Influencing others how to be at their best- Feels Right!

Have you ever wanted to influence others to shift their behaviors, ideas, or actions without playing power trip games? If so, listen for the next hour. Welcome to TFR, This Feels Right, with your host, Joel Silverstone. You'll learn the tools and concepts to influence others with everyone involved maintaining their respect and understanding so it doesn't seem like it's all one way. Now, here is Joel Silverstone.

Hello everybody and welcome to TFR, This Feels Right. Before we jump in, let's say hi to our first guest, Kate Scudder. And Kate, how are you feeling this morning?

I'm feeling great, Joel. Thanks so much for having me on the show. It's great to be here.

Terrific. Lovely. Thank you so much. And yes, I'm your host, Joel Silverstone. And for over 20 years now, I've been helping people in business and sometimes in life to use their communication skills on how to be more influential. And what that means What that means is they are able to not just speak to the logic but also speak to the emotions of people to get that engagement. Because our emotions, well, that is our first reaction. That is our gut instinct. It's at that moment where we ask ourselves, does this feel right? Well, listeners, you are in the right place if you want to learn from leaders, coaches, speakers who will be sharing their examples and perspectives on how they've been able to influence behaviors, ideas, and actions and not be manipulative. Today's show is about influencing others on how to be their best. We're really excited to have Kate Scudder. Now Kate is a CEO. She is a business coach, a TEDx speaker, so go ahead and check out her TEDx talk, and a success— this is a tongue twister— a success catalyst for entrepreneurs. You may have already seen her on her Instagram where she has a huge following, also in Forbes and Fast Company. Kate, welcome to the show. I'm going to actually talk a little bit about the TED Talk which I watched this week. Rising is a Risk, Do It Anyway. Tell us a little bit about the TED Talk if you're ready.

Absolutely. The talk's premise really is about highlighting the 3 biggest fears that hold us back from going after what we want, whether that is a personal goal, a professional goal, really any ambition that we have. One thing that I've noticed in doing this work over the last several years is that no matter what stage of business you're at, there are these voices in a lot of our heads that say, you know, what if, what if I fail? What if I'm not going to be able to do this? What if when I start to get success and be successful, I hit a wall and I'm not able to continue rising? What if my success and me shining in my limelight disappoints somebody around me, whether that be a family member, outshining an old friend or colleague? I hear from a lot of women that I What if my ex-boss or coworkers see what I'm doing? That really inspired my message and the way that I shaped this talk is really speaking to anybody who has a goal, who has a dream, who has a vision of more for themselves, for their life, for their work, to not hold themselves back. The talk really provides some actionable tips for getting out of your own way.

Yeah. This is going to be my new thing here. What if? That really is the beginning of the self-talk that we start telling ourselves. I like that you say in the TED Talk too, what if I'm actually going to be successful at this? It's not even just our fears of failure, but it's also our fear of what happens if this works out.

Absolutely. I think that fear of success is really the thing, once we start to generate momentum and take that first baby step, that stops a lot of people from truly rising into their full potential. You're absolutely right. The voice is less like, what if? What if this doesn't work? And more, what if this does work? What's going to happen then?

Yeah. I think that's the challenge for all of us. In the acting world, we call it the actor's secret. It's what motivates the character. In a sense, this what if is a demotivator. But it starts by building our awareness. I think that's what you're— one of your big things here is about really developing that muscle for trusting yourself. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? Because that's a really tough one about how to not just trust other people, but how do we trust our own instincts?

That's it, absolutely. I believe firmly that trusting ourselves is the foundational element to success. I don't care what it is, what field you're in, what goal you're chasing, what your version of success even means, whether that be a numerical figure, whether that be an impact goal, whether that be a lifestyle goal that you're able to attain while doing doing the work that you love, however it is that you define success, you must believe that it is possible for you and that you have what it takes to get there in order to not only set a goal but actually stay the course and see it through. And so, you know, this, this developing this muscle of self-trust really comes down to stretching our capacity to be comfortable in the uncomfortable position that growth often requires us to step into and the risk that so often we need to make in order to get outside of the position that we're in now to continue to reach new heights. I think that one of the biggest lessons that I've learned as an entrepreneur and as somebody who's set and achieved big goals and continues to raise the bar for myself is that when I feel a slight feeling of, oh my gosh, I'm feeling the heat here. I'm feeling nervous, or I have some skin in the game, that's when I know that I'm on the right track. It's less about— I've found that it's less about getting to a place of avoiding discomfort altogether and it's more about strengthening my capacity, strengthening my comfort for those uncomfortable situations because I know growth is right on the other side.

