Speaker 1: The following podcast is a Dear media production.
Speaker 2: Big Things Happen when you're pretty, pretty bold, pretty clever,
Speaker 2: pretty strong.
Speaker 3: I'm Danielle Robe and each.
Speaker 2: Week my guests and I have conversations that put a
Speaker 2: new spin on pretty. This is pretty smart. The topic
Speaker 2: of kindness dates back to the beginning of time. It's
Speaker 2: in the Bible, Koran and Torah. Today, kindness is a
Speaker 2: word we throw around like confetti, be kind to others,
Speaker 2: spread kindness, random acts of kindness. But when we strip
Speaker 2: the cliches away, is kind of simply the act of
Speaker 2: being nice to someone? Or is there more to it?
Speaker 2: What does it mean to be deeply actively kind?
Speaker 3: Here's what I know.
Speaker 2: When we're kind or even witness and active kindness, our
Speaker 2: bodies release oxytocin. Oxytocin is sometimes referred to as the
Speaker 2: love hormone. It's responsible for all of the warm and
Speaker 2: fuzzy feelings. It's what goes through a woman's body during birth.
Speaker 2: It binds human beings. There's something to this, but I
Speaker 2: have so many questions. What does it take to be
Speaker 2: a kind person? Can kindness be learned or practiced? How
Speaker 2: about kindness and leadership? Does it pay to be kind
Speaker 2: or is there any truth to that phrase? Nice guys, finish?
Speaker 1: Last?
Speaker 2: Is kindness ever weakness? How does kindness impact our health
Speaker 2: and overall well being? Houston Craft spent his career studying kindness,
Speaker 2: and now he's written a book on it and is
Speaker 2: ready to share all of the answers.
Speaker 3: I'm so happy to have you here.
Speaker 2: I just did a deep dive into your book, and
Speaker 2: the topic of kindness is it should be simple, right.
Speaker 2: Kindness seems simple, and yet it's oversimplified.
Speaker 3: It actually is really confusing.
Speaker 2: So the first thing I want to get into is
Speaker 2: what is beneath kindness?
Speaker 3: Is what is kindness?
Speaker 1: It is the challenge I think of the world itself.
Speaker 1: I think we from the time we were really little,
Speaker 1: we were told that kindness is worthwhile. I think it's
Speaker 1: actually one of the things that we inherently know that
Speaker 1: we're wired for connection.
Speaker 4: That were wired to desire, belonging and acceptance, which I
Speaker 4: think like kindness is the bridge, you know, like, if
Speaker 4: I want to experience connection or belonging or depth in
Speaker 4: my life, kindness is one vehicle that allows me to
Speaker 4: experience that.
Speaker 1: And so from the time we're little, we both get
Speaker 1: taught it and I think we know it, and I
Speaker 1: think there's actually a gap between those two, right, the
Speaker 1: things that we like know to be true and the
Speaker 1: things that we get told I think are actually confusing.
Speaker 1: My career for many years was working in schools as
Speaker 1: a motivational speaker. I spoke to six hundred middle schools
Speaker 1: and high schools all over the world, and so I
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time in like cafeterias and gymnasiums
Speaker 1: and cafeinic gymnatoriums. I've been in all kinds of schools,
Speaker 1: and I would say that most schools have kindness as
Speaker 1: a part of their model or their mission statement. Most organizations,
Speaker 1: I think have to some degree part of their ethos
Speaker 1: is like service or kindness. But having worked in schools,
Speaker 1: I would tell you that I saw the poster just
Speaker 1: be kind or throw kindness around like confetti in probably
Speaker 1: like ninety percent of the schools that I worked in,
Speaker 1: And I think it's one of those really interesting things
Speaker 1: we do as a culture where we try to over
Speaker 1: promote something in a way that oversimplifies it, and as
Speaker 1: a result, I think we actually do more harm than good.
Speaker 1: The ethos, like the idea behind a poster that's like
Speaker 1: throw kindness around like confetti. Is we should be more generous,
Speaker 1: like we should give kindness more frequently. The danger is
Speaker 1: that we associate kindness with something that's simple or easier free,
Speaker 1: And I think we accidentally have created a narrative in
Speaker 1: our culture that kindness is free, and I think that's
Speaker 1: actually incredibly damaging because when we think of things as free,
Speaker 1: we don't assign value to them.
Speaker 4: In our own lives. Wow.
Speaker 1: I think we have a really frustrating gap in our
Speaker 1: culture between skills and values. Skills would be like whoa
Speaker 1: to get a doctorate or to become a professional athlete,
Speaker 1: or to acquire the skill requires discipline, practice and training
Speaker 1: over time. But with values, we're like, I believe in
Speaker 1: kindness and we think that just like believing in a
Speaker 1: thing makes us good at a thing. And I would
Speaker 1: argue it requires the same amount of discipline and practice
Speaker 1: and humility over time to.
Speaker 4: Achieve that thing.
Speaker 1: So that would be like the first clarification things necessary
Speaker 1: is the gap between what we believe in and the
Speaker 1: gap between what we do is big because of how
Speaker 1: we talk about it and how we teach it.
Speaker 2: That was very illuminating. Why do you think some people
Speaker 2: are kinder than others.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite quotes comes from doctor Ross Green
Speaker 1: talk about it in the book. He's a child psychologist,
Speaker 1: and he would say that kids do well when they can.
Speaker 1: I really love the power and the simplicity of that
Speaker 1: statement because the implication there, the motivation behind even saying it,
Speaker 1: is I think a lot of adults in kids' lives
Speaker 1: don't always assume best intent, consciously or unconsciously. We sometimes
Speaker 1: assume when someone hurts us, particularly a kid, it's because
Speaker 1: they want to get back at us, or they have
Speaker 1: ulterior motives, or that they're doing they want to do
Speaker 1: their own thing, when in reality, a lot of the
Speaker 1: psychology would tell us that young people, our orientation is
Speaker 1: actually to feel safe and protected by adults in our life.
Speaker 4: We don't want to misbehave quote unquote. He would argue that.
Speaker 1: The only reason why someone doesn't do the best they
Speaker 1: can is for one of two big categorical reasons.
Speaker 4: Number one, lagging skills. Number two unsolved problems. Lagging skills
Speaker 4: meaning I don't have.
