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Hello and welcome to warrior divas real talk for real women. This is your host Angie Lehman ro and in the studio with me today I have Connie Wyatt Coleman. She is a dear friend of mine. She has a long lineage of, of expertise that she brings to the table but more importantly she is a woman that's after Christ's heart and ferociously runs after him every day of her life. So I cannot wait to see we we talked a little bit about how this show may go. And then we said, You know what, we just need to have one of our talks on the air. So that's what we're doing today. Welcome, Connie. Good to be here. Good to be here. Rules of Engagement. No throw punches today. No throw punches. But that's what we do when we get together, right? Yes. And you know what i have treasured it. Very few friends will take friendship and allow accountability with it. And we've had a long history of being able to love each other and hold each other accountable at the same time. We have and you know, it's one of those things that we have laughed together. We have cried together. We have been mad together. We have watched our children grow together. When we met I didn't have grandchildren and now I do. That is crazy. And they're big. They're six getting to see him too. Yeah, they're beautiful. So, you know it's it's crazy. All the all the things that have happened your girls have grown up gone through high school ones about to get married, you know and, and praise the Lord she has not been a bridezilla. Oh, goodness. That is a Praise the Lord. Yes, I will take it in this day and age with everything going on in the world to kind of put some things in perspective. Yeah, puts things in perspective for us. So I'm glad to hear all that's going good and all of our lives but you know, we also know that not everybody's doing good with things going on in their world. It doesn't have to do with if you're hearing this and listening to this in the middle of the Coronavirus thing. It doesn't even have to do with that. Some people just have a hard time getting by day by day. life on this earth is just hard, right? It just is. I I watched a video. Last night somebody had a lady and a pantry. She was singing the song Jolene. But instead of singing it, please don't take my man it says please come and take my man. And she says, and if you don't answer I'll have to call Irene. And so I know this affects people in a humorous way it affects people in an angry way and a pic affects people in a lonely way. And one of the things we like to do on warrior divas is just shine a light into that darkness in so you can see a way out and we were talking last night and one of our studies in john, where you know, that where there was a challenge to the to the apostles to be that light and to continue to live that light out. Not To expose, but that that fear and evil cannot reside in the light. And truth is the way truth is the light. And so, you know, I started thinking, what are some of the ways that I could poke and prod Connie to open up the truth of Christ to to the audience today, you know, because she didn't take a whole lot doesn't take a whole lot. If you get to follow her on Facebook, she shares some little morning devotionals on there quite often that are very good, packed, powerful, very easy to read. And that's not an easy task for someone who is as educated as she is to speak the commoners language that I can read and understand. I love it. All these people getting on and sharing their messages on Facebook and all that stuff in there using all these big words and I'm like, okay, I didn't know I was gonna have to break a dictionary and a thesaurus to figure out what this person saying, I just want it to be relevant. And that's something that Connie does. Every time she shares in this season, haven't you? There's been a lot of ugly and we'll address some of that later. But there's been such an influx of creativity and letting their light shine like you're throwing them out and, and even people that maybe didn't before coming on and just time and time again, using all different ways of creativity to make it through this season to encourage other people to love on others, with social distancing in place, but right, you know, just some real creative ways to intentionally reach out to each other. Well, you know, and it's the what it was at the Dallas orchestra performed yesterday. For the first time together since the beginning of March and they did it all from their own living rooms and did it online together. Yeah. Wonderful. What a wonderful way of you know, right now one of the things that this is teaching us is how to push through limitations. What a great thing. You're telling me I can't do this, but I'm gonna find a way to still be relevant in the world I live in. Yes. And what a great thing for all of us. Wow. Yes, personally and professionally. I know. My staff up CEO at wise choices Resource Center in pregnancy Resource Center indicator and just getting together with the staff on zoom and going okay. We know what the box is. We know what our limitations are. We know what we can do safely and what we can't within the guidelines and protocol, but Okay, now, step outside the box. How can we continue to reach our clients To reach our partners in ways we haven't thought of before, right? That would be sustainable, really, even after this season is over, because there's the good news this season will eventually be over. Well, and while we're recording this today in the studio, we're actually recording this on Good Friday. We are. And the reason I kind of wanted to do that is it's a part of the time that we're in our darkest hour where it's actually between the 12 and 3pm. Our time I know that's not the time it is and in Jerusalem, but our time, this would be the time that was the darkest of the dark days going into Easter weekend. It's Friday, it's Friday, but you know what Sunday's coming. And we have the benefit of hindsight to see that. Yeah. But you know what Jesus had the full sight to prepare his disciples before that, so that they wouldn't have to live in fear so they wouldn't have to. They could see hope at the end. You know, I think the thing that gets me is how quickly we judge them. Mm hmm. Because I he tried to tell you, he tried like multiple times, yeah. But then I look at myself, right? And how many times has he fully told me and we have full revelation of Scripture, right? How many times has he shown me the plan and that he will not leave us he will not forsake us. He, he is coming again. And he is victorious. And we have the whole counsel of Scripture and yet we still back up and fear and we still wonder and doubt in the middle of the season if if what he said is true, and if it will hold true. So it's Real easy to look at Peter and go walk. How could you deny him? Right? Well, Connie, how can you live in fear and deny the power he has in your life? Well, we were talking about we read the, the gospel of john, in our group Bible study yesterday. And one of the things that we read about was right after that were Peter, you know, had denied him three times. But when Jesus made it so important to go and see his apostles multiple times after he, after he had risen, and there's the one occasion where he's talking with Peter. And he's telling asking Peter over and over Do you love me? And Peter saying, yes. And do you love me? Yes. And do you love me? Yes. Excuse me. And I think the reason gee This is asking him that is to get Peter to say yes to Him. But also for Peter to hear Jesus say that I love you get it sunken into Peter said, Peter is kinda like my six year old grandson. You got to repeat it a few times for it to sink in. And sometimes you might have to inflect your voice a little more than you really need to you know, it's that Moonstruck snap out of it moment. Oh, God has to do that to me. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Walking through a situation just this last week. And just like, Lord, I could really use the cliff notes at this point. Right. Right. One other chapter just who, let's, let's get some cliff notes here. But well, one of the other things we talked about in our study this week in our warrior divas Facebook group and if you're not a part of it, you should be a part of it because we're starting to do more and more studying in there. And because We're on a mission to equip and empower. Not just our generation of women, but women that are coming back behind us, you know, we want it to be a legacy project. And so one of the things we were discussing this week in there was how the Roman soldiers and pilot inherit, they had no clue as to what the scripture said. So when those Roman soldiers are at the feet of Jesus about this time of the day, and they're casting lots for his garment, they had no idea they were fulfilling prophecy. Yeah. The one that pure steam on the side and didn't break his legs. They had no idea they were fulfilling prophecy. And yet he realized who it was right? No, I I'm like you we kind of talked about this weekend and I can't believe you know, we're sitting here right now and Think about all the things that happened on that Friday and just like today, things you never dreamed, you would see happen, right? The Son of God hung on across Really? His disciples did not deny him. I mean, Christian people would rather loose Brabus than Jesus. I mean, who are we right? But then I start thinking about Saturday. And when the sun goes down, it's it's the Sabbath, right? And somehow in the middle of the chaos, and the trauma, they go back home, and even though they don't get it, they don't understand it in the middle of the doubt. When the hope of their expectation is in the tomb, they walk by faith And they cry out to the Lord on the Sabbath. And that, that Saturday to me has always been. I mean, you know how it is when you come through a trauma and and you get back to your house and you kind of sit down and you kind of start feeling yourself and see if you have, you know, do I have flesh wounds? Did I really survive this day? Did that really happen? And then Saturday, what, what do I even do with this? What do I even really still believe? Where is my heart Really? And in that quiet Saturday, they still observe the Sabbath. Right? They still honored what the what he had been setting in motion for years. And I think, I think right now is the time to do that. You know, I think some of the trauma of this COVID thing may be kind of adjusting and now we're moving into Okay, I've survived the first part, I'm not mortally wounded. I'm not bleeding anywhere. What do I do with today? Right? And that's when we come back and we draw on everything that the Lord has sewn into us. Yesterday, the day before, the in his previous sness He called us to a season of prayer or diving into the word and if we will, but sit still in his presence. He will draw those things out and you said give us the hope. That Sunday's common Sunday is going to get here he is going to fulfill His promises. He is going to draw us out of this. But I just feel like truly rotten, right in this season. That man this a Saturday season it feels like well, you know, I think there's some some big truth to the fact of the numbness that you just brought up. You know, when all this first started happening, I know I talk to a lot of people there. They're like, I've just slept a lot and watched a lot of Netflix I'm basically Netflix didn't chilled, which I know that there's another slang for that at times but, you know, sleeping and watching TV sleeping and watching TV, it was a it was a numbness it was this shell shock. It was a What do I do now there were some people that haven't slowed down our grocery workers, our truckers, our doctors and nurses. Those people haven't slowed down, our food processing plants, farmers, they all are still showing up every day. And so, for me, my husband and I own a plumbing company and our plumbing company. While our residential calls haven't been as much. Our commercial calls are still happening because we serve a lot of restaurants, hospitals, food processing plants, right. So for us life hasn't shifted as much as it has for others. I'm still doing coaching as a matter of fact, I've had people come and hire me since this happened because now they're shifting to add online to their already brick and mortar business or whatever it is. So I'm helping them through that transition along that ways. So that I still had a day or two where I was like, Whoa, what is this gonna do? And then my sleep schedule got off and all sorts of things. And like the apostles, I had to go, Okay, it's time to get up. Yeah, yeah, you know, I'm kind of like here. When this first started, God called me to go to the square there and indicator in our small town at seven o'clock every morning, and just pray around the square. And it was, I thought, just gonna be one day. And then when we when we were there that day is like, no, this is every day until this is done. And I was like, oh, Because I don't leave the house at 645 in the morning on a normal day. So, um yeah. So it's it's kind of been that kind of thing that God did that made me stay on a schedule. So I do that and then I go to the office and I'm only one there but you know, Hey, get the work done that needs to be done and then I'm home by two or three my husband's already retired so we were kind of already that's a new normal so getting used to him being retired and home. And so yeah, it hasn't changed as much as a lot of people's lives have. Man You're right. There's there's some people really adjusting and another thing we've talked about is just the grace that you know, your two days kind of came in the beginning. Someone else's reality hit or just I don't know what you even call those two days, right? crash or shut down or process level we're hitting over the last couple of days as layoffs are starting to happen. Yes. And there will be some like my personality is kind of the kind that just gets through it and doesn't really even see things. I'm a trauma triage person. Yeah, and I'm in it and then once we get done, and it's over and everybody else is all excited about going to work then then mine will come right but as sisters we have to be able to embrace each other and and recognize that we do process all that different. And not only that, but whether one sister isn't as concerned as someone else or as sheltered in place. I guess that's shelter in place is the is more out and about or another one is more cautious. There's grace for both right? And instead of bashing each other man, we can do better. We can support each other, encourage each other and walk through different seasons in different times, right? And hopefully we're we do that better than I'm seeing some. You know, like I said earlier in a lot of ways you see a lot of amazing creativity and intentionality coming out and then sometimes, wow, you know, fear can either mask itself as overly confident or as under confident, and just what we're typically used to seeing fear look at look like and even in either one, we have to have grace to come alongside and encourage meet them where they are, right. That's what Jesus did for us. That's what he did for Peter. What you were just talking about. He met Peter right? Worry was right. The typically boisterous Peter now became the overly cautious Peter, right. And Jesus every time put that and just think I didn't even think about that that's just a number of hours between him being overly confident and slicing the soldier's ear off right. And a few hours later, he's the other way and denying haven nosing. Right? Wow, I had never even really write that. But just a number of very brief hours, that Peter goes through all of that, and yet the Lord had grace, calling back to truth, but had grace and love and mercy for both extremes. Well, you know, we were talking in our study this week about the Pharisees and the Sadducees how they, how they were manipulating pilots so much, you know, and pilot saw it. He he recognized it And as we read through each of the Gospels we read, you know, Matthew one day mark one day, Luke one day, john one day, and we've got some other verses about the resurrection and, and all that stuff coming up that we're gonna discuss later on today. And the when we're discussing that I said, you know, the Pharisees and the Sadducees were going to pilot going, you know, he's he's stirring things up and they were pointing at Jesus now all I can think of is, when you point at somebody, you got three fingers pointing back at you, right? So they're pointing at Jesus saying he stirring them up. But in reality, he was stirring their hearts and getting them to see something beyond what the Pharisees and Sadducees were teaching them. That's when they get in trouble. And therefore, oh, come out. They were like our sheep bowls. are not staying in line. Like, we love them to stay in line and they're starting to want to look behind the curtain as they say in the laws, you know. And, you know, I love the part where we read last night, that pilot when he put the plaque over Jesus's head that said, the King of Kings King of the Jews, you know, and they're like, no, it needs to say he claimed to be they were trying to spin it. I said, they're like the media today, you know, they're always trying to spin it to put the right words to get the biggest attention to get this to get the things approved. You know, and, and I'm not out here call on fake media. I'm not doing all that stuff because I have some very good friends that are part of the media that do their due diligence. So you know, I'm not going there. I'm not getting on that bandwagon. But on the other side of and with me being in radio media and podcasting, now I am the media. So, but on the other side of it It is, we need to be cautious of the people around us that are stirring things and pointing to others deflecting to others. We need to have the mindset to look exactly at what is the truth. And the difficult thing right now is in so many ways, no one knows no one knows right? The truth really is except you can always know the truth of Scripture, right and always know the truth for the direction of your life for how to treat others are how to walk through problems, even if you don't know the truth of whatever problem it is you're facing or whatever the disaster for lack of better word, right is. Because anytime you're walking through one you don't know the truth of it until you get all the way through it and see but this is is I mean, this is one that has shaken the world. Yes, rightly or wrongly, and I shake in the world. And I don't think we've seen half. And I don't say that, like pessimistically, I don't think the curtains have been pulled back to see the spiritual ramifications of this as much as anything else. Well, I think we talked a little bit too. And the reason I brought up the Pharisees and the Sadducees, we talked a little bit before we came on the air about we need to be very careful about having a religious spirit during this time. I was in a group the other day and somebody was like, Hey, we're gonna do a call Friday at four, something like that. And somebody on the west coast is like, Well, you know, I'm observing that I'm reading my Bible, because it's Good Friday and the guy goes, well, what's good Friday, you know, and somebody said, Well, for those that are religious, it's a sacred holiday. And let me just tell you, all right, for those of you that don't know me, Well, I have a sassy side. Why are you laughing? Connie? We did I learned it from Connie. No. I did. Well, you asked my husband, he would say you learn from the best, but we didn't mention no throat punches, right. I think that might have given a clue. Right? Right. So, but in that group, when the person said, for religious people, in my right part of my mind, I knew she meant no offense to it. But in my sassy part of my mind, I wanted to say, Well, I'm not religious, but as a Christian, I observe. Yeah. Because to me, there's a difference. There is a difference in being a Christ follower, and full of grace, because what we talk about About earlier with Jesus talking to Peter, he was talking to Peter after Peter had denied him three times. And he was asking Peter, do you love me? And he asked him three times do you love me? Helping Peter rehabilitate his own heart and his own guilt over the denial of Christ. He was having that intimate moment with you. You know how we, we do. We talked about my six six year old grandson, though that you grab them by the face, you put hands on either side of their face to where their cheeks are just squished up just right. And you go Do you understand me? And that I can envision in verbal picture. That's what Jesus was doing with Peter. You know, yes, you've made mistakes. Yes, you are a zealous person. But I want you to be zealous for my people. Yes, big difference. Big difference bead my sheep tend to my sheep. Love My sheep, and being religious about whether or not they're going to church and trusting God for a miracle to heal them and keep them safe and all this. Oh, it's exhausting being self righteous. And you know what's funny is we can all go there so fast because I mean, let's admit it black and white is way easier. You know? It's just easier. It is. And the Sagittarius and Pharisees were very black and white, very legalistic by had it down to a science. But Wow, how they could get it wrong. Right. They could get it wrong. And that just to me, just goes to prove how easy it is to get off track. They knew the word, right. If anybody knew the word they knew the word right? didn't have the spirit. They had the religion in the relationship. And here's the thing that really, really gets me. They knew the word they knew the prophecy. And watching those soldiers go, were to the to on either side of Jesus and breaking their legs, but not breaking Jesus's leg and piercing him in the side instead. You wonder if they're looking at that going, whoa. I think they looked at it and said, Let's fix the mess up our deal. Right? Because at the same about the same time, they're casting the lats. Yeah. to both of those were fulfillment of prophecies by people that were not prophetic people to fill. We're not people of studying of the word, you know. And one of the things I talked early on in the week about was Judas You know, we call him Judas, the trader, but he was the first domino to fall in setting the prophecy emotion. Yeah. Yes, Jesus knew it was all coming. But for it to happen those 30 pieces of silver had to be exchanged. Okay, we don't like to think of a life that includes being broken better and betrayed. Well, that works. Um, yeah, it's a betrayal. Right? You know, and and we get all bent out of shape when it happens to us and prayerfully we're not doing it to others. But yeah, we've got a live on a really, really tough planet to try to walk out and While he promised us he would lead the way and he would never forsake us, he did not promise us that it was going to be a simple walk, or a simple journey and to think that a betrayal was what kicked off. The prophecies is just kind of telling. Well, you know, a friend of mine shared something last night we talked about the, the being laid off of work. You know, there's I've had several friends over the last few days have posted that they've been laid off work and some of them are taking it very well. You know, God's got something better, but some of them are feeling like a betrayal of their employer or the government or even if they work for a friend of theirs, the friend you know, but one of the things that she was a friend of mine Catherine Clift shared was she remembers her husband when he used to do his daily live worship podcasting said that God doesn't demote he promotes and God is always faithful and I was like, What a great reminder to all of us, no matter what we're facing, some of us may be still stuck on Friday still, and and you know, now dealing with the numbness of Saturday, but Sunday is still coming. And, you know, I, one of the things I loved yesterday and reading from john, you know, I, I found something new I liked from each of the Gospels. You know, Luke really was great as well. But john, when he he, we call him the narcissist of the Gospels. Jesus loves the one who Jesus loves, but there's a reason I mean, one of the things that That I found yesterday in the scripture that not really picked up on it said, Well, let me find it. I've got it right here. And I say I've got it right here. And Jesus was looking down is is near the cross of Jesus did his mother, his mother sister marry the wife of colobus cloak, ah, whatever. Sounds good to me, and Mary Magdalene, when Jesus saw his mother there and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her woman, here is your son, into the disciple, here's your mother. From that time on, the disciple took her into his home. Why would why wouldn't john, thank you as the favorite. Jesus just gave him the blessing of his mother and gave john the honor of stewarding Her to the end of her days. Yeah, I would. I would think I was the favorite too, wouldn't you? Well? Yeah. But also, that comes with a price. It does. He was the only disciples still standing around the cross watching all this happened. Right and he loved, right. So, again. Yeah, I mean, look, I'm I'm Jesus's favorite. He loves me best. Right. Will I follow him? Right? On Friday? Well, john 30 right in john finished strong. Yeah, Jesus, and even better question. Survive Friday. Love Saturday. Rejoice on Sunday. What are we going to do with Monday and Tuesday, right. I mean, really, you get through the battle, you survive it. You rejoice and you see the victories and you See what the Lord has done for you? And then what are you going to do go back to how you were living on Wednesday and Thursday? I mean, what are we going to do with it come Monday and Tuesday Are we going to forget about it and just awake earlier, they thought they were at the top of the world. And now their world is totally shattered at their feet. And so good question to all of us. So we've had Coronavirus still do. And I'm not at all downplaying the suffering, whether it's health wise, financially, emotionally, that people are going through, but we will survive it. Right. What are we going to do with it? What are we going to do on Monday, that carries the victory that Jesus paid the price for and that we're going to celebrate on Sunday. What are we going to do on the Monday after Coronavirus? Right, where will our loyalty and our and our walk and our faithfulness be man? Well, and to be quite honest, if you look at the beginning of the 1900s, we had World War One, we had the Spanish flu. We had the Great Depression. We had World War Two, all before 1950. Right? That's a lot to pack into a 50 year period. That's a lot. And so we as Americans, you know, even though we're hurting other countries as well, we as Americans, are countries country has seen difficult times. We have come through difficult times. That's the time known as the greatest generation, right? can't even believe what if now is the beginning of the next greatest generation. It can be they can boo but the choice is ours. What Do we want it to be? One of the things that we talked about? In? I think it was Matthew that just struck me so solidly is when the Jews were saying crucified, Jesus crucified Jesus, and parshas pilot was wanting to wash his hands of it. They were like, his blood is on our hands in the hands of our children. You know, it's, it's apparent the things we do today are the things that our children dream, reap the benefits or the consequences of its Yes, it's just a known fact. So what is it that we what is the legacy we want to live now is blessed the other day to be able to record a message for a conference Coming up for heartbeat international and just a little seven minute kind of like a TED TED Talk. And the topics had been picked way back. I don't know last September, probably. And it's it's so funny how God worked it out because I had submitted a topic for a workshop, but they had asked me to do this talk on a different topic. And they got crossed. And so what they actually did was put in the, all the paper, all the promotional stuff that I was doing my seven minute TED Talk. And it was a different title. And, you know, in my fleshly, I was like, Well, I can make this work. I can make that title work with the message I already know I'm doing. Well, the title of the message was living out a god sized dream and I kept trying to make At work with a message on, I'm just gonna be brutally honest on walking in your authority. Right? Well, you can make the to kind of coincide except when the Lord wants a fresh word, right? And yeah, that you want the cliff notes and he doesn't do that. And so you know, you you kind of go through it. I'm like, Lord, in the middle of everything that's going on. You really want me to speak about living out a god sized dream? Really? Um, I don't really want to be virtual so they can't throw anything at me. So this is a good this is a good thing, right? Um, but he just he took me totally off where we are but took me to Solomon. Hmm. And just you know that he asked for understanding and discernment and judgment and God wrapped it up in a nice sized bow and call it wisdom hmm and said for that I will give you Also wealth and honor. And I kept studying that message him guys don't get it. I mean, a Who am I to ask for a god sized dream in the middle of all this and be? I don't even know what to ask for if I did, right. And I got to I think it's First Kings chapter three got to verse 15. And it says, then Solomon awoke. And I was like, whoa, wait a minute. You go back to verse five, and it says Solomon was in given which is a place he shouldn't have been in darkness at night, which is kind of where a lot of people feel we are right now. Right. And God came to him in a dream. Hmm. So all the things that that we remember that Solomon recounted his lineage of from David and from God's promises and everything that's been sewn into him. We aren't smart enough, right? We aren't good enough. And if we really do want to live out a god sized dream, it really can start now. Right? And it's just having the conversation with God to know what his size dream is yes, because we can't. It's not about us dreaming and dreaming a dream and saying, hey, God, will you please bless this? It's about us. Coming awake, and letting him teach us what he's already sewn into us. You know, whether it's our setup, or our hang ups or whatever it is, he's already sewn it into us. And when God speaks things into us, he sometimes speaks things into us, that you may not even know is a possibility. Yeah, just because in I was thinking about Noah. Yeah, Noah builds an ark, because it's gonna be flooded. And it's never rained on the planet Earth up into that point. I mean, no wonder people were calling him weird and crazy and all sorts of things. But it rain had never fallen on the earth before. And he's building this thing that's supposed to flow. It's supposed to do all this stuff. So God will call you to do things that other people may look at and go, why are you doing that? That's crazy. And chances are if it's a god sized dream, they're going to do that because I find it's a fusions three, three this month 20 says now to him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we can ask. think or imagine Yeah, I can dream up a lot of really cool stuff. But God can do beyond write any of that according to the power that works within us all about His power, His Spirit working through US and US following where he leads in this season, in good season, in difficult season, right. And I guess there's a question for us. It's Friday, Sunday's coming, right. We're kind of on Saturday where it's kind of a still in between. What are we going to do with that time? If we really are supposed to shelter in place and a lot of us are home more and have more time on our hands? What are we doing? I mean, now's when you want to start a god sized dream. Well, you know heard a new partner. I heard a new episode of Tiger kings coming out on Easter Sunday I'm joking. I there is one coming out on Sunday but that's