The Culture Soup Podcast®️

Some conversations are too good to happen behind closed doors. This one happened at The Dock Bookshop in Dallas, and if you were in that room, you already know.

L. Michelle Smith sits down with Cynt Marshall — former CEO of the Dallas Mavericks, trailblazing Fortune 500 executive, and one of the featured leaders in *Call & Response: 10 Leadership Lessons from the Black Church* — for a live fireside chat that moves from neuroscience to the AME church, from oxytocin to Madam C.J. Walker, and from the choir loft to the C-suite without missing a beat.

This is not a book talk. This is a leadership conversation between two women who have lived these lessons and are here to make sure you have the language for what you already know.

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**What You Will Hear in This Episode:**

**On Community** *(Lesson Two, page 49)*

L. Michelle unpacks why pizza Fridays and team-building exercises do not build teams. Real cohesion requires going through something together — failing, learning, getting back up, and doing it again. She walks through the science of oxytocin, the trust and love hormone that bonds people at a neurological level, and explains why the loneliness epidemic is not just a public health crisis. It is a leadership crisis.

She traces Madam C.J. Walker's rise not from a business plan, but from a community. When Sarah Breedlove arrived in St. Louis as a young widow with nothing, the women of the AME church wrapped their arms around her. They gave her clothes, childcare, connections, and a front-row seat to what organized, community-powered leadership looked like in action. The AME church became her first network. Its women became her first sales force. And the rest, as they say, is history.

She also tells the story of Mike Hyter, a young HR professional who was the only Black man on staff at a massive Detroit department store. It was not a formal mentorship program that changed his trajectory. It was Miss Bell, the elevator operator, who gathered the housekeepers, technicians, and service staff in the lower basement, prayed over him, and then told him everything they knew about every floor in that building. Within a year, he was promoted. That is the Black church finding you — no walls required.

**On Collaboration** *(Lesson Six, page 130)*

When you sing with someone, your heartbeats synchronize. That is not poetry. That is neuroscience. L. Michelle traces the roots of call and response from sub-Saharan Africa through the hush harbor, into the cotton fields, the juke joint, and eventually the boardroom — and makes the case that neural coupling is one of the most powerful and most overlooked leadership tools we carry.

She goes personal here. She shares what happened twenty minutes into recording the audiobook for *Call & Response*, when her publisher stopped the session and a single question from her producer brought everything to a halt. The lesson she had to learn in that booth is the same lesson she brings to every coaching client: your emotion is not a liability. It is your superpower. Emotional literacy — knowing the difference between what someone does to you and how it actually makes you feel — is the foundation of every leadership skill worth having.

Cynt Marshall's leadership at the Dallas Mavericks is the centerpiece of this lesson. L. Michelle introduces the Three L's that Cynt brought to one of the most visible organizational turnarounds in sports: Listen to the people. Learn from the people. Love the people. And she makes the argument that love is the most slept-on strategy in corporate America — not because it is idealistic, but because it delivers.

**On Creativity and Innovation** *(Lesson Nine, page 191)*

Black creativity was not born from abundance. It was born from scarcity. And the neuroscience of innovation confirms what our ancestors already knew: you cannot create from a chaotic mind. The path runs through stillness, then focus, then insight, and only then creation. L. Michelle connects the practice of stealing away — the quiet act of survival and resistance — to the modern leadership imperative to slow down in a world that rewards speed above all else.

**On Keeping It Real**

In a moment when leadership culture is bending toward the authoritarian, the artificial, and the performative, L. Michelle names the throughline of every leader in *Call & Response*: they are heart-centered. Authentic. And excellent — because excellence is always the passport.

She distinguishes authenticity from oversharing and introduces the concept of style flexing. Not code switching. Not faking it. Just reading the room, dialing up as trust is built, and never letting the volume go to zero on who you actually are.

---

**Key Concepts Covered:**

- Oxytocin, social cohesion, and what it actually takes to build a bonded team

- Madam C.J. Walker and the AME church as the original business network

- Neural coupling and the physiological power of call and response

- Emotional literacy as a leadership skill

- Cynt Marshall's Three L's: Listen, Learn, Love

- The creativity pathway: calm mind, focus, insight, innovation

- Style flexing versus code switching

- Heart-centered leadership in the age of machine-led management

**Featured Leaders:**

- Cynt Marshall, former CEO of the Dallas Mavericks

- Trudy Bourgeois, former Fortune 500 executive

- Madam C.J. Walker (historical)

