I'll come back on and we're live.
So with that said, how has your week been?
What's new with you?
That's an entrepreneurial response if I've ever heard one.
Yeah, it's been a week.
It has definitely been a week.
We'll just leave it there.
That's what we're here for as leaders.
It's not always sunshine and roses.
So those of you who are listening in, I have had one of those weeks as well.
But it's been weird.
I've got the two sides approach of some of the things that happened this week were amazing,
like outstanding.
And then there was other things that were like, how do you have these two types of experiences
at the same time in life?
So yeah, real life with Barbara Anne and Jackson Calame
So thank you so much for joining me.
I know you got a very busy show yourself and a huge lineup and lots of things going on.
For those podcasters who are in the heat of it or are just starting out, how do you manage
it?
Fortunately, thank you first for having me on your show.
How do I manage it?
Yes, because I do.
I wear multiple hats, both as the founder and owner of PurposeFilled Solutions and Evolutions.
I also do work with a nonprofit organization that I've had a relationship with for decades.
And I do have a show, an online streaming television show called What the Why with Barbara
Anne that airs on RVN television as well as Roku.
And then believe it or not, on top of all of that, I have responsibilities as a second
degree black belt in martial arts.
So yes, I have quite the schedule.
And then of course, my furry babies love to remind me how they believe they are my number
one priority in their lives.
But yeah, how do I manage it all?
Honestly, a lot of it has to do with prioritizing what's essential, what's important, the things
that fulfill my why, as well as making sure that I take intermittent breaks throughout
the day so that I am practicing self care, which is something that my company coaches
around.
That's awesome.
Well, I appreciate that.
And I'm sure there's lots of resources, books, mentors, things like that that have helped
you get to where you are and do what you do.
With that said, what are three resources that you recommend for the visionaries and entrepreneurs
listening in?
Okay, three resources.
Number one is actually a former employer, the US Small Business Administration.
Their website can be a little complicated, but there are so many resources and links
and content that is available already covered by your taxpayer dollars.
And you can find information that is local to where you are.
There are all kinds of links to free training and counseling and technical assistance and
financing opportunities, loans, some very limited, but links to grants.
Small Business Administration even has a venture capital arm that it does in partnership with
venture capitalists.
So there's so many resources there.
Resource number two is find a coach like me.
There are lots of coaches.
And I do have to say that not all coaches are equal.
You can see in my background I got a number of different initials behind my name.
And I am a member of the International Coaching Federation.
I'm a personal certified or professional certified coach.
But I have also worked with over 2100 businesses over the past two decades and provided training
and counseling to thousands more in roles with the government as well as nonprofits
that focus on economic development and small business growth.
So find coaches, interview them about their background and credentials.
And then I'd say the number three resource is actually focusing on yourself as the whole
person.
I'm a big fan of two books that I've used with recent leadership coaches.
One is Asking Powerful Questions by Will Wise and Chad Littlefield.
And the other one is Positive Intelligence by Shirzad Shamin.
And I especially love the Positive Intelligence book because that book turned into a coaching
movement which I am a coach in.
And that is a huge part of my self-care regimen to be honest.
That is awesome.
What a treasure trove of ideas, applicable ideas that we can utilize.
I was just training with my team on how to ask comprehensive questions that are also
personable.
And so that was a fun training in and of itself.
I agree with the power of that.
You were the second guest this week.
You were both the first guests on the show out of more than 200 who recommended to listen
to yourself, your body.
And I was surprised when she said it.
I was like, wow, I can't believe nobody said that before.
That is a powerful truth.
And now I got two amazing rock stars on the show saying it in the same week.
So we're going to be right back.
We're going to be diving in and talking about boldly overcoming the fear of remaining the
same when we come back.
All right.
Welcome in to Vision Pros Live with Jackson Calame.
I'm your show host.
We'll be doing interviews for visionary entrepreneurs and guest leaders who are building fantastic
visions out there.
Welcome in to another episode of Vision Pros Live.
I'm your show host, Jackson Calame, founder and CEO of First Class Business.
And I'm super blessed today to have Barbara Anne Gardenhire on my show.
And we're going to be diving in and talking about the fear of remaining the same, the
fear of change, how to step into our best selves as leaders and visionary.
She's going to grant us with a ton of wisdom on that subject as we dive into her vision.
Now, before I bring her on stage, I always want to make sure to take time to give you
guys some resources, resources that can help you expand your vision, build your legacy,
improve your leadership, et cetera.
