Finding Peace Amidst Chaos | Dr. Dravon James | 564

Peter Winick: What big idea can you evangelize better than anyone else?

When I ask people this question, I get two broad categories of answers from thought leadership practitioners. Some people, well, they mumble and say, "You know, I haven't found it yet. There are so many big things I could talk about." There are those people who have found their lane. They know their big idea of thought leadership. And whenever they talk about their idea, you hear the voice crackle with energy and see their eyes light up. And they will talk about their idea whenever they have the opportunity. They'll even make opportunities. And that's the story you'll hear today as I speak with Dr. Drayvon James, who is with Everyday Peace. We'll explore how she found her lane and tested her content. You'll learn lessons along the way you can apply yourself for thought leadership. I'm Bill Sherman, and you're listening to Leveraging Thought Leadership. Ready? Let's begin. Welcome to the show, Drayvon.

Oh, thank you for having me. I'm happy to be here.

So I want to begin with a question on origin story, and this is one where When I ask people how they get into the world of thought leadership, I hear a variety of answers. Yours is absolutely delightful. So let me ask you, how did you start? What was your first entry point into the world of thought leadership to even realize this world existed?

First of all, I did not realize this world existed. I wasn't sure what I had been introduced to. But I loved it. So I got to back up just a little bit and tell you that I was 17 years old. I had just graduated high school. It was the summer before I was leaving for college. I had accepted to go to college to study pharmacy. And my brother, who's a year younger than me, gave me a book out of nowhere. He just gives me this book, The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale. Now, little disclaimer, I thought he bought that book for me. Years later, he told me he took it off my mom's bookshelf. And gave it to me. But nonetheless, he gave me this book, tiny little book. Many people know that book, The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale. I read that little book. I'm not exaggerating when I say it was over 20 times from the time he gave it to me. So let's say I graduated in May. I left for college mid to late August. And what that book did for me, I really don't have the exact words for. But here I am, the 17-year-old kid getting ready to go study pharmacy. And I knew in that moment, the first time I read that book, something lit up inside of me. And I said, I have to be able to do this, whatever he did for me in that book, which was to give me a belief that everything that I thought I could be was already inside of me. I just had to learn how to tap into it. And honestly, this is going to make you laugh. When I read the book probably for the 20th time, and I'm taking notes feverishly, I still do that to this day as a habit. Had since a child, writing in journals. And I'm taking notes feverishly. And I thought, eureka, I found the formula for never having a problem ever in my life. OK, I laugh many, many years later, decades later, because what I had really found was—

Well, clearly, you haven't had any problems, right? It's been smooth sailing ever since you read the book, right?

And if you believe that, right, I got a whole bunch of other stuff I can sell you, right? But what it taught me, it was the beginning. It was the gateway to me understanding that the solution for everything that happened was inside of me if I learned to calm down and see things from different perspectives, right? Thought leadership. I didn't have that term in my wheelbarrow, in my wheelhouse at the time, right? But I also learned that everything that happens in my life, I have the opportunity to give it all of the meaning that it has. Meaning that whatever this is, it could be the end of me if I say so. It could be the beginning of a whole new discovery about myself that I can use to get to my next level of greatness. And that is what that book did for me over and over again. I used to give it out to, um, people as gifts, you know, to say, hey, this is what happened for me when I read this book. And then I started incorporating it in everything I did. I still read it. It's still part of my book collection that I read from time to time. So it's been a wonderful, wonderful opening to a wonderful journey for me.

So there's so much there that I want to unpack. First question, did your brother actually read the book before gifting it to you from your mother's shelf, or do you not know?

So I got to tell you, I am, at the time and still am, a lover of romance novels. Particularly historical romance. That's what I read as a kid. And my brother was just the opposite. He was always reading autobiographies, what we now call self-help books. So he definitely read it, right? And something that he got in it— I was getting ready to leave for college. I'm the oldest of 3. He gave it to me. And I thought— I honestly thought, well, he bought this book for me. I never questioned where he got it from until one day he came across one of my podcasts. He goes, yeah, I took that book off of Mommy's bookshelf.

