She raised him poor but taught him to give first - now he's changing the world

Steven Clark grew up so poor that some days, his family "did without."

But his mother taught him something that would eventually change everything: "Always give and help other people first."

It seemed impossible. How do you give when you have nothing? How do you help others when you can barely help yourself?

Steven didn't understand it then. He was too busy escaping poverty through hockey, building a successful advertising empire, and accumulating the wealth his childhood lacked.

Then his mother died. His rock. His foundation. The woman who raised him with nothing but somehow gave him everything.

"My mother had passed away and she was my rock. And so I wanted to always, I still do today. It was always about, is my mother going to be proud of me?"

In his grief, Steven realized something profound: his mother hadn't just taught him values. She'd given him a blueprint to solve the world's biggest problems.

"My company was really built around the premise that she brought me up with, even though we didn't have anything to give... she was always talking about giving and helping other people first."

Today, Steven's revolutionary business model - built on his mother's poverty wisdom - is disrupting industries and creating sustainable solutions for hunger and homelessness. What started as a poor woman's philosophy has become a system he believes will last "hundreds of years."

Discover how a mother's wisdom from the depths of poverty became her son's mission to change the world.

Connect With Stephen here

find out more about Social impact https://www.rtggroupusa.com/

Timestamps:
[00:00] Introduction and Welcome
[01:15] Steven's Background and Early Life
[03:22] From Hockey Player to Advertising Executive
[07:45] Building Brands for Entrepreneurs
[12:30] Challenges in Business Growth
[18:15] Navigating Competition and Market Entry
[22:40] Learning and Adapting in Business
[28:10] Legacy and Purpose
[32:45] Closing Remarks

Chapters

• 0:01 Meeting Stephen Kark
• 1:35 From Hockey Pro to Entrepreneur
• 3:14 Building a Sustainable Business Model
• 4:54 Solving Other People's Problems First
• 9:01 Disrupting a 100-Year-Old Industry
• 15:16 Finding Your Life's Purpose
• 22:12 Creating a Lasting Legacy

Transcript

Baz Porter : 0:01

ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of rise from the ashes podcast. I'm your host, baz porter, and I'm so privileged to announce my next guest. We've been friends for a while, since before covid, I think steven, but his name is steven kark. He lives in canada at the moment, but he bounces all around the world. His primary mission is helping people. Stephen, I am so honored to have you as a guest today. I'm excited to share your message with the world. Can you tell the audience who you are and a little bit about yourself?

Stephen Clarke: 0:34

Yeah, first of all, thank you for having me. I appreciate it, baz, and I certainly appreciate our friendship. I'm a Canadian. As you mentioned, I live in Toronto. That's my home base.

Stephen Clarke: 0:42

Anyway, I do travel around quite a bit and I come from a very humble background. We weren't very well off that. We did without at times, but for whatever reason, the good Lord blessed me with athletic ability, pretty powerful mindset as well. Once I put my mind to doing something, I was able to do it. So that's really what got me out. I signed my first professional hockey contract. I was a professional hockey player and that was really the turning point for me. I got to see the world.

Stephen Clarke: 1:12

I started my career actually in Sweden rather than going to the minors here, and that was just an eye opener. I got to see all of Europe, and this for somebody really, right up until 18, 19, didn't really travel very much, we didn't have the money to do it as a family, but it was a great experience, things that are still lifelong friends that I managed to meet, that we still stay in touch, and so I had that hockey career I'd ended abruptly after signing a pretty big contract, blew up my knee and that happens. So I can't really complain too much about that. But then I got. I was again blessed. I got introduced to the wonderful world of advertising and it really was back then. I'm not sure some would agree it still is today as exciting as it was back then. But we had a lot of fun there and I had a lot of fun and I ended up building up my own, exiting to a very large company.

Stephen Clarke: 2:08

Then it was now. What's the next thing? I tried retirement. I didn't think it was going to be for me. I've been in my whole life. I was a serial entrepreneur.

Stephen Clarke: 2:18

I was always into doing something, but we did try it. It lasted about six weeks for us to doing something, but we did try it. It lasted about six weeks for us and we said, no, this is not going to work. We did take a little time off, but not that long before we started that. We just it had to be something that was really going to make us happy but also make us very proud, and my mother had during this time. My mother had passed away and she was my rock. So I wanted to always. I still do today.

