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Shola Richards: Go Bold Together, Powered by Humanity · The Bold Lounge

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bold Lounge podcast.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: My name is Leigh Burgess and I will be your host.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: If you're anything like me, you love hearing inspiring stories of people who have gone on bold journeys and made a positive impact in the world.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: This podcast is all about those kinds of stories.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Every week, we'll hear from someone who has taken a leap or embarked on an extraordinary journey.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: In addition to hearing their stories, we'll also learn about their bold growth mindset that they use to make things happen.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Whether they face challenges or doubts along the way, they persisted and ultimately achieved their goals.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: These impactful stories will leave you feeling motivated and inspired to pursue your own bold journey.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: I believe everyone has a bold story waiting to be freed.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Tune in and get ready to be inspired.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Bold Lounge.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: Today I have Shola Richards.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: Shola is the CEO and founder of Go Together Global, the best-selling author of Making Work, work and Go Together, and he is leading a worldwide movement to change the world based on how we treat each other at work.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: Shola's work has been featured on the Today Show, cbs, this Morning, forbes, black Enterprise, complete Well-Being, india, business Insider, australia, and his tireless efforts to make the world a kinder place have earned him the well-deserved name Brother Teresa Love that.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: As a speaker, shola has shared his transformative message with Fortune 50 companies, top universities, leading healthcare organizations, silicon Valley and motion picture industry on the tedx stage and, in his greatest honor to date, in september 2021, he was invited to testify in front of the house of representatives on capitol hill to share his expert recommendations on how to bring more civility to congress.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: Last but certainly not least, show there's a father husband, an identical twin and a self-professed kindness extremist who will not rest until bullying and incivility is extinct from the American workplace.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Bold Lounge, shola.
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: Thanks, leigh, good to be here.
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: Appreciate that.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: Excited to jump into everything bold and really about your world and how it's making a difference for workplaces and outside the workplace, just other places where we need to be kinder and softer and more understanding.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: So let's just start with your definition.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: What does bold mean to you?
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: You know it's funny, I used to think bold meant doing big courageous things like jumping out of a perfectly working airplane, which I've actually done before.
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: Or you know like deciding like, which I've actually done before.
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: Or you know, like deciding like you know you're going to move across the country, or these type of huge moves.
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: But I define bold now as the seemingly small courageous actions that can bring us closer together as a group of humanity or potentially improve our lives individually.
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: So I'll say it again, because I think about this often like it's a it's the small, courageous acts that either honor our shared humanity or honor ourselves individually.
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: And yeah, because I think of like moments, for example, where someone decides to have the courage to stand up to a bully for a moment.
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: That seems like a big moment, but it could be a smaller moment that could then hopefully lead to many bigger moments of courage down the road.
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: It could be just honoring your boundaries Like I know I'm not going to pick up your child from the airport at one in the morning these things that are bold moments smaller moments seemingly are the things that things that are bold moments.
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: Smaller moments seemingly are the things that lead to the bigger moments, like standing up against incivility or bullying or racism or whatever it may be.
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: But it starts with the smaller moments of bold courage that really have a big impact on larger things in the future.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, in my book I have five myths of being bold, and one of them is bold is not always loud.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: Some of our boldest moments come in the quiet moments that no one knows about, whether it's with yourself or within yourself, meaning that no one knows.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: You didn't post about it, it wasn't something that was a headline, it wasn't in Forbes or fast company, right.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: So, I think that's really, really cool because I think you're one of the first people that have defined bold this way.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: I think people feel that way, but I think actually having your definition is an original one from our guests, so excited to kind of really explore that with you.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: And one other thing is you said small, courageous actions.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: So we go about our day and I don't know how many things we do or act or act upon, but there's thousands of moments right and us understanding that we potentially could be being bold over and over and over.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: I think that's one thing people underestimate too is that, oh, I'm not bold, I'm not this, because they're comparing themselves either to someone else or someone else's definition, and it's a personal definition.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: For me, bold is very personal and your definition can change over time too.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: What I thought of bold when I was 20 is different at 50, right.
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: So I think that's an interesting way to see kind of evolution of our definitions.
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: For sure.
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: And it's funny because if you think of someone who's dealing with mental illness, for instance, it's a bold.
