"We are in the midst of A Great Renegotiation at Work." Rha Goddess

On the path, for me, on my 21st day in the 86-day journey, I had an experience where I was shot at, at point-blank range. I literally felt a beam of energy come down through the top of my head, down through the soles of my feet, planting me in place. I saw the bullet leave the chamber. I saw the light flash. I saw the smoke. And people talk about this where it goes in slow motion. He continued to fire. Ourself. Our ability to work on us is imperative. And I think that this is one of the things that we don't talk enough about, particularly in the context of leadership. Like, your inner work should be a prerequisite before you put your hands on power. We wait till it gets dire.

Yeah.

And, you know, and so much of our societal conditioning teaches us to wait till it gets dire. You know, it's whatever our version of rock bottom is before we make the changes that we often know we to me. Outside looking in, you know, you look— you look great, but you're not feeling it. And I was hiding, quite frankly.

Were you saying that you were hiding from your true self?

I think I was hiding from my true self. I was hiding from, uh, both being honest about the relationship, you know, great guy but not the one. I was hiding in terms of the work, doing really good work but not my work. I talk a lot about that in the book, but, um, I just was coasting. It's about that being willing to question and challenge what we've been told. We are in the midst of a great renegotiation.

Welcome to Driving Impact. Hello, Driving Impact crew. I'm super excited about our next guest. Our next guest is an entrepreneurial soul coach with a 30-plus year career and everything that we call cultural innovator, social impact strategist, and creative change agent. Seredempititi brought us together where we met, and for some reason I really like their energy. I like their vibe. And then I discovered her book, which is called The Calling, and we'll talk about it. 3 fundamental shifts to stay true, get paid, and do good. Our guest, Raw Goddess, has coached hundreds of luminaries, some of these, and changemakers, some of these who ended up be becoming like New York Times bestsellers as well as Times Top 100, has impacted millions of lives across the world. So I'm excited to welcome you to Raw Goddess. Welcome to Driving Impact.

Thank you. Thank you so much, Katheline Jean-Pierre. It's my honor and my privilege to be here.

When I met you, for some reason, somehow, I didn't even know that you published two books. I mean, one is an Audible coaching program and one is a book, a physical book that we have here today. And I just felt energized by every single word that you were saying.

Thank you.

I want to start at the beginning.

Okay.

I want to understand what is the origin story of your name, Raw Goddess. Yeah. Where's it coming from?

So, uh, in order to embody my name, I went through an 86-day cleansing fasting vision quest with an incredible woman by the name of Queen Afua. Um, and it was interesting for me because it was at a point in my life where I knew I needed to shake it up. You know, like, uh, when you looked at sort of what was happening in my life on paper, everything looked amazing. But I was restless. I could feel that there was more that wanted to happen through me. And I think a lot of people, Katheline, go through that. You know what I mean? We're like, you know, you all, we're in a great job, making great money. We're dating a great person.

Yeah. You feel like you're making it.

You know what I'm saying? And on the outside looking in, you know, you look great, but you're not feeling it. And, um, and I was hiding, quite frankly. And, uh, I just—

were you saying that you were hiding from your true self?

I think I was hiding from my true self. I was hiding from, uh, both being honest about the relationship, you know, great guy, but not the one. Yeah. Um, you know, I was hiding in terms of the work, doing really good work, but not my work.

Yeah.

Um, and you know, I talk a lot about that in the book, but, um, I just was, you know, coasting. Um, but there was something in me, you know, it was at a time when I was coming into my thirties, my early thirties. And a lot of people know, you know, we talk about 33 being the Jesus year.

Mm-hmm.

Um, but I just could feel that there was something that wanted to move through me and I was running and sort of hiding from it and avoiding it. And, um, and I remembered having this interaction, Queen Afua, funny story, Queen Afua and I had the same vocal coach.

Mm-hmm.

And we were living in Brooklyn at the time and, uh, we would pass one another on the stairs because she would be going to her vocal lesson after mine. And we would always hug and kiss. And I'd known her forever and, um, and knew her son because he was very active in the, uh, both of their sons very active in the creative community.

Mm-hmm.

And one day I just really knew, like, I just need to work with you. And the beginning of the journey the name came. And the name—

the name Raw Goddess came to you.

It came to me.

How? And what?

I was in a meditation, I was in a vision, and the name dropped in. And, uh, literally Spirit said, this is— this is what you are to be called. And so, um, I, I sort of like questioned it and wanted to understand the genesis of the name.

Yeah.

And in the Kemetic lineage Uh, and language, it's pronounced Ra'at in Tert, and it means light supreme, bringer of the light.

So Ra goddess means light supreme, light supreme, bringer of the light. And then you talked about Kemetic language. What is that?

Yeah, so, so, uh, Queen Afua's work is in the ancient Kemetic tradition. The ancient Kemetic tradition is the Nile Nubian region of Africa. So what we know is Egypt, and what we think about is that the Nile River region And, you know, the history of the people from that region was that they were herbivores, they were vegetarians. They had a very sacred relationship with the land. And it was about dignity. And it was about, you know, we think about the history of sort of coming from a lineage of very regal people. Very royal, very majestic people, very value-centered. Um, and so, uh, for me, doing the work in connection with that lineage felt very aligned with my spirit. Um, and I happen to practice and work in a number of ancient African traditions. And I think that's, you know, part of, um, our power, I think, is our ability to tap into all of the layers and aspects of our identity. And, you know, I know we're, we're, we're gonna get here, but when, you know, I talk about working with leaders, whatever their cultural lineage is, I think sometimes there's a lot of temptation to leave that at the door.

Yeah. To be able to look good or to fit in some, for some people is a corporate world. So I wanna go back into Queen Afua.

Yeah.

How did you go, like first, who's she and how did you get to meet her?

She is an amazing healer and teacher. And you know, it's interesting in that we are now in a time in the health and wellness world where we understand the value of green. Mm-hmm. You know, and green vegetables, sustainable, leafy vegetables. Right, exactly. This is the conversation of sustainability, you know, uh, clean clean energy, all of the things that we now sort of are looking at or thinking that they're part of sort of our modern world and part of our modern evolution. The truth of the matter is, is these date back thousands and thousands of years. These come from cultural lineages from all over the globe where people practiced recycling and people practiced working with clean water. Composting. Yeah. You know what I'm saying?

Reusing water.

Reusing. All of these things are really ancient. Practices indigenous to various regions throughout the world.

So you're talking about thousands of years ago.

We're talking thousands of years. And so Queen is a green pioneer, you know, and when I say green, I'm talking about your leafy veggies. I'm talking about your green juice. I'm talking about your alkaline lifestyle. And you know, one of the stories I tell a lot about Queen is, you know, 40 years ago she was in the hood of the hood, you know, that the tough inner city. You know, giving addicts green juice and, you know, and blessing them and sending them love and, you know, dropping, you know, what she calls breath of springs, which is purified peppermint oil on their tongues and telling them to breathe and, you know, to clean up their respiratory systems. Yeah. She just was magical. And certainly for people who would watch her move through the world, they would have this sort of out-of-body experience because, you know, Queen would be walking down the street and, Best I Brooklyn. And you know, and she's got her crown on and she's rocking her white and her folded, you know, African saree. And we loved her, you know, the women. She just in her presence and her being, she would call you to another level in yourself. You know, this idea of taking your seat as a queen. And so for me, you know, we are now going on 30 years that I've had the privilege —being in a relationship with this woman. Yeah, I mean, probably 35 years ago, but really like studying and working, probably going on, like I said, 30 years. And so it was so fitting that she held the foundation. Like, I believe my spiritual name was coming, my calling was coming, my purpose was coming. I was running from it. Like a lot of people. That is just the truth. I was running from it.

You make sure that you're very busy.

And spirit cornered me through Queen, you know, in many, many ways. And the interaction that we had in the stairwell of that brownstone, you know, in that time, it opened the door for me to start to say yes to what wanted to move through me. And so I go into this 36, this 86-day cleansing fast. And I just want to pause for a second.

Yeah. Did you fast for 86 days? Yeah.