So we'll start with the lost spot with Melissa Gray.
Melissa Gray also came on the show.
You can check her episode out.
And I was very close to canceling her before she showed up because I was nervous about
having a lawyer on the show.
I mean, most lawyers have met her kind of pretentious.
They're rude.
They don't know how to relate to you and speak your language.
And at the end of the day, you're usually just another number because they have such
high supply and demand that they don't make time for the infrastructures necessary to
scale.
That couldn't be further from the truth with Melissa Gray.
She is making time to position herself for scale.
She wants to be that liaison between the legal zoom that's out there where you can get free
templates that might help you with your brand a little bit.
But when push comes to shove in business and the real life hits you, it's very important
to have legal counsel on board with that.
And maybe Barbara Ann has had a different experience than I.
So we don't have to talk about this on the show, but you might ask her what her experience
has been out of the thousands of business owners I've talked to.
I would bet less than a hundred had legal counsel representing them that they were actually
comfortable with and aligned with.
And that's just kind of scary.
You need protection in the world of business.
Take it from a guy who had a twenty thousand dollar trademark lawsuit that we won, but
we spent twenty thousand dollars and we probably didn't have to do.
In fact, I know we didn't have to do that.
How do we have the right counsel up front?
So there's lots of things that can happen in your business.
Make sure that you are well protected.
In addition to that, there's another sponsor up here.
By the way, full disclaimer, Melissa Gray and I work together.
She is a strategic partner now with us.
She started as a client.
She's now a partner.
I always want to be super open and honest with everybody about what we do, how we do
it and what we're what we're headed towards.
Andrew Sosin is not a client, though, or a strategic partner, but he built Recovery Unplugged
and it is one of the greatest resources for our generation, in my opinion, because there's
so many people out there struggling with different types of addictions and most people are in
a position where they want to admit that or they can turn to somebody.
And if you don't have one, you got friends or family who do.
So having access to a 24 seven hotline with incredible depths of of how do we help people
overcome their pain and suffering and belong.
Andrew has been to Tony Robbins program 22 years in a row as both an attendee and a leader.
He has a team of over 400 people that used to be located in only five states with covid.
They transformed their program to also be able to reach anybody in the world and help
people who can call in.
And I think that's just amazing.
They incorporate music as well.
If there's one thing I can instill in you as a leader and in those around me, it would
be to have the confidence and appreciation for yourself to know that you belong.
Right.
Life is OK.
We can experience great things in life.
Now, I'm not going to go any further than that because I don't have the degree to preach
or teach that.
All I know is I've seen so many people suffering that I hope this helps at least one more person
out there realize that there's hope and there are opportunities for help and there's no
shame in diving into it.
The last resourceful mention, the one that really fills my heart and the reason why I
do that is this water bottle right here.
It's almost empty.
Is the water project.
The water project is really about bringing light, shedding light on something that I've
never had to deal with myself.
I can go to my downstairs kitchen and get water right away.
I've never I've always been able to take water for granted.
And there's millions of people out there who don't have that luxury.
We live in a world where eight billion people need a lot of help from us.
And as long as I'm rocking this microphone, I'm going to talk about those who do not have
the fortune to do so so that we can help them.
We can step up and do something about it.
What's really cool about the water project is the amount of transparency they provide.
You actually get to see which community you're investing in by giving the five dollars to
you know, or five hundred or five hundred thousand dollars to the project.
You get to see the project come to fruition.
They show you the outcome of where your money went.
I just think that's amazing.
What's really special about this to me is these kids are celebrating water like my kids
celebrate Christmas Day.
That's a very humbling reality.
I never want to forget that.
It's also really I think it's healing and empowering to take walks once in a while in
your life and think about if you provide to something like this or if you share this with
somebody, what's the impact that that's going to have on generations?
You just made an impact.
A ripple effect takes place because of your generosity or your mouth or your click and
share.
And I really appreciate that.
If you have another cause, though, when you're like, man, I wish you would talk about this
cause.
Drop the link.
Give us a chance to give back.
Give us a chance to get involved in some other cause.
We might put that on the show as well.
And it's fascinating to see, you know, how many people get inspired by and do something
about this.
And, you know, just at the end of the day, it helps me sleep better and helps make sure
that I'm focusing on things that matter most in life.
Speaking of Barbara, Ann has a track record of doing the exact same preparing herself,
building herself, creating amazing success with people and for people.
And I can't wait to dive into her vision.
