Season 3 starts strong with a special series of conversations with extraordinary and inspiring leaders. Steve Farber sits down with Barry Rassin, former chair of the Rotary Foundation, who talks about their mission to make a real difference in the World and the world – on the global and local scales. He explains why Rotary can be considered the best humanitarian organization by breaking down how they change lives in various parts of the world, particularly in underserved communities. Barry also shares how his healthcare experience proved useful in his administrative work at Rotary, how he got more young people involved in the organization, and the power of the universal practice of cultivating love.
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Rotary Foundation’s Mission To Change The World With Barry Rassin
We’ve been on hiatus for a little bit. It’s great to be back. We’re starting Season 3 with a special series of episodes of conversations that I’ve had with some extraordinary extreme leaders. These are people who put the Radical Leap framework into practice every day. By that, they cultivate love. They generate energy. They inspire audacity. They provide proof in the way they lead their various organizations.
My first book, The Radical Leap, came out in 2006, which is a pretty significant milestone. We’re celebrating that milestone through this series of special interviews and also through the offering of a free copy of the audiobook of the Radical Leap. Which is yours for the taking at RadicalLeap.org. I’m confident you’ll enjoy these great conversations. Let’s get started.
My guest is Barry Rassin. Barry and I will tell you a little bit about how we first met. Barry has just retired, if that’s the right word, as the Chair of the Rotary Foundation. When Barry and I first met, he was the Incoming President of Rotary International. In his tenure at Rotary, he has traveled the world. That is an understatement. This guy has been in more places on the globe with more people in more scenarios than anybody I know. Not an exaggeration. At the same time, he’s got this stellar career in the healthcare industry. He comes to us from the Bahamas, which is where he lives. A proud Bahamian. Barry, thank you so much for joining me.
Great to be here, Steve. I’ve quoted your book so many times over the years. I was trying to remember how many years it’s been. It’s a great leadership book.
Thank you. Before we dive in, I just want to let people know. We are giving this book away. You might think that, “Farber’s doing this series to sell more books.” No, we’re giving the book away. We’re giving the audio book away. In RadicalLeap.org, you can go and download the book. I’ll live in your ear for a while you listen to it.
The Humanitarian Mission Of Rotary Foundation
Barry, Rotary is an amazing organization. I honestly hadn’t had much exposure to it until you and I met. The way that I recall our meeting, you or somebody on your team had reached out to me when you were Incoming President to come and speak at the International Rotary Conference, which was going to be in Hamburg, Germany. I said, “That’s cool. Who is this? Who is this Barry Rassin fellow? What is Rotary?” Let’s start with that. Tell us, because everybody’s heard the name Rotary. There’s a lot of preconceived notions as to what the organization is. Tell us what it is, what it isn’t, and your connection to it.
Quickly how we met, there I am coming in as president. I know I have to be responsible for organizing a convention for Rotary International with 25,000 to 30,000 of our members. I need to find good speakers. I’m saying, “Wait a minute. I’ve read the book the Radical Leap. Let me reach out to the author.” Whoever reaches out to an author?
Before that, I would be so intimidated. I said, “Let me do it.” I sent you an email. You sent me your number. I said, “He responded.” I was able to call. We chatted and the rest is history. Rotary International is, in my mind, I know I’m going to sound biased here. It’s the best humanitarian organization in the world.
We do some $400 million worth of service in 200 countries. We’ve got 47,000 Rotary Clubs with 1.4 million members. Those are just statistics. What we do is we change lives. We go into communities that need water and we provide water. We go into communities that the school children don’t have shoes. We help them get shoes.
We do environmental projects trying to help our environment and our planet get better. We do education by providing scholarships. We do so much in so many places around the world. In 2025, we have this called a global grant. A Rotary Club can ask our Rotary Foundation for funds. In 2025, we did 1,285 of those.
They can be anywhere impacting 10,000 people to just a couple of people to, again, change lives. I could tell you lots of stories about people I’ve met and been able to just see their smile when they see a Rotary pin. We all wear our Rotary pin. When they see it, they smile because they or their family have been impacted in a significant way. It’s just exciting to be in those conditions.
I’d love for you to tell us a story like that. Let me set it up first. At least here in the US where I am, the image of Rotary that I had held in my head. It’s local business people that get together and have lunch every so often. They’re a social club. That is not what you just described.