And a cleansing fast. So it's not like totally no food, but what you're eating is designed to cause you to purge. Okay. And so a lot of green, a lot of water, a lot of liquids, a lot of cold-pressed juices. And what are you purging? Oh, everything, you all. I mean, you know, Queen, when we first sat down, I love sort of sharing this story. When we first sat down, she's like, We're going to get that birthday cake you ate when you were 4. No.

Okay, that's kind of purging. Right?

Like we go all the way in because we don't realize that we carry around, woo, okay, here we go, Katheline Jean-Pierre. We carry around a lot of things, you all. Mental, spiritual, emotional, physical, toxic waste, old energies, old conversations, old emotions, stuck trauma. All of that's in here. When we commit to really living a vibrant life, when we commit to really living a sustainable life, mm-hmm, when we commit to living a life that really is aligned with our greatest truth, that stuff's got to go. Yeah. And it means that we create practices, we create regimens, we create new habits that enable us to consistently purge and cleanse and clear our energy so that we can be really present and in our full capacity to be— ooh, your message. To make whatever contribution. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever contribution we're here to make, whether that's, you know, with our families, whether that's in our professional worlds and the ways in which we're being called, whether that's in our communities and all of the other ways, our spiritual institutions. So, In order to be our best self, our ability to work on us is imperative. And I think that this is one of the things that we don't talk enough about, particularly in the context of leadership. Like, your inner work should be a prerequisite before you put your hands on power.

I'm gonna tell you something, Ro. I'm in the corporate world. I spent most of my career there. I was also an entrepreneur before. But I think what's interesting is that like some of the concepts that we're gonna talk about today sometimes goes into more spirituality. And then when you say spirituality, that's when people tend to, to run away and people get scared. But before we go there, I wanna go back to, you were purging for 86 days, cleansing your whole life, physically, spiritually, your ancestors. Yes. And also, um, anything that you've eaten, your body, your soul, et cetera, your beliefs. I wanna talk about your, where did you do that purge? And then what came out of these 86 days? And I wanna understand also, were you in isolation or?

Yeah. So, so I wasn't fully in isolation, but I will tell you that the more that I went deeper into that process, the more I craved being by myself. I craved being still. I craved being quiet. And I learned the power of quiet, which is something that I talk about and teach about all the time. You know, often people ask me, well, how do you find your purpose? Or how do you find your calling? Or how do you, make these big life decisions that often we're faced with every day. Mm-hmm. You gotta have, yet you gotta have the, uh, ability to get still. Mm-hmm. You have the ability to get quiet. You have the ability to learn how to listen to your inner wisdom, your higher wisdom, whether we call that God, whether we call that the universe, whether we call that source or creation or your inner voice, whatever we wanna call it, that part of us that really speaks to the core of who we are and speaks to the core of what it is that we're here to do and has our highest interest at heart.

To your own interests, not any corporation you work for. Right. Or your own. Or your family.

Yes. Or your partner. But what is good for your spirit? What is aligned with your soul? What is aligned with who you are, who you really are? Mm-hmm. Beyond all the labels and the accolades and the roles and the accomplishments and what it is that you are here to do, what it is that you're here to bring. Now we bring what we bring through all kinds of vehicles. So many of the leaders we work with are in corporations. Yeah. Doing phenomenal work. Right. As well as many entrepreneurs who are at the front lines of movements for social impact and social change. Right. Or who are building fabulous businesses that are transforming the lives of people every day through their products and services. So the vehicles and the conduits through which we serve are of multitude. Mm-hmm. But the truth, the way we show up in those vehicles, what we carry, what we offer, what we bring, that requires space to get clear on.

And that's why you're talking about like you have to be still. And when you talk about being still and quiet, you mean the opposite of being busy. Yes. Because we're— everybody's busy, everybody's running right and left. So you went into that 86th stage? I went into that. And how did you come out of it?

I came out of it so clear about my life. And, and, you know, when we talk about sort of pivotal moments that put you on the path, for me, on my 21st day in the 86-day journey, yeah, I had a, an experience where I was shot at, at point-blank range. I was living in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn at the time. I was coming home. Uh, in the late evening.

Uh, that happened in real life. That happened in real life.

Okay. No, no, no.

In real life. So you, you're coming, you're coming from your workshop.

Coming from, I was coming from work. Okay. I was at a client. Um, and at the time I was doing, doing consulting work and, uh, I was coming home and I, you know, kind of had my, this will date us, you all know, is 1998. I had my Walkman on. I was listening to my tunes. Walkman. And I had just stopped by the health food store and you know, I was gonna have some miso soup. Like, I had a whole kind of plan. And, um, and I lived in a community in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, where many of us were either the children or the grandchildren of the original residents. So it was a real community vibe. People looked out for one another. We knew— People knew each other. —who our neighbors were. Absolutely. And so this guy pulls up on the bike and he asks me, like, "Where's the Johnsons?" And I'm kind of going, "Johnson's?" I'm looking up sort of, in my mental Rolodex, like, I don't know. And then when I look down, he's pointing a gun. What did he want? My purse. He wanted to rob me.

Okay. So it was a question to be able to get your, your purse. What did you do at that moment?

Yeah. It caught me off guard. Um, and so, you know, he said basically, come here. And I literally felt a beam of energy come down through the top of my head, down through the soles of my feet, planting me in place and literally felt almost like a shield come down.

I'm feeling— I'm like, I'm getting chills when you're telling that story.

Something absolutely embodied me, an energy and a spirit embodied me. And I looked at him and I said, brother, I don't have anything for you. Wow.

So you didn't follow his orders because he wanted you to come here next to him and he wanted your purse, and then you, you stayed still.

I stayed still. And, and, and I really want to say this, had no choice. Like whatever it was that took over my physical being would not allow me to move towards him. And he said, "I said, 'Come here.'" And literally opened my mouth again to say, "Brother, I don't have anything for—" And I couldn't even get the second time out of my mouth before he fired.

So he shot you? Shot. Where?

I saw the bullet. Bullet leave the chamber. Yeah. I saw the light flash. I saw the smoke. And literally— and people talk about this where it goes in slow motion. Yeah. Truly everything slowed down. I saw the bullet leave the chamber. But I, to this day, cannot tell you where the bullet went. And, you know, he continued to fire until the gun jammed. But he and I both are like looking down at me and looking up at one another because we both know What was happening? How far were you from him? Probably about 10 feet.

10 feet. And then he was shooting at gunpoint and it didn't hit you? Point blank range. That's incredible.

And so—

And nobody found the bullets ever?

Nobody found the bullets. And, and you know what I say to this day is, I don't know where the bullets went, but the message was not lost on me. The message was not lost on me.

I just can't, I can't believe it. It's like, where was it a real gun? Did it have real bullets?

It was a real gun. Everything about that gun looked real to me. Everything about that experience felt real to me. And it was interesting because he, you know, he finally gave up and jumped on his bike and kind of threw a thread over his shoulder and pedaled down the street. And I stood there and literally after a few moments, I felt that shield, that energy move up. And then up and out of my body. And of course, that's when I freaked out and went crazy.

Like, what's going on? Did this really happen? What's— you know. And it was a white light that you said, like a protective shield.

It was like— it was energetically, it felt like light, but it was just a shield that came down and a sort of a rod of energy is the way I would describe it that bolted me in place. The messages began coming after that. Right now, The messages truthfully had been coming beforehand, right? Mm-hmm. Like, this is not what you're supposed to be doing. Anybody recognize that? You, you're not supposed to be at that job. Anybody recognize that? This relationship is not the relationship for you. We hear these things.

That's a, that's a, these are a lot of downloads, right?

There's a lot of truth. Like the voice of wisdom speaks to every single one of us all of the time.

Well, we just shut it down.

It's a ma— there you go.

We shut it down because we have good reasons not to do it. Before we go there, so The guy who shot you, what was his reaction?

He was as shocked as I was. I mean, like I said, we both knew what was going on.

Did he say anything?

He just was like, he just kept firing. Like he was just very committed. Like firing you just like birds. Very committed to achieving his outcome. Yeah. And at some point he got frustrated because, you know, the gun jammed and he's banging the gun and he's still trying to accomplish what he's trying to accomplish. And then at some point he jumps on the bike frustrated and angry and he ran away. But he was shocked because—

Both of you were shocked. Absolutely. So this is major, right? I'm still having chills. And so we understand where you're coming from. We understand that that was a chrysalis moment. That's a moment of transformation. It's kind of like the world or spirit is trying to tell you, like, or your intuition, however you wanna call it, is telling you that you're not on the right path. I will protect you with from whatever path. Yeah. And then, but I want you to have this awakening. Yeah.

