Courage to Leap & Lead with Dan Ponterfract - Episode 159

You've got courage to leap, courage to lead.

Be brave and be bold.

Whoa, let it roar. Welcome to the Courage to Leap and Lead podcast, where each of our guests share the stories of courage that helped them become powerful leaders. Before we start today's show, please remember to visit courage-consulting.com. Where you can find all the episodes and other excellent resources, all at courage-consulting.com. Now, here's your host, Leadership Courage Coach CB Bowman.

Hello everybody. This is CB Bowman and I am back. You know what? I'm super excited. You don't realize this because I film a lot of interviews and I bank them, but this actually— my friend Dan is kicking off the 2024 season.

Hooray!

And you know what? I think I have done something like 123 interviews. So if you haven't seen them all, shame on you. They're all phenomenal. I just did one with Seth Godin. Oh, you just wait till that one comes out. So at any rate, Dan is with me today. And Dan is— he is just— he's the nicest person that I know in MG100. He is just a doll.

He laughs.

He's smart, and I can't wait to dive into his story. So ready to rock this out? Okay, here we go. Welcome, Dan. How are you?

CB, it's so good to be here. Also, I have a much balder haircut than Seth Godin, so does that count at all? At all? Does it? Yes? No?

Yeah, yeah, but he's got those glasses that he's doing.

You know, I should have wore some glasses for you because you are the fiend of all good things glasses. But thank you for this invite. First of 2024. Hello, 2024. And great to be here.

Thank you so much. Hey, you know, Dan, I want to start from— let's see, what do you do? Why did I ask you to be on the show?

Well, maybe that's because I am a blend of courage. I have age and courage, which is heart. So I have an aged heart. Maybe that's part of it. I don't know. I mean, I really loved your style, by the way. You are a phenomenal phenom of both leadership, courage, coaching, and helping the human condition become better, better at that. And I think we just hit it off somehow. We've been old friends but never really met. So I'm just glad to be here in the orbit of CB Bowman. CBB.

Well, I am coughing here, and I don't know why. I just got hit with an allergy attack.

Oh no.

But nonetheless, we're moving forward because, you know, this is real. We, we talk real. So Dan, tell us, what do you do? That'll give more of a clue in terms of how come I was just very fascinated by you, other than you're incredibly handsome.

Yeah, right. I'm a pool ball, basically, like this white pool ball that's trying to hit other balls on the snooker table. I come from a background, CB, of always trying to help others, I suppose. Maybe it's the Canadian in me, of which I am. And yeah, I have a purpose statement that I've lived by now for probably 20 years, and that's We're not here to see through each other. We're here to see each other through. And it sounds a bit hokey perhaps to some, but for me, it's sort of my, my own North Star. It's how I, how I operate with Denise, my much better half and partner of 27 years with 3 kids. It's how I operate my work world. You know, I've just kind of always been here to help. And so—

Wait, Dan, say that again, because I loved it.

We're not here to see through each other. We're here to see each other through.

To see through each other.

I mean, basically what I'm saying there, CB, is that, you know, our, our humanity is only as good as how we care and take care of one another. So if I'm in it— that's life— if I'm in it to see through people, I'm only really in it for myself. I'm, I'm looking past them. I'm seeing the faults and calling them out without being really helpful about it. I'm not recognizing the, the goodness or the accolades that are deserved of that individual. You know, basically I'm a jerk. And so I'm trying to live my life, and I fall down, and I'm not perfect, but I try to live my life, both the work and the life, by helping people, by helping to see them through. So if I can lend a hand, you know, having someone on my own podcast or show, hey, let's do that. If I can help someone in the work world as a leader. am helping them through a tough time or helping them get promoted or helping them out of the organization, whatever the case may be. I just think we're much better human beings when we're here helping people through this thing called life.

But I'm curious to know, that is such a powerful statement. It actually reminds me of the statement in In Africa, particularly South Africa, which is Ubuntu.

Yeah, Ubuntu. Yeah.

And, and so for the audience, that means that you see another person, not their outside, you see inside what they're about, and you're willing to help support the other person. That's a country That's a nation's concept. Yours is a personal concept. How did you get to that point? What led you there? Hmm.

