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The Kindness Gap: How to Move from Nice to Deeply Kind: with Houston Kraft · QUESTION EVERYTHING

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Big things happen when you're pretty, pretty bold, pretty clever,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: pretty strong. I'm Danielle Robe and each week my guests
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: and I have conversations.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: That put a new spin on pretty. This is pretty smart.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Hello to the dreamers, the doers, and the beautiful minds.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: I hope you're having a great week now.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Today we're talking about a topic that I'm sure you're
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: actually pretty well versed in kindness. It's a word that
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: we hear everywhere in self help books, social media hashtags,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: it's even home bumper stickers. But what does it actually
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: mean to be kind? Is kindness just about holding the
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: door open or smiling at a stranger, or is there
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: something deeper, something more transformative, at play.
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  Speaker 2: Here's what we know when we're.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Kind or even when we witness kindness, Our bodies release oxytocin,
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: known as the love hormone that creates those warm, fuzzy
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: feelings of connection. It's actually the same hormone that bonds
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: a mother to her child during birth. Kindness literally brings
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: us closer as human beings. Isn't that so cool? We
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  Speaker 1: don't even have to be part of the act of kindness.
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  Speaker 1: The giver or a receiver to get that oxytocin, we
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  Speaker 1: just have to witness it. And I feel like what
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: better time to talk about that feeling than during the holidays.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: This is the season where kindness is top of mind, giving, sharing,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: spreading joy. But let's be real, the holidays can also
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: bring stress, overwhelm and the pressure that make it harder
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  Speaker 1: to show up as the kind, patient, generous versions of
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  Speaker 1: ourselves that we aspire to be that we know ourselves
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: to be. Right. So what does it take to truly
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: embody kindness when the world feels chaotic? Is it a
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: skill that we can practice and refine? How does kindness
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  Speaker 1: show up in leadership and business? And how about that
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: age old phrase nice guys finished last? Is there any
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: truth to it? And is there a difference between being
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: nice and being kind? Today's episode is a reair of
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: one of my very first episodes. I recorded it back
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty one actually, but even now to this day,
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: I get messages about this episode because of how much
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: this conversation resonated. So today we're diving into all of
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: it with Houston Craft, a kindness expert who has spent
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: his career studying what it means to go beyond the
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: surface of confetti kindness. That's what he calls random acts
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: of kindness to get to something deeper, more intentional, even
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  Speaker 1: life changing. He's written the book on it, literally, and
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: he's here to share how kindness can transform our relationship hips,
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: our work, and even our health. So as we navigate
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: the highs and lows of this holiday season, let's explore
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: how we can be deeply kind even when it's not easy.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: Let's get into it. I'm so happy to have you here.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: I just did a deep dive into your book, and
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: the topic of kindness is it should be simple, right.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Kindness seems simple, and yet it's oversimplified. It actually is
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: really confusing. So the first thing I want to get
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: into is what is beneath kindness? Is what is kindness?
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: It is the challenge I think of the word itself.
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  Speaker 4: I think we from the time we were really little,
• 3:47
  Speaker 4: we were told that kindness is worthwhile. I think it's
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  Speaker 4: actually one of the things that we inherently know that
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  Speaker 4: we're wired for connection, that we're wired to desire belonging
• 3:57
  Speaker 4: and acceptance, which I think like kindness is the you know,
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  Speaker 4: like if I want to experience connection or belonging or.
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  Speaker 3: Depth in my life.
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  Speaker 4: Kindness is one vehicle that allows me to experience that,
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  Speaker 4: and so from the time we're little, we both get
• 4:11
  Speaker 4: taught it, and I think we know it, and I
• 4:13
  Speaker 4: think there's actually a gap between those two, right, the
• 4:16
  Speaker 4: things that we like know to be true and the
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: things that we get told I think are actually confusing.
• 4:21
  Speaker 4: My career for many years was working in schools as
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: a motivational speaker. I spoke to six hundred middle schools
• 4:28
  Speaker 4: and high schools all over the world, and so I
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: spent a lot of time in like cafeterias and gymnasiums
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  Speaker 4: and cafeinic gymnatoriums. I've been in all kinds of schools,
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  Speaker 4: and I would say that most schools have kindness as
• 4:39
  Speaker 4: a part of their model or their mission statement. Most organizations,
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  Speaker 4: I think have to some degree part of their ethos
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  Speaker 4: is like service or kindness. But having worked in schools,
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  Speaker 4: I would tell you that I saw the poster just
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  Speaker 4: be kind or throw kindness around like confetti in probably
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  Speaker 4: like ninety percent of the schools that I worked in,
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  Speaker 4: And I think it's one of those really interesting things
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  Speaker 4: we do as a culture where we try to over
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  Speaker 4: promote something in a way that oversimplifies it, and as
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  Speaker 4: a result, I think we actually do more harm than good.
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  Speaker 4: The ethos, like the idea behind a poster that's like
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  Speaker 4: throw kindness around like confetti, is we should be more generous,
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  Speaker 4: like we should give kindness more frequently. The danger is
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  Speaker 4: that we associate kindness with something that's simple or easier free,
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  Speaker 4: And I think we accidentally have created a narrative in
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  Speaker 4: our culture that kindness is free, and I think that's
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  Speaker 4: actually incredibly damaging because when we think of things as free,
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  Speaker 4: we don't assign value to them in our own lives.
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  Speaker 2: Wow.
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  Speaker 4: I think we have a really frustrating gap in our
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  Speaker 4: culture between skills and values. Skills would be like WHOA
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  Speaker 4: to get a doctorate or to become a professional athlete,
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  Speaker 4: or to acquire the skill requires discipline, practice and training
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  Speaker 4: over time. But with values, we're like, I believe in kindness,
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  Speaker 4: and we think that just like believing in a thing
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  Speaker 4: makes us good at a thing. And I would argue
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  Speaker 4: it requires the same amount of discipline and practice and
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  Speaker 4: humility over time.
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: To achieve that thing.
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  Speaker 4: So that would be like the first clarification things necessary
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  Speaker 4: is the gap between what we believe in, and the
• 6:08
  Speaker 4: gap between what we do is big because of how
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  Speaker 4: we talk about it and how we teach it.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: That was very illuminating. Why do you think some people
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: are kinder than others?
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  Speaker 4: One of my favorite quotes comes from doctor Ross Green
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  Speaker 4: talk about it in the book. He's a child psychologist,
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  Speaker 4: and he would say that kids do well when they can.