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: If you think of someone who's dealing with mental illness, for instance, it's a bold decision and I've been there so I'm speaking from experience.
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: It's a bold decision just to get out of bed in the morning, right?
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: So if you're comparing that to the person who's taking these large, big, splashy risks, you may be like oh, I'm not really as bold as I thought I was.
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: I'm not even bold at all.
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: When the reality is it's more of a dial than a switch.
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: It's not like I'm bold today.
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: I'm not bold today.
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: It can be something that's like really small, seemingly small, but in the moment for the person it's a huge decision to get out of bed or to tell that person who's harming you to stop.
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: These are things that are very powerful, that we often underestimate the effects and the impact long-term.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that it's a dial, not a switch.
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: I totally had that visual, like maybe I'm a one today, but hey, that's good.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: And your bold factor it's not anything that's being judged by anyone either, so I think it's more of our own.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: I go back to the personalness of the definition and what it means.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: I mean, it could be picking up the phone and talking to someone who you're have a challenge with and you just don't want this feeling anymore, or you want closure, or it could be like just writing down what your next steps may be of how to get into or out of a certain situation, and so it's just numerous examples of what this can be.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: But I think, as long as you are true to you and I'm not saying it's easy every day, it definitely is not but, like, just stay true to you and on your purpose and on your mission, because other people, I feel like, will try to pull you off your mission and because you're doing good or you're making a difference or you're making yourself healthier, whatever it may be, you could you know they're just there to pull you off, so don't let them.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: I think that's a key If you get better at that, I think, as you get older, so you can learn that.
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: Absolutely right, absolutely right.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: So tell me like a bold moment that comes to mind for you, based on your definition, and you can go back or it can be recent.
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: Oh, you know, I think I'll go back because I think one of the first times that I based on the definition of kind of doing something seemingly small, you know, a courageous act, I feel like the first time that I can remember being bold based on that definition was I wish I could be more specific around the age, but I was probably in junior high school, now known as middle school.
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: There was, uh, someone who was being bullied, just being teased by a group of people, and I remember telling the people who were doing it to stop and to say it wasn't cool and ended up sitting with this person and having lunch with them and you could be like that's it.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: It's like that's a huge thing for me, because middle school is brutal yeah it's brutal, and my daughter my oldest daughter's in high school.
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: My youngest is in middle school right now, so she understands.
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: But it's like the idea of potentially putting myself at risk and being the next target, you know, to be bullied, is something that I look back on.
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: I've always been fascinated with.
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: But why people would actually do that to someone else, why someone would you know?
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: There's an old saying that goes out there hurt people, hurt people, right?
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: It's like such a famous constant thing and I wonder what would make someone so broken that they would treat someone so poorly that they would make someone feel bad, so broken that they would treat someone so poorly that they would make someone feel bad?
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: And I grew up, and still am, an empath, a highly sensitive person, so I feel the emotions of other people pretty deeply, which is awesome some days, and some days it just sucks where's you out?
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: yeah, I'll be based out on the floor here on certain days.
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: Oh, and I am you know, or like rocking back and forth in my bathroom floor, like playing playing Enya, like sucking my thumb.
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: It's been a day.
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: It's been a day, and I think when I was younger and I did that at first I felt really good about that.
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: The person, like the kid who was being bullied.
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: I wasn't like, oh my gosh, thank you, because since the relief in their face as I sat next to the person.
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: So that was my first idea of this and it's like I want to do more of this.
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: I want to be able to help others and help myself and just be in a position where I can use small actions to maybe have a large impact.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting, like those impactful moments that change or stick into our story and so that moment of being, you know, being someone who was a voice for someone at that point, who might have been voiceless, who needed someone to stand up for them.
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: How did that play out as you went through high school and into college and into the workplace?
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for me, I feel like I often feel a sense of wanting to alleviate the suffering of others in some way, and I think oftentimes having a platform and speaking truth to power has been something that I felt comfortable doing, and not initially because, you know, as kind of a shy, introverted kid growing up, I'm more extroverted now, I'm more willing to share my truth and I often get a lot of people saying, hey, oh my God, I was waiting for someone to word it that way.
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: I'm so glad you're able to articulate the experience so clearly and start having conversations around why we shouldn't be harming each other.