Yeah, getting comfortable with the uncomfortable. When you know it, when you have that awareness and like you said, you're on the right track. When we're working with people, People often say, for example, in public speaking, they're very nervous about it. And, you know, and I'll tell them, well, that's, that's good that you're nervous about it. It means you care.

Oh yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, I think that's what you're saying about being— that's how you know you're on the right track. It's changing that perspective. Is that— would you— what are your thoughts on that?

Absolutely. I mean, I'm just— when you were saying that, I'm literally just thinking right back to being backstage. But I was the last person to go, uh, with, with the TEDx. There were 5 speakers and I was the I was the one wrapping up the show and bringing down the house, and I was backstage, and I was, you know, I'm very much— I talk a lot about energy and the way that we manage our energy in performance and whatever it is that we're doing. And so I'm backstage, you know, like just jamming out to my music and just moving and really focused on what I'm about to do. But it's— I totally had those butterflies in my stomach, and I think that if I didn't have butterflies, I would have been nervous. And I was— I remembered every single line. I just— I was very happy with how the how the talk turned out. And I think that so much of that was fueled by a little bit of that nerves that I felt. And not only did, you know, that really make me focused on game day, but it also made me focused to get myself the support I needed. I hired an amazing speaking coach who really helped me not only craft the talk itself and really pull out the most important storytelling elements, but also in the delivery and the enunciation and the certain pauses. And so I think that that That little bit of nervousness and that little bit of, ooh, I'm outside my comfort zone, really catalyzed me to number one, support myself with the expert support that I needed to do the best job possible, which I'm just such an advocate of. Number two, prepare and do my work to come to game day with everything I needed. And number three, just have that focus and that delivery.

Yeah, we often— the good ones, when you watch those TED Talks and when you watch your TED Talk and we go, oh wow, she makes it look so easy, we don't realize how much How much preparation goes into those. No matter where you are at your game, how important, as you just shared, it is to have feedback and to have coaching to be even better.

100%. 100%. I think that it is— I watched a lot of TED Talks before delivering mine, and you're absolutely right. It's like, oh, wow, that just flowed so effortlessly. Preparing, and I was watching back one of my assignments with my coach was to send in some video recordings of me doing the talk. And in the early stages, before I had the script finalized, there were just so many blooper moments of forgetting a line or messing it up and just no makeup and just having worked on it all day.

Right.

And I think that those moments of grit behind the scenes are just so telling of what an effortless, true expert performance really entails. There's so much work. I love that meme, Beyoncé rehearsed for 8 months for a 10-minute performance, and I think that's it.

Well, that's it. We're so prepared that when it comes time to deliver it— and you can see this— the people that are not quite ready, they're trying to just remember their lines as they're delivering a speech or a presentation, as opposed to being present. So when you have the confidence to know, I've done all the heavy lifting, I'm prepared, then you can relax and be in the moment and actually enjoy. I think one of the things you said, actually, was you knew your intention. for delivering this TED Talk versus an objective. So I think the intention really came through. Let me ask you this. I know also in your background you were a teacher. You studied teaching. You were teaching for a while. Then you did this transition into being the— I'm going to say again the tongue twister— success catalyst business coaching. So what did you take from your teaching into your business coaching?

That's such a great question. You're right. I taught for a couple of years. I just knew that I wanted to teach, impact, guide others on a bigger scale. I also knew that I really wanted to be working with adults and not teenagers.

Mm-hmm.

I was teaching high school. And so one of the big things that my both professional training and actual experience in teaching really prepared me for, in both being an entrepreneur and starting my own business and coaching, and also course creation and program creation, is really the power of working backwards by design. So one of the things that That I bring to a lot of the programs that I create for my clients, for my students, in the mastermind programs I build out, in the business building programs that I create, is really this sense of what is the— what's the end result that I want somebody to achieve, and how do I break this down in a way that's manageable, in a way that's implementable, and in a way that ultimately fuels their discovery and integration of what it is that they're learning. And so, you know, when I was when I was getting my master's in teaching, we really thought about this a lot and focused on curriculum development and preparing material that enabled the discovery in a student's mind. With coaching, it's a much more— at the highest level with my private clients or in my high-end mastermind, that's very much more about responding in the moment to what somebody is working through, bringing business strategy to that. But with the programs that I build out where I basically basically break down concepts that I work on with a lot of my private clients to teach, I'm able to bring a lot of that curriculum-focused mentality to the programs that I create to ultimately bring the best learning experience possible. Because it's not— at the end of the day, one thing that I see a lot happening in the online space, in the online courses and education space, is this focus on almost information dumping. And I don't think that information is what changes people's lives. I think experiences are what do that. So I feel very prepared from that work that I did becoming prepared to be a teacher and bringing that into the programs that I create.