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  Speaker 4: I really love the power and the simplicity of that
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  Speaker 4: statement because the implication there, the motivation behind even saying
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: it is I think a lot of adults in kids'
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: lives don't always assume best intent, consciously or unconsciously. We
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  Speaker 4: sometimes assume when someone hurts us, particularly a kid, it's
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: because they want to get back at us, or they
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  Speaker 4: have ulterior motives, or that they're doing they want to
• 6:49
  Speaker 4: do their own thing, when in reality, a lot of
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: the psychology would tell us that young people, our orientation
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: is actually to feel safe and protected by adults in
• 6:57
  Speaker 4: our life. We don't want to misbehave quote unquote. He
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  Speaker 4: would argue that the only reason why someone doesn't do
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: the best they can is for one of two big
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  Speaker 4: categorical reasons. Number one lagging skills. Number two unsolved problems
• 7:12
  Speaker 4: lagging skills, meaning I don't have all the tools in
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  Speaker 4: my toolbox to behave in the way that you're asking
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  Speaker 4: me to behave right now. I'm not well enough equipped
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  Speaker 4: to show up into this scenario with all the right
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  Speaker 4: tools to actually engage in whatever that is kindness. As
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  Speaker 4: an example, Number two unsolved problems would be that we
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: have things going on in the background that affect the foreground.
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  Speaker 4: Whether that is individual trauma, whether that's intergenerational trauma, whether
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: that is community trauma, whether that's systemic oppression, whatever. Those
• 7:44
  Speaker 4: other things happening in our life, whether they are bigger
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: than us, or whether they're internal to our own lived experience,
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  Speaker 4: those background things, we know they affect the foreground all
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: the time. My offer in response to your question is
• 7:57
  Speaker 4: to change doctor Ross Green's quote from kids do well
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: when they came to people will do well when they can.
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  Speaker 4: My argument with that, like, the only reason why we
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: wouldn't offer each other kindness is I don't know how,
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  Speaker 4: or I have other things happening in my life that
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  Speaker 4: make it really hard for me to show up in
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  Speaker 4: kindness in this moment.
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  Speaker 1: Wow, So do you think you can become more practiced
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  Speaker 1: at kindness?
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  Speaker 2: Then? Is it something you can learn?
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, I Actually my philosophy would be that kindness is
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  Speaker 4: an outcome. It's an output and determined by a whole
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  Speaker 4: lot of inputs. That kindness is a behavioral action that
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  Speaker 4: we take in the world that is informed by a
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  Speaker 4: lot of social and emotional skills that are operating the background. Right,
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  Speaker 4: my emotional intelligence is going to inform my behavioral action
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  Speaker 4: or what I would call like my character, the way
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  Speaker 4: that I show up in the world for myself and
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: other people around me. And so to get better at
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  Speaker 4: something like kindness the output, I think it's really important
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  Speaker 4: to think about the inputs, what's happening in the background
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  Speaker 4: that shapes my behaviors in the foreground. For example, have
• 8:56
  Speaker 4: I been trained or taught or practiced emotional right As
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  Speaker 4: an example, do I know, like when I'm feeling big feelings,
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  Speaker 4: which a lot of things in the world can create
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  Speaker 4: big feelings in my life, do I know how to
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  Speaker 4: apply them in kindness in the world.
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  Speaker 3: Anger is a great example.
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  Speaker 4: There's a lot of adults in this world who are
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  Speaker 4: really good at math or science, or English or history,
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  Speaker 4: but like don't know how to regulate their emotions when
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  Speaker 4: they're experiencing anger, they don't show up in kindness. I
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  Speaker 4: would also offer that anger can actually have huge implications
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  Speaker 4: to kindness. Anger is a motivating emotion, and if I
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  Speaker 4: know how to regulate it correctly, it can make me
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  Speaker 4: really a passionate advocate in kindness for others.
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  Speaker 3: But that's a skill.
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  Speaker 4: Emotional regulation is something that the science would tell us
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  Speaker 4: we can teach. One vehicle to that, for example, is
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  Speaker 4: emotional awareness. Do I know how to name my feelings
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  Speaker 4: when I'm feeling them? Another vehicle for that, or potentially
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  Speaker 4: related to that, is mindfulness right, taking time to slow
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: down my mind enough to understand what I'm feeling in
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  Speaker 4: any given moment, as opposed to making myself busy being
• 9:58
  Speaker 4: busy all the time. Talk about a another category like
• 10:01
  Speaker 4: another input to kindness would be empathy. Do I understand
• 10:05
  Speaker 4: what people need around me from their perspective and not
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  Speaker 4: just my own? If I'm not able to effectively understand
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  Speaker 4: or unpack people's needs, I would argue that kindness gets
• 10:15
  Speaker 4: really hard because I can practice kindness to you in
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  Speaker 4: a way that I think you need it, but that
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  Speaker 4: doesn't guarantee that I'm actually helping you along the way.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: Right, As I was looking this up, some of the
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: things that fell under emotional social learning were empathy, as
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: you mentioned, good listening skills, generosity, helpful, curious, caring, nurturing,
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: engage in perspective taking, which I don't know what that means,
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: but it was interesting to kind of unpack what would
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: fall under, like how do we get to kindness? Because
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: for me, this was like a label that felt up
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: to So thank you for clearing that up a little bit.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, the words you offered are I would say, categorically
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: representative of empathy. My friend Barbara says, empathy gives kindness.
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: It's why I think empathy is actually like probably the
• 11:05
  Speaker 4: most important ingredient that lives behind the scenes when it
• 11:09
  Speaker 4: comes to practicing kindness.
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  Speaker 3: And empathy is another.
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  Speaker 4: One of those words that gets thrown around a lot
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: but is misunderstood, partially because it actually involves a lot
• 11:17
  Speaker 4: of different components. A guy named doctor JIML. Zaki out
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: of Stanford. He wrote a book called The War for Kindness.
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  Speaker 4: He says empathy is an umbrella term that captures three
• 11:26
  Speaker 4: big skills in our life, sharing, thinking, and caring. Sharing
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  Speaker 4: We could think of as like the emotional side of empathy.
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  Speaker 4: Do I understand what you're feeling? Do I feel what
• 11:36
  Speaker 4: you feel? Can I feel alongside you? And it's actually
• 11:39
  Speaker 4: the most like naturally inborn thing that we have. Why
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: when we laugh at babies, babies tend to smile and
• 11:44
  Speaker 4: laugh back at us. We're always looking to repeat or
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: experience other people's emotions, and particularly people who would be
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: empaths are like really sensitive to that to be kind
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: of exhausting sometimes to constantly tap into that. The second
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: one would be thinking, it's like the cognitive side of empathy.
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: Perspective taking, as you offered organizationally in my company called
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: character Strong, we actually reframed perspective taking. We call it
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: perspective getting because taking implies I get just just to
• 12:11
  Speaker 4: stand where I'm at and like take from things around me.
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: Getting implies work, which is what I think perspective getting
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: actually is is like going out and listening. Really understanding
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: a different perspective than your own requires me to be vulnerable,
• 12:26
  Speaker 4: requires me to be humbled, requires me to engage with
• 12:30
  Speaker 4: people who are different than me. It requires me to
• 12:33
  Speaker 4: not always to want to be right all the time,
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: which is something really hard to deprogram in our society.
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  Speaker 3: So there's sharing the.
