108. Embracing Diversity in a Small Town

Our guest on today's episode is Cecily Engelhardt, and she joins us today to talk about something, you know, that I've written about in the past. It happens to be one of the core values for Growing Small Towns as an organization, and then also one of the core values that we believe that if more small communities would embrace, that we'd really move forward as a small town. And so Today we're talking about diversity. We're talking about how to take the lens of embracing the differences and celebrating the differences in humans. And again, this isn't just a conversation about culture and ethnicity, and it certainly isn't just about race. It's about acknowledging that it's the differences in us that make us rich, and embracing that diversity makes us a better community overall. And I asked Cecily to join us based on some of the work that she's done in the DEI space from an organizational and kind of capacity building perspective. But honestly, I am on an advisory council with Cecily for a nonprofit that we both care about, and she just has such a beautiful presence and countenance about her. She's easy to speak to, she's easy to talk to, and some of what we discuss, even in the course of this conversation, it's challenging. And I'm just so grateful to her for holding the space for me. I actually reveal moments of my own ignorance in this conversation, and that's not an easy thing to step into doing. But Cecily made it— it's not just that she made it easy for me to be ignorant, but she holds a lot of space and a lot of grace. And that's a really important element of this conversation. And so I am honored and proud of this episode, and I hope that it makes you think about who we are in our small towns and who we really want to be. And just what would an opening of our minds and our hearts collectively look like? So as always, get out some pen and paper and send us your thoughts and your feelings about this one. But please just sit back and enjoy and really take in the wisdom of my good friend Cecily Engelhardt. Hey Cecily, welcome to the Growing Small Towns show.

Hello, thank you for having me.

Oh my goodness, you know, I always get excited to bring people on the show because we only really feature cool people. It's kind of what we do here, which is really fun. You are a real delight for a lot of reasons. And you know, you and I had a really cool conversation just a few weeks ago, and I was sharing with you that one of the things we're trying to do at Growing Small Towns is articulate the core values of who we are as an organization a bit more and help translate those into community values. They're the things that we think small towns need to be thinking about, right? And so we started kind of talking about this, and I brought up this concept and this idea of celebrating differences and what that really means to us and what that really means to me. And I couldn't think of a better person that I've met to date to help frame out this conversation because you're just such a generous soul. You're so kind, you're so decent. And I, this is not an easy conversation all the time to have. It's just frankly, it's not. I think this is one of the downfalls potentially of some of our small communities is that we aren't, it's not a downfall. We're not disparaging anybody here, right? It's maybe a limitation of our communities and it's holding us back from, I think, meaningful change and transformation and growth as a community. So I'm really, I'm so thankful to you for being here and kind of sharing this topic with me.

Absolutely. Very glad to be here. And yeah, looking forward to everything we'll talk about.

Yeah. So when I think about celebrating differences, for me, it is not just typically like when you talk about diversity, equity, and inclusion, right? Which is that for our small communities, I don't even know if that is a topic that gets discussed that much. It's kind of a more of a corporate thing, right? At least that particular phrasing on it. Companies are being tasked now at a corporate level with thinking about what are your actual policies on these things. It definitely impacts our communities though. So, but as soon as we start talking about diversity, right away people's brains go to racial, ethnic, cultural, all of that. I'm simply talking about the fact that like men and women historically maybe think differently. And what does that look like if we'd be more open to that? It's the way people think, it's the way people process, it's the way people dress, it's everything. Anything that could be a difference. I want us to get better at celebrating that. So for our listeners who haven't met you yet, can you share just a bit about who you are, what your background is, what your intersection of this topic looks like for your personal life, your professional life, whatever you're willing to share to kind of provide some context for the listener?

Yeah, for sure. My name is Cecily Engelhardt. I'm Ihaŋktōŋaŋ in Oglala. I grew up in the southeastern part of South Dakota for many, many years of my life. I didn't leave the state until I was about 22 years old, and then I left in a big way. I went and lived in New Zealand for a year, went to school there, came back, helped take care of my grandfather who was in his last year of life. And after he passed, I went to graduate school for a couple of years in California. And then I came back to South Dakota, which was not something that I really anticipated doing when I was young. But the beautiful, beautiful thing about traveling, and I think the thing that I've been really blessed to experience in both my professional and personal life, is being able to be away from home where it's easy to have a long list of critiques about where you're from.

Right.

Being in other places and especially doing so not just for a visit and not just to see highlights of a place, but to really be and sit in a place for a long period of time. Every place has its challenges. Everywhere has its challenges, just like everywhere has its beauty and its unique features and all of that. And so I think that for me personally, the choice to come back to South Dakota was really rooted in, it's my home, you know, it's where I have roots. It's a meaningful place to me. And professionally, you know, once I graduated, I got my master's degree in social documentation, which is a really bizarre degree.

What is that? What is social documentation?

So I had my undergrad in American Indian Studies with a minor in Women's Studies. And in my undergrad, I was trying to double major for a while, and I changed my second major 6 times in 4 years. So that gives you an idea. Like, I love learning.

You're multi-passionate.

I am very much.

Yeah, I love that.

Yeah. So after I graduated, I'd learned so much about so many different kind of sectors, if you will, but I understood how they all related to Native communities and was just really interested in doing a deeper dive in relation to food and media. And I wasn't sure what that meant, but I wanted to do like some kind of project in relation to food. And so I applied for this really unique program I'd heard about through a friend, and the social documentation program at UC Santa Cruz. It was basically like a crash course in filmmaking for me because I'd never done any kind of filmmaking.

Oh, that's social documentation. I get it now. I was legitimately thinking about like processing physical documents. That's where my brain went right And I was like, what?

What?

Like, you learned how to fill out forms? I'm so confused. But now I get it.

Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, it's like storytelling.

Storytelling. Yeah. And the beauty of it was that the first year you're learning not only like the nuts and bolts of film and, you know, how to use a camera and, you know, all these different things from really, really just incredible filmmakers, but then you're also learning like the social ethical side of things and like What does it mean to show up in a community? What does it mean to like tell their story? What does it mean? Da da da da da. And for me it was like, well, this is one of the opportunities personally where it's like, I'm not going somewhere else to tell a story. I'm going home and I'm interested in my home and I'm telling our story. And so I created a short film, which I had, I've never fully released because I was like, it's not done yet. And now I'm like, okay, I just gotta release it and say it was a student project. But it was really meaningful, a meaningful process to me. And that one of the people I interviewed, In the process, I actually, like, in the process of saying, "Is this okay? Can you look through the film, make sure you're all good with, you know, everyone in the film?" I let them look through it. And then they were like, "What are you doing after you graduate?" I was like, "Well, I'm working for you." So I ended up going to work at Thunder Valley CDC for a while, working there for about 2.5 years. And then I worked at First Peoples Fund in Rapid City, South Dakota. And then I started working with what I'm doing now. Which is I work part-time for Hope Nation Consulting doing consulting work, and I also am the director of advancement for a nonprofit, Seven Fires. And so I like to do all kinds of things, and I have shaped my career to kind of do that. And I think as a Native person, I get noticed that I get pulled into the DEI conversation a lot. And you're exactly right. Like, the corporate aspect is, I think that's the primary driver. In a lot of instances. And so I think the thing I appreciate about the conversation we're going to have today, and some— something I've been thinking on was like, when it's not about your corporate external facing, right?