Well, and that intentional gifting of books, you were the recipient at 17, but as you said, you've gifted this book and perhaps others, I think is part of the journey of thought leadership. We go through, we read actively, like you said, almost like we're in school still, underlining, taking notes, all of those things, digesting ideas. And then when you see someone who is in need of that idea, it's easy to match and say, here, read this.

Yeah. Right. And the good thing about that book, because we live in a society where we're moving at the speed of sound almost, right? We're going so fast. That book is such a tiny, tiny little book. And now they have even abridged versions of that tiny little booklet that I'm able to give away. And people can really read it on the— if you take a train to work, you're commuting to work, or a quick read before you go to bed at night, people can really finish it from COVID to cover. And I'm passionate about books that can do something wonderful in a short period of time.

Well, I think if you compare the world of when it was written and the pace of the world then versus the pace of the world now, we're now like, give me a 30 or 60-second answer. The book is the long form. I have to give you permission for my attention within those first 30 to 60 seconds before I'll give you permission to read a chapter, let alone a whole book.

Yeah. And we have so many things competing for our attention. So it really is— says a lot when you can take a moment and invest in yourself because that really is what it is doing is investing in yourself. And people have many different learning styles too, but I think that book, it's a small enough book as far as pages. The simplicity of the writing, everything about it, the message, it's timeless.

And that ability to stop, reflect, and think is really what, when you practice thought leadership, often you're asking your audience to do. Look at the world. Look at your life. Look at the context that you're in. In a new way. Sometimes that will be transformative. Sometimes it's very practical. Here, do X instead of Y. But that invitation just to stop and think is itself a gift.

Oh my goodness, you're so right. And so often people, we get so caught up in the destination, right? And the destination is good. I've worked in healthcare for over 30 years. I am destination-focused. I want everybody that I touch comes in contact with my department to have had a great life-affirming experience. However, it is in the journey, right? Being able to say, in this moment right now, I need to stop and I need to refocus. I need to recalibrate. I need to maybe hand off. I need to— so that ability to stop, just to stop and breathe for 2 seconds, so very important.

So let's advance the clock just a little bit.— you talked about reading Dr. Norman Vincent Peale's book at 17. Then you talked about getting into healthcare. I want to ask the question of how did you get into your space of thought leadership? And to answer that question, also include a little bit of what the platform is about, because interestingly, your story in healthcare your platform isn't necessarily healthcare related. So how did you now start practicing thought leadership?

So this is a very interesting story, and it has to do with a lot of courage. I'm always encouraging people to think out of the— think out of the box. So at the time in my life, I was working as a consultant in pharmacy, in the field of pharmacy. And part of my job was to do monthly lectures on federal regulations as they related to long-term care facilities and such. And my audience—

Oh, exciting, riveting stuff. You had the audience on the edge of their seats.

Riveting stuff. On the edge of your seat, right? And so, but for my audience, it was how to stay in compliance and all of this. And then things about, I'd pick a drug, we talk about new developments in that particular medication. So I did that monthly. And one day I had this, I was still, I was talking about what I call everyday peace. And I got to back up just for a little bit and give you the definition for which I use peace. Peace is wholeness, completeness, nothing missing, nothing broken, totality. So that being my definition gave me a little bit of courage to do what I did next. I've been doing these talks with these providers, these nurses for a while, and I got this idea after getting to know people. When you're lecturing monthly, you kind of get to know a little bit about your audience. And people were stressed. Now, that's not uncommon for the healthcare field. People are stressed. It's a heavy field. And I thought, well, if I could give them a little bit, some techniques, some, some, something to hold on to at the end of the day, maybe help them develop some positive habits. I decided that at the end of my talk about pharmacy and regulations, I was going to spend about 2 to 5 minutes talking about what I called Everyday Peace. And I started doing that. I started with— people started asking me questions. I said, you know, 10 minutes for Q&A. It was always during the Q&A, I was starting to get questions about Everyday Peace. So I started doing it every month at every facility that I went to.