Yeah. Having that teaching background and being able to have a design and a curriculum, kind of going back to that TED Talk, it gives you a map of where you want to go so that you can really be present because you know you've got the logic, you've got the academic stuff there. There's a journey. There's a template, so to speak, so that you can really be present and, as you said, be able to respond in the moment. I agree. I'm a firm believer that people can take in so much information. At one point, they just need to get up and actually just experience it. That way, it'll stick.

Absolutely. Absolutely. I always think the real result happens in the execution. Sometimes we do need to learn a technique or a skill set, but it's ultimately how do you apply it and then get feedback on it and then refine it. That's where you're really getting into the gold.

Yeah. As a father of 2 teenagers, I can fully agree. I wouldn't want to be teaching teenagers either.

Oh my gosh, no way. Bless the people who do it. I couldn't last more than 2 years.

My hat's off to them when we had those parent-teacher interviews, and especially nowadays with technology, the kids are People are just so distracted, it's really hard to get their attention.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Speaking of experiences, we're at the point in our show, Kate, where I like to do a little improv, improve your communication skills. I think this will be a good segue. We'll talk a little bit more about some of your pieces on Fail Like a Boss. This is actually a little improv exercise I'd like to do with you. Failure. Ta-da! How it goes is, and I'll give you a quick example, is you're going to give a headline of a failure that you've had. You're going to share it with pride as you do it. At the end of your failure, you're going to say, ta-da! We're going to give you a big round of applause and celebrate your failure. If I was to give a quick example, it would be And this is true. Yesterday I washed all of my wife's whites, but I threw in my dark blue jeans with them. Ta-da!

I love it. Okay, perfect. Are you ready? Can I go now? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. The very first employee that I hired, I had no idea how to delegate and wasted a lot of time and money. Ta-da!

Bravo!

Fantastic.

How did that feel?

Oh, it felt great. You know, I, I, I mean, as you mentioned the name of this, I just did a whole podcast episode on this. I love normalizing failure and talking about failure because nobody gets to any kind of learning mastery, even semi-competence of something, without failing and eating dirt so many times.

Yeah, and this is where I wanted to— this is a good segue because this is the improv exercise. One of the rules of improv is first thought, best thought. Going back to trusting our intentions and trusting our instincts and trusting yourself. Then failure is what gets in the way from trusting your instincts. We catch ourselves before we're maybe going to take an action or take that risk, as you say, or move forward. Let's talk a little bit about Fail Like a Boss. Because I think that is an important topic. If we want to be able to influence others and we want to be a leader and even just be one-on-one or leading a group of people, we have to get past this idea of failure. Let's hear some of your thoughts about it, Kate.

Absolutely. The first and foremost thing that I think is required is to normalize failure and to think about failure not as like, ooh, this thing that I want to try to sidestep and I want to try to avoid as much as possible and I'll try to spin it into gold and turn the lemons into lemonade when it happens, but really I actually want to be kind of a perfectionist about failure. I know I'm kind of calling myself out in that because I think it's so common for ambitious people to have this idea of failure. It's almost like our relationship with failure is a notion. It's something that we should normalize, but when the rubber meets the road and we actually experience a failure, whether it's a small thing like— or maybe not small for your wife, but small things like messing up a load of laundry.

Right.

Thing like flopping a launch or, you know, really screwing up a deal or whatever that may be, it doesn't feel good. It doesn't feel good in the moment. And I think that the more that we can almost get neutral about, about the idea of failure and then the actual failures as they come, we're gonna be so much more equipped to, number one, be resilient and move through them, but number two, learn from whatever they're trying to teach us.

Yeah, I think that's the negative talk that we have about failure is that we look at that as the end-all be-all. I failed. As you said, I hired that first employee. I didn't quite know how to— or that team member. I didn't quite know how to delegate. Okay, that's it. I'm not a good leader. Boom. It's all over.

Exactly.

But it's a learning lesson. Just like you said, I'm going to do a TED Talk. I'm going to get a coach. I'm actually setting myself up for success, and if I fail, at least I know I gave it my best shot.