So Barbara, Ann, thank you so much for honoring us and being on Vision Pros Live.
Thanks for having me here.
And I love the I love everything that you support as well, including the clean water.
Awesome.
I'm glad to hear that.
It looks like we have another opportunity to spread the word there.
So speaking of the helping people, we're going to shift gears into how you specifically help
people on that day to day basis, monthly, weekly, hourly, whatever that looks like.
What is your vision for the people that you are serving?
This is going to sound a little strange, but our actual vision is to create environments
and spaces of belonging where everyone can feel valued for the unique and wonderful and
amazing, perfectly formed, created people that they are.
And but the larger scope of that really is about helping individuals and companies to
basically reimagine who they are, figure out their why or core purpose and move forward
to optimize pivot in some instances and thrive in whatever their why is.
And the journey that my life has had, which has included some things that no one should
ever, ever, ever have to go through.
Part of that, the gift in all of that, actually, is that my why I realized was helping other
people figure out theirs and live into it.
And a big part of that means also overcoming the fear of change.
That's amazing.
And the you started that out, though, with an interesting phrase.
And I appreciate it because I think it comes from a position of nurture.
You said what you were sharing is strange, a little bit strange to people.
Now that came right after I talked about how important it is to belong and on a show all
about vision.
So enlighten us.
Why do you feel that's a strange concept?
What is the world saying or what are people doing that's making it seem strange to talk
about belonging in a world where people are so separated?
Great question, honestly.
Because as someone who is multiracial, female of a certain age, who has touched neurodiversity,
who has some hidden disabilities, I am a walking example of intersectionality.
My parents were married at a time when it was still actually illegal in some states
for them to get married.
And so for a lot of my life, I felt very outside.
I didn't really fit in one group, I didn't really fit into another group.
And so part of my solution at the time was to create my own groups.
And while I can appreciate so much of that now, it created a very different road to travel
for me.
And I met a lot of other people along the way that had also traveled that very different
road.
And it's been very interesting as someone who has all of these different intersectionalities
in the workplace.
And I've seen things just as I've experienced things in life, I've experienced things in
the workplace and had team members experiencing things in the workplace that no one should
just ever have to go through.
And it's completely unnecessary.
And it comes down to people who want to, I guess, validate themselves by how they elevate
themselves over others.
In my case, I've had some really dangerous jobs having worked in some communities that
been in areas where police wouldn't even go and yet it was a corporate role in a corporate
boardroom where I would be physically assaulted on the job by someone who had been harassing
and bullying me on the job.
And the only thing worse than that was actually having the company side with that person because
they knew that person was a problem and they hadn't addressed it.
And while they put him on a final warning and other people came forward after what I
had experienced, that assault actually herniated discs in my neck.
Really nothing was done until that company actually shut down all operations in the state
and New Jersey and outsourced all of the work to India and New York because it had become
so toxic.
And those experiences and others contribute to my company's way of approaching belonging
in the workplace and in life.
And everything we do is informed with, I'll mention the book Positive Intelligence by
Shirzad Shamin which has grown into a coaching movement.
Everything we do is around helping people accept who they are and understanding that
everything, whether it is our happiness, our love for ourselves, everything's internally
generated and what you have is a world full of people who are looking for things externally
and competing for things externally.
Things that in all honesty don't even really matter.
And our approach in everything, including the way we handle belonging, is you have the
power from within.
You had it all along.
You were born with it.
You know what you were as a child.
You were fearless as a child.
When you look at the pictures of yourself as a kid, you see yourself doing things and
I'm of an age where, in fact, I'll just tell you because a lot of people are always shocked
when they're like, you're how old?
I'm 55.
No, I look 55.
That's not fair.
Sorry.
No.
And I don't even have filters.
I don't even really have all your filters that I could have on.
Now, I'm blessed with good genes, but a lot of it is also choices that I've made and the
exercise and the diet and the relaxation.
But I digress.
One of the things that we all do is as a team, all of our team has been through positive
intelligence.
We work with people and help them realize that just like Dorothy had the power to get
home all along in The Wizard of Oz, we don't need to empower people.
We need to help people refine their power or in power themselves to realize that they
are, regardless of all of the actual and perceived barriers around them to happiness, they're
their biggest barrier.
And the fear of changing that is what's holding them back because a lot of those things that
are sabotaging their success are things that have actually become survival instincts.
It's what got them there to where they are.
Right.
I've been there.
Yeah.
