PITY PARTY OVER

Stephen Matini
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  • OGNI SETTIMANA
PITY PARTY OVER

PITY PARTY OVER is for leaders and anyone shaping a future that doesn’t vanish with greed. We share insights and practical tips from the brightest minds to lift others while lifting oneself. Pause. Learn. Move On.

  1. Bridging Divides: Dov Baron on How Curiosity Shapes Leadership in Polarized Times

    06/11/2024

    Bridging Divides: Dov Baron on How Curiosity Shapes Leadership in Polarized Times

    This episode of Pity Party Over couldn't be more timely following the US presidential election results, which have left voters and the world feeling equally joyful and hurt. This pivotal moment highlights the importance of listening to bridge divides and overcome polarization, which destroys relationships and the opportunity to create a system that accommodates everyone's needs.  Dov Baron, a leadership consultant, author and speaker, helps leaders find more profound meaning and fulfillment in their work. Our conversation centers on the transformative power of authenticity and curiosity in creating genuine connections in our polarized world. Cultivating curiosity means actively seeking to understand others' perspectives, fostering compassion, and reducing divisiveness. By focusing on the broader context rather than just content, we can gain empathy for others and build meaningful relationships that transcend division. Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Amazon Music, or your favorite podcast platform. Subscribe to Pity Party Over for more insightful episodes. Questions? Email Stephen Matini or send him a message on LinkedIn. #Belonging #Curiosity #Authenticity #Purpose #Integrity #EmotionalIntelligence #LeadershipDevelopment #SelfAwareness #PersonalGrowth #Mindfulness #Kindness #PainAndGrowth #Transformation #Innovation #ContextOverContent TRANSCRIPT Stephen Matini: Since you and I met, there's one word that is really dear to me, but I also know that is dear to you that I would like to ask you why it is dear to you, which is belonging. Dov Baron: Belonging is a really important thing for me. And at a very real level, it's real to me and important to me because I never did belong. I didn't feel like I belonged when I was a kid. Coming from that to the present tense, I think belonging is really important because we, particularly since COVID, since the lockdown, people had a lot of problems. I remember calling the CEOs that I work with and saying, "When pandemic happened and you're going to lock down, you're going to want to fire me. You're going to want to take me off your regular paycheck, and it's the last thing you should do." And they're like, "Why?" And I said, "Because you're going to have way more problems after than you have now." And they were like, "Well, why?" And well, it'll soon get back to normal. Well, A, normal is never coming back. That's over. And B, when you come back, you're going to see human beings are tribal. We need interconnection with other human beings. So whatever this does, we can talk about how it impacts our nervous system, our limbic system, how it affects the gut biome, and all the other things that it's going to affect. But psychologically, we are going to be hungry for community because we're being removed from communities. And we've all set up our own communities. If we're not ready for that, when they come back, people will find themselves drifting into communities that they don't really belong into. And they go, "What do you mean?" Well, they're going to find communities where they can distort themselves and they can make themselves fit in. And let's face it, you and I both understand this. In the corporate world, everything was about fitting in. Yeah The whole thing that everybody was excited about is get the right people on the right bus in the right seat. Yeah, well, that means distort yourself to be in that seat. Belonging means I can show up with all of me. Gay, straight, wearing a dress and a mustache, artistic, creative, highly intellectual. You know Any flavor, shade of context that person wants to bring is where you belong. But in a fitting in culture, we have to disenfranchise parts of ourselves. We have to remove parts of ourselves. We have to distort parts of ourselves in order to fit in. So belonging is very important now more than ever. It's always been important because we're tribal, and it's important to me because I never felt like I fit in when I belonged when I was a kid. Stephen Matini: When did you start feeling that you belonged?  Dov Baron: Probably not until my early to mid-40s. Stephen Matini: And what happened?  