Breakfast with Stephen

Neil Lawrence is a well-being and transformational coach who reminds us about the importance of self-acceptance and authenticity to find purpose in life.

Neil shares how mindfulness has helped him navigate neurodivergence as well as chronic conditions that have profoundly impacted his life, like Fibromyalgia and PSTD.

Neil emphasizes the idea that everyone is good enough as they are, countering societal pressures that often lead to a sense of inadequacy, which heavily affects minority groups like neurodivergent individuals and members of the LGBTQ+ community.

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TRANSCRIPT

Stephen Matini: Have you always known what you want to do professionally?

Neil Lawrence: No, I coach creatives. I'm a writer myself. I coach execs, I coach leaders. I do lots of career coaching. I coach kids. And honestly, that idea of having the career and the career plan, it's so antithetical to me. I'm kind of careful where I say it, but I do honestly believe that's not the way it goes.

I became intentional about the work I did when I became a coach, everything before it. And even then, it was still like, I don't really know what was getting myself into before then.

Third generation immigrant. My community was, this is the generation that has to make it to middle class. I'm sure you know about the UK and just how class obsessed and hierarchically obsessed they are. So, you know, I went to university that wasn't approved of by my community 'cause it wasn't one of the ones. But essentially I kind of fell into everything I did until I became a coach and intentionally became a writer.

Stephen Matini: What you just described is what happens, I think to most people. Very few people know from the very beginning what they wanted to do. And you said at some point you made more intentional choices. Do you think it, is it possible to make intentional choices early on on our lives or it just that we have to go through a bunch of stuff before we actually understand?

Neil Lawrence: That's a good question. I think our society has got everything the wrong way around. I think there are systemic reasons for that and in the UK I think there's political reasons for that.

We are a nation obsessed with success, passion being driven, having the career, having the title. And actually I kind of find myself asking what for, I think work is important. I probably am a workaholic, but in my mind I don't think it's that important. It doesn't define who I am. It's something that I spend a lot of my life doing.

I think those people know what they want to do at an early age and are quite driven. I'm passionate about it. I'm not judgmental about that. I'm more on alert for the fact that everybody feels like they have to.

And so many people feel they're failing because of it. And particularly since Covid and the pandemic hit and people are even more desperately trying to support the system that now has so many holes and gaps in it that it's unsustainable.

I'm seeing as a coach, I'm seeing a lot of really worn out, unhappy, confused people. So three or four things got me too intentional. One facing up to the fact that I was disabled.

Two, realizing that I was living with PTSD as well as fibromyalgia and like I've just, it's interesting you're saying about not sleeping.

So I've literally just come up my whole weekend's been decimated by PTSD this weekend. It's just like I didn't exist for about 36 hours and you know, it's a big something and then I've told this story a billion times, but basically me and my husband were, we're on a very narrow and congested motorway about five years ago and it was dangerous driving conditions and I, we shouldn't be here.

So still being here when I shouldn't be here also is quite a good motivate. So I wouldn't recommend it for anyone, by the way, as a way of finding out who you are.

But I think all those things coalesced and I'm being bullied within the education sector and, and the values of working within that for 25 years and realizing just how misaligned they were.

As I came to the conclusion that, you know, in UK education's really about two things. It's about hierarchy and it's about institutionalized bullying. All of that coalesced and drew me towards coaching the course I did with a company called Catalyst one Four. I'm still super supervised by them now. Demi one four who's the the founder and the kind of person who's my supervisor as well. They had a big mindfulness element to it that was really important to me as well.

So, you know, I dunno if this long answer is giving you kind of what you want, but certainly my experience of waking up day to day means that now whatever's on, even if I'm stressed, it's like it is, it feels like purpose and it feels like I'm doing what I should be doing.

Stephen Matini: So basically we are sold a big lie.

Neil Lawrence: Yes. What we're told is we need to work so many hours, we need to have a micromanaged plan. We need to keep improving and keep adding to our skillset and we are not good enough. That's kind of, and we'll never be good enough. So we have to keep going.

What I see from the people I coach and as as was saying, it's you know, sort of really broad spectrum of people is when they realize they don't have to work this hard, they are more than their job title. If they don't do this course and get this next qualification and people don't congratulate them on social media, they still might be working really well. Trying to be really careful say. That, oh, I haven't done my post this morning either. That's when I see the difference of people going, oh my, my motto is do less, plan less be less.

Stephen Matini: But I love it connected to what you're saying. For me, what helps me is reminding myself, why am I doing this? You know, am I doing it because I am enjoying myself and obviously, you know, work is, work is not vacation, but what is the, the reason why I'm doing it? Because that really changes everything. It changes how you are in a situation. It changes how you work, it changes how you feel about stuff. If it's all about getting there, the results, how is it gonna land on people? It may spoil the whole journey, not completely. Definitely it did it for me.

Neil Lawrence: I do wonder whether lots of us are on a journey or just constantly looking at destinations. Either those that have gone already that stick with us or those that we're heading to. I do wonder about that. And obviously that's the mindfulness bit, which is also nicely packaged these days as a kind of CBT tick box, which is not at all where I'm at with it or how I practice it and work with people that I coach either.

But focusing on the now is the important thing. Set the intention. Obviously we plan, but we leave enough in the hands of trust that we will know when to make the gut decision. The right people will come to us if we're open to it. It always sounds a bit vague and wooly doesn't it, when people who, when people say this stuff or, or it's easily, you know, certain phrase I hate soft skills is an insult.

Likewise, you know, when people talk about mindfulness being quite wooly and it's about clearing your mind so you have the clarity to make the decisions you need to as and when they happen rather than trying to look ahead and put everything in place before you get there. You missing on the journey there.

Stephen Matini: How did you get into mindfulness? Do you remember the first time that got into your life?

Neil Lawrence: In the days when I was still muck schooling, I worked with this wonderful counselor and we were running a couple of groups for young men at the point where I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia.

That's when I started meditating and used this app, which was a very basic, this is how you know, the three steps, three basic mindfulness techniques. And then from there I started to practice it and I kind of got it. But then I came across two teachers, two American teachers, one called Tara Brack and the second one called Jack Kornfield with a cape.

They're really down to earth, they're really funny, they're really compassionate and they are very switched on in terms of systems and what's happening in the world around and, and they don't shy away from any of that. And my jaw kind of dropped open, suddenly there was a kind of spiritual link to the work I was doing and that's when as I continued to practice, a light switched on.

I can remember the very moment, you know, Jack Hall Phil's written a book called After the Ecstasy of the Laundry. It's something like that, which is about his experience of kind of becoming a Budd monk and then coming back to America and just kind of the day-to-day going, oh, and I have this half term off where I was really connecting and really starting to feel compassion for other people and doors were opening and I went back to work and got these like 25 emails all about admin and systems and process that completely obfuscated working with young people or connecting with them or making a difference.

And I really felt this disconnection. It was like, how the hell am I supposed to do this? So I realized I'd also have to find a wave surviving day-to-day systems that didn't really reach into making compassionate connections and being able to make a difference in that way. So from that moment onwards, things change.

Stephen Matini: One of the ways that I have introduced mindfulness in the corporate world, which by the way for many, many, many years in depends on the situation, but it has always been welcomed really warmly to my surprise. But when people ask me more information and a bizarre way that I have to introduce it so they understand it is, it's basically implementing the lean process to your mind so that you think less and you focus on what matters. Okay, okay. Yeah. So you're gonna be more efficient.

Run your mind. I like that. I've, well my, my experience of business-wise right across the board, the place where it's happened most has been kind of post 360 audit. It's exactly that. I think when you're coaching and especially with something like something that's an emotionally charged as a 360 or or any kind of review of performance that people are really open to what's gonna make this feel less like I an imposter And mindfulness is a really powerful way of introducing that. So yeah, I've shifted lots of, lots of copies of radical compassion particularly and radical acceptance.

Stephen Matini: What does compassion mean to you?

Neil Lawrence: I'm a change maker just in case it's not clear already. I've always been motivated by advocacy in terms of the work I do. So it's always been important to me to kind of have that sensibility.

When lockdown happened, it was an interesting experience for me watching the way the rest of the world reacted to not being able to leave the house and the way that people completely still ignored disabled people that can't go out. And I suddenly realized if I didn't gain some compassion quick that I was just gonna hate the universe.

So I literally introduced compassion meditation, meta meditation, much more loving kindness. Meditation is much more part of my day to day and and again, intentionally wanted to build all that soft care. And by the time toilet roll gators I like to call it happened in the UK and you know, people were just like literally fighting to get stuff off the shelves.

I just, I thought it was a really interesting image anyway, that people have to buy something to feel in control of a situation where uncertainty is slapping them across the face. I just felt this huge sadness that it's deep pain and sadness and I can't manage it all the time and that's okay 'cause that's why we practice meditation. We don't surpass it. But that's what impassion means to me. That ability

Stephen Matini: For different reasons. So many people these days seem to go through a mess up out of sadness, anger. These past few years have been really difficult for many, many, many different reasons. How do you switch from feeling sad and angry to feeling compassionate? Do you use mindfulness? Is it anything else that you do specifically?

Neil Lawrence: It is mindfulness because that retrains the brain. And also I've studied psych psychodynamic psychotherapy. You've either got someone in front of you, you take the toilet roll gate as an example. You've either got someone in front of you who's really angry and selfish and doesn't care about anyone else and look at these people.

So you either get that or you can see that someone is desperate and that desperation is leading them to literally lash out. And if people's defensiveness is because they feel they're gonna be attacked. And I do believe that's what it is, there's a lot of fight, flight, freeze response.

And if you can see that, keep yourself safe because you're in the line of fire of somebody else who's not coping. That's not necessarily safe place to be emotionally or physically sometimes. But at the same time to recognize what you are seeing, that actually that violence or language or the selfishness isn't selfishness. It's desperation.

We seem to be obsessed with becoming self-aware and lots of the self-help stuff is about self-awareness, but none of it is about how we heal afterwards. So I think we've got loads of people that are becoming more self-aware and are really quite thin skinned as a result because they don't have the tools they need to actually look after themselves because that's not the wellbeing marketplace is it.

Stephen Matini: It's interesting when you talked about before about the notion of labels, I think I've read it on your website, when you talk about your values, like one of your, your values that you cherish is being real and you wrote, we are far more than a labels. Labels should not be boxes. We should know who we are beneath. It feels like an oxymoron such as we are trying to be inclusive, we want to recognize diversity of thinking, of political diversity and such and such. But rather than feeling more inclusive, it's almost like we are fragmenting, you know, we are separating even further and further. So what would you say that is a healthy approach to labels if you should use, if you should use them at all?

Neil Lawrence: Thank you for the way you framed that question. 'cause We are on serious dangerous ground with even approaching this as, you know, because people's stories and the history of people's stories who've not been treated with respect or worse have been treated with aggression and violence and exclusion. Whatever community is, they matter.

All those stories matter. And the right that people have to expect better from that of course is paramount. But I think where we've got to is it's your fault and what are you gonna do about it? As a way of talking about previous experience, again, the, so mindfulness would say that we can become overdependent on the label.

All these things that actually describe who I am, they are things that I do or they are parts of my physical or emotional landscape. I think it's about holding onto it lightly and we should reach out to others with that and the strength in numbers.

So leaning into, you know, I'm not com I've, I've always found I'm never comfortable in the, the label community that I've been part that that I go to. Because yes, we need to be talking and yes, other people should know what our experiences is, but I just kind of have this feeling that really truly connecting with someone and deeply listening to them. If someone else is doing that, then your experience is being shared.

That's the way to do it. And what's been lost is the idea of community at the moment and people joining together. I'm sure it suits the system for us to be this divided, you know, certainly suits the uk you know, while we're all bickering then life can go on as normal elsewhere.

But actually we need to be joining together and listening to each other's experiences. At some point we have to stop the idea of hierarchy. And I feel like that's a dangerous thing to say. I'm just waiting for the kickback whenever I say that.

Stephen Matini: If we all listen to each other's experiences, what would you say that people would be able to hear to be the same in common?

Neil Lawrence: I'm practicing it as a kind of think about it now. So I'm, I'm aware that I'm slowing my body down, that I am slowing my thought process down and opening up even across a zoom link to you Stephen. 'cause I do that.

And allowing space for what you are saying to emotionally connect with me rather than just this, be a podcast interview if you like. There's something about that because what's needed will come from the conversation again, if we just trust that the other person is not the enemy, if the other person is the solution, then being able to think together and recognize there might be differences of opinion. But if we stop this thing of entitlement, which has become a noose around on x, I think it will be helpful. I mean, yes there are basic human rights that all of us should be have equal access to, but also there are very serious differences of experience.

Like my, so thinking about disability, my, I hate the word normal, but let's just use it for sake of argument. My normal wouldn't be someone else's for me. Yesterday we took the dog out for a walk, which we haven't done for a couple of weeks 'cause he's developed arthritis.

And during that walk my legs went, fibro wise again as a result of the PTSD episode that I'd had the day before the, the fibromyalgia kind of intensified. I was literally staggering around looking probably like I'd had about 10 points of, of Guinness or something and kind of laughing about that. And I said, and I said to my partner, I can't believe I've got used to this.

This is like, I was thinking about people that maybe hide when they're in that situation, but just the freedom to stagger and to nurture myself when I got back home 'cause I was in pain. So there's something about being able to relate to each other's experiences I keep writing on, on LinkedIn at the moment.

I've noticed when I'm doing these posts, don't call me brave, don't feel sorry for me. I'm not asking for that. I'm not asking for you. I'm just sharing. It's like this is not a judge, it's not a valued judgment to be had about this. Can you connect with where I'm at without feeling the need to do anything or judge.

Stephen Matini: The one thought we can call it compassion that I have Oftentimes that put things in perspective is when I become mindful of the fact that all of us bear this humongous question mark, which is the journey of life. You know, we bear this thing of eventually one day we are gonna die. That's a huge thing to go through life, you know, so many question marks and as you said the beauty of life, but also the, the tremendous challenges of life that inevitably sooner or later all of us are going to face. You know? And when I look around and I feel lonely and I look at people that I don't know thinking, oh wow, they really share my same destiny. Eventually at some point they're gonna run through the same thoughts. And I feel so compassionate. I feel, oh my God, I, I wonder how they're going to feel. I wonder how they're going to react. I wonder if they're going to feel as lonely as I do. That thought for me really does the trick every single time that I get angry or, or something. You know what? Underneath this is our common destiny, our shared journey. And it really is the same and really put me in a different perspective. It somehow helps me calming down it to be more understanding of people.

Neil Lawrence: I love that Steve. It makes me realize it's, so, there was that moment wasn't there at the beginning of lockdown where it looked like people were gonna reach for a kinder life afterwards.

And looking at it from a mindfulness perspective or a Buddhist perspective, we have this moment where we could no longer pretend we could micromanage life and being faced with, you know, they, one is that life is uncertain and two, that it's finite. We're faced with this real understanding of both of those things.

The fact that people have rushed back into to try and recreate the life there was before. When we don't have the resources we have before even, and it was too much then makes me feel really, really sad. There was a moment where if we could bear the uncertainty and bear that realization that we're all gonna die and live with that fruitfully, that life could actually become different.

But it seems like we can't, what mind, again, not mindfulness has been able to do is make me realize that home is me. And that's true for all of us. You know? So being at home is being at home with me at that point. I wanna open the door and let other people in and need and want to have a really rich number of connections of friends and work colleagues.

So I think, I think there's something about that. It's a struggle, but the idea that I don't matter, I'd find that really, really reassuring. That doesn't mean I can't make a difference, that I don't have great connections, but you know, I'm here I live, I'll die. I said don't need to need a legacy. I don't need to have this amazing trajectory that has done X, y, and z. I just need to be able to be here.

I'm lucky enough to still be here after surviving that car crash. So every day's a blessing, every minute's a blessing. If I can reach into it and see it and nothing else matters, acceptance then actually opens the brain up to being able to think about what we can really do.

So what, when I was growing up, my first crush, remember it so clearly was Michael J. Fox, she'll also tell you how old I'm and him kind of disappearing off the screen in the late eighties, early nineties. But reemerging in his spin city, which was the sitcom he came back to do is is written by Bill Lawrence. I love Bill Lawrence. He did Scrubs, he's done Ted Lasso recently shrinking. And Michael J. Fox is so funny in that, so, so funny. And then finding out when he, you know, spoke about Parkinson's for the first time and now I realize as a middle aged guy, God he was young, he was really, really young.

And that recent incredible documentary, you know, that's shown on Apple plus that he did about his his journey. I find that so inspirational. Here's, here's the guy that for the first I, I remember it, I went to see back to the future, I remember being in the cinema, I just couldn't take my eyes off the screen and then crying on the bus on the way back going, oh my God, I like guys even wrote a jokey country in Western song in the sixth form about him.

There's this deep, this kind of connection that I kind of feel just, just kind of watching. Not in a stalky one, but I find his whole journey and the fact that, you know, his marriage has survived all of that and his kids love him so much. It just, I find to me about that inspirational even down to his mobility.

'Cause You know, he drops a lot. He falls a lot and dyspraxia is quite a big part of what I've got. But you know, very clumsy. If my chronic fatigue is really high, yeah, I can trip over things. And I was in the middle of teaching and I fell asleep while I was talking maybe, maybe so bored, but boring myself, but actually felt my eyes going. It's like, oh my god, this is serious. And I'm being told I couldn't take a cup of coffee into an invigoration once as well.

And I was like, and you don't understand I need this coffee. They were like, no, it's against the rules. And I said, okay, but I'm warning you I'll probably fall asleep. And probably did. I think there's something about that acceptance piece which doesn't yeah. Which doesn't mean being passive and certainly not in terms of advocacy around disability or whatever positive world we can find that hasn't got a dis in it around it. My mobility.

Stephen Matini: I'm curious about something that I read when I did some, a bit of research about you, the notion of finishing, which is, you know, people struggling with completing task. Does this fit in any way, shape and form with what we are talking about?

Neil Lawrence: Yeah, I think so. You know, the idea of niching I found really difficult when I started in business and, and set my own company. Because I do work across the board and I work on a wide range of different kind of issues from very personal ones to, you know, very, very career focused ones and everything in between.

And it felt like a good fit, particularly after working with someone who's living with A DHD who specifically had that issue around how to either not get too hyper-focused or then how to give the brain the nugget it needed to keep going to get something done.

So I kind of put it in there. But we now live in a world where people are petrified of finishing anything. Everything, you know, things feel so daunting and overwhelming partly 'cause I think the number of things that we're expected to do on any given day is, is is far too much.

And the number of interactions and the, and the avenues for interacting again is far too much. We've definitely gone for quantity over quality of communication. I think the pandemic has really not the stuffing out of everyone in terms of the idea of getting stuff done. It's started off as a kind of recognition for me as a neurodivergent as well. My dyscalculia means that sometimes I lack focus, sometimes I forget what I'm talking about.

Sometimes I find it hard to put things in a logical sequence and definitely organization in terms of time, date, where I need to be. All of that have to input that into my brain. 'cause The bit that where wires should be isn't there. And I'd, I'd done it. And I remember being surprised about 10 years ago when both my husband and one of my closest friends said, you are the most organized person I know, but because my brain is chaos, I don't see it that way, but actually it's true.

And then I thought, well actually I'm probably a good person to be kind of helping people with this stuff. So it started from a neurodivergent perspective, but now it feels like it's a, it's a global problem that there's far too much and people feel under prepared for doing it.

So for me it's about confidence, about giving people the confidence but then crucially for them to work out that they have the skills there all along. If someone had been there and it had been a safe enough environment for the, for them to be able to dig in. It's not that I don't give tools, obviously I do, but only if someone else hasn't got what they need. And most people do most of the time. So reintroduce the idea that we can do stuff and actually we can say no and we can rebuild the world, our world so that it's manageable.

Stephen Matini: If I had to use a label for you, if I have to, I would say that you are exquisitely British in the way you self-deprecate yourself, your sense of humor. Yeah. That, that's, that's probably the only one that I would use.

Neil Lawrence: That's interesting. And I've been, I've been told that before as well. And maybe there is a bit of me putting myself down before someone else does. I think more these days it's, it's the opposite. I kind of, it's not that I think I'm important, we've already covered that.

But I do think that when it comes to white elephants, I'm really good at spotting them. And my life path has given me skills and care enough to be able to really help an enormous number of people, an enormous number of contexts, which yet is bad marketing copy, but is great in terms of what I actually do. So even when I am putting myself down, I kind of, I, I don't feel that, I feel like I'm able to have enormous impact and I'm wanna do much more of it too. You know, this is still year three, year four of my journey with this.

So I feel really positive about that. I don't have a filter for that stuff and I don't understand why other people would. So, you know, I will say things like, I had a really bad experience with PTSD this weekend and now I've got the fibro repercussions. I probably say that two or three times today. And I see people get nervous, particularly if I'm working, I'm working for them. Like bosses gonna go, especially in the wellbeing industry. It's like we're all supposed to show we're shiny and I have nothing wrong with this.

What is the point of that? You know? Oh yeah. But if, you know, if you with PTSD, people won't trust. You're like, well I'm surviving it. So for me it's just the logical thing and I want to bring those white elephants out. That's important to me. 'cause Those are the things that oppress me when people don't talk about them.

Some people can't talk about them, I don't think. It's not like, I think everybody has to, and I've had that particularly in the L-G-B-T-Q community. Like you have to come out. No, I don't. I can choose where and when I do it, thank you. But I do think just being able to be honest and open with the stuff that's important to me or just feels like it's not talked about is I find, I find that helpful.