That's right. Absolutely. You're so right. If I had said at that moment, oh my gosh, I know how to lead a community. I know how to lead from the front, but leading my team, I had no idea how to do that. If I had had this fixed perception of, wow, my first shot, I really screwed that up, I wouldn't have gone on to build a team now of 6, not all full-time. all over the world. But I wouldn't have done that because I would have been so stuck on this first perceived failure that I wouldn't have given myself the ability to grow. But what that failure showed me is, number one, this isn't a natural skill for me. This isn't a natural thing, especially when I'm managing so many other aspects of and leading in so many other aspects of the business. That failure prompted me to not only problem solve in my weak spots, but also get the right support that I needed so that my team could continue to support me, which in this particular example is just so critical to growth and scaling. And I wouldn't have done that if I had stayed stuck in the story of a failure now is a failure forever. And that's another thing that I want to say is that, you know, your failure right now is pointing to where you're going to refine to create success later.

Yeah, yeah, that's absolutely— it is, it is a growth point. It is a A turning point when you can see it that way. I think your openness here, Kate, about— I keep hearing this theme about asking for help. Basically, that is what your business is. You're there to help other entrepreneurs to grow. How do you deal with maybe someone who is asking you for help, but there are certain blocks in there or there's certain resistance?

Yeah. My style, Joel, I am a very call it like I see it person. There is not— and that's where the catalyst comes in. It's like, I'm not here to just kind of stroke your ego and softly go— and I'll do it with love and with respect.

Mm-hmm.

But I think that at the end of the day, if somebody is in their own way, I'm going to tell them. And I'm going to reflect that back in a way that makes it easy to see and ultimately makes it very compelling to do the work to move through it. And so I think a lot of the times when business owners come to me and they're experiencing some kind of a block in their business, whether that is their messaging or their products aren't quite landing with their clientele, or they're looking to scale, or they're struggling in the sales part of their business. We really identify what is going on. I think that the first step to moving through any kind of block or any kind of limitation is having an awareness and having an understanding of what's actually going on so that we can solve the right problem. This is something that I am so passionate about when it comes to the coaching work that I do and the business coaching, is that I think a lot of times business owners become frantic, again partly because of the discomfort of experiencing a lack of success or frustration, that they want to just throw every kind of solution at it. And I believe that we move through blocks the quickest when we can identify the right problem. It saves a lot of time, it saves a lot of money, and it enables us to really go in strategically Yeah.

Again, going back to that teaching idea that there is a template for this. There's a way to actually break it down, identify, and not just go into an emotional panic mode.

Right. Exactly. Which is when we see numbers tanking or we see a big thing going on, it's really easy to do that. But I think, again, part of feeling like a boss is finding that neutral place. I think that especially for CEOs and leaders, anyone in a leadership role in business, It's very, very important to, you know, we can be informed by emotion. That's good. That's showing us that we care about something, but ultimately problem solve with both of our faculties, right? Like that emotional side, that passion, and also the logical brain that can break things down and really move through it.

So, Kate, I'm going to ask you, this is a tough question, but this is like such an abstract or ambiguous one that I'm curious. How do we make others feel more confident when they're struggling through those sort of panic moments? How do we make them see that, that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, or just even make themselves feel more confident about the process?

Well, that's a great question, and I think it's really an important question. The first thing that I like to do, especially if somebody is really down on themselves or struggling, and not only struggling with what they're struggling with in that particular moment, the problem, but also struggling to see the bigger picture and what's this all for. And one of the things that I really like to do in that moment is to reconnect the person, actually take a step back from whatever the particular issue is, take a step back and reconnect them with their why, with their original vision, with why they're so upset about this in the first place.

Mm-hmm.

Reconnect them to the purpose that they started this thing for. And I think that when we can do that, it really puts the issue at hand in perspective, and it reconnects the person to their sense of power because they started this thing, presumably if they're an entrepreneur, out of nothing, out of an idea that they had, a desire that they had to see some kind of change in the world, whether that be a socially driven company, whether that's a profit-driven company, whatever it is. When they can reconnect with that initial mission and purpose, I think that that is very, very compelling to bring new strength and energy to whatever it is That's at hand. The other thing that I like to do, especially if a client is in a little bit of a mindset, you know, head funk and negative headspace, usually what's happening in that, in my experience, they're attaching a lot. They're weaving a story. They're weaving a narrative together of, look at all this evidence for failure. Look at all this evidence for how I'm doomed. Look at all this evidence of how I should just go back to a 9-to-5 or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Mm-hmm.