- Mike Haider, CEO, Leadership Council

- Carla Harris, Morgan Stanley

**Books Referenced:**

*Call & Response: 10 Leadership Lessons from the Black Church* by L. Michelle Smith

*No Thanks: 7 Ways to Say No and Still Be Nice* by L. Michelle Smith

**Connect with L. Michelle:**

Submit a speaker request: lmichellesmith.com/speaking

Get your copy: lmichellesmith.com/callandresponse

The Circle private leadership community: lmichellesmith.com/thecircle

*The Culture Soup Podcast® is heard in more than 70 countries. Subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen.*

Some conversations are too good to happen behind closed doors. This one happened at The Dock Bookshop in Dallas, and if you were in that room, you already know.

L. Michelle Smith sits down with Cynt Marshall — former CEO of the Dallas Mavericks, trailblazing Fortune 500 executive, and one of the featured leaders in Call & Response: 10 Leadership Lessons from the Black Church — for a live fireside chat that moves from neuroscience to the AME church, from oxytocin to Madam C.J. Walker, and from the choir loft to the C-suite without missing a beat.

This is not a book talk. This is a leadership conversation between two women who have lived these lessons and are here to make sure you have the language for what you already know.

What You Will Hear in This Episode:

On Community (Lesson Two, page 49)

L. Michelle unpacks why pizza Fridays and team-building exercises do not build teams. Real cohesion requires going through something together — failing, learning, getting back up, and doing it again. She walks through the science of oxytocin, the trust and love hormone that bonds people at a neurological level, and explains why the loneliness epidemic is not just a public health crisis. It is a leadership crisis.

She traces Madam C.J. Walker's rise not from a business plan, but from a community. When Sarah Breedlove arrived in St. Louis as a young widow with nothing, the women of the AME church wrapped their arms around her. They gave her clothes, childcare, connections, and a front-row seat to what organized, community-powered leadership looked like in action. The AME church became her first network. Its women became her first sales force. And the rest, as they say, is history.

She also tells the story of Mike Haider, a young HR professional who was the only Black man on staff at a massive Detroit department store. It was not a formal mentorship program that changed his trajectory. It was Miss Bell, the elevator operator, who gathered the housekeepers, technicians, and service staff in the lower basement, prayed over him, and then told him everything they knew about every floor in that building. Within a year, he was promoted. That is the Black church finding you — no walls required.

On Collaboration (Lesson Six, page 130)

When you sing with someone, your heartbeats synchronize. That is not poetry. That is neuroscience. L. Michelle traces the roots of call and response from sub-Saharan Africa through the hush harbor, into the cotton fields, the juke joint, and eventually the boardroom — and makes the case that neural coupling is one of the most powerful and most overlooked leadership tools we carry.

On Creativity and Innovation (Lesson Nine, page 191)

Black creativity was not born from abundance. It was born from scarcity. And the neuroscience of innovation confirms what our ancestors already knew: you cannot create from a chaotic mind. The path runs through stillness, then focus, then insight, and only then creation. L. Michelle connects the practice of stealing away — the quiet act of survival and resistance — to the modern leadership imperative to slow down in a world that rewards speed above all else.

Key Concepts Covered:

Oxytocin, social cohesion, and what it actually takes to build a bonded team

Madam C.J. Walker and the AME church as the original business network

Neural coupling and the physiological power of call and response

Emotional literacy as a leadership skill

Cynt Marshall's Three L's: Listen, Learn, Love

The creativity pathway: calm mind, focus, insight, innovation

Style flexing versus code switching

Heart-centered leadership in the age of machine-led management

Featured Leaders:

Cynt Marshall, former CEO of the Dallas Mavericks

Trudy Bourgeois, former Fortune 500 executive

Madam C.J. Walker (historical)

Mike Hyter, CEO, Leadership Council

Carla Harris, Morgan Stanley

Books Referenced:

Call & Response: 10 Leadership Lessons from the Black Church by L. Michelle Smith

No Thanks: 7 Ways to Say I'll Just Include Myself e by L. Michelle Smith

Connect with L. Michelle:

Submit a speaker request: lmichellesmith.com/speaking

Get your copy: lmichellesmith.com/callandresponse

The Circle private leadership community: lmichellesmith.com/thecircle

The Culture Soup Podcast is heard in more than 70 countries. Subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen.

Toxic positivity isn't always syrupy sweet platitudes. Sometimes it is buried in the "keep it moving" or "keep going" mentality and the pushing through to the next despite the adversity.

