Latest / Hope + Possibilities: Trust, Leadership + Strategic Foresight / Flexibility, Advocacy, and the Politics of Care

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Flexibility, Advocacy, and the Politics of Care · Hope + Possibilities: Trust, Leadership + Strategic Foresight

• 0:17
  Find yourself in.
• 0:23
  Hi, thanks for joining me.
• 0:25
  I'm Nola Simon.
• 0:26
  I'm the host of the Hope and Possibilities podcast, and I wanted to just talk
• 0:31
  about the fact that somebody told me the other day that they preferred
• 0:35
  not to be political, and I get where they're coming from because.
• 0:41
  Especially if you're talking about politics or anything political online.
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  If you get into an algorithm and people are engaging in outrage
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  and shaming and all of that stuff, it actually seems pretty scary.
• 0:59
  And you're worried about reputation.
• 1:01
  You're worried about how it could affect your business.
• 1:03
  You're worried about all of that stuff.
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  But the thing that.
• 1:09
  I have about that statement is it's coming from an area of privilege.
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  You feel safer not saying anything than actually saying something, which
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  means that honestly, in effect, you're okay with the way the world is working.
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  You're okay with the way things are shaking out, and you are comfort.
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  Is more important than your discomfort.
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  So that's not my reality, and it has not been my reality for a very long time.
• 1:44
  I'd say actually ever since I became a parent, that has not been
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  my reality because the world of work in particular was not working
• 1:56
  the way that I needed it to.
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  And so that's where I started advocating for.
• 2:03
  More flexibility in my work.
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  So work from home, remote work, hybrid, or whatever you wanna call it.
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  I needed more of that.
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  Honestly, if they had been able to work with me and give me time, flexibility.
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  Time flexibility.
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  I could have worked around and I wouldn't necessarily have campaigned for location
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  flexibility, but there was an absolute insistence that I had to have set hours.
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  And in particular, once I had my kids, my hours were 10 to six,
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  so that was okay in the morning.
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  I could at least drop my kids off at daycare or school or whatever
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  it happened to be, but it didn't work well in the evenings.
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  And we were able to adapt to it for a bit because my husband got laid off and
• 2:48
  he became self-employed and he therefore had that time flexibility because he
• 2:53
  didn't have a boss he had to report to.
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  But
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  ideally, that's not the parent that I wanted to be.
• 3:03
  And also moms take care of everything, or at least that has been my reality is.
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  I needed to be there because I, my kids needed me, right?
• 3:14
  And that was the mother I wanted to be.
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  And so standing up and asking for what it is you want when it's not the norm is a
• 3:24
  political act and advocating and becoming a subject matter expert and, changing your
• 3:31
  job to have better opportunities to do what it is you need to do for your family.
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  Those are political acts.
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  Speaking about it publicly, that's a political act.
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  Being interviewed in media to share your perspective, your point of view,
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  your agenda, those are political acts.
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  So somebody who says they don't wanna be political.
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  Congratulations.
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  You are able to navigate the world in a way that a lot of us can't in the current
• 4:05
  system as it exists right at this moment.
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  So women historically have been caregivers, but women also historically.
• 4:17
  Have not been the dominant power in politics.
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  And so speaking up is a radical act.
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  For years, we didn't have property rights, we didn't have access to
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  financial systems, we didn't have access to lending, we didn't have
• 4:31
  access to even create bank accounts.
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  That financial independence, that ability to stand on your own two feet, nevermind,
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  speak about what it is you needed to be able to stand on your own two feet.
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  That was.
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  Forbidden.
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  And that's within my lifetime, right?
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  The bank account thing, the lending, the credit products,
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  all of that's within my lifetime.
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  So women, Cindy Gallup is a marketer.
• 4:59
  She has a company that she advocates for, which is called Make Love not Porn, and.
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  She has a quote that she mentions quite frequently, which is women
• 5:10
  are not the status quo because women have never been the status quo.
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  So to be a caregiver is to be fundamentally political.
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  What I do involves real estate.
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  It involves the way things work.
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  It involves compensation, it involves technology, it involves process,
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  procedures, policy, how you are in community, how that impacts urban
• 5:36
  planning, how that impacts commuting.
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  All of that is political and fundamentally, it's a part of my work.
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  When you say that you don't wanna be political, it's because that system
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  works for you in lots of ways and you don't wanna jeopardize that.
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  Now, I also came from.
• 6:01
  A Canadian company that owned a US division.
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  And so my customers, for the longest time I was there 16 years
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  were actually in the States.
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  Fundamentally, I know what that's like to behave in a way when your politics, your
• 6:16
  beliefs don't match those of your clients.
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  So I believe in universal healthcare.
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  I believe in gun control.
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  I believe in.