And you know, I think it's for me when I share this story, it's important in the sense of sometimes Katheline Jean-Pierre, you know, we have this belief that spirit is soft and it's woo woo and it's, you know, it's wussy stuff. Yeah. And you know, and I feel all the time that the universe is gangster. Mm-hmm. And I think the messages come to us in lots of different ways. I, you know, I say we get a light tap on the shoulder, we get a little bit of a shove, you know what I mean? And then you get a shake up and then you get a kick in the you know what. Yeah. And I think part of why I believe I'm here is to help people move before it gets that bad. Right. Because when it gets back— threatening illness before it, you know what it is, the divorce before it is the children who don't speak to you anymore. You know what I mean?

Yeah, you lose a job or you get fired or—

We wait till it gets dire. Yeah. And you know, and so much of our societal conditioning teaches us to wait till it gets dire. You know, it's whatever our version of rock bottom is before we make the changes that we often know we need to make.

And also because human beings are wired to status quo. Yeah. Right? Because it feels comfortable. Safe. Right? And then if you venture out of it, there's more fear of losing something than gaining something. 100%. So most of us just stay where we are. We keep doing what we're doing.

And, and the unfortunate thing about that is for many of us, the comfort zone is painful. So we have learned to adapt to the pain, or we've learned to adapt to the disillusionment or the apathy or the disappointment or the resignation. And that's where we're living. And the truth be told is we're not really living, we're just existing.

And we're living somebody else's life, or even any social construct that we believe is where we should be.

Yeah. Yeah. And there's a lot of pressure to conform to those constructs so that anytime— and this was my issue, right? Because it wasn't that spirit hadn't been talking to me before the gunshot. Spirit was all up in my business. And I was like, thank you for sharing.

But I was like, you're calling me, but I'm just I'm gonna hang up on you, bye.

I don't understand what you talking about, right? You know, all of this soul work and all of this moving people to liberate. I'm like, I don't know what that is, God. I'm a consultant. People pay me checks, you know, in my name to do that over there. So until you sort all of that out and can help that make sense for me, I'm over here, you know. And coming out of that experience, And I do want to say, I guess again, shout out to Queen. I feel like I was being readied. So in other words, that 21-day fast, that cleansing, that high vibration energy, that call to be in or begin to find what is real alignment with my own sacred truth, I think was part of what enabled me to survive that experience.

Yeah, to find your purpose. And I wanna make sure, 'cause I read your book with a lot of, of fashion. It's like I bookmarked, I'm gonna grab it here. I bookmarked a lot of pages because this is like pure gold. It's incredible. Uh, I didn't know what it was up for, but I feel like it, it was a, I don't know, a spiritual like awakening for me even reading this book. And, and for our audience, I'm gonna name the book. It's The Calling: 3 Fundamental Shifts to Stay True Get Paid and Do Good. And I feel like we're in the staying true because, Ra, you were going through a corporate path where we had a good relationship, you felt very comfortable, and then life forced you to face the music and to, to go into some— somewhere else. In your book, you talk about the story of your father. Like, can you tell us more? Like, we thank you for sharing your own story. What is the story of your father and how did that impact you?

I mean, my father is everything to me. You know, born in the 1920s, he and my mother survived two decades of Jim Crow segregation in this country. Which is hard. Which is hard, right? To raise four rambunctious children, I being the youngest. Wow. So I often, you know, sort of describe myself as a change of life baby born into the intersection of civil rights and hip hop, which is kind of the era within which they raised me. Mm-hmm. Um, but he was a hardworking man. And he was really passionate about the founding principles of this nation, which is interesting because as a Black man, you know, our relationship— and I will say as Black people, often our relationship with the United States of America is tenuous at best. Yeah, it's very tenuous. And we can look at many global regions where we have a history of chattel slavery, or we have a history of some form of indentured servitude, where we have come from a place of not being seen as equal or not being respected to having to really sort of fight for that equality. The relationship— To this day. To this day.

To this day. The relationship continues, right?

But my father believed in the founding principles. And it was sort of regardless of the fact of who was at the table, that the document, the articulation of the vision, was real. This idea of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And he wanted it.

So he believed in the fundamentals of the, this country, the United States of America. And then he was growing up or like trying to figure it out in the Jim Crow era, which was plagued with a lot of civil rights movements, challenges for equality and, and fights.

Right. And it was part of his greatest heartbreak. Yeah. Because he would read this inspiring doctrine But his reality, his day-to-day existence did not mirror that.

It was the opposite of that. Right, exactly.

Didn't have any civil rights. The exact opposite of that. And so he grappled, very much grappled. And so again, sort of being a lover, my father was an avid reader. He was a historian. He was an attorney, a litigator. He worked for Legal Aid. For $12 a day in the 1970s, you know, trying cases for people who just couldn't afford, you know, good legal, uh, support or advice and counsel.

Um, and our home would be filled with his clients, people who were struggling and needed to be a voice. Yeah. They who needed fair representation, needed fair representation. And here you are, the youngest of 4, helping people break through and, and finding their calling.

So, which I think is his unfinished business. You know, I, I think about that, that phrase in the Bible, I am about my father's business. And so for me, the dedication in the book is that I feel that I'm here to carry the lineage of what was at the core of what he was doing. So no, I'm not an attorney, but my work is rooted in liberation. My work is rooted in, uh, in equality. My work is rooted in self-love and self-actualization.

And racial justice as well.

And yes, and justice and equity. And so, um, and, and I wanna say, because I think Katheline Jean-Pierre, so much of what even we're grappling with right now on the front lines of what we know to be diversity, equity, and inclusion is a small fraction of what I think the true vision is, which is really that all people get to be their best. Mm-hmm. That all people get to thrive and that this is not a zero-sum game.

Yeah. Context. That some people are gonna win, some people are gonna lose.

You understand. Yeah. Right? And I think at a fundamental level, because of so much of old paradigm power has ingrained in us this belief that there is not enough, we are forced to make choices that I think contradict the nature of our souls.

And we can give some examples of that, right? So let's say there's 400 years of slavery and then you're the last generation, like I'm the most recent generation, then my son, and then I could go and do a lot of millions of things. But like you have, you talked about the lineage that we want to be able to be the one. For example, for me, I'm the highest earner in my family. I'm the one, the first to graduate from master's degree, and I left Canada to be in the US. And now I worked at Google, LinkedIn, Deloitte, Yahoo, just name all the companies. Yeah. In corporate. And, and if like somebody like me, and there's, there's millions of people like me, and you're like, oh, do I do and go do something super random, or I keep doing what I'm doing? And that's— and the choices and the paradigm is like, after 400 years of slavery, my parents leaving Haiti to be— to go to Montreal where I'm from, but I'm— we're all in Los Angeles right now. It's like, what am I going to do knowing that I'm carrying not just my parents and my grandparents But their parents and their grandparents. So we have this whole lineage like, I need to keep making money. Yeah. The expectations.

Let's talk about that because I think— Yeah, high expectations. I think many of us carry that. Mm-hmm. And then, you know, when we talk specifically about Black women or women of color, we talk about immigrant, right? Women whose families sacrificed in ways we can't even imagine. I can't, I can't imagine what my parents did to, The obligation, the sense of obligation we feel to be pragmatic, because that's really what we're talking about, right? Like, and I'm with you. For many, many years, I mean, I wouldn't let go of my consultant gig because I thought about whose shoulders I was standing on. Mm-hmm. And I had a responsibility to be successful, right?

You even had the choice, right? Some of our parents didn't have the opportunities that are extended to us. Yeah. And then you had like, didn't have the choice. Yeah. Sometimes. And now here you are doing like your father's work. Yeah. Coming out of it. And then I wanna talk a bit more about your book, The Calling. For people, what is a calling and how does one find it?

