Challenges of the C-Suite with Neal Nybo, Episode 24

Hello everybody, welcome to CB Bowman Live, and today we have Neil with us. But first, first, I want to tell you a few things. Notice I'm dressed sleeveless. That is because I'm in Colorado and the temperature is 110. What in the world? And you know what? Last week, I think it was, our temperature was 93, and the next day it snowed. You literally have to keep a wardrobe in your car. I've learned this, right? Sweaters for when the temperature drops. I have a t-shirt like this and a skort. We women know what that is, right? Um, and, and so if it changes, because I've learned I, I would have to stop in the store And buy clothes in the middle of the day. So my secret for today, if you come into Colorado, have a season change of clothes in your car. Otherwise, you won't cut it. And we have, we have an expression: if you don't like the weather in Colorado, wait 15 minutes and it'll change completely.

Right.

Moved here, I thought, yeah, right, these people are crazy. I was the crazy one. It's so true. So today I'm hanging out, and— but I got— I'm rocking my lipstick and my earrings. You know me, right? Now, Neil, I think we're gonna have problems with your voice because I'm hearing it all kinds of feedback. So I think it's you.

What should I do? Let me mute my mic and see what happens.

Okay, but then we won't hear you talk. Oh, audience, thanks. You just let my— I don't know what's going on. You might have to call caller back, ask her to jump on Zoom. Because I have no idea what's happening. Are you?

I'm not talking now.

Are you getting?

You're still getting feedback.

Oh, horrible feedback. No. Are you getting it from me? No. Okay. Let me call Carla, who's safe today, always. Okay. She's probably gonna try to call me. He's listening in. Okay, Carlo, where are you? Recent. Uh, hang on, audience, you know how this goes. You gotta hang in.

I'll try a different— oh, uh, did you—

are you using Chrome?

Yes. I did. Let me, um—

Uh, Neil, we're getting terrible feedback from Neil.

Um, I've changed— I changed my microphone. Does that help at all?

Hold on one second, let me see.

1, 2, 3.

That helps, I think.

Is that better?

Yes, I think that's better. Okay, Carla, I think we can rock it. Okay, bye.

I am so sorry, CB. I have— I, you know, you end up with multiple microphones and cameras, and so, you know, when you're wealthy and you can afford all these different things. Who's that? Oh my gosh.

Listen, audience, I have a conference coming up that's going to knock conferences out of the ballpark. We're not even calling it a conference. It's called a collaboratorium. How do you like that one? It's a collaboration plus a laboratory. It's to talk about concerns around D&I in a fun, Non-blame, productive way. You have to reach out to me to get the data on this, or you could go on LinkedIn Live. And it's, it's workshops and it's meeting famous people. You— and let me just tell you, to support the concept, the tickets are only $599 for 3 days. Wait, wait, wait. And you get SHRM CEU credits, you get MCEC certification credits. That $599 is for 2 people. Come on now. Can you think of a better deal? And you attend the entire conference, you get certified. So please reach out to me. It's called the WE Collaboratorium, a WE conference. It's wee-conference.org. You must go to that. So in the meantime, you know me and special guests. You know, I have to tell you, I have some real handsome men that come to this program, right? I don't think I'm supposed to say that.

I'd like to meet some of them.

When you get older, you can say a lot of things you couldn't say before, right? Neil is on our program. So aren't we talking about a handsome dude here? And so smart, right? You have got to hear what he's working on. So without further ado, let me introduce Neil, welcome.

Thank you so much, CB. You know, you and I have talked a couple times, and you have, you have made a huge impact, had a huge, huge impact on me in just those brief conversations. And so I want to tell the audience what you told me in our first conversation. You know, you're this coach, business coach with businesses and So many people and I mean your credentials, right? And so you said, well, are you a business coach? And I said, well, I'm not sure. Let me tell you what I do. And I listed out some things and you said, you're not a business coach. And you know what? That set me free. I was so relieved because I was trying to be something I'm not. You know what I am? I'm a motivational speaker. I've been talking for more than 20 years and oftentimes helping people be kind. What, you know, and so what I work— I'm working on right now is something I call workplace positivity. And I'm just excited about being able to help people bring positivity back into their workplace, you know, especially as people are moving back into the office from COVID And overcoming negativity. So that's, that's, that's what I'm working on and speaking on. But I just wanted to thank you for helping give me direction. If you saw my website a month ago and you see it now, totally different thanks to CB.

