It's Time You Increase Your Awareness

That's what coaching is like. The first step of all change is awareness. The harder part is step two, accepting what you are aware of. Acceptance is stage two. Stage one is awareness. Stage two is acceptance. That's the harder part. That's the harder part. This is going to be a challenging session of coaching and I want to let you know I was deeply challenged and struggling with what this session should be. My job is rather to impart what do we know from research in human behavior and communication that may serve you right now? What do we know? What do we specifically know in those areas that might actually help you? I'm blessed to have spent my life studying leadership, both academically and in organizations. I've been blessed to roll out leadership and diversity programs at 14 Fortune 500 companies that impacted millions of people. So I'm very familiar with the dialogue. I'm very familiar with the space of how do we construct, handle ourselves at work, in the culture, in community in a way that is inclusive, that is constructive, that is positive and it affects change. Because no matter where everybody is at right now, I know hands up who wants to affect positive change right now. Like that's what we're after. And I want to let you know I'm not going to get all the words right. And I want to let you know you're not going to get all the words right and your family's not going to get all the words right. And so let's not take down people if they don't get all the words right. Let's instead listen beyond word choice and listen for principles and listen for behavior and listen for action. Because you know what? When we can all be doing something that's positive, let's cheer each other on even if we misstep or we don't get it all right? And I'm asking for that grace from you today. And so I hope that I do a good job today. I ask for your grace and your patience. And I also ask you take a ton of notes and stay open minded. Because what I'm learning, and what you might have learned too is that a no one's got a lock on truth or experience, right? No one does. And us in any way generalizing today or making this political or, or making accusations probably won't serve. Let's be thoughtful that we're all here for one reason. How do we improve our lives? How do you signed up to say, how do I find more vibrancy and connection and meaning and joy and purpose in my life? And how do I hopefully Translate that into good things for my family and my career and my business and my communities. And that's what I'm all about. And I hope I do a good job for you today. I want to start with this definition of civil leadership and what that might mean and why that's important to you now. And I know not everyone will agree with this specific definition, but I think it really helps. To me, civil leadership is speaking up and acting. Speaking up and acting for the safety, rights, opportunities, equality and freedoms of our fellow humans, of our fellow citizens, of those in our communities and our nations. Speaking up and acting. Two things right. Activating voice and taking actions. Holy wow, is that scary right now? Who's found that scary? Knowing what to say or how to support each other. You know, who's had to make the decisions of do you go and protest and do you let your kids go protest? Who's had to make the decisions of do I respond to this post I feel so infuriated by do I support this or can I do enough? Who's wondered if you've done enough? I've spent 20 years in this. I'm wondering if I do enough genuinely. And so I want to let you know I understand that it's hard, but civil leadership is speaking up and it is taking action. And I'm specific about what I mean when I say that. Safety, rights, opportunities, equality, freedom, safety, safety, rights, opportunities, equality and freedoms. That's what we're ultimately after when we use the phrase civil leadership. I'm not here to say everyone's after that, but you have to understand that is happening in the world right now. And whether you participate or you don't, we need to understand what is happening so that we can either be good contributors or learn something about ourselves because we need guidance through all of this. And you can guide yourself and you can guide your family and your community members through this if you choose to. And my job as a coach, I am always going to push you towards courage. I want to frame this right off the bat today. My job is your coach. I am always going to push you towards courage. I am not going to get all the words right. I might not stand for what you stand for. I might not get all. I might not include everything under the sun as a comprehensive analysis and a, you know, 90 minute session here today or two hour session. But I as a coach, I'm always going to push you towards courage, whatever that means for you. I'm going to push you outside that comfort zone to confront your biases, to confront the things that hold you back to confront things that contribute to systemic problems. To confront your own behavior that's hurting your ability to have abundance or joy or connection with others. So I'm gonna let you know right off the bat as we jump into civil leadership. I'll have that conversation about courage with you. Civil leadership, to me also means seeking policies and holding authority and influencing those of influence accountable fort supporting the safety, rights, equality, and freedoms of other people. And I think that's important. I think it means civil leadership means having strategic organization for common outcomes. We'll talk a lot about this today. Strategy. Strategic organization for common outcomes. And I know that might sound like. Wait, is he talking about community activism today? What the heck. Yeah, I will. But listen, that also relates to your family and your communities and the people that you lead. Strategic organization for common outcomes. Here's what I mean by that. If you're going to go protest, as an example, and you're gonna rally four or five friends to protest in any way for any side before you just go, let's go protest. No, have a conversation. What's the intention we're after here? What are the outcomes we are after here? Meaning in our personal lives and our collective lives. We rise when we share collective outcomes. Society doesn't change without those. Your family don't change without those. Your team doesn't progress without those. In times of uncertainty and chaos, identifying what we are after is more important than ever. Otherwise, our energy dissipates. Otherwise, it's easy to attack a position. Otherwise, it's difficult to enroll people. And so whatever your personal agenda is in life, and I mean personal agenda with your family, I mean personal agenda with what you do on a Monday through a Friday, as you seek purpose in your life, how you lead your families, ask that question, okay, what are the common or shared outcomes we're really after here? What is it right when you show up at your day's work? Okay, that's why I fill out my high performance planner before I jump in. It's like, okay, what am I after today? What specifically? What is my intention here? What are the outcomes I really need to seek? Otherwise, energy. Listen, let me say it really clear. Without clear outcomes, energy dissipates. Without clear outcomes, energy dissipates. It might be hot, it might be a spark, it might be an incident, it might be a moment. But soon as we lack. What is my outcome here? Distraction comes up. Other people grab ahold of your agenda and start shifting you here and shifting you there. So as basic as it is I'm here to share with you that intention really matters right now. Knowing what you're about, knowing what you're after, making sure your family knows how one another feels, being open to other people's intentions without having to hijack them, that's hard stuff. That's just hard stuff. And I want to let you know again with sort of a bit of a rules of engagement today for each other. It's very difficult not to judge other people's outcomes. And it's very difficult to hear people, especially on social media, and not feel the need to tell them that their intentions aren't good, tell them their intentions are X or Y or Z. And I want to let you know, part of the courage of you sharing your intentions with the world is other people are going to say you have other intentions. Is other people going to questioning whether your intentions are good enough, whether your intentions are on the mark for them. And when that happens, that's why it's necessary for you to know what your intentions are. Because how many of you think you're gonna get questioned a lot in coming months about how you show up? I think we're gonna be all questioned that. And by the way, I think that's a good thing. I think for me, I just wanna let you know, I was like, how do you really feel right now? I'm like, I think I feel really, really happy that society is looking at itself and asking the tough questions. And I'm happy that people are speaking up. I'm happy to see young people engaged again. I'm happy to see people addressing things that have been literally generational that we've got to deal with. I'm happy to see leadership. I'm happy to see people speaking up for either whatever their positions are, which we'll talk about. Because listen, speaking up and acting for what you believe in, I'm always going to cheer that on. If you can do it respectfully and non violently. And so that's where I'm going to cheer on things now. However, I don't have all the answers. So let me share with you, how do we think about these topics at a personal level and at a community level? And I know some of you follow me for marketing or something like that. Cool. Take the same thing. Think about a movement, all right? Whether your movement today is political, where your movement today is educational, whether your movement today is specific against this or for that. Let me share with you what makes a movement. Let me share with you where I believe your personal actions might benefit you right now and benefit your families and your cultures without me making this a political statement. Okay, so a little context on this. I've had the blessing for some of you who know, in college I studied the rhetoric of the civil rights movement and we had to read all of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. S books. We had to read the legislation of 64 and 65 and the debates congressionally that led into that. We had to really understand the diverse movements around the world and studying revolutions from around the world that began with incendiary events related to lack of. What we're talking about here, lack of safety or equality or freedom. Huge part of my work since college. And in that, I started being mentored and advised by a lot of black leaders who inspired me to understand, well, what makes a movement. You can't read Dr. Martin Luther King or any of his work without understanding. This wasn't a person speaking just for himself. This was in the context of creating movements of societal change and inspired me tremendously and shaped a lot of my personal values. But instead of sharing those, let's talk about it. Let's talk about how do you create a movement? And again, I know people follow me for tons of different reasons. And so if this means you're going to start a movement for your brand or your company, for marketing, great. Be aware of these. If you're trying to do something right now in the culture, in the community, write these down because these really matter. What starts a movement and what sustains a movement. And for those who aren't with me yet, take notes on these and you'll see how this will improve your life. Knowing these things. What starts a movement? What starts. If you don't like the word movement, think about behavior change in your own life. What's going to make major behavior change in your own life, in your own teams, in your own families? Okay, same thing. But we're going to talk about. I'm going to use the metaphor of a movement here for you. Number one, what almost always starts a movement or major change is a mobilizing incident. A mobilizing incident. You know this in your personal lives, right? Something happened, and maybe it was for you what we call in human behavior change threshold, where it was like, enough is enough. You know, one day you look in the mirror and you just can't stand how you look and feel no more, and that was enough. Or one night you had a dream and it changed how you felt, or you had a moment of insight or an epiphany in your personal life, maybe a death, maybe Something, a tragic incident. Something happens and it goes, hey, we gotta change here. Many of you know, my mobilizing incident in my life is my car accident. That was a mobilizing incident. It forced me to look at my life and realize that I was not okay with being a suicidal, depressed young man. I didn't want that. I didn't want those feelings. I didn't want those emotions. I didn't want that despair in my life anymore. And I felt like I'd been given a second chance. I'm a person of faith, so I felt like I'd be a second chance from God. And I was like, I gotta change. It was an incident that mobilized me to ask the hard questions. Something sparks the thought, the conversation, right? We know that in our personal lives. We know that in companies and teams, right? A bad quarter, a new competitor, a failed launch. It's like, whoa, we gotta change, we gotta pivot, we gotta adjust. That's a mobilizing incident historically, right? Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, Selma. Listen, you understand the history of those mobilizing incidences and you go, okay, there's incidences that capture the public attention because you have to be aware of the mobilizing incidents in life. And if you want to cause change, you got to create them, structure them, think through them, plan for them, strategize with them, with your teams or your community. There has to be something, right? There has to be something. John Lewis marching in Selma was a symbolic mobilizing incident. They knew, they knew, they knew the risks involved. You don't find any revolutionary around the world who didn't know the risks involved, but they faced the risks with courage. And that's why the mobilizing incident captured others attentions. Courage. Courage. There's two ways to have a mobilizing incident. Major problem. Or demonstration of major humanity. Because some of you, your immobilizing incident was somebody loved you, somebody saw you, somebody cared for you, and it changed your life. It made you more kind. There's a mobilizing incident in your life and it changed your heart. And you know what would help for many of you is to revisit those mobilizing incidents in your life. To be aware of those critical changing points, those inflection points that shaped your own beliefs about where we're at today. Because if you're not aware of what has shaped your beliefs, you are not in control. If you're not aware of what has shaped your beliefs, you're living in a prison of automation. You're living in a prison of bias. You're living in a prison of unconscious reaction, unconscious competence, and the whole march of psychology, personal development, of therapy, of the behavioral sciences is to help people become more aware of what has shaped your beliefs and your feelings. There were mobilizing incidences that did that for you. And my job for you all is I always share openly as a coach where some of my insights come from or where I feel about things for you. Many of you know, a mobilizing incident in my life happened over and over and over again growing up. My mother is French and Vietnamese, and we grew up in a small Irish Catholic mining town. And I watched my mother be discriminated against and hated for sounding very different than everyone else in a very, very, very white, Catholic, Irish place. She's. I mean, if many of you have met my mom at my events, she's joy. She's spirit. If you think I bring the joy, I am a tired old battery compared to my mom. But I grew up coming home from school, finding my mom on the couch crying because the people at work treated her bad, because she sounded different, she looked different, and those were mobilizing incidences. I was like, oh, no. For me, that began a deep and very personal value of inclusion and kindness towards other people who were different. Now, I can't speak to anyone's experience here, but I know that was a mobilizing incident for me. That was important for me. So you've got to find out what shaped your beliefs in the context of what we're experiencing in the world right now. And everyone here, I want to let you hear me say this. Your mobilizing incidents in your life are frigging important. And they're different. And you have to understand, they're different. My hurt and my pain and the things I've been through, it's no more important than other people's hurt or other people's pain. And when we can understand that we've all been hurt or had pains, we can come a little closer to understanding. When others have had it, institutional or governmental, for hundreds of years, we can get a little close to understanding the issues we're facing today. But the most important thing today, whether you agree with anything I feel or my values is in personal development and coaching. You've got to investigate why you feel the way you feel. And if you don't know what a blessing to have a mobilizing incident to force you to face it. So what would be cool is what if you just went back tonight and you thought, what are the major mobilizing incidences in my life. What were those pivot points, those inflection points, the things what shaped my values, what shaped my feelings, what shaped my opinions. And by the way, you can relate that too, the current movement we are facing right now. Or you can use that same tool to analyze very practical things in your life. So for those who don't like me addressing the movement or the movements that are happening right now, okay, use that same practice, my friends. Same practice for analyzing your abundance in life. What mobilizing incidence has shaped your beliefs about wealth, about success, about confidence, about your happiness? Why do you feel the way that you do? Well, there were a lot of things that happened to shape that. And the more aware you are. Why is therapy so profound? Because it helps people become more aware of things that have shaped them that they didn't know shaped them. So I'm also here to say it's not all going to be, we're going to figure this out on ourselves. It will help to have a lot of diverse viewpoints. It will help to have some professional support. It will help to talk with your friends and your family. But I know I'm going a little long on this point, but what I have learned in talking about these topics for 20 years is a lot of people do not know where their real beliefs have come from. But there was probably something mobilizing. There was something. Psychologists often use a different language. They will call it a critical incident. They will call it a moment of decision. In spirituality, you would call it an epiphany, right? It's different for everybody. But I hope you hear what I'm saying here. What's going to be a mobilizing incident for you and your family right now? Sit them down. Have a hard discussion. Who's had hard conversations in the last week? I hope you'll keep doing it. Difficult conversations are my very favorite mobilizing incident. Cause you get to build them. You get to have them. Oh, I love them. You want to be around me. We're going to have tough conversations. I know that doesn't sound as exciting as. I got more excited about that than anyone else. You're all like, ok, no, no. The tough conversations are the best. Critical incidences the best. When you have the tough and difficult conversations, that's where you find out what you really believe. That's where you shape your real intentions. So don't live in a vacuum in your life. Have the tough conversations with family, with friends, with your teams about any topic that you want to mobilize around. Anything, anything. Mobilizing incident number one. Number two, you want to cause a movement, you need organized structure around those shared outcomes at the local level. That's a big mouth phrase here. So let me say it again. You need organizing structure around shared outcomes at a local level. At a local level. And when I say local level, if you're like, how does that apply to my life? Well, what it means is if you want to cause change in your family, you need structure. How many have learned that? If you want to change your family, they need new patterns, they need new routines. There has to be some structure. Otherwise, again, energy will dissipate without structure. You have to aim a laser. Right. There has to be some structure here. And it's really important for you to recognize everything happens. Everything happens in a structure. And when you realize that, it explains a lot. Why are people acting like this? There was probably a structure that informed that behavior. Yeah. There was a structure of your family. Who's found out that your spouse or your partner, lover, had a different family structure than yours. Y' all know what I'm talking. Anyone know what I'm talking about? Okay, good. A few of you. Okay. When you find out, I mean, who's ever gone to Christmas with someone you love and found out their family had a very different structure for that holiday than you did? This is what we're talking about. So please don't get too caught in. If you're not a community activist, please don't think. I'm not talking about real life here. There's a structure of organizations that allows certain behavior or supports or rewards certain behavior. When you understand the structure, you're one step closer to understanding the behavior. If I want to. It's that old thing. Right. You can't understand the fish without looking at the pond. Right. Environment matters how that environment is structured. Right. It's important for us to understand there is a systemic problem in our structure that has led to inequality. And when you see that, you're. Oh, okay. And whether you like that statement or not, you don't have to have a debate about race to recognize the structure of any government is never perfect. You just have to be honest. You have to. Have to observe. No government, no structure is perfect. Right. Even in the country of the U.S. the founding leaders would say, we're trying to move towards a more perfect union. But they didn't think that was going to happen overnight, and it certainly has not. So understand, things happen in a structure. So you got to think about, oh, okay. In your personal life, how have you structured rewards in your Life. You want to cause change in your life? How have you structured rewards in your life? Hey, here, how about think about this one. You want to change your health? How have you structured your workouts and your recovery in your life? Think about how personal and real that is. See, you notice I'm a skinny little guy. Ok, I get it. I know, I know. I'm just a. I'm a skinny little dude and I have friends who we will go to the gym and these are big dudes, all right? We'll go to the gym and we'll both do a 45 minute workout. But the way that they have structured their workout leads to a very different result than me. Right? They're programming their process. Their structure of what happens in that 45 minutes is so different than mine that they can run through brick walls and I can barely pick up a bag of bricks. Ok, can we just say what it is through? I thought it was funny. I hope you are too. Listen, the structure, the structure of your rewards, the structure of your routines, the structure of your sleep, the structure of your family that is causing a movement towards a specific outcome. Are you aware of it? See, if you find out the outcome and you don't like it, figure out the structure that supported that outcome. You're unhealthy. Great. What's the structure that you have set up in your life that led to it? It's a powerful conversation. What community activism level. Our job is to say, okay, we need to create a structure to create outcomes. And everything we have learned in civil leadership or community activism or any of the civil rights era came down to we need local leaders, we need ambassadors for change. We need somebody, we need boots on the ground in smaller groups that will push initiatives forward. And for those who, again, I don't want you to get caught up in one frame here of is he just talking about the Black Lives Matter movement? Is he talking about the pandemic? Is he talking about government? What is he talking about? I'm talking about my personal life, all of it. But look at, we know that let's take the pandemic. If we don't have boots on the ground at local levels doing testing and understanding the spread of, of a community virus, then we don't understand the pandemic. If we are trying to start an initiative in a company, research from organizational communication proves over and over and over again, if you take an initiative and you try to push it out to a company from top down and