It is the thing that you just, you cannot run from cuz we all, we all have it. It is the thing that we are called to be, and it is in service to the contribution that we are being called to make. So I describe it in the context of dharma. And a lot of the way that we think about dharma is we think about dharma as our sacred path or duty or obligation or our destiny. But what is also in there is the true essence of who we are. Dr. Wayne Dyer calls it your I am essence. Right? God rest his soul. Your I am essence, your I amness, that part of you that transcends any label or accomplishment or thing you've done. It's what you come in with.

Can you give us like, first, where is dharma coming from? The concept of it.

So the dharma, so in the Hindu lineage, in the Sikh lineage, it is a term that's used to describe or discuss sort of the path or the way, right? Mm-hmm. It's also, if you think about it in the context of Lao Tzu and sort of the world of East Asia, it's known as the Tao, right? So it's this whole idea of the path or the way in which we are being invited or called to move in the world, or called to be in the world. And for me, when I began to study that term or that concept or that idea, that aspect of your true self, for me, I felt wasn't prominent enough in sort of our mainstream understanding of the concept. And so what it all begins with is our ability to come into alignment with our true selves. And we hear that term all the time, right? But for so many of us, we're like, "What does that mean? Where is it?" You know, my joke is like, I'm looking in my hamper, I'm looking in my sock drawer, I'm looking in, you know?

You're not gonna find it there. I can't find it, right? Like this, your book is called The Calling. So when we talk, we think about calling, we think about something that's spiritual. And then you just told us that the calling is a purpose, but also it's related to dharma. It's related to your life. Your life path.

It's your soul. Yeah. It's your soul's calling.

Okay. So it's happening inside of you.

Yes. It's the deepest longing of your soul. Mm-hmm. You know, and, and the way that we find it, you know, is that it's always about what we feel passionate about. It's always about what we feel drawn to. You know, my joke is that there are 360 degrees of inspiration. If you ever wanna know what you care about, don't only look at what inspires you, look at what pisses you off. Mm-hmm. Right? Because anytime we touch our anger or our discomfort or our upset, we're bumping up against a value. Mm. And something that we value. And so our work or our opportunity in being able to understand the nature of our calling is to look at those things that most deeply inspire us, as well as to look at those things that most deeply trouble us.

So let's, let's give a real example. Let's say if I am very like, I hate negative people. Mm-hmm. I, I just, I can't. Yeah. So what does it mean about my values?

Yeah. What does it mean about your values? For those of us who really have a high sense, and I wanna speak this because I don't think we talk about this enough, a heightened sensitivity to negativity. Yes. Like me. It often means that our context and what we're being called to offer and bring is kindness, compassion, and love, right? That there's something about the nature of kindness, or there's something about the nature of honoring others that feels integral to what we value and believe is important.

So if I'm sensitive to negative people and I feel it a lot, so what you're saying is that I should bring more kindness to this person?

Yeah, there's the opportunity, exactly, that your invitation— it's like when we get upset about what's missing it's often in the recognition that whatever is missing is ours to bring.

Aha. I think I love that because it feels like leadership. 100%. If you see problems to solve, you should volunteer. 'Cause some people don't see it. Right. You should volunteer to solve these problems.

It's your, it's, it bothers you because it's the void that you are being invited to fill. Yeah. Now what I will say about this, right? Because sometimes that call is super mom, I used to say, right? Or love to say, or super mogul. Or sometimes it's a combination of both, right? So again, the vehicle, the way, the strategy for how it comes to life. But this idea of recognizing that often what we are most agitated about, and that's the key thing because sometimes there are things that are missing in an environment and we're like, "Well, that's missing.

Wow, that's too bad." We're just gonna tell our boss to go fix it. That's so— You know what I'm saying? Our boss should go fix it, right?

Right, or somebody else should go do it. But when we feel agitated about it, when we can't sleep or we can't stop talking about it or focusing on it, then that's something in there that's got your name on it.

So then it's yours to go solve.

It's your opportunity to start to look at. And when I find those moments for myself, I, and this is again consistent with my own practice, but I ask, okay, what am I to do here? What am I being asked to do here? Mm-hmm. What am I being called to do? The thing that I will also say is many of us, our instincts, our urges, the things that guide us, like sometimes we'll be sitting on the couch, you might be like, you'll feel, call your mother. You have no idea why, but you're being urged to call, or you're being urged to go to the door, or you're being urged to send an email or to have a conversation. Or to reach out to someone, right? I think about— what is that? The serendipity of you and I meeting, right? This conversation.

I felt the urge of interviewing you and getting to know you.

I felt the urge to come, right? It was just, you know, it was a new group, a new environment, a new community, and I just felt the urge to be there. Yeah. And the minute I met you, I was like, oh, got that. Okay, we were meant to meet, you know what I mean? And you all, you will find that synchronicity, that serendipity, that alignment happens more and more and more when we're paying attention, when we're following the guidance, when we're listening.

And just for our audience who doesn't know where we met, so we met at my house because I hosted a Wonder Woman dinner, which is our— this amazing dinners created by Yao Huang.

Yes, shout out Yao and Wonder Woman in the Hatchery.

Yeah, so I welcomed everybody, I opened the doors of my patio, and then everybody had lunch under the trees with flowers And that's when I met you and everybody was invited to present themselves and things that was not on our— that Google didn't know about us.

And for me, you were so welcoming. You were so loving. You were so open. You all know sometimes we can come to events or gatherings and, you know, you want to feel that sense of welcome, but that's not always the vibe. No, it's not always the vibe. Real talk. That's not always the vibe. And for me, the vibe was love. From the beginning. Like, the minute I looked in your face and your eyes and your smile, I was like, oh, this is family.

Oh, this is home. Thank you. I just, I just loved it, and I want to keep hosting these events, and I'm just so happy that we met. Me too. And I'm super excited that I discovered your books and The Calling particularly. How do you help people? Yeah, because you have a technology. Yeah, in your book. Yeah. How do you help people find their purpose?

So this sort of stay true, get paid, do good blueprint is really, you know, um, what my commitment was to the book was to really create a blueprint. Like, if you don't ever talk to me, you have a step-by-step-by-step guide for how to get there. Right. And so obviously it begins with the stay true, which is so much of what we've been talking about.

But it's also hard. Yeah. How do you stay true? Like, whichever countries you're coming from.

Yeah. How do you [Speaker:KATHLEEN JEAN-PIERRE] It's about that being willing to question and challenge what we've been told. There are things that we've been taught that absolutely enliven and empower us, that shape and inform us and give us what we need to thrive. At the same time, there are things that we have been taught or things that we have experienced that have challenged us, that have challenged us in ways that have limited our ability to be our full selves or limited our ability to be in our full capacities, or most importantly, Katheline Jean-Pierre, limited our ability to love ourselves. Mm. Self-love ourselves.

That's super important. 'Cause what I'm hearing— Appreciate ourselves. Yeah. What I'm hearing from you is like we all have limiting beliefs and when you find your purpose, then you can overcome these limiting beliefs.

And I think it's a hand in hand, meaning ideally your calling gives you the incentive. That's how I think about it, right? Motivates you to go. If I'm moving 100%, if I'm moving towards a vision, I got more motivation, right? So it's kind of like if I think about this even in the context of health and well-being, if I'm thinking about that gorgeous gold lamé dress I'm trying to get into, I got a lot more incentive to eat that celery. Come on, y'all, you look amazing. By the way, it's just like the random You know, yo, eat celery, right? And so I just wanna say that, that we are motivated and inspired. And this is, this is the nature of our soul. Our soul is born to aspire. That's what our soul does at the very core and the center of our being. Our soul aspires in the name of supporting our becoming our full selves, our becoming our most powerful selves.

So becoming your most powerful self. Which is in alignment with, or which is your, your calling. Yeah. And which is your purpose in life. Yeah. So now I have so many questions about that. So because you have Stay True, Get Paid, and Do Good. And these three are supposed to work together. Yeah.

So let's talk about it. So yeah, the Stay True journey, this is the beginning, right? Which is sort of the finding, honoring, and embracing your authentic self and learning how to start to love your authentic self, right? That's the Stay True journey. I describe that as moving from victim to vision. And the idea there, when I say victim, is more about being at the mercy of our circumstances, living by default, living in reaction to everybody else's expectations, or living in reaction to what we think is against us, right? Being oppositional in our purpose in terms of how we move, right? And so when we come out of the place of victim and we move to a place of vision, what we begin to understand is that We are the co-architects of our destiny.