That's why some of us really aren't as resilient as we think...at least not yet. We call ourselves tough. We call ourselves strong.

We try to skip over the most important part that grants us the resilient title: the reflection and the healing, the part that teaches us the message in the mess.

If you've ever had a wound that didn't heal, it may be because you didn't let the wound scab over the way it's supposed to.

While on the Call and Response book and media tour, leaders have loved repeating and remembering the "Name it, tame it, and then reframe it" because it's not only catchy and easy to remember.

It sounds simple.

But there's a messy part right in the middle that many of us skip.

The taming takes work, and it isn't always pretty.

If you can relate, let me hear from you in the comments.

Get the book: https://lmichellesmith.com/callandresponse

Book L. Michelle to speak: https://lmichellesmith.com/speaking

The Culture Soup Podcast (heard in 70+ countries): https://www.lmichellesmith.com/podcast

#HeartCenteredLeadership #LeadershipDevelopment #ExecutiveCoaching #CallAndResponse #HerNextPowerMove #LeadershipResilience #EmotionalIntelligence #HealingAndLeadership #ToxicPositivity #LeadershipMindset #ResilienceLeadership #LeadershipBooks #BlackChurch #HeartCenteredLeader #LeadershipWellness

What if the most sophisticated leadership training you ever received happened before you turned 15, and it happened in church?

In this fireside chat recorded live at Greater Life Church in Dallas, L. Michelle Smith joins Pastor Stephen G. Brown for a conversation that moves between sermon and scholarship, between science and story. Drawing from her bestselling book Call & Response: 10 Leadership Lessons from the Black Church, L. Michelle traces the origins of her keynote career back to a Sunday school floor at Good Street Baptist Church, where she learned to stand in front of a room and deliver. This is not nostalgia. It is a leadership masterclass grounded in neuroscience, positive psychology, and the lived wisdom of Black excellence.

In this episode, you will hear:

- Why real team bonding requires going through something real together, and what the science of social cohesion and oxytocin reveals about how trust is actually built in high-performing teams.

- The story of Trudy Bourgeois, former Fortune 500 executive, who was deliberately left behind by her new leadership team at the Kentucky Derby, and what she did next.

- Why resilience is pliability and not strength, and how the name-it, tame-it, reframe-it framework turns adversity into a passport for growth.

- How hope theory, neuroplasticity, and the music ministry of the Black church connect to what the most rigorous leadership research is only now beginning to name.

- What it means for the future of leadership development that the generations who need these formation lessons most have largely left the building.

Go deeper:

Free leadership toolkit: soaracademy.nsccoaching.co

The Circle (community for leaders): lmichellesmith.com/thecircle

Speaking requests: lmichellesmith.com/speaking

FlightPath newsletter: soaracademy.nsccoaching.co/subscribe

Heart-Centered Leader Assessment: SOARacademy.nsccoaching.co/a/CallandResponse

Substack: lmichellesmith.substack.com

#HerNextPowerMove #HeartCenteredLeadership #LeadershipDevelopment #ExecutiveCoaching #CallAndResponse #BlackChurch #CultureSoupPodcast #GreaterLifeChurch #PastorStephenBrown #Resilience #SocialCohesion #BlackLeadership #FaithAndLeadership #LeadershipLessons #BlackExcellence

Episode Summary:

What if the most sophisticated leadership training you ever received happened before you turned 15 — and it happened in church? In this powerful conversation recorded live at Greater Life Church in Dallas, L. Michelle Smith joins Pastor Stephen Brown for a fireside chat that is equal parts sermon, scholarship, and strategy session. Drawing from her bestselling book Call & Response: 10 Leadership Lessons from the Black Church, L. Michelle traces the origins of her own keynote career back to a Sunday school floor at Good Street Baptist Church, where she learned to stand in front of a room and deliver — or get coached until she could.

This is not a nostalgia trip. It is a leadership masterclass grounded in neuroscience, positive psychology, and the lived wisdom of Black excellence.

In This Episode:

L. Michelle walks us through the moment a 25-million-impression keynote made her trace her gifts back to a 14-year-old junior deacon. She unpacks why community is her favorite leadership lesson in the book — and why it has nothing to do with pizza Fridays. She shares the science behind social cohesion, oxytocin, and why teams that have never truly failed together have never truly bonded.

She tells the story of Trudy Bourgeois — former Fortune 500 executive, mentor, and one of the book's featured leaders — who was deliberately left behind at the Kentucky Derby by her new senior leadership team. What Trudy did next is a clinic in dignity, resilience, and showing up when you have every reason not to.

