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Nonprofit Radio for April 28, 2025: #25NTC & The Human Factors Driving Your CRM Success

Amy Sample Ward#25NTC

We launch our 25NTC coverage with the CEO of NTEN, which hosts the Nonprofit Technology Conference, sharing the numbers and the experience of this year’s Conference, earlier this month in Baltimore, Maryland. They’re Amy Sample Ward, and they’re also Nonprofit Radio’s technology contributor.

 

Rubin Singh: The Human Factors Driving Your CRM Success

Don’t blame your tech first when it feels like your CRM database is letting you down. Human beings, the tech users, have responsibilities that precede, and must align with, your technology. Rubin Singh returns to enlighten us about business processes; inclusive design; personal and professional growth; and more human factors that impact the success of your CRM database. He’s founder and CEO of OneTenth Consulting.

 

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And welcome to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host and the podfather of your favorite hebdominal podcast. We’re kicking off our 25 NTC coverage this week. These two segments are both from 25 NTC. It was a wonderful conference. I think the best. Uh, this was, I believe, the 11th year that I’ve hosted nonprofit radio, uh, in a studio at the nonprofit technology conference, and I think this was the best one. You’ll hear Amy and I talk about that. So excited, legitimately, you know, some people say, uh, I’m excited. No, I’m excited that we are launching, inaugurating, kicking off our 25 NTC coverage this week. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d suffer the effects of ramidenia if you pained me with the idea that you missed this week’s show. Here’s our associate producer Kate with what’s coming. Hey Tony, this week it’s 25 NTC. The CEO of N10, which hosts the nonprofit technology conference, shares the numbers and the experience of this year’s nonprofit technology conference last week in Baltimore, Maryland. They are Amy Sample Ward, and they are also nonprofit Radio’s technology contributor. Then the human factors driving your CRM success. Don’t blame your tech first when it feels like your CRM database is letting you down. Human beings, the tech users, have responsibilities that proceed and must align with your technology. Rubin Singh returns to enlighten us about business processes, inclusive design, personal and professional growth, and more human factors that impact the success of your CRM database. He’s founder and CEO of 10th Consulting. On Tony’s take 2. Tales from the gym. Meet Roy. We’re sponsored by DonorBox. Outdated donation forms blocking your supporters’ generosity. DonorBox, fast, flexible, and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit, DonorBox.org. Here is 25 NTC. Hello and welcome to Tony Martignetti nonprofit Radio coverage. Oh wait, I should do what Amy loves. Hello and welcome to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host and the podfather of your favorite hebdominal podcast. What a genuine pleasure to welcome. The CEO of N10, the host of the 2025 nonprofit technology conference, Amy Sample Ward, welcome. Thank you. I don’t know that I’ve ever gotten to see in person witness live the Podfather intro. So yeah, exactly, it doesn’t have the same power, you know. Uh, so, uh, we’re here at 25 NTC. We’re at the uh Baltimore Convention Center. Oh, I, I should have said that our coverage here is sponsored by Heller Consulting technology services for nonprofits. Very grateful to Heller Consulting. How’s the conference going? CEO. It’s going great from community perspective, you know, I think we didn’t really know what to expect in this moment right from the community perspective, yes, I mean you know there’s always special things um there’s always opportunities to continue refining. Uh, but you know, from the, from the community side and kind of what we spend so much time focusing on, you know, the community experience, we just, you know, would anyone actually. Feel like coming when they woke up Wednesday morning would be, you know, like are is anyone even gonna be in a space to have conversations or wanna go to a session, you know, and we’re not trying to pretend that everything is fine and normal or that those things exist, you know. I like we’re certainly embracing that and yet we’re trying to embrace it within a reality of well we’ve all planned for this conference to be here so so it is still a a structured thing and and how porous can we make it in real time together to also meet whatever needs are emerging by maybe going to a session that was already planned and you know the speaker had prepared but from that conversation came something. Oh my gosh, we, we need a space, we need to keep talking about this right now and what do we do, right? So I’ve heard a couple of stories like that anecdotally that I’ve got I’ve learned so much I need to learn more now and you realized what I didn’t know and I I need to connect with that person or, you know, um, I heard it from an audience, uh, like talking to somebody who was sitting next to the person who was talking to me and then also to this for. Speaker, I, you know, I need to connect with, I forget whether it’s him or her or whatever. It doesn’t matter. Um, I need to learn more from this person. Alright, let’s let’s, uh, you know, I always like to ask you the numbers you know how many folks are with us here in real life in Baltimore, Maryland. I don’t know that I actually have the accurate numbers. We, we’re. Uh, 1800 registrants overall, but given how many shifts are happening, I don’t know exactly, and, well, I’ll finish my first sentence and then I’ll add a second so I don’t know how many folks are necessarily in person because we don’t. Require if you’re in person you have access to the virtual and so folks that couldn’t come for whatever reason didn’t necessarily have to tell us that so we don’t totally know or they could have even come one day and then gone virtual another day that’s right so I don’t totally know how many folks are in the room. I know that I think catering told us that over 1600. Silverware were used at lunch today. So just for lunch today I guess that yeah I know I only used one and I used one upstairs even so it’s a proxy for right so that’s how many people ate lunch I guess. OK, um, talking about the conference experience, uh, we’re gonna bring in someone who was a previous guest Aia Aria Ma, come on, come on, Arya. you can share my mic, just share my mic. Yeah, let’s make it easier. Um, because this is her first NTC, and I, I, she was saying, she was saying things that I think you would want to hear as CEO. So I said, if you want to come back, well, it’s not gonna be quite that long, but, uh, yeah, it’s not gonna be quite that long, but thank you. Uh, if you wanna talk to the CEO, let Amy know that, that, uh, what, how you feel about your first NTC. So this is Ama. Um, her company, uh, are, are you just, you say your company, so I don’t have to look back two pages. OK, I’m, I’m the principal consultant founder of Lunara, so I do consulting with environmental conservation nonprofits. Um, first of all, thank you. This has been amazing. I’m actually from Baltimore, so just jot down from Boston, do a quick family trip, and the people here, I feel. Like NDC really has curated an amazing group of people where it’s not really about networking but really connecting and knowledge sharing the accessibility here it really feels like the staff are here looking out for the for the participants and it’s just been an amazing time connecting with people the bird like the feathers of a bird table conversations, the comfy chairs like this is I’ve been to a lot of conferences. And it’s definitely one of a kind. So thank you so much for curating an amazing team, curating amazing people who come here. It’s been a really great time for me. All right, thank you so much for being thank you for being one of those amazing people that is here, right? Thank you. I so appreciate that. Of course, of course, lots more NTCs in your future. OK, good. Thank you. Thanks for coming back. Glad you did. I, yeah, a little treat for you. I knew I knew you would want to hear something. Thank you. You’re welcome. Um, So, oh, I turned up for that was turned it up for our, yeah, OK, um, alright, so we have about 1800 people. Well let’s call it 1800 between friends, just as a round number. That’s good. OK yeah, we, I mean, I think there were like 12 people who just showed up and registered on site yesterday, so. Yeah, the number is a moving. When we talked a couple of weeks ago, you said people just show up. I was amazed at that. OK, it happens. OK. There’s always room at the NTC, you know. Yeah, well, we’ll add another chair. What did Ari just say? There’s a staff. Thank you for the staff, looking, looking out for all of us. Yes, of course. We’re accommodating. We’re, we, I’m a member, so I’m not staff, but I’m, I’m part of the N10 the N10 community. I don’t want to call it the the NTC people call you NTC. Yeah, I know Amy. She runs NTC in a way they, they, yeah, um. The commons experiment, yeah, I mean, I hope like we could talk about it for a minute. I’m just gonna preempt your intro and say for people who run conferences as part of the larger work of your organization, right, not that not that you’re an event planner, but people who are listening to the show and have organizations that have conferences as a part of your programming. Would love to learn what you are testing because we, as I said the other day you know there’s that like analogy or whatever like oh I pulled the band-aid off and just you know tried something we we found every band-aid and we pulled them all off at once and tested everything is is different this year. There is not an exhibit hall with pipe and drape and 10 by 10 squares that you have to walk through, uh, hallway hallways of corridors of, uh, it’s an open space, open plan. The studio here is set up right behind all the chairs that are facing the stage where the main stage where all the keynotes are and the awards were given. Um, we’re by the food station. Well, the food is here. It’s just the the hall is open. There’s not anything dividing us. Yeah, we sold no exhibit booth packages. Uh, and I admire it, I admire the attempt at change. Look, even if you, I’m not, you’re gonna decide as a team what you’re gonna do, but even if you went back to 10 by 10 cubes, uh, pipe and drape next year, I would still admire the 2025 experiment because you are trying something that radically different. You’re not bound by what every other conference does and what you. Uh, what N10 has done year after year after year for 24 years, this is our 25th, your 25th NTC. So you’re not bound by, by your own history even. I just, I admire the outward look, the fresh look, even if you go back to the way it was last year, I still will never stop admiring what you did this year. Thank you for saying that. I mean, I think. It in some ways was was and is a huge risk to say we don’t we’re not even selling packages that would equate to hundreds of thousands of dollars of revenue um so if anyone’s listening and would like to write a check, please let me know um. But it just didn’t feel like that hard of a choice for us because it feels like every year all we want is to get closer and closer to an experience for as many people as possible to be in community and we, you know, getting rid of the booths was just one thing there’s also, you know, sessions are working in different ways and there’s. More furniture in this room that is not from the convention center, you know, it’s not rounds with chairs. We actually rented every piece of furniture from a local furniture company, um, just to, I can say the name that’s my show, not the Freeman Company. We’re not we’re not using that. We actually have put on an entire, you know, 1800 person conference in a convention center without a decorator, um, so we. Did everything ourselves so that we could control and make it just how we wanted it to be. You rented how many chairs you found a source for all these, all the everything, yes, every, every vendor is local, every maker is local. Yeah, you have a little shop. There’s there’s a market, local, local vendors that yesterday I saw cutting boards, uh, I see art, uh, that’s all I saw, but there’s a market over there, local, local vendors love it. You, you also do something smart that I learned, uh, one of your team members told me. That uh you you have your staff retreat in the city where or one of your annual retreats in the city where next year’s NTC is gonna be that’s very smart that way all everybody has walked the building we’ve all stood there and said, do we think this is really where badge printing could go? Do we really think this is. Because we also make basically every decision as a team for the conference, so you know there’s no one person on staff whose job is the conference and they get to make the decisions we we do it together or we say who wants to be in this decision, you know I think we’ve even talked about some of the the way Zen10 works um on the show before but. Yeah, so it feels good to have everybody be there, which means this late summer, early fall we’ll all party in Detroit and see what 26 NTC is gonna look like. OK, 26 NDC NTC in Detroit. Uh, no, it’s very smart and you’ve walked out. in the hotels we can make a couple of restaurant suggestions if somebody comes up because we, yeah, yeah, we went to that place. Yeah, very savvy, very savvy. I admire it. I don’t know. I just feel like I would never have thought of that. Like if I was a CEO I would, I wouldn’t need somebody else to suggest that. I think I never would have thought of that. Can I ask you a question? Do I get, is that allowed on nonprofit radio? OK, OK. I had an anarchist in the previous, uh, OK, I was gonna ask you, you know, I know, I mean with 160 plus sessions every year you have a hard job of only doing 30 or so interviews or or 20 or whatever the number is, right? Yeah, yeah, because it’s that’s only a fraction of how many sessions you could have um chosen from. But even still, I’m curious from the interviews you’ve had from, from a day and a half or so. This is content different this year? Like, is there, is there trends or or interesting notes surfacing because of the time we’re in, because of the moment we’re in the moment of under this administration, the the shifts of of the sector, but also even just like this weird moment around AI and the moment around, you know, all of those different pieces, is there something that you’ve seen? Artificial intelligence, yes, more panels on artificial intelligence. I, I requested more so we’ll have a couple more um. Yeah, I, that’s that’s what I was thinking it’s artificial intelligence, um, you know, the, the political environment, it comes out a little bit, but, uh, first of all, a lot of our, well, yeah, no, it comes out you know of course beyond the fundraising, uh, I was gonna say the fundraising panels have mentioned it, you know, but, but, um. Uh, also in the tech, uh, we just had a panel on personally identifiable information, how to preserve that, um, and including from government intrusion and subpoena, um, so you know that would not have been a topic last year would have been a thought, a possibility, um, so yeah, I’d say those mostly the AI and then the the the political and the, um, data, data protection, data protection, yeah, yeah. Um, Is uh is is Max here? Max stage managing? No, he hasn’t for a number of years a few years yes, yes, and I didn’t see Or Louise here. No, she, it’s not her spring break. Oregon already had spring break, so she is very mad to miss her first. TC. Oh, is this the first one? I think so many years at least, or yeah, I think so. She’s about to be 9. That’s right, yeah, yeah, I guess she missed Denver too because that was she was in school then, but yeah, so those are the only two that she’s ever missed, yes, even as a little babe, yeah, so we don’t have like a family photo booth photo from this, yeah, she has them like up on her, on her, you know, cork board in her bedroom. Yeah, I know he has all the NTG. In like the photo, you know, yeah, parent, yes. Um, How’s, uh, you know? How, how are things, uh, how’s the team, how’s the team doing? Thank you for asking. Um. I, I’m just looking because they’re in that room. That’s our, that’s our staff office so that we can see if there’s any issues, but that’s where everybody’s working the halls on fire or something. You’ll see it’s like a uh um called um smoke towers or fire towers. So, so we’re on, we’re we’re down on the floor, but up maybe 40 ft or something there’s windows and that you’re saying that’s the it’s like in the mall, you know, where the security is behind the one-way glass up above, yeah, that’s, yeah, so staffs up there’s too high, we can’t see in you know staff is OK, I think. Like Any any organizations group of staff, you know, there’s. A staff person dealing with this other issue that’s not work related and somebody you know caring for a relative and somebody trying to help their kid that’s having this struggle is that you know so. Uh, the team is OK. We’re a great team and folks have just been like. Even reflecting in real time like God we’re just like showing up for each other so strong and we feel so like happy to get to show up for each other these these few days together but also try to hold that like you know behind that or underneath that or around that. Life is hard for everyone right now in so many ways that have nothing to do with putting on a conference or or replying to your work emails or you know it’s just like everyone is always carrying these these other things that they’re thinking about um and we know and we’ve and we’ve heard from community members as we do every year that. We want the NTC to be a place where like you can set all those burdens down like it’s OK to talk about all of that stuff you know this is not like a perfect professional face you know like what does that mean? What what is my professional? I don’t know. You know, but also I think it’s a little bit hard for staff to feel like they get to do that too when we’re working so hard to create that space for the community because we’re also like on radio and calling catering and you know we’re like doing all these other logistic pieces so in some ways the staff like miss out on the on the best opportunity to do that that we have every year because we we’re we’re kind of behind the scenes but usually on Friday. Less logistics are happening because it’s the final day of the conference and then you know all but one or two people will get to be at the general session and listen to the keynote and everybody will get to like just go to a bird’s table at lunch or go you know people will really get to kind of come out and and. Enjoy it for a little bit. And when does the team depart on Saturday? Yeah, we fly out on Saturday. Oh yeah, we’ll, I mean Friday, Friday afternoon. Oh yeah, our stuff is getting palletized and taken away at 3 p.m. tomorrow. Oh yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, yes, and like we have volunteers, we have, you know, we have um. I mean it’s end 10. We have a spreadsheet, you know, and every storage bin is numbered and we know what goes in bin number 1 and bin number 2 and you know you just look at the spreadsheet and everybody knows what has to go. I see. Of course we have a spreadsheet for that. Yeah, wonderful, um. Yeah, I would say, and I’ve told others this, uh, this is, this is, I think this is the 11th, uh, NTC that nonprofit radio has come to, yeah, uh, I think it’s the best. I do, I do, you’re just saying that because I’m sitting here and I’ll push you off the yoga ball. I said it to somebody else. No, it’s, yeah, you know, you know, uh, no, I really do admire the open plan. I love. It’s, yeah, it’s just a better feeling, you know it’s not a congested feeling we’re not confined to a 10 by 10 cell. Right and like just from an attendee’s perspective, you know, we didn’t want to shrink it down to only a room of 1800 chairs in theater seating or something, you know, like there’s all this open space. Do you wanna just sit on the floor and build Lego? Go for it, you know, you wanna drag a chair away from a table and talk to somebody else? Go for it. Right, we, we, it’s called a pre-con when before you have an event we have a meeting with, you know, the head of every part of the facility, right, uh, like here’s the security, right, like, you know, one rep from every part of the building comes and you have this precon meeting. And they are like, OK, who are you? it’s like just the day before or a couple of days before or is this we do we do it, no, no, no, we do it Monday so you’re on site, you’re like ready to go. You’re starting to load in and usually events that do this like send one rep from N10 right? we send all of us, all 16 of us show up because each of us are here, right? And you’re supposed to say like, you know, is there any info about your attendees? Is there anything the team should know, you know, and we say. If our attendees want a chair move, that chair is moving. Right, you’re not radioing me for like an approval. If attendees walk up to you and say the water is out, you’re refilling the water, right? Like this community is making the space. Our job was just to make sure water stored in there 16 of us right that you can take direction from, yes, and I mean if they say we’d like a whole another part of the building and could you bring catering there that please don’t do without our approval. Right, but we really want to have a, a place that is just open. Make it. Do put the chair where you want it to be, right? Like Ryan, bring your penguins and set them up. Apparently everybody’s like putting in the chat who gets to take them home, you know, like that feels like a gift to ourselves and hopefully a contribution that’s additive to the sector to to have a space that’s like that or that tries to say. What does it look like? We’re, we’re not a trade show. We’ve never been an actual trade show, but what does it look like to say, yeah, there’s no booths, just talk to each other. And honestly like there are some providers who are here for the very first time and they’re like what? What am I doing? What, what am I supposed to do, right? So we need to do a better job of setting people up whether they’re a provider or a sponsor or just, you know, attendee what to expect, what do you, what does it mean to just walk into this huge room and pick, pick a velvet couch to sit on and talk to somebody, you know, but just walk up yeah um. I, I, I just heard someone’s heels. I, I looked because I thought I heard pickle. I thought it was pickleball, but there is pickleball here. We have there’s pickle ball. There’s ping pong. Oh yes, and the pickle ball tournament yesterday, you know, it ended in, I’m not gonna say controversy, um, but it was heated because E0’s very own Carl came in 2nd place and he desperately would like that trophy. Is there a rule about employees? No, no, no, no, but Carl keeps he has spent a year reminding everyone that last year in pickleball he lost in the first round, but to the eventual winner. Right, it’s just, it’s just like, you know, the, the drama of a bracket process and so he wanted to redeem himself this year, right? He made it all the way to section. Yes, right, Carl. Alright, alright, and Carl is celebrating, I think, 18 years as an N0 staff person. He’s our IT director. He started as an AmeriCorps Vista. That’s incredible. Yeah, is he the longest? He’s the longest. And then how many years are you since membership I’ve been, I’ve been, I started at the NTC like the, you know, two days before 11 NTC was my first day as membership directors, um, and, and Ailey’s right behind me at 13. 