• 12:40
  Speaker 4: Emotional side, thinking the cognitive side, and then caring, which
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: is the kindness side. It's how we operationalize sharing and
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: thinking into action. It's saying, Okay, now that I have
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: a sense of how you're feeling, and now that i'm
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: like trying to see the world through your eyes to
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: recognize that your needs might be different than mine, I'm
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: going to do something to alleviate you're suffering. It's how
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: empathy translates into compassion. It's how we suffer alongside people
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: and then use whatever resources we can to alleviate pain,
• 13:10
  Speaker 4: because it is entirely possible, as I think probably every
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: person on that splands it experience at one point in
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: another to hurt, for someone to feel bad, for someone
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  Speaker 4: to even understand why they're hurting and still do nothing
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  Speaker 4: to help. That's where compassion or empathy turns into kindness.
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  Speaker 4: And I think that's a big deal.
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  Speaker 1: So I loved your book so much, and I read
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: a lot of books, and I always think if if
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: I'm not hooked in the first three pages, it's hard
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: for me to get into it. The beginning story in
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: your book is so good, and it's an offshoot of
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: what you just said, I was hoping you could share
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: it with us.
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: We learned best through stories. Yeah, that's why I love
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: being a theater major. I was never very a very
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: good actor, but I believe deeply in sharing stories on
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: any sort of platform in a way that invited other
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: people in to w recognize how whatever this story is
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: intersects with yours. Maybe you're like me and you've been
• 14:05
  Speaker 4: on an airplane before in the middle seat. It's my
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: least favorite seat on any public transportation. I'm claustrophobic, called
• 14:10
  Speaker 4: the hot dog seat because people's buns are on the other.
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: Side of me.
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: And I remember this particular day, it's now a decade
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: ago in my life, where this woman shows up.
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: And has a seat next to me.
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: And maybe you've been in this situation where someone wants
• 14:24
  Speaker 4: to talk to you and you are not in the
• 14:26
  Speaker 4: mood to talk. That's what this woman did this day.
• 14:29
  Speaker 4: She tapped me on the shoulder, took out a headphone,
• 14:31
  Speaker 4: which was intentionally in to prevent this exact scenario. I
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: was like, can I help you. She's like, my name
• 14:37
  Speaker 4: is Helga. I was like, this is not how I
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: was intending to help you.
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: It's just by engaging in small talk.
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  Speaker 4: I believe in kindness, so I was like trying to
• 14:44
  Speaker 4: show up in that moment, and she starts asking me
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: all kinds of questions.
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: At some point she asked me what I did for work,
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: and I explained that I worked in schools.
• 14:51
  Speaker 4: Talking about kindness, she got very serious and told me
• 14:55
  Speaker 4: the story of how the last time she was on
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: an airplane before her and I ever met, was three
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: years prior, when she'd woken up in the morning and
• 15:03
  Speaker 4: gotten a phone call from her dad that her dad
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: was headed. Her dad's doctor explaining that her dad was
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: headed to the hospital. They didn't live in the same state,
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: which meant that Helga. Helga had to get on a
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: plane to fly from Washington to Arizona, and when she
• 15:17
  Speaker 4: sits down on the plane to take off to see
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: her dad, she gets the phone call that he's passed away.
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: I'll never forget Helga telling me this story and explaining
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: to me that she was on her way to go
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: and see him, and then she learned that she lost him,
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: and then she was surrounded by strangers on a plane
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: for three hours. It's a lonely flight. She lands in
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: the airport, she walks to the nearest wall. She falls down.
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: She said, have you ever gotten new so bad? Your
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: body stops working?
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: She just crumbled.
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: She put her head her hands and she wept. And
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: she explains that for two hours she sat there crying.
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: I'll let you know, Helga has a good sense of humor.
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: She goes, Houston.
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  Speaker 4: I should be clear, I'm not a pretty crier. I'm
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: not a quiet crier. She goes, it's loud and it's aggressive.
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: People noticed. She goes Houston. Two hours is if I
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: had to guess, there's probably three thousand people in the
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: airport around me, going to their planes or getting off
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: their planes. You send two hours three thousand people, not one,
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: not a single person stopped.
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: And she looks at me.
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  Speaker 4: She goes, you have no idea how much I could
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: use in act to kindness that day. The thing she
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: said next has really shaped, honestly, a lot of my
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: career and a big part of the reason I wrote
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: the book. She said, you know what I realized that
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: day and the airport is three thousand people walked by.
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: It occurred to me that kindness isn't normal. It's not
• 16:27
  Speaker 4: normal in our world to be kind, and I remember,
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: And honestly, I sit with that question just about every
• 16:32
  Speaker 4: day in my work because I am fascinated in why.
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: Why is it that if you were to ask any
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: of the three thousand people in the airport that day,
• 16:40
  Speaker 4: do you believe in kindness? My guess is all three
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: thousand of them would tell you yes. Why is it
• 16:45
  Speaker 4: then that all three thousand of them walked by an
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: opportunity for it? Why is it When I ask myself
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: the question, would I stop?
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: Which I do?
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: Anytime I tell the story, it forces me to ask
• 16:54
  Speaker 4: that question, would I stop today?
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: And today my honest answer is probably know?
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: And I feel like I have all kinds of quote
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: unquote valid excuses. Tired is the end of a long day.
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: I have places to go, I have people to see.
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: What if she doesn't want my help? But if I
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: don't have anything that offered her, I got no energy
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: in my tank, like there's any reason that I could
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: offer to say no? But I think the story is
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: important because it offers me a space to force myself
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: into that self confrontation.
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: Where's the gap, the.
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: Gap between what I say I believe in and what
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: I actually do?
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: How I actually show up in the world?
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: Because it's entirely possible to believe in a thing and
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: not live into it. We do it all the time.
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: The Greeks have a word for it. It's a crazia.
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: Crazy translates to our weakness of will, are knowing that
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: something is important or right, and our decision not to
• 17:40
  Speaker 4: do it anyways. And I feel frustrated that kindness is
• 17:43
  Speaker 4: one of those things. And so my goal, my aim,
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: and my work and the book and the work that
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: I do in education, is to figure out how do
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: we close that gap.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: I got really emotional when you told that story, and
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: I got emotional when I read it.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: I'm still not sure why. I was trying to think
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: about why.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: I think it's because I feel as if I am
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: I'm only where I am in my personal life or
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: my professional life because people showed me kindness. It's why
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: the title of your book stuck out to me so much.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: It's such it's a value I hold. I think everybody
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: has different values that they hold in a different order
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: in their life based on their upbringing and what's important,
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: and kindness is a value I hold really high up there.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: So I think that your movement of kindness should be
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: up there. With Brene Brown's movement of vulnerability. It is
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: the underpinning of so much. What do we do when
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: we don't know how to be kind? When we don't
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: know how to do the kind thing?
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: A few reflections.
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: One is I appreciate your invitation to explore why that
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: that is an emotional story, not only for yourself but
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: for other people. I think it's it's easy to walk
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: past that as a simple like parable as like why
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: kindness is important? But I would offer that I think
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: for a lot of people, we've all been some version
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: of Helga. If you haven't been yet, I think we
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: all will be, Or we've been on the far side
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: of that.
