Paolo Gallo, author of, The Seven Games of Leadership and The Compass and the Radar, brings a wealth of experience from his leadership positions at the International Finance Corporation, The World Bank, and The World Economic Forum.  Paolo stresses the significance of aligning our decisions with our genuine passions and skills. He also underscores the importance of clarity in discerning our priorities and recommends embracing confusion as a regular aspect of self-discovery. Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform. Please check Paolo Gallo’s books The Seven Games of Leadership and The Compass and the Radar, and use the affiliate links to support Pity Party Over at no additional cost to you. How do you navigate life transitions while maintaining a sense of direction and purpose? Share your story! Subscribe to Pity Party Over for more insightful episodes. Questions? Email Stephen or send him a message on LinkedIn. #paologallo #thesevengamesofleadership #careerdevelopment #pitypartyover #podcast #alygn #stephenmatini #leadershipdevelopment #managementdevelopment TRANSCRIPT Stephen Matini: Have you always had clarity about the trajectory, what you wanted to do? How did  it work for you? Because for a lot of people, they find out who they are and what they want to be later on in life. Even myself, I take all kinds of detours and turns and I learned about myself as I went, but your career seems to be so very clear, very almost like if you knew where you were going, at least that's the impression that I got. Paolo Gallo: I believe I had, but not because I'm particularly clever, but because I had clarity in what I wanted to do in my life since my early twenties and without tending to many things. But I started to study economics mainly by default because they said, oh, law, I think it's too boring, medicine, I faint if I see a drop of blood engineering. No freaking way. I don't understand mathematics. So I chose economics mainly by default. So it wasn't really totally convinced choice when I started university, but as I was studying this subject, all of a sudden things start to make a lot of sense. You study economics, finance, strategy, marketing, accounting, human resources and law and sociology, and all of a sudden I start to see a puzzle that fit together quite well. And then in the third year, I studied human resources and organizational behavior and bingo, I said that's exactly what I wanted to do. And I haven't changed my mind since then because I've always been passionate about developing people and organizations. And you may see that the last 30 years, that's pretty much what I've been doing in different contexts, in different organizations. But I have this clarity of thoughts and clarity of feelings about what would be my trajectory since my early twenties. And now that I'm in just turned 60 recently, I like to think that I've been doing what I loved for the last 35 years and I've not regretted. Stephen Matini: Amongst many different experiences, and that you work in human resources really a super high level, you work for the World Economic Forum, for the World Bank. What is your fondest memory of the time, something that you may have accomplished that somehow is really dear to your heart?  Paolo Gallo: Listen, more than accomplishment, perhaps, there is a story that I also quoted in some of my speeches now because I start working for the World Bank. And yeah, I was happy, but I wasn't a hundred percent yet into the role. And a few months into the role, my boss asked me to go to Africa and been to Ghana and then to Senegal. Our first trip to Africa, I remember the driver said to me, listen, I'll take you to a village where I come from. And so we went to this village and then he showed me, said many years ago in this village we didn't have a well, and my mother used to walk seven kilometers each way just to get two buckets of water. And it was polluted water and it was a dangerous journey because it's full of a wild beast. And then the UN War bank came the build this well and for extra stuff and the life of our village changed. So it took me to see his mother. Of course, they I speak the local language and she couldn't speak English, look at each other and the mother hug me. And I have to say that's the moment which I realized why I joined World Bank, why I was doing what I was doing. So more than an accomplishment, I like to think that the moment in which I realized the purpose of that organization was exactly there. So it didn't come rationally, it didn't come, cognitively came from my guts and my heart, and I found it was a very important moment in my career to build this sense of purpose that perhaps I didn't have so strongly when I was working for Citibank. Stephen Matini: As you're talking, I'm thinking of the word success, which means the different things to different people. For you, success is connected to purpose?  Paolo Gallo: Yes. My first book, I start with a story. The name of the book is called The Compass and the Radar. And I kept on telling the story to myself and also to people that listened to me, including now because my father once, when I was at the beginning of my school, literally I was six years old, he told me, Paolo, please remember every day you go to school if you learn something new, if you helped all the people and if you love what you're doing. And that's the reason why I call the compass of success because to me, my own compass has been quite clear my own mind to see do I learn something new every day? Did I help somebody or at least did I do something helpful and do I still love what I do? If you have clarity about these three questions, then the rest, I don't want to say it's marginal, but it's not so essential because I think the motivation comes when you are linked with a purpose that is probably bigger than you when you love doing what you're doing, so you are able to deal with some of the difficult moments that you are having in whatever journey you're taking in your life and the helping others are dominion a condescending way, but in terms of building relationship of trust with individuals, that is going to last forever. So relationship cannot be only transactional, which I refer to you only because I need you to be based on trust. So you have the clarity about the learning, the helping and the loving. I think you have a clear definition of success. Stephen Matini: Everything you say sounds so wonderful to me and these are also values that inspire my own career. In your career, have you always met people that welcome this way of thinking or were you some sort of a weird ball?  Paolo Gallo: I wish I could tell you absolutely yes, and in which case I would be on delusional or on the drugs. So once I told my daughter, everybody loves 007 movies because there is a villain in the movie. Now without a villain, you must think that the movie is quite boring. So you meet villains in your journey, you meet people that are, let's be English more than Italian, not particularly pleasant or helpful. And this is a moment where you have to verify the solidity of your values. You confront yourself with what I'm prepared to do. Oh, you're not prepared to do in a given situations. So the answer to your question absolutely no, but I think that overall, if you look at my 30 plus years experience, the number of good guys are overwhelmed, the number of bad guys, some of the big guys are really bad. There are one or two in particular that were absolutely awful as human beings, but these people pushed me to confront my values and to stand on my feet and once it cost me my job because it was fired by one of them. But what I consider at that time shameful, I now realize that it's actually probably my biggest achievement inside professional life. Stephen Matini: The concept of staying true to oneself is really central to your thinking, to your approach to life. What is the difference between a compass and a radar?  Paolo Gallo: The compass is remembering what you stand for. No, it is a value and I'm referring to, it is the definition of success, which is not about visibility or fame or money or power, but it's about meaning. It is about helping and it's about learning. And the radar is the capacity to open the window to see what's happening outside. Because one of the features that I realized in my own life, I met a lot of phenomenal people, incredibly good in doing what they were doing, but for some reason they lacked the intellectual curiosity to go one step further, to stand the effect of whatever technology that is an impact in their job or demographic or whatever. So the radar is the capacity to maintain this intellectual curiosity to keep on learning and also in psychology called contextual intelligence, the capacity connect the dots and to know how a given topic will have an impact in whatever activity you perform in your role or sector or position that you have in a company. So I think that if you have a clarity about compass and intellectual curiosity about the radar and you keep it open all the time, you may end up in a good place if you're exclusively focused in doing very well what you've been doing, you become a prisoner of what I call the better game. In my second book about The Seven Games of Leadership, the better game is great, you improving, doing what you're doing, but there is a moment where perhaps it becomes a trap it because if you keep on doing well what you've been doing, maybe you'll miss that something else that is happening. The example they provide is VE were produced in the best type machine in the world and then one day they that nobody was buying them anymore, but they didn't focus in developing computers and the thought were to business literally in 36 months after 60 years of a successful journey. The same happened with individuals. So I always encourage people to say, listen, you may be credibly good in doing what you're doing, but please try to anticipate what is coming next because if you are non reactive move, then you may end up in a difficult spot. Stephen Matini: Would you say that someone can balance the inner dialogue with all the stimuli that comes from the outside? How do you think that you can find the balance?  Paolo Gallo: In my second book, the first chapter is called “What the Fact Moments” because there are a lot of events that derail our attention to and our focus, and sadly we had a lot of these moments in the last few years from Covid to the world in Ukraine, and what's happening right now in Gaza, is a continuous derailed of our tension and our focus. Not to say that what's happening is not important, but to say that most of the time we spend time in focusing on something that is not relevant or we cannot change. Okay, or a very limited the first time is to say, are you focused in what really matters to you? And focus doesn't mean obsess and you ignore everything, but being aware of what's happening around you doesn't mean that you are not focusing on what you should be doing. That's one element. The second element is I ask also my clients in coaching and conferences, two very simple questions. One is from 0 to 10, how proud are you of what you've achieved? And most of the time people say nine, eight, they look with pride with what they have achieved and rightly so. And then ask another question, which is from 0 to 10, how proud are you of what you've become? It really is a powerful question. And when I ask this question, usually people immediately stop and they visualize the delta, the difference between the effort that they put in achievement and the unfocused of becoming. And sometimes ago, I will not tell the name of the person obviously, but I'm coaching several CEOs, people that are running huge organizations, thousands of people, billions of revenues, and one of them probably the most powerful that I'm coaching, and you remain silent for a few seconds and they started to cry and I didn't expect this reaction and I said, what's happening? And I said, yeah, listen, my salary, my compensation, you know that I'm on newspaper every other day, but what you don't know that I have three failed marriages and three of my four kids that don’t want to talk to me anymore and therefore I failed completely as a human being, as a father, as a husband, even if you see the image of a very powerful rich individual. I don't want to have a psychological analysis of the individual, but it's really to be mindful that it's like the two muscles that you have in both arms. You have to develop the achievement side, you have to get stuff done, you have to apply the knowledge in so concrete, but you also have to grow as an individual. And that's the focus of my book, The Seven Games of Leadership. They tried to explain the seven phases of personal development that are a prerequisite to become a credible leader in whatever organization, contest, community, operating. One question that ask people, and funny enough, I mean it's not funny because it's a bit of a sad example. He came up today on a Italian newspaper. There is a former soccer coach called Ericsson that used to be the coach over the English national team and also some Italian teams here. And they said, oh, I have cancer. I have one year to leave. So I asked question, to myself and other people, if you are given one year to leave, would you still continue doing what you're doing? If the answer is yes, that is great. And if the answer is absolutely not, I would leave it tomorrow morning. Then my question is, do you need to have cancer to reflect about this question? And here, of course it's not because I wish people anything bad, but it's simply to say, okay, can you think that if what you're doing right now makes sense to you as an individual? I'm trying to push people with my coaching session and with my speeches and with my book to think about essential questions, not about when can I get my next other increase or maybe next promotion. Stephen Matini: One of the question that I ask myself that allows me to understand whether or not I am aligned with myself is would I want to be somewhere else in this moment? Quite frankly, I'm very happy to be here. This is exactly where I am. I'm enjoying myself, I'm doing exactly what I want and I know that this is time well spent. Sometimes I don't have the kind of luxury we all have to work and do things that we don't enjoy as much. But knowing the difference, knowing when I feel that way and when I don't feel that way, I think it makes a huge difference, particularly moving forward and making choices. They are as much as possible, they resonate with me. Paolo Gallo: This is actually a very good point, and just to provide another practical example, yesterday I just opened the May because I wanted to read. I was contacted by one head and to say, dear Mr. Gallo, I hope you're doing well. Please let me know when I can call you because I have a very interesting role that I'm sure you may be interested in considering. Can you give me your phone number, I’ll call you ideally by the end of the week. And I said, thank you, Mary, but I'm really not interested in any role because I'm too much fun in doing what I'm doing right now. And she said, okay, thanks for letting me know. I didn't want to sound arrogant, but just the idea that all a sudden I have to go back to nine to five, it's never been nine to five, it's been nine to eight maybe with a boss and maybe if I'm lucky, I can take a week off at Christmas and maybe two weeks in August. That's not the life that I've for me. So I think it's important from time to time to take stock of what you're doing and also to understand in my book, there's a concept which is called congruence. If you're congruent with who you are, if you are in the right place, and as you said, if you feel like you want to be there, it's the same with people, and I work with your wife, with your husband, with your kids, if you'd rather be somewhere else, then you're in the wrong place. If you're so happy, maybe to have a soup with your wife and you prefer soup with your wife and then maybe being alone in the Maldive, then you are in a good marriage. Sometimes time is important to have a taken stock and to reflect rather than just being moved by actions and getting stuff done. Stephen Matini: In hindsight, everything is so much clearer, in general, but if you could do it all over again, I mean your professional career, and if you could have known back at the time one of the insights of your book, The Compass and the Radar, which one would you use? Paolo Gallo: I tend to trust people. And in few occasions, I have given trust to the wrong people, and this is a mistake that I've done more than once in my life by falling in love with people, situations and professional of course, and then being deeply disappointed at the end of the journey. But at the same time I feel like, okay, should I become paranoid and distrust everybody? I prefer to be disappointed 10% of the time that never be disappointed, but never to enjoy any conversations. So that's perhaps one on one point. The second one is probably I got worried too much about situations and people and perhaps now that I'm different age, I could have taken more likely situation that were maybe difficult, but not necessarily life-threatening or dramatic. But when I was in that moment, the entire world was evolving, relating to these quota problems I was trying to solve inside of human resources. So in retrospect, perhaps I should have not slept, lose a lot of sleep over our performance management process or our pension system or the recruitment of somebody that I did in the past. Stephen Matini: Are you still an adjunct professor? Are you still teaching or you don't?  Paolo Gallo: Yeah, I do. I do is part of my activity and I think that what I do is that in terms of coaching, writing or magazine or books, giving speeches or seminar or workshop and teaching is part of the same debate because everything feeds everything else. So when you give a speech, you have to get prepared. When you get prepared, you have to study. When you study, you become a better professor. When you become a professor, you get better feedback when you get better feedback. So I think everything is correlated. So I like to think that whatever I do is part of a cohesive puzzle that makes sense to me and that's what matters to me. Stephen Matini: How old are your students on average? Which age group do you teach to?  Paolo Gallo: I do executive education. So I used to do undergraduates, I now do executive education, executive education, it really depends, but probably people between late thirties to early fifties. So people between, I dunno, let's say 12, 15, 20 years experience, they want to go to the next phase, they want to go deeper in certain topics and I kind of enjoy because these people already had a significant portion of their professional life behind their back and saw the very deep and meaningful conversation about problem. I've learned all the time by talking to them, next time actually be on Tuesday when I will be talking to 270 people in Milan and I have two hours, but I always say two people I want to have half of the time for questions. Anytime I give a speech, I say, I don't mind if you give me three hours. I'm not going to talk for three hours. That's a long one. But I want to have a list time of half of the time are located for my contribution for questions because question is a way to reflect and to also understand if whatever you said has an impact on the people that are listening. Stephen Matini: What is the question that you hear more frequently from your audience about career, career alignment and such?  Paolo Gallo: Well, listen, several of won, but if I go back to the book that's been just released, The Seven Games of Leadership, it has been released in October and I've done so far about 22 or 23 presentations now this book and quite lot of people, they were quite well prepared and already read the book. And what I love is when somebody believes that what is written is being meaningful to him or to her, not because they fell in love with the line with a quote or with the lyrics, but because bingo, that's exactly where I am right now. To give us specific example in The Seven Games (of Leadership), that is what I believe is the most difficult game of all, which is a crisis game. And the crisis game is a moment that usually occurs in your mid forties, but it could be a little bit earlier, a little bit later where you scratch your head and you're thinking, do I want to do the next 20 years of my life the way I did the last 20? So in soccer terms, do I want to play the second half the way I played first? Usually the answer is no, I don't. I want to do something different, but I still have not figured it out what it is. So what really gives me joy is when people read the book or maybe listen one of my speeches or read one of my articles and come back to me, say what was written is exactly the way I feel and therefore there is a validation not about the validity of my book, but the validity of the instruments that offer to the readers. And this is a moment where I feel that whatever I'm doing makes sense not only to me but also to other people. Stephen Matini: Do you remember the time when you got the first spark about this book, The Seven Games of Leadership?  Paolo Gallo: Yes. I mean, of course. I shared the story at the beginning of the book where I always asked my daughter, she's now 18, what have you learned in your school. Two years ago over Christmas holidays? She said, daddy, but you've been asking me this question for many, many years now it's my turn. What have you learned.  And I said, shit, that's a powerful question. So I asked a little bit of time to reflect, and then I told her the story and she said, daddy, I love your story. Why don't you write a book about it? And that's why I wrote this book. What I told her is to say, listen, I met thousands of people in my life now in my professional life, in interviews, seminars, workshops, coaching webinars or whatever, and that's been wonderful. But what I realized that I did not meet a thousand of people. I had the same conversation a thousand of times because certain topics, certain challenges comes regardless of any of the variable, okay? So you can be a banker in Switzerland, you can be agriculture specialist in Washington, DCO, you can be an engineer or consultant in whatever company. There are issues that comes up regardless of the job that you're doing. And as reflecting about the conversation, the topics, I realized that were seven clusters of issues that came up. And I noticed that there was a sequence in these conversations, and rather than call them phases, which is a kind of a Jung definition, I call them “games,” because every game implies the understanding of the rules and the capacity to go from one to the other because you cannot get stuck in one game from all the entire life. So I was triggered by a conversation with my daughter and then the rest followed up based on my reflection and some hard work to come up with that book. Stephen Matini: What would you say that is the biggest difference in terms of leadership, what we need today from a leader, compared to what the need for leadership used to be, I don't know, 20 years ago?  Paolo Gallo: When I proposed my book to Bloomsbury, they asked a very good question and the question was, Paolo, do we need another book about leadership? And the answer is no, probably not, because there are thousand of them every year, millions. If you write leadership on Google, you have a 15 million century and definition, the stories are so different. So should I add another one to the very crowded and intense topic? But I also realize as I've been working and studying leadership for many years, and I think I've worked with a lot of leaders and them, you have three school of thoughts when it comes to leadership. One school of thoughts is tell you what the leader should be doing. And so it is a focus on the deliverables, and this books are very technical. They focus on KPIs and business models and this kind of stuff. The second school of thought is to say, actually this is what the leader should be. And so you described some ideal behavior, probably more meaningful to me than the former one, but at times is a bit aspirational. And at times also they indicate stuff that very difficult to reconcile and quote an article, let’s say a leader should be somebody with 30 years of eyes on, but being able to get a profit every quarter, which is kind of difficult to being able to reconcile. The third school of thoughts that I saw is you take a leader and you describe what he or she has been doing, and they say, just do what Steve Jobs has been doing and you'll be fine. That's very interesting to read, but the contest is completely different, your brain is completely different and it's very difficult to say you can be the new Michael Jordan, if I'm telling you about the life of Michael Jordan. I mean it's difficult to get there. But what we realize that there are very little, if nothing, except in other disciplines like psychology or other discipline, they said, how do you grow as a leader? What I mean by as you grow as a leader is not how you become from manager to director to director to vice president to vice president to managing director. Now it's how you grow as an individual, which is a prerequisite for you to be a leader. And I haven't found a lot on that topic. So I wanted to fill this gap by saying, listen, if you want to have a to do list, it's not my book. If you want to be list, maybe there's some element of it, but it's not there. If you want to see the autobiography of the story of a very famous individual, there are plenty up there. I'm trying to help you out in understanding what could be or would be your journey for you to understand where you are and for you to reflect and perhaps to continue your journey with your own thinking legs and critical thinking. That's the overall purpose of this book. Stephen Matini: Is it connected to what we said at the very beginning of our conversation, the meaning and the importance of knowing your purpose?  Paolo Gallo: Yeah, I mean that to me is very important because I'm a very simple guy. I mean in a very humble and genuine way. When I say simple, it means stupid. It means I've clarity about what is essential. And to me, I always ask myself, when a nice people, when are you at your best and which activity when you perform, you lose track of the time, when you are in the zone, and you see with kids, kids when they play, they even forgot to eat and they even forgot to go to the toilet because they're so focused in the device, doesn't matter. And it's a beautiful things to watch because they're so into the game, they don't care about everything that is around them. Okay, why? Because they're freaking focused. And let's go back to the beginning of this conversation. So then when you ask the question about when are you at your best, I realize that I'm going to be best when I have a total autonomy of my time. And two, when am I helping organization teams of people to grow. So I realized that if I were to do an activity where I can do this with autonomy, then I will be at my best. And why not your best? You produce wonderful results, and when you produce wonderful results, people come to you and you don't have to worry about money. But if you start by thinking, oh, I want to make a list of 10,000 per month, and you start to devise a way of tricking people, it just doesn't work. I'm pushing people to think, when are you at your best? When you lose track of time, when you find the energy to do it? And equally, what are the sort of activity just thinking about makes you sick, tired, disgusted, bored, annoyed or disengaged? Because focus on the stuff that gives you energy and then you probably have a direction of your personal and professional life. Stephen Matini: I really do believe that if we focus a hundred percent on our truest talent, what makes us happy, that's usually where you find all the solutions. It's just that for myself, that happened later on in life. If I'd known that at twenty, probably I would've made different types of decisions I think. Paolo Gallo: The day before yesterday spent one hour with the daughter of very d friend of ours that is struggling on that decision, and I realized that was a huge amount of anxiety and pressure related to her decision about her professional life. What I found helpful is to remove elements that pollute in your decision making because they're not essential in your final decision. Let me give you an example. This is a person that has brilliant, severe, she's speak three languages. She worked for six or seven years. She's now in her early thirties and she doesn't know what to do next. And one question is maybe another MBA or maybe completely change sector. So there were a lot of stuff, and she has an element about logistic, about should I be stay in England or go to another place? One element about what's about my boyfriend, we love each other and I don't want to be distanced. One element about finance to say, well, some of the MBA are very expensive and I can't really afford or maybe ask for more money to my family. Some element about should I been able to do maybe work? And B, at the same time, there was a lot of stuff that is very difficult to reconcile. So I'm asking people to say, remove what is not essential. I'm not saying the money is not essential, but you should not get married with somebody because maybe he has available by the sea. No, you should be married with the person because you love it. No, if there is also available by the sea, even better, but should not be the decision that drives your final outcome. So when something creates anxiety, usually is because there are too much stuff to handle at the same time and you have to remove stuff from, it's like when you put things in order in your bedroom on your dining, no, you have to remove stuff and then all of a sudden you have clarity when you focus on something that is very meaningful. And one it exercise that I ask people to do is exercise or visualization. So close your eyes and you open your eyes and you have a day in front of you, which day do you want to have? And if the answer is, I hate thinking about going to university, then issue is not the money. You don't want to go there. But if the answer is Jesus, I mean I really would love to learn more about artificial intelligence and I dunno anything and I'm fascinated by this topic, et cetera, then you have an indication that perhaps this is a good avenue. So in decision making, most of the time we feel blocked because the decision is, I'm going to say a funny word, is constipated by too many staff, the blocking the fluidity of your thinking. So remove stuff that are important to consider but not essential on the first place. And then step by step, you can end up having a much better decision making if you have a methodology that allows you to drive a decision in a meaningful way. Stephen Matini: So as of today, what is your definition of clarity? How would you define what clarity is?  Paolo Gallo: Perhaps by understanding what is not essential? And what I mean by this is I just been to a restaurant with a friend and you go through the list, they say, no, no, no, no, and then you realize what you like. To me, it's also clarity about what you're not good at. It's clarity about what you're not interested in doing, in the capacity, as I wrote in my book also to let go certain things that are perhaps not relevant anymore. Let me provide an example because again, I always love giving examples. When I was a in human resources at the EBRD European Bank for Reconstruction Development, I set up a group for the head of human resources of international organizations. And so in 2004, I organized the first meeting of head of human resources and there was a success and there were about 60 of them coming from all over the globe, head of human resources for international organization like ... , the World Bank, the IMF, the United Nation, the NATO, et cetera, et cetera, WTO, WHO and ILO, and this kind organization. Great. And the second year I was the keynote speaker. I was at the board and for about 16 or 17 years, I've been participating as a founder with another guy called Pierre of that group. Then I left, stopped being head of human resources in 2018. And on LinkedIn I saw that these former colleagues of mine were organizing a meeting and I wasn't invited. And part of me was very disappointed and very hurt by the fact that, look, I've been the founder, I created this group and now they don't even acknowledge that I created and I don't even invite me. So I was upset for a good couple of weeks. Then one day I thought, but I'm going to say Palo, you have decided to do something else in life. You have decided to be an independent thinker, to be a writer or a professor, author, et cetera, et cetera. You have removed your T-shirt with head of your resources, why you even care? And so this clarity of what is not essential helps to be focused on what it is. But if you don't have that clarity, you may regret that, oh my God, I'm not part of the group, but part of the group was part of our role that I decided not to have anymore. And therefore, clarity about what is not essential usually helps in understanding what you're to focus on. Stephen Matini: Do you ever get confused or fuzzy about what to do next? Or are you always clear?  Paolo Gallo: I’m clear after the confusion. What I mean by this is, and I'll give you maybe another example, mindful that you are close to the end of this conversation now. When I stopped being an HR director and I became an independent consultant, coach, also a professor, whatever you want to say, I use this analogy, which is I felt that I opened an ice cream shop with 50 flavors because I was able to do many things following 30 years of experience and studies and MBAs and blah, blah. I made available a lot of services to a lot of people, but then ended up doing coaching with one person, the revision of a performance management process to another organization, developing a leadership development for another one, doing a workshop for somebody else and teaching the university. There was a lot of stuff going on. So it was a bit of a confusing moment for me. But then at the end I said, okay, if I were to have an ice cream shop and now summer is over and I closing the ice cream shop, what did I learn by looking at the clients that came to my shop? And I realized that most of the clients wanted to have three or four flavors. I mean, nobody want to have a banana ice cream, but everybody want to have a chocolate ice cream. So what does it mean to me? It mean that clarity about what the clients wants to have first point. The second one is interested in developing the best chocolate ice cream in the world. If the answer do it and dismantle and stop producing banana cream in, the answer is no. Maybe you suggest somebody else for the chocolate ice cream, but you produce something that is still relevant for the client. So what I'm trying to say is confusion is part of the creativity process, but you need to have a methodology for you to say, what did I learn by listening, by working and by being in different debates with different people. And then you can have clarity about what did I learn at the end of the season? So what did I learn by listening these people? And if 80% of the clients asking three things, then preparing 47 dishes makes no sense. I think it's much better to prepare four dishes and do it brilliantly well. And that's pretty much part of the learning process that I've learned when I became an independent consultant by say, I don't want to have a menu with a 75 items. I want to do four things, but incredibly well. And if somebody called me to say, Paolo, can you do a performance management or bonus system? I know how to do it, but I'm not interested in do it, and I have people that can do better than me. And so I call this guy, I need to sell this and call our, call this company. They can do better what I can do, but from the average plus. But these people will do a super job. But if you want to have a super job, please ask me these three things and I'll deliver it to you. So confusion is a necessary part of the creative process provided that you have a process perhaps to provide clarity at the end of this confusion, Stephen Matini: This conversation is a delight Paolo, I really love it.

Our guest today is Dr. Marcia Reynolds, one of the most influential figures in the coaching world. She has contributed to the industry through groundbreaking books Breakthrough Coaching and Coach the Person, Not the Problem. How do you make time for learning and growth with a jam-packed schedule? When we stop learning, challenges feel like giant puzzles. To succeed in the many facets of life, Dr. Reynolds encourages us to make learning a core value. Lifelong learning is not about seeking perfection but the journey of a lifetime. Dr. Marcia Reynolds suggests “wandering” as the mindset of curiosity where we ask questions, challenge assumptions, and remain open to learning from others. Despite years of experience or expertise, it’s vital to maintain a humble attitude and acknowledge that mastery is an ongoing journey that unlocks endless potential. Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music or your favorite pocast platform. Please check Dr. Marcia Reynolds' groundbreaking books Breakthrough Coaching and Coach the Person, Not the Problem and use the affiliate links to support Pity Party Over at no additional cost to you. How have you carved time for learning in your busy schedule? Leave your comments, thank you! Subscribe to Pity Party Over for more insightful episodes. Questions? Email Stephen or send him a message on LinkedIn. #MarciaReynolds #Covisioning #Coaching #Curiosity #GrowthMindset #Learning #PityPartyOver #Podcast #Alygn #StephenMatini TRANSCRIPT Stephen Matini: Have you always been this way? Has it gotten easier to be a learner as you mature? Are you more of a wanderer today compared to the way it used to be? I mean, how does this work? Marcia Reynolds: Those are kind of two separate questions and as you ask the question about learning, it's almost like for different purposes at different times in my life. But I do have a value for learning and I don't know if that's an inherent value or inherited value you because it was, you know, a very important part of my culture that we get educated and we learn things and we question, which I really love that I was taught very young to question not just accept always. I can remember that wanting to just hunger to learn more about this. If I hear something I wanna know more. I don't wanna just take it at face value. But the look of learning, you know, has changed over the years. I mean younger, you know, is pursuing lots of degrees and I think if I was independently wealthy, I would continue to do that. I was blessed with liking school, not all the teachers, but, liking to be there and have access to things that I wouldn't normally have for myself for learning now, you know, it's very focused because I really want to, I'm so focused on coaching and understanding how coaching works so we can do it better and better that the learning is down a lane, but it's still there. I'm still like hungry to learn, but just for different purposes. I think though the, the important thing is that it is a true value, not just something I have to do, I need to do. I like it. So to really commit to learning, even if you don't quite like researching, what is it that would be most fascinating to you that you'd just like to know a little bit more? You know? So go down a path like I've now narrowed my path. It's not learning in general, but learning for purpose. Stephen Matini: When people, sometimes that happens to me. When people tell you, I don't have time to learn, I'm so busy, what would you tell them? Marcia Reynolds: Well, first I would ask them, so what does learning mean to you? You know, because obviously you have a picture in your head of what learning is, is maybe like sitting somewhere and reading books and maybe you don't have time for that or going to school. But if learning is just going places and listening, like last night I went to just an hour class, you know, that I wouldn't normally do. I usually would sit and watch TV. But I went to this and it was fascinating. It was an area that I would not even have normally thought about, but it sounded interesting. Last week I attended a discussion group. It was a dinner meetup discussion group, and we ate and, and talked about certain topics and I got to meet people. So you can combine learning with networking, even in a meeting at work to sit there and to question what has led them to believe that help me to understand and maybe ask to meet with them later. Could you tell me what were the things that led for you to believe that that decision was most correct? I'm just really interested in your perspective. So being interested in a perspective is even learning. So what is it that would be useful for you to know a little bit more about and you know, how could you then engage people in a way that you could learn without, you know, having to go somewhere to get it? Stephen Matini: Have you noticed over the years a change in the way people approach learning? Marcia Reynolds: Well, as you were saying that it, it sounds to me there's a connection with, I think I don't have time, so whatever it is you give me make sure that I can use it right away. Although I'm not so sure that's new. Being that I was, you know, used to run training departments and my second master's is an instructional design, it was always how can you make this applicable? That's nice if they enjoy just sitting and listening to you talk. But if it doesn't change what they do is there an ROI? But I know that over the years, like even yesterday, coaching.com is changing their summits and she says, we decided we need to do it more workshop. You know, where people are engaged and they're doing things and they know then how to use it when they leave. I think there's more of a demand to interact. We've always known that was important to learning, but I think there's more of a demand for interaction so I can apply it now. So it's just an evolution. I don't see it as a change. Even my book that's coming out in a few weeks, it's kind of like the next version of coach the person, but there's far more resource tools and exercises and you know, it's an interactive guide. It's something that you work with. That's how people get the concepts of what I'm trying to teach, you know? So even I went that way with writing the book to make sure that there was more things that they could actually engage in and do mostly with others, but even with themselves. And there's questions all through it. Not just to ask when you're coaching, but to ask yourself, am I willing to give up being the expert in this situation in order to engage and coach people in a different way no matter what. Whether it's, you know, being a leader or part of a family, I think the who are you is really important. So I do see engaging people's minds and their doing as becoming more and more forefront in how we teach. Stephen Matini: Because you've been around coaching for such a long time and you're still so deeply passionate about it. What is coaching to you today compared to, I don't know, maybe five, 10 or 15 years ago? Marcia Reynolds: I signed up for a coaching school in 1995. And so I've been learning and coaching for quite some time. In working with coaching.com or taking my foundational breakthrough coaching program and making it self-study, I had to sit and watch 32 coaching demos that I did since 2020. It was torture. But what was fascinating to me to see even my evolution from 2020 to now, so, you know, and I've been coaching over two decades that I'm still, you know, learning and growing and that I went from coaching 40 minutes to now I 15 minutes and we're like, breakthrough and done, you know? But I found that the real shift was when I really stepped into that being that I'm totally curious about this person's way of seeing and the questions that come from me is, is my being of being with them as a thinking partner of fully stepping into that and not being the expert and not being the person who needs to lead them in any direction, but really, really, really, I'm gonna help you think. And so every reflection and question I use comes out of this interaction. We have to explore their thinking and as they explore their thinking, it expands. You know? And the more that I believed in that and, and was just that, you know, just blended into that being the more profound the coaching was, you know, it went deeper faster and it created insights that changed their minds and how they were gonna do things in a much quicker, memorable, sustainable way. You know? And so I think as in anything we learn, you know, the foundational skills you have to do that. And then we're much more deliberate and conscious, consciously aware of what we're doing. And as we get better at it, it starts to sink in and we don't have to think about it. And to the point where I can finally create a collective space with this person, that what shows up in between us in our conversation is what's incredible to both of us. It takes belief, it takes trust, and it takes practice. And I fortunately have been around long enough that I've been able to really get that into my bones. But I in the process, continue to learn what that means. You know, what exactly is am I doing? I'm not sure, but let me see if I can parse it out so I can then write about it and share it with other coaches so they get it, you know, in service of what, it's been a an incredible journey and I'm, I can't wait to see three years from now how different I'm coaching than even now. Stephen Matini: When you look back to your career as a coach, is there one specific contribution or client or something that you are super, super proud of? Marcia Reynolds: There's always this one woman that comes to mind that she was tough. You know, she was resistant. She'd get angry with me, but I just stayed in in that what I did was just ask her a question. And I knew that the question I was asking, I wasn't leading, but I knew it would challenge, but I had the courage to ask it anyway. She needed to explore this, you know, if we were gonna go any deeper, this was a block. It was interesting because the day we started, she was like, and she worked for a global pharmaceutical and I'm like, so what is it that that you really want to that create from our relationship? She goes, I need to change positions. I should be CEO of this company and they don't get it. And then she was like, I think I need to leave because they don't understand me. And I just said, we've got six months here. Could you gimme that that we could explore this? 'cause I would really like you to, to absolutely choose where you're going based on your needs instead of leaving behind what you don't like. And she did and we explored what, who she was as a leader and what was really possible and what she wanted to create. And after that she ended up running a medical clinic and then ended up being the head of health and human services for one of our states here. And the next time I saw her, she had her limo pick me up at the airport. So I would say that that was a great, great thing 'cause she would've just leaped to some other job. You know, this comes back way back to when you mentioned about wandering. You know, you can wander with intention to the next challenge or you wander because you can't stand what's going on right now. But you know, when you first asked me the question I'm like, wow, there's so many, you know, like the woman that was a general manager that they were divesting her division, she wanted to be CEO of, of the new company and she ended up getting the position. They hadn't weren't looking at her that way when we started. So there's been quite a few shifts. Many of them been women I've, you know, coached men into seeing themselves as the leader that's going to really create a difference, you know, which is different than what they thought they were going to be. I've done a lot of that too. So there's a lot of moments I'm proud of, you know, but there have been some profound accomplishments, I, promotions, accomplishments, being that people have done, even the ones that have decided that it was time to move on. I coached a bank president for eight years that now runs a stitchery shop and she's happy as can be. So I think that's why I'm so passionate about coaching is that there's all these ways that we affect people's lives without telling them what to do. You know, or giving them our best advice that they discover, created, have the courage to go there is just always so delightful to observe, you know? And to have the privilege to be a part of that process is just amazing. Stephen Matini: Delightful and privilege are beautiful words to describe that feeling. Do you still, probably not, but do you still ever get anxious about, okay, I have to be present, but I need to perform? Or at this point you just are? Marcia Reynolds: For the most part, I don't think when I'm coaching, so it's not really there, you know, when I'm working with coaches, doing demos, teaching, and even when I'm hired by companies, it seems to be not a problem anymore. I don't question it sometimes when I've had individuals hire me, you know, and there seems to be an expectation. I just had a request just this week and the person he described is like incredible. And, and I really thought, am I gonna be able to just let go of being in awe of this person and challenging when the challenge needs to happen? Am I gonna be able to do that? And I'm glad I'm asking the question because if I don't feel I can do that, then I can't coach the person. But it is interesting when it does , it's like, okay, so what about this intimidates me that normally, you know, anything else wouldn't, but it still comes up Stephen Matini: What's mastery to you? Because we love to learn, learn. So do you ever reach mastery or it's just this thing that you try to achieve and never get? Marcia Reynolds: Well, you know, it's interesting in, I think it was 1999, the ICF pulled together who they thought were the hundred top thought leaders in coaching at the time, but it was, so it was quite a while ago. And we met in Vancouver and they broke into tables. And my table had that got that question, is there a destination? What is mastery to coaching? And what we all agreed to was that it's not a destination. You're always on a path of mastery. It's not a path to mastery. One of the people, Richard Heckler, is a multiple black belt Aikido. And I took Aikido for five years and we talked about, you know, in martial arts you never are the master. It's always a path of mastery. There's always more to embed and to develop and to be that. Maybe there are a few masters, but even they will tell you that they're still learning. And so I think that when you look at that concept, that's the same with coaching. If you feel you've made it, I mean, it's like the, the whole thing. There's no such thing as a comfort zone. You're either moving forward or you fall backwards. So, you know, I think that's the same thing and that I get a lot of comments from experienced coaches on my demos and LinkedIn and you know, that attend my classes and they say, wow, I had forgotten. You know, I got to a a a bit of complacency thinking, okay, I am a great coach now. And then watching you going, oh my , there's so much more. And people always say to me, I mean, they may call me a master. I'm like, no, no, no, I'm on the path too. And I have the, the great honor to teach it, which keeps me learning and growing as I have to learn more. Like I said, I, I'm doing this mastery program, it's gotta be different. When I first did this, a man who's become a friend of mine, his name is Alan Briskin, and he wrote a book in 1990 called The Stirring of the Soul in the Workplace. And that was pretty out there for 1990. And I remember I was running a training department for semiconductor company and I remember finding that book and like, oh my, that's what happens often in the corporate world, is the soul gets degraded or lost. I followed his work and then when I first published with my publisher, we had a retreat and there he was because he worked with my publisher and we've become friends. He's written a number of books on collective wisdom. It was at the beginning of the pandemic. I hired him. I said, Alan, I really wanna bring collective wisdom to coaching, so I wanna hire you. And he says, well, I'm not gonna consult with you. We're gonna have 90 minute dialogues. And what comes out of the dialogue is going to be whatever it is you learn. Exactly. You know, it's like coaching. Yeah. You know, I'm not gonna tell you what to do, so let's just have this conversation and see what emerges. It was fascinating. We did this like twice a week for three months. I mean, I so look forward to it of what came out of it.   And he said too, how much he learned. 'cause He didn't know that much about coaching and everything that we'd talk about. I'd say, okay, so let me put this in a coaching context. He was just so fascinated about that. So I didn't go to a coach, guru master, I went to someone else who I saw had mastery in something that we could use in coaching. There's so much of that that exists, you know, I mean even like there's that one coaching school that uses a lot of Buddhist thought. You know, there's so much more in disciplines and modalities that we can take from and integrate to deepen the impact we have in coaching. Obviously I'm fascinated by, you know, okay, so what's next? There's never an end point. I think we'd get bored if there was. Stephen Matini: At the beginning you said that being a learner and a wonderer, those are two different separate questions. So who is the wonderer then? Marcia Reynolds: So when I was getting my doctorate and it came time to do my dissertation, you know, I went in to learn the whole neuroscience of learning and leading. But everything I wanted to do, I thought, I'll never finish this in, in this lifetime, you know, and I understand why a lot of people are a, b, D that never finished their dissertations, you know? And I was sitting and listening to this man speak and he was talking about the difference of men and women in the workplace. And he was so wrong. You know, as he described women, I'm like, that's not me and that's not the women I coach. I you don't have a clue. Then I went out and I started researching and you know, they were defining women and their challenges all the same. We don't speak up, we don't lean in, blah blah. Which is, you know, some women don't, but a lot of them do way too much. So I chose to research smart, strong women in the workplace. And what I found with the hundred women in my research study, the most common thing was that they wandered, they'd go into a job and within a couple years, you know, they were excited. A couple years they were bored, not enough challenges, not enough places to move unless it was a huge global company and they could maybe do some lateral moves, weren't that interested in climbing a ladder. They were interested in movement and learning and growth and that it had to be significant, it had to be meaningful. And I was talking to a man that works with archetypes and he said, oh, they're wanders, you know? And I'm like, oh my, I'm a wander. I did the same thing. I would go only stay with a company five years, you know, went from this to this to this jumped industries. I didn't care. If I had no idea what, what the company did, I'd figure it out, you know? And then I wrote the book Wander Woman, based on my research and from the book, a lot of people came to me and even, you know, a lot of the younger generation of men saying we do that too, you know, like maybe our fathers would stay with with organizations for a very long time. So there wasn't a stereotype that it was just women. But I think women still do it more when I'm finding my coaching, that they're more willing to leave and trust that they'll find something that they're not going to like, not have anything. And so wandering, it isn't just a learning and and wandering in my mind being me, it's actual physical wandering, you know, the whole been there, done that, what's next for me to learn and to grow. Yeah, learning has something to do with it. But again, because learning is a little bit more, you know, mental, where the wandering is physical. It's so funny because when I talk to people and in my mind I'm like, oh, you're a wanderer. And I remember him making the distinction. There are settlers that will go in and create amazing things and then stay, you know, like some of your major CEOs and then they stay, they settle. So there are settlers instead of wanderers. And not that they settle, you know, but that they settle in to what they have created and they wanna stay with that. More wanderers is like, I go there, I create great things and now it's time for me to move on. I did until I found coaching. But even with coaching, I couldn't sit and just coach all day, like some people do. I do a lot of training. For many years I did a, before the pandemic, I did a lot of speaking at conferences, writing and there's many times where I'm just sitting and writing. So there's a lot of wandering to what I do within this business that I've created. So it keeps me going and I'm creating new programs this year, you know, and it's like, okay, so you said you're in your fifties, I'm 68, you know, it's like, well is there gonna be a time I slow down? And I keep thinking, yeah, I think there will be, but I don't know when , you know, because it's still so fascinating. There's so much to learn. Stephen Matini: Do you prefer coaching over other tools or you like them all? You like training just as much as coaching, just as much as writing, speaking, or do you have a preference? Marcia Reynolds: I do like writing. For many, many years I was a writer, teacher when I first came into coaching, when people would ask me, it was very difficult for me to say I'm a coach. I do like coaching, but I think I like writing and teaching. Writing to me is sharing. It's not like just sitting down and writing a fiction book. It's what I see is needed. When I teach, let me write about it. To me, they kind of go together. I do not like sitting and doing all my teaching by Zoom. So the pandemic like killed some of that. Oh yeah. I love to teach, well not 3, 4, 5 hours by Zoom, you know, at some point that's gonna be done with either, you know, I do it live 'cause I prefer to do it live. I'm fine with tr People are like, oh, you can stay home now. It's like, no, I don't wanna stay home . I wanna be out in the world with people. So I prefer, you know, live training, writing and live training. But then I'm always doing a coaching demo in every program that I do pretty much. And so I guess you'd still say I coach, you know, when I teach, so it kind of blends together, you know, a lot of times when I speak and they're like, so tell us something that people wouldn't know about you. Well, most people wouldn't know this, actually, I think the last 10 years of my corporate life was, I wrote Fiction, you know, I've got like three books up on a shelf, maybe one day I'll pull 'em out and fix 'em up, update 'em in a little bit. That was the way I dealt with my stress level of, of working and primarily male tech companies where I was often the only woman in the room and I'm not a big person. I had to be loud and annoying and all of that , you know, so I get it. It was like such a a, a nice escape to write the fiction. Stephen Matini: You think it's possible for an executive, let's say CEO, to be a learner and a wonderer? Because those people to me, I work with, a lot of them are big loners oftentimes, you know, very much misunderstood. Oftentimes they cannot share a lot of stuff, a lot of pressure, and they have to produce results. So is it possible for them to really have a learning and, and a wonder, a mindset. Marcia Reynolds: Under mindset? Well, you know, it's interesting 'cause a lot of it was over the pandemic. I was coaching a number of executives in this company and the CEO I wasn't coaching him, but every now and then he reached out to me and said, you know, I've just been reading this book and I it could we just talk about it? You know, and he was all over the place and what he would read and you know, but you're right, he didn't have anyone to talk about it. But what often would happen was his exploration then would create a little bit of conflict of values with what had to be done in, in the company. And so part of it was having to resolve that I cannot live by the values that seem to be developing and coming through me and work with these people. So again, it comes back to the concept of what is learning. In my last company, one of the reasons I, I attribute my success to is to this champion I had when I started. We had a program together, he was like the head of quality and he quickly moved into being a director and then in our time together a vp and now he's like the senior vp and you know, he to the CEO and a huge company, we would argue a lot. But in the service of learning what he loved, to really dig deep into what it was I was teaching. I remember this one other VP said to me, I think I wanna support what you're talking about, but honestly I have no idea what you mean. This other guy would like, I'm not sure what you mean, like, can we like explore this? And so it was like two different ways of looking at it. I don't know what that means. So I'm not gonna spend time with it or I dunno what that means, you know, help me understand, you know. So it's a different thing that I even think when le leaders really get into a coaching approach with people that what they're doing is an active learning process. See, I see coaching as a learning technology. I do not see it as productivity, problem solving therapy. I don't see it. I see it as a learning technology, you know, and that was what my research has been since the late eighties is on learning the creative insights that we spark. It's a middle band process. It changes perspective and creates sustainable change. And in learning, that's what we're looking for is how do we create sustainable change? That's what companies want. But it comes a a a lot out of curiosity just to start there for a leader to turn to someone and say, you know, that's interesting that you're saying that you don't think that this has a long-term sustainability. So tell me what sustainability means to you. That's a coaching approach to get the person starting to think about what they just said. But it also gives the leader a chance to look at maybe there's a different way this person is seeing this than I do. So we kind of learn together. So just asking, what do you mean by that helps us both to learn in that moment that we can possibly expand our perspective or at least understand what's going on in a different way. You know? And then getting into, so what are the things that you considered that led you to believe this, you know, would be a second question, which again makes them think about it. You know, maybe they haven't considered everything. And also for you to see as a leader, what are some things maybe I didn't see, you know? So again, we learned together just by those two questions, what do you mean by that? What did you consider to bring you to this point, to this belief, to this decision? Powerful stuff in just two questions. Stephen Matini: So you say coaching, it's a learning technology for sustainable change. So of all the possible words that you could have chosen, why did you choose technology and sustainability and sustainable? Marcia Reynolds: Well, again, remember that I come out of 11 years of working in the tech world. So it's part of my language. So as a technology, I like it better than a methodology. 'cause The word method then is very limiting. Where I think a technology is really an overall process and that I see it as a part of learning. And that the technology of learning sustainability is because that's the word, you know, again, in in especially in the tech world, they're looking for sustainable change. Sustainable change, what creates sustainable change. And in learning, that's what we're looking for. You know, people can come into my class and at the end give me all the happy faces and say, oh this was so fabulous, I love this. They try a new communication technique or something and it feels awkward. They go back to old behavior. So what's going to jump over that block that it feels weird. I'm not going to do it, you know, because I'm the leader and I should be perfect or whatever that is. And so I find that coaching bypasses that and gives them a little bit even more courage and confidence to stick with what they've learned until it becomes a part of who they are. In that sense, it creates a sustainable change. 'cause I'm working with who you are, not just what you do, which is what creates the change. Now I'm not talking about skill-based learning, you know? 'cause That's a different thing. I, I see you do it, I try it and then I do it myself. That's, you know, a standard. See, do try, do whatever. Talking about like leadership and personal growth, Stephen Matini: You published several books and now in a few weeks a new book is gonna come out. Do you feel as excited as other times? Is it different this time? How do you feel? Marcia Reynolds: It's different in the sense that coach the person is such a huge success. My previous books have done well and they still sell, but coach the person was off the charts. One of my is now one of my publishers bestsellers, you know, and so I, it there's both the, okay, so most of the people that bought that, it's gonna buy the next one. So it should do well. But there's also, what if they don't like it as much as this one ? So there's always the comparison. What if it's not as good as, and I've never met an author that didn't go through the process of while they're writing the book thinking who's gonna read this? Or you know, they're gonna judge this is not good. Or they're gonna see this as it's just replicated what I said before, you know, and all the negative things that people can say about it. You spend a year of your Saturdays sitting in front of a computer creating something and you're like, is it really worth it? You know? Which is just normal process that I think authors always go through. So I'm sitting here now like a few weeks away from the book launch and going, what if it flops not likely to based on the success of Coach the Person. But there's always that question and you know what, so what if it did? The people who will benefit from it will find it. Stephen Matini: What is your biggest hope for this book? Meaning let's say I get your book, I read it. What would you hope for me to get out of the book? What is your hope, your biggest wish? Marcia Reynolds: Well, you know, I think that's what coach the person taught me was that even to this day, every day I get people from around the world connecting with me on LinkedIn saying, I found your book. Oh my God, thank you. I really, really understand coaching now and I've gotten so much better because of your book. And then you know, all the other things that you put out there. I want the same thing that, oh wow, you know, I was really getting it and now I have an even deeper understanding of what it is I'm trying to create and how to do it. I want them to just feel more confident and believe in the coaching process that if we stay in coaching, you know, really being their thinking partner and not revert to, you know, 'cause I always get the question, but what if they really, you know, need me to tell them? What is it that led you to believe that? Most of the time I find people do have the answers inside of them. They're just afraid to apply what they know. That's what we're doing. If somebody had absolutely no, no experience or idea of what something is, then probably they need a little bit more guidance. But even that, I've had like people who were brand new leaders and said, but I've never been a leader before. And I always say, yeah, but have you worked for leaders? Yeah, well what did you like about them? Or what did you hate about some of these leaders? Boom. We get into the conversation. I don't have to tell them what a good leader does. You know, they know, they come from the, I've never done this before. I don't know how, but they do have perspective. You know, can I pull that out first before I assume that they need my brilliant advice, changing their mind, really shift the connections and the neurons is what we're aiming for and telling them, pacifies the brain, you know, we coaching activates the brain. Can I activate their brain? That's what I'm aiming for. Stephen Matini: You know, after an hour of listening to you, now I know why. I have heard about you so many times. You are a goddess. Thank you so much for this lovely conversation and for, for giving me your time because I've learned a lot and even probably more important, I feel peaceful that it is something really valuable when you have the privilege of talking to someone still so young and so curious, but with this amazing experience that you have. And so thank you so much. Marcia Reynolds: Oh, you're so welcome. Thank you. This was really enjoyable for me as well.

