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The Cowboy Myth Every Activist Believes with Shane Lukas · find your cause

• speaker-0: organization, especially one that's gonna go out and say, hey, you know, we're out here working to feed community members, right? And then you find out like they're doing maybe five picnic baskets a year, but they're raking in $180,000, people are gonna have that conversation. So we're like, hey, you need to get ahead of it. speaker-1: Alrighty. So thanks everyone for tuning into this episode of Find Your Cause. Today we have Shane Lucas, who's the owner and creative strategist of A Great Idea. Shane, thanks so much for your time on this Friday. speaker-0: Hey, thank you so much for inviting me to be here and being part of this conversation. I I love what you're doing and elevating organizations and people and leaders throughout the nation doing amazing things. Hands ⁓ hands up. speaker-1: I'll appreciate that too. But we're here for you, which I'm excited about. And we've had some calls before this to get a line, but what is a great idea? Let's start there. speaker-0: Well, Great Idea is a brand communications firm, and we work with purpose-driven for profit companies in the healthcare and education sector as well as nonprofits across the country. And really, our focus is on community led and advocacy centered work. So we look at making sure that people who are interested and invested in the kind of transformative work organizations are doing, that they see themselves as part of that movement, and then how they can participate, whether that's as donors, volunteers, as consumers in the case of for profit. But our goal is to see social movements happen. And we're there to help propel and develop the story sharing work that's needed in order for those organizations to do that. We're an ad agency, but we're more than that. We're really a content partner. speaker-1: Why you? Why you? speaker-0: Why us? Well, part of it comes from I'm a born activist. So I should say I started as an activist in my teen years and I've been an activist through my entire life. I just had my 52nd birthday. So that gives you an idea of how many years I've been at it. And I've been doing grassroots organizing as well as community organizing and participating for many years. And so part of it is that our team and all of our teams all across the country, they also are part of different movements and they're engaged in different movements. And so what we bring is actually a perspective. that many organizations don't, which is to say that we are on the ground and we are invested in our own personal lives as well as in the professional skills that we bring every day to our partners. And that's shown up in our award-winning work, whether that's Anthem Awards or other areas, as well as just the numbers, the sheer impacts from our partners. speaker-1: Him. And thank you for that. When you explain the type of organizations you work with, you meant community-led, advocacy-centered, purpose-driven, for profit and nonprofit. Isn't every organization fall into that bucket to some means? Or how would you differentiate those that are truly community led or ad advocacy-centered or purpose driven? Because I feel like every organization, for profit, nonprofit, always says they're purpose-driven. So have you seen over your years kind of what where those boxes are really checked versus where maybe not so much? Or I'd love your experience kinda wading through that and figuring out what partnerships you develop. speaker-0: Absolutely. It's great question, right? Because that yes, of course, purpose is well, what is your purpose? Purpose can just simply be capitalism, right? So if your call is just solely money, I think what we really put forward and what I'm actually putting forward in a book coming out later this year is really talking about what advocacy centered work means. Because it's getting beyond the transaction. Because all of us feel and we know that experience when we're and that can happen with nonprofits, it can happen with for profits. We know we're just there for them to sell something to. Either they want to make you cry at a commercial, thank you, Sally Struthers, or whether they're just trying to sell you something was an ad on TV. And there's just not a company there that really cares that much about what the consumer or the person investing that effort and energy experiences. And that goes including for the people who are impacted. So especially with nonprofits, you want a nonprofit that's looking beyond transactional. You want organizations to think of themselves as part of wanting to do systemic change. You wouldn't need to create a food bank if you didn't have food deserts or systems where food was not present. And so if you're not there to do systems change, you're really just there pushing that problem further and further down the road and/or profiting off that problem, which is the bigger problem overall. And so the goal is you want to have that systems change. So somebody in order an organization, a leader, somebody who's trying to do purpose-driven work is understanding: hey, we're here to adjust the systems, address the systems, and make sure that we are creating a world that's better for everybody at some level, right? In addressing inequalities, addressing injustices, addressing ways in which the community members and the neighbors in your area are able to thrive in their own bodies, in their own decisions, in their own world. And that's something we put forward, something we really model in our own work, but it's also among our partners, it's something that they do. And for profit companies can see that, can see that the values in it, whether those are your big examples like Patagonia or other ones like that, or your Bambas, other organizations that look to do and have a larger impact. Or it's just your local non-map pop shop, your local business that sees, hey, our neighbors need this. You can look at what how you can look at how communities responded in Asheville, for example, after the hurricane there that took out many of the different businesses and many of the different community members who were impacted. And you saw businesses come together and businesses who were on the street looking at I may sell records, but I'm actually out here trying to help and see what I can do for food, how I can help our community members. That's an extreme example. But when you think