Stephen Matini: Neil, I have one last question, which I always love to, to ask. We, we talked about so many different things and all these things are interconnected among all these things. Is there anything in particular that you think there are listeners should be pay attention to as a biggest takeaway from the conversation from your point of view?

Neil Lawrence: I think I would go to the, to my two little photos that I use on LinkedIn a lot. So one, do less plan, less be less. And the second one connected to that is that you are good enough. I'm good enough. And so are you, let's just start from that and then see what happens.

Stephen Matini: That's beautiful. Thank you Neil. This is wonderful. Thank you so much for this lovely conversation. Thank you.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit breakfastwithstephen.substack.com

David D'Arcangelo is the President of Arc Angel Communications, a Limited Liability Company that is a Disability Owned Business Enterprise.

Legally blind from a young age, David is a passionate leader, advocate, and policy maker for people with disabilities and underserved populations.

During our conversation, David emphasizes the power of positivity, love, and constructive discourse in addressing societal challenges and building bridges between differing perspectives.

Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform.

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TRANSCRIPT

Stephen Matini: As we are approaching the end of the year, usually for me it's a, it's a moment of self-introspection. I tend to calm down a little bit, and just revisit all that I've done during the year. I also think about, all right, what I want the next year to be. So, I don't know if you gave any thought to 2024, but do you have any special wish for the year to come?

David D’Arcangelo: Peace. I'm a bridge builder and so to me it's just bringing people together. You know, it's kind of ironical. Oftentimes people who advocate for change the most are the most adverse to it. The worst fear of a planner is that the plan actually goes into action.

So I'm all about action. I'm all about getting things done and getting results and improving the human condition. So, and sometimes when you do that, you get to change things and not everybody likes that.

People say they like it, that they like the change, but then when you go ahead and change it, maybe they don't like it as much. So to me it's about building those bridges and just staying positive, you know, that we can't control a lot. One thing we can control is our attitude. So I choose to be positive.

Stephen Matini: What do you think people resent the most about change?

David D’Arcangelo: Yeah, it's a great question. I don't know if they resent it. I think it's, people like to build archetypal metaphors in their head of what something is or isn't or is going to be or could be. And when that doesn't happen accordingly or exactly how they envisioned it, that creates conflict and that conflict is unsettling and everything else.

So I try not to do that. I try not to have those prejudices really, and who knows what the next moment will bring, you know, it's like you gotta live for the moment.

Stephen Matini: So it's about having the right expectations.

David D’Arcangelo: Yeah, well, having no expectations really. Well, that can be challenging. It can, because I mean, you need to be pragmatic and plan for your dinner and plan for the seasons changing and plan for short and medium and long term things.

So to me, it's the blend of being pragmatic, but also really not expecting much because nothing is guaranteed. All that's guaranteed is now this moment further than that. It's just everything's up for grabs.

Stephen Matini: Sometimes it is discrepancy between what we want, our goals, our wishes, and the way things are. And I think it's a fine balance between finding contentment in the present moment while at the same time thriving for something else. How do you personally strike this balance?

David D’Arcangelo: Sometimes better than others! Because You do get caught up in trying to think about the future or reflecting on the past.

Future performance is usually an indication of past performance, but we're here on the now, so it's taking some measure of where we've been and that experience and being able to reflect on it.

Particularly if you've made mistakes, you know, we're all, nobody's perfect and whatever failures we've had, I think it's trying to learn from those so that when you do them again, you're better, right?

So having that past experience, trying to apply it towards future behaviors in the now and having that balance, like you said, is to me that's really one of the keys and one of the, if you can find that secret sauce in life, I think that's close to it.

Stephen Matini: You mentioned already your mission, which is to improve the human condition, and actually it's one of those traits that you share with a lot of guests of this podcast, people that have made service the very center of their life.

How did this mission enter your life? I mean, is it something that's always been there? Is it the result of something that happened in your life?

David D’Arcangelo: It's always been there. I didn't always know it was there. It really comes down to fundamental bedrock convictions. And that is, you know, do you believe in God or not? I'm not very religious, but I'm very faithful.

Anything that I have, yeah, it's from me, but I'm only the vessel for it. Any of the good things that happen, I really can't take credit for any of the bad things that happen, that's from me, that's on me. So I start with myself, what can I do to be better? What can I do to be more positive? What mistakes did I make that I want to change for the future so I don't make them again?

And to me about improving the human condition, you can do a one person at a time, or you can try to be involved with policies that impact many. And I've done both, and I try to do both. And whether it's the one person or whether it's the many, I just try to stay positive and constructive and move things forward from that.

But make no mistake about it, particularly in the realm that I've been in, which is disabilities. The disability itself can be very challenging. Those challenges are manifested in many ways. And it's a scale. We are all in various states of ability. And that ability manifests itself in so many different ways. And for some people there is great suffering on one end of that spectrum.

And on the other end there's no suffering at all. And there's complete enlightenment and most people are somewhere on that spectrum. And just because you are on one place at one point in time doesn't mean you're not gonna be on another, it's a sliding scale, right? We're all in various states of ability.

Stephen Matini: Has disability ever defined who you are?

David D’Arcangelo: The best way I can answer that is, it's not my full definition, but it's part of my definition, right? You know, but who would I be if I didn't have this disability to encounter?

I Because particularly I find with people with less apparent disabilities, which by the way I think is a very significant amount of persons with disabilities have non apparent disabilities, meaning when you encounter them, you would not necessarily know that they have a disability or not.

And I'm probably one of those people, most people like, well, what do you mean you're legally blind? You can see, yes, I can see. And so can the large majority of people with blindness, most people who are blind have some usable vision.

Now that's toward one end of that spectrum. I'm, you know, I'm probably barely legally blind, if you wanna put it that way. I'm 2200 with my glasses on, but that is still legally blind. And so oftentimes the greatest discrimination I face is from other people with blindness. It's a both a compliment and an insult at the same time.

It's a compliment basically saying, well, you don't present as blind. And so all of the things that I've done to ameliorate my blindness, people don't recognize that or don't see that, and that's kind of the insult of it, right? The good side is, wow, look how high functioning this person is. The bad side is, well, wait a minute, what do you mean you're blind?

So you know, you take the good with the bad and it's about education and giving people an understanding of our human condition that we are all in various states of ability, whether it's any of the prevalence, types of disability, hearing, seeing, cognition, mobility, you know, all of the different types of disability.

Stephen Matini: Would you say that the biggest challenges that you have faced in your life in terms of disability, did they come from within, or was something that came from the outside?

David D’Arcangelo: Yeah, the great stoic philosopher Epictetus said that one of the keys to life is to break things down into one of two categories. Internal things that you can't control and external things that you can control.

I try to not spend resources and effort and time on things that are outside of my control. So I try to focus on things that are within my control. Now, within disability, I was born as a person with a disability. I was born with a rare eye disease. And so that's out of my control. You have to play the hand, you're dealt.

Other challenges have happened, some of which were within my control, some of the mistakes that I made, or choices that I made, and then others that I didn't and I was just involved with, for one reason or the other, life happens to you. It's a mix of both.

And to me it's how do you face that adversity? How do you embrace that adversity? To me, I start with me, what did I need to do better? What should I have done better? It's about my self responsibility. Because if you're gonna get the good things from self-reliance, you need to be prepared to take the more challenging things as well, because nobody's perfect.

Again, when you're presented with something, whether it be good or bad, you then have choices. What are you going to do with it? To me, if you choose to be positive and you choose to use it for a positive, good, well that's the way to go.That's the path to go. And that's the path that I've tried to go down.

Stephen Matini: It’s so easy sometimes to feel like a victim of circumstances and situations. How have you been able to shy away from that? You seem to me you've been really, really accountable for your own life.

David D’Arcangelo: Well, I don't think it's shy away. I think it's embracing. There's no time. There's no time to procrastinate, there's no time. But the present why we have is now. So you've gotta deal with it. Now whether you like to or not.

And just a couple of other maxims that I've developed and and really learned over time is that there's a saying that I've developed and that is the path to prosperity is paved by perseverance. You've gotta hang in there. Nothing good comes as a result of some whim or trying something once. No.

Michael Jordan, the greatest basketball player ever, one of the best athletes, one of the most influential people of the 20th century, didn't make his high school basketball team. He got caught, but he knew he had talent and he knew to develop those talents. He had to work, and he had to persevere and have adversity.

And now here's the other thing with adversity and perseverance is what adversity is for. You may be different for somebody else, somebody else might not consider that adversity. Likewise, what somebody considers adversity and it's viewed as adversity may not be considered as adversity as others and vice versa. So you know, we're all in various states of ability.

To me, one of the keys is you've gotta persevere because everybody loves sunny days. Can you stand the rain when it starts raining and storming? And what are you gonna do during those times? So that's what I really think is just staying positive, because that's what you can control. Ultimately, we become what we think about, right?

So if the things you focus on all day long, if those are positive things and you have goals and plans and, and you take actions to accomplish those, you will accomplish them. It's not maybe you will accomplish them. It's a law of nature that that will happen. So to me, if you stay positive and you have righteous goals, then you will achieve them.

Stephen Matini: If you have a somewhat bad day or a day in which that perseverance, that faith seems not to shine as strong as others. Is there anything that you do that brings you back into alignment?

David D’Arcangelo: Again, it's coming to terms ahead of time that, not if, Stephen, but when, because we all will encounter those days. It is part of life. Life is challenging.

Being a human is challenging. Like think about where we are right now. And if you were to be able to have a baby and not instruct that baby what to do and just leave that baby with no, how long would that baby last?

All reliant upon each other. We are at this place in time, because everybody has decided to share knowledge, share information, and you know, that's how that then spurs technology and and so on and so on and so on. So we are all in this together.

And every human that has ever been born is unique and there will never be another person like that person. There never has been. There never will be. Now there's qualities of it and we're all within, you know, a certain variation of it. But we are all completely unique individuals. And so each human condition, each state of consciousness that everybody's experienced is completely unique and different.

So again, it's not, if it's when you encounter challenges, how are you going to choose to handle them? You know? And what is your guidestone, what is your north star? To me it's God. And it starts with that positivity, that love.

You know, I have a belief that love, not the kind you see on a Hallmark card, or you see in some romance movie, yeah, it's that, but it's so much more than that. I really believe it's, you know, if you were to put it on the periodic table, it's more prevalent than hydrogen. It literally is the force that binds everything in the universe together.

And I think science is finding that out. I think, you know, with superposition and quantum entanglement and things like that, to me that proves God. They called the Higgs boson on the God particle. You know, to me it proves God proves love, because love is more powerful than anything else. And that's where it all starts.

Now you can choose to embrace that and be positive and endeavor to be all of the things that in the hierarchy of love come off that beauty and truth and all of the things that are subordinate to love.

Stephen Matini: You know, that binding force that brings us all together these days, it seems to be quite challenged by the fact that everything is so extreme. You and I talked about this last time, everything is so polarized, black and white. So how do you bring these two dimensions so opposite, you know, together so that we can all be more loving? Where would you start?

David D’Arcangelo: You have the choice. You control your thoughts, your mind. Never let love, never let positivity get more than one or two steps away. Anybody who's listening to this right now, I want you to, if you are experiencing challenges of any kind, and that is a scale, okay?

That is a scale of despair all the way from one very intense suffering side, all the way up to complete joy in the highest right? That is, all of those emotions are a scale. Well, anytime you find yourself falling on the, the low part of that scale in any way, whether it's mild, whether it's severe, you need to purposely think of positive things and good things and love.

Now, whatever that is for you, whether it's being on a beach, whether that's hearing your mother's voice or your child's voice, or petting your dog or whatever the case may be, that's where you need to bring yourself. And you should never really get more than a couple of steps away from that.

Stephen Matini: How do you bring this attitude into your own negotiations? You've been part of policy making and I mean, I cannot think of a setting more divisive, and divided as it is right now. How have you been able to bring this wonderful energy that you have, so that the conversation keeps going?

David D’Arcangelo: Yeah, it's difficult to explain, but ironically, the more I get attacked or the more negativity I get, the more positive I get. To tell you the truth. It makes me want to redouble my efforts towards bringing that.

Again, when negative things happen, and I'll take the blame. I don't want anybody else to take the blame, but when positive things happen, it's less about me and it's more about, even though I might've been the impetus for it or whatever else, it's more about the team. It's more about, you know, all of the people that took part in all of those good things.

Because public policy, and particularly the implementation of public policy can be very complex because what you're trying to do is you're trying to take the wishes of either a legislative body or you know, some other regulatory or executive function, and you're trying to translate that into policies for many.

And these programs aren't put together to serve one or two people. They're put together to serve thousands or, or you know, tens of thousands or millions of people. And with so many different use case scenarios that can be very challenging and complex to solve for.

I have a podcast of my own “Save as ABILITY.” And on that, we've been talking about things like these programs and the, you know, the disability laws that have been put in place over time. Those are all well intentioned. That is your government trying to put programs together to help people, to help improve the human condition, to reduce suffering.

But invariably what happens is bureaucracy gets involved or time goes by and these programs get outdated and, and what was relevant at one time may not be relevant now. And so you've gotta change that as you're changing that people who've relied on that are like, wait a minute, what are you doing? You're changing that and that's gonna, you know, so that is the complexity.

Albert Einstein said, politics is more difficult than physics. And sometimes I agree with it, although I did get, I, I'm proud to say I passed with a D plus in physics and it's a bachelor of science at Suffolk University. Well, it's very difficult learning math when you can't see the board and you can't see. So that's in my own defense, Stephen.

Stephen Matini: Would you say that it's harder, easier, the same, being part of policy making today that it used to be?

David D’Arcangelo: I first got involved with policymaking as an aide in the state senate and working in the governor's office 20, 25 years ago, somewhere around there on how you wanna look at it.

So I do recognize that back then there seemed to be much more COMETY, and not comedy, but comeTy, you know, agreeance among discourse, that the discourse was a little bit at a higher level and people could agree to disagree. And there's less of that now. Now part of that is a good thing, but much of that is also a negative thing. And I'll explain that.

So the part that's a good thing is now everybody has the devices, right? Everybody has the phone and access to computer and everything else. So what used to be kind of behind closed doors or mystified or confusing, now everybody has at the touch of a couple of fingers and in a couple of minutes people could talk like experts on these subjects. That's a good thing, getting the information out there and, and people taking part.

However, the challenge is the system over hundreds of years has evolved into one of sausage making. And I think people understand the analogy to there. Everybody loves the taste of a sausage, but you don't want to see how it's made a lot of the time. And so all of that sausage making gets put on display for everybody on social media through the mainstream media.

I mean, to me, we have three major problems right now in society. The first one being the media, number one major problem we face. The second one being the decentralization of responsibility. There's a much less self-reliance now, and that to me is a major problem. And then the third is this two big to fail attitude.

Now if you go out there, that's, those three that I just mentioned are probably not on anybody's list. So I'm maybe, you know, a few years ahead of the curve here, but I'm telling you, those are the three biggest problems right now.

Government and all of that other stuff is way down on the list. But the manner with which we get information right now is the number one challenge facing the world and individuals in the world today.

Because the information, much of the information being put out by the mainstream media is, there's really no other way to say it, but it's not fully honest. And the way the system has evolved is the, the mainstream media provides what I call infotainment, where it's information passed off as legitimate news, and it's really not.

It's really entertainment. It's information that becomes entertainment. And to me that is a much different thing of what it was and what it should be. I really believe that all, and I'm using air quotes journalists right now, they should shut, have to pass a test. They should have to meet much more rigorous standards, particularly for being objective and unbiased.

And then there's gotta be a way that that government can intervene to incentivize it so that it's not driven fully by ... bias, you know, because right now information is bought and paid for, and news on a drug, or news on a story comes through the lens of some big corporation trying to, you know, influence the narrative.

That's a major, major problem because what it does is it prevents the full truth from coming out and it prevents people from being able to form an objective opinion on their own. Or it inhibits, I shouldn't say prevents, it inhibits significantly. And so, you know, that to me is the major problem encountering society today.

Stephen Matini: There's a lot of confusion around the notion of freedom of speech, and I think people use that very lightly sometimes. I can say whatever I want, whenever I want, it doesn't matter, there are not consequences, but there are always consequences based on what we say. Our words have an impact on people, ideas have an impact on people. How would you explain to someone in a way that is super simple, what freedom of speech really is?

David D’Arcangelo: People have a choice, they can believe in God or not. Now, I don't pass judgment on people who don't, but you need to come to that conclusion on your own. And if you believe in God and you believe in love and love is the highest thing, if that is the case, then you cannot believe in secrets.

There's a very significant part of our society that believes secrets are okay. I don't believe that. I am not one of those people. Because of that, I am a free speech absolutist. Now, are there very parsed out specific scenarios that you can draw to be able to say, okay, not all information should be available to everyone all the time. Yes. I'm not saying give the nuclear codes to everybody, okay?

However, when it comes to information that is not life threatening or you know, is not like to that extent, then it should be shared and it should be free. That's what our society is based on. More freedom is better, less freedom is worse. It's that simple.

So I, I just don't believe that there should be secrets. I believe that, you know, there was an axiom that had developed, but maybe was true at one point in time where a person is smart people are not. I don't think that's true anymore for the developed world, particularly for, for anybody that has these devices, that is not a true statement because access to information now is higher than it's ever been.

And so it's up to the individual to have that responsibility. I'm a big self-responsibility, self-reliance person. So that's what I think it's the responsibility of each person to make up their own mind on what they choose to believe.

Stephen Matini: At the beginning of our conversation, you mentioned the word peace. What would you say could be the most accountable thing that all of us could do on a personal level to contribute to move towards peace?

David D’Arcangelo: Today is a day of reflection for me. December 7th Pearl Harbor Day. Think of all the lives that were lost, and really why did we fight that war? Why did America, why did the allies fight that war? It was to bring peace. It was to bring freedom. It was to make sure that people weren't oppressed.

Peace is one word, one concept, but it is really so dynamic and comprised of so many other things under peace, there is truth, there is honesty, there is justice.

In order to have peace, you need truth, you need honesty, you need justice. So if you want peace, when you need to be honest, you need to seek the truth, pursue justice, that's when we will have peace.

By the way, here's the other thing. In terms of human existence, we are at a very peaceful time. Yes, there's terrible conflicts going on and I don't want to dismiss what, what's happening in Israel and Africa and other conflicts around the world. Those are, those are terrible and devastating, and I wanna work to fix those.

However, in the grand scheme of world existence, we've never been more prosperous. There's never been more people, there's never been more access to clean water, to quality food and housing and shelter and the level of living and the poverty levels and everything else, all of that has increased and increased significantly from just the past 50 years, a hundred years, keep going back.

So we've gotta keep that in context to, you know, like if you go back to the middle ages or you go back even further, the devastation and the, the complete, you know, horror that used to occur.

You know, so we are in these prosperous times and unfortunately sometimes all of that prosperity, all of the goodness that goes on, all of the wonderful things that to me, I only, that's what I see the most of on a day-to-day basis. But that tries to get out weighted by this corrupt media that is pushing these narratives.

If it bleeds, it leads as a, as a, you know, axiom on the news, right? And there's just so many good things going on that far outweigh the bad things in the grand scheme of planet earth.

Stephen Matini: So it seems to me, based on everything you said, that love, honesty, and positivity are key ingredients.

David D’Arcangelo: 100%, yes. Let's start with love, because all good things are derived from love. Love is the highest thing. It's being proved by science. Love is a real thing. It is a tangible power.

Everything else that is good. Justice, truth, honesty, beauty, all of those things come from love. In a hierarchy, love is the highest thing. That to me is where you start. And don't let yourself get more than one or two steps away from that.

Stephen Matini: David, I'm so grateful for the love that you shared with me in this conversation. Thank you so much.

David D’Arcangelo: Oh, thank you. Well, those differences can bring us together. Diversity is a good thing, including different viewpoints is tremendous. Think how boring life would be if everything was the same for everybody.

I believe in discourse for solving problems, but way you make things better is by disagreement. And then guess what though, the other side of that, just disagreement alone doesn't get you there. You disagree and then you compromise. And right now the disagreement is weighing down the scale more than the compromise.

When I try to add compromise, when I try to build those bridges every day, and so, you know, a lot of what I'm saying here might be controversial or cutting edge or whatever, but I'm sorry, I'm sticking with God. I'm sticking with positivity.

And you know, even when I get attacked, that makes me want to be even more positive. So I would encourage everybody, if you need that, contact me so I can help you find it. It's there for you though. It's your choice to be positive. That's what I'm doing.

Thank you, Stephen. I wish you well.

 

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit breakfastwithstephen.substack.com

Simona Orsingher is an Italian executive who has developed a successful career in both Operations and Business Development, two functions that can sometimes clash within organizations.

While Operations emphasizes efficiency, cost control, and stability, Business Development focuses on growth, innovation, and revenue generation.

Finding common ground between these two functions entails developing shared goals and effective cross-functional communication, especially when dealing with short-term versus medium-term strategies.

As a professional whose career has combined both Operations and Business Development functions, Simona highlights the significance of being true to oneself, maintaining transparency, and finding a balance between rationality and emotions in professional relationships.

Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform.

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TRANSCRIPT

Stephen Matini: Simona, would you mind sharing with our listeners where you grew up?

Simona Orsingher: Until the age of 18th I lived with my parents on the lake of Cuomo. The other side of the lake were the one for Alessandro Manzoni. And then I moved to Ireland for a couple of years. I lived in Dublin and then Londonderry, which is where I basically learned to speak English. 