Our guest is Prof. Peter Hawkins, a well-known figure recognized for his work in systemic coaching and developing coaching cultures in organizations. Professor Hawkins presents beauty as a transformative force, urging individuals and organizations to align with their core values for a sustainable and harmonious future. Beauty is found in authentic, vulnerable moments and genuine connections between people, emerging through acts of kindness, compassion, and service. Advocating for a move away from transactional leadership, Professor Hawkins calls for a model that recognizes each person's inherent beauty, fostering belonging and mutual respect. Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform. Contact Prof. Peter Hawkins Subscribe to Pity Party Over Sign up for Live Session Managerial & Leadership Development Contact Stephen Matini Connect with Stephen Matini #PeterHawkins #BeautyinLeadershipandCoaching #SystemicCoaching #Purpose #Beauty #SustainableFuture #PityPartyOver #Alygn #StephenMatini TRANSCRIPT Stephen Matini: You are such a prolific author, how did you end up writing so many books? Prof. Peter Hawkins: I started off by writing chapters for books where people said that, well, I write a chapter on this one, the other. And then since then, each of the books that, that I've written is because a real need for a new approach. So my first book, which was around supervision, was because, you know, I'd become a supervisor and discovered there was no real guidance for supervisors and that every supervisor did something different. Thought, well, you know, we need something that kind of puts this together. And then, you know, when I got on to writing about, uh, coaching and systemic team coaching and leadership, it's always because I got to the edge and can't find what I want to learn next. So end up writing it, and by writing I discover what I know, but also I discover what I don't yet know. Writing is a just a lovely practice, as always, discovering. And, and I suppose I've always been an integrationist, wanted to work across disciplines. And so by writing I'm, I'm able to kind of integrate stuff that has come from very different traditions. Stephen Matini: And it's interesting because you are such a big, big, big name in coaching, but your books are infused with, um, so many different ingredients. So they're not just your typical coaching book. And then, um, I remember last time when we talked about your latest book, which I think is, is still has to come out, right? The beauty in leadership and coaching, the way you explain it to me, it seems to be the last discovery in your journey and somehow it puts together all the ingredients that you have found along the way. Prof. Peter Hawkins: Well, it kind of tries to set coaching, leadership, organizational development in, in a larger context, where in that larger context is both on the one hand about evolution and about epistemology, and it's another level about spirituality and ecology. Basically, in that book, I am very much looking at the great challenges that we face as a civilization and saying at root, they are all interconnected and at root, they are all symptoms of the fact that we haven't been able to evolve human consciousness at the speed of which we have changed the earth. So beauty, I am using as energetic force as a guide to help us on the return journey from how we've shrunken our, our consciousness, our way of engaging with the world, from participatory consciousness to collective consciousness. And then the white European world, we, we, in American world, we've, we treated further into from the embodied consciousness to brain consciousness. And then we've retreated even further into left hemisphere. And I'm seeing beauty as a force that awakens us to that which is beyond us, that which comes knocking our door and takes us by surprise. And so the notion of following beauty is awakening, if you like the taking us out of our left hemisphere into our whole brain and add our brain into our, our hearts and our guts and our embodied knowing and back into relationship. Stephen Matini: One thing that I often see particularly business people doing, they tend to focus on business. You know, they're just business. And instead of most of my motivation, most of my creativity, I get it from stepping out the whole realm of, uh, business. And my background is in humanities. So for me, humanities, literature, theater, music, steel, is a huge, huge source of inspiration. And I believe that you and I share some people that are really dear to our hearts. You talked to me about William Blake, you talked about Dante, uh, Rumi. Why are these people so important to you? Prof. Peter Hawkins: First of all, I'm fascinated by you saying about business or busyness. What is business? I'm just interested, what what do we mean by business or what do we mean by organizations? An organization exists because there is a purpose or something that needs doing that requires collaboration. And that collaboration requires organizing. Actually we could say that business is a mode of responding to what's needed and necessary, but it's become an end in itself. So the purpose of the organization is to feed the organization so it can feed the organization so it can feed the shareholders so it can, so there's something wrong with business. We've all got business to do, but the business should never be an end in itself, which is why I also in my books around teams say we shouldn't talk about high performing teams. The goal is not to be a, a successful organization or a high performing team. Prof. Peter Hawkins: Those are a means to an end. And the end is to create beneficial value for all the people your work serves. So trying to get us away from means to purpose is important. And we don't create our purpose. We discover it. And I think that people, you mentioned Dante Mena Ian, Rumi ha real, William Blake Ridge, Shakespeare, , let's bring in some of the great, uh, w Wang Wei, the Great Tang Chinese per they go to Essence, they go to the heart of purpose, and they go beyond the restrictive separating individualism of the modernist western world. They reconnect us. Nna Jin Rumi says, why in the plenitude of God's universe have you chosen to fall asleep in such a small dark prison? And beauty is, if you like, what are the keys to unlock the prison? Stephen Matini: Do you find it hard, easy possible when you work with um, clients, let them enter beauty. Prof. Peter Hawkins: I put it the way around that my job isn't to let them into beauty. My job is to discover the beauty and what they are in them and what they're doing to uncover the beauty. This is there rather than believe that I know where I need to take them. Stephen Matini: It is true when the organization tap into the purpose, the soul, the beauty, that's when magic happens. But in my personal experience, it's not always possible, you know, to unveil it with clients. So when you experience that resistance to change, whichever you want to call it, what do you do? Prof. Peter Hawkins: If a client says to me, uh, but what matters is the bottom line, I would say, so Steven, what is the bottom line? Tell me about the bottom line. If they say, well, it's the, the amount of profit we make at the bottom of the page, I'd say, and, and what is the purpose of that profit? So we can reinvest and what's the purpose of re well so we can make more? They've stopped. At a full bottom, my job is just to Dr. Open the windows to what is beneath that bottom Stephen Matini: With this latest book, what do you hope that readers will take away? Prof. Peter Hawkins: I just received an amazing email this morning from a beautiful black woman in, in in America who just talked about how just reading the first chapter, 'cause I'd used it as a handout on the program, had let her whole body shaking and just brought up so much for her and inspired her to write a poem that she sent me. And honestly, it, it brought me to tears. I just thought if more people have that reaction, it just opened up so much for her in terms of what was buried within her that needed to surface. And if I can help people just open a window to a, to, to a wider perspective, I can help them see beyond our own imprisonment and break out some of the constriction. 'cause if it helps them, then they can help others. If it helps the coaching profession move from being expensive, personal development for the already highly privileged. And it's not about self-improvement, but it's about what is the world knocking on our door asking us to step up to. It can move us from a, a individualistic self-orientation to a service orientation. And not just service of humanity, but service of the more than human world than, than I feel I will have achieved a small part of my business, of the work I'm being asked to do. Stephen Matini: You will have to stay on this planet forever because , there's a terrible need. Prof. Peter Hawkins: All, all our job to do is to do what is responsibility of our generation then to pass the torch on. But you know, the reality is that my generation is passing on a much more depleted and challenged world than we inherited. And that weighs quite large. And I wasn't say on my shoulders, it weighs large in front of me. What is our responsibility in terms of at least doing what we can, what little we can to help the generations that come after us face the bigger challenges that come after us? You know, I spend a lot of time saying to leaders, you know, what are your major jobs as leaders? I I was in South Africa in a very big gathering of MBA alumni from across Southern Africa. And I started my talk 'cause I'd followed a very inspirational South African politician. I just stood up and I said, please stand up. Prof. Peter Hawkins: All those of you in the audience who are responsible for developing the next generation of leaders across Southern Africa. Of the 400, probably about 50 stood up. They were the HR folk. And I said, I don't think you understood my question. Please stand up if you are responsible for, for supporting the next generation of leadership across Southern Africa. I had to ask it three times. And eventually everyone stood up, look around the room. These are the people who are gonna help you and you are gonna help them develop the next generation. So please turn to the person next to you and ask them what do they most need to learn this evening to step up to that responsibility. The phrase I often come back to, and I'm also a lover of Michelangelo and the beauty he liberates. Yes. Although as Warren Bennis points out, we have to remember that the Sistine Chapel was not just done by Michelangelo. Prof. Peter Hawkins: He had a team of 30 people. So he was a great team leader. He was a, a great orchestrator of, of others. It wasn't the work of one genius and he was part of an extraordinary time in community of artists in in Florence. And the line that I often come back to and use with individuals and teams and organizations and communities is what can you uniquely do that the world of tomorrow needs? They don't try and be anyone else because all other places are taken. What is it that can only be done by you? Because nobody occupies the place in the wider interconnected universe that you occupy. There'll never be a another. Stephen, that's one the just things that got me so excited writing this book in the whole billions of years of creation that we know about. That's only what we know about. There's never been a repetition. No, no organism has ever been created the same as a previous one. And when we have children, every child is a surprise. It's not 50% of the father and 50% of the mother is a, it's a unique never having been created being, it's never existed in the whole history of creation. Isn't that a miracle? Stephen Matini: It's an impossible statistical weird thing that happened somehow. Prof. Peter Hawkins: The the line that came to me when I was writing the book is that creation is in love with becoming. So I said that, it goes back to your question about why do I write books? I don't write books to tell people what I know. I write books to take myself to my learning edge and to discover between me and what I'm writing about, what is trying to struggle into consciousness at my best. I don't write them. Stephen Matini: Have you ever felt in your entire life as you were trying to discover something could have been the brand of a book or whichever something you want to achieve. Have you ever felt, God, what if I don't get there? You know, kinda self-doubt. So maybe you didn't feel that the beauty within yourself or somehow at some point you felt, God, I'm lost. I don't know if you ever felt it that way, but if you did, how did you overcome it. Prof. Peter Hawkins: At the end of writing this book? I thought, but I haven't got to what's needed. And then I remind myself that if I stayed with that, I'd never put the book out. I've had my book on leadership team coaching and my book on supervision going to fifth editions, fourth editions. And, and I end up apologizing for what I've written in the earlier editions. You know, because at some point we have to say, well, it's not enough, but is it good enough? Because who said all, all the way to heaven is heaven. And at some level we just have to, to stop trying to be perfect and put out share where we've got to, uh, in the hope that will help other people on the path behind us, but also people alongside us to go further on the path. A lot of our doubts are just ego contortions. Prof. Peter Hawkins: You know, they just take us back into, am I good enough? Or all the internal chat. And I think somewhere to do what we need to do, we just have to say that doesn't really, all that doesn't really matter. Yeah, we, we have to have doubts because that's what leads us into furthering inquiry. And I think certainty is more dangerous than doubt, but doubt can be a interruption when it starts to catches an internal hesitancy and self-doubt. And rather than to say, well actually I need to get on and do what is showing up in front of me is necessary to do Stephen Matini: For me. Probably the one thing that I guess I've learned only later on in my life is the fact that simply because the process is sometimes is not pleasant or doesn't feel pleasant, does not mean it's wrong. Whereas before, you know, when I was much younger, I was all, oh, I should not be feeling this way. You know, if I were really, really good at this, I should not be going down this route. And now I really believe it is a process. And in the process there's space for everything. There's space for moments in which I feel great for, for great, great doubts for sure. Prof. Peter Hawkins: You see, I think the thing that helps me in the moments of doubt weigh down, depressed, is at that moment you can either go into grumble or into gratitude. And if you can, and I can't, I didn't say I can, but if I, I can hold to the path of treating everything that happens, absolutely everything that happens, however awful as a generous lesson from life, I may not like it. I may feel burdened by it, I may feel inadequate to respond. But if it's a generous lesson from life, then it is a gift as well as a burden. Stephen Matini: I do gratitude it, but I also do a lot or feeding myself. Prof. Peter Hawkins: I think it's a deep trust, not my trust in life. Constantly becoming my trust in that is greater than the trust in my own emotional reactiveness. So I always believe life knows better than I do. I think this shouldn't have happened to me, but that's not I gonna achieve anything. Life's decided. That's the next thing I have to deal with. And it's a generous lesson. So the choice I have is do I see it as a generous lesson and learn from it or I do. I see it as some awful thing I'm a victim of. But, but I do have a choice saver. Stephen Matini: Last time when we talked, I asked you what is the opposite of beauty for you? You remember what you said? Prof. Peter Hawkins: I think I probably said, well, at one level it's ugliness. Stephen Matini: Yes. You said, um, it's solipsistic narcissism, you know, dualism you talked about, but ugliness, I think it wraps it up better. Prof. Peter Hawkins: Um, well, well solipsistic narcissism is, is ugly because it fragments us and divides us from that which we are a part of. You know, the the image that came to me just then was, um, Philip Pullman's novels where everybody has an animal Damon that is part of them. And, and they do these experiments to, to s children from their animal being self. It's alongside them, which is what we've all done in the modernist western world. Solipsism is ugly because it is, it's a severing of that which lives in connection and great poetry that we talked about is if you like, sewing us back into connection, it's opening the windows to, to a world beyond. Stephen Matini: Sometimes it does feel that this ugliness is getting more and more and more. And sometimes I do wonder is this because of the fact that we are so hyper connected? Is so we are constantly exposed to a lot of negative type of information. How do you feel about it? I mean, you know, o over the years being someone who has experienced it so much, do you see this ugliness more prevalent today, more dangerous today than it used to be? Or just simply has always been there? Prof. Peter Hawkins: I feel in myself that it is growing the openness that we're talking about, but we need to balance it with, we live in a world where actually a, a smaller percentage of people are dying from wars and murder than ever probably in human history. Number may be greater, but percentages more. And there are ways in which we have become more, more moral. But at the same time, I think over the last 500 years, the modernist revolution of science, secularism, individualism, colonization, capitalists, the trying to control the world around us and the human search for control has created enormous ugliness at the moral level and a world which we have greater mental distress and mentally honest than than ever. And yet we are richer, more affluent, more educated, more educated in knowing about the world and far, far less educated in being in and connected within the world. Stephen Matini: If a young person, let's say someone, a young professionals, you know, 19, 20, 21. So let's say if someone around that age that is kind of trying to figure it out where to go, um, asked you what practical steps can I take, you know, to somehow handle this ugliness, you know, because it is so depressing. What would you say that are steps, you know, some first steps that, that the person can take? Prof. Peter Hawkins: I have people around that age come as wolfers worldwide opportunities on our organic farms and they come and stay with us. And, um, I would say go out and wander through the garden. They wander through the woodlands and just be open to whatever speaks to you. Just listen to the more than human world. Let it be your teacher. Don't try and just master everything. I'd ask 'em about who inspires them and what inspires them. I might ask them. And what do you really love in your life to try and reconnect them to source and away from knowing about? I jokingly say I have wolfers come and stay with us because they fill in the gap between my children and my grandchildren. My children are all in their forties and my grandchildren are between nine and 15. So I just love talking to young people in their twenties. Mind you, I love talking to two year olds, but, uh, or listening to two year olds, Stephen Matini: I am so grateful that I was born in a moment that did not have all these connectivity, didn't have the internet, you know, so it was very much analog. Not because I don't like it, I use it plenty, but I'm glad that I have the perspective. And so I use it a lot. But then there are always moments, usually it towards, at the end of the day, like it, let's say I'm done with computer phone, I mean bye, you know, and for me it's quite easy because I've always done it, but younger people don't have that. I mean, they, they can do exactly what you said, but they grew up in a world in which everything is filtered through technology and that lack of perspective, it must be a little bit difficult sometimes to overcome. Prof. Peter Hawkins: You know, like right now, can we find a, a heart connection even with the, the screen between us? We have to be able to, to hold the imaginal in the digitalized world. Stephen Matini: I agree. It's mostly for me at least, making the effort to drop anything and to really be present with that person and listen, you know, to really to to sense it, to find it, you know? Instead, if I get sidetracked by whatever it might be, you know, I need to get there. I need to reach the goal, I need to do that one. Even now talking to you, I can always make the choice. I'm either, I wanna be feeling grateful of being here with you to enjoy this or be somewhere else, you know? But if I do that, I know that I feel exactly the way you're describing it. Prof. Peter Hawkins: I was looking at, um, the work that Steve March is doing with Athia coaching because I really like the way he talks about the difference between self-improvement and self unfoldment. You know, with young people, we can ask them, what do you wanna be when you grow up? Which is such an unhelpful question. Stephen Matini: I still don't know. Prof. Peter Hawkins: But it is playing to like the words you used earlier. Ambition is unfoldment, is, you know, what, what in you is struggling to come into flowering? Where do you see life asking you to become more than you currently are? These are so much ritual ways of engaging, then goal centered. What do you want to achieve? You know, if I ask my grandchildren when they're nine or 10, if they're boys, they'll say, I wanna, I wanna play in the premiership as a footballer. If they're girls, they'll say, I want to be a pop singer. We can guarantee that uh, 990,000 of a million or whatever will, will be disappointed. , how can we get back to the love of playing? And if you do end up playing professionally or you know, that's fine, but actually the love is for the craft. Stephen Matini: So it's about discovering and as you are discovering, enjoying the process. Prof. Peter Hawkins: It's more than that, isn't it? It's about loving the work. It's about loving not just the person you are coaching, but loving all the, all the people that their work serves, their community and the world beyond them. And loving what shows up through all of that, which is beyond the people. It's, that's why I go to beauty. It's about loving what shines through the team, the organization, the which is what, what, what, what's beyond the top level? Stephen Matini: It just, the beauty is a word that I don't think I've ever heard in the world of, uh, how you say busyness, usually. But it's a beautiful world. I mean, I cannot think of a better word to express what you're saying. Prof. Peter Hawkins: In one part of the book, I quote Samuel Taylor Ridge's, perm of the Ancient Mariner. And this perhaps ties up a number of things we've talked about because the ugliness of narcissistic solipsism, you know, the ancient mariner, you know, he shoots the albatross. He destroys this beautiful bird that hangs around his neck and one by one all, all the other sailors die of, of plague. And they, they look at him that his shooting of the bird has caused it. And he is left totally alone and cursed and weighed down in this solipsistic narcissistic world. And then he sees the sea snakes under the boat. He talks about all, all alone from the wide seas. And then he sees the sea snakes and there's this lovely line where he says about their colors and their, the light on them. And, and I blessed them unawares. He didn't choose to see their beauty. Prof. Peter Hawkins: Their beauty suddenly breaks through his aloneness and his, and in that moment, the arbitrages falls from his neck. At that moment, he is kind of released from this small dark prison that he's fallen asleep in. And it's that, can we see beyond our self concern, can we see beyond the bottom line, can we see beyond the goal, the ambition? To what, what does it serve? And, and you may know in another of my books, i I I get very taken by the ful storyful or sur ful who goes to search for the holy grail. And when he first sees it, this magnificent grail procession, um, he wakes up in the morning in a empty field. 'cause he hasn't asked the question. Years, years later, after much journey, he comes back and he asked the question he has to ask in order to be able to stay there, which is who and what does the grail serve? You see, he's learned to see that the beauty is not in the object. One other story about my oldest son, when he was about seven or eight said, daddy, why, why aren't we born knowing everything? Because then we wouldn't have to go to school. . And I said, but Adam, if you knew everything, why would you bother to get bomb? Stephen Matini: What did he say? Prof. Peter Hawkins: I think he just looked at me slightly old , he didn't quite know how to respond. So, you know, he went back to school, which is what we all have to do, isn't it? Is it, is it beautiful that we get it wrong? You know, on my courses, I get people to even compete on who has the most quality failures, right? That we can all learn from what a gift that we fail over and over again because our failure takes us to our learning edge. Mea shall Rumi says, leadership is a poison. Unless we have the antidote in our hearts, success is a poison unless we have the antidote. Aren't aren't you blessed to have failed many times? Stephen Matini: I didn't get it completely wrong. I would say that you are a very precious reminder. So I'm going to listen to this a lot of times . So maybe the, the right word is not success, but, um, it is a good success. What would it be? The definition for you? Prof. Peter Hawkins: Well, a, a good success is one that I I recognize doesn't belong to me. One, one of my blogs, I talk about why we shouldn't talk about high performing teams. And I tell an imaginary story of Zoom in 2021, the top team all celebrating. 'cause they've had their biggest growth in in customers, their biggest growth in revenue and their biggest growth in bottom line in inverted commas. What they think is the bottom line and that they're all drinking champagne and saying hump, we've done well. And, and one of the team members says, but we should do a special call out for the, the team member that's contributed the most. I said, well, who are you talking about? And she says, not only did they contribute the most, but they only joined us last year. I said, well, who are you talking about? She said, isn't it obvious Coronavirus, she is the one who's made the biggest contribution to our success. And I just tell that story on success has always co-created. So good success is to know that my Sufi teacher used to say, make sure that when you die, your candle wax has all been burnt up. And that's how you give light to the world. That's good success when you die, having given yourself away. Stephen Matini: That's a beautiful thing, what you just said. Prof. Peter Hawkins: I've been blessed with extraordinary teachers. Do any of us say anything that's original or do we find ways of framing eternal truth just in new forms? Stephen Matini: There's one question that, uh, came up to mind a bunch of times, but I haven't asked you of all the possible tools, routes that you could have taken, why coaching? Prof. Peter Hawkins: That's what came knocking on my door. But another way of answering that would be to say, well, you know, I started in a love for literature, which turned into a love of drama, which turned to a love for theater, which turned into a love for what was happening in the whole creative unfoldment of a more in the process and the production. And that took me to mental health and becoming a psychotherapist. And then I started to realize that many mental health organizations were more, uh, disturbed than the people they were treating. And that took me into a love for how do you heal organizations? And that's taken me into how do we together heal humanity and how do we heal the split between the human and the more than human world? So there's an unfoldment there. And, and, and I suppose my real interest is, is I don't think that either coaching, as we know it, executive coaching or consultancy are fit for the 21st century. And, and I'm just having been privileged to be involved in leadership development, consultancy, coaching, leading. I'm constantly looking for the what is needed beyond those. You see coaching because I was more interested in not people just sort of themselves out, but helping people make a bigger difference to the world beyond them. That took me from psychotherapy to coaching, to team coaching, to systemic team coaching, to providing partnership to organizations as they try and transform the difference they can make in the world. But it's all one. Stephen Matini: Well, I have one last question, which is, we have talked about wonderful things. For anyone who's going to listen to this episode, is there anything in particular that you would suggest them to focus on. Prof. Peter Hawkins: Focus on? Well, if there's, as a lot of your audience, uh, in one of my favorite countries, Italy, I am coming to Milan in May, so please do put the de dates, um, on the information about the podcast, I'm running a three day experiential training in systemic team coaching through renewal associates. And I hope some people may be, um, encouraged to at least go and dip into my new book when it's out in the autumn. Beauty and leadership and coaching. I suppose the other encouragement is beyond both of those would be to say, you know, remember we have one shared holy book, which is all around us, which is the more than human world and beyond. You know, what I teach or any of my teachers teach, the more than human world is, is trying to teach us all the time, but we're not very good at listening or paying attention. Please take some time and go and walk to the hills around lakes, through the woods, but walk in a way of humility to and, and let them teach you and see how beauty will surprise you. Stephen Matini: Maestro Hawkins, thank you so much for this wonderful time, which I will always cherish. Thank you so much. Prof. Peter Hawkins: Thank you Stephen. And it is the questionnaire that opens the door to what needs to flow.

Financial advisors, attorneys, doctors, and fiscal consultants are essential professionals who help us navigate an ocean of information to make sound decisions. How do you choose a good one when the language they speak is a nebulous lingo few people fully understand? Riccardo Grabbio is a seasoned financial consultant known for his pragmatic approach and extensive experience as Chief Financial Officer. In this episode, Riccardo helps clarify some common financial lingo so you can build trustworthy and clear communication with your financial advisor or find the perfect one you understand. Listen to how to keep financial strategies simple on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform. Subscribe to Pity Party Over Sign up for Live Session Managerial & Leadership Development Contact Stephen Connect with Stephen #RiccardoGrabbio ##WealthBuilding #Investing #Savings #FinancialEducation #MoneyManagement #FinancialWellness #PityPartyOver #Podcast #Alygn #StephenMatini   TRANSCRIPT Stephen Matini: So I represent your typical moron who doesn't know anything about finance. And let's say that I'm seeking for a financial advisor, where should I start? Riccardo Grabbio: When we take a look at finance actually is not something very small, very narrow, something. There are thousands of aspects that we need to take a look at. So first question to me is asking yourself, what do I need? Because when you talk at about finance, it might be have your own personal budget, for instance, because your expenses are not under control. Can be or maybe can be having a finance advisor because my company must improve, must improve for whatever reason because the balance between revenues are and cost are not enough or simply because I'm not managing well enough, my working capital for instance, or maybe because my cash flow is not coming, even though I'm making revenues, I, I do not understand why this is the second one. Or maybe it can be for instance because I have a lot of cash, but I'm not capable of leverage that cash well enough to make my company grow better or how it should, or maybe simply because I have a personal heritage that I want to have a battery yield. Riccardo Grabbio: And at the moment I don't have this is let me say very typical situation that Italian families has. For instance, just to give an idea because you need to know that the GDP of Italy is not satisfactory, is not a country that is growing a lot for several reasons. We are not efficient enough. Our industries are weak, must improve, we have tax issues and all those stuff. But you need to know that Italian families are rather rich and what they have, they have a lot of cash because of generation and so on. And they have a lot of properties. And the big issues that I have seen, for instance in Italy is that what the Americans say is asset rich and income board, to me a financial advisor, this is the first rule of financial advisor, try to change this status because when you are asset rich and income board means that you are not efficient or better, you can't manage your asset. And in this specific situation, for instance, the financial advisor can create tremendous value to, to a family for instance, try to think very rich family that has a good family office and exactly the same very rich family without the family office handling the money for them, the result would be completely different. Stephen Matini: Based on everything you said so far, it seems to me that you, I think you mentioned like probably several things, they're important, but three are really important. One is that you don't need to have a big assets in order to start to be more financially savvy. That's one. Then you mentioned several times the importance of cashflow and the other one you emphasized the importance of time because from a financial investment standpoint, time is crucial more than the actual percentage you get paid in the moment. Riccardo Grabbio: Yes, exactly. I can tell you talking about the time, which is the most important of one. There are several studies that I have read over the years from JP Morgan, but also from some other sources like banger and so on. And what they say is that in a period of at least 20 years in a bunch of 100% investors in the stock market, there was not one that lose one penny over or the 20 years. It means that if you invest, if you buy and hold for 20 years, you're not going to lose money. If instead you try to, what, what we technically say, time the market. So you buy and sell, you buy and sell, then things get tricky. I can tell you one thing, I dunno if you have ever heard about Peter Lynch, I think in seven years in which he managed the found Magellan, he doubled the s and p 500 each and every year. Riccardo Grabbio: So try to think a, a result what we are still talking now about his performance and the funny thing is that 90% of the investors that invest in his fund, they lose money over the year. And you can ask me how it can be possible that in 20 years a fund had a performance huge and the investors lose the money because they were not buying and holding, they were buying and then selling, buying and selling try to keep the best moment in which you to enter and to exit from the fund and doing that 90% of those, they lose the best return of the market. So buying a whole is a good advice. Stephen Matini: So I I wanna ask you to define some key terms, you know that maybe could be useful for the people who are going to listen to the episode. How would you explain assets in the simplest way? Riccardo Grabbio: An asset is something that brings you money in your pocket and on the other side you have liabilities. That is something that takes out money from your pocket. Why is tell you that? Because for instance, try to think to have a new big car, an expensive new car. Actually from the accounting standpoint, this is an asset. Then you, you, you d it in your, in your balance sheet, this is an asset then you will depreciate in 10 years and so on. This is technically an asset, but to me this is not financially an asset. Why not? Because it's not bringing you value any kind, it's not bringing you money in your pocket, it's draining money from your pocket. So keeping it in very simple. For our listeners, asset is something when you buy something that will bring you further money in your pocket than you are buying an asset. Riccardo Grabbio: If it doesn't, then it's not an asset. Then we have some asset that intrinsically they produce something, they produce a value. Let me give you an an an example. A stock index or a single stock for instance, you have a company, you have an organization. Those people, they are all working together with a common purpose, which is to create earnings and so on. So it doesn't matter the price in the short term, in the long run it'll increase in value. Why? Because those companies are making earnings, they're paying dividends and so on. So there will be a good result in the, in in the future. But then there are some other asset that those, they have a value fine, but they don't produce anything. Let me give you an example. If we talk about precious metals, I dunno, gold for instance and so on in this one here is just a simple piece of metal, right? Riccardo Grabbio: It has big value. Yes it does. The market is valuing is up and low value, it does a function in investment portfolio but is not producing anything. I mean, so in this case we are a bit more speculating. The price can go up or down. We don't know in the future can be be a function in the portfolio, but it's not creating anything. But this is another different kind of asset. Another kind of asset are bonds for instance. The returns typically is low, but you lend money to someone, to a government, to a private company, to a corporation, whatever, and they pay you the interest in in your return. This is another asset. It bring you money in your, in your pocket. Then there are also real estate. You can buy flats for, for instance you can buy apartments and so on. Rent it and as a return you have the pay that the people are paying to you. This is another, another example. For instance, those are assets. Stephen Matini: How would you explain? Same question in super simple terms, P&L? Riccardo Grabbio: Very simple difference between revenues and cost difference between what you from your business or from in your private light and the cost that you have to bear to stay alive or if you're talking about a company that you need to pay to keep your company alive. Difference between revenues and cost. And what I'm surprised that several organizations, several entrepreneurs and also private people, sometimes they do not understand why they are not making earnings and they don't arrive to a very simple conclusion. Either you increase your revenues or you reduce your cost or you do them both. And again, I go back to the first concept and and statement that we said keep it simple. You can have a p and l, okay, which is long one kilometer for ista with 1000, 2000 different lines detailed and so on. But in the end, if you take a look at things from 1000 kilometers from from the moon, if you take a look at things from the moon, from a very high distance, in the end you will see two things. You will see revenues and costs. Either you increase revenues or you reduce cost. I know it's very simple, looks trivial, but trust me that nine out of 10 of dozen per they look at the tree but they don't look at the wood because if you take a look at from things from the from the moon, this is what you will see. And you either you are just one or you are just the other. Stephen Matini: How would you define super simple cashflow? Riccardo Grabbio: Cashflow is the difference from the money that you have in the first day of the year and the money that you have in the last day of the year. The difference between the two is the cash that you have generated and beware because the cash that you have generated is not perfectly linked with the earning that you made in that years because it might happen that in the year you made good earnings but you didn't generate good cash flow because you didn't manage while you are working capital on the things that we said before can happen or the other way around might happen that in one year for instance you have a good cash flow but your earnings are not satisfactory enough. It might happen for instance because in one year you dismiss a big asset or something and so on and you find a lot of cash in your bank account, yes, looks good. But then if you take a look at p and l, which is your business, you see it's not profitable enough. So beware, we have just defined what cash flow is, but it's not one-to-one with your earnings with your business. Stephen Matini: If I said, and this is just how I personally define it, which is very trivial. Cashflow is the money that I need to run my business. It is essentially what is in my banking account after I pay all my expenses, after paying all, all taxes, what is left in my banking account? Would this be a good definition of cashflow? Riccardo Grabbio: No, it is not the money that you need to run your business. This is something that we definitely call the short term debt. This is your financial position. Keep it very simple. Even here if you are a class, your balance sheet Steven, you need to know that your business must be financed simply. It is a bit more tricky, but very simply can be financed only in two ways, either with the equity which the owner puts in in his company or borrowing money from the banks, meaning from the financial institution. There are several other ways, but keeping simple, those two things. So on the right side of your balance sheet, you only have those two things, your financial debts and your equity, nothing else now. So those are the ways in which you support your business, but this is not the cash flow. The cash flow is the difference in your cash from one moment and in another one, let me give you an example. If the beginning of 2024, first day you have 10 K in your bank account and at the end of the year you have 20 k, your cash flow of the year is 10 k, which is the difference between the end and the beginning. This is what you generated, this is the cash flow, okay? While instead your financial position, what you need to let me say keeping your business alive is something that is your short-term debt is your position that you have in your balance sheet. Stephen Matini: I wanna ask you one thing. What'd you think? Would you say the cashflow is the star? Riccardo Grabbio: It is and I have a specific example that I bring that is a company for which i, I do consulting also now, and they came to me because they could not understand why the cashflow was not coming. And I will tell you more if you take a look at this p and l for instance, right? The revenues last cost is, is very profitable. I mean they are making a lot of earnings, margin are very high volumes are growing, but the cashflow is not coming and they did not understand why actually the, the reply was rather simple, okay? And the cashflow is not simply coming from the p and l revenues less cost, but then there is the balance sheet, there is the working capital. Let me give you a very simple example. If you do a lot of earning each and every year, but then you can't collect money from your customers simply because you did not a good credit management and, and you sold a lot of stuff, a lot of items, your products or whatever to a customer that actually is in, in trouble is financially weak and is not capable of paying you, I know for one year or even more, then you have a problem of cash. This is an example or another example can be if you have a very good p and l but you inventory is growing and growing, the terms of your items that are in your stock are staying there and they don't go to the customer, then you need to finance those stuff that you have and also in this case you are absorbing cash and this, this is the second one or the third one can be for instance because your p and l is very good but you pay your vendors very quickly too quickly, okay? Compared on the timing in which you collect cash and you keep your items in in stock. Also in that, in that case you have issues of cash and then there might be also some other reason for instance investment. Try to think at investments they don't hit your p and l but you can do big huge investment that turn out to be in the future not good enough. They don't have a good payback, they don't have a good return. And also in that case you have a problem of cash. This is another thing then this is the last thing that we call when your balance sheet is not robust enough. If you have working capital right of 10 and you have your short term debt which is 12, so you have an issue of two because it means that in a short term you have to pay 12 to someone to the banks or investors, but your cash that will come will be only 10 and you will be short of cash. So your balance sheet must boost enough. So there might might be several reasons, but the tricky thing for a non-finance people is try to link and bridge the earnings, right, the result of your p and l to the cash and make them to understand that from your earning to the cash flow that you generate, there are several, a lot of stuff that you need to make otherwise you can be very profitable but not generating cash. Stephen Matini: And it's important not to keep your money under the mattress by actually invest them. Riccardo Grabbio: Exactly. This is the second one now is a bit different because actually the interest rate are rather high. They are more than 4% are recording now in December, 2023. So they are rather high. And I would say that in this situation might be sensible also to pay someone that you have to do so if you have cash if you have liquidity you can pay something. But try to think for instance till two years ago when interest rates were zero and the market was returning six or 7%, I'm talking about stocks for instance. In that case it would've make sense to borrow a lot of money because you borrow for free and the money who you have is returning 7%. So on depends from the market situation for sure. It's not so wise to keep your money under your mattress. Stephen Matini: You know, to me as you talk, I understand what you're saying because I've been doing this for little bit. Once again, I'm not super financially savvy but I made a lot of mistakes in the past. So inevitably I learned but not, not knowing who's going to listen to this episode. That could be some people they may feel unfamiliar with this whole territory. If they had to choose a financial advisor, what would you say they are three features they should look for in a financial advisor? Riccardo Grabbio: To me, first thing a financial advisor must have a good track record. Let me say that the market is something that, I mean we have been studying that for 120 years and what we have seen that nobody has still completely understood it. There are always new situation and so on. So to me the more the financial advisor is experience, the more he has spend time on the market, the more he is trustworthy. I mean it is not the only rule but you need to know the market very well. So a long time and in the market with a good track record is one feature that you need to take a look at. Then there is a second feature that of course is very important is having a good feeling with that person seems not fundamental but it is because that person will help you on very sensitive topics. It'll help you on things that are rather dear to you in the and because they are talking about your finances and so on. And so if you don't have a good feeling, if you don't have a full trustworthy of that person, I think is not the the person good enough for you. Stephen Matini: You know, the rule that I gave myself when I was trying to select the right one was if I cannot understand what he or she says, then it's not the right person for me. Truly. I mean you can be the most incredible person and I'm not questioning your, you know, education, your experience, but I'm the client and I need to understand. Riccardo Grabbio: I will. I will tell you one thing. Over the past 15 years I have seen a lot of portfolio and there is a feature that all the beginners investor that then will have some troubles for sure, which is mathematically they try to seek things very complicated and one rule that the investors and beginners investors they need to take a look at or better to search in a financial advisor to keep things simple, what they have seen in life that the more the investors are beginners and the more they look for complicated stuff, this is a big mistake but it's very natural. For instance, if you happen to have an investor that has either know a big quantity of cash to be invested, but he doesn't know anything about that and you talk to him about very complex fund, fund of fund robot advisors or structured product derivatives and some other things, very technical and very complex product with leverage and so on, they immediately fall in love about that because they think that that we all exotic products, new products with artificial intelligence and so on, they completely fall in love them thinking that will be very cutting edge and that will beat the market. You know what will happen in that case that you will create a mass, you will create a portfolio with huge costs and the result will be for sure far below the market. Stephen Matini: Again, I understand what you're saying, but I feel my head getting dizzy a little bit like because also, you know, money is something that is so connected to our survival. I mean it's not just status or I can buy this, I can buy that, but it's connected to so many things such as, you know, when people say money does not give you happiness and always say that's the biggest someone has ever said, because you know when my money's fine, I'm so glad I can think of all the things that I love in a way that's more peaceful. You know? Riccardo Grabbio: Yes, the said that you just mentioned can be truth or not, I dunno, but there is one thing to tell you when a family and a person goes under financial stress, in that case you need to talk to them about that saying, because financial stress I think is one of the worst situation ever. And I can tell you one thing be because of that you need to have also a good financial planner because what he will help you to do is not only to deal with the markets properly, but also to manage the psychological impacts that you have from the up and downs of the market. If you are very expert, you know how the market works and so on, you don't have the impacts. But if you are a beginner, if you don't trust the situation or if you don't trust the financial advisor when the market is down 30% because from time to time it happens, then you start to have some bad feelings maybe not to sleep at night and so on. So the financial advisor for this situation is fundamental Stephen Matini: And that to me goes back to what you were saying about the relationship. You know, particularly these days of artificial intelligence, everything being automatic and such and such, that is such a key relationship to have in a life that is so uncertain. You know, you read the news and millions of different things, so it's very easy, you know, in this situation to fall for trends and the stupid things that you hear everywhere. But a good financial advisor, that relationship in my opinion informs you and really helps you to stay grounded. Riccardo Grabbio: I agree with you. You must stay the course. The Americans say, and this is a really valuable advice. You need to stay the course and stay the course being not being trapped into the new fashion stuff, new fashion things, the new hot stock that might come on the market and so on because they, they were not going to help you, they'll harm you. Stephen Matini: How do you feel about anything that has to do with ESG investing, anything pertaining sustainability? Riccardo Grabbio: First point is the tactical situation about that. I have some portfolios that I'm managing where the, the clients is asking me to invest in those specific companies. We, which has a good status for being very ethical, being very keen on environment and so on because they are interesting in that. And I think that from that standpoint, it makes you feel better because you feel that you are doing something good for the environment and so on. Then we need to see what is the reality under those companies because we don't know 100% because when we buy an ESG for instance, found, we don't know if all the companies that there are inside, those are all the features that they should have because sometimes working in the companies, I have seen that sometimes, okay, they are ESG, fine, they have white certificates and so on, but then let me say energy must have been used better was not managed well enough. So there were some inefficiencies from the environmental standpoints. So I would say that okay, this is a good thing to do good for the environment, which I'm very keen on as well. But we don't know exactly if all those are the best choices that we could have made. We don't know, we hope, but we don't know. This is the first thing. Then we don't need to forget that when we invest we are looking at returns. The first reason of course why we invest is having a return. And what I can tell you that I have compared the s and p 500 with the SGN funds for 10 years and so on. And what I have seen that in the long run, the returns that I have is very, very close so far we don't know in the future, but so far is is more or less the same. So from the pure yield standpoint, right, the return in that case, I would say that there is not much difference in that. What drives the difference in the return in the long run is the asset allocation. Stephen Matini: What have you learned about yourself throughout this whole thing, working with people in different situations? Riccardo Grabbio: Well it, it's difficult to answer for different reasons. The first one is we need to take a look at if we are taking a look at finance from the company standpoints or from the financial advisor standpoints, which is very different. And the second one is because you need to know the finance has been changing so much over the years. I remember Steven when, when I started working in finance, the value added for the organization and for, for the people who was perceived and basically also what the companies were asking to the finance people were things completely different from the things that there are now. So over the year things have changed and as a result also the finance people, people that work in finance must change and see things in different ways because the market is asking to go to the finance people different stuff. In the past it was much more mathematically the mathemat result they were asking about preciseness they were asking about and so on. But as the time goes by, as the artificial intelligence goes by, the technologies is growing and so on. What I see that now what the partner, the CEO, the stakeholder are asking to the finance community is being a tremendous business partner, not being extremely technical and so on. So what they want is having a support that translate their view, okay in finance language or better to translate the finance language to them so that they can understand what they can do and they cannot do. And of course help supporting them in having the right strategy in getting their result doesn't matter if you are looking about a private person or if we're looking about a corporation from that standpoint is exactly the same. What they are asking now today is to support them to understand what are their goals, their needs and so on and to set kind of strategy in order to get their targets. This is what they want. Now, just to make it an example, and this is a bit sad also to me to say that nowadays people for instance that do finance me say rather low level. So for instance, booking invoices, booking transaction, general ledger journals and so on, those are profiles that are not interesting for the market anymore because there are the emerging markets where there are people doing that for an extremely low cost or there is with a new tech iTech and so on, there are computer that are doing those transaction automatically themselves. Those were profiles very helpful in the past or better indispensable, but today it's not like that. Today they are not needed any, any almost needed anymore. So it has changed a lot. So if you want to work nowadays in this field, you need to be a good financial strategist and you need to support and give direction to investors, to entrepreneurs and so on. Stephen Matini: What would you say that is the right posture that a good finance person should have to enter this job? Riccardo Grabbio: Well I would say more than possible, I would say the, the right mindset in finance, you do need to have a good mindset. This is key from a several standpoint and I believe that if you want to be a good finance person, finance manager, finance advisor or whatever, you need to have good background. This is a commodity. Without that you cannot go ahead, but you need to have also a good mindset because having the good mindset meaning is to trust what is your view? To stay steady, to stay the course, to stay consistent with with your choices, not to change the strategies, being methodical and not to lose the focus on your goals. Straighten your way because you know what happens in finance? Finance is like the seasons that we have in the year, right? We have summer, winter, spring, autumn and so on, and things change and like things change in the day and in the season, in the years they change exactly in the same way also in finance because no matter what after winter, spring will come and in finance it's exactly the same after resection. Sooner or later you don't know exactly when the new grow will come. And that's why he said you need to have the right mindset, trust your knowledge and staying the course and not changing strategies and so on. Because if you try instead to change strategies because of the season you are in and you don't know when the decision will will change, you run the risk to take an umbrella and after two minutes to have the sun shining and your your umbrella, you don't need it anymore. Stephen Matini: Riccardo, out of anything we have covered so far, what would you say that is something that those who will listen to this episode that should pay close attention to? Riccardo Grabbio: If we are talking, for instance, to private investors, they need to keep things simple, try to understand what they are doing because as you said before, for instance, if you are not understanding what you are investing in, this is not a good investment or better, they should be very careful. So if they don't understand what they are investing in, no matter what, they don't have to invest. Stephen Matini: I've heard that a famous investor does that. Warren Buffett, you know, he only invest in things he understands, you know, and if he doesn't, he doesn't. Riccardo Grabbio: Yes, wow you are mentioning is, is not a new kid on the block. I think that the S&P 500 for 50 years in a row about either, I don't know, 10 or 8 points per year. Average per year. So yeah, an outstanding result. And what it does is something like, like you said before, what it does, he, he stays in his circle of competence. He does not diversify a lot. So he stay focused on a bunch of share that he knows very well and he stay on those for a long time. What his strategies is by and old forever it is an extreme strategy his but the reward is very remarkable given the facts. Stephen Matini: Riccardo, thank you for keep it simple. I've learned a lot today. Thank you.