Dov Baron: I got married to my bride, who I've been with for 27 years when I was 39. We've been together 27 years. And she was the first person I felt like I belonged with. I remember asking, I say to my friend, we went for a drink and he said, "How's it going with Ranuka?" And I said, "Magnificent." And I said, "I think I'm going to ask her to marry me." And my friend's like, "Oh, you can't do that." And I said, "Why not?" He goes, "Well, you're the last dying breed of Bachelor." And I'm like, "Yeah." And he said, "But you can't ask her to marry you." And I said, "Why?" He says, "I know your highest maxim." And I said, "Yeah, so do I." And he goes, "Well, has it changed?" And I said, "No." He goes, "Is still freedom?" I go, "Yeah." He goes, "Well, how can you get married?" And I said, "Because freedom for you is your accessibility to different vaginas." That's not what freedom is to me. Freedom to me is access to more of myself. The more free I feel to be me, then the more free I am. And in this relationship with this woman, I have another area I didn't even know I'm allowed to express or I give myself permission to express. So that was the beginning of it was freedom of being with her. She was so powerfully in her own space that it gave me permission to stop doing my shit that I did in relationships. And so I started to feel like I belonged. But it was also at that point in time that after at 39, it was 20 years of work. So I'd been working on myself personally with therapists and mentors and all the rest of it for 20 years that I suddenly got comfortable with the fact that I was a polymath. I wasn't specialized and I didn't know enough in a particular area, but I knew vast amounts in a lot of different areas. And I started to surround myself with other polymaths. Belonging my tribe or a tribe of polymaths. People who have incredible specialties, but you don't know. They also have these other 18 things that they're so deeply embedded in. And being around them made me feel like I belonged. So that was the beginning of it. And that's where I live now. I live in that place of being surrounded by them. Stephen Matini: So if I understood correctly what you're saying, you start belonging when you have license to be yourself or someone gives you that opportunity to be yourself. Dov Baron: I don't know that anybody gives it to you. I think that you give yourself permission to not distort or disenfranchise and allow people or groups to fall away that you thought you wanted to be in. So this is the challenge we're seeing with the very polarized partisan political system and political followers. You have people who used to hang out together who can't talk to each other anymore because they're polarized politically. The question is, can I be all of me and can I allow you to be all of you? So if it's not okay for me to be all of me or I feel like I have to put you in your place, then that's not my tribe. You know My religion, I tell everybody, my religion is curiosity. So if I'm going to live in the blood of that curiosity, I'm going to eat, sleep, breathe that, then I have to be willing to show up. Now, that's me showing up to them. On the other side of that, they may want to shove me in some box, and that's not where I belong. So I know where I belong, which is where you where I don't have to disenfranchise or repress or deny some part of myself in order to be with you. And at the same time, be respectful, of course. Stephen Matini: Some people, maybe you heard this, may say, "you know Dov, that's easy for you to say this because you are an independent professional. You don't work for anyone you know so you're not actually in an organization. But me, I am part of this thing, so I have to be extra careful. So I don't know if someone ever made the comment to you, but if they did, how do you respond? Dov Baron: I respond with, "If you don't feel like you belong, you should be somewhere else." Sorry. I mean, I know that that sounds like an easy solution, but it is an easy solution because there are companies that you have access to, whoever you are. So for me, the key is not in, "Well, I can't leave." You've not taken ownership of your specialization. You've not taken ownership of your power yet. When you take ownership of that, then you can go anywhere, anywhere at all. So if you're in a place where you have to disenfranchise yourself, that's too high a cost for a salary because it means you have to take off your personal head and put on your professional head in order to be there. It's fascinating. I'm often asked this question, "How is this possible? Many of your friends are your clients." Yes. Because they're not paying me to be their friend. I can make the separation between those two things. So I am going to work with you and I'm not going to change anything. So in fact, you still get the same guy. I'm just not coming at you from the same position as a friend. Yeah So I speak to you the way I speak to my friends. I speak to you the way I speak to my clients. I speak to you the way I speak to anybody. And if that works for you, that's fantastic. And if it doesn't, that's also fantastic. So if you're working somewhere where you feel like you have to disenfranchise yourself and you have to take off your personal head and put on your professional head, then there's two things to look at there. One, the environment, which I just said, if it is someplace that forces you to disenfranchise, that's something to look at. But there's also the other side, which is you have to look at yourself. And you have to look at yourself, A, why am I so willing to disenfranchise? Why am I so willing to distort myself? That's a question in and of itself. And B, if I'm pissed off with this place that makes