I really ask them to press pause, to just notice that narrative and take some space between it, and then re-anchor their thoughts into the evidence for success. Okay, so right now we're focusing all of our time and energy on this narrative, this very compelling story of how XYZ thing isn't working. Tell me about all the evidence for success. Tell me about all the things that have worked, that are working. And once you start to do that, I think it— I've just noticed so many moments like, wow, well, actually— This thing's working really well. Well, when come to mention it, you know, this thing is working really well. And I think it really just neutralizes whatever it is that's at hand and brings them back into that sense of, you know what, this is manageable, I can do this. Because ultimately, I believe that as coaches, as leaders, as mentors, as guides, we're not— I'm not here to, you know, pour all of my passion and enthusiasm and belief in my clients.

Yeah.

I mean, partly I am, but my job is to bring all of that to the table for them so they can reconnect with that inside of themselves. That to me is leaders leading other leaders.

Yes. The idea of, again, going back to the purpose, to your why, which is so easy to lose track of that when literally everything seems to be falling apart and go, well, what was your intention? What was your purpose? I think that's whether you're doing a TED Talk, whether you're starting a business, whether you are coaching someone. It's so That's so important to why you're doing this versus just looking at what we see as logic or data around us or the evidence that maybe things are falling apart. Kate, with just a couple of minutes, actually, I want to just find out a little bit more about, for our audience, where can everybody find out a little bit more about Kate Scudder and some of the workshops you were speaking about?

Absolutely. So they can find me on Instagram. I love hanging out on Instagram. That's @kaitscudder, C-A-I-T-S-C-U-D-D-E-R. You can also find me on kaitscudder.com. I also have a Facebook group, The Radiant Entrepreneur, which is a free Facebook community for women entrepreneurs where I share a lot of free trainings and videos, and I'm very active in there every week. So that's another place for women particularly to come and hang out with me.

Great. Well, listen, Kate, thank you so much. I mean, this is starting with our first idea with the what if, which is, I think, such a segue into everything that we've spoken about. What if I'm successful? What if I have failure? And really a chance to reflect on that self-talk and also, again, to remind ourselves about our purpose and our intention, our why, so to speak, as we move forward.

Yes, absolutely. Well, thank you so much For having me, Joel. It was such a great conversation.

Absolutely. Thank you so much, Kate, and enjoy the rest of your day. And we look forward to learning more about you on Instagram and katescudder.com and your Facebook group, which was Radiant—

The Radiant Entrepreneur.

The Radiant Entrepreneur. Terrific. Thank you.

Thank you so much.

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You are listening to TFR, This Feels Right. If you have a question or comment for Joel Silverstone, please send an email to joel@joelsilverstone.com. Again, that's joelsilverstone.com. Now, back to TFR.

Welcome back. And we have our second guest with us, Natasha Shivan. Before we jump in, Natasha, let me check in. How are you feeling today?

I'm feeling great, Joel. It's Friday, so I always feel great on Fridays. Great.

Well, listen, thanks for taking the time then on Friday to join us. So once again, I'm your host, Joel Silverstone. You are at TFR, This Feels Right, where we believe that our influence formula is where we say to people that there's a logical part to it. Yeah, I think this is right. Then there's that emotional part where someone goes, yeah, this feels right. When the two are combined, people go, I know this is right. That's what we believe is the influence formula. With us, and our theme today, of course, is about influencing others to be at their best. We've got, and you'll correct me if I say your name wrong again at the end, Natasha Shivan, who is a speaker, the CEO of Pinwheel, which is an advisory and training company. Natasha is a former vice president and partner at firms such as Deloitte and AT Kearney. Also, Natasha has been named as one of the 100 Influential Women in Supply Chain. Natasha, this is This is your background. You bring a lot of experience in procurement and strategy, supply chain. All this is very, very logical, very, very data-driven. And yet, one of your fundamental themes that you talk about in interviews and you speak about is this idea about humanity in business. So maybe let's talk a bit about the 2 differences there. This is your role in procurement and strategy and supply chain. And yet, one of your big themes is about humanity in business.

Yeah, yeah. No, it's a good point because in business, typically what business is focused on is very governed and very structured and very left-brained, right, most of the time. And I, at some point during my career, I'm going to say in the last 5 years, I kind of felt a disconnect. And the keyword again is felt. I felt the disconnect between what I was rationally executing versus how I felt, right? And I think many of us actually feel a disconnect and having to wear different masks when you're at home with your family versus when you go to work, right?

Yeah.

more aware, emotionally aware if you will, about kind of reconciling the two and how feeling and how fostering good feelings in others is quite frankly more important sometimes than the rationale and the methodology and the structure.