0, she’s she’s outstanding. She curated this table that we’re sitting at. Uh, she got the chairs that we’re sitting on, um, she chose this spot for you all to be able to see everybody coming in visibility. Yes, it’s very nice. Yeah, Ali on her game, her thank you. All right, I know you’re busy. Thank you, CEO. I hope Aria was a nice surprise. It was such a gift. Thank you for doing that. I so appreciate it. I’m gonna tell the whole team with our at our daily debrief, um, and. And I look forward to the next time Gene and I get to be on the show and I have slept in some reasonable amount of hours prior to talking into the microphone, but I really value you being here and creating a digital platform for so many of our community members to get to share, you know, all of their smarts beyond these walls. So thanks for thanks for the collaboration. Yeah, lots more. OK. Amy Semple Ward, they’re the CEO of N10. They’re our technology contributor here at uh nonprofit Radio. Thank you. Um, and thank you for correcting me, parent, parent, yeah, yeah, you’re right. I mean, I know you’re right, but thank you for the, thank you for the correction. I’m, I’m a trainable boomer. You’re very trainable. We’ll leave it there. Thank you also for being uh with with uh nonprofit Radio’s coverage of 25 NTC where we are sponsored by Heller Consulting technology services for nonprofits. It’s time for a break. Imagine a fundraising partner that not only helps you raise more money, but also supports you in retaining your donors. A partner that helps you raise funds both online and on location so you can grow your impact faster. That’s Donor Box, a comprehensive suite of tools, services and resources that gives fundraisers just like you, a custom solution to tackle your unique challenges. Helping you achieve the growth and sustainability your organization needs. Helping you, help others. Visit donorbox.org to learn more. Now it’s time for the human factors driving your CRM success. Welcome to Tony Martignetti nonprofit radio coverage of 25 NTC, the 2025 nonprofit Technology Conference. We’re at the Baltimore Convention Center, where we are sponsored by Heller Consulting technology services for nonprofits. My guest now is Ruben Singh. He is founder and CEO of 1/10 Consulting. Ruben, welcome back to nonprofit Radio. Thanks for having me, Tony. Good to see you again. This is, I think your 3rd, maybe 4th, 4th you’re counting, you’re more accurate than I am. Um, your session this year is the human factors driving nonprofit CRM success. Uh, I don’t know, I wonder, do you see people often or organizations often blaming technology when the problem is more team and human? Yeah, that’s exactly the the premise of it, Tony. I, I, um, uh, I’ve I’ve often found myself as a consultant coming into situations where Um, you know, the client we’re working with at the prospect we’re speaking with says, ah, we need Salesforce or we need, you know, uh, this particular solution or virtuous or something else, um, and, uh, you know, because they’ve had a bad experience with the technology that they were with, uh, and so, uh, as I’ve seen this so much throughout my career, um, and then you know you start peeling back the layers of the onions. And then you see, oh well, you know, the business processes are not fully defined. There’s not, you know, a plan for adoption, there’s not a plan for governance, uh, and so what I’ve realized is that, um, often times, uh, where the, the, the failures happen have really has nothing to do with the technology at all. So yes, that’s exactly what the premises of this uh of this um workshop. So the symptom I don’t know, cycling through, uh, platforms like, oh we need Salesforce, and then they have Salesforce for 3 or 4 years and then they realize, oh, no, Salesforce wasn’t really the solution. Now we need we need the Microsoft platform, right? Does it happen like that? That’s definitely a part of it. I think there’s also, you know, just there’s always this sense of urgency um as new technology comes along. Um, that uh we don’t, if we don’t innovate, we’re gonna fall behind, um, and we’re seeing a lot with, you know, AI now as well. Um, it’s, it’s no different, you know, everyone say well if you’re not using AI for your solutions, uh, you know, you’re, you’re gonna be left behind, you’re gonna, your organization’s gonna fail when really. Um, that is, that is really forcing organizations to adopt certain things that they’re not, they may not be ready for their, their processes may not be in place, their data might not be ready. So, um, so just like we’re seeing right now with, you know, the latest trend of technology, um, feel the organizations we work with just feel compelled to to to rush into whatever the particular trend is, um, and sometimes there’s business pressure also. Uh, you know, if this particular system failed, you know, new, new CTO comes in and says, ah, I need to prove myself or I need to get something going, so oftentimes they try to get the, the, the cart before the horse. You mentioned business processes a couple of times. What what kind of processes should we, so now we’re getting to what the human factors are that you need to have in place for the technology to be successful for the CRM. Well, what kinds of business processes are you looking for? Sure. Well, um, first, are they defined, are they documented? You’d be surprised how many nonprofits I walk into where, you know, they could be operating just fine, um, but there’s no nothing really documented and that’s fine, that’s where, you know, consultants like ourselves who would come in and help, uh, understand them, review them, define them. Um, and then there’s some that are just, uh, not very, uh, as you as you learn more about their business processes, you see that there’s, um, just inefficiencies, uh, that are there as well. So what kinds of business processes are we talking about? Just some examples. Yeah, um, fundraising, for example, so check come, you know, stack of checks come in, you know, what are the different processes to get that data entered into the system, or it might be donor advised funds, you know, what is the process around that? Or you know, we have a uh uh a series of files that need to be uploaded or it could be an application. process for programs uh that that might be so it it it could be um the grant distribution process what’s the reviews and applications that process who needs to review, who needs to approve before a grant might be approved. So, um, so there’s really a cross grant making fundraising program delivery um there’s there’s all kinds of steps that needed to happen and we ultimately want the the system, the technology to make it work as efficiently as possible. So we we we heavily rely on business processes to make sure that we’re. Um, that we’re creating things that ultimately makes the systems more efficient. So the technology is supporting the business processes not not we’re not relying on the technology for the business process, but it’s, it’s supplementing what our processes are. That’s exactly it. I would, I would add one more thing to that, you know, in addition to the technology supporting the business process, it also has to support the strategy. So that’s kind of one of the other points that we’re gonna be talking about later on today. Um, is to make sure that there’s a clear strategy. What is it that as an organization you’re trying to solve, um, how do you know that you’re successful? What are those markers or indicators to confirm that you’ve, that you’ve, you’re successful because we want again the technology to support that, uh, we want the technology to be able to track and report and monitor to make sure you’re meeting your goals, so. Uh, as a technologist, it’s a little bit tricky sometimes because they, they, you know, the clients often expect us to come in with a technical solution and, you know, code this and configure that, but we, we like to kind of step back and say, you know, what is it that you’re trying to solve? What’s your strategy? How do things work? Where can we create some efficiencies, then we start building. OK. Yeah, it’s it’s, it’s often important to have that consultant perspective to take a step back because you’re, you’re probably often. Uh, at 110th Consulting, and I’m, I’m gonna ask you to remind listeners why it’s 110. I think I remember, but we’ll get to that, we’ll get to that shortly. Um, you know, you’re, you’re often, um, confronted with, you know, we need, we need new technology. That is not our, that’s not our feedback. Amy. It is, it is feedback. OK. OK. There we go. Thank you. Oh, can you just try it with a lower volume? We’re uh we’re we’re, you can tell we’re live here at we’re, we’re just turning on the loudspeaker because the plenary session just ended, so we have a we have a loudspeaker and it was feeding back. OK, so that was us, that was us. Tala. All right, we’re accountable. I’m accountable. I feedback. It’s time for Tony’s Take too. Thank you, Kate. We’ve got a new tale from the gym introducing you to Roy. Uh, I met Roy by. Same way I hear about lots of people, uh, overhearing other people talking about Roy, uh, after he had left. And I know who he is. I’ve, I’ve seen him around. Uh, I’d say Roy is probably early to mid 70s. And the, the thing that the uh the two guys talking about Roy were focused on. Was that, um, well, he talks a lot, I agree. Uh, and he doesn’t put the weights away after he uses this one machine that he focuses on a lot, spends a lot of time on, and, and he actually grunts a lot when he’s on this bench press type machine. Uh, I had not noticed that he doesn’t take the weights off like you’re supposed to, but these two, guys did, uh, as well as talking about how chatty he is, and, you know, that he, he like, uh, just spends too much time in between his sets. Talking to other people. Maybe even annoying other people, uh, they did, they didn’t say that, but. They didn’t like how much he talks, and they don’t like that he doesn’t put the weights away. So I was, uh, so I was keeping an eye on Roy, you know, after I saw, I saw him again, and, um, word must have got to him about the weight part. Uh, he didn’t, he didn’t talk any less, still very chatty between sets. But he did start putting his weights away after he was done, takes them off the machine, puts them back on the rack where they get stored. So that’s good. So Roy did uh improve his bad gym behavior. Now, how did he get wind of the idea? That he’s not. Practicing good gym etiquette, I don’t know. Uh, I, I, I had nothing to do with it. I just stay out and listen and, and I happened to watch well, cause I heard about Roy once I learned his name, so then I was paying more attention, and that’s when I saw that he, he, uh, exercised good gym etiquette. So, but how he came to change his ways, I don’t know. I swear I had nothing to do with it. So that’s Roy at the gym, uh, along with many of our other characters I’ve introduced you to, uh, through the, through the many months. Roy at the gym, the community gym where I work out, uh, 44 times a week. And that is Tony’s take 2. OK. Are you sure you haven’t spoken to Roy before? Because he sounds familiar. I don’t think so. You might be, you might be thinking of Rob, Rob. There was Rob. He was the Marine Corps. Remember Semper Fi? He was talking to a another former Marine, and they ended their conversation with Semper Fi, the the Marine Corps motto. You might be thinking of Rob. I, I’ve seen Roy, but I never knew his name. OK. Hm. A lot of our names that are short. Well, it’s a couple. Try to keep track of all the characters at the community gym where I go, try to, maybe we should start a database. We should do, maybe we should start a CRM database. We said. We’ve got Fuku butlers more time. Here’s the rest of the human factors driving your CRM success with Rubin Singh. So you’re often confronted with our technology sucks, you know, we need this platform is not working for us. Nobody, I don’t know, nobody ever seemed to have learned it right. It doesn’t, it doesn’t work with what we’re doing, what we’re trying to do, and but you need to step back and say that there may very well be something deeper than your platform. OK. Absolutely, and you know there there’s there’s that and and I’d say also there’s been times if I’m being totally honest, Tony, where I’ve don’t don’t don’t be disingenuous, don’t lie to no I can’t do that, um, but, uh, you know, I’ve I’ve been part of teams early, early in my career where, um, you know, we have, we’ve completed the project. We have finished on time, we’ve finished on budget, we checked all the boxes for all the requirements that we met, but at the end of the project, at the end of the go live, honestly I, I felt kind of uncomfortable. I felt uneasy. I felt sick to my stomach because I knew that despite all the things that we’ve done for the technology, the nonprofit is not set up for success in the long run. Uh, some of the ways that I sense that were, um, they, you know, maybe all the users were really excited about the technology, but maybe the leadership was not fully on board, so they may not have, um, you know, they have not modified their processes, how they’re gonna do reporting, how they’re going to measure progress, how they’re going to measure performance, um, if they’re not really bought into the system, um, the whole thing’s going to fail. Um, also another key thing is governance. For leadership, the leadership buy-in is essential, uh, I think we may have talked about, or if it wasn’t you, it was another NTC how to get that leadership. It’s, if, if, if the leadership isn’t committed, leaders who are listening, CEOs, uh, executive directors listening, if you’re not completely committed, I mean your teams, your teams know that they figure it out and their commitment, uh, uh, is gonna be equivalent to yours for sure. If you could spend tens of $1000 on a on a new CRM system, if not more, but if you as a leader are gonna say, OK, you know, fundraising meeting, you know, fundraising, you know, check-in is going to be on Monday and everybody bring your spreadsheets, um, forget, you can forget the investment that you made in that CRM system, you’ve lost adoption right there holistic look remind us why your your company is one. Yeah, you know, well, um, you know, we’ve exclusively worked with nonprofits and, and very early in our, in our startup phase, uh, we worked with a lot of, um, uh, faith-based organizations, um, and, uh, it was, it was funny that as I was working with different organizations whether it was a synagogue or a church or a mosque or or cordura. Um, they all seem to have this 10% concept, this giving back of 10%, uh, to back to the community, back to causes, back to the good of, of the whole, um, and I thought that, you know, despite all these different faith traditions being so different, there was something that was, uh, you was a common thread amongst many of them, and so that’s kind of where 1/10 the consulting came from, yeah. I had it close. I thought it was, I thought it was giving I was giving back, but giving back 1/10. Yes, exactly, exactly, um, you, you, uh, your session description talks about inclusive design as a as a means to. Achieve the the CRM success that we’re looking for. Uh, say, say more about the design process, inclusivity. Yeah, well, well, we feel strongly that any technology that is meant for everyone should uh include as many people as possible as part of the design, otherwise, um, there’s gonna be blind spots. Um, uh, you know, this might seem, uh, you know, unrelated, but I was reading some stories about how when Um, uh, there’s crash test dummies, um, were being used, um, to test the safety of vehicles. They were based on a male body of 5′ 970 pounds and, um, the, and as is the 2011 University of Virginia study that showed that women were much more likely to be harmed or hurt in an accident. Um, than men were and 47% more it was like a pretty ridiculous number, so, um, just makes you wonder like when, when these vehicles and safety were designed and assessed, were they really thinking about different body types, different people? Well, the same thing applies to, you know, technology, um, the story I often give people is, um, you know, even my own parents, my, my elderly, uh, you know, parents, you know, from an immigrant community when they signed up for the COVID vaccine. Um, it was a process that was clearly not designed for immigrants and it was not designed for elderly, um, you know, it was, it was a the application form was very, uh, cumbersome. There was a lot of information you had to have, have prepared you cited this in a year or two in the past, yeah, the online form was not, uh, well, not user friendly for 70 or 80 year old, yeah, yeah, and so. Um, and, and so like, and then you, you also hear that uh well the immigrant communities are not signing up for the vaccine and, and it’s a public health problem. So, um, you know we feel that CRM is the same day is the same way that um it often times I walk into a room for a design session and I have the IT professionals there or because they’re the ones who can give us the quickest answers, um, or we have the people who are like the quote unquote super users who are the most technically proficient. Um, but you know, to me, if we really want to have inclusive design, we really want to see what who who’s not at the table. Let’s maybe have people of different ages, different technical proficiency, different, you know, socioeconomic, different uh parts on the company hierarchy because if this system is really designed for everybody, we need to get as many different thoughts, ideas, perspectives involved, um, to me, uh, often times if we overlook that, um, it, it, it ends up being a gap that we have to fix later. Um, you, uh, you also cite, um, this being valuable for uh professional growth. How is that? Yeah, and this is something, uh, as I get older, Tony, I’ve been reflecting on on a lot and uh I’ve been, um, I’ve I’ve felt this in my professional career and I’ve I’ve had the um privilege to uh teach as an adjunct professor close by here at University of Maryland Baltimore County. And it’s something I often tell my students, it’s like, um, you know, if, if you really want to be good consultants in this space, um. You know, we, we often times focus on the, the, the credentials or the certifications and you know we go crazy with the certifications and, and you know so we can present that and say, ah this is, you know, this is who we are but in my experience what’s been most useful and also has been useful to to the success of our projects is really being an expert in the industry that you’re working with, being passionate about the industries that you’re working in. Um, so for for us we tend to have a focus on the social justice sector, um, and it’s, you know, in my tradition, in my blood, and my, in my, uh, upbringing to be working with these types of organizations and really understanding the ins and outs of, of these organizations, and I feel like that’s been able to, um, uh, it’s it’s been something I’ve been uh able to bring to my projects, bring to my implementations, um, and the love and care that we give our clients and. It’s, it’s been very helpful so it’s something I, I encourage folks to, um, you know, to, to work on becoming experts work on becoming um keeping up to date with what’s going on in the industry so if you’re a nonprofit technology consultant being fully aware with the challenges with grant making or you know how government funding might be affected these days or you know taking an opinion on how AI can help or harm uh nonprofits. Uh, taking an opinion on data privacy and where it fits, so, uh, what I’ve seen is that what our clients need is not just, just people who are experts at the technology, but experts at the industry that they’re working in. And what about professional growth for for folks in nonprofits as they’re looking at their own businesses? I mean this is sort of a broadening exercise where folks are learning. there as you’re you’re suggesting for consultants, the folks nonprofits learning outside their own areas of expertise. Yes, yes, absolutely, um, an example of that is, you know, uh, to me I realize that, you know, equity and and technology is, is, is ultimately, you know, uh, it’s super important for inclusive design and inclusive systems, um, so for me that meant, um, I was gonna become a. A certified DEI practitioner, um, so I went and, you know, went through the classes, got my certification, and, and that was something that I, I wanted to make sure that was part of who, who I was. So while you might think that this might not be part of your part of your, um, technical credential, um, this might not be part of your technical credential, um, it, it having that business credential or having that expertise was super important, um. Another example could be change management. Um, so if, if you feel that change management, excuse me, change management is something that you’re passionate about, by all means become a certified credential change management professional because it’s only going to make all your projects, uh, more successful. Get you outside your comfort zone. Yeah, I mean I think there’s I think there’s value in that. I’ve I’ve seen it professionally, um. Just, you know, challenging, challenging yourself, you know, outside outside your normal boundaries and and and it really applies to any industry, so as I tell my students, if you’re a The technology is everywhere, so you know if you wanna do fashion tech, become an expert in the fashion side of it a sports tech, become an expert in the sports side of it doesn’t really matter, um, but it’s really just about, you know, what my clients over 27 years of of of this work, um, they don’t really care how many salesforce certifications I have. They don’t really care about, you know, what they, what they care about is do I understand them? Do I understand their business, do I, you know, what, what else do I bring to the table? There’s lots of tech consultants out there, but what else do you bring to the table? So it sounds like we’re in your backyard, uh NTC. You teach at University of Maryland Baltimore County. Yes, yes, yes, just uh uh right right outside 20 minutes from here, so it’s nice, we’ll see you again next year. I don’t do you know where next year’s is? I believe Detroit, but, uh, wherever it’s gonna be, I’ll be there. We’ll be together. Um, what else, what else are you gonna share on this topic that, uh, you and I haven’t talked about yet? Um, we are gonna, I think the one other thing, and, um, it’s not something I talked about, you know, a few years ago, but it’s just so much more relevant now is, um, you know, again as far as the, the human factors that that uh affect CRM, it’s also uh looking at um, you know, how bias and discrimination can make their way into the systems, um, so whether it is algorithms that are built, whether it’s AI models, um, and, uh, making sure that we have. Checks and balances in place to ensure that the data is um not toxic in any ways or or the data is not skewing results in a in a way that could um hurt or harm communities. I think one example I if I can give a specific is, you know, if you are a nonprofit that uses an algorithm for recruitment volunteer recruitment or application reviews, um, you know, making sure that those do not, uh, uh, create skewed results, making sure that. There’s a checks and balances process to make sure that that that the results are not discriminatory, that they’re fair, they’re unbiased, um, and that’s something that, um, organizations are really grappling with how do we do that? So I have some, some models that I’m gonna be sharing as well today that I’m pretty excited about on on how you can create some checks and balances. Yeah, um, I mean it’s uh I wish I wish I had my diagram I could bring up here too. Yeah, but um, yeah, yeah, um, but it’s basically just um being intentional about, OK, you know, if again starting with strategy, so let’s say it’s a volunteer recruitment plan and you say, you know, I and I had a lot of this well we want to increase our, our diversity in our recruit in our volunteer pool so you know it’s, it’s basically setting some measures for that. um, we wanna have 20% of, of this particular demographic or 40% of this and then it’s really just um creating some checks and balances just like in any. Um, in any implementation of of technology there’s gonna be a, a testing phase, there’s gonna be a data validation phase. So what what I’m proposing is we also have a a a a a bias detection phase. We also have a, um, you know, um, uh, a sort of um discrimination and bias, uh, check that we essentially do so in that case we will just like we have parameters to say these are the percentages we’re looking for, what are the results for it? So, um, so it’s, it’s not rocket science, but, but it’s really just making sure that when we build our test plans out that we’re also checking for bias and discrimination. I know a lot of work on LinkedIn. Have you written a book? Um, in the works, Tony, in the works you mentioned it or maybe I’m just that you ought to write a book. OK, uh, you’re working on a book, um, early stages, yes. But um but yeah, now there’s I’ve I’ve kind of captured a lot of thoughts um over the years about this and you know these are things that were just kind of things I uh thought about, you know, like uh you know this doesn’t feel right or this could be done in a more equitable way or this is this is not really doing good. Even though we’re calling it tech for good, um, and then, you know, being in communities like this at N10 and NTC, uh, made me realize, oh, I’m not the only one who thinks like this. There’s others who who are who have also found some weird stuff in out there in the implementation world and and I think, um, you know, as a consultant who, who now has started my own practice, um, I realized, you know, I don’t have to just continue being part of the problem, you know, I can. Uh, I can try to shift some things and, and, um, share my stories to, to make sure that we, we, we, we collectively do better. OK, now, you know, I imagine you’re, you’re part of a minority faith community in the United States. How does that inform your practice or or how does it open your eyes to the inequities that that we were you know, you’re doing more to fight than I am. I bring voice to them, but you’re actually doing. Well, well bringing to it is is very important, so I appreciate that you do that, Tony. Um, uh, yes, as part of the sick tradition I think um it’s it’s a few things. um, I mean it really does fuel a lot of my work, um, you know, the sick tradition is a very um deep in in community service and in justice and in collective liberation, so it it really is a fuel for, you know, the, the, the focus on the social justice sector. Um, but I would say, yeah, absolutely, you know, being a visible minority does, uh, help me have, uh, that the radar is always on. Um, you know, and, um, I, I’m, I’m very aware, hyper aware of of things that just don’t feel right or that that that that don’t sit well with me, whether it’s happening to me or someone else, um, so you know, early on in my career I was, you know, thinking to myself, ah, you know, I’m just learning the ropes, let me just follow along what everybody else is doing and you know, different practices that might happen in in implementations themselves and technology implementations. I’ll just go along with it. It’s fine, um, but now I, I didn’t it right, yeah, so now I kind of sense that, you know, I feel that agency that I can, you know, I can, I can speak my mind, I can step forward and say, yeah, you know, this, this persona building exercise we’re doing for marketing, you know, of, you know, guessing what. Different races and demographics might feel about our work. Yeah, it doesn’t, that’s not great. That’s there’s other ways to to get that information that doesn’t sit here and, and, you know, enable stereotypes, uh, you know, we can use archetypes, we can, you know, we can ask people directly why they could come to our nonprofit or don’t come. So there’s there’s alternatives out there, you know, the tried and true methods are not always the best, um, they’re not always the most equitable, so you know, let’s let’s brainstorm other alternatives. Did finding that agency come from starting your own business or before then? I think it was a combination of being in circles of other technologists of color that, you know, where I, I felt very empowered and said, ah, you know, we’re not the only ones, you know, like other people feel this way and collectively. You know, there’s things we can do better, um, and then yes, starting the company and I I recognize that comes with privilege, um, and not everybody can speak out the way that they want to, but, but definitely starting starting my own practice and being very transparent with my customers about, hey, this is who we are, this is what we’re about. If we see something that doesn’t feel right or that the data that you’re requesting from your clients is is overreaching, we’re gonna, we’re gonna raise our hand and and you know what I thought might have deterred. Customers is actually um uh had customers gravitate towards us. They want to be held accountable. Yeah, yeah. Well, I’m glad you found your voice it’s always good to see you, thank you very much. Thanks so much. My pleasure. Singer and CEO. Thank you for joining us for our. 2025 nonprofit technology conference coverage in the Baltimore Convention Center and thanks to Heller Consulting technology services for nonprofits for sponsoring nonprofit radio at 25 NTC. Next week, more from 25 NTC PII in the age of AI. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you. Find it at Tony Martignetti.com. We’re sponsored by DonorBox. Outdated donation forms blocking your supporters’ generosity. Donor box, fast, flexible, and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit, Donorbox.org. I’m gonna miss that alliteration. Donor box is going away this week. Fast, flexible, friendly, fundraising forms. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I’m your associate producer Kate Martignetti. The show’s social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy, and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation, Scotty. Be with us next week for nonprofit Radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. Go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for April 21, 2025: Wake Up Excited, Go To Bed Fulfilled