Once back, I moved to Milan for 15 years, more or less because I then found a new job. I moved first to Torino and then to Moderna for four years. And now I am back on the lake of Cuomo, but in Cuomo at the moment since 2020. So right before the pandemic. Yeah, that's my background. 

So I come from the province, but then I immediately felt the need of moving into the world, meeting new people, experimenting new things, and seeing new cultures as well because the dimension of the lake was a little bit too tight for me. And even though I still have some connections in France over there, I feel like I'm a citizen in the world, not exactly a citizen of the lake.

Stephen Matini: So when people ask you where home is, you know, what do you say?

Simona Orsingher: I don't have a home, I don't have any roots. That's something that's, that really impressed me sometimes because normally you have like left the heart in your hometown; I didn’t. Probably, among all the places where I've lived, the one that I consider my home is Moderna for some reason. Because I felt so well there. I was so comfortable and I felt loved and welcomed. So if I have the chance to go back, I would run to go back to Moderna.

Stephen Matini: And when did you find out what you wanted to pursue professionally? Is this something that evolved over time? How did that happen?

Simona Orsingher: Well, it started when I had my first work experience in Milan. I used to work for some months on international company. And there I recognized that that was what I wanted to pursue. Meaning work with foreigners, speaking in English, going more and more into corporate details and understand how that type of work in general in a corporate environment would've worked and if it fit to me. 

And then from there I said, and I realized, yeah, that's what I want to do. And that's what I pursued from that time going forward. So I've always stayed within corporate environments, international environments. So working like in EMEA roles or international roles rather than working just for Italy for example.

Stephen Matini: Because your professional background is really interesting. You combine two different routes. You combine the business development part and the operation part. And sometimes in companies, these two functions may not necessarily things see things, you know, eye to eye. Sometimes people get really tribal and very defensive about what they do. So how did it happen with you? How come you pursued both?

Simona Orsingher: It was like a smooth swift if I may say from operation to business development. I've always worked in functions which were in the middle, if I may say, because I started as commercial operations specialist and then move to a commercial operation manager role, ending now in a business full business development role, a global business development role. 

And this happened because I think that of course you have to be in a place that encourages the teamwork between the two functions. So when we speak about supply and demand or demand and supply process, well this is something which is now very common in corporate environments. But when I started it was not that much. 

So as you said, both of the functions are very defensive. So normally business development is the one who rushes rushes. We have two invoices, invoices, invoices and operation is saying, no, we can't do this, we can't do that. So like it's the Mr. No-No. 

But in the end, when you work together, you understand that they can't leave without each other and they have to find a common way of understanding things. And this is where I started. So moving from operation to business development happened throughout like 15 years. So it was not something out of the blue. 

I've understood working within commercial operation that I had a commercial acumen myself that I was able to discuss and negotiate with customers, even if I was formally working within operation. 

And in my previous role, I realized that it was not just my impression, but it was my manager's impression, it was customer's impression. And sometimes they have specifically asked me to do, you know, negotiation and to speak about business. 

So I like the fact that I had my commercial operation background when speaking to customers. So I already had in the back of my mind what could have been done and what could not have been done. So I was not over promising things to customers. I was sharing, let me say, a common success ahead because I knew where I could have been comfortable with them. So that was probably the key part of the success, which I've already used in my current role, which is the thing that ultimately led me to gain this new position as global business development manager.

Stephen Matini: It is interesting because oftentimes I describe to clients, and I mean it most of the time as some sort of joke that companies only want two things. They want to make money and they want to save money. So the making money component would be, you know, the business development part and the saving money would be the operation part. For anyone who works in a company that somehow struggle in finding a balance between these two functions, what would you say that could be a first step?

Simona Orsingher: To speak, to organize meeting and to go through each other figures and targets. Because sometimes, and if this is done on purpose, targets are done irrespectively of each function and they are done to create a sort of internal competition. 

I don't agree with this way of doing because no one is going to benefit out of it. Because if commercial operation wins, then business development will lose something and vice versa. So there should be a common understanding, a common basis and common targets. 

The commercial operation targets should compliment business development target and vice versa. That will be the first step to me. So meet, have a discussion on the direction we have to take together and not separately. And it's key that all the people are on board with that. 

So there should be a sort of servant leadership from commercial operation and from business development because yes, it's true. Salespeople are the one who basically brings the money in, they bring the money, but they don't bring the profit. The profit is made out of what commercial operation is doing because then the cost sustained to run the operation is going to deduct from the revenue that is coming from business development. So there needs to be really a common path to follow together.

Stephen Matini: Sometimes the main problem is the fact that the leadership, the culture of the organization is very, very sales driven and sometimes can give the impression to people they are in business development, in sales, that they are the most important function, you know, and then all the other functions feel, you know, a bit resentful. So from the, from the point of view of the leadership team, what could they do in order to create a culture that is more cross-functional?

Simona Orsingher: So nowadays the quality, diversity, inclusion, it's like the flag of each company and the first, very first step they have to do towards equality, diversity, inclusion is write this. So you can't expect in a company where salespeople are considered like rocket stars and all the others are just, you know, white collar doing the job that the white collar are happy. So they have to treat both in the same way. 

For example, long-term incentives or short-term incentives shouldn't be that different between business development and commercial operation or any other function in the company. In some companies there are even retreats for business development people or salespeople in general. While there's nothing for the rest of the employees, well that's not fair. 

So the first step would be to treat people equally in this sense, in the way you approach them, in the way you explain thing, in the way you share your targets, the strategy and the vision. Everybody has to be on board and business development, they need to understand. And to do that, this has to start from the leadership team. So the senior VP in a company, they should start treating the salespeople the way they treat the other ones and vice versa. 

Otherwise it's a sort of lead by example. You can't expect white colors and let me say non-sales people to be so happy because they're the first one to be treated not equally compared to the business developers.

Stephen Matini: And also it seems to me that, that discrepancy, that big gap becomes even wider when leadership has a very short term strategy. They have to create results right away better than thinking longevity, you know, a sustainable future in which you really have to plan everything accordingly.

Simona Orsingher: Yeah, playing a little bit ahead, let me say, I mean medium-term strategy, not that short-term strategy because of course if it's so short, well everything has to be in a rush. And then of course you want to see numbers, numbers, numbers straight away.

Stephen Matini: You said that one competency that is very, very important to do your job is the ability to build relationships. And to me you represent the perfect balance of someone who's incredibly great at organizing, numbers, but yet at the same time it has the empathy, it has the emotional intelligence to understand people. Is it possible to be really well-balanced to have both or what?

Simona Orsingher: It is possible? I think there needs to be a component which is a given. Either you have it or you don't. But some people they have it, definitely. But then you have to develop it and you have to work on it. 

So a good step for me was to step back from my professional role and try always to be in the people I'm speaking to shoes, to me that's the empathy. So in the end, I'm speaking to a human being. You are a colleague, you are my manager, you are my peer, but you are a human being. 

So I don't know what happened to you like one hour before we're having this conversation. Maybe you had a very bad news, maybe you're not in a good shape today. I don't know. So I always tend to be very delicate when speaking to people, even if I'm decisive and even if I always say what I need to say, I don't like to take short track or hide behind things. I think I'm transparent. And I think that transparency is something very important when it comes to business. 

But on the other end, I never under evaluate the fact that we are human beings. We have emotions. Even if I believe that in professional relationship there should be always this right balance between emotion and the rational emotion are there so you don't have to a hundred percent hide item. 

This is what helped me, I think. So I never took things too seriously and this is another thing in the end, it's just work. So today I'm doing this, maybe tomorrow someone will decide that I'm not useful anymore and this is the risk that I'm taking and everybody should take that. So it is just work. We are employees and this is a part of being employees. And once you do take this as a fact, I think you can work differently. But if you are expecting to be in the same role forever, if you are expecting your employer to treat you always in a very good way, well that's really the road to pain.

Stephen Matini: I agree with you. I think that bonding with people and developing relationships ultimately helps everyone overcoming any change, any difficulty. One thing that I see a lot in my job is executives, managers dealing with employees they are somehow reluctant to change for whatever the reason, you know. Sometimes people display hostility, the inability to move on. If that has ever happened to you, what would you say that is the first step to help an employee that seems to go through a difficult time and be unwilling to change?

Simona Orsingher: Well the first thing for me would be to speak to these people and understand why. And if I'm able to understand why, and if these people are telling me why, then we can decide together how to find a different path. So how to make the situation turning in their favor. 

Sometimes it's possible because there is this common willingness to change things. Some other times it's not possible. So people are just reluctant to change, they're tired, they don't want to invest anymore energy or time in anything. Well at that point, if you can, you should move those people to some other roles. 

If you can’t, and in the majority of cases you can’t, well you just use, even if it's not the right word to say, but in the end that's what you're doing, use them for what they're good to do. I'm very pragmatic, so I try, I give my best, but then if it doesn't work, okay, well I try to get the best out of it. That's my strategy. 

In the end. I mean, we're not in school. I'm not your support teacher, okay? I'm your colleague. You are an adult. I am an adult. You always have the choice to make you're free. If you don't like a situation anymore, well just go find something else. But if you decide to stay here, well then you stay here at my condition.

Stephen Matini: Why do you think so many people seem to believe they do not have a choice?

Simona Orsingher: It's comfortable. They know they have a choice, but they don't want to choose because choose to move from something, even if this something is not good for you, but it's something that you know. So deciding to choose and move to something that you don't know ... for someone, it's unbearable. They can't do that. 

I don't blame those people. I mean, we don't always have the same approach to life. But again, if you don't want to choose, well then you accept the fact that you are here at someone else condition, and you stop complaining, otherwise you leave. 

I mean, things are always simpler than what we see, always simpler than what we see. So you have the opportunity to go, you are free. We're living in a country and we're living in a part of the world where you have freedom and you can really choose what you want to do. And you have the chances. 

Maybe not that many chances as there might be in other countries, in Europe or in the us I don't know, in Australia, wherever. I know Italy as a place to work is not probably the best in the world. Okay, because we have a very Italian culture here, but you still can choose.

Stephen Matini: You went through a lot of professional challenges in the past. Have you ever felt that you didn't have a choice?

Simona Orsingher: I never felt that. I felt I had choices, which I didn't like because I was expecting more for me. But I never felt, I never had the choice. No, never. Because at a certain point of time I could have decided, for example, to start my own career as a freelance. That was a choice, which at that time I didn't want to do. But I never felt I had no choice.

Stephen Matini: So, I give you a scenario. Sometimes it does happen that leadership has a difficult time communicating their vision, their strategy, and to reach everyone throughout the whole company. And somehow the people, even like factory employees that don't feel included, they feel voiceless. They feel they don't have a choice. They don't matter. In order to create something that feels more synergetic in which everything flows beautifully, what would you say that they could do in order to engage everyone, including the people at the bottom, so to speak, that feel voiceless?

Simona Orsingher: Well, first of all, let me say that I don't think that they are voiceless. Maybe they feel voiceless, but they're not voiceless. We have in Italy, and I'm speaking about the experiences that I had and also my current experience, I think probably the most unionized together with France companies. So unions are very present and these people, they all have a voice. 

So they're not voiceless, they feel voiceless probably because they don't speak the same language and probably because they're more focused on things which are not relevant to the one who should hear their voices. 

I would suggest to speak up and continue to speak up, but not only through the unions, I would suggest and to speak up themselves, to ask these people to have a meeting, to ask their managers to organize sessions all together where they can even confront each other, but at least let their voice to be heard in a more genuine way.

Because when you have a mediator, which in this case is the union, I feel and I saw it, that sometimes the message is changed. That's probably the reason why. Then they don't feel really heard, but they have their voice. And I think that a direct channel is always the best thing. This has always worked for me. 

So I have never used the unions or any other mediator. I did it by myself. And I did it truly, I did it fully because I didn't want anybody else to jeopardize the content of my message. I wanted to be, you know, true to myself first.

Stephen Matini: And from the point of view, let's say of the CEO, of the executive, you know, leadership team, what could they do in order to have a first step towards the people that may feel voiceless?

Simona Orsingher: Well, they should step down from their throne probably, 'cause some of them are really like a character somewhere in the air. So some of the senior managers are seen like this. So not even humans, but they are. 

And in the end the people at the bottom, they don't even realize that the one at risk, it's not them, but it's the one on the throne. So they should probably start to communicate to these people in a more direct way. 

Of course, they cannot meet one by one, but they can have exchanges with some representatives, but not the unions again, some representatives amongst the, these people at the bottom. It comes to communication, it comes to speaking.

Stephen Matini: For anyone who's interested in a career like yours that combines operations and business development. What is the advice you would give them?

Simona Orsingher: Is to be curious and ask. Ask questions. Ask to meet people. Ask to introduce yourself. Ask to go out and visit a customer. Ask to speak with colleagues from the manufacturing. So you have a 360 view of what is going on, how things are working. So you need to know bits and pieces of everything because when you are in front of a customer, you represent your company. So you can't allow yourself to say to a customer, well, I don't know. Well, you should know. And if you don't really know, genuinely don't know, you are very professional and you say, well, let me check this out because I'm not sure and I don't want to provide you with the wrong information. That should be the right approach. And always let your voice to be heard. So speak up if there is something that is not letting you feel uncomfortable when say it to your manager, speak.

Because if you don't do it, nobody will ask your opinion. Nobody, you have to sponsor yourself because there won't be anybody who will help you. And you have to count on yourself only. That's what I have learned. 

I had good managers, I had great managers, I must say, and I've learned from some of these people. But in the end, they gave me the, the tools, but it was me using those tools. It was not them. And this is the approach that I'm expecting from people working with me. So I don't have to, you know, spoon feed them at 40 years old. No, but still I see this adult people who need to be spoon fed.

Stephen Matini: Simona, in your experience, what you just described, the importance of really courage, speaking up, developing relationship. Have you ever noticed gender to play any role in this dynamic?

Simona Orsingher: Yes. Well, first of all, you have to be aware that if you speak up, there might be consequences. Because if you are always transparent as I am, sometimes you say things that the people you are speaking to might not like. And if this person happens to be someone higher in your organigram, it might cost you something and it cost it to me. I'm okay with that because I want to remain true to myself. 

Going back to your question, there is a difference because normally when a male colleague approached a meeting, a discussion, speaking up and even raises, raising the tone of his voice or the volume of his voice, that was accepted somehow because it's expected. Because it's a way to show your power, to show your confidence. 

When it's a woman doing that, still for what I've seen, it's perceived as oh, Jesus, she's having like a crisis. She's nervous today. It's not the right day for her. Well, it was not even the right day for him, but it was not noticed. 

So it's not because maybe I'm raising the tone of my voice, which normally I don't. Okay, but let me say, I'm changing the way I speak. So if I am nervous or or if I am upset, you will notice it, okay? Because I'm not, as I'm speaking right now, I would be different, but it's because I'm saying something that I really care about. It's exactly the same for a male colleague. But there is still this difference, definitely.

Stephen Matini: And yet so many women when they get at this point, they feel that they have to mimic their male counterparts in order to have a voice. So the question would be, what is the right voice for a woman?

Simona Orsingher: The right voice for woman is being calm and say the things supported by facts and data. I mean, expecting the other people, well, even not to listen to you, but that's how it's going. 

And definitely not mimic your male colleagues because I don't want to be like my male colleagues. I am not them. I'm completely different. I have my own personality and I don't like to raise my voice if I want you to hear my opinion. I want to stay calm and normally I do. So that's how women should behave because if you mimic one male colleague, well in the end you will always be remembered by a copy of someone and not something new. 

Stephen Matini: And what you just described probably could become a point of reference also for male executives.

Simona Orsingher: Yes, it should be. So if you think about the personal assistants, and let me say the executive assistants. 95%, even more of the cases are women, and 95% of senior managers are men and men, so these senior managers are relying on women to do their job. 

The relationship they're having with other peers, with customers, maybe with the board. so, with, you know, VIP people. And some of the cases, these relationships are led by the executive assistants because she's the one who has to manage tension, manage missed appointments, manage a change of schedule. 

So dealing with some people who are maybe upset because the CEO changed his mind at the last minute, and she is the one who is managing this set situation or difficult situation with customers or peers or whoever is going to meet the CEO. But nobody's thinking about it, I think.

Stephen Matini: Have you ever heard the saying behind a great man is always a great woman?

Simona Orsingher: Yes.

Stephen Matini: Okay, let's update it. Let's upgrade it. What would you say?

Simona Orsingher: A great woman can only manage a great man. So I would of course place the woman on the spotlight and not the man, because in the end, even if she's in the backstage, she's the one doing the job.

Stephen Matini: Well, maybe I'm thinking could be behind a great person, there's a great person.

Simona Orsingher: Yes, we are speaking about people, we're not speaking about women or men, but as a woman, well, I must say that we're still far behind in Italy. So this topic is very sensitive to me.

Stephen Matini: I'm not a woman and I will never understand fully what it means, but when I hear what you said, it really makes me boil inside. It feels so unfair. It really feels incredibly unfair.

Simona Orsingher: I don't even remember in how many meetings I was and I was the only woman in there and I felt like really invisible and men even took the liberty of speaking like if I was not even there. And it was perfectly normal to them. 

And the sad thing is that for some women is normal this way, but it's not. So if we really want to move on on this, we have to break this. And women first, they need to have the courage and to be brave enough to speak up even in this situations like saying in a meeting like this, hello, I'm still here with you. Can you please stop?

Stephen Matini: Well, first of all, I think any organization should have a Simona and I truly mean it. I have not worked with all my podcast guests, but you and I, we had that opportunity and I really truly believe that everyone should have someone that tells you as it is, you know, with kindness the way you do, because it's just wonderful. So we talked about bunch of stuff. If you had to point out one that you believe our listeners should pay attention to, out of our conversation, what would that be?

Simona Orsingher: To be true to yourself? Always. It's you. It's good the way you are. It's not your problem if everything around you is not as you were expecting. In the end, even if you are going through challenges, difficulties, redundancies, promotions, whatever, it's just you. 

And you have to stay strong because inside yourself, that's what I keep on repeating to myself every day, I have a value, okay, never mind what I do, what I'm doing now and what people think, I know that I am worth. So that's the thing that I would like to, to say to people. 

And just today, I saw a post on LinkedIn, I follow the Female Quotient, which is an organization sponsoring of course females around the world. And there was Simone Biles, the gymnast, the us and gymnast. And she did something which is extraordinary last week because she did like a jump, which normally is done by men.

And so she was asked, so you are the first Michael Phelps of or Usain Bolt of, and she said, no, I'm the first Simone Biles doing this. And that was something that impressed me because that's exactly the sense of what I've said. It's you, it's just you. 

So you have to stay true to yourself because especially in corporate environments, almost everything is fake, because we are all on a big stage. All of us, we're all singing our song. Sometimes you have, you are in the top 10, some other times you are at the bottom of the chart, but everyone more or less get the chance to sing the song. So everybody has to, you know, show up and try to do its best. But in the end, you have to really take care of yourself because nobody else will do it. Nobody else.

Stephen Matini: Simona, you are a jewel. Thank you so much for sharing all of these insights. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Simona Orsingher: Thanks to you Stephen.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit breakfastwithstephen.substack.com

Chantal Souaid is the creator of “The Weekly Resolution® Planner,” a time management tool that allows consistent progress without the cumbersome weight of perfectionism.

Chantal's schedule is very tight as a business entrepreneur and a mom of young twins. She believes that any goal and dream is achievable with consistency and the awareness that the most crucial step is to enjoy the journey as it unfolds.

For Chantal, staying in the moment holds greater significance than chasing perfection, firmly asserting that consistency sustains momentum while motivation initiates the trip.

Chantal Souaid is a three-month BARKAT Entrepreneur program graduate, an application-based 100% scholarship offering for Middle Eastern and African female entrepreneurs, and part of The Goddess Solution by Puneet Sachdev.

Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform.

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TRANSCRIPT

Stephen Matini: Was there any person or any event in your past that somehow have impacted your professional choices?

Chantal Souaid: So I'll tell you about three things and I combined them all and I called them the tipping point in my life. And these things were: one, I delivered twins prematurely, which I wasn't expecting. 

Two, living in Lebanon, we had the political economical financial crisis. 

And three, the project that I was running, they just told us that they are closing from Lebanon to go to another country. 

So when this happened and all these three happened at the same time, I said, you know what Chantal, maybe this can be your wake up call for you to do what you've always loved, which was train coach and help people live better lives.

Stephen Matini: Were you able to jump on the new idea right away or was it hard? I mean, did you have to take time to process everything?

Chantal Souaid: So let me tell you, I've had the blog since 2008. I used to and still like to write too much. 

But it took me time to see how I will present myself to the world as an entrepreneur. Because for me, I've been employed an international development project for a very long time. 

So what I did, I said, you know what? I was very good at putting New Year's resolutions, and these New Year's resolutions weren't working obviously because I had twins, things were going a bit different and I was a productivity trainer at the time and people used to joke with me and say, you're a productivity trainer, wait until you have kids.

The year was starting, it was 2020 and I didn't put in years resolution. And I was thinking, you know what? I don't want to put in years resolution. And at the time, my only goal every single day was just to take a bus for a mom with twins, breastfeeding them, taking a bath was the best thing ever. 

So then I thought, okay, I'll make a like a weekly challenge. And I said, okay, if I try to do this and then if I do it every single week, then people would like support me with the follow through. 

At the time I didn't call it “the weekly resolution”, so I said, I'll call 2020 weekly challenge. So I decided to film myself announcing the challenge and just posting it on my social media. 

And I started it. My husband was very generous in filming me at the start and I said, I'll do it for the full year. I didn't have any plan. I didn't know what every week the challenge would be, but I said, if I announce it to people then I'll have to do it because I'm someone who really cares about what I say, what I said to myself. 