    45 min
  2. Shift Energy: Michelle Kuei on Why Permission to Reset Is Your Superpower

    17/10/2024

    Shift Energy: Michelle Kuei on Why Permission to Reset Is Your Superpower

    Michelle Kuei is a visibility marketing coach. At age 11, a car accident left Michelle permanently disabled. She shares her journey, highlighting how growth and transformation stem from shifting our mindset, embracing personal responsibility, and allowing ourselves the permission to be vulnerable. Michelle highlights about the importance of recognizing when we’re stuck in a negative space, allowing ourselves to feel those emotions, and then consciously choosing to move beyond them by focusing on our strengths and making deliberate decisions. In our conversation, we explore the importance of taking agency over our journey, learning from life's patterns, and showing up authentically while giving ourselves grace along the way. Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Amazon Music, or your favorite podcast platform. Subscribe to Pity Party Over for more insightful episodes. Questions? Email Stephen Matini or send him a message on LinkedIn. #VisibilityMarketing #Resilience #MindsetShift #PersonalGrowth #Empowerment #OvercomingChallenges #EnergyShift #Vulnerability #PermissionToReset #SelfCompassion #MentalHealth #TransformYourLife #PositiveChange #LeadershipMindset #WomenEmpowerment #Authenticity #PityPartyOver #StephenMatini #MichelleKuei #NewPodcastEpisode TRANSCRIPT Stephen Matini: When you feel the way I do now a little bit overwhelmed, what do you do?  Michelle Kuei: There’s so many things I do. But first of all, what comes up to my mind is when my energy is down, I actually do quite the opposite. I go onto a treadmill, I start working. If I'm feeling stressed, there's a lot of things on my plate. I've learned to drop everything and just go into a physical activity. So a lot of times, you know, when we think about mental stress and burnout, we're in our mind, right? We're thinking about, oh my God, how am I going to take care of this? How am I going to process this? How am I going to tackle this? So we're doing a lot of thinking. So when we're thinking, our mind is working, but our body is not. And so what I have learned, and that really worked well for me, is if I were to just stop the thinking, stop the thinking mind, and just drop it and go do something that involves my body, activity, running, jogging, walking, whatever it is that you get into that physical mode, then you start taking your mental processing into, OK, I need to make sure that I step at the right place so I don't fall down. So your mind starts to think about something else other than the things that you're feeling stressed about. And when you start doing that, you're making room and making space for what needs to come. And the creativity comes when you make room for it. And how do we make room for it? When you shift from a mental stress to a physical activity, you allow your energy to flow. And everything is energy in this world, right? So if you shift one energy from one place to another, then things start to shift as well. When I was overcoming that physical disability, I realized that you know my muscle groups, muscles, they need to learn and get used to the activity I'm giving them. So every single muscle in our body has a job. Just like we have a purpose in this world, they also have a purpose in our body. And so when you give that purpose to the muscle that you're working on, sometimes you need to give it a break, right? Because when we overwork, the muscle will snap, the muscle will break. And same thing with ourselves, you know if you don't start taking a break or realizing that I need to try something else that will relax me, that will keep me into a calm state. I need to take some vacation. I need to make sure that's in my schedule before I snap and break. And so I feel that a lot of us don't realize that, you know yes, resilience is great. Resilience is powerful. Being able to bounce back and getting back on your feet and staying strong is important. But it is also important to allow yourself, giving yourself the permission to say, you know what, I'm going to take a day off. I just need a day off, or I just need a week off. And we were talking about this earlier. I took a week off because I needed a week off. Stephen Matini: My ideal world would be probably work for three months and then take a break, or maybe three, four months, you know, every three, four months, I think it should be a stop, you know, somehow. And I guess it depends also how you work. But I'm one of those people that tend to go, you know, full force. I mean, seriously, there's no a second during the day that is empty. And so after a few months, I do feel it. So you mentioned disability. And in the past, when we talked about it, you mentioned that disability is one of the ingredients that are part of your life. You know, your life is ginormous. What does disability mean to you today? Michelle Kuei: It means that there's something that I am not gifted. I am not talented to do. And I use the word gifted and talented because we have a lot of talents within ourselves, right? And talent is something that you develop. It's something that you train yourself to recognize that this is what I can do, and this is what I can do well in. And there's other areas where I might not be interested in performing or doing at all. I am not interested to become the next athlete who's running a 10K marathon. That's not my interest, but someone else is. Someone is really happy to do that as a profession. For me, disability, it just means that there's part of us that we're just not trained and we're not passionate to do. Now I don't see it as a limitation. Rather, it's just like my hair, my finger. It's just a natural part of me of who I am. And it may be a disability, physical disability on me, but it may be an emotional disability on someone else I cannot see. But that person doesn't mean that that person is not doing well or not performing well. It's just that there's something else that person is so good at that I don't need to see the limitation on that person. It's a change of mindset. It's a change of feeling about what we choose to see, what we choose to embrace this whole entire self and recognizing that there is something that I'm really good at and nobody can beat me to that. And I'm very proud of it. I'm taking ownership of it. And I can do Christmas countdown whenever I want to. But there's also a part of me that, you know what? Someone else can do that. Someone else has the purpose of doing it. So I'm just going to let them serve. I'm just going to let them do it. For example, in the past, I go to grocery and there's always stuff on the very top shelf. And the most important item, like your toilet paper, is always on the top shelf. And that is the most essential thing that people need. And so every time I go to a grocery, I'm looking on the top of the shelf and I can't reach it. So in the past, when I felt my limitation, it was a limited ability to me, I hesitated to ask for help. I hesitated because I was looking at the perspective of I'm not good enough. I'm not normal. I'm too short to reach to the shelf. But then there is a shift. There's a moment where I started to recognize and realize that, hey, yeah, I am short, but this is why we have tall people. Right? This is why we have tall people. The universe makes tall people for a reason. So that's put them to use, right? Because the universe created everybody. And so we're all equal. Stephen Matini: You make it sound so flowy and real beautiful, you know, when you're talking. And one thing that I always wonder is how is it that some people are able to change their mindset as you did, you know, and to really overcome it and others instead get stuck there, you know? So what did you do? How did you make that humongous shift in yourself?  Michelle Kuei: Before I answer that question, sometimes I joke about myself that I have this young looking Asian body, but my soul is really old. I have a very ancient soul. And so to answer your question is that you have to be ready. And there's no rush into getting ready for that mindset shift. And so this is something that I observed, also something that I experienced is no matter how I know the podcast is called Pity Party. A lot of us are staying in that pity party for a very, very long time. But it's not because we don't want to get out of that pity party, or we don't want to, you know, advance ourselves or better ourselves. We don't want to look at the positive aspects of things. It's just that we're not ready. And I think the universe by design has a lesson plan, a giant project plan for everybody. I don't know what it looks like. I don't know what the agenda is, but there is a universal big plan for everybody. And each lesson on that universal plan, it's teaching you a lesson, right? So maybe the lesson I need to learn during this stage of my life is gratitude. I need to learn how to appreciate. Or the next stage in my life, I need to learn forgiveness. I need to learn how to forgive to people. And so we're going to see evidence and lessons or teaching moments where we continue to experience the emotional triggers or external trigger that teaches the lesson of forgiveness. I want you to forgive this person. I want you to forgive that person. I want you to let go of yourself. And so we continue to find ourselves learning those lessons repeatedly until we can master it. And once you master it, then you can move on to the next lesson. But how does that agenda look? I have no idea. I don't know, but I trust it. I trust there's a universal plan. And so the people who are stuck in the pity party still in that pity party have, we have everything, the ice cream, the chocolate, everything full on. We're not ready yet. We're not ready to move on to the next stage of life. And so for me, that stage of life, I felt it was evolutional. It was ever evolving. And when I finally got out of my pity party, I was gifted a book and it was fr