Eric Saperston: Wake Up Excited, Go To Bed Fulfilled

That’s what Eric Saperston wants for you. In this archive show from October 17, 2022, he returns after many years to share his wisdom borne of research over cups of coffee with some of the most successful folks on the planet. Plus there’s his book, “Live In Wonder.” We can always use Eric’s inspiration and empowerment.

 

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Every nonprofit struggles with these issues. Big nonprofits hire experts. The other 95% listen to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. Trusted experts and leading thinkers join me each week to tackle the tough issues. If you have big dreams but a small budget, you have a home at Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio.
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Welcome to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host and the podfather of your favorite hebdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d be forced to endure the pain of dextroclination if I saw that you missed this week’s show. Here’s our associate producer, Kate, to tell you what’s up. Hey Tony, I’ll be happy to. Wake up excited, go to bed fulfilled. That’s what Eric Saperston wants for you. In this archive show from October 17, 2022, he returns after many years to share his wisdom, born of research over cups of coffee with some of the most successful folks on the planet. Plus, there’s his book, Live in Wonder. We can always use Eric’s inspiration and empowering. On Tony’s take two. I’m at NTC. We’re sponsored by DonorBox. Outdated donation forms blocking your supporters’ generosity. Donor box, fast, flexible, and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit, Donorbox.org. Here is, wake up excited, go to bed fulfilled. It is a genuine pleasure to welcome back Eric Saperston to the show. He is an award-winning winning filmmaker, bestselling author, executive coach, keynote speaker, and host of the new series Three Things. You may have seen him on the Today Show, CNN or Headline News, or in the New York Times, National Geographic, or The Wall Street Journal. He continues to interview world leaders, tycoons, visionaries, and pioneers to understand the common traits that make them successful. He’s at Eric Saperton and at Eric Saperton.com. Eric, welcome back to nonprofit radio. Yay, Tony, what a pleasure to be uh back with you, my friend. 10 years. That’s some people would call that a decade. 10 it was, it was February 2012, last time you were on, we met at the thing called the NextGen Charity Conference in New York City. Uh, and I’ve been following you, uh, since I’ve got your film. We’re gonna talk about, you’ve, uh, you’ve been living a life of wonder, we’re gonna get to that book called Living Wonder. Um, but I, I’ve got to ask you about wake up excited, go to bed fulfilled. give us some, some, you know, we have a full hour together, so no need to, no need to squeeze it all in here, but like high level, how can we wake up excited and go to bed fulfilled? Well, what a great question. I think for me, first and foremost, you know, I grew up, um, my father, before I was born, had a stroke. He was 28 years old, and he had a stroke. Before that, he was playing minor league baseball for the White Sox. He was a top CE you know, executive. My mom was a stay at home mother, and at 28, my dad went into the doctor, found out he was uh bleeding in the arteries. They had to do a surgery on him, and he came out paralyzed on the entire left side of his body. And my mom, who was a stay at home mother, became the breadwinner for our family. My dad crippled, uh, was really, uh, in dire straits and, and depressed and had a real hard go. And then 4 years later, I wasn’t planned. I had an, I have an older brother and a sister that are 6 and 7 years old. Yeah, but even though my dad was paralyzed, uh, he still had some things functioning and so I, I, I 100% paralysis. I was born as a, as a surprise, uh, and, and came into the world with a father that was crippled, a father that was jaded, a father that was angry and upset for not, uh, you know, and rightfully so. He had, he was a, he was an athlete and a participator in life, and all of a sudden he was regulated to have to really, uh, crawl through the world, and it wasn’t a pleasurable experience for him. And one of the great lessons that I learned from growing up like that is around suffering, and there’s all kinds of suffering. There’s suffering that’s thrust upon you like being paralyzed, and then there’s internal suffering, mental suffering, and one of my personal missions is to is to reduce suffering and increase joy in people’s lives. And I, I looked at my dad, who was, was struggling, and I thought, well, he’s, he’s, he’s got a lot of wisdom, and he’s very smart, and I’m grateful to be a son, and he’s not waking up excited and going to bed fulfilled. And that’s something that called to me. I, I wanted to do that, and so I, out of college, I realized that uh I wanted to to learn how to to do that. And not knowing it myself cause it wasn’t modeled for me, that’s when I came up with this idea of traveling around the country and calling up the most passionate and successful people in the world, and asking them out for a cup of coffee, so I can learn from them how to wake up excited and go to bed fulfilled. And so I’ve learned a tremendous amount and, and uh I think that’s one of the reasons why people bring me out now to give speeches and coach executives and do all the things is to help people uh do that. I think the world right now is For me, from where I’m sitting, and when I look at most people, I see most people going to bed exhausted and waking up tired. And then they put that on repeat over and over and all of a sudden, uh, you know, a week goes into a month and a month goes into a year, and all of a sudden, before you know it, it’s been a decade. Of, of doing that. And I think that’s a tragedy. I think that life is such a beautiful gift, and that we’re here to live it. And I think it’s important to wake up excited and go to bed fulfilled and live every day like it’s your last. And a big part of that, you ask me, what can you do to do that? I would say three things in particular. One, I would say that it’s all about our language, that we use our language, uh, and the stories that we tell to shape and create and design our our life. And most people are using disempowering language, uh, to describe their life, and they’re getting disempowering results. And if we use empowering language, we can have a better shot at creating empowered results. So we play a game called Up the Language and elevate the story, and the higher we can tell, the better story that we can tell about our lives, the better our lives becomes. So that’s number one. Number 2, on what it takes to wake up excited and go to bed fulfilled, I would say it’s all about being really clear about uh the standards, guiding principles, values, definitions, and commitments of who we are. One of the metaphors I like to use is that, uh, again, when I look around the world today, I see a lot of rudderless boats. And we all know what happens to a boat without a rudder, you know, people have become rudderless boats, and when a boat doesn’t have a rudder, that it drifts. It’s at the whim of the elements. It, uh, the news can impact it, uh, a story can impact it and people are being spun around. That’s why I think people are going to bed exhausted and waking up tired is because they’re unclear about what it is that they stand for and what I’ve learned from talking to The most successful people in the world is that they’re clear, and they weren’t clear when they became successful. They got clear on the way because that became the rudder of their boat, and they became the captain of their vessel, and they were able to carve through all kinds of scenarios to be who they. They are because they know what their definition of success is. They know what their vision is. They know what their mission is. They know what the values that push and drive them to do what they do. They know their commitments. And I think one of the things that I’m seeing as I’m coaching all these executives around the world is that no matter how successful the executive has become. People need a good checkup. They need an opportunity to kind of re-evaluate who am I, what am I, what do I care about, what’s important to me, and get really clear about that. And with that comes confidence, self-esteem, uh, velocity, ease, and power. And the third thing I would say that uh helps people wake up excited and go to bed fulfilled is. Definitely one of the big ahas for me after studying the common traits of extraordinary people now for, uh, many, many years. Uh, one of the big epiphanies was that the people who wake up excited and go to bed fulfilled and live extraordinary lives for decades are people that have maintained, celebrated, and share their sense of wonder with the world. That we have become a society that has become cynical and jaded and bored and disillusioned, and all that is because somebody has sold out their sense of wonder. Wonder is a birthright that all of us have. Every single child on this planet was born with a sense of wonder. It is our first value. Uh, it is about being curious and innovative and exploratory. And living life as an adventure, and some people are born with it and keep it, and nurture it, and celebrate it, and go on to live extraordinary lives, and other people let like a, you know, get punched in the gut and let the wind get knocked out of them. Let the wonder get knocked out of them, and then they become cynical and jaded and depressed and all those kind of things. So I think this world right now. Uh, one of my big invitations is for everyone to do whatever it takes to reclaim their sense of wonder, that childlike curiosity, that awe, that playfulness, and approach life from that place, it brings vitality, life force, and aliveness. Which I guess ultimately, uh, to answer your question, if you put all those together and a few other things, I think you have a greater chance of waking up excited and going to bed fulfilled. You make my synesthesia kick in. I, I, I get, I, I get some tears listening to you, especially the last, the, the 3rd, especially the 3rd, living, living in wonder that reclaiming that childhood curiosity, sense of sense of wonder, um. I, I, I have to share with you that I’ve been sharing your, I’m, I’m gonna call, well, I’m gonna call it a mantra. Maybe it’s not your mantra, but the mantra, wake up excited, go to bed fulfilled. Um, in, in my work, I am often talking to people who are. 70 and over because I’m doing planned giving fundraising for my clients who are nonprofits and they’re the, the people who leave the leave the the nonprofits in their wills and their trust and their life insurance, you know, they’re typically over 70 or so. So I shared this mantra with two women. And they both, they both wanted to write it down. 11 was 84, and the other, I told it to her on her 99th birthday. I was with her just a couple of weeks ago, celebrating her 99th birthday. And I, I told her about the, the, um, So the the aspiration to, uh, to wake up excited, go to bed fulfilled, and both of them, and she wrote it down. This is how a 99 year old remembers things. She would write it down, she just think about it and the 84 year old, that was a phone conversation, but same thing, she, she wanted to write it down so it’s, it’s inspirational to folks who are, uh, over 84 and over and including a 99 year old that I shared it with. So it’s, it is, uh, it’s such a beautiful aspiration. You know, it really came to me, uh, organically. I was, uh, you know, I, you, you mentioned that I made a movie and out of college for those folks I guess that that don’t know about it, you know, I, I, I graduated from college and My, I, I, I had gone to college not planning to go to college. I really was, that wasn’t really in my, uh, focus yet. I ended up going to school and then not only did I go to school, uh, I, I excelled. I became a student body president and a fraternity president, a resident advisor. I ran the volunteer center, a big advocate. I’ve been volunteering for a long time. Where did you go to school? shout out your alma mater San Diego State, SDSU San Diego State University. And uh and Grossmont College before that. I went to a community college, like I said, I did, I didn’t plan to go to college. I went to a community college first, then went to San Diego State, and volunteering was has been a part of my soul for a long time. It was when I was a kid volunteering. Uh, I volunteered for the Special Olympics. Uh, I ran the volunteer center. I ended up getting invited to run with the Olympic torch because I was a volunteer, uh, and volunteerism led me to being a speaker at the AmeriCorps conference, you know, for, for the Martin Luther King National Conference on Service. Then I ended up meeting Coretta Scott King, and then I ended up meeting the director of the FBI Bill Sessions, and then he introduced me to Governor Richards, and Governor Richards introduced me to Henry Winkler, the Fonz, and then that led to a development deal with Walt Disney Studios, and then it turned our journey. We were traveling, I was I kind of jumped ahead, but I was, I was in college graduating. Yeah, we’re gonna talk about van life. We’re gonna get, we’re gonna get the van, but no doubt about it. I, I, I, I, I, I think people like to say I was van life before van life was a hashtag, before we even had hashtags. Right before there was such a thing as a hashtag. It was a pound sign. It used to be a pound sign. It was a butcher, you would get a pound, like 33 pounds, and then that got converted to a hashtag and now I guess is just LB, but yes, when, when Pos was represented by today’s hashtag, you were, you were living van life. I was, I was indeed. So I guess for the for the just to recap the movie. So the movie where I, I graduated college, I took, and instead of getting a job because I, I felt like I achieved a lot in college and I wasn’t so ready to go, uh, get a corporate job or go to graduate school, I decided that I was gonna take a year off. And follow the Grateful Dead and work of ski season in Aspen. So I took my golden retriever jack. I bought a, I bought, I bought an old Volkswagen bus, uh, and the two of us set off across the country. Before I left, my mentor in school challenged me and he said, hey Eric, what can you do to make the trip more meaningful? I mean, I get you’re gonna go party and play, but you’re already good at that. What can you do that would provide value on this journey to yourself and others along the way? And he really dropped a great question that changed the trajectory of my life. And so I thought about it, and I thought about my life, and I thought about how my father was crippled, and I grew up in a house like I did, and I thought about wanting to, to wake up excited and go to bed fulfilled, and what that would look like, and how can I do that? And then I read this quote that said, to know the road ahead. Ask those coming back. And that quote stuck with me, and I realized that if I wanted to live an extraordinary life, the quickest and best way that I could do that would be to go to talk to people who are already living extraordinary lives and study the common traits, motivating factors, and guiding principles that enable them, enable everyday people to, to produce extraordinary results. And so, I, I had this vision that I’d call people and then then I set off on this cross country adventure, not knowing if anybody would say yes or that I could do it, but at least it gave my, my, my journey a sense of purpose. So I set off across the country and maybe some of you might have seen me and not remembered cause how I funded my trip is I would pull into rest areas with my Coleman stove, and I’d set up my dog and my bus and I’d jam jammed some tunes, and I sold, uh, what I called back then sexy, kind, grilled cheese sandwiches, made with love for $1 off my Coleman stove for gas money and dog food. And people would walk up to me and just tilt their head like a dog that’s confused and just like, what are you doing? And I would tell them that I graduated from school and I’m traveling around the country and I’m calling up the most powerful people in the world and taking them out for a cup of coffee and how I’m funding my travels is by selling sexy kind grilled cheese sandwiches. How many sandwiches would you like? And uh some people called the cops, uh, some people, uh, you know, turned the other way and other people thought what I was doing was cool and they started buying my sandwiches and then not only did they buy my sandwiches, some people, they would give me $5 because they thought what I was doing was cool or $10 or $20 and Uh, a few times I even got some $50 bill once, uh, $50 bills for two pieces of bread and some cheese, which is, uh, pretty incredible to get $50 grilled cheese sandwiches. I guess that’s, that’s that’s what a college right, that’s that’s what a college education is all about learning how to market $50 grilled cheese sandwiches. It’s time for a break. Imagine a fundraising partner that not only helps you raise more money, but also supports you in retaining your donors. A partner that helps you raise funds both online and on location so you can grow your impact faster. That’s Donor Box, a comprehensive suite of tools, services, and resources that gives fundraisers just like you, a custom solution to tackle your unique challenges, helping you achieve the growth and sustainability your organization needs, helping you, help others. Visit donorbox.org to learn more. Now back to wake up excited, go to bed fulfilled. So I got a chance to get to talk to, you know, travel and make some money, and then people were giving me, uh, when they found out what I was doing, they gave me names and numbers, even the people that they knew, oh my God, what you’re doing is cool. We, you know, I was telling them I’m bridging a gap between young people and wise elders and And uh do you know any wise elders? And then people would say, oh, you know who you need to meet is, you know, Max Cleland. He’s a Georgia Secretary of State and triple amputee and a war hero. I mean he’d be great, or you can go, oh my cousins, Bernie Marcus, the founder of Home Depot, you could, you could meet him. He’s really great and oh my, my, my, my sister-in-law is Kathy Thornton, who’s a United States astronaut, the first woman in space, and you should meet her. And so all of a sudden I got names and numbers of people, plus I was cold calling people and and uh calling corporations and calling all types of folks and saying, can I take you out for coffee? and then lo and behold, I was interviewing some of the most extraordinary people on the planet and then was encouraged, what what what are you doing? And then, uh, realized that we were capturing the living oral history of extraordinary people. And then we were encouraged to get a video camera and document our travels, and then we went across the country for 4 years, shot over 500 hours of footage, interviewed over 200 of the most extraordinary people from Billy Crystal to Jerry Garcia to Jimmy Carter to Maya Angelou to on and on and on, and met all these incredible people, documented, uh, their wisdom and experience. And then ended up making a feature film that uh we got a deal with Disney and then that movie we sold our short we made a short film first and uh we sold it at Sundance Film Festival and then our feature won South by Southwest and then off to the races we went and we had a hit on our hands that were in theaters all across the country that sold out shows. Oh, you have it right there. I got so we’re really blessed. my DVD Winner of the audience Award at the Atlanta, uh, Film and Video Festival 2001. Winner of the most memorable Film Award, South by Southwest Film Festival 2003. You gotta get your, you gotta get your copy of, uh, the DVD. I’m holding it up for we’re only folks are only hearing us, but I’m holding up my copy for, uh, for Eric. The Journey. The film is the journey. The Journey film, yeah, it’s so you can, you can, you can get access to that at uh Linonder.com or Ericsapperston.com. Yeah, the movie turned out, you know, it was in Barnes and Noble’s and Hollywood Video and uh Netflix and all that, and it really it it’s impacted people all all around the world and it’s, it’s been a real blessing. There was a little bubble gum and shoestring operation. Uh, you know, the little book, the Little Engine That Could, uh, I think I can, I think I can. I think our movie was like that and then it ended up, uh, really, um, inspiring and, and impacting a lot of people. And why I brought up the movie in the first place was that you were sharing with me how you shared. Um, wake up excited and go to bed with these really incredible clients of yours, and the impact it had, and I was saying that that phrase came organically, uh, to me. I was, I had done this travel. I, we, I picked up three other travelers and we went around the country interviewing people and it’s the story of our own dynamic and what it was like following a dream and and and being on this adventure and meeting all these iconic people. And then there was a moment where I was uh in a, we were camping. Uh, in the snow up in Oregon. And I just looked at the camera. Kathleen, our cinematographer, puts the camera on me, and it’s towards the end of our journey, uh, before we went home to even watch footage and figure out how to make it into a movie. This was well before that. This was just while we were still on the road, and Kathleen put the camera in front of me and and started asking me, you know, things that I’ve learned from taking this adventure. And I just looked at the camera and said, I just have one question to ask people, and that is, are you waking up excited and going to bed fulfilled? If you are, you’re doing the deal, and if not, what are you waiting for? And that became the last line of the movie, uh, and I’ve been living it ever since. And asking people that question everywhere I go, cause the question is so powerful to me, cause it’s either one or the other. Somebody looks at that question and goes, either I am waking up excited and going to bed fulfilled, and that’s a celebratory life. And other people ask themselves that question, and they’re like, dang it, I’m not. And if you’re not, then it’s time to set a course to make that happen. Life is such an unpredictable thing. We just learned from inside the pandemic. And everyone, it’s our birthright. I believe it’s our birthright to wake up excited and go to bed fulfilled. We have control over a lot of things in our life. The, the, the folks we surround ourselves with, the choices we make personally and professionally, um, our, our, our thinking, you know, you, you, you captured with, uh, you know, our language using empowering language, but our thinking about ourselves or the way we talk about ourselves and You know, these are things that we all have control over and including those big decisions in life, you know, you, you can make the life that, that you aspire to, but you just have to be conscious in, in, in lots of things. Yeah, I think, uh, being conscious is important. I mean, conscious is a big word, a scary word, uh, you know, an out there woo word, but I think ultimately what it means is being present. Yeah. Being present, just being thoughtful about your, your decisions, your choices, your actions. Again, the folks you surround yourself with, I think, I think the folks you surround yourself with, you know, are, uh, uh, do you, do you, do you spend your, uh, your time with folks who are, who lift you up, who challenge you, who you, whose company you enjoy, or is it more folks that, you know, are troubled that bring you down, that are, that are needy. Uh, you know, there may be some folks in your life that you don’t have a choice about, but a lot of, a lot of folks in your life, you do have a choice about. And, and I think about the people you surround yourself with and spend time with. I agree with you. I think the principal, the principle there is like attracts like. So, uh, let’s say I’m a cynical, jaded, uh, frustrated person. And, and, and of course I’m thinking, you know, I need to hang out with more uplifting, powerful, inspiring people, but the uplifting, inspiring, powerful people aren’t gonna wanna hang out with you. Yeah, yeah, because you’re that person is is is is is taking energy instead of contributing energy. So it’s really comes down to who we’re being in the world. And to, to, to step up our game. I mean, both personally and professionally. I think one of the things that I’m doing now as a, as, you know, as a coach, we specialize in coaching executives to achieve meaningful impact and amplify their personal and professional narratives. Mhm. And to amplify our narratives, that’s what we’re talking about here is amplifying. The the higher our narrative can go up, the more joyous and fulfilled our lives are. People are, people are, it’s amazing to me, it’s just incredible. Even top executives are using language that’s off-putting. You know, in our world right now in corporate America, we’ve become a culture that’s talking about inclusion, empathy, belonging, psychological safety, organizational health, all these things are important to create a very powerful culture, and most organizations and their executives are using language that is outdated. They’re using language that’s disempowering. They’re using language that’s aggressive. They’re using language that actually makes people recoil, and they’re good people. The people that I’m talking to are good people. They’ve got great ideas and a powerful vision, and they want to do good in the world, yet the language they’re using is actually sending people further away. And if we start like what Eric, give us an example or two of, of this disempowering uh type language. Great. Uh, here’s here we talk about distinctions a lot. One of the distinctions that we talk about that’s super powerful as a leader. Is, are people talking from the I versus the you? Mm. Most people, what do you think? I or you? What do most people do? Uh, I’m talking about, so there’s a leader, it could be a leader, leader in an organization, gets up and starts talking to his people or her people about what’s going on in the organization. Is that leader using I language or you language? Uh, I, I, I, I think they’re probably using more I language. I, I would like to hear more we language. You can use we language. That would be a nice evolution. Uh, I would say just from, from our research and what we see is that most executives, it’s you, right, all you, yeah, you see, I see what, yeah, yeah, yeah, people are eing all over each other. You people, you’re doing it, yeah, yeah, you know what you need to do. You need to follow this. You need to, you need to, you need to, you need to, you need to, you need to, you need to, and then even if it’s good, even. If it’s well intended, they’re using the word you on people, and people get frustrated. They get, they, they get it, they feel attacked, they feel confronted. They feel like you’re judging them. The, the, the word you is challenging, way better for an executive to turn around and say, hey, this was my experience. This is what I need. This is what I would like to see happen. This is what I want. And that way I get to tell my story and you get to be enrolled in my story. You could possibility in my story. What about inclusive we language? We we together. Even better, even better. OK. Even better. Um, but it’s careful, we is a difficult one because we can be a crutch. People can use the word we when they really mean you. And it’s it’s different to get it can get a little dangerous. OK, you have to be sincere about doing things together, moving ahead together, together, yeah, be be sincere, be genuine about that. All right. um Here’s another one, people say, you know, people say you know a lot. People will be in a conversation to go, we, we learned this, we, we learned this the other day when we were, we were interviewing an IT guy. Yeah, to work with us. We took him to dinner and we had a piece of pizza and then he was sitting there, we just learned, we just, we just learned, you know, we were just thinking about this distinction, came up with this distinction around I versus you and then uh my, my lady and I were at dinner with this guy and he starts telling this story to us. He’s like, hey, you know, when you’re in Vegas. And then you’re out partying all night, and then, you know, you drink too much, and then you pass out, and then you find yourself in a hotel room with a black eye, and there’s two dudes there that you don’t know, and then your wallet’s gone, you know what I’m talking about. And Sarah and I are just so we, we, we, we actually, we actually don’t know what you’re talking about. I can’t say I’ve had that experience to, to know, no I. Uh, it happened in Seattle once, but never in Las Vegas, right, not for Las Vegas, only in Seattle, but what, what happens in Seattle stays in Seattle, so we don’t talk about it. All right, but you get what I’m saying, so that’s just one example, but there’s so many examples around and also just, you know, another one is that executives and in all of our lives, most people are talking about what they don’t want to have happen. We spend an awful lot of time talking about what we don’t want. I don’t want us to screw up. I don’t want us to miss the deadline. I don’t want us to da da da. And most people are always talking about what they don’t want. And to me, that’s language in the off position, talking about what you don’t want. Powerful, inspired, conscious leaders are talking about what they want. They’re actually speaking their possibility into the world. They’re inviting people to go where they want, that’s what a leader is, is to lead us towards where we wanna go together instead of talking about what we don’t want. Most people are talking about what we don’t want. We’re coaching executives to talk about what they do want. 10 years ago, I, I asked you what what it was that, what was the number one thing that distinguished those who were successful from those who were not successful. And uh, I’m gonna ask the same thing, not as a quiz, but I’m just curious if, if over time this this may have evolved because you’ve done hundreds of interviews since we talked 10 years ago. Um, what, what do you think is the number one thing that, uh, distinguishes those who are successful from those who are, who are not? Uh, I’m remembering our conversation from 10 years ago. Uh, I’m remembering that question, and I’m remembering the answer that I gave them. So I’ll give the answer I gave them and then see if a new one pops up now. But the answer I gave up then was, uh, when you asked me what separates those who achieve from those who do not. My answer back then was, Uh, based on an interview that I had with the president of Coca-Cola, Donald Keogh, who was arguably the most successful, uh, CEO in the world with one of the most recognizable brands in the world, and I had asked him that question, and I said, hey, you know, Mr. Keo, what separates those who achieve from those who do not? And like many of the guests, he looked at me and said, well, Eric, what do you think it is before, before he’d answer, he’d ask me. And then I’m thinking, well, it’s having a vision, uh, uh, finishing what you start, having good communication skills, I rattled off a few answers, and he goes, oh, those are all part of the soup that, you know, makes it all possible. But what I think, and then again, just the most powerful recognizable uh uh CEO uh of in the world at that time, one of them. looked at me and he said, Eric, what separates those who achieve from those who do not. is in direct proportion to one’s ability to ask others. For help. We think asking for help is a sign of weakness, and it’s actually a sign of strength. And that our vulnerability and willingness to learn and enroll people into a vision is what makes visions come true. It’s time for Tony’s Take two. Thank you, Kate. I’m at NTC, the nonprofit technology conference. On the floor, they don’t call it the exhibit floor, they call it the hub this year, capturing lots of interviews for future nonprofit radio episodes. Uh, we’re all in Baltimore together, of course, the nonprofit technology conference is sponsored, hosted by N10. You heard Amy Sample Ward talk about this, uh, the conference a couple of weeks ago with the Baltimore Convention Center. And I’ve got interviews coming up on uh email deliverability, um, email marketing. Multiple Panelists talking about different fundraising topics, something about events, experiential events, and it’s like 19 or so, uh, panels. So that is, uh, you know, if we do to a show, that’s 9, 10 weeks of NTC shows brought to you, brought to you, brought to you in living color audio by Tony Martignetti nonprofit Radio. So that’s where I am this week, the whole week, um, and we’ll start, yeah, we’ll start with the shows uh next week. That’s Tony’s take 2, Kate. I’m not there with you, so have lots of fun and meet lots of cool people. Thank you very much. What you mean we’ll have more fun because you’re not there? How are those two things connected? You’re not there and you’re not here. I mean, you’re not here and have fun to hear it live. Oh well, you’re in school though. We’ll have to wait, I guess. You have uh educational obligations that are constraining your time. No, that’s true. All right, maybe next year we’ll get you out of school. I don’t know. All right. Mhm. We’ve got Booco butt loads more time. Here’s the rest of Wake up excited, Go to bed fulfilled with Eric Saperston. That is what you said 10 years ago. I’ve remembered it. I’ve, I’ve used it from time to time, uh, and, and you brought vulnerability in too. I, I absolutely agree that vulnerability in a leader is a sign of strength, a sign of confidence that they’re willing to expose themselves, uh, and perhaps their organizations vulnerability, uh, to others, rather than wrapping up tight and appearing invincible and All knowing, which is, which is, uh, an, uh, uh, an, an unachievable state. Um, so, has it, has it evolved? Do you, do you feel now that was Mr. Keo’s answer and you adopted it? Do you think it’s, it’s changed? Do you, do you personally see something different through all the, through all these, uh, through this decade since? You know, I think now what I think, I think that is no doubt. I think you just said some really great things there one I mean asking for help is great. I think vulnerability. I think we wanna, we wanna follow people who are accessible, approachable, that they’re that I, I, I, I, I can relate to them. Genuine. I, I think that, yeah, and, and. Yeah, I, I, I was, I was with somebody yesterday who was talking about his executive teams, and he’s like, man, I love those people. I, I would do anything for him. I wanna, you know, and it was that and I know why they wanna do that, it’s cause the people there are right there with them. They’re, they’re not better than they’re they’re willing to do the work, they’re willing to get dirty with them, they’re willing to admit their own foibles and their own mistakes, and they’re willing to, and I think creating a culture of vulnerability like that breeds more vulnerability. It inspires more vulnerability and it creates community. Um, I think my answer now, uh, What separates those who achieve from those who do not now are leaders that genuinely care about the people they’re serving. They really care. Care about your health, your vitality, your wellness, your happiness, uh, and really, yeah, are willing to listen. I guess that would be that I guess that that’s my answer. People, what separates those who achieve from those who do not is one’s