173: Beautiful Questions for Challenging Times with Steve Morris

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What's next? This is a question we're all having to ask and answer more frequently. I'm Jenny Blake, your host of the Pivot podcast and author of Pivot. The only move that matters is your next one.

For show notes from this episode, visit pivotmethod.com podcast if Change is the only constant, then let's get better at it. Here we go.

Hello everybody. I am delighted to be here today with Steve Morris, my good friend and just such an incredible big hearted person. We are talking today about beautiful questions in challenging times and I also have to say that Steve is somebody who the way he communicates and who he is has stood out to me from the very start. When Pivot was launching, I was a guest on Jonathan Field's Good Life Project podcast and Steve was one of, I think the only person to send a handwritten thank you note for me being a guest on that show. That has never happened before. So I get this thank you note, this thank you card in the mail and we corresponded over email and I think it was two years later at Camp glp Jonathan and Stephanie Fields Summer Camp that is now retired. I got to take Steve's workshop on Cultivating a Life of Curiosity and we finally got to meet and connect in person. And he's just as wonderful in person as he is online and in all our correspondence. So Steve, thank you so much for being who you are and for being here on the Pivot podcast.

Oh Jenny, thank you so much and thanks for the kind words. And yeah, I remembered quite fondly my introduction into your world, both through the lens of Jonathan and the beautiful conversation that you had with him. And then it dove me into your wonderful book Pivot, which just arrived in my world, as these things do or tend to do just when you need them most. And so after that podcast I dove directly into that book, which was at a point in my life where I was making some significant changes selling a business transitioning into much more artistry and into my consultancy, which is the work that I'm doing now. So I just am thrilled to have this conversation with you here today.

Oh, thank you. I have a huge smile on my face, too. And don't you just love that about books, that they jump off the shelf or you get a recommendation at the perfect time? I just. There's nothing I love more than book serendipity, and I'm honored that pivot. Was that for you?

Yeah. I think books are just so potent and powerful, and it's almost like when one writes one, they begin to take on a life of their own. And they do seem to have that ability to invite and call people from afar or from a bookshelf or from your Amazon shopping cart or whatever that might be. And, you know, a title of a book can just reach out and speak to you almost like a piece of art can do. So yours did that for me in such a potent and powerful way, and I am deeply appreciative for that.

I'm so happy to hear that. And speaking of books, you are working on one, let me read your professional bio just so that listeners get a sense of who you are. And then of course, they'll get a better sense through our conversation. But real quick, just so you know, a little more about Steve's professional background. He's a brand and culture advisor, author and speaker who partners with business leaders to mine articulate and activate their unique belief system to create organizational integrity, connected cultures, and evolved brands. He's currently working on his book the Beautiful an actionable manifesto to evolve your business, brand and culture, which will be published later this year by Conscious Capitalism Press. Steve lives in San Diego with his wife, two boys, and Aussie shepherd mix Coco, and he's a surfer, yogi, and trail runner. And I have to say, Aussie shepherd mix. I'm melting over here because I had an Australian shepherd pages for 16 years and now a German shepherd rider, as you know, as we've gushed about our dogs. So I can't wait to meet Coco in person someday.

Yeah. Thank you for that. Yeah. We have. We share deep affinity for our canine family members, and the shepherds in particular have this Velcro quality to them, and they really just sort of stick to you and bond to you, and I just love that.

I know it's best. I have a hard time teaching Ryder not to, like, visit the bed, like jump on the bed or the couch, because I'm like, oh, you're so cute. There you are.

Oh, my goodness. Well, thank you so much for being here today. And I also want to let listeners know right up front. Steve has created a free care package for COVID 19. So I'm going to put that in the show notes. And you have studied with poets like David White and you. Poetry itself is a resource for you during challenging times. So I would love. Steve, do you have a poem in your mind or on your heart that we could maybe kick off with today?

Yeah. Thank you for that.

So in the poetic tradition.

There'S this metaphor of darkness, and David White has a poem, and David I had the honor to study with for a little over a year up at Whidbey island off Seattle in Puget Sound. And he's got a very famous poem called Sweet Darkness, which I would love to share.

When your eyes are tired, the world is tired. Also, when your vision is gone, no part of the world can find you. It's time to go into the dark where the night has eyes to recognize its own. There you can be sure you are not beyond love.