    39 min
  3. Show Up for Myself: Selena Blackmore on Becoming Independent and Finding Purpose

    02/10/2024

    Show Up for Myself: Selena Blackmore on Becoming Independent and Finding Purpose

    When we constantly prioritize others' expectations over our needs, we become mentally and emotionally exhausted, leaving little room to focus on what truly matters to us. In this episode of Pity Party Over we explore how embracing authenticity and purpose can lead to both personal and professional freedom, even in the face of fear and uncertainty. Our guest today is Selena Blackmore, an intuitive life and transformation coach who helps individuals reconnect with their life purpose. Selena spent nearly 20 years in the corporate world, constantly seeking new challenges. However, she ultimately felt unfulfilled by the persistent politics and lack of connection to her values, realizing her calling lay elsewhere. Having a personal conversation about meaning, freedom, and legacy is crucial, whether we decide to be independent professionals or continue in the corporate world. Being true to ourselves is more than just a career move—it’s a lifelong path of growth that helps us stay aligned with who we truly are. Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Amazon Music, or your favorite podcast platform to learn how to become an authentic and emotionally engaging leader. Subscribe to Pity Party Over for more insightful episodes. Questions? Email Stephen Matini or send him a message on LinkedIn. TRANSCRIPT Stephen Matini: My first question for you is actually something that I see in a lot of people's eyes when I talk to them, you know, to professionals. At some point, you decided to become an independent professional. So how was the transition for you? What inspired you to make the leap? Because that's something a lot of people would love to do, but somehow never bring themselves to the point of doing it.  Selena Blackmore: Because I spent almost 20 years in corporate and a great company, and I moved around a lot in that space. So I had, I call it a luxury of having a very big company where even within that company, I could almost sort of redefine myself. So I would purposely, every two to three years, would go out and look for something different, something new, something I hadn't done before. I have, I would call probably a fairly I don't have low attention spans the right way, but I get bored quite quickly. So I get someone that I like learning and I like doing new things. So I felt like if I was in a job for two, three years, and I kind of I feel like I'm there now, I wouldn't kind of stay with it and be like, OK, let's just, you know, let's just enjoy the ride. I'd be like, no, I need to go and push myself out somewhere else. And it wasn't really like a conscious decision, I'm now going to set up my own company. I always knew since, you know, very early on that at some point I wanted to be independent, self-employed, and go into that direction. But I'd always thought it would be later in life when my children were older, etc. And it was just things that happened. So my position basically was there was a reorg. My position didn't exist anymore. And I spent three years doing different things in the company. And again, I had a luxury. This was a very it's a very good company, right? So I was allowed to go and try out different things. Again, new areas. And I just felt the same things were coming out that just they weren't aligning with me. So it was just the same things that this thing is still bugging me. You know, it's still the politics, or it's still this, or it's still that. And there was just a moment when I was like, you know, why not just go for it? And when I decided to make the move, I didn't have a big plan. It wasn't like I had a detailed business plan. I hadn't got it all figured out. It was very much a hard decision of this is try. What's the worst that can happen? I guess I kind of went into it thinking, you know, worst case scenario, if it doesn't work out, I can just go get a job again. And I just knew I didn't want to stay in that company. So I just thought, well, let's go. Let's go try. And I have to admit that I am a bit of a risk taker, so I am someone that probably does take risks in life. I think I also just had a sense of trust. It will work itself out. Or even if it doesn't, that's also okay. So I kind of went in feeling kind of open to however it turns out. Stephen Matini: Back at the time, did you sense that there was something missing from your corporate life that you needed to find that somewhere else?  Selena Blackmore: Absolutely. I think someone said beautifully, becoming independent is like the biggest journey of personal growth disguised as work or disguised as a job. And I think that's really true. I think what I was missing in my corporate world was the connection to me. So I was very lucky towards the end of that time. I was working with leadership development, so I was getting more closer to the work, I think, that was more attuned to me naturally. But I think I was just missing where I could really feel my values connecting. So, you know, my purpose in life is to serve others and support others. And I was kind of missing that I didn't really feel I was being able to do that. Or it was it felt superficial. It didn't feel real. And I think what I was missing sometimes was, even though the purpose we were working towards was was a great purpose, a fantastic purpose, I felt people were losing sight of that. So there was a lot of, you know, people got lost in the politics and wanting and looking good and all that stuff that goes on in these big companies and kind of lost sight of the purpose of why are we here? And I think I just got to a point and said, no, I want to I really want to work with people and companies and businesses that are really aligned with their purpose and still have that clearly, clearly in front of them, because it just matches more with my my values as well. Stephen: You pointed out two things that sometimes don't go hand in hand, which is you have the politics, the organizational politics and the ability of people to live their values and purpose. In your opinion, if you had stayed, hypothetically, is there something that could have been done in order to create a more authentic, driven purpose environment? Or this is just a dream that is impossible in organizations?  Selena Blackmore: So for me personally, absolutely. I think where I am now, and this is actually also the kind of work that I'm now engaging in, that I think that when you are, you can be aligned with your purpose and kind of living your truth, it matters where you are, but you can do that in different environments. And I think at the time, I wasn't a space where I knew how to do that, or maybe I didn't, you know, have the right people around me there to kind of help me find how to do that. But I think, absolutely, I think finding your truth or finding your purpose may change where you're working, or it may shift, you know, exactly what you're doing, but it also may not. Because I think a lot of it's around really, when you feel that sense of being comfortable with what you do, and it's really like, you know, this is really me. This is why I wake up every morning, and I feel super excited about being me and going out there and doing work and helping others, whatever my purpose is, just that energy in itself when you're bringing it into the space you're going in, whatever that work looks like, or that job or that career, I think you can absolutely be in your purpose. From my experience with working with a lot of people and also my space of coaching, I think people feel, as you said, this is often a conflict. And I think it can be brought together. Obviously, you can only own you, right? So I think you can decide how much work you're going to put in into yourself and how you want to show up. You're going to have less control on what's going on outside. So I think you also have to be okay with you're not going to be able to maybe, you know, you can't change the other people. You're not going to necessarily change the organization. But I'm of course a big believer in like, you know, the ripple effect. So if you start showing up differently, if you start maybe bringing different energy into meetings or how you connect with people or how you lead, that will have a ripple effect on others as well. Stephen Matini: Have you ever seen the level of authenticity in your corporate experiences in someone that openness? Have you ever witnessed it? Selena Blackmore: Yes, I have. After a couple people there was so there was one person I was working in in leadership development. He was heading that group. It was so different to anything else I'd experienced in that organization. And I had moved a lot. And the organization had also transitioned a lot since when I started, also in terms of how, you know, people were being treated and how people, the expectation of how people should show up. But he just said what he thought and shared his truth. And what I specifically really respected, that he didn't care whether it was the CEO of the company, or it could have been the cleaning lady. So the way he showed up and shared his truth, he had no, he wasn't he was anti-political. So there was no like, Oh, you can't say that to that person. He was like, Well, I mean, why not? Why is that person worth more than this person? And he really lived that. He really lived that. It's hard to be like that. I think it's not easy. So I think, again, as a person to really show up like that, yeah, it takes a lot of inner strength and inner work. And I think also the awareness that, you know, you're not necessarily going to be liked by everyone. And I think it's letting go of the sense of, you know, this is going to be challenging for some people and being OK with that. And again, he wasn't he was quite open about I'm not here to be liked. I'm here to create change. I'm here to ask the difficult questions and to kind of, you know, put the elephant on the table and kind of be like,