Speaker 1: All the tools in my toolbox to behave in the
Speaker 1: way that you're asking me to behave Right now, I'm
Speaker 1: not well enough equipped to show up into this scenario
Speaker 1: with all the right tools to actually engage in whatever
Speaker 1: that is kindness. As an example, Number two unsolved problems
Speaker 1: would be that we have things going on in the
Speaker 1: background that affect the foreground. Whether that is individual trauma,
Speaker 1: whether that's intergenerational trauma, whether that is community trauma, whether
Speaker 1: that's stemic oppression, whatever. Those other things happening in our life,
Speaker 1: whether they are bigger than us or whether they're internal
Speaker 1: to our own lived experience, those background things, we know
Speaker 1: they affect the foreground all the time. My offer in
Speaker 1: response to your question is to change doctor ross Green's
Speaker 1: quote from kids do well when they can do people
Speaker 1: will do well when they can My argument with that, like,
Speaker 1: the only reason why we wouldn't offer each other kindness
Speaker 1: is I don't know how, or I have other things
Speaker 1: happening in my life that make it really hard for
Speaker 1: me to show up in kindness.
Speaker 4: In this moment.
Speaker 2: Wow, So do you think you can become more practiced
Speaker 2: at kindness?
Speaker 3: Then? Is it something you can learn?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I Actually my philosophy would be that kindness is an outcome.
Speaker 1: It's an output and determined by a whole lot of inputs.
Speaker 1: The kindness is a behavioral action that we take in
Speaker 1: the world that is informed by a lot of social
Speaker 1: and emotional skills that are operating the background. Right, my
Speaker 1: emotional intelligence is going to inform my behavioral action or
Speaker 1: what I would call like my character, the way that
Speaker 1: I show up in the world for myself and other
Speaker 1: people around me, And so to get better at something
Speaker 1: like kindness the output, I think it's really important to
Speaker 1: think about the inputs, what's happening in the background that
Speaker 1: shapes my behaviors in the foreground. For example, have I
Speaker 1: been trained or taught or practiced emotional regulation? As an example,
Speaker 1: do I know, like when I'm feeling big feelings, which
Speaker 1: a lot of things in the world can create big
Speaker 1: feelings in my life, do I know how to apply
Speaker 1: them in kindness in the world.
Speaker 4: Anger is a great example.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of adults in this world who are
Speaker 1: really good at math or science or English or history,
Speaker 1: but like don't know how to regulate their emotions when
Speaker 1: they're experiencing anger, they don't show up in kindness. I
Speaker 1: would also offer that anger can actually have huge implications
Speaker 1: to kindness. Anger is a motivating emotion, and if I
Speaker 1: know how to regulate it correctly. It can make me
Speaker 1: really a passionate advocate in kindness for others, But that's
Speaker 1: a skill. Emotional regulation is something that the science would
Speaker 1: tell us we can teach. One vehicle to that, for example,
Speaker 1: is emotional awareness. Do I know how to name my
Speaker 1: feelings when I'm feeling them. Another vehicle for that, or
Speaker 1: potentially related to that, is mindfulness, right taking time to
Speaker 1: slow down my mind enough to understand what I'm feeling
Speaker 1: in any given moment, as opposed to making myself busy
Speaker 1: being busy all the time. Talk about a whole other
Speaker 1: category like Another input to kindness would be empathy. Do
Speaker 1: I understand what people need around me from their perspective
Speaker 1: and not just my own. If I'm not able to
Speaker 1: effectively understand or unpack people's needs, I would argue that
Speaker 1: kindness gets really hard because I can practice kindness to
Speaker 1: you in a way that I think you need it,
Speaker 1: but that doesn't guarantee that I'm actually helping you along
Speaker 1: the way.
Speaker 2: Right as I was looking this up, some of the
Speaker 2: things that fell under emotional social learning were empathy, as
Speaker 2: you mentioned, good listening skills, generosity, helpful, curious, caring, nurturing,
Speaker 2: engage in perspective taking, which I don't know what that means,
Speaker 2: but it was interesting to kind of unpack what would
Speaker 2: fall under, like how do we get to kindness? Because
Speaker 2: it for me this was like a label that felt
Speaker 2: up to So thank you for clearing that up a
Speaker 2: little bit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the words you offered are I would say, categorically
Speaker 1: representative of empathy. And my friend Barbara says, empathy gives kindness.
Speaker 1: It's why I think empathy is actually like probably the
Speaker 1: most important ingredient that lives behind the scenes when it
Speaker 1: comes to practicing kindness. And empathy is another one of
Speaker 1: those words that gets thrown around a lot but is misunderstood,
Speaker 1: partially because it actually involves a lot of different components.
Speaker 1: A guy named doctor jimil Zaki out of Stanford. He
Speaker 1: wrote a book called The War for Kindness. He says
Speaker 1: empathy is an umbrella term that captures three big skills
Speaker 1: in our.
Speaker 4: Life, sharing, thinking, and caring. Sharing.
Speaker 1: We could think of as like the emotional side of empathy.
Speaker 1: Do I understand what you're feeling? Do I feel what
Speaker 1: you feel? Can I feel alongside you? And it's actually
Speaker 1: the most like naturally inborn thing that we have. We
Speaker 1: laugh at babies. Babies tend to smile and laugh back
Speaker 1: at us. We're always looking to repeat or experience other
Speaker 1: people's emotions, and particularly people who would be impaths are
Speaker 1: like really sensitive to that to be kind of exhausting
Speaker 1: sometimes to constantly tap into that. The second one would
Speaker 1: be thinking. It's like the cognitive side of empathy. Perspective taking,
Speaker 1: as you offered organizationally in my company called character Strong,
Speaker 1: we actually reframed perspective taking. We call it perspective getting
Speaker 1: because taking implies I get just just to stand where
Speaker 1: I'm at and like take from things around me. Getting
Speaker 1: implies work, which is what I think perspective getting actually is.
Speaker 1: It's like going out and listening. Really understanding a different
Speaker 1: perspective than your own. Requires me to be vulnerable, requires
Speaker 1: me to be humbled, requires me to engage with people
Speaker 1: who are different than me. It requires me to not
Speaker 1: always to want to be right all the time, which
Speaker 1: is something really hard to deprogram in our society. So
Speaker 1: there's sharing, the emotional side, thinking, the cognitive side, and
Speaker 1: the caring, which is the kindness side. It's how we
Speaker 1: operationalize sharing and thinking into action. It's saying, Okay, now
Speaker 1: that I have a sense of how you're feeling, and
Speaker 1: now that i'm like trying to see the world through
Speaker 1: your eyes to recognize that your needs might be different
Speaker 1: than mine, I'm going to do something to alleviate your suffering.
Speaker 1: It's how empathy translates into compassion. It's how we suffer
Speaker 1: alongside people and then use whatever resources we can to
Speaker 1: alleviate pain, because it is entirely possible, as I think
Speaker 1: probably every person on this planets it experience at one
Speaker 1: point in another to hurt, for someone to feel bad,
Speaker 1: for someone to even understand why they're hurting.
Speaker 4: And still do nothing to help.
Speaker 1: That's where compassion or empathy turns into kindness, and I
Speaker 1: think that's a big deal.