ability to listen well. And then you’ll hear people’s, uh, uh, you’ll, you’re here, you’re here, you’ll hear other people’s, uh, vulnerabilities, other people’s needs, and I think the genuine, uh, excelling leader can, uh, um, I, I, I wanna say something strong that accommodate, can, can support those, support those needs. Here those vulnerabilities, work with them, help people. Uh, excel in their strengths and build up their build up their weaknesses, the weak areas and In a, as a guy who studies communication, I think there’s 3 things that want to happen in every communication exchange with someone. That people want to be #1, they want to be seen, 2, they wanna be heard, and 3, they wanna be appreciated. And if we can do those three things in any communication exchange, we’re winning. And I think being a good listener enables that to happen. I get a chance to really see somebody, and we talked about being present, that’s a big one. Just being able to be with people. Be with people wherever they are, look them in the eyes, being able to have empathy and compassion and and and understanding, and really hear people, hear people’s stories, even the ones that are different than yours. Even with people that that you disagree with, can you still listen and hear them and let them so be able to be seen, so you get a chance to really listen and hear them heard, you get to really take in what they’re saying, even if you don’t agree, even if you don’t think it’s the right path, even if you’re not into it, but still give people dignity and respect for sharing, and then appreciate them, value them, understand them, be grateful for them. And then even if it’s like as a leader, people come and tell me, oh, you know, here’s a great idea, then, you know, it may not be the idea that I think is the right time at this moment. And here’s another, you know, great distinction that people are using, right? You know about communication distinctions around language. Most people use the word but a lot. If you go and study people right now, a lot of people are using the word but. And they’re using the word but all the time, even when they’re comparing two ideas they actually believe in. And so for me, most people that are leading right now, when I talk about language being off-putting, some leaders gonna hear somebody’s great idea that they think is awesome, and they’re gonna go, yeah, yeah, yeah, but, and then they’re gonna pivot. All that does is diminish what that person just said, shut them down and make it feel like they’re not as important. And now let me tell you what I think is important. The whole idea of improvisational comedy, it’s based on the principle yes and. Yes, yep. Yes and, way better than no but. Most people out there are no buts. If you’re a no but and you’re listening to this right now, I invite you to give up. No but and start becoming a yes and. it doesn’t cost you anything and it’s more inclusive, it’s more honoring, and it builds community. No but just does the opposite. So if I listen to somebody pitch an idea to me that’s not really what I think is the right time for me, I’m gonna be like, wow, that’s fascinating. And, and then I’m gonna pivot versus no but, let me tell you what my idea is. And it’s and you talked about humility, you know, we talked about vulnerability. Another thing of humility, right? That goes with asking for help, but it’s also just willingness to, to not always have all the answers. We don’t have to pretend that we have all the answers. And so for us, uh, being humble, somebody pitches me an idea and I don’t think it’s a great idea at the time that they pitch it, but two weeks from now, their idea could come into full focus and it was a great idea. One of my guiding principles I like to play with is uh I like to remind myself this phrase, could be good. Could be bad Too early to tell. OK Yeah it’s, it’s open minded, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s possibility related. there’s something this this could be, it could be fantastic, but, you know, we just don’t know yet. I dare say, living in wonder. Let’s talk about what a beautiful. I want to talk about the book, Li in Wonder, Quests, Quotes, and Questions to jumpstart your journey. First, just reading the title, I happen to love alliteration. Uh, this show I have Tony’s take two. if you get jargony, we have jargon jail. I love alliteration. You’re not, you’re not a jargon. I’m not worried about that at all for you, but I do put folks occasionally in jargon jail. I love alliteration. So quest quotes and questions to jumpstart your journey, that’s a great subtitle of the book for me. Um, Living Wonder. What, what, uh, uh, I know the book is available at uh Ericsapperston.com, but what are gonna, what are people gonna learn about Living Wonder? These handwritten pages. What are we gonna get? Uh, thank you so much. You put people in jargon jail. Uh, I’ve been really blessed. Uh, my, my neighbors, Woody Harrelson, and, uh, we spend a lot of time doing all kinds of fun shenanigans, and he’s one of the funniest and smartest people I know, and he’s an incredible storyteller and a phenomenal joke teller, and it’s a privilege to be uh around him and our friends and they’re always cracking jokes and telling great stories, and it’s, it’s, it’s. It’s almost nerve-wracking to be around such high, uh, quality, um, uh, presenters and performers. Uh, the, the image I have is, is when I was, you know, jumping, jumping rope, there’s like, you know, that rhythm, there’s a rope and everyone’s talking and sharing a joke and then and then it’s going and then all of a sudden, you know, oh, I want to tell a joke and then kind of jump in and if if I tell a good joke, you know, the, the, the, the rope’s still going and, you know, and I didn’t miss a beat. Other times you jump in and now all of a sudden joke doesn’t really go well and then everyone kind of just is like, you know, and it’s so it’s so loud in a room like that because everyone’s so good at telling jokes so it’s just like aww and then all of a sudden you, you put people in jargon jail, uh, Woody likes to put people in joke probation. All of a sudden he looks and I and I get there, you know it’s like Eric, uh, joke probation and all of a sudden I’m, you know, I, I, I get joke probation a lot. You brought the, you brought the crowd down. Yeah, I sometimes, you know, it’s it’s it’s, it’s a high risk game, but, you know, for the times, you know, it’s like being a professional baseball player. You strike out a lot, but every once in a while, you know, you hit the ball and people, people invite you back to dinner. You you can offer Woody joke jail. Well, I thought, you know, my favorite thing is to put him, and he’s so good at it, and every once in a while he flubs and I get to all of a sudden go, oh, joke probation for you. And uh it’s, it’s really fun. It’s it’s it’s uh one of the things that one of the principles that that I’ve really come to live by is a rising tide lifts all boats, and being around, I, you know, I live on a farm now. Uh, with, uh, a bunch of people that that live on the farm. We have 280 acres out here and it’s just extraordinary. In Hawaii, we want folks you know that you live in Hawaii. I do. And, and, and just being in community has taught me so much. I, I, I, I grew up in a condo in uh San Diego and and uh moved to Atlanta and I’ve lived in Venice Beach, California, and I’ve Uh, I, I, I’ve been relatively isolated, even though I’ve been, you know, popular or created things. I, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve lived in big cities where, you know, I might know a neighbor or two, but for the most part I’ve, I’ve, you know, been, been more independent. Now I live in a place where I am, uh, with people, and that has been another big growth for me is to, to one live where we’re planting food. Uh, in feeding people and, uh, eating food from the land and learning about sustainability and regeneration and soil, and, uh, some really healthy practices and what it’s like to to be in community and and how communities as well as organizations and not for profits and families thrive is by contribution. Uh, we become a society of consumers. Uh, most people like to take, you know, what’s in it for me, and really thriving communities, thriving organizations, thriving families are, are, are shifting that. They’re upping the language and elevating the story to instead of what’s in it for me, they’re asking themselves, hey, how can I contribute? How can I make this better? What can I do to provide value? And that has been a a secret sauce for sure. To answer your question about the the book Living Wonder, uh, that came, that came to me because of my travels, I was, um, I didn’t have it early on. When you met me, I was really, um, coming off of meeting all these extraordinary people and getting invited to give speeches for Nike and Coke and General Mills and UPS and ADP and United Way and all these, and I was doing opening and closing keynotes in front of, you know, big audiences, and I was uh I think one of my, my talents is that I, you know, I can look at everyone that I’ve interviewed, and I can tell you at least 1, probably 2 or 3 lessons that that person taught me, and I could go give a speech, and I can interview the executives at a company, find out what values are important to them, go. In my arsenal of stories of people who I’ve met and then shuffle the deck, pull out, uh, a picture of this person and a picture of this person and a picture of this person, and then that’s my speech. I can share these really great stories that will relate to the organizational culture and inspire them to even do better. When I would be done with these speeches, uh, you know, the audience would be really gracious, and, um, they would, they would engage in questions with me, and they would, you know, ask me different things about the movie or what I shared about what not. And every once in a while there’d be somebody who would Raise their hand and and say, hey, Eric, you know, I really get that you’re, you know, you did this cool thing, you met all these cool people and you’re able to share all these great stories and lessons from leadership lessons and communication distinctions from all these wise people that you’ve met, and you’re doing a great job of it, and I loved it and uh I’m just curious, you got to go on this adventure. And you did something that most people never get to do, and you got access to all these big brains, uh, and extraordinary people. What did you deduce that was, that was the commonality? I, I, I, I know that you can tell me a story about Jimmy Carter when you met Spike Lee or whoever it is, but I wanna know what, what did you learn? And for years, I would be up there going, you know what? I don’t know that I have that answer yet, and it was a little awkward cause I wanted to have an answer, but I didn’t have it, and it took about 6 or 7 years after the journey. There’s a great, uh, there’s a great line by Khalil, the poet Khalil Gabron, who said, as the mountain to the climber. Is clearest from the plane. As the mountain to the climber is clearest from the plane. What that means to me is that when I was on the mountain, traveling, all I could see was what was in front of me, and I only had the perspective of what was in my immediate surroundings. And things became clear when I got to leave the mountain and be on the plane and look back up and see where I traveled. And I think that’s for all of us. We get a chance to, you know, in the moment, we can only do the best we can in the moment. A lot of wisdom, a lot of clarity, a lot of understanding comes after the experience is over, then we get a chance to kind of look back at where we traveled, then that’s where we get to deduce some really great takeaways. And so for me, it took a while. It took me 6 years of being on the plane. And back at the mountain and then all of a sudden, I was on a surf trip to Costa Rica, and I had an epiphany, and the epiphany was that the thing, the greatest commonality, the greatest aha, the thing that all these extraordinary people, whether they were a world renowned architect, a world renowned horse trainer, they were a president of the United States, they were a CEO that took an idea from a garage to being super successful. The common or a rock star, all the commonalities that these folks had in common. The number one thing is that they still were Excited and open and willing, and innovative, and exploratory about life. They were just willing to, like, they they showed up in a meeting and they’re like, I don’t know, let’s try that. Let’s figure this out. What do you think? And it was just, it was this big light bulb that went on going, wow, there is this idea that we were all born with a sense of wonder. It’s the thing that is our life force. People who live in wonder have their light turned on. And it’s bright, and we like to be around those people. It’s contagious, it’s uplifting, it’s inspiring to be around people that are still learning and growing. And then there’s a whole bunch of other people who are like, know it alls, and let me tell you how that’s not gonna work, and, you know, that’s never gonna happen, and blah blah blah, and they’re talking even that what I’m saying, the the example I just gave, those are people talking about what they don’t want. It’s never gonna happen, it’s not gonna work. Those are people talking about what they don’t want. It’s the negative part versus talking about, hey, I’m not, I’m not coming from some fairy dust land, making anything, making a movie, writing a book, doing a speech, it takes work and it, it, it’s not like I just get to go poof, just cause I’m using inspiring language, things happen. Man, it’s still hard. I get to go into a meeting instead of going, this isn’t gonna work. I can go to a meeting and say, hey, you guys are all very smart. Can you all look at this idea and share with me anything that you think might be in the way of our success. And then we get to explore those things that might be in the way so we can turn those into the on position, but instead of going, oh, that’s not gonna work, and let me tell you why it’s not gonna work, or people that go to a meeting and say, you know what, yeah, uh, you know what the problem is. I don’t care about what the problem is. I wanna know what the solution is, and let’s figure it out, and then maybe we won’t even maybe not even work, but at least we’re focused on the solution, and then if we discover it’s not it, it’ll reveal something else that’ll take us on another adventure that’ll bring us closer to the thing we want anyway. So this whole idea about wonder is that the people who are waking up excited and going to bed fulfilled are people who are living in wonder. and wonder, the thing about wonder is that it’s not something that needs to be taught. It just needs to be remembered. We just have to get quiet enough to remember what it was like when the world didn’t take away our joy. We got to reclaim our power instead of, you know, all the cynics and all the people that said you couldn’t do it, or all the people that were mean spirited, and all the people that hurt our feelings, just be able to go, OK, well, I’m not gonna let you win. I’m gonna reclaim that sense of wonder. I’m gonna go back out in nature. And I’m gonna sit and look at the sunset, or I’m gonna go look at the birds, or I’m gonna go look at a stream going by and remember how magnificent this place is. I’m gonna stand up. I’m gonna just, right now, I’m gonna stand up and put my arms up in the air and lean back a little bit and go, whoa, and remember that I’m floating on a ball that’s rotating through space right now. We are sitting on a ball rotating through space and we’re, it’s incredible or that even right now, you and I are talking through Zoom technology. This is crazy. I can see you, you can see me. You’re in, you’re in the Carolinas. I’m in Maui, Hawaii, and we’re having this conversation. This is incredible. I like to think about, man, I, I, I send a, a, a, a, a, a, a piece of mail to somebody and all of a sudden, within a couple of days or weeks it arrives somewhere. That’s incredible. I get to get on a plane and space for 55 cents for 55 cents, that piece of mail. I, I think one of the things about wonder, a close, if, if you want to get access to wonder in your life. Really start pushing and leaning in, not pushing, but leaning into more gratitude. Being grateful Being grateful for being grateful for it all, being grateful for technology, being grateful for your friends, being grateful for your wife, being grateful for your husband, being grateful for your employment, being grateful to be of service, being grateful that you have all four arms and legs that you can use, be grateful for your ability to communicate, be grateful, be grateful for it all. Gratitude brings direct access to a sense of wonder, a sense of awe, a sense of marvel, a sense of astonishment. So you ask what the what the book will do. So, the book came out of this epiphany of going, OK, I just realized that the people that are extraordinary in this world have maintained, celebrated, and share their sense of wonder with each with each other in the world. And that’s powerful, and then I realized, oh my gosh, I now have a responsibility. Uh, I just, you, I went on this quest, I went on this adventure. I went to the top of the hill. I figured out this idea of, wow, wonder is something. I went and checked in. I went back and interviewed my guests and checked in because I didn’t, if I go back through all the transcripts, there wasn’t wonder really talked about. One, because I didn’t have that in my lexicon to even talk about it. And two, and this is the real fascinating part, is that the people that I were the people that I was interviewing. They didn’t bring up wonder. Because it wasn’t a success strategy. It was who they were being. Mm. They weren’t using wonder as a way to be successful, they were just being wondrous. That’s just innately who they were, and it was just how they rolled through the world, and then I got to go back and check in. I remember talking to um Steven Tyler from, you know, the band Aerosmith, and I, and I leaned into his ear, and I, and I said, uh, you know, I, I, uh, you know, I, I’m, I’m just curious, you know, I’m I’m exploring the you know the idea of uh the important uh role Wonder plays in all of our lives. And he looked around and and just looked back at me and uh with sparkly eyes and just said, oh, I could write a whole book about that. And it is true, and I went and talked to all these incredible people, and they said, oh my gosh, you’re right, Eric. Wonder has been a major part of who I am in the world. I thank you, cause I didn’t even think about that as part of my thing. It’s just who I’m being, and my invitation is definitely to to to to to reclaim your sense of wonder, so that you can attract more wondrous people in your life. I’d like to give you a chance to drop some more names so that folks have, uh, have an even wider, you’ve already talked about Jerry Garcia and Steven Tyler and Jimmy Carter, uh, and Henry Winkler, uh, I, I’d like folks to get a sense of, you know, you’re, you, of your, the breath of your, the breath of your, uh, your, your interviews, your, your folks that you’ve you’ve tapped the minds of. Uh, let’s see. I just interviewed Daniel Pink, who is an amazing author. He was a speechwriter for, um, Al Gore with left politics and then started writing really incredible books. He wrote a book called Drive, uh, he’s got a new book out, uh, um. Around regret, he’s very powerful uh just interviewed him, just interviewed, uh, Pat Simmons, uh, from from the band The Doobie Brothers. Uh, that was great. He’s the guy that wrote, uh, O Blackwater, keep on keep on shining on old Black, yeah, OK, yes, a couple more. Drop a couple more. Uh, I, well, I just, I just interviewed him just so I just interviewed him. He was just inducted into the Music Hall of Fame. Uh, they were just on their 50th anniversary tour, and, uh, and I asked uh Pat Simmons, I said, uh, what are 3 things you’ve learned about songwriting? And uh Pat said, uh, 3 things I’ve learned about songwriting. Uh, #1, Uh, keep it simple. Uh, #2, Uh, write about what you know, uh, your own experience, basically. And number 3, don’t bore us, get to the chorus. Uh, it’s brilliant. OK, who else have I, who else have I interviewed? Um, go ahead. I, we interviewed, just interviewed Diana Nyad, who’s a world record swimmer. She’s incredible, um. And let’s see, I’ve interviewed uh the founder of the Ritz-Carlton, I’ve interviewed the chairman of UPS. I’ve interviewed, um, Oh yeah, very good. How about going back, uh, going back to, uh, your, your, your 4 years in the van. Uh let’s see who comes to mind there? I know Jimmy Carter was part of that, part of that cadre. Jimmy Jimmy Carter was incredible. I interviewed, uh. Uh, back then, Governor Ann Richards, who was incredible from Texas, uh, uh, I interviewed Ken Kesey who wrote One Flew Over a Cuckoo’s Nest, and, uh, Merry Prankster. I interviewed Billy Frank Junior, the head of the Indian Fisheries Commission. Uh, I interviewed Hazel Wolf, who was a 98 year old environmental activist, uh, poet Maya Angelou, um, Yeah, that’s a pretty good list. It’s been incredible. I’ve I’ve interviewed so many people and, and those are all iconic names, you know, but I’ve also interviewed farmers and I’ve interviewed teachers and I’ve interviewed a lot of people that you’ve never heard of, um, and, uh, yeah, and and I and and I also interviewed, you know, thousands of young people when I was on my journey, the whole premise of the journey film was to bridge a gap between young people and elders. So I interviewed all kinds of young people from all, you know, every area of of life and would would interview them and ask them what they were struggling with and then figure out, you know, what that was and then I’d go to the top of the food chain and go, hey, my, this is something my friends are struggling with. Do you have an answer for that? And that’s how we, we bridge the gap between those that wanna learn and those that want to teach. I don’t think I, I fully answered, uh, your question about the book, you know, you, you’re you were saying what, what, what does the reader get from the live and wonder book and. I, you know, the, what the, what the reader gets one, the epiphany of, of living wonder that that was that that was the origins of why I felt inspired to write the book. And then the book is about the reader and you know less about me, more about the other is one of my principles and it was the book’s less about me, more about the other, more about the reader. I tell you a little bit about my story in the beginning. Uh, it’s quest quotes and questions to jumpstart your journey. The quest part of the Live and Wonder book is I realized that I could write a, I can write a book about my story and my life and all that I learned, and that’s cool. Or I can write a book that is less about me, more about the other, and it gives people who read the book. Chance to take their own journey, and that was more compelling to me. Instead of me writing and telling you about my journey, I wanted to inspire people to take their own journey. And so the books, the opening part of the quest is for anyone that’s reading the book to pick 5 people in their life. That are people that they respect and admire, and are looking at that person’s life going, man, I want more of that, you know, and and it could be anything. It could be, I just got married and I’m newlywed, and, you know, Bill and and Nancy Schmidt down the road have been married for 60 years, and they’re as cute as a button, and I want somebody to write that person’s name down and then go interview that person. Have you and your couple go interview that wise person to find out the values they live by, the struggles they’ve endured, and what advice and counsel they give you to better prepare yourself to model their behavior. If you want to become a CEO, go interview 5 CEOs, and I wouldn’t just go interview anybody. I’d go interview really successful, happy, uplifting, whatever it is that you want to emulate and go talk to them. If you want to build a boat, uh, go talk to boat builders, whatever. So pick 5 people in your life that you admire and respect that you want more of. And instead of sitting back, coming up with, uh, you know, I can’t do it. I don’t know how to do it. I don’t have the credentials. I’m not sure, blah, blah, blah blah blah, be more empowered and go, look, this is what I want. I’m not sure how to get there. I’ve never done it before. OK, I’m gonna go look in my world, whether it could be your neighbor or somebody famous, doesn’t matter to me. Pick 5 people in your life that you want more of that in your world and have the courage to ask them out for a cup of coffee and learn. And so that’s the first part is that everyone gets a chance to pick people in life that they admire. That’s the quest. The quotes are all these quotes that I’ve used to keep my own heart and mind open. So I shared those quotes. They’re really inspiring and uplifting to people. And then the the third part is the questions, and they’re all they’re they’re all the questions that I used to interview my guests. So you can use those same questions to interview somebody or you can come up with your own. People use the book to actually go do all kinds of amazing things that we’ve gotten stories from all around the world where people actually go take the book, they pick somebody, they say, I just got this book, they go interview that person and their life changes. It’s been phenomenal. And it’s been, uh, it’s been a really uh uh uh a pleasure to have written a book that has impacted so many people. So I, I, I, if it’s something that’s that’s calling to anybody that’s listening, it’s, it’s a. Yeah, it’s it’s it’s, it’s based on similar to my movie. It’s based on the principle to know the road ahead, ask those coming back. Then anything you want to learn about anything is an inspired conversation and a cup of coffee away. And it’s, it’s jumpstart your journey. I mean, you had the journey, you had the journey, the film, you had your journey, it’s quest quotes and questions to jumpstart your journey. Could you, uh, could you share one of your that’s, that’s me that that’s me using your in a good way, I hope. Yeah, that’s me, you or somebody in your journey, yeah. What’s, what’s one of your quotes? You, you have a bunch of, you said you have a number of quotes that you live by. Can you share one of your quotes with us? Oh, You want, you want a personal quote that I’ve written or a quote from the book? Which one are you asking? Oh, well, I was looking for one from the book. Those are, those are personal quotes though, aren’t they in the book? No, those are other people that you’ve you’ve used. OK. I, I want folks to be inspired about the book. Can you share a quote from the book? Uh, I can. Here, let me, uh, OK, well, while you do that, cause I put you on the spot, now you gotta go, actually, yeah, he’s going to his book. What what what better source for quotes from the book than uh than the book. And uh yeah, we go ahead. Yeah, I’m thinking about which uh I think this is, this is my favorite. OK. Uh, I think this has to do with, uh, 11 of the things that I learned on the journey. I How important it is to be yourself. And that most people Uh, that’s, that’s a challenge. Most, most people are so highly influenced. Uh, by other people’s impression of who they are, that they would sell out their sense of wonder, their authenticity, their sense of adventure, all kinds of things to conform, uh, to what other people think. And the people who get up excited, go to bed fulfilled, live extraordinary lives are more committed to their principles. They’re more committed to their values. They’re more committed to who they are and what they say they’re gonna do in this world, and they can’t please everybody. It’s one of the common things that there’s no doubt you cannot please everybody. And when I set off to travel the country in my van selling grilled cheese sandwiches and asking that I was gonna call up people and take them out for coffee, for a long time, I had to be ostracized and judged. And uh ridiculed and had to endure people’s uh uh projection onto me. It wasn’t, it doesn’t feel good. It doesn’t feel good to be to to have that happen. And if I allowed my self-esteem to be contingent upon what other people thought of me, I’m done. And so having the courage to speak my possibility into the world is something that I invite everybody to have. It’s, it’s to be able to just be you unapologetically and to trust the process being you. And this is one of my favorite, this is how we opened the book, um, there’s an author, super uber successful author, Doctor Wayne Dyer, who, that was another one of my interviews. Uh, I came out to visit him. He lived here in Maui, and uh I came out to to visit him, and then I ended up staying, uh, and moving from Venice Beach to Maui after that visit. But he, he’s extraordinary, he passed away, but he was extraordinary, and he said this, uh, about Oprah Winfrey, and this is how I open up the Lin Wonder book. Uh, many years ago, Oprah Winfrey was interviewed about her life. Many years ago, Oprah Winfrey was interviewed about her life and asked whether she had known that she would become one of the most powerful women in the world. She explained to the reporter that when she was a little girl, someone asked her. What she wanted to do with her life. She answered by saying that she didn’t know. She just liked talking to people. The person quickly retorted, well, You can’t make a living doing that. We can learn a lot from uh. The negative, the, the, the negative, uh, the down, the Debbie downers, uh, around us and to uh ignore them and And move ahead with our own journeys. Uh, you know, you, you seem to like 3s. What what is this series, 3 things. Three things, you know, I, after somebody who has interviewed people for the majority of my, my life and certainly my, my, uh, career. And had made a movie, you know, I would interview people and spend days interviewing them and then have to go back and watch all that footage. Uh, I was looking for a way to, to capture the living world history of extraordinary people and do it in a succinct and refreshing way. And what we came up with was This idea of three things. And I didn’t realize that at the time, it was really Again, a real just uh organic unfolding. I, I, I, I’m a storyteller, and I study stories, and I ask people to share their stories, and I think about the, the, the basic tenets of storytelling. The basic tenets of storytelling is uh a setup, a conflict, a resolution. A beginning, a middle, and an end. And if we adhere to that structure, we’re telling a good story. And knowing that, I thought, well, why don’t I help that along? I’ll ask people to share with me a three things question so that they frame it with, here’s number 1, here’s number 2, and here’s number 3. And it turns out that that is a magical formula, that we are able to tap into some of the most iconic minds and ask them what their three things are, and they nail it out of the park, and they share 3 incredible insightful messages, and they’re sticky, and they’re powerful, and they’re uplifting. And that’s what we’ve created. So we’ve created a new series called Three Things, uh, with Eric Zapperston, and I’m interviewing iconic legends and uh we’re, we’re capturing that now and we’re we’re cataloging a whole bunch of those and I think we’re gonna begin releasing those, uh, in early 2023. So many folks are where we can see this. Uh, I, you know what, right now we’re we’re in negotiations with a few folks, uh, uh, with some agents and managers to figure out the, the, the outlet of where it’s gonna ultimately be. What I’d like to do is, if anybody has been inspired by what’s happening, uh, today on our chat and we want to be connected to the Three Things series, to come to Ericsapperston.com and sign up for our newsletter. Uh, our, our fans will get it first. OK. OK. And the reason I say you, you seem to like 3 3s because you, you have the series 3 things. Uh, I asked you how to live in one, how, how to wake up excited and go to bed fulfilled, and you cited 3 things. Uh, you have a game called 3 Things. Uh, we do. You wanna, you wanna, you wanna tease the game this is all at uh Eric Saperton.com or and or live in Wonder.com. Uh, but I, I, the power connected, I connected to the game from this Eric Saperton site, but I think it goes over to Living Wonder, but a game called Three Things, and then, and then we’ll wrap it up. What, what’s the three things that you, you’ve been so sweet. I’m, I’m so, I’m so grateful to be asked to be on the podcast with you. I’m grateful for our friendship. I’m grateful that we got a chance to meet 10 years ago and that, uh, we get to still be in a relationship and check in with each other now and, and, um, you know, thank, thank you for including me into your world and, and. Uh, one of my favorite sayings is when you drink the water, uh, remember who dug the well. So thank you for digging such a huge well and being of service to so many organizations, uh, Tony, you’re, you’re, you’re a bright light in this world. That’s very thoughtful. Thank you. And uh to, to give you back some of uh a phrase that you used, I think you are contagious, uplifting, and inspiring. He’s Eric Saperton. All right, so you can learn about uh the series 3 things. For that, you go to Eric Saperton.com. Uh, the book Living Wonder, Quests, quotes and questions to jumpstart your journey. Also Eric Saperton.com, uh, for the game, 3 things. I believe that’s at Lionder.com, but you can get to one from the other. Uh, the movie, The Journey, that’s at uh Eric Saperton.com, I believe. You gotta get the DVD The Journey. So, Uh, Eric, what a pleasure to be connected for all these years and to, uh, Have another, uh, an even much longer conversation than uh than our 10 or 12 minutes we did in uh in 2012. It’s a real joy, a real pleasure. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you for what you’re doing. Thank you for sharing yourself, your ideas. Thank you. Thank you, thank you. Um, uh, let’s not wait another 10 years for us to connect. No, we’ll not. You’ll, you’ll be on, you’ll, I’ll have you back because I think people are gonna enjoy hearing from you. Well, what if I, you know if anybody out there, anybody that’s been listening, thank you so much, uh, thank you for the role you play, uh, in the nonprofit world. I think you are champions, uh, and, uh. Light workers and uh uh change agents and um I just I I I applaud all y’all, just thank you for for for contributing and and making the world a better place, and if there’s anything I can ever do, whether it be uh coaching uh you or coaching your executives or giving a virtual talk or a talk in person to your organization. Uh, please call on me, and I’d love to, to help and uh be a part of your journey. Eric Saperton at Eric Saperton and Ericsapperston.com. Next week, we’ll kick off our 25 NTC coverage with Amy Sample Ward. If you missed any part of this week’s show. I beseech you. Find it at Tony Martignetti.com. We’re sponsored by Donor Box. Outdated donation forms blocking your supporters’ generosity. Donor box, fast, flexible, and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit, DonorBox.org. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I’m your associate producer Kate Martignetti. The show’s social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guide, and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation, Scotty. Be with us next week for nonprofit Radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. Go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for April 14, 2025: Your Improved Fundraising Messaging