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: So I always, for the rest of my life, will be leaning into the idea of how I can alleviate suffering, but also giving practical tools to help people to stand up for themselves and honor themselves in the face of the suffering that they're dealing with.
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: To help people to stand up for themselves and honor themselves in the face of the suffering that they're dealing with.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: So one of the things you talked about in your TEDx that you did was that your dad was like Mufasa and you were like Simba and that kind of stuck with me, honestly, and then your impression of your dad and how he talked and I could totally see it.
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: But what do you think in the sense of Simba's lessons in life and Shola's lessons in life?
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: Where are they similar and where are they different?
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know it's so funny because my dad is like Mufasa from the Lion King and God rest his soul just celebrated, or honored his fifth year since his passing, and so I think about it often.
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: Mufasa was a guy in the movies, very wise and very thoughtful, and didn't always give you the answers.
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: It's kind of made you realize that the answers were within you if you were willing to search and I think that's where there's a lot of correlations, and maybe the young Simba and myself is is helping myself to realize the answers are within.
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: When I decided I wanted to spread this message, I was like who the heck am I to do this?
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: I'm not anyone who's worthy of this.
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: So I was like who the heck am I to do this?
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: I'm not anyone who's worthy of this.
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: So I was like you know what?
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: I'll start a blog.
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: So I started a blog and it, you know it was like two people turned to four, turned to eight, turned to 16 to 32, 64, 128 to 56.
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: And on it went and I was like, wow, people were actually listening to me.
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: I'm not qualified.
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: I don't have, like you know, I don't have a PhD in like positive psychology.
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: I just know how people should be treating each other and this is like one man's thoughts.
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: But I decided I was like you know what I mean.
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: Might as well try.
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: And that was the whole idea.
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: Like these answers are within me, I don't need to share, I don't need to wait for someone to open the door or give me the green light.
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: That was the one thing that I feel when Simba was kind of growing into his leadership and becoming the Lion King.
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: After Mufasa, his dad was, I feel like for me it's like all right, I don't have to wait for anyone to give me permission, I can just lean into this now and whether or not people are into my message or not, at least I'm speaking my truth and sharing what I feel is important to me.
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: And if it's important to other people, I think they'll come along.
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: And I think you not to turn it back on you, lee, but when you're writing your book, I'm sure you thought about like this what I'm writing about in these bold methodologies are, hopefully will be helpful to others, but I'm sharing them because they've been helpful for me as you were writing it Right, and I think that's the same idea.
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: It's like when you share what's in your heart and it's meaningful to you, chances are other people will find it meaningful and useful as well.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, someone asked me how I would define success of my book and obviously I have goals and things I want to do, but if one person buys that book and it helps them align, understand that there's possibility, understand that they have the power and that no one else is going to give it to them, they need to, like, seize it and take it and free it and I feel like that's a success.
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, Well then you're going to.
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: You're guaranteed to be successful.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: You're good, you're good.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: From the perspective of influence and impact and thinking about, you know, being able to uncover that power within which is really what you're talking about and what you talk about in your books and in your talks and in the ways that you help people understand that to do that.
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: But the workplace becomes this place where we're at a lot of our lives, like time-wise.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: We spend so much of our time at work and with others outside of our family and it becomes a place that can impact us positively or negatively.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: It becomes a place and space for growth or potentially it could harm us and I don't mean physically, but that's possible as well, but I think more mentally.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: For me it was just like this process of going backwards and then at 48 was like I'm not doing anymore more time out, like life is, and I know, too short and I want to be me and I feel very proud about me Right.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: So when you're trying to unlock that, that's not an easy thing to do, especially, you know, if you're making a decision to change your job or maybe get a different job or start something new or just take a break.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: That's bold, it is.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: How does someone start to uncover their power within?
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: Like what's the first couple of steps?
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: Well, for me, the first step was realizing what I wasn't willing to accept anymore, and I think that's a huge part of it, because a lot of bold moves, I feel, at least in my experience, were the moments where I had to stand up and honor myself, because, as the saying goes, I love to say, what we allow is what will continue.