You're the creator of your destiny.

You see what I'm saying? Yeah. And it's a co-creative journey, meaning the universe, source, however we wanna describe it. Mm-hmm. Divine providence. The energy has a role to play in collaboration with us, but they're taking orders like a waiter at a restaurant from us. Mm-hmm. When we say, I wanna achieve this, I wanna accomplish this, I wanna move from this, what we have to discern in the context of Stay True is, is that aspiration coming from what we think everybody else thinks we should want? Mm-hmm. Or is it truly a longing of our soul? But how does one do that?

How does one? Yeah. Because like, it's how do you do that? On paper, on paper, in your book, it sounds amazing. I'm gonna tell you how you know. Yeah. You have, you have all the steps. It haunts you.

Hmm. It will not turn you loose. I remember seeing, uh, a beautiful interview with Lin-Manuel Miranda, who is the creator of Hamilton. Mm-hmm. And he talked about the fact that for 7 years, and he just did this, he said, for 7 years, this was Hamilton in my ear, on my shoulder. You need to create it. It needs to come through. It wants to happen. It wants to happen through you. And he kept being distracted, doing other things, creating other things. He was teaching at the time. And, you know, finally he surrendered and said, "Okay, I'm going to do this," you know? And it began with this first kind of monologue rhyme that he did at the social innovation event at the White House when the Obamas were, you know, newly inaugurated into the White House through this big event. And Lin-Manuel Miranda took an excerpt of Hamilton, and that was the beginning for him. Of being able to put that seed out into the water.

So he listened to his calling. It was a gentle tap on the shoulder. It was not like a lifepoint.

I'm sure over the course of 7 years, and we'll have to ask him one day, you and I, but over the course of 7 years, I'm sure that tap got stronger and stronger and stronger to a point potentially where he couldn't sleep, he couldn't eat, he couldn't think about anything else. Wow. Now, the thing that I want to say about this is that I believe we all have some semblance of that. But we've become really adept at pushing it down and moving it aside because after all, we have to be practical. I can resonate. After all, we got mouths to feed, right? We've got children.

We gotta pay the bills.

You see what I'm saying, right? So we have all of the justification to explain why we are not listening to what's nudging us. But the most important thing that I want all your listeners to know, and anybody who has the great fortune to pick up the book, if that's where you're being guided or called, is that whatever assumption we have about what we have to trade to answer is the place where I'm going to work. Because that's the lie. Mm-hmm. That's the lie that what you have to sacrifice is so painful, right? That you won't be able to take care of yourself is why the Get Paid is a section in the book. Yeah. Right? Because the book was really written in response to the 3 biggest questions I would get. Mm-hmm. In terms of what would stand in the way of people answering their purpose, or answering a calling, right? One was, so who am I? Who do I think I am to deserve this life? Who do I think I am to be this person that I'm being called to be? Who do I think I am to do this podcast or take that stage or write that book? Or you all know, right? Or take that role in that corporation or lead those people all the time. This is all the fear and the doubt and the insecurity that often can hold us hostage, right? Second question always is anytime we find something we're passionate about, there's a belief that we have to trade passion for money. It is a big belief that either you got passion and you loving what you're doing and you're, you know, making a difference in the world, or you, or you, and you're starving, or you making the big bucks, right?

There is a dichotomy, right? That is, there's no way.

It's deeply ingrained in our culture. It's deeply ingrained in the zeitgeist. It's deeply ingrained in every single one of our belief systems that you have to trade. And that is the second place where I go to work because I believe, especially given the level of innovation and evolution that is occurring and the speed at which innovation and evolution are occurring in our society right now. I mean, listen, think about it. 10 years ago, did we know what a blogger was? 10 years ago, did we know what a— 15, okay? Because I was, I was blogging.

I was blogging in French.

15 years ago, did we even know? But, but But like, there was never even a role called a blogger. And now you have people who are making massive contributions.

Like creators, yeah.

Bloggers and podcasts. And you see what I'm saying? And influen— well, we didn't know what an influencer was. Now we know the work of influencers is older than dust, right? In other words, we've always had people who have been here to inspire us. We've always had people who've been here to guide us. But there's something about the democratization of technology and the way in which it's now allowed people to have the tools to answer their calling and their purpose more readily and more easily, which are things that we all should be celebrating. Because the truth of the matter is, I think that so much of what we are in is the age of the citizen. I talk again, I talk about this in the book. We're in the age of the citizen, which is all about what are you here to do and how can we support and facilitate you in doing what, you're here to do, right? Because that's the way we get the world we want.

I think it's super interesting because like a lot of people are afraid of this purpose or their calling or what they're here to do. You have an exercise that's called the belief exercise inventory, the belief inventory. How do you help people via this workshop that seems powerful, which is the belief inventory?

Yeah, so when we really want to take a visionary stance in the center of our lives, it begins with paying attention to what we believe. Very successful people, right? And I'm talking about true success, whole success, right? I'm not sort of talking about piric success, right? Not just money, right? I'm talking about whole success, right? Where you're— you are, uh, whole in your mind, your body, your spirit. You have relationships that are healthy. You are doing things that you love, right? The bigger, much bigger function than just the acquisition of the material, right? Though that may be in there.

Because a lot of people are very rich but very depressed, sad, not happy, not fulfilled.

Yeah, right. But I'm talking about true success, which is really happiness, joy, and fulfillment, and a sense of real contentment and peace with who you are and what your life is about, right? That, right, is really a, a, a function of alignment. It's a function of alignment. It's a function of really recognizing what your values are, really paying attention to that unique combination of talents and gifts. Those things that you bring that really make a difference. Often I say to people, they don't know, what do I bring? Or what makes me different? Or what makes me interesting? I say to them, ask the people in your life, like, what are the things that people are always coming to you for? Yeah. Right? And it may not be your job. Right?

It may be something totally different.

You see what I'm saying? Yeah. It may be, but you are in, anytime you're in a job environment, people are coming to you for it, or in your family or in your community, you are the one whose door people knock on. Those are all clues to what your purpose and your calling are. Mm-hmm. Right? The get paid part of the journey, right? So that's the stay true victim deficient, but get paid part. Really comes into play when you are willing to move from scarcity to abundance. Hmm. And so again, we look at what you believe. We have to come back because everything— I started to say, right? Successful people pay very close attention to what they believe. And it isn't just like, oh, I believe this. I'm always gonna believe this. There are certain things for us that that will be the case. But there are other things where we are constantly updating the file. It's kind of like if you think about your operating system on your computer or your phone, we need to update the file from time to time.

You refresh your beliefs, refresh your beliefs. So you do this belief exercise inventory, belief inventory, and then you have— in Get Paid, you have multiple steps. One of the step is forgiving the constraints of your financial past. Yeah. Can you tell us more about what where people are scared.

We carry a lot of shame around financial mistakes that we've made. And it's interesting in the sense of sometimes trauma or disappointment or tragedy can impact our finances. Mm-hmm. Because it impacts the way that we view ourselves.

And the way that we view money as well.

And the way that we view money as well. 100%. So any place where we have shame, any place where we have guilt. For some of us, that's stood in the way of us getting the knowledge and information we need. In other cases, it's influenced choices we've made to do things or not do things. For some of us, we've made big financial mistakes. So there's a lack of self-trust. Mm. And a lack of self-belief. Often in my experience, when I find people who are struggling with money, it's more about what they believe about themselves. Wow.

Can you give us an example of like a, a person that you coach or like a summary, a fake person? Yeah. Cause we don't wanna name names.

So, so there, there's an example in the book where I talk about an incredible entrepreneur who had built a really successful business and they were wanting to kind of go to another level of expansion and growth and they were really being challenged. And what happened was that the business, which had been normally really thriving, was starting to actually go the other way. Mm. And we all reach these points, you all, in our life and in our work where we continue to do the things that were winning for us in the beginning. All of a sudden we hit a plateau and those things that we're doing are not winning anymore. Yeah. And in this particular case, she came in to work with me and as we began to explore and talk a little bit more, we discovered that she had hired someone on her team who had become very antagonistic toward her.