We’re not. I’ll be blunt with it. They say this is a bunch of old white men having lunch and drinking together. In the 1970’s-1980’s, that’s what people saw. The reality is we’re very diverse. Like I said, we’re in 200 countries around the world. We ask every club to represent their community. Whatever cliques or groups or cultures, try to get them into your club. We can see what the needs are in your community and respond to the real needs of the community. As I say, we’re not your grandfather’s Rotary Club. This is in the modern day. We have 250,000 members who are between 18 years old and 30 years old.
Rotary is not a bunch of old white men having lunch and drinking together. They are dedicated to determining the needs of a community and responding to them accordingly. Share on XHow many members total?
1.4 million altogether. It’s a lot of people. When I was president, I visited 60 countries. I met with Rotarians in those countries. As well as, by the way, the heads of state. Rotary is respected in all these countries. They’ll introduce me to the Prime Minister or President. We had a chat. They all express respect for what Rotary accomplishes in their communities. I wish everybody could see it because more people would want to be members. I find anytime somebody in a community sees what we do. They ask, “I want to be a part of that. How can I get into Rotary and help with those kinds of things?”
Visiting Rotary Clubs At Malawi
Help us see what you do. Can you share a particular story of a community that you visited?
I’ve got so many. My wife Esther and I visited Malawi, visiting the Rotary Clubs.
Where is Malawi?
That’s in the continent of Africa, on the Eastern side. Not the West. That year, I visited twelve countries in Africa. They have lots of needs. Rotary there is doing amazing things. We visited the school. The principal is showing us around with the local Rotarians. Esther went into this one classroom where the kids were 10-year-olds, 11-year-olds, and 12-year-olds. They were so happy.
What Rotary had done is brought them two toilets. They put in a dragon pump so they could have water to drink and to wash their hands with. This school of 4,000 kids and 135 teachers never had toilets or water before. Imagine that. The girls in the school couldn’t go to school for part of the month because there’s no toilets.
Rotary did something to help it. It’s only two toilets. I’m still thinking we got lots of work to do. When we go to this classroom, Esther is in the middle of the hundred kids. There’s no blackboard. There’s no table. There’s no chair, but these are the happiest kids in the world. One of them came over to me. He pointed to the pin on my lapel. He says, “I know people who wore that pin are the ones who brought us the two toilets. I’ll probably never be able to travel. When you see people who were wearing that pin, please say thank you for us. You changed my life.” The impact of something like that is incredible.
There’s a couple of things in that lovely example that strike me. The interpretation of, “You changed my life.” What that means and how different it is for people all around the world. From a Western prosperity perspective, it sounds like we don’t even think about it. Two toilets in one house is not enough for us.
Let alone water that I can just pick up and drink whenever I want. We don’t consider that to be life-changing for us. The impact that something seemingly simple like that can have is remarkable. The other thing that makes me think is, how did you end up in that community? Was it a local Rotary presence in Malawi that brought you there? Was it some other way?
The way Rotary works is we start and work from the ground up. A Rotary Club identifies a need. They come to our Rotary Foundation and say, “We have this need we’ve identified. We need X amount of funds, $30,000, $400,000, so we can solve this need.” They came to the foundation to get money for the toilets and the water. It’s all started locally. They invited me as President to come and visit their club, speak to their members. Try to use The Radical Leap to get them excited about what they’re doing and to show us some of their projects. That was just one of the projects they showed.
This is beginning to sound like a commercial for Rotary. I am not a Rotarian. I just want to be clear.
You should be Steve.
Rotary’s Local And Global Effort To Make Real Change
Somehow, I knew you were going to say that. I live in Kansas City. I lived in California for many years. My wife, Veronica, and I moved to Kansas City in 2024 to be near our grandbabies. I’m in this community that I’m still a newbie in. If I went to a local Rotary Club in Kansas City and we had this conversation about what the needs are and how we can fill them. Would our conversation be focused on the area in which the club exists or would it have more of a global perspective?
With 47,000 clubs, they’re all autonomous. Therefore, they all do things a little differently. They all want to focus somewhat on the local. Many of them appreciate that this is Rotary International. We have a lot of big projects. Our number one priority as an umbrella organization is to eradicate polio off the face of the earth. It’s a horrible disease.
In America, the young generation don’t even know what polio is. They don’t realize that when people get contracted with polio, they’re either stuck in an iron lung way back when it started. They’re crippled. They’re crawling in the streets of India and ignored by their families. It’s an absolutely horrible disease. We agreed back in the ‘80s we’re going to eradicate polio.