not an endorsement of any twitch that's not an endorsement by any means. I'm just saying you know how many people are more excited about that than the fact that the tomb is empty on Sunday night? Spoiler Yeah, I'm just spoiled it. I've read the book. I've read the ending. Truly, you know if we have a little extra time and you know, I know a lot of your listeners are, love the Lord and are living some amazing, amazing lives and dreams and ways of tuned on enough to to see the different ways they help. their communities and each other. And I mean, just some amazing women on here, just say, what are we doing with this time? What if we really did, let's just call it Saturday. And we spent the season of Saturday letting him awaken us to what he wants to do next. You know, I'm gonna throw my husband under the bus for a minute, just because he's not in here and I can do that. But early on in our marriage, you know, we would say some things like a lot of married couples do. We may say some things that maybe some of us that have been married a while do too, but the ratio Yeah, that's a whole different topic. We need a different expert that we say stuff to each other that we say in the heat of the moment that we wish we could have taken back, because it does cause hurt. It does cause pain. It does cause strife. But there was this phrase that my husband said to me one time early on in our marriage, we're having marital difficulties. And he said, I love you. But I'm not sure I'm in love with you. And that was rough. Don't get me wrong. We've gone to counseling. We've been married 27 years now almost 28 years now. We got over it. He and he is still alive. It's I'm still married to the same husband. You know, but the other part of it was me asking myself on a regular basis. Do I love the Lord or am I in love with the Lord? Because when you love somebody, you're like, Hi, bye. I love you. I mean, I've told the cashier Love you. Bye bye. But when you're in love with somebody, you want to spend time with them. You want to know what makes them happy. You want to do things for them that make them happy. You want to find a way for y'all to live your lives completely together. And that's a huge difference. And where I took offense to Mike saying that to me so many years ago, I'm thankful now that he said that to me, because I've had to dig deep and I've had to ask myself that question, as am I living my life as if I'm in love with Christ? Or am I living it as if I'ma Love you, bye. Oh, sorry, I thought we weren't gonna do any throw punches today. Huge, huge difference, you know, yeah, it's it's a difference in looking for his hand and looking at us face. Just that simple. You sit down to study your word to see what he can do for you. Or you sit down to study His Word to hear his heart, right? And see him face to face it it'll change your life forever. Well, there's there's been times the more and more I get into the word, you know, used to I'd read the word, and I'd write my little journal and put it have a whole lot of my thoughts in that journal. And I was super smart. Yeah, I was good at what I was doing right. But then, the other part of it is what I started realizing was when I was starting to write things in my journal questioning things. Normally it was questioning motives of my heart. It was questioning how willing I was to walk with God how big I was. Willing to dream with him? How if I could discipline myself in this area? Whoo, I hate that word. Discipline myself in this area that he would open up this area for me. You know, and the more disciplined I became, the more the doors were opening. And I'm not talking about religion and law. I'm talking about being disciplined to be more in tune with him in his calling. walking the street in the neighborhood, not as a hooker. Okay, walking the street in my neighborhood. She had died laughing at me right now. Hey, Jesus, loved tokers. Anyway. Oh, yeah, that walk in my neighborhood Street. Even if we're not able to be within the six feet with each other I can still share a smile. I can still share a Hello. I can touch bases with people in my in our Facebook group the other day. We have a neighborhood Facebook group, right? And here's my thing. There is a church song we used to sing. Back in the olden days they don't sing it so much because we think so much contemporary now, you know, in my church, but back I don't even think I've ever sung this in the church I go to now Whoo, that was a rabbit trail anyway. The song you they will know we are Christians by our love. Yep. All right. Well, if you're having intelligence, not by your intelligence, not by me telling you I'm a Christian. Because if you're having to tell me, then I probably wouldn't have never known it from your actions. Not by all the oh they won't know it by all The things we don't do, right? The somebody in our Facebook group post the other day was in our Facebook group for our neighborhood was posting about their next door neighbor. Right? Not one of the neighbors in the almost 300 homes in our neighborhood. Their next door neighbor was mad because their next door neighbor had called city out on them because their trash cans had been in front of their yard and was mad that they had called the police instead of coming over and having the decency to knock on their door and have the conversation and all this stuff on Facebook. So they put it on Facebook and then said in there several times and I'm a Christian and data and all this stuff. I'm like you're making it worse. No, you're a religious person. Please don't. Please, please don't tell anyone that you're a Christian. Just please don't. And then the other part is is we wanted to tell them to will. Couldn't you have gone next door and had the conference They're Christian. They're Christian they they everybody should cater to them. You know, my favorite along those lines, if you talk to any waitress, oh, you're about to push a button here. The the time they hate to wait on tables the most is when the rude people come in after church on Sunday because they're very rude. They're very demanding and they do not tip. No, they leave little pamphlets and little business cards with Jesus loves you on it and they don't tip their server. They're also probably the ones that don't tie the well at church either. I'm just I'm not judging. I'm not judging. I'm just putting it out there. We can do better. We can do better. Because here's the thing. Once the Sunday came, you know, I love it. I keep going back to john because not because it's the freshest But because he was just more in tune with the behind the scenes the things that most people don't talk about his favorite well I relate to him really well because I'm everybody's favorite but but john whenever he runs the team he stops and looks in but in true Peter fashion john notes that Peter grunts straight in all right. So Peters in there John's in there they go back. Mary's telling the other disciples all this stuff by now she seen Jesus she's had a conversation. But you know when she went and talked to Peter and john, she was trembling. She was wondering she was she was upset. It didn't really say she was fearful, but she was upset. But by the time she broke the news to the rest of the disciples, she was elated. She had seen Jesus. I mean, look When you are in a terrifying situation and even now if it's in your spirit, hers was audibly. You hear the Savior call out your name didn't get any better. It calms you instantly. It fires you up instantly. it verifies everything you've ever thought he sewn into you before told you before. And that's all it took was for the man she was in love with the teacher, the Savior she was in love with not just love distance, distant link to just in the craziness of the moment. Call out Mary. Well, I think I think it for me, you know, people like oh, you just like that it was a woman and you're into women empowerment and all that stuff. I said, There is so much more to this than that. I said, here's the thing. Mary had seven demons cast out of her. She had already seen what she thought was impossible become possible. Yes. Who better for Jesus to show himself to somebody who was already primed and ready to see what they believed was once impossible. I mean, how cool is that? I love it. You know, I feel like I'm that person. My husband thinks I'm that person. Which demon am I talking the hangry one. derailed that has lived less than a chosen daughter of the king. has heard his voice call me to himself and has forgiven and redeemed and restored and allowed my place of deepest wounding to become his place to show off what he can do, right? I totally identify with what you just said. Well, we have to take a quick break because you know, they like for the commercials to run here to pay for our radio time slot and all of that. So we're gonna take a quick break and when we come back, we're gonna dive into what happened from Sunday and beyond. Hey, this is Angie Monroe of the warrior Davis show broadcasting live each Tuesday 11am Central from globe life park in Arlington, Texas, login to hear real talk with real women that will empower and equip you to make a more powerful impact in the world each Tuesday 11am Central unfishable Radio Network joke Hey, this is Angie Lehman row of a leading moment show broadcasting live each Thursday 10am Central from the globe life park in Arlington, Texas login to hear amazing people share their stories of resiliency in business and life here how their leading moment can inspire your leading moment login each Thursday 10am Central on fishbowl radio network. All right, and we are back with Connie Wyatt Coleman. And we are having some great conversation. We've talked a little bit about Friday and Saturday and leading up to that, and we've talked a little bit about Sunday. But you know, one of the things that as we were talking about Jesus appearing to marry and then to his decision dipoles a lot of times it would have made more sense if you look at it if he would have gone from today's standard of people gone back and shown himself to the Pharisees the Pharisees the pilot and gone okay keep me coming I don't know we're coming out Oh, we have jumped the shark now. But you know he in my mind that's who I would have shown myself to you thought you could keep me down boom. And a lot of tastes today we see that people in today's society. I was down this is my comeback. I'm you know, you know someone's So said this about me and I defeated that and I have made myself this because of that you had made yourself squat. No self made nothing. I'm a self made man say, I make those all the time. There's a doctor of theology. That friend of mine that had a post up yesterday, and he says, Some of y'all aren't gonna like this. It's Dr. Mike Brown. And I really don't care. He says before I say what needs to be said I acknowledge the sacrifice and work of American people attempting to do all we can do to mitigate the virus. There has been cooperation, sacrifice, adaptation and behavior monitoring. Which are commendable and noteworthy and exemplary. I love my country and its people. Having acknowledged all that, well, here we go again, claiming all our hard work and sacrifices beginning to turn this virus around. just heard on TV how impressive we have been in lowing the projective death tolls. Meanwhile, men and women of God who are battling in the spirit against this calling millions to prayer and sounding trumpet for repentance, a return to the Lord and a humble petition for his deliverance are mocked and castigated. See I can learn big words and lampooned as antiquated, flat earth fools, believers who are praying, fasting and calling out to God or patted on the head like little ignorant trolls that must be tolerated until their kind will eventually be absorbed by the globalist monolith with all of this sublime And superior wisdom say that he's one of my people that writes some big words that I have a hard time with. And so, you know, he's, he says, quit claiming God's glory for ourselves less through our arrogance, we inform him we can handle these problems on our own. Romans 121 through 22, because that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God. Neither were thankful but became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened. professing themselves to be wise they became fools. God forgive us remember us in Deliver us. You are refuge in our strong tower forever and ever. Wow. So my, I thought that was I thought that was a good deep word for us. To sit with because, you know, even the disciples could have gone. Have you seen my Jesus? Looky there, he did this and then he was boom, then he was back as well and leave it to Peter he kind of did. Right. Not in those terms, not in his own strength, right. But after Jesus was on earth and after he showed himself to the people and after he transcended that's when that's when Peter walked in and the power and an anointing fell. And I mean, yeah, he was. He might not have done it with the mic drop. Right. But I mean, he did he was like, just an airdrop. Yeah. Jesus Whoo, y'all killed. This is the Jesus who offers you salvation. Right? This is the Jesus who offers you eternal life. And Spirit had opened up and people could hear truth and understand truth and the huge movement of people coming to understand who Jesus was, and what he was here to do. Just exploded. Well, you know, so what are we going to do after Sunday? Well, first off, we we need to not be like Thomas. Poor Thomas. You know, he was the one that because he hadn't been there and seen Jesus when everybody else did. He he had to touching him and poke his hand into his side and all that stuff. Believe. It doesn't say any of the other disciples did that. So Thomas was a bit morbid we know that. But when when we did this, you know, I love that Jesus without saying he was omnipresent, showed he was omnipresent in this because if Jesus had come back and said, john called me and told me that you were doubting me and who I am, then Jesus would have said it there because john would have written it down. But Jesus didn't say that. Jesus came in and said, Peace be with you then said to Thomas, Put your finger here. He was laying Thomas that he already knew what Thomas needed to believe. We did. He didn't have to articulate that to Jesus. Jesus already knew. And guess what? He knows what each one of us need. Well, okay, so we're going to talk about Christian versus religious again. If I put out on Facebook or in a group that I have an unspoken prayer requests then if somebody it then I somebody comes to me and tells me that they can't pray for me because they don't know what what I need prayer for because it's unspoken. Why are you trying not to lab that that that they need to know what I need prayer for so they can specifically proof to God for me. She's got this look on her face to people like she's trying to choke back. Tears of laughter I'm waiting for how you responded. I'm sure I'm sure that wasn't one of those that I held back on the keyboard once. But basically, somebody had shared in one of our groups that someone so needed prayer, no, I shared that someone so needed prayer, please pray for her. And they came back and, and it was like three comments of you need to tell us what's wrong so we can pray the right way and ask the Holy Spirit to intervene, intervene the right way, and dah, dah, dah. It was just like boom, boom, boom, boom. And mine was very short and to the point, when more through better, we can do better. She keeps a weekend. I mean, let's be honest, spiritual abuse takes all forms. It can be sassy or ferrocene. smacking somebody over the head with a Bible verse instead of meeting them where they are, and loving them and loving them to a new level. And ladies, let's just say it, it can be women who mask prayer, as gossip beauty shop for your circles. Yeah. God does not need you to know the details in order to sit down and say, Dear Heavenly Father, Jesus help my friend. They need you. They're crying out to you, you know what they need? And I know you're able. Right? Amen. Right. I don't need another detail. There is nothing about my prayers that can really do it. It's just us petitioning together. Let's take it a step further. So obedience, if you need to know the details, the Holy Spirit is able to quicken your heart on what to pray for, right? You don't have to, you just don't have to write I can't tell you how many times that I have heard prayer meetings, turned into gossip sessions because we cannot just simply say hey, so and so nice. Prayer. In order for people to really truly pray fervently, we think they need to know the detail that you know, because her husband this and her daughter that and her son did the other end, right. That's a failure on Christians, brothers and sisters, to take prayer requests to the Lord seriously. And it's a failure on our part to abuse each other. With gossip when there's no need for it if we're truly relying on the spirit to pray. Sorry, you just hit a nerve. I cannot stand it. Well, you know, last year it's interesting. We're coming up on a year since my friend Kim passed away, and on the wee morning hours of a April 18. I woke up in the middle of the night, my husband and son were up in Arkansas with my parents and woke up in the wee mornings of the night and I wrote a letter to her in in Facebook Messenger, just letting her know how much I loved her how much I cared for how much you know, I didn't. I didn't know where she was in her medical crisis at that time to if she was even reading things or not. And I went back to sleep. After I wrote that letter. It took me a while to go back to sleep, but I basically cried myself to sleep that night after writing that letter. And I woke up the next morning, and there was a post on her page. That said, Please pray for my family. I had not verbally talked with my friend in weeks But I knew that day from that post on her and what God had started my spirit overnight that my friend was soon to answer death's door. I knew it. I didn't have to have her pick up the phone and call me. I didn't have to have her daughter pick up the phone and call me. I didn't have to get a text. I didn't have to get a detail about how the body had ravaged her system. The chemo had ravaged her system so much and done it. I didn't mean any of that. You didn't have to comment on the Facebook post inside tell us what's going on? No, no, no, you know, I didn't have to do that either. All I had to do basically about the time I saw that post, my husband called from Arkansas to tell me that we had lost another loved one in Ohio. That was our third death then since January and on his side of the family. He's trying to talk to me. As he's talking to me, he can notice that my voice ain't right. And I could just go, I said, I have this sense that Kim is dying. And he's like, Well, what do you know? I'm like, that she's dying. And he goes out of you know, that. I'm like, it's just a sense, you know? And it was just and she was the one that pushed me and challenged me and never wanted me to hang back to what she was called to, but she wanted to be involved into what we were doing. Yes. Right. And so, being in tune with her brought me in tune with God. being in tune with God brought me in tune with her. Last week. God I post, from a cousin in Georgia saw posts from a cousin in Georgia. Just saw one of the kids posted, please pray for my family. Instantly I knew what had happened. Before my husband even got confirmation of what had happened. I instantly knew because I'm connected with that mom. And we have shared our hearts with each other. And were to share each other's hearts. The Holy Spirit intervenes to communicate in ways between us that when we don't have the strength or the energy to pick up the phone and make the call, the Holy Spirit can say, hey, you need to text them. You need to call them you need to check on them. When you find that true, yeah. Some of us are better at doing it. I mean, I just yesterday I mean, I considering my older brother, right? And he posts to Facebook almost every morning. And I saw it yesterday morning. He had posted it Wednesday. But I just saw it. And I mean in the first three or four words, I could hear in his voice that something wasn't right. Right. And he was he was absolutely transparent on the post just that it had been a rough day and he's, you know, walking through this and a pastor friend had passed away, but there was just something deeper, it felt like, again, to your point, I know his heart, right. And so I just text shot him a text real quick. And I'm like, Look, I know, I know you're trying to navigate all of this and blah, blah, blah, and just know in this moment, right now. I'm praying strength for you. And I almost he texted me back He said, You know, when I posted that yesterday I had this, just this feeling just this over, was overcome with it. He's a little did I know, by 10 o'clock last night, or the night that he posted that deal, but 10 o'clock that mind. His father passed away. Oh my goodness, he got the call. He was able to get there and he had about an hour with his father. But that he didn't he didn't have to ask outside of that post. Say Anything else was going on? I had no clue his dad had been sick again. Right. But I just knew after hearing his voice that he needed encouragement Hmm, I had no clue anything else that had transpired. Didn't need to know right. The need to know just needed to know that I was reaching out for him. So can do what do we do after Sunday? Yeah. We live life with people. And when God put somebody on your heart, follow up with it, right or no follow up. I, I can't tell you personally, how many times you know, I've told you 100 times I thought before I took this job that I knew what spiritual warfare was, I thought I was prepared. I had no No, no, no clue, no clue. And there have been many times, just online that it's not something that people ask for prayer for necessarily, it's not something that you would ever put on Facebook, but just the, the battles that come and God has quickened to other people's spirits, right to to call or just to send it, send a text or, hey, you want to go have coffee, you know, just any little thing but somewhere along the way, the Holy Spirit put me on other people's hearts. When I needed it, and they didn't need details, probably didn't even share details when we went to coffee. Right? Not with a lot of them. But some of them just Hey, you just crossed my mind. I want you to know, you know, I love you keep going strong. Well, and, and here's the other thing that you have to realize even Jesus had tears to His disciples. He took his disciples within places. He taught lessons that they were all able to hear and do. But even when he went to have certain moments with disciples, there are some that were closer to him than others, that he confided in more so than others. And that's okay, too. Yeah. You don't have to tell everybody everything that's going on. You know, you shouldn't and Connie's one of those people that knows a lot of what goes on with If she doesn't know it right away, she'll know it at some point when we have a discussion. And, and I'm hoping that I always hope that I'm that friend to my friends whenever I'm doing that as well, that they feel that they can speak and open their hearts to me and tell me anything. And it will not shock me it will not hurt me it will not push me away. And that I will not think that they are less than a Christian. I will just love them as Christ loved them. You know, and, and we need to be that friend to others. I know. One of the ways the Lord has done that, for me is just for several. I don't even remember when he really put it on my heart but somebody was going through a trial and you know, just letting them know I'm there letting them know I'm there. I don't you know what, I'm available to you whenever you need me. You don't have to tell me a thing. You don't have to tell me what's going on. just text me the word Jesus, and I will know immediately, right? That you need prayer that you need me to intercede in your behalf and you need me to stand in the gap or stand strong with you. Hmm. And that's all I need to know. That's it text me the name Jesus. Right. And I have some friends that that take me up on. Right. And I'm thankful because I have friends that man, I can just sit and pray, please pray. And that's where the power is. Because, look, here's the truth when when we're in the middle of a battle, right? We may think we know what our prayer need is. Chances are just like right now, we don't know truth. We don't know truth of situation that we're in right now. And when we're in the middle of a battle, a lot of times we can see pieces and parts but we can't pull ourselves out. Have it far enough to see the big picture, right? And if I'm telling someone what to pray, instead of allowing the Holy Spirit to tell them what to pray, hmm, if they're praying for what I want them to pray for, that may or may not be what I need, it may or may not be what the Lord has for me. So if I truly want people to pray where the need is, I'll leave that up to the Holy Spirit as much as possible. You know, as you're talking about that, I started thinking about the movie, tornado, you know, cuz, and there's a reason for it when you're in the middle of the tornado. When they were they were driving into the storm to get the data from the storm twister. twister. That's what's called twister. Yeah, Helen Hunt. Yeah, she dropped, they dropped their driving in there to get all that data out of it. But to drive in there, they had to have the other one stay back to be able to tell where the tornado was going and where Their exit route was too close because they were too close and, and you know, even being in the truck, she's like cow, another cow. He says, I think that's the same cow. Because at that point, they just didn't know what direction was the right direction out and, and there's been times where I've been in the thick of it and I'm like, I don't even know how to pray for me, right? I just don't even know what I need right now. Sleep, sleep would be nice. When when Ali had the twins and we were all here. It was like Sleep, sleep would be nice, but you know. But then there have been unexpected blessings that have happened because what happens when you just say I just need you to pray and you don't give guidance to what you need prayer for. The Holy Spirit supernaturally opens. have so much more than you could ever imagine because you've opened your receiver up to receive more than you ever hoped was possible. Just kind of who he is. Isn't that awesome? Our God is a great God. My dad, he's kind of cool. Yo, I'm also loved that. After Sunday, the apostles went fishing. Yeah, they went right back to living their lives. I did. Not the same. They were forever changed and, and yes, Jesus showed up and did the miracles of the fish. And then like they said he in that I love me. Do you love me, Peter, do you love me? He was reinstating Jesus. Jesus was reinstating Peter at that point he was he was getting Peter to realize his role and his purpose in being the rock the foundation that the church was going to be built on. That Yes, you may stumble and Ball. But there's still grace. You're still love your there's still like place for you. And how many of us have stumbled and fallen in life? I know I have many times more than three. More than more than more than three. But you know, I love that too because he Do you love me? Yes, Lord, right Feed my sheep. Right? Feed my sheep. It's not about you, right? It's about others. But the whole scenario is, well, Jesus, cook them breakfast, hmm. And then told Peter to feed his sheep. We can't give what we don't have. Right. The Lord feeds us so that we can feed others. It's not about us. It's not about promoting us. It's not about a platform for us. It's about the Lord sowing into us what he has for us To live in us and through us, and then us beating others with that. Because if you're not spending time with the Lord and you're not in His Word, then I can say, hey, Angie, you know I'm rooting for you, all day long. I can share my great intellect, intellect with you. Be slim pickins more than one. What do I have that really offers you any hope? one thing and one thing only the love of Jesus Christ, right? He says it into me so that I can sell it into others into story. And that's just what did he win over death hell in the grave to do to feed us? Right so that we can feed others. But that's what the whole that's what living on a god sized dream is about. Right. It's it's not about us. It's never about us. It's always, always about sowing life into others. Always. Well, and, you know, when he's telling them wait, we joked all week there's so quit hoarding the toilet paper. It's all about it's not God, toilet paper. Sorry. But, you know everybody talking about spraying and praying but are they really pray in the Lysol spray and pray, spray and pray that you know, we make fun of the disciples being told so many times we talked about that earlier. But we've already talked about how we've been told multiple times, but when he goes in, he talks to the disciples and He presents himself to the disciples. And then he presents himself to Thomas he goes in there because you have seen me you have believed Blessed are those who have not seen any Yeah, believe me, and believe, you know, here's the thing. They had something a gift, john 316, you have a gift that I'm giving you, you know, my only beloved son. This is a big love gift I'm giving you It's better than a diamond ring girls. And I'm giving you this gift. Enjoy your time with him. feed off of your time with him absorb from him as much as you possibly can. Because you have no idea the legacy that your involvement in these three years with my son is going to have. I mean, they couldn't even grasp the fact that he was going to come back from the dead. Could you think they would be able to grasp that 2000 years later we would be sitting here talking about him. And then the most favorite one of all Yeah. And the Doubting Thomas. I mean, no, who would have thought it? No. And we're in a microwave society. Now we don't think about that either. No, we don't think that the decisions that I make today affect my children. We might think that far. But we don't even can't even fathom what the Lord has passed us because of us. Right, if we will surrender to what he's calling us to do. All right. You know, Kim Slater had her surgery and beginning of January, and she has had an opportunity to look internally both physically and spiritually During this journey, and I saw her on that podcast the other day, yeah, she is. With God's help she is slaying it. Oh yeah, she is she's doing amazing she, she has God gave her the word of the year this year as restart. And that was before January one came around in January 2 she had her open heart surgery right. And when I went and saw her The day after she came home from the hospital, she has a heart shaped pillow. And on there, the doctor drew it has the it's a heart like a Valentine heart shape. heart but it has a picture of a heart medical wise on there. It's what she could use to hold up against the wrists incision when she went to cough because it was going to be painful, right. But on there, the doctor drew and showed her what he had done internally on her So she could see scientifically what was done physically inside of her to open up her, her get blood flowing better. And it was amazing. The day after her surgery days after her surgery, just the color that was back in her that hadn't been there in years he didn't know. And just not knowing how bad she was until it happened. But with that change, it's had overflow effect. She has lost weight. She has started eating healthier, making healthier choices, learning about how to fuel her body the right way, learning that she actually likes to exercise. She doesn't like getting started. But once she started she actually likes it. You know, so she can just get past that little bump of starting. It's like me riding the bike with a stun the other A Day in the neighborhood. We go to one driveway, and he'd stopped so I'd have to stop my bike. And he was taking arrest like a six yea