Right.

It's not about like checking a box, when it's not about whatever, when it's really truly on a deeper level about what your community values and how you go about that expression of interacting, building relationship, etc., that's when we get into something that I feel like creates a stronger base for celebrating difference.

Agreed.

Yeah.

Oh no, like so agree. So I, I wrote a blog post about this value, like, and how I feel about this value. And I'll be honest, I wrote right in it, like, I'm a white Christian girl. Literally, I just said, like, those are just facts. So then the question could absolutely be like, who are you to bring this up? And I, I'm not a big fan of that kind of language to begin with. Like, I'm bringing it up because I care and I'm concerned about kind of how stilted a lot of our respective— maybe it's largely the Midwest, I think. Again, without like backing this up with research and data, this is mostly anecdotal, okay? But my lived experience. And so I'm just saying that because that's what it is. I think that, and again, I don't think you can argue with the fact that when the majority of the people that you do life with look, walk, talk, act, and think the same, that there is a richness that we're missing, right? There's a richness to all facets of life that we're missing. It's gonna hold our small communities back in really obvious ways if it hasn't already. If we really want to be a place where we are attractive to people, this is to me is a core tenet of— I'm not saying This is gonna be a slow progression. These changes take time. It takes effort. But I wanna be a catalyst for at least that dialogue starting to take place in my place, in my town. Most of my background with this from a corporate level, it's completely about checking boxes. And I actually talk about that in this article, right? It ends up being used, a word when we were on our previous conversation about tokenism. I don't ever wanna be a part of something that we're doing it to look good. And I joke, like, except my hair. Like, okay, my hair and my face. Like, I will absolutely do that to look good. But we're talking about these things that they have to come from a place of honesty and a place of sincerity and a place of care and concern. And if they don't, everybody will be able to sniff that out and it won't matter. So I'm excited to hear from you as like, what are some ways do you think that we can start to generate the transformation of this basic concept of just like, we don't— we're maybe afraid of some of these things because we don't have experience with it. And that doesn't make small town rural people bad people. It doesn't. I don't think that's what it is. I don't think it's willful or nefarious. It's an ignorance, which is a strong word. I mean, like, even just starting here with this piece of what I've said, like, do you have any thoughts about like what we— how we can start to broach this subject in a way that doesn't immediately get everybody tapped into their fear center because it's fear that drives this whole thing, right?

Yeah. I mean, and it's not like I'm some paragon of calm when it comes to the conversation anyway. And I certainly don't claim to have any robust answers. But personally, on what you were talking about between life experience but then also research, that's something that I'm actually strong in, in both capacities. Sure.

Right.

Because how much of my education and my professional work has been heavily, heavily dedicated to if there's an inquiry about anything related to issues of either systemic oppression or where there's marginalization happening or just digging into it. I like to learn. Like, that's already been established, right?

Yep.

So for me, I like to go in and dig around. What do we know about it? What's the information? And I think one of the things that I read— this would have been over 10 years ago now when I was in college— was And I can't remember the source, which is criminal, but—

Well, if we can find it, we can link it in the show notes. You don't have to have it off the top of your brain. We'll figure it. We'll try, listeners. We will try to find the source.

It was talking about how so many of the systems of oppression that we live in, it's kind of like you don't realize it. The difficulty of it is that there's like this denial of the systems that we live in. And I think both the systems and that denial, like the— quote that always sticks with me is that they need not be malicious, intentional, or even conscious, only pervasive enough to be effective.

Right.

And that has stuck with me so much because so many people, when confronted with the idea that something they're saying, doing, believing is potentially harmful or potentially harming other people, there is an instant idea of that challenges their sense of self.

Down to their core. Right. Right. Yeah.

They're like, I'm not trying to harm anyone. I'm not being malicious. Of course, there's people who are outright malicious.

But yeah. Right. For the most part. Yeah. We're talking about just kind of the average. Yeah.

Yeah. Intentional. Right. So that's the thing. It doesn't have to be malicious. It doesn't have to be intentional. It doesn't even have to be conscious.

Yeah.

Just pervasive enough to be effective. And I think that's helpful in the sense that, like, sometimes when we shift to the values conversation, I think that's helpful in understanding each other as people. And values are one of those things that, like, the word has almost lost meaning. I agree.

It's like the core of my work. And I say this all the time, like, they become so cliché because they've been mis— they've been abused and misused, you know, in practice. So I totally agree. I get defensive about it. I'm like, no, they matter. They really matter.

They really matter. Yeah, people don't— it's kind of like, I used to work in comms and communication and stuff. So what brings to mind for me is branding.

Yeah, like there's some people who are really against branding and against—

and I get it, I totally get it. But the idea that you don't have some kind of identity, right? Like as an organization, as a company, as a whatever, like there's some way in which you express yourself or that you want others to understand you as.

Right.

And to me, that would be part of it is like, if you feel like being loud out there, heavy promotion is not your thing, that's okay.

Yeah.

But we could still talk about like what your identity is as an organization. And that's still part of your story and what, yeah, you know, basic language might call a brand identity. And I think it's the same thing for values. You know, people might not know what their values are, but once you get into the process of talking to people, I think values are a really beautiful way to connect and understand each other because there's some commonality there.

Mm-hmm.

But then there's also the reality that you can uphold a value and the principles by which you arrive at it are, can be very different.