Stephen Clarke: 2:50

It was always about is my mother going to be proud of me. So that's one of the driving forces I have today and I think it's made me a much better person, because, even though we didn't come from we came from a very humble background but my mother was always there and, in fact, which we'll because, even though we didn't come from, we came from a very humble background but my mother was always there and, in fact which we'll find out, I guess, later but my company was really built around the premise that she brought me up with. Even though we didn't have anything to give, she was always talking about giving and helping other people first. So that's how I got to where I am today, which is I'm obviously very excited about this new journey. I'm on Some of the great things that are happening and I truly believe there's an intervention there, divine intervention, that's helping me do what I'm doing.

Stephen Clarke: 3:35

It was just recently, on a trip, that I realized that my legacy is not to do all these great things that I'm doing right now. The legacy that I'm going to leave is the actual model that I've created that I think will go on for hundreds of years, because it's one of those models that just is very collaborative Everyone wins and there's no reason for it to ever stop, because it actually solves the problems.

Baz Porter : 4:04

And that's what you do is so unique and entrepreneurs around the world get this bit back to front. You've seen a lot of easy being encountered so many entrepreneurs and business owners of all different levels but they have this idea that it's got to suit them first. It doesn't have to be that way. Going back to what your mum taught you as a kid and the origins of what you're building today, what is the advice you would give to entrepreneurs these days? Sort of just breaking or trying to break into whatever industry they're going into?

Baz Porter : 4:40

you have this concept of a framework of. I must be this. A lot of the very successful entrepreneurs framing it in success is designated in this box, but it doesn't have to be that way, does it no?

Stephen Clarke: 4:54

I think that one of the things that's missing, that I've seen missing in some of these new things coming out. The first thing is that and this kind of propelled me to success in my earlier careers was I realized that if I could solve someone else's problem through something that I could do, that was actually the key to success, because everyone's sitting with specific problems, whether it's in the business world or personally, or sports world, whatever. And if you can come up with something that will solve their problems, you're going to be successful. And then, by the way, the key to that was not only solving their problems, but making sure that you put that first, but also making sure, whatever you were going to suggest, that you are also going to win as well, because if you didn't, you would end up regretting it and not wanting to do it anymore. And you have to be excited about it yourself. And I think people know that. People tell me all the time wow, you've got all this energy and everything. This is how I get up at four o'clock in the morning. This is until I go to bed at 11. This is how I am and it's because of what I do and how I do it. So I think that that's the first thing understanding that other people have problems, and it's not about you, it's about solving their problems. So that's the first thing. And secondly, make sure you put together win programs. Everybody's got to win.

Stephen Clarke: 6:20

Someone once said to me about sustainability not the stuff they're talking about today in climate I don't know how they stole that word, but anyway. And how do you create true sustainability? And for me it was always simple Make sure every touchpoint wins more than they put in. We have expressions like and I think I've shared this with you before, baz when I was leaving to start my own advertising company, the advice I was given by the president at the time. He said to me make sure that you understand that you're only as strong as your weakest link. And so, as I was walking, my brain works and it jumbles things around. It's almost like a jigsaw puzzle. And if it doesn't fit in there, I'm trying to come up with why.

Stephen Clarke: 7:04

And by the time I got to the door, I turned and his name was Alan Purvis, great guy, great mentor of mine. And I said to him Alan, why would anybody build a model that had a weak link? And he looked at me for a second he started laughing. He said you're going to do just fine. He said good luck.

Stephen Clarke: 7:23

I'm sure I'll be seeing you as the president of a large agency one day which turned out to be my own, of course but so I think that sustainability, that whole thing is just making sure we build programs today, really interesting programs, and people will say how did you come up? I said I got this big chart on the wall and I come up. And once I come up with this idea, then I start mapping out the touch points and if every touch point doesn't win more than they put in, I will either work on it until I can make it happen or, in some cases, I haven't been able to and we scrap it. And even our team our team said what about that one? I said, yeah, that's not. I couldn't really make that one work because there was too many variables that people are going to get in the way of not making. I did a great one for some employees of a company and the management just said oh no, we can't do that, we can't let them do that. And then we can't do it because if they're not winning more than they put in, our model doesn't work. That's how I would recommend to people who are doing it today. And the other thing is today, baz, I don't know where this comes from, I don't know why. There's no explanation to this but make sure you have all the data before you go.