Zach chats with Race2Dinner co-founders Regina Jackson and Saira Rao about the genesis of Race2D, how exactly its dinners take place, their experiences running it and so much more. This episode features explicit language. Listener discretion is advised!Connect with Saira on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram, and connect with Regina on Twitter.Interested in learning more about Race2Dinner? Check out their website.Follow Race2Dinner on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here.Help food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.Visit our website.TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? Now, look, you know that we try to keep it clean on Living Corporate, but every now and then we have folks come on who are impassioned, and we are not ones to censor anybody if we really believe in the heart of what it is that they're saying and the mission that they're doing. So the conversation you're about to hear does contain some harsh language, so listener discretion is advised. Catch y'all next time.What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and you know what we do. We're having real talk in a corporate world. How do we do that? We talk to black and brown entrepreneurs, executives, activists... let me see here, what else? Public servants, creatives, artists, influencers, educators, you know what I'm saying? Anybody who is black and brown or an aspirational ally. We try to have them on the podcast and have real conversations, right? These real conversations are centering underrepresented and marginalized voices. We're having conversations that often go unhad or whispered in a corner. We're trying to have those out loud and on a digital platform so that they can be accessible to everybody, and we do this weekly, and we have dope dope dope dope DOPE guests. So today we have two guests at the same time, yo, at the same time. Saira Rao and Regina Jackson. Yo, so let me--so I got these two bios here, y'all. Y'all know what we do. You know I try to read the bios just so y'all can have an idea of what's going on, then we get into it. So here we go. Saira Rao grew up in Richmond, Virginia, the daughter of Indian immigrants. For forty years, she wasted her precious time aspiring to be white and accepted by dominant white society, a futile task for anyone not born with white skin. Several years ago, Saira began the painful process of dismantling her own internalized oppression. Saira is a lawyer-by-training, a former congressional candidate, a published novelist and an entrepreneur. Now, look here, if y'all don't recognize what kind of podcast this is about to be by the bio that I read that they gave me, listen, I'ma just go ahead and drop the Flex bomb right now. It's about to be spicy in here. Now we'll go ahead and go Regina. Now, born in 1950, Regina remembers an America where everything was in Black and white. Burned into her memory are; the beatings and horrific treatment of civil rights workers throughout the South, the Goodman, Chaney & Schwerner murders, the murder of Viola Liuzzo, the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the murders of President John Kennedy and his brother Robert. The violence perpetrated on innocent people going about their lives by white people, it is these memories that drive Regina to push for real change in America, which is why she co-founded Race2Dinner. Saira and Regina, welcome to the show. How are y'all doing?Regina: You know, I'm doing great. Saira?Saira: I'm doing pretty well, thank you.Zach: So I read some bios, but can we get into y'all's own stories as to why Race2Dinner came to be and how?Saira: Well, like my bio said, I ran for Congress exactly two years ago, and I ran in--we live in Denver, which is a predominantly white city, and I ran on an explicitly anti-racism [platform] about the racism within the Democratic Party, which, you know, we know there's--the Republican Party's entire platform is racism, but there's ample racism within the Democratic Party. And so, you know, what I found was a long line of white ladies wanting to have coffees, breakfasts, lunches and dinners with me, and 99.9% of the time it was for them to tell me very indignantly that it's not them, "not all white women," and then they tick off all their civil rights accomplishments in the past and their safety pins and how awesome they are, and really just telling me about how I had them wrong, that they were individual--you know, "Stop painting all white people as the same," and so, anyway, I had to do those because I was running for office and I needed to [?]. After I lost in June of 2018, I became a big target of sort of the alt-right, Breitbart, Fox, those places, and the invitations for these lunches and dinners didn't dissipate as I had hoped. They just got more and more and more. And I continued to do these lunches and dinners in good faith, recognizing by the way I was not just out hours and hours of my time. It also took a tremendous toll on my mental health. And by the way, these ladies never picked up the bill. And I was, you know, paying for dinner [?] for babysitting because I have two small children. Anyway, that's when last December this happened with Regina.Regina: So when Saira ran for office, I immediately fell in love with her because she was talking about racism that doesn't get talked about in the United States, and she was talking very provocatively about racism. She wasn't being nice. She wasn't not using the white privilege and white people. I mean, she was talking it, so I immediately volunteered for her campaign. I worked on her campaign and got to know Saira, and I was like, "Wow, I really like this woman." So I had had a white friend who said to me--she said, you know, "I'm just over Saira. She hates white people, and I'm just gonna be done with her," and then in the next breath she says to me, "But if you can arrange it, I'd like to go to lunch with her to talk about it." So I talked to [Saira] and Saira said to me--she said, "You know what, Regina? I'm not doing that anymore," she said, "But I'll tell you what. If she wants to have a dinner and invite some of her white lady friends and you do it with me," she said, "I'd be happy to do that," and thus was born Race2Dinner.Zach: Wow. It's--okay, so let's talk a little bit about, Regina, the exchange that you had. Why do you believe that your friend at the time said that Saira hates white people?Regina: Well, because Saira was saying she hated white people. [everyone laughs]Saira: [laughing] No, I didn't. I didn't say that. No.Zach: [hold on a minute there playa sfx, laughing]Regina: Okay, it's up for debate. [laughs]Saira: No, I literally never said that. So the thing about this particular woman was that I said that Beto O'Rourke is a white savior, and she was one of these women who was, like, obsessed with Beto O'Rourke and went to Texas to volunteer for Beto O'Rourke, and I said, you know, Beto O'Rourke is a white savior, and I also donated to his campaign, and if I lived in Texas I would vote for him. You can actually, you know, hold various things to be true.Zach: At the same time, yeah.Saira: At the same time, and so that's what sent her over the edge. And that's actually--at the dinner she brought that up as the thing that sent her over the edge, and she, you know, got really angry when I wouldn't budge on the fact that Beto O'Rourke is a white savior. Frankly, I think Beto O'Rourke might acknowledge himself that he's a white savior. And so, anyway, she cried. She got super mad. She did all the stuff that white ladies too.Regina: This is a white woman who called herself my friend. She thanked me for, you know, teaching her about racism and helping her to be a non-racist. She told me how much she loved me all the time, blah blah blah. When we started our Race2Dinner website and we decided to do a Patreon, you know, where people sign up for $5 a month or $12 a month. This white woman, who had told me--she's a widow, never had any children--that her income after her husband died is $200,000 a year, and I said, "Will you sign up for our Patreon?" She told me to put it [?] on Facebook. Needless to say, we are no longer friends, 'cause she talks the talk but she doesn't want to walk the walk.Zach: So you're saying she has over 200--I'm sorry, but I'm shocked, 'cause I come from humble beginnings, right? And I'm not from Denver. Like, I'm from the South. So, like, you said--just to go back a second, you said her income is over $200,000 a year?Saira: Yeah, and she won't spend $60 a year on our labor, on our writing. She wanted us to put it on Facebook for free.Regina: And see, we have really been talking about that issue, how white people don't want to see black and brown women especially paid for our work. Now, you know, they'll pay $40,000 to go hear--what's her name?Saira: Glennon Doyle.Regina: Yeah, Glennon Doyle, but they can't pay us for our labor in a personal, private, small group conversation?Saira: That includes dinner and booze.Regina: That's more white people nonsense, and I'm not having it.Zach: I mean, at a certain point you're just like [what more do you want from me? sfx] You know? Like, what is this? Like, what are we doing? Like, y'all see this effort. Y'all know that it's valuable. Recognize it financially. And y'all know that the way this system is built--capitalistically--that we need the bread to survive, so come on. Like, come up off. So I hear that, and it's interesting, 'cause Race2Dinner, it reminds me--and I want y'all to walk me through this format, 'cause I've been to a couple of events like this where, like, you get together over dinner and you talk about quote-unquote culture. I want to understand though. Like, talk to me about the format of Race2Dinner, how it works, and just how it's set up.Regina: Okay. Well, one of the first things I think there is to recognize is that most white people don't even know that they [?], okay? In the book "Waking Up White" by Debbie Irving, she talks about white culture, and us as non-white people, we recognize it because we have had to live it in order to, like you say, survive. It's perfection. It's being nice to everybody.Saira: It's talking about nothing.Regina: Yeah, don't talk about hard stuff. Don't upset people. You know, that's the culture that we were all raised in, and they still want to just talk nice, and we say, "You know what?" The other thing is they're all in their feelings. "You made me feel." Can we curse on this show?Zach: Yes, absolutely. Go ahead.Regina: [laughs] And I love to say, "Fuck your feelings." [Zach laughs] That's between you and your universe. That has nothing to do with me, but they are always up in their feelings, and that's one of the things--in Race2Dinner, if you have to cry, you have to leave the room. Zach: Really? If you start to cry, you are [?] from the table?Saira: Yeah, cry or get really angry. But to answer your question about painting a picture for you. So, you know, why is it dinners? People say is it "Why is it dinners? Why can't you do conferences and keynotes?" Blah blah blah. Here's what we know about white women. White women are devoted to being nice and polite, and there's nothing more impolite than getting up and leaving the dinner table, period. The setting is a beautiful dinner table in a woman's house where she's serving dinner and she's pouring wine. And so this is the white woman's happy place and safe place, a dinner party with other white women, right? And, you know, every once in a while maybe they go to dinner parties where there's A black woman or An Asian woman or A Latina woman, but, like, you know, they feel very comfortable, so they come in and kiss kiss, "Oh, my God, how are you? You look great, you look great," the whole nine yards. And then they sit down, and instead of "Oh, my God. What are your kids doing this summer for summer camp? Oh, my God. My husband's irritating me." We just--it's very, very much like this. Like, everyone go around the table and say why you're here, and you literally have, like, a minute or two to do that. 'Cause early on we were like, "Why are you here?" And they would just, like, pull out their resume and start telling us about how they volunteered at Planned Parenthood and they went to a Black Lives Matter rally and whatever, and so--anyway, after that, the next question is "Please go around the table and name one way in which your racism has presented itself in an action that you've done recently," and then they basically fall out of their chair. Like, you might see pee come down their legs, because it's like... they can't leave. They all want to freak out and run out of the room, but they can't because they've got this nice beef tenderloin and a glass of Chardonnay sitting there and it would be rude as fuck to do that. So then they have to actually do that.Regina: And we used to--we just changed that format, because we used to [have] everybody introduce themselves, and then we'd talk about our background and why we were there, and what we found is we would have two or three women in every dinner who would not say a freaking word. You know, the lurkers. So we finally said, "This is not okay. If people are going to be here, they need to engage." So we make everybody talk about, you know, "This is why I'm here, and this is how I notice racism in myself."Saira: In myself. So, you know, you go to one of these, like, liberal white person dinner parties, and they're sitting around for hours trashing Donald Trump and trashing the Republicans and talking about--like, they pat themselves on the back. It's like the Backpatting Olympics, right? Who is the most awesome white person in the room? This is a place--and by the way, they try. So, like, at the last dinner party--and look, these are not bad people. We've got to break down this false binary of racist bad, not racist good. That shuts down the conversation. But there's a white lady there who's lovely and [?], and we asked her "What is the racist thing you've done?" And she starts rambling, and then she says, you know, a friend of hers ends every conversation with "Me love you long time." And all the other women were like, "What?" And I was like, "No, no, no. How are YOU racist? Stop deflecting it to your friend." In that case, which she could have easily said--but she didn't, she can't [?] anything else--is "I'm racist because I've never shut that down." So that's the silence is complicity. So all this, like, "The Republicans are bad," what about you? Like, what are you doing? Like, what are you doing? Like, silence is complicity, you know? And even though the Republicans are quote "bad," white America allowed this to go on. Donald Trump didn't invent racism. He just capitalized on it.Regina: That was my turning point, this whole Make America Great nonsense. I'm like, "No. I'm done with white people nonsense. I'm done." You know, they need to step up and call a thing and be the wonderful people that they seem to think they are.Zach: And Regina, so your profile, the fact that you were--you know, like, you were active. Like, you was moving around during the civil rights movement and you're still here in 2020. So, like, have you ever had situations where people have, like, either alluded to or told you to, like, get over it or it was a really long time ago or times have changed, and if so, like, how do you react or respond in those situations?Regina: You know, I don't think anybody would tell me that. [everybody laughs] But I have [this?] attitude. You know how us black women can give off that "Don't fuck with me today?" Zach: Yes. [everybody laughing]Regina: [?] going on generally 24/7. It's like--[to this day sfx] So not today, not ever. Not having it.Zach: Oh, my goodness. I love it. The spice. The energy on this podcast, it's reached incredible levels, and we're really just, like, still in the beginning. So when it comes to--and even, like, honestly, like, the tone of this conversation, right, the unapologetic, like, very to the point manner in which y'all are speaking and in which, like, I see, like, your website communicates as well as your online personas. I'm curious about what feedback or critique you get when it comes to, like, the idea of civility, right? 'Cause I feel like even today there's a lot of folks who are still, like, really hanging their shingle on civility, and they use it almost, like, as a cudgel to, like, silence voices. I'm curious as to how y'all respond to that.Saira: That's what it is. Calls for civility is calls for silencing. And I'm just curious, when has--so civility is code for being nice, right? When has nice saved people of color [?]? Like, was niceness there to save Trayvon Martin? Is being nice saving the brown and black people who are dying in concentration camps around the country? Is niceness [saving?] the Palestinians, upon whom we are, you know, aiding [Israel? and dropping bombs upon them?] Like, being nice is code for doing whatever the fuck you want to oppress people and not getting called out for it. That's what being nice is.Regina: Exactly. And remember that Dr. King said that white [moderates,] they would rather have order than justice. You know what? I'm not about order. Fuck your rules, okay? Fuck hurting your feelings. Fuck being nice. Let's talk the real deal. Let's talk about how you're hurting black and brown children, how black boys and girls get treated in school, how black people are being [?] out of their communities onto the streets by gentrification? Let's talk about all that, and if it requires me to be nice, then it ain't happening.Saira: Yeah, you know what's super not nice? Stop and Frisk. You know what's super not nice? The Muslim ban. You know what's super not nice? These concentration camps. And so I'll tell you what though, Zach, is, you know, before I even ran for Congress I spent a year, 2017, going the civil way. I went to the University of Virginia, and at that time most of my [?] in life were friends that I had met at the University of Virginia, overwhelmingly white women. By the way, like, I was in an all-white sorority and I wore [Laura Ashley?]. So I used to think that I was a white woman. [?] And I tried. You know, I did dinners with these friends. I cried, they cried. I made them--you know, I patted them on the back. I massaged their feet. I think I might have painted a toenail or two. I mean, I did all the nice, civil things, and every single time--it was, like, straight out of an SNL skit... which, by the way, SNL is also a toxic, white, liberal mess, but it was, you know, "We don't like your tone. You just seem really angry." My favorite from one of these women was "What are you doing? You're completely alienating everyone." And I said to her, "Who's everyone?" And I said, "Are you unaware that there are people of color who actually are in agreement with what I'm saying?" And she was like, "Oh, I never thought of that," because she literally--the only people of color [she knows?] were me, one--and she's a nurse, so a couple of her colleagues. She has a black woman colleague and a brown woman colleague, and she said to me, "Well, I asked them, and they said that they think you're crazy, and, like, [that?] racism is untrue." And I'm like, "They're not [safe?] to say that. You're, like, their boss," you know? And somebody said--it's very funny. They're like, "If you're white and you have a brown or black friend who doesn't talk about white people, then you don't have a brown or black friend." Regina: I was gonna say, now, my big thing, I started working, volunteering, mentoring in a high school about six years ago, and I would--the woman who ran the program and started the program woudl tell me all the time that I hurt her feelings. You know, everything you say hurts their feelings, and I sounded like I was angry, and I just started saying, "You know what? I'm mad as hell, and I could give a shit about your feelings, so deal with it." She finally resigned, and I [?], and now the program is being run by people of color.Saira: Yeah. And by the way, like, of course we're angry. I'm sorry. Like, white women literally go batshit crazy if their spin class instructor is 5 minutes late. Go fucking crazy, right? They're angry and it's fine, like, that's fine, but we're not supposed to be angry about systemic oppression. We're not allowed to be angry about that, but they can be angry about a yoga instructor or a spin class instructor being 5 minutes late. It just goes to show you they don't care--it's not only that they don't care, they actively are fine with being participants in this. They just don't want you to call them out for it, and in some ways that's the difference between Republican woman and Democratic women, the 50% that voted for Donald Trump versus the one who kind of sat idly by on let Donald Trump win, you know? Do you know how many white liberal women I know who voted for Hillary Clinton, but their husbands voted for Donald Trump, and they didn't speak a word [?] Hillary Clinton. They didn't put a Hillary Clinton sign in their yard. When I would come into their house they would be like, "You can't talk about Hillary Clinton here because of So-and-so." So what's the difference between the husband who is voting for Donald Trump and the wife who is silent? Nothing. You know, feasance versus non-feasance. It's all the same thing. Not acting is acting.Zach: And so I'm curious, like, again, the delivery of this, and even with the [criticism?] that you've received like "You're not being nice" or "It's not being [?]" or whatever the case may be, and yet Race2Dinner is a whole organization. Like, y'all are an active organization, so clearly--Regina: That's the other thing [?]. These white women want to say, "Well, what do we do with our money?" It's like, "It's not your business. Do you go into Nordstroms and say, "What do you do with your money?" We're not a non-profit. This is a business."Zach: And so I'm curious. Like, it seems as if your approach was so off-putting and alienating that your business would not be viable, and yet it is, right? [Both: Yeah.] So talk me through--Saira: That's a good question. You just asked the question "Why?" One woman put it to us like this not too long ago, and I think this is it. She said a lot of stuff. She's the woman who said to us--I said at this dinner, particularly dinner, you all don't see Regina and I as your [equals.] You don't see our humanity. You do not see our children and grandchildren as your children and grandchildren's equals. You don't see their humanity. 7 out of the 8 of them just shook their head. "Oh, my God. Wrong, wrong, wrong," right? Woman to my left, you know, God bless her, she paused before she spoke and she said, "You know what? I'm not gonna lie. I don't. I don't see the two of you as my equal. I don't see your humanity. I don't see your children and your grandchildren, Regina, as equal to mine," and there was a collective gasp, right? Like, they couldn't believe it, and then little by little they were like, "Yeah. I mean, that's right," and at the end of the dinner this woman said, "I feel such a sense of relief. I feel relieved," because white supremacy kills everybody, including white people. It's like a disease. It's toxic and it kills you. And she said, "This is the first time I've been able to actually acknowledge this to myself, say it out loud, say it in a room full of my peers and say it front of the people that I harm every [day?]," and I think that's it right there. She articulated why we're able to get people to come to these dinners, because it is a relief for them, at least, you know, the ones who are willing to accept it and come in with fully open minds and leave their fragility at the [door.] I think it's a relief.Regina: And, you know, one of the things that I want white women to do--and I don't know why it's so hard, but it is, is to just step up when you see injustice, when you see racism, when you hear it, call that shit out and let things fall where they fall. They never do that. They're always dependent on us to be the ones calling it out, and I'm like, "Y'all started this shit. Get in here and stop it." Saira: Right, just like men created and benefit from misogyny, so men have to dismantle misogyny. We can't. Women cannot. Similarly, white people created and benefit from white supremacy, so they're the ones who have to do it. So this is--by the way, we don't allow for other women of color in the room, because the one time we did--it was a Chicago dinner. There was another Indian woman in the room, and so, you know, she's a member of the community. These are people that she sees at pick-up and drop-off at her kid's school. Every time we were speaking, looking at her and waiting to see and asking, "Well, do you feel like this? Do you feel like this?" It was a deeply unsafe space for her, just like my nurse friend asking her women of color colleagues if they felt like that. That's not safe, right? So we don't want to put other women of color in a situation where they're answering to white women in that room because it's not safe for them.Zach: In y'all's experience of having this organization, this [business?], and facilitating these dinners, like, what has been the most eye-opening experience?Regina: My most eye-opening experience is we had a dinner with several white women, 8, and maybe 4 of them had adopted children of color, okay? Black children, and we had one young woman--I would say she was maybe in her 30s. She had adopted a young black boy. This woman had the audacity to say that if her family and friends said something racist or harmful to or about her child--Saira: In front of her child.Regina: In front of her child! She did not correct them because they loved him. That's the biggest [?] I've ever heard in my life, and if I could've taken that kid away from her I would have done it.Zach: And so then--you know, a piece recently came out--and Saira, this was something that you actually tweeted about. I believe it was someone who actually attended a Race2Dinner event, and they said, you know, "Most folks don't like Saira."Saira: Well, she said, "A lot of people hate Saira." [everyone laughs]Regina: And I'm like, "There, it's out there. We can get over it." [laughing] Saira: Yeah.Zach: And so I'm curious about what does it to look like--like, what does it look like to continue to do this work in light of those types of critiques? Like, where do you get your strength and resilience from to continue this type of work?Saira: It's not easy. I'll say Regina's a big source of strength and a big source of resilience for me. Here's the deal. It's a process, right? And I would be completely lying if I said it didn't bother me when--you know, look, I've gotten used to most of it. I've gotten used to the white supremacist trolls. I've gotten used to the Nazis. What I do not enjoy is getting doxxed. That happened over the weekend by a white woman in Abu Dhabi. Doxxed me and my family, so put out our private information and tried to send Nazis to come hurt my family. I do not enjoy that. I don't enjoy that my children get left out of things, you know, because their moms hate my guts. I don't like that. It's uncomfortable a little bit to run into these old friends of mine around town, and I know what they think of me and I know what they say about me. I don't love that, but, you know, besides that, it's okay. It sounds really weird. Like, I'm actually okay, because I realized that I was filling my life with a lot of nonsense, and how many times--I mean, you know, I was thinking back on this because we're working on a bunch of stuff, but I've had to, like, dig deep, how many times--I was at a party once in college with these friends. It wasn't even a party. It was a dinner, right? And I couldn't leave because it would have been rude to leave. And it was two white women sitting across from me who were not really close friends, me, and then this white woman to my left who was a very good friend, and one white woman said to the other--her last name is an Asian last name but she's white, and she said, "Oh, my God. When I got the letter in the mail that you were gonna be my roommate, I freaked out and I said to my parents, "What have I done in my life to deserve an [Asian?] roommate?"" And they started laughing, and they were like, "And look, it turned out great!" And my friend to the left of me, she was laughing too, and I was just sitting there stunned, and I said, "Hey, you guys. I'm Asian," and then they all took another sip of their [beer?], like, spit it out laughing, and they go, "Oh, yeah, but you're not one of those kind of Asians." And I said, "No, I am. I'm actually 100%--" They go, "You know, like, the accent and, like, the weird food--"Zach: Weird food?Saira: Yeah, "And the smelly, weird food," and I looked to my friend, and she just sat there and was laughing with them, and so I did what I had always done, which I started laughing too. So I sold myself down the river and I upheld--that's how [people of color?] uphold white supremacy is I laughed as well and I let it go. How many of those experiences have I had in my life? I cannot even count them. There are too many to count, and so I'm living an honest life, and you know what that means, living an honest life? If that [means I'm hated?], so be it. Hate me.Regina: You know, as a black woman, I have learned many, many years ago that the only way I can sruvive is I affirm myself on a daily basis. I know who I am. I know what is okay with me. I know what's not okay. So when people start talking shit, "Regina's this, that and the other--" And I tell my mentees that. The best way to have a good life is know who you are. Affirm yourself, and when you get crap from anybody else, you don't have to own that because you know who you are.Saira: Yeah. And Zach, just further to that by the way, I'm trying to start affirming myself because Regina really truly is the most [evolved?] person I know. I think a big part of why a lot of people come at me--and it's all kinds of people. It's not just white people. It's black people, it's Indian people, it's Latino people. It's I'm the first generation of the "model minority" born and raised in this country, right? So we're new, and we're supposed to stay in our lane, and we're supposed to be extremely grateful and not call out white supremacy because we are the model minority. So there's something extremely jarring to have an Asian lady in the middle of Colorado speaking like this. I think that's a big part of it too. I mean, lots and lots and lots and lots of South Asian people really hate my guts.Regina: They just want her to shut up.Saira: You know? They will say--I had [?] Indian people say to me, "Stop talking about Black Lives Matter," and I was like, "They know that there's a Muslim ban. Like, they know." So I'm so confused. I mean, you're called Apu how many times a week? You're called [?] how many times? And they're just, like, pretending like it didn't happen. And really funny, the only Indian/South Asian PAC didn't invite me to their gala in 2018 when I was running for Congress, and so [Andrew Yang?] actually invited me to go as his guest. And so I went. I flew out and I get there, and it's 8 other--something like that, 8 other--South Asians all [?]