So there's this inherent fear of saying, yeah, but I don't want to let go of that.
It protects me.
It saves me.
It's served me.
But what they don't realize is those same skill sets when used, I guess for lack of
better words, in the positive can also be your superpowers.
And when people are stuck, it's usually because they're just so petrified that what's on the
other side could be even worse.
Well, you've got to be careful with the superpowers you have because the superpower strength of
a Superman can also crush a baby.
So being able to use them precisely for the right reasons, the right way, it's something
we all have to learn.
We do have them.
So I very much appreciate that.
It's why vision pros exists because I had to learn this the hard way.
I had crushed a couple of people's visions when I finally realized I had been doing it
for a long time by trying to control their outcomes and predict what was supposed to
be right for them.
This show is all about, no, you have vision within you.
And we want to hear and honor that.
So thank you for sharing all that with us.
You're welcome.
You reminded me of a documentary I watched.
I'm big on learning through movies because you can just, if a picture says a thousand
words, how much is a movie?
And there was this movie called Little White Lie.
And it was about a girl who is black, who grew up thinking she was white.
And nobody could really tell, but they kind of could.
It's a very interesting documentary about this Jewish family as well.
And I look at that from an outside layman's perspective, an ignorant perspective of like,
I've never had to go through that.
I've never experienced that.
What would it be like?
How can you be there for somebody?
How can you be a good friend or have a good relationship with people who have differences
from ourselves?
I don't have to spend life learning about things like that and diving into it, but I
find my greatest joys when I can find how to relate to others.
And that could be my sibling who grew up very differently than I did, or it could be a complete
stranger on the other side of the world when we're called to.
So what's your vision for you, Barbara Ann?
What do you see for yourself on the horizon?
I love doing what I do.
And so for me, it's continuing to do this work.
We actually have a program that is similar to DEI, but it's not because we start by working
with people on the whole issue of stability and finding common ground before we ever get
into any other issues.
You mentioned reversing the order in our pre-show conversation.
Remind me about that.
For those who don't know DEI, go ahead.
So we do what we call SEED, which is civility, then inclusion, equity, and then diversity.
And our tagline is a new way of being or belonging at work, but also in life.
And so much attention to answer, to further elaborate on your earlier question, so much
attention is on what we have.
It's different.
Yeah.
So much attention.
And yet our DNA is almost identical.
And we can be different and celebrate that instead of different and pointing to that
as something that's deficient.
Right.
I love that you reversed the order too, because I never really thought about that.
And granted, again, I didn't have to spend as much time on it growing up.
And so as I've looked into, all right, again, how do I show up in this world in a way that's
respectful and honors everybody that I'm supposed to love?
And some of that was figuring out how to love myself.
Right.
That's a big part of it.
You start with inclusion.
You don't start with dividing.
You start with inclusion.
I was like, that's really cool.
I can get on board.
I think a lot of people would very quickly get on board of that if more people just heard
about it.
I'm going to leave that where it's at for now.
We're going to dive into a much darker conversation.
So the dark conversation, what's the worst leadership experience that you've ever had?
Well, I'd have to say the worst leadership experience I've ever had was the leader who
assaulted me physically.
It's a very complicated situation, but I transferred from one job into another as a lateral move
to get away from this person.
And then the vice president that we all reported to started to realize that this person had
been telling a lot of lies and that threatened that person.
And ultimately it culminated in him grabbing me by the neck and shaking me in a meeting
in a room full of leaders at an offsite leadership development event that was actually led by
one of my current team members and who also was the only person who stood with me when
they were all threatened.
Suffice to say, the company did ultimately lose, even though in the state of New Jersey,
binding arbitration is the required medium for dealing with workplace disputes.
And they tried to keep it out of court by arguing that it didn't belong in court because
it was an employment related injury.
And they tried to keep it out of binding arbitration by arguing that it was an workplace assault
and didn't belong in arbitration.
But it was horrible.
And I couldn't really, my attorney, to your point about attorneys, my attorney was good,
but my attorney's position was you can't leave this company because you need to be able to
have the flexibility for the treatments that you're getting and you need to put the pressure
on them by staying there so that they are willing to settle.
Wow.
Smart.
And smart, seems smart, but the police would not implement a restraining order against
the person because the company backed him up.
And my boss, who's now Lisa Hiller, and shout out, actually shout out to my whole team,
Lisa Hiller and Sarahia Romero and Ariel Rankin.
And Lisa and I have been peers.
I worked for her.