Lynn Bohart: Your Improved Fundraising Messaging

Do your fundraising messages engage and connect with your donors and prospects? Or do they merely inform? Do you know how to craft an engaging story? And what makes stories so valuable anyway? Lynn Bohart answers all these questions and more, as she encourages you into persuasive writing and core messaging. Her new book is “Raise More Money Through Better Messaging.”

 

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Board relations. Fundraising. Volunteer management. Prospect research. Legal compliance. Accounting. Finance. Investments. Donor relations. Public relations. Marketing. Technology. Social media.

Every nonprofit struggles with these issues. Big nonprofits hire experts. The other 95% listen to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. Trusted experts and leading thinkers join me each week to tackle the tough issues. If you have big dreams but a small budget, you have a home at Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio.

Nonprofit Radio for April 7, 2025: Nonprofit Leadership For Current & Aspiring

Nick Grono: Nonprofit Leadership For Current & Aspiring

There’s a new compassionate, inspiring and valuable guidebook on nonprofit leadership. It’s aptly named, “How To Lead Nonprofits.” The author, Nick Grono, shares his thinking on the role of the CEO, your team and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), because the success of the people leading throughout your nonprofit, now and in the future, is essential to your mission success. Nick is CEO of Freedom Fund.

 

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Board relations. Fundraising. Volunteer management. Prospect research. Legal compliance. Accounting. Finance. Investments. Donor relations. Public relations. Marketing. Technology. Social media.