Now, to be clear, this wasn't part of curriculum that you were delivering, right? You said, I'm going to put this here, right?

Not at all. And I did it without permission. Like I stopped, I said, okay, that's that. I want it. And I said, I want to go before we go to Q&A, I want to talk about something that is, I'm passionate about and may be helpful for you. So I do that little intro to it. And then we'd go to our Q&A about the topic for which I was there to speak about. So when no one chastised me the first time I did it, well, you know, you do it again in another facility, another facility. I never got asked to stop. But what surprised me one day is I got a call saying, hey, we're going to need you to come out and do a keynote speaking address, which wasn't uncommon. I did that regarding pharmacy and medical issues related to long-term care facilities. But this particular call was a little bit different. They said, we're going to ask you to come out, but we do not want you to talk anything about pharmacy. You know that little peace thing you do at the end of your talks? Would you be willing to do that? I— it's not associated with anything with your company. We're asking you to come out. And I thought, my goodness. So I did that. It was a humbling experience because of course I was nervous because here I was with this, the biggest platform I'd ever had, talking about something that I had been studying since I was 17 years old. And when I realized and I got the feedback from people about how they were incorporating it in their lives, small little things. My heart was touched. I was humbled to know that, wow, this is impactful. It is making a difference in their life. It's making them find a new— fall in love with the purpose that they set forth with again, re-energize. That was how I began, and it was just from there, me deciding to get out of my own way, right? Because you have to do that first. The focus was on me and I thought, well, this is— I can't interject these thoughts, but get out of— I saw a need. I got out of my own way and I took a risk and said, okay, here's what I'm going to try to be giving. So I think it's always about the receiver, not so much about the person who is doing the giving. I thought, here, they're going to be able to receive something that I really believe will help them in the long run.

So there's several things I want to call out in that story. That I think are notable. One, as you said, you wanted to share this in the 2 to 3-minute soundbite, sort of the little beat of content, right? It was the taste. And you did that, as you said, without asking permission, and then it became popular. The next thing is when you were asked, could you turn this into a full keynote? You responded, "Yes." Right? Now, I don't know if inside your head you said, "Hey, I've got 2, 3 minutes of content here and there. How do I fill up a keynote about all of this?" Or if you said, "Oh, I've got that already." How did you respond in that moment? Was it excitement? Did you know what you already had, or did you have to go to the drawing board and say, "I've got to figure out a keynote." Well, I definitely had to figure out a keynote, but I'll tell you, I did.

Um, I mentioned earlier that I'm a person who studies and has journals and journals and journals. So well before I got to this point, I had written out 30, 45, 60-minute talks, 15-minute talks on what I wanted, what I wanted to share. I'd meet people and have experiences with them and I'd think about it and I'd say, okay, I know I've read something about that, or, and I'd write something about that. So I, I was prepared in that way to give. It was, you know, thinking about this particular audience, which is a more scientific audience. We were all in the healthcare profession, data-driven, and thinking to myself, well, I want to make sure that I am speaking the language of my audience. So it took a little bit of tweaking there, but I definitely had material, if you want to call it material. I had topics that I thought would be very, very impactful in a positive way for this particular audience.

Fantastic. And the piece that you mentioned about nurses in healthcare or other healthcare practitioners, whether or not they're data-driven, I think it's a human quality of when we leave work, we want to go home at peace with the day rather than feeling stressed, worn out, burnt out. Carrying anxiety, whatever it is.