L. Michelle also breaks down what resilience actually means — it is not about being strong, it is about being pliable — and introduces the name-it, tame-it, reframe-it framework that turns adversity into a passport for growth.

From her grandmother in Louisville, Arkansas playing records beside the railroad tracks, to the science of hope theory and neuroplasticity, L. Michelle connects the hush harbor to the Harvard research and makes the case that what the Black church has always practiced, science is only now catching up to name.

She closes with a challenge to the room and to every leader listening: the interpersonal and communication skills forged inside the Black church building — the junior usher boards, the choir loft, the adult Sunday school — cannot be replicated on a screen. And if the generations who need them most have left the building, the work now is figuring out how to bring those lessons to where they are.

Key Concepts Covered:

Social cohesion and oxytocin — why real team bonding requires going through something together

Resilience as pliability, not strength — the skyscraper model

Name it. Tame it. Reframe it. — a three-step framework for processing adversity

Hope theory (positive psychology) — goals thinking, pathways thinking, and agency thinking

Neuroplasticity and the leadership intelligence hidden in the music ministry

What Gen Z and younger millennials leaving the church building means for the future of leadership development

Featured in This Episode:

Cynt Marshall, former CEO of the Dallas Mavericks

Trudy Bourgeois, former Fortune 500 executive and leadership mentor

Books Mentioned: Call & Response: 10 Leadership Lessons from the Black Church by L. Michelle Smith Available now wherever books are sold. Book signing available at Pan Africa Connection, Dallas.

Connect with L. Michelle:

Website: lmichellesmith.com

The Circle private leadership community: lmichellesmith.com/thecircle

Podcast: Her Next Power Move + The Culture Soup Podcast®

Coaching: cal.read.ai/coachlmichelle/30-min

"It was important to me to not just go on a hunch..." LMS

Watch this clip from my recent book tour stop at Texas Christian University's Brite Divinity School with my friend and classmate, Rev. Dr. Shonda Jones as she probes about my research methodology for my new bestseller Call and Response.

No pressure at all...right? I always get a little nervous when I'm speaking to a well-credentialed scholar, but I have to say that this book has been extremely well received from academia, with some universities buying the books in bulk.

Shoutout to all the PhDs giving this book praise! I am honored and humbled.

You can watch my full conversation with Dr. Shonda and most of the Q&A on The Culture Soup Podcast on YouTube, or listen on any podcast platform.

There is something powerful about returning to a university campus to talk about leadership.

At Texas Christian University, our conversation around Call and Response: 10 Leadership Lessons from the Black Church (Amistad Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishing and JVL Media) was not just about a book. It was about formation. It was about where leadership really begins. About the spaces that quietly shape courage, discipline, and voice long before someone earns a title. The conversation was sponsored by the TCU Brite Divinity School and the TCU Bob Schieffer College of Communication, my graduate alma mater and where I currently serve on the Board of Visitors.

We explored the idea that the Black Church has functioned as a leadership laboratory for generations. Not simply as a place of worship, but as a place where people learned to speak with conviction, collaborate across differences, regulate emotion under pressure, and lead with both authority and empathy.

Grateful to TCU for hosting a rich, honest exchange. If your campus or organization is thinking about the future of leadership, I would love to continue the conversation.

Show Notes: Call & Response at TCU — A Conversation on Culture, Leadership, and Legacy

At Texas Christian University’s Carr Chapel, L. Michelle Smith returned to her alma mater for a powerful conversation on Call & Response: 10 Leadership Lessons from the Black Church, joined by Rev. Dr. Shonda Jones, Executive Vice President and Dean of Brite Divinity School.

What unfolded was more than a book talk. It was a rich exploration of how culture, history, and applied science intersect to shape leadership in profound and often unrecognized ways.

Drawing from both personal story and rigorous research, Michelle shares how her leadership journey began long before corporate boardrooms, tracing back to her formative years in the Black church, where young people were given real responsibility early. That early formation became the foundation for the leadership capabilities she would later see reflected in high-performing Black executives across industries.

The conversation explores:

The Black Church as the original leadership incubator

A space where communication, accountability, resilience, and community-building were not taught theoretically, but practiced in real time.

The research behind the framework

Insights drawn from 155 high-performing Black leaders, combining qualitative interviews with quantitative data to identify the most impactful leadership lessons.

Resilience redefined

Moving beyond endurance to a more nuanced understanding grounded in neuroscience, including the process of naming, processing, and reframing adversity.