Let the dark be your womb tonight, and the night will give you a horizon further than you can see. You must learn one thing. The world is made to be free in. Give up all the other worlds except for the one to which you belong. Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet confinement of your aloneness to learn that anything or anyone that does not bring you alive is too small for you.

Again, the poetic tradition and even the artistic tradition of darkness is a metaphor for the imaginative realm where anything is possible. And as we experience in all, in our own different ways, this time of sequestering ourselves off into our tightly knit family units and our domiciles, however we've made them.

We actually have the ability, and maybe even we're forced to go into our own realms of darkness. And darkness has this other stigma associated with it in that it's this negative, daunting type of thing. But when we think about the human condition and the core beautiful attributes that we have, such as the combination of the heart and the mind, part of the beauty of the mind is that, especially in the human condition, is that we can imagine anything. And in these times, we can imagine the most horrific catastrophe or let our imagination spin out with the fear and anxiety that exists right now in our world, or conversely, we have the opportunity to imagine any type of future that we want and activate that future. When we engage our hearts into that particular conversation or equation, we get to tap into the elements of love and courage. And the French word for courage is coeur. Which actually means heart, and it's an old French word. So there's two ideas are tethered together. And when we think about the combination of our imaginative self and that which we can create and manifest on our own, and the courage to step into those things as we reorient or create our own way through this darkness that we're in right now, I see it all as an invitation. And I think actually the questions that we ask ourselves at this point are really orienting elements that can create the horizon of our future.

I love your work around this and the studies that you've done around reimagining life through questions, how maybe you could define for listeners and where the notion of a beautiful question comes from and even how you have carried that forward into your work, both with individuals and companies, and how we could even apply it. Now. I know that's a lot.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So just a brief sort of background. Again, this tethers back to David White, but. So David White was quite close friends with the poet philosopher John O'. Donohue. And when John O' Donoghue passed away suddenly at the age of 57, he died in sleep overnight. And this was. I think, in 2012, there was a workshop that. That John O' Donohue was scheduled to deliver. And it was all about beauty and questions. And the organizer of that particular workshop approached David White and said, hey, would you mind delivering this workshop? And David's response was essentially, well, I'd love to deliver this and step in for John, but I really need to make it my own. And it was at that point where he began to think about what a beautiful question actually meant to him and how then that one could work with that. So, again, I don't want to take credit for defining what a beautiful question is. This is really his definition of it. But the way he would define a beautiful question is that it's a question, first and foremost, that it can't be answered. With the strategic mind we, in business, we think about, okay, let's design a strategy, especially in this crisis, so that we can get through this. A beautiful question. It's one that Rilke would say is a lived question. It's a question that we experience, and it's a question that we might necessarily not have an answer to. Which leads us to the second attribute of the beautiful question, which is a beautiful question is one that can reorient our trajectory or our horizon. And by that, we essentially mean that it can take us from one set of attention, which might be in these particular crisis oriented times, a perception or focus around some of the negative and fear based attributes into a reoriented direction that says, what are the possibilities that exist during this time? And what are the beautiful benefits that might exist during this time? And so those are the key attributes to the beautiful question. And really, when we think about, they're not necessarily questions to be answered immediately. And in fact, the asking of the question is sometimes more important than the answering of it. Because when one begins to, as Rilke says, live with this new question or live the question itself, we actually begin to step into a whole new life and a life of a completely different set of opportunities in front of us.

You gave some really outstanding examples in your workshop and I'm going to riff now. I was trying to find that notebook from 2018. I didn't find it fast enough. But questions like, and then I'd love to hear some of your favorites. What is my highest calling? What is my deeper truth? What am I not saying? What is my heart's desire? These are ones that have come to me since I took that workshop with you. What are some of your favorite beautiful questions that reorient you or when you're working with others?

Well, you know, it's so interesting because I think about them a lot. And depending on where I'm at in my world or what's happening sort of in my life and the things around me, the questions will change. And there's actually a handful of beautiful questions that I've been thinking about. Before we got on the conversation here, I was talking about, you know, I've been walking the beaches and the canyons here, walking around with poetry. I walk around poetry in my head and I sort of speak it out loud, which probably makes me sound utterly crazy because I'm literally just talking to myself. But I'm speaking poems and sometimes I'll be walking the beach. And like I was just a couple days ago and I thought of a couple of questions that might be pertinent for us right now. So one, for instance might be, what if we saw this time, this time of crisis actually is a time of awakening, an invitation to instigate and foster our own creativity or our own version of lived artistry.