She worked for me.
We went back to being peers.
Now she joined the company, Purpose Filled Solutions and Evolutions.
And she was actually threatened with her.
She was told by a VP who eventually went and became a diversity VP in another company,
which cracks me up.
She was threatened.
You either get in line or you're putting all our jobs at risk.
And she told them that she didn't care because at least she would be able to sleep at night
knowing that she still had her integrity.
And that was in 2006.
They lost in binding arbitration and then they tried to appeal their binding arbitration.
But yes, it was a textbook.
And I am friends with some really awesome attorneys, including one that I participate
in a group with weekly.
Shout out to Stajil Thacker.
She calls herself a recovering employment law attorney.
She now works with companies to deal with all of the issues that they used to hire her
for before they get there.
But this was the most textbook case of every possible failure of leadership at every level
and then some.
It does.
It really was.
It reminds me of the exact opposite of one of my favorite books on leadership, which
is the five dysfunctions of a team.
It's like the story of what the book did not write about.
Patrick Mancione hit the nail on the head for what you should do.
And you just hit the nail on the head for like, avoid everything about that scenario
possible.
Absolutely.
And it's interesting because the International Coaching Federation is in large part, it's
interesting that you brought up his book because that's what the principles are of the International
Coaching Federation and our the things that we're evaluated on are actually founded in
his work.
And we are big fans of his work.
Oh my gosh.
That we created for the five dysfunctions thanks to him.
So it's a tired reading for everybody who joins our company.
So which also shows how much of an inherent leader you are and the coaching mindset with
which you lead, clearly, because there are other people out there that would be like,
who?
Why?
And but his work and the work of some others were really the foundational aspects of what
we now know as true coaching, like real coaching, not giving advice, but working with a client.
That's why we use the compasses.
We're navigators.
Yeah, all ourselves solutions navigators.
We have a business consulting side of our company where, yes, we will give advice and
certain areas of expertise.
But our coaching work is really about helping the person navigate to the answers that they
had all along.
They just weren't sure what they were or how to find them.
That's awesome.
We are going to shift gears in the upper echelon of the best leadership experience.
So what is the best leadership experience that you've ever had?
The best leadership experience I've ever had, interestingly, was the person who stood by
me throughout that.
Like I said, we were peers.
So when she moved from another state to take a job that was downgraded in part because
of the person that was bullying me, when her job got downgraded, she had no idea of the
context.
And her thought process was, if you're going to drop me from a director to a manager, that's
okay as long as you pay me the same.
So then that downgraded me from a manager to a specialist.
And we had a very honest conversation because they had indoctrinated her or tried to indoctrinate
her with a lot of information.
She had the common sense to model for me something that I would do later in a change oriented
environment that I was hired to come in and dress.
She pushed all of that out and basically had a coaching conversation with me.
She wanted to know about me, what my experience had been before she shared with me anything
that had been shared with her.
And Lisa led by example, she asked positive open ended questions, very much embodied a
coaching mindset.
She and I together introduced emotional intelligence, ironically, into the company, created an entire
training development and quality assurance department that didn't exist in the company.
And when she had the strength and the courage, even after relocating for this job, this all
only happened about five or six months after she moved.
She had left everything to come here.
That she was willing to stand up and do the right thing, even if it wasn't the popular
thing, even if she was being threatened.
And they did threaten her at one point, they tried to fabricate something to get rid of
her.
It was she stood by me anyway.
And even though she was still trying to do more of a win win, she showed that in the
face of some of the scariest things that can happen to you, if you stand in integrity and
an honesty, you can still be successful.
And I know for me, for some people, the saddest day was when they announced they were shutting
down operations in New Jersey.
Of course, for me, it was the happiest one.
But even through that, she led our team.
We had to train the people in India who were going to be taking our jobs.
And under her leadership, we did that.
And she was there with us.
She wasn't telling us what to do.
Both of us were the kinds of leaders where when I was in a different role, when I saw
things were backing up, I jumped in and helped.
And she was the first person I worked with who did that as well.
It's like, okay, how can I help you?
I can back you up.
How can I support you?
What are you doing?
Oh, you need an exception for this?
Remote work was unheard of during this timeframe.
My son broke his arm.
She gave me permission to work.
I'm working from the hospital to finish a deadline.
Sounds absurd now, but it was very common in the mid 2000s before the economic crash
in 2008.
And she went on a limb to give me the permission to let me do that and took flack for it.