Historian Suzanne Harman Munson discusses her book Jefferson's Godfather: The Man Behind the Man, revealing the significance of servant leadership exemplified by George Wythe, a lesser-known Founding Father. Throughout the conversation, Suzanne offers valuable insights essential for navigating contemporary challenges, emphasizing the importance of individual impact, critical thinking, kindness, and humility. Listen to this episode of Pity Party over and discover how servant leadership and humility can transform lives on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform. Subscribe to Pity Party Over Sign up for Live Session Managerial & Leadership Development Contact Stephen Matini Connect with Stephen Matini #SuzanneHarmanMunson #JeffersonsGodfather #GeorgeWythe #ServantLeadership #PityPartyOver #Podcast #Alygn #StephenMatini TRANSCRIPT Stephen Matini: You essentially got into writing and history after you retired? Did I get that right? Suzanne Munson: That's correct. Uh, I didn't have time to write books when I was working. And, um, I had a lot of responsibilities at home as well, raising children and so on. After my husband died and after I retired, I went on kind of a journey in a lot of different directions, and I've written books in different genres. Stephen Matini: Why do you think you chose writing and you chose history of all possible directions? Suzanne Munson: Well, my parents loved history, particularly my father. He would go to bed reading history. Well, he was interested in the Civil War, and he would read detailed accounts of the battles, which not my cup of tea by any means, but we always told stories of our ancestors who came to this country and why they came. So I've always been interested in history, but I, I majored in English, which was very helpful to me as the writer. Stephen Matini: Writer. And your family goes back generations? Suzanne Munson: Yes. They go back to the earliest days of the United States. Stephen Matini: As far as the Founding Fathers, one of your interests is the Founding Fathers. Did you investigate, did you study them all or specific ones, because you focus specifically on Jefferson, but did you have any interest in one of the other ones? Suzanne Munson: Well, yes, I have. I'm reading, um, pretty big book about, um, Benjamin Franklin now who really deserves more credit for helping us win the Revolutionary War. I really like following John Adams and Abigail Adams. But the two Founding Fathers that I focus on in my writing are Thomas Jefferson and his wonderful mentor George with, who is called the forgotten founding father, because hardly anybody knows anything about him today. And I uncovered him and some reading and I said, why don't we know more about this man who was very instrumental in the early success of this country? And his story needs to be told in the 21st century. And I wanted to tell it, but I couldn't because I was working. But as soon as I decided to, uh, to leave the office world, I said light bulb went off. And I said, well, I can finally do this book. But it took about five years to write that book because for some reason I couldn't focus at home. So I would go away to various retreats, writers retreats, spiritual retreats for 48 hours at a time or a week at a time, and really focus intensely on it. Stephen Matini: The process of writing. It's a spiritual experience, and you spend so much time within yourself. What have you learned about yourself when you started digging into this, this whole world or writing? Suzanne Munson: I sort of think of myself as a light giver. You know, the things that I'm learning, I like to share with other people, the integrity of this founding father. I think that we need greater integrity in our government. I've given more than three dozen lectures and online interviews about integrity and government that are need for, for that. Now. Also, after my husband died 10 years ago, I, uh, went on a spiritual journey to find out where he went and what he was doing, if that was knowable, and where we all go and what we do after we leave our physical form. So that was a separate journey. So I was really on two journeys. I was on a traditional journey, uh, with the traditional history, and then I was on a metaphysical journey trying to learn more about the afterlife. So two parallel journeys. And I've written books in both of those genres. Stephen Matini: Was it clear from the very beginning what you were looking for, or were you just aimed by curiosity and openness? Suzanne Munson: Well, with the first book that I wrote, which is called Jefferson's Godfather, uh, that was the biography of George with, it was very clear that I wanted to tell his story, that I felt his story was needed today in the 21st century. Now, my latest book, which is called of Loss and love, a Journey of the Heart that took 10 years to write the book has a happy ending. I did actually do the modern thing. I went online at the encouragement of friends and found my current husband. So it's a memoir of, of my three years between my husband's death and my marriage. Stephen Matini: What is the solace that you received from history? Suzanne Munson: Well, I'm very much inspired by what our Founding Fathers did to create the United States of America. Uh, they were very brave men. They were inspired. I believe what they did was unheard of in the history of the world. Now, we had a Roman Republic, briefly. We had a Greek democracy briefly. They went away fairly quickly. And so what these individuals wanted to do was totally revolutionary, not just on the battlefield, but in the battlefield of ideas. And that was to give power to the people and to create a democratic republic for the first time ever in history, that people were free from kings and queens and popes and aristocracy. Well, the hope was that we would have a meritocracy, that only the best people would rise to be leaders, and that the people would choose those leaders, choose them periodically, and if they weren't satisfactory, bo vote them out of office without killing them throughout the history of mankind, you had to kill somebody to get rid of him if he was in power. And so the peaceful transition of power was very, very strong ideal of these Founding Fathers. That's why they would've been appalled at what happened on January 6th. That would've been their worst nightmare. So this is a time when we need to visit the ideals of these Founding Fathers. And what happened in America in the late 18th century, what we came up with a government by the people of the people, for the people and our constitution that spread all across the world. Our constitution was, um, adopted by many, many, many countries after that took a while. And democracy is still an ideal, a worldwide ideal. It's not in place in, uh, most countries, uh, to the extent that we'd like to have it in place, but it's still an ideal. People still are searching for freedom. They want their freedom. Stephen Matini: I believe that democracy is a huge responsibility for all of us. Some of the worst nightmares in history, were democratically elected. If the Founding Founders came back today, what would you say they would say about democracy and what is the right approach for all of us in terms of, you know, living this responsibility? Suzanne Munson: This is outlined in my book called The metaphysical Thomas Jefferson, what Thomas Jefferson might say today about our government, our higher education, our news, media, religion, the use of military foreign policy, all those institutions. And I believe what he would say is that we as a people have become apathetic. We've allowed our freedoms to be taken away gradually, like the frog in the kettle of water as it heats up what is said in that book, the metaphysical Thomas Jefferson. What he might say if he were observing us today, is that he would crave most of all critical thinking. He didn't use these terms, but TikTok, Facebook, all those social media things where we're totally absorbed by ourselves and our little circle of friends and what they think of us, and we're not paying much attention to what our government officials are doing. Jefferson, above all wanted an educated popula populace and wanted, um, universal education for everyone, rich and poor. That was a revolutionary concept at the time. Only the, um, wealthy, they were educated. And so he would want critical thinking. Uh, he would want us to demand integrity of our, uh, leaders. He would want the leaders in Washington to form circles of integrity. Not all representatives in Washington are corrupt or deal in self-dealing, but enough of them are. But some of them really are striving to be good public servants. And we have one here in Virginia, Abigail Berger, who is admired for being a true public servant. And so there are some like her who were fairly new to the game and haven't gotten corrupted and haven't really started feathering their nests with all the large s that's available. So I think he would want leaders in government to form circles of integrity so that there's a mass of individuals and not just a handful who want the best for the people and not just for themselves or for special interests for the powerful. So some of this is going on. I, I think sometimes things have to get so bad that, uh, you know, people will say enough of this, which we've hit the bottom here, and we, we need to do things differently. We need better leaders. And so the hope is that more people of integrity will offer themselves for a public office. It's not easy. It's a dirty business. There's a lot of dirt thrown around, and it would be nice if that weren't necessary, weren't considered necessary. We do need more leaders with integrity, interest for the public rather than pure self-interest and ego ego's gone wild right now in, in some quarters in Washington. And what's right for the people is secondary. Another thing that he would be very concerned about is freedom of the press. Of course, that's in our first amendment, and we do have more freedom of the press than most countries have, but our press is declining. Uh, our newspapers don't have the staffs that they did 10 years ago to do investigative reporting and TV stations. And they've all kind of acquiesced to these feel-good stories or covering murders and accidents and things like that. And there's not enough coverage of what's going on in our government. And you could make that interesting. It doesn't have to be dull, but the decline of investigative reporting would be of great concern to our Founding Fathers, because you can't have a government without clarification, without people knowing what's really going on behind the scenes. Because if we don't know those things, it's an open door to corruption. And here in my town, we need to analyze just at the local level, who's getting the contracts for the, you know, multimillion dollar deals here. Are they cronies? Was there open bidding for these big dollar items? Those things need to be open, and they're being hidden, not just here, but all over. So cronyism will run rampant if you don't expose it. That's just one, one aspect of government, not to speak of just out and out corruption. Stephen Matini: In your experience, in your studies, researching and writing about the Founding Founders, you mentioned the word integrity many times. And to me, when I think about the moment in history was one of those exceptional time, like, you know, Florence doing Renaissance somehow for whatever the reason, there were this huge concentration of amazing people why that happened. Who knows? But it's really bizarre to think about it. Why do you think integrity seemed to be such a distinctive feature of these, these amazing people who laid the foundation for us? And today we struggle with integrity. Suzanne Munson: In my book, Jefferson's Godfather, which is a biography of his mentor George, with, I make the case that about the power of one, the ability of just one individual for, uh, great, good or a great evil. And in his case, he had a lot to do with the early success of this country because he trained not only Thomas Jefferson, but Chief Justice John Marshall, the revered statesman, Henry Clay and 200 other future leaders in government, and also in the court system to very important agencies for the success of a country. And so he had an enormous influence. And because he had such great integrity himself, uh, he was a role model for the servant leader. He influenced either directly or indirectly, all five of our first five presidents. He was a friend of each of them, or a role model for each of them. And that was the first, oh, three decades of this country, very consequential, three decades. I think that their sense of integrity, he was a big part of that because he had so much of it himself. I attribute a lot of that to George West's Quaker background. Most of his contemporaries were of the Anglican faith, and they were very arrogant. People in Virginia, particularly Virginians at that time, were known to be arrogant. The aristocracy, uh, because they fashioned themselves, uh, after the House of Lords in, uh, England, large landowners, and they did not oppose slavery. They accepted that as a way of life. He was outta step with his contemporaries. He was ardently opposed to slavery. And I attribute that to one of his Quaker ancestors who came to this country a hundred years before and preached about the evils of slavery and taught that the Bible did make references to this stealing being one, stealing another person's life. So I, I think he had a big influence. A lot of his students never freed their slaves, but he made them feel very guilty about it. And then he just was a very honest person. Contemporary of his said. Well, he was the only honest lawyer I ever knew. He made a good living. But he could have made much bigger living if he had accepted liars and cheats as clients. But he would never defend a, uh, a liar and a cheat. Everyone had to have a good case if he were to accept it and be more or less on the right, or if they weren't on the right, be repentant for their sins. So the Founding Fathers had a wonderful opportunity to change history for the better. George Beth being one of the revered leaders at the time, his legacy has been lost to time, but he was enormously influential at, in his day, the signer of the Declaration of Independence, champion of the Constitution leader in the Continental Congress, speaker of the House of Delegates in Virginia. Those were the early days when everything was new and fresh and we were reinventing the, our world. Hundreds of years later, we have what we have in Washington because big money has been allowed in as a mighty power in our government, and it's very easy to feather one's nest. So there's really more temptations now, I think, uh, than there were at the beginning of the country. Eventually corruption did and self-dealing did creep in, and partisanship did emerge fairly early. George with was not part of that, but it emerged very much so during Jefferson's time. Stephen Matini: When you say servant leadership, so servant leadership is something that we hear a lot these days. It's also the many leadership programs that had their name. What would it be? Your own definition of servant leadership? Suzanne Munson: Putting the public's interest before your own, or at least having a balance, just not being totally self-interested and not letting your ego run wild as we see right now in Washington. Now in writing this book, uh, my first book called Jefferson's Godfather, the Man Behind the Man, I can come up with at least seven leadership qualities that George with this founding father had and that he shared as a role model, as a servant leader for others. Number one, a strong ethical foundation, the only honest lawyer I ever knew. Number two, mentorship, the ability to mentor generously. He influenced the futures of approximately 200 future state and national leaders. Number three, advisorship, if that's a word, uh, couldn't come up with a better word, but George with advised those in higher authority. He was a role model for the colonial governors of Virginia who needed advice about how to interact with this unruly group over here. He did influence the first five American Founding Fathers, either directly or indirectly. Number four, scholarship and preparation. George West did not have much of a formal education. He learned Greek and Latin at the knee of his mother, and then I think the money ran out and he couldn't go to college. And then when he was a legal apprentice to his uncle, he didn't learn much. And so he found that he, if he were to succeed in life, he would have to teach himself. And he became a self-taught scholar preparation. He never went into court unprepared, and he was an excellent lawyer, and he served those in the highest circles in Virginia. Number five, and this should be probably number one, along with ethics, is, um, emotional intelligence, people skills. Now we know about iq, but EQ is equally important. George With's IQ was probably not as high as Jefferson's. George with was very smart, but he also had to work hard. Um, he studied and he was prepared. So he had an IQ that was sufficient for leadership, but he also had the eq, the emotional quotient. He was a friend to those in the highest circles as well as to the low born. He freed his slaves as soon as he was legally able to do so. He was a friend of children. They said a a surly dog would wag his tail when George with walked by. Uh, so he had had those both skills. Um, EQ and IQ. Number six, humanitarian values. Unlike his contemporaries, he reviled slavery. Uh, and, and he was a humanitarian in many other ways. He and the one of the colonial governors started the first hospital for the mentally ill in Williamsburg. It was the first in North America, number seven, although that really shouldn't be seven, but humility. And he was modest in dress and speech reflecting his Quaker background. The best leaders like I can think of, Mahatma Gandhi is the major figure here. Uh, they were very wise people, but they were very humble in their wisdom. So a case in point with taught Chief Justice, John Marshall, who was one of the most consequential chief justices in American history. And so when Marshall became Chief Justice, he walked in to meet his, his group in a plain black robe. Well, they were astonished because they had adorned themselves in Irman and red velvet because they wanted to be like the justices in England. He set the example, and I think he got the idea of the plain black robe, the robe of a servant from George with who dressed very modestly. And I think in some of his role roles as clerk of the house delegates, uh, he probably wore the plain black robe. And so that changed, you know, the whole demeanor of the United States Supreme Court. It gave them a more humble approach to their job. So the only deviation from that that we've seen recently is Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who added a little lace collar to her robe. But that can be forgiven. So, uh, those are, there's seven of the qualities that I found in doing research for George with, for the book Jefferson's Godfather, Stephen Matini: As you were talking then, you said it, the word that kept coming to my head was, um, humble humbleness. Suzanne Munson: Yes, we all need to learn humility. And it's not the same thing as being humiliated. I've learned that one myself. So we all must try to be servants or helpful to our fellow man in one way or another. That requires a little bit of humility in trying to let go of our ego so much. Stephen Matini: One thing that helps me tremendously to keep my attitude, uh, humble, hopefully, is the awareness that I will not be here forever. What would you say that could be a first step for someone to learn a more humble perspective? Suzanne Munson: Sometimes you have to be brought low by adversity or a great tragedy, or just realizing that you have too much ego, you need to knock it down a peg or two. I can't say when, when I started thinking about that, seriously, it was probably, probably after my husband died. I had time to think about myself. Also, I think we need to realize that our later years can be time for enormous growth. I said when I reached 70, that my seventies were gonna be the best decade of my life, that I was gonna solid fly in my seventies, but I didn't know what I was gonna do, had no idea. Just let things flow. So a certain degree of humility is important there. I ask for guidance. I get little nudges, I think from the other side about nice things to do or good things to do. I always answer my nudge, nudges, otherwise I'd feel kind of bad about something, you know, even if it's just to call somebody or answer a call from an irritating person or take an irritating person to the doctor, you know, that's pushed my limits a little bit. I try to do a lot of volunteer work. I think that's extremely important in living a fulfilling life. And so I work with recovering drug addicts and alcoholics. I do a lot of work with them, and I teach classes that they have in their recovery program. I teach a class on love and forgiveness. Forgiveness is very important. I teach a la a class on emotional intelligence, and they are hungry for this because in their addiction they become stunned as individuals. If you start drinking and drugging when you're 19, you have arrested development. So a lot of these people are just discovering themselves in sobriety. So that is, uh, very rewarding for me to try to help these people. And I enter the classroom, uh, with a degree of humbleness, of humility and, uh, try to relate to them on their level. I've had my issues as well, and so I relate to them. But, uh, meaningful volunteer work, even if you're just working in a soup kitchen, you know, labeling soup out, it's better than sitting home watching TV all day. And a lot of people who retire just go out to the golf course or play bridge. And nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with playing games. We should amuse ourselves. We should have a good time. But you have to balance that with giving to others. And that also includes giving financially if you're able to do so. There's a lot of want in this world. There's refugees all over the world who are literally starving right now. And so we must give generously if we can afford to, to do that to doctors without Borders and all of the good agencies that are trying to help the helpless. So all of that is part of, you know, living more humbly, trying to get out of your ego, trying to think of other people. And that's really part of the secret to to being happy. Stephen Matini: Our society seems to emphasize so much a specific moment in time in your, your twenties when you're super young, it is a shame because life is so much more bigger. And what you said as you age, you, you get a different understanding about everything, a different appreciation about everything that you cannot possibly have. You know, when you are, when you're younger. There's something I wanna ask you that you mentioned before when you were talking about leadership and has to do with the notion of freedom. Because the word freedom is super important. And today, freedom. The word freedom is everywhere. Freedom of speech or freedom, this and that. And people get really confused about what freedom it really is. Some people feel it's a license to do or, or say whatever they want. And for me, it's not at all freedom. If anything is accountability, freedom is responsibility. What is your definition of freedom and what is the, the responsibility of, of people if they really want to be free? Suzanne Munson: Freedom of speech does not mean freedom of hate speech. Certain forms of hate speech are being punished. I mean, media, people are being fired if they do that, but other people are getting by with it on social media and so on. So we need not just a revolution of integrity, but a revolution of kindness, I guess is, is a word I'm thinking of. We need to be kinder to one another. We need to watch that hateful speech, that judgmental speech. Just because you can say it doesn't mean you should say it. So I think that's one freedom that we, we need to really think about what is harmful speech, harmful writing, harmful speaking? Do we really need to say those things? Do we really need to think those things? Can't we teach ourselves to be more thoughtful, more kind, more considerate? So I'm hoping that we'll have better role models in the future and that a lot of this hate speech will, will go away. It's very unhealthy and it's caused a lot of us to turn off the news. Not just because of the hate speech, but because it just seems that all the worst kinds of behavior are presented in the news. And what is our local news? Murders, robberies, car wrecks, whatever. After a while, it gets painful. I listened to the news just enough to be well-informed. I used to listen to it morning, noon, and night. 'cause I wanted to be super well informed. But I can't do that anymore. I don't listen to it until evening. And then a small dose of it just to be informed. Stephen Matini: I feel the same way, , I am informed, but I notice that the more time I spend reading that negative molasses, it doesn't really add any value to my life. So I want to know, of course, what's happening, but I'm more preoccupied about spending my time with you than feeling upset, you know, well, what is the point? You know? But Susan, we talked about so many things and all of them are so important. But out of all the things that we said, is there anything that you deem really important impressions for our listeners to focus on? Suzanne Munson: Well, this is what Thomas Jefferson would want. And George, with these two Founding Fathers, they would want more critical thinking. We need to watch our head time, what I call head time. And I wrote a reflection about that. We are what we think, literally, we are what we think. And if we're dwelling in negativity all the time, it's like a, well, particularly if we have a resentment against somebody or several people, that's a boomerang. It comes back to bite us. Try to think positively, try to live positively, live healthy, think healthy, but also be critical thinkers. Now, I'm very irritated with a lot of my friends who listen to one particular TV channel that tends to slant things and present only one side of an argument that is just wrong. You need to sort through all of the trash and all of the good ideas, and we need to read better books. Get back to reading books or pick better tv. There's, there's some very good things you can look at on tv. Be a critical thinker and try to live. Kindly learn forgiveness Stephen Matini: And kindness shall be. Susan, thank you so much for spending time with me. I've learned a lot of stuff. I have something to think about this weekend and many days to come. Thank you. Suzanne Munson: I've enjoyed it. Stephen.

Dr. Petros Oratis, a leadership and organization development consultant, team facilitator, and executive coach, believes modern organizational success hinges on embracing lateral leadership and fostering collaboration across hierarchical boundaries. Lateral leadership refers to a leadership style that emphasizes collaboration, teamwork, and the ability to lead without relying on a formal position of authority. Dr. Oratis advocates for leaders to address these interdependencies by creating spaces for dialogue and understanding, particularly in environments where power dynamics and competition may exist. Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform. Subscribe to Pity Party Over Sign up for Live Session Managerial & Leadership Development Contact Stephen Connect with Stephen #petrosoratis #lateraldialogues #lateralleadership #pitypartyover #alygn #stephenmatini #podcast #leadershipdevelopment #teamwork TRANSCRIPT Stephen Matini: I'm really happy to be here with you, we share the same passion and so I have a lot of questions for you, which are questions that I try to answer myself. I got into organizational development, you know, later on in my life. Previously I had a career in marketing, which I thought it was my thing. And then at some point out of pure coincidence I learned that I loved to work on organizational functions and to help people to perform better. How did it happen to you? Is this something that you have always known, but how did you get into this? Petros Oratis: Yeah, that's a very good question on reconnecting with origins and the course of life. I think because I studied in Greece and our system there is quite specific as to how you end up in university. But I think maybe also globally at that age you might not really know what to study. So I studied economics as an undergraduate, not necessarily by choice, but because I wanted to end up in organizations sort of in management. On one hand, when studying economics is very interesting because you learned from very early on in life about systems and about interdependencies and the complexity of the world, which I think it's very helpful as a mindset to be grown from early on. But it's also quite of a positive is science. So it has some sort of predictability in a way. Or you learn very quickly this idea of predictability and control and with knowledge and with models, if you apply them properly, you know you will get good results. But human behavior is extremely complex and even if you get it a little bit in courses around psychology, organizational psychology, still, there is this idea that if we study it and we can predict it, we would know what to do about it. And then of course you probably know from your practice and our profession, that's not how it works with large systems, with human behavior, even with us personally we might think in certain ways. So I started developing this curiosity of could I study human behavior more and differently from conventional studies? I wanted to seek something else and that's how I ended up studying differently organizations. So systemically, I mean the discipline is called system psychodynamics, but the idea is that you also take the more unconscious processes that operate within us and in working relations and then in bigger systems. Still the goal and the principle behind it is how can we understand human behavior so that we can actually address it differently but not, not from also I would say almost god-like thinking that if I were to control it fully, then that's how it would work. Stephen Matini: And eventually you learned that there's something that escapes analysis, you know, that you cannot quite frame. I think there's a huge element of craftsmanship in any job. Early on you started to become really interested in the whole notion of flat structures, bottom up, top down and then it even your own podcast, you know, it's the whole notion of lateral leadership is such a central component. How did you get there? Why? Why is this specific angle so important to you? Petros Oratis: I would say both the hard data, the intuition are, are what working jointly. So you can't, you can't split either or right? And I think that's what you exactly said. And the same thing I would apply to this idea of this very organic one could say type of leadership that you need to discover your role and you need to work through how you are going to lead with others. But at the same time that happens in a explicit structure. This tension, I think it's something that I discovered throughout practice that it is relevant for all of us and it becomes part of leadership. I think the interest on studying that more was when I started my doctorate I didn't know what I would research and I didn't know that would be the topic. I knew that I wanted to study something related to collaboration on that high level. And one of the early findings that was guiding me is this idea that when you get sort of senior leaders that are part of a team even together, they would actually do many very meaningful work together. But to get them actually in a room usually would be very tough, very difficult. And then to take them properly in a room, not just physically but really committed so, and to commit to their interdependency, that was also very difficult. So peeling a little bit the onion around that. So what is it that we understand logically that we need to collaborate, we do want to collaborate, but there is something also that is quite scary that in pulls us away, especially when we grow in hierarchy was the first starting point of that, which made me then understand this is not just about collegial relationships. The group of executives that are part of a team, they are also independent leaders that are trying to lead their own stuff. And that's what becomes quite challenging when you want to approach teamwork is those two roles that they conflict with each other and they require a little bit more understanding Stephen Matini: Based on your studies. There's a cultural component that has a huge weight. So it really depends on the culture, it depends where with the organization is located. But as human beings, do we tend and naturally to favor top down organizations, is that just how we operate? Petros Oratis: Our relation to hierarchy is something that is part of our human nature and I think it very much starts from the idea that we are brought into this world in absolute dependency on parent and caretakers on adults who we can only survive at these sort of early steps of our life actually based on those figures that they will take care of us very practically but also emotionally even to make sense. So that's part of our psyche that cannot go away. This idea that we sort of move from complete dependency into autonomy as we are building our own strength and our own self-reliance, we become less dependent on those individuals and that sort of continuum that I'm sort of painting here also continues in careers. So very early life we may have that mentality. We need to learn from our superiors, we need to depend on their judgment, we need to be guided by them and sort of we develop in careers so that we can actually become more autonomous and more powerful perhaps. And then we'll become more autonomous. And maybe this idea or what we tell ourselves is that then we should lead others and so forth. And while this is of course the nature of life, we are forgetting the lateral dimension of all of this may not come to mind so clearly because we do all of that with other peers, whether that's our siblings or our classmates or later on in in groups, our education, also the career development is giving us enough stimulation to be able to collaborate with others. But we forget completely that this collaboration and maybe this competition will at some point entail also dependency, again. I said early life will depend on parents and that's what we think dependency is about or we depend on bosses but we are actually depending on each other because we are part of systems. When the structure is clear that interdependency is no issue. I come to you when I need to come to you, you come to me when you need to and so forth and we will find each other.  But as this clarity goes more and more away, it also means that it's very difficult to basically understand what these interdependencies are and then later on we have to negotiate on those ourselves. From this idea that we were developing our own strength in order to become autonomous and not to rely on authority figures now comes into a conflict that as we become autonomous we are actually depending on others who may not be so, you know, in a different level than we are or they may not actually even care about us as maybe our bosses cared about us doing a good job, if you see what I mean. They felt responsibility maybe over whether that's a good or a bad boss, but they felt some responsibility over us performing or delivering good work to them. Now we are dependent on others and others depend on us that maybe, you know, it's more on an adult to adult level and they don't have responsibility of our wellbeing. So a different access or a different value needs to come to play that can guide us about how do we negotiate, how do we learn to care for each other or how do we take responsibility of the total outcome. This doesn't answer your question on culture predisposition because you know some cultures are very hierarchical in that sense and some others are very egalitarian. But regardless of those nuances, I think it's also helpful to understand that from a psyche point of view, we already have that programming in our lives. Maybe more than other species even who have a very short period of being dependent then they're spend the rest of their lives being autonomous. Stephen Matini: The answer that I've given myself so far, of the reason why so many organizations are so much top down probably is around the notion of power. Human beings seem to lose their mind around power and around money. What, what do you think of power as a factor? Does it play any weight? Petros Oratis: Absolutely, it's was central to my research. Maybe it's helpful to distinguish what we mean by power and what do we mean by authority, right? So when we talk about formal authority, we're talking about the right that I have to exercise decision or to make decisions over others, and that right has been given to me also because I also hold ultimate responsibility. So authority often is a dirty word, especially nowadays and we can even talk about that. The idea that a leader will exercise authority is a little bit of a turnoff, it's a bit of a, this is not a good leader, it's a very traditional old fashioned type of leader. But we also need to understand that there is a part of authority which is absolutely required and needed. Some roles have a even legal responsibility over something and we are decreasing the idea of your basically ability to, or your right to make decisions, at least in current discourse about leadership we're saying you should not be just doing it in a authoritarian way, but with that sometimes we are almost implying you should not do it at all, which is not helpful. So there, there is something about how do we exercise authority. But there are also very good reasons why authorities completely going down because complexity one person doesn't have the answer, they need to involve a lot of people. There are a lot of interdependencies, there are different organizational models and so forth. So there is a very good reason why authorities not being exercised directly. So, but if you, if you decrease authority, how do roles begin to differentiate, right? And that's where power comes. The idea of power I think is more related to what do I have in terms of resources, internal or external whether that's skills or that can be binding to someone else similarly to authority, right? So whereas authority is very explicit and it comes with a role and it's power is more related to the person related to their skills and how they're using those skills resources to bind others to do something. And that is positive and it's negative. So usually we are saying well we don't wanna be vulnerable, we don't want to be again in this early stages where we were depending on others. So we have to increase our power and that may also get into the negative connotations of we are power hungry so if only I would be at the top of the world, I don't care about titles unless they give me power or that's where we start getting, we might, some of us might get actually power hungry in that sense. But in my research that was not so much. So what is so fascinating in this topic is that we believe it's about egocentric type of leaders that are driven to accumulate power and money and so forth. I'm sure that there is a percentage of those leaders out there and that's a big driver for leadership. But the way I have experienced in my practice, in my research, the power dynamics that get at play is not simply because people are power hungry, is because the lack of clarity and the lack of formal authority enters a dynamic that even though you don't want it to be and you deny it and you try to avoid it to be competitive or being about a power struggle, it automatically becomes a such. So that's also a lot of in misinterpretation about the other occurs. And the two interacting leaders is suddenly become opponents that they need to engage in a power fight even though that's not explicitly mentioned and that's not what they talk about. The felt experience of the dynamic is as such. So then I become more guarded in opening up and I perceive the other perhaps as being power hungry or on a mission to get me or to sort of dominate me, but actually that may not be their agenda. Stephen Matini: When did the notional lateral leadership begin? How far back does it go in terms of studies? Petros Oratis: So lateral leadership has existed for, i I would say as long as organizations have existed, but it has been taken different forms and we mean different things based on sort of the contemporary reality that that we are part of. So there is a field of studies that that actually are focused completely on leaderless groups, actually leaderless movements. And that's not what I necessarily focus on because I focus on that dimension within hierarchal systems, which majority of our systems are. There is a big trend that started that that related to self authorized or self-manage groups that are leaderless and there you need to see how leadership gets exercised beyond roles or people it's exchanged. So in my field it also started very early on because the group dynamics as they were being studied psychoanalytically that started in Second World War and already there there were studies by a famous psych named Bion who are actually, and others I should say, but they studied also groups from this idea that authority and leadership are shared and you need to understand how they get sort of fluctuated within groups. In the mid two thousands, the notion of lateral leadership and lateral collaboration begin to take more traction in being studied also in my discipline, because a lot of changes in organizational structures were pushing that dimension. So what was before maybe a multidisciplinary or cross-functional collaboration where it needed to be studied there it became more relevant for also top leadership for executive level leadership to be studied, because of this idea that even if you have a vertical accountability, you still need to operate on an enterprise level. And a lot of what we are designing on paper, a lot of organizational design also approaches would amplify this idea that as a leader you absolutely need to learn to collaborate laterally. And that doesn't mean just on people on your level, on your equals, it means simply being on a lateral level with multiple leaders or role holders of different parts of the organization where momentarily you don't have formal authority over and you either have to lead or you have to follow them. So it's not so clear. Stephen Matini: Who would you consider to be a great example of lateral leadership these days? Petros Oratis: I don't want to go into a situation where I call out the particular individual. I could describe some of the characteristics that I found out from my research even though it's all helpful to find role models. So sometimes, you know, I am more in, in this idea that we need to acknowledge the challenges that come from a in our human nature or certain type of behaviors and understand them as opposed to say, you know, underdeveloped leaders or very inspiring leaders. Stephen Matini: I have a a brilliant example and I'm being very humble. I think a good example would be you and I. Who are we? We are competitors. I mean feasibly I may provide some of your services to the same clients, you know on a technical level, you and I competitor, but we are here working together. I love the fact that we can create something together that makes sense. Something that hopefully is going to provide a lot of opportunities and wonderful things to you and to me, you know, rather than competing with other agencies, can we all come together and really support each other and to provide to clients is something that is the cumulative combination of our experiences. So maybe I'm completely off with this, but I think that in some small way I try to be a non-authoritative type of leader. Petros Oratis: What you say resonates a lot and of course I recognize the principles of of what you're saying. My challenge maybe to this and the view of the world in general is that we reflect on this behavior, our value or our ability to engage with that. What we might be forgetting the context. So what you and I have done in our roles is that we sought out an independent practice, right in that sense and in our interaction. Now we might have competitiveness or elements where we might, we could look at them in a competitive or a reserved way. Yes. But we are coming in a collaboration together out of very autonomous roles and we can actually, protect is not the right word, but our independence will not be heavily impacted in our collaboration. That doesn't discount any of what you describe around values or the fact that somebody else could approach something in a very competitive way. Like so it doesn't discount our personal values around that. But the difference, I think we need to remember what may shift the dynamic is either the actual interdependency or the idea of interdependency. So for example, if I forget what you just said and I go on LinkedIn, everyone is a competitor and everyone is a potential client and therefore I might get into a mode that I'm suffocating myself and I need to, you know, I need to become very assertive and very authoritative and so forth. Now organizations completely expose you to that experience all the time. Even if your values are as such, you will never forget that you have to compete. There are limited resources. When you started the question one individual leader came to mind who was actually driven a lot by impact, was inspired to actually take on big roles but without becoming competitive or not being driven by ego or by money and so forth. But of course was also struggling with that. So, and I think that a role model doesn't necessarily mean they don't struggle with exercising that leadership, but in one of the cases that was brought in, there was basically a funding for a research that was given to someone else in another department that he thought should actually had come to him because he was advocating for that role. So, and in that moment was sharing this was starting doubting shouldn't I be more competitive? Shouldn't I be more hierarchical? Why did it went somewhere else? Am I not playing the game right and so forth. And then whilst talking I didn't do much in that interaction, I was just listening. But whilst talking to it, he was saying well maybe this other person, their role was most suited to get the grant done in my case. So he started contextualizing what was happening so that he could step out of this power dynamic that was already imposed. Because it brings up a lot of good questions like who am I? If I'm bypassed in my organization, who am I? Am I, if I'm too collaborative, does it mean that I will be seen for my individual contribution, could maybe later on somebody else speak of my work but they get the credits. All of those aspects that are far in an organization that are far more, I would say even suffocating or impactful than being independent. So starting my research, I was thinking, you know, you have people who are more inclined to be power hungry or they're driven by hierarchy and there are others who are more based on purpose and so forth, but I cannot really say that I can draw the lines so clearly and I am more of an optimist in that sense in a full spectrum where sometimes they're triggered to be in a certain way and sometimes they're triggered to be seen differently. Stephen Matini: It seems that we're going through a massive shift and whether leaders want it or not, you have to start collaborating. You will not be able to survive in such a super complex and fast environment in which we are in. It is virtually impossible. Petros Oratis: I think that younger generations but also the contemporary state is all about purpose and vision more so than you know, the promise of career development, what is a good purpose of an organization that also is shifting quite a lot in a positive way. But that I think also creates maybe a challenge for different generations of leaders, including also the new generation of leaders, right? So not just older generations I think for all is this idea of combining the two different styles. It's very difficult if you think about that. I have experienced even, you know, moments where roles that are more supportive that are from more junior staff as part of a, for example executive team. Sometimes they find it very difficult also to say, oh hold on, this is not actually for me to decide or I need to accept that somebody else ultimately decides. Not everything is about consensus. There are moments that we are lateral and it has to be that way that's enriching the process. And then there are moments actually that we are quite hierarchical. We're quite vertical because some others have those, you know, you are the owner at the end of the day you carry the risks of your business and so forth and it could not be seen as that risk then has to be shared laterally if you, if you see what I mean. Even if you could do that Stephen Matini: In your job, in my job it is such an important thing to have the strength and to be optimistic. So when you work with the client and you provide your point of view, which is beautiful and they are skeptical in, they say, seriously, I understand all of this but I don't see how we can apply here, we have shareholders, we have to produce money, produce results. What is the first step you take in order for them to start getting into this whole lateral type of thinking? Petros Oratis: I think actually that the work with a client is never of the same format as we do now that we analyze something in such a cognitive way. I need to clarify that I'm not advocating for a certain organizational model whether that should be hierarchical or not, right? So, so I would never go in an organization or work with a leader by already holding in mind what the right answer is. All I'm trying to do in that work with a leader is to understand how the lateral dimension, which is always there even in the army, so, so even in a very hierarchical structure and the actual organizational structure with its rules, how they interact for them and for their team. But that's also not necessarily the my beginning and my stop of of this work. So it's just a very informative dimension, what is at the back of the mind and if it requires and it helps the leader to explore that further, we work specifically on that. If not some of those principles will be offering some guiding questions so that we can resolve some of the tensions that they're experiencing with different awareness. So I would never advocate for them to become less authoritative or to let go of control immediately. I would try to understand what are the drivers behind a certain type of behavior, whether that style is supportive of the role and what are the limitations and work with that. That's why I would be very reluctant, for example, to put people in a spectrum of hierarchical versus lateral because these are also contextual. What we often do also is to understand how is my personal predisposition on authority and hierarchy and what is also of more fluid leadership. So what are my predisposition and what are also some of my unconscious relationship models that I carry with me in those roles. So do I experience an thought figure as by default someone who is there to get me or to maybe restrict my autonomy or have I learned to effectively challenge those figures playfully maybe or am I rebellious Again, they can be very resourceful, those models that we all carry, but they could also have limitations. So how far am I conscious of how I'm basically using them? And the same is when I interact with others on a more lateral level. Stephen Matini: What would you say that is the one aspect of your job that makes you the happiest? Petros Oratis: The highlight of this work and what actually is a fuel for doing more of it is when when you have seen that when you work with individuals or with teams, they have actually accomplished an understanding and insights that inspires change, which before was completely out of reach to them. Not because they don't have the skills or because I am might be more intellectual as such, but because the space was not there. So it was through the work, there was space created to experience insights about own behavior and about understanding the system we operate in that before was completely out of reach and that really gives me a high after, after doing such work. I'm not saying that it always has sustainable change if you do it one off and then you that it has, but those moments can never be forgotten either. So even when sometimes the team or an individual defaults into previous behavior, that moment is not forgotten. So it's a, it's a touch point of saying, hold on a second, why am I back into a certain type of behavior? And sometimes, you know, you cannot change a system alone or even can change fully a system. Like you learn how to tweak a little bit or change somewhat of a balance. But I think this is what absolutely gives me a high. Maybe to seek some sort of understanding of different perspectives. That's something also that I was missing in my early life also because of divorce of parents. So I could see that one household had a different storyline, the other household had, they were not fighting necessarily the storylines, but I could see the differences and I, I always was in this experience, but why do I get to be in between and not be able to share the experience of being in between? And that's a little bit what you do often with consulting and coaching is that you are coming across very different storylines, sometimes competitive storylines and we you're trying to actually engage into some sort of dialogue. Also what I've learned is that sometimes my drive to see a certain type of harmony or a certain type of understanding or collaborative moving forward may not be what's needed or what's helpful to others or it may not be as painful to them as I maybe once experienced that. So I think by doing a lot of that work also that desire goes a little bit down in me. The more and more I do this work I process a little bit those experiences that I thought, you know, maybe also they should be better now then I'm thinking okay, maybe they were not so bad in the end. Stephen Matini: Petros we talked about so many different things and I still have so many questions, but I wanna ask you, is there anything that you deem to be really, really important that our listeners, the listeners of this episode that should pay attention to? Petros Oratis: Maybe I already referred to it a little bit, but I think one of my biggest insights is when coming across competitive or power dynamics that are challenging to experience emotionally, I think it is also very important to find a space to process them and not to draw judgments right away to perceive that an organization is not maybe healthy or safe because of those dynamics. It's an unfair thing to be stated. There is no way for organizations to find their equilibrium without a lot of those power dynamics that are at play. When we are in situations that are completely harmonious and everyone is very friendly, we will quickly find out that those dynamics are under the table, which can make it even harder than in highly, let's just say competitive environments where competition is what you see is what you get. So in other words, it's something that we need to learn to play with a little bit more without it being so daunting, without also thinking that it's for the ones who are highly political and they are on a power trick. That's also not what I'm actually advocating, But it's to say we need to come more comfortable with negotiating authorities all the time with each other to wrestle a little bit with our dynamics, especially in highly interdependent roles, and not to judge others when they are on that mode, but to find ways to make that dialogue a little bit richer and that process a little bit richer. Stephen Matini: Petros I've learned a ton of things today. I really appreciate the time you gave me and your kindness. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Eric Girard, author of the book Lead Like A Pro: The Essential Guide for New Managers, assists professionals in transitioning from high-performing individual contributors to effective people managers. Eric discusses the psychological aspects of this transition, providing insights into managing change and setting realistic expectations. This conversation is a comprehensive exploration of the challenges and triumphs that managers face in their evolution to effective leadership. Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform. Subscribe to the Pity Party Over podcast Sign up for Live Session to learn management skills Managerial & Leadership Development Contact Stephen Connect with Stephen #ericgirard #leadlikeapro #managementdevelopment #podcast #pitypartyover #alygn #stephenmatini #leadershipdevelopment   TRANSCRIPT Stephen Matini : How did you get to this point? You know, because you take care, such a specific thing, which is helping manager transitioning people transition into manager role. So is this something that you have always thought? Have you always had an interest? How did it happen? Eric Girard: I got into learning and development in my teens. It starts way back in the Boy Scouts. I was a boy scout for years and years and I used to teach kids how to swim and paddle a canoe and row a boat, anything in, on or under the water. And I loved it when a kid would get something like get a skill, like how to make a canoe do what they wanted. And they would go, whoa. And I thought, Hey, I like teaching. Then I went to college and discovered learning and development and joined the Association for Talent Development. Back then it was the American Society for Training and Development, joined a student chapter and got my first job out of college teaching people how to use their computers. And that was okay, but it was, it felt like I was on a hamster wheel. I felt like I was just running, running, running, running, running. So I went and got my master's degree in intercultural training and wound up traveling around. I taught English in Japan. I lived in Australia for a couple years and then when I came back from Australia, I thought, okay, it's time to really find my passion. And I wound up working for a cross-cultural consulting firm. And then I got recruited to come to Silicon Valley. So that started my 20 year sojourn in Silicon Valley. And I went from teaching new hires about the company, new hire orientation into employee development, and then eventually management development. And then I thought, aha, these are my people. This, I like this. So helping managers understand their new role, helping them move from being great employees, great individual contributors, and moving to being a great people manager and learning all those skills and there's a whole list of them was really rewarding to me. So that's where I, I wound up settling, was in the area of management development and I love it and I've decided to make it my life's work now that I'm out of Silicon Valley and I've got my own practice, that's what I do. I love helping new managers make that shift.   Stephen Matini: Because of your cross-cultural experience, is there something that you have noticed that is consistent in managers all over the world? Eric Girard: You know, managers are people, actually, this is a funny thing that came up in a class I was teaching. So I'm in Iowa teaching a class for, at the headquarters of one of my biggest clients. It's the second day of a three-day class. And this one manager who had been pretty active throughout, they raised their hand and said, I just wanna say something. All managers need therapy. That was a big thing to say. And they say, yeah, all managers need therapy because if you don't take care of your own stuff, then you're not gonna be any good to your team. This person was making the case that it's really important to take care of your own stuff, the stuff that's going on in your head so that you can be fully present and fully there for your team. And I thought that was really good. It was a bold statement to make, but you know, we were in a room where we could speak freely. And it makes perfect sense to me that just as people, we all carry a certain amount of baggage into the workplace. And I think it's important to deal with that. And when you're in a leadership position, whether you're a first line manager or whether you're a CXO, when you're in a leadership position, you need to be self-aware and you need to take care of the things that may hinder you from doing the best job possible when it comes to leading other people. I think that's a universal that I would mention   Stephen Matini: When I deal with managers, I deal with people very, very often that never ever took any sort of managerial development plan at all. So essentially finally they get to it when it's too late. So how do you address that issue with clients? Eric Girard: Well, I would never say it's too late. My first suggestion is that there's always time to learn something new. There's always time to improve your ability to lead teams. And so I often will lead classes that are really meant for new managers. The content is fundamental, and yet people will still come to class, you know, Hey, I've been a manager for 10 years and I've never received any training and I'm really grateful to be here. So I don't see it as a problem. I see it as a, as a cost for celebration because you know, this person finally is gonna fill in the gaps. They've probably figured it out. If they've been a manager for 10 years, and I see this a lot, people have been managing for 3, 5, 10 years or more. And this might be their first or second ever management class. Hey, let's fill in the gaps and let's maybe course correct where you can be a little more effective and bring a little more empathy to your role. It, I would say it's never too late   Stephen Matini: Usually. Do you follow a specific learning path with new managers or you let them take the lead? How? Where do you start with them? Eric Girard: Well, in my book I started with empathy. So the first chapter and the longest chapter is about empathy. And that as a human leading of the humans, you need to be empathetic and you need to be able to walk a mile in other people's shoes. Not to the point where you become a therapist or a counselor, but just being able to listen really, really well and attend to what the other person is saying. So, so I lead with that and then we start with making the transition. Okay, you were a great engineer, you were a great financial analyst, you were a great fill in the blank. Now you're leading a team of those people. Let's make the mental psychological transition to a leadership role. And then from there, you know, and the order of these things will vary a little bit once we've made the transition. Then we'll talk a little bit about goal setting, we'll talk about delegation coaching feedback, how to manage change, how to build trust. And these things all happen in slightly different orders. But when I wrote like a pro, I really thought through, okay, if I could write a perfect course, how would it be organized? That's what the table of contents of that book is all about is okay, you know, first empathy, then make the transition, and then all these other things kind of in increasing levels of difficulty and importance.   Stephen Matini: You know, I've never written a book, but I wonder because you went through that experience, what have you learned about yourself in the process of writing a book about something you love? Eric Girard: This wasn't really clear to me until I got into the book. For six months I sat down and for an hour a day for six months, I wrote the book. You know, I just gave myself an hour every morning when I was freshest and I would, I would hammer out a page or a chapter or a paragraph, whatever I could get done in an hour. And that was fun. Recording the audio book, going into the studio and recording the audio book. That was fun. The editing the endless back and forth, not fun. I'm very much a big ideas guy, you know. So I will come up with a big idea. I will put together the framework and put together the skeleton, and then I'll ask somebody else to come in and, and do the detailed work. And I find that that's how I run my business as well, is I will have the big ideas and then I will say, Diana, Sandra Bill, could you please make this pretty? Because that's not my forte.   Stephen Matini: So you are a leader, maybe more than a manager. Eric Girard: You know, in a micro business you have to do everything. So I can't completely just throw things over the fence, but I know where my strengths are and I play to my strengths and I ask other people to use their strengths. And I'm really open about it, you know, I have a horrible memory. I'm not good with detail, and the people on my team are. And so that's what I asked them to bring. And it works really well   Stephen Matini: As a manager. But in your case, as an entrepreneur, how do you choose good team members? That's a skill. Eric Girard: It's a skill. There's a fair amount of luck involved in it as well. So I got lucky because two of the people that are on my team, I've known for years, and I know their skills. So for example, when I started Gerard Training Solutions, I thought, Hey, I can do it all. I can design, develop, deliver the courses, I can do the branded slide decks, I can do the books, I can run the website, I can do all the things because I'm very smart and can do all these things, right? And I immediately made such a mess of the website that I called my friend Sandra and said, can you please fix the website? And she came in and within a couple of days, I had a website and it was beautiful. So I'm like, okay, you're in. But I had known Sandra, let's see, I met her in 2011 and I brought her on in 20 20, 20 21. So I had known her for about 10 years by that point. There was a combination of knowing her very well and then also knowing her skills. So knowing her as a person, knowing her skills, then I realized that marketing is very important for a small business. And through an association with somebody else, I met Diana. Diana is Colombian, she actually works in Bogota and she's a great social media manager. And so she was a referral and I tried her out and gave her a couple of assignments and they got, they were really good. So I gave her more and gave her more until pretty soon I'm like, would you like a role on the team? Then I decided that I wanted to start getting out in bigger outlets, getting my name out into bigger outlets. I wanted to publish in well-known magazines in my field, TD Magazine, training magazine, training industry. And I knew that journalism is not my forte, but my oldest friend from high school, bill, I met Bill in 1986, and there's a whole story about how we met, but I've known Bill most of my life, like almost 40 years, and he is an outstanding author and editor and public affairs guru. And so I asked him if he'd be willing to, to write with me on these projects. And he said, yeah, absolutely. So having these people in my sphere of influence already and just having those skills and then being referred to pipe to people. So I always, I always trust referrals over cold outreach. And I really appreciate the fact that Diana came through a referral and then I gave her small assignments and then worked up and it's worked out beautifully.   Stephen Matini: One of the things that I hear quite often from managers, because managers work hours and hours and hours, you know, next to people like you with your team, is you inevitably not with everyone, with some people you become friends. So how do you manage, how do you balance boundaries? And the delicate relationship between a, this is a friendship, but you know, this is also a professional relationship. Eric Girard: Yeah, that's really dicey. And I actually had a professional relationship blow up because the lines got blurred a little bit and it didn't go well, it didn't end well. So that was a huge learning for me. But with Bill, Sandra, and Diana, you know, we're all friends, like, we're all friends, we're all friendly, but when we're working, we're working. Like, for example, with Bill, we practically got our own language. You know, we've known each other for almost 40 years, and we've got inside jokes, we've got silly things we say to each other, stuff that would just, you know, not be appropriate in a work context that doesn't come out when we're working, when we're working. I am Bill's client and so there's a client boss relationship going on there. And as soon as the work is done, then that switch gets turned off and the friend switch gets turned on. It's a really important distinction to make because getting too friendly or too comfortable when I'm asking him to perform an important task could lead to poor results, could lead to hurt feelings. So we're pretty professional with each other when we're working. And then when we're done working, then we can talk about our families and we can talk about, you know, that one time that silly thing happened. And we can talk about that when the work is done for a manager in a corporate setting. 'cause You know, obviously I don't work in a corporate setting anymore, but, but in a corporate setting, I would say what's really important is setting goals and setting boundaries. This is what I expect of you professionally. Here are your smart goals, this is what I need you to get done, and if it gets done or if you knock outta the park, no problems. If you start to have performance issues, then there's a path we need to take. And I have to take it as a representative of the corporation. And you know, I, I still love you, you're still my friend, but you know, we need to make sure that that goals get achieved. So I think that that's the, the number one thing when you're managing a friend in the workplace is have boundaries, have goals.   Stephen Matini: It sounds really difficult to me, really, and also, you know, boundaries. I have to say, in my experience, listening to a lot of people must be the one thing that drives people crazy. People either not being able to express their thoughts, feeling that, what is it gonna happen to me if I say what I have to say? And then not saying it, they end up being a pressure cooker. And striking the balance is such a difficult thing. Is this a topic that you ever talk with your clients? How does set boundaries. Eric Girard: You know, on, on occasion I'll talk about, you know, setting boundaries and I will usually default to goal setting, which I've discussed, and a SWOT analysis and just being kind of clinical when it comes to assessing your team and what are your strengths and what are your weaknesses? You know, I would definitely talk with folks who are experts in workplace culture, talk with your HR folks and you know, talk about, hey, I wanna set a culture of excellence, of openness on my team of trust. I love Patrick Lencioni's, work on the five Dysfunctions of a team. So I would really focus on really building that baseline of trust so that people can say what's on their mind and not be afraid of it blowing up. There's resources out there for folks, I would definitely refer folks to Patrick Lencioni, definitely refer folks to setting goals and boundaries and being open about those, having frequent conversations about those. And then doing a SWOT analysis where you sort of stand back and say, okay, how are we in the four areas of swot? And you know, are there things that we need to fix or adjust in order to get the most outta the team? If   Stephen Matini: A team exist in a culture that is not a SpeakUp culture, it's not a transparent culture, communication, struggles moving, is it still possible for the team to become something of a happy island in which communication flows. Eric Girard: Happens? All the time happened to me when I was working my first gig in Silicon Valley, actually, the, the company I worked at the longest, I was there for seven years, almost eight years because the culture was so good in our little island, we, our learning and development team was great at talking about issues, talking about things that were not working or were working. We supported each other. This is the team I was part of when I was diagnosed with cancer. And they rallied, they showed up, they brought food, they took me to my appointments, they were magnificent human beings. And that was inside of a company that maybe didn't have the greatest culture all around. But that team had a fantastic culture and I was very loyal for years to that team.   Stephen Matini: See, this is usually a difficult conversation that I had with managers. Like, to give an example, last week I was with three different groups of managers and all of them were constantly pointing out responsibilities that upper management has. And so we talked about different issues and they said, well, you know, we are here discussing these issues, but the people who could actually do something about it, it's them. How do you handle that rightful concern at the, the same time reminding people, yes, but you also have responsibilities in the matter. How do you explain that?   Eric Girard: If you've got a culture where people are pointing fingers, that's a little more fundamental, that's a bigger problem than just something you're gonna solve in a meeting. Building a culture of agency and self-advocacy and getting people to say, okay, the system we work in, the company we work for is not perfect. What can I do right now to move things forward? That actually brings me into the change management content that I teach. When we think about control and areas over which you have no control areas over which you have full control and areas over which you have some influence. And a lot of us will beat our heads against the wall, against things over which we have no control. I can't control how the CXOs, how the c-suite acts. I'm gonna have no influence over the c-suite unless you happen to have an extremely good relationship. But most of us are gonna have no control over how the c-suite acts. What I can control fully is my own attitude, my own inner talk, my own self-talk, and the places where I can have influence is with my team. Maybe you can't control the weather, you can't control the stock price, you can't control the c-suite, forget about it. You can fully control your own attitude and your own self-talk, manage that. Just invest enough energy to keep that rolling forward. But those areas where you can influence, where you can influence your team, maybe you've got the ear of your team leader or your friends with somebody else on the team, that's where you can influence and that's where you should focus your energy. So that's how I would handle that question is by saying, listen, don't waste your energy. You know, don't beat your head against the wall trying to influence the c-suite. You're, you're probably not gonna do it. Focus on your own attitude and the attitude of your team members and build a culture inside your team that you want to be part of and move forward with that.   Stephen Matini: Working with a lot of managers, what would you say that is? The one complaint that you hear the most from managers? The one thing that drives them crazy. Eric Girard: Most managers I talk to are, are just extremely time poor. There're just isn't enough time in the day because when you're an individual contributor, you're focused on your tasks, you've got your list, you know, you've got your project plans and you're responsible for that, and you get that done as a manager, you have to focus on getting results through other people. And so not only do you usually have tasks that you're responsible for, but you also have to get the team to focus on what they're responsible for. And so the, the two things that I really help managers do is first off, delegate, how can you learn how to be an excellent delegator and empower your team members to run with something and get it done and then let you know how it went. There's a fantastic article I bring up all the time, it's by HBR, the Harvard Business Review, and the title is called Who's Got the Monkey. And it was an article that was written in 1974 and then republished in 1999. So it's got some real staying power and it talks about six different levels, degrees of freedom that you can have as an individual contributor that you can have with an, an agreement with your, your manager, everything from sitting, sitting on your hands and waiting to be told what to do all the way up to just handle it and don't even bother telling the boss. And then there's levels in between. So I would encourage any manager new or not to read that article. It's free on the HBR website and, and have a discussion with your team about how many degrees of freedom, how much freedom can your individual team members have per task. Learning how to delegate is number one, learning how to manage your time is number two, and everybody's gonna have a slightly different method of managing their time. I use the Covey four quadrants, the urgency and importance matrix, which for history buffs folks might be interested. It actually comes from Eisenhower, president Eisenhower, learning how to manage your time and prioritize and then, you know, getting yourself some sort of a system that you will use. So I've got a system that works great for me, I wouldn't expect anybody else to use it because it's very peculiar to me, but the best system for you is the one that you will use. So whether it's using Asana or whether it's using your calendar or whether you batch things in email, find that system and stick to it and iterate it as you need to so that you can get the most important things done every day. And there's still white space on your calendar to have impromptu meetings with your team members and you get your job done as well. The individual contributor tasks that you have as a first line manager. So it's a delicate balance, but it can be done.   Stephen Matini: How would you respond to a manager who says, I understand that my job entails managing people, but I have all these tasks and that I need to take care of and I don't have time, you know, for people, I don't have time for meetings, I don't have time to build relationship with people. Eric Girard: People. Yeah. That to me takes a shift in mindset because we're all busy, we are all absolutely busy, there's no denying that. And you have to honor the long hours that managers are putting in and you can't afford not to invest in your team. If you don't invest in your team, how are you gonna be able to properly delegate to them if you don't know their skills, if you don't know their strengths, if you don't know their weaknesses, if you don't know these people, how can you delegate work off to them to get stuff off your plate so that you have more time? So I would say that's crucial. You have to change your mindset. You have to get to know your team, you have to have one-on-ones, I would say weekly for an hour, biweekly for 45 minutes, pick something, but do it regularly and treat it as sacred time. Don't mess with it rescheduling because something urgent came up in the business. Totally okay, but never just cancel with no reason. But have those regular meetings to get to know your team members and let them get to know you so that you can give them more and more responsibility. Because people are motivated, not so much by money, but Dan Pink in his book Drive talks about people being motivated by autonomy, mastery, and purpose. And you can help people develop autonomy, mastery, and purpose by getting to know them first and find out what they want to be autonomous about, what they wanna master and what drives them from a purpose standpoint. And then you can tailor their workload so that they can take on more and more and you have more time to actually breathe.   Stephen Matini: You know, some people seem to be really more on the task side, just the way they are as people, the way they think their personality. They seem to have this ability of thinking in terms of tasks more than people. And I love when you said that you open your book dedicating a lot of space to empathy. So can you teach to someone who's not particularly empathetic how to boost their people skills? Eric Girard: Oh yeah, I talk about that in that chapter. You know, the whole idea of, you know, this is all nice Eric, but I'm not particularly empathetic. That's not my jam. I'm a task oriented person. That's okay. You can learn, you can learn to be empathetic, you can learn to listen. So I would re absolutely recommend Daniel Goldman's book Emotional Intelligence, do a little reading and read about emotional intelligence and how to build that. That's fantastic. Look for opportunities in your day-to-day life to do something a little different. So for example, talk with somebody who's got a different point of view than you on on anything. You know, you may not want to jump right into politics, for example, but you know, just, you know, a different point of view on how a work process should be done or how to get a particular thing done, listening to different points of view and trying to understand why that person thinks the way they think. The whole point here that I make in the empathy chapter is trying to walk a mile in other, per other people's shoes. But doing that gradually, don't throw yourself in the deep end. I'm to the point now where I'm ready to do something kind of big for me. I think I'm a fairly empathetic person, but around where I live, there are a number of unhoused people, a lot of homeless people, and I carry in my car bags full of supplies for them. And so if I see somebody on the corner with a sign rather than giving them money, I'll give them this bag that has a little bit of food, has phone numbers for resources in it, might have a little clothes in it, just useful things that will help somebody, you know, be a little more comfortable rather than just handing over a $5 bill. But I've never actually sat down and talked with somebody who is homeless and had a meal with them. So I'm actually gonna look for an opportunity to go to, you know, a place and have a meal with, with somebody who's unhoused and talk with them. There's a fantastic food pantry not far from where I live, and they, they offer all kinds of services as well. So I'm, I'm gonna start talking with Fish Line more and more to see about, hey, how, how else can I get involved? What else can I do besides just handing out these, these packets? That's gonna be, for me, a big step toward building more empathy toward people who are unhoused. And, you know, I'm not suggesting that listeners have to do that right away, but just take a small step toward could I have a conversation with somebody who has a different point of view than me? Could I go someplace that I wouldn't normally go? Can I go to a meeting that I wouldn't normally go to?   Stephen Matini: Eric, empathy is a wonderful thing, you know, energetically takes so much effort to empathize with someone. Do you ever get tired and how do you protect your energy by assisting so many people as you do? Eric Girard: I wanna be careful. I'm not Mother Teresa, so I'm, I'm not, you know, out doing marvelous things all the time, but I'm just, I'm just trying little by little to do a little bit more and yeah, it's draining. It's, it's very, it's very exhausting. So I'm an extrovert. I love being around people, so I get recharged by being around people. I love doing this, for example, this is fun to me, but I also have time at home with my kids in front of the fire reading a book, just relaxing. If I want to totally relax and unplug, I'll read a book in front of our fire with, with the kids, or I'll go mountain biking or scuba diving or something like that and go get some me time to recharge a little bit.   Stephen Matini: Why do you think that you got so interested in managers rather than executives, white managers of all possible professionals? Eric Girard: Well, there's a story to that. When I started in the Silicon Valley, I noticed, you know, the company that I was with was growing very fast. I was noticing that people were being promoted very quickly. One day they were an individual contributor. The next day they're leading the team and they made an absolute mess of it. They, they didn't receive training, they didn't receive guidance, they just said, okay, now you're leading the team, good luck. And it didn't go well. So being on the receiving end of that, I didn't like that very much. So, you know, that planted the seed. Then it was my turn, I got promoted. I didn't receive enough training right off the bat and I knew made a mess of it. I didn't follow any of my own advice, I just made a hash of it. So I walked away from that experience going, okay, never again.   Stephen Matini: What did you do? What did you mess up? Eric Girard: I micromanaged. I didn't delegate. I gave very, very nitpicky feedback. Like it's embarrassing. I cr it was cringey, the sort of things that I did. Once I went through that, I thought, okay, never again. Never again. And so fast forward when we decided to move outta Silicon Valley up to the Seattle area, I thought, you know what, I'm gonna start my own company and that's gonna be my focus is helping new managers making that, make that transition.   Stephen Matini: Have you noticed any differences between female and male managers and the issues that have to deal with if two people, same age, same level professionally, one is a woman and the other one is a man. Have you noticed through your experience any differences in terms of issues they deal with, how they progress throughout their managerial development or they're not any difference at all? Eric Girard: I haven't really seen any differences. I've worked with and around a lot of very strong female managers who, who did an excellent job and I've also worked for some who completely invested up just like their male counterparts.   Stephen Matini: The one thing that I've noticed, I've noticed, not in terms of capacity, obviously same thing, but in terms of feeling legitimate, feeling that they own a position. Sometimes I've noticed that a female managers, they seem to work at twice as hard as their male counterparts and there's a cultural component to it, at least here in Italy it's really, really, really strong. But you never notice something like that in the us. Eric Girard: Not that I can think of now. It may exist. It's just not something I, I paid much attention to.   Stephen Matini: So in your job that you help people transition into a managerial position, do you ever help them managers transition towards a leadership position? So moving up higher. Eric Girard: My focus is primarily helping folks make that first transition. If you think of the leadership pipeline, that first transition into first line manager positions, a lot of what I would recommend to folks who are looking at, you know, making that next transition is, I would say read the Leadership pipeline. Fantastic book there. And then I would encourage everybody, everybody to read the first 90 days fantastic book to help folks make transitions, whether it's from individual contributor into management or from management into more senior leadership, maybe from a senior manager into a director position or director to vp. Those are a couple of really valuable books I'd suggest.   Stephen Matini: I would suggest for them to read your chapter on empathy. That to me is the first thing to understand what it means to be a leader. How do we explain to people the difference in simple terms between being a leader and being a manager? Because a lot of people get confused. It's, they're two things. Eric Girard: It's kind of a fun puzzle that, because I think in order to be a good manager, you also have to be a good leader. But there are a lot of good leaders who are not managers who don't have any leadership position at all. And so, you know, the qualities of leadership in terms of being able to get people rallied around a vision to help folks see this is where we're going, I will get us there or we will get there together. Those are qualities that, that a manager needs to have and a leader needs to have. And I think that there are in some instances where you've got folks who have the manager title, but who are not leaders. And I think that, that that's where you, you wind up with problems. So, you know, a good leader is somebody who can build trust. A good leader is somebody who can create a culture of inclusivity and making it okay to speak about issues openly, who can do conflict who focuses on results. Those are all elements of leadership that, you know, a person may have whether or not they have the title of manager. Does that make sense?   Stephen Matini: It does, it does. You know, one thing that I started thinking recently, and there's no really logic to what I'm saying, just in my pure observation, sometimes I think, boy, it is so hard to be a manager. I mean, these people really, they're in between, they have this bizarre position. They have to listen to the people on top of them and they have to manage the one below. And so sometimes I think it seems to me that maybe being a manager is so much harder compared to people that have a, a higher opposition. What do you think? Eric Girard: I'm not sure if it's any harder than a position above it. A lot of folks, what I've seen is it's, it's they're kind of taken aback or they're shocked, you know, because I was a great engineer and all I had to do was, was crank out my code and, and I was fine to go from there to, oh wait a minute, I have to do that and I have to lead people and I have to manage processes and you know, I have to make sure that all the TPS reports are right and I have to make sure that everybody's happy and engaged. That sometimes is a bit shocking. What happens typically is once somebody's been through that transition, and then as they move up the ranks from manager to senior, manager to director and so on, is that they just get more used to it and they get more skilled at managing their time. So they're not completely stressed all the time.   Stephen Matini: When people start working with you on their managerial skills, how long would you say that it takes them to transition and to feel comfortable being a manager? Eric Girard: Well, it's not instant, that's for sure. You know, it, it's not something that you come to my class and then, you're a manager and it's all, it's all better. It's a psychological transition. There's a difference between change. So the title changed. Okay, so you know, I walk into your office and I am a senior specialist and I walk out of your office and I'm a manager. The thing is, the change, the psychological process that we go through, that's the transition. And that could take weeks or months, it goes faster if you've got people to talk to. It goes faster if you know what to expect. But you have to allow people to go through their own change curve. So Elizabeth Kubler Ross came up with, with a change curve that was based on her grief curve. And I use a simplified version of it where you've got denial, resistance, exploration, and commitment. And it's okay to go through all four steps. It's okay to resist for a little while. The fact that your old job has ended and now you've got a new job, that's okay, but you can't get stuck there. And so having somebody to talk to, whether it's your employee assistance program, whether it's your HR manager, whether it's another trusted manager, having somebody to talk to, to move on toward exploration, and you start to see what's in it for me and what will I get from this onto commitment. And okay, you know, now I'm a manager, I've left the old job behind, I've got my new job and I'm ready to go. And that could take days, weeks, months, it's gonna be different for everybody.   Stephen Matini: And it's also really hard because sometimes when I work with clients, they want everything now. And in the past we used to say, well you need to have at least a year to feel comfortable in a new position, let alone to become a manager. But now everybody wants everything now, you know, sometimes I'm asked, we want you to do a coaching intervention with this person. How many coaching sessions do I have? Five say, what do you want me to do in five sessions? The timeframe, you know, is becoming smaller and smaller, which I don't think is fair to people. Exactly for the reason you said it. There's a curve. Every single person is different. It takes patience and we don't react the same way. You know? What are the first sign in terms of changing the mindset that you notice in someone