Every nonprofit struggles with these issues. Big nonprofits hire experts. The other 95% listen to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. Trusted experts and leading thinkers join me each week to tackle the tough issues. If you have big dreams but a small budget, you have a home at Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio.
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And welcome to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host and the podfather of your favorite hebdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d be thrown into dysteiasis if I saw that you doubled down on the idea that you missed this week’s show. Here’s our associate producer Kate with what’s going on. Hey, Tony. We’ve got Nonprofit leadership for current and aspiring. There’s a new compassionate, inspiring, and valuable guidebook on nonprofit leadership. It’s aptly named How to Lead Nonprofits. The author, Nick Grono shares his thinking on the role of the CEO, your team, and diversity, equity and inclusion, because the success of the people leading throughout your nonprofit now and in the future is essential to your mission success. Nick is CEO of Freedom Fund. On Tony’s take 2. Gratitudes. We’re sponsored by DonorBox. Outdated donation forms blocking your supporters’ generosity. Donor box, fast, flexible, and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit, DonorBox.org. Here is nonprofit leadership for current and aspiring. It’s my pleasure to welcome Nick Groo to nonprofit Radio. Nick has decades of experience leading and chairing nonprofits. He is CEO of Freedom Fund. A charity dedicated to ending modern slavery around the world. His book, which brings him to the show is How to Lead nonprofits Turning Purpose into Impact to Change the World. You’ll find Nick on LinkedIn. Nick Roo, welcome to nonprofit Radio. Tony, it’s great to be here. Thanks for having me on. The pleasure. Thank you for joining. Congratulations on your book published, uh, just last year, very recently last year, right? Yeah, published mid last year, so still kind of reasonably fresh off the presses. Good, congratulations again. Uh, leading nonprofits, why do you feel the, the how to lead nonprofits? Why do you feel the book is essential? Uh, you kind of, you say you’re filling a void between sort of business and nonprofit leadership. Please fill in that gap. Why, why this book now? Well, there are thousands of books on business leadership, right, you see new books every day, if you go to the airport, you see books on the shelf from prominent leaders, etc. Um, but, um, there’s not a lot on non-profit leadership. Um, so, you know, I kind of, when I was thinking about this, there were, there were 3 things that kind of were playing in my mind. The first is that leadership is different, and I’ve worked in the for-profit world. I’ve worked in the past for Goldman Sachs and as a corporate lawyer and I worked for government. And it really struck me that there are quite significant differences in many ways between kind of leadership in the, the business world and the government world, and, and, and that in a non-profit world, so that was one issue. um, another was there just wasn’t a lot of stuff out there, um, to my mind, uh, and had a look around. Um, and the third is that there is a real, um, desire for it, right? Whenever you get to a group of non-profit leaders together, we’re always talking about the challenges we face and the particular issues, and I’m sure on your podcast, you know, there’s kind of endless cycle of people saying, well, these are some of the real challenges and the hard things about leading non-profits. So kind of felt to me like there was, there was a, there was a gap to fill. You, uh, you said you, you’ve had a background in, uh, in law, in government, uh, in nonprofits. How did you find your way to, uh, to Freedom Fund? You fill in a little of the gaps of your, your, your history. It was a it was a it was a general path, you know, I started my, my professional career as a corporate lawyer in Australia, um, and then, um, at that time I’d done a bit of volunteering for a, a non-profit, a sail training non-profit, you know, one of these big old sailing ships that take, um, underprivileged youth out, so I had some non-profit experience, but I certainly wasn’t thinking of non-profits as a career. Um, but I, I was fortunate enough in my first couple of years as a lawyer to have something I think was a transformational experience, and that was my law firm offered to send one young lawyer to go work for the Legal aid commission for 6 months, so that was their pro bono efforts, right? We’ll, we’ll, we’ll offer you one of our young inexperienced lawyers. We’ll offload the pro bono on one, exactly, yeah, yeah. And so I applied for that and we had a big law firm. I thought lots and lots of people would be fighting for this position because you know, it’s a fascinating experience and I was the only one. Um, so I went off to work for Legal aid where you’re representing, you know, clients who can’t afford legal advice, um, so the, the some of the most, the least privileged in our society, um, often facing horrendous charges and, um, and it was just a real eye-opener to me about um how the system can really discriminate against people who are vulnerable and don’t have access to, Money, lawyers, etc. so that was quite interesting, after that, even though I continued as a corporate lawyer, I started volunteering commercial legal centers and, and my career went on for a little while, but um, I went to government. It was a kind of general progression, right, from corporate law into policy. I worked for the Attorney General, uh, the, the Federal Attorney General in Australia ended up being his chief of staff, so lots of interesting engagement on legal issues and legal policy, and I decided then that I wanted to kind of change my career, so I came to the US, I did a master’s degree in the US in public policy. And got my first job coming out of that, working for a, an amazing nonprofit based in Brussels called the International Crisis Group, which worked on conflicts around the world, like Afghanistan and Syria and Sudan and all those kinds of things. So that was the, the general path it took, took a little while, but I got there in the end. Interesting that, uh, at, at the big law firm, you were the only person to apply for the, for the 6 month pro bono position. That that’s kind of eye-opening about where you were versus what your real interests were. It, it probably tells you a few things about the incentives in these firms, right, you know, as in you’re on a track and, and the perception is that you need to kind of do certain things. Um, I, I had a slightly unusual upbringing, and maybe that made me more open to, um, to kind of jumping over to pro bono. My, my dad was a ship’s captain, so we spent 3 years while I was growing up on a 100 year old sailing ship sailing around the world. Um, so I kind of, Was more exposed to my parents taking risks, leaving their jobs, changing careers and all the rest of it, not that I’m saying this is the same thing, but I, I don’t know if that was, it’s always hard, I don’t know how it is with with the other guests that you get on, but you’re often in the non-profit space, you’re often, You want to tell a nice neat story, and there isn’t a nice neat story, there’s a whole lot of things going on here, isn’t there, but, but it was certainly one of the most influential decisions of my professional career, cos it just did open my eyes to different pathways and. And now I spend my whole time working on an issue of, you know, human trafficking one slavery, where, where it’s an issue where that’s illegal everywhere in the world, but the law doesn’t work. The rule of law is failing tens of millions of vulnerable people, so there’s still a connection with law, rule of law and all the rest of it. It’s just, uh, it’s just much more, um, it’s much more powerful. So your dad was a ship captain and, and your first nonprofit experience was volunteering on the three-masted 180 ft tall sailing ship uh for uh vulnerable under with training, training kids to work together, who came from underserved populations. So that, there, there’s a, there’s a little bit of a through line from your dad’s work to your first volunteer experience. Say a little more about the, was it pronounced the the Lewin was the name of the the the as in like Leeward is that Leeward versus win in um no, it’s actually Dutch for lion and, and it was named after Kate Leeuwin which was named by some of the early Dutch sailors who came out and they, I don’t know where it was, the 1700s and got blown off course, so yeah, so the Leeuw. Oh, OK. I didn’t have to do with Leeward and Winward. But now, interesting through line from your dad’s professional work to your first volunteer experience. Yeah, it, well, so he um so he was a, a ship’s captain, uh, you know, he worked for the merchant navy and all the rest of it, then did this job sailing the ship around, and then he became um the captain of this sail training ship. So I came over during my holidays and volunteered during my holidays because there was opportunities, so there was a very direct connection, um, and it was something that, you know, I found, um, really um powerful and moving and enjoyed it immensely, so. I was fortunate to have that opportunity. And your career has uh culminated in uh uh leadership of nonprofits. Yeah Uh, so the, the book focuses on, um, on, on three areas of, of leadership and organizational development, I guess, uh, organizational structure. And the purpose of your three P’s, the purpose of the people and the partners, um, why don’t you give an overview. I’d, I’d like to focus on the people, but give the overview of, of all three, the, the, how essential they are. Sure. I mean, so the, the, the, the central point of my book is that non-profits have this really powerful motivating cause, their purpose, right, to change the world in big ways or small, and by changing the world it could be changing your community, changing your, your, your country or working globally, but you’re there to make positive change, um, and your 662 and so is your impact, right? Um, and you need both, you need a powerful cause, and then you need to deliver on it, cos I think there are lots of non-profits that kind of have, The best of intentions, but may not be as good as delivering delivering on those intentions. So, so the central thesis is, purpose, turn it into effective impact, and then the framework I set up, which is um a pretty straightforward one is, is around purpose, people and partners, purpose is your um direction of travel. Uh, and I talked there about the mission of your organization and the impact and how you measure it, and the strategy being the connection between your um your mission and your impact. People is looking inwards, that’s looking at first and foremost, the CEOs, what are the priorities for the CEO? It’s looking at your team, um, and culture and all the things that go with team, it’s looking at your board. And then the third PE partners is looking outwards, you know, it’s, it’s your. If we use the lingo, it’s it’s your external stakeholders, but that, you know, that’s kind of jargon, isn’t it? So for me, it’s the communities you serve, first and foremost, right? Why do you exist? You, you’re serving a population, a community, um, they should be at the center of your work. Uh, it’s about your funders, about your funders, then it’s very hard to do the work. And also, I think a really important areas around peers and networks and those that are in the space with you and how you mobilize them. So, so those are the three Ps. That’s the quick, quick, quick gallop through the. Yeah, thank you very much. Thank you. Um. So you’re the uh the section on, on people uh in the middle of the book starts with the CEO and the only thing I’d like to read is just uh uh uh this, this quote really struck me about leadership, uh, opens the, the, the, uh, the CEO chapter. Uh, from Mary Parker Follett, uh, uh, a 1924 book, Leadership is not defined by the exercise of power. But by the capacity to increase the sense of power among those led. The most essential work of the leader is to create more leaders. It’s inspirational. I, I, I, I, it’s aspirational and inspirational at the same time, um. Give us your, your, you know, I have some specific things I want to ask you about, but give us your overview of, of your, your role. You are the, you are the CEO of Freedom Fund. Um, give us your, um, give us your overview of what, what you’re supposed to be about. Sure, um, and I’ve, I’ve had the, I think it’s the benefit of being the CEO from day one of the organization. So we set up the organization 11 years ago, I was the first employee. Um, and there are advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is I, I, I had a fair say in what was gonna happen. Um, um, and then we build out the team and now we have, um, about 80 staff, um, so, um, some 10 years later, um. It’s How do I describe the role? I mean, there, there are many things going on, you know, I think there are many priorities and the priorities that I say for the CEO are the priorities I think for myself, you know, it’s about holding the vision for the organization, and the CEO, I think, I think what I would say to a lot of people is the CEO is often the only person in the organization that is looking over the horizon. And everyone else is kind of focused on specific tasks, you know, you’re running programs or you’re running your finance or dealing with HR, uh, working with volunteers, whereas CEO is always looking what comes next. Uh, I think of that particularly right now with everything that’s going on with kind of international finance and aid and all the rest of it, it’s a really turbulent time, so looking over there, um, it’s about motivating staff, it’s about kind of leading on strategy. Um, it’s, it’s making sure you focus on the stuff that really matters, not the stuff that you want to do or the stuff that you’re comfortable with, but the stuff that no one else can do, because I often feel like, if you run your team well, then the only decisions that come up to you are the really hard decisions because everyone else deals with the decisions that are easier to, to make, right? Um, so. That’s the way it should run, uh, and, and then finally the, the point is, if you’re fortunate enough to have a team, a leadership team, and so on, then, then it’s just really key as a leader to, to support that team and make sure it’s powerful and engaged and, and that you’re a a a a a really effective member of that team. And there’s lots to unpack on all of that, but, Um, they, yeah, that’s a quick run through of that. Yeah, we’re gonna get to a good bit of it. You, you, you, you devote a chapter to the team, which we, which we’ll talk about, uh, but, uh, just focused on the CEO and holding the vision. You, you said it, it was something I wanted to ask you about, expand on that a little more about hold the vision. So, I, I, I keep on talking about purpose being the central point of the organization. I mean, non-profits have lots of challenges, right? And we can talk a little about that with fundraising and the fact that you don’t earn income, people give you money and all the rest of it, and it’s really complicated. They have this superpower. Of purpose. It’s really powerful, right? I am deeply moved and inspired by the work we do to support some of the most vulnerable people that are being exploited, uh, you know, for, or at risk of sex trafficking or forced labor, or bonded labor or forced marriage. And, and so the vision that we have is about how do we have the biggest impact on those communities that we’re serving. And, and I think if you harness that, it’s really powerful for the team and the work, and particularly when things are challenging or difficult, I kind of keep on reminding people of the power of what we do and the importance and the privilege of what we do, um. They’re difficult times, or or when COVID hit, right, and when COVID hit and the organization’s reeling and there’s a lot of uncertainty, it was really powerful to say to the team, but look at the communities we serve, they are hit so much harder than we are, and we have such an important role to play in supporting them during this completely uncertain time and it was a really good. Way of mobilizing the team and get everyone focused at a difficult time, and I think it can be really powerful. So, so that to me is the vision. What are we always about? Bring it back to that. Always, if you have problems at work or if there are staffing issues or internal discord, you start with, what are we here for? And then we’ll work on everything else. It’s time for a break. Imagine a fundraising partner that not only helps you raise more money, but also supports you in retaining your donors. A partner that helps you raise funds both online and on location so you can grow your impact faster. That’s DonorBox, a comprehensive suite of tools, services, and resources that gives fundraisers just like you a custom solution to tackle your unique challenges, helping you achieve the growth and sustainability your organization needs, helping you, help others. Visit donorbox.org to learn more. Now back to Nonprofit leadership for current and aspiring. Are you, uh, facing a lot of that, uh, a lot of challenge now with the, the, uh, USAID funding cuts and uncertainties and I imagine a lot of the organizations you fund are also funded by USAID. So this is all you’re living through this again, it’s COVID 5 years ago to the month actually, um, now 5 years later, you know, this, this funding uncertainty and, and turmoil. Yeah, there’s a huge amount of uncertainty, and it’s not just US government funding, you know, the Brits have announced that they’re cutting their foreign aid funding, the um the Dutch have cut their foreign aid funding, the Swiss have announced cuts to there, so there’s a, there’s a, um, we, we get um some funding from, it wasn’t USAID, it’s from the State Department, which was frozen for about 3 weeks but has been unfrozen. Um, and that we use to fund some 30 organizations on the ground, so we’re, we’re very fortunate compared to many, um, and historically trafficking has been largely a bipartisan, anti-trafficking work’s been largely bipartisan, so, so we hope that that will continue to be the case. Um, um, but it creates massive uncertainty, particularly on the ground where we don’t work in isolation, we work with local partners, so we fund some 150 local partners, but if, if, Um, aid is cut from any government that supports frontline organizations. Everyone becomes a bit more vulnerable, right? So, and for work on trafficking and slavery, vulnerability is the proxy for slavery. It’s vulnerable populations that are preyed upon, so if communities become more vulnerable because aid has been cut from various quarters, um, then the risk of trafficking and slavery grows, so even if we’re not directly impacted on the aid cuts, The demand for what we do is only going to grow because there is going to be increasing vulnerability um as, Rich countries withdraw somewhat from the aid space, at least temporarily. Are you finding yourself having to reassure your own staff of 80 some, again, you know, holding the vision for them? Yeah, absolutely, and, and, and reminding them, you know, one where we’re, we’re in a solid financial position, um, and so we’ve been able to continue supporting partners and the work will continue. Um, but, um, talking to staff about these scenarios, and it’s not so much just reassuring them, it’s, it’s giving them renewed purpose, right, because everyone struggles when they see what’s happening on the ground and greater vulnerability and you know, this work is emotionally very, very draining, and when you see um, Groups of people that are even more vulnerable to trafficking, it can be really tough, so it’s getting everyone aligned around the purpose and saying right, here’s our chance to have even greater impact, uh, doing the stuff that we care about. It kind of leads to, uh, leading on strategy, which, uh, you, you, you have several interviews through the book which I, I appreciate they, they add, they add color and, and, and depth and, uh, you one of your interviews is with, uh, uh, a man named LeFevre who says that, uh, leading uh they sort of expressing strategy is more of an inspirational sketch than a blueprint. So please uh say more about the, the CEO’s role in, in, you know, take from holding the vision to execution, to leading on strategy. Yeah, sure, so strategy, I kind of see strategy as the, the pathway, the route, the, the map that you set out that gets you from your, your vision, your purpose to the impact that you want to achieve, right? You kind of say, well, we’re here to end modern slavery or make a big measurable difference to modern slavery in the regions we work, and we can kind of say what that means in terms of percentage reductions and all the rest of it. So how do we get there? Um, and I think, I think in our space, there’s often a lot of overthinking of strategy, and I, I’m still trying to articulate this more clearly. I think, I think one of the big things that non-profits struggle with is that we don’t have the feedback mechanisms and the price signals that you have if you’re a business. Uh, if you’re a business and you’ve got a plan. And it’s not working, you know, pretty quickly because your customers are leaving you or your income is falling, and you have very strong price signals and feedback mechanisms that non-profits don’t really have, right? Um, because you’re doing a program and you think it might achieve something and it may or may not be, but it’s often very messy, and so, so, um, so strategy is important because you’ve gotta be really thoughtful about the plan that you have. And you’ve got to find ways of, of reflecting on it and changing or adapting as, as, as things progress, and so that’s what Matthew means about, You know, kind of sketching out a way of challenging, and I, I have another quote in there about a guy who kind of talks about, you know, it’s more of strategy is more a kind of a GPS sat-nav, you know, than map, because you have to adjust as you move along. um, and I think nonprofits too often can kind of think, OK, there’s a magic in a strategy and we’ll spend a year and um investing in a strategy and we’ll come up with a really detailed plan. And we’ll stick to that plan because we’ve all signed off on it, even if the world changes, uh, and I, I talk in the book about, you know, imagine, imagine you’re working on, Mental health issues, um before COVID, and you’ve got a nice plan and your income’s been going up each year for the last 4 or 5 years and you’ve got a good strategy to engage companies to become sponsors and partners. And then COVID hits. And two things happen, right? One is, the demand for your services just skyrockets, right, if you’re involved in mental health during COVID and all. And the other is your funders are probably initially at least running 100 miles an hour because, you know, the companies are really worried about their own financial bottom line, so often we’re drawing back from, from funding commitments and so on. So demand goes up, your income goes down, your strategy is out the door, right, and not every component of it, but I mean any detailed year by year plan is out the door. Now hopefully, And, and I talk about one of the things that I think is really key in the strategy is your theory of change. And, and theory of change often sounds very jargonistic, and I don’t like jargon, but theory of change is your insight. It’s like, what is special about what we do that is going to translate into the change that we want to see. And, and I, I think it’s really important because often, The work that we do doesn’t directly deliver the results that we want to see. Um, and I think one example might be working for a think tank, right, now if you work for a think tank and you’re producing research reports, Your objective is not to publish reports, usually, right, that’s a, that’s a, that’s an output, that’s a tool to achieve. Usually your objective is to change policy or to change behavior in some way. And so your theory of change is not our think tank exists to publish 100 reports a year and to get 20 opinion pieces and papers. It’s our theory of change is that the most effective way to change policy is to produce thoughtfully well reduced, uh, well, well researched reports and go and advocate on those reports to policy makers and influence them to change what they do. And, and because that’s your theory of change, while you may not be able to guarantee all of the results, you can at least try and track whether or not it’s working. Are your reports influential? Are people referring to them? Are they being covered in the press? Do policymakers refer to them? Do they change policy? And so, so for me, strategy is kind of trying to get the fundamentals in place. What is your purpose, what is your, what is your, your insight that will get you to your objective and what is your objective? And then keep on, keep on looking at that and thinking about that as times and things change. You also spend time talking about the CEO’s role in in fundraising. Which can, ah, can be fraught with, with some, some founders especially who, uh, may have a lot of passion. And zeal about the work that they’re doing, but not really have a solid plan for how to fund it. So, share your thinking on the, the CEO’s role and, and need to embrace fundraising. Yeah, well, the thing about nonprofits is. For most nonprofits, You, your income comes from people giving you money, you know, you raise it from individuals or grants or governments. I mean sometimes you provide services and have a contract with government, but leaving that aside, you know, most of it is raising money from people who are giving to you, um, and, and that can be really tricky. Um, again, I kind of, you know, an example I use is, imagine if you’re a business, And you have a really good strategy and you execute really well and you’ve worked out your niche and you’re operating much more effectively than your competitors, you probably have people coming and wanting to invest, right, because it’s like, wow, this is a great business and it’s doing really well and we can make lots of money and all the rest of it where, I imagine you’re in a nonprofit and you’re doing really well on your strategy and, Um, you’re kind of more effective than your peers and your competitors. Well, you’ll often have donors, particularly foundations, say, mate, you’re doing just fine, you don’t need our support anymore, we can go fund others because look, you’ve done such a good job. And so it’s almost as if your success can be a, a contribute to reduced income. I know these are particular circumstances, but in my world, this is very real. Um, and so I think it’s part of one of the interviews where someone says that it’s easy to find funding in the first few years because there’s excitement and you have a, you have a, a new plan, a new model, but, but it becomes difficult after like year 5 and on. Yeah. And, and that’s often the case, you know what I mean, and it, and it kind of varies in various ways, but certainly, you know, when we started the Freedom Fund 10 years ago, initial enthusiasm and great interest, uh, and lots of people, and it’s new and it’s interesting, and, and it certainly helped us mobilize great funders, most of whom have stayed with us. So full credit to them. Um, so, but the way I look at it from the CEO is, you know, your organization can’t do anything without funding. And so it is an absolute priority for the CEO to make sure that you are getting the funding that you need, um, and increasing it over time if that’s what you want. Now, it doesn’t mean you have to do it yourself personally, but to be honest, usually the best spokesperson for an organization, a non-profit is the CEO. Um, and again, particularly if you’re raising grants from, from high net worth funders or from foundations, um, people want to hear from the CEO. Uh, and there are some CEOs who kind of think, well this is beneath me, right? I’m really interested in the, the programs and, and the, the, the real nitty gritty of the work. Well, sure, if you’ve built a team and you’re managing to raise the funding, great, but you won’t have programs if you don’t bring the funding in. So to my mind, the role of the CEO is to make sure all of the relevant bits are working and if fundraising is key. Then that’s where you spend your effort, and I would spend over 50% of my time doing fundraising and outreach because that’s where I can add the most value to my organization. I’ve got amazing program people. I’ve got people who know much more about modern slavery and human trafficking than I do, who’ve spent their lives working on these issues. I’ve got, you know, wonderful, Kind of finance teams and HR teams and all the rest of it, where I can add is selling the vision, building relationships, explaining to people why they should give us a chunk of funding, and for this issue, rather than to either a peer organization or a completely different issue. Um, so I think, um, it doesn’t always mean the CEO has to do it all, but the CEO is responsible. Uh, cos there’s nothing worse than being all virtuous about, well, I’m gonna focus on this work and find that you’ve got less and less money and you’re doing less and less work. So you devote, you think it’s more than half your time to, to fundraising? Fundraising, talking about the work, selling the message, it’s not all you know, it’s not all meetings, meetings with donors, right, it’s, it’s, it’s talking about the power of the issue, going to conferences where, where it’s appropriate, um, yeah, yeah. By the way, you, you, uh, mentioned your disdain for jargon, uh, here on nonprofit radio, we have jargon jail. You’re not likely to be, uh, you’re not likely to be subject to because if we’re, uh, we’re we’re, we’re simpatico on not liking it. It’s time for Tony’s steak too. Thank you, Kate. Gratitudes. I’ve been doing more of this gratitude practice. Well I’m actually saying out loud things that I am grateful for in my life. I do it usually in the mornings when I’m waking up, and not every morning, but A bunch of mornings and occasionally at night. Uh, and I just, I, I’m sharing that I do it because I’m encouraging you to do the same. It’s kind of especially with all the anxiety and chaos and turmoil and. The storm around us, not only in the nonprofit community, but just in our country. I think it helps to ground, at least it helps me ground myself, that there are things to be enormously grateful for. So I Say out loud, I’m grateful for my family. Except the the part where Kate lives in New Jersey, that that there’s an exception, but uh other other family, all, all, all other fam, no, no, of course, all my family, um, my wife Amy. The beautiful place that I’m privileged to live in uh on the beach, my clients, uh, friends, you know, and I name friends that are that are on my mind when you start doing this. The list grows long, and you realize that there’s so much in your life to be grateful for. I guess, again, I, I should say that’s what happens to me. I, I hope that that will happen for you also, that you start naming people and the names just keep coming and the