A question like that might make us think differently about how we show up in service to other individuals or even organizations during this time.

The other question, it was interesting question, and I sure hope you don't put me in the spot for this because I don't have an answer to it, but it's so Potent that it sort of jarred me awake, which is what promises can I make to myself here and now as I experience this crisis that I will. That will change me on the other side of it.

That is good. Yeah, good. That will change me on the other side of it. And to your first question, I feel so clearly and urgently that we are being called to rise as individuals, as a collective, as society. And I think it's so powerful to say, what if I saw this time of crisis as a time of awakening? I and the beautiful question I'm asking is how am I being called to rise? And one that I put forward to the momentum community is how can I serve? And I think even that question, how can I serve? Is a heart based question that we can live. And every day the answer might be different, but we can wake up every day and say how can I serve and live that and as well, I love this one that you shared. What promises. Wow. What promises can I make to myself here and now as I experience this that will change me on the other side?

Yeah, it's so beautiful and jarring for me that I really need to, as Roque said, kind of live with that a little bit because I don't like. I want to answer that. The inclination typically when we bump into questions like this is I want to answer it with my strategic mind.

And so I work with a lot of different business leaders across the country, as I know you do. And so as I pose that question in some of the conversations that I'm having with business leaders, I actually allow them or invite them rather into beginning to answer that question with their strategic mind. So for instance, that might take the direction of, you know, I'm no longer, I'm going to promise, I'm going to swear up and down that I'm no longer going to pull back on my marketing. I'm going to make sure that I have a strong and solid base or I'm really going to double down on my core beliefs with my within my organization. Those are mostly strategic oriented responses. But the other side of the promises that I can make myself is, you know, might go into how can I be much more true to myself during this time and hold that truth as I continue on the other side of this? And what does that promise sound like to me and how do I allow that to sink both into the marrow of my being, but also into the rituals and the practices that I will employ or am employing now and will promise to continue?

I think that's so important. And that question of how can I be more true to myself? Don't you feel like at least here in the States where more and more, more and more people are being asked to shelter at home and do physical distancing, don't you think so many people are getting a chance now to kind of go inward a little bit, literally into their homes? But, and I know some homes and environments are going to be very chaotic in South Africa. They just send no more walking the dog, which I don't know what you do with that dog energy. Like can't even walk the dog. But.

I do wonder how many people will be shaped by this opportunity to work and be at home and how their families will change, how their relationship to work might change, how the relationship to their physical health might change, and what truisms, what inner truths are going to emerge where people say, I don't want to go back to the way things were.

Yeah, it's so interesting because, you know, it feels to me like we're getting, we've gone back to. And that that statement's even assumptive in that we ever had it, but we've gone back to a manner of simplicity of the way that we are, like even the way that we're shopping right now and perhaps even like making and preparing food. A lot of the stories that I'm hearing is like one of the things that I do to console myself is to bake. And you know, a friend of mine was saying I've baked more food than I know what to do with and so I just give it out to friends and will we continue that? And will people make a promise to themselves to continue that type of self care? You know, the things, you know, my wife is a yoga instructor and she's doing so many more online yoga classes and the attendance at her yoga studio is actually increased because of people's desire for self care during this time. And the other thing that I'm hearing is people are practicing much more daily meditation.

Mostly because they have the time and space to do so. So people who had the excuses of, well, I'm not going to meditate daily because my life is so busy and all that kind of thing now they have the time and the space because their commute is gone, for instance, or some of their social activities are gone and they're just choosing to go inward. And I find that to be an utterly beautiful thing.

One of the questions you sent me when we were brainstorming about this podcast, you said, what does my self identity look like when the world as I knew it is changing, and then even this is getting pretty meta. But you had sent to me what are some potent questions that I can be asking myself to reorient my life trajectory? That seems like one of the ultimate beautiful questions, because it then creates the beautiful question that you might need in that moment.

Yeah, yeah. And, you know, I think about your world, Jenny, and.

The practice of pivot or pivoting, which in my opinion, there's likely a series of thresholds of beautiful questions that one would actually process and go through in order to pivot in a direction that serves them and perhaps even humanity in the best way possible. I wonder what questions you've heard from folks who maybe that are common beautiful questions as they consider pivoting.