Then every single week I started putting a video out and saying, this week this is what we're going to do. So the examples were very simple, like this week say thank you more or look at someone and say how grateful you are for what they did. So it started very simple. 

Then Covid hit Lebanon and then the challenge was already going on. So people were more engaged. I had more people joining in. Somehow, sometime around April I decided, you know what? Everybody is joining in. It's very interesting.

And I said like, okay, if I go and tell people I want to help you achieve your dreams, the first thing they will tell me, okay, And then when did you achieve your dream and why am I going to listen to you? So I decided to achieve one of my very, very, very early dreams, which was creating a planner and the planner at the time I decided to call it the “Weekly Resolution Planner”. 

I have a copy here with me, it’s the second version of the planner. And I thought, okay, this planner would be the crown on top of this year. It would help the year finish at the happy note. And this was it. 

I did the first version of the planner then the year after another version. And that's like how the story unfolded of me opening up and then being able to start my coaching business, coaching and training and selling my planner and then just moving from a full-time employee into an entrepreneur.

Stephen Matini: The whole time management arena is not necessarily the focus of what I do as a coach and as a trainer. But you know, I do focus on soft skills. So time management comes up all the time. And the one thing that I've noticed over the years is that when you touch time management, you touch a really soft spot for people.

And very often people come up with the millions of different reasons why they cannot do what they want. So, in your opinion, what is it that some people somehow, like yourself, you keep going, and other people, they simply settle for something that is not necessarily representative of what they want?

Chantal Souaid: I'll tell you like two ideas about that. As I was doing every single week, my husband would come and tell me, Chantal, you don't have a plan until the end of the year. How can you keep on going? This is like every week you're just deciding on what you want and every week you're just reading more and then deciding what it's better if you had a plan. And then I told him if I had a good plan that I'm not implementing consistently, that's not something good. 

On the other hand, if I had a regular plan and even maybe a bad plan that I was implementing consistently, this is way much better. 

So what I had was a regular plan, which is to post every single week a challenge, but I was doing it consistently. And then I remember an interesting quote that I like that says something along the lines that motivation gets you started, consistency keeps you going.

And at the time my image, my self image as a professional was very important. And that's why when we are talking about goal setting, you always ask who will you tell about your goal? So I announced it to the world. 

Now I'm someone, the world for me isn't like 1 million followers. The world for me was my family and friends and my close connections. But even if I said to these people that I'm going to do this for me as a value honoring my, my word is something very important. So this got me going. 

If on the other hand I said, you know what, I will film every week a video and once the videos are all 20, then I'll announce it. Me knowing myself, I wouldn't have done it. 

So going back to my husband, he used to tell me that if it were up to me, I would put the plan, I would film the videos, at least half of them, then I would go for it.

So this works for him, but for me, I know that if I put myself out there, if I tell the people and then every single week there's nothing that will stop me and I can do it, this is what would help me and this is how I move through it. 

And this is how I usually notice that this is the only way that I can get motivated because I have to put it out there and then once it's out there I will not block out unless I change my mind and nothing like this has ever happened. So each person needs to know.

Stephen Matini: And what if someone is not consistent? Is there anything else that people could do? Let's say I'm not someone that consistent, but I have good intentions. Is it still possible in your opinion, to get your dreams, you know, out of your drawer if you're not consistent? 

Chantal Souaid: A lot of people are not consistent and this is a very big problem and people come to me all the time about it. Being consistent doesn't start. If you're consistent, you wouldn't take any help. 

The problem is how to start on the path. If your why isn't very strong, And if people don't feel that like really they want to achieve this dream, they will never achieve it. Yes, Lewis says, if you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there. And this is true. 

So the problem is that the majority of people don't know where they're going or don't know what their goal or what their dream. Thus they can't consistently implement anything. 

If they know what their dream is, And if they are adamant about doing it, then consistency can start simply by faking it in the start. But setting like a a small plan on how it'll go and then I can tell you how the weekly resolution can help them achieve it consistently every single week.

Stephen Matini: Have you always had clear what you wanted, or is it something that you learned along the way?

Chantal Souaid: A lot of times there were a lot of things that were very clear for me and other times things were not as clear and I didn't know where I was going, especially when I was starting my business and having the kids and me being, trying to get used to being a working mom and being a mom in general. 

So a lot of these things weren't as easy. But what I learned along the way, and this is a a long learning process, was to just trust myself and trust the process and trust the universe. 

So for example, there are some things that I know that are part of my values. What I'd like to do, for example, for me, ever since I was very young, I knew that my mission on this Earth or what I would love to be doing was to help people and help myself lead a better life.

So of some moments it was the big picture umbrella. But then somehow I'm learning to embrace the meaning of the moment. Every single moment that I'm going through, for me to discover myself better, to discover myself as a mom, as a business owner in this country. 

So these pieces of the puzzles, I'm just putting them in the dots, and I learned something very interesting. If something is very hard and if I'm trying and trying and trying to work at it and it's not working and maybe I should like stop what I'm doing, either look into another direction or just think outside the box because somehow this is the universe telling me this is not the road you should be taking.

Stephen Matini: A lot of what you're saying is something that me personally I learned later on in my life. One example could be even this very podcast, if I had to do, let's say 20 years ago, I think I would've been so obsessed about doing it right. I would've probably waited longer to start it. I would've been incredibly critical paranoid about anything that I did.

It's about being in the present moment. And so I do hope you know this podcast and many, many other endeavors will do well, but I'm more focused on now, enjoying the process, doing my best, knowing that the next episode very likely I will do better. Very likely when I look back, you know, six months ago, I would say, oh wow, that was kind of cute what I did, I would never do that. So it really is a process in which you have a sense of where to go. But as I always say, you have to get your hands dirty.

Chantal Souaid: And so you're saying this is something very important because somehow a lot of people who are very professional, who are very accomplished, who value accomplishment as a value in their lives feel as you said, that we need to do things in the perfect way. 

But then little by little, as we grow older and more mature, we realize that perfection sometimes isn't in the minute details. It isn't like in the way for example, my hair is done today. It's in me being present now as I'm being with you. If someone comes and gives us this recipe when we're still young, somehow we wouldn't really own it. 

And you can go and tell someone who is very young to do this and they will say like, well this is a crappy person, what is he saying? But on the other hand, when we live it, when we feel it, it gets something that's so internal. This way we can actually live it and understand it. And you're very right.

Stephen Matini: Well also you are a mom, you have twins and I can barely take care of myself. So for me, like all of you moms are truly superhero. And I'm not trying to just to be nice, but realistically is so much work. 

So to any woman that maybe has kids and maybe would like to not just to being a mom, there's nothing wrong about just wanting to be a mom, but maybe they also want to be a professional. Maybe they want to be an entrepreneur as you are. What is your suggestion as a first step to get it all?

Chantal Souaid: Okay, so here I can tell you about the own three life balance concept. So as I was doing the weekly resolution planner, I had to create a concept for life balance because for me at the time, my life wasn't balanced. I had the twins, I was working from home, either I had the challenge and I was trying to live this life balance to to see how all this works out for me. And it wasn't as easy. 

But then all of a sudden I realized that the day that I woke up at five and I did my morning routine before the kids woke up and before my work started, I was much happier. I was giving better and somehow the kids were nicer and the kids were calmer and everything was much better. 

So I kept testing it and then I realized, that in life and in my life and the life of every person, mom, not mom, every person, when I am better, when I'm giving myself oxygen, then I can help and give back.

And I always like the example of when we are in, in an airplane and the flight attendant gives the safety instructions and then she or he says, in case of oxygen drop, put your own oxygen mask before assisting others. So I'm giving them a favor when, when I'm taking care of myself.

Then we have three other important pillars. One is environment. The environment can be my home, my surroundings, my family. If someone has a dorm room, it can be their dorm room and if someone has a big mansion, it can be their mansion and we have a relationship, it can be love and social. Then we have fulfillment. So in fulfillment we have money, we have a career, we have hobbies and fun and we have learning and growth. 

If I'm giving every single day, and this is what the planner does, if I draw my vision board, and I say this is what I'm doing to myself, this is what I'm doing for my environment, my relationships and my fulfillment. And then we put a beautiful vision for all of it. Then every single month I'll ask myself, okay, what am I going to do this month for myself? What am I going to do for my environment, for my relationships and for my fulfillment? Then we ask the same question every week, then every day

Stephen Matini: If someone somehow cannot find time for herself, right? Like I just can’t. What would it be a first step they can do in order to carve some time for themselves and overcome the sense of guilt?

Chantal Souaid: So hopefully I would know this person, I think I would shake them, I would tell them, God forbid if you were to die now what would happen? 

And then they would stop and then they would say like everything would fall apart. And then I would say, okay. And then after it falls apart, and then after like nobody eats and after nobody does this task and after like a while, like someone else will be able to do it, someone else would be assigned to do it. 

The problem with all of us is that we have a lot of expectations. We keep looking at Instagram, we keep looking at Facebook, at all the social media and we compare our lives to others and we want to do stuff like others. So we want to get this very big salary. 

This person when asked them if you die, and then what would your life amount to, I'm sure that this take them to the core for them to remember that everybody can do their job. 

And this is something that I learned it the very hard way. I kept wanting to be working to be doing stuff, but then I realized one day anybody can do anything related to my job, but no one would fulfill my role as the mother of my kids, Eva and Christopher. 

And the moment I realized this, it like lifted a very big heavy burden on my back. And every single person have has like a very private story about their lives and they know that they can say stop, and they don’t need all the money, they don't need all these things and they can calm down. 

So to this person, if they cannot carve time for themselves, to take care of themselves, then then one day they would collapse and go to the hospital and then somebody would have to replace them in a not nice way. Because if I were to offer the world, I better offer the world the best of me, not what's left of me. And if the person is not taking care of themselves, they will be offering what's left of them.

Stephen Matini: I agree a hundred percent. And it may sound as such a final thought, but  the one thing that I always repeat myself is, and I'm really highly mindful, the more time goes by is, my time here has a deadline. So hopefully, you know, it will happen far in the future. But realistically I know as a fact that will not be here. I will not be here forever.

Stephen Matini: And the most important thing of all is not to waste my life. You know, I think it's an important reminder, it's a gentle reminder. I call it that I will not be here forever. I may worry about this, I may get cranky about that, but you won't be here forever. It somehow puts everything the right perspective. 

Chantal Souaid: I try to enjoy what I do without even obsessing excessively. Is it gonna work? It's not gonna work. Is is this gonna happen? Will I get there? Well, hopefully I will. But now all that matters is truly how I spend my time. Have you always been this way or is it something that as you mentioned, became heightened as a result of you becoming a mom?

So no, I haven't been always this way. I think motherhood has had the, its its biggest lessons on me. So when I was at work, I was very adamant, I was very strict, I wanted things to be perfect. I didn't have any time to waste what stuff. I was hardworking as you were saying.

And then I was doing everything to be perfect. I was working with an international development organization and from an organization to the other project to the other, we had donors, we had beneficiaries, we had stakeholders. Customer service was like a hundred percent. An email wouldn't go without an automatic like spelling check. But then as I became a mom, I started realizing that life cannot be this way. 

I do admire whoever can keep life this way and still be a parent. But somehow my priorities have shifted. I realized that before having kids, my main focus in life was to prove myself to be a very good professional. When I became a mom, I realized my accomplishments don't define me. So the title, I was a Middle East and North Africa Director, which was very sexy and very interesting and very big.

And I thought to myself like what? I'll be now a trainer, a coach. Like it was like so small for me and I said, I'll be a mom, just a mom. It was very like, don't get me wrong, but somehow it was like very small for me. 

Then I realized I don't have to be any of this. I can just be myself. I like I am me. So this change helped me and it took a long time. It didn't come easily. And when I realized this, then I knew that this was my ego speaking. My accomplishments don't define me. My title doesn't define me because one day I can have a very big title and the other day if I don't, then I'm in my less. No, I'm not less, I'm much better because I'm myself and this wasn't the case at all and I grew into becoming this person and they say like the kids teach a lot, like having kids. And I, every single day I still learn. And it's an ongoing process and I think if we stop learning, we stop growing. And then what's the youth?

Stephen Matini: You are part of the Barkat project, which is a a phenomenal initiative. How did you come across the project? Because I talked to Puneet Sadchev, who started the project. I thought how incredible the fact that he's supporting entrepreneurs, female entrepreneurs in the Middle East and Africa. How did you learn about the project?

Chantal Souaid: So I am part of a group called Lebanese League for Women in Business. Among this group, they send a lot of announcements, but somehow when I saw this email and I read about it, the name was Shakti Barkat, and I was thinking like, wow, I like the name, I read about it. And it was something very interesting and I felt that yes, we women, entrepreneurs need to support each other. 

And as a coach, I know the impact of coaching. And at the time I was feeling that as a mompreneur always. And I was finally thinking about it yesterday, like a mompreneur, the way I define it, as an entrepreneur mother whose priority is her kids. 

So going back to you and I thought that, okay, this is this thing that I needed. I wanted my business somehow to be a priority. I wanted to be thinking about my business with other people. And somehow we are all in this boat together. 

My struggles are struggles of someone else. Even if someone isn't married and doesn't have kids, but somehow they have maybe have an another type of a baby or another type of something that they're taking care of. It can be a family member, it can be a side project. 

So I felt what a beautiful and empowering thing for me to be part of such a program to learn from a professional like Puneet and also to be learning and sharing me among all the other ladies that are part of this program.

So for me, I know that we started in June, we have until September, and these are the months where I will be focusing on my business. 

We put a deadline, we put the, like our intentions for the program, both professional and personal, and then somehow this framework, this like very nice framework and me knowing that I'll be meeting with these people one week as one week know knowing that if I had a problem, I will be following through with it. 

This alone, as simple as it can be, other than what's happening during the coaching session was very important for me. I set goals, I set intentions, I write my gratitude, but somehow my business isn't always the top priority. 

And for me, putting my business as number one during these four months has been phenomenal.

I've never been coached for my business. I've been part of different types of trainings but never been coached. Puneet is so good in how he coaches is us. So he might be giving a hotspot for someone and putting someone on the hot seat and you'd think that like he's just coaching these people. 

And then somehow as the session goes, he would've coached all of us and we'd all come out after this question with this specific person with like list of things that we need to be working on. 

Stephen Matini: Thank you so much for sharing all this with me. And my wish for you is to be around for as long as possible, so that yo can help as many people as possible because you're really fabulous.

Chantal Souaid: Thank you. Thank you Stephen. And thank you for opening up this opportunity for people to listen to you, for people to come over with you. You cannot imagine how sometimes just listening to a podcast of yours can change the life of people.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit breakfastwithstephen.substack.com

Dr. Claudia Gross is a German consultant and trainer who lives in Cairo, Egypt, and has a soulful humanist approach to business.

Our conversation revolves around the transformative potential of language in fostering positive connections, understanding, and personal growth. Inspired by approaches such as Nonviolent Communication and Positive Psychology, Dr. Gross emphasizes the concept that words create worlds. 

Dr. Gross is the author of the first Speak Green book, Words Create Worlds: Cultivating a Conscious, Life-Affirming Language. The idea is to move away from "red language," which is divisive and instead embrace "green language," which promotes harmony and positive communication.

By speaking green, we can move beyond binary thinking, embrace a variety of viewpoints with greater ease, and cultivate empathy through language. 

Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform.

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TRANSCRIPT

Stephen Matini:Claudia. You are in Egypt. So how's life in Egypt?

Claudia Gross: Life in Egypt is also very different to what I was used to and I think about Germany, you know, like, so a totally different planet if you wanna say that. And I love it because it's so interesting and inspiring. 

Being here, living in a totally different culture, being emerged and surrounded by it. Here there are so many opportunities to contribute. This is what I also love. 

For me, Egypt's like a huge catalyst of my own development. Everything I currently am,  who I am and what I do is based on this fertile soil of the desert country. So for me, living in Egypt has been a very fertile, inspiring and reconnecting experience, reconnecting myself to my roots.

Stephen Matini: Do you think that you would have become the same type of person if you never moved to Egypt?

Claudia Gross: I can't imagine. Just the other day I actually thought that I'm very grateful for this kind of destiny or force in the road that brought me here. I have been here since 18 and a half years. So if this period was a human being, it would be a teenager with a driving license. 

And when I think about, for example, the power of language that I'm so passionate about, I see this here in in Egypt, an action every day. Even if you just say good morning, good morning in Arabic would be something like wishing you a morning full of light or full of honey, or full of yes. mean if you're responding to this, you would actually aim for saying something that is even sweeter or brighter. And I, I see this a lot. 

There's also some things, some words we would not say, things we wouldn't say simply because that's part of the culture, and because we think that it brings bad luck. So being immersed into this kind of environment where the power of words can be felt and seen every day in every conversation definitely contributed to who I'm currently.

Stephen Matini: How have you discovered along the way, the power of language, the power or words, how did you get interested in words as much as you do today?

Claudia Gross: The initial moment that I can recall that changed everything was when I was sitting in the traffic jam in Egypt and like a particularly long one, really dramatic. And I was surrounded by signs telling me what not to do. So I got like, don't be late, don't miss this appointment. And signs on the streets saying, don't whatever cross here, don't turn here. 

And I was like, Hey, listen, you know, I mean like, could you please stop talking in red language to me, if not helpful? What I would love to know is like, what can I now do? Where can I turn? Where could I go? And I mean, I could not just leave my car behind the walk. So this is what happened. 

And when I then arrived at the place where I was having dinner with a friend at this time, I was like telling her this experience and suddenly it's like sketching down a couple of red words and green words and this is what happened. This is where it started. 

And then retroactively, I realized that since I can think when I was highlighting texts and textbooks or when, when studying something, especially in English, I was always starting to highlight something when the not part was over and when it was focusing on what to do, suddenly I understood that I had it in me for a while, but it just woke up in this particular traffic jam.

Stephen Matini: Is this what you refer to as a speak green?

Claudia Gross: Yes. For me, speak green. Why have I chosen this? It's because really an opposition to red language in, in comparison to how people talk a lot. When you think about Marshall Rosenberg, the founder of non-violent communication, you would call it hyena language and giraffe language. 

For me, what was like closer to my heart where these two languages and also like traffic signs, like read for, hey, wait a moment stand still pause, reflect, is this really how I wanna say it? And then coming up with the green alternative and to go for that. So also this complementary of these colors was important for me in that moment.

Stephen Matini: Claudia, I wanna ask you, I understand perfectly the concept. I was wondering, would you mind to provide an example of a sentence that uses red words and how to turn it into green words?

Claudia Gross: Oh yeah, certainly. The classic example is that for centuries we are focusing on “no war.” I've been in a Picasso museum where he was also referring to manifestations and demonstrations in the street, and they were all having this posters of no war, no war. 

When I seen this in the black and white movie, I thought, like, so long we're going for in war, when actually what we really in the bottom of our hearts are desiring is peace. 

So for me, no war is written in red and peace is written in green language. And that's also an example for moving beyond these negation and looking at what do we really want. Because our minds as we now move from neuroscience, cannot see something that is negated. It first has to evoke it like war or war and they're like, ah, no, no, that's not what I'm, that's too difficult. We better focus on what we wish for.

Stephen Matini: You told me about this last time when we met, you talked about the difference between a “yes” and “yes, but.” But would you mind explaining the difference between these two approaches?

Claudia Gross: Yes, certainly. For me it was one of these discoveries of higher communication, because the experience of “yes, but” something that we all share on a day-to-day basis that someone seems to agree yes and, but then feels like a slap into our face or a close door. We experienced this, but for a very long time I just thought like, well that's the way we say it. This is how we talk. 

Until I was introduced in a workshop to the option of “yes, and”. And I goosebumps when I think about it because it's like, what this is adding a new idea. This is not pretending as if you're first agreeing and then contradicting. 

And later then I learned that in improv theater they have a rule on stage that they will not say no or yes, but they will always say “and” so that the game or the the show continue.

Stephen Matini: In your experience working across different cultures, do you find it easier or simpler, this specific attention towards in one culture versus another or it doesn't matter?

Claudia Gross: I think it matters and I think that all cultures are, all languages have different preferences. So I'm already like a bit concerned when we're trying to translate my book because some things I think they're not translatable from English to any other language, be it German or French or Arabic, you know, they where, where I have an idea of what I'm talking about some in the different languages and this what I, that people around them and their examples might be very cultural specific. So some things might not be that we cannot generalize them or things that I could say in German, they actually do not work in another language or a word play that works in English. We can't translate it. 

So we would rather put it in brackets or like adding whatever footnote to explain it. But in general, I think this sensitivity or the awareness for the power of language is available in all languages that are using prayer, that are using holy words that are not saying special words because they could bring bad luck. 

So I think actually it would be, would be present all around the world. And I'm for example, not saying worldwide because I learned from Buckminster Fuller that this would be pretending that it is a flat earth and I believe it's globe. That's why I'm also speaking about around the world or globally, but not about something worldwide.

Stephen Matini: Have you ever heard, I'm sure you did, about the Sapir-Whorf theory or communication?

Claudia Gross: Yes.

Stephen Matini: I remember when I studied it the first time was the notion, you know, based on these colors that essentially the language that we speak, you know, color and tint anything the way we view the world. And I thought it was an incredible theory. The theory has been discussed, has been disproved in many different times. But still what's interesting when I try to learn a new language and I see the same text, I see the grammar. I always have the feeling that I'm putting on sunglasses, a language, the specific structure, really deeply condition how I relate to people. 