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: So if I'm in a situation where I'm being treated poorly at work and I'll have to rewind a little bit on this because I kind of left an important part out of the story so I was in a pretty toxic work relationship, work environment about like give or take 20 years ago, and it was so awful I ended up making a decision that I was gonna take my own life and I didn't think about suicide actually attempted.
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: And to make a long story short, I tried.
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: I live in Los Angeles and I attempted to drive my car off the 405 freeway in an attempt to make it long story short, I tried.
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: I live in Los Angeles and I attempted to drive my car off the 405 freeway in an attempt to make it look like an accident.
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: And that moment, while super brief and quick, changed me fundamentally, changed me forever, and I feel like one that could have ended very differently if the guardrail didn't hold and I would have been on the you know down the street, maybe hurt someone else which is also terrible to think about but I would definitely probably ended my own life, and I think about how that impacts how I show up.
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: So when I think about taking those bold moves, when I said earlier like I have clear about what I won't accept anymore and that type of toxicity, having the courage as kind of a shyer, introverted, deeply feeling empath, I had to be like, yeah, I get, that's how I'm wired, but at the same time, no one else is coming to save me.
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: This is my work, so I have to be the person who has to lean in and say, no, that's not okay.
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: No, I don't accept that.
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: No, that's not how.
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: No, you can't speak to me like that, and it doesn't matter who the person is.
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: I mean, when I have a standard for how I feel I should be treated, I'm always doing it respectfully.
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: I'm not screaming at anyone, but before I would just suck it up and take it and be like it must be something wrong with me.
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: Now, my first step is always being clear about what it is that I won't accept and that usually tends to kind of guide me in the right direction, because I know, okay, no one's going to be cursing at me in the workplace.
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: I'm not going to let someone you know use racist jokes or anti-Semitic jokes or homophobic jokes or Islamophobic around me, because to me it's not an appropriate thing to ever have in any place, much less a workplace.
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: These are things that I've decided are my standards and I lean by those, and that's changed my life and it's made it easier for me to know when I'm on, when I'm aligned, versus when I'm not aligned.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, which I use that word versus balance, because I think it's important, because we'll get out of alignment every now and then.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: You just don't want to.
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: If you ever seen the car that, like the front and the back wheels, are like oh yeah, that car is really out of alignment.
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: You just don't want to be that car, right.
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: Don't want to be that car.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: So thank you for sharing that very vulnerable moment and I'd like to understand kind of again going back to impact, that point of impact of hitting the guardrail and saying, whoa, what am I doing?
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: Like what was that pivot that you did at that point in time to say this Like what was that pivot?
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: that you did at that point in time to say this isn't what I want to do.
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I don't know if anyone listening has ever had suicidal ideations, but for me it wasn't.
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: The best way I can describe it is I was figuratively dead inside.
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: I didn't feel anything, I was just like it wasn't even a tough decision to end my life because I was already dead inside.
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: I was like let's get on with the business of actually doing it.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: You didn't think anyone would care.
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: No, I mean, you're at a point where you're and it's weird to say that because I had such a loving family, and still do, and I was dating who miles now my wife and mother, my two daughters, so it's like I didn't, but I I know they would have been sad, but when you're in a place where there's an absence of hope which is really where I felt I was like I don't want to live like this anymore.
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: So I'm sure people will be fine when I'm gone.
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: That was something that made the act easier.
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: But once I attempted and came back onto the freeway, something shifted instantaneously.
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: I literally felt my humanity flow back into my body and I was like oh my God, what did I just do?
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: And I started sobbing in my car like the ugly cry snot, tears, everything running down my face was like I can't, I can't, I can't believe that this happened, but or and I will ensure that nothing like this ever happens to me again I just I knew that there was more to it after that and I felt a responsibility to try to help people to make sure that that didn't happen to them too.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so when you go into workplaces and you've been into many universities, healthcare systems, fortune 50 companies and so on where are you seeing where is going left or beginning to become unaligned or misaligned within organizations when it comes to kindness and compassion and understanding?
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think the first thing is communication.
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: Right, it's like how are we communicating?
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: And when I mean communication, I'm not talking about things that you see in new employee orientation or flowery values that you see on the walls.
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: I mean, that doesn't move the needle at all.
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: So it's using the word again.
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: A lot of it's around alignment.
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: How aligned are you if kindness is a value of the company or the organization?