    40 min
  4. Artful Cultures: Dr. Fateme Banishoeib on Creating Work Cultures like a Piece of Art

    18/09/2024

    Artful Cultures: Dr. Fateme Banishoeib on Creating Work Cultures like a Piece of Art

    Dr. Fateme Banishoeib is a visionary in organizational development. She blends analytical prowess with poetic sensitivity to craft innovative work cultures through storytelling and creative methodologies. Dr. Banishoeib underscores the transformative power of cultivating empathy, care, and creativity within workplace environments. She highlights how facilitating open discussions enables teams to tap into diverse perspectives and insights, leading to more innovative solutions and inclusive decision-making processes. When leaders shift from focusing solely on metrics to considering employees' emotional and psychological needs, workplace satisfaction, resilience, and engagement improve. Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Amazon Music, or your favorite podcast platform to learn how to become an authentic and emotionally engaging leader. Subscribe to Pity Party Over for more insightful episodes. Questions? Email Stephen Matini or send him a message on LinkedIn. TRANSCRIPT Stephen Matini: Like me, you have two different cultures essentially that have inspired your life. And then both of us have moved around quite a bit. So when people ask you, where's home, what do you say? Fateme Banishoeib: I don't actually have an answer to that. And I have to tell you something. I have to confess a secret, which is not that of a secret. One of the reason why I have traveled so much I lived everywhere in the world is actually because I don't know where home is. I've come to the conclusion that home is a feeling is not a place. And when I find myself into that feeling or when I can recreate that feeling, then I know that I'm at home. I've been confused most of my life about where home is. I was interviewed. There is a video in which I actually talk about home and where home is, and on top of my bed actually have a, a beautiful painting of the world. And Maya Angelou said what she said something like, freedom is being at home everywhere. It is true. And it comes with a price. So I don't know where home is. Home is wherever my cat is. Stephen Matini: So in terms of your professional choices, you know, growing up kind of understanding where I should go with my professional career, how much these two backgrounds that you have have influenced the way you think? Fateme Banishoeib: Work or career wise is a similar journey. I've embraced the same journey as I embrace like traveling and looking for, for home everywhere till I made home for myself. The same happened for my career. I think in our first conversation I mentioned to you that I was born a highly artistic child, but of course art is not a job or is considered a frivolous hobby. So my parents were, every time I would say, I want to be a poet, I want to be a designer, they were like, no, no, no, no . As soon as I became a little bit, you know, older that I couldn't understand, they were like no, no, no, no, that's not really a job. What do you really want to do to earn a living? And another thing I would say is I want to be a crazy scientist. And I literally use those words, crazy scientist. So actually they convinced me that art is not a job and in some way they are right in the sense that to be an artist is a way of being. And this is what I do currently now, and I can talk about that a little bit more. So I became a scientist and I became a scientist really for the deep love have for science and understanding how we work as a human being. And also for the love of curing people that I've always been passionate about curing people since I was a little child. I mean, there are memories and stories in the family of me. Every time I would hear someone saying, oh, I haven't headache or whatever, I cut my finger. I would just run and I would make up something and I would create something to cure them. And I've said that. And I've also written about, in my first book in the Whisper, I literally wrote this word like I became a scientist to cure people and wrote poetry to save my life. And this has happened to me literally what saved my life as being really rediscovering poetry in my life. Once I have become aware of that artist within me again that was just there maybe dormant and and sleep as I was, you know, busy with my corporate career, I actually start seeing the world with very different highs. And I started wanting to be all I am and not just the scientist or just the artist actually I get equally upset or equally triggered when someone refers to me only as the scientist or you know, the executive, the mentor or the artist. I really want to be all of them because I am and all of them. And I've spent the past years in my life trying to bring harmony and an equilibrium between all of these facets. And that's how I redesigned my career. That's when I founded Renew Business. And when I decided that there was place for all of I am, I didn't need to, you know, take a break from my corporate job to paint or I didn't need to whatever. To me, there is no switch. We can only be all of who we are. And that has changed not only what I do, but also how I perceive life by that, how I can support or help others. For example, there are occasions in which someone calls for my help for very specific or technical tasks. However, I do not forget that I'm an artist. I do not forget there is border within me. I do not forget that sensitivity. I do not forget that way of seeing things. And one of the remark that people always make is like, do you see those things? How do you come? And to me it's surprising because it is like why isn't the same for you? And after all, I actually really think that the quality of what we do, whatever it is, that what we do depends on the quality of who we are. I'm trying to be everything I am. Stephen Matini: A lot of people can distinctively perceive it. There's more sides to themselves. They have multiple interests, multiple talent. And somehow so many people feel compelled that I have to choose, you know, whichever route. And that creates a lot of stress to people because it always feels, as you said, what about all the other parts of myself? When did you realize that your, who comprised the scientist and the artist? Fateme Banishoeib: Well, I've always known what I did not know and took me longer. Also because society and the su and education don't help us understand that we can have different interests and we, if we want, we can pursue all of them or some of them. I mean, we live in a society and an education that really pushes us to specialize in something. And there are people who are very happy with doing that. They only have a passion or something. So it's a, so-called like growing vertically or in a, or specializing, going deep into something. And there are people like me who can go deep in different sectors, in different areas, in different backgrounds. What I actually like to think is that we can act as a bridge between domains that apparently look like so separate and so different very often actually make this example which helps people understand especially when they ask me like, but what the chemist and the poet have in common. And I always say them, well, the seeking the, this love for seeking truth. When I was a chemist in the lab and now when I write poems, that's what I seek. And there is a peculiar, maybe a little bit pot poetic metaphor that is brilliant alchemy is combining the elements that could be material elements, molecules, atoms or experience feelings and making something that didn't exist before. And in that I only act as a bridge. So I've always known, I just had to unlearn what society, people or conditioning had told me that it was not possible and create it, make it possible for me. But I've always known Stephen Matini: Was there an event or something that happened in the past that this somehow pushed you to realize that meaning you have always known, but then a moment you made the decision to fully embrace this, who it was, was a result of something to happen. Fateme Banishoeib: My book, the Whisper knows exactly what I will be saying right now because I actually wrote it in the book. It was few years back out of the blue. I decided while I was still in my corporate job and I wasn't even thinking about writing or anything artistic at that moment, I decided out of the blue I wanted to go to a writing retreat. And that was a particularly challenging moment in my life. It was very tough. I'd moved to a new country. I didn't have any network. And there were several events in my life that actually had tested me quite a lot, really out of this desire of taking a break and just do not think about how crazy and chaotic my life was. I booked myself into a writing retreat. It was not too far from where I was, just out of the blue was a synchronicity. One of those synchronicity, even though, you know, Karl says, and even Julia Cameron said, the synchronicity do not exist. Coincidence do not exist. So I booked myself into that. And I remember this was very distinctive at the opening of the retreat, the facilitator asked us, write something nobody knows about you. And this became after the opening line of my book without thinking, I just came out of me without any talks or consciousness about it. And I wrote, I run a manufacturing plant and I hate it. But I had not realized that at that specific moment I wrote it. But it was like, okay, still foreign to me as a concept. And then the retreat facilitator asked us, can you please read out loud what you have written? I remember the face of everyone when I read what I had written and my realization at that moment of the shock, not only me or everyone because I had to read it out loud. And in the meantime we were sitting in circle. I saw the shock in everyone's face. Well, I think they were more shocked by the fact that I wasn't the writer in that moment. They learned what was my job. I mean, we had no time to, you know, to introduce one a

    33 min
  5. Negotiation Guru: Prof. Carolyn Goerner on the Lifelong Learning of Influence & Empathy

    27/07/2024

    Negotiation Guru: Prof. Carolyn Goerner on the Lifelong Learning of Influence & Empathy