Yeah, I mean, you know, in a basic way when we go to buy something or make any kind of big decision, There is the logic there, but we do need that emotion to substantiate it, or vice versa. We make an emotional decision, but we need the logic to substantiate it. So tell me about maybe that— you said 5 years ago there was a disconnect, that you realized that maybe you're wearing a certain mask at work. Was there something that triggered it or something that brought your awareness about it?

I think it was just me maturing, right, as an adult, being in business almost 20 years. Kind of always, actually, from the get-go, wondering why we have these different masks, right? When I just kind of— I just really wanted to be me wherever, right?

Mm-hmm.

Whether I was at home with my family or whether I was working in corporate business or in corporate consulting. So it just became a point, I would say 5 years ago, there was a little bit of a shift where I'm like, hey, I kind of want to do something with this and kind of be able to bring my whole self to work and foster that in others, right? You don't need to be 2, 3, 4 different people. You can be authentically who you are, and quite frankly, that's when you're at your best.

Yeah, I agree. And so here's the difficult part. What do we need to do, or as leaders, how do we help others get to that point where we can sort of let our mask down? And I guess, as Brené Brown would say, have that vulnerability or have the courage to be vulnerable.

Yeah, no, that's a good question. That's kind of the key question, right, to enable this to happen. To me, what I've seen is self-awareness, right? And there's a lot of buzz around emotional intelligence, but it's true. It's something I think, especially as you get more senior in business, you will have to rely more on your emotional intelligence skills. So self-awareness, I think, is one of the key areas that one would need to practice to be able to take the masks off, right, and to become more authentic and to kind of get closer to who you truly are. And I think when you are closer to yourself, you're more authentic, obviously, and you help others, right? You show yourself as being more vulnerable.

Right.

And folks respond very well to that. I think sometimes people fear being vulnerable at work for some reason. I think every time I've allowed myself to be vulnerable, it's been met with a positive response. So people— you foster trust, you foster collaboration, you foster just a culture of, hey, we're all in this together. So I think it starts with self-awareness and being able to pause and say, okay, how am I feeling? Right? Not what am I thinking, but how am I feeling?

Mm-hmm.

Going from there and kind of exuding that to others brings other people on board, and I think it encourages them to bring their whole self to work effectively and take their different masks off.

Without a doubt. I think we could think of not just leaders, but just even colleagues or just people you tend to be attracted to, people that you tend to like, as people that seem to be comfortable in their own skin. It starts with the fact that they are able to be themselves. As you and I both know, because we've co-facilitated some emotional intelligence workshops for consultants, we know and we've seen it, how important self-awareness is when people realize what are the triggers or what are some of the biases that they have that doesn't allow allow them to purposely express themselves or to take that pause. They just plow right through it.

Yeah.

So let's talk about that. I want to talk about Pinwheel, your company. But I think this is maybe a good segue to talk a bit about one of the offerings of your company, Pinwheel, and is about this idea around unconscious bias and diversity. So tell us a bit more about that.

Yeah, so that kind of came to be from kind of my own personal learning, right, over the past 5 years. And being a senior woman, being a senior LGBTQ woman actually, I've had my share of run-ins with unconscious bias, right, where folks judge you Mm-hmm. And they don't even know they're judging you, right? It's unconscious.

Mm-hmm.

But you're still being put in a box, and I've kind of— my entire career I've been kind of battling that, I would say. And 5 years ago, I— about 2 to 5 years ago, I figured, listen, why don't I, instead of battling it and being defensive, why don't I step Step back and try to unravel this, right? What is it?

Mm-hmm.

So when I started digging into that, and you kind of go through the steps of what you do as a human when you become defensive, you stop listening, you become emotional, how can we kind of put— again, using emotional intelligence— how can we put a pause in there and help people expose this unconscious bias, because it's not called unconscious bias for, you know, it's called that for a reason, right? I mean, loads of folks don't realize they do it, but again, what I'm trying to do with Pinwheel is make it conscious bias, right?

Yeah.

So they can actually change, right? They can actually try to do something about it, because most of us, again, when we're authentically who we are, we don't want to be judging other people.

That's right.

I would say 90% of the time it is an unconscious reaction. And again, having emotional intelligence, self-awareness, pause that reaction, think about and probe where it comes from, allows you to really kind of unravel that and expose it and turn it at least into conscious bias, which then allows you to do something about it.