That's right. And it's a way for you as a company or as an individual, if you're on your own standing out, trying to, again, like there's the attraction and the retention of customers, of residents in a community, of friendships. Of relationships, the attraction of those people into your life and the retention of those people. When it's done through that lens of clearly articulated values, you're much more likely to keep them because you got them authentically. Like I've said, like you can't fake your way into a real relationship with people. You know, you might get 'em, but you certainly aren't gonna keep 'em and it's not gonna be fulfilling for you either way. And so I, I'm a huge proponent of just like values-based living, really, the people that get to hang out with me, it's not checking boxes, but there needs to be alignment at least to some degree. Otherwise, why would you be spending your time with them? Right? Well, it's the same with customers, and it's the same with communities thinking about how do we get residents that want to come and live here. And the hardest thing for me with this, Cecily, is again, not to throw my community under the bus ever, because that's not what I'm saying. But I am saying that if we're not honest about what some of our perceptions of who we are may be, if we can't honestly look at that in the face and be willing to discuss it, nothing's ever going to change. And so it might be hard and it might be challenging. But so one of the places this confronted me really hard actually was we did a second annual rural bus trip where we bring all these people down from Fargo and kind of in the pre bus loading communications, right? I'd sent them a kind of a logistics, here's what to do. And I said, and plus, you know, while you're prepping for leaving this week, come prepared to share why you think people aren't moving back or why people aren't interested in moving or living in a small town. Okay, so there's about 40, 40-some people on this bus and every single person we passed the mic and they shared their input. I would say we just statistically out of that group of people, 80% of them said something related to the fact that there's a perception of a closed-mindedness in a community the size of mine or in a small town, and that people have fears about being able to express who they are, live as the individuals they are freely and without judgment. Like, 80% of the answers came back that way. And, you know, the mic gets back to me, and I said, it hurts my heart to hear this. And yet I also know that if I'm not willing to ask the question and really hear the answer, then nothing's ever going to change. So now here I sit, right? So I have my feelings about it, my perceptions of what I feel like. I do see it. I hear things that make me really sad, frankly. Not all the time, but does it have to be all the time for it to be troublesome? I don't really think so. And then I get this feedback from these people who are willing to tell me what they really think. And all I want to do is figure out how to start and engage in this conversation in a way that includes people. Because inclusion, again, too, it's become this word that's gotten kind of weaponized in some way. And I just don't have the time or the patience for that, Cecily. I'm living in a real community with real people. Don't weaponize the words. Just help. Let's just help work through this together. I want to figure out how we start, where we start. I don't know at a community level that we've ever really tackled this topic. I don't think we have.

So I think one of the main things in my work that's been difficult— I've done some work that's specific to healing and transformation that was part of a larger kind of DEI effort, if you will. And I think because it was so specific to talking about healing and transformation, at least our role in this process, it pulled together all of the years of experience that I had, that my boss has, and all of our kind of collective networks. And we were just really trying to tap on a lot of the wisdom that already exists because so much has been done in this capacity and not just in recent years, right? Like, this is ongoing, right? So I think one difficult thing, the healing and transformation aspect, is I think for a lot of people, this conversation is so difficult because it shatters some beliefs people might have about themselves, about their community, about their history. And that is— that's a grieving process. Definitely a true grieving process. And grief is kind of an unexpected companion. You know, you never know how it's going to show up in anyone.

Sometimes it's so individualized.

It is, you know, it's— sometimes it can be, I gotta isolate, I gotta keep myself away from someone. It can be anger, it can be all kinds of things, right? And so I think that that's a really difficult part of this is there's a lot of information that when I was in college and was like talking to a lot of my friends who are non-native and would tell them things, they were angry. They were like angry, not at me, but they would get angry. Like, why don't I know this? Why don't I know these things? Why have I never heard any of this?

Right.

And it's like, well, there's about 3 million reasons I could give you. You know, it's like, yeah, you know, so-and-so over here is going to say the education system, so-and-so is over here going to say the government, so-and-so is over here is going to say this, that, and the other thing. But it's an interconnected set of things that slowly, as we— like, I think of it like a spider web. As you push the web over here, ripples off and other things move. And looking at the whole tangled web, and sometimes when you just give people the opportunity to have the conversation and inquire, that's one piece. The other piece of it is then when people find out, like, there's something I want to know about someone I don't share the same life experience about. Then there's like differing levels of consent to that, right? Like, because it changes the dynamic of a relationship in a way that means that we're not two people kind of like engaged in getting to know each other. We're suddenly— I'm speaking as a representative of something. And there's like a point where you have to, in a lot of your relationships, be like, if this is something you're really interested in, I would totally recommend XYZ. That's someone who either has written a book or intentionally goes about doing that, right? And so throughout my life and throughout my friendships, that's been something that I have personally negotiated is like people always go, well, if I'm willing to learn, you should be willing to teach. And it's like, if you're a surgeon and I want to learn about being a surgeon and there's levels, years intricacies, I mean, like degrees, like all of this involved, and I say, well, you should be willing to teach me. It's not a fair thing, right? Because that's literally— I can't share to the degree that you're looking for and still maintain my own level of comfort and personal safety in terms of making myself really vulnerable, either emotionally, personally, whatever, however that looks.

Right.

And sometimes it's one of those things like, I want to engage in whatever with you for these reasons versus like talking about residential schools or talking about whatever it might be.

Doesn't that implication that like, okay, I want to learn more about Native cultures and traditions, so Cecily, you should be willing to teach me. Isn't that kind of tokenism? I mean, oh, like on a personal level, which has got to be really painful. Now I'm asking this question just from a pure place of curiosity. Is that in the back of your mind a lot? Like, depending on the nature of how, like, if you're working with someone or a client is working with you and you're trying to determine their alignment with this as an actual heart-centered, soul-centered, this is why we're doing this versus we need this and she check, check, check. Is that like a reel that's going on in the back of your head? A lot, or is it— is that not really something that enters your thought process?

Oh, no, it's very frequent. And I think that it's a balance. It's just like anything else in life. It's a balance because I would say, especially in the last 2 years, the requests for any number of things has increased exponentially. So I would say requests to be on a board, to be in an advisory group, to be part of a certain membership, to do a webinar, to do, you know, like all of those things just have like blown up, right? And I can't say on the personal level if there's been any massive shift in that capacity because we've all been pretty much in our houses, right?

Yeah.

You know, for a good chunk of the last 2 years. And I work from home, so I literally like, I just don't see anybody ever unless I leave my house. But I think on the professional side of things, it's a whole other realm. It's a whole other place of navigating now. Like, okay, taking the time to like evaluate what's the reciprocity here. And that's not— to me, I feel like that's not a question of like, what do I get out of this? In a sense of there has to be some kind of like quid pro quo situation, right? It's very much— to me, it's very much like, do I have a mutual understanding with this person about what our mutual exchange is? Right, and what value each of us brings to it. Because I want to make sure my exchange with this person is a value add for them, and I want to make sure that whoever I'm interacting with respects me and cares about me enough that their interaction with me, they want it to also be a value add, right?

Right.

Yeah, that's been something, especially over the last couple years, that I've started to refine more in terms of how I go about that. But it's absolutely a real— in the back of my head, you know, I've been really thinking about it a lot the last, I'd say, like 3 months, because there's been a lot of things I like to be engaged in things and learn.

Right.