Well, now we're really on the therapy couch, aren't we, CB? For sure.

Oh, I have a reputation.

How far do we go back and how many tears will I shed? I guess, yeah, the I mean, I've always been, at least I think I've always been that empathic kid where, you know, I would, I would help the kids who were bullied, not by me, by others. Like if I saw some kid being bullied, I'd step in on the playground or the kid that never had anyone to walk home with, I'd be like, oh, let's go talk to Tim and walk him home or Ian. Or what was her name? Tara. And, you know, it just— that was me. I was like, oh, they're—

Tell us, tell us about your parents.

I'm a curious kid, first and foremost. I think I'm an autodidact. I'm always learning from other people. That's why I can just hang out with anyone and just learn and listen. My parents are immigrants, like many of us, obviously, to North America. We all stand on the land of others. And so as, as English immigrants, you know, I, I came along as a wee tot, and, you know, you're always trying to kind of make your place and without necessarily quite fitting. And so—

How old were you when you, when you came in?

Oh, just wee. Like, my parents decided that it was, it was free to immigrate to Canada and, and £10 to immigrate to Australia, so they chose the frugal route and went to Canada. And so there's no accent in this voice, as you can tell.

Yeah.

Yeah. So I grew up outside of Toronto, Ontario, in Canada, about 45 minutes down the road in a town called Hamilton, which is very much like Pittsburgh for those that are wondering kind of the metaphor analogy. So it's a steel town, tough people, good people, blue collar. And I may not necessarily have fit in, CB. So I was always trying to find ways in which to fit in by helping others. I guess that's the best way to describe it.

What did your parents do?

My mom was a bookkeeper for my dad's engineering business that he started. And so he ran, yeah, a good company of about 30, 35-odd people working on electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, a whole bunch of other engineering things. that they go into industry. And, and I, I was a kid of an entrepreneur that I watched him both struggle through, as you recall, as I do, the, the mid-'80s recession with 27% interest rates and having 3 cars and going down to 1 and wondering if the house was going to be lost. And him taking me aside and saying, son, don't worry, I got this. We'll always, we'll always be protected. You'll always be protected, my sister and I. Um, so yeah, so I, I, I lived in the shadow of someone who was really trying to prove himself as a Brit in Canada in a, in an economy that wasn't necessarily great during— that great during the '80s.

What I love about what you said, it touches my heart, is what your dad said to you, that he was so aware and attuned to how you might be thinking that he took that extra step in that— during that period of time when parents, a lot of parents didn't communicate with their children. To say to you, I've got this. Wow. He's an extraordinary man.

He is. He's still around. He's 76. He moved back to England And remarried to Lady Jane, as we love to call her. And he's just living his best life. A wonderful, wonderful man.

Wow.

Okay, so now I've got a clue into you. Um, now, okay, so kids being bullied, I understand that because if it was like Pittsburgh, work. Yeah, you've got the dos and the don'ts and the haves and the have-nots. And yeah, everybody's fighting for their piece of life. Yeah. As you grew up, first of all, as a kid, why, why did you feel like an outsider? You didn't have an English accent. You came as a baby. Why did you feel that way?

Probably a couple reasons. One was, and this is going to sound very un-Canadian and pretentious, I always knew that I was a little bit odd and different. Like, I thought differently. I would do things, CB, like read the dictionary so I could improve my vernacular. Fancy word for it.

That is odd. I'm sorry. Okay, we got you now.

Yeah, I'd take a letter of the encyclopedia home and read it that month kind of thing, like the W's. And so I knew I was a bit odd in the way that I wanted, I couldn't, I couldn't satiate enough my, or satiate enough my need to learn. I just always needed to learn. So there's, that was one. Number 2, I didn't know what the word meant and I certainly wouldn't have used it back then, but I'm a metrosexual, which is a, again, a fancy way to say that I'm in touch and in tune, I suppose, with my femininity. And that I like to design, I like to decorate, I like to wear fancy clothes. I don't like wearing jeans. You know, I wasn't really a tough, rough hockey player type of kid. Didn't play hockey. So all of that in a, in a blue-collar tough town, you're just like, well, duck out of water doesn't even begin to describe it. So yeah, I had to.

