate environment, somebody does something that you think I may lose my job, I may fail, or I don’t think that’s a good idea, but I don’t want to tell him it’s either fight and be disruptive in the work environment. We all seen it somebody being obnoxious in a boardroom and demonstrating non productive behavior, just being argumentative for no reason, or it’s the corporate version of flight, which is inertia. I do nothing. Yes, both are bad. Both can be cured, but only through knowledge. Because what happens when you’re afraid? If you’re afraid of the dark and you turn on the light, you realize, oh, that’s silly. I didn’t have anything to be afraid of. Well, knowledge is light. Communications is a way to spread the light. So in a time of crisis, communications from leadership are critically important, because that’s the light that takes away fear throughout the organization.

Adam Outland
Sure. Is there anything you did in particular with your leaders to make them feel they could approach you about challenges?

James Keyes
Change, confidence, clarity. Well, the clarity of communications is both inbound and outbound. So listening is critically, critically important. As humans, we are often guilty of trying to formulate our response before fully understanding what someone’s trying to tell us, trying to hear and truly understand what that person’s trying to tell me, and then trying to be very clear in my communications also so that I’m not triggering that fear response. Because once I triggered that, once I’ve made them afraid, I’ve lost I won’t get truth. Yeah, what I’m trying to communicate in my book is that leadership is about change, constant, inevitable, lifelong change. It’s constantly changing as a leader, being able to adapt to different circumstances, different times, different styles, because you have different people with different reactions, and that constant adaptation to change as a leader, I think, is what’s critically important. Leadership’s about change and evolution. It changes the root of all commerce. You think about it, someone needed something, and someone satisfied that need and got paid for that service. Commerce begins, right? It’s the heart of all commerce. And then that person got a little bit complacent, and somebody else said, Hey, I’m going to change things and give you another way to satisfy and then change occurs, right again, and someone profits from it, and someone else, perhaps doesn’t. And so change is at the heart of all commerce. And yet when change occurs, as humans, we naturally resist. We get worried, because it creates that fear thing. There’s only two responses to change, and either respond favorably and see it as opportunity, or you can start blaming feeling sorry for yourself, put your head down. So it’s not the change that matters. Change is good. Change good or bad. Change and be positive. It’s response to change that separates winners from losers.

Adam Outland
You know, I think one other tactical thing I wanted to ask before we do, like, kind of a quick lightning round of questions…

James Keyes
I thought this was a lightning round?

Adam Outland
Yeah, the whole thing, the whole thing. The question I had was about time, where to invest it, when there’s so many areas, places, people asking for it, anything that you’d share on that that’s been a good process or system. For you about how you funnel your time and leadership.

James Keyes
For me, all about where am I going to either learn the most or contribute the most, one of those two things? So somebody comes to me with a board seat and maybe a company I know nothing about, or an industry I know nothing about, but if they’re if it’s an opportunity to really learn a lot, because there are really good people on that board, and it’s a dynamic company that I’m going to learn from, learn a whole new industry, I may go do it. And that’s my that’s my criteria. Is it, am I going to learn from it, or is it something, man, I can really help these folks get to the next level. And I’d like to use my many, many years of experience to help them, because I believe they’re on the right track, but I can really contribute to this entity. And then there’s probably a fun factor too. Is this going to be fun?

Adam Outland
Yeah, that’s fair. And, you know, looking at all the hobbies that you’ve developed, you feel that to some degree, having some of these things that are more artistic or creative in nature were supportive of your your business.

James Keyes
Absolutely. I am always amazed at how people try to specialize so early in their career. We’ve got kids now trying to be an engineer when they’re, you know, in the sixth grade, it’s great somebody thinks they know what they want to do, I know what? Yeah, maybe, maybe I’m the exception, but I don’t think most of us are mature enough, even throughout high school, to truly know what things will excite us for the rest of our life. So I encourage more breadth of knowledge and understanding, and I’ve become a bit of a junkie about the more I learn, the more I can do. So I’m just passionate about learning more stuff, because I find it’s it’s interesting. I can go anywhere in the world now and mix in different cultures very comfortably, because I’ve learned about those cultures and I’ve learned about the people in those cultures, it makes it far more interesting to travel when you know what you’re dealing with. It’s not just taking pictures of recognizable buildings and monuments and things. It’s really, really mixing with people and getting to know them. And when you’re doing that, if you can talk about flying airplanes, that’s one of their passions, or or new. Is it? It just makes it even a richer experience. And I think anyone can do that like it takes that curiosity.

Adam Outland
I love it. So just for some quick responses to a few of these questions. You know, we looked at what you just said, culture places, what just right now? What’s, what’s the culture country that you’re most fascinated in and want to travel to?

James Keyes
If you were to say, where would you go if you had a preference? I’d say, Well, tell me what you’re going to let me do. If I’m going for food, I’d probably go to France and parent because the restaurants are fabulous. If I’m going for relaxation and killer beaches, I’d probably go to Thailand. I love the Thai culture, and I love the beaches there and the food and the people are so sweet. If I wanted to just have fun, I’d probably go rent a car and blast around the streets of southern the southern coast of France, the Amalfi Coast in Italy. I want to go to a show and see theater. I’d probably go to London. There’s so much richness out there. Anyway, these are, this is the lightning route. I gotta stop.