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: We've been in an incredibly low or lonely moment and
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: someone has offered us something in that moment that has
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: made all the difference, has transformed or shifted your trajectory
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: in some small way that over time was actually a
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: really big way. What do we do when we don't
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: know how to practice kindness in a moment?
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: If that's where we're starting from, If that's like our
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: first question, the invitation is to get curious, is to
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: ask a lot of questions. A story that I think
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: about often as it relates to empathy. Is the story
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: of the Sandy Hook shooting. There's this moment of collective
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: trauma in our country where literally we have children being
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: shot at a school, and in moments of trauma or
• 19:55
  Speaker 4: tragedy as we've seen now since George Floyd or what
• 19:58
  Speaker 4: happened in Atlanta, when we see moments of hate lived
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: out in really profound ways, we have a collective, visceral response.
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: Now there's a whole layer there.
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: To talk about, which is why we wait for trauma
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: to happen until we come around it with kindness or generosity.
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: But nonetheless, I think a lot of people do respond.
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: People will have a genuine desire to help in moments
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: of profound hurt. So many in fact, when Sandy Hook happened,
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: shortly afterwards, people from all over the world wanted to
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: offer kindness, So people sent stuffed animals teddy bears globally
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: from all over the world because it was young people
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: who'd lost their life, and it was so many teddy
• 20:36
  Speaker 4: bears that the town of Newtown, Connecticut had to rent
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: a twenty thousand square foot warehouse just to house all
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: the inbound gifts. One of the people that helped run
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: the candlelit vigil, said that there were more stuffed animals
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: present than there were people. And here's the quote that
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: got me. He said, you know, a teddy bear is great,
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: but a teddy bear doesn't pay for counseling, and a
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: teddy bear doesn't pay for a funeral. And I remember
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: reading that and thinking to myself, how many times in
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: my life have I wanted to give kindness but I
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: never bothered to ask what.
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: Was the need?
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: That's so important?
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: It's huge, and I think we've all lived it to
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: some capacity. Right My mom stage four colon cancer a
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: few years ago. She's currently cancer free, which is one
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: of the best gifts of my life.
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: But I remember.
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: Watching people in her life want to help and not
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: know what to do, and there were different versions of
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: things that were more or less helpful. I guess some
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: people would resonate with this, like when you're going through
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: a really hard time, some people ask the question, how
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: can I help? And that actually puts the burden on
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: the person who's actively hurting. Other people in my mom's
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: life said, you know what, I'm making extra LASAGNI tonight?
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: Is it okay if I bring some buy you know what.
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: I hired this cleaner for four hours, I only need
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: them for two. Can they come clean part of your house?
• 21:47
  Speaker 4: And people who knew what my mom was navigating, who
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: asked questions with curiosity and didn't put the burden of
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: help onto my mom, were so much more helpful. Now,
• 21:57
  Speaker 4: am I making a character judgment on the people that
• 22:00
  Speaker 4: didn't have the right question? No, I'm offering it as
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: an example of ways that we can all collectively close
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: that gap, which is to get curious and say, is
• 22:08
  Speaker 4: what I'm offering meeting a need?
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: I like framing it that way because this, to me,
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: at first it felt.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: Like get specific. That specificity is.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: Helpful, but it's really more so about meeting the actual need.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: So how do we get there? It's through questions that's
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: really beautiful, thank you.
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah, questions and reflection. Right if we ask the question
• 22:30
  Speaker 4: before we've done the reflection, I think we have to
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: hold in balance when we're putting more more responsibility on
• 22:37
  Speaker 4: the person who's hurting than ourselves. First, So can I
• 22:41
  Speaker 4: explore do you know we can talk about the whole
• 22:44
  Speaker 4: conversation on social and racial justice happening in our country
• 22:47
  Speaker 4: and the world right now? So people will go to
• 22:50
  Speaker 4: a person of color and ask them to solve the
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: problem for me, And that is not the way to
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: be helpful, even though it's an earnest attempt to be helpful,
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: The reality is I have to first explore and unpack
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: my own biases, my own role before I go and say, hey,
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: how can I help?
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: How can I help?
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: And I think that like holding the balance of curiosity
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: and self reflection is the first, like the highest level
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: step is like that awareness that leads to curiosity, which
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: leads to.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: Action, the balance of curiosity and self reflection. That's important
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: because I was also thinking about looking kind versus being kind,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: you know, like just to say how can I help,
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: or like just to to show up, so to speak,
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: without truly understanding what somebody needs. Is more of a
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: look versus a verb of doing and being.
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I like, I mean doing and being is a
• 23:48
  Speaker 4: big A big one for me is like what do
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: we how do we embody the thing versus just act
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: the part. And it's always that interesting relationship between the
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: two because, as Will Durant says, we are what we
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: repeatedly do excellen, sin is not an act but a habit.
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And I always cross that out.
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: I like to edit quotes, I apologize, But like, kindness
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: is not an act but a habit, which is to say, Okay,
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: if I do this thing today, it might be you know,
• 24:16
  Speaker 4: that high level action that is that is maybe not
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: intended for show, but show nonetheless if I don't follow
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: it up and do something again the next day. My
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: friend Dexter Davis says, we're not human beings, we're human becomings.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're all becoming like paradigm.
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: Shift in my head of like, to become kind requires
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: me to repeatedly do kind things, and so giving myself
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: a framework system, a discipline, a practice to engage in
• 24:40
  Speaker 4: that consistently is going to be a pathway that allows
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: me to hold those things more imbalanced.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: What is one thing someone can do to be more practiced?
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: I love solution oriented exh Like, what's what if we
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: don't know? Because I feel like it's still a little
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: up to So where do we start?
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: M Yeah, this is my jam, let's let's talk about it. Oh,
• 25:04
  Speaker 4: good practical practical inspiration right, Like you're like with a
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: bunch of motivation, but no application is just like good
• 25:10
  Speaker 4: feelings and good ideas.
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: I really think.
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: The first thing is to think about how we think
• 25:14
  Speaker 4: about kindness, right, So first like determining in my brain,
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: like why I care about this thing, why I believe
• 25:19
  Speaker 4: in this thing is always going to be like the
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: motivating through line. And then it's to say, well, what
• 25:23
  Speaker 4: does it look like to behave in kindness in the world.
• 25:26
  Speaker 4: The metaphor I use in the book, it's a dumb one,
• 25:29
  Speaker 4: but it sticks with me. It's like when you go
• 25:31
  Speaker 4: to the cheesecake factory, the menu is so big that
• 25:34
  Speaker 4: it's overwhelming. Too many choices, right, the paradox of choice,
• 25:37
  Speaker 4: too many choices is like no choice at all.
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: I remember whening to the cheesecake factory when I was little.
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: I got the Chipotle chicken pasta.