about businesses in approaching the world in which Their consumers are more than just consumers. They carry lives, they have stories, they have ways of being in the world. And if you can start to see them on that full dimensional level and start to engage with them in a way that they're investing in your business by purchasing your product or by engaging with you as a donor, or even just coming to access your services, if that's what you're providing. And you start to see them holistically, then you actually start to build a more robust and a more rich relationship with those individuals who want to see you sustain the work that you're doing. And ideally engage in that transformation that you want to see possible, whether that is an innovative product or whether that is simply a systems change. speaker-1: Yeah. Is there a like a mental model or mental activity that a for profit or nonprofit leader could go through to help understand what that story of impact they could tell is? Because I've interviewed nonprofits that are having such an obvious impact, but sometimes they maybe can't tell the story well enough. And I've also on the opposite side interview nonprofits, even for profits that y they tell their story and you're like, Well, that's a stretch. That's like multiple transitive properties to say that you have any impact, like for what it's worth. So is there what's that muscle that could be practiced or worked or mental model or activity that could be done to to try to start putting that story together from your experience? speaker-0: Love that you're bringing that up. And I did not just so people listen to this, not prompt you to say that. I do not at all. And if you go to our site, if you go to insights, you can actually download a map. And it's actually a tool, it's a PDF tool. You can fill it in. And it's actually talking about how you develop your brand story and how your brand story is experienced by all these different dimensions and levels of individuals who are invested in that brand story. So you because in in this modern day and age, and you could argue maybe it was never true, but it was more true in the past where there were very controlled channels of communication. And we could talk about the future of communication in America another time. But at least in this idea of a heavily democratized media where you have social media and email systems and the internet, obviously in ways that you can focus your attention. Since you have all those different ways, people actually control the narrative even more than the companies or the organizations can control that narrative. Right. So we could put out something and really prompt it. But by and large, and we've seen this happen many times, right? Individuals, communities can work en masse and collectively to start to build up a different narrative, especially when there's dissonance in that narrative, target. There are a lot of different examples where that has played out for brands, right? And organizations and small businesses, like they also have to think about well, what does this mean? How are people sharing our story? So we created this map, and it's again part of something I do in my brand strategy work. Is really talk about the ways in which, yes, we have a story we would like to see out there. We have a story that we want to talk about. My starting point always is a value system, a fundamental value system that helps inform people to understand why it is that they should invest in you and essentially where that credibility gets built, right? Because that is if you align to my values and you are modeling those values, then I can trust you with my money, I can trust you with my time, I can trust you with my word of mouth, which is priceless, all of those things. And so the map that's that we have on the site, you can go and download it. It's free. You can go and download it. And it's essentially there to start actually show showing you how many different invested groups there are within your brand. So those are internal individuals who may be working for your organization, leadership work for your organization, your board members if you're working for an organization, or even if you're again a for-profit company at an enterprise or a mid-sized level, as well as other community members, people who access those services, people Who's all related to those people who access services, right? The community and the neighborhoods in which you operate your business, because they will also have their own statements and understanding about who you are, right? Like all of those things are true. And so what we did is try to actually put that in a map form so that you could start to break out all those different places and then start to think about well, where are we kind of losing the thread? Where is our story maybe not being as successful? Because if our team, which often happens in nonprofits, don't actually understand the long-term impact of what we're doing. And they're on the communities, like directly one on one, having interactions. That's awkward, right? Because they're like, Hey, we're a housing organ. You're like, actually, we're beyond housing. We actually are working for a way for people to shift their life into more control. And that can include employment and food access and ability to assert agency and variety of labor rights. Like all these things may be part of that housing conversation. And you have somebody out there just going, like, hey, we just make houses, we find houses for people, right? Like that's That sometimes misses the point because it doesn't actually give people an on-road to actually see, ⁓ I want to invest in this because I see the system you're trying to change. It's not just about finding housing for individuals. It's actually talking about the ways in which they can start to build the life they want. And that's great. That says, I'm really interested in that. I would invest in that. I would want to see that. Maybe that's even tied to a personal experience that I have. And so the map you can go download it online, but that's really what that map is there to start a conversation. to understand how many different invested groups you have in a brand store. speaker-1: If you're an organization that does a lot of things and can have examples and show impact in a lot of different areas, how would you filter or simplify or or does it make sense to to filter and simplify your story? And then and is it