Well, you hit the nail on the head, as they say. One of the things I always tell people is no matter how different you think that we are, we all have some fundamental desires, and one of which is to know we want to feel confident that no matter how dangerous— let's use the word dangerous— or scared we are throughout the day, that we're all going to go home and be safe, and the people that we love are going to be safe. That is universal. We all want that. So speaking to that and saying one way you can be safe emotionally is to have these particular perspectives, to tweak your perspective a little bit, to view stress maybe differently, to view challenging situations differently, to give yourself more grace. So what I was doing was— and what I continue to do with my clients today is to give people different strategies or help them develop strategies for themselves that help to frame life from a can-do instead of, oh my goodness, I can't believe it's happening to me. And I don't mean can-do from putting more pressure and stress on you because we don't need that. But realizing that these things that are happening in our life are happening for our benefit. I know they don't seem like it. I could go down a litany of things in my life that have occurred that I'm like, this can no way be utilized. For my good. But you look back and say, if that hadn't happened, then my viewpoint on this may have changed, may not have changed. I may not have evolved. I may not. So these things, everything can be used as an ability to step into your next level of greatness if you allow it and know how to allow it.

If you're enjoying this episode of Leveraging Thought Leadership leadership, please make sure to subscribe. If you'd like to help spread the word about our podcast, please leave a 5-star review at ratethispodcast.com/LTL and share it with your friends. We're available on Apple Podcasts and on all major listening apps, as well as thoughtleadershipleverage.com/podcast. One other thing that I want to call out. And this is something that I'm working through and processing as we talk now, is the name of the platform, Everyday Peace. Everyday, not meaning common, like, oh, that's just an everyday habit that I do. But do you want peace every day? Right? And it invites people to say, yeah, I don't want that just once a month or twice a year where I feel it. I want that to be an active thing. And so buried in the name of the platform, I Love What You've Done, is not only sort of a vision of a future state and possibility, but also an invitation to agency on behalf of the individual.

Yeah. You're the first person to actually ask me to put it that way. So it's every one word, day, one word, peace, one word. It's not common peace because if you think about it, It's not common for us to embrace peace on an everyday basis. It isn't. It's more common for us to embrace chaos and stress. But tweaking our thought process allows us to know that we, in this moment, we are whole. We are whole. Even if what's happening doesn't feel great, right? It's like you said, having agency over the moment and saying, first of all, accepting what is, you have to do that first before you can embark on any type of change. And understanding all of our power exists in this moment. How tremendously blessed is that? I mean, all of our— we are powerful in this moment. And guess what? We have this moment. We're here. Let's use it.

So let's go back a moment to— you were talking about reworking the keynote to meet the needs of your audience. And you said, hey, this is a healthcare audience. They are very data and outcome driven. And I need to frame these stories and examples and thinking in a language and in a way that it will be open to. Now, I know something else that you do in part of your very holistic life. Is acting. And it is also a passion— theater is a passion of mine, both from when I studied. And I think there's something about acting that calls us to be present to the audience in the moment. And the audience you have on a Friday night is different from a Saturday matinee, which will be different from tomorrow or the next day. So my question is to you, how do you see the connection between your work in acting and thought leadership?

Oh, I love this question. And I got to go back when I was interviewed by somebody years and years ago. And she said to me, she said, there's no correlation between what your worlds— I said, oh my goodness, they are so intertwined. And so you mentioned theater, which is where I really got my start, and I still do theater to this day. And you're absolutely right. The audience that I have on Friday is not the audience that I'm going to have on Saturday, right? And just because no one dropped any lines on Friday doesn't mean they won't drop any lines on Saturday. So acting is this type of profession where you have a lot to learn and study, but in the moment, you're willing to cast it all aside and be very, very present. Be very, very present. If the prop isn't there, it's OK. Doesn't need to be there. You're so present in the moment that you're flexible. You know the rules. You know the lines. You know the story. And that's the same in our professional life. You know what you're doing. But then when the curveball comes, not to be so rigid. You want to be like the palm tree in Miami. When the storm comes, you can bend. And you can stand up straight. And then you can bend to the other side. And then you can stand up straight. All of the time balancing the glass bowl on top of your head. That's how I view acting is that I'm so present in this moment. I'm so focused on giving in this moment, right, what the moment needs, what the person needs, right? Till all of the other stuff, the moment before doesn't matter. The moment 6 minutes from now doesn't matter. This moment matters, what happens in this moment, it takes so much pressure off of you too. It takes so much pressure off. When you are very present in this moment, the next moment sort of unfolds on its own because you're in flow. And so that is a skill that I learned from acting. It's a skill that I use with my clients. Being present is a skill that I use in healthcare. I have used— I've been in healthcare for over 30 years, hard to believe. But that's a skill that I use in healthcare is being present in this moment. Taking care of this moment and allowing this moment to propel me gently into the next moment.