Speaker 2: So I love your book so much, and I read
Speaker 2: a lot of books, and I always think if if
Speaker 2: I'm not hooked in the first three pages, it's hard
Speaker 2: for me to get into it. The beginning story in
Speaker 2: your book is so good, and it's an offshoot of
Speaker 2: what you just said. I was hoping you could share
Speaker 2: it with us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we learned best through stories. Yeah, that's why I
Speaker 1: love being a theater major. I was never very a
Speaker 1: very good actor, But I believe deeply in sharing stories
Speaker 1: on any sort of platform in a way that invited
Speaker 1: other people in to recognize how whatever this story is
Speaker 1: intersects with yours. Maybe you're like me and you've been
Speaker 1: on an airplane before in the middle seat. It's my
Speaker 1: least favorite seat on any public transportation. I'm claustrophobic, called
Speaker 1: the hot dog seat because people's buns are on the
Speaker 1: other side of me. And I remember this particular day,
Speaker 1: it's now a decade ago in my life, where this
Speaker 1: woman shows up and has a seat next to me.
Speaker 1: And maybe you've been in the situation where someone wants
Speaker 1: to talk to you and you are not in the
Speaker 1: mood to talk. That's what this woman did this day.
Speaker 1: She tapped me on the shoulder, took out a headphone,
Speaker 1: which was intentionally in to prevent this exact scenario. I
Speaker 1: was like, can I help you. She's like, my name
Speaker 1: is Helga. I was like, this is not how I
Speaker 1: was intending to help you.
Speaker 4: It's just by engaging in small talk.
Speaker 1: I believe in kindness, so I was like trying to
Speaker 1: show up in that moment, and she starts asking me
Speaker 1: all kinds of questions. At some point she asked me
Speaker 1: what I did for work, and I explained that I
Speaker 1: worked in schools. Talking about kindness, she got very serious
Speaker 1: and told me the story of how the last time
Speaker 1: she was on an airplane before her and I ever met,
Speaker 1: was three years prior, when she'd woken up in the
Speaker 1: morning and gotten a phone call from her dad that
Speaker 1: her dad was headed. Her dad's doctor explaining that her
Speaker 1: dad was headed to the hospital. They didn't live in
Speaker 1: the same state, which meant that Helga. Helga had to
Speaker 1: get on a plane to fly from Washington to Arizona,
Speaker 1: and when she sits down on the plane to take
Speaker 1: off to see her dad, she gets the phone call
Speaker 1: that he's passed away. I'll never forget Helga telling me
Speaker 1: this story and explaining to me that she was on
Speaker 1: her way to go and see him, when then she
Speaker 1: learned that she lost him, And then she was surrounded
Speaker 1: by strangers on a plane for three hours. It's a
Speaker 1: lonely flight. She lands in the airport, she walks to
Speaker 1: the nearest wall. She falls down. She said, have you
Speaker 1: ever gotten new so bad? Your body stops working right.
Speaker 1: She put her head her hands and she wept, and
Speaker 1: she explains that for two hours. She sat there crying.
Speaker 1: I'll let you know, Helga has a good sense of humor.
Speaker 1: She goes, Houston. I should be clear, I'm not a
Speaker 1: pretty crier. I'm not a quiet crier. She goes, it's
Speaker 1: loud and it's aggressive. People noticed. She goes Houston.
Speaker 4: Two hours.
Speaker 1: If I had to guess, there's probably three thousand people
Speaker 1: in the airport around me going to their planes or
Speaker 1: getting off their planes. Used in two hours, three thousand people,
Speaker 1: not one, not a single person stopped.
Speaker 4: And she looks at me.
Speaker 1: She goes, you have no idea how much I could
Speaker 1: use in act to kindness that day. The thing she
Speaker 1: said next is really shaped, honestly, a lot of my
Speaker 1: career and a big part of the reason I wrote
Speaker 1: the book. She said, you know what I realized that day,
Speaker 1: and the airport is three thousand people walked by. It
Speaker 1: occurred to me that kindness isn't normal. It's not normal
Speaker 1: in our world to be kind. And I remember, and honestly,
Speaker 1: I sit with that question just about every day in
Speaker 1: my work, because I am fascinated in why why is
Speaker 1: it that if you were to ask any of the
Speaker 1: three thousand people in the airport that day. Do you
Speaker 1: believe in kindness? My guess is all three one thousand
Speaker 1: of them would tell you yes. Why is it then
Speaker 1: that all three thousand of them walked by an opportunity
Speaker 1: for it? Why is it when I ask myself the
Speaker 1: question would I stop?
Speaker 4: Which I do?
Speaker 1: Anytime I tell the story, it forces me to ask
Speaker 1: that question, what I stop today? And today my honest
Speaker 1: answer is probably know. And I feel like I have
Speaker 1: all kinds of quote unquote ballid excuses. Tired is the
Speaker 1: end of a long day. I have places to go,
Speaker 1: I have people to see. What if she doesn't want
Speaker 1: my help? But if I don't have anything that offered her,
Speaker 1: I got no energy in my tank, like there's any
Speaker 1: reason that I could offer to say no? But I
Speaker 1: think the story is important because it offers me a
Speaker 1: space to force myself into that self confrontation.
Speaker 4: Where's the gap? The gap between what I say I.
Speaker 1: Believe in and what I actually do, how I actually
Speaker 1: show up in the world. Because it's entirely possible to
Speaker 1: believe in a thing and not live into it. We
Speaker 1: do it all the time. The Greeks have a word
Speaker 1: for it. It's a crazia. Crazy translates to our weakness
Speaker 1: of will are knowing that something is important or right,
Speaker 1: and our decision not to do it anyways, And I
Speaker 1: feel frustrated that kindness is one of those things. And
Speaker 1: so my goal, my aim, and my work in the
Speaker 1: book and the work that I do in education, is
Speaker 1: to figure out how do we close that gap.
Speaker 2: I got really emotional when you told that story, and
Speaker 2: I got emotional when I read it. I'm still not
Speaker 2: sure why. I was trying to think about why.
Speaker 3: I think it's.
Speaker 2: Because I feel as if I am I'm only where
Speaker 2: I am in my personal life or my professional life
Speaker 2: because people showed me kindness. It's why the title of
Speaker 2: your book stuck out to me so much. It's such
Speaker 2: it's a value I hold. I think everybody has different
Speaker 2: values that they hold in a different order in their
Speaker 2: life based on their upbringing and what's important, and kindness
Speaker 2: is a value I hold really high up there. So
Speaker 2: I think that your movement of kindness should be up
Speaker 2: there with Brene Brown's movement of vulnerability. It is, it
Speaker 2: is the underpinning of so much. What do we do
Speaker 2: when we don't know how to be kind? When we
Speaker 2: don't know how to do the kind thing.