you haven't created initiatives that specifically affect groups of 150 people or less, or is led in groups of 150 people or less, it won't work in social dynamics. That's the power of 150. If you've never heard it before or never studied group dynamics. And by the way, you should all study a lot of group dynamics right now. So in sociology, when you study group dynamics, in organizational communication or organizational development, when you study group dynamics, it comes down to this magical number of 150 people. If you want to change millions of people's lives, you need leadership that specifically and affects only 150 people. And after 150 people, the ability to successfully push that through doesn't work as much because you don't have enough management, you don't have enough local boots on the ground to support that. What does that mean? You want to be a community activist in this town you live in? Tell me who the ambassadors and leaders are in your community. If you don't know that list, you don't know community activism yet. And I say that with all due respect. But we have a lot of people talking right now, including my peers, including my peers who are black and who are white and who are diverse standpoints talking about changing the world. And they don't even know who the local ambassadors of change in their hometown are. They don't Even know the 10 largest nonprofit organizations or community organizations in their hometown. Who thinks we have a problem? Okay. To effect change, it takes strategy. It takes real thinking through. Okay, who are the players here? You know, I've been attacked for a lot of things in my career because I make courageous choices. And frankly, I recognize my own privilege and I deserve it. And it doesn't bother me. You got to understand and really think through, oh, who are the leaders that we are putting in place? What are their values? What do they stand for? Is that something that is going to support us? And so I would love for each of you to really become more aware of your own community leaders, not listen. And this is important because our culture so values social media. And I understand that. I would love to encourage you to find out who are the actual local leaders already in your hometown. If you can't name the top five nonprofit organizations and what they're doing in your hometown, be careful about being so self righteous. And I say that to everybody. Many of you know I've had the Blessing. I've trained 10,000 nonprofit leaders in the United States. This has been a part of my life. I understand what they face at the community level. I hear, I try to lead I try to support and I try to fund there. And they'll tell you over and over. And many of you are community activists or you've been part of nonprofit. You try to start moving. It's frustrating. They're like, we have all these people asking for this on social. We're here. We're here. We need funding, we need help, we need support. So there's probably something in your hometown that needs your support, and it's more important than you just supporting. Forgive my dismissal. A little bit of a social media influencer. Yeah. I mean, we know a lot. Like, who do we follow? I'm like, that's good. But there's people with boots on the ground in your hometown doing important work. Let's know them, too. That's all I'm saying. Let's know them, too. That's just part of being active, being a citizen, and I think it's really important. And I know that's a little bit outside the norm of just, well, how does that affect my personal life? Because your family's growing up in a town and you want to know what's going on in your town. That's why. But also for those who are leaders, listen, in your companies, you better not be the leader. What does that mean by that? I'll tell you how I set up my teams. I designate leads on our teams. And these leads don't necessarily have authority or position over other people, but they're the lead. This is the content lead. She is going to direct the work of this team. This is the marketing lead. This is the events lead. This is the customer service lead. Because if we just say, hey, let's all do something together, we're not going to grow or scale as a company with a mission. So who are the leads that you have designated? Think about your own family and the structure. Who are the leads in your family? Was that consciously chosen? Did it just emerge? Are we intentional about it? Who are the leads that you have set up to initiate the things that are important to you? I hope that makes sense. That's structure at leadership levels. Okay? Believe it or not, I've only talked about two things, and I have so much to talk about. But is this helpful, y', all, so far? Just getting our minds around some ideas here. I hope it's supporting you. I hope it's supporting you in your efforts and your beliefs and what you want to go cause in the world. I'd like to share with you number three. Movements happen because a new and clear policy is set. New policies, new Procedures like, hey, when a policy mean if y', all, let's break down a policy. A policy means this is important, And it means when this happens, that must happen. All right? Policy. Like, think about if you have in your company, you have a sexual harassment policy. It means when this happens, we do that, right? It's if, then that's. You have those policies in your own life. They're like rules, right? If this happens, then I do that. Oh, you better visit yours now, because listen to your policy. What's your overwhelm policy right now? What's your overwhelm policy right now? When I get overwhelmed, I do what? Oh, y' all think I was talking about government regulation here? Oh, no. When I get overwhelmed, I make my best friend Ben and Jerry's. When I get overwhelmed, I pay attention to this. See, we have policies. We have rules in our own personal lives. You have a policy when you have anger. Let me tell you about the place I grew up. I grew up below the poverty line on the wrong side of the tracks. And I grew up in a place where the policy was, if you're angry towards another person, you strike them. So I grew up in a town with an unbelievable percentage of domestic violence. I grew up in a town where our principal was allowed to paddle us if we did something wrong. Anyone grew up in those times, like principals allowed to paddle students if they do something wrong. And I had the mean one. I had the one who, you know, they took out the thing, the board that looks like a. Look like a knife cutting board, and they had the holes in it. And if I got trouble, which I did a lot, I get smacked with that thing. And I asked the principal one time, I said, why you got. Why are there holes in that thing? He says to me, makes it go faster. Doesn't catch as much wind. So I grew up in a very violent place. I went to school in a violent place. I just experienced a lot of violence growing up. It shaped my beliefs. But I learned that policy as a young man. Policy was, if someone doesn't like you, and if they're angry, they get to hit you. And that formed my values of nonviolence. I had enough of that stuff by the time I was 12. So for me, I understand the policy was shaping the outcome. Y' all follow what I'm saying? The policy was, anger is okay to be expressed in violent ways. The outcome was a whole lot of mean violence. We have policies right now that even police officers and commissioners are saying we need to desperately revisit these because it's leading to outcomes that are not just so. That's important to acknowledge when we have policies that lead to unjust or uncivil action. And listen, this is not me saying all police are good or all police are bad, because we're going to talk about generalizations. I know a lot of very good people who are police officers who do deeply care, and I know many of you do, too. And we also know, though, because there's structure, policy, and incidences of history, we have outcomes we don't want, we don't want. So maybe tonight you examine your policies, too. What structure have I set up in my life and what are my rules? What are my policies that I've set up? What's my policy when I get in a fight with my spouse? What's the policy there? How do we deal now? Let's go back to big organ. You want to start a big movement in the world, you need policies on your team. But you need. If you want to talk about community level policies, we need. We need policies to shift at the governmental and educational levels. We need it. We need institutional policies to shift if you want to affect change. This is why voting initiatives are so important at the local level. Okay, what else? What makes a movement? The courage of those who do have influence or any privilege of power to speak up, to speak up, to include, to highlight, to celebrate, to reward people who don't. Straight up, we need influencers and leaders or people of power to recognize when they have that and others don't and give that opportunity, give that platform, serve other people. If you run your own company and you don't recognize the privilege you have as a CEO versus a brand new hire, then something's off, right? Well, in our culture, we need to understand that some people have power and others don't. And civil leadership says, oh, how do we again, speak up for and activate in such a way that we give more of our fellow citizens the safety, opportunity, rights, freedoms that other people enjoy. So what does that mean, Brennan? Tell me how this personally applies. Okay. Do you give your son more praise and opportunity than you do your daughter? You're a parent in power. Should you be aware of that? Yes or no. Should you be aware of the different ways in which you treat your children? Of course we want that to be. We want to be attentive to that. In our personal lives. Of course. In our personal lives. That makes sense. And so what you have to do in your personal. If you're at work and you see somebody being mistreated, you speak up for that? Yeah. If you're out with your spouse and they're mistreated, you speak up for that. Because when someone uses power or uses, you know, statements that hurt other people, it takes other people to speak up for it. Right. You've heard those quotes that thematically basically say, all it takes for evil to prevail in the world is for good people to say nothing. So you, as a leader, since we're talking about civil leadership, be the encourager of people to speak up. And you want to be a really great leader, don't tell them the position to take. Tell them to speak up for their beliefs. Tell them to speak up for what they view as right. We can talk about the ideals of imposing our own position on other people, but you're going to find pretty quickly that that leads to more stalemate than progress. Is this helpful? Y' all enjoying this so far? I know it's a little different than what we usually do, but this was the questions that I was asked to address, and I'm trying to do my best with y'. All. I think it's important to know that we have to understand that what creates a movement and change in systems also happens in our own personal lives. It just does. It does. What else? Okay. We have to have shared values that people are held accountable for through both policies and social norms. We have to have shared values. Remember we talked about a mobilizing incident? We got to have shared outcomes. Outcome is what do we want? People value is how do we go about getting it? What are our shared values of how we will work, speak, live together as we march towards this outcome. Yeah, that's what I mean by that. And so we need those shared values. And then we have to have policies that support those values, and then we have to have social norms that support those. Another way of saying social norms is social pressure. That if you act outside that, people go, hey, that's not right. Because. Remember that. That's not right because we're after this thing. We agreed that this thing is important and that our values are this. So we live and work and breathe this way together. But you violated that. That's really important. Why is this important? Because you need to know your values and communicate your values in your organizations, your teams, and your families. Like, especially for those of you who have teenagers, if you sat down, like, if I showed up at your house and did a sociological experiment with you, which would be awkward and weird, but I'd be there. I'd bring things, I'd bring food, probably. I'M from Montana. We just bring food. We show up and there's food. I don't know why, but I would bring food and I'd bring joy. That would be my two things. I'd show