like areas that potentially have more value or areas that are easier to explain or areas that maybe more people are interested in, which that changes over time? speaker-0: I think that's a great question because it really comes down to your Amazoning problem, right? So as an organization, if you do everything, then there's a bunch of questions. United Way is a good example of an organization whose brand really has filtered out to a point where it's almost, I don't want to say meaningless, because again, United Way does incredible work. They certainly are funders for a lot of incredible work throughout the nation. And I want to call that out. But if you were to try to explain to me what is the United Way actually doing? Right. What is the goal? That's a toughie. I would say they're an organization that really resembles that kind of miasmic sense of we're doing good. Okay, to what end? Right. And so an organization or a business needs to actually be able to identify. That's what we focus on doing, is we're like, hey, how clear are we in this? What are we trying to do? Because we need to make choices. So my second TED talk recently came out. I'm really excited about it. I hope people get a chance to see it. You can go see it at SaviourSpark.com or you can go check it out and look me up on TEDx. But The whole point of the talk is about value systems because we have so many values and we're trying to hold all of them at the same time that we never actually are able to feel comfortable about it because we're actually trying to do so much and the weight of that and the conflict ends up forcing us to cave into niceness. And niceness meaning not inherently bad, but niceness just meaning it's not got a direction to it, right? It's deplication. It's a lot of things. And if we really want to, especially somebody who's an activist, we really want to transform the world. We have to give it direction. And we have to be able to be comfortable with the kind of dissent that's necessary. Because if the system were doing all the things that it should do for us all to thrive on our terms in the ways that is best for all of humanity, we wouldn't be having hunger issues. We wouldn't be having the kind of infant mortality. We wouldn't be having the kind of maternal mortality. We wouldn't be having all of these things at the rates at which we do. So we know the systems are broken. The question is, how are we willing, how are we willing to address those? How are we willing to make life better? And that's what I mean by purpose-driven is that are you wanting to make the world better? If you're just out there to sell me tchotchkis, I don't care. You're not really for us. We're not really gonna be able to help you. Tchotchkis. Pretty tchotkis, we love it. Great. Awesome. Go get them. But for us, we're really interested in that transformative work. We're interested in you connecting with an audience that also sees the value of that transformation. And to your point, our goal, like the work we try to do is narrow that conversation in. So that even if you're working in, let's say, five different areas, working in food, housing, let's say pharma and medical care, there should be some thread that people are able to condense down into a single sentence when they're in a line at a shopping in a shopping line and somebody says, Hey, I heard you were working with X and Y organization or X and Y business. You should be able to say, Yes. And they do this, which has this impact, right? And if we can't do that, if we can't condense that down, then that's also an operational problem. Because that means maybe you're trying to sell cars and simultaneously, I don't know, feed cows and simultaneously do if you're if they're just so disparate, then you have to ask institutionally, how are you thinking about your decisions and what is the role you want to have? Maybe in those cases, we would suggest maybe splintering or creating sub brands, because at that point you're no longer actually creating a consistent story. speaker-1: How is there I'm sure you've in an experienced this with s some brands, but how what is the line between like socially being manipulated and pulling on heart strings? How do you differentiate that when you know brands like really you're like fear mongering, you're guilting me into this versus I don't feel it like w whatever that translates to in real life. But I feel like it's a very fine line sometimes. speaker-0: gonna come back to values, right? Like our values and they should show up. So when we work with organizations and we are doing the kind of brand audits and working with them directly, we're really talking about those values, but then how are they played out both institutionally and how are they played out within the product and the sort of you I would say commercial sphere or at least the the consumer sphere, right? How are those playing out? Because our feeling is and we're pretty blunt about this, people know I don't know what secrets you think you can have in this day and age, but it does not take long. For an organization, especially one that's gonna go out and say, Hey, we're out here working to feed community members, right? And then you find out like they're doing maybe five picnic baskets a year, but they're raking in $180,000. And you gotta be like, so that feels weird, right? Like that feels weird. And people are gonna see that because they're gonna be like, I just gave you umpty thousand dollars and it looks like you gave out five picnic baskets. I don't what is the impact you're actually having? In that right. People are going to have that conversation. So we're like, hey, you need to get ahead of it. And we do that around issues. If you're going to go in around a conversation around racial justice, we want to make sure we're having an upfront conversation about what does that mean about leadership that is diverse. If you're going to go and have a conversation around gender, how are you creating spaces where gender diversity and gender equity are part of the conversation? If you're going to go in and have these conversations, then you need to make sure that you're willing to hear that dissent. Even when I do brand evolutions, one of the things that I love to do. It's one of my favorite things to do actually is I love to talk to organiz to people who were in organizations or working with companies that left them. I want to talk to people who are disappointed or dejected by the whole experience