Well, I love, first of all, I love that you called it the practice of pivoting. That is so beautiful. And it's how I often talk about pivot. I say the big secret is there's no there there. Every single person I have met since I started working on this book in 2014 says Pivot. Oh, I'm pivoting right now. I need that book. And everybody. So many people that I spoke to felt alone in their pivot. They felt that they were the only one. They were out on pivot island, you know, and the rest of the world had it figured out, and they were the one that was feeling confused or at a plateau or at a pivot point or maybe they had just gotten pivoted. And the fact is, I call them high net growth individuals, but the most agile pivoters are the ones who realize that it's an ongoing practice, that pivoting is a continuous process, and we get better at it. How do we get better at it? By practicing. And what are we getting better at? The skill of navigating change and uncertainty. And so this time is calling all of us to practice pivoting. I mean, it's so crazy what is going on, because things change one day to the next. I mean, every time I've recorded a podcast, the next day the news was different. It was already a little bit out of date within 24 hours, if not two hours. So we're all being asked to practice pivoting. And some of the powerful questions that I've heard and that I encourage people to ask. So this one's my favorite. And I think there was a research project done. So I can't say that I invented this one, but if you were the main character in a movie, and we are all sitting there with our popcorn on the edges of our Seats, watching the movie that is you. How is this event happening at the perfect time with the perfect characters for your evolution and highest growth? What are you meant to learn or do differently to get through to the other side? So it's like we're watching the climax of the movie. We're watching the moment of breakthrough where the perfect challenge has just planted itself in front of you and you think the world is ending, the sky is falling, and we, the audience, are rooting for you and we know you're going to make it to the other side. You just need to look at a certain blind spot or a blessing in disguise, or evolve in some way and grow to get to the other side. So what is that like now? I turn it over to the person I'm talking to or any of you listening. What is that moment? How are you, the main character in this movie? What is this moment in your hero's journey asking of you? How is it asking you to grow and evolve? And.

So that's really a favorite. And then I also think.

Just, you know, if I would summarize that something that's often helpful for me is just how is this the perfect growth opportunity at the perfect time, happening in the perfect way? And that kind of takes the sting out of I wish this wasn't happening, or I wish this would be easier. Because sometimes most of the time I think the biggest lessons for ourselves and the biggest eye opening experiences come in a package that looks unwanted. Like, wait a second, I didn't ask for this. I didn't want this to be so hard or frustrating. And yet those are the experiences that shape us and the ones that actually give us the opportunity to evolve, which is so less likely to happen when everything's good and we're just kind of coasting, which is super fun too. Just life doesn't always work that way.

Yeah, yeah. And what you've just described there, Jenny, so wonderfully, is that this, in the arc of the story and the theatrical and movie story arc world, you described this thing called the moment of truth. And the moment of truth is something where all the reality that existed prior to that immediately changes. And all of a sudden it's like the world opens up in a technicolor manner. So we know this from like wizard of Oz, for instance. Right. And that particular moment of truth is when that world opened up and it was a whole new unseen world of possibility that now exist, that didn't exist before. And I do believe that there's a particular power in pausing in that particular moment. And asking oneself, what is the truth of this particular moment revealing to me that I wasn't aware of before, that I can carry forward into my new awareness or frankly, even my new life. And I also find it very interesting that the work that you do and the work that I do as you read my bio at the very beginning. So interesting, by the way, hearing somebody else read your bio.

I know I change mine all the time. I make edits like once a week.

It was just really. I was like, wow.

Oh, yeah.

That is what I do.

Oh, that's me. I sound pretty cool. I didn't even read the whole thing. That you've been in business 25 years, work with more than 3,000 business leaders, 250 global and regional companies. I mean, you're a pretty impressive guy.