up with some sustenance and some joy, and I'd show up at your house and I'd sit you down and I'd interview you and ask you as the parent what you believe your family values are. And then I'd sit down separately in another room and ask your teenagers that. The question is, do they somehow align? Now, when they don't align, we know in research that there's greater frequency of conflict and greater frequency of elevated conflict in that family structure than other families. Meaning when we don't even discuss our shared values and when we're not on the same page of our shared values, even if we go for the outcome, because think about this. How many of us would love to say that, you know what we all believe? We believe everybody should have equal opportunity for wealth. Raise your hand if you believe that everybody should have equal opportunity for wealth. Okay, but imagine if we don't discuss the values to get that wealth, right? What if one of our values isn't don't lie, cheat, or steal to get that wealth? Now someone says, but I'm going. You said we always get to pursue wealth if we're not clear on the values. The way we pursue things can be easily corrupt. So beware of listening to leaders who talk a lot about outcome without values. Be intent. When you share a goal with your team or your family, did you share the values that underlie the process to get the goals? Be aware in your own community, have you discussed the values that are important and do you feel like you understand other people's values? You know, there's a lot of assumptions that happen in this category about other people's values. You know, and I know some of you have really struggled with this one because, you know, we're all mad at a certain demographic at any given time in our life or a certain type of person, and we make assumptions about them and we accuse them of something and. And if we're honest, we didn't even know what their values are. We just didn't like the outcome. We didn't like that one sentence they said on social media. And so now we assume their intention and assume their values in life and we attack them, right? Be wary of doing that. Be wary of doing that. The outcome is a post. Don't be so assumptive about their intention and values without A conversation about it. That's how we have civil discourse. It's an important conversation when we look at outcomes, to understand the values that lead into it. And so for those who are trying to lead right now, I'm going to say something to you. Values, Values, values. Speak to them. Speak to them. When you lead values. Listen, leaders, when you lead. Values are your themes of every communication act. You are not communicating just the outcome. You are speaking inconsistent themes based on values. This one took me a super long time to figure out. You know, I rolled out over a dozen corporate leadership and diversity programs in my life. Every leadership program in corporation in corporate America today has an attached diversity initiative or program to it. And at least in the Fortune 500. And so you always have to intersect there. And I was. I got great, great confrontation and teaching about my own biases and privilege coming up, especially through my 20s and 30s. It was incredibly valuable for me and really made me face a lot of stuff that I didn't even know I had. And these diversity leaders who helped me understand. Brendan, when we roll out these programs, if we don't get shared values, we're not going to get changed behavior. And I was like, if we don't get shared values, we don't get changed behavior. Dang. So why is this important now? I would love for you to figure out what are your values that you're going to communicate thematically and what are your values that you're going to maintain when you got to defend yourself. And I mean that. Let's take that in both, you know, macro and micro. Macro, the whole, you know, I want you to think about this, the values in defending yourself historically. Take Martin Luther King versus an early Malcolm X. For those who've studied that history, very different approaches, right? After equality, after justice, different approach, different value, different policy, if you will. Well, you metaphorically need to be aware of that in your own life because you might have to defend yourself physically at some time in your life. You're going to have to defend yourself socially at some point. You're going to have to debate other people when you want to cause change. So in your debates, in your conversations, what are the values that are going to guide your communication style? What are the values that are going to guide your communication style? I'll give you some of mine. My values that guide all my communication style and all of my leadership work. Number one is humility. I always begin with, I don't know everything. I'll share with you where I have some expertise, but I am open. I am Learning. I am actively working on these things. Humility is important. Number two, inclusiveness and collaboration. You work with me, you talk with me, we communicate. I want to get it, I want to understand. I want people involved. I love the brainstorm. I love understanding and think about just how those two things might shape when someone attacks me on social media, how I might approach that. If I didn't and I wasn't aware of those, what would I do? I'd have a knee jerk reaction that doesn't support anybody. Now we're just causing more fights. I don't think we need that. So I hope this helps. So what do we talk about? We talk about movements. What's going to create a movement in your life, in your community, in your family, in your teams? What's going to create a movement in your life, your community, your family, your teams? One immobilizing incident which could be as simple as a difficult conversation that you set up. Number two, structure. Structure. Number three, clear policies. Number four, the courage of those in power and influence to include others and to speak up for others. And number five, having our values so clear that other people become accountable through either policy or social norms. And I know that that's not a comprehensive list of all things in history. I'm doing the best I can and 90 minute session before we do some Q and A. So I know I promised to talk about some personal sides of civil leadership, including how we can each personally change and improve. And I recognize that this list is going to bring up that conversation that I promised to talk about. Like how do you deal with when somebody is judging you? How do you deal with when you're frustrated in this process and you got to have tough conversations? And how do you do all that in the context we're facing right now? That's what coaching is like. The first step of all change is awareness. The harder part is step two, accepting what you are aware of. Acceptance is stage two. Stage one's awareness. Stage two is acceptance. That's the harder part. That's the harder part. Hey guys, it's Brandon. I'm jumping in here real quick. First, I want to make sure you've gone to progressmode.com to join the newsletter because I have a resource for you related to this episode and I have an upcoming meetup with my private group, Ultra. If you've ever liked to be in a private group with me where I help you get more progress towards your passion projects or to build your business or your brand in a bigger way, just go to progressmo.com, click on Private group to apply to. See, you can get into Ultra and we can take it to the next level by getting in person and meeting up virtually once a month online as well. Just go. Go to progressmode.com 8big ideas for you. Ideas for personal change. Number one, root out the judgmental thoughts that you have. Root them out. What does that mean? It means identify the judgments that you have about yourself and others. Get in there. Get aware right now. Right, Some of you all, when you talk about judgments, you know, you judge yourself too harshly. Some of you are awful to yourselves, and I say that with love, but you're awful to yourself. You talk down to yourself, you mess up and it shuts you down for three days. Because what you say to yourself. Our judgments shape the quality of our lives, And being unaware of them doesn't work. Right. If you've judged your sibling in a certain way, you haven't explored that, that comes into that relationship with your sibling, and it can cause years or decades of strife. Whoever judged one of your siblings and that led to years of problems. Something they did, they did something when they were young, you grab that. You judge them. You identified them with your judgment. And that label, that identification with that label shaped your family's relationship for years. That's important stuff to be aware of. That's important stuff to be aware of. Well, so notice I said two things. Judgment of self and judgment of others. Personal change. Remember, the first gate of personal change is awareness. Awareness, being aware of our judgments of ourselves and others. How does that show up? It is the thing that you say that defines or explains a judgment and is something that you. It defines or explains. Oh, well, that sibling, she's the one who. And then you define it. Give her a label. Oh, you know, that person on the team, every time they do this, they. They do it because these reasons and you explain the reasons. Those are judgments. Definitions and explanations are judgments. How do you define yourself? There's judgments there, aren't there? For those who are in a significant relationship, you have a partner, lover, spouse, wife, husband, girlfriend, boyfriend, other. What judgments have you made against them that aren't fair? I keep bringing up problems. It's hard to improve our lives unless we get super aware of the judgments we've made about other people. If we want to change society too, we better get really aware of that. You know, we got to get really aware of these judgments about other people. And not just. We got to get really, really, really aware about judgments we've made about other People, you know, I came on here, y' all immediately. Some, you know, you judge my background. Is it good or bad? You judge my intention, Is it good or bad? You know, you judge a haircut bad. But, you know, you got to figure out at some point that you we unconsciously, quickly. I like a shirt. I don't like a shirt. He's funny. He's not. He's this, he's that. It's so automatic. It's so automatic. But the fast, the better you get at slowing down that automaticity, the more conscious you become. Because stimulus response, most response is judgment. A lot of people understand that stimulus judgment is more accurate. So because right response is second, Judgment is first. So it's really stimulus judgment, right? That's the process of information comes in. We interpret, we take our interpretations, and we filter it now through our identity, right? If you've all saw me taught the thought ladder before or the ladder of interpretation. Information comes in, we interpret it as good or bad. We interpret it through our identity. What does it mean to me? Then we set an intention. Then we do or do not take initiative. That initiative loops back to the top of the ladder. Information comes in. This is the ladder of interpretation, or the thought ladder. If you ever taught me that information comes in interpretation, which is judgment, identity, what does it mean to me? Judging the relevancy of me, of that through me, intention, okay, what do I want to do with said information? Initiative. I do this behavior in response. All those levels happen. Here's why. If that sounds overcomplicated, here's why it's hopeful. It means there's a lot of rungs in which to pause, contemplate, think, and imbue consciousness versus an immediate response. So I'm asking you examine your own mind, your own bias, your own interpretation, ladder your own judgments against yourself and with other people. The better we get as a society of not immediately judging people and examining our ladder of interpretation where it came from. The faster we will root out racism. But without that process, we don't have hope. We need people to look at their judgments and where they come from and how automatic those things come from with people unconsciously. And the more we slow down that ladder of interpretation, imbue consciousness into it, the more likely it is we won't need judge anybody based on the color of their skin, their background, their demographic, their life experience, and we'll remember that truth. We all walk difficult paths that the human story is always a story of struggle