. By the way, they're all, like, super white platforms and [?], and I show up with Andrew and everyone's literally like, "Who the fuck brought her?" Like, "Why did you all bring her?" I mean, it was just really funny. I mean, it's funny "haha," but yeah, like, my own people hate my guts. Regina: You will love this. Saira says at our dinners, "I'm anti-black and all of you are racist," and I go, "Guess what? Black people know that." We know that every immigrant group thinks they're better than us. We know everybody would rather be whatever than black. That's not news.Saira: So we talk about. So I just want to add that one last thing to what Regina said. You know, we'll say, "Who's racist in this room?" And most of the time no one raises their hand except for me, and they're like, "Wait, what?" And [I'm like?] "[I'm Asian?], so I've been trained institutionally to be anti-black," and then they'll look at Regina because then the next step--you know, Step 1 is dividing and conquering, and they look at Regina like, "Oh, my God. Look. You've got an anti-black colleague here." Regina's like, "All Asians are anti-black." Like, if I'm asking white people to acknowledge their own institutional bigotry, it would be wildly hypocritical of me and completely lack of self-aware if I wasn't able and unwilling to do that myself.Zach: And so it's interesting because, like--I just find it all so very intriguing, because, like, the closer we get--and I'm continuing to have conversations about the fact that November is coming up, and, like, the closer that we get to November, it's interesting that we're, like--a lot of us are still kind of moving, like, business as usual, but--Regina: I know! It's scary.Zach: It's really strange, right? Like, even though, like, we remember all of the chaos, like, that happened four years ago, like, in and outside the workplace. I recall the work day--Regina: [?] the election.Saira: We know that. We know that.Zach: Right, and so it's just strange to me that, like, even from a diversity, equity and inclusion perspective that we're not really talking about that. Like, we're not preparing--Regina: Yeah. Where is the [Congressional Black Causus?] Where the fuck are they? [everyone laughing]Zach: Oh, my gosh. This has been--oh, man, this is great. But no, I find it really curious, I find it really curious. So Race2Dinner, it's white women attending the dinners, and then you both are facilitating the dinner. What do you believe it is about--like, 'cause typically we talk about gender equity and we're rarely intersectional. We rarely talk in [?]. We typically just say "men and women," and the default of course there is white women. It seems as if there's still a lot of work to be done when it comes to white women understanding their place when it comes to understanding diversity, equity and inclusion and how they fit in this role and, like, what power they wield, and I'm curious, why do you think there's still a reticence to engage that? Even from, like, just an intellectual exercise?Regina: Well, you know, I like to say, first of all, you all--everything you've made has been on the backs of black people. Let's get that out there first, okay? So that's the first thing they need to understand. They wouldn't have what they have today if black people had not fought and died [in] the civil rights movement. So that's the first thing I want to say. The second thing, when we talk about intersectionality, we're really talking about black women and their intersection of both race and sex. So white women--this is what we try to say. You know, the foot of patriarchy is on your neck just like it's on yours. You want to continue earning 75 cents for every dollar the white man earns? Fine. But if you want ever to have equity, enjoy the same rights that white males do, you better come and join us, because we've been fighting this for a long time, and we're gonna continue to fight it with or without you, but they also have the proximity to the power. They have the proximity to the money. These are their fathers, their uncles, their brothers, their sons. So that's why they need to be engaged in this.Saira: Well, and the reason, you know, they always pick whiteness over gender is because they're benefiting greatly from whiteness, and so they've been born and raised--but they would never say that, right? That's the lack of honesty and transparency. They've been born and raised to see themselves as the greatest victims on the planet because they are below white men. So that's it. That's where their analysis of inequity--that's where it stops. It starts and stops on them being the biggest victims on the planet, and as a result they erase women of color. We don't even exist in their minds. I'll tell you what, Zach. Use this whole hoopla around the 19th Amendment 100-Year anniversary this year. It's a great window into white feminism. Susan Becky Anthony totally fucked black women, right? So the 19th Amendment [was not?] the women's right to vote. That was the white women's right to vote. And so we're not--like, black and brown women are not celebrating the 19th Amendment, but you would think all of these freaking white suits all over the place running around and talking about how this was, you know, the year that women [?]--that's not true, and there's a direct line between Susan B. Anthony and Nancy Pelosi who regularly throws her women of color colleagues under the bus, starting with Maxine Waters and every member of the squad. So I'm tired of it. I'm tired of white women, you know, lumping all women's rights together. That's not true. That's just not true.Regina: And they know it.Saira: They know it. They're pretending like they don't know it.Regina: See, the biggest issue that we have is them pretending that they don't know shit. They're here to pretend like they don't know how bad it is for women of color. They know. They're gonna pretend like, you know, we're all treated equally. They know. So I want them to stop pretending and tell the fucking truth.Saira: We ask every dinner--this is well over 100 white women around the country--how many of you would trade places with me or Regina? Guess how many of them have raised their hands. Guess.Zach: Zero.Regina: The first dinner. No, one from the first dinner, remember? That we filmed?Saira: Yeah. I mean, it's between zero to one. So they were [?] about that, so they know. They know. So they first tell us that they wouldn't trade places with us because they're better than we are, and then they'll all say--they stopped doing this though because we put an end to this nonsense--"I'm just hear to listen and learn. I'm just here to learn." You already know because you wrote the book about white supremacy. You had it optioned [?]. You've made every film. It's won every Oscar. It's been exported to every country around the world. It's been translated into every language. And you're asking us to explain the book that you wrote? Like, I'm so--that's bullshit. That's bullshit, and we are not [?]--that's fine, that's the way it is, but we're not here for it. We're not here for your stupid ass lies.Regina: That's right.Zach: [laughs]Regina: We can tell you can't wait to have dinner with us, right?Zach: No, no, I'm here for it. I'm here for it. I actually have some mentors that would love this, and actually what I really want to do is I want to give y'all space. So we'll make sure we'll put all your information in the show notes, but I want to give you actually some space, like, to plug all your information. Where can [they learn?] more, how people can sign up, all of that.Saira: Race2Dinner, R-A-C-E-2-dinner.com, and find me on Twitter--I'm Tweeting quite often--@sairasameerarao. Regina: Regina Jackson. I'm on Twitter @ReginaJacksonMe... I think. You know, I'm old. I don't know all this stuff. [both laugh] But we have a couple of great people working with us who schedule all of our dinners, and you can reach them through the website. And also we have a Race2Dinner Facebook page, and Race2Dinner is on Twitter, and Race2Dinner is on Instagram.Saira: And we're also, Zach, starting to do corporate executive teams, so boards and executive teams, because they seem to need it because diversity and inclusion is a big hoax, as you know, and, like, 95% of diversity and inclusion is run by white women. And hey, companies, white women are not diverse and are not inclusive. Regina: Well, and where do you think they get their information about racism?Saira: Yeah.[Flex bomb sfx]Saira: What we've heard from a lot of--like, the three non-white diversity and inclusion officers in the country have talked to us and said, you know, "How great would it be if you two could come in and say the things to the board and my colleagues that we can't say without getting fired?" They can get fired. We can say the shit they can't.Regina: And I just had this conversation with my husband yesterday. We've got some things going on in Colorado with our judiciary. The office of the Supreme Court in Colorado has nine black employees out of 260 something, and none of those are at a management level. So we were having this conversation and I said to him, "You know, Gary, me and Saira, we can talk shit 'cause we don't have to answer to anybody. I don't have to keep a job. We don't have to play politics. We get to just call a thing a thing." Saira: And I think ultimately, if we want to blow a little smoke up our bums, I think that people kind of like us at these dinners.Regina: I could care. [laughs]Saira: No, no, but he's asking why they [?].Regina: Oh, yeah. They want to be our friends. They want black and brown people to like them. And this is really interesting. I just--while we're talking about this, I just got a three-page letter from a white woman friend of mine--[I've known?] her probably 40 years--who is married to a black man, and in the letter she wanted--she had read The Guardian and she wanted to know about if we were gonna take on the issue of how white women that are married to black women are treated in black women spaces, okay? So that's what she wrote me about, and I talked to my husband and I said, "Here's the issue. We can't trust you." I said, "When 53% of [white women] voted for Donald Trump, and then they want to tell us, "Oh, we're in your corner," we can't trust you." So until we can trust you, I doubt that we're gonna accept you.Saira: Yeah, and Regina said that at one dinner last summer. You know, we were talking about trust, and one of the women said, "Well, that hurts my feelings. You mean to tell me you don't trust any of us in this room?" And she goes, "No, I do." She goes, "I trust Saira with my life," but she goes, "I don't trust the rest of you bitches." [both laughing]Regina: You know, it is what it is. In order to be trusted you have to be trustworthy, and white women have not proven themselves to be that.Saira: Not just that, they've proven themselves to NOT be that.Regina: Yeah.Zach: And so then, you know, in some of the pieces that I read about Race2Dinner, I know that there are executive leaders who are white women who attend Race2Dinner, and I'm curious about, from your perspective, what is it that you're seeing leaders are doing or not doing that is hampering inclusiveness and equity in their respective workforces?Saira: We just had a dinner in Chicago, what, like, two weeks ago, and I would say this was one of those--you were asking what were sort of the most poignant moments, well, this was one of the more poignant moments for me because we kind of saw the whole ecosystem at play. So this woman is a nurse in Chicago, and she said--and she, like, got teary, and she said a month earlier she was in a meeting with 9 other white women nurses and doctors and their boss, who's a white guy. A doctor, okay? A doctor. These are people who deal with brown and black lives all the time. And he said that the big thing they need to tackle in 2020 [was?] hiring foreign-born doctors, and she said, "Well, guess what I did?" And we were like, "We know what you did. Nothing, right?" So she said, "I went through the whole thing in my head. "Maybe he didn't mean it." But she was like, "No, all the foreign-born people that we've been hiring, Norwegian and French doctors. We had been hiring brown and black doctors." And she said, "I didn't say anything. I didn't say a word." And I said, "Did anyone else?" And she said no. So that to me was like, "Oh, my God." And I said, "[?] that. So you just upheld--what you all, the ten of you white women did, was every bit as toxic as what the white guy did."Regina: And harmful.Saira: And harmful. And so, you know, I said, "What if you broke the cycle there? What if you had said something?" And then Regina of course said, which is true, "Here are some of the ramifications. Let's play this out. You could have been fired, right? They would make up an excuse to fire you. "You've become a troublemaker" or whatever. You become demoted. You're ghosted. All the stuff that we've experienced, but they would think twice before saying and doing this harmful stuff the next time. Like, using your voice in these professional settings is so important because it moves the needle in a way that [?] they can actually move the needle. And, you know, she totally got it. Meanwhile, white lady to her right does exactly what they always do 'cause they need to set themselves apart. She goes, "Ugh, I can't believe that you did that. I would never do that." I was like, "No, no, no. Like, let's back it up. Of course you would, and you do, so why do you feel--" She goes, "Well, I know that you think that it's not possible that I'm not like that," and I was like, "You're all like that by training, you know?" And so, anyway, it was the need to separate herself from, you know, classic white woman behavior, and what was great is the other women at the table did come after that woman and say, "Come on, you know that we all do this. We're all silent at dinner tables. We're all silent in executive meetings."Regina: Exactly. One of the things that I make sure that I tell women, this is just the beginning. If you are going to be in this work, #1: It's work. You will be doing this for the rest of your life. #2: If you expect to gain anything, boy, are you wrong. You're gonna lose. You're gonna lose relationships. You're gonna lose jobs. You're gonna lose friends. This is not a winning game. It's not a winning game for us, and it's definitely not a winning game for white people.Zach: Oooh. See, I don't have sound effects for, like, spiciness. That's why I've been dropping that Flex bomb from time to time, but I will say this has been incredible. Before we let y'all go, any parting words?Regina: I want to shout-out to Genevieve and Lisa.Saira: The two white women who work with us.Regina: Yep.Zach: Come on, white ladies. [air horns sfx]Regina: Thank you for having us on this show, and I'm looking forward to listening to this interview.Zach: We're looking forward to everybody hearing it. Y'all, yo, now, I told y'all at the top of this it was gonna be spicy, so y'all don't--don't be emailing me with your complaints. You want to see the manager? I'm the manager. Y'all know we are unbought and unbossed, okay?Regina: That manager stuff doesn't work with me, so I get you. [laughs]Zach: Yes. No, it's not. All the emails go to me, Ade and Aaron, so we not--nope. [laughs] Y'all, this has been--man, this has been a dope conversation. You've been listening to the co-founders of Race2Dinner, and just thank y'all, thank y'all. Saira Rao, Regina Jackson. Make sure you check us out on Instagram @LivingCorporate, on Twitter @LivingCorp_Pod. Just Google us, you know what I'm saying? If you look up Living Corporate we're gonna pop up there. SEO is strong enough, okay? Check us out on all of our domains, www.living-corporate--please say the dash--dot com, livingcorporate.co, livingcorporate.us, livingcorporate.org, livingcorporate.net. We got all the different domains, y'all, we just don't have livingcorporate.com yet. Like, Australia owns livingcorporate.com, but one day we're gonna get that domain too. And shoot, if you have questions just make sure you just DM us. DMs are wide open. You don't have to follow us back. We're thirsty like that. Just hit us up. You can also email us at livingcorporatepodcast@gmail.com. Until next time, this again has been Zach, and you've been listening to Regina Jackson and Saira Rao, co-founders of Race2Dinner. Make sure y'all check out the information in your show notes, and make sure you sign up and go to have a racy conversation. All right, y'all. Peace.

How do the world's best marketers and salespeople use LinkedIn? This week on The Inbound Success Podcast, DigitalMarketer Head of Partnerships Marcus Murphy takes a deep dive on LinkedIn and shares his tips for using the platform to effectively connect and start conversations with your audience. In addition to his work at DigitalMarketer, Marcus also teaches the "Intro to Marketing on LinkedIn" course on LinkedIn Learning and is a member of LinkedIn's customer advisory board for LinkedIn sales solutions.  When it comes to LinkedIn, Marcus really knows what he's talking about, and he shares all of his tips in this episode. Highlights from my conversation with Marcus include: Marcus joined DigitalMarketer after helping companies like Yelp and InfusionSoft (now Keap) scale and build out partner programs. He is an avid user of LinkedIn and teaches a training course on how to get the most out of it. While most online LinkedIn trainings focus on how to optimize your profile, Marcus says the key to success on LinkedIn is all about the content you create. There are about 9 billion content impressions a week on LinkedIn and that content is driven by about 1% of LinkedIn's user base. Marcus recommends that you begin by using your profile summary to tell your story and start a conversation (check out his profile for a great example of this) rather than simply list the places you've worked. When it comes to creating content on LinkedIn, Marcus says not to wait until you have the perfect post. Share what you're thinking, ask a question, or ask for help. These are all great ways to start a conversation. You also don't need to come up with something new to say every time. Some of the biggest thought leaders on LinkedIn (think Gary Vaynerchuk) have been saying the same thing for years and it is their consistency that makes their message so powerful. Marcus says to find one tip that you think is useful, and go and implement it. Don't try and do everything at once. When it comes to posting things on LinkedIn, Marcus recommends using whatever format (text, video, pictures, etc.) makes the most sense given your content, but he did say that text-only posts seem to be performing particularly well right now. He doesn't think it hurts post performance to include links in the post itself, but he strongly advises against including more than one link as it can get very confusing. Marcus likes to use emojis to convey tone in his LinkedIn posts, but warns against their overuse. LinkedIn gives users the option of setting the button in their profile to say either "follow" or "connect." Marcus says you should have it say "connect" until you have a very strong following and then you can determine if it makes sense to switch it over. He does not advise connecting with every single person who sends a request - instead, he says you should look at the context of the connection request and engage with the people you want to have conversations with.  LinkedIn is introducing a number of new features, such as newsletters, and Marcus says to be on the lookout for more episodic content in the future. Resources from this episode: Visit the DigitalMarketer website Learn more about DigitalMarketer's event Traffic & Conversion Summit Subscribe to the DigitalMarketer blog Connect with Marcus on LinkedIn (tell him you heard him on The Inbound Success Podcast!) Listen to the podcast to learn how Marcus has mastered LinkedIn for sales and marketing - and how you can, too. Transcript Kathleen Booth (Host): Welcome back to the Inbound Success Podcast. I'm your host, Kathleen Booth, and this week my guest is Marcus Murphy who's the head of business development and partnerships at DigitalMarketer. Welcome, Marcus. Marcus Murphy (Guest): Hey. Thanks for having me. Marcus and Kathleen recording this episode. Kathleen: I am psyched to have you here. You are like my LinkedIn guru. I've been following you on with what you do on LinkedIn, and then I see that you're on LinkedIn's Customer Advisory Board. You're teaching classes. You are like Mister LinkedIn these days. Marcus:You know what's kind of funny? I fell into it, because honestly I loved the platform when I was way back in the day when it was kind of like just for your resume. I was like, "Wait a minute. I can start sharing stuff, connecting with people," and now it's my pipeline. So, it was way back in the day when I was a sales guy, and then now still a washed up sales guy, but I use it now for way more than that, like content distribution. Being on the board, I get to see some fun tools. So, yeah, I'm all in. I'm super in. About Marcus Murphy and DigitalMarketer Kathleen:That's so cool. I can't wait to just pick your brain about this topic. LinkedIn is my favorite platform as well. It's the one I'm the most active on. But before we do that, if there is anybody out there who's listening and maybe doesn't know who you are or isn't following you on LinkedIn or isn't familiar with DigitalMarketer, can you talk about your story, what you do, what DigitalMarketer is, and just how you got to where you are today? Marcus:Yeah, absolutely. It's a fun story. My wife and I got married in 2009, so we just celebrated 10 years of marriage, which was pretty cool. Kathleen:Happy anniversary. Marcus:Thank you. Went to Italy and literally I'm trying to get rid of all that weight we gained over there. But, yeah, basically we were like ... Man, we did something crazy. We got married. We started it a company, and we moved from New York to Phoenix, Arizona for no reason at all, didn't know anybody, but kind of ran that company for six years and then finally sold it, because my wife was like, "You know what? We want to start a family. Why don't you think about maybe joining another company? It'd be a little easier for us." So, we did that. I joined a little company, like a little startup called Yelp at the time, and I immediately kind of start to rise through there. I was in sales, account management. Then I became national trainer there and a bunch of different stuff. I left that go join another small company at the time called Infusionsoft and went through that growth period, which was cool, with them as their partner development manager, so to build out their channel sales. Then there, I met this guy who ... I was speaking somewhere, and I met this little guy. I saw him, and it was really funny. They were like, "That's Ryan Deiss," and I was like, "Yeah, whatever. I don't care." Kathleen: Who's that dude? Marcus: I don't care who that is. There was a huge crowd around him, and I didn't really want to meet him. I saw him speak on stage, and I was like, "Man." I went home that night. It was probably 2:00 in the morning back home. I was in London at the time. I remember telling my wife, "I think I found the guy I want to work for. I think I just saw him. He blew my mind." So, just so happened to be that Infusionsoft had a partnership with DigitalMarketer, and they put me in charge of that strategic partnership, which was really cool. So, I flew down here. Ryan and I became friends. We spoke together, did some initiatives together, did some deals together. Then when this idea of DigitalMarketer needs to build out a kind of customer-facing sales team, partner program, customer success care, they needed all of that, and they were looking for somebody to build it. I remember seeing that job description and texting Ryan. I was like, "What do you think?" He was like, "Absolutely not." I think he didn't want to ruin our friendship, but I also I was kind of like forbidden fruit, being that I worked for a company that was kind of a partner. He's like, "You'd have to get your C suite to say yes to that," so I literally got my C suite to say yes. I walked in, and this is actually to Clate's benefit, the CEO and founder of Infusionsoft, now Keap. Yeah, I said, "Hey, if there's an executive position here available where I could grow into this, let me know," and he said ... To their core values, he stuck. He said, "You know what? I want you to succeed. I think this is a huge opportunity." And I said, "Great. If I don't get the job, can I come back and work here?" He was just like ... He said, "Yeah. You're pushing it, but yes." I went and interviewed, and that was almost four years ago. I came in, and I built out all those teams for about two and a half years, and then transitioned. I hired my replacement. I stole a friend of mine from Tableau in Washington, DC, to come and be the head of sales, and he's doing a fantastic job about a year in. Since then, I've transitioned into partner development, business development, strategic partnerships. I speak a ton. Ryan and I and a couple of other people, we actually are more personality, forward-facing on stages and all that good stuff. Yeah. And here I am today, just finally getting on your podcast. I've actually made it. You know? Kathleen: Oh, I don't know about that. I think I've made it by getting you on as a guest. Marcus: No way. Yeah, that was a very abridged version of the story, but it's equally ... Sometimes it's kind of funny how you end up where you're at, and it was just a series of little, tiny decisions, and I'm just the most fortunate person on the planet to land where I did. Kathleen: That's awesome. As you were telling that story, there were so many things where I was like, "Ooh, I want to talk to him about that, and that, and that," the first one being I did not know that you owned a business with your wife for six years right after you got married. Marcus: Yeah. Kathleen: Here's what's interesting. I got married, within two months, started a business with my husband, which we had for 11 years. Marcus: And it was smooth sailing and you guys didn't fight at all. Kathleen: Oh. Oh, yeah. No, I still say til this day that my greatest accomplishment in life is that I am still married after owning a business with him for 11 years. Marcus: It's so true. Kathleen: We figured it out, but there did come that point, and that was part of why we actually exited our businesses. It was like we need to change gears. So, three years ago, for the first time in our marriage, we didn't work together. Marcus: Wow. Kathleen: Which was great, but also it was a little bittersweet, because we do work well together. Marcus: Yeah. Yeah, I think my- Kathleen: But that's okay. Marcus: My wife is the opposite of me in so many ways, which is great. I am just gregarious and out there and whatever, and Gina's a planner. She takes her time. She's all those things that where friction ... Friction can create a rub that's not great, or it can create fire, and a good kind of fire, and I think we really harnessed that for a bunch of years. We were traveling a ton. Then when we started to think about kids, it really just slowed down. We're like, "You know what? I think we should focus on our family," and that was great. That actually pushed me in the right direction to end up here, and so that was the coolest decision we made. Kathleen: That's awesome. I love it. I've seen you speak. You're really great, as is Ryan. You guys are like a power duo. Marcus: The best. Kathleen: No, really. Marcus: He's phenomenal. I always laugh, because he is ... We obviously have different styles. I think I'm so much more ... Ryan's a little irreverent. I maybe go way over that. I think we also kind of really lean on this edgy humor, kind of we think we're funny and so we need people to laugh and whatever. But we've sat in enough audiences over the last 10 years to really think, "Man, people are coming there to, one, learn, but they're really coming there to be entertained." I think there's an entertainment element that we lean on heavily in our camp and, just everywhere we go, we like to leave an impression. Hopefully somebody walks away being like, "Wow, I really enjoyed myself, and I learned something." That is the ultimate compliment. Kathleen: I can definitely say that's the experience I've had. So, mission accomplished. LinkedIn is making a comeback Kathleen: Now, with LinkedIn, it's been interesting to me, because I feel like in marketing it's sort of like ... Marketing's a little bit like fashion where, if you wait long enough, everything comes back, right? Marcus: True. Kathleen: If culottes can come back, then anything can come back. Marcus: Yes. Kathleen: In marketing, I think LinkedIn is really ... Not that it ever totally went away, but it's really having almost like a golden age. Marcus: A resurgence. It is. It was. It was. It was literally just a site that you'd put your resume, and why would you go on there unless you were trying to get a job or looking for someone to hire? I think when Jeff came in and really took over, he really started "Oh, well, why don't we add ..." The first acquisition they had was like, "Why don't we add an article component? Why don't we add ..." Then it turned into like a full newsfeed. Okay, people are coming here every day to consume content, to learn, to connect, and they're doing more than just using it as their online resume or CV, and that was like the major twist. But for a while there, it was just ... It wasn't going anywhere. It was completely stagnant for a really long time. Kathleen: Yeah. It was boring. Marcus: Yes, boring. Kathleen: I mean, I'll be honest. Almost every update you used to see, at least what I used to see, it just seemed like somebody was auto-posting their blogs. Marcus: Totally. Kathleen: There was not a lot of interaction. Marcus: Stuffy. It was like, "Oh, I'm on Facebook. My mom's on LinkedIn." You know what I mean? Kathleen: Yes. Marcus: And her coworkers are on there, and that's kind of how it felt. It's been around for a long time, so it's not like this is just some new, hot thing. They've got about 645 million people on the platform, but the majority of that came in this resurgence period. The last five years has been a major uptick when they started to add a bunch of things to make it sexier and more appealing for people to want to be there every day. That was a big, big difference. Kathleen: Yeah, no, I've had a lot of business owners, marketers, entrepreneurs say to me in the last year or so that one of their goals is to really invest more in LinkedIn and in their personal LinkedIn presence. It's easy to kind of cover the basics and be like, well, flesh out your profile and make sure you're following people and checking people you should follow and posting things, but there's so much ... As you say, there's so much more to it. How to get the most out of LinkedIn today Kathleen: So, if somebody came to you and said that to you today, with all the functionality that LinkedIn has and knowing how it works today, what would you say to them about how to really build a robust presence on the platform? Marcus: Yeah. You know, it's funny. People ask me to do a lot of things. I have a bunch of trainings out there for optimizing your profile and whatever. In fact, you can go do all of that stuff for free on Google. There is a million people talking about the 10 things, the 5 things, to optimize your profile. But what people aren't talking about and what's really helping people win on the platform is obviously ... It's not a secret. It's content. But it's not just content. People are putting things out in the world for sure. There's literally nine billion content impressions a week on LinkedIn, which blows people's minds. The other statistic that's staggering is the one that, of those nine billion content impressions, all of those are being driven by almost 1% of the population on there. So, it's about five million people pushing all the content. That literally equals viral, by the way, and the reason why it's viral is because, if you put out a piece of content to ... Let's say I have 15,000 followers on LinkedIn. If all of them see that I put out a piece of content, and they engage with it, so they comment or they like it, that'll show up in their activity feed. Then it just kind of trickles to a second and third connection. So, all these people, the 100,000 views that my post got ... I'll share some of the content strategies I have, but a lot of them go really far, hundreds of thousands of views because it's not about the ... It's the people who are engaging with it and who they're connected to, and then those people see it and consume it and pass it along. I just becomes this amazing thing. But the one thing I'll say that people aren't talking about with content is that it's not about content. It's not just about putting things out. It's about putting content out that creates the right types of conversations online. And what I mean by that is literally, if you're not putting out content that is starting a conversation, then it's literally just noise. It's just another thing that just clogs up our brain and our feed and whatever, but if you happen to