But I really, you know, we all have a way we have to prioritize our time and our days. And I think that there's a sense when you are being tokenized and you realize you're there because your presence alone is somehow making this other person, this other group, this other whatever look some way that they want to look. That's not a great feeling because I can't imagine. Well, and then you're solo, you know? So sometimes, like, for me, if I'm going to be on engaged in something, I have to have longstanding relationship, existing relationship. Typically you're asking me here because of who I am, and that's the primary reason is like, well, we need more Native representation. And I'm like, well, then you're going to get Native voice and what my feeling is as that. And then if that isn't respected and welcomed, then I don't need to be here because my presence isn't actually useful to anybody. You're not actually wanting this, right?

You're wanting to say you did it.

Yeah. Yeah.

Right. Those are different things. Like, actually, yeah, actually caring about it and being able to say, look what I did, or look what you did. And that's why I feel like as a person trying to think about this in a meaningful, real, practical way in my small town. I feel like a lot of the ways that may be suggested as to how to go about this on a community level, they're going to fall short. I want it to be more meaningful than that. And I want to back up to something you said too, because I think this is really important. I do believe that intention matters because again, I think at least you Because, okay, as a person, well, I'll just use an example that isn't maybe as charged as what we're specifically talking about, but I'm married.

Okay.

My husband the other day said something and I looked at him and I said, well, that kind of hurts my feelings. He's like, well, I'm not trying to hurt your feelings. And I said, it doesn't mean you didn't though. I get that you don't want to, but I'm telling you when you say things with this kind of tone or order or whatever. So while I believe intention matters, because if it doesn't matter at all, then I think we're all kind of screwed as far You know, like, clearly it matters. It doesn't mean that there's still not a consequence, though. And for me, then the follow-up to that is, I'm telling you, though, that this language or this phrase or this whatever actually hurts me. And if there's a relationship, I expect that you would care enough about me that you would refrain from saying it, doing it, using it, because you care about the fact that I'm hurt. It doesn't matter if you meant to or wanted to, because sometimes there's an enormous lack of education around these things. Enormous. The chasm is deep and wide. And then when a lot of us, if we don't travel, if we don't put ourselves in the way of meeting new people, meeting entirely different cultures and interacting or engaging with entirely different people than what we're used to living, working, and playing with every single day, we're going to be in a bit of an ignorance frame of mind just because we're not exposed. Again, I just think that's an important thing to know. When I hurt people, because I'm human and I hurt people, that's what we do, unfortunately. If the person is caring enough to look at me and tell me that, I will move heaven and earth to not hurt them again. Like, that's, that's who I am. And I can imagine just the range of the spectrum of feelings that come up when people maybe are either confronted with it for the first time or they're being challenged to think differently about how their words and how their way of being is landing with other people. Of course, that's grief. And I would love to figure out a way to engage our community in this conversation. Of course, it'd be only those that are willing. You can't force it on people. But what could that look like for me, do you think? And I'm asking about me specifically, knowing that a lot of people that listen to this may have this on their hearts, too.

Yeah. When we first met, I can't remember how— was that over a year ago now? I think that was over a year, probably. Yeah, when we first met and you had mentioned your phrase of work with the willing and love the rest, that resonated with me so deeply because we all have our own beliefs about ourselves, right? And like, who you are, how you show up in the world, whatever. And I have had this belief about myself that like, I'm a kind person, I show up with kindness, I whatever, you know. And there's times where you can show up with all of the kindness and not be received and be treated like actual shit, actually. Yeah.

I mean, to be just crass about it, right? Yeah. And then if it puts it all on you to be kind, then where does that leave you? Yep.

Absolutely. And so that feeling of like, well, then I also want to be respected and this and that. What does it look like? And for the last, I would say, year and a half, I've been doing a lot of personal work, especially because I have a young daughter. You know, I had my first child at the very end of 2019, and life is so fun because of her. And like getting to witness, really realize, and like re-remember that children, they are learning about literally everything. Yeah. As they grow, they have not experienced all of this. And so when I think about what is my role what am I really trying to do? A lot of it's about emotional regulation or being able to communicate needs or all of these things. And this gets off into a whole parenting thing I'm not really trying to dive into. But at the end of the day, I realize this is stuff that we just— it's like most times in our professional, personal, et cetera, it's about being acceptable or showing up and being polite and whatever. And some of these things that can sometimes not result in the most deep relationships but can— I don't know what I'm trying to say in that realm. But like, for me, in this personal journey of parenthood, I think the level of like the balance between myself and my agency, my responsibility over myself.

Yep.

And my honest acknowledgment and kind of acceptance of the things that I don't have control over that are harmful to me and will be harmful to my child. And how we balance that. Because I think there's a little bit of all or nothing in, like, just our rhetoric. Yeah, it's like this.

Yeah, totally agree. Yeah.

And so that gets really difficult when you want to hold systems accountable and also understand where you have agency, right? In this scenario where people difference is so difficult, it's often because we have a subconscious belief that what if I love and what I value and what I interact with every day is good and you think what you do is good, they can't both be right. You know, this is a really bizarre story and it's very short. When I lived in New Zealand, I had my charger and I had the converter for my plug-in, right?

For your phone.

For my, just for my laptop and everything. Sure. Yeah. So, you know, because international plugins are different wherever you go, right?

Yep.

So when I showed my roommate who was originally from there, she saw it and she was just like really kind of disturbed almost. And I was like, what is it? And she's like, that's what your plugins look like? And I was like, yeah, I guess. She's like, that's really weird. I like ours better. And I was like, man, no wonder we got problems, because here we are, like, right? She's upset about, you know what I mean? Like, is having preference over the way that a plugin looks. Yeah, you know, it's just like, we are creatures of comfort at the end of the day.

That's exactly true.

We want safe, we want something that doesn't challenge us. And so I think we have to do the work personally to understand and feel safe in our own sense of self.

Yeah.

In order to engage in these conversations in ways that are constructive, where what you're saying, even though it's piquing something within me, I'm looking at it with curiosity. I'm looking at it with an understanding that I'm still— it doesn't challenge my sense of self, and I want to learn more, rather than feeling like, okay, you've just shattered me, and now I have to be angry because I'm scared.

