Latest / Daily Influence / 734. From Classroom to Life: How Louis Silverstein Transformed Education Through Human Connection and Purpose

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734. From Classroom to Life: How Louis Silverstein Transformed Education Through Human Connection and Purpose · Daily Influence

• 0:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to Daily Influence, your daily dose of positive influence.
• 0:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm Brian Smith founder of IA Business Advisors and co-author of the Iain team series.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: Each day we share stories and insights to help you find be and build your influence in a positive and responsible way.
• 0:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm Greg Klinow, partner at IE Business Advisors, and co-host of Daily Influence.
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• 0:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: Welcome to Daily Influence.
• 0:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm Greg Klinow.
• 0:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: Today, our guest is someone who's influences
• 0:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: Quietly shaped generations, Louis Silverstein is a former dean of the Columbia College in Chicago, a distinguished professor of humanities and a lifelong educator whose courses were known as must-take experiences that didn't just teach you, they left you changed.
• 1:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: From leading departments and mentoring student movements like Amnesty International and Greenpeace,
• 1:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: To co-creating educational experiences rooted in meaning, ethics, and humanity, Lewis has shaped decades, planting seeds of awareness, responsibility, and growth.
• 1:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Even today, alongside his wife Paula, he continues that work, teaching, guiding, and influencing others through lifelong learnings.
• 1:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: Lewis, I'm so honored to have you.
• 1:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: Welcome to Daily Influence.
• 1:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: My pleasure to be with you.
• 1:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
• 1:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: Lewis, you've had such a rich journey from teaching in Harlem to becoming dean and distinguished professor, looking back what experiences most shape how you think about influence and responsibility and leadership.
• 2:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: I would have to say it started with my mother.
• 2:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: back in the 1940s.
• 2:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: And my mother was an immigrant from Poland.
• 2:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: She only had third grade education.
• 2:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: And she worked all her life.
• 2:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we lived in immigrant neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York, which some people now would call a slum.
• 2:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we had an situation where our landlord at times during the winter would turn off the heat and hot water, and we would be freezing.
• 2:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: So my mother did, she said, Lewis, what we're going to do, we're going to see that we can change the world.
• 2:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: and refusing to pay unless the landlord gave us his services.
• 3:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I looked at my mother, who, as I said, she was five foot four, third grade education, and she said, we can change the world.
• 3:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you have to believe that.
• 3:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: That has to be a first principle.
• 3:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: You can change things.
• 3:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we organize, we organize rent strikes and low and behold, we never again have to deal with the situation of heat and hot water in our building.
• 3:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: So my mother served as a model.
• 3:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: My father also an immigrant and his dad had died at the age of my father was 15 and he worked four jobs.
• 3:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: during the day.
• 3:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: And he said, Louis, the reason I am working this is to make certain that you and your brothers can also have the kind of education that you need to go out in the world and do your work in the world there.
• 3:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so my father and mother really served as role models for me in terms of the as a world is a situation.
• 4:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: It seems to be fixed, but you can learn how to create and change.
• 4:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: So that was the seed that started my life in terms of saying I'm going to walk in this world in a way that no matter what the obstacles are, I have a belief system that you can move through those obstacles and sometimes however you need a little help from your friends as Peter was told us you need a little help from your friends.
• 4:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: to make the necessary movements there.
• 4:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: So that began, and that began my journey into believing I can move this world in direction that is filled more with peace and justice and love and all those things that we want to have in this world.
• 4:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: And while you're making a living, so I remember I also was taught by great Charles.
• 4:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: And one of the things that Ray Charles says, this is a green-backed dollar world.
• 4:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: And ever forget, change the world, but you also need sustenance for yourself and others to do so.
• 5:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: that foundation clearly carried into the way you showed up, not just as a leader, but as an educator and what a positive influence, your parents and Rachel's hat on you.
• 5:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: Your students described your classes as life-changing.
• 5:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: Can you share a specific moment where you realized your influence had a lasting impact and what you intentionally did to create that kind of experience?