Stephen Matini: Words these days seem to be weaponized. Even the whole controversy about freedom of speech. Oftentimes we see endless amount of examples of cancel culture because this person used the wrong word, maybe words that were said years prior in a completely different context. To me it looks like a big gigantic mess of polarized ideas. From your perspective, what could it be a first super small step that all of us as a global community could take in the right direction to build bridges through the use of words?

Claudia Gross: Open your ears, have elephant ears, and open your hearts so that you have a giraffe heart and then have a conversation. 

And I also see this a lot what you're describing, that people are losing also friends or family members over discussions over one particular word. And that's a real pity because what we want to be cultivating our conversations, especially with those who are thinking and acting in a way that is totally different to ours. 

So instead of like emptying my friends list of those who think differently than I do and are not agreeing to how I see the world, it's actually super important to reach out to them and to have the conversations and to widen our horizon, widen our perspective, and be more in this careers mode of like, wow, isn't that interesting? 

And I believe for me, like when I, when I'm listening to all of these developments, I'm also very much inspired by the integral model by Ken Wilber. So I see this evolutionary development of human beings and I can, based on their language also see and hear where they're coming from. 

And therefore I think it's also very important for us that yes, we are all the same and different. Yeah. So we have different backgrounds, different understanding of what's different connotations, so better and a peaceful environment of coexistence and curiosity, then losing those that would be perfect alley for us towards change in this world.

Stephen Matini: Two concepts, they're really important to you in terms of some of the positive impact of using a specific type of language. A green language has to do with you call it like a pluralism and gender positivity. These two components seem to be really important to you. Would you mind telling me more about these two?

Claudia Gross: When I think about pluralism, just very basically I am thinking really in plurals, very often people only give me one option and I'm interested in getting more. I wanna have a choice. And so therefore I believe it's really important to move beyond the binary, which then means like it's not zeroes or one, it's not yes or no. It's not only tea and coffee. And I believe this is important to express this also in language. 

When I'm facilitating coaching, I give people at least three choices or more only with the intention of moving beyond the binary. And for me, when I then I think about gender, it's something similar. I mean, I, I'm German, I grew up with a language that actually has, that has three articles. I also take this one as one of the reasons why for me, pluralism and a variety is a lot easier to grasp, to understand, to connect to than for others. And having said this, being able to express ourselves in more than only one language also helps because depending on the language I speak, I'm a different person.

Stephen Matini: Freedom of speech is such an important thing. And when people tell me what to say and not to say I feel that I get silenced. How would you respond to this type of criticism.

Claudia Gross: There were already situations where people ask me exactly about these points, you know, where they were like, are you now trying to police us? And I thought like, well, it's so far away from my personality to police anyone in anything. 

And for me, this is also where I then thought about and I thought what I really do is highlighting language that is not anymore in harmony with our consciousness and offering alternatives. 

And when I started this, green was just like the language that came up and red as well. There were also moments where then thought like, oh goodness, you know, now you're creating polarities and it looks like green is good and red is bad. And that's also how I mean it, but I do not mean it like with this erect index finger teacher, teacher telling us, you know, how to speak now, that's not my intention. My intention is not to program anyone with my language. I'm, I'm not trained in NLP, even. So my, my origins of this whole initiative really come from a totally different direction. 

And therefore what I do is I offer for everyone who's really stuck in my perspective, like someone who's, who's like extremely fluent in red language. 

Very often these people cannot imagine green language because no one in their surroundings speaks green language. So what I actually do is, in my perspective, I am increasing the horizon. I'm doubling the space of, of vocabulary and life ultimately, and I'm making offerings and they can choose them, yes or no, totally up to them. And it's possible that what I offer this today, next year I might offer you something else because I have my language also has evolved. 

And the way I see it currently is really like a yin and y sign. So as if it was a red young that needs a green yin as yeah to be complete, to also add different energy to that. And only when these two are coming together you have the circle, then you can strive for oneness. 

But as long as you are like in this kind of whatever ocean of red language, moving on and understanding what else is possible is too far away. So this is what I'm now currently answering and I, I've seen it in so many people when they realize how they could not even see it. 

Just the other day, we are now preparing a conference in a panel, in an event in the UK and one of the aspects of this whole event is about strengthening business and the outdoor. So I was listening to the conversation, I was like, oh, that's interesting outdoor, say this again, out-door and in-door. You don't even mention the, which is really interesting. So it's defined by the door, look at it in front of your door or inside of your door. But I mean this does not necessarily need to be nature at all. 

So these little things, you know, and then, oh yeah, interesting. So one word can be so powerful and its could be then reframed, reformulated in something that is more life giving. Here we’re, the journey continues.

Stephen Matini: Yeah. Because a door is something that separates, kinda the example you gave before, no war and peace, you know, outdoors and nature. Absolutely. I'm thinking that maybe this oneness that we so much all want, peace actually it is not oneness, but it's fragmented in infinite variations.

Claudia Gross: Every country you travel through with every culture, even in your country you visit, there's so much variation. They do things differently. And being aware of that is being rich. 

And I believe that's also something that is related to speak because what we do is we're increasing the circles around us. It's not only about myself and my family and my neighbors and my working place, which is already a couple of circles, but the moment I'm able to embrace more people and at a certain point reach like be it my country, be it the region we are in, be it like the rules low, suddenly it's a totally different perspective. 

And this means also that if I'm then whatever, separating and segregating the waste in my house, I don't do this for myself anymore. I do not do this for the garbage man anymore, or the garbage person, or whatever is a better word here, they are called ‘zabaleen’, you would do it for the planet for the seventh generation of grandchildren.

So I believe what happens with these experiences in different countries, realizing exactly as you said, opposite, 180 degrees different from we were used to. In Germany, we would not marry our cousins here in Egypt, people do that. It's the extreme opposite and it's for the respective cultures, it's the way people are living. 

And I believe being able to hold the seemingly opposite in our mind at the same time. And at the beginning it's only two and then after a while it's even more because then you see how they, they're done in different cultures. 

I believe like we're really growing new connections on our brain group, becoming more compassionate for others. And it's a lot easier then to support others in seeing it, having these conversations and those who can't travel, who don't travel, who do not, don't ever have the chance make these experiences, but by sharing our stories, they come close to them. Really they do this. 

I mean, I'm vegetarian and I'm drinking everything, tea and coffee without sugar even this is already a pattern disruptor. Really? Does it have taste? Can you do that? But that's, no one does this, you know? I'm like, well, I mean at least I do it and I can assure you, you know, it's better than four spoons of sugar in your tea. And I think it's first about the past pattern structure and then integrating it all into ourselves and being aware of there might be no single truth.

Stephen Matini: I keep thinking as you are describing such important concept, it's a big exercise in empathy, understanding that the world is not you and it works differently than you. And you can still enjoy anything that is not you if you make an effort to get out of your shoes and know for a while basically.

Claudia Gross: And you see the word empathy just crossed my path yesterday when we spoke about equality and equity where I've seen a title and I, sorry, that I don't recall in which workshop this was, but there they also spoke about diversity and equality and inclusion and belonging. And they didn't say equality or equity, they said empathy. 

And I thought like, how cool is this? Because it's not anymore about people with each other, it's about having empathy with each other, really meeting human to human. And I think this is also another evolutionary step in language on our behaviors that at a certain point it's not anymore about doing things because it has to be equal. We'll do them because we have like hundred percent empathy with other people. 

And equality at the end of the day is also not the goal, we're striving for justice and for fairness, which means that it can be unequal, but it's just, and it's fair. So you know, I mean these concepts, they're really sometimes mind blowing, but I can see them on a spectrum of evolutionary development of humankind and human beings themselves. Like being more and more able to embrace this kind of complexity.

Stephen Matini: I have a funky question. I love languages, you know, and I wish I had all the time in the world to learn every single language. They're just wonderful. But you know how difficult it is, you know, it takes time. Do you think that if we had one true common language, all of us spoke the same language while retaining all the other languages, but if all of us, you know, terrestrians spoke at least in one same language, do you think would be easier?

Claudia Gross: While listening to your question, I thought about Esperanto they trying to to create an artificial language that we all could speak. I love that you added that all the other languages would continue because I would, this would be my major concern that we give up this world that we have when we are speaking exactly the same language. 

We're under the illusion that the others understand us because then they're fluent in our language, especially with mother tongue and we, when you're traveling, we feel like an immediate connection to those that are speaking our language. But on the other hand, this can also be a huge illusion. 

When I'm speaking with people, what we do now on this English bridge, which is not my mother tongue, I would make more effort to make sure that I am really understood or I would also ask more questions, especially in very personal relationships. 

So therefore I believe not speaking the same language could increase our understanding because it supports us also in understanding ourselves and the other and the space between us. And very often I feel very understood by people who are not speaking my mother tongue and absolutely not understood by people who speak German.

Stephen Matini: I love when you say illusion, it really is an illusion. Is there anything out of anything we said that you think that our listeners, the people that will listen to this episode, will be important to pay attention to based on your experience of the power of words?

Claudia Gross: Yeah, that's a good question. First of all, I think what we all need to be aware of now more than ever, independent of words, but I think it's really important to highlight this, is that we are experiencing a change of era. So one era is ending and the other one is beginning and they're overlapping. 

So we’re currently in a phase where both developments are overlapping. Yes, we’re hospicing the old and they’re midwifing the new, both at the same time. This means that we have a huge marketplace and spectrum variety for what we are also experiencing now regarding language is I do not think that there's the right language, and I wouldn't go for right and wrong. When I think about red and green, for me it's really about what is limiting and destructing or inhibiting life and what is giving life and supporting whatever self-development and so on.

So this is how I would see it, and therefore I would always only make offerings. That's one of the rare situations where the word always actually work. Because normally I'm saying don't say always, don't say never. So I'm contradicting myself. But what I wanna say is that it's about offerings, it's about adding a perspective and also inviting others. 

See this as well. When I'm working, when people speak in a lot of negative language where I'm like, okay, how would we reframe that? You know, how does that sound without the not? That's an invitation and they can draw this path. And if they're absolutely not able to lose, I can see if I can assist them. And if it still doesn't work, we can see how we then continue with each other. You know, what is needed. I would never, ever impose it on them.

And this is the thing that I would like people to take with them, you know, like experiment with it, be inspired by it. See how powerful it is, and it's also not just the, the word itself, it's also the vibration it brings in. Yeah. 

For the book I had recorded word showers, like hundred red words and hundred green words. And just listening, just recording the red words was unpleasant, you know, while the green words had a totally different aura and frequency. 

So therefore be curious, be aware of your own language. Do not believe everything you think. Be an author for your own lives, co-author our future. So that's the spirit which everyone to approach this field of language and contribute to it. If there are words that are not in harmony anymore with how you see it or would love to say it, come up with a greener alternative.

Stephen Matini: Claudia this was fantastic. Thank you so much for these important insights, for spending time with me. Thank you.

Claudia Gross: With utmost pleasure.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit breakfastwithstephen.substack.com

Today, we delve into the world of courage and what it truly means to stand up for what you believe. Our guest is Dr. Cindy Pury, Professor of Psychology at Clemson University and an expert in the psychology of courage. 

The episode explores the interplay among fear, bravery, and honesty, revealing why courage doesn't conform to a single, standardized model.

Our conversation explores bravery, honesty, and the nuanced nature of courageous actions, emphasizing individual uniqueness.

Dr. Pury warns against using courage for harmful ends and shares leadership insights for fostering a supportive environment.

Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform.

Subscribe to Pity Party Over

Sign up for a complimentary Live Session

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Contact Stephen Matini

Connect with Stephen

#cynthiapury #courage #psychology #clemsonuniversity #stephenmatini #podcast #pitypartyover #alygn #leadership #management

TRANSCRIPT

Stephen Matini: When did you decide what you wanted to pursue professionally?

Cindy Pury: So I drifted into college without having any clear idea what I wanted to do. I had a major in public relations, I didn't love it, but I couldn't think of anything else. 

And I got to college and the very first day of class, John Kihlstrom, who was our intro teacher, talked about hypnotism. And I was like, oh! And then we started talking about emotions and I was like, oh! And the whole thing was so interesting that I decided to double major in psychology. 

And I clearly remember one day my junior year of college, I believe I was sitting in a windowsill studying in one of the big campus landmark buildings. And I had two exams to study for a psychology exam and a journalism exam. And I remember looking, choosing the psychology book and thinking, boy, I wish any of my journalism classes were as interesting as this.

In graduate school I studied emotional theory and emotional disorders, particularly anxiety disorders. And around the same time the director of our honors college asked me to do an honors seminar about fear and horror. And I thought, great. Okay, sure. 

And so I put together all these things and I went at the end, by the time I got done looking at my class reading list and stuff, I thought, wow, that's really depressing. We need to end on a more positive note. 

So some kind of irrational fear that you have, what do you do about that? Those are anxiety disorders. We have a whole big bunch of treatments for those. So let's read about the most well supported version of that at the time. So I had a section on CBT. 

Then what can you do about some kind of thing that you have a fear of that is rational to be afraid of? Well you can reduce whatever the risk is in that situation and really there's not much else you can do to reduce your risk. Well you can behave courageously. And I thought there's like no research on this at all. And I started conducting research on courage and I haven't really gone back. 

During my pre-doctoral internship I worked at a veteran's hospital with a bunch of people who had combat related PTSD and I was struck by how they talked about things that sounded very courageous but they weren't calling them that. 

And also how some of the things that they were really continually distressed about seemed to be kind of a function of what Jonathan Shea, the year after I finished my internship, coined the term moral injury. 

It seemed to be kind of a combination of moral injury and almost like a failure of courage that was bothering them. And so I've been interested in this for a really long time and it turned out to be a really natural fit and I found I was just super interested in it. And so I've stuck with that.

Stephen Matini: Simply put, what is the link between fear and courage?

Cindy Pury: The link between fear and courage is actually a little bit more complicated than just saying that fear is standing up to courage, 'cause a lot of people say “courage is standing up to fear,” but also they'll say, you were fearless and courageous. And it's like, but those don't fit. 

So what we've done is we've taken a step back, me and my colleagues, we've taken a step back from the fear and think about the risk part instead as being central to courage. And this I think eliminates an awful lot of the problem. It doesn't have to be actual risk, it can be perceived risk. 

One of the things we know for sure about people who are highly fearful, either dispositionally or just in the moment, is that whatever it is feels much riskier than perhaps it really is. So that happens when folks are afraid of things that aren't really that much of a risk. It still feels very risky. It can feel risky in a really unusual kind of way. 

So one of my participants in a courage study wrote about something she did that was courageous, that was smushing, a spider that was in her house. She thought it was courageous that she worried about how if she hadn't done anything, he would come back and get her. And it's like I knew that she knew like most people with specific phobias, she probably knew that spiders aren't smart enough to do that, but it felt that way. 

Finally, it helps explain situations where someone describes something they did they that they call courageous. And they'll either say that they didn't feel that much fear in the moment because they were very focused on doing whatever they were trying to do. 

Or sometimes they described fear, but their fear has more to do with the fear of whatever bad outcome they're trying to prevent typically for someone else who they love or otherwise care about. 

So if a a small child who you love wanders into the street, you're going to be much more afraid of something bad happening to that small child most likely than yourself.

Stephen Matini: Is there any difference between bravery and courage?

Cindy Pury: The difference between bravery and courage, if your listeners are familiar with the VIA or the Values and Action System, is that the VIA’s bravery component is standing up to fear or difficulty in a particular way. And so it has a lot to do with that emotion and it doesn't have to do with how you aim it. 

So I would argue that it would be possible for someone to have an isolated strength of bravery but use it in a completely inappropriate way. 

So, if you imagine two people who are equally afraid running into a house fire; cool, they're equally burned and equally likely to die, they're in the burn unit, they're in adjoining beds. 

The person in bed A ran into the burning house to save a baby, that person is likely to be hailed as courageous and publicly hailed as courageous by other people. The person in bed B ran into the burning house to make a really cool TikTok video. People aren't likely to say that person's courageous.

Stephen Matini: What is as of now after many years of research, your own definition of courage?

Cindy Pury: My own definition of courage at this point is that it involves taking a worthwhile risk. So it's got to be taking, it's gotta be a voluntary sort of thing. It's a chosen action. It's not something that just happens to you, it's something that you choose to do. And I suppose I could extend it to choosing to take a worthwhile risk. 

It's also something that is risky to you. It also is worthwhile. So it is something that is proportional to the risk that's involved. Risking your life to save the life of another is definitely courageous. Risking your life to pursue some incredibly personally valuable goal can be courageous if you the observer or you the rater shares that value of that goal. 

Risking your life for a very trivial thing in a way that need not have happened that way does not feel that way. 

A few years ago there was someone who literally did run back into a house fire to get her season baseball tickets, which could have easily been replaced and in fact the baseball team said, we're replacing your tickets but just know we would've replaced these anyways. So that doesn't seem terribly courageous. 

I've taken that a step further and I've looked at people who've won the Carnegie Hero medal, which in the United States is a big civilian award for bravery and for the Carnegie Hero medal. 

I looked at one year's worth of it, and in that one year most people who won, saved the life of another person, and they themselves were alive. 

Some people won dying while saving the life of another person. 

Other people won dying and the person they tried to save died, nobody won, when the person they tried to save died, but they lived. There's this sort of hindsight bias that that was worth it. 

We have other data on that too where we just made up stories and the stories changed. So like you move to another country for the perfect relationship or the perfect job and A) it works out and 10 years later you're still married or B) after about a year you see that you're really not compatible and you split up, that second person is not likely to see themselves as courageous.

Stephen Matini: So if I understood correctly, there seems to be cultural and contextual differences that it impact what people perceive as courageous.

Cindy Pury: Oh absolutely. Absolutely. And they'll vary based on both cultural values and individual values and they'll vary based on both cultural threats and individual threats. 

And so, if you are in a culture where being perceived as showing any sign of fear is like a terrible thing for you and you're willing to get up and speak in public, that may be more courageous than if, if you're like, oh, okay. Sometimes people are afraid and they go on and it's cool. 

Or if you are raised in a culture where showing any sign of sadness as a man is perceived as negative and you're crying in public and you're a man, that's gonna be much a much bigger risk in some cultures than in others. Likewise, the values of course change from culture to culture. 

They also change individually. Charlie Starkey, Laura Olson and I just published some data looking at how courageous Americans rated two women who did sort of different things. 

A few summers back, Kaitlyn Jenner publicly came out as transgender, and Kim Davis refused to issue marriage licenses to same gender couples. 

Not surprisingly the extent to which you agree that marriage should be between one man and one woman and people should adhere traditional gender norms point you in completely opposite directions in rating if that woman was courageous or not.

Stephen Matini: As you're talking, there are different scenarios they play in my head particularly about what's considered to be socially courageous. And I'm thinking about organizations or the example of Kaitlyn Jenner. Some of them they say, I'm openly gay but at work, I'm not because you know, that's not the place where I could do that. So from your perspective, should I be more courageous, or what?

Cindy Pury: It would depend on so many different things about how the person sees their job. I'm gonna make up a super extreme example here. 

So if the person's spouse, who they love, is unable to work for some reason, and they are providing all of the means of financial support for their family, and they go out to work every day in a homophobic environment, and put on their mask to get money so that they and their partner can live a decent life, that could almost be seen as courageous. 

Doing exactly the opposite. For them, jobs aren't plentiful and they would never find anything that would support them in that way. It might be courageous for them to stay closeted. 

Similarly, in an organization that specifically goes out of its way to say we are a proudly WOKE organization and we welcome all of our LGBTQIA+ employees and in fact here's our gay employee association and people in the gay employee association actually have kind of a leg up, then that risk is just obviously a lot lower.

Likewise, if you are seeing yourself as strongly committed to advancing the rights of other people by being an example yourself, which I think from what I have read arguably is a large part of the reason why we have so much more acceptance in society today, which I personally really welcome, is because people have been willing to step out and say I'm gay, I'm still the same person that you knew before and I'm still just as competent as I was before and and all these other things and here is my life and I am willing to be an example, that could also be part of it.

Stephen Matini: So it seems to me that courage oftentimes ignites when someone is willing to go against the grain.

Cindy Pury: Yeah, certainly in terms of any sort of a social thing, that definitely would seem to be the case. And social risks are huge. We're very social creatures and our social risks feel every bit as real as physical risks and do every bit as much of the same sort of jazzing up your autonomic nervous system and feeling really awful and feeling a sense of dread. We definitely feel that way about social things also. 

Personal courage I think is a real big thing and when you know the person's full story, sometimes their actions make a lot more sense. 

I mentioned I worked at this VA hospital. I had a patient who before I was even studying courage, his goal during treatment was to wrap a Christmas present for his child. That doesn't sound like very much but his whole backstory was that the worst thing that had ever happened to him was over Christmas time. 

Every December it reliably resulted in terrible flashbacks for him and he avoided every reminder of Christmas whatsoever to avoid being reminded of this very terrible incident in his life.

So he came in and he wrapped a Christmas present and he wrapped it in a session with me and while he was wrapping it like he was crying and his hands were shaking and he was sweating and we had to have a bucket nearby 'cause he thought he was gonna throw up, but he did it, at the end he's like, I'm sorry, I'm such a mess, something, something about being weak. 

Well, before I started studying this, like almost a decade before, I said that was really brave, because I knew what he was going through, in order to do it.

Stephen Matini: If someone is not that courageous, or let's say wants to be a little bit more courageous, where do you draw the line between, what I'm thinking of doing is courageous or just being stupid?

Cindy Pury: That is such a good question. It is a fine line between brave and stupid. 