Right. That's the thing. There's an article, and we can link to this. There was a really good article that I shared. It was called Intellectual Humility. That's how this guy kind of framed out, instead of calling it open-mindedness, which I often just defer to that word when we're talking about this because I thought it tapped into kind of the right thing. But he talked about it like a bit more. It's not just open-mindedness. It's, again, it's that ability to say, you know, oh my gosh, if after some point you get presented with different information, you're willing to let your thoughts and beliefs about something be challenged. There's an openness and a willingness to that. But I think you're absolutely right that that can't come without the incredible work that every single person has to do to establish their own agency and sense of self. Agency is something I talk about with my children all the time. So I love that that's the word you chose to use. We have to have it because otherwise— and I do, I actually think this kindness, it's almost like a mandate and a directive now, like in the education system, even at our school here, kindness is what they kind of— I don't want to say preach, kind of preach it though. I mean, it's very much like, be kind, be kind, be kind, and just turn the other cheek and turn the other cheek and turn the other cheek. And at some point I'm like, I feel like the backside of this is how do we teach and show kids how to handle it when people aren't? Because people aren't going to be kind to them. All of us are going to deal with people that aren't nice. And being nice in return, it's not always the answer. Sometimes it's the answer.

Mm-hmm.

But again, if we're feeling hurt or we're feeling threatened or we're feeling not safe or we're feeling not protected, there are things that we can help our kids learn how to do, how to process so that they maintain their agency and they recognize that what other people do actually often has nothing to do with us, right? And we don't influence every single thing that— again, other people are other people. They have their own agency. So I don't know. I just think all of this is such— this went in a completely different direction than I thought it would. And I'm so happy about it because we're just talking about— this is people, right? This is people. It's humanity, regardless of what the background is. And yet I think when it comes to celebrating differences, and that's such a— I feel like it was such a weak way to put what my intention was. And that's why I was like, we need to dig a little deeper into what I mean by this. But it's because at our core, we have so many things in common. I mean, as humans, we do. We just have so much in common. And if you would ask, poll 100 people and ask them the things they care about the most, you would at least have overlap on one probably core value, if not more. Right. And so I think for me, I love the idea of saying, gosh, you feel really differently, or you look at this really differently from me, and dang, that's cool. And I love that there's this different perspective. And I don't know, I just, like you said, the rhetoric of everything being just so it looks like this and like this, that's to me, the beauty lies in the nuance. It always has. But of course, we prefer rules, and we prefer, like, let's just stick with what we know because it feels safe and it feels comfy. But growth isn't comfy. It never has been, right?

No, it never. No, absolutely not. I imagine there will be people listening to this and being like, there's some things that I just cannot— like, I'm not willing to be challenged on, or I'm not willing to have questioned, or da da da da da. That's a twofold response to that is one, absolutely, we all have non-negotiables. We all have non-negotiables where it's like, especially for me when it comes to like DEI work, like if we're gonna talk about justice, if we're gonna talk about this thing, then we can't do that without naming certain things. I'm not gonna name 'em here because we're not totally, totally in that. But if that's what someone is asking for, we want to figure out how to be more just. We want to figure out how to make sure people feel belonging, whatever. There's certain things that have to be on the table, and if you're not willing to do that, I'm not willing to engage because it's— we're not going to get where you're saying you want to go.

Yeah, right.

For me, certain things. And then personally, there's certain things that are non-negotiable for me. Then the flip side of that is I have done a lot of work on why, right? Why are these things non-negotiable for me? Is it because I get mad or I get scared or I get whatever? Okay, yeah, maybe initially 10 years ago that was the reason. But then I spent a lot of time digging into that and digging into what is it? What is my fear rooted in? Why am I scared? Why is this upsetting? And it helped me to understand that for me personally, as a Native woman, there are certain things that are non-negotiable, literally because of my safety. Yeah. And so I will not— there's certain places, certain things I won't do because it's like, okay, based upon not just my experiences, but the experiences of my relatives, the experience of people in my community, there's things that I was like, all right, this is where I have some agency in determining what I do, where I go, and then in conversation, what I talk about, what I'm allowing to be kind of in my hemisphere. Hemisphere. My sphere. My full sphere.

Yeah, it's the whole sphere. The whole sphere.

But I think that's the thing that really, like, we're allowed to have things that are non-negotiable for us. I think it's also then important that we dig into and take some time to understand ourselves on that level. And then to understand too that I love that idea of like, you kind of grow to be the most like the people you spend the most time with. Like my partner and I are very different. He is sports guy, you know, he is just, there's all this stuff and I'm not sports girl. And we've learned so much from each other in a lot of our ways of being different. But we have so many things that are deeply core values that like connect us. And I think that if there's things in your life that you're curious about or you want to expand your mind on, you don't even have to engage in conversation. And this is something that— this is something I think is so useful. The whole world of social media exists. The whole world, all of it. You can look up, you can engage with content, you can follow people, never have to like. You don't have to support what they do. You don't have to comment on it. You don't have to engage with it. You can just go and be like, you know what, I'm interested in this thing. I want to ask somebody who I should be following if I want to learn more about this thing that makes me feel really uncomfortable. And then you just spend a year. I read about this somewhere. People were actually testing this out and just spending time learning.

Can I just stop right here and tell you how much I love this? Because this is to me like a very practical thing that anybody listening to this can do. And it's funny, I was a guest speaker in a college class just this morning for a class full of like agronomy. They were all like ag-related students and their teacher is just really awesome. And they asked me, you know, she said, is there one bit of advice that you would give to these students right now? They're all freshmen. And that's basically what I said is find a way to intentionally engage with people that think very differently than you do. Now, I didn't tell them like get on social media, but that's just That's such a great tip because I think there's a lot of us that have curiosity, but it doesn't feel safe on the street to go out and try to explore that because it maybe actually isn't safe for you and your environment. I mean, I think there's truth to that. And so you're giving us something like if you want to know more about how somebody, a whole different group of people than you, like, and you don't have any way to engage with them right here. Get on social media and do it. And I'm telling you, this is valuable to me because the homogeneity of my community concerns me for my children.

The other thing I think is potentially useful is that then this also allows for the conversation around consent that I think is really, really critical. Which is one of the things you mentioned was like, sometimes it's not safe to go out and engage, or sometimes it's not safe in the sense that you're going out and like, that's not the point of your interaction as a community member. You're seeing people at the grocery store, you're seeing them at the post office, you're seeing them when you're walking your dog, you know? Exactly. The way that you're building relationship isn't like, hey, let's have this really hard conversation. It's like, hey, you brought over a lasagna when so-and-so had her baby. That was really nice, whatever. And I think that then when you're thinking about learning about someone other than what you know, or learning about something other than what you know, there's a level of consent that's available on social media, right? And people get to set that on their accounts. I do respect that personally. A lot of people like, you put it out there, you, you know, you have to deal with whatever. And I Well, as MySpace, if I say, you know what, this space— and I follow a lot of people who do this, they're like, these posts, everyone is welcome to follow my account, they're welcome to see my content, but I'm going to ask that there's a few different creators, like, if you're not from my background, you don't comment on it, you don't do this, you don't whatever, because they're not sharing it as a way to first and foremost provide education. They're sharing it for the community that they built online.

Right.