or have chosen otherwise, right? Because that helps us, right? That kind of different modeling, because it helps us get something beyond confirmation bias and say, ⁓ actually we're seen as an organization that's a behemoth, even though we like to think of ourselves as little upstarts. We're actually seen as a behemoth in the community. And so maybe we need to rethink how we talk about our size and scale. Because maybe we started that way, but now we're 15 years in with a $100 million budget. And we need to rethink the way we talk about ourselves. If we want to talk about staying grassroots, we need to have a conversation that's very different than one if we were just like a little upstart, right? Because people know. They know. And we tried to start the conversations. That's part of the reason that that map is that. You have other community members who are invested and the family members will talk and the families will talk and your staff will talk and their families will talk. And all of this will happen and it happens in a heavily democratized world. speaker-1: If okay, so as corporations, not for profits, nonprofits are developing their story of their value, I'm assuming that it has to align well it what not one with a cutter horse, but values of the organization in order to resonate with individuals at a human level have to be shared values. If you were to see a heat map of the top ten or top five values that individuals have over the past twenty years. Like what values would you see bubble up to get bigger on a heat map and shrink kind of from speaker-0: That's such a tough one, right? That's such a tough one. Cause actually I first of all, I if anybody's done that study, I would love to see it. What is I think we talk about values a lot. That's one reason I did the TED Talk. I don't think we actually sit down with them very often. I don't think people actually sit down. And part of the part of what I talk about in the TED Talk is that a structuring of your values actually helps you make the harder decisions. And I think right now we don't structure them. So what would be the cultural sort of key points of common values? I think. most people state values that they may not always necessarily behave with that being in the frame. That's part of the reason I did the TED talk is I think we're being asked in this current moment to say if we believe in neighborliness or we believe in our faith communities or we believe in certain things, then how are we prioritizing those, especially light of the political climate? If you are comfortable watching, we could talk about children being torn from families, we could talk about many of the I don't want to get too deep into politics, though I'm happy to, but if we can look at the current climate where there's injustices that feel like they're pretty much on on show, on display, and feel good about that, then I I have to wonder what is your value system? So I think most people see themselves as wanting to be trustworthy. I think yeah I think that's a common one, right? I think where we've run astray a little bit and it's a bigger conversation is just That feelings have now supplanted the idea of facts and we don't have a shared sense about what is fact, right? We don't have a centered source. And this is the big risk for me in AI, and that's a again a different conversation. But I think that centered source and agreement on facts, even if they aren't things I'm comfortable hearing, I think that has been I think that has moved some of the value systems because I think it moved from this idea of I'd like to find a bridge to get to a good place. And that's something that again, I think was a common value. I grew up in the Midwest, I grew up in farm country. And so that was a common idea of this sort of bridge, right? But now it's, hey, I want to find a bridge. But by bridge, I mean I want you to agree with me. And that that has, I think, played out in some different ways and probably changed the way that people see their value systems. And I'd be interested to see any research on it. speaker-1: I I would I I definitely agree with you. I feel like trustworthiness is something that's you people are demanding more and working backwards from trust like what makes trustworthiness. It's like honesty and truth, I feel like is one component of that. So I feel like the val the value of honesty and the value of truth is one of those increasing heat map bubbles as in this is this age of AI that we value. speaker-0: Hunger for it, but it goes without again getting political. The the warped language around truth is also something that I think is a historically will be historically notable. Long after I'm gone and they do whatever it is, they do books, ebooks, 3D dimensional, I don't know, whatever kind of technology it is that is going to be the lived experience of exploring history. I imagine that they will that will be one of the notations of the time. Is the blurring, though the use of the same words for certain things that just don't tend to mean the same thing. And I think that is going to be I hope I'm not too vague in that. It is just it is notable. And I think particularly in hyperdigitized environment, it is the I I don't mean to be, I'm not gonna be too get off my lawn kind of old man here with print. You have, and we as I mentioned before, a a common source. Now that's not to say that there wasn't propaganda in print. It wasn't to say that there wasn't bias in print. All these things happen. But if you were to read a publication in New York and you took the publication on a plane with you to LA, it would be the same publication, right? So we could say that there is a sort of concreteness to the media itself. And now we're going to be in a world and we are in a world where those aren't necessarily true as digital pieces start to and can. restructure based on information provided with and without my consent. So that's AI. Or we look at news channels where information, depending on which channel you're watching, is giving you a radically different variant of what we would consider factual information, right? We're seeing that now with the the very sad loss of veterans in in the Middle East. And we're seeing that type of information again be very even with unemployment data that came out earlier today, shifting almost as the sands move rather than having some sort of concrete thing that we feel like we could trust. Now we have this sort of like the the data