Speaker 4: A few reflections.
Speaker 1: One is I appreciate your invitation to explore why that
Speaker 1: that is an emotional story, not only for yourself but
Speaker 1: for other people. I think it's it's easy to walk
Speaker 1: past that as a simple like parable, as like why
Speaker 1: kindness is important, But I would offer that I think
Speaker 1: for a lot of people, we've all been some version
Speaker 1: of Helga. If you haven't been yet, I think we
Speaker 1: all will be, or we've been on the far side
Speaker 1: of that. We've been in an incredibly low or lonely
Speaker 1: moment and someone has offered us something in that moment
Speaker 1: that has made all the difference, has transformed or shifted
Speaker 1: your trajectory in some small way that over time was
Speaker 1: actually a really big way. What do we do when
Speaker 1: we don't know how to practice kindness in a moment,
Speaker 1: If that's where we're starting from, If that's like our
Speaker 1: first question, the invitation is to get curious, is to
Speaker 1: ask a lot of questions. A story that I think
Speaker 1: about often as it relates to empathy is the story
Speaker 1: of the Sandy Hook shooting. There's this moment of collective
Speaker 1: trauma in our country where literally we have children being
Speaker 1: shot at a school and in moments of trauma or tragedy,
Speaker 1: as we've seen now since George Floyd or what happened
Speaker 1: in Atlanta, when we see moments of hate lived out
Speaker 1: in really profound ways, we have a collective visceral response.
Speaker 1: Now there's a whole layer there to talk about, which
Speaker 1: is why we wait for trauma to happen until we
Speaker 1: come around it with kindness or generosity. But nonetheless, I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people do respond. People will have
Speaker 1: a genuine desire to help in moments of profound hurt.
Speaker 4: So many.
Speaker 1: In fact, when Sandy Hook happened shortly afterwards, people from
Speaker 1: all over the world wanted to offer kindness, so people
Speaker 1: sent stuffed animals teddy bears globally from all over the
Speaker 1: world because it was young people who'd lost their life,
Speaker 1: and it was so many teddy bears that the town
Speaker 1: of Newtown, Connecticut had to rent a twenty thousand square
Speaker 1: foot warehouse just to house all the inbound gifts. One
Speaker 1: of the people that helped run the candlelit vigil said
Speaker 1: that there were more stuffed animals present than there were people.
Speaker 1: And here's the quote that got me. He said, you know,
Speaker 1: a teddy bear is great, but a teddy bear doesn't
Speaker 1: pay for counseling, and a teddy bear doesn't pay for
Speaker 1: a funeral.
Speaker 4: I remember reading that and thinking.
Speaker 1: To myself, how many times in my life if I
Speaker 1: wanted to give kindness but I never bothered to ask?
Speaker 4: What was the need?
Speaker 3: That's so important?
Speaker 1: It's huge and I think we've all lived it to
Speaker 1: some capacity. Right My mom stage four colon cancer a
Speaker 1: few years ago. She's currently cancer free, which is one
Speaker 1: of the best gifts of my life. But I remember
Speaker 1: watching people in her life want to help and not
Speaker 1: know what to do, and there were different versions of
Speaker 1: things that were more or less helpful. I guess some
Speaker 1: people would resonate with this, like when you're going through
Speaker 1: a really hard time, some people ask the question how
Speaker 1: can I help? And that actually puts the burden on
Speaker 1: the person who's actively hurting. Other people in my mom's
Speaker 1: life said, you know what, I'm making extra LASAGNI tonight.
Speaker 1: Is it okay if I bring some buy You know what,
Speaker 1: I hire this cleaner for four hours. I only need
Speaker 1: them for two. Can they come clean part of your house?
Speaker 1: And people who knew what my mom was navigating, who
Speaker 1: asked questions with curiosity and didn't put the burden of
Speaker 1: help on to my mom. We're so much more helpful now.
Speaker 1: Am I making a character judgment on the people that
Speaker 1: didn't have the right question? No, I'm offering it as
Speaker 1: an example of ways that we can all collectively close
Speaker 1: that gap, which is to get curious and say, is
Speaker 1: what I'm offering meeting a need?
Speaker 2: I like framing it that way because this, to me,
Speaker 2: at first, it felt.
Speaker 3: Like get specific. That specificity is.
Speaker 2: Helpful, but it's really more so about meeting the actual need.
Speaker 2: So how do we get there? It's three questions that's
Speaker 2: really beautiful.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Yeah, questions and reflection. Right if we asked
Speaker 1: the question before we've done the reflection. I think we
Speaker 1: have to hold in balance when we're putting more more
Speaker 1: responsibility on the person who's hurting than ourselves. First, So
Speaker 1: can I explore do you know we can talk about
Speaker 1: the whole conversation on social and racial justice happening in
Speaker 1: our country in the world right now, So people will
Speaker 1: go to a person of color and ask them to
Speaker 1: solve the problem for me, and that is not the
Speaker 1: way to be helpful, even though it's an earnest attempt
Speaker 1: to be helpful.
Speaker 4: The reality is I have.
Speaker 1: To first explore and unpack my own biases, my own
Speaker 1: role before I go and say, hey, how can I help?
Speaker 4: How can I help?
Speaker 1: And I think that like holding the balance of curiosity
Speaker 1: and self reflection is the first, like the highest level
Speaker 1: step is like that awareness that leads to curiosity, which leads.
Speaker 2: To action, the balance of curiosity and self reflection. That's
Speaker 2: important because I was also thinking about looking kind versus
Speaker 2: being kind, you know, like just to say how can
Speaker 2: I help, or like just to show up, so to speak,
Speaker 2: without truly understanding what somebody needs. Is more of a
Speaker 2: look versus a a verb of doing and being.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I like, I mean doing and being is a
Speaker 1: big A big one for me is like what do
Speaker 1: we how do we embody the thing versus just act
Speaker 1: the part. And it's always that interesting relationship between the
Speaker 1: two because, as Will Durant says, we are what we
Speaker 1: repeatedly do. Excellencin is not an act but a habit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I always cross that out. I like to edit quotes,
Speaker 1: I apologize, But like kindness is not an act but
Speaker 1: a habit, which is to say, Okay, if I do
Speaker 1: this thing today, it might be you know, that high
Speaker 1: level action that is that is maybe not intended for show,
Speaker 1: but show nonetheless if I don't follow it up and
Speaker 1: do something again the next day, my friend Dexter Davis says,
Speaker 1: we're not human beings, we're human becomings.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're becoming that like paradigm.
Speaker 1: Shift in my head of like, to become kind requires
Speaker 1: me to repeatedly do kind things, and so giving myself
Speaker 1: a framework, system, a discipline, a practice to engage in
Speaker 1: that consistently is going to be a pathway that allows
Speaker 1: me to hold those things more imbalanced.
Speaker 2: What is one thing someone can do to be more practiced?
Speaker 2: I love solution oriented, Like what's what if we don't know?
Speaker 2: Because I feel like it's still a little up too.
Speaker 2: So where do we start?
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is my jam, let's let's talk about it.
Speaker 1: Oh, good practical practical inspiration right, Like you're like with
Speaker 1: a bunch of motivation, but no application is just like
Speaker 1: good feelings and good ideas. I really think the first
Speaker 1: thing is to think about how we think about kindness. Right,
Speaker 1: So first, like determining in my brain, like why I
Speaker 1: care about this thing, why I believe in this thing,
Speaker 1: is always going to be like the motivating through line,
Speaker 1: and then it's to say, well, what does it look
Speaker 1: like to behave in kindness in the world. The metaphor
Speaker 1: I use in the book, it's a dumb one, but
Speaker 1: it sticks with me. It's like when you go to
Speaker 1: the cheesecake factory. The menu is so big that it's overwhelming.
Speaker 1: Too many choices, right, the paradoxic choice. Too many choices
Speaker 1: is like no choice at all. I remember wanting to
Speaker 1: the cheesecake factory.
Speaker 4: When I was little. I got the Chipotle chicken pasta.
Speaker 1: It was delicious, and so when I go back, I
Speaker 1: don't order it every time, but more often than not,
Speaker 1: I default to the choice that I made early on,
Speaker 1: because our brains crave routine. I think the same thing
Speaker 1: becomes true about kindness slowly over time, in large part
Speaker 1: because of all the cultural inputs that tell us what
Speaker 1: kindness is. I think we see that kindness is paying
Speaker 1: for the person's coffee in line behind you. I don't
Speaker 1: want to dismiss that as not kindness, because it happened
Speaker 1: to me the other day and it was a real daymaker.
Speaker 1: But I think that to say that that is the
Speaker 1: only version of kindness, or to get into the pattern
Speaker 1: of like that is like a Chipotle chicken pasta.
Speaker 4: I've ordered it one.
Speaker 1: So like, that's the thing I know is the hard
Speaker 1: part about making kindness a daily practice. What does it
Speaker 1: actually look like to integrate it into your life in
Speaker 1: a way that's non superficial or not culturally pop culturally provided.
Speaker 2: So in your book you call this confetti kindness versus
Speaker 2: deep kindness.
Speaker 1: Yeah, confetti kindness, which would be like that, like throw
Speaker 1: it around like confetti, a random act of kindness, which
Speaker 1: I don't mean to be dismissed above. I just don't
Speaker 1: think it's the type of kindness that moves the cultural
Speaker 1: needle forward. Right, those random smiles that pay it forward,
Speaker 1: coffee line, like helping the person across the street. Those
Speaker 1: things are are lovely, but they don't change broken systems.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: They don't heal trauma, they don't navigate complicated questions about justice,
Speaker 1: and they certainly don't heal like our most broken interpersonal relationships.
Speaker 1: So what does that look like to operationalize that in
Speaker 1: our lives? Well, I use it a strategy in my brain.
Speaker 1: I call it intersectional thinking, which is really just like
Speaker 1: thinking about a ven diagram that allows me to take
Speaker 1: a really big idea like kindness and make it specific. Right,
Speaker 1: give myself permission to constrain a huge abstract idea and
Speaker 1: put it through a really really small filter, Because that
Speaker 1: way I'm going to better meet needs. Like you said,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be able to get specific with it.
Speaker 1: So just to walk through this sexoncides really quickly, let
Speaker 1: me offer you a change of this question. What's one
Speaker 1: way I could practice kindness in my life today? Really big,
Speaker 1: a little overwhelming.
Speaker 4: I'll probably order the Chipotle chicken pasta.
Speaker 1: The different question is, Danielle, who do you think is
Speaker 1: someone in your life that you who comes to mind
Speaker 1: right away when I say someone you admire?
Speaker 3: Two people?
Speaker 2: One is a man named Steve at NBC and Sally
Speaker 2: Lou loveman in Chicago.
Speaker 1: Out of the two, is there someone that you feel
Speaker 1: I could use encouragement right.
Speaker 4: Now more than the other?
Speaker 3: Sally Lou Cool?
Speaker 1: Here'd be a question, what's the most meaningful thing you
Speaker 1: could do? What's an act of kindness you could do
Speaker 1: for Sally Lou that you could do in three minutes
Speaker 1: or less?
Speaker 3: Ooh, three minutes or less.
Speaker 2: I could send her an encouraging note and telling her
Speaker 2: how much she means to me and how much I
Speaker 2: admire her.
Speaker 4: You want to do it right now?
Speaker 2: No, but I think that would be probably like the
Speaker 2: only thing I could do minutes beside send a singing
Speaker 2: telegram or something.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I would offer that one of the narratives we have
Speaker 1: to break out of in our culture is that time
Speaker 1: equals impact. That so much of our life gets rocked
Speaker 1: up into the narrative that productivity is impact, and that
Speaker 1: productivity requires time and tasks, stay in and day out.
Speaker 1: And I would offer that the three minute message you
Speaker 1: might send as Sally Lou might have more impact than
Speaker 1: the fifty emails that I have to get through after
Speaker 1: this call, right, And that I think we have to
Speaker 1: deprogram ourselves from the narrative that everything on my to
Speaker 1: do list has equal value in terms of how I
Speaker 1: want to show up in the world. So the way
Speaker 1: that I practice that in my life is every day Organizationally,
Speaker 1: even on our team, everyone writes out their workles. We
Speaker 1: all have our to do list, but at the top
Speaker 1: of our to do list, all of us write out
Speaker 1: a one item to B list.
Speaker 4: So who do I want to be today? Well, maybe it's.
Speaker 1: Healthy, maybe it's balanced. Maybe it's present, maybe it's grateful,
Speaker 1: maybe it's kind. But then the task is what does
Speaker 1: that look like today in however much time you have
Speaker 1: give yourself that constraint ten minutes are less, fifteen minutes
Speaker 1: or less, thirty minutes or less.
Speaker 3: Oh, I love that exercise.
Speaker 1: And so we actually have to articulate that for ourselves
Speaker 1: and for our team. The way that we have disciplined
Speaker 1: ourselves to get better at that is every quarter we
Speaker 1: choose a word, so that every day, over the course
Speaker 1: of a quarter, we are articulating, Okay today, to be present,
Speaker 1: that means blink today.
Speaker 4: To be encouraging, that means blank.
Speaker 1: And so systems over goals, Yeah, Like, the more we
Speaker 1: can create systems allow for specificity to become the thing,
Speaker 1: the more likely that we actually live into the things
Speaker 1: we say we believe.