And I think that's important too, because it's like, oh, I get— I see. It's kind of like if there was a hub. I know I'm going to the professions a lot, but I think it helps people kind of click in their mind what the intention is. I think if you had a group of electricians and it was an electricians group and you were welcome to follow, but if you're not an electrician and you don't have the experience, it's probably not best for you to put your input here.

Right.

But you can follow along and you can learn. Right.

Yeah.

And so I think that Consent boundary is so important because that can really quickly deteriorate a relationship. And so many people are nervous about that, right? Like, I don't want to ask because I don't want to offend somebody. I don't want to hurt someone's feelings. I don't want to make things awkward, whatever. You just can be really clear and calm in that negotiation. Are you comfortable talking about this? And if not, let's talk about something else.

You know, right?

That I think— because sometimes people do and sometimes they don't, and it can be a case by case. Situation where you respect someone enough to ask if they're comfortable talking about something very personal to them, right?

I think that's a really valuable— because the word consent, I've never heard that word actually used in this context.

I think everything's connected to consent.

I agree. I totally agree. I just— you're the, you're the, you're the, you're the first person to say it in that way to, to make me think of it differently. Because really, actually, I mean, all relationships are based on a level of consent.

Oh, yeah.

Right. I mean, that's what it is. And so, again, I think maybe the word's been weaponized, or at least weaponized is too strong, but it's definitely been kind of like pigeonholed. Yeah, pigeonholed into kind of one area. But that's— yeah, I just think that's really valuable. Yeah, go ahead. No, you're good.

Well, I was just going to say the last thing. And a lot of our work, we do what's called conscious relationship agreements, like with the groups that we hold, and that's kind of like What do we allow? What do we don't? What are we as a group kind of determining in terms of how we're going to interact with each other? And I've started doing that in other areas of my life. My partner and I talk about, like, how are we really consciously— and that back to intention— are we intentionally in relationship with each other and not just passively because we're busy and there's a toddler and she requires a lot of attention. And I think those are really important, too, because then they allow you to respect one another's. I could go in more detail on that, but I really think conscious relationships, they just allow for a level of ease in interacting with people that is useful in building safe space. And I know people react to that safe space a little, but like in building a place, a trust-based connection, right? Which I feel we're expressing each other and are eager to engage in that.

Right. Yeah. What I, I love it. It reminds me of that you can even set those temporarily if a group's only coming together for a few sessions or even one session, just being intentional about what we're all agreeing to by being here. And if, and if you don't agree with these things, feel free to extract out of this conversation. You know, I just think that's, that's really, really valuable because we, people like rules, honestly. People like to know the expectation. People like to know. And I think like you said, it gets it more into alignment of being conscientious about it. Like, these are things we both go into this with our eyes wide open, our hearts open, our minds open to each other. Yeah, I love that. I think that's brilliant for, like you said, more than just any one relationship. But the other thing you said that I want to circle back to— this was way at the beginning— was this notion that we're all a part of a system. I often call it the water that we're swimming in. That's kind of what I like the phrase I've used in community. And it isn't, you know, it just, it surrounds you so much. It's like, you know, you're in water, but at some point you become so adjusted to what it feels like that you're not even aware of, is it cold? Is it warm? Is it moving? Is it not moving? Like, you just, you become such a part of it that you almost don't, can't separate yourself from your environment. Do you have any, like, I'm not asking you to, like, fix this for me. I hope you know that I really value your perspective. So much. And it was when you and I had this conversation about this particular project that you had been working on, and that at some point you had these moments of just like, I feel like a token. When you said that, I remember just being like, oh my gosh, like, how do we do better than that? What does that need to look like? Are there logical ways or simple practical ways that the average person in a group or a community or a company, whatever the collective is that you're a part of, that they can begin to identify what that water is.

I think it's one of those things where I'm like, some people are ready for those little baby medicine droppers. Yes. That kind of stuff. Some people are ready for just a drop at a time. Other people are like, give me a bucket. I'm going to dump over myself. Give me a pool to swim in. Right. And I'm going to get into it. Of course, everyone, you know, work with the willing, love the rest. But a lot of it is just, you don't know what you don't know. And it can be super useful sometimes. And to be okay with like the massive amount of things that every single one of us does not know.

Oh my gosh. Right?

That, I think that's one of my favorite things about being human is that on the regular, I can guarantee there's something I don't know and I still have so much left to learn. Like that is terribly exciting to me. And there's so many, so much available, not just in terms of people, conversations, but there's books, there's, I mean, podcasts, resources, right? So much available just to be able to start getting a better grasp on like, oh my gosh, I didn't even know this was a part of the history of this place that I grew up in, or I didn't even know that was where the credit system came from, or I didn't even know that whatever it is, right? Like, there's all these things that we live in and take as very normal. Like, normalcy to me is hilarious because it's, it's not. It's very intentionally curated. And so—

Oh, isn't it though?

Oh my gosh. And then like the thing of objectivity, whenever people talk about being objective, that's my least favorite word. I want to just be like, there's no such thing. I'm not objective. I would never imagine to claim objectivity. Yeah, but it helps people just get that like layer back of like, Oh, I see things from this way for a bunch of reasons that are very valid. Someone sees things this way for a bunch of other reasons that are pretty valid. And then you start kind of peeling the onion. And I guess to me, I just think learning is the key, being willing to learn. And I don't mean that like that means you're going to go out and get a PhD.

Yeah, something in whatever it is that you want to grow in. Yeah.

And then we could get into all this stuff about system of academia. So don't even give me But totally, I think that like there's wisdom everywhere, right? Like, you know, people who like, if reading is not their gig and they are good with their hands, right? There's wisdom there. If people are not interested in this, but they could tell you, they could spend 4 hours telling you about this other thing, right? I guess in terms of like looking at the systems level of things, there's so much opportunity to just engage with the world around us. And if it's something people care about, just start knowing you're going to screw up, knowing you're going to be like, you're going to have questions that get answered that only provide more questions. But trying to really see that as a gift of like, wow, I get to just continue improving my knowledge, my sense of self, my sense of connection to the world around me. I'll be able to have deeper relationships with people.

Right.

Like the richness of my relationships is going to deepen because I'm not operating as much out of fear or defensiveness of who I am and my worth or my— whether I'm allowed to belong, you know, on even just on the earth exist. I think my generation and probably the generations after me have a strong struggle with feeling like we're even allowed to exist. I'm just going to throw that out here.

Oof.

So I think that's really important is like that will deepen. If you're feeling like you're struggling with, like, how do I have meaning? How do I create meaning? How do I— any of that, learning about all of these systems just help you kind of get situated because we internalize so much of that when things feel difficult or we feel like we're not doing enough, working hard enough, achieving enough, parenting well enough, whatever. That's a big old tangent. I didn't mean to go on.