But she was willing to sacrifice that political capital because it was a win-win for the company
and for her team.
I love that.
Yeah.
And she really helped put me on a path that where even with some of the things that I
experienced, I can now look at all of that as a gift because I absolutely, positively,
and certainly would not be doing what I do today had I one, not been through that darkness,
but two, not had her as a light to also help guide me through it.
That's awesome.
There's so many applications for that that are missed opportunities to apply that in
the workforce, as leaders especially, because there are so many different hats that you
can wear.
And there's a balance to have.
I was thinking of a surgeon, as you talked about, I was thinking of a heart surgeon and
how as a heart surgeon, you could certainly go in and do the job of the other person,
but they're probably a better expert than you are at that particular job at that point.
And so in that instance, the opportunity to simply collaborate about how we might do something
better might be the better option.
But if you've got 20 calls to make for sales, or rather you have somebody who's supposed
to make 20 calls, then going in the room and dividing it 10 and 10, and making those calls
with them to get through it, that's an opportunity to step up and divide the work.
Or if you've got spreadsheets that have to be filled out, coming in and doing the work
for a little bit with them.
There's so many ways as leaders where we can step up and instead of inhibiting or creating
a culture where we're saying, that's not my job, right?
That's our attitude.
It's amazing how fast and how far the trickle down effect of something like that would go.
So it's very neat that she understood that.
And then that you both worked towards implementing that.
I hope more entrepreneurs follow suit because we'll all win better if we do.
If we shift gears into the, I'd say this is the hardest question.
This is the toughest one.
It's the one I hope people think the most about.
If this was the last opportunity that you had to share a message with the world, specifically
visionaries and leaders, what powerful lesson can other visionaries learn from your experience?
To lead with empathy.
The world's changing, jobs are changing, and so many people have been put in roles based
on their subject matter expertise or their productivity, and they haven't really been
prepared for leadership.
And there are a lot of visionaries out there in those roles that just need preparation,
and there are other visionaries out there helping these leaders to prepare for those
roles.
And I think the most common theme is that once upon a time we were told not to bring
our whole selves to work.
You can't separate yourself.
You are your whole self.
Thank you.
You cannot.
It's an absurd idea.
And I used to say things to my team like, hard work and having fun are not mutually
exclusive.
We can enjoy it.
We can celebrate it.
And it doesn't mean that you get, there is such a thing as too much transparency and
too much honesty and too much vulnerability.
But those are things that the leaders of the future, the visionaries of the future are
going to need because more and more of what leaders and managers used to be asked to do
is going to be done by AI.
And as that happens, the human aspect of that is going to be lessened.
So the leader, the visionary, the heads of these companies, the entrepreneurs, we're
going to need to compensate with that as the people, the holder of what is human and how
we treat people, how we allow other people to be treated.
That includes when you do need to take action, you take action so that other people don't
feel like you don't care.
It means taking a stand.
It means allowing room for errors.
In our headquarters dojo, shout out to the Kenshi Kai community training traditional
Okinawan Gojiru Gojujitsu.
And in our North American headquarters dojo, there's a sign that has a quote from the
incredible and comparable Dr. APJ Abdul Salam.
He was former president of India and he was an astrophysicist who helped launch India's
space program.
I mean, this guy was incredible.
And he coined a quote that basically starts with, there is no such thing as failure because
fail is an acronym for first attempt in learning.
And I'm paraphrasing it and it goes on, it says, you know, no means next opportunity
and there is no end because effort never dies.
But the two things that I would want, if anybody was going to write anything down from here,
I would say write down that phrase.
Fail is an acronym because you cannot learn if you do not make mistakes.
You have to give people room to make mistakes.
So fail equals first attempt in learning.
The other part of that, and one of the reasons why I am critical and do my own approach to
handling belonging in the workplace is because so many DEI efforts are all about what other
people say and don't address what people hear through the filter of their experience.
And that's a problem because then everything they hear is through the filter of their experience
and not everything deserves to be seen through that lens.
And my good friend and coach instructor, Joe Colantonio, said something that I told her
I'm going to make her world famous.
And that is what people say is about them.
What we hear is about us.
And that is one of the other guiding principles of our company and how we program because
I've worked with a lot of women of color, a lot of communities that have experienced
disinvestment over my 30 plus year career in community and economic development.
I said 20 of it, I had my first coaching class in 1997.
And too often people are so bogged down in the constant bombardment of actual genuine
systemic issues that have informed and fed their lens that when it's not an issue, they
still see it that way.