from three months ago is not quite the same data as it was now and it's kind of changing as we go. And that is that leaves us all uneasy. So I think in this current time, having that continuity, but it's more of an argument as to why continuity of story for an organization matters the most because you are trying to encourage your advocates, your audiences to have a clean understanding Of what it is you do, what you're looking to change, how you're looking to change things in the world, because that creates that credibility. If they know you're out there and you're there addressing, let's say, school supplies for young people, and they know that and they can see that and they can it gets reiterated back to them. And the people who are on your teams, they understand that and they understand they're there to make education more accessible for all young people. Gosh, that's a powerful message. And then if you expand that to lunches and things like that, like you were talking about earlier, you can do that. But if that story's clear, you have a lot of room to be able to talk about how that transformation's going to happen. And then just make that transformation happen. Make it so that every kid has opportunities. Great. I'm for speaker-1: Yeah. Me too. Me too. I I think it was you and I that were speaking before when this was brought up and it was like an aha moment for me. Let me know if it's not, but the the bar to get a publisher's license and to r that require like what are the requirements of getting a publisher's license of telling the truth and how social media outlets are not held to the same bar of as publishers are. But at the same time people I feel when they think of the news, they get annoyed or burnt out from the news. But I I feel like a lot of times people are finding their facts and their truths from Chat GPT and Facebook and TikTok and Instagram because they're annoyed of these other outlets that have historically been our news sources, but don't know how like the bar and the requirements of actually keeping those licensing. Was that us that talked about? speaker-0: I don't remember if we talked about it, but I think it it's certainly a resonant point. And again, it's hard not to feel and I want to be careful about any nostalgia. I think when we talk about nostalgia, things were better in my day. We we had three channels, we didn't have eighty-five, and then we had the internet and all this. So I want to be careful about that because of course also when we had three channels, we also had higher instances of domestic violence. We had a lot of we had a lot of other problems culturally that and a lot of inequalities. We still have a lot of those today. So I'm not looking to romance the past. But I do think what you're putting your finger on is really powerful because it does say, look, it is overwhelming. How could it not be? Because it is important to remember that the majority of media that we access is privately owned under private controls. Now, that's not to say ABC, NBC, and CBS, right? The primary three networks, at least when I was growing up. And we could argue we could put PBS in the corner. Nobody was baby in the corner, but we're gonna put PBS in the corner. It's a good, that's a good eighties reference for y'all. And but let's focus on those three that they were privately owned institutions as well. However, they did have an accord, and by accord, a very loosely loose accord, because I study journalism. I actually won the RTNDF and the Freedom Form Awards when I was a student. There was a time, again, there was a time where the idea of journalistic principle, even if you were going to be competing stations, was this sense that there is a central truth. Now And truth is a complicated concept. But the point being that there was an agreed upon sense of facts that if we went to the same space and we looked at, let's say, ⁓ climate scientists, and climate scientists said this is how long we have for the world before it burns up, that we'd all be like, okay, I guess we report on that and we can feel talk to people about how they feel about it, all that sort of stuff. But once we start supplanting fact or factual spaces with how we feel about it, right, and we're able to take to Publishing channels where there isn't any control, right? Where Facebook's not gonna fact check, right? They're not doing any. In fact, they've made it very clear they're not gonna do that, which is special, especially when it comes to elected and campaign issues. When we go to all these channels, and now, yeah, we're getting like this climate scientist says this, but I don't feel like it's true. And I feel like actually the world's got four years left. I feel the world's got 800 years left. I feel like Ven Venetians are gonna come down and kind of take over every I don't know, whatever. You of course you're gonna look for how do I possibly filter this in a meaningful way, right? And the problem is that we don't have a collective agreement. I'm a big fan. I believe government or communities have a lot of power in collective agreement to find like what is it that we agree on is the principle here. Is it creating in a good faith argument for what is best for everybody? This is where I think Europe is really actually leading the way in many of these conversations because they're saying, hey, maybe we should be thinking about the information that we get, because we dropped the ball on social media and internet. We didn't actually look at those at all. But now with AI, with private companies, there isn't anything to vet it. What's there is going to be entangled in a profit motive, whether we like it or not. And it will determine the kind of information that we get. So I understand consumers wanting to go to it. And I think for all of us, again, we are. trying to weigh out all the havoc. But I think it's incredibly dangerous. And I think there's reasons to be suspect about private enterprise being the solution. I'm not saying government is flawless or that community agreements are flawless, but I am saying that there's higher accountability and higher transparency when you have more people at the table and you have more of a a practice and a protocol that requires a good faith conversation about what happens versus companies which can just close the door, pretend whatever they want. And then just come back and tell us. I don't know, tell us, I'm trying to think of a good example currently, but there's plenty