No, it's absolutely awesome, actually. I love it because, again, I'm thinking, you know, like, I know that I can't be the only person in a small community. You know, I went away and I came back and I expected something different than what I got when I came back. And publicly talking about that, I've been chastised up one side and down the other, as you can imagine, because I'm— it almost comes across to people as if I'm throwing my community under the bus and saying that they're not good enough and that I'm ashamed of it and all of that. And it's not that at all. I mean, it's kind of like when you said you never expected to move back to South Dakota. It was that realization that every place has challenges, right? But there's also places that root you down. And that's this place for me. I'm rooted to it for lots of reasons. But I also, I don't want to pretend that everything's okay just because I'm finding people aren't really willing to engage in difficult conversations. I am always going to be hardwired as a person that wants to get better. And this is a topic where my education is poorly— it's— I'm inept in this whole topic. I really am. And yet my intention is to try to get better, try to get smarter. And I think the other thing that I think is a fun way to think about this, and you kind of touched on it, it's like if you decide, I want to get better at this thing, you're never going to be dumber than you are about it right now. If your choice is to learn something, you will pick up and you will learn things with that intentional activity, right? If you're mindful about it, if you go. And I also, I have found it's really interesting to follow groups of people on any topic that think very, very differently than I do, because I think that's part of that challenging of what are these core beliefs that are considered my non-negotiables? And are they really non-negotiable, or have I just Is it just a story I've told myself for so long and then I haven't challenged it, right? Yeah, I don't know. And then the other thing I just want to say that I think is really important is that celebrating the differences in other human beings is not— and if those differences are vastly different from my core thoughts and beliefs, that doesn't automatically mean that my core beliefs, my foundational beliefs are challenged or threatened. In any way. Like, to me, we live in the United States. Like, one of the core things that we are meant to be about as a country is about the freedom and the rights that people have to think, feel, and believe the way that they do. And so I always feel like if my core beliefs are so easily threatened, then they're pretty precarious and there's some questioning I need to do in myself. At least that's how it feels.

To me. I mean, I'll say two things in response to that. One, I think one of the things we've been talking about is people who think differently from me. Like, that's the engagement. And I don't think the engagement is always necessarily, I need to engage with people who think differently from me, right? Sometimes it's, I would like to learn from people who have a different experience from mine.

Yeah, yeah, that's fair.

Yeah, because I think we can think really similarly, right? But our knowledge gaps are more about what I have experienced or have not experienced, etc. And so there's like this gap of knowledge that nobody really— like, no one expects you to have, right? But by having it, it makes you more able to maybe show up in the world the way that you want to.

Right. Agreed. And that's a good catch. Thank you. Just a tweak on the way that I posited that. And you're absolutely right because we may think very similarly because thinking is rational and logical and there's kind of a step in a process that we go through, but we always filter our thinking and our feelings through our lived experience. Yeah. And that's what we do.

Yeah. And the idea of, like, I think this way, and it's like there's been the connection to, like, intellect, too.

Yeah.

There's something about that that feels—

It's short. Short of the—

Short of the— And what's the word I'm trying to— Combative is way too strong a word. But, like, there's an inherent— I don't know. There's something about it that I think a different lived experience is a way to say, like, your life different from mine for probably a list of reasons that we don't even recognize have impacted us. You know what I mean? Yeah.

And I think it's shortsighted to just call it thinking because it makes it too cerebral. Yeah. Because also it brings it right down to this way of thinking that almost implies an education has to have a part of it. And it doesn't necessarily. Right. I mean, again, what's a little bit challenging about how we're talking about some of this is that it's just like this can apply to just about every facet of life, right? Absolutely. But again, that was my intention with celebrating differences to be a core value from not only me as a human, but my organization and therefore the community I wanna live in.

Mm-hmm.

That's what I meant by it. I'm not checking boxes with this. I'm actually asking this question of how can we show up more fully and honestly for people that are different from us. And they're different from us in whatever respect. It's not about their— so like you said immediately, because we do, we glom onto everything that we've decided is normal or right. Going back to your New Zealand friend that was like, well, that's weird. It's amazing. And once you start thinking this way, it is amazing how often we use that word to describe something that we're seeing, hearing, or looking at, right?

You'll be like, well, that's weird.

And you kind of want to be like, well, who decides? Unless we're talking about like Austin, Texas, they have their Stay Weird Austin.

But then the last thing I was going to say too is even what you said after that, I think is important too in terms of let's actively right now in the moment celebrate difference and honor something that you said earlier in regard to the call that you're making in this capacity, feeling like you're being told that then you're actually throwing your community under the bus, right? Okay, so yeah, there's a two-part thought. But when you mention like, well, you know, we live in the United States and the whole foundation of our country and all of that, you know, for Native people, it's kind of— it gets pretty laughable, I think, because we're sure like, yeah, sure, like we're free to be— we're free to practice our religion, right? Like we're free to whatever, like, because that's not been the case. And I think that's super, super nuanced too, because when you look at like This is getting like way into the weeds, but that's all right. I think that for me, I have like a really strong reaction just to, I think there's like the, the patriotism, right? Like to me, it makes me nervous in the sense of my patriotism is really rooted in ideas that I have around justice or this, that, or the other thing. Right. And for other people, justice is like criminal justice. And to me, it's not justice to me is like exactly everything we were talking about earlier. Agency, ability to build emotional connection with each other, be able to be in relationship with others not based upon being a box checked, all of that.

Right.

The other piece of that is too, then it's like, that's a nuanced conversation. That's a very nuanced conversation because there's so many layers to it and there's so many experiences we've all had. I mean, you look at the rates of, you know, enrollment in the armed forces among Native people is very, very high and has been for many, many years. I mean, decades. And so it's not that there's any lack of patriotism among Native communities to being mindful and dedicated to protection or whatever, you know, association is built around that particular sect, that particular sector. And I think that's important to notice that there's so much duality and multiplicity that exists in the way that we move as humans that there's no reason that thoughtful reflection, evaluation, critique, and a desire to improve should ever be, in my opinion, seen as throwing something under the bus. I think it's so vital. I want to improve as a person. That doesn't mean that I think right now I'm useless or I'm whatever.

Right.

And I think that holds us back from a lot of deep, meaningful understanding. And yeah, there's a lot more I could say on a lot of it, but it's just one of those things where it's a place where, like, were you and I engaging in this conversation outside of the podcast, that were something that was said in conversation, I could offer, oh, well, you know, we have a slightly different, or I personally have a slightly different view on it, then it would be an opportunity for us to engage in that conversation.

Right.