Kali Patrick is a Sleep, Health, & Well-Being Coach whose book Mastering Your Sleep Puzzle helps busy people who struggle with sleep due to stress and overactive minds. Kali highlights the importance of letting go, creating personal space, and making positive lifestyle changes for better sleep. Our interview revolves around understanding and addressing individualized sleep challenges through a comprehensive, mindful, and personalized approach. Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform. Subscribe to Pity Party Over Sign up for Live Session Managerial & Leadership Development Contact Stephen Matini Connect with Stephen Matini #KaliPatrick #SleepCoach #MasteringYourSleepPuzzle #Well-Being #LettingGo #Burnout #Work-LifeBalance #Podcast #PityPartyOver #Alygn #StephenMatini #LeadershipDevelopment TRANSCRIPT Stephen Matini: So I think maybe as a first question that I should ask you to an expert in sleep is, how did you sleep last night? Kali Patrick: I was doing mixed and you know, a lot of people think that because I'm a sleep coach, that I get something like whatever perfect sleep would be that that happens every night. It's almost like if you were a, a nutrition person, people think that you never eat anything that's not healthy. As a woman of a certain age, I wake up hot and then cold and then hot and then cold. So some nights are better than others. I mean, it wasn't bad, but it wasn't great.   Stephen Matini: When did you start getting interested in sleep? I know you mentioned last time also that, you know, as it happened to so many of us as somehow a trouble or something that upset us becomes the inspiration for a job. How did it start for you? Kali Patrick: Well, my big problems are rooted back in childhood. I think they really started bothering me and becoming an issue in, in college I was under a lot of stress. I was studying for a degree that did not match what I was truly, naturally good at and wanted to do. So I had a lot of stress around making sure I got good grades and making sure I kept my financial support, et cetera. And I had a lot of trouble sleeping. I started this with grinding of the teeth with bro them. So had a lot of pain in my mouth and was going to dentist. They finally gave me the guards for my feet. So that took away some of the pain. But I was still tired. I was still very stressed and struggling and that went on and I graduated and everything was fine and I got a job and then the stress became the job, which, which was in high tech. And I was developing websites back when they were new. So I'm on my way, I something to do in fact that, that I enjoyed, which was helpful. But it was still a very stressful environment. Things were always changing. As you might know, things are never static. You always, always behind, always busy. And so I was having trouble sleeping then and again. I knew it was because of the stress. So I explored things like yoga and meditation and I would take a class here and there and try, okay, I'm gonna sit and I'm gonna stop my mind and I'm gonna do all the things. And that didn't work. And finally I'd say it was probably 15 years later, I did a sleep study. 'cause I thought, well maybe there's something wrong. And going to a doctor and, and telling them, Hey, I'm having trouble sleeping. I don't know what else to do. They had me sleep in the room with the wires attached to my head. And I thought, how in the world am I gonna sleep in a cold, sterile environment with people behind a, a mirror watching me and monitoring me? And turns out I fell asleep. And he said, I woke up in the morning and they said, well, there's nothing wrong with you. You slept great. Here's a prescription. And in hindsight, I really questioned why I got a prescription if there was nothing wrong. I was happy. I was great. Okay, nothing's wrong with me. I have a prescription, I'll take this medication and I'll sleep. I must be taking it for about a week. And that was it because I noticed that I was groggy when I woke up, more so than had I not slept. And I didn't remember my dream. I was a, a pretty vivid dreamer at that time and I was interested in my dream. And when I woke up after taking medication, I couldn't remember them anymore. And I said, well, so I'm gonna wake up broadly. At least I want the benefit of remembering my dream. So I stopped doing that and went to all the natural things, right? The valerian and the melatonin, the teeth, anything that was sort of more natural that I could try. And none of that worked. I eventually thought from burnout in 2010 with my job, I had risen up through the ranks manager, et cetera, all the fun that comes with that as a sort of new job in a tech environment. So I left everything. I just said, I can't do this anymore. I had the benefit of being able to do that. So I went into a yoga teacher training program just saying, I don't wanna teach yoga. I just want to do something completely different and do something that's going to be good for me and I know that this is going to be good for me. And so I did a really intensive teacher training and it was life changing. It was just one of those moments where, wow, my life could be different, I could be different. So I came back from that saying, I do wanna teach yoga. I do wanna be that person who's less stressed and has that calm be yoga voice and just as relaxed. And that created a lot of turmoil in my existing life because the two things didn't fit at all. So there was a lot of, of shedding of my career, my relationship, and it was a very difficult time actually. But what came out of that was this practice that I now have where I am helping people learn how to sleep better, how to do it without all of that stuff that clearly, well, it didn't work for me. That doesn't mean it doesn't work for other people, but most of the people I coach have been in that situation, right where they have tried all the things, I've done, all the stuff I've seen my doctor, nothing's wrong, but I'm not sleeping. And so it's really a pleasure to be able to work with people and to help them find their way through that and do it in a way that works for them, right? Just because I did it in a certain way, you know, you mentioned I'm a sleep expert. I don't call myself a sleep expert. I call myself a sleep coach because I don't initially have all the answers. What we do in a coaching situation is we work together and we navigate it together and we figure out, well, what's going to work best for each person? And that could be completely different than how I did it, but it's that learning how to reconnect to your own natural ability to sleep and see all these other things as distraction, as more stressors, as more to do and to really peel the things away that are preventing sleep versus trying to do things to make sleep happen.   Stephen Matini: Where do you start when you want to be more aware? Kali Patrick: I do usually have people do an assessment. So let's lay out all the problems. Let's just get it all on the table. What are the issues people are having? A lot of my clients suffer from multiple sleep concerns. The main bucket being trouble falling asleep initially when you go to bed, trouble staying asleep throughout the night. Some people wake up too early and some people have all of those problems and still others sometimes feel that the sleep at night is interrupted in some way, or not quality sleep because in the daytime they feel, well, I get tired right in the afternoon, for example. I get tired, I don't have the energy that I want. So we lay all that out. Generally speaking, people have an idea of what might be contributing positively or negatively to their space. What's something you do, for example, that you know you sleep better when you do it? You know, a lot of people will say, well I wanna go for a walk. I know when I exercise or when I go for a walk in the daylight, I sleep better that night. Okay, great. So then that's one in the column of this helps. Okay, what's one thing you're doing that is probably not the best thing for your sleep? And out of 10 people say using technology, I'm on my phone, I'm on my iPad, I'm watching television, I'm, you know, too late in the evening before bed. That's the number one answer. We do that, we go back and forth. We look at what are the contributors, what are the things that are influencing sleep? And the other thing that I think is really important is to step back from all that and say, well what do we want six months from now, a year from now? What do you want your life to be like? And people usually start out by saying, well, I'd like to sleep better. I'd like to have more energy. Great. Let's imagine that you have that now. What do you want? What will you do with all that energy that you have as a result of sleeping better? What will you do with all the extra time and money and effort that you're putting into trying to solve this problem? Where will that go? That becomes the motivating factor. So I've had people say all sorts of wonderful things and people wanna start a business. People want to create art or music. People want to be better in their relationship. There's no right or wrong answer there, but what is the vision for somebody who tweaks better and is more energetic? And that is a real important part of the process because we have to keep that in mind when we make choices and all those little choices that make or break someone's sleep on a daily basis, on a nightly basis.   Stephen Matini: If I understood correctly, it seems that sleep is the manifestation or something else. It is something that gets affected when other parts of our life do not quite align or work the way they do. While you were talking, obviously I'm not a sleep expert, probably my expertise, I would say lies more in the, in the communication realm. And for me, communication is always the indicator, depending how that is or things flowing or flowing and such and such. So oftentimes when people want to work on communication, they feel that, okay, let's address communication, miscommunication in reality, the problem usually is always elsewhere. Sure, you know, there's certain technicalities you want to learn about communication, but once all the other stuff is taken care of, then usually communication flows. And as they were talking, you know, it seems to me it might be a similar dynamic. Kali Patrick: Absolutely. And and a lot of it, like I I mentioned is, is removing barriers. So clearing the path. And yes, once people start to make different choices, and particularly around rest and recovery, sleep happen. You don't create sleep, you don't make sleep happen. It does happen when you get out of the way of it and a different mindset, it's different view into the problem and therefore a different solution.   Stephen Matini: One thing you said last time when you and I talked that really got stuck in my head is sleeping, is learning to let go. And I think it's beautiful because falling asleep it is, you know, letting it go. But it's such a simple thing, but it seems to be so hard sometimes to do. Would you mind explaining more this concept? Kali Patrick: I often say sleep is about letting go or sleep is a surrender as a way to contrast with how we typically look at sleep and how we look at solving sleep struggle, right? Which is to try to control the problem, to put practices in place. Not to say that having a great bedtime routine isn't a wonderful thing, but when we start to get rigid about it, right, okay, I have to do this and I have to do this and I have to do this. Or we get stressed and anxious about it, okay, I'm not sleeping, so let me run through all the things I could possibly do to help myself, right? Which I see a lot of people doing as well, right? So that's all in service of how do I make sleep happen? How do I control my sleep? How do I fix this problem? Which I work with fixers, I work with managers, I work with project managers, program managers, people who are used to looking at a problem saying, okay, I can fix this. How do I do that? What are my options? And that works great in a lot of situations and we get praised for our ability to do that in a lot of different situations. But when it, where it comes to sleep, that actually usually backfires. So what we need to do, as you said, is to say, okay, what do I need to let go of? How do I let myself surrender to this? And that is not easy. It is a simple idea. It makes sense to most people, but it's not necessarily easy. And in part that's because of the training that we've had, right? Again, the training we've had to say, okay, here's a problem. What are my options? How do I solve it? And to some extent we do bring that to the sleep struggle, but it is less about doing and more about undoing. So in terms of really looking to surrender and let go, I think the best way to practice that, and it is a practice, doesn't just, we don't just suddenly be able to let go, right? We have to practice that is by having moments during the day where we can practice rest and practice receiving and practice recovery, which most people don't do. And even if they do try to do that, a lot of times we're so conditioned to be doing and moving and productive that sitting down, for example, for 15 minutes without some sort of stimulation, just sitting and being with ourselves and you know, yeah, letting the mind do its thing. It's going to think, it's going to be busy, but can we try to be built and give that space for the mind to kind of process and the heart and the emotion. Certainly we're consuming a lot of things during the day, right? We're consuming information, we're consuming other people's energy and we might have difficult conversations, et cetera. So we need to sort of process that and we give ourselves these small rest breaks during the day. It might not be sort of the then meditation experience, but those things can wash through our brains and wash through our body. During the daytime, people usually complain that, Hey, I'm up at three in the morning and I'm thinking about what happened during the day and I'm worrying about this and I'm worrying about that. Oh, that's because that's when you're finally quiet. That's when you're finally still, we need to practice that during the daytime, like make an appointment with ourselves to say, okay, I'm gonna just sit and say, okay, what's happened so far today? Let me process that. Let me see what do I think? What do I feel about that? And then get up and move on. But that does require some change to how the daytime is.   Stephen Matini: Are you deliberate with the quiet moments during the day minute? Do you plan them somehow or you let them happen organically? Spontaneously? Kali Patrick: Personally or for my client?   Stephen Matini: Both. Kali Patrick: Personally I plan for them, for me in particular, the morning is a sacred time. I have a good two to three hours from the time that I get up to the time that I start, you know, my day where I'm quote unquote working on something, right? Where I, and it's not that I'm sitting here quiet, right? I have things that I'm doing, but I have a process. I'm maybe sitting down reading something that I wanna read. I drink coffee. Yes, I do have, I enjoy my hot cup of coffee in a cold morning, right? So I take that time to kind of ease into my day. And I do also have an appointment with myself around three in the afternoon because I know that's when I tend to get a little bit of low energy, which many people do. And so that's a great time also to take care of yourself and to have that appointment with yourself. My clients sometimes do that as well where, where they know, oh, well, you know, lunchtime I have a break, I can sit with my food, et cetera. Or if they have children or depending on their schedule, they need to figure out where, when that works best for them. I find that most people, unless they're highly exceptional and have a really flexible schedule, most people do benefit from having some sort of routine and rhythm to it. So it's a consistent, every day at this time, I do this. And the body and the mind start to expect that it becomes part of the training of the rhythm of the day, which also does all contribute to having a better night. So, but it's, it's completely up to what works for each person.   Stephen Matini: As I was going through your website and learning as much as possible so I could be well-informed. I read one thing that I, I thought I'm gonna ask her, which is revenge bedtime procrastination is, I wanna ask you, I used to have such a busy schedule, you know, go, go, go, go, go out of the, I don't know, guilt or whatever the hell it was. And then in the evening I would procrastinate going to bed because it was like, screw it. Now I need some time for myself. I need to carve with some times that I can actually exist and live. Is this an example of revenge, bedtime procrastination? Kali Patrick: 100%. Exactly. It's that not having time for yourself during the daytime, that pushes me further away because, oh, you know, maybe the house is quiet or you finally feel as though you've done all the things you need to do that day. It's a scheduling problem to some extent, right? If there are too many things that are not for me happening during my day, too much of me giving myself to other people. We talk a lot about boundaries and coaching because oftentimes people struggle with saying no at work, saying no to family friends, to asking for help, for receiving help, for taking that time without feeling guilty. And that that is really important, you know, and we know from, I mean from the work side, the to-do list is endless. It never goes away. And I mean, it's the same in personal life really. Everything's a project, right? You can't go do anything quickly. I'm finding that, you know, I put something on my list of something to do personally, and I think it's gonna take 15 minutes and I'm on, you know, I'm on in traffic, I'm on the phone, whatever, for an hour. Everything takes longer than we think. And we don't, we don't necessarily budget for that. And we don't necessarily give ourselves those moments of quiet, like I mentioned. So of course we're gonna create, that's, that's basically moving that moment of rest and quiet and time for you taking it away from your sleep time. And that's a choice. Is that time to yourself more important than the quality of your suite? It might be, but at some point the what you're taking away from your suite is going to catch up with you and then you'll make a difference with it.   Stephen Matini: And it, and it's also so cultural particularly, yeah, I would say for the western world, you know, which is so focused on doing, doing, doing, doing, doing. And the notion that if you carve some space for yourself, it's not that you're being unproductive, you're just recouping your energy so you can be even more efficient. You know, that's something that is definitely not part of the mindset of, of a lot of people. And so when we talk about work-life balance and all these programs within organizations for work-life balance, is that just a big lie ? Because I mean, we're getting this whole thing so wrong. I mean, what is a healthy way to really approach work-life balance, you know, from an organizational standpoint? Kali Patrick: Well, the thing that IHP and I'm often a provider for company. I come in and I do webinars. I talk about sleep, I talk about meditation, I do meditation classes, I teach yoga. These are benefits that a lot of companies give to try to help people with their mental health and their physical health and have some balance. What I see unfortunately is that many people don't take advantage of those programs. And the main thing that I see as to why is there's that permission. There's not an environment of safety that says, well, you're gonna take this hour and for yourself and go to a yoga class. We're gonna offer it to you, but we're going to make you feel really bad if you go take it because it's work to do. So for me, it comes down to that permission and that security, right? That it's an acceptable choice to say, yes, I'm gonna take advantage of that. And it doesn't have to be a company provided yoga class, it could be a, Hey, I'm gonna go out for my run in the afternoon because I want some daylight before the sun goes away and I know it's going to help me sleep better. But if it feels bad or like the person's going to get punished for taking that time, then they're not gonna take that time. And that's the, the shingle biggest thing I think is the problem. And it has been a problem for many years, is that people don't feel comfortable doing it. I have done some consulting work in the past couple years just to kind of stay connected to the culture. I did a consulting job probably several years ago now, but I had to be in an all day meeting with the, the customers and my boss. And I said, great. It was, it was in Boston. I said, I'll be there at nine o'clock. So I show up at, he said, no problem. I show up at nine o'clock. They've been there since seven. Okay, fine. I'm here at nine, fully participatory, well rested. We get it to about 12 o'clock noon. I'm thinking, my stomach's growling, I'm ready for a break, I'm hungry, I'm thirsty, et cetera. No one's making any movement to leave. I can feel my blood sugar going down, right? So I said, excuse me, I'm going to get up and take a break now. And I got up and I left the room and I was the only one who did this. And it took so much courage, it really was hard. And I know everything I know about burning out and, and not doing this and having that experience and having recovered from that experience, I knew I had to do it. I mean, it, it was so difficult to do that. I thought, you know, on all the things in the minds, right? Oh my gosh, what are they gonna think of me? That I left on top of that I was the only female in the room at the time. There's that, there's a little bit of that concern going on. But it took a half an hour lunch, I just left, I ate my lunch, I, I drank some water, I went to the restroom, walked around a little bit, came back, they're all still there, right? And they brought some things in, you know, some bad coffee, some pizza, whatever. And you know, people ate and continued the meeting. So three o'clock in the afternoon, now we're still all trapped in this room. No oxygen, excuse me, I'm just gonna step out for a moment. I get up, I walk around, get some water, et cetera, et cetera, come back in. It got a little easier that second time because I had done it already by five o'clock the meeting was over, the client left, my boss looks at me and he says, oh my God, I need a scotch. I am wiped. I am like so drained. Well of course you've been here since seven, you haven't left the room, you haven't moved around, you haven't really eaten anything. Well you haven't had a drink of anything hydrating, right? And I actually kind of sat there for a moment. I thought, I'm okay, I feel okay. And that's because I made different choices. But it's really hard when you're the only one doing this. And in another situation, what I did might've inspired others to say, Hey, yeah, let's take a break. And sometimes that does happen, but I, I like this example. 'cause It, it was a bit extreme where no one else left the room . I think it's a good illustration of how it does require courage. We are in many cases working against the culture, which is largely unhealthy.   Stephen Matini: I wanna ask you something about your book, you know, mastering your sleep puzzle. When I got familiar with your background, it's kind of interesting your approach because if I got it right, you almost like, I rejected everything that people usually do around sleep, but you're going really to the most interesting, smart way to do it. You know, which is a way to approach it that, that I find it more, let's say more strategic. Let all the stuff that gets in the way away so that it, the sleeper can happen naturally. So if I had to ask you what makes your book, you know, different compared to similar books, I mean, what would you say? Kali Patrick: Well, I'm not sure there is a similar book, the book that I read about sleep are the more sleep science books. And certainly those are interesting for somebody who has a sleep struggle, although I don't, I'm not sure that it's absolutely necessary. I do see a lot of people reading the, the very deep sleep science and, and, and details about insomnia and that just creates more anxiety around the fact that they're not sleeping. So my book is really a marriage of the coaching process, the health and wellbeing coaching process with a lot of concepts from yoga and meditation, but more of the philosophy around energy and how stimulation is a root cause of many people sleep struggles these days and how to reduce the stimulation through various practices. So the 12 weeks is really a step by step. How do I do this for myself without being a plan, if that makes sense, right? It's not a 12 week plan. I don't say, okay, here's what you do exactly in week one, you must do X, Y, and Z. It's not prescriptive, it's here are the things that I want you to think about and you put your own plan in place. So I think it has the potential to, to help a lot more people because it is not something that's rigid and formulaic, but it does follow a style a, a again, a a method that I have seen work in many stressed out, particularly busy people. You have this problem of being overstimulated and, and not necessarily having a sleep disorder, a medical problem, but having disorder sleep through behaviors and patterns and, and training of life.   Stephen Matini: Before we we're talking about electronics, you know, we all know some people more than others that it would be great to give ourselves some space and time without any sort of digital stuff because that interferes with our sleep. In terms of diet, what to eat in the evening, like I understand your approach is so much more holistic and comprehensive, but is it, is anything like really practical that people could be right away mindful of what to eat or not to eat in the evening based on your experience? Kali Patrick: Well there is a whole chapter in the book about eating. It is certainly related just to stress is related to sleep, so is eating, so was exercise, so was light, so was so many different things, which is part of why I called the book Mastering Your Sleep Puzzle, right? 'cause There's so many small components of things that influence our sleep, again, positively or negatively. So being aware of that and knowing that is part of the solution and most people have that sense of, of what's going on for themselves. But caffeine is something that lasts in your system for a lot longer than, you know, people think sugar is often a problem for people, especially as they age In the evening, for example, I used to be able to eat to drink coffee with dinner or to have a chocolate cake for dessert, whatever. But now not so much where you learn to adapt. We learn to pay attention and see the connection and then to where the gap and say, okay, so now when I have my chocolate cake, it's at lunch because I want my chocolate cake, right? and I want my sleep. So I make an adjustment. Then I have everything that I want if I have a light dinner because I often eat more for lunch than I do for dinner. Sometimes I don't eat enough and then I find that, well I'm hungry before bed. You don't wanna go to bed hungry because a stomach growling is going to keep you awake. You're not gonna be able to relax. So then I eat a little something just enough to take away that feeling of hunger. I think I do say in the book, what's interesting about food and sleep I think is that you probably have experienced that when you're hungry, when you're ready to eat, you feel a little tired, right? The energy goes down because the fuel is gone. So it's almost like you wanna time the bedtime with that feeling of the energy going down. And digestion of course is an active process. So the, the more that is in the stomach to be digestive, the more active and stimulated your system's going to be. So there is that balance. And again, for every person, we don't wanna be going to bed and having blood sugar crashes or wake up at two in the morning when blood sugar often does funny things too. So again, it's learning what works for your system and then making those, those changes to adapt. And it will change throughout a person's life for sure.   Stephen Matini: And sometimes it gets so tough because of the, also the culture. Like, you know, I live in Italy and Italians for the most part eat around 8:00 PM and I think they have lunch probably 1:00 PM Of course it changes from person to person, but roughly, but what happens, a lot of people enjoy to go, you know, to dinner like at nine o'clock, at nine 30. And it's something that I love the social component, but I just cannot do it. I mean, that means that if I do that, either I don't eat a thing or if I eat, then I'm gonna be super, you know, harshly punished, you know, doing my sleep. So, and, and it's difficult sometimes with some people, you know, explaining that, that you're not trying to be finicky or difficult. It just really, you know, I cannot afford and not to sleep because then tomorrow is a million different things that I need to do, you know, for sure. We talked about different things from different angles about sleep and so much more. Is there anything in particular that you think would be helpful for the people listening to this episode to focus on as a starting point? Kali Patrick: What I see a lot and hear a lot from people is all the things that haven't worked. I think we, we started off with this, right? I've tried this, I've done that, I've done this. But yet many people are still doing those things. And again, this is an example of where if you're not sure if it's working for you and especially if it's creating stress, then drop it. I see people who have 12 step bedtime routine too much and they're still not sleeping 'cause they're seeing me, right? They're coming for a consultation. So why do it? It's not helping you let it go, start fresh, right? When you wake up in the middle of the night, people go through that file drawer of, well I can breathe like this or I can do this meditation, or I could do this visitation, or I can count sleep or I can do this, or I can get up and have a da da da da da. And then you can hear the busyness, the stress coming in the mind, right? So there's all these options. Choose one thing when I wake up in the middle of the night, I'm going to do this and then do that thing for a month. At least don't worry about whatever other options you see. You go on, you go on social media, you find, oh there's this new technique, right? There's a new app, there's a new this, there's a new net, forget it, you're doing your thing. There's so many things that can work, but it's like digging a bunch of shallow wells. You're never gonna hit water. You have to focus in on something that sounds like it's going to be enjoyable. That sounds like you think it's going to help, that maybe you feel in your gut, you know, it's going to help me, right? Just focus in on that and let all the other stuff drop away for a time and see what happens. Because again, for a lot of people, there's this increased focus on getting better sleep, which on the one hand is great. Yes, we need to pay attention to this area that we've perhaps neglected for a time, but there can be a hyper focus on it that does more harm than good. Again, this whole conversation really has been about how do we narrow the focus? How do we create some space for ourselves and let what's not helping and what's not the focus drop away? I think that's really the theme of what we've been saying in so many different way.   Stephen Matini: I love it because it seems to me a positive strength approach essentially. Like rather than seeking some solution, you know, there's already a bunch of stuff that if you just pay attention to it, you can tap into it and just to get the whole sleep pattern perfecting a better. Kali Patrick: Yes. And many people need help with that, right? Because we are so conditioned. I mean that's, that's how I'd partner with people. I help them shift their focus and sometimes shift their mindset or shift how they're thinking about making healthy choices, right? How do I talk to my partner about sleeping separately? How do I tell my friends, I'm not trying to be antisocial. How do I know what's the best thing we can, we can talk about that and we can figure that out together and then approach the method with some curiosity. Well, what happened when I tried that? Right? Let's pay attention and let's really see what worked, what didn't? How do we do more of what does work? How do we rely on what you already know? And your strengths And your abilities and what you have been able to accomplish? There are so many people sometimes who say, well I haven't had an experience of good night's sleep in a really long time. And then we have a conversation and I find out, well, a week ago, yeah, I had a great night's sleep. Okay, well, so you're capable. Your body and your mind are capable of doing that. You've had that experience. It might not be a week ago, it might be two weeks ago or or three months ago, but you've done it. So it's possible people lose that hope sometimes when they're struggling that it's even possible for them to do it again. So we really reconnect with the positive and start to shift the mindset around what can I do and what is working and how do I just do more of that?   Stephen Matini: Well, Kali, this evening, I think inevitably I will think about you for sure and all the wonderful things that you shared with me. Thank you so much for giving me your time. I've learned a lot. Kali Patrick: Oh great. Thank you. It's been my pleasure speaking with you.

Neil Lawrence is a well-being and transformational coach who reminds us about the importance of self-acceptance and authenticity to find purpose in life. Neil shares how mindfulness has helped him navigate neurodivergence as well as chronic conditions that have profoundly impacted his life, like Fibromyalgia and PSTD. Neil emphasizes the idea that everyone is good enough as they are, countering societal pressures that often lead to a sense of inadequacy, which heavily affects minority groups like neurodivergent individuals and members of the LGBTQ+ community. Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform. Subscribe to Pity Party Over Sign up for Live Sessions combining coaching, content, and advisory to boost leadership and management skills. Managerial & Leadership Development Contact Stephen Matini Connect with Stephen Matini #NeilLawrence #Mindfulness #compassion #LifeCoachLondon #podcast #PityPartyOver #Alygn #StephenMatini #LeadershipDevelopment #ManagementDevelopment TRANSCRIPT Stephen Matini: Have you always known what you want to do professionally? Neil Lawrence: No, I coach creatives. I'm a writer myself. I coach execs, I coach leaders. I do lots of career coaching. I coach kids. And honestly, that idea of having the career and the career plan, it's so antithetical to me. I'm kind of careful where I say it, but I do honestly believe that's not the way it goes. I became intentional about the work I did when I became a coach, everything before it. And even then, it was still like, I don't really know what was getting myself into before then. Third generation immigrant. My community was, this is the generation that has to make it to middle class. I'm sure you know about the UK and just how class obsessed and hierarchically obsessed they are. So, you know, I went to university that wasn't approved of by my community 'cause it wasn't one of the ones. But essentially I kind of fell into everything I did until I became a coach and intentionally became a writer. Stephen Matini: What you just described is what happens, I think to most people. Very few people know from the very beginning what they wanted to do. And you said at some point you made more intentional choices. Do you think it, is it possible to make intentional choices early on on our lives or it just that we have to go through a bunch of stuff before we actually understand? Neil Lawrence: That's a good question. I think our society has got everything the wrong way around. I think there are systemic reasons for that and in the UK I think there's political reasons for that. We are a nation obsessed with success, passion being driven, having the career, having the title. And actually I kind of find myself asking what for, I think work is important. I probably am a workaholic, but in my mind I don't think it's that important. It doesn't define who I am. It's something that I spend a lot of my life doing. I think those people know what they want to do at an early age and are quite driven. I'm passionate about it. I'm not judgmental about that. I'm more on alert for the fact that everybody feels like they have to. And so many people feel they're failing because of it. And particularly since Covid and the pandemic hit and people are even more desperately trying to support the system that now has so many holes and gaps in it that it's unsustainable. I'm seeing as a coach, I'm seeing a lot of really worn out, unhappy, confused people. So three or four things got me too intentional. One facing up to the fact that I was disabled. Two, realizing that I was living with PTSD as well as fibromyalgia and like I've just, it's interesting you're saying about not sleeping. So I've literally just come up my whole weekend's been decimated by PTSD this weekend. It's just like I didn't exist for about 36 hours and you know, it's a big something and then I've told this story a billion times, but basically me and my husband were, we're on a very narrow and congested motorway about five years ago and it was dangerous driving conditions and I, we shouldn't be here. So still being here when I shouldn't be here also is quite a good motivate. So I wouldn't recommend it for anyone, by the way, as a way of finding out who you are. But I think all those things coalesced and I'm being bullied within the education sector and, and the values of working within that for 25 years and realizing just how misaligned they were. As I came to the conclusion that, you know, in UK education's really about two things. It's about hierarchy and it's about institutionalized bullying. All of that coalesced and drew me towards coaching the course I did with a company called Catalyst one Four. I'm still super supervised by them now. Demi one four who's the the founder and the kind of person who's my supervisor as well. They had a big mindfulness element to it that was really important to me as well. So, you know, I dunno if this long answer is giving you kind of what you want, but certainly my experience of waking up day to day means that now whatever's on, even if I'm stressed, it's like it is, it feels like purpose and it feels like I'm doing what I should be doing. Stephen Matini: So basically we are sold a big lie. Neil Lawrence: Yes. What we're told is we need to work so many hours, we need to have a micromanaged plan. We need to keep improving and keep adding to our skillset and we are not good enough. That's kind of, and we'll never be good enough. So we have to keep going. What I see from the people I coach and as as was saying, it's you know, sort of really broad spectrum of people is when they realize they don't have to work this hard, they are more than their job title. If they don't do this course and get this next qualification and people don't congratulate them on social media, they still might be working really well. Trying to be really careful say. That, oh, I haven't done my post this morning either. That's when I see the difference of people going, oh my, my motto is do less, plan less be less. Stephen Matini: But I love it connected to what you're saying. For me, what helps me is reminding myself, why am I doing this? You know, am I doing it because I am enjoying myself and obviously, you know, work is, work is not vacation, but what is the, the reason why I'm doing it? Because that really changes everything. It changes how you are in a situation. It changes how you work, it changes how you feel about stuff. If it's all about getting there, the results, how is it gonna land on people? It may spoil the whole journey, not completely. Definitely it did it for me. Neil Lawrence: I do wonder whether lots of us are on a journey or just constantly looking at destinations. Either those that have gone already that stick with us or those that we're heading to. I do wonder about that. And obviously that's the mindfulness bit, which is also nicely packaged these days as a kind of CBT tick box, which is not at all where I'm at with it or how I practice it and work with people that I coach either. But focusing on the now is the important thing. Set the intention. Obviously we plan, but we leave enough in the hands of trust that we will know when to make the gut decision. The right people will come to us if we're open to it. It always sounds a bit vague and wooly doesn't it, when people who, when people say this stuff or, or it's easily, you know, certain phrase I hate soft skills is an insult. Likewise, you know, when people talk about mindfulness being quite wooly and it's about clearing your mind so you have the clarity to make the decisions you need to as and when they happen rather than trying to look ahead and put everything in place before you get there. You missing on the journey there. Stephen Matini: How did you get into mindfulness? Do you remember the first time that got into your life? Neil Lawrence: In the days when I was still muck schooling, I worked with this wonderful counselor and we were running a couple of groups for young men at the point where I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. That's when I started meditating and used this app, which was a very basic, this is how you know, the three steps, three basic mindfulness techniques. And then from there I started to practice it and I kind of got it. But then I came across two teachers, two American teachers, one called Tara Brack and the second one called Jack Kornfield with a cape. They're really down to earth, they're really funny, they're really compassionate and they are very switched on in terms of systems and what's happening in the world around and, and they don't shy away from any of that. And my jaw kind of dropped open, suddenly there was a kind of spiritual link to the work I was doing and that's when as I continued to practice, a light switched on. I can remember the very moment, you know, Jack Hall Phil's written a book called After the Ecstasy of the Laundry. It's something like that, which is about his experience of kind of becoming a Budd monk and then coming back to America and just kind of the day-to-day going, oh, and I have this half term off where I was really connecting and really starting to feel compassion for other people and doors were opening and I went back to work and got these like 25 emails all about admin and systems and process that completely obfuscated working with young people or connecting with them or making a difference. And I really felt this disconnection. It was like, how the hell am I supposed to do this? So I realized I'd also have to find a wave surviving day-to-day systems that didn't really reach into making compassionate connections and being able to make a difference in that way. So from that moment onwards, things change. Stephen Matini: One of the ways that I have introduced mindfulness in the corporate world, which by the way for many, many, many years in depends on the situation, but it has always been welcomed really warmly to my surprise. But when people ask me more information and a bizarre way that I have to introduce it so they understand it is, it's basically implementing the lean process to your mind so that you think less and you focus on what matters. Okay, okay. Yeah. So you're gonna be more efficient. Run your mind. I like that. I've, well my, my experience of business-wise right across the board, the place where it's happened most has been kind of post 360 audit. It's exactly that. I think when you're coaching and especially with something like something that's an emotionally charged as a 360 or or any kind of review of performance that people are really open to what's gonna make this feel less like I an imposter And mindfulness is a really powerful way of introducing that. So yeah, I've shifted lots of, lots of copies of radical compassion particularly and radical acceptance. Stephen Matini: What does compassion mean to you? Neil Lawrence: I'm a change maker just in case it's not clear already. I've always been motivated by advocacy in terms of the work I do. So it's always been important to me to kind of have that sensibility. When lockdown happened, it was an interesting experience for me watching the way the rest of the world reacted to not being able to leave the house and the way that people completely still ignored disabled people that can't go out. And I suddenly realized if I didn't gain some compassion quick that I was just gonna hate the universe. So I literally introduced compassion meditation, meta meditation, much more loving kindness. Meditation is much more part of my day to day and and again, intentionally wanted to build all that soft care. And by the time toilet roll gators I like to call it happened in the UK and you know, people were just like literally fighting to get stuff off the shelves. I just, I thought it was a really interesting image anyway, that people have to buy something to feel in control of a situation where uncertainty is slapping them across the face. I just felt this huge sadness that it's deep pain and sadness and I can't manage it all the time and that's okay 'cause that's why we practice meditation. We don't surpass it. But that's what impassion means to me. That ability Stephen Matini: For different reasons. So many people these days seem to go through a mess up out of sadness, anger. These past few years have been really difficult for many, many, many different reasons. How do you switch from feeling sad and angry to feeling compassionate? Do you use mindfulness? Is it anything else that you do specifically? Neil Lawrence: It is mindfulness because that retrains the brain. And also I've studied psych psychodynamic psychotherapy. You've either got someone in front of you, you take the toilet roll gate as an example. You've either got someone in front of you who's really angry and selfish and doesn't care about anyone else and look at these people. So you either get that or you can see that someone is desperate and that desperation is leading them to literally lash out. And if people's defensiveness is because they feel they're gonna be attacked. And I do believe that's what it is, there's a lot of fight, flight, freeze response. And if you can see that, keep yourself safe because you're in the line of fire of somebody else who's not coping. That's not necessarily safe place to be emotionally or physically sometimes. But at the same time to recognize what you are seeing, that actually that violence or language or the selfishness isn't selfishness. It's desperation. We seem to be obsessed with becoming self-aware and lots of the self-help stuff is about self-awareness, but none of it is about how we heal afterwards. So I think we've got loads of people that are becoming more self-aware and are really quite thin skinned as a result because they don't have the tools they need to actually look after themselves because that's not the wellbeing marketplace is it. Stephen Matini: It's interesting when you talked about before about the notion of labels, I think I've read it on your website, when you talk about your values, like one of your, your values that you cherish is being real and you wrote, we are far more than a labels. Labels should not be boxes. We should know who we are beneath. It feels like an oxymoron such as we are trying to be inclusive, we want to recognize diversity of thinking, of political diversity and such and such. But rather than feeling more inclusive, it's almost like we are fragmenting, you know, we are separating even further and further. So what would you say that is a healthy approach to labels if you should use, if you should use them at all? Neil Lawrence: Thank you for the way you framed that question. 'cause We are on serious dangerous ground with even approaching this as, you know, because people's stories and the history of people's stories who've not been treated with respect or worse have been treated with aggression and violence and exclusion. Whatever community is, they matter. All those stories matter. And the right that people have to expect better from that of course is paramount. But I think where we've got to is it's your fault and what are you gonna do about it? As a way of talking about previous experience, again, the, so mindfulness would say that we can become overdependent on the label. All these things that actually describe who I am, they are things that I do or they are parts of my physical or emotional landscape. I think it's about holding onto it lightly and we should reach out to others with that and the strength in numbers. So leaning into, you know, I'm not com I've, I've always found I'm never comfortable in the, the label community that I've been part that that I go to. Because yes, we need to be talking and yes, other people should know what our experiences is, but I just kind of have this feeling that really truly connecting with someone and deeply listening to them. If someone else is doing that, then your experience is being shared. That's the way to do it. And what's been lost is the idea of community at the moment and people joining together. I'm sure it suits the system for us to be this divided, you know, certainly suits the uk you know, while we're all bickering then life can go on as normal elsewhere. But actually we need to be joining together and listening to each other's experiences. At some point we have to stop the idea of hierarchy. And I feel like that's a dangerous thing to say. I'm just waiting for the kickback whenever I say that. Stephen Matini: If we all listen to each other's experiences, what would you say that people would be able to hear to be the same in common? Neil Lawrence: I'm practicing it as a kind of think about it now. So I'm, I'm aware that I'm slowing my body down, that I am slowing my thought process down and opening up even across a zoom link to you Stephen. 'cause I do that. And allowing space for what you are saying to emotionally connect with me rather than just this, be a podcast interview if you like. There's something about that because what's needed will come from the conversation again, if we just trust that the other person is not the enemy, if the other person is the solution, then being able to think together and recognize there might be differences of opinion. But if we stop this thing of entitlement, which has become a noose around on x, I think it will be helpful. I mean, yes there are basic human rights that all of us should be have equal access to, but also there are very serious differences of experience. Like my, so thinking about disability, my, I hate the word normal, but let's just use it for sake of argument. My normal wouldn't be someone else's for me. Yesterday we took the dog out for a walk, which we haven't done for a couple of weeks 'cause he's developed arthritis. And during that walk my legs went, fibro wise again as a result of the PTSD episode that I'd had the day before the, the fibromyalgia kind of intensified. I was literally staggering around looking probably like I'd had about 10 points of, of Guinness or something and kind of laughing about that. And I said, and I said to my partner, I can't believe I've got used to this. This is like, I was thinking about people that maybe hide when they're in that situation, but just the freedom to stagger and to nurture myself when I got back home 'cause I was in pain. So there's something about being able to relate to each other's experiences I keep writing on, on LinkedIn at the moment. I've noticed when I'm doing these posts, don't call me brave, don't feel sorry for me. I'm not asking for that. I'm not asking for you. I'm just sharing. It's like this is not a judge, it's not a valued judgment to be had about this. Can you connect with where I'm at without feeling the need to do anything or judge. Stephen Matini: The one thought we can call it compassion that I have Oftentimes that put things in perspective is when I become mindful of the fact that all of us bear this humongous question mark, which is the journey of life. You know, we bear this thing of eventually one day we are gonna die. That's a huge thing to go through life, you know, so many question marks and as you said the beauty of life, but also the, the tremendous challenges of life that inevitably sooner or later all of us are going to face. You know? And when I look around and I feel lonely and I look at people that I don't know thinking, oh wow, they really share my same destiny. Eventually at some point they're gonna run through the same thoughts. And I feel so compassionate. I feel, oh my God, I, I wonder how they're going to feel. I wonder how they're going to react. I wonder if they're going to feel as lonely as I do. That thought for me really does the trick every single time that I get angry or, or something. You know what? Underneath this is our common destiny, our shared journey. And it really is the same and really put me in a different perspective. It somehow helps me calming down it to be more understanding of people. Neil Lawrence: I love that Steve. It makes me realize it's, so, there was that moment wasn't there at the beginning of lockdown where it looked like people were gonna reach for a kinder life afterwards. And looking at it from a mindfulness perspective or a Buddhist perspective, we have this moment where we could no longer pretend we could micromanage life and being faced with, you know, they, one is that life is uncertain and two, that it's finite. We're faced with this real understanding of both of those things. The fact that people have rushed back into to try and recreate the life there was before. When we don't have the resources we have before even, and it was too much then makes me feel really, really sad. There was a moment where if we could bear the uncertainty and bear that realization that we're all gonna die and live with that fruitfully, that life could actually become different. But it seems like we can't, what mind, again, not mindfulness has been able to do is make me realize that home is me. And that's true for all of us. You know? So being at home is being at home with me at that point. I wanna open the door and let other people in and need and want to have a really rich number of connections of friends and work colleagues. So I think, I think there's something about that. It's a struggle, but the idea that I don't matter, I'd find that really, really reassuring. That doesn't mean I can't make a difference, that I don't have great connections, but you know, I'm here I live, I'll die. I said don't need to need a legacy. I don't need to have this amazing trajectory that has done X, y, and z. I just need to be able to be here. I'm lucky enough to still be here after surviving that car crash. So every day's a blessing, every minute's a blessing. If I can reach into it and see it and nothing else matters, acceptance then actually opens the brain up to being able to think about what we can really do. So what, when I was growing up, my first crush, remember it so clearly was Michael J. Fox, she'll also tell you how old I'm and him kind of disappearing off the screen in the late eighties, early nineties. But reemerging in his spin city, which was the sitcom he came back to do is is written by Bill Lawrence. I love Bill Lawrence. He did Scrubs, he's done Ted Lasso recently shrinking. And Michael J. Fox is so funny in that, so, so funny. And then finding out when he, you know, spoke about Parkinson's for the first time and now I realize as a middle aged guy, God he was young, he was really, really young. And that recent incredible documentary, you know, that's shown on Apple plus that he did about his his journey. I find that so inspirational. Here's, here's the guy that for the first I, I remember it, I went to see back to the future, I remember being in the cinema, I just couldn't take my eyes off the screen and then crying on the bus on the way back going, oh my God, I like guys even wrote a jokey country in Western song in the sixth form about him. There's this deep, this kind of connection that I kind of feel just, just kind of watching. Not in a stalky one, but I find his whole journey and the fact that, you know, his marriage has survived all of that and his kids love him so much. It just, I find to me about that inspirational even down to his mobility. 'Cause You know, he drops a lot. He falls a lot and dyspraxia is quite a big part of what I've got. But you know, very clumsy. If my chronic fatigue is really high, yeah, I can trip over things. And I was in the middle of teaching and I fell asleep while I was talking maybe, maybe so bored, but boring myself, but actually felt my eyes going. It's like, oh my god, this is serious. And I'm being told I couldn't take a cup of coffee into an invigoration once as well. And I was like, and you don't understand I need this coffee. They were like, no, it's against the rules. And I said, okay, but I'm warning you I'll probably fall asleep. And probably did. I think there's something about that acceptance piece which doesn't yeah. Which doesn't mean being passive and certainly not in terms of advocacy around disability or whatever positive world we can find that hasn't got a dis in it around it. My mobility. Stephen Matini: I'm curious about something that I read when I did some, a bit of research about you, the notion of finishing, which is, you know, people struggling with completing task. Does this fit in any way, shape and form with what we are talking about? Neil Lawrence: Yeah, I think so. You know, the idea of niching I found really difficult when I started in business and, and set my own company. Because I do work across the board and I work on a wide range of different kind of issues from very personal ones to, you know, very, very career focused ones and everything in between. And it felt like a good fit, particularly after working with someone who's living with A DHD who specifically had that issue around how to either not get too hyper-focused or then how to give the brain the nugget it needed to keep going to get something done. So I kind of put it in there. But we now live in a world where people are petrified of finishing anything. Everything, you know, things feel so daunting and overwhelming partly 'cause I think the number of things that we're expected to do on any given day is, is is far too much. And the number of interactions and the, and the avenues for interacting again is far too much. We've definitely gone for quantity over quality of communication. I think the pandemic has really not the stuffing out of everyone in terms of the idea of getting stuff done. It's started off as a kind of recognition for me as a neurodivergent as well. My dyscalculia means that sometimes I lack focus, sometimes I forget what I'm talking about. Sometimes I find it hard to put things in a logical sequence and definitely organization in terms of time, date, where I need to be. All of that have to input that into my brain. 'cause The bit that where wires should be isn't there. And I'd, I'd done it. And I remember being surprised about 10 years ago when both my husband and one of my closest friends said, you are the most organized person I know, but because my brain is chaos, I don't see it that way, but actually it's true. And then I thought, well actually I'm probably a good person to be kind of helping people with this stuff. So it started from a neurodivergent perspective, but now it feels like it's a, it's a global problem that there's far too much and people feel under prepared for doing it. So for me it's about confidence, about giving people the confidence but then crucially for them to work out that they have the skills there all along. If someone had been there and it had been a safe enough environment for the, for them to be able to dig in. It's not that I don't give tools, obviously I do, but only if someone else hasn't got what they need. And most people do most of the time. So reintroduce the idea that we can do stuff and actually we can say no and we can rebuild the world, our world so that it's manageable. Stephen Matini: If I had to use a label for you, if I have to, I would say that you are exquisitely British in the way you self-deprecate yourself, your sense of humor. Yeah. That, that's, that's probably the only one that I would use. Neil Lawrence: That's interesting. And I've been, I've been told that before as well. And maybe there is a bit of me putting myself down before someone else does. I think more these days it's, it's the opposite. I kind of, it's not that I think I'm important, we've already covered that. But I do think that when it comes to white elephants, I'm really good at spotting them. And my life path has given me skills and care enough to be able to really help an enormous number of people, an enormous number of contexts, which yet is bad marketing copy, but is great in terms of what I actually do. So even when I am putting myself down, I kind of, I, I don't feel that, I feel like I'm able to have enormous impact and I'm wanna do much more of it too. You know, this is still year three, year four of my journey with this. So I feel really positive about that. I don't have a filter for that stuff and I don't understand why other people would. So, you know, I will say things like, I had a really bad experience with PTSD this weekend and now I've got the fibro repercussions. I probably say that two or three times today. And I see people get nervous, particularly if I'm working, I'm working for them. Like bosses gonna go, especially in the wellbeing industry. It's like we're all supposed to show we're shiny and I have nothing wrong with this. What is the point of that? You know? Oh yeah. But if, you know, if you with PTSD, people won't trust. You're like, well I'm surviving it. So for me it's just the logical thing and I want to bring those white elephants out. That's important to me. 'cause Those are the things that oppress me when people don't talk about them. Some people can't talk about them, I don't think. It's not like, I think everybody has to, and I've had that particularly in the L-G-B-T-Q community. Like you have to come out. No, I don't. I can choose where and when I do it, thank you. But I do think just being able to be honest and open with the stuff that's important to me or just feels like it's not talked about is I find, I find that helpful. Stephen Matini: Neil, I have one last question, which I always love to, to ask. We, we talked about so many different things and all these things are interconnected among all these things. Is there anything in particular that you think there are listeners should be pay attention to as a biggest takeaway from the conversation from your point of view? Neil Lawrence: I think I would go to the, to my two little photos that I use on LinkedIn a lot. So one, do less plan, less be less. And the second one connected to that is that you are good enough. I'm good enough. And so are you, let's just start from that and then see what happens. Stephen Matini: That's beautiful. Thank you Neil. This is wonderful. Thank you so much for this lovely conversation. Thank you.