of them. Tell us so they can clean the reflecting pool in DC. So there's no limit, really, in many cases. In fact, the Supreme Court has undone many of the limits of what corporations can do. And that should make us nervous. Again, I'm not anti-business. I'm a conscious capitalist. I have my MBA. I run a business. But I'm saying I believe in Community accountability. And I believe that communities have opportunities. And technically, I wish we talked more politically about what a shared contract looks like among us all. So that when we're all paying our taxes and doing things, we're working towards something that's a shared solution. And so in this current economy, in this current news economy, to your point, there isn't, there aren't any sort of controls for how that works. And AI can tell us it's not all true and verified. But if your sources to verify are themselves problematic because they're all digital as well and they're all modeled after the same thing, how does that work? speaker-1: No. Yeah. How does that work in a way where I feel like an easy answer would be like, well, just go g be have your lived experience. Go see it. Go, go experience it to start building your own story of what what is happening. But that a lot of times it's very hard for people to go to certain parts of the world where they have questions that need answered can be expensive. speaker-0: Or that your lived experience, which is a beautiful thing, and I love lived experiences, it's important. It's important for us to have that as a community to hear diverse lived experiences. But it's also it's going to be limited, meaning that it is limited to your temporal self. It is limited to the identities in which you express, in which the world treats you. There's a whole host of things. So I can go someplace and I can experience a thing that doesn't make it truth. It does make it a story and something that you can share, but it doesn't make it truth. And again, I think that supplanting of Well, I mentioned science and truth. And also I think feeling as truth. That that is a scary, is a scary idea. Because rather than us having empathy and beginning to build that empathy in for people's lived experiences, ⁓ wow, I'm glad I thank you for sharing that experience. Now I'd like to look at the data. I'd actually like to sit down and be like, okay, you had a terrible experience and COVID's a good example of this, right? We have numbers. And then I have people who are like, Well, I didn't know anybody. I buried several people during that era. And we all are going to bring these different lived experiences in. Both of us are right, both of us are wrong. Cause certain s certain systems did not have a lot of that, a lot of mortality. Certain systems did have a lot of mortality. But I bet some numbers, some really ones that we agree on that trusted sources could actually help us know, was it a serious issue? I think we can I would say yes, but I'm saying once we don't agree on those numbers, once we don't agree on that data, at that point, then it then it just comes a debate, ⁓ the debate over nothing. speaker-1: Gotcha. Question for maybe a young sixteen year old that is feeling out of control in their life and is just being inundated by media, by I'm a huge believer that you're you you're influenced by the people you're with, the places you're at, whether you know it or not, they're gonna have some sort of influence on you, kind of like the Jim Rohn's Love Five or whatever it is. So for somebody maybe even that's younger. that is trying to understand what values they need to develop as a human and should develop as a human, what would be some advice for this this up and coming activist? speaker-0: ⁓ wow. To to I think for any anybody who wants to engage in transformative work, I think that the number one thing you have to do is put on your own mask first. So I'm gonna say this because I think the courage and the drive in order to be part of social movements is incredibly powerful. Oftentimes it is an experience or an interaction or something that drives you into that work and drives that passion, which I think is beautiful. Where I've seen that kind of be the most challenging is that. being so caught up in the moment that you forget to take a second and see, well, where am I and what do I need? So that's the number one thing because it is a marathon, not a sprint. I would love to say that these transformations are going to happen overnight. Anybody's been doing activist work for a long time will tell you that's not true. That it is a long haul. And so that is probably the the number one thing I think the number one lesson I learned early on was hearing from other activists and talking about like, all right, it's not to say you don't put pressure on, you don't continue to push. It's to say you have to think about the practical things in that if you're going to commit to this transformational work, it is going to be a long haul. And if you want to change, if you want to address racial justice, for example, a ⁓ challenge, something that has been ongoing now for a hundred and well, actually arguably several thousand years, you need to be in a place where you are your needs, food, housing, all those things are starting to get taken care of, start to move there, look among community and movement, and then basically start to build on that. And be like, all right, now that I feel like I'm in the stable space, I can also talk about where I can create dissent or have a voice of dissent in these spaces and I can respond to that dissent in a constructive way. Cause that's really what it is, right? Any any system's transformation is about how you respond to dissent, right? Because you are essentially the system as it is right now is not functioning for everybody. And we know that. Otherwise we wouldn't be doing transformational work. I said that before. And so if you're gonna go in and start to challenge it, which we should do, good trouble. John Lewis, it's very much good trouble, whatever's possible. Then you have to be prepared for what that pushback's going to look like. And that is hard. Again, I'm a cis white male. There's a lot of privileges I get to exist with in this world that help my resilience. And I'm aware of that. That's part of the the work that I do in my own. But I think when we're talking about other community members and all community members of all identities coming to the table, then I think it's recognizing that those