And the third thing I would leave everybody with is you cannot change somebody else's
mind by attacking them because the first they're going to do is armor up.
And that's the other reason in addition to what I experienced personally, we lead with
civility because you have to get everybody to a point where they can even have a conversation,
take the armor off so they can even hear and open their minds up to the possibilities of
changing their minds because people inherently don't want to be wrong.
And they, even if you present them with the facts, we've moved into a world where it's
not about facts, it's about feelings.
And so you have to be able to get people to lay down their arms, disarm, literally take
off the armor to be able to have the kinds of conversations that we need to have in order
to have healthy, productive workplace environments where everybody feels like they can be their
whole self, both in the workplace and then when they go home.
That was phenomenal.
These, I write these quotes, you know, as people talk about their powerful lessons,
they don't commonly write three quotes.
You know, I don't think that's ever happened.
And there's three that really hit home.
Obviously, the need for empathy is a big one.
The last one you gave there, one, I'll also just validate real quick, having to make room
for people to make mistakes.
You know, like that is so critical.
We all make mistakes and we're going to.
And when we try to control an environment, then people are just not going to take action,
you know, instead of taking action that leads to them learning and overcoming this quote,
oh, you cannot change someone's mind by attacking them.
That's a powerful lesson for me to remember because I am not the most diplomatic person
in the world.
This show is teaching me how to become more diplomatic.
And there's the difference.
There's a difference between attacking somebody and somebody feeling like they're attacked.
And at the same time, if we want to have influence, we have to remember that perception is reality
to those who perceived an attack.
It's going to kind of hurt.
So my challenge to use entrepreneurs and visionaries listening in is the opposite side of that
coin is to remember that as leaders, if you feel attacked, if you feel the need to go
get defense and strengthen up.
You're probably not that strong as a leader.
And I know that probably hurts a little bit.
That's why I don't want to say it to anybody directly.
I'd rather say it right now while you can all hear it at once.
We a lion does not feel attacked by a hyena by itself.
They don't feel threatened.
They don't need to do anything.
They already have the strength necessary to withstand that.
And again, that doesn't apply to all scenarios.
There are certain scenarios where I'm talking about when you feel attacked and you're not
knowing to recognize the difference, knowing to set the ego aside and to go ahead.
You got something Barbara Anne.
I was going to say, yeah.
And in addition to that, it's something that can be learned.
I mean, the human response is to go into the fight or flight mode, right?
Actually to fight what we call fight, flight, freeze or fawn.
But one of the things we talk about in positive intelligence is step outside of yourself.
Be the anthropologist in your life looking in like you're looking at a story and get
curious and say, wow, I've never had anybody say that to me before.
Can you elaborate further?
Those are learned skills that can help people who even have the hardest of shells and egos
to step back and say, okay, all feedback is a gift, even if it's not right.
That's right.
And receive that information.
Instead of responding, instead of reacting to it, you can then respond to it.
See I love that.
I had a therapist.
He taught me a new lesson on that too.
He said, Jackson, he said, you responded.
He said, we can react, we can respond.
I'm on my high horse excited about it.
He said, or we can listen to understand.
And I was like, what?
I thought we were supposed to respond.
And then he taught me about the next level of listening to understand before we respond.
And I was like, whoa.
I was like, that changes the paradigm completely for me.
There's always new levels we can learn and grow on that.
So we talked about the again, in the beginning, we're going to cover this topic of boldly
overcoming the fear of remaining the same and that fear, like what if I stay right where
I'm at and I can't become more than I am.
That's one angle of it.
But I want to draw from where I was incubating ideas for what to call this.
I was impressed with what you wrote down and knew that there's just so much dynamics to
it.
So I'm going to read it to the audience real quick.
You said, my vision is to be happy, satisfied, successful, et cetera, all those great things
and then to help people with that.
But they don't know or understand how to get there.
They want to change, but the fear of change is stronger than the fear of remaining the
same.
They are sick and tired of feeling sick and tired.
They're fed up with the negativity that bombards them on a daily basis.
They're searching for a better way and they just need encouragement from someone who's
done it to pursue it.
That aspect, that dynamic of could it be easy to get lost on that is that fear of change
being stronger than that fear of remaining the same.
I like to where we are at a time, but if you're okay with going over a little bit, I'd love
to give you some time to, okay, great, to enlighten us a little bit on that or shed some
perspective, feel free to argue with the title that I put out there.