leverage your content with the right audience and create a space for them to have a conversation or engage you or be able to engage one another, you are now a catalyst in that. You have a ton of power. People start to see you as an authority or a thought leader. That's where people are starting to take those online conversations off and do amazing things, partnerships, business, sales, et cetera, and they're moving that forward, because they've figured out that the real kind of equation is I need to find really good content that's relevant to a very specific avatar that I'm trying to target that will elicit a response that is a conversation. And you need to know what to do with that conversation in adding enough value and relevancy to get that to come offline and turn into an opportunity. That is what people are doing that are winning with huge followings, and they're doing it every day. So, it's not just about the content. It is about the conversation, for sure. Kathleen: What's really interesting about that, the way you describe it to me, is that it echoes some of what I say to people about their blogs as well. There are so many companies out there that are blogging, I feel like, unlike 10 years ago and you had to convince people to blog. Marcus: Everybody's got a blog. Kathleen: Now everyone has a blog, but there's a lot of "I'm just checking the box and phoning it in" kind of approach to it. I was saying this to somebody the other day. I'm like, "If people can go to your blog and find information that they can find anywhere else, why should they come back? Why should they subscribe? They can find it somewhere else." So, you have to be creating content that's somewhat unique, that is provocative in some way or another, but you have to give people a reason to return or engage. Marcus: Totally. Kathleen: It sounds like there is something there to that as well on LinkedIn, but I really like the way you're connecting this to a conversation, because it's one thing to provoke and to be unique. It's another to get a response. Marcus: Totally. And here's the thing. Be proactive enough to reach out and start conversations with people as well. It's one thing to get people who want to start a conversation. It's another thing to reply. Also, it's very interesting. There's a lot of missed opportunities with just wanting to have a conversation. I know that everybody ... This is very common knowledge for a lot of people, but on LinkedIn you can see who's viewed your profile. That's a really common thing. So-and-so viewed your profile. You had this many people who came to your profile. The only thing we don't do is we actually don't act human. We don't take humanity online with us, because in reality, if someone stopped and looked at you, they would probably look back and be like, "Can I help you with anything? What's going on?" Kathleen: Why are you staring at me? Marcus: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. But in an online space, we don't really think that. So, when someone looks at your profile, they didn't just accidentally come to your profile. They were looking for something. They might have come there for a certain reason. They might have saw you in a feed somewhere. And that is the opportunity to engage people in a human way and be able to take advantage of the opportunity. The other last thing I'll say on it is that your profile, great, optimize it, but optimize it to start conversations as well. It's not just about the content you put out. It's your summary. It's your headline. People don't understand there's a lot of real estate that, when someone sees your photo and what you do, not your title but what you do, "I'm here to double the size of 10,000 businesses," or "I'm looking to connect with agencies that I want to help grow," those little lines are allowing people to quickly understand what you want to talk about, and it really helps target that conversation. So, I think it is about optimizing your profile, because you never want to have great content that points back to a really terrible ... I don't know. That's like having a really bad website with ads. Kathleen: Exactly. Yeah. Marcus: But it is an opportunity to not only optimize it but optimize it for the conversation, and don't be afraid to be human and follow up and really kind of push that. Kathleen: Well, you are definitely drinking your own champagne, as I like to say, because I'm not a fan of eating one's own dog food. Marcus: Yeah, I like that. Kathleen: Your summary is a really good example of that, because it's not the usual, "I worked here, and then I worked there. And now here's what I'm doing here." It's "I'm on a mission to overcome the stigma of selling," and I love that you end it with a question, because it goes back to what you said about starting a conversation. So, I'm curious how often do you get people who visit your profile, and then they reach out to you and say, "Hey, I saw your kind of manifesto and your summary, and I'm in." Marcus: It literally is a weekly occurrence, and it happens a lot. I use it when I speak, because I share that example, because people are like, "Well, I'm going to optimize this summary, but it's just there for SEO." No, people literally read them, and they want to kind of get on board. They won't get on board unless you tell them what to do. So, my summary is set up in a very narrative format. I wrote it to be a story. I wrote it to be engaging, to allow me to put some personality into it. So, yeah, I state my mission. This is what I'm here for. Then as you work your way down that summary, I also talk about how ... Because most people are salespeople who read my stuff, sales and marketers whatever, but I basically say in there that I didn't ask for a sales costume for Christmas. I didn't dress up as one as Halloween. I didn't ask for training for Christmas. Because we all kind of accidentally become salespeople, either by function or just necessity. It happens. If you own a business, you kind of have to. I realized that it comes with a stigma of just every single terrible salesperson that was thoughtless before me, and I need to overcome that in order for people to see, no, I'm a human being. I really want to connect with you, and I want this to be meaningful. At the end of it, I add a CTA that is like, "Hey, who wants to join me? Who's trying to join me on this journey?" And I just get people all the time that are just like, "Hey, I read your summary. It stuck out to me. I am on that journey as well," and those are the kinds of conversations that I want. I'm creating a summary with 2,000 characters, so that's a lot of real estate to elicit that type of response to have somebody who reaches out and goes, "I'm in. I'm all in. What do we do? Do you want to meet? Do you want to have coffee? Can we have a call?" I take them all the time, because they're my tribe. Those are my people. I can't do it alone. Most of those people really expedite this whole movement anyway, and many of them are business partners and friends forever and ever. Kathleen: That's awesome. It's a great example. So, if you're listening and you want to see how this is done in the wild, go search Marcus Murphy on LinkedIn and check out his about section, which is his summary. It's great. Marcus: Thank you. How to get started with creating content on LinkedIn Kathleen: Assuming somebody is listening, and they're thinking, "All right. I got you. I'm going to work on my summary, but then I need to start to post content," going back to what you talked about earlier, my guess is that a lot of the people that might be thinking that have been either not posting much, or they've been phoning it in and just posting links to their company blogs with minimal commenting or anything like that. How would you advise somebody like that to get started? Marcus: Yeah. It's interesting. It's a 1,300 character limit, meaning you've got to be somewhat concise, but you can definitely tell a story. I like using posts that ... My opening line is definitely somewhat provocative. This one I just did ... I wrote that the majority of people reading this are going to not hit their goals this year. That was my opening line. The reason why I said that is I went down, and I said, "We goal plan. We put a ton of time and energy and effort into doing that. We lock ourselves in rooms and make these big proclamations, but many people that I talk to, the one thing that's keeping them from their goals are the people they surround themselves with." I had an exercise that I put in there, saying, "Here's a list of three lists that you need to make." One of people that you need to go deeper on the relationship and show up more and go kind of obviously expand upon that relationship. Then there's a hard one, which is like here are the five people that are not helping you get there. These are the people that literally don't believe in you. They want you to fail, because misery loves company, and these people are just absolutely ... You're like one relationship away from succeeding and one relationship away from literally failing. I was trying to make that point, being like, "Plan all you want, but who you surround yourself with will literally affect that in massive ways," but I opened that and started to give people not only the provocative statement and the thought behind it, but I gave them the resource. I like to use the space to say, "Here is the thing that I want to catch your attention, which is for sure. Here's the little bit of stuff I've been thinking about that got me thinking about this question. And here's the resource. Here are the 3 things, 5 things, 12 things. Here's a link to et cetera." So that people understand, "Oh this is ..." That thing has ... There's just so many comments on there, because people are like, "Oh my gosh. Yes," or they'll tag other people and they'll start making that thing go. It's because they can relate to it, because it's a broad topic. So, I would say, if you're starting out, the only thing I would tell someone to do is be consistent and talk about something you actually care about. What you're going to realize is that you connect with a really amazing community of people that totally serve your purposes, or people that are either in your industry or people that you want to get in front of, but the interesting part is that, if you don't put out information that you're passionate about, you won't ever start a conversation. If you think that you want to put out every entrepreneur link or some Forbes article, cool, but you better have your own unique thoughts around it, and it should be something that you're passionate about, because people can tell. Kathleen: Yeah, it's interesting. The pushback that I hear the most on that ... It's actually the same pushback I get when I talk to people about why they should be doing more video. They say, "But I don't feel like I'm enough of an expert in topic X to put it out there." What would you say to do? Marcus: I don't think everybody's a thought leader. I'm going to say it. Everybody out there tells you ... You see it everywhere. It's like, "I'm a thought leader," and then this, "I want to share all this information and build a tribe and get a following and be an influencer." It's like, no you won't, and we don't need everybody to be one. What you can be is vulnerable. What works really well on this site ... My buddy David Gerhardt ... If you're not following him, you totally should. I think over the last year he gained almost 30,000 followers on LinkedIn, and one of the reasons is because he gets on there, and he shares his reality. He shares all kinds of things that are happening to him in his day-to-day. One of them he shared we like, "Here's my calendar, because I'm not willing to sacrifice my family for my job," and he was a really incredible job. He's a CMO. He talked about "I wake up here, and I dropped the kids off here. Here's my schedule." Oh, man. It got a million views, a million, that post. He was just sharing what he knows about. Here's the thing. You're saying, "Hey, I don't have anything. I'm not sure." Well, go ahead and tell people that. Ask for people's opinions to help you fill the void of what you don't know. There are so many people that are willing on this platform and in life to give advice. Some of the most viral posts that I've ever had are asking people, "Hey, you know what, I'm getting ready to go into a heavy interview season. I really want to hire quality candidates. What are some of those questions that you ask during your interview process?" There were 197 comments on that post. Everybody has an interview question, everything from what kind of Crayola crayon you'd be to more like, "Hey, what's your weaknesses? No, really, what's your weaknesses?" I think that if you don't have anything to share, ask good questions, because people want to engage, and they want to help you. So, helpful posts, you don't have to be the most creative. You don't have to be an expert or a thought leader. Not everybody is. It's funny. I'm the LinkedIn guy, but really what I love is when people ... When I have a need, I will go on there and ask and say, "Man, I feel completely ... I don't know the answer to this. Can someone help?" There's just an amazing response and flood of advice. Kathleen: Yeah. I also like to tell people, if you wait until the day where you feel like the world's foremost expert in a topic, that day is never going to come. The people that seem like experts are 99.9% of the time not the world's most foremost expert. You don't have to be. For everyone who feels like they have a certain skill, there is at least 10 other people who don't have that skill. And as long as you can impart your unique point of view about it, then somebody out there is going to find value in it. Marcus: I made fun of ... So, I was speaking at an event in New York City called Digital Agency Expo, and I was hosting it. Gary Vaynerchuk was there doing a keynote. We're backstage, and I'm like, "Gary ..." We've had a bunch of funny interactions. If you ever get the chance to meet him not online, like Gary, FU, go get hustle, or whatever, get some time with him. He's an incredibly genuine human being. But one thing that he said was ... I was like, "Gary, you've been saying the same stuff for like six years." He hasn't deviated. He says the same few things that are just ... He beats them to death, and he just continues to say them. When you find your thing and you see that it elicits a response from people, people are giving you feedback and they're saying, "Wow, you really understand this thing," you should just keep saying it, because there are so many people out there that want ... You'll think it's old hat, but it really is this new information to so many people, and you just kind of beat that drum. I really love that, because we'll all kind of wrestle with that, and be like, "Oh, I need something new and hot." When you're an influencer, a thought leader, in any way, you're like, "I just need a ... Maybe it's the next thing." No. You need to be an expert in that thing that everybody wants to seek you out as an expert in, and the only way you can start doing that is being consistent about the stuff that you were talking about and you're getting that really popular response. Then you just double, triple down on it. I think that was really cool. But, yeah, Gary ... We can't all be Gary either. Here's the word of advice for anybody that meets Gary offline. Just don't match his energy, or you'll look like an idiot. Don't do it. Don't try and just go with the ... Just be yourself. Kathleen: It's funny that you say that about sticking with the thing that works, because as you were talking about, who came to my mind was Marcus Sheridan, who I've gotten to know over the years and worked closely with. He started talking about They Ask, You Answer years ago. He just released the second edition of the book, and it's just as fresh as it ever was, not only because the principles haven't changed but the truth is, and I'm sure this is true about Gary V. too, you can tell people time and time and time again the way they should do things, and 99 out of 100 people still aren't going to do it. Marcus: 100%! It's never the content. It's never the problem. It's the implementation. Kathleen: Right. Totally. Marcus: People will never make the capacity or the space in their lives to do the things that they're hearing about. When you go to a conference ... We have Traffic & Conversion Summit coming up, and the number one thing I'm going to say when I walk out on stage, because I'm going to host it this year, and it's 10,000 people, by the way, which is pretty dope, but one of the things I say to everybody is like, "Hey, don't have a dusty ass notebook by the time we're done with this thing. Just don't." Find one or two things you can implement into your business, and just do it. Just go home and do it, because every idea and every big ... How many pictures of slides do you have on your ... Of every event that you've been to. You're not doing anything with those. They're just going to occupy space. You need to find the one thing and just implement, because 99% of people won't do it. They just get overwhelmed, or for whatever reason it just gets brushed by. And all that momentum and all the euphoric feeling, all that stuff just dissipates really quickly after you learn it. So, yeah, I think the one ... Man, find something you can just implement. Then you'll be better than half the population, which is crazy. Kathleen: A-freaking-men. With that, I'm going to actually just challenge everybody who's listening, because that's why I started this podcast. I used to go to marketing conferences, and I'd hear people talk. So much of the talks would be really exciting and inspirational, but I would leave feeling like, "I don't understand. I don't have enough tactical knowledge to be able to go and do stuff." So, whenever I interview people, I always like to cover the exciting, the inspirational, the strategic, but also leave people with some really concrete takeaways, which we are going to do before we're done here. So, my challenge to you as listeners is, as you are listening, find one thing in this conversation that you're going to leave and do today, because there will be some small things that you can do immediately, like make one new LinkedIn post that follows some of the things that Marcus is saying. One thing. Marcus: Love it. I'll like it. Tag me. I will comment. Kathleen: All right. Marcus: I'll make it go further. Kathleen: Awesome. So, with that, we're going to go from the ... We've talked about the why and the exciting stuff, and I want to start to get into a little bit of the nitty gritty- Marcus: Awesome. Kathleen: ... because there is a lot of nitty gritty that is really interesting about LinkedIn these days, at least to me, but I'm kind of a nerd about this stuff. Marcus: No, yeah. Let's nerd out. Text v. video posts on LinkedIn Kathleen: I've been playing around with LinkedIn also, and I'm nowhere near at your level. Some of the things that I've found really interesting is ... One is the difference between just plain text posts versus posts that have pictures, posts that have videos. Do you see any difference in performance between those three formats? Marcus: Yes, absolutely. You know what was really funny? When they added native video, it was like the hottest thing, and it was like a TV in a bar effect. You're going through your feed, and you see a video. You're like, "Oh, crap. A video. I didn't know they could do this." So, they got a ton of engagement. Now, videos are interesting. If you have good content, you're going to get eyeballs. If you don't have good content, it's not going to just be like because you've got a video on there you're going to get engagement. I always think it's really crazy. It's like have good content. Have good, relevant content, and you don't have to worry about what format. But, I'll tell you, I'm getting a huge response, a massive response from text, just straight text. It's working for everybody. It's 1,300 characters, and I space it accordingly. I usually have thought, space, thought, space, thought, space, because our brains work in a way of consuming data like it's a book. So, books have space between lines where, if you have a chunk of text, whew, it's just, unbelievable how fast people can scroll past that in the feed, because typically what happens on the actual text is that you start with your statement, what you're trying to catch someone's attention. Then if you continue to space it correctly, it'll have a see more button so somebody has to click that see more button to get down there. The video part, for me, I still use when it's man on the street interview. If I'm just going to pop open my phone, I've got a really important thing to say, and I just ... It's happening to me, and I want someone's help, or I share it. Those get a lot of engagement, because they're pretty authentic. That's the nice part. Some people like to see this. They love to see the "Oh, you're like a human being. Not just behind a keyboard. You have emotions, and I can relate with you." Even if it's the way you look. Most people, if they've never met me, they don't know I'm racially ambiguous looking, and I'm bearded and whatever. I think that sometimes that's really important to add the authenticity and that trust element is to leverage things for that: pictures, videos, and sometimes infographics and stuff like that. They're great, because infographics can tell the story of what you have, but you still have 1,300 characters, even when I put up a video. When I share our blog, like this actual podcast right now, I will put up my thoughts about it and the link to it, and that gets a lot of engagement because I'm giving people the big takeaways and what I really enjoyed about it. The one thing I'll tell you that's been detrimental, which is it's opposite of what we thought it was going to be. Probably a year and a half ago, I was sitting on an advisory board, and they were talking about live video. They were like, "Facebook has this live element. It's doing really well. Instagram's got obviously this live element. LinkedIn should have this live element." And it's only been ... Some people do really well, like Harvard or business pages. They're doing really well because of really important interviews and that kind of stuff. Most people it's just annoying. I realized I was losing followers when I was just popping up, because the notification that someone's going live is the most annoying thing on the planet. It's like, "Someone starts going live." It's like, "I don't care. I don't want ... That's not what I want to consume at the moment. It's not anything that's interesting." Now when you're connected to all these different people, it's anybody. It's like I don't want to know about how to sell brooms. That's the thing that I care about. Kathleen: It's not breaking news. Marcus: Yeah. So, until LinkedIn can modify that where it's like I'm following these specific people and the rest of it's noise, and I don't want to see these notifications but only from these people who produce this type of content, then it just becomes a thing that is annoying and disruptive. That's my feedback, by the way. I was just there about a month ago, and I told them these things, but I'll tell you nothing right now is beating written for that 1,300-character, no picture, no video. It's just doing really well, especially when you tag relevant people into it, you're using appropriate hashtags. Those things go bananas. I actually, every once in a while, which is pretty fun, it's a nice test, but I'll get notifications like, "You're trending in this hashtag," which is usually business or sales or sales leadership. Those are the three that I trend all the time in, and it doesn't take a lot. It's just the fact that most people are engaging with that post and it has a hashtag. If you don't have a hashtag, it won't trend. That's crazy, because it shows up in people's inboxes when it starts trending. It'll say, "Hey, Marcus Murphy is trending on this hashtag," and then you click on it. It takes you to the post. It's super. Yeah, writing. Writing is hands down ... Heavy word posts are what's winning on LinkedIn right now. I think that, yeah. Like I said before, the only caveat that I have is that good content wins. It just totally does, regardless of the format. In this case, we are seeing that there is a bigger life in just the good old text-heavy posts. Kathleen: There was a couple things that you said there that I just want to call out for people who are listening as far as takeaways. One is you have 1,300 character limit. Two is that it's going to cut off what you write, and there's going to be like a see more kind of a link. So, you need to put something that's going to catch people's attention right up front. It was interesting. I did an interview with Goldie Chan a few months ago, and she talked about- Marcus: Yay! My homie. I love Goldie. Kathleen: She's awesome. She was the one who got me started doing LinkedIn video, because I was so inspired by her. Marcus: Oh, that's awesome. She's the woman. Kathleen: Yeah, she talks about something similar where she puts a question in her first line, because you do need to have something right up front that hooks people, that draws them in. Marcus: Yep. Kathleen: Then I liked that you talked about breaking up and having spaces. I noticed that too, that it's much easier to follow. You gave the example of Dave Gerhardt. He definitely does that as well. If you're putting one sentence or maybe two at the most per paragraph- Marcus: Yep, that's right. Kathleen: Then hashtags. It's funny. You're so right about the trending thing, because I don't have ... I have like the fraction of the percentage of followers on LinkedIn that you do, and I still get, "Your post is trending," and I'm like, "That's so cool!" Marcus: Yes. It's awesome! It's so cool, because it also shows up that way for everyone else who you're connected to. So-and-so is trending right now, and you're like, "What are they ..." Because trending on Twitter means something completely, right? We use the same terminology, so it makes it important. There's an elevated sense of this thing is super important, and I love that. And you'll see it. I honestly believe ... That's the reason why I mentioned Dave Gerhardt specifically is because he posts constantly, and he goes against the status quo, which most people are like once or twice a day at max, but he posts everything that he's thinking about. Kathleen: Almost every single time I open up LinkedIn, probably 9 times out of 10, he is the first post, and it's a different post every time. Marcus: Yeah, that, but that's a part of it. He's posting things as he goes and he learns and he's reading, and he's doing a lot right now in terms of content. He even has a private, paid content, which is amazing. So, you can check that out too. I feel like I'm just plugging Dave, but what I want you to do though is actually pay attention to what he posts and how he posts, because he's figured out. If you look at people when things go viral or they get a response on LinkedIn, they have figured out what people want to read, what they want to consume, what's helpful, and we test things. I'm constantly testing content. I am trying to figure out what that perfect thing is for my audience. So, Dave has figured out for his audience. He speaks to marketers. He speaks to very specific people that he is dialed in and knows exactly what gets a response. I work through, and I get big responses, and then I'll have some that are okay. They just did okay. I'm like, "Okay, that's too specific or not broad enough," or "How do I bring people in?" I constantly kind of play with things, because there is going to be one post that you have ... Just hear me now. There's going to be one post that you have, and it's going to ... Something's going to happen where it's just like, "Oh my gosh. That got like 150 likes and all these different comments." All you have to do is pay attention and try to replicate that experience with all of your content and try to work backwards. Dissect that and think about it, or look at other people who are getting a big response and be like, "Man, how are they speaking to their audience? What kind of content are they? Would that work for my network?" Because it's so different from person to person. Yeah, and hashtags are just great. I think people don't use them enough. It's the one thing I keep telling everybody to do. It doesn't look bad at the end of your post. It's okay. You're just trying to connect with a bigger community, and that is where people find you. That is how you grow your following on LinkedIn. Should you use emojis in your LinkedIn posts? Kathleen: Totally agree. Now, I love that you raised do the thing that's right for your audience. That leads me to the next question I was going to ask, which is directly relevant to what is right for your audience, which is, what is your position on using emojis in your posts? Marcus: Ooh. I use emojis all the time. Super basic like that. No. I think emojis are fun. Okay, I'll tell you my first job out of college I worked at Syracuse University, and I was an admissions counselor, which is a glorified salesperson who goes out and gets applications and does those presentations where you want to take a pencil and stab yourself in the eye with your folks, when you go check out universities. I had someone give me terrible advice once. It was very bureaucratic, very stuffy, suit every day kind of job. The dean told me one time, "Hey, don't put smiley faces in your emails. Don't do that. That's not appropriate." I sat there for a long time, and I was like, "You know what? It's not appropriate. I've got to stop doing that. I can't believe it." Then as I started to get older, I'm like, "How the hell is anybody going to figure out how I feel and what my tone is?" I'll tell you that emojis, while they're still funny and some of them are wildly inappropriate, which I like to use in my personal life, not on LinkedIn, I do think that that tells a ... It adds texture to the post. So, I think they can be overdone. I don't like when people put it in their headline or near their name. I think that's totally tacky, and it doesn't help you. It just makes me think that you're wearing Hawaiian shirts at home or something. I think this is more about, hey, I need to add texture here so people can understand my tone, whether it's a fire symbol or whether it's whatever. I totally like that, because people will read through it, and they'll go ... But I do think that you can overdo it. You can put it where it's just a thing that you think is helping you get more eyeballs on your posts, or you're thinking that it just makes you more relevant. It needs to make sense for the post. Like I said, it's just appropriate when you're adding texture or you need someone to understand that you're being sarcastic. That's a really popular one. Like your face, or you say something that people would miss in context if you didn't have something that was emoting and sharing what you're trying to get across. So, yeah, I am for them. I use them, especially if I'm posting from my phone, because obviously it's way harder on your computer to do that. Then I also just think that I've seen them done poorly, and I've seen people do it where I'm like ... I'm very sensitive to overusing them, but I only use it when I'm trying to add context and make sure people know this is my tone, this is what I'm trying to get out there. Don't miss it. Kathleen: Yeah. I am for emojis as well. I'm team emoji. Marcus: Yes. Kathleen: What I've also found is that, because you can't format the text in your posts on LinkedIn ... You talked about it when you talked about leaving spaces between what you write. Visually, sometimes it can all just bleed together, and sometimes emojis are a nice proxy for text formatting. Marcus: Totally. Kathleen: If you bookend a really important line with emojis, it's almost as good as bolding it. Marcus: Oh, it's awesome. Kathleen: Things like that. Marcus: I wish they would let us bold. It's so funny. When you write it, when you actually write the post before you actually hit post, it'll allow you to bold everything, but