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: It was delicious, and so when I go back, I
• 25:46
  Speaker 4: don't order it every time, but more often than not,
• 25:49
  Speaker 4: I default to the choice that I made early on
• 25:51
  Speaker 4: because our brain's crave routine. I think the same thing
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: becomes true about kindness slowly over time, in large part
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: because of all the cultural inputs that tell us what
• 26:02
  Speaker 4: kindness is. I think we see that kindness is paying
• 26:05
  Speaker 4: for the person's coffee in line behind you. I don't
• 26:09
  Speaker 4: want to dismiss that as not kindness because it happened
• 26:11
  Speaker 4: to me the other day and it was a real daymaker.
• 26:13
  Speaker 4: But I think that to say that that is the
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: only version of kindness or to get into the pattern
• 26:20
  Speaker 4: of like that is like a Chipotle chicken pasta. I've
• 26:22
  Speaker 4: ordered it once, So like that's the thing I know
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: is the hard part about making kindness a daily practice.
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: What does it actually look like to integrate it into
• 26:30
  Speaker 4: your life in a way that's non superficial or not
• 26:33
  Speaker 4: culturally pop culturally provided.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: So in your book you call this confetti kindness versus
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: deep kindness.
• 26:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah, confetti kindness, which would be like that, like throw
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: it around like confetti, a random act of kindness, which
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: I don't mean to be dismissed above. I just don't
• 26:48
  Speaker 4: think it's the type of kindness that moves the cultural
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: needle forward. Right, Those random smiles that pay forward coffee line,
• 26:55
  Speaker 4: like helping the person across the street. Those things are
• 26:57
  Speaker 4: are lovely, but they don't change and systems, right, They
• 27:01
  Speaker 4: don't heal trauma, they don't navigate complicated questions about justice,
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: and they certainly don't heal like our most broken interpersonal relationships.
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: So what does that look like to operationalize that in
• 27:14
  Speaker 4: our lives? Well, I use it a strategy in my brain.
• 27:19
  Speaker 4: I call it intersectional thinking, which is really just like
• 27:22
  Speaker 4: thinking about a ven diagram that allows me to take
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: a really big idea like kindness and make it specific. Right,
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: give myself permission to constrain a huge abstract idea and
• 27:34
  Speaker 4: put it through a really really small filter, Because that
• 27:36
  Speaker 4: way I'm going to better meet needs. Like you said,
• 27:39
  Speaker 4: I'm going to be able to get specific with it.
• 27:41
  Speaker 4: So just to walk through this exercise really quickly, let
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: me offer you a change of this question.
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: What's one way I could practice kindness in my life today? Really? Big, little, overwhelming.
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: I'll probably order the Chipotle chicken pasta.
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: The different question is, Danielle, who do you think is
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: someone in your life that you who comes to mind
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: right away when I say someone you admire?
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: Two people.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: One is a man named Steve at NBC and Sally
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: Lou loveman in Chicago.
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: Out of the two, is there someone that you feel
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: I could use encouragement right.
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: Now more than the other Sally Lou Cool? Here'd be
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: a question, what's the most meaningful thing you could do?
• 28:20
  Speaker 4: What's an act of kindness you could do for Sally
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: Lou that you could do in three minutes or less.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: Ooh, three minutes or less. I could send her an
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: encouraging note and telling her how much she means to
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: me and how much I admire her.
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: You want to do it right now?
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: No, but I think that would be probably like the
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: only thing I could do in three minutes besides send
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: a singing telegram or something. Yeah.
• 28:47
  Speaker 4: I would offer that one of the narratives we have
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: to break out of in our culture is that time
• 28:51
  Speaker 4: equals impact. That so much of our life gets rocked
• 28:55
  Speaker 4: up into the narrative that productivity is impact, and that
• 28:58
  Speaker 4: productivity requires time tasks day in and day out. And
• 29:02
  Speaker 4: I would offer that the three minute message you might
• 29:04
  Speaker 4: send a Sally Lou might have more impact than the
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: fifty emails that I have to get through after this call, right,
• 29:11
  Speaker 4: And that I think we have to deprogram ourselves from
• 29:15
  Speaker 4: the narrative that everything on my to do list has
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: equal value in terms of how I want to show
• 29:21
  Speaker 4: up in the world. So the way that I practice
• 29:23
  Speaker 4: that in my life is every day Organizationally, even on
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: our team, everyone writes out their workles, we all have
• 29:29
  Speaker 4: our to do list, but at the top of our
• 29:31
  Speaker 4: to do list, all of us write out a one
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: item to B list.
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: So who do I want to be today?
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: Well?
• 29:36
  Speaker 4: Maybe it's healthy, maybe it's balanced, maybe it's present, maybe
• 29:40
  Speaker 4: it's grateful, maybe it's kind.
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: But then the task is what does that look like today?
• 29:44
  Speaker 4: In however much time you have to give yourself that
• 29:46
  Speaker 4: constraint ten minutes or less, fifteen minutes or less, thirty
• 29:49
  Speaker 4: minutes or less.
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: Oh, I love that exercise, and.
• 29:51
  Speaker 4: So we actually have to articulate that for ourselves and
• 29:55
  Speaker 4: for our team. The way that we have disciplined ourselves
• 29:58
  Speaker 4: to get better at that is every quarter we choose
• 30:00
  Speaker 4: a word, so that every day, over the course of
• 30:03
  Speaker 4: a quarter, we are articulating, Okay, today, to be present
• 30:06
  Speaker 4: that means blank. Today, to be encouraging that means blank.
• 30:10
  Speaker 4: And so systems over goals. Yeah, Like, the more we
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: can create systems allow for specificity to become the thing,
• 30:17
  Speaker 4: the more likely that we actually live into the things
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: we say we believe.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: That's incredibly important because every year, I think when people
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: make New Year's resolutions or goals, the ideas are so
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: wonderful and it's how do you actually do that in practice.
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: So systems over goals. That's wonderful.
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: Thank you, Yeah to be list systems. It's a good,
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: healthy challenge.
• 30:38
  Speaker 4: And I think we all love to do lists because
• 30:41
  Speaker 4: they're concrete, and we've been programmed in our culture to
• 30:44
  Speaker 4: like we want things that are check affable, and so
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: we know how to like get to in box zero,
• 30:48
  Speaker 4: we know how to finish this project proposal, we know
• 30:51
  Speaker 4: how to put together these slides.
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: But when we say, like, what's the new to B
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: list kind, it's.
• 30:57
  Speaker 4: Not as checkoffable unless we give ourselves construs thinking and say, well,
• 31:01
  Speaker 4: what does it look like to do something today that
• 31:04
  Speaker 4: lives into that and maybe it's with the same person
• 31:06
  Speaker 4: for three months, And that's okay as long as we
• 31:10
  Speaker 4: create small steps that drive us towards the becoming of
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: the things that we say we value.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: You know, I always I recognize that the people that
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: I admire most live their values when it's inconvenient to them,
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: when they don't have time. They are still kind, like,
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: you know, like when it because it's it's a lot
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: easier to be nice and to be kind when you
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: have time, right, so to do it, they must be practiced.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: They are they do it time and time again?