Are you comfortable sharing more? Are you comfortable telling me more about— like, I don't totally understand because I understand— and I'm not saying that you do, but I understand patriotism is a really, really valuable thing in my life. And then we can engage in a conversation from there. Right. And so I think this was kind of an in-house example.

Right. Right.

Yeah.

No, totally. And I think the only reason I even brought it up, actually, It's because that's— I hear it a lot. I bet. I do. It's like just a foundational thing where I'm from. And yet the flip side of it, and what I always want to remind them is, okay, yeah, so if that's your thing, great, then how is this and what we're talking about over here, how is this person and the way that they're trying to move through the world, how do those things not jive for you? So I think that's actually why I brought it up. Again, this is what I love more than anything is when an actual conversation can provide the example for exactly what we were talking about. And it did, which is— it's great. And I think, seriously, Cecily, I just appreciate you so much. It's not because you have these very specific— that's not why I appreciate you. I appreciate you because we have rich conversation every time we talk. There's this cool exchange of ideas and thoughts. And I do love that you've lived a completely different experience than I have. And I feel like I get better by being near and around you. And that's what I just— I want in whatever way this can look like in my community. I just want to create spaces, whether it's small groups, whether it's whatever, where more of this kind of nuanced dialogue can live. Because I think it's vital for the vitality of our communities going forward. I really do.

Well, I want to commend you for digging into all of the values that you had established in terms of your work, because I think that it's a lesson to me. It's affirming. It's something that I've been interested in doing for myself personally. And I'm actually like, have like a whole— I have a whole spreadsheet. I know that's super native, but I do. I love it. But I like it. It's affirming and it's inspiring because I don't think it's something that people put the intention out to do. We talk about values, whether that's through our families, whether that's through what our community or the media, whatever. We could say values that we hold come from a lot of different places, but to really sit down and say, I value these things and this is how that actually lives out in my action. Because like you're saying, sometimes people have a lot of cognitive dissonance. They believe one thing, but the way that it actually is embodied is different. And I think if we took time to connect those things, we'd get at more of the true root of who we are and what we really believe and how to live it more authentically and with a lot more integrity.

Yeah, for, for sure. I mean, for sure. That's just it. It's the alignment between what you say you're about and how you actually carry it out. That's a task for every single human on the planet to do, and it certainly is a task for everybody that runs an organization or that's in an organization, because you don't have to be for everybody. And in fact you aren't gonna be and you shouldn't be, and that's okay, right? But when, again, like, that's why I love that work so much. I love discussing culture 'cause culture to me, it's in a company.

Mm-hmm.

Specifically I'm talking about like organizational culture, right? Those cultures that are rooted in clearly articulated values and along with it, the what behaviors that means. I mean, that is hard work. It is hard work, and companies that do it, I think, are gonna win the day when it comes to talent because they know exactly what kind of person they're looking for. You know, like, I always refer to this as it's the second half of the employment contract, right? Like, you're, you're there to do the job description, and that's the what. And then values and behaviors, all of that is the how. It's— and the why, right? It's like the purpose of these things getting done.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think many organizations— we all know many organizations where what they say are their values, like there's the values, the written values, and then the actual values that happen in the workplace.

Yep.

So alignment between those two things is unbelievably critical.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it really is. And so I hope that this conversation sparks some of that in everybody that listens to this, because I just think, you know, my community, we need, we need people to want to move here.. And so how do we become a place that more people, not just different people, like there's air quotes around that for your listeners. It's not that I'm like, we need to recruit different people. That's not what I'm saying. I simply am saying, how do we become a place where more people can feel a sense of belonging, a sense of community that they have a way to contribute the best of themselves in a way that we're open and receiving of. Because I think the word assimilation is a detriment to this conversation. Because I don't need— like, if you were to move to my community, Cecily, I don't want you to assimilate into the way we do everything. I want you to help shape who we are by bringing the best of you to us. Right. And that's something that I don't think happens. We say, like, well, you can tell she's not from here. Like, oh, you can tell she's not from here.

Yep.

And isn't that great? So it's like I'm trying to actively go through and as I hear these things, that would be the way that I would challenge some of it is just to acknowledge that I heard it and to say, yeah, isn't that awesome? Because she's not from here and she's showing up and she's willing to share her ideas. And gosh, what if we took one of those ideas and ran with it? And sometimes I do. I get frustrated and I get I get disheartened.

Yep.

Yet here I am and continuing to try to do the best that I know how to do and continuing to educate myself and share the best of what I'm learning. That's how I'm choosing to show up in this way.

Yep. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I love just the little shifts in how we respond to certain things can be really powerful. And I also think, too, sometimes people don't want something different because they're nervous it'll erase what they have.

Yeah, for sure. And I get that.

I don't want to invalidate that at all. I think that's about— that's exactly why we need to have this conversation is about learning how to understand conflict. What does it mean when the way we're used to things— how do we navigate change? Change, growth, all those things are extremely uncomfortable. What things do we want to hold on to and not have change? That's going to be different for every person. That's going to be different for every community.. But I think when it's coming from the place of here's the things we know we love, here's what we're rooted in, here's all of this stuff. It's like baking a cake. You can say the end goal is we want to bake a cake, right? And then the way that you get there, there's 1,000 recipes for it, right?

Exactly.

Yeah. And so I think that's a good value to hold is like, yeah, I'm sure you have another thing coming up here.

No, it's awesome because the last set of values that I'm pairing kind of together for growing small towns and for me is honoring the past and looking ahead. So recognizing it's that tension, right? Like you said, yeah, I don't ever wanna erase who we are. Like we got to where we are because of the amazing people that came before us. No question about that. And yet at the same time, the world is rapidly demanding more of us or different from us, right? And we, so we have to be willing to have the conversation. I'm not ever running around being like, I think I have the answers. What I often say is, what if we tried this? You know, this openness, like, let's just try it and see what happens because the world is changing. And so a lot of what we hold tight to, it's not even— and again, it might be that the value of it can be preserved and held, but the way it looks in action can be updated or changed. Like, there's just so much that we can, we can do. And I think it starts with conversations like these. You and I don't happen to live in the same community, but we, we care about community, right? And so when you put two people together that do, and we can have a beautifully rich and nuanced conversation, it shows that it's possible. That's all it is, right? That's all it is. And so I'm so thankful again for your time and, and sharing your heart with us. You're such a delight.

Thank you. I'm so glad. I'm so glad you had me on, and I appreciate all of the time you spent with me. And if there's any other fellow nerdy folks who want to do values and principles spreadsheets with me, right? Let me know.

I love it. I love it.

I—

you're probably gonna get someone to be like, I want a nerdy value spreadsheet, and they're gonna reach out to you. It's gonna be great. Thank you so much for your time, Cecily.

Absolutely. Thank you.