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: How are you actively demonstrating kindness, and not just demonstrating kindness, but are there tools and mechanisms in place to hold folks accountable when they fall short of these desired values and goals?
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: That's the one thing that I find to be the easiest way to kind of spot like oh, this organization gets it, they're absolutely supporting these values of integrity and compassion and kindness or whatever it may be, and they have tools to hold others accountable.
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: Oh, but this group, this is just they're just saying it.
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: You can find out really quickly and I found in just sitting down with a few people in my consultative work back in the day, I would have one-on-one meetings and check with people and team meetings and you could find out very simply by asking a few questions.
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: Are based on these?
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: Are your company values.
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: Do you feel like the company's aligned with these values, and why or why not, and can you give me examples of why?
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: And if they're afraid to tell me things because they're afraid it will get back to certain people?
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: That's also a sign.
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: There's a lack of openness, a lack of psychological safety, the ability to have these conversations in a place where I know I can say this and I'll be safe to tell the truth.
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: Versus organizations like I.
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: This truth will get me in trouble, so I don't feel safe doing so.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember one of the places I worked.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: I started and I'm always like jazz when I start something, even though things might be messy or, you know, things need tightened up, Like I, I enjoy jumping into the deep end and one of the employees said we are so happy you're here, but I'm very scared for you.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: I thought that was the weirdest thing for someone to say because I was like wow, Okay, Well, thanks and why?
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: And they said you are saying things that we have always thought but no one has said, and I think that's part of being a leader too is figuring it out, honing your communication, which, again, I think that's something for me that I kind of worked on, because I'm a very straightforward, straight shooter type of person and that's not always the way, the best way to communicate.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: I think I know that now.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: But you know, when you're in these environments where change, or someone standing up or, you know, standing out because you're, you know you are saying things that need to be said.
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: It's definitely a bold and vulnerable mode.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: One of the things that I think about boldness is that there's a lot of vulnerability in being bold and when you think about your movement.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: So the go-together movement I think that's an important thing for people to understand what that is and how it then, almost like, makes it a safer space for someone to be vulnerable or to share their truth or to say this isn't working or this is very upsetting.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: Tell me a little about the Go Together movement.
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: So when I wrote my second book called Go Together, it was really around this concept, this African word called Ubuntu.
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: It's an African philosophy that means I am because we are.
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: It's the height of human kindness, human compassion and human connectedness.
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: It's like the art of being human, and this word has driven my work for a better part of a decade and I think about this word and what it means for us to honor our shared humanity.
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: And our shared humanity is something that allows us to be kinder, to be more compassionate, more thoughtful.
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: If I did something to harm you, in essence, I'm basically harming myself because of our shared humanity.
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: So we talk about going together.
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: It's about really thinking about how we can see each other and not not the the mutated, weird version of this where it's like we're all the same, everyone's the same.
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: It's like we're not the same.
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: You're a white woman, I'm a black man.
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: We have differences, but can we still see each other's differences and honor our shared humanity?
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: We don't need to completely create this homogeneous idea like we're all the same in order for us to be able to live and work together the ability to be able to be next to someone who maybe you have an ideological difference with, or maybe someone who prays differently than you, looks differently than you, all these different things that we use as dividing lines, and figure out how we can find some level of commonality, which is our shared humanity, to be able to work, live and lead in a better way.
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: And that's really what the Go Together movement's all about.
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: It's not around this idea of like, oh, being friendly with people who are harming you.
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: That's hurtful, that's ridiculous and that's not what the movement is.
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: But how can we find a way for us to separate ourselves from the bad actors who are not interested in going together and creating an environment with people who do choose to honor each other's differences in a way that matters to create a better world for us and, ideally, for our future generations?
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, do you think part of honoring our differences is also understanding what we have in common?
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: Of course.
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely, it's both and right.
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: So it's like part of the idea is like I see that we're different and we also root for the same sports teams.
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: We love our families.
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: We want to live in safety and peace.
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: We want to have a world where we're seen and acknowledged and respected.
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: These are the common things that we all hold.
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: But it's not like ew, you're different because of this.
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: It's like, no, I am different because of this and you're different because of that, but we still have so much in common.