Hmm. So somebody was toxic. Bringing some negativity in the culture.

And she was tolerating.

Mm. Because the culture is what you allow, not what you create on a beautiful slide.

She was tolerating and had a lot of justifications for why, right? Because— and we experience this, as we know, in corporations with our corporate leaders a lot as well. You know, shout out Deepa Parshathama, my sister, and information in our work with Power Redefine. We talk about the toxic rock star. Right. The great performer who puts the sales numbers on the board but wreaks havoc every place else.

Yeah. The person who gossips, bring a lot of negative energy, was always backstabbing and, and chatting.

Yeah. Doesn't know how to inspire people, doesn't know how to work in collaboration with others. Right. Yeah. All those things. And so the challenge there was recognizing that she had a lot of shame. And anger and hurt around the experience of working with this person. And of course, the person she was most angry with was herself. Mm-hmm. Right? Because she had somehow allowed herself to wind up in this situation. And so we began to talk about what would it take to shift the conversation before we got fired the person. Because if we didn't deal with the core conversation or the core belief She would just replace that person.

Yeah, you replace and then the same cycle and the same behavior comes back cuz there's something on the person that was toxic, but there's also something on the leader or the founder of the company where they can't address. This is where your toxic behavior, where your belief system comes in. And then you work with, with this person for on the belief inventory to figure out where is it that you're allowing this and how is it that you can transform it. Yeah. Or how can you transform it?

100%. And so what she came to understand was that at a young age, she was responsible for her family. Mm-hmm. And keeping the peace and making sure everybody got along and making sure that everything worked well. And she had been playing that role out in her company. And that if anybody was not happy or anybody was not sort of aligning, that it was her fault.

So she put all the blame on herself.

And so it wasn't until she could see that and even understand the origin of that story and where that narrative got created before she could actually access the ability to change it and create a new narrative and create a new story.

Yeah, I think that's super important because in your book, I think, thank you for sharing that. In your book, you talk about staying true and we talked about how to stay true, look at your beliefs, and then getting paid and then doing good. I want to go into the getting paid because there's an inauthenticity, and we talked about it earlier because it's a bit of a trifecta.

Yeah, right.

So like staying true, getting paid, doing good. How do you get paid while staying true? Like we talked about the constraints of your belief, we talked about like forgiving yourself and your financial past. Yeah, but what are the other ways to ensure that you —paid in a sustainable way that's good for you, good for the planet, good for— aligns also with, with your purpose.

Yeah. So the big thing again that we've gotta heal is this belief that we have to trade, that it isn't possible to trade us, to be our authentic selves and make great money. It isn't possible to do what we love and make great money. And we have a lot of narratives, right, in our mainstream society that tell us that it's not possible. Yeah. So when we come to this conversation of getting paid, one of the questions I ask in the work all the time when I work with leaders is, what is your money truth? Mm. So there's the, like, what you've inherited, and we do deep work around exploring what it is that you've inherited, right? Because all of us have inherited a series of messages and conversations about money is what you said before, right? From our parents, from society, everywhere. Parents, from society. From mentors, from institutions that we frequented, right? For some of us, we've got deep spiritual beliefs that have a particular perception about money and the role of money that may be in the way of our ability to experience or feel our full sense of— Mm-hmm. —abundance and prosperity. So we look deeply at what we've inherited, but then we also look at, but what feels true? True? And this is a question that I encourage us, if you do nothing else in the conversation today, just start to ask yourself that question.

What feels true about money?

What feels true about money? And what feels true about what I want to create when it comes to my money? What feels true about the way I wanna earn my money? What feels true about the kind of people that I wanna collaborate and work with? Mm-hmm. Or the kind of people that I wanna serve. And this is the place where we then start to see our values begin to emerge and what we value, right? And so again, in our traditional sort of belief or conditioning, we're told, well, that doesn't matter. You just gotta go get that check. You're gonna work with people you hate. You're gonna be in toxic environments. You're gonna do things you don't wanna do. You're gonna have to go against your instinct.

Yeah. It's okay to have PTSD. You understand? It's okay to have insomnia. Step over all of that. And I think it doesn't matter. Matter as long as you have a lot of money in your bank account. And hopefully you just don't spread it all on the houses and cars.

And, and this, this leads me literally, Katheline Jean-Pierre, to, to the second book which is coming, is that I think we are done stepping over the elephant in the room. I think we are done stepping over those things that at some point in our life become undigestible to some toxic behaviors.

So what we tolerate, right?

And our threshold of tolerance, right? And so in the work of getting paid, it is really about being willing to challenge those status quo beliefs that tell us that we can't. Now, here's the truth. We have lots of examples of people who have followed their vision. Yeah. Who have followed their calling.

You have like Deepak Chopra.

Incredible contributions. Right. Ariana Huffington. Listen, Venus and Serena Williams. Mm-hmm. Right. I mean, we can name, we can look in just about every field of endeavor, right? I, I think about Beyoncé and, and the power of this Renaissance tour, right? Shout out to those of you who went to the tour or participated in the tour. It's billions of dollars deeper in, in what was the art and the music was a commitment to family and safety and freedom and self-expression. And when you look at some of the great creators of our world, whether they're in, you know, business or finance or investment or art or technology, they are dreamers at their core.

And they're able to make the dream a reality because in your book you talk about celebrating new ways of doing business. Yeah. And how does one celebrate those new ways that are not like struggling in a 9 to 9 or 9 to 5, however you want to call it, working with toxic people around you?

How do you break to honor what's important? And sometimes that's— it begins with, with very, very small steps. Speaking up at the coffee cooler, like, okay, you know, that wasn't cool.

Yeah, this doesn't align. Not working for me. I'm not going to tolerate this behavior.

Sometimes it's asking for support.

I need your help.

I have a big project or I've just gotten a big role. I think, and this is a big one for us as women of color and a big one specifically for us as Black women. Mm-hmm. We deserve to be supported. Yeah. We deserve to ask for support. Every great visionary leader contributor to our modern and our ancient society did not do it alone.

No, you need like shoulders to rely on. You need advisors, sponsors, mentors.

Our ability to start to do business in a new way is our ability to begin to consider what would it look like if more of the values I hold were present. And your company may not be the one to usher those in. You may be the one.

Yeah, because in your book you talked about monetizing with someone else's company, and then you talk about monetizing within your own company, being an untrap— being an entrepreneur. Yeah. And those are different paths and people can follow different paths. Yeah. What's your advice for people who need to figure out, should I be an entrepreneur or should I be an entrepreneur?

An entrepreneur.

Yeah.

I think for entrepreneurs, often you're, you have a strong vision.

Mm-hmm.

You can feel it moving through you. There's something very specific that wants life and it wants you shaping it from the very beginning. Mm-hmm. Right. It's an idea, it's an innovation, it's a solution and you can feel it, right? And you, you're, you're a little bossy because you want your vision to happen. You don't, you don't necessarily want to work for somebody else. You really want to be calling the shots, right? And so, you know, the other thing I would say with entrepreneurs, and I do, by the way, give 13 criteria in the book, as you know. Yeah. Like, that help you sort of identify, are you an entrepreneur? But here's the thing, even bigger than that, Katheline Jean-Pierre, which I believe that all of us need to be thinking entrepreneurially. Yeah. Anywhere we are, right?

Because launch initiatives that are gonna drive impact.

We are committed to contribution. Mm-hmm. Whether we're in a corporation, whether we're in a small business, whether we're in our own shop, every single one of us should be looking at our relationship to the mission and we should be looking at what's the contribution that we're here to make to the mission. Yeah. Right. And that is across the board. And so, So when I talk about this idea as a leader, whether you're in an organization or whether you're running your own shop, you have an opportunity to bring your values. It's important. I think a lot of people don't feel permission, especially in larger organizations. Yeah. They're like, well, this seems to be what's accepted. Well, I need to play by the rules.

This, yeah.

Sometimes you have to be the leadership that's rewarded. Yeah. Well, this, and, and I really do wanna say to you all, and I know This is a provocative thing to say. We have more room than we think we do.