    Prof. Carolyn Goerner is a leadership and development expert and negotiation guru at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business. Prof. Goerner suggests approaching conversations with a sense of curiosity. By being genuinely interested in people’s needs and perspectives rather than solely focusing on our agenda, we can create a more collaborative and less adversarial environment. Prof. Goerner emphasizes that authentic leadership requires ongoing learning and empathy, especially in understanding others' perspectives and needs. This empathy extends into negotiations, where it's crucial to balance our needs with those of others to maintain long-term, positive relationships. In a fast-paced world often dominated by transactions, Prof. Goerner advocates for authenticity. Simple gestures like offering sincere compliments or asking thoughtful questions can transform interactions from empty exchanges into meaningful connections. Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Amazon Music, or your favorite podcast platform to learn how to become an authentic and emotionally engaging leader. Subscribe to Pity Party Over for more insightful episodes. Questions? Email Stephen Matini or send him a message on LinkedIn. TRANSCRIPT Stephen Matini: So Miss Caroline, welcome to Pity Party Over!  Carolyn Goerner: That’s delightful to be here, Stephen. Thank you. Stephen Matini: It’s my joy. I've been waiting for months for this moment. I'm very, very happy. So listen, the first question that I have is the following and it comes straight from your LinkedIn profile. The first thing that I read is, “Leaders are learners.” So, which is pretty fabulous. It's very short to the point, but I would like to know why you chose that.  Carolyn Goerner: Well, honestly, there's a couple of reasons. The first is that leadership, I don't think, is something that you wake up and you say, I've mastered it. It instead is something that we try to get a little bit better at every day. And so for me, the idea that I don't need any more leadership insight, I don't need any more leadership training, that's just silly. We all do. Nobody ever reaches the point where they're done, right? And then second, I think there's also this point about, if I'm really going to be a good leader, I've got to figure out my context and I've got to figure out my followers. And so I've also got a learning curve around developing empathy for people, making sure that I'm really seeing things from multiple perspectives. And that's a really big piece of it too. So I think people absolutely need to continue to learn about leadership, but then they also need to learn about the people in the context. Stephen Matini: And how did you get into the whole world of negotiation, power, personal influence? Carolyn Goerner: It's interesting. John Lennon said life is what happens when you're making other plans. And that sort of is how my career trajectory went. I actually did my undergraduate degrees in philosophy and religion and went through college on a debate scholarship. So was just not really thinking about professionally what I might do. And I kind of stumbled my way into consulting. And then when I burned out on that, decided I was going to go to graduate school. And my parents are professors of communication. So I went to get my master's degree in rhetoric and communication. So all of that persuasion, influential language really was something I was interested in. But what I very quickly realized is that I am so glad there are people who do that study, but I didn't, it wasn't me. So I did my PhD in Management and Human Resources, and this is really the intersection of all of that coming together. It's my fascination with how we use language and how language affects people, also coupled with really interesting studies in organizational dynamics and organizational politics and how all that plays together. Stephen Matini: Was it an advantage or disadvantage to have two parents who focused on communication growing up? Carolyn Goerner: I think it was definitely an advantage, but I'm blessed to still have my parents living. And my goodness, they are two of my very favorite people. I think it was not the kind of thing where we always sat and scrutinized everybody, but instead there was a lot of very healthy, okay, you need to tell me about that. So I suppose it was a little bit like having parents who are psychologists being very conscious of having good, healthy conversations. Stephen Matini: Because your parents have been such an ... they are an important figure in your life. If they were here with us and I said to them, hey, what is the secret of communication? What would they say in your opinion?  Carolyn Goerner: Empathy. That's what they have taught me. And that's absolutely what I've seen them do with other folks. It's not about me and it's not about whether or not I'm right. It's about whether or not I'm connecting with the other person. And so true communication really comes down to figuring out what the other party is all about and how I can then be a part of the conversation with them in ways that they can understand. One of my favorite local leaders was a gentleman who was representative in Congress for my state for a long time. And he made a comment when he was talking to one of my classes that leaders are supposed to make everyone else in the room comfortable. And I thought, well, do you have to agree with them? That seems a little pandering and silly. And he said, no, my job is not to agree, but I need to make a space where it's comfortable for them to express what they're thinking, and it's comfortable for us to disagree without someone getting defensive. And that just really stayed with me. And it's very consistent with my parents' advice as well, that in order to make good communication happen, you kind of need to get out of your own way. Stephen Matini: Have you ever worked with a client, could be, you know, one-on-one with a team that somehow you noticed they really did not have that at all. They seem not to have that ability, that social awareness.  Carolyn Goerner: Yes. Where I see it a lot is when folks are coming from a technical background and they are making a proposal and they have worked so hard on the data. They have run their numbers 74 times. They have absolutely convinced themselves that this is the way to go. And so they get in front of the decision maker and all they do is discuss all of the reasons why they, the presenter, are convinced. They haven't taken into account anything that the other person might need to hear or how they might need to make the decision. Instead, they're just all in on convincing people that they're right. And that's the thing I see the most often. And I grind when you ask the question because it's actually very typical. I'm lucky enough to work with people who are really smart and really know what they're doing. And the issue is not that they can't justify or find data to justify what they're asking for. It's just the way in which they go about asking that gets them into trouble. Stephen Matini: The thing is a lot of people, particularly around the whole notion of conflict, confrontation, negotiation, they really have a lot of issues, you know, including myself. Like I've learned it to be comfortable, but I used to feel, oh my God, awful about it. Particularly when I was younger, like I would get this block in my throat. I couldn't even speak. So a lot of people, People have all kinds of things like, you know, fear rejections. Also, there are, you know, cultural factors, social factors that come into place. What would you say that is the first thing, the first step to make peace with this so that negotiation is not so scary? What would you do?  Carolyn Goerner: My first piece of advice is get curious. Start figuring out what it is that the other person is asking, where they might be coming from. There's this interesting thing that psychologists call the spotlight effect. And basically what it means is that if I'm feeling uncomfortable, I feel like there's a spotlight shining on me. And it's almost paralyzing, right? I can't move. I'm just hyper-focused on myself. And I feel like everybody else is hyper-focused on me too. And it's really paralyzing. And it's funny that you say the neck thing. My neck actually gets red when that happens. So I totally feel where you're coming from because you'll see the color just kind of start to move up into my face. And so the way around that is to do something that two folks who study negotiations, Yuri and Fisher, who wrote the book, Getting to Yes they call it going to the balcony. And it's the idea that I am somehow going to step back emotionally from the conversation and watch it and watch it unfold and see what I can learn from everything that's going on. And so it's trying to develop a genuine curiosity about where the other person is coming from. And the interesting thing about that is that the minute that I turn my attention on someone else, that spotlight effect starts to minimize. So I always tell people, like for example, if you hate networking, go find someone who looks more uncomfortable than you are and be with them. Because the idea that you're focusing on someone else besides yourself can really help lessen that tension. Stephen Matini: Is this the basis of what you say is empathetic negotiation?  Carolyn Goerner: Absolutely, yes. The whole notion of empathetic negotiation is I need to come in and not just be focused on what I want, but I also need to make sure that the deal allows the other person to walk away feeling good. And that may sound counterintuitive, but you know the times where we're just worried about price and we're never going to see each other again, that happens. You know haggling on the street, it happens when you're maybe buying a car or a moped or something. But it's not necess

    32 min
  6. Beyond Perceptions: How Motivation Shapes Our Goals with Prof. Emily Balcetis