and a story of progress. Some have it easier than others. But at the same rate, everyone has struggles and everybody hopes for progress. And once we realize that, we can slow down a little bit, listen, observe, seek out an understanding of the information other people have. Seek out how they're interpreting things. Seek out how identity plays a role. Seek out their intention, seek out their initiative. It's powerful. It's powerful. Getting away from knee jerk reactions against ourselves too. I mean, some of you all, you get so mad about how many you get so mad about yourself based on how many emails you posted or emailed, responded to, how many social oh, I didn't post my Instagram today. I'm a loser. I'm like, whoa, dude, the piece of information that you didn't put up something on social media leads to your identity being a loser. Let's revisit that ladder of inference here. Holy. Wait, not popular enough. Information interpretation, not good. Identity loser. Whoa. Let's you all. If I could give a gift, if I could give a gift, I could. I would remind you of the complete magical quality of your existence. I would remind you how special and unique and valued and important you are. I would remind you to recognize your blessings. And I would remind you that you are stronger, more capable and more valuable than you probably give yourselves credit for. If every one of us, this is what our. I always tell you when I bring my own personal values in versus just what we know from research. But here is my own personal value. If we all just sat down one on one with more people of more diversity and had conversations about the stuff they've been through in their life and where they're coming from, and we had the guts to have that conversation more, we would slow down the speed in which we judge others. Because everybody here, if I sat down at your dinner table after I bought all that food and I brought that good attitude and we had a real conversation somewhere through eating that food or after the food or maybe there was some wine. If there was some wine, I'd be talking the whole time. Oh my gosh, get me on alcohol. Don't give me caffeine or alcohol. The kid never shuts up. Tell you what. But if we sat down and we broke some bread or for the keto people, we had some steak. Listen, if we had some steak or some bread or you don't like that. If we had some broccoli, we had some broccoli and a juice. Okay? We had some broccoli and a juice. I promise you, I'm going to learn about your hardship. I'm going to discover that you had pain I'm going to understand that you've been unfairly treated somewhere in your life. I'm going to understand that you have family history, cultural history. And if we can each do that for one another, we slow down that judgment. Let's slow it down. Let's slow down the judgments. That's number one. Root out the judgment, understand it and slow it down. I'm not telling you the outcome of that. I'm not telling you to judge anything right or wrong. I'm just saying slow it down. Be conscious, be aware. Number two. Number two, you gotta study history. I know this is the most boring part of what I'm gonna talk about for people, but listen, if you know anything about me, there's three things I read every single week for 20 years. I've never missed every single week. I read personal development, I read leadership or business, and I read history every week. There's always three books on the mantle. There's always three books somewhere around those types of topics. I read a book a week on those topics every week. This is my 23rd year. More than anything, I'm a student of history. I know we have some history dorks here. I just think if we don't understand history, we're doomed to repeat it. And I think it's important that when things happen and we don't understand them, we always go, oh, there's history there. Because everything that we see has historical context. And once we understand that, it doesn't mean we can predict the future. It just means we understand context, feelings, what's worked before, what hasn't worked before. Right. If we haven't studied the history, it's hard to understand. It's hard to know what worked and what didn't work. History is full of clues about what might work and what might not work. And so for those of you, this is a great time to study some history. This is a great time to study some history. And I know that's not the most exciting part of today's dialogue. Why is history important? Because historical analysis always gives context and multiple viewpoints if it's good writing. So I think it's important to like social media. It's like to try and understand something from a social media post. Super hard history, much more broad, deep and multifaceted, which I think is important. Okay, number three. This is really hard. This is really hard. The first part, Outcome. Use your voice. Use your voice. Share your feelings, your ideas. That's outcome. Now let's talk to the earlier training of movements. Outcome must also have values. So here would be what I would suggest from literally 100 years of communication theory on conflict management. It is undeniable. It is not my opinion. It is not black. It is not white. It is not from any country. It is global research on conflict management, negotiation and policy change. When you speak, when you seek to share your feelings or your ideas, if you can do that without generalizing, without accusing, without speaking for others, Without assumptions. And without condescension, Then you are scientifically, scientifically more likely to get to a speedier resolution that you are both happy with than if you do not. This is the same research in marriages. It is the same research in hostage negotiation. It is the same research in policy change. It is the same research in congressional debate. It comes down to communicating well, when we hold a position, it just does. And it's even better when we can allow our position to be formed based on values. But the outcome and the how to have a little bit of flexibility, if you will, generalizations poison progressive debate. When you say all black people are this, all police officers are this, all women are this, all, you know, this demographic is this. It's so wrong that it immediately opens you up to a losing position and immediately closes off conversation. And let me just give a metaphor because I don't think this lands sometimes when I talk about it, because again, I also know that some people think I'm talking about myself here in this debate. I'm not. I am talking about research and communication. That's hundreds, over hundreds of years or dozens of fields of study. So please don't think I'm taking anything personally here because this is not about me. I hope that you felt that entire way throughout here. I'm trying to make this about your life, your family, your leadership, how you are showing up. And I'm trying really hard to do that. Generalizations. Let me, Let me. I don't think I'd do a good job of talking about this because I try to do it sometimes. Like when I say all, you know, white people and black people, that's very contextual right now. All police officers. That's contextual right now. But let me give you a completely different type of metaphor and to show and illustrate how bad generalization is in thinking, imagine if you were talking to a friend and you said, all cars, all cars are built this way. Immediately. That is an ignorant argument because all you gotta do is stand on the corner for a minute, watch a Tesla go by, watch a Honda Prius go by, watch a Ford F150 go by, and watch A Mercedes, fancy van go by, and immediately you're like, you know what? They're not. Sorry. They're not generalizations. That's a big part of the fight we're having right now. And I know how easy it is to react against that. Right? I mean, we're having debate in our country right now that it's so polarizing. I had a friend last night, huge community leader, runs a nonprofit that does over $40 million of real social impact in the world. He's black. His wife is white. And he said, you would think with what you're seeing in America right now, that it's forgotten about entirely interracial marriage. You would think the conversation in America right now forgot that there's other countries, forgot that there's other ethnicities, forgot other demographics. And he made the argument so well, because he said, no, it's really important right now. The focus must be Black Lives Matter. So I just want to let you know that was communicated and that is clear. And I personally believe that if you haven't seen that great meme online of the House on Fire meme, which is that conversation between all lives matter versus black lives matter, the reason that is, if you haven't seen it, it's beautiful because it's saying, listen, this is the current specific. We're not saying all these other things don't matter. We're not generalizing that out. We're saying this is a specific problem, and we're talking about the specific problem right now. We're not talking about these other specific problems. This is what we're highlighting right now, Right? Just like, please remember when we were talking about COVID 19, you would have thought that no other diseases in the world existed. How many follow what I'm talking about? Because the focus right then, friends, the focus right then is on COVID 19. They're not saying AIDS research isn't important. They're not saying that cancer research isn't important. They're not saying that these other things, these other health maladies around the world are not important. They're just saying, hey, Covid is a real problem right now. That is how we might think about the generalizations that have been made right now in which we want to generalize everything. But sometimes there's a specific thing we should talk about right now. The specific context is Black lives Matter. It doesn't mean that all lives don't matter. It means we're working on a specific issue, and a lot of people haven't understood that. It doesn't make any other Issue wrong. It doesn't exclude it. It's called the exclusion fallacy. If you've ever studied debate, the exclusion fallacy, it's where we pretend someone else's position isn't correct because it doesn't include everything else. Right? It'd be easy to say, brendan, it is so wrong what you did today in your little live guest there. Brendan, it's so wrong what you did because you didn't even talk about the horrors of cancer. You did a whole live cast for two hours and you never talked about people dying of cancer. You are a bastard. Well, you're right, I didn't talk about it. But that would be the exclusion fallacy to make my arguments wrong because I also didn't cover every other topic under the sun. And I bring this up to you because another hook that you're going to get in your activism or your leadership when people say, well, what about all these other things? And your job is to help people, not try to take a problem and generalize everything, but be specific in what you're talking about. Specificity is what makes a debate become productive. Agreeing on specifically what we are talking about. If we don't agree on specifically what we are talking about, then we start throwing in biases and arguments from every other language, every other conversation, every other issue. You know, it's like, you can't, you can't. I had another black leader where I was talking with, she had been hammered because she did an hour long broadcast kind of like this. And again, she's a person of color and she did not bring up economic disparity. So she was using examples. And she didn't bring up what she was attacked for. She was doing a historical conversation. She did not bring up the Poor People's campaign that Martin Luther King was seeking to initiate after the civil rights legislation. So if you haven't studied Martin Luther King's last two years of life, he had a major value pivot from just equality and he really decided his life's work was to take on poverty. My friend who brought this was having a conversation about that time she was attacked viciously for not bringing up poverty in her conversation. Was she wrong? Now, you could say yes or no, right? But the issue there is, you need to understand as leaders, and this is really important. I hope you hear me here. And this goes to all diverse leaders here. You must always be prepared that when you make an argument, people will attack you for what you have excluded. That is, you must realize this because once you realize it, you don't get angry and defensive and you can acknowledge it instead. And when you acknowledge what was left out and