Oh, thank you so much. That, you know, it's something I love doing. And people always say to me, what's your super strength? And I say, listening. They can't translate. Well, then how do you make a living? And I say, by listening. Like, what are you talking about, lady? But, and so all 3 of my businesses are based upon listening. And my new baby is called Scaling Up. And it's about helping people like you realize you may be marketing yourself under the wrong label. And are you looking at multiple income streams to protect yourself in case of emergency? And inevitably, the most well-known executive coaches, consultants, they themselves only in one lane. And boy, were they shocked when COVID hit.

Right, right.

All of a sudden, that lane became very wobbly. There was no backup. And I say to people, now you understand what I'm talking about. We all like to think of ourselves as supermen, superwomen, Not so much.

Right, right. Hey, can I tell you one thing that, um, people ask me when— it's a funny thing, uh, business owners and, and companies, when I tell them what I do, it's a funny response. They say, prove it. They, they say, what's the ROI on kindness? You know, it's such a soft skill and they can't wrap their brain around it. And so I try in each of my presentations to start with an experiment. And I wonder if it's all right with you if we try this experiment. It's all on me. If it doesn't work, then I'm the only one that's embarrassed, but it really, it always works for me. So can I lead you through something?

Absolutely. But I want to say something to you. I have the answer to that question.

Okay.

I'm—

wait, wait, I gotta write anything you say. I'm writing down.

And it's a sassy as hell answer. So studies have proved that the number one reason why people leave a company is because of their boss.

Right?

It equals a boss not being kind.

Exactly.

So you can literally tie kindness into an ROI. How many employees have you lost this year and over the past 5 years? And we know to rehire takes 3 times the income of the person you lost, and 1 year To catch up to speed.

Wow.

That's your answer.

Yeah, that's it right there.

Yeah.

All right, so, so, well, thank you for that, and I wrote that down. I— it's, it's really true.

Yeah.

So, but here's something fun, and what I want to do is encourage people who are watching, and this works whether you're doing— whether you're watching live or later, Go ahead and try this and see if it works for you. So, and it's the only time you're going to ever have somebody in a broadcast tell you, get your phone out. We're going to— so just get your phone out and go to your text.

Okay.

And look at your list of people you've been— you've texted recently. So you should have a long list. And here's the question, CB, when we're talking about positivity in the workplace, Is there someone on your list that immediately jumps out to you that says that you say, wow, this is a really positive person?

Yes.

Okay, click on them.

Okay, it's a she.

Okay, on them, on she, thank you. And send them this text, and I'm sending one right now as well. Okay, and it's, I am in a broadcast on About positive. Oh, sorry.

And for the audience, I put it in the chat.

Okay. I'm in a broadcast.

O A D C. Yes, broadcast about about positivity. Positivity.

And I thought of you.

And I thought of you.

Right. And then say, thanks for being so positive.

Okay, hold on. Let me get my little periods here. Thanks for being so positive.

And hit send.

Okay.

Now here's the experiment. Will they respond? Because people don't always respond to our texts very quickly. This is out of the blue. They— your friend wasn't expecting it. But here we're gonna go one further. Okay. Um, can you, can you hold on? Can you just hold down? When I hold down on my text that I just sent, it highlights it and I can copy it.

Oh, she responded. This is Carla, who you just met. She responded, XOXO XX.

Oh, well, that's wonderful. And you know what? So If you're listening to this, and we don't have to do this, but what I have people do is to take that and copy it. And there's other people on our list that we would say the same thing about, isn't there?

Yeah.

And just copy it and paste it into 5 or 6 other people and send it to them as well. And CBI will tell you I have a 90% response rate whenever I do this.

Wow.

And imagine, imagine, or what would a company say their response rate on any social media program or effort they make? I'm getting a 90% response rate when I send just a kind Text out. So, uh, how about that? I love that you got an instant response, and I will tell you, that's what happens to me. I get instant responses.

Wow.

And when I do this with— in a group, phones start going off all over the room because people are responding. And, uh, you know what? People like— people like to be appreciated. Wow, they appreciate being valued.

Wait, I'm just busy sending these notes all over.

Oh, you are?

See what you've done?

That's awesome. Okay, well then I'm gonna do it too.

I, I sent it out to 3 people.

Okay.

First, I sent it to my friend Elena. My friend Anna and my friend Holly. Oops, I sent it to all girls. I better send it to my husband.

See, you know what this is? You know what I call these micro actions of kindness? They're the smallest thing, but look how much fun we're having.

Oh, I am. I'm sending it to my neighbor. Okay. And I'm Sending it now to my husband. Okay, and paste.

That's— isn't that easy? It's just, it's just paste.

Oh my gosh, this is the coolest thing. Uh, I'm sending it to my other girlfriend. All right, okay, there goes the show.

Okay, we could do this all day.

I'm having too much fun.

Okay, so, and watch and see when you get responses back. So what— so in our book, we have a book called Workplace Positivity, and there are 30 of these.

She wrote you a note on the air. She said, so true, Neil! Exclamation mark.

That's awesome. Thank you, Karla. We have 30 of these micro-actions and they're that easy. They're that easy and it makes a huge difference.

Why do you call these micro-actions?

Well, they are the smallest thing you can do. So, if you looked up micro-actions, New York Times said micro-actions are are tiny incremental things that you can do that over time have large results. And so, you take a big project or a big action and you break it down into its smallest components and you get this tiny little thing. You know, when you suggest to people, well, let's be kinder at work. Oh, that could be overwhelming. Look what we just did. The simplest little thing.

Mm-hmm.

So, my recommendation is that managers and supervisors start this and let their employees see a change in them and have them say, wow, hey, you know what's different? I really thank you. You've been appreciating me, or, you know, whatever it is. What's happened? And they say, well, you know what? I've been working. I've been intentional. about being kinder, about being more positive, and it builds positivity. Um, yeah, so I have some great stories about, uh, about why it works and, and, uh, things like that.

So, okay. So before we get into that, I know I promised to introduce you to 2 other people. So yes, I'm going to do that over the air now. One is Howard Prager, who's written a fabulous book about— it's called Make Somebody's Day. And it talks about microaggressions and macroaggressions in helping people make somebody's day more positive.

Yeah.

Howard Prager, P-R-A-G-E-R. And you can look him up on LinkedIn and just mention my name.

Okay.

Um, the other person is John Baldoni, B-A-L-D-O-N-I, who's written a book called Saving Grace. I believe. Let me just look it up. Um, and he— it's— it is about very similar to what you're talking about, about making somebody's day, right?

Mm-hmm.

Uh, both, uh, John and Howard have written similar types of books, and you can just reach out to him directly. Let me see. I think that's the name of it. I'm starting to find it on Amazon.

So, um, I'll find him. I'll find him.

All right. And then the third person I'm gonna add in, um, whose new book is about anxiety, actually, um, it's the one that I have here, Anxiety at Work. But they have written, oh my gosh, uh, at least 10 other New York Times bestseller books about being on the positive side of people. And that is Chester Elton.

Oh yeah.

And Adrian Gostick. G-O-S-T-I-C-K. T-I-C-K. They also wrote The Carrot Principle. Um, but, um, oh, the book that I'm talking about specifically is called Leading with Gratitude.

Yeah.

And they're both on LinkedIn. Reach out to all these guys. I think you should do a conference.

Yes.

Um, I'm saying, um, too much because I'm thinking this through, because I think it would be, you know, coming out of COVID we all need positivity. And the 4 of you have created outstanding books on positivity, and it's something we really need right now. Now people are going in and going postal.

Every day.

Every day. I was stunned last night. I heard this had been happening again. Um, and I, I feel such compassion for those that have been hit with this disease. Because other people haven't been kind to them.

You know, that it absolutely is true. And it— and it— one of the things that I think and I, I say is that everybody has a backstory. You know, everybody has a story. And if we knew their story We probably would owe them some respect. We would owe them some time. And then I think, you know what, even if I don't know their backstory, they still deserve that.

People deserve respect.

Yeah, I was, um, I was doing some antique shopping. You know, we had a group of friends, we were up and down the street and walked into an antique store and You know, some of these antique stores have, um, you know, like 10 by 10 spaces that people rent.

Oh yeah, the booths.

Yes, the booths. Yes.

Yeah, it's, uh, they work on consignment.

Exactly. So we walked into one of those and there's people, you know, some of the owners or the booth people around, and, uh, we were moving around and, you know, you look at signs that are, you know, like old vintage signs or plates or something. And here was one booth that had books in it, and there was a woman sitting in the booth, and she was, I would say, in her 80s, mid-80s. And my friends took one look, and they weren't interested in books. They were looking at other things, so they moved on. But I'm interested in books, so I kind of glanced around, and she held up a book, and she said, can I tell you about this book? And certainly, and so I listened to her, and as she talked, it became clear that it was a memoir of a Holocaust survivor, and that's a powerful topic. And she talked for a bit, and I thought, well, okay, well, that, you know, I'm gonna go, I need to move on. And I tried to be gracious to her, but I tried to, you know, step back. And then all she did was open the book to the pictures, and there was a picture of a group of people— adults, old people, young children— standing in front of a gate that had barbed wire. And she pointed to a little girl in the picture, and she said, That's me. I just sat down in a chair next to her and said, tell me more. You know, and she was selling copies of her book, autographed copies of her book, $20. And, you know, that was the best $20 I ever bought, of course. But I just thought, oh my gosh. I owe her so much respect and time, and I, I just need to listen to her story. And I thought later about it, she deserved that whether I knew her story or not. You know, everybody has, everybody has a backstory and And that was hers. Some of our backstories are just from today. You know, we got it, we got up late, it was a problem, I had trouble, and it's like, oh my gosh. And we get to work or we get to home, and, and, you know, if somebody knew our story from that day, they would have a little bit more patience maybe with us or something. But some of our backstories are like hers.

They're deep.

They're deep and powerful. We have a micro-action that's called give grace. Give grace. Grace, we say, is assuming that others are doing the best they can given their current level of understanding, given their backstory. Assume people are doing the best they can.

I have to write that down. That's powerful.

Assume People are doing the best they can, are doing the best they can given their current level of understanding. I love that. And you, you know who said it? Margie Blanchard, Ken Blanchard's wife. Of course, right? And the reason I love that phrase is Kindness— people think kindness is weak. And, you know, you say, well, assume people are doing the best they can. Well, we both know people aren't always doing the best they can. We know they could do better. We could show them how to do it better. But what Margie says is, well, assume they're doing the best they can given their current level of understanding. You're not kowtowing to to somebody, but you are offering grace. Can I tell you the funny, the funny story about this, that everybody has a backstory?

Yes, well, I'm still digesting this.

Okay, sit there for—

I mean, that is just so powerful. And so I wonder, you know, of course, in the field that we're in, They say everybody loves stories, and we all know from research that if you want somebody to remember something, you tell it in a story. My question is, and it's an esoteric question, how do we know that people are doing the best they can?

Oh, well, and that's what I said. Especially somebody like you, but a CEO, a supervisor, a manager. Let's be honest. We know people aren't doing the best they can sometimes. Sometimes you do a PIP, right? Sometimes you have to call somebody in. The point is not, oh well, if you're going to be kind and positive, you just have to assume everyone's doing the best they can. No, no, no. They're not necessarily doing the best they can at their job, at their interactions, at their communication. But they may very well be doing the best they can given their current level of understanding. That's the grace part. So now we say, you know what, can we have a conversation? I know you had some trouble in that meeting. Could we talk about that? Because I'd like to know where you're at with that. You know, and that's because it's not— we assume they're doing the best they can. But it's the best they can given where they're at right now. And we can always help them improve, right?

Yeah, I agree with that. And unfortunately, we have a society that unconsciously or consciously has taken advantage of those thoughts of kindness, right, where they themselves know they can do better. But they choose not to do better.

Right.

And that's where the rubber doesn't meet the road.

That's right. And, and so micro-actions of kindness or positivity are, are one little piece.

And help them maybe admit that they're not doing the best that they can, right? And there's 2 parts: admitting it and understanding why.

Yeah, right. And, and if, if we approach any conversation with this spirit of grace, then we're going to have a better chance of engaging them in what could be a hard thing for them.

Yes, I totally agree with you. It's, it's hard. It's very hard for people to do, especially if they've been through trauma, because then becomes the question, well, I've been through trauma, I've managed to eke through it, you can do the same thing. I'm not, I'm not giving any—

Right.

Free, right?

Right.

And, and I don't know how we solve the current crisis of mental health that we are currently in. I certainly think that you're on to something with an act of kindness, right?

Yeah.

Just that The, the sad part now is it's so hard for us to give that act of kindness because we're mirrored in our stuff.

Yeah, that's, that's right. That's why, you know, there are, there are two— I, I've put the kindness into two categories: inward kindness and outward kindness.

I love it.

So I call it hula hoop kindness. Because hula hoop.

Okay.

Because inside the hula hoop is the inward kindness, and the more kindness we have towards ourselves and intentionality and thoughtfulness about it, the bigger the hoop.

Okay.

And the bigger the hoop, the more positivity we have connected to the outside. So we've talked about 2 micro-actions. One is give grace. That's an inward kindness. That's us thinking, I'm going to assume they're doing the best they can given their current level of understanding. That's an inward thing that I'm working on myself. And then we talked about sending a text. That's an outward kindness. That's directly towards other people. But there's a lot of inward kindnesses, like for instance, look for the good. If you just enter into an environment that says, look for the good, you're going to see things differently than look for the bad. I mean, people are walking into Walmart today looking for the bad. You know, if you— I mean, the crisis— we just saw something horrible happen because a cashier said, would you please put on your mask? Well, that person might have come in thinking, you know, don't tell me what to do. Don't, you know, and if, uh, so If you enter and look for the good. Last week Bruce was on your show. I loved it. He said, you don't even have to smile. You can just have an inward attitude of, how can I help this person? I loved that. That's micro action 31. I'm writing that one down. But you know, if you—

I'll tell you another story. Chester Elton, and I'm not paraphrasing it, but he tells the story of his father who was clearly a very kind man, and they were walking across the street and there was a woman of the streets who had a shopping bag with groceries and the bag broke.

Hmm.

And the groceries flew all over the street. And nobody stopped to help her. And Chester's father stopped and helped her. And when he finished, he said, have a nice day, ma'am. And Chester asked his father, why did he do that when nobody else would stop? And his father said something to the effect, everybody deserves an act of kindness. That's beautiful.

Yeah.

A little boy— this is when Chester was a little boy, and look how it stuck with him, right? And oh, that— he's one of New York Times bestseller writers over and over again, so that kindness somehow is in, in his soul, right? And it has helped make him Very successful with a great partner, Adrian.

Wow. You know, that, that one act of kindness, like you say, stuck with him and perhaps has influenced his whole life.

Yes.

So on my website, you'll see my logo. My logo is one kind act can change a life.

You know, trademark, you mean?

Yeah, that's right. I'm not trying to change the world, but all of us might change something if— because one kind act can change, can change a life. And I mean, that happened to me.

I'm—

22 years ago or more, I had a kind act. What was it? Well, so I was a chaplain at UCLA Medical Center, and I was getting my master's degree in spiritual— in practical spirituality. How about that? And you needed to be a chaplain to do that. It was part of the requisite. And so I was at UCLA, and I got a call to go to the emergency room. High school senior had been surfing in Malibu before school, so this was early in the morning, and had— a wave had crashed him into the sand, and they were afraid he was paralyzed, and he was being brought in by helicopter to the emergency room. So I was headed there while he was coming down from the helicopter place at the top. And in through the front door comes a man, a tall man. Now, I say he's a tall man because I'm 6'3, so I very seldom look up to people. And I looked up at this person at 6'5, 6'6, and he was well-dressed, looked like he was on his way to the office. It was the boy's father. He'd gotten the call. And I, as a chaplain, trying to calm them down, trying to— how can I help you? Could I pray for you? Could I, you know, this? And here's what he interrupted me. He said, can you get me the x-rays? Well, I mean, the boy had just gotten down. I mean, there probably weren't any x-rays, but I can tell you this, the chances of a parent seeing x-rays in the emergency room Slim and none. Well, it turns out he told me he was a neck and spine surgeon. He knew exactly what was going on, and he could read the x-rays, and he wanted the x-rays. And I said, well, sir, let me see if I can get them for you. And so I I walked out. I tried to find a nurse, you know, and anyway, I came back and I said, well, you know, maybe we should sit down. Should we call your wife? You know, I tried to do what you're supposed to do with a person in the waiting room. He was having none of it. He looked at me, he practically grabbed me by the shoulders. He looked me straight in the eye. He said, can you get me the x-rays? And I finally looked, you know, I looked up at him and I said, I'm sorry, sir, I can't. And he said, then what good are you? And he walked past me out a door to try to find somebody else. And that was a Monday morning. And what he didn't know was that sent me into an existential crisis because He wasn't the first one to ask me that question. I had been asking myself that question. When you're a chaplain in a hospital and you walk into a sick person's room, what do they want from you? Well, what do they want from God? They want to be healed. They want something miraculous to happen. And I got to tell you, CB, in all the time I was there, I didn't do anything miraculous. I didn't heal anybody. And I began to think, well, if that's what they want, what good am I? And if I can't be any good in a hospital, what good am I anywhere? And by Friday of that week, I was heading out to my car and I wasn't going to come back. I was going to quit. And I didn't know what I was going to do with my life or my master's. I couldn't graduate without this Program, and I was heading down one of those big hospital hallways, and I turned the corner to go towards the parking lot, and somebody else came the other direction and ran right into me. And I literally crashed into— guess who? The father. I crashed into his chest because he was so much bigger than me, and I tumbled backward. And I looked up, and really in horror, I saw who it was. Oh my gosh. And I mustered up all the final, you know, kind of, you know, hopeful thought I could have as a chaplain. And I said, all of us have been praying for you and your son. And this man looked down at me, and I think it felt to me like he actually Thought for a moment because I was almost— I was bracing myself for another one of his attacks. And instead he said, that's all any of us can do now.

Wow.

And I saw that his eyes were red. And then he reached down and he wrapped his arms around me and gave me A hug, not a man hug that, you know, you pat on the back, a bear hug. And his shoulders began to shake. And we separated. And I wish I could tell you what happened to the boy or the father. I literally don't know. And, you know, HIPAA regulations, confidentiality. But I headed to my car. And I would say a voice, a thought went through my mind, and it wasn't my thought because it was directed towards me. And this message, this voice said to me, that's what good you are. You are my arms when I want to hug someone. You are my mouth when I want to tell someone something, and you are my eyes when I want to cry with someone. And I went to my car and I came back on Monday, and for 22 years I've been trying to help people and Talk about kindness and positivity, and I owe so much of that to that father who, one kind act changed my life. Changed my life. I'm not being— you can tell I'm not being, you know, overblown. It changed my life. And I love that story you told because it affirms the same thing. We're never— we never know when that, when that one kind act is going to change someone's life.

What a— oh my gosh, a story. Wow. And all that— what this man needed to do was to go through the crosses. 5 stages, and he went through the first and second stage in rapid fire, right? And just in time. Yes. Whoo. Wow. I'll tell you another story. So audience, you could take these stories with you. I worked for a company who used to give out Starfishes on your anniversary.

Oh.

Have you heard the story about the starfishes?

No.

And while it wasn't a good company to work for, in my opinion, the story about the starfishes stayed with me. So there was a man walking on a beach, and the starfishes On the beach. They had beached themselves.

On the beach.

And they were dying, of course, being out of water. So he started picking up the starfishes one at a time and throwing them back in the water. And somebody came up to him and said, what are you doing? And he said, I'm throwing the starfishes back in the water so they can live. And the man said, you can't— You cannot possibly save all these starfishes. There's just way too many. The beach is coated with them. And he looked at it and he said, but I can save one at a time.

Yeah, right. I have heard that story. And the man says, what difference can you make? And he said, I can make a difference to this one.

Yes.

Do you know, CB, I heard an update to that story.

What is it?

So the boy finds all of these starfish and he's overwhelmed by it. And at first he starts throwing them back one at a time. Then he gets his phone out and he starts texting people, and he said— and he takes a picture and a video of them, and he says You gotta come down and help me. And within an hour, hundreds of people have come, right? And it's a viral thing and every starfish gets thrown back.

I love the update.

Isn't that something? The power, the power in our hands. Yeah.

I love the update.

So both are true.

Ever since then, I love starfish brooches. I love starfish to put on the desk. And, you know, it's— of course it's got to be the right design. But, um, I always think about that story with saving one person or one— yes, at a time, because that's what it takes. And it takes a whole bunch of us doing it one at a time, right? And then we get to save other and all, right?

Hey, I, uh, so I, I, you know, I told— I've told a couple pretty, you know, heavy stories. So I want to go back to my everybody has a backstory.

Yes.

And tell you why I thought of that.

Okay.

Because so last year, about 18, 15 months ago, I had double knee replacement surgery. Anyway, it all worked out. I'm doing great. But years before that, Before my knees got bad, I was in the best shape of my life. I mean, I was doing well, I was running, I was exercising, I had a coach. And so one of my practices was to run around my neighborhood. And when I say run, you know, jog. And what I would do is every block or block and a half, I would drop and do Push-ups. I know, I know, I know, I was younger and, you know, I couldn't do very many. Let's say I could do 10. But here's the thing about push-ups. What my coach told me, my personal coach, was that do it to exhaustion. So, you know, you're pushing, you know, and so even if you can only do 9, do it until Basically, you can't push yourself up any further or even, you know, you fall back down. Okay, great. So that's exercise to exhaustion. So I'd done this run and I've been running down and I'd done it 3 or 4 times. I'd gotten down and done, you know, maybe 11 push-ups, 10, 8. So here I am, I'm 2 blocks from my house. Almost done with my run, and I do my last set of push-ups, and I am working to get number 7 done, you know, and it's just like, ah, and I fall to the ground. So I'm on the ground and I get to my knees and I look over, and in the middle of the street there's a minivan stopped in the middle of the street. Window rolled down and the driver says to me, are you okay? She thought I was having a heart attack.

Yeah.

And, and the, the really sad part about it is I had just exercised to collapse, so All I could do was to get to my, you know, have my hands on my knees and try to get up.

I'm fine.

Which, not believable. He did not believe me. I headed towards home and he followed me.

Oh, what a good man.

I know. Okay, and the really sad thing about this, it happened twice. And the second time my wife said, that's it, you cannot do push-ups on the sidewalk anymore.

It's the universe.

That's right, you're done. But here's the point. He didn't know my backstory. My backstory was, I was in the best shape of my life.

I—

that was, that was like push-up number 42 or 43. He hadn't seen what had happened for the last 30 minutes. He only saw me in the moment, and because he didn't know my backstory, he assumed the worst, which thank goodness for him that he did.

Thank you.

But isn't that what we do?

We meet somebody in the moment, we make up this whole, whole thing. Yeah.

And imagine if we knew their story.

Well, you know, Martin Lindstrom shows these clips when he talks to audiences. Um, one that's really good, it's, um, about Black American men, and it shows the very beginning of the clip, you know, one walking down the street with a really tough look, another with, you know, dressed really And you see one walking around the side of a house, and you make the assumption that he's going to rob the house when the housekeeper opens the door. And then it shows the housekeep— the person opening the door smiling and laughing and giving him this big hug. And like the subtitles, like, how are you, Grandma? Or something like that. But again, as you said, we make these assumptions from what we see.

Yeah.

And what we hear, and we don't bother to do the research ourselves. And that's what's sad.

Yeah. And that there's so much negativity everywhere we go.

Why do you Why do you think there's so much negativity coming out of COVID Coming out of COVID Well, we've been, you know what, I—

we've been on for a year. You know, there's been— there's— we, we're at home with our loved ones. But we've been home with our loved ones for a year, 24/7.

Mm-hmm.

And, you know, in my home there's 3 of us and we all get online and, and the internet crashes because we're all trying to do it at once. And there's like no time for downtime to rest. And, and I just can't even imagine what it's like for parents who are trying to do their jobs, their kids, their kindergartners are on Zoom, you know, and those— that family's been together. So I think some of it is just we haven't had any chance to have time to relax or to settle down or to, you know, meditate or do anything. It's— we've just been Hyped up. And then of course, it's, it's in certain people's— to certain people's advantage to keep us hyped up. You know, we— everything we read hypes us up, you know. And so I think that we were so stimulated by negative—

Mm-hmm.

It's constant, and it's from one side or the other. Um, so it just seems like we've just been inundated with that.

But you would think that being with your loved ones 24/7 would be so much healthier than being with strangers that you don't know what they're going to do, how they're going to do it, or when they're going to do it.

Yeah.

So again, I ask why coming out of COVID when you would assume that you would be closer Because you've spent all of this time in a pseudo or—

Yeah.

So loving environment, receiving all this love.

Right, right. And, you know, thankfully for you and I, that's true. I'm sure that there are many people for whom that isn't. But I guess what I was referring to was each of us for our entire adult lives had a different rhythm. You know, we'd get up in the morning and we'd go to work and we'd meet other people and we'd engage differently. And there was a rhythm and a pattern that we lost. So I don't know, maybe it's a good question. It's above my pay grade.

Forgive me for taking a mint. My audience knows that at a certain point, being here in Colorado, your voice gets really dry when you're talking.

Oh yeah.

So what is the solution for us coming out of COVID Well, I think there's some intentionality.

That's why we published— and I should say I have a writing partner, Nicole Phillips, is the host of the NPR Kindness Podcast. And the first question I always— the first thing people say is, I didn't know NPR had a kindness podcast. But they do.

Counterintuitive.

Yes. Right. And she's been hosting it for a long time. And so she and I collaborated on this book. But it came out at the perfect time as COVID begins to wane and people are going back. Because we encourage people to be intentional about being positive, about being kind. One of the first things we encourage people to do is to find an accountability partner, just somebody to check in with and to say, hey, I'm trying to be more positive. Can I check in with you? And you watch me and see how I'm doing. If you ever see me doing something that Let me know, that kind of thing. You know, these inward, as I talked about, inward kindnesses.

But doesn't that put more pressure on people that they have to be kind 24/7?

Well, yeah, 24/7 is a challenge here. So here's what I actually recommend. Pick one, pick 2 acts of kindness. And just kind of major on those, like that text. So, so we had a reason for texting people today. We're doing a broadcast on positivity, and it made us think about some people. But here's what I encourage people to do. There are so many things throughout the year that, that would cause us to think about someone. Mother's Day, Father's Day, 4th of July, Memorial Day, you know, Friendship Day. I tell the story that Friendship Day, I discovered, was like June 30th or July 30th. I didn't learn that until October. But I texted a friend and said, hey, I just found out I missed Friendship Day. And I'm sorry because it would have been a great chance to tell you how much I appreciate our friendship. So just pick one or two and don't be overwhelmed by trying to do constantly.

Something.

Just do a few, just do a couple things. But some of them are so powerful, and you'll know this. You know the handwritten note? Gold, gold standard. And what I tell people is, well, first of all, no one ever gets a handwritten note anymore. But imagine this, if you get a handwritten note that says, I just want to thank you for being in my life, or whatever it is. Do you know that person has no idea where to put that note? They're not going to throw it away. It's the only one they've gotten in years. They're not going to put it down in a drawer. It floats around their desk, maybe for weeks.

Yes.

And every time they see it, right, they think of you. I mean, I don't ever want to be crass or callous or manipulative, but Wow, what a marketing strategy. Send, send handwritten notes.

But it's true. I sent somebody a thank you present and she sent me a handwritten thank you note. Not only handwritten, she made the card.

Mm-hmm.

An adult making the card. That card she sent to me, what, 2, 3 weeks ago? It's still on my counter.

Yes, exactly.

You know, I don't have the heart to put it away. Because it's a rare act of acknowledgement. Right.

And so to go to— you originally asked, you know, how do we do this without being overwhelmed? You just do it. Have the intention and then do it as it comes to mind and know that you're going to do You're gonna do a couple things. Somebody said put 4 coins in your pocket, and each time you do an act of kindness, move a coin to the other pocket. And at the end of the day, have you moved 4 coins?

Yes. Did you tell me that story or somebody else?

Somebody else. I, I've heard it. You know, there's so many great stories that belong to somebody else. I actually tried it a different way, and this is the idea of not being overwhelmed. I took my watch, and of course I don't have any watches on, I'm at home, but I took my watch, which I usually wear on my left arm, and I put it on my right arm, and I moved it when I did an act of kindness.

Hmm.

So I started out the day consciously aware that I was going to look for an act of kindness to do. And doggone it, I wanted that watch on my left wrist. I was so uncomfortable with it over here.

Hey, we've got Professor Pravat wrote in and said, having an accountability— an accountable partner is a great idea.

Oh, yeah. Thank you.

That in Marshall Goldsmith's 100 Coaches, uh, where we do, um, an LPR group, life planning review. And that's one of the sections of it. Yeah, you know, what did you do today to support somebody else? What did you do today to help yourself?

Yes.

Forget that we have to be kind to ourselves.

That's right.

And LinkedIn user wrote in, enjoyed hearing from Neil how inward thoughts with grace bring us to positivity. Isn't that nicely wrapped up?

Yes.

Yeah, well, we have ran over time because what you were saying— I love the way the conversation went. You know, it's, it's really my marker. We have Casual conversations as though we're sitting in the living room having a glass of water. It's a day in Colorado, you know, having a cup of coffee, having a cup of tea, just chatting it up with a pastry and having a good experience learning. Reminds me, takes me back to the days of Greenwich Village and the coffee shops, right?

There you go.

And so with that, I hate to say goodbye, Neil, but what a great show, getting us all thinking about being kind to each other and to ourselves.

Thank you. Thank you, CB. I just love it. Thank you so much for the connection.

Oh, you're welcome. And please get in touch with the people that I mentioned. Mention my name and they are the kindest. And so you'll be welcome.

I will.

That, everybody, I'm going to say goodbye. Good afternoon, good morning, good evening. And remember to be kind to yourself. And then remember to extend that kindness to others. This is CB Bowman. I don't think I'm— no, I know I'm not on this Thursday because this Thursday is the last day for the Association of Corporate Executive Coaches conference. And so I will be back with you next Tuesday. So look for the show, and we're super excited that you're following us. We had a lot of new people come on today. Make it a habit. Make it part of your success. Make it part of being fair to yourself. Tune into CB Bowman Live. You know when it's coming if you're following me on LinkedIn. Bye now. Bye, Neil.

Bye-bye.

Thank you so much. Conference doesn't want to close. That means, no, the universe doesn't want us to leave.

We're still, we're still going.