But then being what you just described, how did you protect others? Weren't you bullied?

Uh, yeah, yeah. I mean, I was the boy whom, you know, others looked at as the kind of the strange, smart, athletic, uh, leader because I was, you know, president of student councils and Captains of all the sports teams I played on, whether it was rugby or soccer or basketball.

So even though you didn't play hockey, you played other sports?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. I'm quite athletic still. But yeah, there's just— I mean, again, it sounds horribly obnoxious, but like, there's some natural leadership stuff that came to me. But at the same time, I knew that people looked at me and certainly treated me slightly differently because I was not part of the crew, like the crowd, the, the norm. I was, I was odd.

And so how did you handle people bullying you? That fascinates me.

Yeah, I mean, the— sometimes I talked to my dad about it, and sometimes he would, uh, the good, good counsel, good coaching. Um, there was one time, you know, I fought back and I broke a kid's nose because I was It was so pent up that I would just, I kind of lost it. I was like 13 or 14. That kid never bugged me again, by the way.

I'm sure.

And word got out that this kid—

Word got out.

Yeah, word got out this kid would fight back. Yeah, I mean, eventually, like, it stopped. I wasn't like picked on incessantly, but it was just the, I was different and sort of my friends or girlfriends and whatever circles were Not as expansive maybe as some of the other kids had, but that was okay. I mean, I didn't need tons and tons of friends. I had good friends like that we'd hang out. But yeah, I learned my way. Yeah. And it kind of still continues this day. I gotta be honest.

Why?

Well, I mean, there's part of me, if we're on the therapy couch still, CB, That, that thinks I'm not in the cool kids club, for sure.

Hell, I think you head up the cool kids club.

Well, that's why we have this budding relationship, CB.

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, it just— maybe it's the imposter syndrome, inferiority complex, uh, uh, Occam's razor type of thinking, right? It's just maybe my—

Occam's razor.

Well, I'm just like, I'm in a— I mean, I can thwart my own thinking by wondering, well, what could I be else? And why aren't people thinking of me in that way? So I can almost outthink myself, which sounds very odd. But—

Yeah, no, I got that one.

I'm in my head a lot, I shall say. Yeah.

Yeah. And it's produced great results. So yeah, thank you. But, you know, it's hard for me to understand what you said because I'm so impressed by you. And when you interviewed me, I went, damn, this man is almost as good as me.

No one's as good as CBB. Come on.

Seriously, you were You knew about me. You did your research. You interviewed very well. You're so well spoken. And well spoken, by that I mean— I don't mean that you come out with fancy words. I mean that you have the ability— let's see if I get this right— you have the ability to talk with somebody, not to somebody. And you dial it up just a bit, so the other person has to come up to match you. And it's quite unique. I love it. It really reminds me of the days when, you know, I used to hang out in Greenwich Village in New York.

Hmm.

And we hung out in coffee shops. And you would debate each other all night, you know, over one cup of coffee, and you'd walk away thinking, wow, wow, I didn't think that way. And didn't mean you agree.

It's just— Mm-hmm.

Head was like here with knowledge, you know, like somebody inflated it with all these facts and figures. And so I enjoyed talking to you because it really took me back to that point in time. Great conversation. I feel like today we've lost the art of conversation.

Oof.

And therefore— and the cancel culture has made it much worse. People are so afraid to say anything. And when that happens, you don't learn.

Mm-hmm.

It's like you stay in a state of flowing within itself. That reminds me of the— my husband and I went to the fair over the weekend, and they had this big thing for children. It was huge balls, and the child would get in, and then they would close their ears, and they would blow up this huge, huge bubble. And zip it closed, and then they would roll it into the water. And so each child was in its own bubble, running and splash, connecting through the bubble, but not touching each other.

What a metaphor that is, eh?

Yeah, right?

So many things going on in my head right now.

So I see you as leading As a leader.

So, you know, that's very kind of you, CB. I, and first of all, thank you for that personal insight with your husband at the fair. How do I say this? I've always believed in the adage, my network is my net worth. And I'll talk to anybody because I'm so curious to learn from them about them.

Timeout. I think I disagree with that statement.

Okay, let's go for this.