why it was left out, you can now de escalate that accusation. It's why it's so hard to speak up for any of us, black, white, any other demographic is really difficult is because we know. And that's what my fear is. Everyone knows, no matter what they say, it's not enough. And the reason we are hearing what we are saying is not enough is because we didn't include a comprehensive analysis and discussion of every issue under the sun. But once you know that's going to come, you can breathe. I know how it feels. Trust me, I really know how it feels. So, you know, you do what you can in every I've, you know, for those who've ever attended our live events, you know, I try to have diversity on our stages when I'm not the person training, but I don't always have a woman. I don't always have a person of color. I don't always have a non American speaker. I don't. It just doesn't happen because I'm training to a specific curriculum and I have to explain that to the audiences. And it's difficult and you're not going to get it right every time. But what you need to know is you will be accused every time. And you know, that's what happened to my black friend of being attacked because she didn't in other people's opinion appropriately or comprehensively enough discuss poverty and economic injustice. But she was specifically, she had one hour and she was going down this lane. And so here's what's important for you all to know that when you use your voice, please listen very closely on this one. This will help you so much. When you go to use your voice, know what lane you're going to play, what's the specific thing you're going to discuss? And now here's the magic move. You frame the conversation at the very beginning of your post or the very beginning of your video and you let people know you aren't going to be able to take on everything that today's conversation. I'm going to take on this little piece. It means I probably won't get to discuss this, this, this and this. And I'm going to stay here. When you do that, you defuse that inherent part of people that wants to blame that you didn't cover everything. Raise your hand if you follow what I'm talking about here, because you saw me do that here at the very beginning of our Discussion. I said, listen, I can really only talk about this and my experience. I wish I could have this person on or that person on. But I chose to do this because that's what where our contract was. I'm not here to take a political stance. I'm not going to talk about this type of politics. I'm not going to go here because that's just not what I'm here for. So I'm going to stay in this lane. Here's what we're going to cover today. Oh my gosh. You have to remember to do that. Leaders, you got to do that in your conversations with teams. You got to do that with your family. Because if you just bumble into an issue and you don't set the frame around what part of the issue you're going to take on, you're going to get pummeled in debate. So setting the frame helps avoid the impulse to generalization. And I know this will really help you in your communication. In negotiation, this is everything. When you go to negotiate a deal, the first part of that conversation has to be about what you're not going to negotiate. Everyone follow. Some of you know, I had to do divorce mediation and this was a pivotal three years of my life and it was the hardest thing I've ever had to do because I was, what would I be? I'd be 20, 21 and 22 years old and I was doing court referred divorce mediation. So here I am, a 20 year old kid, I'm not even in a relationship. No one wants to date me. I'm completely failing in dating. But I've got to mediate a divorce. You know what I was taught to do in that situation at the very beginning of the mediation, you have to tell the couple in conflict what you're not going to discuss today. And if you miss that part of mediation, you're done. That is going to go super nasty sideways. Oh, and some of you have been there before. So in other words, you have to talk about specifically what will be included and excluded in your argument. Great. Lawyers all know this. If you're talking to a jury, you'd better get that out real fast. It's called framing the debate. What's included? What's excluded? Because if you don't do that, they will attack you for both what you excluded and what you chose to include. Super smart. You got to be aware. Is this helpful, y'? All? This is like, oh my gosh, if you're going to talk to the kids about what's going on, be like okay, hey, kids, today, let's talk what we think about when a police officer overuses their power and attacks somebody. But let's not talk about presidential politics. Let's not talk about this topic. Let's just try to aim here and have a productive discussion here. And you know what? Maybe over here. And then tomorrow over here, it is about that specific. Listen, specificity will change your life. Because, see, what you do is you generalize. So if I ask you, why aren't you healthier? It's easy to generalize. Well, I'm lazy. I'm lazy. I'm lacking self discipline. I am a fan of Netflix. I am and I am. Oh, my goodness. You know what always follows after I am? A generalization. And those can be dangerous in our identity. So what are we after? Specificity. If you say, why aren't you healthy? Let's talk specifically about your diet right now. Guess what? We have a productive conversation for 10 minutes. Then I say, OK, let's specifically talk about your sleep. We talk about your sleep. Oh, that is productive. Let's specifically talk about your workout. Oh, but if I go to you and I say, let's talk about your health, we won't have a productive hour. How many follow? So when you make things specific, you make them productive. Write it down. When you make things specific, you make them productive. You also protect yourself from that conversation of why didn't she or he do all this other stuff? Okay, so use your voice to share your feelings, your ideas without generalizations. Number two, without assumptions about other people's backgrounds. Be careful about assuming, you know, I had a great conversation with somebody who attacked me online and I was open to what they said and I shared some information about my background in that area and they called me defensive and I said, I'm sorry if it felt defensive. I was trying to explain that I have experience in this area and here's what it was. But it doesn't mean I know everything and I'm open to learning. And they had assumed that I didn't know anything about this topic. We were facing equality right now without having any understanding of what I've taught, trained, worked with nonprofit leaders for 20 years of my life. I haven't done enough and I don't know enough, and I'm not done. But I'm also not ignorant to the situation at hand. I'm also widely networked and informed in the actual leaders of this movement. So, yeah, I'm a white guy and I'm a scrawny white guy, and I'm Annoying as hell. And I deserve all of the vitriol towards myself, but in this area, I'm actually pretty informed for a dumb white guy. And so I let that know. I explained that with grace and a plume, but still open. But this person made the wrong first move, which was assuming something about me. Without asking. Without asking. We had a prominent media personality, a person of color, who said, all of her friends are asking how they should deal with this. And she was making this joke. She said, I'm replying back. And she goes, I just. Because I'm black, I don't know how to create social justice reform. And she was funny about it because she's like, what? Because that person is this. It's the same thing as we can't. Just because a person is of color doesn't mean they've read everything about anything. In the civil rights movement, Just because a person is a police officer doesn't mean that they're quick to violence. Right? When we make assumptions, oh, we get in trouble, we get in trouble. If you're going to assume something about somebody, assume that they've struggled a lot, that they've had pain and hurt in their life, and they want a better life, that's a safe one. Anything outside those bounds is not what you lead with. I'm not here to say that we can't assume certain things structurally, historically. Nope, we can. But at an individual level, here's my suggestion to you. Even if those of you like don't agree with me, no, we can assume these things about people. Brennan, Brennan, that's okay. Here's. I want you to hear what I'm saying. Don't lead with that argument. If you want a productive conversation that leads to shared outcomes, you can make the assumption. But if you lead with the argument of the assumption, it doesn't open the door for conversation. And if you want to sway someone's opinion or someone's actions on something, you got to sway the door open at the beginning of the conversation, not closed. You want to make a change in someone's thinking, you got to make sure that your thinking is open first. Super hard. That's super hard. Okay, next big idea. Accusations. Accusations. Be wary of accusing people of any specific intention or malice. Accusing people of intention or malice, right? That's where you say to somebody who you don't know and you did not observe or you don't have history with, accusing them of something is a slippery slope. It shuts the door of conversation. But it also, it's very dangerous because, again, it's by the way, all accusations are built on assumptions. Always know that. All accusations are built on a set of assumptions. All arguments are built on a set of assumptions. Not all assumptions are good. Not all assumptions are bad. But they're all dangerous. All assumptions are dangerous because there's always a lot of holes in them. And do you want to go out to sea with a ship with a lot of holes in it? Well, then don't ship your argument with a lot of assumptions in it. Ooh, that was like one of those quotables that goes on a fridge somewhere, you know what I'm saying? I don't even know what I just said there, but I heard the ship thing and there was holes in the ship, and then the ship became the argument in the next sentence. It was like, metaphorical and very useful at the same time. I just want you to have a little fun at this and be wary of your accusations. You know, accusations are built on assumptions, and assumptions have a lot of holes in them, and it leaves you open to a lot of debate. And I think there's ways to be very productive without making accusations against anyone. And if there's accusations to be made, make them as statements of observable behavior. You all took conflict management, right? If you haven't studied conflict management, it's as simple as if your spouse walks in the door and, you know, they've been leaving the house a little bit of a mess, and you had to clean up that mess, and they come in the door and you say to them, you know what? You don't care about me. You don't care about this house. You're lazy. I'm guessing you're not having any sex that night. I'm just. I'm just guessing. I think the research would show that there's not going to be a lot of intimacy. I'm just. Wild guess, total left field, you know, Brendan opinion kind of thing. I'm guessing you're not making some love. That's all I'm saying. Well, then how do we share and spread love when we make these assumptions about other people? Instead, we make statements of observable behavior. Instead, we can say, you know, when I came home today, I noticed the vacuum cleaner was out. That's observable. I came home, vacuum is out. Didn't have to say, you're lazy, you don't care about me, you don't love. Those are all accusations and assumptions. Instead, we observed, we noted what was there. And that's really important, especially in times of crisis. Like a lot of the the inability for some people to understand the Black lives movement came from when unfortunately, media or people portrayed what was happening with police brutality and sometimes wasn't specific in describing observable and made inferences or made assumptions or accusations about. And they combined two very dangerous things, accusations with generalizations. Oh, when you do that, it closes productive debate. And I think it's really important for everyone to hear this. If you're going to make what you think is an accusation, just describe what is specifically there that others can observe. Don't assume intention. Don't assume background. Don't accuse with generalization. Say what you see. Say what you see. Because now, without guessing all the stuff behind what we see, we can start the conversation with what we both observed, not what we both