uh the other, the other folks and and maybe even companies, you know, whatever it is that you’re grateful for, uh, just keep coming and coming and and that’s what I find so. It’s really valuable to me. I encourage you to try it. It’s quite simple, just saying out loud the things that you’re grateful for. And that is Tony’s take too. Kate I think that’s a great way to start your day and even end it. Do it both in the morning and the evening, cause then you’re starting on good thoughts and then you’re also ending on good thoughts. Excellent. I, I agree. All right. You could do both. Absolutely. The more, the more gratitude that you recognize, uh, the better. You could, sure, book into your day with gratitude. And, yeah. We’ve got Boou but loads more time. Here’s the rest of nonprofit leadership for Current and aspiring with Nick Groo. You spent some time on leadership styles, and I’d like you to share what your uh what your advice is around soft power. Yeah, so there are lots of different styles of leadership as anyone who has worked for anyone or anyone who has led will understand, um, and, and certainly I’ve been on a journey with my own leadership style, um, and I think often lots of new non-profit leaders are. Um, you know, I, I’m sometimes asked what’s the, what’s, what’s the one of the best pieces of leadership advice that you could give someone, and, you know, one of my pieces of advice will be the, the skills and the behaviors that get you into leadership positions aren’t often the skills and behaviors that make you a really good leader. Uh, and in my case, you know, I was very happy to make decisions, and when I was a #2, my boss kind of loved it because she would throw things to me and I’d sort them out and kind of barrel through. But if you bring that approach when you’re the CEO you’re not building a team, you’re not bringing people along with you, you’re not, you’re not giving people the space to kind of be their best selves, um, and so my learning over time has been, and it’s still an ongoing process, you know, the kind of approach that I think for them, in most cases, not always, that’s really effective as a leader is bringing a coaching approach to leadership. Uh, kind of giving people the space to work out how they can do the job most effectively, asking questions, listening, providing some guidance, but not just charging in and making decisions. Um, and with new non-profit leaders in particular, you know, particularly if you’re a bit insecure, it’s your first time in a CEO job, you’ve, you’ve maybe been recruited from, from the organization internally and so you’ve moved a step above your peers and, you know, you can, it can be really tough, and you’re kind of, and again, speaking from experience, you sometimes respond by like micromanaging everything and, you know, kind of making sure that you’re on top of everything and, Second guessing everyone’s decisions, that’s not good leadership. Uh, if you, if you start jumping in and making decisions for everyone, you know what happens very quickly, no one makes decisions, because it’s like, well, Nick’s gonna decide this, so why should I spend all this time working out the very best approach on this issue, be it how to approach a fun a funder or, How to design a program if Nick’s just gonna jump in and make up his own mind, and then everything ends up being elevated to Nick. Yeah, and then suddenly you say, well, I’m the only person that can do this, because look, it’s all coming up to me, you know, it’s a kind of self reinforcing cycle of, of, uh, narcissism. Um, you share a good story, uh, uh, one that was revealing to you, uh, also from, uh, from the pandemic about when you were at uh International Crisis Group. Why don’t you share that little story, yeah. So that was, it wasn’t um it wasn’t the pandemic, it was the financial crisis, so another great recession, sorry, yeah, yeah, so, so, but, but, but similar, similar and you know, what happened was that basically we knew that our income was going down by at least 10%. Um, and I worked with it, so I was number 2 there, and I worked with the CEO and we went to the board and said we need to cut by at least 10%. The board said, yep, off you go. And we, um, we were heading, so we had about 120 staff then maybe, uh, spread all around the world, you know, Crisis Group’s are an amazing organization. And once a year we’d bring the top 30 staff or so together at a senior staff retreat, and this just happened to be about a week after the board meeting. And so my boss said, OK, well, we need to now work out how to deliver on these cuts, and, and I, um, and he gave me a lot of responsibility for this, and I thought, well, there’s a couple of things we wanna do. One is we need to move fairly quickly with cuts because the quicker we make cuts, the quicker we’ll enjoy the savings, right? If you take a year to implement your cuts, well, there’s a year you’ve spent the money that you could otherwise save. And then the other thing I thought was, you know, instead of just squeezing everywhere and making, we should, Use this opportunity to cut a couple of areas deeply that are just perhaps less effective or not the same priority, and both of those acceptable propositions, you know, in and around, but, so I then just decided where this was gonna happen and I kind of briefed my boss and then I kind of went up to the division heads and said, hey, you know, we had to the cut, so here’s what we’re gonna do. And surprise, surprise, they, they, they weren’t very happy about the process, um, and you’ve got this convening now, everybody gets together and they start to conspire. So, so I managed to, I, I, I did achieve one thing which they managed to unite pretty well everyone against me, you, um, you know, so it was great morale building because there was a coherence, um, and, and they actually called a meeting that night that me and the CFO weren’t invited to and the um, And the next morning, we, we had our staff rebellion, and they said, well look, we, we don’t want you, the CEO to run this process because obviously it’s not being run very well, and my boss, who’s a former Foreign Minister of Australia, who wasn’t not noted for his patience, handled this remarkably well, and he was smart enough to understand, OK, well let’s just play this cool, and so he said fine, let’s do this, and, and the staff said right, we wanna do this properly and we wanna workshop, you know, we’ll sit down and program teams and, We’ll sit down with Nick and we’ll sit down with the CFO and see if, if there are better ways of making savings. And so it was somewhat humiliating, um, and but it was also really informative in a number of ways. And first of all, everyone accepted the need to make cuts, so it wasn’t like saying we don’t need to make cuts, you’re, you know. And then of course, the wisdom of the group between them could identify areas where we could make easy savings. That had very little impact. I mean, to take one example, we used to publish about 100 reports a year and we used to send them out to, you know, each report to targeted audience, maybe 2000, 3000 copies. We didn’t need to send that many out, but we’d just been doing it for years, and that cost $400,000 a year. And by cutting it down to maybe 20 copies per to absolutely essential and putting a bit of more work, we saved $350,000 right? I hadn’t thought of it. I haven’t thought of it. Um, um, and so we did some other things, I mean, the organization did get squeezed because people offered up salary and all the rest of it, but perhaps the most striking thing about it was, OK, we came out with a plan, and we ended up cutting by 15% because people had offered up instead of the kind of 10, 11% that we’d we’d targeted, which served us very well at that time. Um, and 2 years later, our income was significantly higher than when we’d gone then pre-cuts. So we cut deeply, um, we rallied around together, and then over the next 18 months or so, we managed to raise significant additional funding, so we ended up being in a better position than we had been at the time when we, when we were worried about the funding cuts. So, I learned, I mean, you learn from your mistakes, don’t you, more than you, you learn from your successes, ah. And I just learned that um you know, powers of teams need to proper process, need to consult, and, and, and don’t mistake these things, you know, consultation doesn’t mean surrendering necessarily uh decision making authority to the crowd, unless you handle it really badly. It just means giving people an opportunity to provide input and feel heard and and often, and usually they have really good things to say. That story of what not to do just uh sort of exemplifies why I, I admire the book. There’s a lot of introspection in the book. You, you routinely say, you know, you’re still learning, you’re a work in progress, uh particularly uh with the, the chapter I want to talk about with, uh, diversity, equity and inclusion. But throughout, you know, you’re, you’re, you’re honest, you’re open. You’re vulnerable. Uh, uh, I admire that. Uh, uh, uh, a lot of folks see vulnerability as a weakness, and I’ve always thought it, it, it’s a, a sign of, uh, a strong leader. Well it’s very kind of you and it, it, it also, you know, on the feedback, and I’ve got lots of lovely feedback on the book and and probably the feedback that resonates most and the most consistent feedback is, well, we really appreciate it because you know, you’re not saying that CEO has to be this perfect, you know, infallible model, right, because we know it’s really hard and hearing other people say that they struggle with this is a real gift. Uh, and again, for, for young or new non-profit leaders, I think that’s often the thing they’re struggling with the most. It’s like damn, I’m in charge of this organization, it’s really hard and I don’t have anyone to turn to and I’m terrified I’m gonna make mistakes, and I can’t admit that I get anything wrong because everyone will judge me, um, so. You spend time on, uh, self-care too for the CEO, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s funny you, uh, you open that section, and you talk about, uh, overwork, micromanagement, your loneliness, and I’m thinking this, why would I keep, why, why would I aspire to leadership? This sounds like a suicide path to, or a path to self-destruction. Um, so, so, but there are way, you know, of course, methods of overcoming strategies for overcoming. The the negatives like, like mentoring and peer, peer groups and coaching, um, and your own mental health. So say, say something about the, the, the essential self-care uh uh uh uh for a CEO to before you can care for others. Uh, well, the starting point is. It’s a tough and lonely job. I mean, it’s a wonderful job. I love my job, right, and I love being in charge, and I love working with a team, but it is tough and lonely, and I, I thought about it, uh, particularly when crises happen, right? And so COVID was an obvious one, but even now with kind of turmoil with financial assistance all around the world and all the rest of it. And there’s this, and, and, and you feel a sense, an intense sense of responsibility. Like if I get this wrong, and if I do badly, It impacts on the lives, first and foremost of the 80 or so staff that we have, very directly, right, who’s, it’s their jobs and their livelihoods and all around. I feel a huge sense of responsibility, but then it, it packs on the 150 grassroots organizations that we work with, and then the millions and millions of people that are served by those. So, you, if you sit back and think about this, it can, can be somewhat overwhelming, um, and, And then also there are these drivers, so one is, Leadership can be lonely in any organization, not just non-profits and business, uh, because, The buck stops with you and so you’ve got to make the final decision and um and even if you don’t make decisions, that’s a decision, so you know, you, you, you’ve you’ve got the responsibility, um, um, you often don’t have people that you feel comfortable turning to and but that’s something we, we can talk about, um, and so, so it can just be really, really challenging. Um, and then, again, particularly working with non-profits, there’s always this sense of, well, we exist for a, for a bigger purpose and so if I just work harder, we can achieve more. I mean, how, how do you stand by, I think of people working, In Humanitarian disaster zones in Sudan or where we’re just seeing, you know, horrendous things happen right now. And malnutrition, babies dying and all the rest of it, and how, how do you um, How do you not kind of think, well, if I just work a bit harder, um, we can do more. So, so lots of reasons why it can be overwhelming, and I think the starting point is for CEOs to think, OK, well, I do no one any favors if I burn out, right, so stop trying to prove yourself when it’s not being effective, right, if you’re working 80, 90 hours, weeks consistently, you’re not gonna do anyone any good, you’re not doing your job properly, you just aren’t, because you’re not effective. Um, so stop making yourself into a martyr, work out how you can support your own mental health, wellbeing so that you are just a better leader. Um, and then there are strategies for it, right? You can establish, I think one of the best things that’s happened in my non-profit career is kind of small peer groups. Uh, I have a wonderful friend, she was, she was #2. At a um at an organization, um, and she kind of said, why don’t a few of us come together once every 9 months or so and just share some of the challenges that were going on. And, and we just got, initially we set these kind of days and we’d kind of have a tight program of what we were gonna talk through and all the rest of it. In the end it just became a sharing opportunity and we’d go out for dinner and we’d just be sharing all of the challenges and, you know, these are the challenges we’re all kind of around the number 2 level, so often it was like these are the challenges we had with my boss, right, um, but also, you know, have you had this problem with funders or impact or whatever, and it’s just a huge relief to be able to share, um. And then personally, I also, you know, I try and meditate, I try and stay fit and healthy, I try and exercise, um, all as a way of just dealing with, with the pressures and, and stresses of running an organization. You spend time, uh, you have a chapter devoted to the team as part of the, the, the people, there’s the CEO and then the team, uh, you, I think a lot of insightful advice around culture and so talk about culture, psychological safety, how important that is as a part of culture for the, for the team that uh that that you’ve built that you invested in. Please share there. Sure, so, I think one of the things with teams that, Some non-profit leaders don’t, some leaders don’t understand is. Teams are an amazing resource. It’s not that teams exist for you to issue commands and then just to execute, right, because if that’s what, if that’s how you see your team and that’s how you’re doing it, you’re missing out on the real richness and power of a team. And to me, the best thing about a team is that I get access to really smart ideas from smart engaged people and can pick and choose these ideas and work together, but you know, and come up with better decisions. And, and it is so helpful for me when I say, hey, I was thinking about this, and, you know, I’m gonna do this. Now if, if the team wasn’t engaged, they say, Sure, Nick, great, whatever, off you go. Whereas, in fact, they’ll say, oh, that’s interesting, but what about this or what about this? And then I can step back and say, well, actually that’s a really good idea, let’s explore that. And, and as a leader, it’s just a huge benefit because I’ve got other people’s wisdom, and then we’ll work together. Uh, and I just don’t understand why people don’t understand the value of being able to draw on all of this expertise if you run your team well and build an effective team. But that won’t happen unless you build an effective team. So if you run it in a hierarchical way and you just, as we said earlier, make all the decisions, and no one’s gonna offer up any ideas because Nick’s gonna say, uh, you know. Um, so that’s one point, but it’s not enough just to kind of not, not listen to people’s ideas. You actually got to actively create a space for ideas to come up because you may say you’re really, you may say to your team, give me your ideas, I really want to hear them, and we’re gonna, but if you can’t. poo poo a couple of those ideas. Nice try, but really, you know, they’re not going to offer up their ideas in the future. So this is the idea of psychological safety, right? Fancy word, jargons, but, but the idea is pretty straightforward. It’s you, you show that you are actually willing to hear ideas and be contradicted. Right? So you start off a conversation by saying, well, I got this wrong last time we did this. Anyone got any idea, you know, so you’re admitting, you’re admitting that you don’t get it right all the time, it creates space. Someone puts up an idea and you say, this is really, you don’t have to say it’s brilliant and all the rest of it, but say I really appreciate that. And let’s draw in some more ideas. You don’t have to grab everyone’s ideas. You create a, so, and this is all about culture as well. So, you know, a culture of psychological safety means the leader signaling very clearly that they are open to people expressing views and a range of views. And I thought, I referred to it in the book, a study that this all comes, well, it it it it’s all demonstrated very powerfully in a, in a research um study that Google did when it was trying to work out what are the most effective functioning teams, and it, Google has more information on its staff than anyone ever has on their staff, right? It’s a data company. And so he was trying to work out, OK, we’ve got these really high performing teams, we know they’re really high performing, what makes them distinct from other teams, and now we’re trying to work it out, is it where all the team members are are alike, are homogeneous, or is it where all the team members are really diverse and different, or is it where the team members like hanging out, not just at work, but after work, or is it where the team members are all acutely focused. And none of these really predicted the effective teams, it was the teams that had psychological safety. Um, that, and so they kind of helped popularize this concept of basically just giving people space to input and contribute and be thoughtful and drawing on the wisdom of the group. Um, so, so that’s what I see as a really important part of culture, and I think if you’re going to be intentional about it and culture across the organization, you know, as a leader you have to think about culture all the time. Uh, and to me, culture for companies is like character for individuals, um, and it just doesn’t happen, it’s developed, right, and I think one of the ways you develop culture, and it can’t just be the leader, but the leader obviously sets the tone, uh, is there are values that you, as an organ that the organization cares about. Um, for individuals, their virtues, they’re good values, right? Values that advance the purpose of the organization, it’s not just enough to say we care about these things, you have to turn them into habits or into norms. And so it’s turning values into norms, and you do that by identifying things that matter and then consistently implementing or behaving accordingly, and that becomes a norm or a habit, and, and it’s values and norms that make up culture. Um, and so our staff. You you say behaving accordingly. And you, you talked, uh, throughout the book about modeling the behaviors that you know are important in, in yourself doing, as you said, you know, being open, for instance, being not, not uh negating ideas when you ask for people’s ideas, but you know, throughout, you talk about modeling behaviors. Everyone watches the CEO, right, and it always surprises me how much they watch the CEO, right, and I shouldn’t be surprised, I’ve been a CEO now for 12 years, but it’s still, everyone watches the CEO, so everything you do, and it’s pointless saying this is what kind of organization we are and we’re, I have an open door policy when in fact you’re slamming a door on everyone, uh, and people work it out pretty quickly, right, uh, I treat people well when I don’t, or whatever, um, and so, you know, I mean one thing that I do, That I think is quite useful um for us in building culture. I used to do quarterly CEO calls where I’d just have an all-staff call and I’d update everyone, and I’d be pretty open about what happened at the board, and I thought, OK, well this is a good way of keeping people informed. And then I’d ask for questions at the end and I’d get no questions, right, no one was gonna put up their hand virtually in front of 70, 80 people and ask questions and, and, And so I thought we’re not using this as effectively as possible, so then we changed the system where one staff member gets to interview me on these calls. And they’re allowed to ask anything they want, and they know they are because they’ve seen other people have been allowed to ask me anything that they want, and I will ask the questions. And more importantly, they can solicit questions from any of the staff that come into them, so I don’t know where the questions are coming from. That’s the part that I love, that you don’t know the questions in advance. It’s, it’s total vulnerability. Yeah, and, but, but people generally, one they respect it and even if they, you know, I mean I I just did one a couple of weeks ago, and, you know, there were questions about, um, Impact of the financial crisis and are, are we gonna be making people redundant, what impact does it make on partners? There are questions about my mental health and how is, how is I managing the stress and all the rest of it. Um, and these are great questions, because then I can, I can then share my thoughts, and it’s not me just kind of delivering from on top what I think people want to hear, it’s being responsive to questions. There are questions about, um, you know, our culture or learning and development within the organization. And I think it’s just super helpful to have that conversation, uh, and hopefully contributing to a culture where people feel like, OK, well we can ask these questions. Time. The DEI work. You, uh, you say you were initially, uh, nervous about. And, uh, and you make the point here, as I said, said earlier, it’s it’s, it’s a work in progress and, and we’ve had a good number of uh guests through the years, um, you know, emphasizing that it’s a journey, it’s not a check box, um, but, you know, talk a little about your own, uh, again, some introspection, some vulnerability, which again, I admire, uh, your own initial, uh, anxiety about You know, embarking on a, on a, on a process to, to be more diverse, equitable, inclusive. Yeah, so, Freedom Fund started 11 years ago, so, um, you know, when we started and we were recruiting, and we were based in London, initially, even though we work in countries like Ethiopia and Kenya, and Bangladesh and Brazil, um, and recruiting really talented staff, and it turned out at the end of year one or so, we had half a dozen staff and they were all white. I think all were university graduates, all deeply expert and knowledgeable. Um, and, and, you know, hugely talented, but it wasn’t a particularly diverse, um, kind of group of people, um, and particularly given that, as I said, we’re working with and partnering with organizations in Ethiopia, and Brazil and elsewhere, uh, and raising money and getting it to frontline partners and, um, and, This is before Black Lives Matter and before a lot of the debates happened, and in fact my initial kind of focus on DEI was more on my board, where we had a board of 8 and there were 2 women and 6 men. And so I thought, well, you know, we need a, a more balanced gender breakdown on a board. So I was trying to recruit the board, and the board is much more diverse, um, in various ways, and the organization was always diverse on gender, but, you know, often, often gender was a, and still is an aspect of diversity that seems to be overlooked these days when we’re looking at other characteristics. Um, and then, um, when, uh, there was a lot more focus on, On issues around, um, race and ethnicity and so on, particularly after George Floyd and, you know, the Freedom Fund works on slavery and, and there’s arguments about structural racism and being a legacy of slavery, and staff were just saying, well, what are we doing about this? And so my nervousness was in part because I could see that, um, some of these debates, Were being badly handled internally around um how, what does diversity, equity inclusion, or what does it mean to be more diverse and more inclusive as an organization. Some of them were being really badly handled and were tearing organizations apart. Um, and, and that was happening for a lot of reasons, and, and it could happen for the best of intentions, right, that people care about these issues and just can’t converse. But often, you know, leadership people might say, well, you know, we’re doing amazing work, so why are you looking internally, right? Look at what we do, we’re serving all of these underserved populations, stop, you know, it’s not about being internally focused, it’s about doing the work, and then, Staff could legitimately say well hold it, you know, we’re not representative and we don’t, and we’re not particularly inclusive and so I think, but, But also, and this is, OK, this is, we, we can have this discussion, I think, you know, it’s not just about leadership failing. I think, I think there were aspects of the way this was handled where staff who didn’t have a lot of power thought that they could use this as a very powerful tool to engage on issues that they wouldn’t otherwise do. And, and that can be really destructive, like if you kind of insist that, I don’t know, we have to change all of our policies because this is what we think. You should be doing in terms of pay policy or recruitment policy and you’ve got no responsibility for running the organization as a whole, and if you don’t manage this debate well, it can just be extremely destructive. We um, we had a a long internal discussion about this, uh, and so lots of working groups because I thought we’ve got to live our values and talk it all through and um and it wasn’t easy, um. But, but through the process, I, you know, I, I started doing my own reading and, and, and a few things were pretty obvious. One is, um, yeah, I keep on talking about teams and drawing on a pair of teams, well, if your team isn’t, if you’re drawing your team from a fairly narrow pool or not a broad enough pool, you are not accessing the best talent, right? You are not accessing the people who might know the most about the issues and when you’re working on slavery, people who know most about what is the living experience of exploitation are those that have, Been through it or come from the communities that are hugely vulnerable to it. And so if you’re just talking about a position, a situation of expertise, then you have to be drawing from the communities you serve more effectively, and you have to be drawing from the regions that you work that are closest to, uh, the places you serve, and that was just a no-brainer, so, um, and, and then again, there’s an issue of being reflective of, Um, the community you live in. Um, so we went through a process, I think that we ended up in a very good place where it was just clear that we could do better in drawing from all of the people who could help us be a better organization and be more effective, um, and be more knowledgeable about the partners we’re working with, the communities we’re working with, the issues that we’re working with. Um, and so I’m quite happy where we’ve gone, but I think, I think it’s really, Tragic that people have turned DEI into a punching bag, and they’ve turned it into a, an identity issue in a way that is not helpful, and this is people on all sides of the debate where your starting point should be, Who’s expert, how do we have the best possible team, how do we have the greatest impact by bringing in the people who know the most about the issue, uh, without being pro forma about identity one way or another. Um, so I don’t know if that’s clear and, you know, as you can see it’s something I still kind of, yeah, working my way through, but what do you see as the CEO’s role in this? how do you best facilitate? Well, it took me a while to work this out, but the way you facilitate it is exactly the way I started this whole conversation. How does this advance our purpose? Right, how, how do we, how do we become a more it doesn’t advance our purpose to say we must recruit from certain populations or other just for the sake of it. How do we get better or we’re an anti-slavery organization, right? How are we better at our anti-slavery work? Well, by having people who are deeply knowledgeable about what that means. Now, that means a whole bunch of things, right, it can mean people from the communities or the countries that we’re working, but it also can mean the best anti-slavery experts who may or may not come from particular regions, but it’s bringing a whole team together, not just kind of having a single lens of what it means. How does that advance? So, and and framing the discussions when they get heated. How does this advance, you know, it’s not about your ideology or your views. Tell me how this advances what we’re trying to do. And then let’s work backwards from that. Um, and so that’s, that would be my biggest learning was like, start with purpose, always. Tell us how this gets us there. Tell us why this will make us a better organization and a more effective organization. You say it’s the right thing to do, well, obviously, if it’s the right thing to do, it advances our purpose, how does it advance our purpose? Nick, that’s a beautiful 360 from where we began, purpose and, and holding the vision. Thank you. Thank you. So folks, the, the book is how to lead nonprofits, turning purpose into impact to change the world. Um, I think it’s a, it’s a very compassionate, uh, introspective guidebook for, for leaders and aspiring leaders. So check, check the book, please. Uh, Nick Grono, you’ll find him on LinkedIn. Nick, thank you so much for sharing all your thinking, your wisdom over uh over all these years. Very grateful. Thank you. Tony, thanks for having me on, thanks for a really wonderful rich discussion. It’s my pleasure. Next week, your improved messaging. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you. Find it at Tony Martignetti.com. We’re sponsored by DonorBox. Outdated donation forms blocking your supporters’ generosity. Donor box, fast, flexible, and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit, Donorbox.org. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I’m your associate producer Kate Martignetti. The show Social Media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy, and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation, Scotty. Be with us next week for nonprofit Radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. Go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for March 31, 2025: Mental Wellness Among The Chaos