Yeah, because when we think emotional intelligence, we think self-awareness, and we think our triggers, we think of pet peeves in a sense. For example, self-awareness, I don't deal well when people cut me off or interrupt me, or I don't deal well with people that are rude. But another thing that we may not be even aware of is, as you said, this unconscious bias, how we automatically subconsciously We see someone or hear something and just right away label it and put it in a box and we didn't even consciously realize that. I mean, I know I lead a lot of workshops and sometimes— the other day I was seeing an older gentleman and he came in and right away he seemed in a bad mood and he hadn't had his coffee and right away I labeled him, oh, this person is going to be trouble. By the end of the day, of course, I found out that this person was probably the most humanitarian out of everybody and is quite a philanthropist. But because I had labeled him, I missed out on those opportunities to really get more of his involvement. I think that's what the unconscious bias is, is that we're, as leaders, we're missing a huge opportunity to get diversity, to get different thoughts, to get different perspectives. What do you think?

Yeah, right. No, I totally agree. So that's what we try to do with the unconscious bias training too, right, at Pinwheel, is effectively— because we've all been conditioned in the 20, 30, 40, 50 years of life, whether we want to or not, right? We're indoctrinated, if you will, by society. And that's fine. I mean, it's just the constraints of the society that we live in. Often that indeed leads to these gut reactions or these millisecond kind of judgments that we're not aware of, right?

Yeah.

And then often, I would say 90-plus times, we're proven wrong indeed, as per your example just now, you know, a couple hours in.

Yeah.

And so what we're trying to do with the training is, again, you've got to put a little bit of rationale and methodology behind it, right? To break that apart and to do something that's interactive, so not show someone 100, you know, slides, PowerPoint about unconscious bias. This is something one needs to experience.

Yeah.

So it's active experience-based kind of workshopping with actors that we go through to make people feel, again, to make people feel Yeah. What it feels like to receive, to be on the receiving end of some bias, right? That's how you embed change in someone, not by telling them or showing them on a PowerPoint how to do it, but by making them feel it. And that's, it's been successful. It's been eye-opening for many folks.

I'm sure. It's getting comfortable with something that might seem uncomfortable, especially if we have been unconsciously doing it. Then it becomes even more uncomfortable because it's almost a bit embarrassing that you've held on to these beliefs.

You're right. So what we start off saying, this is an environment of trust, right? This is like Vegas. What happens here stays here. And that's kind of how That's how we kick the day off.

Which is good because if you want to get through it, you've got to be able to have that trust. That's one of the keys of influencing others is if they want it to feel right, they've got to know that they're in a safe place and that it's all best intentions. I want to talk about this idea you said is that we kind of stop listening. And we want to feel it. And so I think this is a good segue for us to do our little exercise here at TFR. We call it our Improv Improve Your Communication Skills. So are you ready for this? I'll tell you what we're going to do, but I just want to check in if you're ready for this.

Yep, yep.

Okay, great. We're going to do something called Last Letter and First First letter. So I will give a— I will say a sentence and you will take the last letter from what I just said, and then you will start the next sentence with that letter. And we will try to have a short, you know, a very short story out of this. And most importantly, we will really have to pause and really listen to each other. And And again, we're going to have to get sort of comfortable with being uncomfortable that we're, we're doing this in front of an audience. Are you ready?

I'm ready.

Okay, here we go.

I'll start us off with the first sentence. I just moved to the country.

Yay, it's an amazing country.

Yes, I love I love that I have so much land outside my house now.

What will I ever do with all this land?

Don't get hung up on the— all the maintenance. I will try to enjoy it.

That sounds like a great idea.

Terrific. Great. Natasha, how do you feel?

I feel good. This was very, very authentic and very improvised.

Absolutely. Well, one of the rules of improvisation is— we talked about this with Kate— is, you know, about trusting your instincts. First thought, best thought, which means that there's not a lot of time here to to second-guess yourself. You have to go with that first instinct and trust that wherever it's going to go will be appropriate and will make sense. And most importantly, as you saw, it's getting comfortable with that uncomfortable. You really have to— and you have to really listen because there's an audience listening and they're going to catch you if it doesn't make sense.

Yeah. And be comfortable with silences. I would say, because silence is our thought bubbles and thought modes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, which, um, which, which we're not. Maybe that goes back to that, that unconscious bias that, um, we're not allowing that, that silence to go to, to question ourselves, to go, well, hang on, why, why am I labeling this person? Or, or even, am I labeling this person?

Yeah. Yeah, and we feel vulnerable, right? Silence makes us feel vulnerable. It's like we have to fill the silence with something. So, as you get more, I guess, closer to yourself and you allow yourself to just be you, I think it's as simple as that, wherever you go, those silences don't bug you and they're actually quite fun.