    27/07/2024

    Beyond Perceptions: How Motivation Shapes Our Goals with Prof. Emily Balcetis

    Prof. Emily Balcetis at New York University is an award-winning social psychologist and author of Clearer, Closer, Better: How Successful People See the World. In the book, she highlights how the perception of our goals conditions our motivation and ultimate success. Prof. Balcetis views motivation as the difference between where we are and where we want to be, warning that limiting stereotypes or narrow definitions of success impact our motivation and ability to reach goals. When addressing the challenge of sustaining motivation, Prof. Balcetis suggests balancing short-term and long-term perspectives, allowing for incremental progress while maintaining a vision for the overall objective. During our conversation, Prof. Balcetis also points out the interplay between perception and leadership and how expanding mental representations of leadership can inspire more people to see themselves as capable leaders. Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Amazon Music, or your favorite podcast platform to learn how to become an authentic and emotionally engaging leader. Subscribe to Pity Party Over for more insightful episodes. Questions? Email Stephen Matini or send him a message on LinkedIn. Please check Prof. Emily Balcetis book, Clearer, Closer, Better: How Successful People See the World, and use the affiliate links to support Pity Party Over at no additional cost to you. TRANSCRIPT Stephen Matini: So listen, as I was thinking of you, there's a bunch of words such as, you know, perception and misperception, perceptual illusions, perceptual habits. How did you end up in this world? Emily Balcetis: Well, there's lots of ways I could answer that. But to be honest, I really like magicians. I love going to magic shows. So there's that. I think I was already probably predisposed. But honestly, it was because when I was in graduate school, I went to study with a fabulous, fantastic, wonderful mentor. But after the first year, I really wanted to go spend the summer in Europe. And I was a graduate student. I didn't have any money. So I needed to figure out how to afford it. So I was looking for like, well, what academic conferences are happening in Europe? And there weren't any in my field, but there was one that was in vision science. And I was like, well, I better do a quick study on something that has to do with vision so that I can get the data, put together a poster, submit to this conference, and then get my graduate school to offset the cost by $500 of this trip. And then I did all of that and then told my advisor, oh, by the way, I like did all this stuff, I'm going to go to Europe for two months. And that's not how grad school really works. But he's lovely and said, like, okay, fine, but like maybe we should start working on these projects together. And so that's what sort of became the intersection, honestly, of my interest in social psychology, motivation science, which I had gone to graduate school to study. And how did you end up roping in visual experience? To be honest, it was to afford a trip to Europe when I was really poor. Stephen Matini: When you work in organizations and you start talking about motivation, it is such a huge broad field. How do you make things simple for them to understand?  Emily Balcetis: To be honest, I really do think that the concept of motivation is quite simple. The definitions that are foundational definitions, they vary, but they do have a commonality, which is that they're quite simple. One definition is just motivation is a discrepancy between where you are and where you want to be. And that's a driving force, just to close that gap. That's motivation from one perspective. Another perspective that I find myself in my work relying on more often is a multiplicative function. So motivation can be like motivation equals value times expectancy. Value, what is it that you want times? Do you think that it's possible to get it? So there can be stuff that you really, really want, like, oh, I really wish that I was a billionaire. So like, what's my motivation to become a billionaire? None, right? Because you multiply anything by zero and the answer is zero. So you can have like the things that you care most about. But if you have no feeling of self-efficacy, no means to accomplish it, no belief that you can get there, it doesn't matter how much you want it. Because in some sense, you know that you can't achieve it and some motivation stays low. So the concept of motivation, I don't think is that challenging. What to do about it, how to harness it, how to sustain it, that's where the challenge comes in. But just knowing what it is in the first place, from my perspective, isn't the difficulty. Stephen Matini: Has your own motivation changed over the years as you got deeper into the subject that you researched, you work with people? Is it different today compared to the way it was?  Emily Balcetis: Yes. I mean, everything about life is different over those, like my life is just so different, right? When I started this work, like I was saying that first summer after graduate school, you know I was 24 years old, whatever I was, like early 20s and now I am much older and married with two kids. So yeah, everything about motivation has changed. But in what way? I mean, I guess what I value has shifted. And so again, if motivation is value times expectancy, what is it that is the value, that's shifted. And I don't think it's like that unusual of a story, looking for balance, wanting to, you know, find a fuller life than just how you get your salary in the door. Stephen Matini: Do you find it more easily to stay motivated now than it used to be? Emily Balcetis: I feel lucky in that I've always been fortunate to be able to do the stuff that I really love. When I was an undergraduate, I went to study music. I have a degree in music performance, and I was fortunate to get to be able to go and be a musician to really develop that. At the same time, I was studying research in psychology. And so then when life events happened and pushed music sort of out the door for me as a career path, I still play. In fact, just this morning, I was at my two-year-old daughter's preschool playing baby shark and row, row, row your boat and wheels on the bus on my flute for them all. That was a highlight of my morning so far before this. And yeah, but so I got to do music and I love music. And then when I couldn't really become a professional musician, then I was loving psychology and the psychology research. And then I just get to keep doing that here. So I get it how privileged I am to say that I've always gotten to do what I love. Now it's not to say that like, oh, every day is wonderful. And like, no, it has its challenges too, but at the heart of it, the motivation for me isn't the problem because I've always been in a place where I have the resources and freedom to do the stuff that I love. And I really love writing. That's a big part of my job. And I really love writing. So a lot of people say that they struggle with, how do you go from a blank page to writing a book or to writing a scientific article? It can just be overwhelming to see that blank page. But I've never experienced that. A lot of the students that I work with do. So I've been able to figure out how do you help people? How do you advise people through that? But the motivation has stayed high. Again, the challenge for me, and I think the challenge for a lot of people is what do you do with that motivation? How do you keep it high? How do you balance the fact that you have multiple goals that you might be highly motivated towards, but resources like time are limited? How do you manage that? How do you sustain the motivation when there isn't an outlet for it? 'Cause you just can't get to the things that you really are motivated to do.So that's where I feel like I personally reflect and struggle the most. Stephen Matini If I ask the same question to myself, and I don't know if this is part of motivation probably, but I noticed that when I was younger, I've always had entrepreneurial ideas. There was this humongous gap between what I wanted and sometimes I really felt super, super far. Sometimes I would get excited. And then today's, I guess the approach has changed because I focus for the most part of today. Today with you. We record the episode and I try to do my best. And I know that probably in six months, in a year time, you know, if I continue doing this, it's going to be better. And I just simply focus on today. And somehow I find that motivating. It kind of calms me down and let me keep going. What I'm saying is something has to do with motivation based on your studies. What is it?  Emily Balcetis: Well, there's a lot to unpack with what you were saying. So that phrase of like, just focus on today, just get through today, that comes up so often. People are starting out in the Alcoholics Anonymous program. That's like one of the slogans and the guiding values and principles and philosophies that can help them too, because it just feels so overwhelming to thinking about having to stick with the change for the rest of your life. And if you let your mind go there, then this goal feels impossible. So sometimes people use that phrase of like, I'm just going to focus on today because the alternative just makes it feel so overwhelming that it puts it into a definitional category of what is the goal that is in the perceived impossible. And that's when you just see efficacy, perceived efficacy, the belief that I can do this just drop. And so again, then you're multiplying against zero and motivation goes away. Other people say that, like focusing on today because they want to live in the moment and they find value and focusing on a singularity rather than trying to multitask. And there's value in that too. That is a valuable strategy. It's a mindfulness technique. And if people go through the