Yeah, well, actually, I was less. Less listening to that, more listening to the brand evolution part of it. And where, you know, it's so interesting, I think, where your work and my work intersect or perhaps we're doing quite similar things, perhaps in very different ways. What you would call pivot, I would call evolution. And, you know, and really what I'm doing essentially in the evolutionary language is borrowing heavily from Darwin, who talked about evolution, the evolution not just of man, but of all species. And, you know, Darwin gets a pretty bad rap for talking about survival of the fittest and things like that. And most people misinterpret his work in that realm where the reality is, you know, he talked more about love, compassion, communication, collaboration, and the ability to work with other species. And in order to evolve and adapt to the situations around us. And so, you know, we as humans, and really, frankly, all living creatures need to grow. And in the business world, the way I tend to couch it is, you know, growth for growth's sake is not necessarily the best thing, but evolution is a necessity because the world is evolving around us. And the more that we have the ability to adapt to those circumstances, that the more that we can, to use your language, pivot and create anew and reinvent ourselves as we need to, just based on who we are. Because as we learn new things, such as the moment of truth that you've just unveiled, when we know those new truths, all of a sudden we have new trajectories, new landscapes, new worlds of opportunity and possibility in front of us, and we then can then can strive for those things. That's the beauty of evolution. And as we think about what's actually happening, perhaps within this crisis, is that there will be, I believe, a handful of people and Maybe many, many, many people in businesses that come out on the other side of this much stronger because of the insert introspective. Excuse me, introspective work that's been done.

During this time, 100%. And in fact, that's Nassim Taleb's book. Antifragile is exactly about that, which was such a point of inspiration for me with pivot, which was not just, how do we be resilient during times of change? How do we grow stronger from it? And that's the whole concept of antifragility, which is that a glass is fragile, it breaks a tree in the wind is resilient. It blows. Blows from side to side, but it stays standing. And then for antifragility, he gives the example of a hydra, the mythical creature where you cut off one head to grow in its place. And I love what you said about evolution, too. The kickoff quote, now that I share when I do a pivot workshop is from Heraclitus, and I'm sure you're going to know this one, but he says no person ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river, and they're not the same person. And I share that with companies and people, because even if you don't think you're pivoting, you're never stepping in the same river twice. You are a new person every day. And the companies change every day. The market changes every day. So even people who don't think they're in an active pivot, this is actually the underlying reality of our existence, that we're flowing in a river, we're not standing in place, even though sometimes it seems like that. And I just love your. This light you're shining on the possibility of growing stronger from all this. And we can't even know what that's gonna look like yet. But to hold the faith that that is the process that is shaping us and that is happening right now, I think is such a beautiful intention.

And Jenny, I'm curious, do you. Do you witness that that particular stream, analogy and metaphor is an invitation to embrace the perpetual change? And do you, I guess, further, do you feel that people are embracing that during this time here and now?

Definitely. I think. I think on some level, I've never asked people their reaction to that quote alone, but. But I get the sense that, in a way, it's reassuring because sometimes, and I can speak for myself, for most of my 20s, I felt highly anxious. And I wrote a blog post once called 10,000 hours of neuroses. I should read it on the podcast just so that I could, like, get it back out there. And I felt that the one thing I had gotten good at, that I had 10,000 hours in, was being anxious, nervous, worried, people pleasing, perfectionistic, stressed. That's what I perfected for about a long time. And I think for so many people, there's this underlying hum of anxiety that is navigating change. That is the constant evolution that we're being asked for. Certain growth oriented individuals, they love it. That's the adrenaline and the excitement. And I actually think right now, the difference is that at least right now, everyone is admitting, accepting and talking about that reality. Wow. Nothing is as it was. I've even hearing medical professionals talk about pivoting their strategy. So at least now these conversations about grief and change and nothing is as it's as it was, at least because the global collective is talking about it in that way. I think we all get to exhale with a sense of camaraderie in a way that, oh, I'm not alone in my existential anxiety about what it is to be human and on one hand, love creature comforts and stability while at the same time being called to evolve every day in every way. And sometimes you feel like doing that and other times you don't. But that's the nature of being human and of evolution, as you talked about, Steve.

Yeah, yeah, And Rilke talks about it from the perspective of, you know, being patient towards all that's unresolved in your heart and try to live the questions. And even that stepping into the stream of. The question of what stream am I stepping into now? And how do I meet that stream in a way that.

Makes me more able for the circumstances that life that the current situations and circumstances of life that are being presented to me at this point, our ability as humans to adapt and evolve.