The place where I saw that drawn most clearly was a story about this family out, I think in California or they were at least driving in California. They were driving along one of the twisty roads by the coast and the little kid threw a teddy bear out of the window and it fell down a cliff. 

And so they stop the car, one of the parents gets out of the car and goes down the cliff to try to get the teddy bear. That parent gets stuck. The second parent then, leaving the child alone in the car, goes down the cliff to try to rescue the other parent and also to try to rescue the bear. They're both stuck and then rescue had to come out and helicopter got them and the family went on their way.

Had it been the case that the first parent had rescued the teddy bear, this would just have turned into a story about how much mommy and daddy loved you. 

It's always going to come down to someone's personal values and their personal values are funneled through their societal values, but the risk also matters a lot. So is this a risk that you are taking just for you, or are you taking this risk for other people? 

So, the second parent who got out of the car leaving the child alone should have thought it's not that smart to leave a child in the car by themselves, because this was a kid that was young enough to have a teddy bear and a tantrum, that also matters. 

I had an interesting conversation once with a student who was a police officer and he said that for him confronting someone who may be unhinged with a weapon is a lot less dangerous than it is for me. And I'd say I'd have to agree with him.

So the question is, is it less courageous for him to do that than it would be for me? In a way, yes, but also he signed up for this career that required that sort of training and that sort of regular confrontation. 

But definitely people are inspired by reading about what other people have done and seeing what other people have done and being told the stories of what other people have done. And a motivating sort of thing is when you see someone, especially someone who's similar to yourself or believing in a similar cause or ideally both of those things, if you are reflecting on something they did that was courageous, much like your friend, you're more likely to be inspired to go, I can do this too.

Stephen Matini: Just that based on anything we talked, courage is not a clean cut.

Cindy Pury: Absolutely not. It's wickedly hard to measure because either you end up with scales that simply ask you how courageous you are and how much you stand up to fear and you don't let fear or risks stand in your way, or you end up with scales that have what in psychology we call double barrelled items, where you have to be willing to do this for that, that requires two sorts of things instead to be in alignment rather than just one, and so it's not as clean. So it has turned out to be a difficult thing to measure. 

I don't think we're likely to find that there are people who are uniformly brave and people who are uniformly cowardly. I don't think we're going to find that. I think everyone has their own individual constellations of things that they think are really worthwhile to do. Some people are very career-focused and they will do all sorts of things for their career, for their organization, which are different things obviously.

And other people are not. Some people are very focused on personal advancement and they're willing to do things that are growing and enriching and feed their curiosity and their need to know other people aren't. 

Some people really see the value in some particular kind of artistic or other personal expression. Other people don't see it as being as important to them. Likewise people feel differently about different kinds of risks that are out there. 

The distribution of things that people are afraid of is not kind of random and people have different amounts of risks for different things. So for me, I do public speaking all the time. I routinely teach classes of 300 or so people. If you told me I was gonna give a speech to 300 people tomorrow, I'd be like, sure, that's fine. So it depends on the individual and the situation.

Stephen Matini: Is there any correlation between courage and honesty? Because we're talking about values ...

Cindy Pury: Yeah, absolutely. A lot of people describe courageous actions as being very high on integrity, which is a component of honesty. And certainly you may need to be courageous in order to be honest about something. And the coward, the less courageous action in a situation may be to cover it up or to lie about something. 

It's somewhat contextual but for most people, most of the time honesty is probably the thing that they would feel prouder of, and would be better for society if we were honest. And so, in those cases, definitely. And in studies that we've done our typical study, we ask people to describe a time they acted courageously and we get a wide variety of responses. 

Some of those responses definitely involve honesty. So another response that we got commonly were people who went and got needed treatment and needed to be honest. One of the steps in that is being honest with yourself and with other people. Especially if it happened when they were younger that they needed to go get treatment for their eating disorder or whatever it was.

Stephen Matini: If I said to you anyone who's willing to fight for what he or she believes in, is courageous, would this be a fair statement?

Cindy Pury: Yeah, I think so. Would I wanna give them the accolade of courage? Would I be happy to see that they won an award for valor? No, not necessarily, depending on what they were fighting for, 'cause Sometimes people fight for things that I think are terrible, and in that case I'm not going to be calling them courageous. 

I can guarantee you though that every instance that I've found of someone being called courageous in the public press, or in the semi-public weirdo space that the Internet inhabits, if they're being called courageous, the person who's calling them courageous agrees with the goal of what they're trying to pursue and agrees in some way that they are taking a risk.

Stephen Matini: You said it at the beginning of this conversation that ,your interest for courage began because you did not want just to focus on fear, you wanna focus on something that this seemed to be more positive. After all these years of your research, of your experience, what would you say that is the main reason why you are still passionate about courage?

Cindy Pury: I think it's still interesting and I find the stories very uplifting for the most part. And also I've been motivated to write any number of book chapters by a warning that I wanna give people, which is that courage can be used for very bad things. Many people who have done just atrocious things believe that they're acting courageously and they talk using the same language that people use when they talk about courage. 

Silk is a famous researcher who studies terrorism and in interviews with incarcerated terrorists and the police officers who stop them, both describe their actions in very similar ways, that fit the definition of courage. 

I was struck by this when the Virginia Tech shooting happened. I still remember very clearly I was on an overnight sleepover field trip with my middle daughter and I just had caught little glimpses of it like on my phone.

And I waited until she was in the bathroom taking a shower to like actually watch any of it. And he issued this creepy manifesto that was on a videotape and I was struck by listening to it how he sounded like a crazy evil version of my participants. 

My participants at that time were almost all, were all college students, so they were all about his age and the way he described what he was doing, which was killing other people, sounded very much like the way my college student participants described taking an action that they thought was courageous. 

And so I also feel very compelled to always put that message in there that, just because you think something's courageous doesn't mean it's not a bad thing. Just because you feel courageous doing it, doesn't always mean it's a good idea. And that doesn't necessarily mean it's stupid. I would say there's kind of the two bands, there's almost like two labels. 

One of them is like stupid courage, where it's like I'm gonna run into this burning building to get a zillion TikTok followers, or I'm going to quit my job just to stick it to the man and now I'm unemployed and have no career. 

Or I'm going to be brutally honest with this person who I dearly love. I'm just gonna be honest all the time with them. And that might not help our relationship actually and I might end up losing it. That sort of courage, I put it a different bin, than the things that are objectively meant to do bad.

Stephen Matini: So we can say, the end does not justify the means.

Cindy Pury: No. And if the end doesn't justify the means, then that is not a thing that we should say is courageous. But again, with the warning you might feel like you're courageous and then it turns out maybe you really weren't. It's a whole big picture. We need wisdom in order to properly evaluate these things.

Stephen Matini: We talked about different things, so many different components of courage. If there’s anything that you believe that our listeners should focus on based on anything we said, what would that be?

Cindy Pury: One of the biggest takeaways that I've gotten from doing research on courage is appreciating how unique everyone is, and recognizing the unique ways in which everyone has been courageous. I would argue everyone has been courageous. 

Everyone has taken a risk that they think is worthwhile. That risk varies from person to person and what they think is worthwhile varies from person to person. 

One of the things that happened I think during Covid is that we saw risks that people never considered on their job suddenly being present on their job, and the extent to which people were willing to engage in those risks for their job, which had changed, changed. 

And ordinarily there's a lot of self-selection. People who are afraid of public pushback don't typically go into roles where there's not a lot of public pushback. They're not necessarily going to sign up to work for a politician.

But a lot of healthcare workers found themselves in that situation, and a lot of educators found themselves in that situation. A lot of school board members are still finding themselves in that situation where school board in the United States at least used to be a very non-controversial kind of a thing. 

When Covid happened, suddenly almost everyone's job involved that, and that was a negotiation, and I think what I saw personally, and what I saw professionally was a mismatch, in how much people wanted you to pursue the goals of the organization, and what they thought your risk tolerance should be for something, and what the individual employee's risk tolerance for that was, or sense of riskiness about that was. 

And that sense of riskiness depended on two things. Broadly speaking, it depended on their actual risk level. So you might be immunocompromised and you haven't told anybody that, or you might live with someone who is medically fragile and you haven't told anybody that.

And also just how much people have their own perception of what they're comfortable with. Those are somewhat separable things, but I think a lot of the misunderstandings that I saw in organizations at the time were due to that change. 

So I guess from like a leadership perspective, being aware of what others in your organization, what the people you are leading find risky and find valuable, that may differ, and their picture of what that is, may be different than yours. 

My other tiny little bit of leadership advice is don't be the reason why someone else needs to be courageous. If you are so intimidating that your employees need to work up courage to come and talk to you, that's problematic. But we all know that those leaders are out there.

Stephen Matini: And maybe it's their way of believing that they're being courageous in some sort of tough or strong, you know?

Cindy Pury: Absolutely. And I have definitely seen this. That's really not such a great strategy. Let them save their being courageous for other sorts of things that are more valuable to the company rather than just having to come to you.

Stephen Matini: Cindy, you taught me so much today. Thank you so much.

Cindy Pury: No problem, Stephen. This was super interesting.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit breakfastwithstephen.substack.com

Leadership consultant Katie Anderson believes fostering a continuous learning culture within a leadership framework can lead to better outcomes and engagement.   

In today’s episode, we will discuss with Katie the challenges of shifting from a command-and-control to a learning approach, the role of purpose in leadership, and the impact of adopting a growth mindset.

A culture of learning involves reconnecting with a sense of purpose, asking more open-ended questions, and creating a psychologically safe environment where mistakes are learning opportunities.

Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform:

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Yvonne Mose and Jeremiah Mabiria are two entrepreneurs passionate about sustainability, working towards environmental solutions, and creating positive change to protect the planet and foster developmental opportunities in Africa. 

Yvonne and Jeremiah founded MOMA Renewable Energy (former SBIKE), a company that produces bioethanol cooking fuel from food waste to address energy and environmental issues in Kenya. Their business aims to reach rural Kenyan households and contribute to reforestation efforts. 

Yvonne and Jeremiah represent the rising potential of African startups and the need for support in achieving a more sustainable and interconnected world.

Yvonne Mose is a three-month BARKAT Entrepreneur program graduate, an application-based 100% scholarship offering for Middle Eastern and African female entrepreneurs, and part of The Goddess Solution by Puneet Sachdev.

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...

TRANSCRIPT

Stephen Matini: You, Jeremiah, you grew up in the US. And you Yvonne, you grew up in Kenya. But Jeremiah, you are also Kenyan descendant, correct?

Jeremiah Mabiria: Yes, we're actually from the same region, from the same community. It's just that I had to ate and relearn the language and do a lot of that when I came home. He just migrated when I was six years old.

Stephen Matini: Jeremiah, how was growing up in the States? You know, having parents from a different country?

Jeremiah Mabiria: It was interesting. It was interesting to be different. I came from a place here where I was like everyone else. We were very young, me and my brother, we were very quick to assimilate and become American. We kind of had to relearn being Kenyan I would say more so than learning to be American. It was natural.

Stephen Matini: When people ask you where do you feel home is, what do you answer?

Jeremiah Mabiria: Minnesota's home, that's where I grew up. But here Kisii (Kenya), is also home. There's a connection that I feel when I'm here. My easy answer would be that I have many homes. I'm lucky enough to have lived in many places and have many help.

Stephen Matini: Yvonne, how was for you instead to grow up in Kenya?

Yvonne Mose: For me growing up in Kenya is I think everything that I know, all that I know about life and it was really good growing around my people, my culture, my parents come from a very low income background. 

That's why I got the motivation about who I am and what I want to work on. I think it has really formed the kind of person that I am right now. So yeah, but growing is really interesting. It has 47 tribes I believe. I didn't miss out on anything culturally.

Stephen Matini: How long ago both of you met?

Yvonne Mose: Yeah, about two years.

Stephen Matini: When you met, could you sense cultural differences between the two of you?

Yvonne Mose: For me, yes because Jeremiah talks different. He is very American in his ways, but it was a good surprise

Stephen Matini: Somehow. Both of you have developed over your life an interest, a passion for sustainability. How has that happened? Were there any specific people, any specific event in your past that has somehow made you sensitive to the sustainable agenda?

Yvonne Mose: For me, growing up in a poor background, especially in the rural areas in Kisii, I saw how it was hard for my family and even my neighbors to get access to clean cooking fields. 

So for me that kinda shaped who I was because I saw how, how much time it took from me going out to play with my friends or even going to school to study. Growing up, that gave me an idea what I wanted to do. So I was very environmental focused and that's even what I pursued in my university for my degree. 

And then getting to meet Jeremiah and through him getting to meet his dad who somehow convinced me that employment is not the way that I will want to go and if I wanted to make more impact I should start something by myself. Like create a startup, create a business that will make more impact in the community. And that's what made me who I am today.

Jeremiah Mabiria: For me, sustainability something that it came maybe from the education system. I remember the campaigns and we had the blue dumpster for the plastics and the green ones. It was taught in school but I think as I got older it became a lifestyle. That's when through the education system learning that the planet's coming to an end and we keep buying iPhones and new cars and we don't think about what the cost of that is. 

If there's gonna be change, then I would have to be part of that. I have to be one piece in creating that change. Meeting with like-minded people along the way through groups at school and and college and campus groups. And that's what really sparked my interest. 

We have the advantage of not having messed a lot of things up is in the West. It happened a long time ago. Here we have a chance to stop it from happening. We have a chance to create industries while thinking about what these industries do to the environment and mitigating some of the ill effects that they have. So that's what really drove me, especially when I came home to make sure that I was in sustainable energy.

Stephen Matini: Oftentimes the whole notion of sustainability and capitalism and growth, you know financial success, are seen as opposite. What is your view about it?

Yvonne Mose: I think when you think about impact, most people think about charity work and I think that's not what it is. 

Google is a tech company that has so much impact on people without being a charity organization per se. So for me, when I think about impact, I think about the basic needs for the communities like housing, clean energy, water, health services. 

Those are services that you can start and you can make sure that they are accessible to the low income households or or even to the low income communities. And at the end of the day, for as much as your organization is also get making profit, you are also thinking about the community at large impact and profits go hand in hand.

Stephen Matini: Do you foresee to be easier, you know, moving forward, having this company in Kenya or you think would be harder in the US?

Jeremiah Mabiria: I think it would be easier for sure. What we're doing, we're experimenting a lot, we're trying new things and what I've found is that the Kenyan government, when we have gone to ask for the regulations or to be certified, they kind of let you take the lead. We don't know what you're talking about, we've never seen this. You do it and then we will regulate you. 

So it's very accommodating 'cause it's a smaller government and it's a government that is hungry for development, they're hungry for anything that moves a needle forward. So they're very willing to accept. 

Whereas in the US it's a very regulation heavy system and so trying things that are outside of the box requires a lot of money because you have to do massive amounts of research, massive amounts of work to make sure you meet the regulations. Here the regulators work with you, they need you. The US the government is so large that I don't think they need any one.

Stephen Matini: Would you mind explaining the idea behind your company, SBIKE?

Yvonne Mose: Since SBIKE was born so that we can have the most social and environmental impact as we can. We currently produce boca biofuel, which is a bioethanol based cooking fuel out of food waste and food processing byproducts. 

We make an environmental impact as much as we make a social impact and our product are priced solo, that it is accessible to the rural low income households who are actually our target customers. 

So currently the households use charcoal and firewood to cook 'cause those are the fields that are affordable and accessible to them. And if you compare our biofuel to charcoal, which is even more efficient than firewood, one liter of biofuel burns as much as three kgs of charcoal and one liter of biofuel goes for about let's say 90 cents US dollars and one kg of charcoal goes for about a dollar.

Yvonne Mose: That also makes an impact. They get to save as they cook with our fuels. It has health benefits but only byproducts from it are water and CO2. And while we cook with the wood fields, the byproducts are so the smoke and this particulate matter which affects health. 

So yes, our organization is mainly focused on the impact that we can make more than let's even profits. But we are also profitable because a little by field we produce it at about 60 cents a liter and we sell it at 90 cents, which makes our profit margin at about 50%. As much as we are making profits, we're also making so much social and environmental impacts.

Stephen Matini: How has been the reception of your consumers, your company?

Jeremiah Mabiria: Our problem currently is production. We have increased capacity twice since the first machine we fabricated and we have never been able to meet demand and this isn't an isolated area of Kisii county that we chose as our pilots area in the sub county. 

We haven't even fully launched into the full county or the region, but we cannot meet the demand in just the area that we're in. And we have requests, we've had meetings with the county government where the request is how quickly can we spread it out and which is why we're we're busy fundraising to see if we can build a proper launch facility.

Stephen Matini: If someone is interested in helping you out, what could they do?

Yvonne Mose: Currently I think the thing that we need most is to scale up production. So we will need help in scaling our production, that's expanding our current facility, purchasing new production equipment and also product packaging. And even as we scale up we want to start branding and marketing.

Jeremiah Mabiria: I think it's just the fundraising in order to get the things that Yvan has mentioned, able to get us in more households and serving more people quicker than we would with the slow national growth.

Stephen Matini: For people to use ethanol, do they have to have a specific stove?

Jeremiah Mabiria: There is stoves available but for the rural low income households what we found is there's a company in Kenya that focuses on the urban areas called “cocoa networks” and they have a stove that they sell for about 15 dollars. 

But in the rural markets where we serve, most people make a dollar or two a day day on average. $15 is what they need to save up to pay for school for you for one of their children. It is just too much money for them to invest in a stove. 

But ethanol is combustible in any container. If you think of serving lines at buffets, they use ethanol to keep the full warm, it's just a container with fire. We have been reusing tins and we've been showing and training our agents to train the customers on how to reuse tins that are used for cooking fat and other things that they already have and to use those as the stove. 

So they have a ELY ethanol stove that they get for nothing but the time that they invest in making the stove and they can just replace it whenever it rusts and it costs them nothing extra which allows them to actually buy the ethanol. Otherwise we wouldn't be able to reach them because the stoves that are manufactured are entirely too expensive.

Stephen Matini: Like a typical interview question , ideally if everything went accordingly to your plans, where would you like to be five years from now?

Yvonne Mose: So ideally we would have reached all the rural households in Kenya. That's very ambitious. Currently we're only serving the Western region of Kenya with actually a smaller part, which is the Gossi region. 

So ideally in five years we would've reached the whole of Kenya, we would've had more social impact and we would have started already producing biodiesel, which is actually the product that we are currently piloting. 

And we would have gotten our production up so that we could supply of bio ethanol so that we could supply industries and also the cook stove companies that make the cook stoves because currently they actually import ethanol into Kenya. There's no company that produces ethanol at a large enough skill that they can support the demand in Kenya.

Stephen Matini: Just to make sure that I understand, you said it biodiesel?

Yvonne Mose: Oh yes, biodiesel. So currently we're piloting biodiesel which is made out of bio ethanol and waste working for, from companies that make foods using cooking oil, that deep fry foods. 

Let's say like oil waste from KFC or even from trigger foods or even from tropical heat, the people who make the crisps. So yes, we are currently trying to pilot biodiesel, which is also we've, we have realized it's a niche in the market in Kenya.

Stephen Matini: Do you also have other sustainable projects in your pipeline?

Yvonne Mose: Our efforts to restore the environmental degradation count as a sustainable project. It doesn't bring in any profits but we as a company actually committed to donate 1% of our proceeds to land restoration. So that means reforestation. 

So we support community-based organization, women, women organizations, youth organizations and even the local county government in their efforts to replant trees in the county. 

We as a country have a 10% aim for mini forest cover marked to reach. So as a country we haven't reached it but the county that we are based in, which is KC County, we are current, we we're currently at 15% forest cover and 26% tree cover. So we are trying to maintain that or even grow that

Stephen Matini: As entrepreneurs, you could have taken so many different routes and I understand how your life experiences, as often happen with a lot of entrepreneurs, have influenced your choices. But the life of an entrepreneur can be difficult. Is there anything that both of you do to pick yourself up when things do not seem to go well?

Jeremiah Mabiria: Not just Yvonne, but having a good team around you, having a good group of people who see things the way you see things and are looking towards the same goals as you do like everyone else, I have low days, I have days where I don't wanna go to the office, I don't wanna find out that the machine is broken . 

But once you remind yourself of why you're doing it in the reason, it's easy to get up in the morning because the goal is much bigger than myself and whatever I want to accomplish personally, there's something much bigger that we are trying to attain in conjunction with other companies like ourselves all across, which is show that it is possible to make money while doing good I think is an important thing to highlight in

Stephen Matini: Yvonne. What, what do you do when you feel, ugh, this is so hard to bring your energy up?

Yvonne Mose: I remind myself that there's no one swooping in from out of nowhere to come and save me or to save the situation. So I just have to power through it. 

And I think also having a team around me, especially the team that we're building, we don't have offices. Let's say no one is in charge of anything, particularly it's on paper, yes, but we all help each other out. 

If I realize Jeremiah has a problem that he needs to solve and he needs somebody else to help him or a different I to look at it, that's what we focus on. That's what we work on. 

So yes, having an A team around me that supports me and knowing that through me and through my work I'm supporting other women to come up. That's also what gets me outta bed in the morning.

Stephen Matini: Yvonne, one of the things that it's not easy is to find good people to select good people. How do you do that? How do you make sure that you find the right people for your team? Is anything that you do, anything you look for?

Yvonne Mose: For me, I think it's just gut feeling. Currently the only management team that we have are the co-founders. So we're in the management positions. The rest of our team are our, our production staff and maybe the people in our supply chain. 