That flow state, the ability to be fully present where time sort of— even the concept of time melts away, right? I think also from an acting perspective in theater, certainly with a live audience, it's a little bit different with film and certainly even here. In podcasting, we have an audience, but it's not live in the same room with us, right? But the ability to be on stage and read the cues from the room, whether you're delivering a keynote or you're presenting a character in a play, there are things that you notice, breath, laughter, engagement of eyes, shifting in seats, all of those things, create two-way communication to help you understand, am I reaching my audience? Are they engaged in the moment with me? And the best performance nights are the ones where not only are you in flow state, but that pulls the audience in with you. And I think that's some of the magic.

Yeah, that's some of the magic in life, that is that synergy, right? That you connect. And I tell people oftentimes, the heartbeat is 70 beats per minute, right? And when you're in a room with another person and you sync up, it's not that they could have 100 things happening with their heart, but just the idea of being in sync and that synergy, and you're drawing from it, and you allow yourself to draw from that, the breath even. And you mentioned that everything, you allow yourself to be in sync with that. And you take the focus so much, it's not on you anymore. It's on giving. You can feel it. You can feel when it needs just a little tweaking, when you need to pull back just a little bit. It's the most— the human dance of relationship is amazing. And that alone is almost— I want to use the word addictive for the present moment because you really only can feel that when you allow yourself to give way entirely to this present moment. Watching the eye movement of the next person, that mirroring. This is a technique you do in acting sometimes, right? And watching all of that and becoming in sync with that and not judging it. In the same place, you're watching it without judgment. That's such a great thing that you get from acting too, is without judgment, just to accept this. It allows us— I do this talk about leaning into conflict. You can do that. When you learn to watch. So with no judgment, just watching. I don't have to give it a name, but I can see a need.

There's so much here. And I love this conversation for many reasons because it's a skill of thought leadership that you can continue to refine, to develop, and practice in everyday situations, whether or not you're actually practicing thought leadership at the moment. But the better you are at seeing others, reading others, and engaging with them, and being present, the easier it is when the time comes for you to share your thought leadership, whatever it is.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's so true. And this question just popped in my head, or the statement when you said that. I was working with a client one time about just what we're talking about here, being in flow in this moment. And his concern was that he really wanted to be able to be his authentic self. Like, he didn't want to have to change and be somebody else. And there is— when you're present in the moment is your most authentic self. When you're present in that moment and you're really in tune with things in that moment, the ability to pretend, sort of, you lose that ability. Because the focus isn't on, oh, I need to worry about how they perceive me. You lose that. So I encourage people to really try to be present, pay attention to things, really listen. Don't worry about what you're going to say next. You'll know what you're going to say next if there's anything to be said at all.

You have an amazing example of a time where many of us would think that it's all about, and it was at that moment, all about you. But instead, you were that authentic self in the moment, seeing the needs of the other. Are you comfortable sharing that story?

I am. I am. So the story that you're referring to is the birth of my daughter, 23, almost 24 years ago. I got to the emergency room and they had called my, um, my doctor, but he wasn't there yet. And so the resident that was going to get me all ready and everything. It was late. Maybe it was 2, 3 o'clock in the morning. He was tired. He walked in the room. I could tell he was tired. And I could still see his face to this day in my mind. And he had— he was eating a sandwich, you know, and he walked in and they rushed him in and he started talking. He was getting himself professional and he kind of put his food food away. I said, I want you to stop. He looked at me. I guess he thought, oh, this woman's about to say something mean.

And she's going to chew me out for eating the sandwich, and this is the first food I've had in 8 hours or something like that.