It's kind of a beautiful thing to remember. And I wrote this in a blog post a couple weeks ago about taking the helm of leadership, and that generations before us have been through this, and I didn't write this, but worse or just as bad. And we actually can carry the lineage and the heritage of all the power of our ancestors, be they our parents, our grandparents, our great grandparents, and all that they've been through, knowing that they survived and even thrived. And the evidence of that is that we are here now and we've created this amazing planet. And we are also now the adults, the ones in charge, the ones with the hands on the helm, to be able to exercise our own creativity and our own leadership ability to. To really create that new future that we envision. It's a beautiful thing to remember that.

I love that you said, we're the adults now. This occurred to me. This occurred to me last year. So at the time of this recording, I'm 36. I'll turn 37 in October. Age doesn't matter, but I'm just giving context sometimes. I'm curious, but. So it was last summer, my cousin's daughter, who was 16, too young to get a hotel, but she got into this really cool New York Times fashion internship for two weeks. So my cousin asked, is it okay if she stays with you until they open the dorms for a day or two? And when I realized that Michael and I were the adults here and we had a guest room that my cousin's daughter was staying in, I lost my mind. I couldn't believe it. I was like, oh, my gosh. We're like the weird, quirky couple that lives in New York that when you need the spare bedroom for your. For your daughter or whoever, like, she comes to stay with us, and she's the one who had social plans and had all these fun things to do in New York. And I just had that moment. I'm like, okay, we're the adults now. That is so weird. We're not the ones crashing on someone's couch. They're crashing here. I mean, you have two kids, so you already know that you're an adult, but I do.

Yeah. And actually, you know, like, if we were to transition that particular idea, what is adulting and what is leadership?

You know, and this is something I talk about in the corporate work, which is, you know, there's a lot of organizations now that want to have a flat or a reasonably flat organization. So then with that, it begs the question, well, who's the leader? Or what is a leader within an organization that's flat? Now, certainly the CEO and the C suite level and the VPs and the managers all have a certain level of leadership responsibility. However, I make the case that everyone within the organization is a leader, because even if the intern who comes in on week one and they're just fresh out of college or whatever their experience is, they're still given a project and they are still part of a team. And within that, they have the agency within themselves to work on that project in the way that. That the organization needs, and they're responsible for delivering some type of set of results. So within that, at the very least, they're leading that project. And if it's truly a flat organization that they're invited to have a voice at the table and speak their perspective and contribute in a way. And that's also leadership. So when we think about, like, you know, what can we do now here from a leadership perspective, as we're hunkered down and sequestered off.

We have the opportunity to take a microphone and tap into a typewriter or speak into a zoom conversation and help others through this process. And I think that's part of the beautiful aspect of our communal humanity, is to be there in service to others in a time of need. Because the reality is we, you and I, are both going to need it at some point, too. And I might need that this afternoon or I might need that the minute I get off this, this conversation with you. And I sure hope that somebody else is there to help shine the light for me.

Absolutely. And that's happened to me. That happened last week. I was super happy, upbeat, recording a podcast, and then within 30 minutes, I was in a ball under the desk. It's just like that. Sometimes you say at the top of your about page, there's nothing more powerful than a united group of souls ignited in a common cause with love at the core. I know that that speaks to your vision of the beautiful business. I also love what you just said about how do we lead during this time. And in your care package for COVID 19, you say, what can brands do? Care for your customers and care for your team. I would love to know from you, from what you're seeing, because now it's been made into a meme that the wave of communications that has gone out in the last few weeks from every single company ever on every mailing list you've ever been subscribed to, we've seen a real range of responses in communication. I would love to know what's your take and what does it mean to be a beautiful business at this time, even as many businesses maybe in kind of a life or death moment of the business.

Yeah, yeah. I, you know, like you, I'm creating a lot of content right now and doing a fair bit of radio shows and podcasts and some webinars. And there was a communication I sent out to. I've got a mailing list of about 25,000 people. And, you know, there's a bunch of people on that list that I don't know. And I got an email response back from a CEO in Florida. I will not mention the company name, but it's a big company that everybody knows and they're in the restaurant hospitality industry. And his comment back to me. And this was an email that having to do with self care and connection to nature. And I was telling a very brief story about these two encircling hawks that were spinning and dancing on the updraft of the canyon breeze right at sunset. And it was just an incredibly moving like 30 second moment. And it really touched me. And what it did is it uplifted me after a day of just utter exhaustion. And his email back to me was really question mark. How about a great delicious fill in the blank product during this time? And I kind of loved that response because.