Adam Outland
Yeah. Because you’ve composed, I just wanted to ask you this question, what are you listening to right now?

James Keyes
I listen to everything, and this is the problem. We talked about, time. There’s not enough time in my life to listen to everything I want to listen to. Last evening, I was former chairman of the Dallas symphony. Last evening, I listened to Mozart, cello and violin. Today, I’m going to speak at a school, and I’ll be introduced to to Snoop Dogg’s Drop it while it’s hot. That’s that’s a bit of a range there.

Adam Outland
Yeah. What’s a piece of advice that you’re really glad that you ignored. So thinking back your whole business career, was there a time where someone tried to give you some advice and you willfully ignored it to a better benefit?

James Keyes
Yeah, two things. I was working at McDonald’s, and I had two interesting career opportunities. One was a guy, I don’t know what I don’t know Gui was, but he was this kind of buggy looking guy, and he used to call me Jimmy. Jimmy got a deal for you. Come to work for the boss. Come work for the man would take care of you, Jimmy, be an interesting life. And this is up in the Northeast, and I kind of knew what he wanted me to do. And he’s like, Hey, Jimmy, you’re going to make a lot of money. Jimmy, I’m really glad I didn’t go down that path. Guy was right out of the Sopranos. You know, I could have been in one of those bad movies. So that was one. Thank you. But no, I don’t think, I don’t think I need to meet the boss at the same time, the same time I was offered an opportunity to go to hamburger use. So here’s two alternatives, Hamburger U and become a store manager within the McDonald’s system. McDonald’s was just growing at the time, or that. Don’t know what the job was, but I’m turning both of those down, and instead, getting a degree gave me far more options than I would have ever had at hamburger youth. While it may, my life may not be as colorful as it would have been, working for whoever that was, I think it was a good decision.

Adam Outland
Absolutely. You know, in a lot of conversations with a variety of people who’ve had a variety of different successes in their career. There’s something that I always want to help our listeners define for who we’re interviewing, that’s what success actually means to you, and how you know when you’ve achieved it?

James Keyes
Very simply, one word, freedom.

Adam Outland
Okay.

James Keyes
It’s why the book is called education is freedom. It’s all about freedom. People think it’s about money. Money’s just tool. Give you freedom. But even without money, knowledge is what gives you freedom. You can have the freedom to you’ve seen this show billion dollar undercover billionaire. Yeah, yeah. They drop these people on the street with like, 100 bucks and see if they can become rich. Again. Interestingly, it’s really not about money. Everybody thinks, oh, that’s about making money. No, these people have the knowledge Yes, to then go out and give themselves a lifestyle that gives them freedom.

Adam Outland
Yeah. And you know, coming back to this, which is your book, oftentimes, when you’re offering a book, some of the advice people tend to give you is, don’t write it for everyone. Write it with someone in mind. Who are you writing for?

James Keyes
I wrote the book for the 18 to 20 year old. Me that that was a kid that had no idea that he could afford to do it beyond the immediate community and experience of family members who didn’t have the opportunity to go to college or live the lifestyle that I live. And so I wrote it kind of for me, it was like what I would have told my 18 to 20 year old self, that, hey, tremendous opportunity, and the secret to your success is. Is in books, and by the way, I’m going to give you a roadmap to even make it simpler, because here’s a pathway, what to learn, how to learn, or why to learn. If you do these things, you will be successful. So that that was my target. Now what I’ve found, though, Adam, I’m shocked at the demographic breath, because while I targeted that audience, the biggest response has been from 25 to 40 that are early in their career, saying, I need to get to that next level. How do I do it? And they’re finding that same roadmap applies to them. Even older people can see that lifelong learning really can make their life richer, even if they’re retired.

Adam Outland
This probably syncs right up for someone when they read the book. But the last question I’d ask would be, if you could summarize the advice you would give that 21 year old version of yourself knowing everything you know now, what would that be?

James Keyes
Yeah, to use knowledge to eliminate fear.

Adam Outland
Wow, yeah, that’s really nice. That’s a good concise way to see it.

James Keyes
It’s what it’s all about, because fear is such a killer of individuals, careers, corporations, of society, and the antidote to fear truly is knowledge.

Adam Outland
Jim, thanks for sharing some of this knowledge with us, for folks who want to kind of follow your journey in continued exploration of things, and then also your book. Where can they go to learn more about Jim?

James Keyes
Well I’ve got a website, James. I use James for the website. It’s very formal. You can tell I’m a really formal guy. So Right? JamesWKeyes.com, and that’s my website. And then at JKeyes, first initial, last name at J keyes, author. I’m on Tiktok and Instagram and Facebook and all those and Twitter, all those locations, and I’m trying to put out content that will take little pieces of the book and hopefully help to change some lives. That’s my goal in life now, is to help everybody realize their full potential, because it’s really not hard. If I can do it seriously, anybody can can use these same things to eliminate fear and to unlock opportunity.

Adam Outland
Wonderful. Yeah, I really appreciate the words of wisdom, and thanks for sharing with our audience today.

James Keyes
Happy to join you. This has been fun.