Three hundred fifty thousand children a year back then. In 2024, we had 64 children with polio. We’re almost there. We’re close to eradicating the disease. We’ve spent over a billion dollars, just Rotary funds alone. Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation joined us back in the late ‘90s. They’ve given us over a billion dollars to help us get the job.
Not only do we do the vaccinations, we go to the countries, vaccinate the kids. We also talk to governments about, “You got to keep putting this into your budget. You got to keep putting the money up.” We got to immunize some 400 million children every single year until it’s gone. As long as there’s one case in the world, we’re all at risk. It travels too well.
The only endemic countries are Pakistan, Afghanistan. As you can imagine, they’re tough countries to work in. Rotary is non-political and non-religious. Once they understand us, they realize we’re the neutral party. We’re not representing any government or any religion. We can talk to the Muslim conclaves and ask them, “Please talk to your communities and get them to accept the vaccination.”
Rotary Foundation: Rotary is non-political and non-religious. As a neutral party, they are not representing any government or religion.
We had a Rotarian meet with the Taliban and ask the Taliban, “Please lay your arms down so we can vaccinate all the children.” They said, “Yes, Rotarians can do that thing.” Whereas we do focus locally on our own needs and some new Rotarians, that’s all they see because that’s where they are. The more you get involved in Rotary, the more you see the big picture and realize you can do so much.
A couple of years ago, we started what we call a program of scale, where, again, started with the local Rotarians in Zambia, in Africa. They said, “Malaria is terrible over here. We want to do this project to create education and to try to reduce malaria by 90%.” We put $2 million into it. The Gates Foundation joined us with $2 million. World Vision joined us with $2 million. We had $6 million.
After three years, our partners were so excited by what we’d accomplished. They each came to us. We didn’t ask and said, “You guys are doing a great job. We’re seeing great progress. We’re going to each give you another $10 million so we can expand this to four other countries in Africa.” While we help the one person in a wheelchair who needs eye surgery, we also help the children of the world from horrible diseases.
Looking Back To Barry’s Healthcare Career
In the language of the Radical Leap, it’s an endeavor to change both the World and the world. The world being the world of that one person in a wheelchair, the world of being our community, our neighborhood. The World is eradicating polio, malaria. There are impacts for literally, and literally is a word I use, literally all of us. What an incredible scope. Rewinding the clock a little bit to when we met, you were just coming into your presidency. Is it a one-year tenure?
Normally, you’re a presidential nominee for a year, then president-elect for a year and then president. After that, you’re elected to be a trustee of the foundation for four years. It’s a 7 or 8-year journey.
When you and I met, you were?
I was president-elect. I was coming in at that point. I was planning for the year, which again, includes that big convention at the end of the year.
Were you still working in the health care industry?
I had retired the year before. I knew if I was ever going to do that, that’s full time.
Sixty countries in a year is a full-time job for sure. Your healthcare career, tell us the high level of that. You were on the administrative side of the thing.
In the process of writing a book, it’s a long story, but I’ll be brief. My dad was the first surgeon in the country. He wasn’t happy with healthcare when he came, so he started his own clinic to treat his pain.
He was the first surgeon in the Bahamas?
Yes. He was in the Royal Air Force and posted to the Bahamas to take care of the troops in 1945, the last year of the war. He loved it, so he came back after the war. Many complications in that, that’s for the book. He started a clinic. I grew up in the clinic because of my mother, by the way. He’s a surgeon. She’s an operating room nurse.
They met over the operating room table. He starts at the hospital. He’s the surgeon, the administrator, the bookkeeper, he did it all. My mother was the head nurse. She took care of the patients. She was truly a Florence Nightingale. All she had to do was put her hand on you and you felt better. They were a great combination.
Years forward, the ‘70s were difficult in the Bahamas, a lot of the non-Bahamians left the country. We went independent. It was a tough time. My parents were both getting older. I had been working as an administrator in Florida. I was with Mount Sinai Medical Center and then, I was with a corporate healthcare to get the experience.
In 1979, I came home to help him. I could see the place getting older and needed some help. I came home and long story short, I built a new hospital with modern technology. Lots of interesting factors. When I go to my dad and say, “We need a CAT scan. We don’t have one in the country.” He said, “No, doctors, it’s all about judgment. We don’t need the equipment.”
We had our issues, but at the end of the day, we got along well. I started bringing all the modern equipment, built a new hospital. I had to bring in shareholders. I had no money. I came home with $5,000 in my pocket. I got some of the doctors to buy into it. I got some businessmen, mostly friends in my Rotary club. Networking is okay in Rotary. We built the hospital.
Back in the late ‘90s, I made it a public corporation, sold shares to the public. I wanted everybody to feel this wasn’t just somebody’s hospital. This is a Bahamian hospital owned by Bahamians. We blossomed from there. Knowing Rotary was coming up and I was getting older as well. I’d been working in the same place for many years.
I said, “You need new blood at this point. You want new energy, new thoughts, and new people who love what they’re doing.” I found one of the doctors. He agreed to buy my shares and take it over. That’s where we are. First, I’m thinking, “What am I going to do in my retirement?” Along comes Rotary leadership.
I had not ever planned to be president of a global organization. It wasn’t on my list at all. When the opportunity came, I said, “This gives me an opportunity to talk about an organization then was about 115 years old. It needs some updating. Maybe I could make a change as the president of the organization.”
Shaping The Next Generation Of Leaders
Correct me if I’m wrong in this. My recollection is that one of the things that you saw in Rotary that you wanted to change was an under-representation of the younger generation of people. You put your focus on. We need to get young people into Rotary whose image was, as you said before, a bunch of old white guys having lunch. Is that right?
You’re correct. At that point, what we had was a program in Rotary, which was called Rotaract, which allowed individuals from 18 to 30 years old to join a Rotaract Club. It was a program. Yet, there are young professionals who are leaders. As I traveled around the world, I met with these Rotaract clubs and Rotaractors just to hear their opinions and realize, “Why are we holding them down? Why are we calling them a program?”
I made the effort and took it to our council on legislation, which is the Rotary Group. The only way to change the constitution and by-laws is to go to the council of legislation. There’s 528 delegates who have to vote. To make a change to the constitution, it takes a 3/4 majority. You can imagine changing our constitution is no easy task.
I’m thinking I’ve got 250,000 young people in their twenties who could be part of Rotary going forward. We need to change the constitution and get them to become members of Rotary Clubs when they’re finished with the Rotaract. It didn’t pass the first time. The way the system works, I was able to get somebody to bring it back on the floor the next day and we got it passed.
The next day? Not the next year, but the next day.
They only meet every three years. I couldn’t wait three years. It happened. It passed. You have to imagine when you’re in 200 countries, the cultures are different everywhere. In some parts of the world, to have a young person to be equal to the elderly, that’s against the culture. The people in the room from those cultures couldn’t understand it at first. Finally, we were able to get that done, changed the constitution, then we changed a lot of policies and rules.
We can allow these young people to become leaders, not only members in a program. To be leaders in the organization so they can help bring their understanding of the world to our elderly group, including myself. They’re right on. They think differently than we do. We need that different thinking with all of our clubs. It was major.
Rotary Foundation: Rotary needs different thinking from young people to make a major change.
What year was that?
That would have been 2019.
It was like yesterday. You’ve got 250,000 members in that age group. Is it the fastest growing demographic in Rotary?
When we look at fastest growing, we look at by region as opposed to by clubs. Where the United States is not the fastest growing, India is. I don’t know if it’s a coincidence, but they have more Rotaract clubs than anybody else does. In India, they see it’s prestigious to be part of a Rotary organization, Rotary Club, Rotaract Club.
They want to be a part of it. They want to be the president of the club. This is just my opinion. It’s because in a country like India or many countries in Africa, they see the problem every day. They see poverty. They see people who don’t have shoes to wear. Whereas in America, it exists, but we tend not to see it in America. Therefore, we’re not as attuned to the need to be part of a Rotary Club to make a change.
Honestly, I got to say, at the risk of overgeneralizing, in the US, you have to go somewhere more and more. You have to go somewhere to see that. For example, to see the homeless situation. There are certain parts of the city, parts of town, that you get these little tent cities and all of that. Some people will see that and interpret that as a need that needs to be filled.
Seeing homeless people on the street when you’re in a city and you’re walking down the street. You don’t see that in suburbia. You don’t see it at all. You have to go somewhere to see it. It requires a certain attitude or point of view on what you’re seeing. Are you seeing a need or are you seeing a nuisance? Are you experiencing it as a desire to help fix this situation?
Are you seeing it as a revulsion that you just want to turn your head and go, “I just don’t want to see that.” Whereas in some place like India, it’s as you said, it’s there. You can’t not see it. It still requires the attitude to do something about it. It would seem that the risk is you see it everywhere. It just gets normalized. Pretty soon, you don’t even see it, even though you see it all the time.
There are those who will drive right by it, whether it’s in the United States or India or Africa. They just don’t see what they don’t want to see.
The people that are drawn to Rotary are the people that see the need. I’m assuming they see the need wherever they are. It doesn’t have to be a dramatic need. There’s just something about the point of view that says, “Something in this world needs to be changed. I want to help do that.” Again, in my perspective on what extreme leaders do, they put themselves out there in order to change the world for the better.
Again, whether it’s world or World. That’s what I’m assuming what drove you personally. It’s not just an assumption. Let me tell you a quick story on this. Back when you and I first met, when you reached out to me to come in and speak, I googled you. I said, “Who’s this Barry Rassin dude? President-elect of Rotary? That sounds pretty impressive.”
I went on Google and here’s what I found. I found a PDF document online, which was a transcript of your interview for president. They were interviewing you to be potentially president of Rotary. Here’s the whole transcript. There was the questioner that said, I’m paraphrasing here. ” It was something like, “How would you describe your leadership philosophy?” You said, “There’s this book. It’s called The Radical Leap.”
I’d forgotten I put that in there.
You thought about love, energy, audacity, and proof. Think of this from my perspective, Barry. I’m reading this thing. I was like, “I’ve got to talk to this guy.” It all came together in that way. If you were to step back from your amazing, just remarkable experience through your whole career in building a healthcare system from nothing, essentially.
Into your journey at Rotary in traveling the world, where are the practices of cultivating love, generating energy, inspiring audacity, and providing proof? How would you describe how that impacted you and wove through what you did? You said it in your own words, it had an impact. I’m curious what that impact was.
I realized quickly, I understand. Part of my background in Rotary is from the early ‘90s, I was a trainer. I was training other Rotarians, other members of the organization. In Rotary, I consider us all leaders. The better the leader, the better the club is going to be. It’s important to get leadership principles into our folks.
It’s probably 2009 or 2010 when I got the book. I realized that this is an easy way to hit the essential elements of being a great leader. I use that in my training probably a thousand times. I train groups of presidents in regions. I train groups of governors in regions. I could go in and for ten minutes, just talk about love, energy, audacity, and proof. Ask them and get them involved in that discussion.
They write down what the book is. If they don’t remember what I said, they’ll go read it. I realized the impact it’s having on these individuals. They’re realizing that if they show, first of all, as you know, in leadership, nobody talks about love. They use other “You care about people,” etc. Love, people listen to you when you’re talking about that. “What’s he talking about love? Nothing to do with leadership.” It is.
When I can get a leader to say, “I need to love my members. I need to love my community. I need to love the world.” If I have the enthusiasm and the energy, I can infect them all with this desire to do more. By the way, if we’re audacious, imagine how much more we can do. We’re talking about eradicating polio off the face of the earth. Who’s more audacious than we are? Nobody. You got to prove it by being a part of it yourself. You’ve got to show and lead by example. To me, it was just the essence of it. A good, easy, simple to remember talk about how to be a great leader.
Leadership must be a part of yourself. You have to show and lead by example. Share on XAt Rotary, I want all 1.4 million people to be great leaders. That makes us a great organization. I take that from Rotary. I take it into my business. I started talking to my managers as well. I’ve learned more about leadership and working with people from Rotary than I ever did from my Master’s degree or from my company that I work with. When you’re working with volunteers as a leader, you can’t tell them what to do. You’ve got to convince them that this is the right thing to do.
You have to enlist them.
That’s why every year a president of Rotary has a theme that they talk about all-year long. You are able to create that theme. The staff has to check it out legally and check out translations. I chose the theme of, “Be the Inspiration,” because I truly believe if I could inspire the members and then they can inspire others, inspire communities. Our whole world just blossoms at that point. The Radical Leap just jumped out at me as a fantastic way to get people involved in maximizing that potential as leaders.
Thank you. Rotary is the epitome of audacity. Plus, with the story you just told us about changing the by-laws to bring younger people in. That was audacious, but I define audacity in the book. Audacity is a bold and blatant disregard for normal constraints in order to change the world for the better. Again, is it the World or the world? You’re giving us examples of both.
The Universal Practice Of Cultivating Love
My experience with traveling to Hamburg to address 25,000 people from all over the world was a remarkable thing for me personally. The question that I get asked quite frequently, particularly when I’m working with a multinational company is, “How does this translate culture to culture, this love thing? Isn’t that an American point of view or is it going to fly in other cultures?”
I’ve had the experience, one culture at a time, to see how universal that is. When I give my talks, do my seminars and have conversations with people, for example. I’ll just pick a few just off the top of my head. Thailand, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Israel, and New Jersey. It’s the same everywhere. People respond to it everywhere.
When I came to Hamburg to speak to 25,000 people from 200 countries in the same room at the same time. It was a big room and overflowed. To address them all at the same time and to hear their response to this, which was needless to say, very positive. It was very affirming for me personally. Yes, maybe it looks different. Maybe the expression of it is different, but we all know love when we experience it. No matter where we’re from. Can you speak to that a little bit, the universality of this practice of cultivating love?
When I talk about love, I use different definitions if you will. I talk about love and I remind them, have you ever heard about a leader having to love other people? Think about it for a moment. Don’t you want your leader to care about what you do and how you do? All I’m asking is to show the love that you care for your members.
The members know you care, then they’re going to help you to do what you need to do. If they don’t know you care, why are they following you? A great leader has to show that love and that care so that individuals want to be following you wherever you want to go. If you don’t show it, you just don’t get the same response from people.
Part of what I talk about there is that you want to meet each member. I’m talking to presidents of clubs. You want to meet with each member of your club and show them that you care. Show them you want to know what they do, how they do it, why they are in Rotary, what are their expectations, and then help them meet their expectations.
Personalize it. When you do that, you’re showing them you love them. When you show them that and they feel, I go to Maya Angelou’s quote all the time. “Nobody is going to remember what you said. Nobody’s going to remember what you did. They’re going to remember how you made them feel.” With love, you show people how you feel about them.
You said a little bit ago that we don’t typically hear the word love in the same sentence as leadership or business. There’s something about the vocabulary, using the word that gets people to pay attention differently. You said in the same sentence, “Show people that you care about them.” Care about is obviously in the same neighborhood as love, but it’s not the same word. It’s almost a way of you draw people into the conversation.
Show people that you care about them. That makes sense. If you do X, Y, and Z and learn about who they are, learn about what they do and learn what they’re aspirations are, then you’re showing them you love them. In other words, you’re translating it into their experience versus getting hung up on all the potential baggage that can come with that word.
I also try to bring a little humor into it. There’s a lot of guys in the audience. “Guys, I know you don’t want to hear me talk about love. We’re going to talk about love and break it down for you.”
You and I do very similar things as far as that goes. It’s about acknowledging the discomfort in it, but then giving people the opportunity to see it from their own experience. As the vast majority of us human beings can relate to it. I’m not going to say it’s everybody. There’s something about giving people the opportunity to relate to their own experience. Not get so caught up in the definition of the word, which is the other thing that people have said to me over the years.
“What do you mean by love? Can you define it for me, please? In love and business, define love.” I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on this, Barry. Where I’ve landed on that is I don’t want to define it. You know when you experience it. If my wife came to me and said, “Honey, do you love me?” I said to her, “Define love.” That’s not going to go well for me. That’s my attitude on it. Demonstrate it. Don’t define it.
You’ve got to demonstrate it. I try to do that in these talks and give examples of how. I also turn it back to them. As a facilitator, somebody asks you a question, you throw it back at them. “In your life, how do you define love?” That makes them think about it and personalize it, which is helpful.
That’s where proof comes in. Don’t define it for me. You can try to define it, sure. I’m not saying that’s a law, but the more important thing is to prove it. “You tell me that you love me. You love that I’m showing up as a member of our local Rotary. Prove it. Show me.”
One example I use is proof. As the leader of the club, you’re going to go to the club and say, “Ask them to make a donation to the Rotary Foundation.” I’m telling them, “Remember audaciousness is part of this.” You’re not going to ask them for the $100 they did in 2025. You’re going to ask them for $1,000. You have to say, “I have just donated $1,000, I would like you to join me.”
That’s an important point. Not that everything else hasn’t been. That falls in the category of providing proof. It’s the old model way. Lead by example, walk your talk, practice what you preach. Put your money where your mouth is. Do what you say you will do. To hold myself up as the walking, talking, living, breathing example of what I’m asking you to do is a huge opportunity and, I would say, deficit.
Deficit and opportunity often come hand-in-hand. If it’s a deficit, it’s also an opportunity. I haven’t talked a lot about this, I won’t say much about it. I’m in the midst of writing a book on this very thing. Jim Kousas and Barry Posner, two of my mentors, put it. They call it the DWYSYWD. “Do what you say you will do.” It’s that congruence between the words that come out of my mouth and the actions that people see from me.
My willingness to, for example, travel to 60 countries, visit with heads of state, go into a classroom in Africa, stand up in front of tens of thousands of people and ask for their commitment. Think of that wide span of activities that you personally engaged in. That any president I would think of Rotary International would do. That’s all in the category of I’m doing it. Therefore, that gives me the credibility to ask you to do either the same or something similar.
I’ll give you a quick example. As you can see when you’re at the convention, I have to make a lot of speeches. The biggest fear around the world is standing up in a microphone and making a speech. I tell people who tell me that. I said, “Think of what Rotary has done for me.” My first speech, I had a great written speech. Now, I don’t write a speech. I just get up and talk. With my first one, I had a great written speech. I’m holding on to the lectern. I got to the bottom of the first page. I was too nervous to let go of the lectern to change the page. That was a Rotary Club I was talking to.
How big was the audience?
About 300 people.
That’s a good size audience. Not 25,000, but it’s still pretty good.
I told my Rotary Club, “Don’t ever ask me to do that again.” They say, “No. When you’re a member of Rotary, when we ask, you say yes.” They made me do it. Now, I can stand up with no lectern in front of me, no notes, and just talk from the heart about what we do around the world. That impacts people significantly. Rotary enabled me to do that.
Again, let’s put this in the language of Leap. That is a beautiful description of the pursuit of the OS!M. For people that haven’t heard that phrase before, that stands for the “Oh Shit Moment,” which is that experience. Let me put it this way. It’s love that motivates us, that compels us to step up and try. If you didn’t have a love of Rotary, you wouldn’t have taken on the challenge to stand up and grip that lectern with all your might. It’s too scary.
It’s the love that compelled you to do it. The experience is the OS!M, particularly in a first-time situation. We oftentimes will, even though that’s a universal experience. What’s also pretty universally true is that we interpret that feeling as a sign that this is bad, that something is wrong. Therefore, as you said initially, “I am never doing that again.”
You do because the love of the organization compels you to. As you said, when you’re asked to do something like that, then you do it. Why? You love what you’re involved in. Otherwise, you’d say, “Screw this, I’m out of here.” You do it again. What happens next time? You’re not gripping that podium quite so hard.
You do it again. Pretty soon, it’s not an OS!M anymore. It’s cool. It’s “I get to stand up there and speak what’s on my mind and what’s on my heart.” The experience of the OS!M relative to everybody. One person’s OS!M is another person’s fun, walk-in-the-park. That changes with experience. It’s also, to your point, the OSM often comes with putting myself out there as an example for what I’m asking other people to do.
One thing I talk to young professionals about is you want to develop yourself. You want to develop your leadership skills. You’ve got to get out of your comfort zone. When you do, you’ll find it’s not as painful as it might appear.
Young professionals must develop their leadership skills. Getting out of your comfort zone is not as painful as it might appear. Share on XIt might be at first.
At first, it definitely is.
Let me ask you, if you go back to that first experience where you couldn’t turn the page because you were gripping the podium so hard. I love that image. After it was all done, in the hours afterwards, do you remember what the feeling was?
The interesting part was after I was finished, I thought I just bombed it. “That was ridiculous and I never want to do this again.” People in the audience came to me and said, “Thank you. I learned from that. I got this out of it.” I’m thinking this is the worst thing ever and people are thinking it was good. It made me relax a little. Maybe I should try this again.
Oftentimes, we’re our own worst critics. I’m going to bring us in for a landing here on that particular thought. We’ve been talking about cultivating love in what we demonstrate and show to other people. There’s also an element of this that’s self-directed. In that experience, we’ve all had our own versions of it. “I tried something, I feel like it bombed.”
Maybe it was a project at work that failed. Maybe it was a talk that I gave that I felt bombed. Maybe I’m a standup comic, I get up in front of an audience and nobody laughs. What is it going to be? I give a gift to somebody. They don’t like it. There’s all kinds of things. What do we do? What do most of us do? We beat the crap out of ourselves. We’re very self-critical. Some of us more than others.
I know I fall into that quite a bit. If we were to refocus that and say, “How can I be a little bit more loving to myself?” Instead of berating myself for failing, why not ask, for example, “What can I learn from this? What was the benefit that came out of this for me?” When you have people come up to you and say, “That was great. I learned a lot.” They’re helping you be a little more loving towards yourself at that moment.
It’s a very good point. I’m still working on that aspect. I still beat myself up, but I’m not quite as harsh as I used to be. What I found is that a lot of people come up to you after you speak and say nice things, but they’re just being nice. I discount that, then I go to my wife. I say, “Tell me the truth. How did I do?” She will tell me exactly how it works. That keeps me grounded. Otherwise, it goes to your head too. You don’t want to go to that extreme either. She keeps me grounded and I feel okay. I got the job done. I did it and I can do this better next time.
Why You Should Follow The Radical Leap
It’s always good to have somebody that will speak the truth to you. It’s a benefit. It’s a bit of a double-edged sword. While all of us intellectually recognize the value in that, it’s never fun to hear it. This is not all about fun. It’s about the discomfort, but it’s worthwhile in the long run. Barry, as we close this out, any last words of thought inspiration to our readers? Thank you so much for sharing your experience. We could talk for hours. What are some last thoughts for you to share with the folks?
One important thing is for all of us to appreciate that we can get out of our comfort zone. We can succeed. We need to follow the Radical Leap because it works. It’s a great formula for life in general. If we love the people around us, you’re going to apply it to your family as well as volunteer or business. If I love my wife, I need to show her I love my wife. I can’t just pretend and be there. I got to show her that. I got to show her that with energy. I got to give her the enthusiasm. I always find when I give enthusiasm along with it, it means so much more. That’s important for everybody to know and be audacious. If she likes a diamond ring, get her a diamond ring. Be audacious. I’m not as good as that.
We all need something to work on.
I do like to make sure that I’m leading by example. That’s important to show people. You can’t just tell people what to do. You can’t ask them what to do. You got to show them this is the right thing to do. I’ve done it.
On that note, Barry, thank you so much. Thank you all for tuning in.
Important Links
About Barry Rassin
Barry Rassin is a Past President of Rotary International for 2018-2019. The Theme for Rotary in his year as President was: Be The Inspiration.
He is the first Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives in The Bahamas and is retired as President after 38 years with Doctors Hospital Health System in Nassau, Bahamas but is still a Director. The organization grew significantly from 11 employees to 600 and was the first JCAHO (International) accredited hospital in the region.
He has been a member of the Rotary Club of East Nassau since 1980, President in 1987-88, District Governor for 4040/7020 in 1991-92, Rotary International Director for 2006-08, a Trustee of The Rotary Foundation for 2016–17, and Vice Chairman in 2017. He has served over the years as Chairman of Project Read in The Bahamas, Vice Chairman of Safe Bahamas, and Chairman of the Quality Council of The Bahamas.
Barry and Esther were the Aides to President of Rotary International for 2015-16, Ravi and Vanathy Ravindran and he has served both Rotary International and The Rotary Foundation in many capacities such as Chairman of the Rotary International Finance Committee, and as RI training Leader and Seminar Trainer for Training Leaders.
Barry has also served his Rotary District 7020 in many capacities but primarily as the District Trainer and as the Secretary for the District Governor’s Council.
Esther has always been a strong supporter of Barry’s Rotary efforts and is a Lifetime Honorary Member of the Rotary Club of East Nassau. Esther is a retired banker and a strong advocate for family values. She is a recipient of the Sir Durward Knowles Humanitarian Award.
Barry is one of the four Account Holders for the Haiti Earthquake Relief (and now Hurricane Emergency Relief) Donor Advised Fund and has been leading the Rotary Relief Efforts in Haiti since the earthquake of 2010 as well as working with other regions for disaster relief efforts. He coordinated $6.5 million worth of Rotary efforts within 105 projects in Haiti after the earthquake and continues to assist with disaster relief efforts in Haiti, Houston, Puerto Rico, The Bahamas, Mexico, the Caribbean and others.
The latest Disaster Relief effort is in his own country of The Bahamas following the devastating Hurricane Dorian that decimated the two major northern islands.
Barry has received the Service Above Self Award from Rotary International. He was recognized with the National Award of Health Hero by the Bahamas Ministry of Health and PAHO and the Healthcare Development Leadership Award from Healthcare Development Magazine and is listed in the second volume of Legends in The Bahamas. He was recognized by the Order of Malta with the Grand Cross Pro Merito and received The Bahamas Icon Award for Commerce. In 2018 he was awarded by The Government the recognition as: An Officer of the Order of Distinction of The Bahamas.