who the most amounts of privilege also have to be aware of. How are we supporting other community members' voices and other community members being at the table, being in these spaces? How are we making sure that resources that we may not feel are very challenging, in fact, are when you look at the stats on many cases in many communities? And how are we making sure we're part of those solutions as well? So I think for any activist coming into the room, the number one thing to me is once you identify what it is you are looking to change within the system, you really have to think about how am I positioning myself to be here to hold steady in this point of descent? And then my second thing is going to be looking around you. Who is with you in this practice? Is it all people who agree with you? Is it all people of the same lived experience? Cause that's also not always the most healthy choice either, right? You want to create an experience where you're getting constructive debate and dialogue and conversations about the different solutions that are possible. You also want that diversity of experiences in the room as possible. Cause no thing you could tell me in terms of a systems transformation. involves one community and one identity. It involves so many. If we're talking about disability rights, then we're also talking about racism and we're talking about gender rush justice and we're talking about so many things, right? Regardless of what it is, it will always have intersections with other community members. We're talking could be talking about poverty. We talk about many things. And so how are you walking alongside other people in this work? Because again, I think so many people see themselves as a vanguard of change and they want to rush into a thing to see it happen. And the problem is it burns out. Is one, like we've seen that many times. The other thing is that you end up estranging many of the other intersectional communities who may have already done some of that work. So you don't end up acknowledging some some foundational pieces that have already been done, or you end up making it harder for them, if they've already been investing in spaces, to actually get their work done. And so just starting to look around you and be like, who else is in coalition in this? And what do I have to learn in this process? And I want to walk, I want to walk alongside community members. I don't want to just do it my own, right? I think that. American mythology about the independent cowboy. So cute, right? But also so problematic. And so it just isn't true. So any leader, whether we're talking about MLK, whether we're talking about there's so many other leaders throughout different movements, none of them did it alone, right? They're just that they were never by themselves. They did it in tandem and country in in collaboration and community. I I always come back to Sylvia Deveda and Marsha B. Johnson. They were great friends. They're amazing. If you don't know them from the LGBTQ plus rights movement, they are amazing people to know. And they knew each other and they were in communication as well as many other people. They were not alone. There were many other people and they saw themselves as part of this community and part of this work. And for me, it's very much a model of what activism can mean. speaker-1: Yeah. ⁓ What is the impact that Shane Lucas is measuring and hoping to have and has have has had over the past couple decades? ⁓ speaker-0: Well, it's it's I think the impact that we've had, especially with our partners, I'm really proud that we're over 10 years been working with partners. So I would say as the company, in terms of a great idea, that we've been able to support grassroots organizing that has done amazing work by bringing new leadership to communities throughout the country, as well as bring issues that have not been necessarily surfaced easily, have been able to elevate those because of our partners who are on the ground doing incredible work. And then we make it pretty or we make it clearer, we make it impactful. And that means it has had enormous impacts for community members across the nation, from New York to California, here in North Carolina, Virginia, Texas, many places. And so that is the thing that I would say like for me, when they're successful, when our partners get legislation passed, when our partners are able to push back against challenges, against putting a paper factory, a pellet factory in the South, then great. Right. Like that's to me that those achievements. My personal achievements I think for me, it's that I've been so grateful to see a young leadership develop, especially in areas around bodily autonomy, which is where I've spent my time. So I started with Planned Parenthood and I've worked in bodily autonomy and harm reduction my whole life. That I've been excited to see through again, I probably played like the tiniest little fractional part in it, but that there was a a a broad coalition of Gender identities and experiences that make up some of the movements advancing bodily autonomy, whether that's sex work decrim or other things like that, that I'm really proud to be part of that movement. And it's something that I'm really proud of in my own history because it's been so critical in my own history. I bodily autonomy is one of my core values. It's one of the things that I fight for. And I am so grateful to have seen so many changes in young leaders who don't know who the heck I am and don't need to. That's it's that's fine. But that I know I was part of a number of early rights movements and marches and I organized the only program for men in the industry, for men in the adult industry, for example, for twenty years. All of these things that I was able to do that laid groundwork for what's possible. And that to me is the measure of what's good. speaker-1: Ten years from now, looking back with a great idea, what do you hope to have seen or to have accomplished or to have done? speaker-0: Well, it's a great question too, because I think about that. I think about that, having a birthday and all those things. With the book that's coming out this fall, the goal for me at this point. So my first TED Talk was out when I turned 50. My second TED Talk, which is about values, is out now. I'm really interested in getting more businesses and structured, I would say, resource rich entities. We'll go with that, to start thinking of themselves on a more advocacy-centric