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  Employment rights.
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  I believe in pay equity.
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  I believe in paid time off.
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  I believe
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  what I believe is really in direct contrast to a lot of
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  the things that Americans think they're fundamental rights.
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  And for 16 years I had to.
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  Work with people who fundamentally had different beliefs than my own, and work
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  with them in such a way where you were helping them, but at the same time not
• 7:06
  completely undermining your own beliefs.
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  And that is a dance.
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  I can tell you that is
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  a skill that.
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  It can't really be taught unless you're actually working within that environment.
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  You have to live it.
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  And so I know what that's like to work with people who don't wanna be
• 7:28
  political, who work who think that their political view is the dominant view
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  and they don't want that threatened.
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  I've learned that I've lived that from the inside out.
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  Now, add into the fact that.
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  My parents were born in World War ii.
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  My mom was born in 1930.
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  My mom, my dad was born in 1932.
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  My mom was born in Glasgow.
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  My dad was born in Burg, west Germany, so they were on opposite sides of
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  World War II, even though they were children When the wars started,
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  my dad was seven, my mom was nine.
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  My mom was evacuated up north to Scotland to stay safe from bombing, and my dad.
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  Lived through the Nazi regime.
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  I don't talk about that a lot because people fundamentally
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  don't understand what that's like.
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  I never knew my grandparents.
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  I met my grandparents once when I was seven.
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  I don't speak German.
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  I don't know a lot of the history.
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  My dad doesn't like to talk about his childhood.
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  He's not a Nazi.
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  He lived in Germany, so he was one of the millions of regular Germans who
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  learned how to survive in an environment where you don't agree with the politics.
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  Now, I don't know the full story, I gotta tell you, I don't fundamentally
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  I don't agree with fascism.
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  I have always been exposed to history.
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  That's actually why my minor in university was history, because
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  from the very, my very earliest memories, I remember debating World
• 9:14
  War II from both perspectives, right?
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  And again, it's not that my dad ever believed in the Nazi cause,
• 9:21
  but he lived through it, right?
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  How do you survive something like that?
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  Especially as like in that family, they had six kids, so
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  what are you risking if you don't comply?
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  It's a very delicate thing.
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  And then of course, what it is to be German after the war when
• 9:44
  you were on the losing side and the comp, the country is paying.
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  Penalties worldwide.
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  Not just in, financial cause, but also in reputation and what it is to be German.
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  It's been an interesting education and that's actually having that ability
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  to see both sides of that allows me to navigate politics in a way that not
• 10:11
  necessarily a lot of other people do.
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  And I wanted to say that it is not a bad thing to be political because
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  what you are doing is advocating for the type of life that you want
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  to live now and in the future.
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  And if what you're seeing doesn't represent the future that you
• 10:34
  want, it behooves you to get comfortable with speaking up.
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  Now, should you do this in such a way where you're not constantly debating.
• 10:46
  Political beliefs on online with random strangers who have no idea who they are.
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  Yeah I don't think you should do that.
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  It's not productive.
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  You're not gonna shift their beliefs.
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  How do you show up in a way that's going to have the most impact and
• 10:59
  make the most change to help you create the type of future that you
• 11:06
  want for your life and your work?
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  That's really what my goal is personally.
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  And so I thought that was important to do a podcast about because
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  politics are not inherently bad.
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  They have a bad
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  connotation, and the loudest voices, the people who are.
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  You benefit from making politics uncomfortable.
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  Those are the people that you wanna watch for because debate and discourse
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  have are a fundamental human.
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  And if you go back thousands of years of human history, debating and
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  discourse is at the heart of what it is to negotiate and navigate life.
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  And so the people who are allowed and basically tell you that you shouldn't be
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  political and you shouldn't express your opinions and you should play it safe.
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  Those are the people who benefit from silence and silence.
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  Nature does not like a vacuum.
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  Neither does power.
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  They will fill it with what that is that you want.
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  They want to hear, do you benefit from silence?
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  How does that actually help you create the impact that you feel
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  you need to have to create the life and the work that you want?
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  And I personally don't feel that silence.
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  It benefits me.
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  So thank you for listening.
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  I'd love to hear your thoughts.
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  Rules of engagement are respect and concrete facts and polite discourse.
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  If you care to comment, I'm more than willing to hear your comment.
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  I will not tolerate trolling, abuse, shame, anything like that because
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  I've been very clear in terms of what my views are and what my goals are.
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  And if your comments don't help me achieve those you're entitled to what
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  you believe, but at the same time, I don't have to amplify your reach.
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  So that's the way it works on my.
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  Social accounts, which includes a podcast.
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  Anyways, thanks.
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  Love to hear from you and have a great day.
• 13:44
  Find yourself in.