So when it comes to getting someone to work with us, what we go with is our gut feeling and also is before giving out a contract, we integrate someone into our organization and we work with them let's say on ... actually on a three month probation period. Seeing how it all goes, seeing how they interact with each other and how they work with each other. And then from then that's when we commit and give them our contract. You can't always get it tried all the time.

Stephen Matini: How is it to be the female CEO, in Kenya?

Yvonne Mose: Kenya as a whole is very accepting but Kenya has so many different regions, especially the Gossi region and I think we are also a patriarchal society. 

Being a CEO and getting into rooms with people who don't take you at face value or people who don't take you seriously has become kind of a challenge. And I think actually that's what motivates me. 

I try to like our production stuff that I've talked about, it's purely women. I try to integrate women into the workspace into my organization, putting them in positions whereby if they go to a room later on when they grow and they want to start their own startups or get into other or employment opportunities, they can actually be listened to and people will take them at face value. So as much as it's challenging, it's also a challenge to me trying to make sure that in future that doesn't happen to other women.

Stephen Matini: And also one of the challenges is the fact that both of you share a personal relationship and a professional relationship and that's not easy. Jeremiah, how do you keep these two important relationships in line?

Jeremiah Mabiria: They're very separate and they have a life of their own. We sat down and we were very intentional about how we created our work personal life balance. She's my boss when we're in the office, I take direction. That's our business relationship and I take that seriously and we have a separate relationship when we're at home and we make sure we give both those things equal time not equal time, but enough time to grow and each of them need to be nurtured in their own way.

Stephen Matini: You know, I get it a good vibe from both of you. Yvonne, you are strong but you are very kind and I love the fact that Jeremiah, you come across as some sort of guardian angel that support her. You know, it's really wonderful. So have a good vibe that this is gonna be wonderful moving forward.

Yvonne Mose: Thank you. That describes us actually.

Stephen Matini: I wanna ask you Yvonne, how did you come across the Barkat program? Because I think it's a wonderful social initiative. The founder Puneet, I also interviewed for the podcast and when he told me about the intention of the program to support female leaders, entrepreneurs, I thought, oh wow, this is incredible, you know, to support women in the Middle East and in Africa. How did you learn about the program?

Yvonne Mose: When we're talking about things that have made me who I am today, Punit and the Barkat program is a major part of it. Jeremiah and I had a discussion and I was working as a project manager and doubling with the organization, but then we realized it was time for me to focus full-time organization. 

We as a team sat down and we decided I'll be better placed as the CEO. Jeremiah was going through some things online and then he saw the ban program and we realized that will be the perfect program to introduce me into the market, get me to be the best version of myself. 

And we saw Puneet qualifications and credentials and it was so impressive. So yeah, we just came across it on the Internet and we decided to apply and through the program I have become stronger, I have become more confident, I have learned how to channel my energy into my work and in everything that I do and in have everyone that I interact with, especially my coworkers and my support staff and I'm really grateful to have met him.

Stephen Matini: Are you still part of the program or you completed it?

Yvonne Mose: I completed the program about two months ago but I am still part of the network. So once you have graduated from the program, you're not cast out completely. So we have a community, the Barkat community, we still interact with the ladies from my cohort. 

So yeah, it's a community that keeps on growing. I was actually very lucky to be part of the first cohort. So the current cohort that's continued is the second cohort. We are community and we help each other out. He has has managed to bring women leaders from every part of Africa and made them into this group that supports each other in their daily lives.

Stephen Matini: What would you say that it could be a first step, based on your experience, for anyone to explore the entrepreneurial route? What could they do?

Yvonne Mose: For me it'll be just start. There's never going to be that perfect moment. There's never going to be enough money for you to do it. 

If I was to wait until I was at the perfect position to start my company, I will have waited until I had a hundred million dollars in my account so that I could start off with a big company and make all the impact that I wanna make. So for me my, my advice would be to just start everything else will fall in place. 

Do all the research that you need to do, get to know your strengths and your weaknesses and actually get people on your team. For as much as it's I dunno, people view it to be a good thing to be a solo founder, I found value in having co-founders, people who can compliment me because I realized I don't know everything. And I think that's a very important thing to know. 

And also when you're talking about the energy people channeling the energy, I feel like most women feel like for them to be hard or for them to be taken seriously, they have to portray masculine energy. But if you channel who you are and you channel your energy into whatever it is that you're doing, it'll definitely be successful.

Stephen Matini: What would you say that are your strengths, which is your biggest strength? Yvonne? Which one is your biggest strength? Jeremiah?

Yvonne Mose: I'm empathetic. I tend to feel the people around me and I tend to try and make people the best versions of themselves.

Jeremiah Mabiria: I'm lucky enough to have, I can see things, I can be able to see the possibilities and not the impossibility. 

So when we're talking about opening a factory in a rural village in Kisii, it's very easy for me to see how this is possible and why it would work and why this is a good thing and actually some steps to getting it to happen. 

Even some of my co-founders were like, are you sure? Yeah, I would say that. Strength wise it's just being able to bring the team around, communicate to them what is possible.

Yvonne Mose: Today we were driving from Nakuru, we had a meeting in Nakuru so we're driving to Kisii and we saw a factory and Jeremiah told me all the cars in the world and all the money in the world, I don't want that. All I want is that. He sees possibilities where I don't see any. I think that's actually also what attracted me to him. He's someone who sees far and I think that's what I needed in my life.

Stephen Matini: For those listening to our episode, is there anything that would you like for people to take away from our conversation? Something that you deem to be really important for them to keep with themselves?

Yvonne Mose: Africa is coming up in the market and in Africa we have so many startups that are coming up and also youth who are driven to make the world a better place and we shouldn't be overlooked. I think we are coming up and we are going to be hard.

Jeremiah Mabiria: We have moved out of the dark ages that we were in and I see so much hope everywhere I look not just in our organization, but when we go for meetings and programs and you hear the interesting things that people are doing and the unique and innovative projects that they're starting. We just need a little bit of a push, a little bit of a help, big hand from the rest of the world. But I think we are ready. I think we are ready to finally join the rest of the world.

Stephen Matini: Thank you so much for your vision. Thank you so much for your empathy and I truly hope for all that you are seeing to come true because there's a desperate need for more sustainable and more balanced world. So thank you so much for spending time with me. I appreciate it.

Yvonne Mose: Thank you to you Stephen.

 

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit breakfastwithstephen.substack.com

We engage in a thought-provoking conversation with Dr. Deb Mashek, business advisor, professor, and author of the book Collabor(h)ate: how to build incredible collaborative relationships at work (even if you’d rather work alone.

Deb shares her unique perspective on collaboration, highlighting its importance in various settings and debunking common misconceptions. She believes that when people collaborate and learn from diverse perspectives, they can increase their effectiveness by embracing new resources, viewpoints, and identities. 

In our conversation, we explore the key ingredients of a successful relationship and dig into seeking growth through connections with others.

Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform.

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TRANSCRIPT

Stephen Matini: Deb, I am going to the origins, sort of speak, of your life. And one thing that I read, I think it was in your book was that three factors, which included your parents, your PhD, and your upbringing in a trailer park, have been your inspiration to learn and focus on collaboration. And I thought that was really interesting.

Deb Mashek: Yeah, absolutely. So I call those my three great teachers of collaboration. So the trailer park piece is, I grew up in a double wide trailer in North Platte, Nebraska and there's some people like, Ooh, trailer Park, that sounds horrible. 

Thought it was fantastic because what we had was this play mat, which was the trailer park. So we had a chain link fence that said we couldn't go beyond it. But other than that, the kids were really left to their own devices. 

So I grew up in the seventies and in the trailer park would spill out at, you know, 9:00 AM and we had to figure out together how we were going to play, what we were going to play, what the rules of our play were going to be. And if somebody violated the rules, we figured out what those consequences were. And that person who violated those rules had to figure out how to make amends and words through play.

We learned the social skills necessary to live and work to do, to be with others. So that was the, the trailer park piece. 

And then both of my parents throughout my life struggled with alcoholism. So it's kind of a, a perverse sort of teacher of collaboration. But one of the things kids who grow up in, you know, within these neglectful households or households that were had a lot of addiction and whatnot is you figure out, I mean you still have needs, but the parents in that environment are not particularly well equipped to be able to provide for your needs. 

And so I figured out really early on how to form connection with other adults outside of my family who were then able to provide for needs. Whether that was fair enough friction, sometimes it was food, sometimes it was clothing. It was very often things like rides to school and things like that.

But it was through relationship and through being able to connect with others that I was able to get those needs met. And those are incredibly important skills when it comes to collaborating and figuring out what, what somebody else's needs and interests are and being able to monitor those and being able to state yours in a way your needs and interest in a way that is accessible and interesting and even palatable, I guess, to other, to other people. So that was important. 

And then the third one you mentioned is the PhD. So it was never assumed that I would, you know, go to college, much less graduate school. And it was just by virtue of getting to interact with a lot of really positive teachers, great cheerleaders throughout my life. And when I got to graduate school at Stony Brook University out in Long Island, New York, very first seminar I enrolled in was the Psychology of Close Relationships.

It was taught by Arthur Aaron and I was the dork in the class who I read every single paper assigned I, my hand was raised for every discussion, I had things to say, and I just absolutely fell in love with this research, you know, that that, well first of all I had no idea that there was a research area dedicated to the psychology of close relationships. So that was really cool to discover. 

And then to read this research, I totally fell in love with it. Like it was just really powerful. And I realized like, oh, there is knowledge out there about how to do relationships well. And I think I hadn't grown up with a ton of models of that. So there was also this personal void that I was able to fill in some way through the academic literature. And so I kind of came at that relationship development through the side door. And those, all three of those experiences I think were critical for how I ended up studying and thinking about and helping people do collaboration.

Stephen Matini: When you say relationship, are you thinking about any kind of relationship or are thinking about a specific type of relationship, like personal relationship, professional relationships?

Deb Mashek: The research area that I was in was about romantic relationships. So when I would teach the psychology of relationships, it was about picking up, breaking up, everything in between. That's what I had been researching. 

But there's also research literature on everything like parent child relationships and friendship development and workplace relationships. So any time you have that sense of us notion that there's an us involved, that is relationship, there is a research literature out there about it. 

But I started in romantic relationships and then it was in my research fellowship that I started to think about jail inmates. And then when I eventually became a professor out at Harvey Mudd College in California, I started to think about or the, the students' sense of connection and relationship with their dormitories, their residence halls and their sense of connection to the campus. And it wasn't too long later.

And then I started to think about how institutions can be in relationship with other institutions and that you can start to form collaborations. And it turns out to me one of the really big fabulous insights I had, and I'm so grateful that it dawned on me, is that those theories that govern a lot of the individual diadic relationships, the people are still involved at the institutional level. 

So it's not really that the institutions are collaborating, it's that the people in the institutions are collaborating and those same people have hopes and dreams and fears and anxieties and needs and desires just like we do dally. And so figuring out how to leverage those exact same theoretical models in service to these collaborations that ended up being really valuable in terms of how I could be useful to people.

Stephen Matini: As of today, based on all your experiences, all your studies, when you think of the word relationship, what is the first thing that comes to mind?

Deb Mashek: That's such a good question. I'm a mom, so right away i, I go to my relationship with my child. All relationships is that sense of mutuality, that sense of coming to care for and contribute to the wellbeing of somebody else. And also expecting that to happen in, in return that there's reciprocity, mutuality, care, concern. 

When people look back at the end of life and they talk about their highest highs and their lowest lows, often they end up talking about relationships. That relationships are pain, relationships are exquisite and fulfilling and loving. 

Thinking about our work histories too, it's, I remember the colleagues that I loved working with. The second thing that really popped for me is the role that expectations play in terms of that there are all these scripts out there about how relationships ought to be or should be. 

We're like these are the good relationships and whether it's the Hollywood manifestations of those, there's like that one really good relationship. We all know and we're trying to have our relationship look like theirs. Oh my gosh, there's so many ways we can fall short of expectations, ours and others when it comes to interpersonal relationships.

Stephen Matini: So if I had to ask you what in your opinion are the ingredients of a good relationship, what comes to mind?

Deb Mashek: The theory that I do most of my research under would land on exactly the same two. So the idea is it's called the self expansion model. And the idea is that we're all seeking to increase our efficacy in the world, meaning our ability to achieve our goals, our dreams or whatnot. 

And how we do that is by seeking out and taking on as our own, our new resources, new perspectives, new identities. And that relationship is one of the ways we do that. It's called including the other and the self. 

So imagine you are and I are in a relationship over time I come to see the world through your eyes, your perception of the world starts to change and enhance. Because of our relationship, I start to take on new identities. Maybe that's the identity of the us or the we or that of the couple.

So relationship is a way of becoming more energetic in the world or being able to take on the challenges. You can imagine two circles, but this is me, this is you. And as those circles become closer together, that us that shared interstitial space of the Venn diagram, that's part of who I am. 

But there are parts of my circle that are not you, and parts of your circle that are not me. And that's actually, that's how the wealth of other perspectives and what can come in. 

My dissertation research many, many moons ago actually looked at this idea of feeling too close in the context of a relationship. So feeling smothered by closeness. And when I asked the circle question of the people who were in my study, people were saying, I feel suffocated by the other person. I don't know who I am. 

You don't wanna do anything that takes away the autonomy and individuality and identity of the other. Likewise, if they start doing that to you, you feel less than you feel minimized, you don't feel yourself. That's a really yucky place to be.

Stephen Matini: Of all possible titles for your book. You chose a funky title, which I love, you know, Collabor(h)ate. How did you come up with it?

Deb Mashek: Yeah, so Collabor(h)ate. Some people love that title and some people hate it, but I figure at least we're talking about it. 

I personally love collaboration. I think it really is this incredible tool, but having also been in a heck of a lot of collaboration, some of them that have absolutely vibrated with amazing energy and good effective outcomes and whatnot, others have been absolutely miserable. 

As a psychologist, I think we have to talk about the hard stuff if we have any hope of making collaboration more bearable and more productive for more people. So I put the H in the title so it's, you know, instead of collaborate, it's Collabor(h)ate, thinking it's my way of giving voice to the hard stuff that's in there and it's by giving voice that we're able to make it better.

Stephen Matini: Is there something specific that as of now is dear to you that readers should pay attention to?

Deb Mashek: Yeah, so for me there are a couple parts, but I can say them quickly and I think they'll make sense. The first one is that collaboration is essential in the workplace. 

The second one is that collaboration is actually really hard to do well there are a lot of moving parts, there are a lot of ways that we get it wrong and a lot of negative consequences if we don't get it right, it's hard to do well. 

And the third one is that we don't teach it. So very few of us have received any formal professional development in how to be good collaborators. So what we have learned, we've picked up by osmosis or we've learned on the job trying to watch other people who don't necessarily know what they're doing. And so we pick up their bad habits. Some of us may have gone to business school where there were a lot of group work of people think back to their own experiences in doing that group work.

Was there formal instruction and how to do it? Well, most people say no and a fortunate few say yes. We I think have this cultural misunderstanding that relationships, you're either good at them or you're bad at them. 

So for instance, we don't teach people how to be good parents. We don't teach people how to be good friends, how to be good romantic partners. Sometimes we find ourselves in the therapy room and think, God, we get some of that tutelage. At least in the United States, parents often go to prenatal classes where you learn how to do labor and delivery and then once the baby pops out, suddenly it's like you, you're supposed to just know how to parent, which of course we don't. 

But I think the same is true of collaboration. We're not teaching people how to do it. And so that was the, the big thrust of the book. It's like, well here, here are some really concrete strategies and things that you can and should do to make these relationships better to take the H out. So you know, to make these collaborations less painful, more productive

Stephen Matini: Based on what you said, I’ve noticed there's a lot of common misconception about collaboration. You know, a lot of things people like to give an example, collaboration is great, but in organizational setting, if you want to be collaborative most of the time you must have time. 

You know, the whole notion of collaboration is for us to discuss an option that does not exist in the present moment. And very often to get to the point you need time. And so if you're under a time crunch, well then very likely someone has to make a decision. 

What would you say are some of the misconception that you've heard from people about collaboration that doesn't help them out?

Deb Mashek: The one that you're talking about elevates for me. So the idea that somehow collaboration is the right tool for everything and that we should always be collaborating and it's like collaboration, let's do it. 

So that's a misconception 'cause it's not the right tool for everything. There are some situations where you need to move fast, you need to move within as an established structure and hierarchy. And so you go. 

The other misconception is that collaboration just means working together as though any form of working together equals collaboration. That's actually not true. So there's a whole continuum of different ways that people work together, whether it's networking where you're just exchanging information or there are ways of taking a step up where you're both exchanging information and modifying your work in some way to achieve a shared goal. 

And then eventually you can get to the level where you're also sharing resources, whether that's people power or knowledge or money or equipment or space.

And then there's this other level which is collaboration where you're truly learning from the others in that group so you can become better at your job. And so the magic of what you can create together is something that none of you could have actually done on your own. 

And then there are all these mistaken beliefs and I'll just kind of rattle them off about collaboration. One is that you know, if you want a ton of collaboration in in your organization, all you have to do is hire collaborative people. It's actually not true. 

Another one is if you want a lot of collaboration, all you have to do is have really great tools and processes. So really good project management, really good project management tools and then you'll get great collaboration, not true. 

And then the third one, and this is at the organizational level, is this one that says, you know what, if you want tons of collaboration in your organization, just declare collaboration, a core value put out on your letterhead, paint it on the side of your wall in the office. You know, it takes way more than a a little bit of spirited energy around a keyword to create the conditions for that complex behavior to really manifest.

Stephen Matini: So if a client comes to you, and says my people don't collaborate, they're not accountable and I really want them to work together, what is the first step to move in the right direction?

Deb Mashek: I come at it as a social psychologist. So I'm a researcher at heart, that's really hard to shed that armor. 

My first step is assessment. So whether it's go in and talk to as many people as possible and kind of a qualitative research way to figure out what really is governing up the works. I wanna talk one-on-one with people. I don't want anybody else to be in the room because I don't want the social dynamics and the power dynamics and the coded language to get in the way of what people really need to say.

You know, when possible, I love running a quick survey and figuring out is this a people issue? Is it a relationship issue, is it a tools and systems problem or is it a culture issue? 

And on the culture side it can be anything from the boss says we're supposed to be collaborating. That collaboration is absolutely not possible or it's onerous. 

They say everyone's doing it, I don't see it anywhere. Or they say they want collaborative behavior, but the only thing that's rewarded around here is individual performance. Individual effort. And what gets rewarded gets repeated. And so I'll start to look at, you know, what are the incentive structures actually in place and are those at odds with collaboration? Because typically they are, you can't say you want one thing and then reward another

Stephen Matini: Has it ever happened to you to work with a group of people, let's say a team. And somehow the team worked well together and was able to figure out how to be more collaborative. But the team is an organizational environment that is not collaborative, let's say with no cross-functional synergy. Is it possible to have pockets of collaboration within an organization whose culture is not collaborative? 

Deb Mashek: And just the way you described it, so there can be these pockets or these isolated moments or where you might have a particularly charismatic connector. There's like a little synergy around this one charismatic person. Or it can be there's particular leader who's created the conditions within their division or within their department for this magic to happen. 

And that's all great and then everybody else wants it on that team. But of course, you know, in most organizations you need those people to be moving back and forth across teams or looking forth across division. So people will tell you, they'll describe it to you, yeah, when I'm over here this is how we work, but outside of that bubble, this is what it really looks like. 

And so organizationally, if you know, if you're driving for more collaboration, you wanna look inside under the hood of that group that's working well and figure out what's really happening in there to make that possible.

Stephen Matini: There are so many project management tool, there's a plethora of stuff that people can use from Slack. I mean you name it. What, what would you say that could be a first step in order to ensure that in terms of tools you foster the information sharing.

Deb Mashek: First part here would be to not confuse a good tool with just adoption of that's gonna create collaboration. So in other words, don't put too much stock in the tool itself being the thing that's gonna fix the collaboration. 

Number two, I think it's valuable to have organization-wide decision around these are the subset of tools that we're going to use. Because otherwise what can happen is every individual team within the organization starts adopting their precious tool. 

What that means is that any artifacts that they create will be locked within that tool and it will constrain any individual's ability to move over to other teams because like, oh well that's not the way we do it. Or I know what you're talking about with this new tool I've never used. 

The third piece of advice would be think very carefully about what you're really asking that tool to do.

So I personally love the virtual whiteboards, like a mural or a mural. I use those every single day. I keep trying to adopt things like Asana and click up and Monday and it just doesn't work with my head. 

But if I were on a team that required that I would of course have to learn it. But does it make sense for me as a a small business owner to adopt all of these tools? No, it might for a large corporation. 

Another piece of advice, for instance, if you're using say Slack or even Google Drive or something like that, is create some structures around how those channels or how those storage places will be used. 

So create some shared vocabulary, some shared naming conventions, shared folder structures, anything like that that are, that's gonna make it possible for your future self to find the relevant information or for the person forbid you get hit by a bus, for your other collaborators to be able to find that important work that you are doing.

Stephen Matini: And what I've noticed, I've noticed that every single group that tends to go towards whatever makes sense to them. And I've noticed that the simpler the tool, the more likely is going to be adopted. When something is overly complicated or it takes an extra step, people simply don't use it.

Deb Mashek: All of us are busy. And so when a new tool comes on board, it takes real activation energy to get us to the point where we can use it. And if we really, really want people to adopt a new collaboration tool, we have to give time, you know, figure out a way to give time for people could to be able to learn it and to integrate it into their workflows and some patience with ourselves and others. 'cause It is hard. 