basis. So I'm really trying to take some of what is the conscious capitalism model, which I really appreciate, though I think isn't really centered in grassroots work. So while its its intentions are good, I think that there are some some fundamental challenges and what it's trying to do in elevating voices that should be community led within those conversations. So my goal over the next several years, through this first book, and then I have a couple of books that'll follow on top of that. Are really about driving this narrative that it's not only good business, and it really is good business, it's good business to create deeper relationships among your audiences and among individuals and communities that are invested in you, right? It's just good business. They trust you, they want to see you succeed, all of this is there. But also it's going to take a mental change. It's going to take a a a way for us to get a little bit apart from solely transactional thinking. And I think that if I can break that. And at least model and show more businesses to come up and be little upstarts, not startups. There's plenty of those. We got a lot of those. We look at a lot of startups in the world. But upstarts. I want to see more businesses show up. And there are some amazing examples across the country who have started up and are saying, I actually understand that I can start a business or start an organization. And I want to see real things change. I meaningfully want to see these things change. And I'm willing to talk about what it means among my community members because I'm not interested in everybody with a wallet. I'm not interested in everybody in the community in terms of them being a contributor or an advocate of me. Because if I got everybody, then I don't actually want the system to change all that much. That's no reality. That's just the reality, right? So, but you do want to find the community members that are aligned and do want to see that happen. And then how do you mobilize them? And to me, you can mobilize them and you can create a profit in that process because it is a capitalism and we could talk about that separately. But it is the world in which we live in. That being said, you can do it in such a responsible way as to continue to generate more opportunities for more community members and create more spaces for community members to bring their own ideas into the mix, to bring their own passion and courage into the mix. And that to me is a really powerful idea. So if I leave a legacy, to me, it would be that. speaker-1: Awesome. People that are listening and want to get engaged or learn more, where can they go to to learn more about you and a great idea? speaker-0: Well, thank you very much. First of all, let me say thank you for inviting me on here to be for today. I appreciate it. And thank you, everybody, listening as well. You can follow me and learn more about me at shanelucas.com. That's Lucas with a K, so S-H-A-N-E-L-U-K-A-S. You can watch the TED Talks there. You can learn more about my work and stay tuned about the book coming out later this year. You can also check out a great idea at a great idea.com. Our social channels are available on both those sites. You can follow them on all those sites. And you can also catch me as one of the co-hosts of the Power Beyond Pride podcast team. That is about queer changemakers. So every week you can tune in to a podcast about LGBTQ changemakers from across the country. We have seven members of the co-host team, all representing different parts of our vast and vital community. And they're amazing and I love them all. So please check them out and get to meet some really amazing people. Shanelucas.com to contact me, a great idea.com to learn about our creative strategy work and creative support, as well as powerbeyondpride.com if you want to follow that podcast. speaker-1: Well Shane, is anything we missed or maybe you wanna leave us with before we wrap up here? speaker-0: I think hope. I I I don't think it's trite in the current moment to really think about the time we need to imagine what's possible. I think we've oftentimes been stuck for the last 15, 20 years in critiquing what we have. And it's not that it is not above or doesn't need critique. It does. But I think we can be inspired by a number of young leaders, and I won't name names, but you probably know who some of them are because they're in the news who Are driving a conversation and have been driving a conversation about what it is to imagine something better, that we can in fact not only imagine it, but we could demand it. There is no reason. And I think the amount of money spent on so many things, reflecting pool, so many things that could have fed our young people, that could have addressed education, that could have addressed so many of the challenges that I think many people agree with across the country, but we don't demand it. And I think that what we have. An opportunity to do is that hope. And in that hope, create an imagination of what is possible. What is the world we actually want to have? Because it is it is this is a great one. I love going outside. I love my communities. I love I went roller skating last night. I love the many things we can do in this world. But we have not yet fulfilled the promise of the nation that we talk about. And I think that is something that I think it's possible. And what may not be during my lifetime, may not be during your lifetime, may not be during anybody your life. But if we can continue to drive toward it, then I think we honor leaders like Shirley Chisholm. We honor leaders like so many people who have just done amazing, groundbreaking work. And to me, that is what's amazing. So I say have hope and imagine what's possible. speaker-1: Can't think a better conversation to have on a Friday. So Shane, thank you so much for your time too as well. I've learned a lot and really excited and honored to to host you. And we'll share all the links as well in the show notes for people that are listening and want to learn more. But Shane, thank you so much and have a good rest of your Friday and hopefully to see you soon. speaker-0: Thank you so much. And thank you for loving my puppy who decided to bark a little bit in the middle there as a friend was stopping by. Thank you so much for everything that you're doing. And again, I look forward to connecting with you soon. speaker-1: All right. Thanks again. Take care. speaker-0: Yeah.