• 31:38
  Speaker 4: So well said one of my favorite articles from the
• 31:41
  Speaker 4: Wall Street Journal is are you as busy as you think?
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah? None of us are, t LDR, We're not.
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 31:49
  Speaker 4: So what if you were never again allowed to say
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: I don't have time? But if you had to say
• 31:53
  Speaker 4: this is not my priority. So if I were to
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: ever to say I don't have time for this person
• 31:57
  Speaker 4: in my life or for kindness in my life, the
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: argument would be just to change that, change the way
• 32:02
  Speaker 4: you speak about it, to say, well, you know, my
• 32:05
  Speaker 4: mom's not my priority today, or this my partner's not
• 32:10
  Speaker 4: my priority today, or the practice of kindness is not
• 32:12
  Speaker 4: my priority today. And sometimes that can be true. I'm
• 32:16
  Speaker 4: not saying that that's never true, but to speak it
• 32:18
  Speaker 4: like that consistently indicates to us that maybe we have
• 32:24
  Speaker 4: a gap between what we say is important and what
• 32:26
  Speaker 4: we actually do for ourselves.
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: In the world. Now I see why you are a
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: motivational speaker.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: Wow, you're right, closing gaps for gas and taking names.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: All right, Okay, so you said that deep kindness requires courage.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: What do you mean by that?
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: I think that doctor Brene Brown, one of my heroes.
• 32:50
  Speaker 4: You already drop the name the revolution towards like vulnerability,
• 32:53
  Speaker 4: which I think vulnerability is the background to the foreground
• 32:57
  Speaker 4: of courage, right, Courageous actions require vulnerability. I've ben work
• 33:01
  Speaker 4: with a lot of high school students. I know that,
• 33:03
  Speaker 4: like many of them, are on the cusp of cynicism.
• 33:06
  Speaker 4: And I think cynicism happens when we feel overwhelmed by
• 33:10
  Speaker 4: either too much to care about and so we don't
• 33:13
  Speaker 4: know what to care about, or we've tried to care
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: about stuff and felt like we weren't making a difference,
• 33:18
  Speaker 4: and then it becomes easier to live into the narrative
• 33:20
  Speaker 4: that it's just cool not to care, and so we
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: allow ourselves to get busy when it's cool not to care,
• 33:25
  Speaker 4: we allow ourselves to get complacent, or in the face
• 33:28
  Speaker 4: of overwhelm or fear, probably the worst of all us,
• 33:31
  Speaker 4: we allow ourselves to get apathetic. And I would suggest
• 33:35
  Speaker 4: that the reason for a lot of that is because
• 33:38
  Speaker 4: the more we care about something, the more we risk
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: hurt on the far side of it. So when I
• 33:44
  Speaker 4: care about giving something someone they need and I fail
• 33:47
  Speaker 4: them in it, that hurts.
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: When I care deeply.
• 33:51
  Speaker 4: About what's going on in our country right now, around
• 33:55
  Speaker 4: what is happening to the Asian community in the United States,
• 33:59
  Speaker 4: and I feel help hopeless, or I feel like I
• 34:02
  Speaker 4: failed someone, or I feel like I don't know how
• 34:03
  Speaker 4: to show up. Like the more I care, the more
• 34:06
  Speaker 4: I risk feeling failure or hurt or rejection or embarrassment
• 34:09
  Speaker 4: along the way. The more I use my voice to
• 34:12
  Speaker 4: speak up about something that maybe's not popular, the more
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: that people are going to criticize me and hurt me.
• 34:17
  Speaker 4: And so most of us we've had moments of courage
• 34:20
  Speaker 4: along the way, and we faced criticism, pain, shame, rejection, failure,
• 34:27
  Speaker 4: and our brain is programmed to reduce pain in our life.
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: And so every time that happens, every time we make
• 34:33
  Speaker 4: a courageous choice, and it hurts. If we're not really
• 34:35
  Speaker 4: intentional about it, if we're not really clear about why
• 34:37
  Speaker 4: we're doing the thing, then we're going to allow our
• 34:40
  Speaker 4: behaviors to be dictated by the pain as opposed to
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: the purpose of the thing in the first place. And
• 34:45
  Speaker 4: so kindness requires courage because most of the time acts
• 34:48
  Speaker 4: of kindness are vulnerable.
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: They are an action of caring.
• 34:52
  Speaker 4: The more that I care, the more that it's gonna hurt,
• 34:54
  Speaker 4: and the more that it hurts the more.
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: Choosing it is the courageous thing to do.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: In your book, you have an entire chapter on forgiveness.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: To me, that requires courage. That's what I linked to it.
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: Why did you include the idea of forgiveness in a
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: book about kindness?
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: It is the most understated partner in kindness.
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah, because it has implications for both the receiver and
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: the giver when it comes to kindness. I think that
• 35:21
  Speaker 4: the action of as I would articulate it in the book,
• 35:26
  Speaker 4: separating the person from the behavior, is.
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: An action of kindness.
• 35:30
  Speaker 4: We can do bad things and not be bad people,
• 35:34
  Speaker 4: and oftentimes a lot of those choices are dictated again
• 35:37
  Speaker 4: by lack of tools in our toolbox or things that
• 35:39
  Speaker 4: are happening in our life, many of those things potentially
• 35:42
  Speaker 4: outside of our control. To be clear, that does not
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: excuse the behavior. It just doesn't make the person on
• 35:48
  Speaker 4: the far side of it unlovable. And forgiveness is the
• 35:52
  Speaker 4: kind action to choose to see someone as lovable in
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: spite of their painful behaviors. Clarify it ahead of time,
• 35:59
  Speaker 4: because it's a pre correction I need. It does not
• 36:02
  Speaker 4: mean what the thing they did was right. It doesn't
• 36:04
  Speaker 4: mean they're allowed to do it again, And forgiving a
• 36:06
  Speaker 4: person does not give them permission to cross whatever boundary
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: you're setting in that moment. It's just telling the person
• 36:13
  Speaker 4: that I love you in spite of the pain. I
• 36:16
  Speaker 4: love you in spite of the hurt. In fact, I
• 36:18
  Speaker 4: can love you from afar. We can never talk again,
• 36:21
  Speaker 4: because that's a boundary I need in my life to
• 36:23
  Speaker 4: keep myself safe, to keep myself mentally well or healthy.
• 36:26
  Speaker 4: But I am releasing you from the narrative that you
• 36:31
  Speaker 4: are bad. I'm releasing myself from the narrative that I
• 36:34
  Speaker 4: deserved it.
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: That's big.
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: Yes, I can say it real simply. It's not easy.
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: In practice, it's not, but it's a you broke it
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: down in a way that felt very digestible, so at
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: least we can know it and think about it next
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: time we feel like we need to give forgiveness or
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: practice forgiveness.
• 36:54
  Speaker 4: Right. Forgiveness is freedom right because it frees me from
• 36:58
  Speaker 4: making the narrative person all the time. M H. I
• 37:01
  Speaker 4: think the things that have hurt us the most, we
• 37:03
  Speaker 4: take deeply personally, when in reality it was a behavior
• 37:07
  Speaker 4: that hurt us and not necessarily the person behind it.