fear, not what we've been conditioned by everything. So again, we're coming back to specificity. And I want to let you know if you want productive abate accusing is be very careful. And again, this applies to your families. This applies to your spouse, it applies to your kids. If you're having conflict with your kids, listen to your judgments, your generalizations and your accusations against them. You want to forgive my language? Piss off a teenager, start accusing of a bunch of stuff and watch what happens with base impulse. They will light up. They will get ready to burn the house down. Those who have teenagers know exactly what I'm talking about. Once you man, you. You litter accusations on a teenager and you're peppering war, you got to understand this. So this applies to your families as well. Okay, last piece here. And I think this is important. And on this particular point, condescension, condescending. Be very aware. I would love for you, each and every one of you who posts on major issues of the world, to read your post three or four times and just ask if you're sounding condescending to any demographic or group, and I will share openly with you. I promise to share some things I've learned in this process. I think I've gotten this one wrong several times over the last years. What I mean by that is it wasn't intentional. But sometimes for me, if I. It's very difficult for those of you who have academic backgrounds or you conduct scientific research and had any of it, you know, collaborated or corroborated or peer reviewed, you know, how important it is to share where you draw your research from. Right? To share, like, what holds up, if you will, your evidence, your arguments. And in years past, because I come from that. I come from, you know, an academic research base in years past, When I explained that to people, I genuinely did not understand the way that I was explaining. It sounded not only defensive that it could sound condescending, as in like, I know this, you didn't, you don't. And while my intention wouldn't be there, I've been busted on that in the past, even recently, and deserve to be because I just, I hit send too fast or I'd say it too fast. And you have to listen through that filter. And I'm learning to do that more. It's like, how do you. I faced this years ago, right when I started teaching business. How do I explain I know how to give some advice to a beginning business person and at the same time not say to them, hey, you might not know this because when you tell someone they don't know something, even if it's true, it sounds condescending. How many know what I'm talking about? It's like the slippery slope. And I want to let you know, I don't know how to navigate that. A lot of times I might not have navigated it in this. I'm sure some of you feel like something I said today was condescending. And I just hope that you know my heart enough and my values enough of inclusion and conversation. It's hard. It's hard for me as a student of history not to get really upset when people do things that we know doesn't help. And when you tell someone they're doing something that doesn't help, that sounds condescending, even if it's fact based. How many know what I'm talking about? Oh, it's so hard. And I just want to show I don't know the answer. I don't have it right. And all I can ask you to be is just be aware of it. And I'm going to say something that I know is going to sound condescending. Oh my gosh, I'm so screwed on this one. Oh, it's so terrible. There's no wind. I'm going to say it. It's going to sound condescending, it's going to sound generalization and it's going to sound accusatory. So please hang just, oh my gosh, I'm just screwed on this one. But let me. I'm going to say it. Lord help me. Gentlemen, men. There is research base that suggests that men and 30% of men cannot identify in communication studies cannot identify the tone of condescension. And the way that they do this is through brain scans and brain activity and what they notice is when someone gets upset when they hear condescending tones, it sparks a certain part of the Pareto. Parietal lobe. I'm not going to say it right. Parietal lobe. I always say it wrong. It's your brain. And what happens is a part of your brain really turns on when they hear that tone. For most people, 70% of men, for 30% of men, that part of the brain doesn't activate. They hear the exact same tone on the tape. The same tone, same frequency, same words. But it doesn't go for him. Why do I share that? Because it's one of the most. That is a huge statistical anomaly, if you will. 30%. Why do I tell this? I'm just here to tell my fellow guys of all races, by the way, because this is global studies, that it's important to understand you might be one of those people. So if your woman or your friends have ever said to you, honey, you're condescending, and you argued with her about how dumb she was that she thought you were condescending. You're a jerk. Oh, I knew I was getting. I'm so. Okay, I'm just. I'm teasing here a little bit. What I'm here to say is a lot of people don't know that sound. A lot of people don't know that sound. They don't know that they're doing, and they don't intentionally do it. So please, if someone seems condescending to you, first, be open to the fact that maybe they didn't know they were doing that. Maybe that wasn't their intention. Okay? Openness for all. Secondarily, be your own reviewer. Review your work. Class, review your work before you release. Ask. Does that sound condescending? I literally. I want to let you know I am not Mr. I made this mistake last night to a person who thought I was, you know, basically attacking them while I was trying to explain something that I've learned, and it just didn't go well. And when I read it again, I thought, you know what? That sound, that. That was condescending. That's why that whole argument didn't go well. Didn't pick up on it. So I'm not Mr. Perfect over here. It's something I've learned. You got to double check that. It's super hard for those who have, you know, for those of you I know, we have a lot of experts here. It's difficult, all right? You have an expertise. You know how hard it is to explain your expertise without sounding like a jerk? So be Aware. That's all I'm saying. Be aware. Okay, so I promised to talk about how do you deal with the backlash? How do you deal with the backlash? Because you're gonna get yourself in trouble, right? Anytime you take a position, anytime you try to lead, there'll be backlash. And the reason I taught you this way today and shared the ideas this way is to know where the backlash is going to come from. You're going to get more backlash. The more that you generalize, the more that you judge, the more that you assume, the more that you accuse and the more that you condescend. That's where your backlash is. So I've been playing offense for you this whole day. And defense, too, huh? Like offense. Here's what to do. Defense, Backlash. How do you do with the backlash? First, know where the number one rule in how to deal with backlash is to know where it's going to come from. You are going to increase your incident of backlash the more that you generalize, assume, accuse, condescend, and judge. You want more backlash? Do those five things more often. Everything we've talked about, I think awareness, again, is step number one. And to know where the backlash is coming from now, you can at least temper it a little bit. At the same time, leaders become leaders because they take the risk of saying and doing hard things they do. Leaders become leaders because they take the risk of saying and doing hard things, uncomfortable things, collective things. It's hard. Many of you have positions, and I honor them. Many of you have very high, high opinions and also deep expertise. And I know you're going to feel like saying it anyway, and you're going to say it, and you're going to say it, and don't tell me what to say. Don't tell me how to feel. I'm going to do it. And I just want to let you know that's cool. Just know that when you do those things, you're going to get more backlash. So be aware of it. And when the backlash comes, what do you need to do? Number one, do not need jerk. Respond. Take a beat. Take a beat. It's the famous leadership lesson of, you know, writing a response and not hitting send. It's, you know, it's. Even as the first notes that Abraham Lincoln was sending out to get support for the Emancipation Proclamation, he famously wrote several letters of deep anger. And he put him in a. Put him in a drawer. Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, very famous for writing and not sending. And we got to learn to do the same thing. There's a Lot of incendiary comments out there. You'll get more backlash if you, when you get backlash, if you immediately respond, your immediate knee jerk response is going to come from bias, self protection. And when you realize that our automatic responses usually come from bias and self protection, the conscious choice to pause is important. Not saying it's easy, just saying it's important. And so when you get backlash, take a beat, observe, hear and please understand. This is hard to say in social media land without being condescending, but one person being shitty to you in a comment is not a backlash. Can you all agree on that? So what I always tell people is like, don't assume one or two or three people piling on you is a backlash. That's a diversity of opinion or a judgment or an accusation they're making. Backlash is when you get real heat from a lot of people for a position that you have taken and real heat like that. It takes a bit, it takes hours to develop. And so give yourself that time to watch how, watch how something unfolds first so you understand some perspectives. Because what you might have seen was hate, not an argument. But if you get a lot of people making the same argument, now you've got information to deal with. And so again, this comes back to the idea of a pause. Okay, same thing. When you get how many of you who's been in an all out war with the family member in the last year, anyone here, you and a family member just went at it. Okay, how many of you feel like a little bit more of a pause or patience there could have served a little bit, you know, maybe, just maybe a little bit. I see someone don't. Nope. Oh, see, we're still fun, we can still enjoy life. But I think it's important to recognize that pause. I'm going to tell you something, I think the pause is 70% of your saving grace. Right. We worry about so much we're going to say more than worrying about what you're going to say. Worry when you're going to say it. Timing matters. So let it develop, let it see. Get an understanding of what's happening here. Okay? Number one thing, that pause, Number two on backlash, Openness. If someone says something and they're right and you look at it and you're like, yeah, you know what? That is true. Acknowledge it. Just like you want to slow down a backlash, acknowledge where they're right. Hey, you know what? I didn't think about that. Hey, you're right. That doesn't sound good. Hey, I can see your perspective There to acknowledge somebody stops a lot of hate right in the steps, man. So acknowledge it. Oh, you know what? Right. So be open to where you are wrong, and I'll let you know. I think, you know, for some of you, you're new into my community. I like to say I've been putting my foot in my mouth since 2007. Professionally, I've said a lot of things I didn't get exactly right. But why am I still here at this level after this many years is because I have the total humility to go, yeah, I don't know everything. And you're right. I'm sorry, I didn't get that right. The ability to say, you're right, there was a hole in my argument. Or you're right, that didn't come across right. Or you're right, I should have thought through that. Or those are important to acknowledge. Second step, to apologize if you missed a beat. If you missed it and they're right and what you did was rude, wrong, inconsiderate. You want to stop a backlash, you better get your apology out there soon. It's important. It's important even if you don't. Here's the thing. You don't. I wish everyone wrote this on the fridge. You don't have to agree to say I'm sorry. You don't have to agree to say you're sorry. If your spouse, if her feelings are hurt, you don't have to agree her feelings should or should not have been hurt. Her feelings were hurt. Say I'm sorry. Listen, ego will get you in a lot of trouble. You don't. You know, I know I'm not here for this many years. I'm here this many years is