• 5:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, my belief system in terms of education is wherever you are, including the classroom, you need to establish a community of people who know each other and care about each other and want to help each other.
• 5:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, at the beginning of my classes, we sat in a circle and everyone around the room and she had something that occurred since the last time that we met.
• 5:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it went from the death of a parents, the death of a pet, so I'm getting a new job.
• 5:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: The first time they make, may, may love there.
• 6:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: And people listen to each other.
• 6:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: And by the third or fourth week of the classes, we get established a community.
• 6:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I told the students my own life that I had had quite a journey there, and I needed a little help from my friends to get by.
• 6:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I said, I'm here not just to work with your mind, but with your heart, your soul, and your whole entire life.
• 6:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: So students looked at me and you have an energy in the classroom, you can pick up what people are feeling.
• 6:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: And they realized that I'm really here there for them, not just in the classroom, but outside of the classroom.
• 6:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: So students would come to me and we would have me.
• 6:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: We would sit and talk and talk and talk and talk and they would tell me what's going on in their life there.
• 6:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I served as someone who would listen to them and give them words of advice and students would say to me, Lewis, thank you so much.
• 6:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: I couldn't even share this with my parents.
• 6:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: I couldn't share this with other people.
• 6:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you've given me words.
• 6:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: You give me ways to looking at the world and I thank you and I thank you and thank you.
• 7:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then after the class with all of our students with competency, Lewis, you know, this class is the class I've taken in my entire college career.
• 7:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: That is the fact that not just my mind, but my body, my heart and my spirit.
• 7:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: And as a year's when I'm still in contact with students from 50 years ago.
• 7:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: and they write to me, and they tell me, you know, these words, these are exactly where it glows.
• 7:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much.
• 7:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: You really changed my life.
• 7:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: You really made me look at the world in a very different way.
• 7:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: You made me realize I can walk in this world and remember what I face, I have to have this belief system, I can walk through this.
• 7:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so this still goes on now.
• 7:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: And these are the students even from Harlem.
• 7:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is way back in the early sixies to students I taught at a suburban high school.
• 7:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: And students I taught at Columbia College, Chicago, which is very much urban urban institution there.
• 7:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then teachers,
• 7:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: also came to me.
• 7:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: No peers would come to me and talk to me because my role as dean and share was I'm here to provide an opportunity for you to instill your creativity but I'm here to work with you as an entire human being.
• 8:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: there.
• 8:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I shared with them, you know, life-churning said gone to, you know, they knew I was married, but I had been married before.
• 8:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: They knew I had children, you know, and I would share with them in my, because I would share in the classroom what I was going through.
• 8:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: And there was an incredible example where it was my turn to share in the circle.
• 8:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: My mother had died the night before.
• 8:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I said, what am I going to say to my students on the professor?
• 8:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I said to them, you know, my mother died last night.
• 8:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I started to cry.
• 8:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: And he really, wow, this icon, this bullseye.
• 8:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: And what happened, I luckily, I had a 50-tier two-year-old woman in the classroom.
• 8:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: She came up to me.
• 8:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: She put my arms around me, and she said,
• 9:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: and the students came up to me after we didn't sit, oh my god, I'm going home to talk to my father, because I've never really had a heartfelt discussion with my father.
• 9:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: My mother, yes, and I'm going to ask my father, what is it like to grow old?
• 9:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: What is like to realize that you might die at any moment there?
• 9:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: And they've told me this is the best conversation I've ever had with my father.
• 9:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: you know, since I was a child there.
• 9:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: So my entire belief system is you're working with human beings and human beings.
• 9:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: or everything, you know, I say hot mind and soul.
• 9:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that was my journey there.
• 9:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: And of course, they learned a lot too in terms of what we call academics and in terms of skills and in student organizations, we have student organizations that were working to use what they'd learned in the classroom to go out.
• 9:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: And as I'm using these words again, to make this world a heaven on earth.
• 9:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, literally a heaven on earth and I'm saying, you know, while you're here, you know, you journey, maybe at the end of your life is to go somewhere else, but right now you are here, and we're here on this planet to make earth less of a hell and more of a heaven.
• 10:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the classes were also, you know, we had, you know, at that time, you know, we had LGBT students.
• 10:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: We hadn't really dealt with trans yet back in the sixties, although that was to all around.
• 10:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we had black students and white students and Catholic students and Jews students.
• 10:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it was really wonderful, a Columbia College, we had this mixture.
• 10:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I would take students, you know, they had come to my home.
• 10:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: They would meet my wife there.
• 10:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: My, my children would come to the classroom.
• 10:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes we didn't have a babysitter.
• 10:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: So my daughter or son would be sitting under the desk working with Craig ons and doing self-life.
• 10:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it was like a home environment.
• 10:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: And they realized, wow, you know, we're really totally human beings.
• 10:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we have to create where we are, a space for people to be comfortable and share and there it went.
• 11:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's so beautiful, you know, what really stands out is that your influence wasn't accidental.
• 11:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: It was very intentional and giving everyone a safe space.
• 11:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: And let me also say that when I was Dean, you know, and this is back, Columbia College was with very new college on the black we've been around since the late 1800s, but we came in arts and communications college in the 1960s and my role I felt as Dean, because we were forming a new institution was to hire, find and hire the most creative people, whether it's photography, television, dance.
• 11:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't really make a difference and I said, you know, you are very intelligent, you're very creative.
• 11:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm providing a space for you.
• 11:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not telling you what to do because in certain areas, you know more than I do.
• 11:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Go take your creativity and make the photography department, the dance department, the theater department, the humanities department, a space for what just happened when
• 12:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, we're still here, a space where students can create.
• 12:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so you create yourself to the department.
• 12:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm here to help you out there.
• 12:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I really loud people, this was new because usually in institution via education, there's a form and a structure and someone has to fit into that structure.
• 12:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I said, if you really find creative and intelligent people, they will create an incredible environment.
• 12:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: where their creativity instills in the students their creativity, and that's what occurred.
• 12:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: So my role was really to allow people to create and they created.
• 12:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: And which is what I've done in terms of our home, in terms of our our our neighborhood, there is get people provide them to sustenance to create.
• 12:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then of course I had my own space to create.
• 12:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: And because I always, even though I was dean and chair, I always took a classes.
• 12:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was also going to say, when I was in Holland, just as the 1960s and myself and a group of other people, there was something called, you know, the war on poverty then, and we had in New York, there was a grant called a Haru Act, and so we took students in middle school and any teacher will tell you junior high school students, middle of the hardest group to teach, the literally most challenging, and these were students who were disinfected from their schools
• 13:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: What do you want to do?
• 13:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: How do you want to learn?
• 13:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: What do you want to change?
• 13:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: and they said, well, our neighborhood, we're living in a situation where if I go to school, I'm dealing with the fact this morning, I didn't eat there, the cops are on the blocks there, they're harassing us, I can't really be in school.
• 13:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we said, why don't you do something to change the neighborhood?
• 13:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: So what we did, we made each student a reporter, and each student was given an assignment to go out into the community and cover an aspect of their lives and their neighbors lies that needed to change.
• 13:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: And they did that because they felt this was something that really connects them.
• 14:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: They came back and then they formed their stories into a newspaper.
• 14:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: We printed out a newspaper and they then went out to sell the newspaper at 5 or 10 cents.
• 14:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, because five cents, I mean, I was a shoe shine boy at the age of five.
• 14:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was working shoe shine, five cents, you know, at that point.
• 14:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so they went out.
• 14:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: And they found that, wow, you know, I can use, even I can use my talents to make some money.
• 14:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, they never realized, even just five or ten cents there.
• 14:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I can make money doing something that I really want to do and something that also can change, at least my neighborhood to some degree there.
• 14:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: And they were so excited and they came back because we had really done something in terms of learning and teaching,
• 14:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: evolved around the lives that they were leading there.
• 14:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then they spread out and they spread out and they spread out there.
• 14:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: So there's all five and ten cents seed, the sense that you can change the world there, was really seed that just grew and grew and grew.
• 15:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: You made a significant decision to step down from leadership to focus on being a present parent.
• 15:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 15:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: What's at that moment, teach you about priorities, leadership, and a kind of example we set for others.
• 15:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Wherever you are, you're working in a larger environment there.
• 15:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I had, well, let me go back, and so I have to give an example, which is that, at the present time, when I was teaching at Columbia College, we were, we were a fledging institution.
• 15:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: We were new and new kid on the block there.
• 15:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: We had virtually no money is, you know, whatsoever.
• 15:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: We did not have a health insurance plan or anything along that line there.
• 15:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: And my daughter at the age of two and a half needed major brain surgery, which blue are I mean, it overwhelmed us there.
• 15:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we needed to, you know, she needed to go to hospital, obviously, have the surgery.
• 16:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the president of the college heard about that.
• 16:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: And he called me and said, Lou, you know, you're dealing with the most horrifying, challenging aspect of parents.
• 16:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Your daughter needs major brain surgery.
• 16:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Here's what you go out and get the best medical care and I'll pay for it.
• 16:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
• 16:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is the present of a college and I'll pay for you.
• 16:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't want you to worry about
• 16:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: money in this regard.
• 16:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because money isn't important, it is a green-backed out-of-a-world.
• 16:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: But if money is also to be used to heal the world too, like that.
• 16:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so years later, my, I decide, well, I'm not years later about a year later and stuff like I decided to, I needed to do something that my father could not do.
• 16:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because my father did the best he could, but he worked four jobs.
• 16:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: I hardly ever sold my father, you know, and children, children need fathers there.
• 17:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I said, you know, I want to do something to build on my father's foundation.
• 17:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that is, I knew he would get joy wherever his soul journey was.
• 17:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: He would receive joy if I could do what he could not do, which is be actually a father.
• 17:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I decided, you know, I went to the President of the College and I explained to him, look, I got to go.
• 17:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to stay here, you know, I'll be a chair, but I can longer be a dean, I will find someone else will be a great dean, and I would need to resign so I can have time and energy in space to be with my child.
• 17:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: And my wife, also an immigrant like that.
• 17:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: She both she and I were working, you know, full time and I realized, you know,
• 17:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: has a lot of work to do and a mother would have a father is very challenging there.
• 17:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, I spoke to my wife and she agreed, and we might not earn as much money as we're doing, but we're still living constantly.
• 18:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Lewis, I've hardly agree with your decision.
• 18:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, I think it's also what you're dealing with business or community or family.
• 18:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: You have to
• 18:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: have a conversation which allows all people to participate in the decision that's occurring.
• 18:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: And if you do that, you'll have support.
• 18:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: As my, you know, as my, I could have gone just home and say to Paul Paul, I'm pretty much about I'm resigning to dad that day.
• 18:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: And she might say, well, Lewis, we can't do that because we can't go this way there.
• 18:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And by my sharing or why I wanted to do this, she agreed.
• 18:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we'll have less, but we'll have more and the more is you and I will be co-pariting our two children.
• 18:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: Hmm, that's wonderful, that idea of aligning actions with values is something so many people struggle with and especially leaders and for leaders and educators listening how can they intentionally design environments whether in business or education where people don't just learn but grow and transform are there any specific principles or practices that you follow that you could share.
• 19:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, let me give a thought to this for a moment there.
• 19:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, one is to sit, you know, first of all, you have to believe that the people you are working with.
• 19:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: want to change, that they are capable of making change there.
• 19:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: And they will also act not in just their interest, but in the interest of the greater whole.
• 19:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we wouldn't, I would sit and have this very candid interview with everyone who wanted to work at, you know, work at Columbia College thing.
• 19:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Why do you want to
• 19:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Join Columbia College, you know, there.
• 19:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: What do you hope to do there?
• 19:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: What means you have available?
• 19:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: What do you need to learn still what skills and all you need to learn to affect you like that?
• 19:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we'll do or I'll do my very best and the college will do very best to support your growth as a teacher, as an educator.
• 20:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, you have to agree.
• 20:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: that you're also going to apply those philosophies to the students in your class, you know, they are that they also will need to have that system and you are here to support them, not just in terms of what's going on in a classroom, but what's going on beyond the classroom there.
• 20:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: And example, I'll give, I mean, I remember one year of climate, we had 30 homeless students.
• 20:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, and they would say a teacher would get, they say Lewis in another class, you know, a teacher gave us an assignment, but I don't have a computer.
• 20:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: In fact, tonight, I don't know where I'm going to sleep.
• 20:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I can't do the work.
• 20:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know how to do the work.
• 20:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we would share this in class.
• 20:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: And what would happen to someone else in the class would say to that student, you can come and stay with me tonight of the next night's song, so forth there.
• 20:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: And realizing that people were in tight, were whole human beings there.
• 21:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: and people need to, when you're working with people, you have to realize that they are here, but there's something beyond the hair, too.
• 21:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: And what supports us and what can you do?
• 21:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: What are you going to allow them to share with you to bring to work their best selves?
• 21:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because if they go home and stuff is going on, you know, they can't take care of stuff, they can't feed their children and stuff.
• 21:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: They've had a terrible argument with their spouse and they bring it to work
• 21:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: allow an entire human beings to be sustenance, to give sustenance there, and that certainly what occurred there.
• 21:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: I also realize that you know, human beings are not just in terms of educated, and not just minds, but I said we're hearts and we're souls there.
• 21:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: So allow your heart to what you need to do to allow your heart to open.
• 21:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because if you're just in mind, and your heart is not open, you're not going to really listen to what's doing to you.
• 22:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: When someone says, I'm homeless, I have no place to beat tonight.
• 22:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, that's interesting.
• 22:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Listen, move on to the subject there.
• 22:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: But unless you open, particularly if you're in services, unless you open your heart,
• 22:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: you're not going to connect with those people and do what's necessary to have them be the best workers when they're in the work environments there.
• 22:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I would say, and then also for myself, you know, there's a lot of tension working with people.
• 22:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: as you, you know, there's a lot of tension working with people there.
• 22:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I had also sustained myself, you know, and I realized if I'm going to take care of the people and my students or my colleagues, you know, who I was chair of, Dean of, I had to take care of myself.
• 22:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, if I can't take,
• 22:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: so I made certain that I ate well very basic principles.
• 22:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: I made certain that I did my meditation because when I did my meditation I listened to all that's going on in my life there that might affect that and what I needed to work with that there and then I also surround myself with beauty because beauty and when I say by beauty particularly nature because nature has a healing force
• 23:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, they have this forest walk where people walk into the forest and they sit down by next to a tree and they breathe in the essence of the tree and the essence of the flowers and they're allowing that incredible flowing energy to come into their bodies.
• 23:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I think it's really important there, no matter where you're working, you're not real.
• 23:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, well, I know this, I know this, but really take care of yourself by the mind and spirit
• 23:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: to energize others to work with others there and to do your work.
• 23:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: As incredibly powerful, thank you for sharing that.
• 23:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: If someone wanted to start becoming more intentional about their influence today, and could you think of one or two simple actionable habits that could start, they could implement that would create measurable impact over time?
• 24:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, certainly one is what we say is just still yourself, you know, really learn how to meditate, or at least how to send to yourself there.
• 24:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: And by doing so, you listen to your inner voice, not just do external words, and your inner voice will say to you, you know, I'm speaking to myself now, Lewis, you know, this is something going on in your life that's impacting.
• 24:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: your personal life, but you work life there.
• 24:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's easy just to, was a drink, drink a little, do something else there, which stills that voice.
• 24:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: So certainly to listen to what's going on in your life.
• 24:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we're so busy all the time.
• 24:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Da, da, da, da, da, da.
• 24:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: So certainly to still yourself and listen to yourself and hear what you need to work on and what you're also doing well.
• 25:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Really, really, really, you know, allow yourself to be affirmed.
• 25:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: I remember, I shared my life yesterday, we were listening to Linda Ronstadt.
• 25:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: And Linda Ronstadt was an incredible, you know, performer.
• 25:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: And she was, she broke through in so many different ways.
• 25:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we're listening to a documentary.
• 25:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: And she's, she's before an audience of 10,000 people.
• 25:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: And she's singing your heart out and then she said later on in documentary, I never felt I had done it well.
• 25:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: I never felt, yes, Linda Ronset, I always felt I did not satisfy the audience.
• 25:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't, and I am pulling ice white, what?
• 25:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I realized what she didn't do but all due respect to her, she never spoke to the audience.
• 25:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: She performed, and she didn't get feedback, you know, and go after the performance, sit down or invite some audience members back and let the people that you're working to speak to you, okay?
• 26:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because you could think you're doing a great job and you might or you might not.
• 26:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it's really important to have time out in somewhere where you're gathering together
• 26:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: what your effect is.
• 26:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you'll learn, wow, you're really doing, you know, a incredible job, but you also need something.
• 26:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, so really listening to others, and the last thing is, I'd say, we really need to take in, not just the pain and sorrow of the world.
• 26:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: And there's so much of that, but the joy and the beauty.
• 26:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, I really say, really health and really, see all of really, okay, let me stop saying, really, is to take in nature.
• 26:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, because nature is an incredible healing force.
• 26:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we knew that, you know, in indigenous societies, we were, and then we get into the modern world, and we kind of separate, and we're in concrete all the time.
• 27:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: And concrete is not nature and just spend, you know, spend even if it's going to little parking and just sitting in the parking, dreaming in and listening to the tree and watching the birds.
• 27:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: That we need that force that create a,
• 27:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't care where you're working at to renew us because, you know, you're working real hard.
• 27:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, as dean, I was working, you know, 12, 13, 14 hours a day, you know, that's a lot, you know, that's a lot of stuff there.
• 27:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: And even though then at night I go out and go across the street and sit by a tree and listen to what, you know, I would say, you know, look at this tree, man, this tree has seen it's, you know, I added tree in front of my house that's 180 years old.
• 27:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I said, this tree, this tree, has seen war, poverty, and justice.
• 27:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's seen horror, and it still stands tall, and it's still giving out its life for us there.
• 28:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: So go listen to trees, because they still exist, and they create, and if you fill no matter what has David's, and trees have so much to teach us there.
• 28:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it might be a flower too, but I think it's really important to take in this healing for us there.
• 28:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: And one of the reasons I've done that is that I grew up in Brooklyn and it was a book, a famous book called A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.
• 28:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, guess what?
• 28:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: I never saw a tree till I was three years old.
• 28:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: There were no trees in my neighborhood.
• 28:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, there were no trees in our community.
• 28:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: So my mother when I was three took us to Prospect Park and I saw much and I didn't know what a tree was because guess what?
• 28:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: We didn't have a, I was born in 40, and we didn't have a television to 1947.
• 28:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: We had the first television on our blog.
• 28:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: and people would come up, and my brother and I would be sleeping in the living room, and people named and sit around the couches and watch this thing.
• 28:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I saw a tree, and I asked my mother what a tree was, and my mother grew up in rural poll, and so he explained to me what a tree was there.
• 29:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then, you know, being at naive child, I'd look at these animals.
• 29:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'd say, why are these animals in prison?
• 29:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: I did not understand why you put animals in prison, you know, there.
• 29:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: And my mother explained to him why they are there and she said, you know, some day, hopefully someone is going to free this animal.
• 29:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: And maybe it's not going to be in physicality, but it won't be in spirit like that.
• 29:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And realize that there's a need to be free, okay?
• 29:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you're here also to foster the freedom of people's creativity, the freedom of people's love, the freedom of people's sharing.
• 29:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I really had incredible mother.
• 29:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: I really had an incredible shoot and then all those came, you know, came, you know, within me, you know, really came within me there and living in a very poverty-stricken area, incredibly poverty-stricken there.
• 30:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: I realize, you know, money is necessary, but my mother ran a little social community center
• 30:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: The only water in our bathroom had no bathtub, no shower, anything like that, they had just a little sink.
• 30:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: There were six of us going to work, you know, then learning how to live this little sink and so on.
• 30:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: And my mother took out of this mess, created something that was absolutely wonderful, and I realized that no matter where you're in, you can take those materials and create something there.
• 30:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: So that really made me walk into walk in this life in that particular way there.
• 30:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so there I went and walked and started walking into the world there.
• 30:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: I also have to throw into this there.
• 31:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm born in 1940, the war is on, you know, and one of what a boy wants to do is become a man.
• 31:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: and I had an uncle very different from my other uncles who was a man who also was of hard as well as mine and also concerned about others.
• 31:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I think it's also whether you're three years old or 13 or 56 years old is find someone an elder, okay, who can help you grow
• 31:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: in whatever you wish to be.
• 31:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, I think, you know, don't assume that you know everything, but be open to elders.
• 31:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's, and that's, you know, in money society, we've closed this up from elders here in a lot of degree.
• 31:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: And in many societies, they realize an elder has a source of information.
• 31:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: They can give you, even they might not be able to read or write there.
• 31:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, really look to elders too.
• 31:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: is great advice, you know, in closing for someone listening today who wants to make a greater positive impact, but isn't sure where to start.
• 32:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: What is one intentional step they can take this week to begin influencing others in a more meaningful and responsible way?
• 32:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: And they don't know where to start.
• 32:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, find someone.
• 32:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: who's been where you are, have been and speak to them.
• 32:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, speak to them.
• 32:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Find someone who has been in situation where, you know, they're 13 or 30s that like that.
• 32:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: And they were lost, they weren't certain how to move on.
• 32:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: and have an honest conversation with that particular, you know, that particular person.
• 32:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's really, you know, as they said before, sometimes we need a little help from our friends to get by, and that's true.
• 32:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
• 32:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I would say certainly certainly that is an absolutely necessary step there.
• 33:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Lewis.
• 33:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much for sharing, not just your story, but your perspective on what it truly means to influence with intention.
• 33:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: If our listeners want to get in touch with you, what does a best way to do so?
• 33:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: This way to do so, I would say is through my email, I'll give my email, which is L-O-U-I-S-L-U-S, the number seven, the letter S is in Sam at Comcast.net.
• 33:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: That would probably be the best way at this particular time.
• 33:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: Lewis, we'll put that information in the show notes.
• 33:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much for joining us in sharing your stories and your advice.
• 33:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm so grateful for you.
• 33:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Can I add one more last quick thing?
• 33:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: OK. Last year, I published my third book, which is
• 33:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: a book that really includes all of my teachings, all of my wisdom to offer others there, and perhaps some people want to look at that, you know, which is, you know, a book that really deals with not just general philosophy, but it deals with practical ways.
• 34:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: of implementing and covering your beliefs, your philosophy and the work environment also in a home environment.
• 34:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: We'll put the link to your book in the show now.
• 34:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's far away from us.
• 34:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that'd be great.
• 34:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: And those for you listening, thank you for joining us on daily influence.
• 34:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: I hope today's conversation brought you insight and inspiration.
• 34:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: If it's spoke to you, share it with someone who could use a little positivity today.
• 34:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is your reminder, influences and about titles or roles.
• 34:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's about the choices you make the conversations you have.
• 34:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: and the example you set every single day.
• 34:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: So here's your takeaway.
• 34:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: What one's small and tensional action can you take today that creates a positive ripple for someone else?
• 34:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because that's where the real influence begins.
• 34:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: Until next time, stay inspired and keep having a positive responsible influence.
• 34:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: Bye-bye.