But where do we go with that?
The fear of change and the fear of remaining the same?
Yeah.
Part of that is acknowledging that that's what's going on.
It's kind of like with any 12-step program, the first thing is to admit you have a challenge.
Sometimes people don't really believe that that's what the issue is.
They will convince themselves to settle that this was the right way, this is the safe way.
It's bad, but it's going to be worse.
The grass is always greener on the other side.
Part of what we do is we start by encouraging people, okay, maybe you're not ready to leap
into the pool.
Maybe just stretch your comfort zone 10%.
Take baby steps.
Let's do this.
Like a baby has to-
So you're saying I don't need to have all those accolades that you have on your website
right there.
I don't even have them all.
I can start with a few steps, one book at a time.
Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely.
I mean, it's interesting you're on my website right now and those bricks represented for
me, this was in 2019 when I took my first black belt test.
I was still a brown belt, breaking those bricks because it's two concrete bricks.
And it represented everything that I ever believed I couldn't do, including breaking
those bricks.
I had tried many, many times before I succeeded.
I mean, you're talking about two concrete bricks, each an inch thick and no spacers.
And it was a requirement.
And that actually, and I do an exercise when I do speaking engagements related to that,
because it was representative of the barrier that I had in me that said, you can change.
You can do this.
You can get through it.
And an exercise I do, I actually have people write the things that they really want to
change, but they're afraid to move forward and do.
And when they actually do it, it's like, okay, you thought you couldn't do that and yet you
did.
Imagine what else you can do if you stop telling yourself you can't do it.
What we tell ourselves is so critical.
You touched a little bit on this in terms of asset-based language.
If you keep telling yourself you can't do something, then you absolutely are never going
to do it.
You tell yourself you can do something, you're at least going to try.
You may very well succeed or it may look a little bit different than what you thought
it would look like.
But what we tell ourselves, the way we talk to ourselves, the voice in our head, whether
you call it, you're always on talking voice or judgment and positive intelligence, we
actually call it the judge.
Some people name them.
The itty bitty silly committee.
Yeah.
All of that.
Remember that is, I joked just the other day, I said, would you talk like that to your child?
Now, there are people out there that really would, which is very, a whole other issue
and a whole other show.
But-
Another type of influence.
Yeah, a whole other.
But if you wouldn't say it to your best friend, why would you say it to you?
You have one friend, she starts to criticize herself.
I literally say, stop.
I'm really tired of listening to you talk about my best friend that way.
I like that a lot.
I love that.
Yes, that's huge.
It's a big one.
And there is an opportunity.
It's, you know, one of the challenges on that is we have to restore the true definition
of the word humility in the English language.
It's misdefined.
If you look at the history of that word and where it came from the original representation
or at least one of in Judaism and in Aramaic, I believe it was, I looked it up and it's
more representative as a whole, a full appreciation of oneself.
Right?
I'm not positioning myself as better than others, but I am fully appreciative of who
I am and what I can do.
I don't dishonor that in any way, shape or form versus the English definition, which
says a low esteem for oneself.
We get away from the original context of words and words become a distraction of the meaning
and purpose of life when we lose our context.
So thank you for everything you've shared, Barbara Ann.
This was fantastic.
Those of you who are listening in the show notes below this will have action steps you
can take, of course, to get involved with Barbara Ann, her social media channel, so
you can follow the source of the resources that are there as well.
Whether you want to talk to her about purpose-filled solutions and evolutions or you just need
some basic advice, of course, you can reach out.
And in our comments, if you leave comments, we'll make sure that those get forwarded to
her.
There's one other call to action that's super important to us, and that's in the top right
corner of the page.
You'll see a button that says, be our guest.
If you have a vision and you want to be helping others and you know that your vision is going
to serve our audience, then don't hesitate to apply.
Come and join us.
Come and show us what that is.
You have to be a personality that has a TV show and a podcast and all the accolades like
Barbara Ann, but you might have something that really needs to come forward for this
world and you might be a stay-at-home parent who hasn't been on the workforce for 20 years.
That's not what we judge leadership based off of.
We judge leadership based off of character and virtues.
If you have that, we're looking forward to seeing you on our stage.
Thank you for the quiet golf clap on that, Barbara Ann, as well.
And Vision Pros, we hope you have a fantastic rest of your day.
We'll see you in the next episode.
Take care, everybody.
Bye bye.
Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward.
This is going to get more and more fun.
We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show and thank you for giving us your time
and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision.