Scott Harrison: From Nightclub Promoter to Charity Water Founder

**Scott Harrison** (0:00)
You know, it turns out that the Red Cross is not looking for a nightclub promoter.
Doctors Without Borders, they're looking for credible doctors, not, you know, DJs or promoters. So, I remember being so dejected by the rejections. And then one organization wrote me back and said, if you are willing to pay us $500 a month to volunteer, and if you're willing to go live in the poorest country in the world, a country I'd never even heard of called Liberia, and it was at the bottom of the United Nations development chart because it had just come out of a 14-year civil war, and there was finally data on the country that they could stack rank it at the bottom of the world. And they said, we are taking a medical mission into this country, and we'll take you, if you pay us.

**Shaan Puri** (1:00)
Thanks. What's up, I have Scott Harrison here. We've been, I don't know, maybe planning to do, at least in my head, I've been planning to do an episode like this for a long time.

**Scott Harrison** (1:10)
But I invited myself on. Let's be honest.

**Shaan Puri** (1:11)
You did invite yourself on, but that's not that I love about you.

**Scott Harrison** (1:14)
That's because I like you.

**Shaan Puri** (1:16)
You're also kind of unashamed. You are unashamed at getting the right thing done. I met this guy once and he said, If your intentions are good, you can get away with anything. And I don't know if that's, you know, I don't know if that's 100% true, but I do think it's a good motto. Don't be too shy. So yes, you invited yourself on, but I think it's going to be a good one.

**Scott Harrison** (1:37)
Well, the alternative was you want people to die of bad water. So, I mean.

**Shaan Puri** (1:42)
Right. Well, which one is it?

**Scott Harrison** (1:45)
Just kidding.

**Shaan Puri** (1:46)
Scott's a good friend. We met through mutual friend Michael Birch. And then I went on a trip to Africa with Scott and saw the work that he was doing. So that was kind of cool. I'll say this. So a lot of people click on this podcast because they're schemers and dreamers. They're trying to figure out how to make money. And we don't shy away from the fact that we enjoy making money and we enjoy the game of business.
I think for most people, here's their mindset coming in. It's going to be charity episode. Okay. You know, maybe if I'm in the mood. But I'm going to tell you this. So that person who's a little on the fence, let me tell you this right now.
You're going to love this episode way more than the normal one for two reasons. The first is you're going to be inspired. Scott's story is very inspiring. I've heard him tell it many times. I'm going to give him the opportunity to tell it here because it's kind of one of these like real life movies in a way. And he started off as a not so do-gooder and turned into a very do-gooder. And I think the story is very good.
And two, he's an entrepreneur. And he took an entrepreneurial approach to charity, which I think very few.
I know personally of very few examples of that. And he's a very good storyteller. And for all of you people who reach out to me saying, oh, Shaan, I love your stories, well, the master is here. He's a much better storyteller than me. So if you take nothing else away from this, you'll pick up a lot on storytelling. Those are my promises to you, Scott. How did I do? That's a high bar. Yeah, no pressure.
Luckily, you've told this story once or twice before.

**Scott Harrison** (3:14)
Well, OK, I like schemers and dreamers. So I was definitely a schemer and dreamer at 18 years old.
I was born in Philadelphia, raised in a conservative Christian family. And when I was four, my mom passed out on the bedroom floor due to a carbon monoxide gas leak in our house. So we just moved into this new house. My dad was excited because it was reducing his commute. He wanted to spend more time with me, have a big family. And she was the canary in the coal mine, which her unconsciousness led to the discovery of this gas leak.
And life was never the same again. Mom never recovered.

**Shaan Puri** (3:56)
It affected her because she was at home all the time. You guys were school or work.

**Scott Harrison** (3:58)
She was 24-7. That's right. She was unpacking boxes from the move, putting frames on the walls. Dad was working long hours at a job. I was at school playing with my friends at their houses. And she bore the brunt of it. And my dad actually got sick. So we had some weird food allergies, some migraines, but she got really sick. And this led to the discovery of the gas leak. My dad ripped out the furnace with his bare hands. He threw it out on the curb. And from that point on, her immune system was irreparably disabled. And unfortunately, I have 40 years of experience with the 3M family of masks. So my mom was always masked from that point on. Charcoal masks, N95 masks. Everything chemical made her sick. So she was able to survive by creating isolation rooms for herself. This sounds strange, but my mom lived in a tin foil covered bathroom. And she slept on an army cot that had been washed in baking soda 20 times. She was so sensitive that if she wanted to read a book, I would have to either bake her book in the oven or set it outside for a couple days in the sun to get that smell of print out. Then I would knock on the door, I would hear the tin foil rustle. I would hand her the lightly baked book. And with her mask on and a pair of gloves, she would receive the book from me and shut the door. So all that to say, a very weird childhood in a caregiver role, doing the cooking, doing the cleaning, helping my dad. My dad was an amazing, loyal man, stuck by her, believed that one day God would make sense of all this.