And it actually turned into this beautiful little email dialogue that speaks directly to what you were just asking Jenny, which is, you know, how can a brand remain relevant and scratch to say in business during a time where, you know, certain businesses and industries are essentially cut off from their ability to even do work? And this is a CEO who is leading no doubt thousands of people through probably hundreds of different stores that they have and they're trying to figure out how do we remain in business and what does even the future of my staff look like and things to that nature. And one of the things he said to me is, you know, Steve, this is not intended at you because your email was quite potent and I really appreciated it. But I don't know what people are thinking when I get now My inbox is 10x filled with communication from people, which is more or less the same regurgitated information over and over and over again. And so to begin to answer the question first, there was empathy within that particular string of conversation.

And one of the things I shot back to him was there's a couple of mantras that I'm deploying at this point, which is first and foremost be of service. And I think the real value of any brand to begin with is to provide either a product or service that is of value to some group of customers out into the world. And while I think businesses and brands have the opportunity to still present who they are and express their character and their values, I believe that doubling down on how they can serve and how they can serve their entire constituents and population at this point, including their partners, employees and customers, is to be of service and care for them. And then the second thing is just be unique. I think to send out a message that is more or less what other people are sending out. Nobody needs to hear what the policies are for COVID 19 in company XYZ anymore, but they do want to hear what that company might be doing differently or thinking about differently or serving differently. And I think those are very valuable messages. And I think then the third thing is to get back into the very basics of really what brand and marketing communication is all about, which is the simple sentence or simple question of what's in it for them. And the what's in it for them has to do with a value proposition and a service offering that offers some perspective of value. And that what's in it for them these days can simply be, we're here to listen. Here's how we're taking care of our employees when we start back up. Here's what that's going to look like. Our products are on sale or free, like Zoom is doing right now. It's offering it free to certain public schools and things like that because they're trying to shift into, you know, how do we do online classes? But that I think that what's in it for them? Question is quite potent during these times.

100%. I'll build on that. I just spoke with my friend Alyssa Doucet. She's been on the podcast before. She runs a company called Craft yout Content and has a team. And I was so delighted to hear she's been busier than ever since this started because there's so much communicating going on. And her advice, which I hope it's okay with her that I'm sharing this with all of you, but I love the way she put it. She said, so many companies are starting their communications by saying, here's what we're doing and here's how we're handling this. And it's all about them. And it's only at the end of the message they get to what that means for. For the customer, which is exactly the guidance you've just given. So she's been editing and helping her clients reshape to start every communication with, how are you doing? Here's something for you, here's what might be on your mind. And only then later, if it's even still relevant, saying kind of the behind the business stuff, but that that's not really what people need to know. Unless in my case, you know, I had certain appointments or things that's just not going to happen. And I just also recorded a conversation with Sarah Santa Croce, a mutual friend of ours. Now, on being an empath and a highly sensitive person during this time. And this conversation about emails made me think of something that I want to get your take on. I got more than one message saying, we've just laid off all our employees, and we hope to rehire them later, but we don't know how long this will last. I got so sad. I've been so sad reading about the companies.

That fired everybody. I don't know, it's just on my mind. And I know there are certain types of bricks and brick and mortar businesses that really don't have a choice, and maybe the government soon is going to, any day now, release something that encourages those businesses to keep people on some kind of payroll. I also read an article about, let's say, housekeeping services, housekeepers, some of whom are documented, some aren't, where all their clients are just texting. Oh, yeah, no need to come this week. And no matter how long they've been working with those families, they have no backup and no source of income. So this is now totally sideways building on what's in it for the customer. But I do.

I don't know, I just have certain sadness when I read how things are unfolding, but I guess that's just inevitable.

Yeah. Yeah.

It is part of the difficulty. My friend Owen o', Sulliban, we were doing a recording which will go up online. He was talking about.

The. The idea of flattening the curve as a metaphor and the poignancy of that. And really, when you think about that in its harshest terms, we're really trying to minimize the amount of deaths that take place because of this particular virus. And so when you begin to, if you were to just for a moment, suspend the harsh realities behind that and turn it into a metaphor, and then you think about that metaphorically from the business owner perspective, the question of what is the right thing to do? Now.