because I don't have a huge ego. And I recognize how wrong I can be. I recognize my privilege. I recognize I'm not the smartest kid in the world or the greatest expert. I mean, part of being a coach is being aware of those things, and I'm quick to apologize. I screw up. I want to let you all know I screw up a lot. I feel like I've screwed up 50 times on this thing. We only been talking a little bit. I feel like I screwed up a hundred times here, but I promise to cover these topics with you. All right, let's see. So number one was examiner your judgmental thoughts about yourself and others. Number two was study history. Number three was use your voice, but beware of judgment, generalization, assumption, accusation, and condescension. Number four, immediately start expanding your conversation with people different than you immediately, everybody. And that's even those of you or us who have been in these conversations a long time. It's a good time to get diverse viewpoints outside your circle of influence. Try to reach beyond your current circle of influence for some intel. Many of you have platforms for that. You have social media, you have podcasts. You have the ability to interview people on Zoom just like this. I hope that you will reach out and try to understand, not decide. I think it's really important a lot of people go into something trying to decide something in advance. In academics, you know how we talk about that being a problem because you're supposed to go in with a theory, not a position. When you go in with a theory, not a position, it means you're open to intel directing the research. And the most important thing about that is having diverse viewpoints. And I know a lot of people have asked me when I've talked about this point on social media, how do I do that? Brendon My circle of influence is what my circle of influence is. I am asking all of my friends in America from every walk of life to get out and volunteer in the next 30 days with a new organization that serves people you don't usually serve or don't usually know in the next 30 days. Just, it's like my 30 day volunteer challenge. Just get, like, get around a different community of service than you usually have been. If that means you go build houses with a bunch of people, cool. If that means you go to a soup kitchen in the part of town you've never been into, cool. If that means you go into a class, it means if you go into a specific group you've never worked with or you join a specific Zoom that you've never done, or you join a webinar you've never been a part of on a topic you don't understand, cool. But get more intel. People need more intel right now, more information of diverse groups of people. Many of you know, you know, in my industry, I've been kind of the band leader, if you will, for a lot of diversity. Many of you know the private mastermind I keep. You see the social media posts of it that we keep incredibly diverse on purpose because we want to make sure that the major influencers in the world know people of color, know women, know people not from the United States of America. That's important. Like, my private masterminds are full of people who aren't like me at all. That's on purpose because I know I'm aware enough as a person as a dumb Montana kid to tell you there's a lot I don't know. And so I got to get around people and get around situations. So I volunteered my entire lifetime because I want to be a person of service. And you know what, when you're volunteering, it's almost always serving a different demographic than you if you choose well. And so that's, I think that's important if you want a tangible thing. 30 day volunteer challenge. If you're up for that, wave your hands, let's get out in the communities, let's do something good, let's get around new people and be of service. Because when we're servant leaders, we change the world. You're not going to change the world on social media. You're going to change the world in your communities and in your families, within yourself and within your teams. It's going to be out there doing the hard work. Number five, choose to be a beacon of your values. And I want to specifically say this here. Don't spread hate, lies and violence if that's not inevitably clear. In my community, hate, lies and violence are the triple threat. Hate, lies and violence is the non starter in my opinion because it shuts down everything else and it leads to a ripple effect that is never good. And if it turns out good, it could have been good faster without those things, we got enough hate, we got enough lies, we got enough violence. And I specifically want to talk, this is me in my very few soapboxes that I've personally taken my personal opinions. I want people to understand that lies are also conspiracy theories. I think that's really important to understand. Conspiracy theories are lies. And what I mean by that is we must a theory. That is a word appropriated from research and science. And research and science says show it, make it observable, don't make the assumptions, don't make the accusations. Let's talk about specific things. Now, I'm okay if you wonder things, right? That's part of like, I wonder if it's like this, I wonder if that's going on. But what we are seeing is people making unfounded claims that perpetuate conspiracy. And I just don't want listen, in marketing, I think you all know this. In business, an unfounded claim is illegal. Y' all know that. Like an unfounded claim in business gets you sued or shut down by the Federal Trade Commission in the United States of America, at least unfounded claims are literally illegal or the biggest opening to you getting sued. But we don't have that at a social Cultural level, and I wish we did so. Beware of making unfounded claims because they don't move the conversation forward. If we want to move the conversation forward. Be specific, Be specific. Be specific. Make things about what are observable and readily apparent. Make things informed. Show evidence. If we do a better job at that. Listen, thank God we had television in the 60s because as the world saw the evidence of two major cultural things that happened that dominated the 60s, three major things. If you go back to the 60s, three major incidences. If we didn't have television, right, think about civil rights, think about the Cuban missile crisis. Think about just those two things. If we didn't have that, when it becomes evidence, when it becomes something that is in front of us, then we can deal evidence that's important and evidence of. If you make an argument, give three points of evidence behind it. I believe this because A, B and C, when you do that, you're making an argument. And now people will debate at that level. Not everybody, because lots of people generalize, assume and accuse. But I think it's important for you to do that as people trying to make a positive difference. We got to be specific and behavioral, just like we have to do in our families. And to me, the non starters are hate, lies and violence. And we got to be careful of those things because if we spread hate, lies and violence, we are creating the very reality we're fighting against. And now we're prisoners in our own prison. If you perpetuate that which you hate, That karma, that flywheel, that turmoil, it don't go away. Number six, this is hard. Speak for yourself. Speak for yourself. You want to avoid backlash, Speak for yourself. When you speak for others, you're getting a lot of backlash because people go, I don't think that. I don't believe that. Don't speak for me. A lot of backlash comes from people speaking for others when they shouldn't. Like, listen, I can be a student of history. I can have built global diversity programs with diverse set of people. I can never speak for black people ever. I can never speak for Asian people. I can never speak for people who are even in my own hometown who grew up in different family structures with different policies and rules than me. I can speak for Brendan and I can speak for reporting, research those things. I can describe things that I've read or learned. I can describe the observable. But in terms of speaking for you, speak for yourself. A lot of people got in trouble, including some of my friends who are great leaders. Great leaders. Great leaders in this current movement who made the mistake of speaking for all X people or all people in this position, and they just got. Man, they got beat up online. Be cautious. You can't speak for everyone. You just can't make sure you are speaking specifically of your thoughts, feelings and observations. Try to back it up a little bit. Why? Because you don't need to do this. But if we want better civil discourse, more of us need to do it. More of us need to do it. Okay, number seven, I already talked about vote, vote, vote. Encourage people to vote. We need. If we need institutional change, we need voting. Period. You got it. Number eight, this is the most important. I want you to write this somewhere in your house and it's certainly not me. And it's attributed to Buddha, but it's attributed a thousand years before Buddha is. Well, be the change. You ought to have this. You got to get a bracelet, you got to put it on your wall. You got to be the role model of the change you desire. You got to role model the values you want. You got to role model the policies, the rules, the regulate. You got to role model everything right now. Be the change. I don't want you to. I don't. I want you to. If you get on a zoom call in the next 30 days, will you put a little post it note in the upper right hand corner that says be the change. Be the change. Stand for what you believe in. Be what you are trying to do. Be that person. Be that person. Listen, my job as your coach is to hope that we can each develop ourselves as better parents, lovers, leaders, caregivers, civic leaders, people leading teams. And I hope that this has served you today. But if you don't role model it, you are not making an argument for it. So be very intentional. Be very intentional and be patient with yourself, but demand a lot of yourself right now. Sometimes I say, you want to change your life. Expect more from yourself again without getting down on yourself, without the judgment, without the self hatred. Expect something. Some of you don't view yourselves as leaders. I know it. You shared it with me in the comments. I'm here to tell you you are. Because your kids, your family, your community, the people on the zoom, they see you, they hear you. And it's like sometimes we feel so alone, especially for those of us who've been. We're locked down or in quarantine around the world. With the pandemic, we felt alone and we forgot what great leaders we can be. I'm asking you to develop yourself to be a better contributor A better leader, a better person, however you define it, whether you agree with some of the values of what I shared today or not, define your own values. Whether you agree with any generalization that I made or anything that sounded condescending or anything I didn't get right today, I'm cool with that. But be open. Be open to hearing new perspectives even if you didn't like mine. I think we can do a good job together. We have a benefit right now of having all of us on who care about our personal development. I want you to hear that. It is possible to have civic conversation, to have humility, to have openness to learn from one another. Black, white, diverse, global. We can all learn from each other right now. And if we can learn to have good, productive arguments in our families and with our teams and with our communities, I believe we can change the world. If we remember what makes movements happen. These mobilizing incidents followed by organized structure, shared common outcomes, leadership at local levels, clear policies, clear values, and the courage to speak, speak up for each other. We can change the world. If you don't like what is out there right now and you've been wondering how to make it better, I hope this served you. That was my intention today. I know I didn't cover every issue under the sun. I know I didn't argue the best I can argue in every different area. But I'm going off the cuff and I'm trying to be here with you and share what I've learned and what community leaders have taught me for the last two decades of my life. Life. And I'm passionate about it because I love you and I want to see a better society and I want to see you with openness and kindness in your heart and in your soul. I want to see you be great leaders, be great caregivers, great family members. We can change the world. So let us be the change.