Jennifer Walter: Mental Wellness Among The Chaos

When the chaos is the point, let’s help you avoid getting overwhelmed or checking out. Jennifer Walter, a Swiss sociologist and mental health coach, has strategies to gain agency, recharge and build resilience. You need to be good to yourself first, then you can help others. Her practice is at JenniferWalter.me.

 

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I hope you remember that I wished you happy Saint Patrick’s Day on time, not a week late. I’m quite proud of that. Welcome to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host and the podfather of your favorite hebdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d come down with catalepsy if I lapsed into a trance because you told me you missed this week’s show. Here’s our associate producer Kate with what’s on the menu. Hey Tony, I hope our listeners are hungry for. Mental wellness among the chaos. When the chaos is the point, let’s help you avoid getting overwhelmed or checking out. Jennifer Walter, a Swiss sociologist and mental health coach, has strategies to gain agency, recharge, and build resilience. You need to be good to yourself first, then you can help others. Her practice is at Jennifer Walter.me. On Tony’s take 2. Has from the gym semper fi. We’re sponsored by DonorBox. Outdated donation forms blocking your supporters’ generosity. DonorBox, fast, flexible, and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit, DonorBox.org. Here is mental wellness among the chaos. It’s a pleasure today to welcome Jennifer Walter. She is a Swiss sociologist, mental health advocate, and equal parts rebel and marshmallow. She admires potty humor. Through her podcast, the scenic route. And her coaching and consulting work, she’s making the world a gentler place one conversation at a time. You’ll find Jennifer on LinkedIn and her practice is at Jennifer Walter.E. Jennifer Walter, welcome to nonprofit Radio. Thank you so much for having me, Tony. We’re gonna make the world a gentler place with this conversation and adding one more to the gentle. Yeah, like, will it ever be gentle? Maybe not, but at least I don’t know, I always say it’s not, it’s not your fault that you found the world as it is, but it’s your fault if it’s still like this when you leave. Oh, very good. We all do have a responsibility. Yeah, I do believe so. Yes, I do believe so. I’m not sure it’s a gentle, but as you said, gentler, yes, yes, make it more gentle. What that means to you, right? But basically, I don’t know, you can sum it up and just be more kind. Be more kind is very good. Yeah, that’s a great, that’s an ideal admonition. We need more of that. Yes, we need more of that on a lot of different levels. Well we’re gonna be working on the personal level, right? So, here in the US, the administration is causing turmoil, chaos. Hellscape, uh, not only here in the US, but, uh, we’ve become very good exporters of all of this. It feels like we are. Hit with a hurricane followed by a tsunami followed on the 3rd day by a wildfire, followed on the 4th day by mudslides. It was a rocky start into 2025. It still is. It still is. So what, what do you, overall, we have, we have a full hour together. We have plenty of time, but just, you know, generally, like how do you make sense of this for, for us? So first and foremost, uh, uh, maybe a disclaimer how a Swiss makes sense of American politics might be different than an American makes sense of American politics. I could use some, we could use some foreign perspective. I, I’m no expert in American policies by far, but what we see here is, is a pattern that we see, um, not just in the United States but also in large parts of Europe, right? This um. This kind of moving towards totalianism and fascism, and whoever shouts the loudest, the first is kind of like wins the race. And um it not and doesn’t matter so much if that what is said is. Kind or smart or reasonable, but you’re just the first to shout at the loudest, so. Yeah. How do we make sense of that? Like. On one hand, it doesn’t, when you speak to historians and philosophists and sociologists, they’re all kind of like, yeah, this is not really like a surprise. Um, when you, when you have people who feel In despair over a lot of things, right? Like you, there’s not enough money at the end of the week to get you to your next paycheck. You’re struggling to pay rent. You don’t know what’s gonna happen, your healthcare costs are through the roof. You don’t know what’s gonna happen to your children. You don’t know what’s gonna happen to the planet like. All these Ideas feed of despair. That paired with. The systems we’re in, who all at the front is surely capitalism. Um, As well, where we’re like, OK, we just need to exploit every resource there is. Pairing that and and and also looking at the decline of. Education of freely available education of uncensored education. The decline of empathy and compassion. We’re kind of like in a recipe for disaster, really. So, and, and this has trickled down to Our listeners, um. In, in, in forms of questionable funding for, for a lot of US nonprofits that do work abroad. Uh, there are individual nonprofits like, uh, National Public Radio, for instance, and Planned Parenthood or being individually targeted, so we’re seeing it at a sort of a, a subset of the community of the nonprofit community level, you know, those doing foreign aid work, but also at a micro level and individual nonprofits. And so this, this makes our, our listeners. Uh, uh, in the nonprofit community generally, um, uncertain, you know, uneasy. No longer, things are not stable like they were just 2.5 months ago, um. And so we take this on to ourselves, you know, we, we, uh, this trickles down, the shit trickles down to the to the, to the people, to the individuals, and we have, we have nowhere else to pass it on to, you know, right, we are the last, but we’re also the first from the bottom up, right? So you have a lot of, you have a lot of advice on the, on the personal level about burnout and let’s start to explore the. The bright thinking that motivated me to invite you to, to come and, and talk to our listeners. Yeah, well, like, for instance, you know, you, yeah, you say that you know you burn out, uh, uh, feeling a burnout is not a personal failure. Can we start there? it’s a natural response. Can we start there? Yeah, for sure, yeah, I think that’s one of the key things to, to realize, right? It’s, it’s not just you. If we look around, we, everyone I talked to and uh they are emotionally overwhelmed or feeling burned out, um. There was just recently, but this is for Switzerland. I don’t know what the US is just today or yesterday was published like the, the happiness, the happiness report, like which countries feel the happiest and yeah, because we’re, we’re recording on International Happiness. Yes, exactly, that makes sense. The reports came out today. Um, Switzerland is, I think the first time ever it’s not in top 10. Which it might surprise people, but if we’re looking here like, yeah, OK, it makes kind of sense. So it’s really systemic, right? This whole overwhelm, especially when it comes to politics, right, we had, I mean, we had Bannon. Like the ex, um, like exact concept of pro he. He was the one who turned like the, the, the phrase flood the stone with shit, right? To have so much, so much coming out that you’re trying to like keep up and keep up and keep up. Which is kind of like almost impossible. So this whole overwhelm. This chaos and crisis, this is design, and this is also what Naomi Klein amplified in her book Shock Doctrine. Although now it’s She might, she argues it’s even a step further, but basically it’s using chaos and crisis to push through. Um, changes because people are too disoriented and to like know what to focus on and to know what to resist. Right, so this is a this is a feature. You you’re you’re citing, uh, yeah, it’s by design. Naomi Klein, you were citing Steve Bannon. Uh, to, um, to flood the zone with shit, so, so it’s, it’s by design to overwhelm us. So this is, that’s important to recognize, yeah. Because you, you, because you can resist by not being overwhelmed. Yes, that would be ultimately the goal if you cancel, right? You, you, if you process information, if there’s, um, if we go with conman, he says, well, you have basically you have system one and system two, right? System one is all the quick, quick thinking you do and the reacting you do and kind of like the ad hoc crisis mode and system two is deep thinking, reflective thinking, critical thinking, so. We hardly, it’s really hard now to go to be like, oh now I do some critical thinking on this, right? Because there’s so much coming out every now, every like every minute of every day. And also, we, I don’t know, we might have to relearn really critical thinking and also engaging with content that is longer than a 22nd reel on TikTok. So kind of like there are many different things that are coming together, um, but yeah. If you So how to kind of like deal with this overwhelm if we know it’s by design. Right, um, and one. One thing is that I find is really crucial is. To say, OK, you know, if it’s a structural point. Hey, what, maybe I don’t really have to keep up with everything. Right? What if, if I only focus on the 2 or 3 issues that are really close to my heart? And that are really and fully aligned with my values. Right, it doesn’t mean that I don’t care about the other things. But I think every listener now has. Their topics that they are feeling deeply passionate for. And maybe just focusing on those instead of trying to like keep up with everything. We don’t want to keep up with the Kardashians, we also don’t want to keep up with everything else that’s going on. And focusing. That’s the reframe doesn’t mean being ignorant, right? It means remaining capable of acting. Right? If you consciously choose which topics are relevant to you, if you don’t chase after every media wave that’s coming at you. But focus on the essentials that was what’s most valuable to you, to your community, you will regain the clarity, you will be able to. Stay focused and do the work, because I think now is really the time where we’re all called to do the work. It’s time for a break. Imagine a fundraising partner that not only helps you raise more money, but also supports you in retaining your donors. A partner that helps you raise funds both online and on location so you can grow your impact faster. That’s Donor Box, a comprehensive suite of tools, services and resources that gives fundraisers just like you, a custom solution to tackle your unique challenges. Helping you achieve the growth and sustainability your organization needs. Helping you, help others. Visit donorbox.org to learn more. Now back to Mental wellness among the chaos. So we’re not lazy or, or dispassionate or uninterested if, if we’re, if we’re just focusing on two issues or three or maybe even just one, you know, whatever our, whatever we think our capacity is, you know, if it’s just one, you know, maybe it’s USAID funding, that’s it, you know, that’s where I’m putting my, so we’re not lazy or, or uninterested if we’re, if we’re paying less attention. To all the other cacophony that that accompanies that that are are chosen. Yeah, I, I truly believe that, right? If like don’t beat yourself up because you can’t keep up. That’s the intent is that you not be able to keep up. Exactly, that’s true, that’s why it’s important to realize, you know, this is, this is you said, it’s a feature, it’s by design. So if you’re trying not to follow the design and disrupt kind of like that system or that pattern. This is where you kind of like gain some sort of agency back. And of course, If you’re a news outlet that might be harder to do just to focus on one issue, but if you’re, I mean we, we have to like a lot of charities are single issues charities for a reason as well, right? It, you’re narrowed down, you’re focused, you know, you’re, I don’t know, maybe it’s reproductive rights or mental health, climate change, whatever it is. And The fault I, I have to pay tribute to the lineage of that, like the fog goes back to Bell Hooks and Audre Lorde of like this whole. The idea of self-care and self-love, right? That is a radical form of resistance. We need to consciously look after our own well-being, physically as, as well as mentally. We need to recover and reflect and recharge because I know you’re listening who are who are, they know like this is not like a sprint. This is a marathon and it’s, and I probably most likely, most definitely will get worse before it gets better. So we need to act sustainably and with foresight and we need everyone to replenish their batteries and recharge. That’s a smart metaphor. Um, it’s really an analogy. That’s a smart analogy to sing single mission nonprofits, right? We don’t, no, no nonprofit takes on every issue that is, uh, that merits money and time and, and needs improvement. No nonprofit does that. Um, I don’t know, but no, no, no, no, we’re focused, so our missions are focused. So, you know, on the, on the individual level, the analogy goes we should remain ourselves singularly focused, or maybe two issues, you know, whatever, again, whatever your bandwidth can take, but I just think that’s that’s it’s it’s, it’s a very apt analogy for our, for our listeners, um. You just mentioned recharging. You know, what are some, uh, aside from, you know, focus and, and recognizing that. Your focus is your resistance. What can we do to, to recharge, take care of ourselves in in other ways here? Um, So One thing that I also really. That I practice myself, um, and again, this might not work for. Your nonprofit organization on an organizational level, it might not, but it’s kind of like a 40 hour wait period until you like. React to something. Right, because all these controversial, often like emotionally charged topics, like he, he, he put tariffs on Canada then less than 48 hours they were gone again, right? If we would just have waited 48 hours before we would get like really worked up about it, it’s already poof gone again, so. Maybe we don’t need to react. On a personal level to everything that’s happening, so maybe we can give ourselves a briefer might not need to be 48 hours, but maybe we can sleep on it. Or do we really have to do like a TikTok right now? Like, it’s really asking yourself, do I contribute to the frenzy or to the solution? And often it’s just more noise. Um, Something else I really is kind of like goes that goes into this is. Don’t try to not let yourself be controlled by the outrage, right? Um. This is really hard to do, but if, if a topic is super emotionalized and you wanna like say your piece. I always ask myself, OK, who benefits from the fact that I’m now getting super upset, super worked up. And is this. Outrage is this addressing a real problem, or is it just adding to the frenzy? Is it just generating attention? And often it’s the latter. So, and then worst case you’re becoming part of the problem, right? Um, Um, and the big one. And this is, I feel really tough for us as as a as a collective as a society. We need to build resilience and that we can also sit with things that are. Uncertain and unpleasant. Right, for example, hm. Many of these political and social issues, right? They are very complex. They have no quick solutions. Everyone who tries to sell you a quick solution either doesn’t have like a fully developed frontal cortex or is leaning towards fascism. And like these so-called wicked problems, right, climate change, for example, where all the variables are constantly changing. It’s, we need to know that it is OK to feel uncertain. About certain topics, right, that facing up to the uncomfortable. Is Instead of looking for hasty explanations or culprits, is also a really great way to We to practice resilience and be like, oh no, OK, it’s OK, I have to sit with this instead of Oh, get me like a quick fix solution or a distraction. And this is really hard because I feel a lot of us struggle with this at times, right? How often are we like, oh no, this makes me feel uncomfortable. Quick, let me distract myself with something. Whatever this may be, it’s totally individual for everyone, right? And then we’re wondering why we as a collective have A hard time with Uncertainty with sitting with uncertainty or Having these Having people come to power who offer quick solutions. And easy solutions that are often in the binary and never really working out. What about, um, broader, you know, self-care, um, you know, like time away, things that distract you that you enjoy. They’re not, they’re not really distraction, but they distract you from, you know, uh, whether it’s family or needlepoint or, you know, these other, other things that we can do to get ourselves out of the, the, the, uh, the, the news maelstrom. Oh, of course, I’m, I mean, all activities that you do that you feel are truly recharging you. And God, please do them and please do more of them. But at the same time. I talked to other people when I asked them, oh, what’s your hobby? They look at me like. But like I, they have like this theoretical concept of a hobby, but. They’re like, well, when, when, when should I have the time to like follow like a leisurely pursuit of something. And Also, to really go back to maybe some of us really need to learn again how to rest and to know the difference between Well, I know I’m sleeping and like really resting. So, yeah, whatever you, you know, the activities that you that you hold close that you know are fully recharging you, go do that. And for some, it might really be thinking of, OK. Maybe I start doing only one thing at a time. For example, I. I just uh mentioned this recently um on another podcast and led to a beautiful conversation there. It was very fitting, but For example, when you make your morning coffee. Right? What if you just watch your coffee brew? Instead of, I don’t know, cleaning out the dishwasher, cleaning up the kitchen, doing this and that. Right, these little moments where you, where you really kind of like decompress, breathe. And just be Those can also be small moments of rest. Instead of doing everything at the same time. Watching coffee brewing. Now, I am not personally a coffee drinker. I don’t drink coffee. I know I’m, I’m not making excuses. I was gonna say what I was thinking was. That sounds like uh I don’t know, doesn’t take 6 or 7 or 8 minutes or something for a pot of coffee to brew. So that’s 6 or 7 or 8 minutes that you’re just, you’re doing something that’s probably gonna bring down your heart rate and your blood pressure, right, as long as you breathe in and out, you’re consciously breathing, you’re really like getting in touch with your body. Yeah, sure, 100%. Just don’t spend that time thinking what’s going on in the world? What, what, what headline am I missing? I need my phone. Where, where is it? You know, that’s not the way to spend your 6 to 8 minutes of coffee brewing time. OK, taking, you know, taking a pause, right? just. To the extent we can, um. I saw something where there were families experimenting with locking their phones up during meal times. And, and I, one of the videos, I think the, the woman actually smashed the, the glass jar that the phones were still sealed in. That may have been a, that may have been a comedy thing, but the concept is real that, you know, we can, we can step away. It’s, it’s OK to step away from, from the, uh, you know, from the chaos. Yeah, and it does not make you lazy or ignorant or whatever. I mean, if those stories play in your head, then it would be really interesting to ask yourself, well, why are they playing? Why does me watching my coffee brew make, like, why does that play the story in my head of, oh, you’re lazy. Look at that. Or you’re ignorant or whatever the story is, whatever kind of story that comes up, that would be the interesting question. They’ll be like, why is this story playing? Or even selfish, it’s not selfish to take care of yourself, you know, uh, uh, self-care is not selfish. So I mean I think when you go ahead. I’m sorry, you, you. Just to make the right, like, it’s, it’s always the first thing when you’re on a plane, you put on the life jacket on yourself first. Mm. Take care of yourself before you can take care of others. I, I espouse that widely. Uh, I, I talked to. Listeners and uh folks in nonprofits about that, you know, we all do giving work, but to give and to care for others at whatever level we’re doing it, whether you’re the CEO or you’re doing the house visits, uh, you know, as a nurse’s aide, we’re all caring for others or some other, some other entity like the climate or the oceans beyond ourselves, we’re all giving, but if you’re gonna give and take care of others. You need to take care of yourself first. Yes, that’s not selfish. No, no, absolutely not. It’s really you. You protecting yourself. To To have all these compassion to give towards your cause or your people, your community. And to be able to, to, to give longer, right? To sustain, to really kind of, as I said, we know this is, this, this will not just be over. In a year or 4 years, who knows, right? Um, and it was like, yeah, I said, it probably will get worse before it gets better. So this is really this idea of that this is selfish is really something we have to let go of. It’s time for Tony’s take two. Thank you, Kate. Tales from the gym semper fi. There were these two former Marines who met at the gym and I was over in the corner doing my floor work. And I heard the whole conversation. Uh, it was really, it was, it was kind of touching, the way these two guys bonded instantly over their Marine Corps service. Uh, and they started getting into, you know, the, the, the, the acronyms, of course, uh, MASOC, JSOC, SOI 0311. What were you? 0311? Oh, I was 0311. So I, so I’m thinking, uh, I’m trying to remember these things while I’m doing my, uh, my, my, uh, planks and and my push-ups, and I’m thinking, all right, I gotta remember more so, JSOC, uh, you know. So I went back and looked these things up and uh. JSOC is the Joint Special Operations Command. And Marsak is the Marine Forces Special Operations Command. So these guys worked in some kind of special operations. Um, and SOI is School of Infantry. Which made sense uh with uh 0311 cause 0311, I figured was the, this is something that I remember from the Air Force, the, it’s called uh I figured it was their MOS. It’s a military occupational specialty. I, I forgot what MOS stood for, but we used to just say MOS. It means what, what kind of job you had. It’s a code for what kind of job. So, so they were talking about SOI School of Infantry, and they were 03 11, and that is an infantry. MOS infantry specialist, 0311. So these guys were in infantry, uh, not together, but they, they certainly shared that bond. So it was, it was quite interesting listening to Marstock and JSOC, etc. Um, one of them is named Roy, you know, I like to refer to these folks as like, you know, we met Val, Mrs. Blood and Soil, um, so, you know, I like to have names. One of them was named Roy. The other one, he didn’t get too much airtime in the conversation. So I, I’m sure he said his name, but I didn’t catch it and he, uh, yeah, I missed his name. So I only know Roy as, uh, one of the two. Former Marines. So I, I thank the unnamed Marine and uh and Roy for their service. In JSOC and more so and. SOI And that is Tony’s take too. Kate, Tony We’ve never really talked about it. I don’t think, I mean just you being my uncle, I knew you were in the Air Force, but what is like the one Great takeaway that you took, like one great takeaway that you took from your time in the Air Force, maybe like uh. I don’t know, like a saying or something you just remember like, I don’t know. No, I would say it’s the, it was the teamwork because I had an unusual job. So talking about these guys, Roy and the unnamed Marine, you know, infantry, that’s a very common thing, you know, right, hundreds of thousands of people or at least 10s of thousands are in in infantry. That’s the fighters, those are the fighters. Um, but I was in a specialty, even in the Air Force, something that was unusual. It was Minuteman. Missile operations. Minuteman was a nuclear weapon system. And there weren’t that many people who did that kind of job. I mean, there were, there were probably 1000 or something across 6 spaces or, you know, so it’s a small number. Um, and so, you know, you got to be a very close team cause you did something special, unusual, and, but you did it all together. And on my base, there was probably only Maybe 200 or so people who did out of out of many thousands. So, it’s kind of a camaraderie, I’d say, camaraderie, teamwork around an an unusual kind of job operating Minuteman missiles. That’s really cool. You know, it uh it served its purpose in the Cold War. It was a, yeah, yeah, thank you. We’ve got just about a butt load more time. Here’s the rest of Mental Wellness Among the chaos with Jennifer Walter. Where else would you like to go, Jennifer? What, um, what else would you like folks to know about coping, I don’t know, self-care, whatever, you know, you’re the, you’re the, uh, the, you’re the Swiss expert sociologist. Well, it’s really going back to Being curious. I think true self care also has at this level is component of being curious, right? When you realize, oh. There is this thought creeping in, oh, you’re selfish for doing this, or you’re arrogant or ignorant or. To really be curious and ask yourself, oh, why is this thought coming up? The same with emotions, right? If you, if you do something and it makes you feel anxious, or if it makes you feel angry or resentful to really be like, oh, OK, can I like channel my inner scientist and ask like, oh, why? Why is this coming up now? Why could that be? Interesting. So this is really kind of like where a lot of. Change on a personal level happens if you’re curious enough to, to ask the question, just being like, oh, interesting. Some introspection. Yeah, and a lot of if. Sometimes if people are at the beginning of their journey, they’re like, oh, but how can I like self-reflection feels really hard, like, do I have to. Meditate for an hour a day to have gained like introspection and so. Well, no, sometimes it’s just really Slowing down enough to recognize what thoughts or feelings are coming in. And be curious about them and ask, oh why, why this particular feeling emotion fought right this second. Interesting. What other advice Do you have that we that I haven’t, uh, I haven’t, I haven’t teased out of you yet. Well, let me ask you this. Well, how did you get into this work? How, how did you get into sociological studies and, and, and coaching of others, helping people cope on an individual level? How, how did you get into this work? Oh, Well, I think the sociologist was in me when I was already like very, very young. I was a small kid I was always like, why, why, but why? And I always had this deep sense of justice of like, oh, but this is not fair. Why can they when I cannot or why can cont day and I can, um. So that was kind of that felt very like a logical conclusion to be like, oh, OK, I’m gonna study sociology because that’s basically the question of. Who profits from what we said right at the very beginning, who profits from you being emotionally worked up about this? Right? And so who, like the power dynamics and everything. So that’s, that’s really one of the key questions of sociology, like, OK, who, who profits? And this is, this goes into every aspect of our life, right? If People who uh who identify as women. Growing up, we had all these images of how it also goes for men, how women are supposed to be, how men are supposed to be. And if you feel bad, if you’re made to feel bad about the way you look, Who profits off that? It’s not you. You’re feeling like crap. So. Looking at the systems in place that are trying to tell you there’s something wrong with you. And we need to fix it, and look at that, we also just have the solution to fix XYZ. And that kind of like naturally translated in. Also in in coaching people, right? Because we often are led to believe that we need something outside of ourselves to. To deserve to feel what we want to feel, to get where we want to go, um. And I don’t know, 9 out of 10, 9 out of 10. There’s nothing internal, external, it’s something internal. It’s the internal job you have to do, um. And it’s no I don’t know, yes, you can get. I don’t know, you can get a crystal to help you relax. But ultimately it’s a, it’s a tool or a crotch. And Just the crystal itself will, I don’t know, very unlikely make you feel relaxed. Yeah, confident. Whatever it is, it’s it’s, it’s false, it’s a mistake to look. Outside yourself for. Validation or we mentioned happiness because it’s happiness, World Happiness Day, to, to, to, to need externalities to approve of you. Versus Approving of yourself or or maybe approval is not the right word, but acceptance you need that you need it from outside versus you should be able to find it within you. Well, if you need it. Like externally from an external source. You most likely at some point you will run into this corner of it is never enough. Right, if you need external validation, I don’t know, maybe in the form of, I don’t know, likes to your social media posts, followers, money. Number of friends whatever. I don’t know. Will you ever truly know when when is enough? When is enough external validation? From what I’ve seen so far and read and seen so far, like it, there’s hardly ever enough. Right, if you’re accumulating and accumulating. You will always, this will always wear off, and then you’re right, right back where you started. Then you kind of like need to earn even more money or to have even more followers, and then you feel like, oh, validated again, and then it starts fading again, because you have no internal knowledge of this to back it up. You have no, you haven’t kind of like built this internal muscle to back it up. So you kind of like fade, so it fades out, fizzles out. want to leave us with um some. Final Words of uh of hope. And, and, or even just reminders of how to cope, if, if not, if not overall hope, but Oh, I’m that’s, no, I mean, I am, I am truly hopeful. I’m always like the glass is half full. That’s also why my description is like I’m always, I’m always going to be half marshmallow. I’m, I will believe in the good in people until like the very fucking end. Um But I had this, yeah, it’s really like. Being mindful with our attention. Right? Where does our attention go? and so often we’re not really conscious in choosing where our attention goes. But where our attention goes, our focus goes. And if we can use our attention in a very targeted manner, very focused, we can really strengthen certain topics, highlight certain topics that would otherwise be lost in the flood of information or in the flood of shit when we go back to ban it, right? So really. Yeah, be be reflecting critical enough, OK, that not every breaking news story has to be commented immediately and really not just be outraged for the sake of being outraged. Because like this whole where your attention goes, your focus grows. It’s kind of what we consume, right? What we consume, how we talk about it, the words we use, they build the world we live in. So And what we think. We pass on. And that shapes others. So when you understand that consciously directing your attention is is a very valuable resource. It can have really kind of like put back agency. Into yourself and the work you do, and I think this is really crucial because if you feel hopeless. Reminding yourself of agency and the things you can actually do control, such as your attention. And even if it is no smartphones after 8 o’clock. Then go do that. I want to thank you for uh for saying shit and fuck. But, but we get both from one guest. Usually I, I need scores of guests to get just one of those. Maybe this is the divide. I don’t know. No, it’s, it’s. But you didn’t get any potty humor. True, true, but this is like. I don’t know. Those are things that never really work on command, but they have to be. Yeah, no, I’m not gonna say I’m not gonna say a toilet joke. No, it’s, it’s organic like shit and fuck, you know. But in fairness, my, my son, he’s 5, and he really had, he came home from kindergarten the other day and he really had. The most beautiful, most innocent of potty humor jokes I’ve heard in a long time, and it was truly precious. All right, well, so with that kind of build up, you can’t leave us. So what’s your, what’s his joke? OK, so now bear with me because I have to translate this from Swiss German to English, um, on the go because I’ve never told it in English. Well, so basically, there is a poop walking down the street. Then he meets another poop. He says, hey, you know. What you doing? Oh, I’m just gonna go rob a bank. Oh, that sounds cool. Can I come with? Sure. So two poops walking down the street, they meet another poop. Hey, you look like a good piece of poop. What are you doing? Like, what are you two up to? Well, we’re just gonna go rob a bank. OK. Can I come with? Yeah, you look like a solid piece of poop, you can come with us. So they walk to the next corner, they meet diarrhea. And just like, oh, you two look like fun fellas. What are you doing? And like, oh, we’re just gonna go rob a bank. And then everything’s like, oh, sounds fun. Can I come with? Nah, sorry, this is only for hard guys. OK, 5 year old, humor, but it’s it’s precious. It’s cute, yes, yes. All right, well thank you for translating in from uh from Swiss German. She’s Jennifer Walter. You’ll find her on LinkedIn. You’ll find her practice at jennifer Walter. Me. Jennifer, thank you very much for sharing your thinking, your, your advice, your wisdom. Thank you so much, Tony, for having me. Thank you so much. Next week, nonprofit leadership for current and aspiring. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you. Find it at Tony Martignetti.com. We’re sponsored by DonorBox. Outdated donation forms blocking your supporters’ generosity. DonorBox, fast, flexible, and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit, DonorBox.org. I saw you you out, faked you out with a false. Breath. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I’m your associate producer Kate Martignetti. The show’s social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy, and this music is like Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation, Scotty. Be with us next week for nonprofit Radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. Go out and be great.