Hmm. So that's extremely, extremely powerful. In, in your book, when you start talking about doing good, you talked about conditioned victimhood. You talk about it's to monetize your true calling. So all that you are and do is in perfect alignment with who you want to be and what you want to see in the world. And in that section of doing good, you also talk about the 3 L's, which I think is, is super important and interesting because you— I'm going to read like this portion about sustainability because driving impact is also about how can people drive impact in the world for climate, in AI leadership, in their career. And I'm going to read that paragraph. In 2015, more than 190 world leaders gathered at the United Nations and committed to 17 sustainable Development Goals, the SDGs, to help us all end extreme poverty, fight inequality and injustice, and also fix climate change by the year 2030, which is actually in 6 years. Yeah, they've widely published these ambitious goals with the belief that each of us has a role to play if we're going to achieve the vision of a more prosperous, equitable, and sustainable world. And then you go on to say, now take a moment to revisit your articulated purpose from your 3 L's, right, which is live, love, and lead. And then you talk about where does your purpose align with these goals, and you talk about the 17 objectives. Can you talk to us a little bit more about live, love, and lead, your, your framework to, to be able to do good?

And this is the new formula for success, right, that I put forth in the book. This is what I call the True Pay Good formula for success. And how you live is about your values and what you value. Mm-hmm. We've been talking a lot about values today, and every single one of us has a set of values that we're operating from. Mm-hmm. Whether we know it or not, whether we acknowledge it or not, whether we understand it or not, we do. And our opportunity is to start to consider, when I look at how I'm moving in the world, when I look at the things I'm saying yes to, when I look at the things I'm bringing my energy and my attention to, to what degree are my values in alignment? Guiding the way. Come on. Mm-hmm. Guiding the way, right? So how you live is really getting to the core of the principles and the convictions that actually guide the way you wanna operate and show up. Mm-hmm. How you love is about your mission, right? Which is about your work in the world, which is about your call. What are you here to bring? What are those those unique combinations of talents, gifts, and abilities that you have been given to share, whether you've acquired them or cultivated them over time, or whether you just kind of came in with them. Yeah, right. They were just yours to bring to this world. But this opportunity to really look at, am I working in alignment with my unique talents and gifts and abilities? In other words, am I bringing my unique talents and gifts and abilities to bear on whatever environment I'm working inside of.

And if not, then that's an— that's a call to be able to find your purpose.

Huge opportunity. So go, okay, I'm not in alignment, because this is a conversation of alignment. Yeah, I'm not in alignment. No judgment, but just an acknowledgment of what you're— what you're noticing and observing.

And with Move the Crowd, you're helping people go from conditioned victimhood to— also, you talk about in your book about becoming a contribution. Exactly. And being a conscious creator. And you talk about You say you are creative and that's a superpower. Tell us more about being creative as a superpower.

Yeah. So the lead part, this is sort of connects to the third aspect of the Live, Love, Lead. The lead part is what you're here to, what you are being called. I describe it as the passionate impulse that guides you towards the opportunities or challenges you most want to affect in the world. Mm-hmm. So for some of us, it's about bringing brand new innovations. For others of us, it's about solving entrenched issues. Whatever the case may be, often it's a combination of all of the above, but the idea is the passionate impulse, the thing that haunts you, the thing that won't leave you alone, that is yours. And so when we start to work with our conscious co-creative power, it's with the belief that we can make a difference. Right? It takes me to this third question, like, so why did I write this sort of good? You know, I said to you, the Stay True was in response to who am I? Mm-hmm. That big question. The Get Paid part of the book was in response to how am I gonna pay my rent? Literally, I give you a blueprint there. The Do Good part was the question really at the heart of that was, can I really matter? And I think a lot of people are asking that question.

Do I have impact? Do I matter?

Yeah. I Really? Yeah. And it's what we want more than anything. So contribution is a need. Hmm. I wanna say that again. Think about it. No matter whose presence you are in, what do people aspire and seek for most? An opportunity to be seen, an opportunity to be heard, an opportunity to make a difference. Most people thrive and strive for making a difference in the lives of other people. They wanna see, even if it's just redesigning a room, you wanna be able to know that when I walked into that room, it looked one way. Mm-hmm. And when I walked outta that room, it looked another way. Right.

So people, so you're saying human beings are wired to want to make a difference and to be able to have impact. Yes. In the world. And the doing good, you also talk about like doing good for our planet. Creating a more sustainable way of living, working, playing, and conducting business.

100%. And your co-creative power is what drives that. So in other words, when we're willing to embrace the fact that we are creative, because we're creating all the time, right? Think about y'all, we speak things into existence whether we want them or not. Oh man, here comes that person, gonna give me a parking ticket. Sure enough, here come the cop next to your car, right? And we don't realize is that when we speak things with conviction, when we speak things with emotion, when we speak things with certainty, that there's an energetic vibration, right? This is where you talk about the law of vibration.

There is an energy vibration, and it's different from the law of attraction, or is it the same? It's the same.

It's the same, right? We're speaking about the same thing. What we're really talking about is frequency. All of us, you know, that this is a science lesson, right? All of us are particles. We are vibrating energetic fields of matter.

Yeah, Joe Dispenza talks a lot about it. Yes, the vibration energy. Oprah talks about it as well.

Yes, and we call it, you know, listen, we also have slang for it. It's your vibe. Oh yeah, you know, we'd be like, I don't like her vibe.

I don't like her vibe.

That's the energy, that's the frequency that you're emitting. So we all emit, but so do the other things around us. We are field, a magnetizing or repelling field. And so what happens is when you pay attention to your energy, which is really your belief system, right? Like expressing itself. I'm going to say that again. It's your belief system expressing yourself. When you pay attention to your energy, what happens is that the vibration begins to rise. To elevate.

Do you believe that there's people with high vibration and people with low vibration?

I believe that we have access to the full spectrum. And I think some of us hang out in low vibe, and I think some of us hang out in high vibe, and then I think a lot of us vacillate between.

Yeah, within the day, within minutes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's going on? The vibe can be funky, right? Yeah. But what's important, especially when we think about doing good and making our difference in the world, is that when we allow the creative energy that is ours to move through us, when we bring our full intention to our passion and to our commitments, there's a way in which that magic begins to show up in our day-to-day world, right? So within, so without. So when we're doing our work— because this is also why I say the alignment with your work is important, because you have— there's a difference between good work and your work. Yeah, work that has your name on it. When you align with the work that has name on it, your purpose is fire.

And it's— it has— it can drive a lot of impact. And for our listeners, our listeners are hoping to become changemakers, or they're already changemakers but they want to drive more impact. What are your top 3 tips for people who want to drive impact in their career?

One, start to pay attention to where the fire is for you. Where are you passionate? El fuego. Yes, the fuego, right? And that's like, where are you inspired? Where are you excited? Right? And there are things that you're naturally drawn to, and sometimes you have no idea why you're drawn to them, but you just are. Start to trust that more. Start to believe in that more. Also notice where you pissed off. Yeah. Notice where you're upset. Notice where you really ready to take it to the streets, literally and metaphorically. Right? Begin to observe. And what is the issue or what is the challenge? Associated with that. Also notice when you're engaging with people, where are you falling in love? Mm. Right? For some of us, we're called to work with the little ones. Yeah. For others of us, we're called to work with women. For others of us, we're called to work with men. Whatever the, the call is, the nature of your call is in terms of who you're here to serve, start to pay attention to that. And then just begin to ask yourself, and you can do this, you all, on a microscale. I'm going into this meeting right now at 9:00. What's the difference I want to make? Yeah.

What is your purpose for this call? Boom. What's the outcome and the difference with the impact that you want to drive? That's amazing. Those are, those are amazing tips. Thank you so much. And for people specifically who want to drive impact in the climate, in the world, in racial equity, what are your, what would be your top 3 tips? Because you've been able to be an activist as well.

The UN Sustainable goals provide an incredible framework to help us get clear about where the areas of impact reside. So I, you know, it's in the book, you all. I give you the, the graphic, I give you the rundown. I also give you the different social impact strategies, the way some of us work on culture and shifting paradigm, other us feel called to shifting policy, other us feel called to frontline organizing, So you'll be able to discern what it is for you, but literally you'll have a step-by-step blueprint to develop your own do-good strategy. But it starts with your passion. Mm-hmm. What's the change? What's the transformation? Who do you most wanna serve? What are the talents and gifts that you really wanna express and share and bring in service to that issue? In service to that community, that population. And then allowing that to start to take shape and form. The other thing that I wanna say is it doesn't look any one way. I think traditionally we've had sort of an opinion about what activism looks like. Yeah. Yeah.

