What does it take to leave a high-powered career and change the world, one child at a time? And how can empathy fuel ripple effects of change, no matter your role in a company or society?
Dr. Abraham George is a social entrepreneur with a unique background. He shares his powerful journey and the life-changing moment when he almost died. Dr. George shares the blueprint for how any leader or entrepreneur can create real change and move beyond existing for-profit models, and the compounding power of helping or inspiring just 100 people who, in turn, help 100 more. We discuss lessons on how to build your leadership legacy, no matter where you sit.
To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Listen in for…
- The role education plays in lifting up economic equity and social justice
- Understanding the impact you want to have on other people’s lives.
- Different ways you can do good in the world and how you can have a bigger impact than you know now.
- Creating the leadership legacy you want to leave behind.
- The benefits of leading a corporation with a heart.
“The way to deal with social injustice is through economic opportunity for those people, and the way to get economic opportunity is through excellent education.” — Dr. Abraham George
Episode References:
- Albert Schweitzer, Out of My Life and Thought
- Bertrand Russell, The History of Western Philosophy
- The Empathy Edge: Woodson Martin: Balancing Corporate Success with Humanitarian Work
About Dr. Abraham George
Abraham George is a social entrepreneur committed to providing opportunities and resources to the most underserved populations in India. Growing up in India, Dr. Abraham was painfully aware of the social injustices surrounding him. After working 22 years as a finance executive and Army veteran, Dr. Abraham returned to India to fulfill his promise of creating social change. He founded The George Foundation through which he runs several projects.
One such project is Shanti Bhavan, a school educating children from India’s poorest communities. Over the past 27 years, they have transformed the lives of over 15,000 people. By empowering marginalized children, they create opportunities to break the cycle of poverty.
The 2017 Netflix documentary Daughters of Destiny centers on Shanti Bhavan’s efforts to educate and empower girls.
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Connect with Dr. Abraham George:
Dr. Abraham George Foundation: drabrahamgeorge.com
Shanti Bhavan: shantibhavanchildren.org
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/abraham-george-519315274
Facebook: facebook.com/dr.abrahamgeorge?mibextid=LQQJ4d
Instagram: instagram.com/dr_abraham_george?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y%3D
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FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Maria Ross 00:04
Welcome to the empathy edge podcast, the show that proves why cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. I’m your host, Maria Ross, I’m a speaker, author, mom, facilitator and empathy advocate. And here you’ll meet trailblazing leaders and executives, authors and experts who embrace empathy to achieve radical success. We discuss all facets of empathy, from trends and research to the future of work to how to heal societal divisions and collaborate more effectively. Our goal is to redefine success and prove that empathy isn’t just good for society. It’s great for business. What does it take to leave a high powered career and change the world one child at a time? And how can empathy fuel ripple effects of change, no matter your role in a company or society today, I’m joined by Dr Abraham George a social entrepreneur with a unique background growing up in India, Dr George was painfully aware of the social injustices surrounding him. After working 22 years as a finance executive and Army veteran, he eventually returned to India to fulfill his promise of creating social change. He founded the George Foundation and the remarkable Shanti Bhavan school, which empowers children from India’s poorest communities to break the cycle of poverty through education, featured in the Netflix documentary Daughters of destiny, Dr George shares how empathy fueled a mission that has transformed more than 15,000 lives, and how you too, can make a bigger impact than you think. And he also has a book coming out by the end of 2025 called mountains to cross today. Dr George shares his powerful journey and the life changing moment when he almost died. He shares the blueprint for how any leader or entrepreneur can create real change and move beyond just existing for profit and the compounding power of helping or inspiring just 100 people who help 100 more lessons on how to build your leadership legacy, no matter where you sit, such an inspiring story to help you do Good while still doing well. Take a listen. I’m delighted to welcome Dr Abraham George to the empathy edge podcast. Dr George, welcome. I am so excited for you to share your story and your important work and helping our listeners understand that they can create a ripple effect of impact and change no matter where they sit within their organizations. So welcome
Dr. Abraham George 02:42
to the show. Thank you, Maria. I look forward to our conversation, and
Maria Ross 02:47
so let’s just kick off. First, you have such an interesting story. So tell us your story. You know, your journey from Army officer to finance executive to now a social entrepreneur. Tell us a little bit about that story and what got you to the work that you’re doing now, where what’s the driving mission and passion behind