Some of that has to do with the question of survival. How does my business survive to live another day so that we can continue perhaps to serve our customers? Because it doesn't do. I mean, it's a really interesting philosophical consideration. It doesn't do any good to go out of business and no longer be able to serve those customers. Or is the trade off that unfortunately we might have to make, or some businesses might have to make, is to lay off employees in order to survive and stay in business. And these are the very, very, very difficult questions that a lot of business owners are having to ask and answer and react and respond to in a way that has a significant amount of care and empathy for the employees and the people and the human beings who are actually being directly affected by this. And I think it's a very tough set of questions. And I can't even count how many C level conversations I've had in the last week and a half around that particular subject. And it's, I can promise you it is not easy for them and it is not easy for me to hold that space. But it's, it's, it is in its own way, its own set of beautiful questions.

Yes. And it's almost the impossible questions in a sense, because you're absolutely right. If they can't survive another day, they, you have to, you have to do whatever you can to stretch so the company has a chance to survive and hopefully rehire. And then the, the third option or thing that I've seen some companies doing is starting an employee relief fund, which is its own conundrum and beautiful question because, well, at least what came up for me was I might want to support that business, but then wouldn't it, shouldn't I put that money toward like, you know, homeless, serving the homeless people who are hungry people who, you know. So then you get this question of it's so hard to pick and choose which businesses. You're even going to say, oh, yes, I'll donate to your employee relief fund. I mean, these are the times. If only we could all be billionaires.

Yeah.

But I know we're, I know we're reaching the end of our time together, which is so sad.

Would you mind if I shared, would you mind if I share another short poem just to wrap this up?

I would love that.

Poetic foundation.

I would love to see that.

So David White talks about part of the work that he does and has been doing for years is in the corporate world. And he got, as he would call it, he got cajoled into that.

And it's mostly because in the corporate world there often isn't language for some of the difficulties that organizations grapple with in the complexity of the human dynamics of things. And poetry happens to have the ability to speak to that language with such poignancy. So this next last piece is a piece called we look with Uncertainty.

We look with uncertainty beyond the old choices for clear cut answers to a softer, more permeable aliveness which is every moment at the brink of death. For something new is being born within us if we but let it. We stand at a new doorway awaiting that which comes. Daring to be human creatures vulnerable to the beauty of existence. Learning to love.

Thank you so much.

And that's by Ann Hillman.

Thank you so much, Steve. I'll put a link to that in the notes as well. And I want to invite listeners if you have a follow up question that you would love for Steve and I to tackle in a follow up conversation. Please let us know. You can submit it@pivotmethod.com ask we said we probably would have so much more to cover than just one conversation. And I always love your feedback of if the two of us were to ask how can we serve? What are some of your beautiful questions? Let us know. It's fitting for the topic that you would submit some of them for us and we could always do another episode just like this one. Steve, I can't thank you enough. Where can people find you? And beyond the poem which is so beautiful. Thank you for reading that. Is there any one thing you would leave listeners with before we go?

Yes, I would lead listeners back to that question of what is the promises that you can make to yourself here and now? And those promises might fall into the categories of how can I deploy radical self care for myself and for those around me during this time? And what are the beautiful questions that you can form for yourself? And so people can find me at my new website. It's Matterco M A T T E R C O Co and there's a whole bunch of resources up there. I publish blogs at least a few times a month, tons of free downloadable content and I'd love to hear from people on beautiful questions. And Jenny, thank you so much for holding the space here today and doing what you do and your beautiful Pivot work and all the orbiting of.

Human endeavors that you do. It's quite beautiful work and as you know, I'm a huge fan.

Well, thank you so much. Right back at you. And did you know, did you do this on purpose that Matterco has Coco at the end of it, which is your name? Did you know that?

No, I did not. It was totally not intentional at all.

But I'm seeing it. Coco. It's right there.

Little Coco will love it.

Yeah. Amazing. Thank you so much Steve. And thank you everybody for listening it.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Pivot podcast. Make sure you don't miss an episode or my insider tips and templates by signing Signing up for Pivotlist, a curated twice monthly newsletter where I share the inside scoop on what I'm reading, watching, listening to and the latest tools I'm geeking out on. Sign up@pivotmethod.com pivotlist get show notes from this episode@pivotmethod.com podcast and connect with me on Twitter ennyblake.

Remember, build first, then your courage will follow. Follow hasn't it always.