David D'Arcangelo is the President of Arc Angel Communications, a Limited Liability Company that is a Disability Owned Business Enterprise. Legally blind from a young age, David is a passionate leader, advocate, and policy maker for people with disabilities and underserved populations. During our conversation, David emphasizes the power of positivity, love, and constructive discourse in addressing societal challenges and building bridges between differing perspectives. Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform. Subscribe to Pity Party Over  Sign up for a Training Live Session Managerial & Leadership Development Contact Stephen Matini Connect with Stephen Matini on LinkedIn #DavidDArcangelo #diversity #positivity #blindness #ArcAngelCommunications #podcast #PityPartyOver #Alygn #StephenMatini #LeadershipDevelopment #ManagementDevelopment   TRANSCRIPT Stephen Matini: As we are approaching the end of the year, usually for me it's a, it's a moment of self-introspection. I tend to calm down a little bit, and just revisit all that I've done during the year. I also think about, all right, what I want the next year to be. So, I don't know if you gave any thought to 2024, but do you have any special wish for the year to come? David D’Arcangelo: Peace. I'm a bridge builder and so to me it's just bringing people together. You know, it's kind of ironical. Oftentimes people who advocate for change the most are the most adverse to it. The worst fear of a planner is that the plan actually goes into action. So I'm all about action. I'm all about getting things done and getting results and improving the human condition. So, and sometimes when you do that, you get to change things and not everybody likes that. People say they like it, that they like the change, but then when you go ahead and change it, maybe they don't like it as much. So to me it's about building those bridges and just staying positive, you know, that we can't control a lot. One thing we can control is our attitude. So I choose to be positive. Stephen Matini: What do you think people resent the most about change? David D’Arcangelo: Yeah, it's a great question. I don't know if they resent it. I think it's, people like to build archetypal metaphors in their head of what something is or isn't or is going to be or could be. And when that doesn't happen accordingly or exactly how they envisioned it, that creates conflict and that conflict is unsettling and everything else. So I try not to do that. I try not to have those prejudices really, and who knows what the next moment will bring, you know, it's like you gotta live for the moment. Stephen Matini: So it's about having the right expectations. David D’Arcangelo: Yeah, well, having no expectations really. Well, that can be challenging. It can, because I mean, you need to be pragmatic and plan for your dinner and plan for the seasons changing and plan for short and medium and long term things. So to me, it's the blend of being pragmatic, but also really not expecting much because nothing is guaranteed. All that's guaranteed is now this moment further than that. It's just everything's up for grabs. Stephen Matini: Sometimes it is discrepancy between what we want, our goals, our wishes, and the way things are. And I think it's a fine balance between finding contentment in the present moment while at the same time thriving for something else. How do you personally strike this balance? David D’Arcangelo: Sometimes better than others! Because You do get caught up in trying to think about the future or reflecting on the past. Future performance is usually an indication of past performance, but we're here on the now, so it's taking some measure of where we've been and that experience and being able to reflect on it. Particularly if you've made mistakes, you know, we're all, nobody's perfect and whatever failures we've had, I think it's trying to learn from those so that when you do them again, you're better, right? So having that past experience, trying to apply it towards future behaviors in the now and having that balance, like you said, is to me that's really one of the keys and one of the, if you can find that secret sauce in life, I think that's close to it. Stephen Matini: You mentioned already your mission, which is to improve the human condition, and actually it's one of those traits that you share with a lot of guests of this podcast, people that have made service the very center of their life. How did this mission enter your life? I mean, is it something that's always been there? Is it the result of something that happened in your life? David D’Arcangelo: It's always been there. I didn't always know it was there. It really comes down to fundamental bedrock convictions. And that is, you know, do you believe in God or not? I'm not very religious, but I'm very faithful. Anything that I have, yeah, it's from me, but I'm only the vessel for it. Any of the good things that happen, I really can't take credit for any of the bad things that happen, that's from me, that's on me. So I start with myself, what can I do to be better? What can I do to be more positive? What mistakes did I make that I want to change for the future so I don't make them again? And to me about improving the human condition, you can do a one person at a time, or you can try to be involved with policies that impact many. And I've done both, and I try to do both. And whether it's the one person or whether it's the many, I just try to stay positive and constructive and move things forward from that. But make no mistake about it, particularly in the realm that I've been in, which is disabilities. The disability itself can be very challenging. Those challenges are manifested in many ways. And it's a scale. We are all in various states of ability. And that ability manifests itself in so many different ways. And for some people there is great suffering on one end of that spectrum. And on the other end there's no suffering at all. And there's complete enlightenment and most people are somewhere on that spectrum. And just because you are on one place at one point in time doesn't mean you're not gonna be on another, it's a sliding scale, right? We're all in various states of ability. Stephen Matini: Has disability ever defined who you are? David D’Arcangelo: The best way I can answer that is, it's not my full definition, but it's part of my definition, right? You know, but who would I be if I didn't have this disability to encounter? I Because particularly I find with people with less apparent disabilities, which by the way I think is a very significant amount of persons with disabilities have non apparent disabilities, meaning when you encounter them, you would not necessarily know that they have a disability or not. And I'm probably one of those people, most people like, well, what do you mean you're legally blind? You can see, yes, I can see. And so can the large majority of people with blindness, most people who are blind have some usable vision. Now that's toward one end of that spectrum. I'm, you know, I'm probably barely legally blind, if you wanna put it that way. I'm 2200 with my glasses on, but that is still legally blind. And so oftentimes the greatest discrimination I face is from other people with blindness. It's a both a compliment and an insult at the same time. It's a compliment basically saying, well, you don't present as blind. And so all of the things that I've done to ameliorate my blindness, people don't recognize that or don't see that, and that's kind of the insult of it, right? The good side is, wow, look how high functioning this person is. The bad side is, well, wait a minute, what do you mean you're blind? So you know, you take the good with the bad and it's about education and giving people an understanding of our human condition that we are all in various states of ability, whether it's any of the prevalence, types of disability, hearing, seeing, cognition, mobility, you know, all of the different types of disability. Stephen Matini: Would you say that the biggest challenges that you have faced in your life in terms of disability, did they come from within, or was something that came from the outside? David D’Arcangelo: Yeah, the great stoic philosopher Epictetus said that one of the keys to life is to break things down into one of two categories. Internal things that you can't control and external things that you can control. I try to not spend resources and effort and time on things that are outside of my control. So I try to focus on things that are within my control. Now, within disability, I was born as a person with a disability. I was born with a rare eye disease. And so that's out of my control. You have to play the hand, you're dealt. Other challenges have happened, some of which were within my control, some of the mistakes that I made, or choices that I made, and then others that I didn't and I was just involved with, for one reason or the other, life happens to you. It's a mix of both. And to me it's how do you face that adversity? How do you embrace that adversity? To me, I start with me, what did I need to do better? What should I have done better? It's about my self responsibility. Because if you're gonna get the good things from self-reliance, you need to be prepared to take the more challenging things as well, because nobody's perfect. Again, when you're presented with something, whether it be good or bad, you then have choices. What are you going to do with it? To me, if you choose to be positive and you choose to use it for a positive, good, well that's the way to go.That's the path to go. And that's the path that I've tried to go down. Stephen Matini: It’s so easy sometimes to feel like a victim of circumstances and situations. How have you been able to shy away from that? You seem to me you've been really, really accountable for your own life. David D’Arcangelo: Well, I don't think it's shy away. I think it's embracing. There's no time. There's no time to procrastinate, there's no time. But the present why we have is now. So you've gotta deal with it. Now whether you like to or not. And just a couple of other maxims that I've developed and and really learned over time is that there's a saying that I've developed and that is the path to prosperity is paved by perseverance. You've gotta hang in there. Nothing good comes as a result of some whim or trying something once. No. Michael Jordan, the greatest basketball player ever, one of the best athletes, one of the most influential people of the 20th century, didn't make his high school basketball team. He got caught, but he knew he had talent and he knew to develop those talents. He had to work, and he had to persevere and have adversity. And now here's the other thing with adversity and perseverance is what adversity is for. You may be different for somebody else, somebody else might not consider that adversity. Likewise, what somebody considers adversity and it's viewed as adversity may not be considered as adversity as others and vice versa. So you know, we're all in various states of ability. To me, one of the keys is you've gotta persevere because everybody loves sunny days. Can you stand the rain when it starts raining and storming? And what are you gonna do during those times? So that's what I really think is just staying positive, because that's what you can control. Ultimately, we become what we think about, right? So if the things you focus on all day long, if those are positive things and you have goals and plans and, and you take actions to accomplish those, you will accomplish them. It's not maybe you will accomplish them. It's a law of nature that that will happen. So to me, if you stay positive and you have righteous goals, then you will achieve them. Stephen Matini: If you have a somewhat bad day or a day in which that perseverance, that faith seems not to shine as strong as others. Is there anything that you do that brings you back into alignment? David D’Arcangelo: Again, it's coming to terms ahead of time that, not if, Stephen, but when, because we all will encounter those days. It is part of life. Life is challenging. Being a human is challenging. Like think about where we are right now. And if you were to be able to have a baby and not instruct that baby what to do and just leave that baby with no, how long would that baby last? All reliant upon each other. We are at this place in time, because everybody has decided to share knowledge, share information, and you know, that's how that then spurs technology and and so on and so on and so on. So we are all in this together. And every human that has ever been born is unique and there will never be another person like that person. There never has been. There never will be. Now there's qualities of it and we're all within, you know, a certain variation of it. But we are all completely unique individuals. And so each human condition, each state of consciousness that everybody's experienced is completely unique and different. So again, it's not, if it's when you encounter challenges, how are you going to choose to handle them? You know? And what is your guidestone, what is your north star? To me it's God. And it starts with that positivity, that love. You know, I have a belief that love, not the kind you see on a Hallmark card, or you see in some romance movie, yeah, it's that, but it's so much more than that. I really believe it's, you know, if you were to put it on the periodic table, it's more prevalent than hydrogen. It literally is the force that binds everything in the universe together. And I think science is finding that out. I think, you know, with superposition and quantum entanglement and things like that, to me that proves God. They called the Higgs boson on the God particle. You know, to me it proves God proves love, because love is more powerful than anything else. And that's where it all starts. Now you can choose to embrace that and be positive and endeavor to be all of the things that in the hierarchy of love come off that beauty and truth and all of the things that are subordinate to love. Stephen Matini: You know, that binding force that brings us all together these days, it seems to be quite challenged by the fact that everything is so extreme. You and I talked about this last time, everything is so polarized, black and white. So how do you bring these two dimensions so opposite, you know, together so that we can all be more loving? Where would you start? David D’Arcangelo: You have the choice. You control your thoughts, your mind. Never let love, never let positivity get more than one or two steps away. Anybody who's listening to this right now, I want you to, if you are experiencing challenges of any kind, and that is a scale, okay? That is a scale of despair all the way from one very intense suffering side, all the way up to complete joy in the highest right? That is, all of those emotions are a scale. Well, anytime you find yourself falling on the, the low part of that scale in any way, whether it's mild, whether it's severe, you need to purposely think of positive things and good things and love. Now, whatever that is for you, whether it's being on a beach, whether that's hearing your mother's voice or your child's voice, or petting your dog or whatever the case may be, that's where you need to bring yourself. And you should never really get more than a couple of steps away from that. Stephen Matini: How do you bring this attitude into your own negotiations? You've been part of policy making and I mean, I cannot think of a setting more divisive, and divided as it is right now. How have you been able to bring this wonderful energy that you have, so that the conversation keeps going? David D’Arcangelo: Yeah, it's difficult to explain, but ironically, the more I get attacked or the more negativity I get, the more positive I get. To tell you the truth. It makes me want to redouble my efforts towards bringing that. Again, when negative things happen, and I'll take the blame. I don't want anybody else to take the blame, but when positive things happen, it's less about me and it's more about, even though I might've been the impetus for it or whatever else, it's more about the team. It's more about, you know, all of the people that took part in all of those good things. Because public policy, and particularly the implementation of public policy can be very complex because what you're trying to do is you're trying to take the wishes of either a legislative body or you know, some other regulatory or executive function, and you're trying to translate that into policies for many. And these programs aren't put together to serve one or two people. They're put together to serve thousands or, or you know, tens of thousands or millions of people. And with so many different use case scenarios that can be very challenging and complex to solve for. I have a podcast of my own “Save as ABILITY.” And on that, we've been talking about things like these programs and the, you know, the disability laws that have been put in place over time. Those are all well intentioned. That is your government trying to put programs together to help people, to help improve the human condition, to reduce suffering. But invariably what happens is bureaucracy gets involved or time goes by and these programs get outdated and, and what was relevant at one time may not be relevant now. And so you've gotta change that as you're changing that people who've relied on that are like, wait a minute, what are you doing? You're changing that and that's gonna, you know, so that is the complexity. Albert Einstein said, politics is more difficult than physics. And sometimes I agree with it, although I did get, I, I'm proud to say I passed with a D plus in physics and it's a bachelor of science at Suffolk University. Well, it's very difficult learning math when you can't see the board and you can't see. So that's in my own defense, Stephen. Stephen Matini: Would you say that it's harder, easier, the same, being part of policy making today that it used to be? David D’Arcangelo: I first got involved with policymaking as an aide in the state senate and working in the governor's office 20, 25 years ago, somewhere around there on how you wanna look at it. So I do recognize that back then there seemed to be much more COMETY, and not comedy, but comeTy, you know, agreeance among discourse, that the discourse was a little bit at a higher level and people could agree to disagree. And there's less of that now. Now part of that is a good thing, but much of that is also a negative thing. And I'll explain that. So the part that's a good thing is now everybody has the devices, right? Everybody has the phone and access to computer and everything else. So what used to be kind of behind closed doors or mystified or confusing, now everybody has at the touch of a couple of fingers and in a couple of minutes people could talk like experts on these subjects. That's a good thing, getting the information out there and, and people taking part. However, the challenge is the system over hundreds of years has evolved into one of sausage making. And I think people understand the analogy to there. Everybody loves the taste of a sausage, but you don't want to see how it's made a lot of the time. And so all of that sausage making gets put on display for everybody on social media through the mainstream media. I mean, to me, we have three major problems right now in society. The first one being the media, number one major problem we face. The second one being the decentralization of responsibility. There's a much less self-reliance now, and that to me is a major problem. And then the third is this two big to fail attitude. Now if you go out there, that's, those three that I just mentioned are probably not on anybody's list. So I'm maybe, you know, a few years ahead of the curve here, but I'm telling you, those are the three biggest problems right now. Government and all of that other stuff is way down on the list. But the manner with which we get information right now is the number one challenge facing the world and individuals in the world today. Because the information, much of the information being put out by the mainstream media is, there's really no other way to say it, but it's not fully honest. And the way the system has evolved is the, the mainstream media provides what I call infotainment, where it's information passed off as legitimate news, and it's really not. It's really entertainment. It's information that becomes entertainment. And to me that is a much different thing of what it was and what it should be. I really believe that all, and I'm using air quotes journalists right now, they should shut, have to pass a test. They should have to meet much more rigorous standards, particularly for being objective and unbiased. And then there's gotta be a way that that government can intervene to incentivize it so that it's not driven fully by ... bias, you know, because right now information is bought and paid for, and news on a drug, or news on a story comes through the lens of some big corporation trying to, you know, influence the narrative. That's a major, major problem because what it does is it prevents the full truth from coming out and it prevents people from being able to form an objective opinion on their own. Or it inhibits, I shouldn't say prevents, it inhibits significantly. And so, you know, that to me is the major problem encountering society today. Stephen Matini: There's a lot of confusion around the notion of freedom of speech, and I think people use that very lightly sometimes. I can say whatever I want, whenever I want, it doesn't matter, there are not consequences, but there are always consequences based on what we say. Our words have an impact on people, ideas have an impact on people. How would you explain to someone in a way that is super simple, what freedom of speech really is? David D’Arcangelo: People have a choice, they can believe in God or not. Now, I don't pass judgment on people who don't, but you need to come to that conclusion on your own. And if you believe in God and you believe in love and love is the highest thing, if that is the case, then you cannot believe in secrets. There's a very significant part of our society that believes secrets are okay. I don't believe that. I am not one of those people. Because of that, I am a free speech absolutist. Now, are there very parsed out specific scenarios that you can draw to be able to say, okay, not all information should be available to everyone all the time. Yes. I'm not saying give the nuclear codes to everybody, okay? However, when it comes to information that is not life threatening or you know, is not like to that extent, then it should be shared and it should be free. That's what our society is based on. More freedom is better, less freedom is worse. It's that simple. So I, I just don't believe that there should be secrets. I believe that, you know, there was an axiom that had developed, but maybe was true at one point in time where a person is smart people are not. I don't think that's true anymore for the developed world, particularly for, for anybody that has these devices, that is not a true statement because access to information now is higher than it's ever been. And so it's up to the individual to have that responsibility. I'm a big self-responsibility, self-reliance person. So that's what I think it's the responsibility of each person to make up their own mind on what they choose to believe. Stephen Matini: At the beginning of our conversation, you mentioned the word peace. What would you say could be the most accountable thing that all of us could do on a personal level to contribute to move towards peace? David D’Arcangelo: Today is a day of reflection for me. December 7th Pearl Harbor Day. Think of all the lives that were lost, and really why did we fight that war? Why did America, why did the allies fight that war? It was to bring peace. It was to bring freedom. It was to make sure that people weren't oppressed. Peace is one word, one concept, but it is really so dynamic and comprised of so many other things under peace, there is truth, there is honesty, there is justice. In order to have peace, you need truth, you need honesty, you need justice. So if you want peace, when you need to be honest, you need to seek the truth, pursue justice, that's when we will have peace. By the way, here's the other thing. In terms of human existence, we are at a very peaceful time. Yes, there's terrible conflicts going on and I don't want to dismiss what, what's happening in Israel and Africa and other conflicts around the world. Those are, those are terrible and devastating, and I wanna work to fix those. However, in the grand scheme of world existence, we've never been more prosperous. There's never been more people, there's never been more access to clean water, to quality food and housing and shelter and the level of living and the poverty levels and everything else, all of that has increased and increased significantly from just the past 50 years, a hundred years, keep going back. So we've gotta keep that in context to, you know, like if you go back to the middle ages or you go back even further, the devastation and the, the complete, you know, horror that used to occur. You know, so we are in these prosperous times and unfortunately sometimes all of that prosperity, all of the goodness that goes on, all of the wonderful things that to me, I only, that's what I see the most of on a day-to-day basis. But that tries to get out weighted by this corrupt media that is pushing these narratives. If it bleeds, it leads as a, as a, you know, axiom on the news, right? And there's just so many good things going on that far outweigh the bad things in the grand scheme of planet earth. Stephen Matini: So it seems to me, based on everything you said, that love, honesty, and positivity are key ingredients. David D’Arcangelo: 100%, yes. Let's start with love, because all good things are derived from love. Love is the highest thing. It's being proved by science. Love is a real thing. It is a tangible power. Everything else that is good. Justice, truth, honesty, beauty, all of those things come from love. In a hierarchy, love is the highest thing. That to me is where you start. And don't let yourself get more than one or two steps away from that. Stephen Matini: David, I'm so grateful for the love that you shared with me in this conversation. Thank you so much. David D’Arcangelo: Oh, thank you. Well, those differences can bring us together. Diversity is a good thing, including different viewpoints is tremendous. Think how boring life would be if everything was the same for everybody. I believe in discourse for solving problems, but way you make things better is by disagreement. And then guess what though, the other side of that, just disagreement alone doesn't get you there. You disagree and then you compromise. And right now the disagreement is weighing down the scale more than the compromise. When I try to add compromise, when I try to build those bridges every day, and so, you know, a lot of what I'm saying here might be controversial or cutting edge or whatever, but I'm sorry, I'm sticking with God. I'm sticking with positivity. And you know, even when I get attacked, that makes me want to be even more positive. So I would encourage everybody, if you need that, contact me so I can help you find it. It's there for you though. It's your choice to be positive. That's what I'm doing. Thank you, Stephen. I wish you well.

Simona Orsingher is an Italian executive who has developed a successful career in both Operations and Business Development, two functions that can sometimes clash within organizations. While Operations emphasizes efficiency, cost control, and stability, Business Development focuses on growth, innovation, and revenue generation. Finding common ground between these two functions entails developing shared goals and effective cross-functional communication, especially when dealing with short-term versus medium-term strategies. As a professional whose career has combined both Operations and Business Development functions, Simona highlights the significance of being true to oneself, maintaining transparency, and finding a balance between rationality and emotions in professional relationships. Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform. Subscribe to Pity Party Over Sign up for a complimentary Live Session Alygn is Managerial & Leadership Development Contact Stephen Matini Connect with Stephen Matini #simonaorsingher #operations #businessdevelopment #pitypartyover #podcast #alygn #stephenmatini #leadershipdevelopment #managementdevelopment TRANSCRIPT Stephen Matini: Simona, would you mind sharing with our listeners where you grew up? Simona Orsingher: Until the age of 18th I lived with my parents on the lake of Cuomo. The other side of the lake were the one for Alessandro Manzoni. And then I moved to Ireland for a couple of years. I lived in Dublin and then Londonderry, which is where I basically learned to speak English.  Once back, I moved to Milan for 15 years, more or less because I then found a new job. I moved first to Torino and then to Moderna for four years. And now I am back on the lake of Cuomo, but in Cuomo at the moment since 2020. So right before the pandemic. Yeah, that's my background.  So I come from the province, but then I immediately felt the need of moving into the world, meeting new people, experimenting new things, and seeing new cultures as well because the dimension of the lake was a little bit too tight for me. And even though I still have some connections in France over there, I feel like I'm a citizen in the world, not exactly a citizen of the lake. Stephen Matini: So when people ask you where home is, you know, what do you say? Simona Orsingher: I don't have a home, I don't have any roots. That's something that's, that really impressed me sometimes because normally you have like left the heart in your hometown; I didn’t. Probably, among all the places where I've lived, the one that I consider my home is Moderna for some reason. Because I felt so well there. I was so comfortable and I felt loved and welcomed. So if I have the chance to go back, I would run to go back to Moderna. Stephen Matini: And when did you find out what you wanted to pursue professionally? Is this something that evolved over time? How did that happen? Simona Orsingher: Well, it started when I had my first work experience in Milan. I used to work for some months on international company. And there I recognized that that was what I wanted to pursue. Meaning work with foreigners, speaking in English, going more and more into corporate details and understand how that type of work in general in a corporate environment would've worked and if it fit to me.  And then from there I said, and I realized, yeah, that's what I want to do. And that's what I pursued from that time going forward. So I've always stayed within corporate environments, international environments. So working like in EMEA roles or international roles rather than working just for Italy for example. Stephen Matini: Because your professional background is really interesting. You combine two different routes. You combine the business development part and the operation part. And sometimes in companies, these two functions may not necessarily things see things, you know, eye to eye. Sometimes people get really tribal and very defensive about what they do. So how did it happen with you? How come you pursued both? Simona Orsingher: It was like a smooth swift if I may say from operation to business development. I've always worked in functions which were in the middle, if I may say, because I started as commercial operations specialist and then move to a commercial operation manager role, ending now in a business full business development role, a global business development role.  And this happened because I think that of course you have to be in a place that encourages the teamwork between the two functions. So when we speak about supply and demand or demand and supply process, well this is something which is now very common in corporate environments. But when I started it was not that much.  So as you said, both of the functions are very defensive. So normally business development is the one who rushes rushes. We have two invoices, invoices, invoices and operation is saying, no, we can't do this, we can't do that. So like it's the Mr. No-No.  But in the end, when you work together, you understand that they can't leave without each other and they have to find a common way of understanding things. And this is where I started. So moving from operation to business development happened throughout like 15 years. So it was not something out of the blue.  I've understood working within commercial operation that I had a commercial acumen myself that I was able to discuss and negotiate with customers, even if I was formally working within operation.  And in my previous role, I realized that it was not just my impression, but it was my manager's impression, it was customer's impression. And sometimes they have specifically asked me to do, you know, negotiation and to speak about business.  So I like the fact that I had my commercial operation background when speaking to customers. So I already had in the back of my mind what could have been done and what could not have been done. So I was not over promising things to customers. I was sharing, let me say, a common success ahead because I knew where I could have been comfortable with them. So that was probably the key part of the success, which I've already used in my current role, which is the thing that ultimately led me to gain this new position as global business development manager. Stephen Matini: It is interesting because oftentimes I describe to clients, and I mean it most of the time as some sort of joke that companies only want two things. They want to make money and they want to save money. So the making money component would be, you know, the business development part and the saving money would be the operation part. For anyone who works in a company that somehow struggle in finding a balance between these two functions, what would you say that could be a first step? Simona Orsingher: To speak, to organize meeting and to go through each other figures and targets. Because sometimes, and if this is done on purpose, targets are done irrespectively of each function and they are done to create a sort of internal competition.  I don't agree with this way of doing because no one is going to benefit out of it. Because if commercial operation wins, then business development will lose something and vice versa. So there should be a common understanding, a common basis and common targets.  The commercial operation targets should compliment business development target and vice versa. That will be the first step to me. So meet, have a discussion on the direction we have to take together and not separately. And it's key that all the people are on board with that.  So there should be a sort of servant leadership from commercial operation and from business development because yes, it's true. Salespeople are the one who basically brings the money in, they bring the money, but they don't bring the profit. The profit is made out of what commercial operation is doing because then the cost sustained to run the operation is going to deduct from the revenue that is coming from business development. So there needs to be really a common path to follow together. Stephen Matini: Sometimes the main problem is the fact that the leadership, the culture of the organization is very, very sales driven and sometimes can give the impression to people they are in business development, in sales, that they are the most important function, you know, and then all the other functions feel, you know, a bit resentful. So from the, from the point of view of the leadership team, what could they do in order to create a culture that is more cross-functional? Simona Orsingher: So nowadays the quality, diversity, inclusion, it's like the flag of each company and the first, very first step they have to do towards equality, diversity, inclusion is write this. So you can't expect in a company where salespeople are considered like rocket stars and all the others are just, you know, white collar doing the job that the white collar are happy. So they have to treat both in the same way.  For example, long-term incentives or short-term incentives shouldn't be that different between business development and commercial operation or any other function in the company. In some companies there are even retreats for business development people or salespeople in general. While there's nothing for the rest of the employees, well that's not fair.  So the first step would be to treat people equally in this sense, in the way you approach them, in the way you explain thing, in the way you share your targets, the strategy and the vision. Everybody has to be on board and business development, they need to understand. And to do that, this has to start from the leadership team. So the senior VP in a company, they should start treating the salespeople the way they treat the other ones and vice versa.  Otherwise it's a sort of lead by example. You can't expect white colors and let me say non-sales people to be so happy because they're the first one to be treated not equally compared to the business developers. Stephen Matini: And also it seems to me that, that discrepancy, that big gap becomes even wider when leadership has a very short term strategy. They have to create results right away better than thinking longevity, you know, a sustainable future in which you really have to plan everything accordingly. Simona Orsingher: Yeah, playing a little bit ahead, let me say, I mean medium-term strategy, not that short-term strategy because of course if it's so short, well everything has to be in a rush. And then of course you want to see numbers, numbers, numbers straight away. Stephen Matini: You said that one competency that is very, very important to do your job is the ability to build relationships. And to me you represent the perfect balance of someone who's incredibly great at organizing, numbers, but yet at the same time it has the empathy, it has the emotional intelligence to understand people. Is it possible to be really well-balanced to have both or what? Simona Orsingher: It is possible? I think there needs to be a component which is a given. Either you have it or you don't. But some people they have it, definitely. But then you have to develop it and you have to work on it.  So a good step for me was to step back from my professional role and try always to be in the people I'm speaking to shoes, to me that's the empathy. So in the end, I'm speaking to a human being. You are a colleague, you are my manager, you are my peer, but you are a human being.  So I don't know what happened to you like one hour before we're having this conversation. Maybe you had a very bad news, maybe you're not in a good shape today. I don't know. So I always tend to be very delicate when speaking to people, even if I'm decisive and even if I always say what I need to say, I don't like to take short track or hide behind things. I think I'm transparent. And I think that transparency is something very important when it comes to business.  But on the other end, I never under evaluate the fact that we are human beings. We have emotions. Even if I believe that in professional relationship there should be always this right balance between emotion and the rational emotion are there so you don't have to a hundred percent hide item.  This is what helped me, I think. So I never took things too seriously and this is another thing in the end, it's just work. So today I'm doing this, maybe tomorrow someone will decide that I'm not useful anymore and this is the risk that I'm taking and everybody should take that. So it is just work. We are employees and this is a part of being employees. And once you do take this as a fact, I think you can work differently. But if you are expecting to be in the same role forever, if you are expecting your employer to treat you always in a very good way, well that's really the road to pain. Stephen Matini: I agree with you. I think that bonding with people and developing relationships ultimately helps everyone overcoming any change, any difficulty. One thing that I see a lot in my job is executives, managers dealing with employees they are somehow reluctant to change for whatever the reason, you know. Sometimes people display hostility, the inability to move on. If that has ever happened to you, what would you say that is the first step to help an employee that seems to go through a difficult time and be unwilling to change? Simona Orsingher: Well the first thing for me would be to speak to these people and understand why. And if I'm able to understand why, and if these people are telling me why, then we can decide together how to find a different path. So how to make the situation turning in their favor.  Sometimes it's possible because there is this common willingness to change things. Some other times it's not possible. So people are just reluctant to change, they're tired, they don't want to invest anymore energy or time in anything. Well at that point, if you can, you should move those people to some other roles.  If you can’t, and in the majority of cases you can’t, well you just use, even if it's not the right word to say, but in the end that's what you're doing, use them for what they're good to do. I'm very pragmatic, so I try, I give my best, but then if it doesn't work, okay, well I try to get the best out of it. That's my strategy.  In the end. I mean, we're not in school. I'm not your support teacher, okay? I'm your colleague. You are an adult. I am an adult. You always have the choice to make you're free. If you don't like a situation anymore, well just go find something else. But if you decide to stay here, well then you stay here at my condition. Stephen Matini: Why do you think so many people seem to believe they do not have a choice? Simona Orsingher: It's comfortable. They know they have a choice, but they don't want to choose because choose to move from something, even if this something is not good for you, but it's something that you know. So deciding to choose and move to something that you don't know ... for someone, it's unbearable. They can't do that.  I don't blame those people. I mean, we don't always have the same approach to life. But again, if you don't want to choose, well then you accept the fact that you are here at someone else condition, and you stop complaining, otherwise you leave.  I mean, things are always simpler than what we see, always simpler than what we see. So you have the opportunity to go, you are free. We're living in a country and we're living in a part of the world where you have freedom and you can really choose what you want to do. And you have the chances.  Maybe not that many chances as there might be in other countries, in Europe or in the us I don't know, in Australia, wherever. I know Italy as a place to work is not probably the best in the world. Okay, because we have a very Italian culture here, but you still can choose. Stephen Matini: You went through a lot of professional challenges in the past. Have you ever felt that you didn't have a choice? Simona Orsingher: I never felt that. I felt I had choices, which I didn't like because I was expecting more for me. But I never felt, I never had the choice. No, never. Because at a certain point of time I could have decided, for example, to start my own career as a freelance. That was a choice, which at that time I didn't want to do. But I never felt I had no choice. Stephen Matini: So, I give you a scenario. Sometimes it does happen that leadership has a difficult time communicating their vision, their strategy, and to reach everyone throughout the whole company. And somehow the people, even like factory employees that don't feel included, they feel voiceless. They feel they don't have a choice. They don't matter. In order to create something that feels more synergetic in which everything flows beautifully, what would you say that they could do in order to engage everyone, including the people at the bottom, so to speak, that feel voiceless? Simona Orsingher: Well, first of all, let me say that I don't think that they are voiceless. Maybe they feel voiceless, but they're not voiceless. We have in Italy, and I'm speaking about the experiences that I had and also my current experience, I think probably the most unionized together with France companies. So unions are very present and these people, they all have a voice.  So they're not voiceless, they feel voiceless probably because they don't speak the same language and probably because they're more focused on things which are not relevant to the one who should hear their voices.  I would suggest to speak up and continue to speak up, but not only through the unions, I would suggest and to speak up themselves, to ask these people to have a meeting, to ask their managers to organize sessions all together where they can even confront each other, but at least let their voice to be heard in a more genuine way. Because when you have a mediator, which in this case is the union, I feel and I saw it, that sometimes the message is changed. That's probably the reason why. Then they don't feel really heard, but they have their voice. And I think that a direct channel is always the best thing. This has always worked for me.  So I have never used the unions or any other mediator. I did it by myself. And I did it truly, I did it fully because I didn't want anybody else to jeopardize the content of my message. I wanted to be, you know, true to myself first. Stephen Matini: And from the point of view, let's say of the CEO, of the executive, you know, leadership team, what could they do in order to have a first step towards the people that may feel voiceless? Simona Orsingher: Well, they should step down from their throne probably, 'cause some of them are really like a character somewhere in the air. So some of the senior managers are seen like this. So not even humans, but they are.  And in the end the people at the bottom, they don't even realize that the one at risk, it's not them, but it's the one on the throne. So they should probably start to communicate to these people in a more direct way.  Of course, they cannot meet one by one, but they can have exchanges with some representatives, but not the unions again, some representatives amongst the, these people at the bottom. It comes to communication, it comes to speaking. Stephen Matini: For anyone who's interested in a career like yours that combines operations and business development. What is the advice you would give them? Simona Orsingher: Is to be curious and ask. Ask questions. Ask to meet people. Ask to introduce yourself. Ask to go out and visit a customer. Ask to speak with colleagues from the manufacturing. So you have a 360 view of what is going on, how things are working. So you need to know bits and pieces of everything because when you are in front of a customer, you represent your company. So you can't allow yourself to say to a customer, well, I don't know. Well, you should know. And if you don't really know, genuinely don't know, you are very professional and you say, well, let me check this out because I'm not sure and I don't want to provide you with the wrong information. That should be the right approach. And always let your voice to be heard. So speak up if there is something that is not letting you feel uncomfortable when say it to your manager, speak. Because if you don't do it, nobody will ask your opinion. Nobody, you have to sponsor yourself because there won't be anybody who will help you. And you have to count on yourself only. That's what I have learned.  I had good managers, I had great managers, I must say, and I've learned from some of these people. But in the end, they gave me the, the tools, but it was me using those tools. It was not them. And this is the approach that I'm expecting from people working with me. So I don't have to, you know, spoon feed them at 40 years old. No, but still I see this adult people who need to be spoon fed. Stephen Matini: Simona, in your experience, what you just described, the importance of really courage, speaking up, developing relationship. Have you ever noticed gender to play any role in this dynamic? Simona Orsingher: Yes. Well, first of all, you have to be aware that if you speak up, there might be consequences. Because if you are always transparent as I am, sometimes you say things that the people you are speaking to might not like. And if this person happens to be someone higher in your organigram, it might cost you something and it cost it to me. I'm okay with that because I want to remain true to myself.  Going back to your question, there is a difference because normally when a male colleague approached a meeting, a discussion, speaking up and even raises, raising the tone of his voice or the volume of his voice, that was accepted somehow because it's expected. Because it's a way to show your power, to show your confidence.  When it's a woman doing that, still for what I've seen, it's perceived as oh, Jesus, she's having like a crisis. She's nervous today. It's not the right day for her. Well, it was not even the right day for him, but it was not noticed.  So it's not because maybe I'm raising the tone of my voice, which normally I don't. Okay, but let me say, I'm changing the way I speak. So if I am nervous or or if I am upset, you will notice it, okay? Because I'm not, as I'm speaking right now, I would be different, but it's because I'm saying something that I really care about. It's exactly the same for a male colleague. But there is still this difference, definitely. Stephen Matini: And yet so many women when they get at this point, they feel that they have to mimic their male counterparts in order to have a voice. So the question would be, what is the right voice for a woman? Simona Orsingher: The right voice for woman is being calm and say the things supported by facts and data. I mean, expecting the other people, well, even not to listen to you, but that's how it's going.  And definitely not mimic your male colleagues because I don't want to be like my male colleagues. I am not them. I'm completely different. I have my own personality and I don't like to raise my voice if I want you to hear my opinion. I want to stay calm and normally I do. So that's how women should behave because if you mimic one male colleague, well in the end you will always be remembered by a copy of someone and not something new.  Stephen Matini: And what you just described probably could become a point of reference also for male executives. Simona Orsingher: Yes, it should be. So if you think about the personal assistants, and let me say the executive assistants. 95%, even more of the cases are women, and 95% of senior managers are men and men, so these senior managers are relying on women to do their job.  The relationship they're having with other peers, with customers, maybe with the board. so, with, you know, VIP people. And some of the cases, these relationships are led by the executive assistants because she's the one who has to manage tension, manage missed appointments, manage a change of schedule.  So dealing with some people who are maybe upset because the CEO changed his mind at the last minute, and she is the one who is managing this set situation or difficult situation with customers or peers or whoever is going to meet the CEO. But nobody's thinking about it, I think. Stephen Matini: Have you ever heard the saying behind a great man is always a great woman? Simona Orsingher: Yes. Stephen Matini: Okay, let's update it. Let's upgrade it. What would you say? Simona Orsingher: A great woman can only manage a great man. So I would of course place the woman on the spotlight and not the man, because in the end, even if she's in the backstage, she's the one doing the job. Stephen Matini: Well, maybe I'm thinking could be behind a great person, there's a great person. Simona Orsingher: Yes, we are speaking about people, we're not speaking about women or men, but as a woman, well, I must say that we're still far behind in Italy. So this topic is very sensitive to me. Stephen Matini: I'm not a woman and I will never understand fully what it means, but when I hear what you said, it really makes me boil inside. It feels so unfair. It really feels incredibly unfair. Simona Orsingher: I don't even remember in how many meetings I was and I was the only woman in there and I felt like really invisible and men even took the liberty of speaking like if I was not even there. And it was perfectly normal to them.  And the sad thing is that for some women is normal this way, but it's not. So if we really want to move on on this, we have to break this. And women first, they need to have the courage and to be brave enough to speak up even in this situations like saying in a meeting like this, hello, I'm still here with you. Can you please stop? Stephen Matini: Well, first of all, I think any organization should have a Simona and I truly mean it. I have not worked with all my podcast guests, but you and I, we had that opportunity and I really truly believe that everyone should have someone that tells you as it is, you know, with kindness the way you do, because it's just wonderful. So we talked about bunch of stuff. If you had to point out one that you believe our listeners should pay attention to, out of our conversation, what would that be? Simona Orsingher: To be true to yourself? Always. It's you. It's good the way you are. It's not your problem if everything around you is not as you were expecting. In the end, even if you are going through challenges, difficulties, redundancies, promotions, whatever, it's just you.  And you have to stay strong because inside yourself, that's what I keep on repeating to myself every day, I have a value, okay, never mind what I do, what I'm doing now and what people think, I know that I am worth. So that's the thing that I would like to, to say to people.  And just today, I saw a post on LinkedIn, I follow the Female Quotient, which is an organization sponsoring of course females around the world. And there was Simone Biles, the gymnast, the us and gymnast. And she did something which is extraordinary last week because she did like a jump, which normally is done by men. And so she was asked, so you are the first Michael Phelps of or Usain Bolt of, and she said, no, I'm the first Simone Biles doing this. And that was something that impressed me because that's exactly the sense of what I've said. It's you, it's just you.  So you have to stay true to yourself because especially in corporate environments, almost everything is fake, because we are all on a big stage. All of us, we're all singing our song. Sometimes you have, you are in the top 10, some other times you are at the bottom of the chart, but everyone more or less get the chance to sing the song. So everybody has to, you know, show up and try to do its best. But in the end, you have to really take care of yourself because nobody else will do it. Nobody else. Stephen Matini: Simona, you are a jewel. Thank you so much for sharing all of these insights. Thank you. Thank you very much. Simona Orsingher: Thanks to you Stephen.

Chantal Souaid is the creator of “The Weekly Resolution® Planner,” a time management tool that allows consistent progress without the cumbersome weight of perfectionism. Chantal's schedule is very tight as a business entrepreneur and a mom of young twins. She believes that any goal and dream is achievable with consistency and the awareness that the most crucial step is to enjoy the journey as it unfolds. For Chantal, staying in the moment holds greater significance than chasing perfection, firmly asserting that consistency sustains momentum while motivation initiates the trip. Chantal Souaid is a three-month BARKAT Entrepreneur program graduate, an application-based 100% scholarship offering for Middle Eastern and African female entrepreneurs, and part of The Goddess Solution by Puneet Sachdev. Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform. Subscribe to Pity Party Over Sign up for Live Session  Managerial & Leadership Development - https://www.alygn.company/ Contact Stephen - stephen.matini@alygn.company Connect with Stephen - https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenmatini/ #ChantalSouaid #TheWeeklyPlanner #TimeManagement #Lebanon #StephenMatini #PityPartyOver #Alygn #LeadershipDevelopment #ManagementDevelopment #OrganizationalDevelopment   TRANSCRIPT Stephen Matini: Was there any person or any event in your past that somehow have impacted your professional choices? Chantal Souaid: So I'll tell you about three things and I combined them all and I called them the tipping point in my life. And these things were: one, I delivered twins prematurely, which I wasn't expecting.  Two, living in Lebanon, we had the political economical financial crisis.  And three, the project that I was running, they just told us that they are closing from Lebanon to go to another country.  So when this happened and all these three happened at the same time, I said, you know what Chantal, maybe this can be your wake up call for you to do what you've always loved, which was train coach and help people live better lives. Stephen Matini: Were you able to jump on the new idea right away or was it hard? I mean, did you have to take time to process everything? Chantal Souaid: So let me tell you, I've had the blog since 2008. I used to and still like to write too much.  But it took me time to see how I will present myself to the world as an entrepreneur. Because for me, I've been employed an international development project for a very long time.  So what I did, I said, you know what? I was very good at putting New Year's resolutions, and these New Year's resolutions weren't working obviously because I had twins, things were going a bit different and I was a productivity trainer at the time and people used to joke with me and say, you're a productivity trainer, wait until you have kids. The year was starting, it was 2020 and I didn't put in years resolution. And I was thinking, you know what? I don't want to put in years resolution. And at the time, my only goal every single day was just to take a bus for a mom with twins, breastfeeding them, taking a bath was the best thing ever.  So then I thought, okay, I'll make a like a weekly challenge. And I said, okay, if I try to do this and then if I do it every single week, then people would like support me with the follow through.  At the time I didn't call it “the weekly resolution”, so I said, I'll call 2020 weekly challenge. So I decided to film myself announcing the challenge and just posting it on my social media.  And I started it. My husband was very generous in filming me at the start and I said, I'll do it for the full year. I didn't have any plan. I didn't know what every week the challenge would be, but I said, if I announce it to people then I'll have to do it because I'm someone who really cares about what I say, what I said to myself.  Then every single week I started putting a video out and saying, this week this is what we're going to do. So the examples were very simple, like this week say thank you more or look at someone and say how grateful you are for what they did. So it started very simple.  Then Covid hit Lebanon and then the challenge was already going on. So people were more engaged. I had more people joining in. Somehow, sometime around April I decided, you know what? Everybody is joining in. It's very interesting. And I said like, okay, if I go and tell people I want to help you achieve your dreams, the first thing they will tell me, okay, And then when did you achieve your dream and why am I going to listen to you? So I decided to achieve one of my very, very, very early dreams, which was creating a planner and the planner at the time I decided to call it the “Weekly Resolution Planner”.  I have a copy here with me, it’s the second version of the planner. And I thought, okay, this planner would be the crown on top of this year. It would help the year finish at the happy note. And this was it.  I did the first version of the planner then the year after another version. And that's like how the story unfolded of me opening up and then being able to start my coaching business, coaching and training and selling my planner and then just moving from a full-time employee into an entrepreneur. Stephen Matini: The whole time management arena is not necessarily the focus of what I do as a coach and as a trainer. But you know, I do focus on soft skills. So time management comes up all the time. And the one thing that I've noticed over the years is that when you touch time management, you touch a really soft spot for people. And very often people come up with the millions of different reasons why they cannot do what they want. So, in your opinion, what is it that some people somehow, like yourself, you keep going, and other people, they simply settle for something that is not necessarily representative of what they want? Chantal Souaid: I'll tell you like two ideas about that. As I was doing every single week, my husband would come and tell me, Chantal, you don't have a plan until the end of the year. How can you keep on going? This is like every week you're just deciding on what you want and every week you're just reading more and then deciding what it's better if you had a plan. And then I told him if I had a good plan that I'm not implementing consistently, that's not something good.  On the other hand, if I had a regular plan and even maybe a bad plan that I was implementing consistently, this is way much better.  So what I had was a regular plan, which is to post every single week a challenge, but I was doing it consistently. And then I remember an interesting quote that I like that says something along the lines that motivation gets you started, consistency keeps you going. And at the time my image, my self image as a professional was very important. And that's why when we are talking about goal setting, you always ask who will you tell about your goal? So I announced it to the world.  Now I'm someone, the world for me isn't like 1 million followers. The world for me was my family and friends and my close connections. But even if I said to these people that I'm going to do this for me as a value honoring my, my word is something very important. So this got me going.  If on the other hand I said, you know what, I will film every week a video and once the videos are all 20, then I'll announce it. Me knowing myself, I wouldn't have done it.  So going back to my husband, he used to tell me that if it were up to me, I would put the plan, I would film the videos, at least half of them, then I would go for it. So this works for him, but for me, I know that if I put myself out there, if I tell the people and then every single week there's nothing that will stop me and I can do it, this is what would help me and this is how I move through it.  And this is how I usually notice that this is the only way that I can get motivated because I have to put it out there and then once it's out there I will not block out unless I change my mind and nothing like this has ever happened. So each person needs to know. Stephen Matini: And what if someone is not consistent? Is there anything else that people could do? Let's say I'm not someone that consistent, but I have good intentions. Is it still possible in your opinion, to get your dreams, you know, out of your drawer if you're not consistent?  Chantal Souaid: A lot of people are not consistent and this is a very big problem and people come to me all the time about it. Being consistent doesn't start. If you're consistent, you wouldn't take any help.  The problem is how to start on the path. If your why isn't very strong, And if people don't feel that like really they want to achieve this dream, they will never achieve it. Yes, Lewis says, if you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there. And this is true.  So the problem is that the majority of people don't know where they're going or don't know what their goal or what their dream. Thus they can't consistently implement anything.  If they know what their dream is, And if they are adamant about doing it, then consistency can start simply by faking it in the start. But setting like a a small plan on how it'll go and then I can tell you how the weekly resolution can help them achieve it consistently every single week. Stephen Matini: Have you always had clear what you wanted, or is it something that you learned along the way? Chantal Souaid: A lot of times there were a lot of things that were very clear for me and other times things were not as clear and I didn't know where I was going, especially when I was starting my business and having the kids and me being, trying to get used to being a working mom and being a mom in general.  So a lot of these things weren't as easy. But what I learned along the way, and this is a a long learning process, was to just trust myself and trust the process and trust the universe.  So for example, there are some things that I know that are part of my values. What I'd like to do, for example, for me, ever since I was very young, I knew that my mission on this Earth or what I would love to be doing was to help people and help myself lead a better life. So of some moments it was the big picture umbrella. But then somehow I'm learning to embrace the meaning of the moment. Every single moment that I'm going through, for me to discover myself better, to discover myself as a mom, as a business owner in this country.  So these pieces of the puzzles, I'm just putting them in the dots, and I learned something very interesting. If something is very hard and if I'm trying and trying and trying to work at it and it's not working and maybe I should like stop what I'm doing, either look into another direction or just think outside the box because somehow this is the universe telling me this is not the road you should be taking. Stephen Matini: A lot of what you're saying is something that me personally I learned later on in my life. One example could be even this very podcast, if I had to do, let's say 20 years ago, I think I would've been so obsessed about doing it right. I would've probably waited longer to start it. I would've been incredibly critical paranoid about anything that I did. It's about being in the present moment. And so I do hope you know this podcast and many, many other endeavors will do well, but I'm more focused on now, enjoying the process, doing my best, knowing that the next episode very likely I will do better. Very likely when I look back, you know, six months ago, I would say, oh wow, that was kind of cute what I did, I would never do that. So it really is a process in which you have a sense of where to go. But as I always say, you have to get your hands dirty. Chantal Souaid: And so you're saying this is something very important because somehow a lot of people who are very professional, who are very accomplished, who value accomplishment as a value in their lives feel as you said, that we need to do things in the perfect way.  But then little by little, as we grow older and more mature, we realize that perfection sometimes isn't in the minute details. It isn't like in the way for example, my hair is done today. It's in me being present now as I'm being with you. If someone comes and gives us this recipe when we're still young, somehow we wouldn't really own it.  And you can go and tell someone who is very young to do this and they will say like, well this is a crappy person, what is he saying? But on the other hand, when we live it, when we feel it, it gets something that's so internal. This way we can actually live it and understand it. And you're very right. Stephen Matini: Well also you are a mom, you have twins and I can barely take care of myself. So for me, like all of you moms are truly superhero. And I'm not trying to just to be nice, but realistically is so much work.  So to any woman that maybe has kids and maybe would like to not just to being a mom, there's nothing wrong about just wanting to be a mom, but maybe they also want to be a professional. Maybe they want to be an entrepreneur as you are. What is your suggestion as a first step to get it all? Chantal Souaid: Okay, so here I can tell you about the own three life balance concept. So as I was doing the weekly resolution planner, I had to create a concept for life balance because for me at the time, my life wasn't balanced. I had the twins, I was working from home, either I had the challenge and I was trying to live this life balance to to see how all this works out for me. And it wasn't as easy.  But then all of a sudden I realized that the day that I woke up at five and I did my morning routine before the kids woke up and before my work started, I was much happier. I was giving better and somehow the kids were nicer and the kids were calmer and everything was much better.  So I kept testing it and then I realized, that in life and in my life and the life of every person, mom, not mom, every person, when I am better, when I'm giving myself oxygen, then I can help and give back. And I always like the example of when we are in, in an airplane and the flight attendant gives the safety instructions and then she or he says, in case of oxygen drop, put your own oxygen mask before assisting others. So I'm giving them a favor when, when I'm taking care of myself. Then we have three other important pillars. One is environment. The environment can be my home, my surroundings, my family. If someone has a dorm room, it can be their dorm room and if someone has a big mansion, it can be their mansion and we have a relationship, it can be love and social. Then we have fulfillment. So in fulfillment we have money, we have a career, we have hobbies and fun and we have learning and growth.  If I'm giving every single day, and this is what the planner does, if I draw my vision board, and I say this is what I'm doing to myself, this is what I'm doing for my environment, my relationships and my fulfillment. And then we put a beautiful vision for all of it. Then every single month I'll ask myself, okay, what am I going to do this month for myself? What am I going to do for my environment, for my relationships and for my fulfillment? Then we ask the same question every week, then every day Stephen Matini: If someone somehow cannot find time for herself, right? Like I just can’t. What would it be a first step they can do in order to carve some time for themselves and overcome the sense of guilt? Chantal Souaid: So hopefully I would know this person, I think I would shake them, I would tell them, God forbid if you were to die now what would happen?  And then they would stop and then they would say like everything would fall apart. And then I would say, okay. And then after it falls apart, and then after like nobody eats and after nobody does this task and after like a while, like someone else will be able to do it, someone else would be assigned to do it.  The problem with all of us is that we have a lot of expectations. We keep looking at Instagram, we keep looking at Facebook, at all the social media and we compare our lives to others and we want to do stuff like others. So we want to get this very big salary.  This person when asked them if you die, and then what would your life amount to, I'm sure that this take them to the core for them to remember that everybody can do their job.  And this is something that I learned it the very hard way. I kept wanting to be working to be doing stuff, but then I realized one day anybody can do anything related to my job, but no one would fulfill my role as the mother of my kids, Eva and Christopher.  And the moment I realized this, it like lifted a very big heavy burden on my back. And every single person have has like a very private story about their lives and they know that they can say stop, and they don’t need all the money, they don't need all these things and they can calm down.  So to this person, if they cannot carve time for themselves, to take care of themselves, then then one day they would collapse and go to the hospital and then somebody would have to replace them in a not nice way. Because if I were to offer the world, I better offer the world the best of me, not what's left of me. And if the person is not taking care of themselves, they will be offering what's left of them. Stephen Matini: I agree a hundred percent. And it may sound as such a final thought, but  the one thing that I always repeat myself is, and I'm really highly mindful, the more time goes by is, my time here has a deadline. So hopefully, you know, it will happen far in the future. But realistically I know as a fact that will not be here. I will not be here forever. Stephen Matini: And the most important thing of all is not to waste my life. You know, I think it's an important reminder, it's a gentle reminder. I call it that I will not be here forever. I may worry about this, I may get cranky about that, but you won't be here forever. It somehow puts everything the right perspective.  Chantal Souaid: I try to enjoy what I do without even obsessing excessively. Is it gonna work? It's not gonna work. Is is this gonna happen? Will I get there? Well, hopefully I will. But now all that matters is truly how I spend my time. Have you always been this way or is it something that as you mentioned, became heightened as a result of you becoming a mom? So no, I haven't been always this way. I think motherhood has had the, its its biggest lessons on me. So when I was at work, I was very adamant, I was very strict, I wanted things to be perfect. I didn't have any time to waste what stuff. I was hardworking as you were saying. And then I was doing everything to be perfect. I was working with an international development organization and from an organization to the other project to the other, we had donors, we had beneficiaries, we had stakeholders. Customer service was like a hundred percent. An email wouldn't go without an automatic like spelling check. But then as I became a mom, I started realizing that life cannot be this way.  I do admire whoever can keep life this way and still be a parent. But somehow my priorities have shifted. I realized that before having kids, my main focus in life was to prove myself to be a very good professional. When I became a mom, I realized my accomplishments don't define me. So the title, I was a Middle East and North Africa Director, which was very sexy and very interesting and very big. And I thought to myself like what? I'll be now a trainer, a coach. Like it was like so small for me and I said, I'll be a mom, just a mom. It was very like, don't get me wrong, but somehow it was like very small for me.  Then I realized I don't have to be any of this. I can just be myself. I like I am me. So this change helped me and it took a long time. It didn't come easily. And when I realized this, then I knew that this was my ego speaking. My accomplishments don't define me. My title doesn't define me because one day I can have a very big title and the other day if I don't, then I'm in my less. No, I'm not less, I'm much better because I'm myself and this wasn't the case at all and I grew into becoming this person and they say like the kids teach a lot, like having kids. And I, every single day I still learn. And it's an ongoing process and I think if we stop learning, we stop growing. And then what's the youth? Stephen Matini: You are part of the Barkat project, which is a a phenomenal initiative. How did you come across the project? Because I talked to Puneet Sadchev, who started the project. I thought how incredible the fact that he's supporting entrepreneurs, female entrepreneurs in the Middle East and Africa. How did you learn about the project? Chantal Souaid: So I am part of a group called Lebanese League for Women in Business. Among this group, they send a lot of announcements, but somehow when I saw this email and I read about it, the name was Shakti Barkat, and I was thinking like, wow, I like the name, I read about it. And it was something very interesting and I felt that yes, we women, entrepreneurs need to support each other.  And as a coach, I know the impact of coaching. And at the time I was feeling that as a mompreneur always. And I was finally thinking about it yesterday, like a mompreneur, the way I define it, as an entrepreneur mother whose priority is her kids.  So going back to you and I thought that, okay, this is this thing that I needed. I wanted my business somehow to be a priority. I wanted to be thinking about my business with other people. And somehow we are all in this boat together.  My struggles are struggles of someone else. Even if someone isn't married and doesn't have kids, but somehow they have maybe have an another type of a baby or another type of something that they're taking care of. It can be a family member, it can be a side project.  So I felt what a beautiful and empowering thing for me to be part of such a program to learn from a professional like Puneet and also to be learning and sharing me among all the other ladies that are part of this program. So for me, I know that we started in June, we have until September, and these are the months where I will be focusing on my business.  We put a deadline, we put the, like our intentions for the program, both professional and personal, and then somehow this framework, this like very nice framework and me knowing that I'll be meeting with these people one week as one week know knowing that if I had a problem, I will be following through with it.  This alone, as simple as it can be, other than what's happening during the coaching session was very important for me. I set goals, I set intentions, I write my gratitude, but somehow my business isn't always the top priority.  And for me, putting my business as number one during these four months has been phenomenal. I've never been coached for my business. I've been part of different types of trainings but never been coached. Puneet is so good in how he coaches is us. So he might be giving a hotspot for someone and putting someone on the hot seat and you'd think that like he's just coaching these people.  And then somehow as the session goes, he would've coached all of us and we'd all come out after this question with this specific person with like list of things that we need to be working on.  Stephen Matini: Thank you so much for sharing all this with me. And my wish for you is to be around for as long as possible, so that yo can help as many people as possible because you're really fabulous. Chantal Souaid: Thank you. Thank you Stephen. And thank you for opening up this opportunity for people to listen to you, for people to come over with you. You cannot imagine how sometimes just listening to a podcast of yours can change the life of people.

Dr. Claudia Gross is a German consultant and trainer who lives in Cairo, Egypt, and has a soulful humanist approach to business. Our conversation revolves around the transformative potential of language in fostering positive connections, understanding, and personal growth. Inspired by approaches such as Nonviolent Communication and Positive Psychology, Dr. Gross emphasizes the concept that words create worlds.  Dr. Gross is the author of the first Speak Green book, Words Create Worlds: Cultivating a Conscious, Life-Affirming Language. The idea is to move away from "red language," which is divisive and instead embrace "green language," which promotes harmony and positive communication. By speaking green, we can move beyond binary thinking, embrace a variety of viewpoints with greater ease, and cultivate empathy through language.  Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform. Subscribe to Pity Party Over Sign up for a complimentary Live Session Managerial & Leadership Development Contact Stephen Matini Connect with Stephen #claudiagross #speakgreen #language #pitypartyover #podcast #alygn #stephenmatini #leadershipdevelopment #managementdevelopment TRANSCRIPT Stephen Matini:Claudia. You are in Egypt. So how's life in Egypt? Claudia Gross: Life in Egypt is also very different to what I was used to and I think about Germany, you know, like, so a totally different planet if you wanna say that. And I love it because it's so interesting and inspiring.  Being here, living in a totally different culture, being emerged and surrounded by it. Here there are so many opportunities to contribute. This is what I also love.  For me, Egypt's like a huge catalyst of my own development. Everything I currently am,  who I am and what I do is based on this fertile soil of the desert country. So for me, living in Egypt has been a very fertile, inspiring and reconnecting experience, reconnecting myself to my roots. Stephen Matini: Do you think that you would have become the same type of person if you never moved to Egypt? Claudia Gross: I can't imagine. Just the other day I actually thought that I'm very grateful for this kind of destiny or force in the road that brought me here. I have been here since 18 and a half years. So if this period was a human being, it would be a teenager with a driving license.  And when I think about, for example, the power of language that I'm so passionate about, I see this here in in Egypt, an action every day. Even if you just say good morning, good morning in Arabic would be something like wishing you a morning full of light or full of honey, or full of yes. mean if you're responding to this, you would actually aim for saying something that is even sweeter or brighter. And I, I see this a lot.  There's also some things, some words we would not say, things we wouldn't say simply because that's part of the culture, and because we think that it brings bad luck. So being immersed into this kind of environment where the power of words can be felt and seen every day in every conversation definitely contributed to who I'm currently. Stephen Matini: How have you discovered along the way, the power of language, the power or words, how did you get interested in words as much as you do today? Claudia Gross: The initial moment that I can recall that changed everything was when I was sitting in the traffic jam in Egypt and like a particularly long one, really dramatic. And I was surrounded by signs telling me what not to do. So I got like, don't be late, don't miss this appointment. And signs on the streets saying, don't whatever cross here, don't turn here.  And I was like, Hey, listen, you know, I mean like, could you please stop talking in red language to me, if not helpful? What I would love to know is like, what can I now do? Where can I turn? Where could I go? And I mean, I could not just leave my car behind the walk. So this is what happened.  And when I then arrived at the place where I was having dinner with a friend at this time, I was like telling her this experience and suddenly it's like sketching down a couple of red words and green words and this is what happened. This is where it started.  And then retroactively, I realized that since I can think when I was highlighting texts and textbooks or when, when studying something, especially in English, I was always starting to highlight something when the not part was over and when it was focusing on what to do, suddenly I understood that I had it in me for a while, but it just woke up in this particular traffic jam. Stephen Matini: Is this what you refer to as a speak green? Claudia Gross: Yes. For me, speak green. Why have I chosen this? It's because really an opposition to red language in, in comparison to how people talk a lot. When you think about Marshall Rosenberg, the founder of non-violent communication, you would call it hyena language and giraffe language.  For me, what was like closer to my heart where these two languages and also like traffic signs, like read for, hey, wait a moment stand still pause, reflect, is this really how I wanna say it? And then coming up with the green alternative and to go for that. So also this complementary of these colors was important for me in that moment. Stephen Matini: Claudia, I wanna ask you, I understand perfectly the concept. I was wondering, would you mind to provide an example of a sentence that uses red words and how to turn it into green words? Claudia Gross: Oh yeah, certainly. The classic example is that for centuries we are focusing on “no war.” I've been in a Picasso museum where he was also referring to manifestations and demonstrations in the street, and they were all having this posters of no war, no war.  When I seen this in the black and white movie, I thought, like, so long we're going for in war, when actually what we really in the bottom of our hearts are desiring is peace.  So for me, no war is written in red and peace is written in green language. And that's also an example for moving beyond these negation and looking at what do we really want. Because our minds as we now move from neuroscience, cannot see something that is negated. It first has to evoke it like war or war and they're like, ah, no, no, that's not what I'm, that's too difficult. We better focus on what we wish for. Stephen Matini: You told me about this last time when we met, you talked about the difference between a “yes” and “yes, but.” But would you mind explaining the difference between these two approaches? Claudia Gross: Yes, certainly. For me it was one of these discoveries of higher communication, because the experience of “yes, but” something that we all share on a day-to-day basis that someone seems to agree yes and, but then feels like a slap into our face or a close door. We experienced this, but for a very long time I just thought like, well that's the way we say it. This is how we talk.  Until I was introduced in a workshop to the option of “yes, and”. And I goosebumps when I think about it because it's like, what this is adding a new idea. This is not pretending as if you're first agreeing and then contradicting.  And later then I learned that in improv theater they have a rule on stage that they will not say no or yes, but they will always say “and” so that the game or the the show continue. Stephen Matini: In your experience working across different cultures, do you find it easier or simpler, this specific attention towards in one culture versus another or it doesn't matter? Claudia Gross: I think it matters and I think that all cultures are, all languages have different preferences. So I'm already like a bit concerned when we're trying to translate my book because some things I think they're not translatable from English to any other language, be it German or French or Arabic, you know, they where, where I have an idea of what I'm talking about some in the different languages and this what I, that people around them and their examples might be very cultural specific. So some things might not be that we cannot generalize them or things that I could say in German, they actually do not work in another language or a word play that works in English. We can't translate it.  So we would rather put it in brackets or like adding whatever footnote to explain it. But in general, I think this sensitivity or the awareness for the power of language is available in all languages that are using prayer, that are using holy words that are not saying special words because they could bring bad luck.  So I think actually it would be, would be present all around the world. And I'm for example, not saying worldwide because I learned from Buckminster Fuller that this would be pretending that it is a flat earth and I believe it's globe. That's why I'm also speaking about around the world or globally, but not about something worldwide. Stephen Matini: Have you ever heard, I'm sure you did, about the Sapir-Whorf theory or communication? Claudia Gross: Yes. Stephen Matini: I remember when I studied it the first time was the notion, you know, based on these colors that essentially the language that we speak, you know, color and tint anything the way we view the world. And I thought it was an incredible theory. The theory has been discussed, has been disproved in many different times. But still what's interesting when I try to learn a new language and I see the same text, I see the grammar. I always have the feeling that I'm putting on sunglasses, a language, the specific structure, really deeply condition how I relate to people.  Stephen Matini: Words these days seem to be weaponized. Even the whole controversy about freedom of speech. Oftentimes we see endless amount of examples of cancel culture because this person used the wrong word, maybe words that were said years prior in a completely different context. To me it looks like a big gigantic mess of polarized ideas. From your perspective, what could it be a first super small step that all of us as a global community could take in the right direction to build bridges through the use of words? Claudia Gross: Open your ears, have elephant ears, and open your hearts so that you have a giraffe heart and then have a conversation.  And I also see this a lot what you're describing, that people are losing also friends or family members over discussions over one particular word. And that's a real pity because what we want to be cultivating our conversations, especially with those who are thinking and acting in a way that is totally different to ours.  So instead of like emptying my friends list of those who think differently than I do and are not agreeing to how I see the world, it's actually super important to reach out to them and to have the conversations and to widen our horizon, widen our perspective, and be more in this careers mode of like, wow, isn't that interesting?  And I believe for me, like when I, when I'm listening to all of these developments, I'm also very much inspired by the integral model by Ken Wilber. So I see this evolutionary development of human beings and I can, based on their language also see and hear where they're coming from.  And therefore I think it's also very important for us that yes, we are all the same and different. Yeah. So we have different backgrounds, different understanding of what's different connotations, so better and a peaceful environment of coexistence and curiosity, then losing those that would be perfect alley for us towards change in this world. Stephen Matini: Two concepts, they're really important to you in terms of some of the positive impact of using a specific type of language. A green language has to do with you call it like a pluralism and gender positivity. These two components seem to be really important to you. Would you mind telling me more about these two? Claudia Gross: When I think about pluralism, just very basically I am thinking really in plurals, very often people only give me one option and I'm interested in getting more. I wanna have a choice. And so therefore I believe it's really important to move beyond the binary, which then means like it's not zeroes or one, it's not yes or no. It's not only tea and coffee. And I believe this is important to express this also in language.  When I'm facilitating coaching, I give people at least three choices or more only with the intention of moving beyond the binary. And for me, when I then I think about gender, it's something similar. I mean, I, I'm German, I grew up with a language that actually has, that has three articles. I also take this one as one of the reasons why for me, pluralism and a variety is a lot easier to grasp, to understand, to connect to than for others. And having said this, being able to express ourselves in more than only one language also helps because depending on the language I speak, I'm a different person. Stephen Matini: Freedom of speech is such an important thing. And when people tell me what to say and not to say I feel that I get silenced. How would you respond to this type of criticism. Claudia Gross: There were already situations where people ask me exactly about these points, you know, where they were like, are you now trying to police us? And I thought like, well, it's so far away from my personality to police anyone in anything.  And for me, this is also where I then thought about and I thought what I really do is highlighting language that is not anymore in harmony with our consciousness and offering alternatives.  And when I started this, green was just like the language that came up and red as well. There were also moments where then thought like, oh goodness, you know, now you're creating polarities and it looks like green is good and red is bad. And that's also how I mean it, but I do not mean it like with this erect index finger teacher, teacher telling us, you know, how to speak now, that's not my intention. My intention is not to program anyone with my language. I'm, I'm not trained in NLP, even. So my, my origins of this whole initiative really come from a totally different direction.  And therefore what I do is I offer for everyone who's really stuck in my perspective, like someone who's, who's like extremely fluent in red language.  Very often these people cannot imagine green language because no one in their surroundings speaks green language. So what I actually do is, in my perspective, I am increasing the horizon. I'm doubling the space of, of vocabulary and life ultimately, and I'm making offerings and they can choose them, yes or no, totally up to them. And it's possible that what I offer this today, next year I might offer you something else because I have my language also has evolved.  And the way I see it currently is really like a yin and y sign. So as if it was a red young that needs a green yin as yeah to be complete, to also add different energy to that. And only when these two are coming together you have the circle, then you can strive for oneness.  But as long as you are like in this kind of whatever ocean of red language, moving on and understanding what else is possible is too far away. So this is what I'm now currently answering and I, I've seen it in so many people when they realize how they could not even see it.  Just the other day, we are now preparing a conference in a panel, in an event in the UK and one of the aspects of this whole event is about strengthening business and the outdoor. So I was listening to the conversation, I was like, oh, that's interesting outdoor, say this again, out-door and in-door. You don't even mention the, which is really interesting. So it's defined by the door, look at it in front of your door or inside of your door. But I mean this does not necessarily need to be nature at all.  So these little things, you know, and then, oh yeah, interesting. So one word can be so powerful and its could be then reframed, reformulated in something that is more life giving. Here we’re, the journey continues. Stephen Matini: Yeah. Because a door is something that separates, kinda the example you gave before, no war and peace, you know, outdoors and nature. Absolutely. I'm thinking that maybe this oneness that we so much all want, peace actually it is not oneness, but it's fragmented in infinite variations. Claudia Gross: Every country you travel through with every culture, even in your country you visit, there's so much variation. They do things differently. And being aware of that is being rich.  And I believe that's also something that is related to speak because what we do is we're increasing the circles around us. It's not only about myself and my family and my neighbors and my working place, which is already a couple of circles, but the moment I'm able to embrace more people and at a certain point reach like be it my country, be it the region we are in, be it like the rules low, suddenly it's a totally different perspective.  And this means also that if I'm then whatever, separating and segregating the waste in my house, I don't do this for myself anymore. I do not do this for the garbage man anymore, or the garbage person, or whatever is a better word here, they are called ‘zabaleen’, you would do it for the planet for the seventh generation of grandchildren. So I believe what happens with these experiences in different countries, realizing exactly as you said, opposite, 180 degrees different from we were used to. In Germany, we would not marry our cousins here in Egypt, people do that. It's the extreme opposite and it's for the respective cultures, it's the way people are living.  And I believe being able to hold the seemingly opposite in our mind at the same time. And at the beginning it's only two and then after a while it's even more because then you see how they, they're done in different cultures.  I believe like we're really growing new connections on our brain group, becoming more compassionate for others. And it's a lot easier then to support others in seeing it, having these conversations and those who can't travel, who don't travel, who do not, don't ever have the chance make these experiences, but by sharing our stories, they come close to them. Really they do this.  I mean, I'm vegetarian and I'm drinking everything, tea and coffee without sugar even this is already a pattern disruptor. Really? Does it have taste? Can you do that? But that's, no one does this, you know? I'm like, well, I mean at least I do it and I can assure you, you know, it's better than four spoons of sugar in your tea. And I think it's first about the past pattern structure and then integrating it all into ourselves and being aware of there might be no single truth. Stephen Matini: I keep thinking as you are describing such important concept, it's a big exercise in empathy, understanding that the world is not you and it works differently than you. And you can still enjoy anything that is not you if you make an effort to get out of your shoes and know for a while basically. Claudia Gross: And you see the word empathy just crossed my path yesterday when we spoke about equality and equity where I've seen a title and I, sorry, that I don't recall in which workshop this was, but there they also spoke about diversity and equality and inclusion and belonging. And they didn't say equality or equity, they said empathy.  And I thought like, how cool is this? Because it's not anymore about people with each other, it's about having empathy with each other, really meeting human to human. And I think this is also another evolutionary step in language on our behaviors that at a certain point it's not anymore about doing things because it has to be equal. We'll do them because we have like hundred percent empathy with other people.  And equality at the end of the day is also not the goal, we're striving for justice and for fairness, which means that it can be unequal, but it's just, and it's fair. So you know, I mean these concepts, they're really sometimes mind blowing, but I can see them on a spectrum of evolutionary development of humankind and human beings themselves. Like being more and more able to embrace this kind of complexity. Stephen Matini: I have a funky question. I love languages, you know, and I wish I had all the time in the world to learn every single language. They're just wonderful. But you know how difficult it is, you know, it takes time. Do you think that if we had one true common language, all of us spoke the same language while retaining all the other languages, but if all of us, you know, terrestrians spoke at least in one same language, do you think would be easier? Claudia Gross: While listening to your question, I thought about Esperanto they trying to to create an artificial language that we all could speak. I love that you added that all the other languages would continue because I would, this would be my major concern that we give up this world that we have when we are speaking exactly the same language.  We're under the illusion that the others understand us because then they're fluent in our language, especially with mother tongue and we, when you're traveling, we feel like an immediate connection to those that are speaking our language. But on the other hand, this can also be a huge illusion.  When I'm speaking with people, what we do now on this English bridge, which is not my mother tongue, I would make more effort to make sure that I am really understood or I would also ask more questions, especially in very personal relationships.  So therefore I believe not speaking the same language could increase our understanding because it supports us also in understanding ourselves and the other and the space between us. And very often I feel very understood by people who are not speaking my mother tongue and absolutely not understood by people who speak German. Stephen Matini: I love when you say illusion, it really is an illusion. Is there anything out of anything we said that you think that our listeners, the people that will listen to this episode, will be important to pay attention to based on your experience of the power of words? Claudia Gross: Yeah, that's a good question. First of all, I think what we all need to be aware of now more than ever, independent of words, but I think it's really important to highlight this, is that we are experiencing a change of era. So one era is ending and the other one is beginning and they're overlapping.  So we’re currently in a phase where both developments are overlapping. Yes, we’re hospicing the old and they’re midwifing the new, both at the same time. This means that we have a huge marketplace and spectrum variety for what we are also experiencing now regarding language is I do not think that there's the right language, and I wouldn't go for right and wrong. When I think about red and green, for me it's really about what is limiting and destructing or inhibiting life and what is giving life and supporting whatever self-development and so on. So this is how I would see it, and therefore I would always only make offerings. That's one of the rare situations where the word always actually work. Because normally I'm saying don't say always, don't say never. So I'm contradicting myself. But what I wanna say is that it's about offerings, it's about adding a perspective and also inviting others.  See this as well. When I'm working, when people speak in a lot of negative language where I'm like, okay, how would we reframe that? You know, how does that sound without the not? That's an invitation and they can draw this path. And if they're absolutely not able to lose, I can see if I can assist them. And if it still doesn't work, we can see how we then continue with each other. You know, what is needed. I would never, ever impose it on them. And this is the thing that I would like people to take with them, you know, like experiment with it, be inspired by it. See how powerful it is, and it's also not just the, the word itself, it's also the vibration it brings in. Yeah.  For the book I had recorded word showers, like hundred red words and hundred green words. And just listening, just recording the red words was unpleasant, you know, while the green words had a totally different aura and frequency.  So therefore be curious, be aware of your own language. Do not believe everything you think. Be an author for your own lives, co-author our future. So that's the spirit which everyone to approach this field of language and contribute to it. If there are words that are not in harmony anymore with how you see it or would love to say it, come up with a greener alternative. Stephen Matini: Claudia this was fantastic. Thank you so much for these important insights, for spending time with me. Thank you. Claudia Gross: With utmost pleasure.

Today, we delve into the world of courage and what it truly means to stand up for what you believe. Our guest is Dr. Cindy Pury, Professor of Psychology at Clemson University and an expert in the psychology of courage.  The episode explores the interplay among fear, bravery, and honesty, revealing why courage doesn't conform to a single, standardized model. Our conversation explores bravery, honesty, and the nuanced nature of courageous actions, emphasizing individual uniqueness. Dr. Pury warns against using courage for harmful ends and shares leadership insights for fostering a supportive environment. Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform. Subscribe to Pity Party Over Sign up for a complimentary Live Session Managerial & Leadership Development Contact Stephen Matini Connect with Stephen #cynthiapury #courage #psychology #clemsonuniversity #stephenmatini #podcast #pitypartyover #alygn #leadership #management TRANSCRIPT Stephen Matini: When did you decide what you wanted to pursue professionally? Cindy Pury: So I drifted into college without having any clear idea what I wanted to do. I had a major in public relations, I didn't love it, but I couldn't think of anything else.  And I got to college and the very first day of class, John Kihlstrom, who was our intro teacher, talked about hypnotism. And I was like, oh! And then we started talking about emotions and I was like, oh! And the whole thing was so interesting that I decided to double major in psychology.  And I clearly remember one day my junior year of college, I believe I was sitting in a windowsill studying in one of the big campus landmark buildings. And I had two exams to study for a psychology exam and a journalism exam. And I remember looking, choosing the psychology book and thinking, boy, I wish any of my journalism classes were as interesting as this. In graduate school I studied emotional theory and emotional disorders, particularly anxiety disorders. And around the same time the director of our honors college asked me to do an honors seminar about fear and horror. And I thought, great. Okay, sure.  And so I put together all these things and I went at the end, by the time I got done looking at my class reading list and stuff, I thought, wow, that's really depressing. We need to end on a more positive note.  So some kind of irrational fear that you have, what do you do about that? Those are anxiety disorders. We have a whole big bunch of treatments for those. So let's read about the most well supported version of that at the time. So I had a section on CBT.  Then what can you do about some kind of thing that you have a fear of that is rational to be afraid of? Well you can reduce whatever the risk is in that situation and really there's not much else you can do to reduce your risk. Well you can behave courageously. And I thought there's like no research on this at all. And I started conducting research on courage and I haven't really gone back.  During my pre-doctoral internship I worked at a veteran's hospital with a bunch of people who had combat related PTSD and I was struck by how they talked about things that sounded very courageous but they weren't calling them that.  And also how some of the things that they were really continually distressed about seemed to be kind of a function of what Jonathan Shea, the year after I finished my internship, coined the term moral injury.  It seemed to be kind of a combination of moral injury and almost like a failure of courage that was bothering them. And so I've been interested in this for a really long time and it turned out to be a really natural fit and I found I was just super interested in it. And so I've stuck with that. Stephen Matini: Simply put, what is the link between fear and courage? Cindy Pury: The link between fear and courage is actually a little bit more complicated than just saying that fear is standing up to courage, 'cause a lot of people say “courage is standing up to fear,” but also they'll say, you were fearless and courageous. And it's like, but those don't fit.  So what we've done is we've taken a step back, me and my colleagues, we've taken a step back from the fear and think about the risk part instead as being central to courage. And this I think eliminates an awful lot of the problem. It doesn't have to be actual risk, it can be perceived risk.  One of the things we know for sure about people who are highly fearful, either dispositionally or just in the moment, is that whatever it is feels much riskier than perhaps it really is. So that happens when folks are afraid of things that aren't really that much of a risk. It still feels very risky. It can feel risky in a really unusual kind of way.  So one of my participants in a courage study wrote about something she did that was courageous, that was smushing, a spider that was in her house. She thought it was courageous that she worried about how if she hadn't done anything, he would come back and get her. And it's like I knew that she knew like most people with specific phobias, she probably knew that spiders aren't smart enough to do that, but it felt that way.  Finally, it helps explain situations where someone describes something they did they that they call courageous. And they'll either say that they didn't feel that much fear in the moment because they were very focused on doing whatever they were trying to do.  Or sometimes they described fear, but their fear has more to do with the fear of whatever bad outcome they're trying to prevent typically for someone else who they love or otherwise care about.  So if a a small child who you love wanders into the street, you're going to be much more afraid of something bad happening to that small child most likely than yourself. Stephen Matini: Is there any difference between bravery and courage? Cindy Pury: The difference between bravery and courage, if your listeners are familiar with the VIA or the Values and Action System, is that the VIA’s bravery component is standing up to fear or difficulty in a particular way. And so it has a lot to do with that emotion and it doesn't have to do with how you aim it.  So I would argue that it would be possible for someone to have an isolated strength of bravery but use it in a completely inappropriate way.  So, if you imagine two people who are equally afraid running into a house fire; cool, they're equally burned and equally likely to die, they're in the burn unit, they're in adjoining beds.  The person in bed A ran into the burning house to save a baby, that person is likely to be hailed as courageous and publicly hailed as courageous by other people. The person in bed B ran into the burning house to make a really cool TikTok video. People aren't likely to say that person's courageous. Stephen Matini: What is as of now after many years of research, your own definition of courage? Cindy Pury: My own definition of courage at this point is that it involves taking a worthwhile risk. So it's got to be taking, it's gotta be a voluntary sort of thing. It's a chosen action. It's not something that just happens to you, it's something that you choose to do. And I suppose I could extend it to choosing to take a worthwhile risk.  It's also something that is risky to you. It also is worthwhile. So it is something that is proportional to the risk that's involved. Risking your life to save the life of another is definitely courageous. Risking your life to pursue some incredibly personally valuable goal can be courageous if you the observer or you the rater shares that value of that goal.  Risking your life for a very trivial thing in a way that need not have happened that way does not feel that way.  A few years ago there was someone who literally did run back into a house fire to get her season baseball tickets, which could have easily been replaced and in fact the baseball team said, we're replacing your tickets but just know we would've replaced these anyways. So that doesn't seem terribly courageous.  I've taken that a step further and I've looked at people who've won the Carnegie Hero medal, which in the United States is a big civilian award for bravery and for the Carnegie Hero medal.  I looked at one year's worth of it, and in that one year most people who won, saved the life of another person, and they themselves were alive.  Some people won dying while saving the life of another person.  Other people won dying and the person they tried to save died, nobody won, when the person they tried to save died, but they lived. There's this sort of hindsight bias that that was worth it.  We have other data on that too where we just made up stories and the stories changed. So like you move to another country for the perfect relationship or the perfect job and A) it works out and 10 years later you're still married or B) after about a year you see that you're really not compatible and you split up, that second person is not likely to see themselves as courageous. Stephen Matini: So if I understood correctly, there seems to be cultural and contextual differences that it impact what people perceive as courageous. Cindy Pury: Oh absolutely. Absolutely. And they'll vary based on both cultural values and individual values and they'll vary based on both cultural threats and individual threats.  And so, if you are in a culture where being perceived as showing any sign of fear is like a terrible thing for you and you're willing to get up and speak in public, that may be more courageous than if, if you're like, oh, okay. Sometimes people are afraid and they go on and it's cool.  Or if you are raised in a culture where showing any sign of sadness as a man is perceived as negative and you're crying in public and you're a man, that's gonna be much a much bigger risk in some cultures than in others. Likewise, the values of course change from culture to culture.  They also change individually. Charlie Starkey, Laura Olson and I just published some data looking at how courageous Americans rated two women who did sort of different things.  A few summers back, Kaitlyn Jenner publicly came out as transgender, and Kim Davis refused to issue marriage licenses to same gender couples.  Not surprisingly the extent to which you agree that marriage should be between one man and one woman and people should adhere traditional gender norms point you in completely opposite directions in rating if that woman was courageous or not. Stephen Matini: As you're talking, there are different scenarios they play in my head particularly about what's considered to be socially courageous. And I'm thinking about organizations or the example of Kaitlyn Jenner. Some of them they say, I'm openly gay but at work, I'm not because you know, that's not the place where I could do that. So from your perspective, should I be more courageous, or what? Cindy Pury: It would depend on so many different things about how the person sees their job. I'm gonna make up a super extreme example here.  So if the person's spouse, who they love, is unable to work for some reason, and they are providing all of the means of financial support for their family, and they go out to work every day in a homophobic environment, and put on their mask to get money so that they and their partner can live a decent life, that could almost be seen as courageous.  Doing exactly the opposite. For them, jobs aren't plentiful and they would never find anything that would support them in that way. It might be courageous for them to stay closeted.  Similarly, in an organization that specifically goes out of its way to say we are a proudly WOKE organization and we welcome all of our LGBTQIA+ employees and in fact here's our gay employee association and people in the gay employee association actually have kind of a leg up, then that risk is just obviously a lot lower. Likewise, if you are seeing yourself as strongly committed to advancing the rights of other people by being an example yourself, which I think from what I have read arguably is a large part of the reason why we have so much more acceptance in society today, which I personally really welcome, is because people have been willing to step out and say I'm gay, I'm still the same person that you knew before and I'm still just as competent as I was before and and all these other things and here is my life and I am willing to be an example, that could also be part of it. Stephen Matini: So it seems to me that courage oftentimes ignites when someone is willing to go against the grain. Cindy Pury: Yeah, certainly in terms of any sort of a social thing, that definitely would seem to be the case. And social risks are huge. We're very social creatures and our social risks feel every bit as real as physical risks and do every bit as much of the same sort of jazzing up your autonomic nervous system and feeling really awful and feeling a sense of dread. We definitely feel that way about social things also.  Personal courage I think is a real big thing and when you know the person's full story, sometimes their actions make a lot more sense.  I mentioned I worked at this VA hospital. I had a patient who before I was even studying courage, his goal during treatment was to wrap a Christmas present for his child. That doesn't sound like very much but his whole backstory was that the worst thing that had ever happened to him was over Christmas time.  Every December it reliably resulted in terrible flashbacks for him and he avoided every reminder of Christmas whatsoever to avoid being reminded of this very terrible incident in his life. So he came in and he wrapped a Christmas present and he wrapped it in a session with me and while he was wrapping it like he was crying and his hands were shaking and he was sweating and we had to have a bucket nearby 'cause he thought he was gonna throw up, but he did it, at the end he's like, I'm sorry, I'm such a mess, something, something about being weak.  Well, before I started studying this, like almost a decade before, I said that was really brave, because I knew what he was going through, in order to do it. Stephen Matini: If someone is not that courageous, or let's say wants to be a little bit more courageous, where do you draw the line between, what I'm thinking of doing is courageous or just being stupid? Cindy Pury: That is such a good question. It is a fine line between brave and stupid.  The place where I saw that drawn most clearly was a story about this family out, I think in California or they were at least driving in California. They were driving along one of the twisty roads by the coast and the little kid threw a teddy bear out of the window and it fell down a cliff.  And so they stop the car, one of the parents gets out of the car and goes down the cliff to try to get the teddy bear. That parent gets stuck. The second parent then, leaving the child alone in the car, goes down the cliff to try to rescue the other parent and also to try to rescue the bear. They're both stuck and then rescue had to come out and helicopter got them and the family went on their way. Had it been the case that the first parent had rescued the teddy bear, this would just have turned into a story about how much mommy and daddy loved you.  It's always going to come down to someone's personal values and their personal values are funneled through their societal values, but the risk also matters a lot. So is this a risk that you are taking just for you, or are you taking this risk for other people?  So, the second parent who got out of the car leaving the child alone should have thought it's not that smart to leave a child in the car by themselves, because this was a kid that was young enough to have a teddy bear and a tantrum, that also matters.  I had an interesting conversation once with a student who was a police officer and he said that for him confronting someone who may be unhinged with a weapon is a lot less dangerous than it is for me. And I'd say I'd have to agree with him. So the question is, is it less courageous for him to do that than it would be for me? In a way, yes, but also he signed up for this career that required that sort of training and that sort of regular confrontation.  But definitely people are inspired by reading about what other people have done and seeing what other people have done and being told the stories of what other people have done. And a motivating sort of thing is when you see someone, especially someone who's similar to yourself or believing in a similar cause or ideally both of those things, if you are reflecting on something they did that was courageous, much like your friend, you're more likely to be inspired to go, I can do this too. Stephen Matini: Just that based on anything we talked, courage is not a clean cut. Cindy Pury: Absolutely not. It's wickedly hard to measure because either you end up with scales that simply ask you how courageous you are and how much you stand up to fear and you don't let fear or risks stand in your way, or you end up with scales that have what in psychology we call double barrelled items, where you have to be willing to do this for that, that requires two sorts of things instead to be in alignment rather than just one, and so it's not as clean. So it has turned out to be a difficult thing to measure.  I don't think we're likely to find that there are people who are uniformly brave and people who are uniformly cowardly. I don't think we're going to find that. I think everyone has their own individual constellations of things that they think are really worthwhile to do. Some people are very career-focused and they will do all sorts of things for their career, for their organization, which are different things obviously. And other people are not. Some people are very focused on personal advancement and they're willing to do things that are growing and enriching and feed their curiosity and their need to know other people aren't.  Some people really see the value in some particular kind of artistic or other personal expression. Other people don't see it as being as important to them. Likewise people feel differently about different kinds of risks that are out there.  The distribution of things that people are afraid of is not kind of random and people have different amounts of risks for different things. So for me, I do public speaking all the time. I routinely teach classes of 300 or so people. If you told me I was gonna give a speech to 300 people tomorrow, I'd be like, sure, that's fine. So it depends on the individual and the situation. Stephen Matini: Is there any correlation between courage and honesty? Because we're talking about values ... Cindy Pury: Yeah, absolutely. A lot of people describe courageous actions as being very high on integrity, which is a component of honesty. And certainly you may need to be courageous in order to be honest about something. And the coward, the less courageous action in a situation may be to cover it up or to lie about something.  It's somewhat contextual but for most people, most of the time honesty is probably the thing that they would feel prouder of, and would be better for society if we were honest. And so, in those cases, definitely. And in studies that we've done our typical study, we ask people to describe a time they acted courageously and we get a wide variety of responses.  Some of those responses definitely involve honesty. So another response that we got commonly were people who went and got needed treatment and needed to be honest. One of the steps in that is being honest with yourself and with other people. Especially if it happened when they were younger that they needed to go get treatment for their eating disorder or whatever it was. Stephen Matini: If I said to you anyone who's willing to fight for what he or she believes in, is courageous, would this be a fair statement? Cindy Pury: Yeah, I think so. Would I wanna give them the accolade of courage? Would I be happy to see that they won an award for valor? No, not necessarily, depending on what they were fighting for, 'cause Sometimes people fight for things that I think are terrible, and in that case I'm not going to be calling them courageous.  I can guarantee you though that every instance that I've found of someone being called courageous in the public press, or in the semi-public weirdo space that the Internet inhabits, if they're being called courageous, the person who's calling them courageous agrees with the goal of what they're trying to pursue and agrees in some way that they are taking a risk. Stephen Matini: You said it at the beginning of this conversation that ,your interest for courage began because you did not want just to focus on fear, you wanna focus on something that this seemed to be more positive. After all these years of your research, of your experience, what would you say that is the main reason why you are still passionate about courage? Cindy Pury: I think it's still interesting and I find the stories very uplifting for the most part. And also I've been motivated to write any number of book chapters by a warning that I wanna give people, which is that courage can be used for very bad things. Many people who have done just atrocious things believe that they're acting courageously and they talk using the same language that people use when they talk about courage.  Silk is a famous researcher who studies terrorism and in interviews with incarcerated terrorists and the police officers who stop them, both describe their actions in very similar ways, that fit the definition of courage.  I was struck by this when the Virginia Tech shooting happened. I still remember very clearly I was on an overnight sleepover field trip with my middle daughter and I just had caught little glimpses of it like on my phone. And I waited until she was in the bathroom taking a shower to like actually watch any of it. And he issued this creepy manifesto that was on a videotape and I was struck by listening to it how he sounded like a crazy evil version of my participants.  My participants at that time were almost all, were all college students, so they were all about his age and the way he described what he was doing, which was killing other people, sounded very much like the way my college student participants described taking an action that they thought was courageous.  And so I also feel very compelled to always put that message in there that, just because you think something's courageous doesn't mean it's not a bad thing. Just because you feel courageous doing it, doesn't always mean it's a good idea. And that doesn't necessarily mean it's stupid. I would say there's kind of the two bands, there's almost like two labels.  One of them is like stupid courage, where it's like I'm gonna run into this burning building to get a zillion TikTok followers, or I'm going to quit my job just to stick it to the man and now I'm unemployed and have no career.  Or I'm going to be brutally honest with this person who I dearly love. I'm just gonna be honest all the time with them. And that might not help our relationship actually and I might end up losing it. That sort of courage, I put it a different bin, than the things that are objectively meant to do bad. Stephen Matini: So we can say, the end does not justify the means. Cindy Pury: No. And if the end doesn't justify the means, then that is not a thing that we should say is courageous. But again, with the warning you might feel like you're courageous and then it turns out maybe you really weren't. It's a whole big picture. We need wisdom in order to properly evaluate these things. Stephen Matini: We talked about different things, so many different components of courage. If there’s anything that you believe that our listeners should focus on based on anything we said, what would that be? Cindy Pury: One of the biggest takeaways that I've gotten from doing research on courage is appreciating how unique everyone is, and recognizing the unique ways in which everyone has been courageous. I would argue everyone has been courageous.  Everyone has taken a risk that they think is worthwhile. That risk varies from person to person and what they think is worthwhile varies from person to person.  One of the things that happened I think during Covid is that we saw risks that people never considered on their job suddenly being present on their job, and the extent to which people were willing to engage in those risks for their job, which had changed, changed.  And ordinarily there's a lot of self-selection. People who are afraid of public pushback don't typically go into roles where there's not a lot of public pushback. They're not necessarily going to sign up to work for a politician. But a lot of healthcare workers found themselves in that situation, and a lot of educators found themselves in that situation. A lot of school board members are still finding themselves in that situation where school board in the United States at least used to be a very non-controversial kind of a thing.  When Covid happened, suddenly almost everyone's job involved that, and that was a negotiation, and I think what I saw personally, and what I saw professionally was a mismatch, in how much people wanted you to pursue the goals of the organization, and what they thought your risk tolerance should be for something, and what the individual employee's risk tolerance for that was, or sense of riskiness about that was.  And that sense of riskiness depended on two things. Broadly speaking, it depended on their actual risk level. So you might be immunocompromised and you haven't told anybody that, or you might live with someone who is medically fragile and you haven't told anybody that. And also just how much people have their own perception of what they're comfortable with. Those are somewhat separable things, but I think a lot of the misunderstandings that I saw in organizations at the time were due to that change.  So I guess from like a leadership perspective, being aware of what others in your organization, what the people you are leading find risky and find valuable, that may differ, and their picture of what that is, may be different than yours.  My other tiny little bit of leadership advice is don't be the reason why someone else needs to be courageous. If you are so intimidating that your employees need to work up courage to come and talk to you, that's problematic. But we all know that those leaders are out there. Stephen Matini: And maybe it's their way of believing that they're being courageous in some sort of tough or strong, you know? Cindy Pury: Absolutely. And I have definitely seen this. That's really not such a great strategy. Let them save their being courageous for other sorts of things that are more valuable to the company rather than just having to come to you. Stephen Matini: Cindy, you taught me so much today. Thank you so much. Cindy Pury: No problem, Stephen. This was super interesting.