Yeah, right. And she's in pain. And I wasn't in pain, you know. But, but I said to him, I said, what I want you to do— because I know, here's what I knew— that if you feel better, right, you'll do better. Let's get a connection first. And my husband was sitting in a chair. And I said, can he sit there for a second? So he sat there. I said, go ahead and eat your sandwich. Let's talk for a moment. I said, while we talk, I want you to eat your sandwich. Right? I told him I was a pharmacist. I worked long hours. He wouldn't— compared to me, he was a young, young guy. And so he ate his sandwich, and we talked. And he thanked me so much. He said, I don't think anybody else would have allowed me to do that. And I knew, first of all, that he's a human, just like I'm a human. We do our best work when our needs are met. Hunger, one of them. Sleep, another. I can't give you any more sleep, and I told him that. Yeah, yeah, no, no.

And that's sort of like the curse of a resident, right?

Right. I can't give you any sleep. I know you need that too, but I want you to finish your sandwich. Right? So, and I use that. I use that a lot in life for two reasons. One, for self-love, self-care for my clients who do healthcare and do feel it. Take care of yourself because when you take care of yourself, you're going to be giving your best to somebody else, right? That's so very important. And when I engage with people to make sure that I see them, not just what they do, what they're here to do for me, but I see them. And I can't always do something about what their situation is necessarily, but I can validate them by just saying, I see you. And I often send that text message. I sent it out to a colleague this week and say, you know what? I meant to send this to you last week. I want you to know that I see the work that you do. I see the contribution that, you know, and I appreciate you. It goes a long way for developing relationship, obviously. But what it does for ourselves, for the giver of that, is it makes us more in tune with our humanity. It reduces stress. It reduces the tendency towards anxiety and depression when we are grounded.

And I'll layer on a very practical perspective as well. We live in a noisy world with many ideas bombarding each of us every single day. And most of those are pushed towards us, push notifications on our phone, the advertisements that we get in pop-ups or that we see on billboards, et cetera. Everybody's pushing ideas towards us. It's really different when you see the person and invite them to share and discuss. People light up and they recognize when they feel seen and they'll want to talk about an idea.

That's the biggest gift you can give to someone, I think. Think back to being a child, or if you have children. I can remember my children saying, Mommy, look, look, look, look. We never lose that part. See me. See me. I want you to see me. And then I want you to accept me. That's the next level after seeing, right? Is I want you to accept me. And then an occasional kind word goes a long way, not only to the person who hears it, but to you, the sayer. It validates you too. Because if you can give kindness, what does that say about you? These are all affirming and leadership skills that help you to grow in the most sustainable ways.

So Drayvon, I'm wondering here, we've been talking a lot about this as being seen in a one-on-one interaction. We've talked about live audiences as well. What suggestions would you give someone to help them practice in a one-on-one situation or a one-on-many situation, or even when you're putting an idea out in the world and you're not going to see the person directly. So given this is an area where I feel you've got some expertise on seeing, what advice would you offer?

Where you're not going to see the recipient directly?

Mm-hmm.

Right? So I love this question. So let's just go back to— acting for a moment. One of my favorite, uh, techniques is the Meisner technique, right? And I'm gonna summarize this, uh, really, really elementary. So for those of you who are in this world, said, oh, she didn't do a great job, but this could turn into a theater podcast very quickly. Very quickly. You got two theater people, right? Yeah. But so one thing that I loved about Meisner when I— and I continue to study— but is that it made an impression on me that I am, I possess inside this being everybody, every personality trait, every person that you could, from the Queen of England to, I don't know, you could say someone who has done some things that you find are so out of your character. That's inside of me too, right? So when you're preparing to give something to someone that you've never going to see, maybe never see, Make your talk come from a place of— your presentation come from a place of authenticity, where it is your desire to add solution to a situation they may be facing. I may not know you directly, and I definitely don't know everyone who's going to hear this podcast. I think that's a great, great example, right? I don't know you, Exit, 100%, but I do know that we share some traits, and I'll speak to those. I'll speak to those in hopes that I will connect with you on a level where you can take parts of it, like being in a cafeteria and say, ooh, that fits me, my situation right here. Maybe you hear this podcast months later and say, oh, I picked up something else that will fit for me right there. But always being able to give to your audience, to your clients or your customers from a place of authenticity, wanting to add solution to a possible situation that they're having. And I used to say that much more simplistic. I'd say, you know, you want to solve, but not always is it your responsibility or even your place to solve. It's to add a solution for that, for the user then to take it and mix it with some other ideas they have and come up with their own final solution. I just want to be part of that. Add something that you can put, maybe save for a rainy day and be useful to you.