Speaker 2: That's incredibly important because every year, I think when people
Speaker 2: make New Year's resolutions or goals, the ideas are so wonderful,
Speaker 2: and it's how do you actually do that in practice?
Speaker 3: So systems over goals, that's wonderful. Thank you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, to be systems. It's a good, healthy challenge.
Speaker 1: And I think we all love to do lists because
Speaker 1: they're concrete, and we've been programmed in our culture to
Speaker 1: like we want things that are checkoffable, and so we
Speaker 1: know how to like get to inbox zero, we know
Speaker 1: how to finish this project proposal, we know how to
Speaker 1: put together these slides. But when we say, like what's
Speaker 1: on new to B list, kind that's it's not as
Speaker 1: checkoffable unless we give ourselves constrained thinking and say, well,
Speaker 1: what does it look like to do something today that
Speaker 1: lives into that and maybe it's with the same person
Speaker 1: for three months, And that's okay as long as we
Speaker 1: create small steps that drive us towards the becoming of
Speaker 1: the things that we say we value.
Speaker 2: You know, I always I recognize that the people that
Speaker 2: I admire most live their values when it's inconvenient to them,
Speaker 2: when they don't have time. They are still kind, like,
Speaker 2: you know, like when it because it's it's a lot
Speaker 2: easier to be nice and to be kind when you
Speaker 2: have time, right, So to do it repeat, they must
Speaker 2: be practiced.
Speaker 3: They are. They do it time and time again.
Speaker 1: So well said one of my favorite articles from the
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal is are you as busy as you think?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: None of us are. T LDR we're not.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so what if you were never again allowed to
Speaker 1: say I don't have time, but if you had.
Speaker 4: To say this is not my priority.
Speaker 1: So if I were to ever to say I don't
Speaker 1: have time for this person in my life or for
Speaker 1: kindness in my life, the argument would be just to
Speaker 1: change that, change the way you speak about it, to say, well,
Speaker 1: you know, my mom's not my priority today, or this
Speaker 1: my partner's not my priority today, or the practice of
Speaker 1: kindness is not my priority today. And sometimes that can
Speaker 1: be true. I'm not saying that that's never true, but
Speaker 1: to speak it like that consistently indicates to us that
Speaker 1: maybe we have a gap between what we say is
Speaker 1: important and what we actually do for ourselves in the world.
Speaker 3: Now I see why you are a motivational speaker.
Speaker 2: Wow, you're right, closing gaps for gaps and taking names.
Speaker 2: All right, Okay, so you said that deep kindness requires curage.
Speaker 3: What do you mean by that?
Speaker 1: I think that doctor Brene Brown, one of my heroes.
Speaker 1: You already dropped the name the revolution towards vulnerability, which
Speaker 1: I think vulnerability is the background to the foreground of courage, right,
Speaker 1: Courageous actions require vulnerability. Having worked with a lot of
Speaker 1: high school students I know that, like many of them,
Speaker 1: are on the cusp of cynicism. And I think cynicism
Speaker 1: happens when we feel overwhelmed by either too much to
Speaker 1: care about and so we don't know what to care about,
Speaker 1: or we've tried to care about stuff and felt like
Speaker 1: we weren't making a difference, and then it becomes easier
Speaker 1: to live into the narrative that it's just cool not
Speaker 1: to care, and so we allow ourselves to get busy
Speaker 1: when it's cool not to care, we allow ourselves to
Speaker 1: get complacent, or in the face of overwhelm or fear,
Speaker 1: probably the worst of all us, we allow ourselves to
Speaker 1: get apathetic. And I would suggest that the reason for
Speaker 1: a lot of that is because the more we care
Speaker 1: about something, the more we risk hurt on the far
Speaker 1: side of it. So when I care about giving something
Speaker 1: someone they need and I fail them in it, that hurts.
Speaker 1: When I care deeply about what's going on in our
Speaker 1: country right now, around what is happening to the Asian
Speaker 1: community in the United States, and I feel helpless, or
Speaker 1: I feel like I failed someone, or I feel like
Speaker 1: I don't know how to show up like the more
Speaker 1: I care, the more I risk feeling failure or hurt
Speaker 1: or rejection or embarrassment along the way. The more I
Speaker 1: use my voice to speak up about something that maybe's
Speaker 1: not popular.
Speaker 4: The more that people are going to criticize me and
Speaker 4: hurt me.
Speaker 1: And so most of us we've had moments of courage
Speaker 1: along the way, and we faced criticism, pain, shame, rejection, failure,
Speaker 1: and our brain is programmed to reduce pain in our life.
Speaker 1: And so every time that happens, every time we make
Speaker 1: a courageous choice and it hurts, if we're not really
Speaker 1: intentional about it, if we're not really clear about why
Speaker 1: we're doing the thing, then we're going to allow our
Speaker 1: behaviors to be dictated by the pain as a close
Speaker 1: to the purpose of the thing in the first place.
Speaker 1: And so kindness requires courage because most of the time
Speaker 1: acts of kindness are vulnerable.
Speaker 4: They are an action of caring.
Speaker 1: The more that I care, the more that it's going
Speaker 1: to hurt, and the more that it hurts, the more
Speaker 1: choosing it is the courageous thing to do.
Speaker 2: In your book, you have an entire chapter on forgiveness
Speaker 2: to me that requires courage. That's what I linked to it.
Speaker 2: Why did you include the idea of forgiveness in a
Speaker 2: book about kindness?
Speaker 4: It is the most understated partner in kindness.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because it has implications for both the receiver and
Speaker 1: the giver when it comes to kindness. I think that
Speaker 1: the action of as I would articulate it in the book,
Speaker 1: separating the person from the behavior, is an action of kindness.
Speaker 1: We can do bad things and not be bad people,
Speaker 1: and oftentimes a lot of those choices are dictated again
Speaker 1: by lack of tools in our toolbox or things that
Speaker 1: are happening in our life, many of those things potentially
Speaker 1: out side of our control. To be clear, that does
Speaker 1: not excuse the behavior. It just doesn't make the person
Speaker 1: on the far side of it unlovable. And forgiveness is
Speaker 1: the kind action to choose to see someone as lovable
Speaker 1: in spite of their painful behaviors. To clarify it ahead
Speaker 1: of time, because it's a pre correction I need. It
Speaker 1: does not mean what the thing they did was right.
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean they're allowed to do it again. And
Speaker 1: forgiving a person does not give them permission to cross
Speaker 1: whatever boundary you're setting in that moment. It's just telling
Speaker 1: the person that I love you in spite of the pain.