Leadership consultant Katie Anderson believes fostering a continuous learning culture within a leadership framework can lead to better outcomes and engagement.    In today’s episode, we will discuss with Katie the challenges of shifting from a command-and-control to a learning approach, the role of purpose in leadership, and the impact of adopting a growth mindset. A culture of learning involves reconnecting with a sense of purpose, asking more open-ended questions, and creating a psychologically safe environment where mistakes are learning opportunities. Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform: Spotify - http://tinyurl.com/48dvdaks Apple Podcasts - http://tinyurl.com/z9ncxck4 Google Podcasts - http://tinyurl.com/yrr95sud Amazon Music - http://tinyurl.com/4wc9h4vy Podbean - http://tinyurl.com/bdehsasn Listen to Katie Anderson’s podcast Chain of Learning Get Katie Anderson’s book Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn Subscribe to Pity Party Over Sign up for a complimentary Live Session Managerial & Leadership Development Contact Stephen Matini Connect with Stephen Matini #katieanderson #chainoflearning #kbjanderson #podcast #pitypartyover #stephenmatini #alygn #leadershipdevelopment

Yvonne Mose and Jeremiah Mabiria are two entrepreneurs passionate about sustainability, working towards environmental solutions, and creating positive change to protect the planet and foster developmental opportunities in Africa.  Yvonne and Jeremiah founded MOMA Renewable Energy (former SBIKE), a company that produces bioethanol cooking fuel from food waste to address energy and environmental issues in Kenya. Their business aims to reach rural Kenyan households and contribute to reforestation efforts.  Yvonne and Jeremiah represent the rising potential of African startups and the need for support in achieving a more sustainable and interconnected world. Yvonne Mose is a three-month BARKAT Entrepreneur program graduate, an application-based 100% scholarship offering for Middle Eastern and African female entrepreneurs, and part of The Goddess Solution by Puneet Sachdev. Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform. Subscribe to Pity Party Over Sign up for a complimentary Live Session Managerial & Leadership Development Contact Stephen Matini Connect with Stephen Matini #yvonnemose #jeremiahmabiria #MOMAReneaableEnergy #SBIKE #entrepreneurship #africa #kenya #sustainability #stephenmatini #podcast #pitypartyover #alygn #leadership #management ... TRANSCRIPT Stephen Matini: You, Jeremiah, you grew up in the US. And you Yvonne, you grew up in Kenya. But Jeremiah, you are also Kenyan descendant, correct? Jeremiah Mabiria: Yes, we're actually from the same region, from the same community. It's just that I had to ate and relearn the language and do a lot of that when I came home. He just migrated when I was six years old. Stephen Matini: Jeremiah, how was growing up in the States? You know, having parents from a different country? Jeremiah Mabiria: It was interesting. It was interesting to be different. I came from a place here where I was like everyone else. We were very young, me and my brother, we were very quick to assimilate and become American. We kind of had to relearn being Kenyan I would say more so than learning to be American. It was natural. Stephen Matini: When people ask you where do you feel home is, what do you answer? Jeremiah Mabiria: Minnesota's home, that's where I grew up. But here Kisii (Kenya), is also home. There's a connection that I feel when I'm here. My easy answer would be that I have many homes. I'm lucky enough to have lived in many places and have many help. Stephen Matini: Yvonne, how was for you instead to grow up in Kenya? Yvonne Mose: For me growing up in Kenya is I think everything that I know, all that I know about life and it was really good growing around my people, my culture, my parents come from a very low income background.  That's why I got the motivation about who I am and what I want to work on. I think it has really formed the kind of person that I am right now. So yeah, but growing is really interesting. It has 47 tribes I believe. I didn't miss out on anything culturally. Stephen Matini: How long ago both of you met? Yvonne Mose: Yeah, about two years. Stephen Matini: When you met, could you sense cultural differences between the two of you? Yvonne Mose: For me, yes because Jeremiah talks different. He is very American in his ways, but it was a good surprise Stephen Matini: Somehow. Both of you have developed over your life an interest, a passion for sustainability. How has that happened? Were there any specific people, any specific event in your past that has somehow made you sensitive to the sustainable agenda? Yvonne Mose: For me, growing up in a poor background, especially in the rural areas in Kisii, I saw how it was hard for my family and even my neighbors to get access to clean cooking fields.  So for me that kinda shaped who I was because I saw how, how much time it took from me going out to play with my friends or even going to school to study. Growing up, that gave me an idea what I wanted to do. So I was very environmental focused and that's even what I pursued in my university for my degree.  And then getting to meet Jeremiah and through him getting to meet his dad who somehow convinced me that employment is not the way that I will want to go and if I wanted to make more impact I should start something by myself. Like create a startup, create a business that will make more impact in the community. And that's what made me who I am today. Jeremiah Mabiria: For me, sustainability something that it came maybe from the education system. I remember the campaigns and we had the blue dumpster for the plastics and the green ones. It was taught in school but I think as I got older it became a lifestyle. That's when through the education system learning that the planet's coming to an end and we keep buying iPhones and new cars and we don't think about what the cost of that is.  If there's gonna be change, then I would have to be part of that. I have to be one piece in creating that change. Meeting with like-minded people along the way through groups at school and and college and campus groups. And that's what really sparked my interest.  We have the advantage of not having messed a lot of things up is in the West. It happened a long time ago. Here we have a chance to stop it from happening. We have a chance to create industries while thinking about what these industries do to the environment and mitigating some of the ill effects that they have. So that's what really drove me, especially when I came home to make sure that I was in sustainable energy. Stephen Matini: Oftentimes the whole notion of sustainability and capitalism and growth, you know financial success, are seen as opposite. What is your view about it? Yvonne Mose: I think when you think about impact, most people think about charity work and I think that's not what it is.  Google is a tech company that has so much impact on people without being a charity organization per se. So for me, when I think about impact, I think about the basic needs for the communities like housing, clean energy, water, health services.  Those are services that you can start and you can make sure that they are accessible to the low income households or or even to the low income communities. And at the end of the day, for as much as your organization is also get making profit, you are also thinking about the community at large impact and profits go hand in hand. Stephen Matini: Do you foresee to be easier, you know, moving forward, having this company in Kenya or you think would be harder in the US? Jeremiah Mabiria: I think it would be easier for sure. What we're doing, we're experimenting a lot, we're trying new things and what I've found is that the Kenyan government, when we have gone to ask for the regulations or to be certified, they kind of let you take the lead. We don't know what you're talking about, we've never seen this. You do it and then we will regulate you.  So it's very accommodating 'cause it's a smaller government and it's a government that is hungry for development, they're hungry for anything that moves a needle forward. So they're very willing to accept.  Whereas in the US it's a very regulation heavy system and so trying things that are outside of the box requires a lot of money because you have to do massive amounts of research, massive amounts of work to make sure you meet the regulations. Here the regulators work with you, they need you. The US the government is so large that I don't think they need any one. Stephen Matini: Would you mind explaining the idea behind your company, SBIKE? Yvonne Mose: Since SBIKE was born so that we can have the most social and environmental impact as we can. We currently produce boca biofuel, which is a bioethanol based cooking fuel out of food waste and food processing byproducts.  We make an environmental impact as much as we make a social impact and our product are priced solo, that it is accessible to the rural low income households who are actually our target customers.  So currently the households use charcoal and firewood to cook 'cause those are the fields that are affordable and accessible to them. And if you compare our biofuel to charcoal, which is even more efficient than firewood, one liter of biofuel burns as much as three kgs of charcoal and one liter of biofuel goes for about let's say 90 cents US dollars and one kg of charcoal goes for about a dollar. Yvonne Mose: That also makes an impact. They get to save as they cook with our fuels. It has health benefits but only byproducts from it are water and CO2. And while we cook with the wood fields, the byproducts are so the smoke and this particulate matter which affects health.  So yes, our organization is mainly focused on the impact that we can make more than let's even profits. But we are also profitable because a little by field we produce it at about 60 cents a liter and we sell it at 90 cents, which makes our profit margin at about 50%. As much as we are making profits, we're also making so much social and environmental impacts. Stephen Matini: How has been the reception of your consumers, your company? Jeremiah Mabiria: Our problem currently is production. We have increased capacity twice since the first machine we fabricated and we have never been able to meet demand and this isn't an isolated area of Kisii county that we chose as our pilots area in the sub county.  We haven't even fully launched into the full county or the region, but we cannot meet the demand in just the area that we're in. And we have requests, we've had meetings with the county government where the request is how quickly can we spread it out and which is why we're we're busy fundraising to see if we can build a proper launch facility. Stephen Matini: If someone is interested in helping you out, what could they do? Yvonne Mose: Currently I think the thing that we need most is to scale up production. So we will need help in scaling our production, that's expanding our current facility, purchasing new production equipment and also product packaging. And even as we scale up we want to start branding and marketing. Jeremiah Mabiria: I think it's just the fundraising in order to get the things that Yvan has mentioned, able to get us in more households and serving more people quicker than we would with the slow national growth. Stephen Matini: For people to use ethanol, do they have to have a specific stove? Jeremiah Mabiria: There is stoves available but for the rural low income households what we found is there's a company in Kenya that focuses on the urban areas called “cocoa networks” and they have a stove that they sell for about 15 dollars.  But in the rural markets where we serve, most people make a dollar or two a day day on average. $15 is what they need to save up to pay for school for you for one of their children. It is just too much money for them to invest in a stove.  But ethanol is combustible in any container. If you think of serving lines at buffets, they use ethanol to keep the full warm, it's just a container with fire. We have been reusing tins and we've been showing and training our agents to train the customers on how to reuse tins that are used for cooking fat and other things that they already have and to use those as the stove.  So they have a ELY ethanol stove that they get for nothing but the time that they invest in making the stove and they can just replace it whenever it rusts and it costs them nothing extra which allows them to actually buy the ethanol. Otherwise we wouldn't be able to reach them because the stoves that are manufactured are entirely too expensive. Stephen Matini: Like a typical interview question , ideally if everything went accordingly to your plans, where would you like to be five years from now? Yvonne Mose: So ideally we would have reached all the rural households in Kenya. That's very ambitious. Currently we're only serving the Western region of Kenya with actually a smaller part, which is the Gossi region.  So ideally in five years we would've reached the whole of Kenya, we would've had more social impact and we would have started already producing biodiesel, which is actually the product that we are currently piloting.  And we would have gotten our production up so that we could supply of bio ethanol so that we could supply industries and also the cook stove companies that make the cook stoves because currently they actually import ethanol into Kenya. There's no company that produces ethanol at a large enough skill that they can support the demand in Kenya. Stephen Matini: Just to make sure that I understand, you said it biodiesel? Yvonne Mose: Oh yes, biodiesel. So currently we're piloting biodiesel which is made out of bio ethanol and waste working for, from companies that make foods using cooking oil, that deep fry foods.  Let's say like oil waste from KFC or even from trigger foods or even from tropical heat, the people who make the crisps. So yes, we are currently trying to pilot biodiesel, which is also we've, we have realized it's a niche in the market in Kenya. Stephen Matini: Do you also have other sustainable projects in your pipeline? Yvonne Mose: Our efforts to restore the environmental degradation count as a sustainable project. It doesn't bring in any profits but we as a company actually committed to donate 1% of our proceeds to land restoration. So that means reforestation.  So we support community-based organization, women, women organizations, youth organizations and even the local county government in their efforts to replant trees in the county.  We as a country have a 10% aim for mini forest cover marked to reach. So as a country we haven't reached it but the county that we are based in, which is KC County, we are current, we we're currently at 15% forest cover and 26% tree cover. So we are trying to maintain that or even grow that Stephen Matini: As entrepreneurs, you could have taken so many different routes and I understand how your life experiences, as often happen with a lot of entrepreneurs, have influenced your choices. But the life of an entrepreneur can be difficult. Is there anything that both of you do to pick yourself up when things do not seem to go well? Jeremiah Mabiria: Not just Yvonne, but having a good team around you, having a good group of people who see things the way you see things and are looking towards the same goals as you do like everyone else, I have low days, I have days where I don't wanna go to the office, I don't wanna find out that the machine is broken .  But once you remind yourself of why you're doing it in the reason, it's easy to get up in the morning because the goal is much bigger than myself and whatever I want to accomplish personally, there's something much bigger that we are trying to attain in conjunction with other companies like ourselves all across, which is show that it is possible to make money while doing good I think is an important thing to highlight in Stephen Matini: Yvonne. What, what do you do when you feel, ugh, this is so hard to bring your energy up? Yvonne Mose: I remind myself that there's no one swooping in from out of nowhere to come and save me or to save the situation. So I just have to power through it.  And I think also having a team around me, especially the team that we're building, we don't have offices. Let's say no one is in charge of anything, particularly it's on paper, yes, but we all help each other out.  If I realize Jeremiah has a problem that he needs to solve and he needs somebody else to help him or a different I to look at it, that's what we focus on. That's what we work on.  So yes, having an A team around me that supports me and knowing that through me and through my work I'm supporting other women to come up. That's also what gets me outta bed in the morning. Stephen Matini: Yvonne, one of the things that it's not easy is to find good people to select good people. How do you do that? How do you make sure that you find the right people for your team? Is anything that you do, anything you look for? Yvonne Mose: For me, I think it's just gut feeling. Currently the only management team that we have are the co-founders. So we're in the management positions. The rest of our team are our, our production staff and maybe the people in our supply chain.  So when it comes to getting someone to work with us, what we go with is our gut feeling and also is before giving out a contract, we integrate someone into our organization and we work with them let's say on ... actually on a three month probation period. Seeing how it all goes, seeing how they interact with each other and how they work with each other. And then from then that's when we commit and give them our contract. You can't always get it tried all the time. Stephen Matini: How is it to be the female CEO, in Kenya? Yvonne Mose: Kenya as a whole is very accepting but Kenya has so many different regions, especially the Gossi region and I think we are also a patriarchal society.  Being a CEO and getting into rooms with people who don't take you at face value or people who don't take you seriously has become kind of a challenge. And I think actually that's what motivates me.  I try to like our production stuff that I've talked about, it's purely women. I try to integrate women into the workspace into my organization, putting them in positions whereby if they go to a room later on when they grow and they want to start their own startups or get into other or employment opportunities, they can actually be listened to and people will take them at face value. So as much as it's challenging, it's also a challenge to me trying to make sure that in future that doesn't happen to other women. Stephen Matini: And also one of the challenges is the fact that both of you share a personal relationship and a professional relationship and that's not easy. Jeremiah, how do you keep these two important relationships in line? Jeremiah Mabiria: They're very separate and they have a life of their own. We sat down and we were very intentional about how we created our work personal life balance. She's my boss when we're in the office, I take direction. That's our business relationship and I take that seriously and we have a separate relationship when we're at home and we make sure we give both those things equal time not equal time, but enough time to grow and each of them need to be nurtured in their own way. Stephen Matini: You know, I get it a good vibe from both of you. Yvonne, you are strong but you are very kind and I love the fact that Jeremiah, you come across as some sort of guardian angel that support her. You know, it's really wonderful. So have a good vibe that this is gonna be wonderful moving forward. Yvonne Mose: Thank you. That describes us actually. Stephen Matini: I wanna ask you Yvonne, how did you come across the Barkat program? Because I think it's a wonderful social initiative. The founder Puneet, I also interviewed for the podcast and when he told me about the intention of the program to support female leaders, entrepreneurs, I thought, oh wow, this is incredible, you know, to support women in the Middle East and in Africa. How did you learn about the program? Yvonne Mose: When we're talking about things that have made me who I am today, Punit and the Barkat program is a major part of it. Jeremiah and I had a discussion and I was working as a project manager and doubling with the organization, but then we realized it was time for me to focus full-time organization.  We as a team sat down and we decided I'll be better placed as the CEO. Jeremiah was going through some things online and then he saw the ban program and we realized that will be the perfect program to introduce me into the market, get me to be the best version of myself.  And we saw Puneet qualifications and credentials and it was so impressive. So yeah, we just came across it on the Internet and we decided to apply and through the program I have become stronger, I have become more confident, I have learned how to channel my energy into my work and in everything that I do and in have everyone that I interact with, especially my coworkers and my support staff and I'm really grateful to have met him. Stephen Matini: Are you still part of the program or you completed it? Yvonne Mose: I completed the program about two months ago but I am still part of the network. So once you have graduated from the program, you're not cast out completely. So we have a community, the Barkat community, we still interact with the ladies from my cohort.  So yeah, it's a community that keeps on growing. I was actually very lucky to be part of the first cohort. So the current cohort that's continued is the second cohort. We are community and we help each other out. He has has managed to bring women leaders from every part of Africa and made them into this group that supports each other in their daily lives. Stephen Matini: What would you say that it could be a first step, based on your experience, for anyone to explore the entrepreneurial route? What could they do? Yvonne Mose: For me it'll be just start. There's never going to be that perfect moment. There's never going to be enough money for you to do it.  If I was to wait until I was at the perfect position to start my company, I will have waited until I had a hundred million dollars in my account so that I could start off with a big company and make all the impact that I wanna make. So for me my, my advice would be to just start everything else will fall in place.  Do all the research that you need to do, get to know your strengths and your weaknesses and actually get people on your team. For as much as it's I dunno, people view it to be a good thing to be a solo founder, I found value in having co-founders, people who can compliment me because I realized I don't know everything. And I think that's a very important thing to know.  And also when you're talking about the energy people channeling the energy, I feel like most women feel like for them to be hard or for them to be taken seriously, they have to portray masculine energy. But if you channel who you are and you channel your energy into whatever it is that you're doing, it'll definitely be successful. Stephen Matini: What would you say that are your strengths, which is your biggest strength? Yvonne? Which one is your biggest strength? Jeremiah? Yvonne Mose: I'm empathetic. I tend to feel the people around me and I tend to try and make people the best versions of themselves. Jeremiah Mabiria: I'm lucky enough to have, I can see things, I can be able to see the possibilities and not the impossibility.  So when we're talking about opening a factory in a rural village in Kisii, it's very easy for me to see how this is possible and why it would work and why this is a good thing and actually some steps to getting it to happen.  Even some of my co-founders were like, are you sure? Yeah, I would say that. Strength wise it's just being able to bring the team around, communicate to them what is possible. Yvonne Mose: Today we were driving from Nakuru, we had a meeting in Nakuru so we're driving to Kisii and we saw a factory and Jeremiah told me all the cars in the world and all the money in the world, I don't want that. All I want is that. He sees possibilities where I don't see any. I think that's actually also what attracted me to him. He's someone who sees far and I think that's what I needed in my life. Stephen Matini: For those listening to our episode, is there anything that would you like for people to take away from our conversation? Something that you deem to be really important for them to keep with themselves? Yvonne Mose: Africa is coming up in the market and in Africa we have so many startups that are coming up and also youth who are driven to make the world a better place and we shouldn't be overlooked. I think we are coming up and we are going to be hard. Jeremiah Mabiria: We have moved out of the dark ages that we were in and I see so much hope everywhere I look not just in our organization, but when we go for meetings and programs and you hear the interesting things that people are doing and the unique and innovative projects that they're starting. We just need a little bit of a push, a little bit of a help, big hand from the rest of the world. But I think we are ready. I think we are ready to finally join the rest of the world. Stephen Matini: Thank you so much for your vision. Thank you so much for your empathy and I truly hope for all that you are seeing to come true because there's a desperate need for more sustainable and more balanced world. So thank you so much for spending time with me. I appreciate it. Yvonne Mose: Thank you to you Stephen.

We engage in a thought-provoking conversation with Dr. Deb Mashek, business advisor, professor, and author of the book Collabor(h)ate: how to build incredible collaborative relationships at work (even if you’d rather work alone. Deb shares her unique perspective on collaboration, highlighting its importance in various settings and debunking common misconceptions. She believes that when people collaborate and learn from diverse perspectives, they can increase their effectiveness by embracing new resources, viewpoints, and identities.  In our conversation, we explore the key ingredients of a successful relationship and dig into seeking growth through connections with others. Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform. Subscribe to Pity Party Over Sign up for a complimentary Live Session Managerial & Leadership Development Contact Stephen Matini Connect with Stephen Matini #debmashek #collaborhate #collaboration #podcast #pitypartyover #stephenmatini #alygn #leadershipdevelopment #managementdevelopment   TRANSCRIPT Stephen Matini: Deb, I am going to the origins, sort of speak, of your life. And one thing that I read, I think it was in your book was that three factors, which included your parents, your PhD, and your upbringing in a trailer park, have been your inspiration to learn and focus on collaboration. And I thought that was really interesting. Deb Mashek: Yeah, absolutely. So I call those my three great teachers of collaboration. So the trailer park piece is, I grew up in a double wide trailer in North Platte, Nebraska and there's some people like, Ooh, trailer Park, that sounds horrible.  Thought it was fantastic because what we had was this play mat, which was the trailer park. So we had a chain link fence that said we couldn't go beyond it. But other than that, the kids were really left to their own devices.  So I grew up in the seventies and in the trailer park would spill out at, you know, 9:00 AM and we had to figure out together how we were going to play, what we were going to play, what the rules of our play were going to be. And if somebody violated the rules, we figured out what those consequences were. And that person who violated those rules had to figure out how to make amends and words through play. We learned the social skills necessary to live and work to do, to be with others. So that was the, the trailer park piece.  And then both of my parents throughout my life struggled with alcoholism. So it's kind of a, a perverse sort of teacher of collaboration. But one of the things kids who grow up in, you know, within these neglectful households or households that were had a lot of addiction and whatnot is you figure out, I mean you still have needs, but the parents in that environment are not particularly well equipped to be able to provide for your needs.  And so I figured out really early on how to form connection with other adults outside of my family who were then able to provide for needs. Whether that was fair enough friction, sometimes it was food, sometimes it was clothing. It was very often things like rides to school and things like that. But it was through relationship and through being able to connect with others that I was able to get those needs met. And those are incredibly important skills when it comes to collaborating and figuring out what, what somebody else's needs and interests are and being able to monitor those and being able to state yours in a way your needs and interest in a way that is accessible and interesting and even palatable, I guess, to other, to other people. So that was important.  And then the third one you mentioned is the PhD. So it was never assumed that I would, you know, go to college, much less graduate school. And it was just by virtue of getting to interact with a lot of really positive teachers, great cheerleaders throughout my life. And when I got to graduate school at Stony Brook University out in Long Island, New York, very first seminar I enrolled in was the Psychology of Close Relationships. It was taught by Arthur Aaron and I was the dork in the class who I read every single paper assigned I, my hand was raised for every discussion, I had things to say, and I just absolutely fell in love with this research, you know, that that, well first of all I had no idea that there was a research area dedicated to the psychology of close relationships. So that was really cool to discover.  And then to read this research, I totally fell in love with it. Like it was just really powerful. And I realized like, oh, there is knowledge out there about how to do relationships well. And I think I hadn't grown up with a ton of models of that. So there was also this personal void that I was able to fill in some way through the academic literature. And so I kind of came at that relationship development through the side door. And those, all three of those experiences I think were critical for how I ended up studying and thinking about and helping people do collaboration. Stephen Matini: When you say relationship, are you thinking about any kind of relationship or are thinking about a specific type of relationship, like personal relationship, professional relationships? Deb Mashek: The research area that I was in was about romantic relationships. So when I would teach the psychology of relationships, it was about picking up, breaking up, everything in between. That's what I had been researching.  But there's also research literature on everything like parent child relationships and friendship development and workplace relationships. So any time you have that sense of us notion that there's an us involved, that is relationship, there is a research literature out there about it.  But I started in romantic relationships and then it was in my research fellowship that I started to think about jail inmates. And then when I eventually became a professor out at Harvey Mudd College in California, I started to think about or the, the students' sense of connection and relationship with their dormitories, their residence halls and their sense of connection to the campus. And it wasn't too long later. And then I started to think about how institutions can be in relationship with other institutions and that you can start to form collaborations. And it turns out to me one of the really big fabulous insights I had, and I'm so grateful that it dawned on me, is that those theories that govern a lot of the individual diadic relationships, the people are still involved at the institutional level.  So it's not really that the institutions are collaborating, it's that the people in the institutions are collaborating and those same people have hopes and dreams and fears and anxieties and needs and desires just like we do dally. And so figuring out how to leverage those exact same theoretical models in service to these collaborations that ended up being really valuable in terms of how I could be useful to people. Stephen Matini: As of today, based on all your experiences, all your studies, when you think of the word relationship, what is the first thing that comes to mind? Deb Mashek: That's such a good question. I'm a mom, so right away i, I go to my relationship with my child. All relationships is that sense of mutuality, that sense of coming to care for and contribute to the wellbeing of somebody else. And also expecting that to happen in, in return that there's reciprocity, mutuality, care, concern.  When people look back at the end of life and they talk about their highest highs and their lowest lows, often they end up talking about relationships. That relationships are pain, relationships are exquisite and fulfilling and loving.  Thinking about our work histories too, it's, I remember the colleagues that I loved working with. The second thing that really popped for me is the role that expectations play in terms of that there are all these scripts out there about how relationships ought to be or should be.  We're like these are the good relationships and whether it's the Hollywood manifestations of those, there's like that one really good relationship. We all know and we're trying to have our relationship look like theirs. Oh my gosh, there's so many ways we can fall short of expectations, ours and others when it comes to interpersonal relationships. Stephen Matini: So if I had to ask you what in your opinion are the ingredients of a good relationship, what comes to mind? Deb Mashek: The theory that I do most of my research under would land on exactly the same two. So the idea is it's called the self expansion model. And the idea is that we're all seeking to increase our efficacy in the world, meaning our ability to achieve our goals, our dreams or whatnot.  And how we do that is by seeking out and taking on as our own, our new resources, new perspectives, new identities. And that relationship is one of the ways we do that. It's called including the other and the self.  So imagine you are and I are in a relationship over time I come to see the world through your eyes, your perception of the world starts to change and enhance. Because of our relationship, I start to take on new identities. Maybe that's the identity of the us or the we or that of the couple. So relationship is a way of becoming more energetic in the world or being able to take on the challenges. You can imagine two circles, but this is me, this is you. And as those circles become closer together, that us that shared interstitial space of the Venn diagram, that's part of who I am.  But there are parts of my circle that are not you, and parts of your circle that are not me. And that's actually, that's how the wealth of other perspectives and what can come in.  My dissertation research many, many moons ago actually looked at this idea of feeling too close in the context of a relationship. So feeling smothered by closeness. And when I asked the circle question of the people who were in my study, people were saying, I feel suffocated by the other person. I don't know who I am.  You don't wanna do anything that takes away the autonomy and individuality and identity of the other. Likewise, if they start doing that to you, you feel less than you feel minimized, you don't feel yourself. That's a really yucky place to be. Stephen Matini: Of all possible titles for your book. You chose a funky title, which I love, you know, Collabor(h)ate. How did you come up with it? Deb Mashek: Yeah, so Collabor(h)ate. Some people love that title and some people hate it, but I figure at least we're talking about it.  I personally love collaboration. I think it really is this incredible tool, but having also been in a heck of a lot of collaboration, some of them that have absolutely vibrated with amazing energy and good effective outcomes and whatnot, others have been absolutely miserable.  As a psychologist, I think we have to talk about the hard stuff if we have any hope of making collaboration more bearable and more productive for more people. So I put the H in the title so it's, you know, instead of collaborate, it's Collabor(h)ate, thinking it's my way of giving voice to the hard stuff that's in there and it's by giving voice that we're able to make it better. Stephen Matini: Is there something specific that as of now is dear to you that readers should pay attention to? Deb Mashek: Yeah, so for me there are a couple parts, but I can say them quickly and I think they'll make sense. The first one is that collaboration is essential in the workplace.  The second one is that collaboration is actually really hard to do well there are a lot of moving parts, there are a lot of ways that we get it wrong and a lot of negative consequences if we don't get it right, it's hard to do well.  And the third one is that we don't teach it. So very few of us have received any formal professional development in how to be good collaborators. So what we have learned, we've picked up by osmosis or we've learned on the job trying to watch other people who don't necessarily know what they're doing. And so we pick up their bad habits. Some of us may have gone to business school where there were a lot of group work of people think back to their own experiences in doing that group work. Was there formal instruction and how to do it? Well, most people say no and a fortunate few say yes. We I think have this cultural misunderstanding that relationships, you're either good at them or you're bad at them.  So for instance, we don't teach people how to be good parents. We don't teach people how to be good friends, how to be good romantic partners. Sometimes we find ourselves in the therapy room and think, God, we get some of that tutelage. At least in the United States, parents often go to prenatal classes where you learn how to do labor and delivery and then once the baby pops out, suddenly it's like you, you're supposed to just know how to parent, which of course we don't.  But I think the same is true of collaboration. We're not teaching people how to do it. And so that was the, the big thrust of the book. It's like, well here, here are some really concrete strategies and things that you can and should do to make these relationships better to take the H out. So you know, to make these collaborations less painful, more productive Stephen Matini: Based on what you said, I’ve noticed there's a lot of common misconception about collaboration. You know, a lot of things people like to give an example, collaboration is great, but in organizational setting, if you want to be collaborative most of the time you must have time.  You know, the whole notion of collaboration is for us to discuss an option that does not exist in the present moment. And very often to get to the point you need time. And so if you're under a time crunch, well then very likely someone has to make a decision.  What would you say are some of the misconception that you've heard from people about collaboration that doesn't help them out? Deb Mashek: The one that you're talking about elevates for me. So the idea that somehow collaboration is the right tool for everything and that we should always be collaborating and it's like collaboration, let's do it.  So that's a misconception 'cause it's not the right tool for everything. There are some situations where you need to move fast, you need to move within as an established structure and hierarchy. And so you go.  The other misconception is that collaboration just means working together as though any form of working together equals collaboration. That's actually not true. So there's a whole continuum of different ways that people work together, whether it's networking where you're just exchanging information or there are ways of taking a step up where you're both exchanging information and modifying your work in some way to achieve a shared goal.  And then eventually you can get to the level where you're also sharing resources, whether that's people power or knowledge or money or equipment or space. And then there's this other level which is collaboration where you're truly learning from the others in that group so you can become better at your job. And so the magic of what you can create together is something that none of you could have actually done on your own.  And then there are all these mistaken beliefs and I'll just kind of rattle them off about collaboration. One is that you know, if you want a ton of collaboration in in your organization, all you have to do is hire collaborative people. It's actually not true.  Another one is if you want a lot of collaboration, all you have to do is have really great tools and processes. So really good project management, really good project management tools and then you'll get great collaboration, not true.  And then the third one, and this is at the organizational level, is this one that says, you know what, if you want tons of collaboration in your organization, just declare collaboration, a core value put out on your letterhead, paint it on the side of your wall in the office. You know, it takes way more than a a little bit of spirited energy around a keyword to create the conditions for that complex behavior to really manifest. Stephen Matini: So if a client comes to you, and says my people don't collaborate, they're not accountable and I really want them to work together, what is the first step to move in the right direction? Deb Mashek: I come at it as a social psychologist. So I'm a researcher at heart, that's really hard to shed that armor.  My first step is assessment. So whether it's go in and talk to as many people as possible and kind of a qualitative research way to figure out what really is governing up the works. I wanna talk one-on-one with people. I don't want anybody else to be in the room because I don't want the social dynamics and the power dynamics and the coded language to get in the way of what people really need to say. You know, when possible, I love running a quick survey and figuring out is this a people issue? Is it a relationship issue, is it a tools and systems problem or is it a culture issue?  And on the culture side it can be anything from the boss says we're supposed to be collaborating. That collaboration is absolutely not possible or it's onerous.  They say everyone's doing it, I don't see it anywhere. Or they say they want collaborative behavior, but the only thing that's rewarded around here is individual performance. Individual effort. And what gets rewarded gets repeated. And so I'll start to look at, you know, what are the incentive structures actually in place and are those at odds with collaboration? Because typically they are, you can't say you want one thing and then reward another Stephen Matini: Has it ever happened to you to work with a group of people, let's say a team. And somehow the team worked well together and was able to figure out how to be more collaborative. But the team is an organizational environment that is not collaborative, let's say with no cross-functional synergy. Is it possible to have pockets of collaboration within an organization whose culture is not collaborative?  Deb Mashek: And just the way you described it, so there can be these pockets or these isolated moments or where you might have a particularly charismatic connector. There's like a little synergy around this one charismatic person. Or it can be there's particular leader who's created the conditions within their division or within their department for this magic to happen.  And that's all great and then everybody else wants it on that team. But of course, you know, in most organizations you need those people to be moving back and forth across teams or looking forth across division. So people will tell you, they'll describe it to you, yeah, when I'm over here this is how we work, but outside of that bubble, this is what it really looks like.  And so organizationally, if you know, if you're driving for more collaboration, you wanna look inside under the hood of that group that's working well and figure out what's really happening in there to make that possible. Stephen Matini: There are so many project management tool, there's a plethora of stuff that people can use from Slack. I mean you name it. What, what would you say that could be a first step in order to ensure that in terms of tools you foster the information sharing. Deb Mashek: First part here would be to not confuse a good tool with just adoption of that's gonna create collaboration. So in other words, don't put too much stock in the tool itself being the thing that's gonna fix the collaboration.  Number two, I think it's valuable to have organization-wide decision around these are the subset of tools that we're going to use. Because otherwise what can happen is every individual team within the organization starts adopting their precious tool.  What that means is that any artifacts that they create will be locked within that tool and it will constrain any individual's ability to move over to other teams because like, oh well that's not the way we do it. Or I know what you're talking about with this new tool I've never used.  The third piece of advice would be think very carefully about what you're really asking that tool to do. So I personally love the virtual whiteboards, like a mural or a mural. I use those every single day. I keep trying to adopt things like Asana and click up and Monday and it just doesn't work with my head.  But if I were on a team that required that I would of course have to learn it. But does it make sense for me as a a small business owner to adopt all of these tools? No, it might for a large corporation.  Another piece of advice, for instance, if you're using say Slack or even Google Drive or something like that, is create some structures around how those channels or how those storage places will be used.  So create some shared vocabulary, some shared naming conventions, shared folder structures, anything like that that are, that's gonna make it possible for your future self to find the relevant information or for the person forbid you get hit by a bus, for your other collaborators to be able to find that important work that you are doing. Stephen Matini: And what I've noticed, I've noticed that every single group that tends to go towards whatever makes sense to them. And I've noticed that the simpler the tool, the more likely is going to be adopted. When something is overly complicated or it takes an extra step, people simply don't use it. Deb Mashek: All of us are busy. And so when a new tool comes on board, it takes real activation energy to get us to the point where we can use it. And if we really, really want people to adopt a new collaboration tool, we have to give time, you know, figure out a way to give time for people could to be able to learn it and to integrate it into their workflows and some patience with ourselves and others. 'cause It is hard.  When I was at Heterodox Academy, we adopted Salesforce and oh my God, it took people like slapping my knuckles to get me to actually document emails and whatnot because I was out of the habit and it took forever. I don't even know if I ever really truly got up to speed on it. I had the best intentions, I was the executive director, I was the one who made the decision that we were adopting this dang thing. And I struggled. I heard just this week a a guy who teaches people how to be effective on connecting through social media. He dislikes Calendly because it makes you appear lazy and that you're not, that you're trying to automate relationship building as opposed to truly being present with that other person and saying, you know, you let me know what can work for you.  Here are some options that that email back and forth or LinkedIn back and forth is actually part of the relationship building. So I thought that was a valuable perspective too. I dunno that I wanna forego in all situations, but I was thinking, well yeah, I could, I could see that. Stephen Matini: You said something about intellectual humility. Would you mind telling me something more? Deb Mashek: Yeah. So intellectual humility is this idea that knowing that we can't possibly know everything, and by virtue of my mere humanity, I am limited in my knowledge, I'm limited in my perspective. I can't know everything, nor should I know everything.  And for me it opens up then this possibility that it's through relationship and through doing and being and creating alongside other people who see the world differently. That's truly how we come up with the well-rounded perspective.  So if we were on video, I would show you, you know, a coffee mug and hold it in one direction and say, what is this? And you might say, oh, it's just the shadow of it. For instance, you would say, oh, it's a rectangle. Or you might say, oh, it's a circle or something like that.  And it's only by working alongside other people who have a different vantage point on the problem that we're truly able to weave together a holistic understanding of what the problem is and thus the solution that needs to be created to solve that problem. And so to me, intellectual humility is one of the foundational cornerstones of effective problem solving, effective collaborating. Other pieces, there are curiosity, so wondering and being sincere when you ask somebody else how do you see it?  So from whether it's from your disciplinary lens or your cultural lens or your seniority lens or the division that you're in and thus the interest that you're advocating for, what really elevates for you about this problem? What are the key variables we need to be thinking about within this solution?  And there are so many stories of ego and the bravado where, you know, people assume they have the one right answer or they strong arm their perspective into the group and it shuts other people down. It shuts possibilities down. Like it really forecloses certain considerations before they've even been considered. And I think intellectual humility is the key to doing this all differently. Stephen Matini: How do you keep that humility? Because it seems to me that a lot of people as they age, they become more convinced of knowing. they become even more black and white, somehow, instead of humility to me is a mixture of bunch of things, including curiosity, giving yourself a chance, you know, how do you keep that humbleness? Deb Mashek: Here's something I do again, if we were on video, I would show you that in my notebook on the front page, I always write the question, how do you see it? So for me it's a reminder to ask other people or their perspective on something, scanning the environment and finding those things that tweak your intuition that you're not sure how in the heck can this reality or can what you just saw doesn't lap on or map on, or could it map onto some preexisting notion?  So this for instance, is why I love going to magic shows as a way of triggering the intellectual humility where the thing my brain is telling me, I just saw, I know for a fact it can't truly be true, which means I'm missing something. So reminding myself that I, I don't know at all in that situation, letting that sense of awe come up.  And the third one that I love is when I encounter someone who sees the world really differently than I do, rather than turning away and distancing, I lean in closer and say, tell me more. How did you come to think of that? Where does that belief come from?  You know, that for me has been really important in my advocacy for viewpoint diversity on college campuses. It just this idea of we've gotta, we've gotta be surrounding ourselves with people who see complex issues, whether it's policy issues, political issues, how we're gonna solve social problems.  I need to hear from as many different people as I can and not, not necessarily so I can come up with the right answer, but so that I have a, a better hope of understanding the problem in the first place. Stephen Matini: What would you say that truly is a simple step to people that cannot be more at the opposite, to somehow advance to a different level? The story just quickly was that I previously was a, a full professor of social psychology out at Harvey Med College. I was tenured at the top of my career. And then the 2016 election happened in the United States presidential election.  And there were a lot of people who were so surprised that Donald Trump won and they couldn't believe anybody would've voted for this person. And this I think was especially true on college campuses and we saw a lot of people shutting down and be like, oh man.  And what I saw is, okay, as an educator we're not doing what we need to be doing to help our students encounter a diverse range of perspectives. And long story short, I ended up walking away from that tenured full professorship, moving cross country as a single mom.  My kiddo was eight at the time. I moved from California to New York to help launch this organization called Heterodox Academy, which was or is still focused on advancing viewpoint diversity and constructive disagreement on college campuses.  And what I learned in that work is that the two simple things are ask other people how do you see it? And two, to ask how did you get there? Why do you believe what you believe? In other words, I'm not trying to convince anybody of anything. What I'm only exercise there is can I see through somebody else's eyes for even a microsecond in a way that opens up my understanding of the world. Stephen Matini: As of now, professionally, you have so many projects, so many things. What would you say is the most important endeavor for you now that takes a lot of your time and attention? Is it something you're doing now, something you're building for the future? Deb Mashek: Yeah, so what I'm doing now is I am a collaboration consultant, which is hysterical to say at dinner parties for two reasons. One, collaboration is kind of a fuzzy word and consultant is actually a really fuzzy word also. So people are like, I still have no idea what you do.  So what I do is I work with organizational leaders to deliver high stakes collaboration across silos and stakeholders. So you know, it, it includes things where you need people from different sectors coming together or you need people from that division in that division to work together or there's something involving a lot of money or other resources or there's a huge reputational hit at stake or some really big strategic advantage to be gained if we're able to work together well.  And I love being at the ground level when those are building up. I think people tend to underestimate the importance of some of that ground setting. So I often get called in when things start to fall apart. So I do both some of the crisis management of getting a collaboration back on track though I really love being there at the ground floor to help build it and to build it well. Stephen Matini: Does it ever happen to you as a result of your commitment, of your work, that your energy gets depleted. If if that happens to you, when you feel down, is there anything you do in order to bring yourself up?  Deb Mashek: It really does get hard. I mean if it was easy, everybody would do it. And if it was easy, everybody would do it in a sustainable positive way. But they don't because it's hard. And I think it's worthy of that hardness because, and this is one of the things I do to bring myself back up is I, I ask, so why is it worth it?  Why is what we're trying to do worth this slog worth, this incredible activation energy that we're putting into it to get this thing rolling? And for me that's very uplifting because I can see like this thing we're trying to do together could not exist unless we were doing it together. It's worth it because it's gonna solve a big problem in the world. It's going to offer a really cool innovation that's gonna bring in a heck of a lot of money for the company. If we can figure out how to work better together, we're gonna end up with staff who are more engaged and more constructive. They're gonna stick around longer. So there's like this more morale and wellbeing argument. So whether it's timelines or bottom lines or wellbeing or innovation, this collaboration thing really matters. And that to me is very uplifting.  The other thing I do when it really, really gets challenging is I go into my hidey hole and hide out and be alone for a little bit to re-energize. So as that whole together apart thing again too, where you need the separateness in order to do together well.  People are messy, we're all messy, we're inconsistent, we're unpredictable. Things trigger us, different needs will be activated at any particular time and it might change over the day or over the week or over the month. And so there are so many moving parts. And to to care enough about not just the individuals who are involved, but also the project or program or service, whatever it is you're trying to create, to be able to track all of that movement and then optimize your engagement. Stephen Matini: We talked about so many different things. Is there anything that would be important in your opinion for our listeners to take away from this conversation? Out of all the things we talked about? Deb Mashek: Ask for input on how you are as a collaborator. Ask your direct reports, ask your supervisor, ask your peers, what is it like to work with me and what would be helpful if I did differently or better would make it easier for us to work together. I think that's important.  And then along those same lines is take seriously your professional development and this whole collaboration thing. So whether you're a top executive or the brand new individual contributor, chances are you haven't learned as much as you could or will need to learn ultimately in this domain that that's gonna make you just even more of a rockstar than you already are.  So it's worth it to invest in in that development. So you benefit your team benefits your organization does. And I would say society as a whole does when we can work better together. Stephen Matini: Thank you so much for sharing your ideas, your hard research, your experiences. This is really, really, really great. Thank you. Deb Mashek: My pleasure.

Michael Sjostedt is a wellness facilitator who uses art-making for self-reflection, personal growth, and team dynamics.  Our conversation explores how engaging in creative activities can help individuals and teams better understand their thought patterns, deal with perfectionism, manage stress, and enhance communication.  Michael highlights the importance of self-awareness and the value of using creative exercises to improve our approach to work and life. Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform. Subscribe to Pity Party Over Sign up for a complimentary Live Session ALYGN Managerial & Leadership Development Contact Stephen Connect with Stephen #michaelsjostedt #artmaking #making #emotionalintelligence #cutloose #podcast #pitypartyover #stephenmatini #alygn   TRANSCRIPT Stephen Matini: What is your first memory of Art? Of Art making? Michael Sjostedt: My very, very first memory of art making was in the early eighties elementary school. I don't remember the exact age, but I was drawing schematics of underground homes, 'cause I watched this show Omni, it was a science show and they were doing a piece on underground homes and how much better they are. And it was so modern and so cool.  And I would take huge sheets of paper and draw like a dome. And then I would draw a line as like, here's the ground. And then I would draw the house under it. So it was basically almost like a dollhouse. If you looked at a dollhouse and opened up. It's just got all the different rooms that you can see sliced up. And so that's what I would do. And the top dome was always like my sunroom. So I always have a lounger in there with me on it. But they were ridiculous. They were fun. And that was a very early sign that I was very into design, modernism, new ways of being.  So in the early nineties, clay beads were huge. Kids would wear 'em at concerts, buy 'em at bead shops were huge in the early nineties. So a friend of mine taught me how to make them. And at first I wasn't very good. Everyone else had kind of gotten the process down and I was a little sloppy. But the process itself was still very meditative. There was a start, a middle and an end. And yet within all of that timeframe you could be very creative, you could try all kinds of different designs.  And within a few months I showed the same friends what I had made. They're like, what have you been doing? They're like, are you working 24/7 on this? I'm like kind of, I was so into the  , contemplative aspect of it. It was the most satisfying thing I'd I'd ever done at that point. And from there people are like, wow, that's incredible. I wanna buy one. I'm like, oh cool.   And at the high point, I was 19, I had no business training, I just had a natural instinct for this. And it happened at a good time because it was like the start of summer school break. So I would make these beads, mass produce them for like eight to 10 hours a day, listen to music and just pump 'em out.  And then I would take a day and hit the road and go to a town that was, had bead shops or other stuff going on. And I would get accounts. So at the high point I had 14 wholesale accounts. I had custom orders. I was teaching monthly classes at an art supply store. I was vending at fairs, I was smuggling necklaces into Lollapalooza and other concerts. I would pull out my necklaces, you know, from my cargo shorts, wave 'em around.  It was such a good overall learning experience. Something you can never learn in school. One thing I really took away from that too is that if you really want to learn something, you really have to do it yourself. You just have to mess around, give yourself time, give yourself space. And if you still love it, it's gonna improve. Stephen Matini: I think that a lot of people are so afraid is, is this gonna work? It's not gonna work. That they simply do not think that it's a process. What have you witnessed working with people and helping them, using art making? Michael Sjostedt: What I've seen in recent workshops, I've taught, I'll provide an exercise and people will just start messing around because to them it's low stakes. We're just cutting a paper, we're having a good time and we're experimenting.  And they're like, oh my god, what is this? If the combination of elements isn't what they're used to and they start messing around and they don't like it, they literally hold their heads. They're like, oh my God, I can't do this.  And that negative self-talk could have a perfectionistic voice to it or a tone to it, but it could also just be, I don't know how to start. This is so new to me, I don't know where to begin.  And so I often have to quickly identify that. And so I ask questions, I'm like, okay, tell me what's going on, what isn't working for you? And I, I stick with what's in front of them. I don't get into their head, you know, I'm like, what are you thinking? Because that comes out by what they're saying. So you really have to listen.  You kind of have to like bring people back down 'cause they're really in their head and it, it's a good reminder. Like these low stakes workshops are such an eye into how we operate into how we think and how we talk to ourselves, our narratives.  If you could examine this reaction that people are having, you know, if they can self-examine when they're in this moment, when they're feeling this build that self-awareness muscle up, then they take it into a higher stakes environment like their job or their work.  So if you can take this self-awareness into your other parts of your life and talk yourself off a ledge, you could make your life easier. You know, it doesn't have to be this fraught, I need to quit. This is terrible kind of stuff.  So workshops like this are so helpful. And I'm not saying you have a breakthrough with every workshop or you have a meltdown or any of that stuff, but they do happen. Stephen Matini: Based on anything you say, it sounds that your workshops become some sort of a mirror in which people can see themselves. What makes you different compared to other facilitators? Michael Sjostedt: First and foremost, the name of the workshop is called Cut Loose. And the whole concept is to come and have fun and to do something new, try something new.  The MoMA and the Mat are not gonna be calling you after the workshop, so lower your expectations. You know, it's really just an exercise to do something new and fun and to take a digital break, take a break from real life use art making as like a contemplative, meditative process. There's many ways to meditate.  When I work with the class, I give them exercises, but I let them, there's room for interpretation. Some people love that. Some people are like, wait, what are the rules? I need the rules. Working with those people are really interesting 'cause I could be that way too. I'm like, I need to know if you have an expectation, I need to, I need to know what the things are. It's interesting to work with so many different personalities and to be able to kind of accommodate the different personalities.  So what I do is after we we're done an exercise, I, I'll kind of eyeball a few students who have very interesting interpretations of the exercise and I'll show it to the class with their permission and talk about what I like about this and talk with the student about what they were thinking, how they feel about the outcome. And to show the other students, here's another way to think about using these materials. Like I like how they use this design element. I liked how they use this face or this color and really talk about it. So different things come up for different people, you know, other people have mentioned difficult things that they're going through. And one woman said in a, in a recent class, she goes, I'm gonna start collage journaling because she's navigating a complicated life transition right now and talk therapy is involved in in her transition. But there was something about making without any heavy expectations of this needs to be presented in a certain way. It's really just using, making as a tool to work through whatever's going on, but also to take an active break for yourself.  Stephen Matini: I think it's wonderful and it's wonderful because I think it's quite applicable also working with organizations and teams and managers. You, you told me in the past that sometimes you do use this approach, you know, in a more work type of context. Do the same rules apply or have you noticed any other type of dynamics? Michael Sjostedt: If you're burned out or if you're stressed or if you're under the gun or if you're dealing with difficult personalities, whether it be coworkers or clients or whatever, that combination can be very tricky.  Talking about what, what you're dealing with, with whomever, you, your supervisor or a colleague or something. Don't wait until you are telling yourself, this stinks, I quit, I hate them. If you jump right into the negative consequences a result or, or really attach yourself to the negative narratives around what you're feeling, it makes it that much harder to get out of the situation that you're in.  So really developing a practice that helps you shine a light on your negative narratives, especially if you take yourself out of the work environment and give yourself a, a creative exercise.  You know, this is where HR and wellness folks and activity directors and you know, anyone who's, who's working on morale on teams, this is a good exercise because yes, it's a, it's a chill break. You get to chill out but also things will come up and you, and you have to be ready to respond to that. And you're like, oh, that's interesting, that narrative, maybe write that down. You know? And that's something I do in my workshops too. I have people write down how they're feeling before, during, and after the workshop.  I really got to notice how I think about thinking or how your narrative is so deep and ingrained and not questioned. It's just habitual. These workshops are a speed bump. They're a pause because you're out of your element. The narrative is that much closer to the top. It's more conscious. It's not this subconscious thing. And so you're able to identify and hear it better and name it. And if you can do that, have more of these speed bumps and build up that habit and those and those exercises, your day-to-day can be a lot easier. You really kind of have to really evaluate how you talk to yourself and what your narrative is. And if there's a certain slant of perfectionism or negative self-talk or passive aggressive or, or whatever it is that's gonna make your life that much easier. You're going to recognize the patterns and recognizing those patterns just allow you to then question or shift.  I was also thinking of how difficult feedback can be receiving feedback and receiving feedback. If you've already got a predilection of beating yourself up of perfectionism coupled with not knowing where to start, that's a deadly combo. And a blank page can be really deadly.  It's really hard to look at that and get what's in your head onto there. And that's why creative making and exercises is so helpful to tell yourself, okay, here's a blank piece of paper. I'm gonna give myself 10 minutes. I'm gonna cut up a bunch of images, I'm gonna put 'em together and just see what happens.  And then you kind of look at that experience and you're like, I did it. I got something down. And that's a starting point. You started, you didn't just sit and ruminate at a blank page. You weren't paralyzed by like all the flooding of things. So a blank piece of paper will always be in front of you in life no matter what you're doing. Getting unstuck is tricky given all that else is going on in your life and your in your mind. So to give yourself some space, give yourself a break and go and go easy on yourself when you're starting, the experience will be that much better. You'll be able to develop that habit of going easy on yourself when you're doing something and hopefully the end result will be better than expected. You've got a different mindset, you've got a different energy that you, you put into these exercises. And that's really what I'm starting to realize when I work with students is develop these speed bumps for yourself. Develop an awareness tool of how you talk to yourself.  You know, they're really sitting and meditating, you know, or listening to a guided of meditation or, or being by yourself is great too. Having a contemplative practice is great, exercising is great, taking a break, whatever that means is great. But a, a form of creative rest, which I like to call this ,making with a clear start, middle and end without any big expectations other than the joy of the process. And to really kind of examine before, during, and after of what's been going on, what's been the shift.  And if you don't take time to stop and question how am I talking to myself, you're not really gonna change. You're not really gonna evolve. But it really does come down to how you notice what you're saying to yourself and what you do with that information. Stephen Matini: When you facilitate these workshops, you know, you are basically their catalyst, you know you are their Dumbledore. What would you say that a manager could learn from your experience as a facilitator of these workshops? Michael Sjostedt: Switch up the questions that you ask, especially if you're working with someone that you're frustrated with. If what you're communicating isn't clicking, think about the questions you ask yourself. Switch that around and listen for any questions that are accusatory. Why didn't you do this? Why isn't this happening? Blah blah blah. That will shut the other person down.  Really question your own narrative around what's going on. Question the questions that you're coming up with in your head and try to take the person out of the project. If they deliver something that isn't what was to spec or on the brief or what was needed, et cetera, et cetera. Just look at the work. Don't look at the person at first.  There may be a time where you do have to look at the person and that's another story. But even that can be done in a more human way.  But look at the work and be like, tell me about the start, the middle, the finish. What were the elements? What were the components? What was going on? Interesting how we landed here, could we talk about that? It's really how you communicate about the project versus, there you go again, I told you blah, blah. You know, getting into bad parent accusatory thing.  And so how exercises like making like a workshop with your team can be helpful because it can kind of spotlight team dynamics and it can spotlight how people think.  You know, it can, because when people are at work, they're also performing.  And so these workshops can kind of make people more real. They're not performing, they're just being themselves having fun.  So questions will come up, narratives will come up, habits will come up, things will just come up as you talk about things. You get to know the person better.  Our dynamic and energy is very interesting. I wonder if we did this instead moving forward for our work projects and what could change and what could shift, you know? So it's kind of like a, it's play, but it's also role playing in a way of what an ideal state could be. And that's gotta shift in the workplace because how you treat yourself and others makes a huge difference. You get better work out of people, you get better work outta yourself. It's the more enjoyable, the morale's higher, et cetera.  And other things will come up, you know, other things like, oh wow, your energy around this collaboration is kind of interesting. What's the point? What is everyone's bandwidth? What's everyone's mental state? Because you don't want to come in with any expectation that this is the a panacea that this is gonna fix whatever's going on. No, it's just a tool to kind of, it's a speed bump. Stephen Matini: We talked about so many angles, so many important things. Is there any specific key takeaway, something that you deem for listeners to be really important they should pay attention to? Michael Sjostedt: When you're embarking on a new creative endeavor, be conscious of how you talk to yourself. Write it down, say it out loud, record it because it's a very interesting view into yourself. It's something you don't do for yourself. It's habitual. And if you're stressed out, if you're burned out, if you're frustrated, how you talk to yourself is gonna affect your energy. It's gonna affect how you think about anything.  It's gonna affect how you communicate with other people. It's gonna affect how you talk to yourself or how you talk about yourself or how you think about a project. But also how making can just kind of help you get unstuck from either habits of perfectionism, habits of not knowing where to start task paralysis, how you manage a creative team or how you manage a project. There's just so many applications. So be conscious and have an intention about here's what I wanna learn about myself when I start this project. And also be honest with how you feel during and after. And also, collage is just one of many tools. It's just one of many vehicles to do this.  You could do a group cooking class, we're gonna make a loaf of bread together. Take everyday activities. 'cause If you go into an activity already stressed out with this intention of like, this is gonna relax me, you're gonna end up with this burned and then you're like, oh, I suck. I knew it. I'm bad at this. I can't do this. I'm not creative, I, I can't, blah, blah, blah.  You gotta go easy on yourself. Realize that you're stressed out and burned out. Don't put so much weight on the exercise to kind of solve whatever it is is going on. It's a way for you to kind of just take a break and notice what's going on. Again, I don't wanna put too much heaviness onto the act of making or whatever it is you're making, cause again, that can add more stress to someone. But really going with an intention, a light intention to start with. Even of just, I just wanna mess around. I don't care what it looks like after, I just wanna have a good time. But still notice like how you're talking to yourself and what the difference is before, during, and after. Stephen Matini: Michael, Thank you for our conversation because for me it's a speed bump today. Michael Sjostedt: Great. Stephen Matini: It is, thank you. I've learned a lot.