• 37:10
  Speaker 4: It's really hard to separate those two. But I think
• 37:13
  Speaker 4: at some point along the way, we have all done
• 37:15
  Speaker 4: hurtful things. It does not make us a hurting person. Now,
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: I do want to qualify that statement with, like, there
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: are things that people have done in people's lives that
• 37:25
  Speaker 4: that exercise is not nearly as simple for or sometimes
• 37:30
  Speaker 4: in some situations like not even acceptable for right. And
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: I don't want to make the blanket statement that all
• 37:37
  Speaker 4: people are easily forgivable or should be forgiven particularly right away,
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: or that like there isn't more bigger healing that needs
• 37:44
  Speaker 4: to happen in order for.
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: Us to enter into that space.
• 37:46
  Speaker 4: But nonetheless, I would suggest that all people on this planet,
• 37:50
  Speaker 4: to some degree worthy of love deserving a forgiveness, even
• 37:55
  Speaker 4: if it means that they should never have that behavior again,
• 37:57
  Speaker 4: even if they have ramifications right necessary consequences to those behaviors.
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: I think that forgiveness is still one of the most
• 38:04
  Speaker 4: kind things we can do for others in ourselves.
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: So, in prepping for this interview, I read an article.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: It was a twenty eighteen article titled does it Pay
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: to Be Kind?
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: And I loved this idea.
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: I want to talk it through with you because there's
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: a term that are like a quote, people say that
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: nice guys finish last. It's always been one of my
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: least favorite terms. I don't agree with it. I don't
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: like when people say it. I don't even know where
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: it came from. I think it's nonsense, and most research
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: that I've read, actually all research that I've personally read,
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: supports that kindness actually does pay, not just financially, but
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: also financially. It said pro social behaviors increase happiness and
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: self esteem, kindness leads to reductions in risks for disease.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: It even said that when a doctor is kind to
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: a patient, colds are shortened.
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: By a day. Like it has real impact.
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: And I was wondering if you had any information to
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: support that, because I don't want to go against it.
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I want to offer two things.
• 39:09
  Speaker 4: The first one is I am a big word person,
• 39:13
  Speaker 4: and so I actually think that nice guys finished last
• 39:16
  Speaker 4: might be a truism because I think there's a really
• 39:19
  Speaker 4: strong difference between being nice and being kind.
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: The difference in my mind, It was articulated to me
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: by a.
• 39:24
  Speaker 4: High school student after I spoke at a school in
• 39:26
  Speaker 4: Texas and he came down to talk to me, and
• 39:28
  Speaker 4: he said, you know, while you were talking, I realized
• 39:30
  Speaker 4: I'm a really nice person, and I was like, cool man,
• 39:34
  Speaker 4: kind of the point he goes, No, I realize I'm nice,
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: but I don't think I'm kind. I was like, you
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: got to unpack that for me. What do you mean,
• 39:41
  Speaker 4: he goes, I think that nice is reactive. I think
• 39:44
  Speaker 4: if it's a it's a if someone's nice to me,
• 39:47
  Speaker 4: I might be nice back to them. If I like you,
• 39:49
  Speaker 4: I'll be nice to you, he goes, But kindness, the
• 39:52
  Speaker 4: way you talked about it today, to me, it sounds proactive,
• 39:55
  Speaker 4: like I have to make a choice and I have
• 39:56
  Speaker 4: to stick to it. I have to stand up for
• 39:58
  Speaker 4: what I care about, even if it's on comfortable or inconvenient,
• 40:01
  Speaker 4: that I have to practice it in spite of what
• 40:03
  Speaker 4: I'm feeling in a given moment, that even if I
• 40:06
  Speaker 4: don't like you, I'm still going to show up and
• 40:07
  Speaker 4: behave in a way towards you that is generous or
• 40:10
  Speaker 4: compassionate or respectful. And this senior boy at high school
• 40:13
  Speaker 4: in Texas, he starts to cry, is like this moment
• 40:15
  Speaker 4: of like unexpected vulnerability. He goes, I realize that Kindness
• 40:18
  Speaker 4: requires work, and I think I have a lot of
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: work to do. And I was like me too, man,
• 40:24
  Speaker 4: and these are the moments that I love about my job,
• 40:27
  Speaker 4: when you get those insights that are so clarifying.
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: Words matter.
• 40:30
  Speaker 4: I think nice guys sometimes do finish last because they're
• 40:33
  Speaker 4: wishy washy, because it's reactive, because it's unclear what they
• 40:38
  Speaker 4: care about until it's convenient to them or until they
• 40:41
  Speaker 4: benefit from it. I think kind guys finish first. Kind
• 40:45
  Speaker 4: people have really strong boundaries. Kind people have very clear
• 40:48
  Speaker 4: convictions and very clear purpose. They make decisions based on
• 40:52
  Speaker 4: something that has been clarified for them or they've chosen
• 40:55
  Speaker 4: to go through that process, and so I think people
• 40:58
  Speaker 4: are drawn towards people who have clarity whatever that thing is.
• 41:02
  Speaker 4: But kindness tends to be one that's generous. It's rooted
• 41:05
  Speaker 4: in empathy, it's rooted in understanding. It's asking questions. But
• 41:08
  Speaker 4: when it comes time to make a decision, whether it's
• 41:10
  Speaker 4: inconvenient or not, they're going to go forward with that
• 41:13
  Speaker 4: thing with with purpose and conviction, and I think people
• 41:16
  Speaker 4: are drawn to that. So I think nice guys, I
• 41:19
  Speaker 4: don't know if they should finish last. I think they
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: do naturally because people want people who are clear.
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: That's such a good distinction.
• 41:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah, nice versus kind is such a big when I
• 41:29
  Speaker 4: when I speak at schools, I can speak for an
• 41:31
  Speaker 4: hour and I'll tell stories, and I like, work really
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: hard on this whole thing, and I'll weave that in
• 41:36
  Speaker 4: and it's like a two minute part of my talk.
• 41:38
  Speaker 4: I will ask kids afterwards, like, what do you remember though,
• 41:40
  Speaker 4: like nice versus kind? Nice versus kind? Like anything else
• 41:43
  Speaker 4: from the hour? Like and not really nice versus kind?
• 41:46
  Speaker 4: So that one sticks. That one's like an important I
• 41:48
  Speaker 4: think we crave distinctions, right because words.
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: Words play such a big deal in our in our mind.
• 41:55
  Speaker 4: We like we don't always realize it because we take
• 41:57
  Speaker 4: them for granted, but they shape the way we experience emotions,
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: the way we process color and sound, the way we
• 42:02
  Speaker 4: make decisions, the way we do mental math, the way
• 42:04
  Speaker 4: we read. Like, words play a huge role in our life,
• 42:07
  Speaker 4: and so the way we think about a word, it's
• 42:09
  Speaker 4: going to have a huge role in how we act
• 42:11
  Speaker 4: with it in the world. So knowing the difference between
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: nice and kind allows me to more clearly say, am
• 42:16
  Speaker 4: I being a kind person today?