then when you post it, it goes away. Kathleen: Yeah. They're faking us out. Marcus: Yeah. Oh my gosh. I do another thing that some people don't love, but I emphasize very specific words. I will capitalize a but. I will capitalize a you. I will make sure that I'm showing emphasis on the things that I want to elevate. And I do that, but I'm not yelling at people. It's not like all caps on. But I like to do that. Anything that you can add in, like I said the texture, or you can add in an element where you want someone to make sure that this is what you pay attention to, like you just said the bookend emojis, super popular. It makes sense, especially if it's like, "This is the thing." Like the sirens. I see people do that. It's like, "This is the thing! Don't miss this! If you don't read anything else, this is the thing right here that you can't miss." So, yeah, I'm super pro emoji. And I don't even care who knows that. Kathleen: Yes! Wear it with pride. Should you add links to your posts on LinkedIn? Kathleen: The other thing that I hear people asking a lot is should you or should you not put a link in your post, or should the link be in the comments. Marcus: Right. It depends. I put links in my post if I want that thing to show up with the image. So, there's a link image that goes underneath posts if you only put that one link in there. Sometimes I think that that's interesting that people don't want ... Because it breaks a bunch of classic rules, right? You want to link away from a post, or you want to link ... You take people away. A lot of people will put that link in the comments, which is an interesting move. I think if there's multiple links, I would absolutely not put those back to back, because you only get one shot at that image of what you want people to go to. I use this all the time, because I share ... I do a ton of podcasts, and I have a lot of content out there. I will share that thing that I want people to go look at. Or if it's an article, I'll put it right in there, and I'll even put emojis around it to make sure people click it because it's the most important part. I'm adding context to it. But I have no problem with putting the link in my post. It's funny, because you'll get someone equally as passionate about not doing it. I've just never seen it do something ... It's never taken people away. Engagement hasn't dropped. I think that it's only bad when you bifurcate it with two so that somebody's attention might not be in the right place. But if you've got the one thing and that really great thumbnail that comes up where it really catches someone's eye, or it's like you on a podcast so it's your still ... When I actually launched my first LinkedIn Learning course, the link brought up my LinkedIn author photo. It was the coolest thing to put that in the post, because obviously people could see "Oh, that's his profile on LinkedIn Learning. That's pretty dope." So, yeah, I'm pro link in post. I don't need to- Kathleen: All right. Marcus: I'm not going to apologize for it. Creating conversations on LinkedIn Kathleen: We're putting our stake in the ground here. Now you talked in the beginning about how you want to start a conversation, but then you mentioned something in passing, which I think was really important that we haven't talked about yet, which is you have to then know what to do with that conversation. Marcus: Right. Yes. Kathleen: So, I'm just going to lob that ball over to you and let you run with it. Marcus: Conversational frameworks are super important. It's funny, because I went and spoke somewhere, and I don't remember where it was, but I had these students come up to me afterwards who were at college somewhere, and they want to get into the workforce. They wanted to get into sales. They're like, "So, how do we start a conversation with ... How do we talk to people?" I'm just like, "How do you do it in real life?" Because I feel like we miss that. A conversational framework typically starts with somebody saying something and the other person responding, and then it actually should go through steps. The part that's really wild about online conversations is that we treat them so differently. We treat them in a way where it's almost like in a sales ... Let me ask you this, and this is going to be a funny question. People online, raise your hand in your brain here. But how many of you have gotten a terrible sales prospecting message on LinkedIn? Kathleen: Oh my god. Like a thousand of them. Marcus: So, why? You know why? Because no one is actually treating it like a human to human conversation. It's not B2C. It's not B2B. It's H2H. And people are forgetting that humans have a way of building basically intimacy. They build relationship in a very specific sequence. We are animals. Animals do it too. You can literally observe us and watch how that progresses to get to a place where somebody's like, "I know this person. I trust this person. We are in a relationship. This is us." I'm not talking about romantic, just I know this person enough. I think that we don't translate that well online. Most of us show up like those sales messages. They're basically like, "Hey, I'm Marcus. Let's go back to my place." That is what they feel like. Kathleen: Let's do it. Marcus: Yeah, let's go. I've got pizza. I don't know. It's just terrible. You've added no value. You've added no context. They don't know why they want to go back with you. You have built no trust in your communication. So, the first thing that people get wrong is that they literally get online and say, "Hi, I'm So-and-so. Here's all my crap. Do you want to buy it? Here's who we are." It's like, cool. Great. That has nothing to do with what I'm doing. You haven't identified any of my themes. You don't know what I care about. You have taken no time to think about how to start this conversation, because you don't know me at all. But based off of some assumptions, I can have a better conversation with you online if I start to look at all of the information that's out there for you. So, there's no excuse. There is zero excuse to have a thoughtless form of outreach because of how much information is out there, especially on LinkedIn. If somebody is replying to you or you are putting out content, you're already giving them an arsenal of things that they could be starting a conversation with you about. If somebody replies to your post, and they're like, "Man, this is ..." Let me just give an example. This the best post. I totally ascribe to this. Click on their profile, find out who they are. If it's relevant or if there's something in there where you really want to connect with them, go ahead and go connect with them. Then use this real estate, which is super popular and everyone does it wrong ... You get to add a custom note to any invitation that's 300 characters. Now, what you can do there to stand out from everyone is not talk about yourself. Don't talk about what you can do for them. Don't ask them who in their organization can help you. That also makes them feel bad, by the way. That's a belittling statement. Ask them, "Hey, I saw you comment on my post. I looked at your website. I love this thing about you. I have identified this thing that I think is interesting, and I would love to be connected with you." That is a very normal introduction, very first interaction, human conversation. Then you can start ... Guess what? You can start having more of a conversation that allows you to learn more about them, and they learn more about you, because typically what people don't understand is, if I talk ... If I was talking to you, Kathleen, and I was just talking to you about you about you about you the whole time, asking questions, eventually you're going to do something very human. You're going to go, "Hey, what do you do? Who are ..." Kathleen: Yeah, enough about me. Marcus: Yeah, it's like, what's going on with you? That's a very human thing, but people online typically don't follow the same cadence as in real life. If they could just take their normal how they would interact with people on a daily basis in a bar, on a plane, even though most of you need to stop talking to my on airplanes. Okay? If there are some plane-talkers listening to this, please stop it. It's like I put a blanket over my head. Kathleen: Yes. Big headphones. That's a signal. Marcus: Then somebody still leans over like, "What's your life story?" It's like, no. Stop it. I'm just literally trying to read my book. No, but I think the majority of us just don't take those interactions and make it an online kind of how ... What would the cadence of an offline conversation sound like, and how do I replicate it online? You are going to be a guru. You are going to stand out in a million ways if you can just get that little, tiny piece right and understand that ... To succeed in B2B, take a lesson from B2C Marcus: You know, it's funny. I'll say one last thing, because I talk a lot. But B2B, everyone's all super obsessed, because LinkedIn is like the B2B platform. It totally is. What's winning right now in any B2B kind of how you start a B2B conversation is to go super hard on B2C. If you understand that you're actually talking to people within the organization and you understand that you're a business and you're trying to get in touch with other businesses, but that business, that point of contact, is a human being, B2C the heck out of that B2B, all right? Figure out a way to continue to add that human element, and take that offline conversation to an online space. Everybody's going to want to talk to you, because you're going to be so different than everybody else and all those thousands of terrible prospecting messages that we get. By the way, Kathleen, I stop and I write them back all of the time. I give them advice, or I say, "Hey, does this really work for you? Do you understand that this is your reputation?" I try. Probably like 1% of them ever take me up on like, "Hey, go fix these things and prospect me again, and I'll give you a meeting." And like no one does it. Kathleen: Yeah. It's so true. Email marketers really have a similar trick they use called the rule of one, which is when you're writing an email, you picture one specific person, often a friend. When you're writing that email ... And I do this all the time. I have this particular friend named Jen, and she's in my head. Whenever I write any marketing email, I'm like, "Would I ever send an email to Jen with a subject line that's like brackets, webinar?" Marcus: Oh, that's so good. Kathleen: No. I'd be like, "Hey, thought this might be of interest to you," dot dot dot. And I may or may not capitalize like the first word. I don't know. But I think it's the same principle. I always tell people, if you're having trouble operationalizing this, pick a friend and pretend that you're conversing with them.  Marcus: Yeah. Or people want to write a novel in the first engagement, the first interaction with people. Our best performing sales email of all time was written by Ryan Deiss, and it literally said this. It said, "How can I make X business go faster?" Question mark. That was the highest performing, highest open rate, and most responses, because we weren't trying to get them to go to a website and pull out their credit card and buy something. We were trying to start a conversation. When you try and start a conversation, it sounds a hell of a lot like you would send a text to somebody or you would send an email to your friend. So, that's super important, man. We just miss it. It's just so missed, because we all want to ... I don't know. We overkill. We just... Kathleen: Yeah. I like to say we go to work, we put our marketing hats on, and we forget that we're human beings. Marcus: It's so crazy. Follow v. connect on LinkedIn Kathleen: Okay. We're running out of time. So, I have another question for you really quickly. Somebody raised this to my attention recently, and I'm sort of interested in it, which is that now you have the choice on your own profile to make the button follow or connect. The advice that somebody else gave to me was that, when you surpass a certain number of connections or you're reaching a certain level of activity on LinkedIn, you should change that button to say follow, because it's a lower bar and more people are likely to hit follow than connect. I would just love to know have you thought about this, what's your feeling about it? Marcus: So, they're kind of right and wrong. Basically, depending on what level of connectedness you are. So, if you're a second connection ... You'll see people, when they show up and you're not connected to them, it's like second, third. Usually if they're outside of those two, they won't even show up. You can't even connect with them, because you still get the follow button. It's still there. You hit the little dropdown on the right, and there's an opportunity to connect. Now, the follow is interesting. A lot of people, mine shows up as follow. I think that what I realized though is the amount of views I get to my page, or to my listing, my profile, is a direct correlation with how many people request to connect with me. Here's the deal. I don't connect with everybody. I think that's kind of foolish, because it's a quality over quantity game for me. If it's 15,000 followers, of those are half of the people that I really want to be connected to who I'm happy to be able to message and have them message me, because that really is the real significant difference between a non-connection and a connection. It's not like Instagram. It's not like Facebook. There is no way to have a private profile on LinkedIn. Your information is there. It's just the ability to engage with people, and you have to be connected to just send that message. So, I don't have a strategy for once you're getting going. It's funny, because Dave and I ... I don't have it. If you want to connect with me, send me a connection request. If you want to add a note in there, I'm going to- Kathleen: Tell him you heard him on the Inbound Success Podcast. Marcus: Yeah. Usually I totally connect with people, because I'm not afraid of those messages. It doesn't always mean that I'm going to respond to them. I get thousands of messages a month. I literally just showed somebody the other day. I was like, "Here is December." They were like, "How many do you get?" It was 568 by the time I was halfway through, the 17th. Kathleen: Wow. Marcus: But it's not like a bragging thing, by the way, because some of that's hard to keep up with. I have to have people in there, making sure that there's opportunity versus someone who's trying to solicit me, like all these different things. But the majority of them are pretty thoughtful, people that just want to say thanks and "Hey, I really enjoyed this," and "Hey, I'm connecting with you because we're pretty similar." I do think that I can tell the standard you copy paste that line that we're very similar networks, or "Hey, you look like a really great, ambitious person. I want to connect with you." Great. The next message after you connect with them is going to be "Here's my stuff. Do you want to buy it? Come back to my place." Kathleen: Totally. Marcus: So, I think that there's something in the fact that connections should mean more and have more weight. It used to be even a cap on it. LinkedIn used to cap it at 30,000 connections, and now that's kind of gone, because David actually just told me that a little while ago. That is not the case anymore. So, they're not actually ... They're not throttling that in any way. But I would be really cautious, because who you're connected to is important, because that shows up and shows other people who you are connected to as well. This is a personal thing, but we have people in my office who will go on, and they've just got tons of connections request. The only way they'll connect is if they see that Ryan, myself, or somebody else shares a connection. So, if I'm just out there connecting wit

Good morning everybody! I was on with Ken and Matt. We talked about Google and the Partnership they have with Ascension the second-largest medical conglomerate in the US and what it means to our privacy.  Keep an eye out for my Facebook Lives - free information for you and your families. These and more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com --- Related Articles: Big Tech Has Your Private Medical Records -- Through Hospital Partnerships    --- Automated Machine Generated Transcript: Craig Peterson0:00 Hey, good morning, everybody. Craig Peterson here. I'm sorry if you're listening to the podcast and Craig's ranting again if you don't want to hear my rant about medical records, I'd take a different angle on this one today. After having ranted a couple of times about it this week. I think I've kind of refined my messaging, as they say in the biz. Anyhow, I had a good chat this morning with Ken and Matt and we spoke with the people of Maine a little bit about some of the technology and of course, what should we be doing? What are the ultimate outcomes of having Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and others examining our health records? I take a different angle today.  I have to mention too, by the way, wow, we're starting to get some good numbers, decent numbers over on the Facebook Live. So thanks, everybody. There's watching those you can get them. Just go to Craig Peterson dot com slash Facebook, it is so much easier for people to find me that way, then trying to search on Facebook, but you can search and you can find me there to my tech talk page over there. But anyway, thanks for everybody that's promoting it to their friends. We've even been sharing some of these little videos. I think yesterday, it was like four and a half minutes long. And I'm talking about some basic technical stuff, and primarily around security. And, you know, mostly kind of leaning towards mostly business. But home people if you listen, you will get information that's applicable to you as a home user or SOHO - Small Office/Home Office. Now here we go to Ken and Matt. Matt Gagnon 1:49 Here's the thing, great Wednesday, we're chock full of things chocked full of things that we need some filler and we need some exciting, interesting thing. Ken Altschuler 1:58 We're just trying to spread the word around but you know, Wednesdays, are we like once a week we would rather you have you on Wednesday? Then not have you at all? Craig Peterson2:06 Oh, there you go. Okay. Well, that's good to know. I'm not totally being abandoned here. No, no. Matt Gagnon 2:12 It has to do with us. It's I'm not just a pawn in your game of world domination. We'd like you to be part of it. We want to take you with us. Ken Altschuler 2:26 So, So, you know, Craig, I was looking over your website, and you know, everything's breaches. And I mean, Google has health records on us. I mean, so what? Should I just be really depressed about the tech news today? Is there anything good happening in the tech world? Matt Gagnon 2:43 Besides photocopiers, you mean, exactly Craig Peterson 2:46 I'm talking about Google first. Ken Altschuler 2:56 How does one job it's supposed to copy things and there's a PDF or something don't know I'm not asking to copy? I am I it has a function where you're supposed to literally be able to eat mail to yourself. I use it on my own copier, which is almost exactly like this one every day. And all you do is put in the email address, you hit the green button, and it says Do you want to send my email says I would like to send that and then it sends it. And yet it simply cannot accomplish this goal. So yeah. Anyway, Ken Altschuler 3:18 I apologize.  Craig Peterson 3:22 So good. Well, yeah, there's some good news in the tech world, Frankly, there's a lot of stuff going on. We've got some new technology coming out just in time for the holiday shopping season. And we're going to be talking in fact that next week, you guys are going to have a couple of things about how to stay safe online during the shopping season because there's a lot worse stuff happening now. But we haven't talked about these pale blue batteries, have we? This is a very cool technology. It's one of these GoFundMe things It was really well funded. And I actually have some sitting in front of them. As a powerful member of the media community, they sent me a few of these things. These are absolutely amazing. They're using yet another technology. It's the same types that you have in these little helicopters. Have you seen these things that like in the malls? Yes. Where they take like 30 seconds to charge and they fly around for like five minutes. Yes, it's the same basic technology but pale blue has these things in triple-A batteries and double-A batteries. And built right into the side of them is a micro USB charger. They have a light on them to tell you how charged they are. They charge up in like 20 minutes, just a regular micro USB cable and charger anybody right from your laptop or whatever you have. And they run your devices for just as long as pretty much any other battery. I have these pale blues right now. My Bluetooth keyboard and also in my Bluetooth mouse trackpad thing here. And I have been absolutely amazed. So this is some new technology. There's some other new battery technology that's coming out the guy that invented lithium-ion batteries. He, in fact, he just got a Nobel Prize this year. Finally, after inventing these all those years ago, he's come up with something that he's called lithium glass batteries. And these will let you charge them up like a car, fully charged in about 20 minutes. That'll take you probably instead of 300 miles about 500 miles. So this type of technology is coming down the road. I absolutely love it with this is what we need as we get more mobile as we have more 5g coming out. And I think that's good news can. Okay. Matt Gagnon 5:56 Oh, you're talking. Craig Peterson 5:58 You feel a little better. Thank you. A little better. Thank you Matt Gagnon 6:02  A little better. Thank you. You asked about Google and these health records. Again, Yes. Craig Peterson 5:58 This thing is to me concerning I don't know about you guys. But Google has this partnership that they entered into with Ascension. This is a country's second-largest health system, that it's part of the whole Catholic nonprofit health system and includes 34,000 providers who see patients at 2600 hospitals, doctors' offices, other facilities across 21 states. I'm not sure if we have Catholic hospitals here in Maine or not. I know you guys know. Okay. Well, apparently Ascension has quietly given all of the medical records, diagnoses, laboratory test results, hospitalization records, and other data including patient names and birthdays, this is all reported by the Wall Street Journal,  to Google. Google, of course, just bought Fitbit, which is giving them more health information as people are using it to monitor their sleep. They're using it to monitor their, you know, running, walking, exercise, climbing, heart rhythms, etc. So more, you know, it's this, the numbers get crazy. So what about 30 years ago? Because of HIPAA, they were able to give all of your medical records to Google without even notifying you. Ken Altschuler 7:40 Why don't they say no? Craig Peterson 7:44 HIPAA is mainly about portability, right? They were forcing doctors to move the records to computers, electronic medical records, and that's been a nightmare because all kinds of small doctors' offices and clinics and even Big healthcare organizations don't know how to keep our data safe, which drives me crazy, right? So it's been a nightmare from that standpoint. But what HIPAA did is, whereas before HIPAA went into place, they would have to ask your permission before sharing records. Now, they can share your medical records for all kinds of reasons. You know, I could be a multi-billionaire, walk up to a hospital say, Hey, I'm interested in buying you, I want to see the records of every patient, and I could get my hands on them without the patients being notified. In this case, what they've done is they said, Hey, listen, Google, here's what we want. We want you to look at all of this, analyze all of this so that we can have better outcomes so that we can save in costs and ultimately save lives. Now where I get concerned about this, because you know, those are all great goals. I love it. But I get very concerned that now our records are in the hands of Google and that means they are going to end up in the hands of our employers. potentially. They're already looking at some of these records. If you look at the socialist countries of the world, like Canada or the UK, their national health system in the United Kingdom has been using computers now artificial intelligence much the same as well, Google's using to predict when someone's going to die and predict whether or not it's worth spending any money on them at all. So they're saying, Hey, listen, you know, you're going to die in a matter of a few months. So we're not going to spend a dime on you. Because most of the money that's spent in health care when you boil it all down, is those last few months of life so why should we bother treating you? Then I've already seen my family in Canada, where they refuse to treat my grandmother for atrial fibrillation. They refuse to treat my grandfather for gout in he ended up having his foot cut off because they just plain old wouldn't treat it. My father in Toronto, three hours in the back of a hot of an ambulance driving around trying to get treatment. And he finally gets into a hospital finally accept him. And they take him they overnight they do the blood test. Yeah. You got a sloping t wave looking at his 12 lead. Yeah, he had a heart attack. take aspirin and call us if it happens again. versus what happens is my father in law happened to my father-in-law. Yeah, up in Washington state where they treated him they looked at him seriously. Did stress test I did nothing like that for my father. And you know, I spent 10 years in emergency medicine, right. So I know a little bit about this stuff. So when I see Project Nightingale, which is what Google's calling this partnership with the country's second-largest healthcare organization. I start to freak out. I hear, you know, you guys talk about Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, etc. I hear these politicians saying we need socialized medicine. And yet every country, every major country that has socialized medicine, and I do have family members in Canada, that does not have an absolute horror story about medical treatment, and we're not talking about people that can't afford it. We're not talking about people that couldn't have insurance, okay. But every one of these countries wants to get rid of it. And we've got Google, we've got Microsoft, we have a basic Amazon, every major player trying to get into this business. I am starting to freak out, gentlemen. Ken Altschuler 11:45 Well, I wouldn't want to freak you out anymore. So we're going to leave it there because we're out of time anyway. We're gonna stick a pin in this and maybe we'll talk to you next Wednesday, maybe next Monday. Matt Gagnon 11:59 When we will find out a little about holiday shopping. Craig Peterson 12:02 Thanks, guys. Matt Gagnon 12:02 Appreciate it. Craig, as always, we'll talk again soon. Thanks. Ken Altschuler 12:03 Thanks, Craig Transcribed by https://otter.ai --- More stories and tech updates at: www.craigpeterson.com Don't miss an episode from Craig. Subscribe and give us a rating: www.craigpeterson.com/itunes Follow me on Twitter for the latest in tech at: www.twitter.com/craigpeterson For questions, call or text: 855-385-5553