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: Can we just honor our shared humanity and not allow our differences to be the thing that allows us to stay separate from?
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: each other.
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think our differences, I mean as silly as this might sound, or maybe not as practiced, but I mean it is what makes us special and unique and that's our value in the world.
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely Like there's only one Shola, one Lee, and everyone means like, say your name out loud and there's only one of you and like you're here for a purpose, like I, I feel very strongly we're here for a purpose and knowing what your purpose is, and maybe you're learning it, maybe you're trying to figure it out, maybe you've learned it already and you're learning it, maybe you're trying to figure it out, maybe you've learned it already and you're just trying to like, how do I get to it?
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: Like how do I align with now my actions?
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: But I think that that's what makes you special and we need people to be themselves, because I think in the world today, especially now, you know, talking about the social media, like there's an ai and all this other stuff, like there's some crazy stuff happening now.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I just think somehow we need to really hold on to the humanity.
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: So your work is more important.
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: I hope so.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely, and us understanding that taking that bold move to be ourselves and to be vulnerable and to understand what we need to do, we have to take action right.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: You can't honestly have impact without action.
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: No, we can't think ourselves into healing the world.
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: And I mean, I think one of the things that holds a lot of people back, myself included, is this idea of like oh well, there's someone else who's more qualified or more capable or better connected.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: Those are things that I think we that's like a self-judgment we all do it.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: I think a lot of people can relate.
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: So when we think about creating a culture of kindness in a workplace and we have a lot of leaders listening, what can someone do?
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: Let's say, their pod or their bubble organization.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: They've got it, They've figured it out, they're really, really practicing like they should and they have that environment that is a safe environment, but outside of the bubble it can be very different.
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, a couple of things.
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: Let's get practical.
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: I think one of the things that's really important if you do want to create a kinder workplace is you have to create and I've done this with teams is getting a team together and saying what does it mean to communicate with kindness?
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: What would this look like?
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: What does communicating effectively mean?
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: Because we hear people say we need to communicate better and a lot of people don't know what that means.
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: So, getting really specific, that could be something as simple as like all right, hey, well, for me, communicating with kindness means that I will always speak directly to the person, not about the person to someone else.
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: Okay, that's great.
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: So, long story short, you brainstorm these ideas of what communicating with kindness can look like on the team and then, once you have a good list, you do this as a group and then it's like right, let's parse this down a little bit On this list, what are the top three things that we are committing to do as a team?
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: And it's like great.
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: Then they narrow it down.
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: Let's use this and let's change these into I, we will statements, statements that we will do as a team to each other and not speak about each other.
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: Okay, so, now that you have these ideas that are these are far different than poster values.
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: These are things that you create as a team and, yeah, can we all agree to this and will we all hold each other accountable to this?
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: And this is different than, like, boss holding staff accountable, which is fine.
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: It's peer accountability which is way more powerful and, quite frankly, staff holding leaders accountable to this.
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: This is what we all agreed on, and when teams agree on what it means to operate with kindness, or what it means to be accountable, or what it means to create an environment of trust, or what it means to recognize someone effectively, or how we manage conflict, what this does is it removes the guesswork.
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: What this does is it removes the guesswork.
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: Now, it's about what we agree on as a team and it's easier to live into that instead of having the organization and some group and some thought session creating poster values.
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: We as a department did this.
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: So, even outside of the department, if you're dealing with unkindness, you do have something within the department that you can use to recalibrate and keep you aligned to the work when things do get difficult and challenging, because they will.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, kind of go back to the map.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: Remember this is where we said we were going and how we're doing it.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: We're using these tools, we're using these values and having something to kind of recenter everyone on what we agreed to.
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: You're being, as my dad would always say, you're being the thermostat, not the thermometer.
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: Right the thermometer is like when it gets hot.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: You get hot when it gets cold.
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: you get cold.
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: The thermostat is this is our temperature.
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: We're set at 72 degrees.
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: This is how we're going to roll.
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: So, regardless of what's going on around us, we are going to maintain this direction and alignment, and having those norms make it easier to do that.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so you have a new book and I'd love to learn about what's the premise of the new book and how it came about.
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: So this book is interesting because this is the most challenging book that I've ever written in my life.