Can you define network for me?

Yeah. So I'm not talking about financial, right? So when I talk about net worth, it's self-worth.

No, no, not net worth. Network, meaning I thought you meant people that you're connected to.

Yeah, I do.

Okay. And so you define that as your wealth?

Well, when I say wealth, I'm talking about self-worth, self-actualization, like the sense of meaning and palpable purpose. I don't, I don't, my measurement targets aren't financial and how big is your house and how many cars you have. That's just materialism 101. That's not how I jive, nor does Denise. That's not really our thing. But I do believe that the way in which that you can liaise with a network, and when I say network, again, I don't mean nodes, I mean people. I mean your Greenwich Village story, like those points that are strong or weak ties where you can just have a natter, as they say in England, which is basically a a chat over coffee or something and developing rapport. And so let me take it back a second here, CB. I love studying the Greeks as well. I'm a weirdo, remember? And the Greeks had this thing called the Agora, as you know. And the Agora was this basically like a playground. And the playground in the Agora was where what was called dialectic conversations or dialectical would occur. So it's a fancy way to say the Greeks in the agora would have dialogue, and they'd challenge each other, and they'd maybe not necessarily agree, of course, but they were each getting on their proverbial soapbox, and they'd have a little bit of a turn. Hey, what about this? What about that? And people said, well, what about this? What about that? And they would coalesce ideas into sort of almost like integrative thinking, something better from 2 into 1. And that's kind of me. I don't— I'm like liminal. I think that the relationship piece that you and I have and the relationship piece that you have with your network and your relationships and me on my other side that we don't— we're not connected with, whether it's, you know, MG100 is one part where we can connect, but then we have our other sides and we can go connect elsewhere. That's liminal. That's the meaning that we're in transition. And if we're always thinking we're in transition, that's good. Because what we're seeking is truth and ideation and creation and opportunity and what if and oh, I didn't know, my bad, and your vulnerability being saying to others, I didn't— geez, I didn't know that. Thank you. Like, that's what I'm trying to get at. In my, my network is my net worth. It's the power of each other builds up the power within one.

So here's where I, I think I disagree. And the reason why I asked you to define it is because In a circle, or in the circles of nodes that are made up of many different participles.

Yeah.

There are people that you want to push out of there. But they're still in there. So they're part of your network. And so I'm not sure I would say that I relate to those people, even though they're in my network, because their values are different than mine. Their sense of wealth is different. Their, their interpretation of the world is different. And yet they're part of my network. So that's where I'm having a little difference in your statement.

Well, let me see if I can convince you with this thread of thinking, because it's— I, it's certainly— I have thought of that, um, and I've used it to my advantage. If, if my network is full of, uh, middle-aged white guys, it's a pretty—

that's why I'm laughing—

pretty, pretty terrible. Let's just add bald to that as well, right? So if I'm just full of Seth Godins and Adam Grants, I'm, uh, I'm not in a very network. Now, if I have also differentiated not just identity and gender and race and so forth, but if I have just have a differentiated network, my net worth can also significantly increase by me viewing those that are oppositional to my thinking and oppositional to my feeling and my being and my heart, because that's going to help my net worth, my self-worth, my self-actualization, because I don't want to be That type of person. So examples easily middle-aged white guys these days are like for purposes of just this recording, like Elon Musk. I don't know him, and he's not necessarily in my network, but he's in kind of my network because he's always in the news, and he's doing horrific things to lots of people, whether they're Jewish or otherwise. And it's just it's crazy to me that someone would think this way and publicly. Point out these literal atrocities to another kind. And now that gives me pause though. I think, wait a second, Elon Musk is an idiot. And so I don't want to be like Elon Musk, but that's going to help my net worth if that person's in my network. So if it's another person that's not famous like Elon Musk, but there's someone in my network who I don't want to be like, But I'm learning from to not be like, then I'm okay with that.

Okay, I will accept. Phew!

Thought we were gonna stop recording just for a second there.

Never, never. The people that listen to this podcast, which I'm so grateful for, expect.

Okay, let's give them stuff, CB.

And you just did. We just did. When you were growing up, did you go through the era of— now I've lost the term— in Canada where they were taking the children away?

Oh gosh, yeah.

Indigenous population. Were you aware of it as a child?

You know what a ridiculous travesty it is and was. We weren't taught about that in school. We were— we knew of— and where I grew up in Hamilton, there were several First Nations reserves, as they're called, or bands. that were in proximity to where I grew up. And, you know, what we were taught was that, oh, you know, that's where they live, don't bug them, or don't go over there. Or if you wanted to go there, you could get cheap cigarettes or cheap gas because they didn't have to pay tax on the land. And that was kind of— that's what we were taught. It's like, oh, just let them be, you know, they're First Nations. In fact, we would call them Indians back then, which is just— As terrible as you can get. And it didn't dawn on me that something was going wrong until my early 1990s when I'm at McGill University in Montreal, my undergrad, where I, again, because it's not, wasn't written or talked about, it was just like, oh, they're the First Nations, they're over there. And then I, my eyes wide opened wide. It's like, what, what is happening here? What, what are these people?

What did you find out at McGill? How did you?

I found out about a term. Yeah, I found out.

Any of the children that were taken away when you were growing up?

No, we, we didn't. I didn't know about what's in Canada called residential schools. And residential schools, for those listening in or watching who are unaware, uh, the Canadian government set up effectively schools to wipe out the First Nations culture by taking children away from First Nations families and to, I guess, uh, white Anglocize them. Best way to describe it. And I mean, talk about human atrocities here in my own country. I didn't know about it, and then it was happening. And so in the early '90s, uh, at McGill, when my eyes were wide open because I was by a professor, um, Taught this. I was like, what? And literally there's a residential school, you know, about 3 kilometers away from McGill where, where it was happening. And you're just like, you're— you've got to be kidding me. Like, we're not still doing this. Now, the last one closed in the early '90s, thank goodness, in 1992. But you're like, it's 1992 and we're still— we still have residential schools? Like, what are we doing? And so, yeah, I, I was oblivious, didn't know to look as a teenager because I was taught differently. Like, oh no, that's just, as I say, like the First Nations, let them be. And then when my eyes wide open, I like, okay, well, how terrible is this?

It's amazing how Canada hid that information.

It is.

It's an atrocity. I mean, really, when you think about it, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's as close to genocide as you'll get in Canada, if not genocidal. I mean, you're literally taking kids away from parents of human beings, not, not Indigenous peoples, but human beings. You're taking away their kids to white Anglocize them. Come on. Like, are you kidding me?

And murder them.

Yeah. And so there's—

I, I—

so as a sidebar note, one of the things I'm very proud of, uh, is there's a, there's a Canadian in our country, um, who, uh, led a very famous, uh, kind of rock band called The Tragically Hip. His name, the lead singer, is Gord Downie. He passed away of terminal brain cancer. Before he left the planet in 2016, he issued basically a call to Canadians to do something. And he pointed out in both an album that he made called The Secret Path, a film he made called The Secret Path, and a book of poetry called The Secret Path. The Secret Path alluded to First Nations boy, Chanie Wenjack, whom as a 12 or 13-year-old was taken earlier on in life from his home, put in a residential school, and he basically— there's a true story— he said, the hell with this, I'm out of here. And he tried to walk home one night and he froze to death. And so Gord Downie writes this incredible piece of art but, you know, nonfiction about Chanie Wenjack called The Secret Path, as if, you know, Chanie Wenjack had thought of a secret path to get back home, is the point.

Mm-hmm.

And in 2016, before Gord Downie died, he called upon Canadians to, quote, do something, unquote, which is to not just pay homage, but to help and to be more than what we think we are. in terms of our own humanity. And so his legacy is enduring. And I hope— I know I am, but I hope that others are taking that to heart because there's several generations of issues that we need to help these poor people with based on what this country did to them.

Compare that as a Canadian to what's going on in the United States.

Look, I don't— for— yeah.

The poet who tries to walk home the man that's killed Floyd. How do you, as a literary person?

Yeah.

As an academic person, and as a person, how do you compare that?

Well, first, I, as judging obviously somewhat by the color of my skin, I can't for a second here suggest that I know what it feels like, whether I'm BIPOC or not. I can't because of the virtue of my own privilege. So I'll start there first, CB. What I, what I can get into is How egregious people's humanity must be when they think racism, racist thoughts first before humanistic thoughts.

Mm-hmm.

Like, there's the old line, right? We all bleed red. And what I just don't understand based on that experience with the residential schools and the First Nations and what Canadians did to human beings, why In this day and age, do we still believe that there's a superiority of one person's identity, be that skin or otherwise, than someone else? Like, it just— if you're religious, the Bible, the Quran, whatever your religion is, It doesn't ever bifurcate people against one another. And that's the part that I just don't really get. I mean, we're really getting into this now, CB, but if you're BIPOC, you're, you're A, at a disadvantage, B, you're, you're— I'm assuming, right, given I have friends like you and others that have to deal with this—

Mm-hmm.

Have to be looking over your shoulder about, well, what are they thinking or what are they going to do? And I, I just don't understand that. as a human being. So yes, to bring that up, thank you. Wasn't expecting it, but I'm so glad you did. And I'm appalled.

Like, you know, let's, let's take that. You said you're appalled. This is going to really put you on the spot.

But, you know, let's go for it.

I asked Seth, because in his book, in this particular book, A Song of Significance, at the end, he apologizes to people. He apologizes to people of color whose wealth was stolen. And I said to him, Tell me why you felt you should apologize. You said, "I'm sorry," and the reason why I'm asking that question was you were not there then. Why is it that you are apologizing? Why are you saying you're sorry? And I won't tell the audience the answer or you because you have to listen to the interview when it's.

Of course.

But saying I'm sorry is very different than saying I feel like it's appalling. I feel like it's appalling to me resonates. Saying I'm sorry when you weren't there— I remember when the Floyd was killed, and I was in one of Rhett's weekly programs. Rhett is a friend of ours from the gym.

Yeah.

And that week they discussed the killing of Floyd. And I was in a group of all white men, and I'll break out, and they immediately said, CB, I'm so, so sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't know. And I've feel bad that I didn't do anything. And I said to them, look, here's where we're at. If you scratch your glasses and put them on, eventually you don't see the scratch. If you drop your glasses on concrete and they shatter and you put them on, you see it. So then the question becomes, what are you actually going to do? Yeah, you could be sorry that they dropped, but the question is, what are you going to do? I said, in this case, your glasses have been shattered. You now see what you didn't see that you can see. What are you going to do?

When I was growing up, CB, one of my best friends, his name was Kendall. And I talked about earlier having people you can go on to and really trust and be in those, oh, we're different relationships. Kendall was a Black man from Trinidad and Tobago, and we met in grade 9 and became best pals, and he became my best man at the wedding. I lived vicariously through Kendall and many of his situations, and directly in certain cases where this 6-foot-5 hulking muscular man was suffering from attacks of racism.

Mm-hmm.

And again, whether I'm not there or there, either way, I'm feeling it and hearing it from, from Kendall. When, when I asked Kendall to be, uh, the best man at Denise and I's wedding for, uh, July 1st, 1995— but I asked him about 2 years earlier because we got engaged pretty early— uh, I immediately asked him, I said, hey Kendall, can I— I'd love you to be the best man for Denise tonight. And he was like, absolutely. And about a year later A year before the wedding, one of the family members on my side of the family had the audacity to ask Denise and I if we felt it was appropriate to have a black man as a best man at a wedding. And not only was I shocked and um, horrified that someone might ask me that question. I then finally felt a sliver of the racism that Kendall had suffered and continues to suffer, because I felt so, um, shaken by someone's views that Denise and I felt strongly about. This is a loving, wonderful human being, not a Black man, not a poster child for belonging and diversity and equity and inclusion. This wasn't why we did this, because he's and was and is still a wonderful human being. So to uninvite someone to a wedding Because of their racism is, uh, weird, but it was the right thing to do.

Tell me how you felt and how you feel and what happened to the person that asked that question.

Oh, well, you just— you have to think. Oh. I mean, here I am, I'm 22 years old and my prefrontal cortex still isn't fully developed and I'm all amygdala, right? So everything is just emotional. And I've, I felt like literally punching this person straight in the face. This wasn't— there was no internet or Zoom. There was— it was like a face-to-face conversation. And you're just like, what the hell? Like, it just, it, it didn't, it never dawned on me that people would think this way. And I, again, I had just learned about the residential schools issue, basically, right? So I've got that going on. Then I've got someone wanting me to think about why Kendall would be our best man because he's a Black man at a wedding. And you're just like, what is happening to this planet if someone like that, a slightly educated person, is thinking this way. Like, CB, come on. So I am clearly white, middle-aged man. But that— I mean, I just, I learned so much. It was a stark punch to the solar plexus, I must say, CB. And I, I wisened up.

I'm curious to know what happened with your relationship with that person.

I mean, there's certain family functions where you can't not see these people, right? So they are there, but it's just never— I just— it was written off for me. Not, not gonna lie.

I take it not a friend.

Say that again. Sorry, CB.

A family member, not a friend.

It was a family member, a very prolific family member. And you're just like, okay, I guess, I guess this is it. We're done. And so be it.

I'm sorry to laugh, but, you know, in a way it's comical, in a way it's tear-jerking because it's like I could just see the cartoon with your head, face exploding, saying, What? Yeah, I thought our values were similar. You just all of a sudden, you've been— what?

Yeah, yeah. Which again goes back to why am I writing books about empathy and care and love and the combination of work? And anyway, it's, it's because I don't understand, CB, what possesses people to be racist or power mongers Or publicly demeaning people for what purpose? Like, people so fixated on profit and not purpose. Like, all of it is entertaining to me, but it's frightening in the same vein. So I'm just trying to, I suppose, even since my early teen days, trying to figure out this thing called humans.

So you talk about your books. How many have you written?

I've written 5, sadly.

Let's start with the first one. Do you have it by your side?

They're in my head. Well, no, I'm not that vain. The first one's called Flat Army, and it's about how— so everything to me is about words. I write about words, to use a friend's quote.

Army.

So flat and army together—that sounds like polar opposites, right? Maybe army comes from the Latin armada. An armada is a flotilla. A flotilla is a bunch of ships, and those ships are sailing together. And so flat army really means flat armada. Each of those ships have a leader. But they're working together to get from point A to point B. And there's undulating waves, there's storms, there's sun, there's everything in between. So how do we as an organization in a flat way with still the hierarchy get from point A to point B?

So I'll relate that to Seth Godin's bees.

There you go. Yeah, that's fair.

Yeah, I love that. Second book?

The Purpose Effect. And what I discovered was that there's a 3-way relationship with purpose. So if you think of a Venn diagram, just quickly, at the top is your personal purpose. So what do you stand for ultimately? What, what drives your North Star? And then the 2 circles at the bottom We go to work. So we hope we have a role purpose. So do I have purpose in the thing that I do in my, my role? And does the organization for whom I work for also possess a purpose so that it might achieve something that's greater than just profit?

And the third one?

Open to Think is the book title, which is a play on words because I want purpose.

The third purpose.

Oh, yeah. Sorry. The third purpose. So it's personal role and organization. And the intersection between the 3 is really what I call the sweet spot. So an organization would want ideally more people enacting their own role and personal purpose. And people would want there to be purpose aligned between themselves and their role and what the organization stands for.

Do you know any organization that really is designed that way? Sorry to put you on the spot like that, but I was just running down in my head, and I can't really think of any.

Well, there's a— there's one like that spots to mind because it's, it's in the press a lot for what it did and what it's trying to do now, and that's Ben and Jerry's.

Ah.

Ben and Jerry's ice cream, if you like, like for those that are listening or watching, like actually go onto YouTube and Google Ben and Jerry's purpose, and you'll see employee interviews about them speaking to how they're able to bring their, um, themselves into their role, whether they're milking cows or on the lines with the ice cream, to what they're doing in, in the community. And how their ethics and their ESG and so on and so forth, right, are doing something better than just making ice cream. But the thing is that, you know, about a decade ago, Ben and Jerry's sold to Unilever. And Unilever has a good sense of purpose but have kind of lost their way. And so Ben and Jerry's and the mothership at Unilever are having a bit of a tug of war. on certain issues that they feel strongly about that's not advocating for the sense of purpose that they believe. So it's a very interesting case study right now.

So it— I find what you're saying very interesting because, and I talked to Seth about this, he had his one-word answer. All of the organizations that I can think of that started that way Once they became solidly profitable, changed. And so when you think about Google, you think about Airbnb, you think about what's the shoe place? It's— and its founder passed away. I can't think of it right now. But in the beginning, They were for employees, about employees. It was an employee-driven mindset. Hmm. Then the profits kept getting higher and higher. And as the profits increased, that employee mindset started to dissipate.

Yeah, I mean, that— I don't disagree. And I do think there are some anomalies, some good ones out there that we might pay more attention to. And some of them are known and some of them are really under the radar. One that clearly is known is Patagonia. Patagonia from the get-go really started with a sense of purpose and have literally bequeathed the organization to the planet so that all profits go back to helping our planet. So there's I mean, it's, it's brilliant what everyone has done there around the legal team and the C-suite and its owner, obviously. But there are others as well. Listen is one, LSTN. LSTN is a company that started in California, in LA, I guess 2013. So 10 years ago now as we record this, and their, their mission was to make headphones Like cool kind of bamboo wooden headphones. But for every time in which they sold a pair of headphones, they would help some child to hear who was deaf or partially deaf.

Mm-hmm.

And so they partnered with the Starkey Foundation and they said, look, our job is to, yes, make headphones, but B, every time we sell one, we want to help a kid hear. And they continue this day with that mission and, and vision. And that's all they do. That's what's their, their motion, mo— motive.

So it's so hard for these companies to stay.

Oh, I'll tell you right away. Growth. So we— there's blinders on in the business world primarily. Let's not talk— we'll talk power and bureaucracy on the public sector later, maybe. But the growth engine that is somehow ingrained In leaders that growth is good, growth is all. Well, maybe not. You know, like maybe we don't have to grow. Maybe just like incremental growth as opposed to let's go acquire companies and feed the shareholders and feed the analysts and feed the EBITDA and feed everyone that's expecting 12% growth this coming year. Really? Do do we need that, CB? Who's at fault?

Is it the founder, the board of directors, or the consumer?

Hmm. Hello, hello, Paris and or London. I I would say to you that London, it's London.

London, we're not under siege. Come on, Mommy. Come on.

London has not fallen. Is that what I'm hearing? Yes.

He hasn't, and he's 12 years old. He's still carrying on.

Love it.

Yes.

Yeah, I, I guess, yeah, like it's, it's a combination, right? You have particularly publicly traded organizations, you're going to have the street. So Wall Street, Fleet Street, Bay Street, and the need to prove that you are growing. Otherwise, your share price can tank. And when senior executives and board members are compensated on this, the share price, uh, there's a motive there. And there's a motive to squeeze as much as you can out of that organization in order to uphold what the analysts and the markets and the shareholders require. That's publicly traded companies. For a non-publicly traded company, those that are not susceptible to the analysts and Wall Street needs, etc., there's still uh, an ingrained, we must grow because power and greed become basically the enemy slash the goal. And, you know, it's a little bit like keeping up with the Joneses as well, what I find at least. And if that's the case, then what you end up doing with your— as a C-suite or an owner or a senior leader or CEO is you're like, well, what are we going to do at all costs In order to, and it's the it's at all cost points, CB. You know, let's let's look at a pretty a terrible example, but nonetheless insightful Uber and its former founder and CEO Travis Kalanick. You know what Travis Kalanick was doing to beat some of the other ride sharing apps. Hold it.

Say no more. We're at almost at an hour, audience. And so here's what I'm going to do. We've got— this is going to be part 1, and I'm going to, I'm going to come back and continue the conversation with Dan for part 2. So, and I know Dan has a big meeting, keynote speaking meeting, in a few minutes, so we're going to But I am enjoying this so much, uh, that I really want to come back and have more dialogue with my friend Dan. This is just so good. I love this. This is taking me way back. So Dan, will you come back real soon so we could do part 2?

Oh my gosh, CB, you had me at hello. Yes.

Okay, audience, stay tuned for part 2 and maybe part 3, and I will see you next week. Bye now. Bye.