What does it take to be a leader and motivate a group of people to accomplish a common goal? How do you build credibility and develop trust with your team? Are you able to communicate with humility so it’s not about you but about the overall mission? MEMIC Loss Control Director Randy Klatt shares leadership tips from more than 40 years’ experience working in industries where safety is critical to success—in emergency medicine, as an active duty Navy pilot, a commercial airline pilot and an aviation safety instructor at the university level. Peter Koch: Hello listeners, and welcome to the first ever episode of the MEMIC Safety Experts podcast. I'm your host, Peter Koch. Join me and my guests every two weeks to discover new nuggets and insights into work, life, physiology, psychology, common trends and inspired solutions while we discuss safety as it relates to us humans. Check us out at MEMIC.com/podcast or find us on your favorite podcast player by searching M E M I C Safety Experts. New episodes drop every two weeks, so jump on over to MEMIC Safety Experts podcast and subscribe. In this our inaugural episode, we're going to talk about leadership and its role in driving safety in any industry as a safety consultant working for MEMIC for the past 17 years and across a variety of different industries. What I've realized is that safety impacts every part of each position that you have and every task that you do. And being an effective leader can create a great culture of safety and increase safety performance. So, let's get started with a quote from James Buchanan, “The test of leadership is not to put greatness in humanity, but to elicit it for the greatness is already there.” He was an American president from 1857 to 1861 and realized that even then people had the inherent ability to succeed. And good leaders will provide motivation and opportunity for that success to manifest. For today's episode about safety leadership, I'm speaking with Randy Klatt, CSP and director of Region 2 Loss Control at MEMIC to better understand how leadership affects safety, culture and employee performance. Randy has over 40 years of experience working in industries where safety is critical to success. His career spans emergency medicine, active duty Navy pilot, commercial airline pilot and aviation safety instructor at the university level. Randy has worked with MEMIC since 2003 and he's been leading a team of consultants serving the southern and central Maine areas. Randy, welcome to the podcast today. And thanks for being here for our first episode. Randy Klatt: Hello, Peter. It's good to be here. Thanks for having me. Peter Koch: I really appreciate coming down and talking about leadership with us today. So, let's jump right into it. So, in your opinion and from your experience working within the field and within the aviation industry and then working here for MEMIC for as long as you have, what does it take to be a leader? Randy Klatt: What does it take to be a leader? You could take all day to answer that question, Peter. Of course, there's all kinds of things involved in that. But if I had to pinpoint just a few things, if we consider what the definition of leadership is to start with, to motivate a group of people to accomplish a common goal.  What do you need to motivate people?  And there are all kinds of skills and attributes that we could talk about. But to me, there are two things that stand out right away. One is if you're going to talk the talk, you've got to walk the walk. So there has to be that credibility piece. There has to be that trust from your, from your people. If they understand that you actually do what you say they need to do. They'll be willing to follow you. And the second attribute that I really like is humility. If you look at history, some of the greatest leaders in history were actually very humble people. They didn't really like to talk about themselves. It wasn't about them. It's about the team. It's about the accomplishment of the goal, the overall mission. So those are the things that come to my mind from the very top. Peter Koch: I think that's fantastic. And those two things seem to be able to translate pretty well right into leadership in the safety field and the safety world to motivate people to be safer. Though we don't always see that happen. I mean, that's really why we have our jobs as safety experts here, because workplace safety doesn't always occur. And we do have injuries in the workplace, and it does happen. So how would those two attributes really work in towards workplace safety and becoming a successful leader in workplace safety? Randy Klatt: Well, again, if the people that work for you or report to you or work in your organization, if they trust their leaders, they'll listen to their leaders.  And if the message from leadership is, we're going to operate a safe operation. We're going to follow the rules; we're going to do what the right thing to do is, and then people are much more likely to do that. So, a leader is such an important foundation of any safety program. Most workers know what the right thing to do is from a standpoint of safety. But if that isn't reinforced by leadership, by supervisors, if that isn't encouraged, if that isn't something that people are held accountable to, then what happens? Then, then we're probably depending upon production and we're looking to production, we want to get the job done.  Of course, everybody wants to get the job done but if the leaders are saying, yes, the job is important, but let's balance that with safety, we're going to do it. But we're going to do it safely. People are much more likely to do that. If leadership just says get the job done, turns around and walks away. Well, you know what the results will be. People will focus on the job. They will get the job done. But they're going to risk their own safety or the safety of others in order to do that. So, leadership does start at the top. We could talk all day again about different levels of leadership and what's most important, but having a solid mission in mind and holding people accountable to that and treating them with respect and trust at the same time, making sure they're doing what they're supposed to do. Supporting them with their needs. That's what's going to get things done. And that's what's going to provide a safe and healthful workplace. When I see a claim, when I see an injury, typically my first thought is, where was the supervisor? Where were the leaders? Why was that set of circumstances allowed to exist in the first place? That should not have happened. And yes, everyone is responsible for their own safety and health. So, we can look to individuals, but there is probably a culture that developed there that set up that scenario. And with proper leadership, it wouldn't have happened. Peter Koch: Sure. Boy, those are really fascinating. And when you think about it, and when I look at the different people that I've worked with in the past, there hasn't been any business owner, supervisor, manager, vice president, whoever that would be that I'm communicating with, none of them want their employees to get hurt. Not a one. And if you come right out and ask them, did you, were you expecting that person to get injured? Did you want that person to get? No, they definitely don't want that. So how does that desire for someone to go home in one piece then get convoluted or changed? And I think the leadership equation is there because most of them have stood in front of their employees and said, I want you to work safely. You have permission to say no if the job seems too challenging for you or unsafe and come to me or come to your manager or come to your supervisor. But yet, we still see that employees will make different choices. And I do believe it comes from the trust of that individual or maybe interpretation. So, if I stand in front of you as the supervisor and say, I want you to work safely, and like you said, then wander away to do something else. Maybe it's working on productivity or scheduling or some of the other tasks, or maybe to go take over a job that I had done in the past and someone didn't show up today, so I'm going to step into their shoes so we can keep productivity going. There's a mixed message there that comes from that supervisor or manager. Randy Klatt: There is absolutely a mixed message there. And what I often see is, and what we always see, especially in manufacturing, a large facility, you walk onto the floor and there's a big banner that says safety is number one.  Safety is my number one priority. Safety is job one. We see those things a lot. And I was just at a location not too long ago and I saw that banner. And we're right next to it was a railing on this, on a set of stairways that was missing the mid rail and would in no way be compliant with the OSHA standards. And I could frame it in the same photograph. Something is wrong there. The message is a good message and it should be promoted as a priority for the organization. But when you have a clear hazard right next to it, that hasn't been addressed by anyone, we know that that is not a message that's permeated through all of leadership, that has been started at the top and has made its way all the way down. So, something is missing. So, the message is, yes, be safe, but just get the job done. That's the subliminal message. And that's when people get hurt. People don't, you're absolutely right, people don't want to get hurt. They don't try to get hurt. And there are no business owners I've ever met who want to see people injured. Certainly, we don't. But if you're not actively engaged in preventing it.  Actively engaged in fostering a culture that says workplace injuries are not inevitable and they are not acceptable.  And we have to do everything we can to prevent them.  If you have that kind of culture, you probably will prevent at least a very good portion of those injuries. And it's not just lip service. It's actual actions that are required. Peter Koch: And there is the difference between having a mission that states that that injuries are not acceptable and they're not inevitable and they are preventable.  And then holding people accountable for actions that will support or promote the mission, whatever those actions are. And there's multitude of things that we'll get into later on in the podcast of what, what supervisors can do to help lead in safety. So, what are some examples of how good leadership can have a positive effect on workplace safety? Maybe some specifics that you've seen out there, some behaviors or actions or practices that you've seen work really well in the workplace? Randy Klatt: Well, I can give you an example. That again, happened not too long ago. One of the insureds that I work with, the safety manager, is very aggressive. He's well versed in safety.  He's a good man. He wants to prevent injuries doing his job. And it's taken a while to turn the culture around at the organization, but he's done really well with it. They recently turned down a hundred thousand dollars in income in a job.  They could have taken on this extra role and made a lot more money. But there were safety issues involved and in what they were about to do. And as the safety manager, he stood up as a leader and said, we should not do this. And the owner did back him up and said, all right, we won't. Long story short, eventually, that customer that they were working with agreed to change conditions and changed the environment that they were going to be working in, and they ended up getting the job anyway. But I thought that was really a great example of how a safety leader stood up to do his job and said, this is not acceptable, we should not take on this risk. In the past, that hundred thousand dollars of income probably would have been the driver.  But the culture has become safety oriented enough to say, and accepting enough to understand that, ah right, if we get somebody hurt, we're gonna lose that hundred thousand dollars many times over, so let's not do that. So, I think it's very possible for businesses to do that when they have that focus, a broad, focus on safety, culture, productivity, quality. We've talked about those things many times in the safety world about balancing those three. And you can do that.  But you have to have leaders who are willing to do it.  Because if I told the frontline employee to go do that job, he would have done it. He would have risked his own safety, probably because he was told to do the job and a good employee will do what they're tasked to do because they feel obligated to complete the mission.  Peter Koch: Complete the mission. Trust their, trust that their employer has their best interests in mind or on the negative side, not trust, but do the job because they don't want to lose their job. Randy Klatt: Sure. Peter Koch: There's parts there, too. Randy Klatt: Employees have to, they're paid to do the job. And they will say that to me.  That's my job. Well, it is your job, but it's not your job, your risk, your safety. And if you have someone that is in leadership who is supporting that, in the end, it'll work out so much better. So, in this particular case, not only did they prevent injury, they corrected a site that was not safe, and they still got the job in the end, anyway. Peter Koch: That’s a fantastic outcome. Randy Klatt: Really a great outcome for everyone. So, I think that's the best example I have in my recent history of where leadership really took over and did the right thing to prevent injury. Peter Koch: And really, when you look at what they put first. And so you talk about the balance of the three things that get measured most within business, which is the quality or service of the products you're putting out there, the productivity, how well you are managing the finances, what is coming in versus what's going out. And then safety being that last part. If you put either productivity or service at the basis of all your decisions, there is a darn good chance that that particular decision that happened at the company that you were referencing before, would never have happened because it would have been about the money. Or it had been about the quality of the product that they had to put out first, instead of understanding that they didn't have the, they weren't able to manage the risks or the exposures that they had for their employees. So, having safety at the base of their stool or the base of their triangle. Randy Klatt: In the end, it is all about leadership. You know, when we go back again to that definition, motivating people to accomplish a common goal. Well, the common goal is business, it's productivity, it's making money, but it's also doing it safely because obviously safety impacts the bottom line as well. So, you can't do one without the other two the quality product, productivity and safety.  It all has to work together. And a leader has to understand that all the way down to the front-line supervisors. Peter Koch: Do you have enough experience with that one particular company to talk about how they got to that point to have safety be such an important part of what they do?  Randy Klatt: It has been a many year process and it's a company that's growing. So, when you're growing, the financial end of the business is so important because there's so much risk and you're inheriting other territories, other employee groups. So, the safety manager has grown considerably, not only in his experience and his ability to focus on the right things, but also to stand up and say, no, we can't do that.  To hold people accountable and to convince their owners, the board of directors, you know, other people involved, that yeah, this is the right thing to do. It's it may cost us up front. We could have lost that contract. We could have lost that business. Fortunately for him, in the end, they didn't. And that was just the icing on the cake. But it does take quite a process for a lot of organizations if they haven't been focused on it before to turn that all around. It's like turning around a ship. It takes a long time to get that baby going the other direction. And once it goes the other way, it has to be maintained as well. So continual education, continual training, continual focus on the right things. Peter Koch: So, what did they have experiences in their past where a similar decision was made, and they found success with it? Or did they have maybe a negative experience in their past where safety wasn't focused on and there was an employee injury or something else that affected the productivity and safety that allowed them to sort of leapfrog into this place? Because you the company that's growing certainly has a lot of challenges. And the finances are truly important as the margins are pretty tight right at first as you're starting to expand and there's a lot of risk. But conversely, even if you're not growing and you're in a challenging place in the marketplace, doesn't matter where you are, those same pressures could be there. So, there are many times there needs to be something to move that company towards that leadership, the safety leadership place. Was there a place in that history there do you know? Randy Klatt: I think there was. I know they had a couple of bad years. They had some serious injuries. And I, I don't know that that company-wide, they recognized that as much as they should have. And I give all credit to their safety director because he made it clear, he's the one that stood up and stamped his feet and did what he had to do to get everyone's attention. And he takes it very personally as well. He cares about the people that work there, and he knows it's his job to protect them. And he also knows that he's not out there in the field with them at all times, so he has to depend on those managers and supervisors that are out there in the field. But I think they saw the light after a year or two of fairly unsuccessful safety performance. And said all right, we have to do something. And maybe he's right. Maybe we need do need to focus on some other things. And that's what they've done. And it's turned them around quite well.  When their rates are way down, their experience rating's way down. Losses are down. Lost work time is almost gone. Restricted duty and return to work program is robust. All those things. But those are standard things we always recommend, and any company can adopt them, but it takes a village to make that all happen. It takes everyone to understand the benefits of that. Peter Koch: Certainly. And that's what you're speaking about there is not so we're talking a lot about the leadership of working safely. But there's also some leadership that has to take place in order to manage an injury that has happened on the factory floor or at your business. Because if you don't have good leadership to recognize the dignity, dignity of the human person and that they have value to come back to the business and also the effect that ignoring that would have on your business.  That can put you in a precarious position as well and can have a lot of negative effects in a circular fashion, that the negative effects from not managing that injury can also have negative effects on the pre-loss side of your business, on the safety side. Your ability to get workers to work safely, to trust you that you have their best interests in mind. Randy Klatt: Absolutely right. And in today's business environment, when we're talking 3 percent unemployment and how the economy is, is booming. What do companies need more than anything? They need people. They need reliable workers. They need people there doing their job. And if they're being hurt on the job, that that's not going to help anybody. So, the economic side of it is so important. But beyond that, of course, we would more and more focus on what is your most valuable asset, that person. And that's the person we want to go home every day with all their fingers and toes, and we have to make sure that that happens. If you treat your employees like you treat your family, I think that's a fundamental leadership position to take. You're probably going to have fewer injuries in the workplace. So, I am reminded of a quote from Abraham Lincoln. You must remember that some things that legally are right but are not morally right. So, what's the right thing to do for those people that work for you? It's to make sure their home, home safe every night. That's a that's a leadership role you have to take, a position you have to take. And if it means turning down some business, so be it. Just the right thing to do. Peter Koch: Just because you can doesn't mean you should. Randy Klatt: Correct. Peter Koch: That's a great quote from Mr. Lincoln down there.  And this kind of moves us to a question around why people need to be led for safety anyway. And it comes into that, quote just because we can doesn't mean we should. So, there's a lot of cans that employees can make choices on within the workplace. And sometimes those cans are the right, sometimes they're not the right decision because they shouldn't have taken it. But you know, the universal question. Why? Why do people do the things that they do? There's many motivations for that. And it comes down to that question, why do people need to be led to safe work practices or into a safety culture? Why do people have to be led? Why do you have to be a leader to do that? Randy Klatt: That's a great question. And again, we can take all day to talk about that. But if you think about the fundamentals of safety, it's doing the right thing, which may not be the most easy thing to do. It might it might not be the quickest thing to do. We could talk about triggers, behaviors and consequences. You know, humans do things. We behave in a way that will result in a favorable consequence, in a positive result. So, if I have to set up a job and I need a six-foot ladder, but all I have is a four-foot ladder.  Well, the positive consequence for me is going to, could be, that I will use that four-foot ladder and stop, stand on the top of it. Yes, I'm risking safety, but I get that job done pretty quickly. And if, if it's done and I'm not hurt and I can move on to my next job, that's a positive consequence. So, I'm likely to do that. Now, I know that there is a possibility of a negative consequence there. I could fall and be hurt. Likelihood is it's not going to happen. It's not the most immediate thing in my brain. So, I'm going to go for the soon, certain, positive consequence. I'm going to go do that with less than ideal tool or equipment. And that's where we have to lead people to say and to make sure that we follow through in the workplace. But to say that that's not acceptable. I don't want you taking those risks. I want you to go take the extra five minutes. Go find the correct ladder. Go find the taller one so that you can use it safely and properly. And, yes, it's gonna take you a few extra minutes. But now I know that we have reduced the likelihood of an injury significantly. And that's what's important to me. You're still get the job done and that person has to understand that.  And again, once you build the culture and once leadership says that that's the way we're gonna do things around here, then they're much more likely to do exactly that. You would think. And of course, I hear this all the time it's common sense, right? Safety's common-sense Peter.  What are we, we don't need to worry about that safety stuff? What's OSHA?  Ahhh, it's called common sense?! Well, no, it isn't, because we know that common sense isn't all that common anyway, right? And we know it's based on each individual's experiences and those are all different. So, we cannot rely on that. We have to demonstrate. We have to train. We have to provide the right environment that people will understand. Okay this is the acceptable way to do this. And there is an unacceptable way. And that may be the way we used to do business. Think about how many injuries we see from body parts caught in machinery, moving parts, pinch points, drawn into augers, whatever. Amputations. Oh, my goodness. Those are all absolutely preventable. When I see it and hear about it, I think alright so where was there lockout tag program? Yes, they have one. Oh, where was the machine guard? It was there, but the worker took it off.  Why would he do that?  You know we think about those -- what was he thinking? -- moments. But if we really examine it closer, we'll figure out what he was thinking.  What he was thinking was he's done that twenty-seven times already. The supervisor knows that they are doing it and he's turned his back to it because it's quick and easy and they get that line operating again or unjam the machine or whatever it is. And that's paying off in the long run with productivity. And that's the mindset.  But really, what's happening is we're bypassing safety guards, we're violating rules, we're violating our training. And we know that's true. But I'm gonna get immediate consequence that's positive because I get this thing done quick. Well that's what bites us, because eventually it catches up to everybody. Peter Koch: Sure does. Why, so the solution sounds easy. The solution is providing an environment where employees feel like they have a, have a job they can do well, and they can do safely.  Provide them training, provide them feedback. Why is it so difficult for supervisors, managers, leaders within the workplace to have those conversations with those staff? Because you hit it right on the head. You talk about that example of the person getting their fingers caught in something because they remove the guard. And there is knowledge by the supervisor that this has happened before and they've let it go, even though that they know it's not the right process. Trigger, behaviors, consequences. Why does the supervisor not have the conversation when they see it happen or when they see the near-miss that occur, where they walk by the guards off the machines running properly?  The employee is back at the workstation. Nothing's happening. But he knows because the guards off that hands were near or close to the moving parts. Why don't they have that conversation? Randy Klatt: I think that's human nature, to for the most part, avoid conflict. It's easier not to do it. It's easier to walk past without saying anything because I've got ten thousand other things on my to do list today. And that one is I'm just going to let that one go because the odds of an injury are pretty remote. And we've done it that way many times. We could talk about the seven step steps to stagnation. One of those seven steps is we've always done it that way. Of course, that doesn't mean it's the right way to do it. So, if I can avoid the conflict, maybe that worker is a friend of mine. Maybe we've worked together for 20 years. Well, it's hard for me to go as a supervisor to approach him and say, you cannot do this, but that's what you have to do when you're stepping up as a supervisor for safety. It's just not the right thing to do. The wrong thing to do is to ignore it or to allow it to occur, because eventually that will bite everybody. Now, do you think it sounds difficult, but if you have the culture that supports it, it becomes a lot easier if you have if you approach it in the right way.  A strong leader doesn't talk about himself. He doesn't make it about him. He makes it about the workers, the team. He has to be harder on himself than he is on others. So, if he is actually violating the rules himself and then telling others it's OK, that's or holding trying to hold others accountable when he is in fact violating rules himself and that that's not going to work either. And this goes back goes back thousands of years. Talk about Confucius, for crying out loud. What'd he say?  A great man is hard on himself. A small man is hard on others. So being a leader doesn't mean you're a straight out... Peter Koch: Authoritarian. Randy Klatt: That's the word, thank you very much. That's not what it's about. It is about holding people accountable. But if I just say, hey, come here, let me talk to you for a minute. Why is this this way? Why is the guard off the machine?   Tell me why. And they explain why. Maybe there is something deeper there. Maybe it's the guards always does make the machine jam up or it breaks a lot, or it does slow down productivity considerably when it really shouldn't. Maybe there is that there's something there that you can dig into and correct. So, they are more likely to do it. That's as simple as maybe safety glasses that people will wear. Why don't you wear them? Because they fog up all the time. Well, let's buy some that have an anti-fog coating, and we'll correct that issue. So, there are solutions, but again, you have to dig into them to find them, and only a strong leader will do that. And will take on the conflict that's inevitable. But do it in a way that makes you make sure that those people understand because you care about them. You're leading from the heart when you do that.  And that's a big topic. But if you again, if you treat people like your family, I think that's analogous to leading from your heart. It's what is the right thing to do for these people. And if we do that, we're probably going to do the right thing for the company as well. Peter Koch: I think that's a great place to take a quick break, because we're really coming to a head here talking about how leading from the heart and humility comes into being an effective leader and how challenging it can be for a supervisor to, to address some of those safety concerns if the culture is not there to support it. So, let's take a quick break and we'll come right back with more discussion about safety leadership. Peter Koch: Welcome back to the Safety Experts podcast. Today, we're talking with Randy Klatt, Director of Region II Loss Control at MEMIC. Let's jump right back in with some more questions.  Peter Koch: So, before the break, we were talking about how supervisors can be successful leaders in workplace safety, and some of the challenges that they've had, or they can have, or barriers to them becoming effective leaders. And you had some good points that there has to be leadership from the heart there, that they have to lead with that personal interaction. And then the challenge is, as humans, we don't typically like the conflict. So the positive interaction, or the positive result of me not engaging in the conflict, when I see something that's not being done safely, and going to do something that I know I'm really good at, is I get that task done and I feel a sense of completion, even though on the other end I've got some other challenges. That seems to be a natural place for a supervisor to be, especially a new supervisor, because like how does a supervisor typically get their job? Randy Klatt: That's the crux of the problem, isn't it? So, you are an outstanding plumber. You do your job very well and you're rewarded by now becoming the supervisor of a team of four plumbers. Or you're now the job super or in a production facility you're now a production manager. What do I know about managing people? I did the job really well. So, there's always that tendency for new supervisors in particular to do the job themselves, to say to someone, oh, just let me do that.  I'll take care of that, because I know I can do it quicker. So, I can focus on production. That's what I've always done. But now, suddenly, as a supervisor, I've gone to a lot of other things I need to do. I need to understand people. I need to know what motivates them. Again, my job, motivate people to accomplish the common goal. How do I do that? What are they thinking? How do I manage? How do I do progressive coaching? How do I schedule? How do I interact with them on the discipline program? How do I know how to get them to do what needs to be done? And that's the hard part about being a supervisor. That's leadership, though. And yes, some people have that innate ability to do that. Others not as much. But it can be learned. It can be learned, and it can be practiced. And that's the important thing. You can read a book on leadership. There are about 10 million of them in publication. So, if you read the book and then you put the book down and you don't ever do any of it, you think ahh, that was kind of cool? Well, clearly, it's not going to help you any. So, practicing it in workplace is the way that you're going to get better at it. And that's something that we probably don't support or do enough of in this world. If you look at the numbers, employee engagement in their employers', employee satisfaction numbers, those are going down continually.  They have for the last 30 or 40 years, people aren't really happy in their jobs. If you look at overall numbers, why is that? Because my theory is anyway, and I have some support in this that people aren't feeling like they're appreciated. They don't feel like people care about them as people. They feel like I'm a number. When I worked for the airlines, I was a commercial pilot. I had a number 2 5 8 2 9 4, was me. That's all my, that’s all my chief pilot knew. There's not a whole lot of satisfaction in that. Let's treat people like people. Let's lead from the heart. And they are much more likely to follow. And I'm not trying to create followers. Actually, what I'm trying to do is create new leaders. That's a leader's job is to train their replacement. That's the way things happen with productivity increases, that the teamwork increases, the mission vision becomes clearer for everyone and they will do it and do it happily.  When someone puts in that extra effort, they work a little overtime, or they complete that project over a weekend. When you didn't really specifically say they had to, but boy, you really appreciate that they did. Then you know that there's some leadership involved there. There's some, they do it because they want to do it, not because they're forced to do it. I would never tell anybody to work all weekend to do something. But if they did, I know they did it because they thought it was the right thing to do. That's a powerful environment to work in. Peter Koch: Sure. And I imagine that you've had the same conversation or a similar conversation with someone who has worked for the weekend or gone the extra mile or did a lot more. And you know that they on their personal side sacrificed some of their own time, their own life, their time with their family, that time with their friends, the time that things that they like to do outside of work and had the conversation with them about it. Super appreciate what you've done. It's an amazing outcome. How do we not do this next time? Because if you keep doing this, you're just going to get burned out. Randy Klatt: Absolutely right. And that would be my that would be the exact conversation I would have and have had many times. I appreciate your effort. I really do. And you do great work. But I also know that work life balance is so important and I need you happy for the long run, as my senior V.P. would say, two philosophies: Surround yourself with people that are smarter than you are and make sure that they are there working for your company at your retirement party. And I think that's pretty basic, but that sounds good to me. I want all these people on my team to be around for the long run. I don't want any turnover. I don't want to lose the valuable people we have. I don't want them hurt. I don't want anything negative to occur. So, I have to treat them like I love them all. And that right comes right from the heart. And if I do that, they are much more likely to perform just to extraordinary levels. And they do it because they want to. And I try to tone them back. If you have a group of, a team that's performing beyond expectations and you have to spend most your time telling them to slow down and not spend so many hours at work and all that, well, you know, you're a pretty good leader and they will appreciate hearing that message. So, I think that's so important.  And people don't work for the dollar. The dollar is not the motivator. Yeah, we all have to be paid. We all want to be paid. That's what we have a job for in the end, I suppose. But that's not why we stay there. That's not why we continue to do that. And that's not why I'm going to go over the top for my manager. I'm not going to do it because I'm getting paid.  I’m going to do it because I think I will be appreciated for it. I think it's the right thing to do and it will help the team. And that's what a leader will do. Peter Koch: Yeah. Get the individual to realize what's in it for them, how their success can help the company and how it will be appreciated. How what you did, whether it is going above and beyond to deal with extra productivity or like in the earlier example of the company, the safety director standing up and saying this is not the right project for us. I have to imagine that that in itself, regardless of the environment that you're in, when it represents a pretty sizable chunk of money coming into a company whose expanding to get up and say this is not the right direction for us to go, that is a difficult thing for that individual to do. And then I'm I imagine because of the culture that that company has, there was discussions about it with him and the owner or the general manager about. Yeah, you're right. And I appreciate you bringing that up. Going the extra mile in that case. Randy Klatt: Yeah, correct.  