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: In my work around civility when I travel internationally doing this work, I often have a lot of people who have some really mixed up ideas around what civility is.
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: It's like this idea of like, oh, it just means turn the other cheek and accept the awfulness of the world and and never putting up a fight and not having strong opinions and like.
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: That is completely not useful and that wouldn't make any sense for me.
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: So I want to redefine civility in my book and so basically, what this means is I'm taking the hardest questions around civility.
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: The hardest questions around civility Like, for example, how can you be civil to someone who is racist or homophobic or anti-Semitic?
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: How?
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: Why would I?
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: Why would I be civil to them?
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: That's question one.
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: Another one that comes up in the book is like hey, how can you be civil around really deeply polarizing topics like abortion or gun control or immigration or politics?
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: Three, like how can you stay civil when someone believes in dark web conspiracy theories that aren't even tethered to reality?
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: You want me to be civil to someone like that.
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: Or someone saying like hey, how can I be civil to someone who's deeply hurt me.
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: I don't understand why civility would make sense there.
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: Or is there a time when civility is not the answer?
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: So, basically, what I want to do is take the hardest ideas around civility, the things that get in the way of civility, and give freakishly practical tools on how to use civility, as I'm redefining it, to learn how to not just sincerely show respect when due, but also to learn how to disagree without disrespect, which is the hardest aspect of this, and I give my background in organizational psychology.
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: So I'm creating a very practical book that people can put into action, because you mentioned this earlier in the podcast, lee changing the world requires action.
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: It's not around being an intellectual exercise.
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: If we're going to really do anything meaningful, we have to take the action.
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: So this book lays it out in painstaking detail.
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: It's deeply personal, but also, as I said, deeply practical.
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, excellent how to disagree without disrespecting.
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: I love that because I think that's something we all could use a little help with.
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, some ideas aren't worthy of respect.
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: I get it, I know, but it's like how can we just kind of remove ourselves from the situation and not increase the challenges that we're facing and really creating more toxic discourse?
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: Some people need to be loved from a distance and, knowing it, be able to identify those people quickly and moving on and finding the good faith people who will debate ideas in good faith.
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: That makes it easier for us to maybe heal the discourse, and that's what I'm going to be talking about in this book.
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely so kind of getting comfortable with being uncomfortable.
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: It sounds like to read the book.
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a lot of that, yeah.
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: Sometimes that's what we have to do to be able to grow.
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: That's the only way.
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so, like you don't usually grow from the comfort zone, nope, yeah, so you're pushing us out into that.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: So looking forward to hearing more about that.
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: So, as we end and this has gone super fast I wanted to think about, you know, anyone who is currently feeling like they need to make that bold move for themselves and kind of in their workplace and we talked about first steps before but what does it mean?
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: Like if someone just decides I'm just going to leave, I'm not going to stay there, I'm not going to, because I'm assuming you did that at your workplace that had pushed you to that point among yes, yeah, you just said enough.
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: What message would you want people listening who are ready to do that?
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: What do you want them to take away?
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: Let's get super specific.
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: I'll say this definitively there's, as someone who attempted suicide and left workplaces far before I got to that point as well.
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: If your job is affecting your mental health, your physical health, your well-being, your relationships, your ability to care for yourself, and potentially putting you in situations where you're dealing with it maladaptively, please make the soul nourishing and soul affirming choice to quit and leave.
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: And I know it's scary when it's like listen, I got mouths to feed and I've got a mortgage or rent that needs to be paid.
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: I am not poo-pooing that at all.
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: What I am saying, though, is make it your full-time job, to find your way out of your full-time job, and whether it's just constantly slinging resumes or asking or being willing to do something, when I attempted to do it, I was like listen, I'll fold shirts and target, I will work in the mall, I will do whatever it takes.
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: I will do anything besides being in this toxic situation, and I think it has to come down to the willingness to do whatever it takes, but if you're in a situation where you know your health is being affected, your wellbeing, your state of mind, do yourself a favor and put it as priority one to find a way to get out as soon as humanly possible.
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah Well, good advice, hopefully resonating with folks out there, and thank you for being on the Bold Lounge today.
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: Thanks, lee, appreciate you.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to the Bold Lounge podcast.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: Thanks, lee, journey with you.