'Cause some people see it as like we have to march in the street, we have to like chain ourselves to some buildings and, or parade half naked.

Right. And there are people—

For women's rights, for climate action, for different reasons.

There are people who never would embrace those titles. They do not see themselves those ways, but they are absolutely transforming their communities. I mean, I want you to think about like the grandmother, the auntie. Yeah. That gets the whole neighborhood aligned around the community watch or gets the whole neighborhood aligned around the community cleanup, right? Yeah. Every day, ordinary people making extraordinary commitments in the name of love to themselves and one another.

So you have the power to drive impact, and it's super impressive. I want to hear more from you. What is next from you? Because you wrote, um, The Calling. You also have an undo book, which is a coaching program around money. Yes, and money making change. In 2020, during the pandemic, you created Nformation, which was for more women of color.

Yes. So what's next Next. So I am working on the second book. Mm. Which is all about the reset on ambition. Ooh. And the way in which I believe this new definition on ambition and success is emerging specifically post the Great Resignation. Okay. So that book is coming. Shout out Wiley. That book is coming soon. Uh, my publishers. Um, and also building on the work of Nformation, which worked with women of color leaders from all walks of lives, uh, The work of that sort of community, um, is now been, uh, elevated in the sense of the next step of that work is Born to Shine. And what is Born to Shine? High-level mastermind community for women of color, leaders and entrepreneurs who are committed to this next era of urgent— of courage, agency, authenticity, and contribution. So we've got innovations and ideas ideas, and often we sit on them. Yeah. But we are in an era right now, more than ever, where our leadership, our ideas, or our innovations are needed in the world. And so the Born to Shine community gathers in various configurations and constellations, but mostly we do retreats, quarterly retreats. Mm-hmm. We go all over the world and the intention is to create spaces where those ideas can be nurtured.

That's amazing. So we're looking forward to your next book, which is Reset. It is.

Well, the— so we don't know the name or the title. I, I, the working title, um, I, I, I, I actually won't say, but I will say that it, that the core of it is about ambition. Okay. The core of it is about the way in which we want to reimagine our relationship to work.

Mm-hmm.

In service to our highest contribution and in service to our most authentic selves.

That's amazing. So Born to Shine is coming. There's also a book that's coming. In 2011, you started, uh, Move the Crowd where you coach You've coached most, like, hundreds-plus people who ended up being New York Times bestseller. Um, tell us more about the people that you've coached, because some people are very famous, and we'll have it on the website in your bio. And, and so, are you still coaching people one-on-one?

So we serve thousands and thousands of leaders every year with the different constellation and configurations of our programs. Um, some of the, the luminary leaders that you're talking about, we've had the privilege to work with people in various aspects of life and sectors of contribution. You know, people like Gabrielle Bernstein and the Spirit Junkie movement, Reshma Saujani, founder of Girls Who Code and Moms First, um, Amara Jones, who just this past year, uh, made the list for Time magazine's 100 most influential people.

Wow, congratulations!

Shout out to Amara, founder of the TransLash movement and the TransLash media movement. Um, and many of them incredible, incredible people like that. And, and you know, I, what I will say is whether those leaders are really well known or not as well known, what they all share in common is that they are living their lives. They are walking their paths. They're responding to their purpose and calling, and they're doing it in a way that is true, that is paid is good. They are whole people. Experiencing whole success. And that's really for us the biggest con— you know, sort of contribution to the work is to be able to put more incredible people in the world who can really have that alignment. Yeah. And express that alignment.

So are you saying that anybody can find their calling? Anyone? Do you think everybody has a calling?

I do. Super mom, super mogul. Yeah. I do. Do you think it's gonna take—

how long does it take to— for someone to find their calling? Yeah.

I think for some of us it comes at birth. We know, right? I think about an interview, a beautiful interview with Lady Gaga where she talked about, you know, before she could even almost walk at 2 and 3, she was sort of reaching up to the piano and putting her finger on the keys.

Like she was attracted to the piano. Yeah.

That it was what it, what it was for her. Other people, they can be 75 and find it. You know what I mean? If I think about one of the oldest bodybuilders, I cannot remember her name. I just saw a beautiful spread of her in a wellness magazine. She's like 81. She started working out at like 68 or something. Wow. Right. And so it's like, and now she's like one of the top wellness— Wow. Wellness experts.

You can start working out now.

It's never too late. And that's the thing I really want all of us to know. And at the same time, now is the time.

And now is the time. In your book, yeah, in your book you talk about like this collective trauma. Are you saying that now is the time because we're coming from the pandemic, 2020 was hard, all the racial equity challenges, the death of, of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, all those murders.

And we have undergone an awakening.

Yeah. And then COVID just forced us at home to figure ourselves out.

Yeah. We have all— we are not the same people we were 3 years ago. So, you know what I mean? Yeah. And that's the case in a normal cycle. But given what we've gone through has been unprecedented. Yeah.

That was the word. You know what I mean?

And we are not the same. And every single one of us, and this is, okay, so now I'm gonna give the title cuz it just feels like it's there. Yeah. The Great Renegotiation. We are in the midst of a great renegotiation. This is the, the title of the second book. This is the work that's coming. But I believe that every single one of us is really starting to ask ourselves, what are we really here for? And what are we no longer willing to tolerate?

So we're defining our non-negotiables and we're taking actions towards it because we're coming out of a massive collective trauma and we're not willing. And we got new terms and conditions. Yeah, sign here.

We got new terms and conditions under which we are willing to play. And bang, we owe it to ourselves to find out what those terms and conditions are. We owe it to ourselves even more to begin to honor those terms and conditions, whether we're doing it in little ways or big ways. Like I said, it can begin at the water cooler.

I love it, I love it. It's like the fine prints at the bottom of the ad are going to be blown up and it's going to be on the screen, and it's 100%. We're not negotiating. No, it's going to be out in the world, just like COVID brought up all the dirt.

And we're going to come to the table in our full power, and we're going to invite those who are negotiating with us to come in their full power. And I think one of the biggest things One of the questions somebody recently asked me in connection to this new book, they said, "What do you think is going to be the future of work?" I said, "If I have anything to do with it, it is going to be the transformation of the us and them paradigm." And who's us?

Who's them? Us as a worker?

Us as the worker, them as the leader of the corporations. Like, we— and we don't talk enough about it, Katheline, right? Because it's not, you know, this is provocative to say.

People say it's Gen Z is redefining the way that we live the world.

But we're going to have to opportunity to dissolve the construct of the man. And we are now going to become partners in starting to look at what needs to happen with our institutions and our vehicles to really architect the new world. Wow. Right? And that's what I think wants to be born. Mm-hmm. And I don't think it's any mistake that we are seeing the entrenchment of violence in, in various corners of the world that we're starting to see right now. Because I sort of feel like in, in many ways, as horrific as it is, it is starting to lay the ground for something different, right? So there's a big shakeup. When do we go?

Enough is enough. Yeah. The lid just blows off and, and the seam goes off. So thank you so much, Raw Goddess. We were with Raw Goddess at Driving Impact. I feel like it was It's been a privilege to engage with you, privilege to read your book. I'm so inspired. I'm excited about the second book. So when is it coming?

It will be the spring of 2025. Okay.

The Great Renegotiation. We're super excited. Thank you so much. And we'll have all the details about where to find you on— in your bio on our website. And I just feel very privileged and honored to have spent this hour with you.

Thank you, Katheline Jean-Pierre. Thank you so much for your amazing work and all that you do. And clearly this is your calling, and I'm so privileged to have been a part of it. Thank you.

Thank you. It's so funny because like I've been thinking for like 15 years, I need to launch a YouTube channel, I need to launch a podcast. Didn't do it, and I just decided to jump. So I'm excited. Yes. Thank you, Ra. Have a good one. Bye-bye, Driving Impact Collective.