Dr. Abraham George 03:07
it? All right? I was born in Southern India by this ocean, actually, but at the age of 14, I went on to get trained as an officer in the Indian military, and after four years of training, I was sent to the Himalayan border with China. That was my first posting at an altitude, altitude of 14,000 feet. That was the highest battleground in the world at that time, wow, the Chinese had invaded India through that mountain pass called sailor. Well there, my job was to set up the defensive position dig bunkers and gun position. I was an artillery officer, and the 11th month of my stay there i i met with an accident. I was blown up in a dynamite blast. Oh, my I was almost killed. If I was late by a fraction of a second, the blast would have killed me. I had turned around and I asked myself the question, Why was I spared? That was the trigger. But then there were a couple of other things that happened during that time, I was sitting alone, you know, leading my men to do the job, and I would climb small hills up there and sit on top and the clouds below me. And it’s very exciting to be on the top of the roof of the world. And I had long time to contemplate on what was life all about for me, and I began to question whether I want to spend the rest of my life in a profession, noble as it is, we all somebody has to do that job, but you know, still I’m being trained to kill someone else, and I was not sure that was my. Calling. But anyway, I read two books. And you know, your listeners might be interested in those books, one by Albert Schweitzer, actually his autobiography, then biographies by others. Albert Schweitzer, he won the Nobel Prize. He German who traveled to equatorial Africa and establish a hospital live with the animals and the tribals. I found it fascinating at the age of 18, absolutely a wonderful way to live. And the other one was by the great philosopher, Bertrand Russell. Is called a modern philosopher, but he died some 50 years ago. He in his book called History of Western philosophy, he wrote a line which caught me, and that was, there is nothing right about war. It is about who is left. Oh, that was something, and I took that to heart and decided at some point I’ll leave the military and get educated properly and start on something that would let me make some money so that I can do something good. So within a couple of years, I was able to leave for the United States. I did a couple of masters and a PhD from NYU Stern School of Business, and then I worked another two years for JP Morgan and I left to start my own company for the next 20 years, plus I had my own business started from the basement of my apartment, went on to become the market leader in the US and in Europe too, in my narrow field, which was corporate international finance, the corporate treasury area. And my whole goal during that time was, of course, around create a great company and do well and be a leader. But beyond that, I wanted to make enough money to do my passion, which was service, yeah, and I had, by then, decided that I leave my career and go somewhere like Albert Schweitzer did. That’s why I’m in this remote place, and start from the beginning, right?
Maria Ross 07:42
And what caused you to choose, you know, let first, let’s tell people a little bit about the main initiative that you work on, the school Shanti. Tell us a little bit about that and what the mission of that is,
Dr. Abraham George 07:55
right, growing up, I had observed in the villages of India, very severe poverty. Don’t forget, this is like 50 years ago, India had just become independent and famine, and you know, was rampant. In fact, America was helping India feed India Indian population with wheat and milk powder and things like that anyway, wanted to find a solution to at least reducing the poverty on a small scale. And during my doctoral work in NYU, I was focusing on various ways of doing it. You know, those days, the emphasis was on foreign aid, whether it is bilateral or IMF and so on, and handouts, essentially to countries that are struggling to come up and the other, other thing that bothered me tremendously was discrimination based on social status. In India, you probably heard of the caste discrimination some people, not a few, 300 million people today, they fall into a category called Dalits. They’re formerly called The Untouchables. And another five, 600 million people are called lower caste, and they are. They don’t have the financial means to get proper education. They don’t have they are not treated well in their villages and so on. So their children don’t get educated well. They go back to the same hearts with the kind of incomes they earn. And this has been going going on for 1500 years, and I wanted to find a way to again contribute to reducing social injustice. And I came to the conclusion this. Is actually, I give a lot of credit to NYU for making me understand that the way to dealing with social injustice is through economic opportunity for those people, and the way to get economic opportunity was through excellent education. So for me, handouts and foreign aid were not the solutions. It’s excellent education for the poorest of the poor that they can go on to have good jobs and bring up their families, and then they will go on to better living conditions, and the social injustice will disappear,
Maria Ross 10:39
of course. So that’s the work now. Is the school.
Dr. Abraham George 10:43
That is the work I’m doing. I take children from the poorest of the
Maria Ross 10:46
poor, right? That helps break the cycle of poverty. Your story is just fascinating, I mean, and I really connect with this desire to make money in order to do good. That is very much my driver in why I try to make my work and my business successful, not just so I can have more, but so that I can give more to organizations and people and groups that are on the front lines, doing the work and making things happen. And I have, you know, I have friends of mine who are very socially conscious, and we talk a lot about the fact that not everyone is built to be on the front line, but all of us can play a role in helping those and empowering those to do those people to do the work that they need to do. I want to talk about your ability. You’ve been in finance, you’ve been in sort of the white collar world, and you’re taking a lot of what, not only what you earned, but what you learned in those spaces to social entrepreneurship. And I just want to mention for listeners here, I’m going to put a link to a past episode with Woodson Martin, where he talked about being able to be a philanthropist while you are still, you know, earning a good, comfortable living. So I’m going to put a link to that in the show notes for folks, because that was another interesting story of someone, you know, doing really well financially and career wise, but using that to give back and then bringing others along. So I want to talk about, you know, a blueprint. You know, you’ve sort of developed a blueprint for leaders to create change. How can entrepreneurs or leaders or anybody really take action to create that positive impact in their communities? What are some of what are some of the guide posts that you have in the blueprint that you’ve developed that you can share with our listeners today? Right?
Dr. Abraham George 12:38
You know those who are working for companies or who own companies, they have some power to help the communities they serve. If you are in a town or somewhere in United States, the communities around there, your employees, where they come from. And you can certainly do something good, whether it’s improving at the schools, they have any number of things. And if you have overseas subsidiaries in various countries, especially poor countries, those subsidiaries are making money there, they should extend themselves to doing the same thing. So that sense for larger companies, multinational companies, it’s a global contribution. And nowadays they call it the CSR, or corporate social responsibility CSR programs. And in a country like India, the government requires that every company sets aside 2% of its profits to non governmental organizations like mine, they have to distribute that money to 1000s of them, so we get a small part of the pie, but at least there is something going to NGOs who are dying to try to do social work, because companies are not equipped to enter into the social arena directly. They have to use someone agent like us to do the work, but they can monetarily contribute, right? So that is one way, if you are an employee or an owner, you can do that. The other is, of course, your own money. We all, you know, be start businesses, so we make money. And one has to ask at that point, how much money is enough for a good living? Your purpose in life cannot be making more money all the time. That’s not a purpose. You have to find something meaningful to do to impact other people’s lives. And that’s what I discovered in my early childhood, that I should devote my life to improving the people who are suffering. People don’t have the opportunity, and people. Would you know, make there will find my help valuable. So, so I would urge anyone who is doing financially well to consider making a contribution to social
Maria Ross 15:18
good. Yeah, absolutely. Amen. I’m curious. Would you describe yourself as naturally empathetic? Do you think you’ve always been that way, or do you think that’s something you develop as you got more education and got more exposure? I’m just curious.
Dr. Abraham George 15:33
Yeah, I would. When I look back, I was fairly, fairly empathetic by my mother, especially my father, too, but my mother also always cultivated that in us. I remember somebody came and said he can’t read well, he can’t read anything because he doesn’t have glasses. And I had hardly anything. I was hardly 14. I somehow gathered up the pennies I had and gave him that money. So it went back very early. But you know the thing about empathy, and you know, doing good, see, the first level of emotion I find is sympathy for someone. You feel bad about somebody’s situation, then you have empathy in which you want to do something. Then you have compassion that you really get into that person’s shoes, and you really plan out something. But all those things are fine, but until you act on it, right? Compassion and action, you haven’t done anything
Maria Ross 16:42
for the other Exactly. Yeah, yeah. From my work, what
Dr. Abraham George 16:45
I would urge individuals to think about how they can help others by their actions, not by words.
Maria Ross 16:55
For 100% in my work and research, actually, sympathy and empathy are two different things. Empathy is really just about understanding someone’s context and understanding their perspective. But to your point, you can practice that, but until that information gives you a next right step to take an action, to take that action that you take is compassion. Compassion is empathy and action. So I love what you’re saying about it’s not just enough. You know, that’s we talk about this on the show all the time. It’s not just enough to cultivate it and practice it, although that is very important. But then, what are you going to do with that information that you’re getting about someone’s context and about their point of view? And it doesn’t have to be, you know, an action where you’re doing whatever they want, it’s just about your now, your next step is informed by what that person might be thinking or going through. So I love that, and I love that you’re able to recognize that that hit you at a young age. But the you know, the good news is we can strengthen that muscle as adults as well, right?
Dr. Abraham George 18:00
You know, I just want to say one more thing about this. You know, some people don’t have the opportunity, or are not willing to leave their corporate jobs and get involved, and the best they can do is to associate themselves with people like us who are doing some work, provide guidance, provide monetary help, and participate in, you know, some events to encourage us, to motivate us. All those things matter. It is not essentially that they have to quit jobs like I did, yeah, do crazy things, you know. So that’s important for people to know. There are so many different ways they can do good to the world, exactly.
Maria Ross 18:50
So let’s talk about that is this idea of why you can have a bigger impact than you think. I talk a lot about the ripple effect, and your ability to impact your sphere of influence, wherever you are within the organization, you talk about the compounding effect of helping 100 people who help 100 other people. Can you talk to us about your work and your from your vantage point of how you get that ripple effect started? Right?
Dr. Abraham George 19:17
I call it the multiplier effect, the same word as ripple. What we are doing is taking children from the poorest to the poor and giving them world class education and very good upbringing. I just want to add on something the effect of what we are done in the last 30 years, since we found it the kids are studying in places like Princeton, MIT, Harvard, Dartmouth, University of Chicago, Stanford, in America, in addition to great institutions in India. So the first point I want to make is you can bring up children from the poorest of the poor, and they have the. Inner potential to succeed. Now, one of the things we teach them while they’re growing up said, Listen, you came to me or came into my hands at the age of four. You have been with me around the year. You know, they go for vacation for two months and one month during the media. Okay, so they’re going to school full time, full year. Nine months I have them captive. 24 hours, you know. So there’s so many. Just before this meeting, I was with a bunch of 12th graders talking about, you know, various things they should cultivate. But anyway, one of the things I emphasize to them, you are beneficiaries of someone else’s generosity. You received the help that I was able to seek from donors in the United States or India anywhere, and they made it possible, apart from the money that I had originally given today, I had to reach out to others to help me, and you are beneficiaries of that, and you have a moral and ethical obligation you do the same for others. And so I given them this 100 rule that you mentioned, that is, in your lifetime, you should help 100 others. That’s not a very large number. You know, someone lot of wealth can help a million people for that matter, yeah. And they, in turn, you know, do the same thing for the next 100 and before, you know, one kid has impacted 1000s of people, and for a company or someone working in the corporation, if you can create that ripple effect, as you call it, and change society, that’s a tremendous contribution by the organization, the company itself, and the individual who is making it happen. Yeah. So I would urge everyone to look at ways where you can achieve that in my area, which is education, I feel education is the key to many things. You can feed somebody a meal or, you know, things like that, but they will disappear if you buy clothes for them, sure they will wear good clothes for a few days, but that will disappear. But education, you can’t take it away. And so the quality education and also proper upbringing, they have to learn to fit into the society at large. And so those are the two ingredients upbringing, and that’s what we do in every family. We bring up our kids well and educate them. You have to do the same thing for others. So that’s what I do.
Maria Ross 22:50
Yeah, and I love this on so many levels, because I talk a lot about the exponential impact that leaders have. So even if you’re a leader within a team and you’ve only got five people on your team. Think about those five people and their families and their communities, and then the people they’re going to lead in the future. That’s the example. That’s the leadership legacy that you leave behind. And so you know, if you want to be an awful leader, just because you think that’s the way to get things done. Not only the mental toll you’re taking on people, but the model you’re creating for them has a negative ripple effect on their own. You know, when they leave work and they take that home with them, or they take that back to their communities, or someday, when they’re in charge and they are leading a team of five people or 10 people or 20 people, your ability to leave a legacy as a leader of what is my best, most, highest purpose in how I can lead this team, and how I can lead it with care and compassion, but also still deliver results. Drive results. I can do both and create that model for them, so that they see what’s possible. And I love the work you do in education, the ripple effect it has. Let’s just talk about that for a second, because I want people to understand, you know, I spoke with you that I do a lot about making the business case for empathy. There is a business case to be made for investing in education, right? So talk to us a little bit about downstream what. How does that impact all of us when we you know, even if we’re not in that socio economic space, when we take the time and invest the resources in quality education, what does that do for society at large? What does that do for the economy, for the culture, right?
Dr. Abraham George 24:44
You know, there are companies who help us in India, big names the Morgan Stanley, JP, Morgan Ernst and Young Exxon Mobil. And what they are looking for is to help. An organization like us that’s educating and turning out good, well qualified young people they can hire, right? And so they’re very interested in hiring our kids. So right away, they benefit from the money they put in. They get good employees. Then I think they also want their staff to see the importance of doing something humane. You know, we can’t be all about money and productivity and new innovation products and so on. There has to be a heart in some of these things. And it is nice to see that employees themselves, they are involved in the welfare of someone else’s kids. How well they do. So I think a cooperation with the heart is better than it’s a corporation that is stone like you know, I think there is something they benefit by having a culture of being helpful to others, right? And I would urge company managers, you know, to consider that as a proposition of the idea of helping others, helping your own employees character. And then, of course, you are impacting society if you have producing more productive rather than just, you know, struggling in the village and so on. And now these young kids go to MIT or Harvard and come back, they are very productive citizens, right? And they can transform, in my opinion, I have started second Chandi bhava, you know, not too far from here. I had originally thought I will start 100 Chandi bonds, and I was very foolish to think that was possible. But others would join and create 100 Chandi one the country would be very different, right? You could have the ripple effect that you talked about, and now you will see millions of people, well educated, highly productive, turning out I’m working for these great companies, right, and being impacting society. So this is all just not pipe dreams. These are things that can be achieved. Yeah, we all put our heart together. Well.
Maria Ross 27:26
When we raise the standard of living, we raise the GDP, we raise all of these things. When we have an educator, citizen, they’re consumers, but they’re also creators, and that actually raises the level of the standard of living and the economy for everybody, everybody gets lifted up. So I really feel that empathy is the fuel and the catalyst for that kind of work. When we open our eyes and realize we’re not the only people in the room, we’re not the only people in the world, and how can we empower and not provide because that’s not what we’re talking about here, but empower and ignite other people so that you know, what is it they say the rising tide lifts all boats.
Dr. Abraham George 28:08
Right, right, right. I love that.
Maria Ross 28:12
Well. Dr George, this has been amazing. Thank you so much for sharing your work and your philosophy and really giving us a call to action to bring more care and compassion and heart, as you said, into even our most corporate environments, even into the work that we do, no matter what field we’re in, no matter what industry we’re in, that we have that ability to impact change. So I will have all your links in the show notes, and folks can find out more about your foundation and all about Shanti Bhavan as well and the school. But for anyone who’s on the go right now, where’s the best place they can learn more about you and your work,
Dr. Abraham George 28:51
the easiest way is to in Google, type my name, Abraham, George Abraham, you know again, remember Abraham Lincoln and George Washington? Right? That’s great. And you run into several links. Run into Shanti Vaughn, so I don’t need to give any websites or
Maria Ross 29:11
anything perfect, yes, and the website is dr, dr Abraham, George com, so you can get all the places from there. Dr, George. Thank you so much for your time and your insight.
Dr. Abraham George 29:22
Thank you. I just want to say that what you’re doing is amazingly great, because what you are doing is pointing out something beyond productivity and creative innovation and so on, and AI and other things you are talking about humanity and human conduct, and I admire you for what you do. Thank you so much.
Maria Ross 29:46
Thank you, and thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you like what you heard, you know what to do. Please rate and review or share with a friend or a colleague, and until next time, please remember that cash flow. Creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind. For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy. Visit the empathy edge.com there you can listen to past episodes, access show notes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes, insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice Maria, never forget, empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.