Exactly. The idea doesn't have to be useful today or tomorrow. It may be something they recall years from now. It may not even be a solution. It may be a what-if question that at the right time returns and causes someone to think. Sort of cycling back to what we said, that ability to create that pause in the moment of the frenzy of every day get someone to stop, reflect, think, and choose. That's the hard work of thought leadership, but also the joy.

It is the joy, right? We're afraid to think. But I encourage people because we don't know— I think back to that line from Planet of the Apes, what are you going to find out there? People are like, what am I going to find in my mind if I dig too deeply? But just sit in silence and you'll be amazed that A lot of the stuff that you've been stressing over, I find this for myself and my clients all the time. If I just stop for a moment, just stop and be willing to spend 2 minutes even in silence. Oh my goodness, my brain thanks me. First of all, it's like, whoop, I needed that. And then all of a sudden, something that I heard possibly on a podcast or read in a book comes to the forefront of my mind. I'm thinking, well, how can I use that? And I go about my day, and there within me is the answer. And it was sparked by first being willing to stop, to stop and embrace silence. 2 minutes. You'll be so thankful that you did.

As I warned, we run the risk of this being a theater podcast. The concept of stopping and pausing, I think one of the things that I see often within scripts, and I'm going back to work that I did with some of Samuel Beckett's work. There's a difference in a script between a pause and a beat, and you have to be willing to be comfortable in the uncomfortableness of silence to let an idea or an emotion, something have the space, and it doesn't have to be you. That's part of the gift.

I love that you just said that. Wayne Dyer said something which made me think when you just said that. He said being able to— and I don't know if it was his, but I heard him say it. He said being able to exist between the raindrops. And I've always loved that. The space— there's space there. There is space there between— just think about that. There is space there. And we don't have to fill up every bit of space. We are. We don't have to keep trying to validate our existence on the earth by running, you know, 100 miles per hour. Stillness will just ignite your whole soul and your imagination, your creativity. Oh my goodness. You'll just be like a new person, like you've been on a 10-day vacation.

So Drayvon, as we begin to wrap up, I've got a couple questions for you. First off is, what's your next challenge or adventure in the practice of thought leadership? Where are you headed next?

I love that question for you and for me. In fact, today I had that thought. I'm in the process of writing a book, which I have been trying to write. It's a tiny book. I only write tiny books. I've only published one, but I write all the time. And this tiny book, On Forgiveness is where I want to go, uh, what I want to finish. It's been in progress and I keep hitting emotional walls, I think, that stop me from saying what, you know, and I, and I don't break through those. So my next chapter is to publish this book because I believe that it will be a help to people everywhere. A lot of times what we, what we hold inside of us blocks us from being effective leaders and leaders of self and leaders of others. So that's my next journey.

And in some ways, having a large word count for a book, 30,000 words, 40,000 words, winds up almost being easier to fill up than to write something that's short. Final question.

I have found that to be true.

You've been on this journey in thought leadership going back to when you were 17. What advice would you give your younger self based on what you've learned to date?

Wow, great question. If I were to be able to talk to her, I would say, I want you to trust your intuition. You know what you know. And in this moment, you know it for a reason. Trust that. Move on that. Stop looking for validation. You're going to be required in this journey to validate yourself. Do that.

That's beautiful. Dr. Drayvon James, I want to thank you for joining us today to talk about thought leadership, your journey, acting, audience, present in the moment. It's been a fantastic conversation.

Thank you for having me.

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