Stephen Clarke: 8:36

I talked to people today about building the charity world, for example. All these people building these tech technology, and 94% of it is to help them raise more money. And every time I talk to a CEO about that, I'm like do you know how much they raise right now? No, what do you mean? No, like, why wouldn't you know that? Before you decide to build a whole company around helping them raise more, I tell you I get some really strange looks. That's kind of logical, isn't it? Yes, it is obviously with AI and everything right now going on. But wow, just be creative. Lack of creativity is really one of the things right now I'm noticing quite a bit. They're just taking things they've already done and doing a little twist on them or whatever, and now they've got something new. It's not quite that easy.

Baz Porter : 9:31

You talk about one of the things that I discovered in my journey. Everything was the same, everything was watered down. I watched a version of something that's been done before you start creating and diving deeper. You're like that doesn't match. Exactly Nothing adds up.

Baz Porter : 9:51

So what I love about you and the way you actually work and actually give back to people is you've not just got a bigger vision of what's coming, you've got a value system of what's coming. You've got a value system that is the core of this, absolutely coming. It roots back in coming home now from a child yep, and that isn't heard of. There's not a lot of that these days. Oh, this will map in and that sounds good to everybody else, but you've scrapped all the common threads of this and gone. What do I want to build that reminds me of home and drives my mission, my passion? What were some of the challenges you got? With some of the growing your business? We have to go growing pains. I know there's probably many of them. Name ones if you've got to go with growing pains, there's probably many of them. How many ones if you've got two or three?

Stephen Clarke: 10:40

First one is you're disrupting, even though it's a positive disruption and it's starting to be recognized as that. When you come into an industry that basically has been around 100 years and there's been no changes, it's tough, it's very tough. We had I probably should have, especially as a strategist. I should have foreseen some of them, but I didn't foresee them to be at that extent. It was mind-boggling. And we didn't even get the chance in the beginning to explain our model and tell them why everybody was going to win. Nobody wanted to listen to that.

Stephen Clarke: 11:17

Being a for-profit in that world is just like the two bad words right, stay away from us. And we had problems with everybody in that, that's with the governments both governments in North America saying you can't do that. It got down to the point, basically, when the lawyers just said tell them to mind their own business. And we did and we just said and all of a sudden, 90 days later, we get this letter saying you're absolutely right, it is your money, you can do anything you want with it. So we got a lot. We still from time to time get. But the good news now is, as we've broken in and we're starting to deal with the world, people are starting to recognize. I get calls often. In fact I'm speaking at some major conferences of nonprofits and charities and volunteers I've been asked to be a guest speaker at, and I'm certainly accepting, and it's still an education process.

Stephen Clarke: 12:11

I would suggest, though, that disrupting any model, especially one that's been around for 100 years and not been touched, even if it's a positive, you're going to get what we're going through. I'm sure other people who have disrupted the model have had the same thing. It's tough, but I can tell and I'll give this one tip to everybody listening today is that the formula for success, as my mentors used to tell me, is a consistent effort over time, but actually I don't. I believe that, certainly, but I believe, more importantly, the formula for success is the belief system, your belief system in yourself and what you're doing, because when you can develop that, you become even.

Stephen Clarke: 12:56

My wife said to me a couple times how do you put up with this? And I'm like what she said, this and everything. I'm like in one ear, not the other, whatever, who cares, it didn't bother me. I developed that. I didn't even know I had that, and then, as I started to look back over my even my hockey career and everything I had that for some reason, even my hockey career and everything I had that for some reason. I don't know where that came into play, but that has really been the secret to any success I've created in sports or anything else is I just developed an unwavering belief in myself. It didn't matter what anybody said, I knew it was one of those things where you just know how do you know? I don't know, I just know and that was it. That's how it ended up. So that's certainly something that's served me very well.

Baz Porter : 13:44

I deal with people's belief systems, psychology, a lot within what I do. To reiterate a point you just said if you don't believe in yourself, you will never be successful in whatever your endeavors are, because there isn't a drive there. And if you aren't believing in truly what you do the product or the mission or whatever you want to call it you start up on the road on your back foot anyway, because you're always writing this and I love that advice believe in what you do. You're building a business. It's not just straightforward now, is it because you've got so many?

Baz Porter : 14:20

Whatever industry you're in, you're going to be in a red, what we call a red ocean, mainly most of the time on the unicorn side of things, you're very lucky and you enter a blue ocean. These are the people like uber on the first up, the dot-com sequence, chat, gtp, ai these were the new revolutions in the world. When you're into the Red Ocean, you've got a lot of competitors and a lot of people who are hungry. They don't share the same values as you most of the time, because that's why they're there. What would you say to them? That person just entering that market now going oh my God, what do I do?

Stephen Clarke: 15:05

I'd say the first thing is which is what I did? Is I really getting all this flack was? Is this really the right thing to do? I asked myself that five times a day at least. Is this the right thing to do? And I get instinctively, I get the answer and I know if it's the right thing to do, then that's it. It's not always that way, by the way. Sometimes it's no, that's not the right thing to do, and so I say okay, then I've got to figure out a way to get that done by doing the right thing. So you have to ask that. Once you come to that, then you've just got to keep going and I'm going to talk about I call it course correct.

Stephen Clarke: 15:42

Most people refer to it as pivot. When you're in that situation, you've got to be pivoting all the time. I talked to somebody I hadn't talked to in six years on LinkedIn and he reached out to me and said we're due for a check. It was 19, 2019 or something. I said, oh sure, it's still the same calendar link. So you got it. So he gets up and so we start talking about it and he's this isn't the same company. Then I'm like yes, it is. He's. What the hell?

Stephen Clarke: 16:10

When did the homelessness come to play? I'm like, in and around the time when you were after we finished talking, it was always about hunger. We added this because we needed to, and it went hand in hand and we could do it through this model, but it was nothing. I pivoted. I don't even know how many times we've just gone down the road and said, no, that's yeah, that doesn't work. And the great thing I think about my life experiences, baz, is that I've made so many mistakes and I'm still here, but, for whatever reason, instead of getting angry or the typical thing when you screw up or whatever, I've been okay with it because I know that's how I'm going to learn, that's how I'm going to get better, and I've got this mentality that I always want to get better, and I used to. And some people listen well, and this is really important because when people start to become, when they start to question what you're doing or question how you're doing or whatever, the instinct of an entrepreneur especially is to get defensive we get our back up. What the hell do you know? You don't know what I did. I used to be that guy, honest to God, but not anymore.

Stephen Clarke: 17:27

Now I'm saying I did it yesterday to a lady who was talking about this and she said she was talking about the investment thing for this new women's company that I'm involved with, that I created for them. And she was talking about this and everything and saying I think that you should do this two and three year deal and you should also do a chart and everything like that. And and I could see the couple of other women that were on the part of our team, they were getting a little. I could just tell and right away I said, listen, hey, thanks very much. I really appreciate that I'm going to put another slide or two in that deck so we could actually address that, because that's a great suggestion If we can help explain this better and everything.

Stephen Clarke: 18:05

And when we finished, these two women got back to me and said I thought you were going to tell her to go to hell or whatever. I said maybe 15 years ago I probably would have, but now I learned from those things and why wouldn't we? She's somebody who wants to invest and she didn't get this information from the first set we sent to her. So let's change it, knowing that A this will get her involved, but also anybody else in that same situation will answer the question, and I think that you've really got to learn the pivot. You've got to learn, as I said, I call it course correct. I'm constantly doing it and I think that I'll probably always do that, because I think you can always get better. I said that earlier. I think I can always improve, always get better, and so can the model. So why wouldn't we always want to do that?

Baz Porter : 18:46

100%. I love what you just said about course correcting and in many people certainly in my own experience in growing from literally nothing, $7 is what I have. It's an incredible journey, but I didn't do it alone. One of my mentors his name is Peter Swain, heavily in the AI space, incredible marketer he was the guy that actually shut down the version of Yelp in the UK and he grew. He shut down Yellow Pages, sorry and then built the equivalent of Yelp. So incredible guy. And one of the things he said to me was when producing a webinar, reverse engineer it, so film it first, put it how you you think you want it and then create all the copy, all the emails, all the advertisement from that recording. Based on that, I was like I'll try it and I did and all of a sudden my attendance rate went up 73.

Baz Porter : 19:48

It was like that works yes and I didn't need to dissect and understand why and all I needed to know, because I don't want to know that. Because I'm not a marketeer. I can market and do all the other stuff. It's part of being an entrepreneur, but that's not my speciality. All I need need to know is it worked? Keep it simple, to the point and when it comes to slide decks, it's the same thing. You've set an excellent example there. Learn off other people, because the people that are asking questions is the gaps in the presentation or in whatever it is. It could be a sales call. Another thing on sales calls, I learned the hard way ask questions, just keep asking questions until they say I haven't got any more questions. Okay, how are we going to pay for this?

Stephen Clarke: 20:40

There you go exactly. Yeah, absolutely.

Baz Porter : 20:43

This is excellent advice you're giving here, thank you, but there's one piece that we will always come back to and that's the why you're doing it and it's not like you've. I've come across a lot of companies, a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of business owners, and you have as well but you always stand out to me because your why isn't just the generic. I want to do this because I want to get rich or I want to be somebody who will be noticed. You mentioned something earlier about legacy. I know the reason, but I want to share what that legacy actually is before we go into the next part. I want for people to understand what that legacy truly is and the reason behind it.

Stephen Clarke: 21:30

Yeah, as I mentioned, my beginnings were not when I was growing up. We were happy, we had food to eat, but that's about it. It wasn't good. So I grew up constantly searching for kind of my purpose in life. I think that somebody wants to do a quote is there's two. The two most important things are when you're born and when you find out why, and that always stuck with me. I can't still can't remember who actually said that. I'm sure I'll look you, maybe you could look it up anyway.

Stephen Clarke: 22:00

So I always thought, every time I went through a different phase or career, like as a hockey player or advertising guy, I knew instantly that this wasn't why I was put here. The minute I started doing what I'm doing now, I knew this was the reason I was put on this earth, my purpose. This is the why. And again, as I resort back to my mother, making her proud, I knew that was it. She was proud of me being a hockey player. She was proud when I built up the big company and everything. But today, what I'm doing today would make her really proud.

Stephen Clarke: 22:39

And so my why is really what I believe fulfilling my commitment or what I was put here for to the world, to leave a legacy and to really make a positive impact in the world.

Stephen Clarke: 22:52

Not anything specific even though right now we're focusing on the hunger and homelessness but just to leave a positive impact. And my mentors always said to me what do you want on your tombstone? Of course I used to joke with them. I hate that question, but I'd always say that he made a positive impact on me, just that simple, and that I would be remembered as that. And the funny thing about that, baz, is I really struggled about how many people we were and all the other stuff, until I realized that it wasn't about that we're going to do millions and all that other stuff. It was about the model I've created, a model that will live on. Be honest to God, I think this will go down and other people will duplicate it, but it's the model that will really leave the legacy and will be able to solve a lot of the issues that we're facing today.

Baz Porter : 23:42

And that's why I love having conversations with you and I love learning from you. I learn from everybody that I speak with. Thank you, Mark Twain was the guy who had.

Stephen Clarke: 23:51

Oh, was it Mark Twain? Yeah, that's typical. I loved his quotes.

Baz Porter : 23:56

But you've adopted it in a magical way Because it's like you just said, it wasn't about you. It's about what you're creating, not just for yourself, but for decades to come. Yeah, absolutely.

Baz Porter : 24:12

Ladies and gentlemen, if you want to get a hold of Stephen, he's on LinkedIn, is that's where he always hangs out and I'll drop out of the website, so there will be links in the comments below. Look out for our next interview with him in the part two is coming in, probably on a Wednesday, from myself and Stephen. Thank you very much for joining us and I will see you very soon.