Speaker 1: I love you in spite of the hurt. In fact,
Speaker 1: I can love you from afar. We can never talk again,
Speaker 1: because that's a boundary I need in my life to
Speaker 1: keep myself safe, to keep myself mentally well or healthy.
Speaker 1: But I am releasing you from the narrative that you
Speaker 1: are bad. I'm releasing myself from the narrative that.
Speaker 4: I deserved it.
Speaker 3: That's big.
Speaker 4: Yes, I can say it real simply. It's not easy.
Speaker 2: In practice, it's not, but it's a you broke it
Speaker 2: down in a way that felt very digestible, so at
Speaker 2: least we can know it and think about it next
Speaker 2: time we feel like we need to give forgiveness or
Speaker 2: practice forgiveness.
Speaker 1: Right. Forgiveness is freedom right because it frees me from
Speaker 1: making the narrative personal all the time.
Speaker 3: M hmm.
Speaker 1: I think the things that have hurt us the most
Speaker 1: we take deeply personally, when in reality it was a
Speaker 1: behavior that hurt us and not necessarily the person behind it.
Speaker 1: It's really hard to separate those two. But I think
Speaker 1: at some point along the way, we have all done
Speaker 1: hurtful things. It does not make us a hurting person. Now,
Speaker 1: I do want to qualify that statement with, like, there
Speaker 1: are things that people have done in people's lives that
Speaker 1: that exercise is not nearly as simple for or sometimes
Speaker 1: in some situations like not even acceptable for right. And
Speaker 1: I don't want to make the blanket statement that all
Speaker 1: people are easily forgivable or should be forgiven, particularly right away,
Speaker 1: or that like there isn't more bigger healing that needs
Speaker 1: to happen in order for us to enter into that space.
Speaker 4: But nonetheless, I would suggest that all people.
Speaker 1: On this planet, to some degree worthy of love, deserving
Speaker 1: of forgiveness, even if it means that they should never
Speaker 1: have that behavior again, even if they have ramifications right
Speaker 1: necessary consequences to those behaviors. I think that forgiveness is
Speaker 1: still one of the most kind things we can do
Speaker 1: for others in ourselves.
Speaker 2: So in prepping for this interview, I read an article.
Speaker 2: It was a twenty eighteen article title does it Pay
Speaker 2: to Be Kind?
Speaker 3: And I loved this idea.
Speaker 2: I want to talk it through with you because there's
Speaker 2: a term that or like a quote people say that
Speaker 2: nice guys finish last. It's always been one of my
Speaker 2: least favorite terms. I don't agree with it. I don't
Speaker 2: like when people say it. I don't even know where
Speaker 2: it came from. I think it's nonsense, and most research
Speaker 2: that I've read, actually all research that I've personally read,
Speaker 2: supports that kindness actually does pay, not just financially but
Speaker 2: also financially. It's said pro social behaviors increase happiness and
Speaker 2: self esteem, kindness leads to reductions and risks for disease.
Speaker 3: It even said that.
Speaker 2: When a doctor is kind to a patient, colds are
Speaker 2: shortened by a day. Like it has real impact. And
Speaker 2: I was wondering if you had any information to support
Speaker 2: that vices because I don't want to go against it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I want to offer two things.
Speaker 1: The first one is I am a big word person,
Speaker 1: and so I actually think that nice guys finished last
Speaker 1: might be a truism because I think there's a really
Speaker 1: strong difference between being nice and being kind. The difference
Speaker 1: in my mind, it was articulated to me by a
Speaker 1: high school student after I spoke at a school in
Speaker 1: Texas and he came down to talk to me and
Speaker 1: he said, you know, while you were talking, I realized
Speaker 1: I'm a really nice person.
Speaker 4: I was like, cool man.
Speaker 1: Kind of the point, you guys, no I realize I'm nice,
Speaker 1: but I don't think i'm kind.
Speaker 4: I was like, you got to unpack that for me.
Speaker 1: What do you mean, he goes. I think that nice
Speaker 1: is reactive. I think if it's a it's a if.
Speaker 1: If someone's nice to me, I might be nice back
Speaker 1: to them. If I like you, I'll be nice to you,
Speaker 1: he goes. But kindness, the way you talked about it today,
Speaker 1: to me, it sounds proactive, like I have to make
Speaker 1: a choice and I have to stick to it. I
Speaker 1: have to stand up for what I care about, even
Speaker 1: if it's uncomfortable or inconvenient, that I have to practice
Speaker 1: it in spite of what I'm feeling in a given moment,
Speaker 1: that even if I don't like you, I'm still going
Speaker 1: to show up and behave in a way towards you
Speaker 1: that is generous or compassionate or respectful. And this senior
Speaker 1: boy at high school in Texas, he starts to cry,
Speaker 1: is like this moment of like unexpected vulnerability. He goes,
Speaker 1: I realize that kindness requires work, and I think I
Speaker 1: have a lot of work to do. And I was like,
Speaker 1: me too, man, And these are the moments that I
Speaker 1: love about my job. When you get those insights that
Speaker 1: are so clarifying. Words matter. I think nice guys sometimes
Speaker 1: do finish last because they're wishy washy, because it's reactive,
Speaker 1: because it's unclear what they care about until it's convenient
Speaker 1: to them or until they benefit from it. I think
Speaker 1: kind guys finish first. Kind people have really strong boundaries.
Speaker 1: Kind people have very clear convictions and very clear purpose.
Speaker 1: They make decisions based on something that has been clarified
Speaker 1: for them or they've chosen to go through that process,
Speaker 1: and so I think people are drawn towards people who
Speaker 1: have clarity whatever that thing is. But kindness tends to
Speaker 1: be one that's generous. It's rooted in empathy, it's rooted
Speaker 1: in understanding, it's asking questions. But when it comes time
Speaker 1: to make a decision, whether it's inconvenient or not, they're
Speaker 1: going to go forward with that thing with purpose and conviction.
Speaker 1: And I think people are drawn to that. So I
Speaker 1: think nice guys I don't know if they should finish last.
Speaker 1: I think they do naturally because people want people who
Speaker 1: are clear.
Speaker 3: That's such a good distinction.
Speaker 1: Yeah, nice versus kind is such a big When I
Speaker 1: speak at schools, I can speak for an hour and
Speaker 1: I'll tell stories and I like, work really hard on
Speaker 1: this whole thing, and I'll weave that in and it's
Speaker 1: like a two minute part of my talk. I will
Speaker 1: ask kids afterwards, like, what do you remember though, like
Speaker 1: nice versus kind? Nice versus kind? Like anything else from
Speaker 1: that hour? Like and not really nice versus kind? So
Speaker 1: that one sticks. That one's like an important I think
Speaker 1: we crave distinctions, right because words.
Speaker 4: Words play such a big deal in our in our mind.