Culture as a leadership engine

How traditions like storytelling, music, and intergenerational connection shape leadership capacity and emotional intelligence.

A critical leadership gap

The declining participation of younger generations in the Black church and what that means for the future leadership pipeline.

Heart-centered leadership in a changing world

In a time marked by workplace disruption, AI acceleration, and shifting expectations of leaders, the need for leaders who can combine performance with empathy, courage, and community-building has never been greater.

Throughout the conversation, one idea becomes clear: the leadership lessons cultivated in the Black church are not confined to the church. They are transferable, teachable, and urgently needed across corporate, academic, and community spaces.

This conversation is an invitation to rethink where leadership is formed, how it is practiced, and what it will take to develop leaders with both strength and heart in the future.

Key Takeaway

Leadership is not only learned in formal institutions. It is shaped in culture, reinforced through experience, and now, increasingly, understood through science.

Learn More

Call & Response: 10 Leadership Lessons from the Black Church

Explore the book and leadership resources at: lmichellesmith.com

If you couldn't be in the room, now's your chance to be a part. TOMORROW at noon, Thursday, March 5 we'll be streaming video of the kickoff to the Call and Response book tour that happened at the Barnes & Noble bookseller at Hillside Village on multiple platforms.

It will be featured here on Linkedin, so grab your colleagues, family and friends and bring a journal: Cynt Marshall and I will be holding class, a different kind of Sunday School, not about religion, and not on a Sunday.

It's all about a leadership revival during a time where harsh leadership trends, values misalignment, character failures and more are breaking trust at every level in business and beyond.

Return to heart-centered leadership with us on The Culture Soup Podcast, because episode 199 is the live recording of that Feb 11th book event.

It's guest hosted by my friend and former colleague Neil Foote of Foote Communications.

Settle in for the hour, and light up the chat.

I'll be in the chat live to answer your questions. The video and audio will also stream across all podcast platforms beginning at noon as well.

Call and Response: 10 Leadership Lessons from the Black Church is a collaboration between Amistad Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishing and JVL Media, the brainchild of the incomparable Viola Davis, Julius Lennon and Lavaille Lavette.

Purchase your copy or audiobook ahead of the stream and follow along as we go!

The Culture Soup Podcast®

Live from Barnes & Noble: Call & Response — 10 Leadership Lessons from the Black Church

In this special live episode of The Culture Soup Podcast®, L. Michelle Smith celebrates the launch of her newest book, Call & Response: Ten Leadership Lessons from the Black Church, recorded live at Barnes & Noble in Cedar Hill, Texas.

Joined by trailblazing executive and former Dallas Mavericks CEO Cynt Marshall, L. Michelle explores how leadership principles rooted in the Black church tradition translate into powerful lessons for modern leaders in business, community, and culture.

Blending storytelling, neuroscience, positive psychology, and leadership strategy, this conversation highlights how cultural traditions can shape resilient, innovative, and heart-centered leadership.

In This Episode

Values as a Leadership North Star

L. Michelle shares the three values that guide her leadership and decision-making: faith, family, and freedom. Values act as non-negotiables that help leaders determine when to say yes—and when to say no.

Community: The Antidote to Isolation

Strong leadership cultures are built on connection. Drawing from neuroscience, L. Michelle explains how human bonding and trust strengthen teams and create environments where people move together with shared purpose.

Collaboration and Emotional Intelligence

Great collaboration requires emotional awareness, cultural understanding, and trust. The conversation highlights how early experiences in community environments—like church choirs—can sharpen the emotional intelligence leaders rely on in the boardroom.

Creativity and Innovation

Innovation often emerges from constraint. Leaders who cultivate calm, focused thinking create the mental space needed for insight, creativity, and new ideas.

Resilience That Builds Strength

Resilience isn’t simply pushing through adversity. L. Michelle shares a powerful practice for navigating challenges:

Name it – Identify what’s happening and the emotions attached to it

Tame it – Process the experience rather than suppress it

Reframe it – Discover the opportunity or lesson within it

A Leadership Framework

Throughout Call & Response, L. Michelle introduces three pillars of leadership growth:

Self Work – mastering purpose, mindset, and personal leadership

Relationship Work – building trust, collaboration, and community

World Work – using leadership to create meaningful impact

Learn More

To learn more about Call & Response: Ten Leadership Lessons from the Black Church, visit:

lmichellesmith.com/callandresponse

There you can explore the Call & Response leadership curriculum, designed for corporations, universities, and ministries, and submit a speaker request to bring L. Michelle Smith to your organization or event.