When I was at Heterodox Academy, we adopted Salesforce and oh my God, it took people like slapping my knuckles to get me to actually document emails and whatnot because I was out of the habit and it took forever. I don't even know if I ever really truly got up to speed on it. I had the best intentions, I was the executive director, I was the one who made the decision that we were adopting this dang thing.

And I struggled. I heard just this week a a guy who teaches people how to be effective on connecting through social media. He dislikes Calendly because it makes you appear lazy and that you're not, that you're trying to automate relationship building as opposed to truly being present with that other person and saying, you know, you let me know what can work for you. 

Here are some options that that email back and forth or LinkedIn back and forth is actually part of the relationship building. So I thought that was a valuable perspective too. I dunno that I wanna forego in all situations, but I was thinking, well yeah, I could, I could see that.

Stephen Matini: You said something about intellectual humility. Would you mind telling me something more?

Deb Mashek: Yeah. So intellectual humility is this idea that knowing that we can't possibly know everything, and by virtue of my mere humanity, I am limited in my knowledge, I'm limited in my perspective. I can't know everything, nor should I know everything. 

And for me it opens up then this possibility that it's through relationship and through doing and being and creating alongside other people who see the world differently. That's truly how we come up with the well-rounded perspective. 

So if we were on video, I would show you, you know, a coffee mug and hold it in one direction and say, what is this? And you might say, oh, it's just the shadow of it. For instance, you would say, oh, it's a rectangle. Or you might say, oh, it's a circle or something like that. 

And it's only by working alongside other people who have a different vantage point on the problem that we're truly able to weave together a holistic understanding of what the problem is and thus the solution that needs to be created to solve that problem.

And so to me, intellectual humility is one of the foundational cornerstones of effective problem solving, effective collaborating. Other pieces, there are curiosity, so wondering and being sincere when you ask somebody else how do you see it? 

So from whether it's from your disciplinary lens or your cultural lens or your seniority lens or the division that you're in and thus the interest that you're advocating for, what really elevates for you about this problem? What are the key variables we need to be thinking about within this solution? 

And there are so many stories of ego and the bravado where, you know, people assume they have the one right answer or they strong arm their perspective into the group and it shuts other people down. It shuts possibilities down. Like it really forecloses certain considerations before they've even been considered. And I think intellectual humility is the key to doing this all differently.

Stephen Matini: How do you keep that humility? Because it seems to me that a lot of people as they age, they become more convinced of knowing. they become even more black and white, somehow, instead of humility to me is a mixture of bunch of things, including curiosity, giving yourself a chance, you know, how do you keep that humbleness?

Deb Mashek: Here's something I do again, if we were on video, I would show you that in my notebook on the front page, I always write the question, how do you see it? So for me it's a reminder to ask other people or their perspective on something, scanning the environment and finding those things that tweak your intuition that you're not sure how in the heck can this reality or can what you just saw doesn't lap on or map on, or could it map onto some preexisting notion? 

So this for instance, is why I love going to magic shows as a way of triggering the intellectual humility where the thing my brain is telling me, I just saw, I know for a fact it can't truly be true, which means I'm missing something.

So reminding myself that I, I don't know at all in that situation, letting that sense of awe come up. 

And the third one that I love is when I encounter someone who sees the world really differently than I do, rather than turning away and distancing, I lean in closer and say, tell me more. How did you come to think of that? Where does that belief come from? 

You know, that for me has been really important in my advocacy for viewpoint diversity on college campuses. It just this idea of we've gotta, we've gotta be surrounding ourselves with people who see complex issues, whether it's policy issues, political issues, how we're gonna solve social problems. 

I need to hear from as many different people as I can and not, not necessarily so I can come up with the right answer, but so that I have a, a better hope of understanding the problem in the first place.

Stephen Matini: What would you say that truly is a simple step to people that cannot be more at the opposite, to somehow advance to a different level?

The story just quickly was that I previously was a, a full professor of social psychology out at Harvey Med College. I was tenured at the top of my career. And then the 2016 election happened in the United States presidential election. 

And there were a lot of people who were so surprised that Donald Trump won and they couldn't believe anybody would've voted for this person. And this I think was especially true on college campuses and we saw a lot of people shutting down and be like, oh man. 

And what I saw is, okay, as an educator we're not doing what we need to be doing to help our students encounter a diverse range of perspectives. And long story short, I ended up walking away from that tenured full professorship, moving cross country as a single mom. 

My kiddo was eight at the time. I moved from California to New York to help launch this organization called Heterodox Academy, which was or is still focused on advancing viewpoint diversity and constructive disagreement on college campuses. 

And what I learned in that work is that the two simple things are ask other people how do you see it? And two, to ask how did you get there? Why do you believe what you believe? In other words, I'm not trying to convince anybody of anything. What I'm only exercise there is can I see through somebody else's eyes for even a microsecond in a way that opens up my understanding of the world.

Stephen Matini: As of now, professionally, you have so many projects, so many things. What would you say is the most important endeavor for you now that takes a lot of your time and attention? Is it something you're doing now, something you're building for the future?

Deb Mashek: Yeah, so what I'm doing now is I am a collaboration consultant, which is hysterical to say at dinner parties for two reasons. One, collaboration is kind of a fuzzy word and consultant is actually a really fuzzy word also. So people are like, I still have no idea what you do. 

So what I do is I work with organizational leaders to deliver high stakes collaboration across silos and stakeholders. So you know, it, it includes things where you need people from different sectors coming together or you need people from that division in that division to work together or there's something involving a lot of money or other resources or there's a huge reputational hit at stake or some really big strategic advantage to be gained if we're able to work together well. 

And I love being at the ground level when those are building up. I think people tend to underestimate the importance of some of that ground setting. So I often get called in when things start to fall apart. So I do both some of the crisis management of getting a collaboration back on track though I really love being there at the ground floor to help build it and to build it well.

Stephen Matini: Does it ever happen to you as a result of your commitment, of your work, that your energy gets depleted. If if that happens to you, when you feel down, is there anything you do in order to bring yourself up? 

Deb Mashek: It really does get hard. I mean if it was easy, everybody would do it. And if it was easy, everybody would do it in a sustainable positive way. But they don't because it's hard. And I think it's worthy of that hardness because, and this is one of the things I do to bring myself back up is I, I ask, so why is it worth it? 

Why is what we're trying to do worth this slog worth, this incredible activation energy that we're putting into it to get this thing rolling? And for me that's very uplifting because I can see like this thing we're trying to do together could not exist unless we were doing it together. It's worth it because it's gonna solve a big problem in the world. It's going to offer a really cool innovation that's gonna bring in a heck of a lot of money for the company.

If we can figure out how to work better together, we're gonna end up with staff who are more engaged and more constructive. They're gonna stick around longer. So there's like this more morale and wellbeing argument. So whether it's timelines or bottom lines or wellbeing or innovation, this collaboration thing really matters. And that to me is very uplifting. 

The other thing I do when it really, really gets challenging is I go into my hidey hole and hide out and be alone for a little bit to re-energize. So as that whole together apart thing again too, where you need the separateness in order to do together well. 

People are messy, we're all messy, we're inconsistent, we're unpredictable. Things trigger us, different needs will be activated at any particular time and it might change over the day or over the week or over the month. And so there are so many moving parts. And to to care enough about not just the individuals who are involved, but also the project or program or service, whatever it is you're trying to create, to be able to track all of that movement and then optimize your engagement.

Stephen Matini: We talked about so many different things. Is there anything that would be important in your opinion for our listeners to take away from this conversation? Out of all the things we talked about?

Deb Mashek: Ask for input on how you are as a collaborator. Ask your direct reports, ask your supervisor, ask your peers, what is it like to work with me and what would be helpful if I did differently or better would make it easier for us to work together. I think that's important. 

And then along those same lines is take seriously your professional development and this whole collaboration thing. So whether you're a top executive or the brand new individual contributor, chances are you haven't learned as much as you could or will need to learn ultimately in this domain that that's gonna make you just even more of a rockstar than you already are. 

So it's worth it to invest in in that development. So you benefit your team benefits your organization does. And I would say society as a whole does when we can work better together.

Stephen Matini: Thank you so much for sharing your ideas, your hard research, your experiences. This is really, really, really great. Thank you.

Deb Mashek: My pleasure. 

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit breakfastwithstephen.substack.com

Michael Sjostedt is a wellness facilitator who uses art-making for self-reflection, personal growth, and team dynamics. 

Our conversation explores how engaging in creative activities can help individuals and teams better understand their thought patterns, deal with perfectionism, manage stress, and enhance communication. 

Michael highlights the importance of self-awareness and the value of using creative exercises to improve our approach to work and life.

Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform.

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TRANSCRIPT

Stephen Matini: What is your first memory of Art? Of Art making?

Michael Sjostedt: My very, very first memory of art making was in the early eighties elementary school. I don't remember the exact age, but I was drawing schematics of underground homes, 'cause I watched this show Omni, it was a science show and they were doing a piece on underground homes and how much better they are. And it was so modern and so cool. 

And I would take huge sheets of paper and draw like a dome. And then I would draw a line as like, here's the ground. And then I would draw the house under it. So it was basically almost like a dollhouse. If you looked at a dollhouse and opened up. It's just got all the different rooms that you can see sliced up. And so that's what I would do. And the top dome was always like my sunroom. So I always have a lounger in there with me on it. But they were ridiculous. They were fun. And that was a very early sign that I was very into design, modernism, new ways of being. 

So in the early nineties, clay beads were huge. Kids would wear 'em at concerts, buy 'em at bead shops were huge in the early nineties. So a friend of mine taught me how to make them. And at first I wasn't very good. Everyone else had kind of gotten the process down and I was a little sloppy. But the process itself was still very meditative. There was a start, a middle and an end. And yet within all of that timeframe you could be very creative, you could try all kinds of different designs. 

And within a few months I showed the same friends what I had made. They're like, what have you been doing? They're like, are you working 24/7 on this? I'm like kind of, I was so into the  , contemplative aspect of it. It was the most satisfying thing I'd I'd ever done at that point. And from there people are like, wow, that's incredible. I wanna buy one. I'm like, oh cool.  

And at the high point, I was 19, I had no business training, I just had a natural instinct for this. And it happened at a good time because it was like the start of summer school break. So I would make these beads, mass produce them for like eight to 10 hours a day, listen to music and just pump 'em out. 

And then I would take a day and hit the road and go to a town that was, had bead shops or other stuff going on. And I would get accounts. So at the high point I had 14 wholesale accounts. I had custom orders. I was teaching monthly classes at an art supply store. I was vending at fairs, I was smuggling necklaces into Lollapalooza and other concerts. I would pull out my necklaces, you know, from my cargo shorts, wave 'em around. 

It was such a good overall learning experience. Something you can never learn in school. One thing I really took away from that too is that if you really want to learn something, you really have to do it yourself. You just have to mess around, give yourself time, give yourself space. And if you still love it, it's gonna improve.

Stephen Matini: I think that a lot of people are so afraid is, is this gonna work? It's not gonna work. That they simply do not think that it's a process. What have you witnessed working with people and helping them, using art making?

Michael Sjostedt: What I've seen in recent workshops, I've taught, I'll provide an exercise and people will just start messing around because to them it's low stakes. We're just cutting a paper, we're having a good time and we're experimenting. 

And they're like, oh my god, what is this? If the combination of elements isn't what they're used to and they start messing around and they don't like it, they literally hold their heads. They're like, oh my God, I can't do this. 

And that negative self-talk could have a perfectionistic voice to it or a tone to it, but it could also just be, I don't know how to start. This is so new to me, I don't know where to begin. 

And so I often have to quickly identify that. And so I ask questions, I'm like, okay, tell me what's going on, what isn't working for you? And I, I stick with what's in front of them. I don't get into their head, you know, I'm like, what are you thinking? Because that comes out by what they're saying. So you really have to listen. 

You kind of have to like bring people back down 'cause they're really in their head and it, it's a good reminder. Like these low stakes workshops are such an eye into how we operate into how we think and how we talk to ourselves, our narratives. 

If you could examine this reaction that people are having, you know, if they can self-examine when they're in this moment, when they're feeling this build that self-awareness muscle up, then they take it into a higher stakes environment like their job or their work. 

So if you can take this self-awareness into your other parts of your life and talk yourself off a ledge, you could make your life easier. You know, it doesn't have to be this fraught, I need to quit. This is terrible kind of stuff. 

So workshops like this are so helpful. And I'm not saying you have a breakthrough with every workshop or you have a meltdown or any of that stuff, but they do happen.

Stephen Matini: Based on anything you say, it sounds that your workshops become some sort of a mirror in which people can see themselves. What makes you different compared to other facilitators?

Michael Sjostedt: First and foremost, the name of the workshop is called Cut Loose. And the whole concept is to come and have fun and to do something new, try something new. 

The MoMA and the Mat are not gonna be calling you after the workshop, so lower your expectations. You know, it's really just an exercise to do something new and fun and to take a digital break, take a break from real life use art making as like a contemplative, meditative process. There's many ways to meditate. 

When I work with the class, I give them exercises, but I let them, there's room for interpretation. Some people love that. Some people are like, wait, what are the rules? I need the rules. Working with those people are really interesting 'cause I could be that way too. I'm like, I need to know if you have an expectation, I need to, I need to know what the things are. It's interesting to work with so many different personalities and to be able to kind of accommodate the different personalities. 

So what I do is after we we're done an exercise, I, I'll kind of eyeball a few students who have very interesting interpretations of the exercise and I'll show it to the class with their permission and talk about what I like about this and talk with the student about what they were thinking, how they feel about the outcome.

And to show the other students, here's another way to think about using these materials. Like I like how they use this design element. I liked how they use this face or this color and really talk about it.

So different things come up for different people, you know, other people have mentioned difficult things that they're going through. And one woman said in a, in a recent class, she goes, I'm gonna start collage journaling because she's navigating a complicated life transition right now and talk therapy is involved in in her transition.

But there was something about making without any heavy expectations of this needs to be presented in a certain way. It's really just using, making as a tool to work through whatever's going on, but also to take an active break for yourself. 

Stephen Matini: I think it's wonderful and it's wonderful because I think it's quite applicable also working with organizations and teams and managers. You, you told me in the past that sometimes you do use this approach, you know, in a more work type of context. Do the same rules apply or have you noticed any other type of dynamics?

Michael Sjostedt: If you're burned out or if you're stressed or if you're under the gun or if you're dealing with difficult personalities, whether it be coworkers or clients or whatever, that combination can be very tricky.  Talking about what, what you're dealing with, with whomever, you, your supervisor or a colleague or something.

Don't wait until you are telling yourself, this stinks, I quit, I hate them. If you jump right into the negative consequences a result or, or really attach yourself to the negative narratives around what you're feeling, it makes it that much harder to get out of the situation that you're in. 

So really developing a practice that helps you shine a light on your negative narratives, especially if you take yourself out of the work environment and give yourself a, a creative exercise. 

You know, this is where HR and wellness folks and activity directors and you know, anyone who's, who's working on morale on teams, this is a good exercise because yes, it's a, it's a chill break. You get to chill out but also things will come up and you, and you have to be ready to respond to that. And you're like, oh, that's interesting, that narrative, maybe write that down. You know? And that's something I do in my workshops too. I have people write down how they're feeling before, during, and after the workshop. 

I really got to notice how I think about thinking or how your narrative is so deep and ingrained and not questioned. It's just habitual. These workshops are a speed bump. They're a pause because you're out of your element. The narrative is that much closer to the top. It's more conscious. It's not this subconscious thing. And so you're able to identify and hear it better and name it. And if you can do that, have more of these speed bumps and build up that habit and those and those exercises, your day-to-day can be a lot easier.

You really kind of have to really evaluate how you talk to yourself and what your narrative is. And if there's a certain slant of perfectionism or negative self-talk or passive aggressive or, or whatever it is that's gonna make your life that much easier. You're going to recognize the patterns and recognizing those patterns just allow you to then question or shift. 

I was also thinking of how difficult feedback can be receiving feedback and receiving feedback. If you've already got a predilection of beating yourself up of perfectionism coupled with not knowing where to start, that's a deadly combo. And a blank page can be really deadly. 

It's really hard to look at that and get what's in your head onto there. And that's why creative making and exercises is so helpful to tell yourself, okay, here's a blank piece of paper. I'm gonna give myself 10 minutes. I'm gonna cut up a bunch of images, I'm gonna put 'em together and just see what happens. 

And then you kind of look at that experience and you're like, I did it. I got something down. And that's a starting point. You started, you didn't just sit and ruminate at a blank page. You weren't paralyzed by like all the flooding of things.

So a blank piece of paper will always be in front of you in life no matter what you're doing. Getting unstuck is tricky given all that else is going on in your life and your in your mind. So to give yourself some space, give yourself a break and go and go easy on yourself when you're starting, the experience will be that much better. You'll be able to develop that habit of going easy on yourself when you're doing something and hopefully the end result will be better than expected. You've got a different mindset, you've got a different energy that you, you put into these exercises.

And that's really what I'm starting to realize when I work with students is develop these speed bumps for yourself. Develop an awareness tool of how you talk to yourself. 

You know, they're really sitting and meditating, you know, or listening to a guided of meditation or, or being by yourself is great too. Having a contemplative practice is great, exercising is great, taking a break, whatever that means is great. But a, a form of creative rest, which I like to call this ,making with a clear start, middle and end without any big expectations other than the joy of the process. And to really kind of examine before, during, and after of what's been going on, what's been the shift. 

And if you don't take time to stop and question how am I talking to myself, you're not really gonna change. You're not really gonna evolve. But it really does come down to how you notice what you're saying to yourself and what you do with that information.

Stephen Matini: When you facilitate these workshops, you know, you are basically their catalyst, you know you are their Dumbledore. What would you say that a manager could learn from your experience as a facilitator of these workshops?

Michael Sjostedt: Switch up the questions that you ask, especially if you're working with someone that you're frustrated with. If what you're communicating isn't clicking, think about the questions you ask yourself. Switch that around and listen for any questions that are accusatory. Why didn't you do this? Why isn't this happening? Blah blah blah. That will shut the other person down. 

Really question your own narrative around what's going on. Question the questions that you're coming up with in your head and try to take the person out of the project. If they deliver something that isn't what was to spec or on the brief or what was needed, et cetera, et cetera. Just look at the work. Don't look at the person at first. 

There may be a time where you do have to look at the person and that's another story. But even that can be done in a more human way. 

But look at the work and be like, tell me about the start, the middle, the finish. What were the elements? What were the components? What was going on? Interesting how we landed here, could we talk about that? It's really how you communicate about the project versus, there you go again, I told you blah, blah. You know, getting into bad parent accusatory thing. 

And so how exercises like making like a workshop with your team can be helpful because it can kind of spotlight team dynamics and it can spotlight how people think. 

You know, it can, because when people are at work, they're also performing. 

And so these workshops can kind of make people more real. They're not performing, they're just being themselves having fun. 

So questions will come up, narratives will come up, habits will come up, things will just come up as you talk about things. You get to know the person better. 

Our dynamic and energy is very interesting. I wonder if we did this instead moving forward for our work projects and what could change and what could shift, you know? So it's kind of like a, it's play, but it's also role playing in a way of what an ideal state could be.

And that's gotta shift in the workplace because how you treat yourself and others makes a huge difference. You get better work out of people, you get better work outta yourself. It's the more enjoyable, the morale's higher, et cetera. 

And other things will come up, you know, other things like, oh wow, your energy around this collaboration is kind of interesting. What's the point? What is everyone's bandwidth? What's everyone's mental state? Because you don't want to come in with any expectation that this is the a panacea that this is gonna fix whatever's going on. No, it's just a tool to kind of, it's a speed bump.

Stephen Matini: We talked about so many angles, so many important things. Is there any specific key takeaway, something that you deem for listeners to be really important they should pay attention to?

Michael Sjostedt: When you're embarking on a new creative endeavor, be conscious of how you talk to yourself. Write it down, say it out loud, record it because it's a very interesting view into yourself. It's something you don't do for yourself. It's habitual. And if you're stressed out, if you're burned out, if you're frustrated, how you talk to yourself is gonna affect your energy. It's gonna affect how you think about anything. 

It's gonna affect how you communicate with other people. It's gonna affect how you talk to yourself or how you talk about yourself or how you think about a project. But also how making can just kind of help you get unstuck from either habits of perfectionism, habits of not knowing where to start task paralysis, how you manage a creative team or how you manage a project. There's just so many applications. So be conscious and have an intention about here's what I wanna learn about myself when I start this project.

And also be honest with how you feel during and after. And also, collage is just one of many tools. It's just one of many vehicles to do this. 

You could do a group cooking class, we're gonna make a loaf of bread together. Take everyday activities. 'cause If you go into an activity already stressed out with this intention of like, this is gonna relax me, you're gonna end up with this burned and then you're like, oh, I suck. I knew it. I'm bad at this. I can't do this. I'm not creative, I, I can't, blah, blah, blah. 

You gotta go easy on yourself. Realize that you're stressed out and burned out. Don't put so much weight on the exercise to kind of solve whatever it is is going on. It's a way for you to kind of just take a break and notice what's going on. Again, I don't wanna put too much heaviness onto the act of making or whatever it is you're making, cause again, that can add more stress to someone. But really going with an intention, a light intention to start with. Even of just, I just wanna mess around. I don't care what it looks like after, I just wanna have a good time. But still notice like how you're talking to yourself and what the difference is before, during, and after.

Stephen Matini: Michael, Thank you for our conversation because for me it's a speed bump today.

Michael Sjostedt: Great.

Stephen Matini: It is, thank you. I've learned a lot.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit breakfastwithstephen.substack.com