Speaker 1: We like we don't always realize it because we take
Speaker 1: them for granted, but they shape the way we experience emotions,
Speaker 1: the way we process color and sound, the way we
Speaker 1: make decisions, the way we do mental.
Speaker 4: Math, the way we read.
Speaker 1: Like, words play a huge role in our life, and
Speaker 1: so the way we think about a word, it's going
Speaker 1: to have a huge role in how we act with
Speaker 1: it in the world. So knowing the difference between nice
Speaker 1: and kind allows me to more clearly say, am I
Speaker 1: being a kind person today in my life?
Speaker 4: In this relationship? What does that actually look like?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 2: I think on the flip side, we also think, well,
Speaker 2: maybe I shouldn't do that because it's not nice, And
Speaker 2: there's a huge distinction, And so knowing that also allows
Speaker 2: you to move forward and be kind because kind people
Speaker 2: have boundaries.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Brene Brown was a bringer back.
Speaker 1: She says, the most compassionate people in our research are
Speaker 1: the most boundary, meaning that they are very clear on
Speaker 1: what they say yes and no to, which means when
Speaker 1: they do things that are kind, it is rich with
Speaker 1: true generosity instead of obligation. Yeah, it's a big difference
Speaker 1: between the two of those. And if we can get
Speaker 1: clear on what is okay and what's not okay, that
Speaker 1: shows up in the things that we say say yes
Speaker 1: and no to. That shows up in the way we
Speaker 1: draw boundaries. That shows up in how clearly we articulate
Speaker 1: our needs or deliver on other peoples, and doing things
Speaker 1: from a generous disposition instead of a state of obligation.
Speaker 1: We've all felt that, we have felt when people are
Speaker 1: doing something just because they have to, versus someone who
Speaker 1: truly wants to serve or love or give to you
Speaker 1: in that moment, Fully, I deviated from the original question
Speaker 1: does it pay to be kind? I accidentally spoken Alaska
Speaker 1: a few years ago, and it was hilarious because it
Speaker 1: was a safety conference. Because I worked in schools, I
Speaker 1: thought it was a school safety conference. I learned the
Speaker 1: night before that it was a like Alaska's state safety,
Speaker 1: which is like, it's all the people who are in
Speaker 1: charge of making people don't get injured or die on
Speaker 1: the job, and Alaska is like the most dangerous state
Speaker 1: in the country to work. And I was like, I
Speaker 1: have to rewrite a lot of my talk, and so
Speaker 1: I did. The night before I remember listening to a
Speaker 1: podcast called Invisibilia, great NPR podcast.
Speaker 4: It talks about the invisible things that control our.
Speaker 1: Lives, and one of them was a story about Exxon
Speaker 1: building the largest, like by a scale of four x
Speaker 1: oil rig and it was called URSA, and they brought
Speaker 1: in a consultant because oil rigs and that line of
Speaker 1: work is one of the most dangerous occupations in the world.
Speaker 1: And one of the reasons it's dangerous is because the
Speaker 1: culture internal to that company, to that job for so
Speaker 1: long is that we don't ask for help. That the
Speaker 1: masculinity and the lens at which they view that work
Speaker 1: is we don't ask for help because it's weak, because
Speaker 1: it's soft, because I should know what to do. All
Speaker 1: those narratives, and the consequence by the way of not
Speaker 1: asking for help in some of those situations for some
Speaker 1: people is actually dying. So I thought about that example,
Speaker 1: and they brought in this leadership coach. It's eccentric frenchwoman
Speaker 1: I believe, who did vulnerability and empathy coaching with all
Speaker 1: of the managers across this rig to the point.
Speaker 4: Where grown men.
Speaker 1: I remember this part really clearly, was they were being
Speaker 1: asked to wash their other counterparts like other men in
Speaker 1: the organization, other managers their feet, and one gentleman like
Speaker 1: forgot who he was because this behavior was so far
Speaker 1: outside of the context that he'd grown up in. So
Speaker 1: I'm really like profound and like over multiple months like
Speaker 1: talking and unpacking empathy and the stats on the far
Speaker 1: side of all of this, like empathy coaching, this kindness coaching,
Speaker 1: this vulnerability coaching, was that injuries dropped eighty six percent
Speaker 1: and productivity doubled. I like to say that kindness is
Speaker 1: one of the most It's not just like a nice
Speaker 1: to have, it's a necessity. I think it's one of
Speaker 1: the It is the through line that is perhaps the
Speaker 1: most important foundational thing we can do organizationally to create
Speaker 1: a space where people feel safe asking for help. Greate
Speaker 1: a space where people offer and enjoy and find, you know,
Speaker 1: find that joy.
Speaker 4: In serving others to offer that help.
Speaker 1: And what happens when we create a culture where that's
Speaker 1: real is people feel okay asking those questions, People feel
Speaker 1: okay to show up and give help to others.
Speaker 4: And in this line of work, it costs people literal lives.
Speaker 1: But in other lines of work, you know, it has
Speaker 1: all kinds of implications, whether it's from productivity to burn
Speaker 1: out to motivation and all the things in between. It
Speaker 1: absolutely pays to be kind.
Speaker 3: Oh, I love that. I love that you agree with
Speaker 3: the article.
Speaker 1: I would not disagree with that research. That's good research
Speaker 1: in my world.
Speaker 2: The other there, I'm not a social scientist, but I'm
Speaker 2: going to agree with that. Okay, So we do a
Speaker 2: little rapid fire at the close of every interview. What
Speaker 2: is one book that changed your life that you think
Speaker 2: everybody should read?
Speaker 4: On being Nice by the School.
Speaker 3: Of Life Wonderful.
Speaker 2: I do a pretty smart question, so I pick one
Speaker 2: of fifty two cards at random. You got what is
Speaker 2: your favorite smell?
Speaker 1: M When I walk into the kitchen when I'm visiting
Speaker 1: my mom in Maine, and I know that for a
Speaker 1: few hours beforehand, she started making my favorite meal, which
Speaker 1: is shrimp pasta. Started early in the morning and it'll
Speaker 1: simmer all day. And the anticipation of that meal at night.
Speaker 2: That sound you're making me hungry.
Speaker 4: I'm wungry myself. Now.
Speaker 3: What is the smartest decision you've ever made?
Speaker 4: Deciding not to do this work alone?
Speaker 3: H that's nice.
Speaker 2: I have to tell you, Houston, I threw a lot
Speaker 2: at you. I didn't give you an outline. You didn't
Speaker 2: know what I was going to ask you. You really
Speaker 2: had a lot of information to share. I'm so grateful
Speaker 2: that you shared it with me and for your time.
Speaker 3: All Right, today is a good day. To have a
Speaker 3: good day.
Speaker 2: I'll see you next week.
Speaker 1: Yeah,