So, again, a success story for everyone, but a difficult thing to do. And again, we're not often trained how to be a supervisor or how to be a leader, how to be a manager. And that's what has to be it has to be done. And you can learn techniques and skills. You can practice them. You'll be better at it when you do that, and you will see results. Sometimes we will invest time in training and in the overall outlook is we've wasted time. Gee, that's another class that we have to go to, or now half my team is in a class for a day and that just takes away from my productivity. But in the end, the design is to save time.  Is to make that person and those people better leaders, to help them to understand what techniques really do work and to become more productive because they're going to have a more loyal team following them. Peter Koch: That's an interesting point that you bring up about the practice. And I know you see it and I've seen it before we go to do a workshop or a training at a company. And it's a Hands-On skill, it's a technical skill that they're asking for, and we're coming in to do some training with their staff. They want it. They spend a lot of time, and from that, a lot of payroll dollars putting people in the class. It could be an hour class. It could be a four-hour class. It could be a couple of day class. The goal is for the employees to take that information and apply it into the workplace. Then maybe you come back in six months and nothing that was gone over in the training has been implemented. And you have a conversation with the supervisors and the managers, and they start talking to you about how it's how it is just a waste of time, we don't want to do this again. Going on the premise that the information was valuable, because if we're if we're not presenting valuable information, then it's not something that we should present. But the information is valuable. That should be taken into consideration and practiced in the workplace. I think that same principle goes to the softer skills, the human skills, the interaction skills of how to help someone who's been an excellent employee, really good at what they do and helping them along to work on those interpersonal skills to have those difficult conversations with those employees. And it could be even a difficult conversation on the positive, you can be just as you can have a negative effect with a positive interaction depending on how you come off.  'At a boy! Great job! Super job! And if I've heard that for the millionth time as an employee, I'm starting to think that I'm not really getting the honest answer. And I start to doubt whether or not you know what I'm doing or if I know what I'm doing. Randy Klatt: Very good.  Yeah, that's the verbal version of the poster that says safety is one, number one, when we have hazards all over the place. So, I often get that question, do I have to thank people for doing their job? Or there will be supervisors who say, I don't have to thank people for doing their job, that's what they're getting paid for. And I can't disagree any stronger. We do have to thank people for what they're doing because recognition, acknowledgement of their successes is so important to us as human beings. Again, that's why I'm working there. If I can make 50 cents an hour somewhere else and I don't feel like I'm valued, I'm going to go somewhere else. But if I feel like, wow, my leader really does care about me as a person, when I walk in every morning, he or she asks me, how's your, how was your evening? How's the family? How are those kids doing? What'd you do over the weekend? He takes a minute to actually engage as a human. That's pretty cool. And when we ask people in in our leadership courses about what did you most admire in a leader in your past? Could be an employer, could've been a coach or a teacher, whoever. But just think of someone in your past and who really had an influence on your life. And what did you most admire about them? And we write down all those attributes. They are all human skills. I admire them because he was a good listener, because he was patient, understanding had integrity and honesty. You know, those things. And that goes on and on and on. And those are all human skills that have nothing to do with the specific job or the production of the company or dollars or anything else. It's about being a good human being. Randy Klatt: So, if you want to be a good supervisor, so son of a gun, you have to be a good human being. That's really what it's all about. And that's what people expect and are so often disappointed in. People join organizations and they leave managers. I think if you keep that in your mind, that'll sound pretty true over time. It'll ring true. And we can prevent that loss of those people if we treat them well. And this is coming from someone who spent 21 years in the military where you're given an order, you say "Aye, Aye" and you go do it. That's mission accomplishment's number one. But still, at that level, you have to lead from the heart. You have to understand what these people are doing. And there's no, I don't know, there's no more demanding situation than a military combat situation. Now, personally, I was never involved in that on that level. But if you ask those guys that were what made you do that, what makes you give up your, be willing to give up your life for someone else? What makes you go back to those situations? It's all about the people that they served with and the people they served for. And they're willing to follow that leader to do what he's he or she says we have to do because they feel that love and that connection and human interaction and the common bond, the band of brothers kind of thing. So, you can look to some fabulous leaders like Dick Winters from Band of Brothers. And we've probably all seen that miniseries or read the book. But that man led from the heart all the way. He was all about the people that served for him and not about himself.  That's really what you have to do in the workplace.  So you can take all those stories from Abraham Lincoln and Confucius and go all the way down to your production floor and use some of that knowledge to treat your people differently, to interact with them differently, to show the way that you want it done and live that life and people will walk on water for you.  If you lead them. Peter Koch: And it seems complicated or it could seem simple, I just have to lead. I have to lead from the heart. I have to, I have to be able to engage with that person as a human being.  Many times, in the workplace there are demands that get in the way, but it really starts with honest recognition. And you hit that right on the head. If you if you talk to any of the leaders that are out there, leaders, in industry now, leaders in industry in the past, leaders in government, leaders in the military, it is about recognizing those efforts that the individual and then the team put forth. And you talked about it earlier, that we are conditioned for that. As humans, we look for recognition. And I think a really interesting example, we can pull right out of the leadership place, but go into modern technology and look at Facebook and Instagram and all of those pieces. And when those platforms were originally released, it was a place to communicate, and then you went back to see what someone said about your communication. Now, it's so easy to look at your likes. How many likes do I have? How many, how many times did someone recognize me for what I did? And that same innate desire for someone to recognize what we do well is in all of us. Sometimes it's a little more in the forefront. Sometimes someone is a, it's way in the background. But everyone has that desire to do a good job and to be recognized for that job. So, from a leadership standpoint, that simple first step is to understand what your employees are doing and recognize them for doing something well. Randy Klatt: Absolutely right. And it isn't all pie in the sky. It's not all roses and stuff like that either. It's when you hold people accountable to their duties, they will appreciate that in the long run. They do want to do a good job. There aren't very many and I'm sure there are a few, but there aren't really very many people that want to fail. They don't. They from the lowest level entry person who has never worked anywhere and doesn't know anything. What he or she does know is I want to do well. I want to do something. I want to feel like I've accomplished some something, and that someone recognizes that. But if I am messing up, if I'm making mistakes, like I want to know that, too. I don't really want to be yelled at. I don't want to be belittled. And I want to be publicly shamed. But I do want to know. So, there's, there's definitely a place for accountability and discipline and progressive coaching and those things as well.  So, it's not always going to work with a big happy smile and saying great team, we're all really good. Maybe they are and they should know that. But there may be sometimes when you have to take the little, that conflict again. Take that on and say, well, that wasn't quite what I was looking for. Tell me what you were thinking and let's work out a better way to go about this the next time, those kinds of things. Peter Koch: Yeah, that's a great a great example. And coming back to that example that you talked about earlier, again, about the machine guard being missing and taking that step where the production line might be going great. You've got good product coming out of the other end. The quality is high. We're meeting or exceeding our productivity demands.  But we see that one safety issue that's there and taking that moment to find out why it's not there.  And helping the person understand why it should be there and that in no way should that ever be removed unless we're following the practices and procedures that allow us to do that. Randy Klatt: Yes, very true.  And as we look at people in the workplace that aren't really trained to be supervisors, but they want to succeed, they're not generally held accountable on performance evaluation, for example, for safety performance. And a lot of organizations there is a box that says safety and it'll probably have a checkmark in it. They're acceptable or you'll get a three out of five or whatever, because it's there. But if I'm a production supervisor, I'm held accountable for production.  So that's what I'm going to do. And if people get hurt, it may or may not even rise to the level of being noticed. And that's a shame. That's not the way that should work. We should hold people accountable, not just for production, but for safety as well. And as we train those new supervisors who don't really know how to manage people, we need to manage those expectations of "You are going to operate safely." I want you to be productive because that's what I'm measured on. And it's not about me, though. It's about you. It's about you  working here. I appreciate it. I want you to be successful. I'll recognize that success. But I'm going to make sure that you're doing it safely, too. Because I want you to go home every night. Nice and safe. Peter Koch: That's fantastic. I think that just about wraps up this week's Safety Experts podcast. And I want to thank you very much, Randy, for sharing your expertise with us. Do you have any final comments or tips that you'd like to leave our listeners with today around safety leadership? Randy Klatt: Oh, I think, again, when we consider what safety is all about, it really is leading from the heart. It's done unto others as you would like them to do to you, right? It's I'm in this with you. We're in this together.  I want you to go home every night safely. But I have to make sure that you're doing what you are supposed to do to make that happen. And if I have to tell you to get down from that ladder right now, because that's unacceptable, that's what I'm gonna have to do. Because you weren't doing it right. And I don't want you to fall off. But then we'll talk about it and we'll figure out a better way to do the job. And if you see something out there in the workplace that isn't right, and you come to me and tell me that we're going to act on it.  That integrity piece is so important. So as a good leader, I'm going to lead from the heart. But I'm gonna be as humble as I can because it's not about me, it's about you guys. And I'm training my replacement. So, who's gonna be the next person to take my job? And we're gonna do this all together and do it safely, so we all are happy. And that's I guess if I was going to wrap that all up, that's what I would say. Peter Koch: And with that, we're at the end of another episode of MEMIC's Safety Experts podcast. We've been speaking with Randy Klatt, Director of Region 2 Loss Control at MEMIC about safety leadership. If you had any questions for Randy or like to hear more about our particular topic from our podcast. Email us at podcast@MEMIC.com. Check out our web site at www.MEMIC.com/podcast where you can find our podcast archive. And while you're there, you should sign up for our safety net blog, so you never miss another article or safety news update. And if you haven't already, take a couple of minutes and review us on Stitcher, i-Tunes or whichever podcast service that you find us on, it'll help us get the word out. And if you've already written that review, thanks. Please consider sharing the show with a business associate friend or family member who you think will get something out of it. This podcast is presented by MEMIC, a leader in workers' compensation insurance and a company committed to the health and safety of all workers. To learn more about how MEMIC can help your business, visit MEMIC.com. And as always, thank you for your continued support. And so, until next time, this is your host, Peter Kotch, reminding you that listening to the MEMIC Safety Experts podcast is good, but acting on what you heard is even better. Resources, Ideas and People Mentioned in Podcast MEMIC – https://www.memic.com/ Peter Koch – https://www.memic.com/workplace-safety/safety-consultants/peter-koch Randy Klatt – https://www.memic.com/workplace-safety/safety-consultants/randy-klatt James Buchanan – https://www.history.com/topics/us-presidents/james-buchanan Abraham Lincoln – https://www.history.com/topics/us-presidents/abraham-lincoln Seven Steps to Stagnation – https://www.memic.com/workplace-safety/safety-net-blog/2012/october/the-seven-steps-to-stagnation Talk About Confucius – https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/confucius  

Confession time…   A few years ago when someone asked me to explain a technical concept and I couldn’t successfully get through to them or didn’t have time, I would send them this link. ;)   And it seemed funny the first couple of times I did it.   It wasn’t until someone did it to me that I realized how obnoxious it was. I eventually stopped asking for them for help, because I knew they weren’t very good at explaining things and didn’t have the patience to help me.   I also realized that I didn’t want to be like them. I needed to get better at explaining technical concepts. Ever since then, I’ve been on a quest to improve how I communicate technical concepts when I write and speak to people and audiences of varying levels.   Part of my discovery led to me Anne Janzer. Anne is a prolific author who has recently written a book called Writing To Be Understood: What Works And Why, and she’s also a cognitive science geek!   I sat down with Anne to debunk the misconception that if someone doesn’t understand a technical concept immediately, then it’s their fault. They're too much of a layperson, and they should look it up. But it’s actually the explainer who needs to do a better job of explaining, and in today’s *Build* episode, we’ll explain why!   In next week’s episode, we'll provide techniques on how you can get better at explaining technical concepts to a mixed audience or to a layperson.   As you listen today’s episode, you’ll learn the following:   Why people on the receiving end of an explanation find the explainer to be less smart if the explanation cannot be easily understood Why people are bad at explaining technical concepts using simple language Why we assume our audience knows what we’re talking about Why people may not get our explanation The three questions to ask yourself about your audience before you communicate with them Why we have a tendency to overexplain Why overexplaining isn’t helpful either and being brief is better   -- Build is produced as a partnership between Femgineer and Pivotal Tracker. San Francisco video production by StartMotionMEDIA. -- ## Why Doing a Bad Job of Explaining Technical Concepts Hurts Our Credibility Transcript   Poornima Vijayashanker:  Welcome to *Build*, brought to you by Pivotal Tracker. I'm your host, Poornima Vijayashanker. In each episode, innovators and I debunk a number of myths and misconceptions related to building products, companies and your career in tech.   Now one huge misconception that we all face is that when we're trying to explain a technical concept, if someone doesn't immediately get it, we think, you know what, it's their fault. They're too much of a layperson, and we advise them to just look it up. Turns out, the person who's explaining the technical concept, it's actually their fault for not explaining it.   I know that might seem counterintuitive, but in today's episode, we're going to explain why the onus falls on the explainer and in a future episode, we'll give you some techniques on how you can get better at explaining technical concepts to a mixed audience or to a lay person. And to help us out, I've invited Anne Janzer, who is the author of a number of books ranging from writing to marketing and she's kind of a cognitive science geek. Thanks for joining us today, Anne.   Anne Janzer:    Thanks for having me Poornima. I'm happy to be here.   Poornima Vijayashanker:   So you've got a new book coming out and it's all about explaining technical concepts and being understood. Maybe you can dive into the origin story for what inspired you to write this book.   Anne Janzer:    Sure. So, the title of the book is *Understood*. So it's about writing to be understood and it came from two things in my life. One, is that I spent a lot of my time in the technical industry as a freelance marketing writer working for dozens and dozens of different companies trying to explain these really geeky technologies to a business audience. So that's familiar to most of the viewers.   But second, I also, as you said, I'm a bit of cognitive science geek so I love to read all these books about the brain and psychology and behavior and behavioral economics. You notice that some authors are really good at explaining this stuff. And you think, so there's parallels between what they do and what I was doing, which is explaining complicated, abstract topics. So are some people just like born better at this? I don't think so.   I took a close look at what these writers do, now I've called up and talked to some of them about what they do which is great. It turns out that there are just methods and techniques and approaches that we can all use to become better at being understood when we're talking about something to people who don't share our knowledge about it.   Poornima Vijayashanker:   So it's great that there all these experts who understand why this is important, but for our audience out there, they're not sure why this is important. We can dive into that in a little more detail.   Why people on the receiving end of an explanation find the explainer to be less smart if the explanation cannot be easily understood   Anne Janzer:    Yes. So you may not feel like…you may feel, well, I'm the expert. It's not on me to make sure that everybody understands. It's not my problem basically, if I'm explaining it. But it is your problem. It really is and the cognitive science shows that.   When you explain something that's complicated and you use words or terms or even writing techniques that they don't understand, you are giving the audience extra cognitive load. You're making them do extra work, not to understand the thing that you're saying, but even to get through to the thing that you're trying to explain to them.   Research shows that when people experience cognitive load, certainly while reading, they don't assume that the writer is smarter, they actually assume that the writer is less smart. So when they don't get it, they don't think, gee, I must be stupid, they think, they're not so smart.   Anne Janzer:    There's a study by a guy named Daniel Oppenheimer, who's now at Carnegie Mellon, but he did this back when he was at Princeton. I have to read the name of the study because it totally illustrates what it's about. “Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity or Problems with Using Long Words Unnecessarily.”   Poornima Vijayashanker:   Nice. Yeah.   Anne Janzer:    Which is great. And in the study they had people look at the same passage written two ways. One in a more straightforward way, one more complex using longer words or one piece sentence construction, let's say. People who read the more complicated ones rated the author as being less intelligent.   In one case, even when they knew that the passage was by René Descartes. They were reading translations and they're like, this is René Descartes from his meditations. They're like yeah, he's not that smart. If they read the more complicated one. So if you want to show up as being an expert you have to be understood. And it's on you. It's on you to do that.   Why people are bad at explaining technical concepts using simple language   Poornima Vijayashanker:   So why do you think people get into this habit of being long-winded or maybe using big words?   Anne Janzer:    I don't mean to be critical of it, because we all do it. It's a natural thing. If you work in a tech sector for a long time, you're surrounded by people who are all using these abstractions and these terms. You master the complexity of the subject. You're a part of a social group of people who have mastered that complexity. So it's natural to want to speak in a way that people around you understand, use those words.   But you need to remember that these abstractions that now come easily to you. Like now you can ride a bike, but a toddler can't ride a bike, looks up at the person riding the bike thinking, yeah, that looks really hard. So that's the situation. That you're really comfortable with these abstract terms, but if you're talking to people outside of your domain, outside of your area, those terms are much more difficult to operate with.   Why we assume our audience knows what we’re talking about   Poornima Vijayashanker:   So it's natural to evolve and get into this in crowd or you're surrounded by people who know. You kind of expect other people to know and then when they don't, you're kind of like, well, just Google it, right. So how can we get over this? This expectation that our audience just knows.   Anne Janzer:    Well, we have to remember that we suffer from the curse of knowledge, which is hard for us to remember not knowing the things that we not now know. So some of the times it's not that we're being dismissive of our audience, we're just assuming that they know the things. That these things are familiar to us are familiar to them.   So you really have to get outside of your own head for a moment and try to put yourself in the perspective of your audience. That's why the title of my book is Understood. It's not like, explaining, it's understood, because it doesn't matter what the words are coming out of your mouth or your pen. It matters how it sinks into the audience's mind.   Why we need to incite curiosity in our audience Poornima Vijayashanker:   I don't know about you, but I definitely had a few college professors, their names will go unnamed. In their 101 class, kind of expected me to know certain things or to, again, spend the time looking it up. So how can we combat that as well?   Anne Janzer:    So that story drives me crazy because the purpose of a 101 class and the job of the professor of that class is to give people enough information but also to incite their curiosity so that they can learn enough to figure out if they want to pursue that field. If they want to learn more or what is useful to them from that class.   And in many ways, we all are in that same position as that 101 teacher. When we're talking to people who aren't familiar with our area, our job too, is not to tell them everything I know or expect them to step up to what we want to talk about. Our job is to incite their curiosity about our topic so that they'll pay attention and get something and to give them a little bit more and to lead them into it. That's a whole different way to think about explaining complicated stuff. It's not like I'm going to dump all this stuff on you you need to know. It's I'm going to pull into this topic and bit by bit get you interested in it, tell you how it applies to you and see what goes from there.   Why people may not get our explanation   Poornima Vijayashanker:   So it's good to know that we may suffer from the curse of knowledge and that not everyone is going to have a same level of expertise as us. What are some other things that may get in the way of people understanding when we communicate technical concepts to them?   Anne Janzer:    There's a couple things to be aware of and one is that sometimes people think they understand already and you have to work around their existing models of what's happening. People think they understand what's happening, for example, to their data when they go onto a website and use it and then go away. The data stays where they left it. Right?   And that's not always the case. So sometimes they think they have an understanding of something. We always talk...if you think about how do you understand using storage. How is stuff stored on your computer? You think, well, I've got a disk, maybe you think you have a directory and then I have a folder and I put files in it. That's nothing like what's really happening underneath. The file may be distributed over many areas of the disk. Some stuff is not on disk, it's in memory.   Poornima Vijayashanker:   It's in the cloud.   Anne Janzer:    It's in the cloud. You can't come up to people and say no, you don't know what's going on, you're wrong. So you need to understand what their understanding is and figure out how to work around that.   And then there are the topics that people, they want to cling to their understanding of it. They don't want to hear about something that disrupts their understanding of it. That's why, if you search for a swimsuit on a website and then you go to the New York Times and it's serving you an ad for that swimsuit that you just searched for. It can be really distressing, these retargeting ads, because they show us something that we don't want to hear about, which is that we're leaving this huge digital wake of data around that people can use. We find that distressing because we don't want to hear it, but it's there.   Poornima Vijayashanker:   So there's the concept of challenging people's current understanding and then there's a concept of ignorance is bliss.   Anne Janzer:    Yes, right, right.   3 questions to ask yourself about your audience before you communicate with them   Poornima Vijayashanker:   So those are both things that we need to be aware of. How can we know...because I know in the next episode we're going to dive into how to get around this. But how can we at least develop an awareness to know which camp our audience may be in?   Anne Janzer:    That's the key thing is to think about your audience. I think you need to answer three questions about your audience before you go to speak to them or before you write for them. It's what do they already know about the subject and this requires that you put yourself in their perspective. You may have to talk to people that are like your audience.   How do they feel about your subject? Do they have resistance to hearing the message? Is this something that they like talking about? Are they curious or are they showing up for your talk under duress because they have to? That's something you want to know too, right?   Poornima Vijayashanker:   Yeah. My boss is making me come to this.   Anne Janzer:    My boss is making me come to this. And the third thing is what makes them curious? What can you use to hook their interest in the topic? What going to make them want to explore more about it?   Why over-explaining isn’t helpful either and being brief is better   Poornima Vijayashanker:   Now one final thing I've noticed, especially with a lot of my students and audience members is they can be on the flip side, where it's not the case that they think they're the expert, but they feel like they really need to go down this path and be very, very long winded about an explanation instead of favoring brevity. So how would you recommend to kind of balance that?   Anne Janzer:    So there's two things I want to get at. One is that you need to make a careful distinction between what you want to talk about and what the audience needs to hear. There may be a small overlap and maybe you can widen that by making them more curious, but you need to respect what their needs are. And that's the hardest thing for us as writers to do.   When I worked on this draft, I wrote this whole section and I thought, this doesn't serve the book. I had to delete 10,000 words and just put it aside because it wasn't what the audience needed. It wasn't what the readers needed. So that's one thing.   Why we have a tendency to over-explain   And then second, I would look at the reason why they feel they need to explain everything and often I think it's an attempt to assert some kind of credibility. Credibility is such an important issue, right?   It's such a critical issue for speakers, for writers. But the way that we often go about asserting credibility can work against us. If you say, well, I'm going to get up and first I'm going to list off all my accomplishments so they know I'm serious. Or I'm going to just take them through every little experiment, every little process I did to get to this so they see that I worked really hard.   These things work against you because the root of the word credibility is believability. That's what it means. Well, to be believed you have to first be understood. So to be credible, you need to be understandable and that means you're going to have to cut out that stuff. People will respect you more, think more of you if they can really understand what you're saying. So if you were meeting their needs rather than asserting your own. So if you come at it from that way, it gives you an understanding for how to be more brief. What to cut and why to cut it.   Poornima Vijayashanker:   Well thank you so much, Anne, for sharing why our explanations may be convoluted and of course, why we need to do a better job at explaining them. I can't wait until our next episode where we're going to dive into a number of techniques and tactics to help our audience out there when it comes to explaining these.   Now Anne and I want to know, when was the last time you had to explain something that was complicated, maybe some technical jargon. Were you misunderstood? And if you were, how did you get over that misunderstanding? What were your techniques? Let us know in the comments below this video. And that's it for this episode of *Build*. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to receive the next episode where Anne and I are going to dive into some techniques to help you be more understood when you're explaining those technical concepts to your audience and to your teammates. Ciao for now.