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: In my life? In this relationship what does that actually
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: look like?
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: Well, I think on the flip side, we also think, well,
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: maybe I shouldn't do that because it's not nice, And
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: there's a huge distinction. And so knowing that also allows
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: you to move forward and be kind because kind people
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: have boundaries.
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Brene Brown was a bringer back.
• 42:38
  Speaker 4: She says the most compassionate people in her research are
• 42:40
  Speaker 4: the most boundary, meaning they are very clear on what
• 42:44
  Speaker 4: they say yes and no to, which means when they
• 42:46
  Speaker 4: do things that are kind, it is rich with true
• 42:50
  Speaker 4: generosity instead of obligation.
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 42:53
  Speaker 4: The big difference between the two of those and if
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: we can get clear on what is okay and what's
• 42:57
  Speaker 4: not okay, that shows up in the the things that
• 43:00
  Speaker 4: we say say yes and no to. That shows up
• 43:02
  Speaker 4: in the way we drop boundaries. That shows up in
• 43:04
  Speaker 4: how clearly we articulate our needs or deliver on other peoples,
• 43:09
  Speaker 4: and doing things from a generous disposition instead of a
• 43:12
  Speaker 4: state of obligation. We've all felt that, we have felt
• 43:15
  Speaker 4: when people are doing something just because they have to
• 43:18
  Speaker 4: versus someone who truly wants to serve or love or
• 43:21
  Speaker 4: give to.
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: You in that moment.
• 43:23
  Speaker 4: Fully, I deviated from the original question, does it pay
• 43:26
  Speaker 4: to be kind. I accidentally spoken Alaska a few years ago,
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: and it was hilarious because it was a safety conference.
• 43:34
  Speaker 4: Because I worked in schools, I thought it was a
• 43:35
  Speaker 4: school safety conference. I learned the night before that it
• 43:39
  Speaker 4: was a like Alaska's state safety conference, which is like,
• 43:43
  Speaker 4: it's all the people who are in charge of making
• 43:45
  Speaker 4: sure people don't get injured or die on the job,
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: and Alaska is like the most dangerous state in the
• 43:50
  Speaker 4: country to work. And I was like, I have to
• 43:52
  Speaker 4: rewrite a lot of my talk, and so I did.
• 43:54
  Speaker 4: The night before, I remember listening to a podcast called Invisibilia,
• 43:58
  Speaker 4: great NPR podcast. It talks about the invisible things that
• 44:01
  Speaker 4: control our lives, and one of them was a story
• 44:03
  Speaker 4: about Exxon building the largest by a scale of four
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: x oil rig and it was called URSA, and they
• 44:13
  Speaker 4: brought in a consultant because oil rigs and that line
• 44:17
  Speaker 4: of work is one of the most dangerous occupations in
• 44:19
  Speaker 4: the world. And one of the reasons it's dangerous is
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: because the culture internal to that company, to that job
• 44:26
  Speaker 4: for so long is that we don't ask for help.
• 44:29
  Speaker 4: That the masculinity and the lens at which they view
• 44:32
  Speaker 4: that work is we don't ask for help because it's weak,
• 44:34
  Speaker 4: because it's soft, because I should know what to do
• 44:37
  Speaker 4: all those narratives, and the consequence, by the way of
• 44:39
  Speaker 4: not asking for help in some of those situations for
• 44:41
  Speaker 4: some people is actually dying. So I thought about that example,
• 44:45
  Speaker 4: and they brought in this leadership coach. It's eccentric frenchwoman
• 44:48
  Speaker 4: I believe, who did vulnerability and empathy coaching with all
• 44:52
  Speaker 4: the managers across this rig to the point where grown men.
• 44:57
  Speaker 4: I remember this part really clearly, was they were being
• 44:59
  Speaker 4: asked to wash their other counterparts, like other men in
• 45:03
  Speaker 4: the organization, other managers their feet, and one gentleman like
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: forgot who he was because this behavior was so far
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: outside of the context that he'd grown up in. So
• 45:13
  Speaker 4: really like profound and like over multiple months, like talking
• 45:16
  Speaker 4: and unpacking empathy, and the stats on the far side
• 45:19
  Speaker 4: of all of this, like empathy coaching, this kindness coaching,
• 45:22
  Speaker 4: this vulnerability coaching, was that injuries dropped eighty six percent
• 45:26
  Speaker 4: and productivity doubled. I like to say that kindness is
• 45:30
  Speaker 4: one of the most it's not just like a nice
• 45:32
  Speaker 4: to have, it's a necessity. I think it's one of
• 45:35
  Speaker 4: the It is the through line that is perhaps the
• 45:38
  Speaker 4: most important foundational thing we can do organizationally to create
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: a space where people feel safe asking for help, create
• 45:44
  Speaker 4: a space where people offer and enjoy and find, you know,
• 45:47
  Speaker 4: find that joy in serving others to offer that help.
• 45:50
  Speaker 4: And what happens when we create a culture where that's
• 45:52
  Speaker 4: real is people feel okay asking those questions, People feel
• 45:56
  Speaker 4: okay to show up and give help to others.
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: And in this line of work, it costs people literal lives.
• 46:02
  Speaker 4: But in other lines of work, you know, it has
• 46:04
  Speaker 4: all kinds of implications, whether it's from productivity to burnout
• 46:08
  Speaker 4: to motivation and all the things in between.
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: It absolutely pays to be kind.
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: Oh I love that. I love that you agree with
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: the article.
• 46:19
  Speaker 4: I would not disagree with that research. That's good research
• 46:24
  Speaker 4: in my world.
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: The other I'm not a social scientist, but I'm going
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: to agree with that.
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: So we do a little rapid fire at the close
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: of every interview. What is one book that changed your
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: life that you think everybody should read?
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: On being Nice by the School.
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: Of Life Wonderful.
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: I do a pretty smart question, so I pick one
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: of fifty two cards at random. You got what is
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: your favorite smell.
• 46:48
  Speaker 4: M when I walk into the kitchen when I'm visiting
• 46:52
  Speaker 4: my mom in Maine, and I know that for a
• 46:55
  Speaker 4: few hours beforehand, she started making my favorite meal, shrimp pasta.
• 47:01
  Speaker 4: Started early in the morning and it'll simmer all day.
• 47:04
  Speaker 4: And the anticipation.
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: Of that meal at night.
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: That sound you're making me hungry.
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: I'm hungry myself.
• 47:12
  Speaker 4: Now.
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: What is the smartest decision you've ever made?
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: Deciding not to do this work alone?
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: Mm, that's nice. I have to tell you, Houston, I
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: threw a lot at you.
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: I didn't give you an outline, you didn't know what
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: I was going to ask you. You really had a
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: lot of information to share. I'm so grateful that you
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: shared it with me, and for your time. Okay, you
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: know what time it is.
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: Today's a good day. To have a good day. I'll
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: see you next week.