And now I'm going to allow some of those silences. So Natasha, let's talk a little bit about Pinwheel. This is an advisory and training company that you've started. You're the CEO of this. You founded this. There's a bit of a different approach here. Again, maybe just share with us a little bit about the different approach about Pinwheel.

Yeah, sure. The reason, again, why I founded Pinwheel earlier this year was to finally do something about this disconnect that I've always felt, right, where I've had to put different masks on, what I spoke about earlier.

Mm-hmm.

And what I said, it never felt right, so I wanted to kind of explore this, so I quit my job. at Deloitte at the time. I was a partner at Deloitte and figured out how can I just be the human that I am. So I wanted to do this with my own venture because it allowed me to effectively have a blank slate, right?

Mm-hmm.

And any corporation, and I think anybody who knows who knows this working in larger corporations, whether that's consulting or industry, right? There is a set governance, there is a set structure, there is a certain set culture in place that puts constraints on you. And it's not— that's not necessarily a bad thing. That's how companies work, right? You need a certain amount of rules and governance to have people work together effectively. But for me, I kind of wanted to shake that all off, if you will.

Mm-hmm.

Start with a blank slate from authentically who am I and what do I want to bring to the world and how do I want to give back what I've learned over the past 20 years and, you know, in big consulting and in industry. And so that's how I thought, well, that's how Pinwheel's going to be different.

Right.

We're going to be authentic off the bat, and we also have the ability to do things for everybody, right? So we have the ability to do transformation consulting, procurement and supply chain consulting for not just big companies, but for everybody, quite frankly, who needs it, and I'm authentically looking to give back some of what I've been lucky enough to learn at big names like Deloitte and A.T. Kearney to the small startups and to the small companies who may not be able to afford the bigger, the Big 4 or the big consulting firms. Because my cost base is me, you know?

Yeah.

And my office in my house. assets that are overhead that's weighing me down, right? So I can be flexible, and I even try to do pro bono work here and there. But I want to make sure that what I've been able to learn over the past 20 years, which is, you know, top-notch excellence, and I'm very thankful to Deloitte and A.T. Kearney for allowing me to learn that.

Mm-hmm.

But I want to Make that available for everybody. So that's what I started Pinwheel off with. And yeah, so far so good.

Well, I mean, obviously that was a huge risk to take, but it sounds like— and we were talking before, actually in the first part of the show with Kate, about entrepreneurs and being very much tied to their sense It's a purpose. What I'm hearing is, as we said at the beginning of this call, about humanity in business and being authentic. That's what keeps you motivated to drive Pinwheel is this authenticity and that, organizationally, the expertise can be available to many different people and many different organizations that might not be able to afford the cost or overhead of larger consulting firms.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, that's right. And, um, that's exactly what I, what I wanted to go with, right? It's, it's companies that are, you know, small companies that are going belly up and that need top-notch expertise but cannot afford it. I want to help them, right? I don't want to be like, well, my, my rate, unfortunately, because You know, I have to make— I have to ensure that my cost base gets covered. I want to ensure that there's certain expertise that I've been lucky enough to learn that's available now to everybody.

Right. Absolutely. Humanity in business. That continues the theme, and you know who you're dealing with when you've got Natasha and Unconscious bias is one part of that, but most importantly, it's bringing the expertise and the knowledge that you have and really creating an authentic experience where the people you work with go, yeah, this feels right. Natasha, we have just about a minute left. Where can we find out more about you and Pinwheel?

Sure. You can find more about Pinwheel by just going to pinwheelco.com. You can see our entire offering and the way I was brought up on that website. And you can find me on LinkedIn too. Just punch in my name and/or punch in Pinwheel and you'll find me and you'll find us.

Great. Well, listen, thank you again for joining us this morning. This has been great as we talked about unconscious bias. We talked about humanity in business. Really, we talked about if we want to be authentic, if we want to lead others, it starts with some vulnerability and lead by example. If we want to create a shift in people's behaviors, ideas, and actions, it starts with us. That self-awareness and checking in on our unconscious biases and also just any triggers for us if we want to be able to lead others and be of service. Thank you again to our guests, Natasha Shivan and Kate Scudder. Once again, I'm Joel Silverstone. Thank you, listeners, for joining us on TFR, This Feels Right. We'll see you next week.

Thank you for tuning in to TFR, This Feels Right. Please join host Joel Silverstone for another edition next Friday morning at 7 AM Pacific Time and 10 AM Eastern Time on the Voice America Business Channel. We'll talk again soon.

Thank you.