Seth Freeman is an award-winning negotiation and conflict management professor at New York University and Columbia University.  In his book, "15 Tools to Turn the Tide- A Step-by-Step Playbook for Empowered Negotiating," Seth provides practical tools to navigate conflicts effectively, guiding individuals to create value, strengthen relationships, and approach negotiations with empathy. In the episode, Seth emphasizes "winning warmly," ensuring that negotiators can achieve their goals while considering the other party's needs. Seth believes combining strength and kindness can lead to better outcomes in conflict resolution, even when disagreements remain. Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform. Subscribe to Pity Party Over Sign up for a complimentary Live Session ALYGN Managerial & Leadership Development Contact Stephen Matini Connect with Stephen #sethfreeman #15toolstoturnthetide #negotiation #conflict #leadershipdevelopment #managementdevelopment #podcast #pitypartyover #stephenmatini #alygn ... TRANSCRIPT Stephen Matini: When did you decide what you wanted to pursue professionally? Is that something you've always known or unfolded over your time?  Seth Freeman: Well, as I often say, I used to practice corporate law. Now I enjoy my life. I was a very unhappy corporate lawyer for six years, and through a series of life events, I found myself trying just as an experiment to teach a class to paralegals on securities regulation.  Nobody wants to learn securities regulation, so I made it a little fun and they loved it and I loved it. And that was a revelation. I said, well, all right, I'll do it again. And ditto. And then I said, well, maybe I could teach corporate law and ditto. And now I've got a stack of reviews of students who said this was really great. So I started to pursue it, and that led me to Fordham Business School and I taught there. And along the way I became pa interested in mediation, which led me to teaching negotiation. And that led me to teach at New York University, and that led me to teach at Columbia, and that led me to teach around the world.  Stephen Matini: So what, what do you think that was missing, like at the time that you were not having fun?  Seth Freeman: Well, I think I had to unlearn some things. I think I had understood that the purpose of work is to work more, and that you can get interested in anything. And so just find whatever's enjoyable about it and find something that you're reasonably okay with and just, you know, do it and don't, you know, don't worry about trying to find your calling or anything like that. And all of that proved to be in my hands, very unhelpful. And I was chronically miserable and I felt very bad about that. I said, there must be something wrong with me because I just find this work so boring and stressful and I'm not very good at it. So there must be something wrong with me. And what I now realize is that Albert Einstein's remark is right, you know, he said, if you ask a fish to climb a tree, it's not gonna do very well, but if you put him in the water, it'll swim brilliantly.  That was me. I was definitely doing work that I really wasn't called to do. And this idea of calling became a critical realization. What am I called to do? And that takes some real introspection. It takes some prayer, it takes some, some, some exploration. But what do you know, 30 years later I rejoice in this. The idea of retiring to me sounds awful because I just love doing this. Stephen Matini: You know, in hindsight it's so much easier to see what happened. So if you had to do it all over again, would you say that could have been possible for you as a younger professional to find out earlier on what your direction could potentially be?  Seth Freeman: Well, I'll answer for myself and separately. For others, for myself, I'm very grateful. I did not know, because what that would've probably meant was I would've sought a PhD and I would've found myself doing some rather obscure scholarship and some rather obscure place and perhaps getting into this work to some degree.  But I wouldn't have been primarily teaching, I would've been mostly focused on scholarship, which I love as an avocation, but I would not want that to be my primary focus. And that is what it is, what it means to be a, a tenure track academic. So it was a, a real mercy for me to discover this indirectly to first get a law degree in practice and discover what I don't enjoy doing. But it turns out that printed on the back of every law degree is a stamp that says good for a second career in academia.  For others, what I would recommend is make little bets, try different things, information interview. And those ultimately proved to be very valuable for me, along with understanding what it means to have a vocation if possible. All that I think would be my advice to others.  Stephen Matini: And then you focus on an area which is not necessarily something that a lot of people love, which is conflict management, negotiation. What was about that area that spoke to you?  Seth Freeman: You know, I took a vocational test when I was a corporate lawyer just to see if somebody had any perspective for me that I had missed. And they said, you have too many interests and abilities, so there's not gonna be one subject or field that will work for you. You're gonna need to basically build a three-legged stool and try to do several different things or take on a an enormous task. And that might occupy your interests and skills better, like say world peace. That was kind of a throwaway line. But here I am 30 years later and it's a term of art that I try to avoid whenever possible. Cuz world peace can be such a cliche. But how do we get along is such a remarkably rich and varied question. It, you can bring any field of study to bear on it. It's the richness of it, the depth of it, the practical usefulness of it.  I can walk into a kindergarten or I can walk into the United Nations and I have or anything in between and talk with them about what I'm working on, what there is to learn. And they go, yeah, this is useful, this is interesting. Let me tell you my situation.  And as a result, what I'm learning is that it opens almost every door. If you want. If you're interested in psychology, you've got this history, politics, law, economics. This subject covers all bases. So that I think is why it remains so fascinating for me.  And most importantly of all, the sheer joy of seeing people go from being afraid or on the other hand, very arrogant and finding a way to work together with others that's powerful and gentle at the same time is just delicious, to be able to see people create more peace and prosperity and harmony, I never thought I could do that and I could do it. And what a difference that makes. Stephen Matini: You know, one thing that I've noticed speaking to different guests for the podcast is how, for so many of them, what they decided to pursue was either a response to a problem they had an issue, something that they struggled with, that somehow became their life calling. Do you think that we are better off or what in terms of how we get along as people?  Seth Freeman: Well, there's several ways to answer that. One is that one of the least well known and most astounding developments in your life and mine, is that the world is doing better than we have ever done in our lives.  In 1961, John Kennedy talked about a global alliance north and so east and west that can secure a better life for all mankind against the common enemies of man, tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself. Now, this is no observation about John Kennedy, it just notes that those goals seem completely unreachable and lofty. But fast forward to today, and what we discover is that tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself, not withstanding some of the headlines we dread, are actually in better conditions than at any time in human history.  Two billion people have left extreme poverty in the last 20 years. It's unbelievable. Deaths due to disease have fallen off. Literacy rates around the world are way higher than they've ever been. Many diseases have been cured. It just goes on and on and on, and it's just not widely known.  And if you think of all of those as part of what the larger definition of peace is, then things are actually in a better place than you would've ever dreamed. And yes, there's less war and deaths due to war than there've ever been notwithstanding Ukraine, notwithstanding in the Middle East and all and and such, not to trivialize that at all, but in general, we are doing better. Now, does that mean everything's hunky dory and that I'm out of a job? Absolutely not. Could it change tomorrow? Absolutely. And there are all kinds of interesting questions about why this is so, and you might be familiar with a book by Steven Pinker, “The Better Angels of Our Nature.” And he talks about how the violence has declined for the last 500 years. And just to the point in the Middle Ages in Europe, the murder rate in most villages with something like 70 per hundred thousand, today it's two per hundred thousand. It's unbelievable how violent our ancestors' lives were, and we're not living that way.  Stephen Matini: Why do you think there's so much emphasis on the negative? It's impossible to read the news that all that we hear is just a celebration of negativity.  Seth Freeman: You know, my grandmother used to say, if it makes you happy to be unhappy, you should only be happy. And there can be a tendency for us to court that which makes us unhappy. It may have something to do with story mastery. We feel the need to master something that's disturbing or distressing. We run to it to learn it. And so we don't have to feel the fear anymore. Whereas if something is good, we're kind of almost programmed to go, okay, I don't need to worry about that anymore. And we don't discuss it.  Now that's just one brief level of discussion. It's also the nature of news itself. Not to say anything politically, but the nature of news is something happened that was big and noteworthy and the changed things. And typically it's negative and often explosive things that answered that description.  How did we cure polio? Well, it took years. There were certain people who were key to doing it and they eradicated it around the world over the course of several years or smallpox, but there was no one moment where that happened. And so it's much harder to craft that into a news story.  And so each year I curate a list. I, I usually find it online, something called 99 Good News stories that you didn't hear about. And some of it's a little political, but some of it's really wonderful like science breakthroughs and discoveries and the decline of tyranny, poverty, disease, and war.  And you go, oh my God, why didn't I hear about any of this? Hans Rowling is a demographer from Sweden. He passed away a couple of years ago, but he had a whole thing called the greatest PowerPoint presentation of all time and even wrote a book about it. And it shows how remarkably the world has advanced in the last 20 years. But he found that most western audiences, including journalists and scholars, had no awareness of this. And often when you tested them, they would score worse than chimpanzees. And the reason is because they're reading the news. So for example, if you read the New York Times, and then I ask you, what's the likelihood if you catch Covid that you will be hospitalized?  The average New York Times reader would say 50%. Turns out the answer is 1.5%. So here's even the New York Times, and yet readers are kind of being led to believe their problem. And I, this is not a comment on how serious or unserious Covid, this is an order of magnitude difference in understanding of what the, the risks are. And it's not specific to the New York Times, it's not specific to that issue.  There are lots of issues I can name where almost every time you have a percentage in the headline, there's some misleading quality to it. And so you have to read with great care and you wanna check the footnotes, you gotta check other voices who has the time for that? And so as a result, we wind up hearing the negative and just assuming it's true, Stephen Matini: How do you overcome polarization? What could it be a one first, a super small step?  Seth Freeman: If you're asking on a macro level, what can I, or what can you do to change the tenor of the times that we live in, in a great nation like Italy or the United States? I don't think there's a lot, at least in the moment. Although we can certainly plant seeds and we can live a life that looking back we feel glad and and hopeful.  But on a one-to-one basis, I do think there are things one can do. And indeed, I've been teaching one vein of this to my students for the last three or four semesters. And I teach them a very simple method. It's quite counterintuitive. And then send them out and I invite them as an optional assignment to try it to have a, what I call a hot topics conversation about a political issue that they're an eight, nine or ten about. And that someone in their life is a one, two or three about, you know, opposite sides. They care about it. So there's a lot, there's, there's something at stake. Somebody they very much disagree with, can they talk about it?  I would guess 60 to 80% of the time they come back and say, that went way better than I expected. And it went way better than my counterpart expected. We both enjoyed it. We felt closer to each other afterwards. We didn't necessarily change either's mind, but my counterpart said he was energized, he enjoyed this, he wants to do more of it. And in the process they sometimes say, I learned things. I thought there was no possible thing they could say that would make a difference. And they go, oh my gosh, I learned something. I hear that. And I go, what a delight, what a joy. And I've seen students do this, literally the world from New York to Pakistan, to Korea, to Haiti, to China. It doesn't matter what the culture is, it doesn't matter what the issue is. They've talked about everything and they've still had these experiences. So it's kinda a test of concept. You can do this and it's not that hard to learn.  Stephen Matini: So basically what is it they did? And they made it possible was about listening? Was about not trying to convince the other person that they should change their mind?  Seth Freeman: Very good. Each of those is part of it. But it really comes down to just three little words. And just as a side note, this is my next book, not the current book or it's part of it, but the three little words that they're using are paraphrase, praise, probe. Lemme say that again. Paraphrase, praise probe. And the idea is you get onto a hot topic and you start by just listening when the other one is finished talking about his view on the issue, you see, lemme make sure I understand that. And you say back what the other one says, so well that the other one goes exactly.  And then you praise, you actually intentionally highlight something non-obvious that you can truthfully say you learned or appreciate about what the other is saying. Does that mean you're agreeing with them? No, but almost invariably there's something, in fact probably several things that this person has shared that is worthy of praise and that takes a little discipline.  And if there's absolutely nothing, then you go back and say, say more. And eventually you discover, I don't agree with this person, but this person is really caring, really cares about children's safety here. Or this person really cares about justice or this person really cares about the free speech and these are worthy things to care about. Now their conclusion may be opposite line, but those are worthy things to praise so you can praise them.  Then you ask a question, not a prosecutor's question. Isn't it true? But a question that a child would best ask, like, can you help me understand this? Or when you use this word, what do you mean? Or Can you gimme an example? Or how would we falsify that? Or how could we test that in really simple questions? And then you just repeat the process.  Now, eventually you do share your view. By the time you do, you have built such goodwill, such trust, such validation. The other one is interested in reciprocating and you've modeled for them the very kind of conversation that you would like.  And the conversation turns out to be delicious and you can go anywhere you want with it, but it's a lot better than the arguing. And I can speak with some confidence about this cuz I went to argument school or law school and I know that's a great way to alienate people and bother them. Stephen Matini: Anything you say is very kind and very positive. Would you say that kindness and being positive could be part of these formula on how to negotiate?  Seth Freeman: Paraphrase, praise probe gives you a tool, dare I say it, to structure intentional respect and kindness. The basic thing I teach my students is the goal here is not to change someone's mind, but to touch their heart and to be 3% more loving.  It turns out that that's often one of the best ways to change somebody's mind eventually. And a good example of this is Darryl Davis. Darryl Davis is a 50 something African-American jazz musician, rhythm and blues artist I should say living in southern Maryland. And over the course of about 10 years, he built relationships with a number of members of the Ku Klux Klan. And in one-on-one conversations with them, the way he was with them was such that they left the clan. In fact, many left the clan. Hundreds left the clan because of the way he was talking with them and essentially doing what what I'm describing. And they would give him their clan outfits and he has a whole closet, dozens, dozens of clan outfits because they renounced their racism and apologized.  And he said, I never ever set out to get any of them to leave the clan. I just wanted to engage with them human being, the human being, and ask them, how can you hate me when you don't even know me? And that gradually destroyed their misconceptions.  Stephen Matini: Seth, how do you preserve your energy? Because it's not easy what you do. So how do you stay positive? How do you stay kind, particularly when things get tough?  Seth Freeman: The truth is I'm not up against a lot of toxicity. I'm not up against a lot of animosity. I'm not putting myself onto social media in situations where people are prone to act like snipers. I'm actually in a very fortunate place and I have to speak with respect and humility about those who aren't so fortunate. But I can tell you that there are people who I've had the privilege of getting to know, who are dealing with incredible toxicity and they're succeeding.  That's hostage negotiators. I've had the privilege of getting to know the leaders of the New York Police Department hostage negotiation team, and they've come to my classes, we've had interviews, they're kind of become friends.  They'll tell you that there are specific learnable skills that make a difference. And it can be horrible to be talking to somebody who's got a gunpoint at the head of a 10 year old boy. And yet they succeed. Not always, but they succeed. And how do they cope with it? Well, they have a team with them. Partly they have training, partly they're doing a lot of the same things that I would, I was just talking about paraphrasing, very big part of it.  And one of the things that's crucial in this work is taking a break. When you're overwhelmed, getting out of there, finding a way to detox is very important. There's an old misquote, never go to bed angry, terrible advice because what's the chance that drunk and exhausted at two in the morning? You and your significant other are gonna work it out. You know, if you're just take a break and you might do much better.  So there's no one thing that can protect one from toxicity, but that's one of the reasons having an array of treatment options is such a big deal. Stephen Matini: What would it be in your experience the best way to approach that, when you know that you have something that could potentially change things for the better, but you are afraid of voicing them out?  Seth Freeman: In a sense you've just framed the thesis of the book or the challenge that the book seeks to speak to. Sometimes I refer to this as Godzilla. How do you negotiate with Godzilla?  So it may not be somebody who's mean, but somebody who is so powerful that it feels like I'm Bambi and he's just gonna crush me. How do I actually engage with this person in a way that's gonna be at least have a chance of being constructive and successful.  In a sense, every tool in the book is designed to help with that. I'll start with the very first one. I had a student who got a phone call from her client, biggest client of her, of her company, represented by a woman named Brenda. And Brenda said, hi Janice, how's the project going? Oh, it's going great. We're gonna have it for you when you asked in 60 days. Yeah, that's what we're calling about. We need it in 30 days.  And she says, I really don't think that's gonna be possible. Would you please check cuz we really need it checks? No chance comes back, says, I checked, there's really no way she's not happy. Brenda's not happy. She says, all right. She hangs up. Long story short, her boss calls and says, if you don't give us this project in 30 days, you're gonna lose us. And with that, the company would die itself and the boss has no idea what to do. And Janice is with him when that call comes in and she says, tell him you'll call him back. Okay, but you're gonna have to come back in 20 minutes. Okay, so now we've got Janice and her boss and the boss calls everyone else in and says, we've gotta do this, we've gotta get this done in 30 days. And everyone, but Janice says, we can't.  The boss says, you've got to can't got to, can't got to. They're in a classic impasse and the clock is running. Now what would you do in a situation like this? That's the very question you're asking me, Stephen, what would you say to your boss? Your boss is clearly freaked out and essentially his boss is freaked out what to do?  Well, what Janice did was to deploy the first tool of the book and it transformed the problem from an impasse to a dare I say it, a negotiation that allowed them to develop a counter offer. And the counter offer was so satisfying to the client that the client said, you guys are rock stars. You're gonna get more business from us a lot more cuz you're fantastic. And the calls ended happily. Janice was a hero. How do you do that?  Well, I couldn't do that in a crisis by myself. But what Janice used essentially was the first tool of the book. And the first tool of the book is the key to solving that kind of a problem.  Stephen Matini: When I looked at your book, how did you come up with such a great name for every single chapter? Because none of them is what you would think a book on negotiation is, you know. How did you come up with these great names?  Seth Freeman: Well, it's very, very kind of you and I'm pleased to hear you feel that way. That was not what I came up with. My editors said come up with something short, pithy and catchy. And I said all right, so, I came up with these things. Yes, he said, that’s what I want.  Stephen Matini: ”Decide with three birds in the bush;” What is that about? Seth Freeman: That is a tool that's designed to answer the biggest, the most frequent question I get from students during interview season. And that is, professor, I've got one job offer. It's not very good. I have till Friday to get back to them. I don't expect to have another offer anytime soon, but I really don't think it's a good offer. What should I do? Do I have to take it?  And that reveals a real flaw in what we negotiation instructors teach. What we teach is that when you're in a situation like that, you should develop your BATNA and that means your best alternative to a negotiated agreement. The only problem with that, although it's good advice on its face, you do research, you get creative, you come up with something that makes you stronger, that's great, but I don't have time for that. I've got till Friday and I've been looking and I haven't gotten, you know, maybe in a, in, you know, a month or two, but I got nothing right now. So what that implies is that you should take any darn offer if you got nothing else. Cuz the conventional wisdom is you walk away if and when your BATNA is better. But here your BATNA is zero. Does that mean you should take an offer for a dollar a year? Obviously not. But what do you do?  So the tool you're asking about is designed to help better answer that question. And in essence what it's asking is, alright, you have a bird in the hand, right? But what if it's reasonably likely that in the next two, three or four months you could very well get three birds in the bush, should you let go of that first bird? And the answer is, well, very possibly yes. And the tool walks you through a systematic way to wisely discern what your likely near future prospects are and to discount them in a way that recognizes both logic and the human heart and the practical wisdom of somebody older, wiser, and smarter than you.  And you put those together and you come up with a good estimate of what I call your notional BATNA. You don't have it now, but in 2, 3, 4 months you may very well. And that's the logic that most business people use to make critical business decisions.  How does a game designer design a game? Very often what they have to do is assume that a microchip will be powerful enough in 18 months to do what it right now can't do. And they build toward that. Now that takes a certain burden of hand three in the bush way of thinking. And there's a lot of decision science that's designed to help you think this way too. And what I've done is adapt all that into this tool. Stephen Matini: Do you think it's possible to negotiate anything if the other person doesn't sense some sort of humanity on your side?  Seth Freeman: Oh, it's absolutely possible. And one of the reasons why we need to know how to cope is because a highly aggressive or obnoxious or manipulative negotiation practice or conflict management practice is a high risk, high return bet.  It's very risky. It can cripple your reputation, it can alienate people, it can blow up, it can really, I don't recommend it at all. And it's tempting and that's why people do it.  So one of the most scary examples of this is Soviet style bargaining tactics. For example, in June, 1961, John Kennedy goes to meet for the first and only time with his opposite number from the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev. And 90 minutes after they first met Kennedy walked out of the room shaking like this, and his, his his aide went, what, what, what? And he gets into the car and he melts down and he later said this was the worst thing that ever happened to him. John Kennedy, a man who, who nearly died twice in the hospital, a man who was nearly killed in World War II, a man, his brother was killed, his his sister was institutionalized. This was the worst thing. Why?  Cuz Nikita Khrushchev practiced the most aggressive and severe and menacing kind of negotiating practice there is. And it harrowed Kennedy and it can work at least in some ways. So that's why you can't just assume that everyone's gonna be nice. Our goal is to be strong and kind. If you're just kind, you can wind up like Kennedy shaking and ruined. If you're just strong, you can wind up like a, a Soviet premier, you know, just all the strength and and awfulness that comes with that. But if you know how to combine these seeming opposites, you can be hard on the problems, soft on the person. And that's one of my aspirations for the book. It's certainly not original, but my op my goal is to make that much more operational, to make much more accessible in real time when you most need it.  Stephen Matini: Is there a word to point out what you just said? The strong and the kind.  Seth Freeman: There are people who embody this quality. I'm not sure there's a single word for it, but you know, the people who I find who are most able to bring these qualities together are people like Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. They had this, this remarkable capacity to do both and it seems impossible, but they literally changed the course of history, saved entire nations saved millions of people. And so it can feel like, well I'm not Martin Luther King, I'm not Nelson Mandela. No, actually you can do what they did on a more local scale. Very much this in the same way, because these are not lofty tasks, these are very accessible tasks, but it takes just a, a little training or a little, you know, some tools to help you do it.  Stephen Matini: Is there any specific hope that you have for readers, for anyone who decides to read your book? Is there anything you would like them to take away?  Seth Freeman: Oh, I'm very ambitious for my readers. Well, as for my students, I end with this, go make me proud. And my intention is for them to do wonderful things. As I often say to my students, and as I might say to my readers, when you win the Nobel Peace Prize, remember me in your speech. Even that is just a small ambition, truly because I want them to create more peace, prosperity, justice and success for themselves and others in every walk of life. This is something that literally an 11 year old child can, has learned to do and demonstrate remarkable maturity, wisdom, and graciousness in the process.  And I've also seen companies create literally a hundred million dollars in savings in the course of a year, and yet do it in a way that left their suppliers saying, you guys are great. We love you, we wanna work with you more. Seems impossible, right? But there's a word for those sorts of results. And the word is shalom, which is, you know, is a Hebrew word. And it doesn't just mean what we usually think it means that often is translated as peace, but it really means “wholeness” or the full flowering of human potential and the nourishing of human aspiration, harmony, understanding, prosperity, justice. Seth Freeman: All these things are daily longings. And if you take those lofty words and put 'em aside and you listen for other words that we find in business life, in political life, everyone is longing for these things. They just have different language for it.  But my aspirations for my readers to actually be able to speak to a boss in this way, in a way that might help the day or help the company survive and thrive that can help them talk to friends more lovingly and still nudge them toward a wise and different outcome to discover hidden paths to opportunity that people think are nowhere to be seen.  Stephen Matini: Maybe based on what you said, the word wholeness could be the word that could put together the kindness and the strength. I always had this sense that when two sides are battling, it does require a much larger, holistic vision, you know, to get somewhere else. Because as long as you stay in the little confined space, nothing is gonna happen. So that's a word that somehow really resonates strongly with me.  Seth Freeman: When we're most in conflict, we're most seeing things through a pinhole and we're seeing ourselves and not seeing the other or seeing the other as an adversary and an implacable flow. It was Stalin who famously said, get rid of the person. You get rid of the problem. And so we can usually think of the other person as roadkill. And there's a lot of negotiation advice or wisdom out there that basically nurtures that view. And I wanna be careful here because it's certainly important to advocate for yourself and to claim a goodly portion of the wealth. And the book very much talks about how to do that. It it actually gives you specific tools so that you can do what I call winning warmly. You can create a lot of wealth and claim a favorable portion of it. That's a wonderful ability too.  And isn't it fantastic that not always, but more often than you might think, we can actually care for the other well as we care for our own people really well. And that's a state of affairs that never ceases to delight me and my, those who I know who do it go, everyone is so much better off. Stephen Matini: Do you think is it just so happened that your book came out this year? Or is there reason why this year and not two years ago, three years ago, five years ago?  Seth Freeman: The funny thing is that I started writing it as recession was starting up. And this was about three years ago and it was originally titled “Negotiating Recession.” And my agent and editor said, this is a bigger book than that. This is a perennial, this is much more to offer than just in the narrow circumstances where times are tight.  And so we expanded it. So you know, it's not just an economic tide that you wanna turn. There are all kinds of others as well. As long as they're human beings, they'll be, I'll have full employment because conflict is just part of human nature and it really is like fire. If it's out on your rug, it can burn your house down. But if it's in your fireplace and your stove, it can heat you and, and feed you and help you live. So the question is how do you tend it?  And the tools are probably very timely because certainly people are distressed about all sorts of things right now. And the book can speak directly and immediately to that. But 5, 10, 20 years from now, I have every confidence these tools could still be very useful.  Stephen Matini: So Seth, we talked about different things and there are so many different components, important components about negotiation and conflict management. What would you say that it is the one thing that would be important for our listeners to pay attention to in order to better handle their own conflicts?  Seth Freeman: I’ll run through a few basics that I think you don't need the book by itself to learn. I think many books will tell you there's some key principles. One of course is what you're doing so well and that's listening. There's ways to do it and there are ways to really do it. Actively listening. Preparation, knowing your all, your BATNA. These are principles that you'll find in, in many, many books.  My fascination and what animates the book is not nearly giving people the principles, but doing what you got when you were in school. When you're, when you were in school, your teacher didn't just tell you the alphabet, she didn't just tell you how to read.  She covered the wall with tools, little templates, little mnemonics, little reminders, little charts, little graphs, little things that could remind you to that, that what teachers call scaffold your learning so that you have a structure, a framework that you can take with you that can make it much easier to retain and use this work. I would say it's those principles, but also crystallized in the form of usable tools or sayings. But that said, I think just transcending any one book, I would say it's a little mind shift from the idea that we are necessarily adversaries to the idea that we actually might just be able to collaborate in ways that we are both happier with. And I'll give you one very specific example.  Consider the supply chain or purchasing agents and suppliers. I was talking with Abe Ashkenazi, who is the head of the Association for Supply Chain Managers and he said, for the last 50 years, purchasing agents have lived by the motto, I gotta get it for a dollar less.  And he said, that method simply won't work today because the supply chain is too complex, it's too fragile, witness Covid and all the upheaval that that's led to. And there are so many ways that that can cripple you, that purchasing agents and suppliers have got to learn a different way. Well, I actually know consulting firms and my own clients who have learned to do that. They've learned this more, better, different way. And it's literally created billions and billions of dollars in value and much better relations, but it's still a secret.  So in a sense, this idea who cares about nicey nice, this is actually a competitive advantage as well as something that can make you more humane. And I leave it to my listeners and readers to decide, which is more important.

Frank O'Halloran & Judith Asher are executive coaches and trainers with over 25 years of experience in leadership and communication. Their podcast ‘What's Next 4 You, launching in early 2024, is a testament to their dedication to helping people perform at their best and to helping younger professionals discover their talents and calling. Judith and Frank point out that the traditional educational system often neglects essential life skills, such as communication and relationship building, maintaining a positive mindset, cultivating gratitude, and embracing challenges with optimism. For Judith and Frank, developing good habits that boost productivity, seeking help, learning from mentors, and embracing continuous feedback are essential for constant growth and success. Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform. Subscribe to Pity Party Over Sign up for a complimentary Live Session ALYGN Managerial & Leadership Development Contact Stephen Matini Connect with Stephen Matini #frankohalloran #judithasher #whatsnext4you #careerdevelopment #pitypartyover #podcast #alygn #stephenmatini #leadershipdevelopment #managementdevelopment TRANSCRIPT Stephen Matini: I want to ask you how, when, the two of you met? Frank O'Halloran: Judith, how did we meet? I think it was with our babies. Judith Asher: Yeah. We met as parents, not as professionals. Stephen Matini: And when did you start working together as professionals instead? Frank O'Halloran: Judith's husband, George runs a University of Human Rights on the Lido and he asked if I would come and give three lectures on communicating to the master degree students. I did and Judith came along and listened to each one of the three lectures.  My client needed me to bring another trainer with me for one of the sessions that I was doing for them in a little town near Barcelona. Judith and I were taking our babies in their carriages over a bridge and she just happened to say, “Hey, how's work going?” And I said, I'm a little upset because I can't find someone to bring with me to do this training in Barcelona.  And I looked at her and I said, but you could come and do it with me. We have 30 days. You just have to do exactly what I say. And of course, Judith was a natural at this, so she did really well on her first time out. Then the rest is history. We've been working together ever since and now the babies are 20 years old. Stephen Matini: Oh wow. So it's been a while now. Frank O'Halloran: A long time, like 19 years we've been working together. Stephen Matini: Oh wow. That's a long time. So, and now your last project together, it's the podcast. When is it gonna come out? Judith Asher: The plan is to have it launched sometime in the early autumn. We are working actively on setting up a bank of interviews, getting things all lined up. So we've started actually producing it, but we're not going to have it go live for another couple of months. Stephen Matini: So the name is “What's next for you?” Was it hard to find this name? Judith Asher: Oh yeah. It's hard to find a good name. For us, we were first inclined to go for something that involved the word career, you know, like looking for a new career, how to find your best career. That was a big part of the idea. But then after talking to some various friends and thinking it over between the two of us, we realized that actually people don't have careers like they used to.  And just the idea of a career is this notion of like the “posto fisso,” as we would say in Italy, you know, that you find one thing and that's the thing you do and you're gonna do it forever. Just find that one job you can do and repeat for 50 years.  But now it's not about that. It's actually more what's next for you. Like what are you doing now and what could it be? And you have to be adaptable. And it clicked that it made more sense really for the point we wanted to make. Stephen Matini: Of all possible topics that you could focus on, why did you choose as your target 18, 33-35 years old, young professionals? Frank O'Halloran: In our training business. Judith and I work doing soft skills training, mostly communication with corporations that you would know the name of if we mentioned them. And lately we've been working with a lot of young individuals, all right, people in university and people starting their career.  And they get very attached to Judith and I and they ask us very basic questions about, you know, how do I know what careers are out there? How do I know what to say if I go to a networking event, how can I ask somebody to help me out or how do I find a mentor? And if I find one, what do I say to the mentor?  We kept getting all of these questions and to be honest, even our first idea was we should write a book for young people. Then we thought maybe a podcast would be better for them than a book. That's how we switched over to doing a podcast. Stephen Matini: When both of you were younger, when you were in that situation of not knowing exactly where to go, did you have anyone that somehow was able, was important, someone to look up to that guided you? Judith Asher: You know, I'll answer for myself that like you Stephen. No, not really. I would've loved it. And you don't know what you don't know, right? So I didn't know that I should even seek that out. The idea of finding a mentor or talking to people, asking what they do, speaking to my friend, you know, my friends' parents or my parents' friends, you know, like sort of just using my own little network.  Just the idea that I even had a network that wasn't the era we lived in. Just kind of feel your way forward. I did an internship when I was in graduate school and the head of the NGO I was working with, she ended up being my mentor, but I was so clueless at the time that I don't think I really even realized she was my mentor. But that's what she was doing and she helped me set me up for what was my first career, which was in the area of public health, which I worked in for many, many years. Frank O'Halloran: I am a little fortunate because I had lots of people helping me out. I think maybe I just came across as so clueless that all these people I came in contact with said, Frank, let me give you some advice here. Or Frank, did you think about this or did you think about that?  I have been blessed my whole life with people helping me, pointing me in a direction, encouraging me, supporting me. I saved my whole life. It really started when I went to university.  I just, professors and other people I had to work during universities. It was easy. I went to school in Manhattan, in New York City, I worked uptown in an office and I must say everybody just took me under their wing. I wish that kind of thing for everyone. Stephen Matini: For someone who's clueless, what would you say that could be the first step to take? Frank O'Halloran: Because I was totally clueless. I grew up in a very poor, in a very poor neighborhood, in a very provincial town. So I was really clueless when I got to New York. And I think for me the thing that helped me the be the most was just to be positive. I would always ask people about what they did and show like a real positive energy towards finding out more. Stephen Matini: Judy, how would you answer the same question that I asked, you know, to Frank? Judith Asher: If I go back to that internship, which for me was a turning point in my life, I grew up in Montreal. I did some graduate work in Toronto and then I did an internship in New York City again. And when I got there, this was done unconsciously. I mean, I wasn't planning on doing this. This wasn't a strategy.  We had the first meeting at this NGO for women's reproductive health and rights, which was what was my interest area and what I was studying at the time. And I was in this NGO that I thought was really doing amazing work in the world. I was just so happy to be there. And at the first meeting when they had like the Monday meeting and they introduced the new intern, I said, Hey everyone, you know, I'm Judith. I just want everyone to know I don't know anybody in New York. Judith Asher: I have no friends, I have no social life, which means I'm pretty well free all the time.  So what I wanted to say was, I'm available to help anybody who needs help with anything. Like here are the few things I'm good at. Like I'm good at editing, I can speak French and English, I can help to pour coffee. I'm, it's no problem.  I'm happy to be the person to show up on a weekend when there's a press conference. You know, get the coffee, get the sandwiches, put the chairs out and like anything really. And then after that I went and I reminded people, oh by the way, do you need help? Or I'd hear someone complaining of being overworked. And I just always continued to say that. And what happened in the end was this was the start of my whole career. I got to know everybody there. Judith Asher: I got to know what they did. I found it really fun. I got to do a lot of things that were sort of interesting and fun that I otherwise wouldn't have done.  And then eventually the UN called one day and ask the CEO of this organization, listen, we need somebody to come to London, like ASAP, we're shorthanded for a global conference and we just need someone who's flexible, who's willing to do anything. And that's what happened.  I flew to London and that was the start of my international public health career, you know, so really it did come from that giving out of the energy. And also, and this is something Frank likes to talk about and I think he's really right about this, it was also a focus not only on, oh I'm here and I'd like to learn this and I'd like to do that and this is what I wanna suck from all of you.  You know, Frank often talks about like don't only put out in the world what you wanna get from others but what you can give. And even though I sort of had nothing to give cuz I was just very young without any experience, that energy of here, I'm willing to give anything I possibly can. It did come back to give me some good karma. Stephen Matini: Do you think you can teach energy to people? Judith Asher: I mean I think you can teach mindset. I think you can give a lot of guidance on what's a good mindset and what's a bad mindset. So if your mindset is everything sucks, there's no opportunities. I'm from a generation that lost two years in Covid and I'm just doomed. If you have that kind of mindset, you give off that energy. Frank O'Halloran: Yeah, I think you can teach it. And in fact, in all of our classes that we design, we start with the mindset, all right, what's your mindset for negotiating or selling or presenting to people? And I think you can give examples to people of what would be a negative vibration or a positive vibration in certain interactions. Judith Asher: I'll add just a little comment about all our young clients, the ones in college, the ones in their first stages of their careers, the ones in their twenties. Often when we talk about mindset, people will say after like why didn't nobody ever point this out to me? I have been thinking wrong. Like nobody taught me this. Why are they trying to teach me algebra? This is much more important. Stephen Matini: People in the future who are going to listen to what's next for you, your podcast, we would you like them to take away? Frank O'Halloran: We'd like them to take away a few things is one, don't despair. Things work out. And you can control that, to a certain extent by what you do, what you say. And we'd like them to walk away with their mind a little bit expanded about what's out there, what possibilities exist, and real practical examples of how people did it.  Stephen Matini: You think it's harder now for younger professionals to find their way in the world compared to the way it was before, particularly now after Covid? Judith Asher: I mean a couple of things to say on that. One is, you know, yes, because Covid did put a kind of cork in people's development. So for two years a lot of people who were at the prime of their young lives missed out on some very important experiences. And I don't mean just like the problem with homeschooling and remote learning, I mean those kinds of relational experiences interacting with adults, with professors or you know, in internships or volunteer activities, interacting with peers.  Just so that lack of emotional development has probably set people back in terms of emotional intelligence as well. So that's something to be compensated for. I think young people would do very well to not feel stressed about checking every box as they move forward. You know, I've gotta get to university, I've gotta do this, I've gotta do that. But actually to take a little more time for the kind of thing you talked about, Stephen, figuring out what brings you joy, figuring out where you show up at your best. Judith Asher: So I think that's one point.  And the second point, and then Frank, you can add, it's kind of counterintuitive in a way. You'd think wow, you know, the world is open to me, there's a globalized workforce I can find work anywhere that's amazing. I can work in any time zone, I can go live where I want with remote work.  But as most of us know who are a little older, you know, that much choice is not necessarily a blessing, right? This is for many people, even more complicated because on the one hand I can start thinking people from all over the world can apply for every job on top of it. So there's global competition, they have other skillsets, maybe it's overwhelming the number of possibilities someone can be anything and do anything. It can be even harder than a much more simpler time where you just needed to figure out the thing that could help you make the money you wanted to make to do the things you wanted to do. Frank O'Halloran: You know, it's like going into a store to buy a bag of potato chips and there's 50 different flavors. , you just sit there for an hour trying to figure out which one you want. That's true. Judith what you said.  I also think that Covid produced the kind of work from home environment that most companies find themselves in. I was just in this big office building in Boston and there was no one there. A friend of mine's son lives alone and in apartment in Brooklyn, he wanted to go back to the office like he wanted to work with his colleagues. So now he goes into the office and nobody's there.  Stephen Matini: The thing is the gap between what colleges teach and what people actually need in order to have a career, it seems to get bigger and bigger and bigger in terms of what else can be done in order to make the transition more seamless? Frank O'Halloran: Stephen, I think there's a lot of things that could be done. I think some universities are really trying to do those things and put people out in work, experience programs, things like that. They set people up for internships.  The thing is that if for, for a university to do that, they have to put a lot of effort into it. It's a big job to do it well. And I know here in Venice where we live, the kids who study “Economia e Commercio” (business), they have to spend, I think it's three or four months or 150 hours working in a company.  So the school will get them an internship doing that. But if they don't take charge of it, the university gets them a job like carrying suitcases in a hotel. They have the program, they have the idea, but they don't put the effort into it. I think more effort could, could be done like that.  And also with companies could benefit more from the internships if they put more effort into really providing the interns with good work experience. Judith Asher: You know, I, I'll add one thing in. I think those are all important ideas. I'm married to a university professor so I'm keenly aware of some of these things.  I think one of the things that could be done in a positive way is for professors or anyone teaching to take a little bit of time, it probably doesn't require that much time. I mean, I'm thinking about this as I'm saying it, but if there could be some conversation about how what we have learned in this class are transferable skills, what could you do?  Let's just have a big open conversation, a brainstorm activity even. It could be, you know, a kind of lab outside of the normal class time, but explicitly helping people pull out what they've learned, the soft skills, the hard skills, how they could transfer it. Because I think this is what really seems to Frank and I what's missing cuz even young people who have all sorts of talents and skills and abilities, they don't know that their skills and abilities. Judith Asher: If I was the person who was the one who on my own organized the ski trip at Christmas time, you know the “Settimana Bianca,” do I know that in the work world that's called stakeholder management, you know that I'm happen to be good at that. That I, I love pulling people together, finding a, something that everybody can agree on and executing a project that's called project management.  There are a lot of things that young people are doing both in school and in their extracurricular activities that they don't understand how they can market them, but they are marketable. So I think there's like a little wedge that needs to be placed. So people like you, Stephen, who are teaching of course, maybe the more forward thinking ones can start doing that and then that can rise from above where students say, actually this really worked in this class. Could we have that in every class? Frank O'Halloran: Well usually what happens in academia is you ha you're being taught by academics now you, you Stephen have business experience and all of that. And then you go in and you teach part-time at a university.  But most professors studied their whole life and then they taught for the rest of their life, right? So they don't have that practical experience and I guess find it challenging or maybe it doesn't even occur to them to try to help the students close that gap. Stephen Matini: Both of you, you had a lot of experiences with underprivileged kids and communities, throughout your life. Would you say that maybe some of those experiences have been the, the inspiration to what you're doing right now? Judith Asher: I'll say something first on that. I'd say for myself when I was doing my graduate field work, I lived in Uganda for a year and I did field work like out in the jungle on adolescent reproductive health and rights. And that was a life-changing experience for me to see how questions that are asked everywhere around the world. And I knew how they were asked in Canada cuz that's where I came from, how they get asked and answered in different cultures and access to information and the lack thereof changes everyone's lives. So that I think has been a big part of everything I've done in both my public health career and my coaching and training career is knowing the value of information and then also knowing the value of the information one has. I'd say that, and then Frank and I, we we take part in a charity project together. Frank O'Halloran: Student and I and a bunch of our friends put on an English pantomime, which is a musical comedy, which is based on a fairy tale. It's always good versus evil good always wins. The audience participates. There's a sing along, it's full of local jokes. It's about the lowest form of entertainment available to the public.  We put that on every other year in Venice for the babies who have to live with their mothers in prison. Because in Italy, if your mother is a criminal and you're up to seven years old, you have to go live with her because you can't separate the baby from the mother even though the mother is in prison.  So the kids have to live in prison and we have three women on our, my island here, the Giudecca island in Venice, who help these kids to have a normal life. So they take 'em to football, they take 'em to ballet lessons, they take them to school because the government system just doesn't provide that. Frank O'Halloran: And they get better furniture, better toys, better equipment for them in the school. And we have all of our friends working to put on this show to raise money to help these women.  Stephen Matini: What would you say that is your main drive to start this podcast? Why this podcast? Why this podcast with this soul? Frank O'Halloran: The main reason is that Judith and I have always had a big affinity for young people. Even though we're parents, we're both very good friends with our children's friends, you know, they come to us, they call us, they ask us for help with this or they talk to us about that. So I think just naturally we have an affinity for young people.  Judith Asher: Now at this point in our careers, after having worked with business leaders and companies of all sorts around the world and really having a global viewpoint on this, we would like to spread some of the information we have, some of the knowledge we have because meeting these young people, hearing how they feel, they're kind of on the sidelines and they don't know how to step into their lives and no one around them is able to help them.  And we feel, oh, like actually we have all kinds of things we can add and we can contribute. And a podcast seemed like a good venue for that. You know, I sometimes think of it as what if I could hold a cocktail party like an “aperitivo” with all the most interesting people that we've had the occasion to meet. Cuz we've heard everybody's career stories along the way. Judith Asher: What if I could hold that huge cocktail party and invite a whole bunch of young people to just mingle and get to know them and feel in the know that's the image of our podcast to me.  I mean, being happy should be the goal, but I don't think a lot of young people are exposed to that idea. Like, what gives me energy? What do I really love doing? What does bring me a feeling of happiness and then how can I translate that? That is not the criteria most people are thinking they're supposed to apply to themselves.  So it's good to have it. And it doesn't take that much for a young person. I mean, I was young, you know, you guys were young, it's sometimes one person and just their energy, their attitude can spark something in you that you hadn't explored before. So it doesn't take that much to truly change something for somebody. Frank O'Halloran: Well, no, I was just saying about one of our guests who was sort of stressing out about her career. She was in university and one of her mom's friends said to her, think about something you're interested in that you think you would be happy doing for two years or a year and a half and do that. And she said that took so much weight off her shoulders, it gave her a new way to think about things. I thought that was brilliant, that advice. Stephen Matini: Is there anything specific that you do to get over your misery? You know, that's the notion of Pity Party Over. Frank O'Halloran: One is I just read the newspaper and I find out all the horrible things that are going on in the world and these people who are suffering so much. So I just say, all right, knock it off.  And the second thing I do, I, I'm a big meditator. I've been meditating for about 18 years now and part of my meditation has to do with gratitude. And I'll tell you, it makes a huge difference. It doesn't, if you can just list 10 things you're happy about, it changes your whole outlook. Judith Asher: I agree a hundred percent about the gratitude part. This is a very important life skill. Again, that's not really being taught anywhere unless you happen to listen to some podcasts or seek it out.  You don't hear that that is a life skill. So I'd say gratitude is one, and for me at least, exercise is another one because we talk about that getting into a state of flow, finding yourself just completely present in the moment because anxiety and worry, this is about thinking about something you'd screwed up in the past or something that you fear in the future.  And I think that exercise is like meditation. It's another way to just get outta yourself and be in the moment and then you feel better and you benefit from all those hormones and chemicals in your body on top of it. So I'd say that's probably a big one for most people. Stephen Matini: So we talked about different important things, for younger people. We talked about the mindset, we talked about positivity, the energy, gaining practical experience and such and such. If I had to ask you, what would you say that there are the five main competencies that now younger people should focus on? Frank O'Halloran: I would say start with the soft skills and in particular your ability to express yourself. That is something that can serve you in so many different jobs, so many different careers. Judith Asher: Number two I'll add on are what we would call relational skills. Again, in the soft skills, rap, rapport building, feeling comfortable communicating with other people. And back to your earlier questions, Stephen, I mean post Covid and with the smartphone taking over everyone's lives and how, I mean, young people often they've lost the art of conversation.  It's been a long time that they have been exposed to that. So really learning that it's not just the art of conversation in terms of those, those skills that Frank just mentioned, but also how to build relationships, how to show up and get people to like you and bring your best self forward. Stephen Matini: I loved when you said gratitude and happiness, which people will not think about, but those are massive skills to have, you know, connected to so many other things and so little we talk about those, but they're imperative, they're really, really, really important. Frank O'Halloran: Yeah. And you can be grateful for a very simple thing, you know, , it doesn't have to be that you won 18 million euros in the lottery. The other thing that I would say is to do a little reading. One interesting thing to read about is developing good habits. A habit is not something that's tough for you to do, it's something that's easy for you to do.  So if you put in a little effort, develop good habits, be a little disciplined about it, then that can get you through a lot of difficult times because you can fall back on those good habits of, you know, getting up, being focused, answering the emails when they come, you know, whatever it is that's important for your job. Judith Asher: Now that I'm hearing us talk about it, you know, some of these things kind of go in conjunction with the others because the most popular course at Yale University is called the Science of Happiness.  It's the most popular course in the history of the entire university. It's so popular that they've done spinoffs online. The teacher, the professor who's this incredible psychologist, she teaches this for high school students now, but there's a reason people are seeking this out if they're exposed to it.  So I think that's just the first point. And my second point was thinking about how things move together. Gratitude, relationship building, happiness. I mean if you get into the habit of telling people that you appreciate something very specific about what they did for you, be that someone in your close circle or someone in your professional circle or student circle, you will see that that boomerangs back to you, right? Judith Asher: Cuz that helps build relationships. So just being in the right mindset and then, you know, mindset leads to gratitude, leads to learning how to express that.  And that actually you should say those things out loud because they also will help you in the end. They'll help that other person and then that makes you feel happier and then you'll see doors open for you.  So that kind of cycle, again, these are to me the most crucial life skills. I'm trying to teach these to my own children and we're trying to give this off in whatever way we can in the more formal trainings that we do.  And if you, Stephen can give this to your NYU students, again, you know, once they receive it, maybe they'll realize they should get that more as well. And there can be those ripple effects. Frank O'Halloran: Don't be afraid to ask for help. Sometimes young people think, oh, I'm supposed to know this or I'm supposed to know how to do this. But if you go up to someone and you say, Stephen, I know you've had some experience with this, could I have a coffee with you and could you explain how I should approach this one for, you're probably gonna be very happy to have that coffee. And I think that's a big lesson for kids to learn that you can ask. Judith Asher: That has something to do also with whatever school system they've grown up in. Cuz as the three of us know, you know, some school systems are a little more authoritarian and young people are not brought up in that system to think, hey, I can approach an adult and say, I don't know something.  Actually it's exact opposite. They think they have to know everything before they can in fact approach an adult. So there is some unlearning that has to be done for some people to be able to feel comfortable even doing that.  Cuz I think, Frank, you're totally right. You know, most people will feel perfectly happy if they're asked for advice and if they don't have time, they'll tell you that I don't have time. And then the la next skill, and the last one I'll add in is learn to not take things personally. Judith Asher: If you can learn that most things people say to you that are hurtful actually are a them thing and not a you thing. You know, that lesson I wish I had learned a long time ago, and again, that's something I'm trying to teach my kids now because it's, it is a life skill to know that you should not take things personally and even the hate you get online and all of this really, most of it has nothing to do with you.  And if it does have something to do with you, it won't hurt you and upset you. It'll inspire you to change something. So when someone tells you something useful, it should feel bad, good or good, bad rather than just bad. Stephen Matini: Your podcast, it sounds like a place where people are going to hear a lot of things, they're not conventional. Both of you have had this big career with leaders, you know, training leaders, coaching leaders and such and such. If I had to ask you what is it one thing that you have heard more frequently from leaders, one observation that you have made working alongside so many leaders, what comes to mind? Frank O'Halloran: For me working with them and one thing that's always impressed me is that when I show up, they want to learn something. Now I can't tell them how to run their companies, but I can help them with different areas of running the company. They have to take care of the whole thing. But when they're very interested and want to learn and realize there are things that they don't know and could learn from me, that I think is a great characteristic. Judith Asher: I'm gonna add something completely different. I agree Frank with what you say. One thing I hear leaders say is that there is a generation gap between the, like speaking of young people, that there are always going to be generation gaps, but there truly is a generation gap with the post Covid, post smartphone online reality.  That is something that needs to be addressed, not from the top down, but in all directions. So young people themselves have to enter and get into the workforce ready to dialogue with the leaders, to find how can companies be most successful? How can we all be successful in a way that manages that generation gap? Stephen Matini: My last question to you is for anyone who's gonna listen to this episode, is anything specific that you would like people to take away from our conversation? Something that you think it is important other than listening to your fabulous, “What's next for you” podcast? Frank O'Halloran: You have the ability to do this and it's not as difficult as you think. Judith Asher: It's exactly that. And do things, be productive. Do the things you love and don't worry what it's gonna add up to. If you are active with the things that activate you, that is where it will lead you to what you want. Stephen Matini: No, I'm, I'm really excited about your podcast because it comes from seasoned professionals and a lot of the fact that you're taking really different types of routes. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Frank O'Halloran: Thank you Stephen. Judith Asher: Thank you Stephen.