    31 min
  7. Paulinho Muzaliwa - Social Entrepreneurship in African Refugee Camps

    24/07/2024

    Paulinho Muzaliwa - Social Entrepreneurship in African Refugee Camps

    Paulinho Muzaliwa is a social entrepreneur passionate about regenerative agriculture and founder of the Unidos Social Innovation Center in Uganda, East Africa.  As a refugee facing personal setbacks and challenges, Paulinho’s dream is to transform refugee camps into regenerative communities where every refugee can access clean water, abundant food, and quality education. He believes that change and progress come from within the community and demonstrates how refugees can become change-makers by leveraging their unique experiences and skills to develop innovative solutions.  In our conversation Paulinho emphasizes the importance of moving beyond reliance on humanitarian aid by fostering local leadership and sustainable practices.  Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Amazon Music, or your favorite podcast platform to learn how to become an authentic and emotionally engaging leader. Subscribe to Pity Party Over for more insightful episodes. Questions? Email Stephen Matini or send him a message on LinkedIn. #SocialEntrepreneurship #RegenerativeCulture #SustainableDevelopment #Permaculture #Sustainability #SocialImpact #RefugeeStories #Uganda #Africa #HumanitarianAid #WorldFoodProgram #UNHCR #ChangeMakers #Podcast #NewPodcastEpisode #PodcastInterview #PaulinhoMuzaliwa #StephenMatini #PityPartyOver #Alygn TRANSCRIPT Stephen Matini: So Paulinho, I want to ask you just to get to know you a little bit. Growing up, were there any specific person, people, events that somehow have impacted who you are today? Paulinho Muzaliwa: Not really. I grew up in a memory, which is a little bit modest, not so much poor and not so much rich. My dream was to be a pilot. Once I was not being able to go to university, so I chose to being an accountant. I met in secondary school. I done business and demonstrative administration. After finish up, it was quite hard to push and walk him. And all my dream really disappeared. So I gave up to all my dream. Being a refugee is kind of starting a new life. Stephen Matini: Going through challenges, life in general, how do you keep your spirit positive? How do you keep the hope?  Paulinho Muzaliwa: How I keep the or stay positive is understand that all my life have been challenging. And in order to be successful or in order to have a decent life, I need to be satisfied of what I have and cherish, also connect to myself. And the most of it is if things are not good right now, as long as I work hard, so I expect something positive will come no matter the time that we spend on these things. So I try to be optimistic because the worst part of my life is what I have done. I just want to be more positive so that I cherish all the moments that I'm having right now. Stephen Matini: And this is something that you also share with entrepreneurs. You know, to be an entrepreneur, you must have a vision. You must constantly fight self-doubts, challenges, insecurities and problems. How did you get to social entrepreneurship? What attracted you to this?  Paulinho Muzaliwa: Yeah, exactly. So I think there is so many facts that has motivated me to jump into this based on the challenges that are accounted in being a refugee. The first one was language barrier, which has been most affected young people here in refugee settlements to get access to employment. Four percentage of refugee are unemployed. And this due to language barrier, lack of experience, rigid education. So all this prevents people to get access. Job markets is quite also low in Uganda. So we have been able to at least, while learning entrepreneurship, instead of relying on the system, better creates our own system, better creates our own opportunities as refugees. So mostly from, especially from the country that I am. So the system, especially the education system, make us slaves of the system. You may be almost 100 people who are learning business and administration. And you are going to alert that the company in the city. So you are going to fund at only two companies. So if you are not really a non-person or your parent is not a non person, so you never get a job. So this has been the fact that has motivated me a lot to, okay, let's create our own opportunities instead of relying on the system. And then we jump into this and then I get an opportunity to learn entrepreneurship at idea for Africa and path through different centers here in refugee settlement to foster my experience. And then this is where I start found Unidos Social Innovation Center. Stephen Matini: How it is to live in a refugee community? Paulinho Muzaliwa: It's quite hard. Psychologically, it's really hard to let it go. The life that you had in your home country and start a new one here in refugee settlements. And this is something that's traumatized most of people and not able to let it go and start a new page. But economically, they're living in refugee settlements, especially where I am in Nakivale Valley refugee settlements, Uganda. As I've been saying, 44% of refugee are employed. So most of people are running small businesses to generate income and which is not really profitable enough to sustain their lives. So people are struggling currently due to humanitarian aid which I keep on decreasing every day. In 2018, when I reached here, so we used to get food from the World Food Program, but currently there is no food. So they fast in when reaching COVID, they transition from getting food to get money. And then this money is keep on decreasing. And currently they give $3, which is roughly a that can buy a two liter of oil, cooking oil as they provide this as a monthly rationed food. So can someone sustain with $3 a week or month? Quite hard. In term of education. So we have one secondary school and some private primary schools, which is not really provide the quality education. So for some parents who have at least some money, they take their children to go to learn out of refugee settlements. I think this is how life looks like in refugee settlements. So people have been relying so much on humanitarian aid, and when this has keep on decreasing, so life becomes keep on being harder. And the food on the market keep on increasing the price. And we are going to realize that life is becoming quite hard in refugee settlements. And some people decided maybe to go back to their countries and maybe starting hustling, no matter the insecurity that they are passing through there. Stephen Matini: When I read your LinkedIn profile, I really loved what I read. It says, I dream about transforming refugee camps into regenerative communities where every refugee can have access to clean water, abandoned food, and quality education. Would you mind explaining what regenerated culture is? Paulinho Muzaliwa: Yeah, sure. I think regenerative culture, I define it in two ways. So first of all, is to have access to abundance food, being able to grow food in an environment friendly way while taking care of the soil, but also growing organic and abundant food. And of course, why food? Food is currently the first need for refugees since the humanitarian aid, as I've been saying, keep on decreasing. So we need to make sure that we sustain ourselves in growing food instead of keep on relying on humanitarian agencies. Access to clean water. I've seen people spending a week without having birth. I've seen people, young girls get raped while looking for water. And I've seen people not being able to cook. You may have a portion of food, but you don't have water to cook with it. I've seen people struggling with typhoid and malaria just because of not having access to clean water. I've seen also people when I say about education. So education is not about only learning, but being able to co-create something which will impact as at least two people from what you have been learning. Education is not about only learning, but it's to boost someone providing him resources that will enable these people to shift from the life that you reach or you have meet them. And when you will go and come back, you say, oh, there is a quiet difference. This person is no longer depending on someone. This is what I summarize about regenerative. Regenerative is to shift from humanitarian dependency and be able to sustain your life no matter the place where you are. Stephen Matini: You say that in the refugee camp, there's a tremendous problem with unemployment as a result of a lack of skills. So in your experience, what are the most important skills that refugees should have? Paulinho Muzaliwa: Yeah, so I think vocational skills are the best things that I can shift or can help them to not only learn, but also starting co-creating something that will not only impact their life, but also impact the community as a whole. When I say vocational trainings, I see about handmade skills, for example, making soap. For example, teach people how to grow their own food. Teach people how he can make a dough or carpentry, for example, because when he will be able to do all with these skills, so he can generate money. For example, make soap making. So we empower women in terms of making and they're generating a lot of men to not only sustain their families, but also make saving for future needs. Stephen Matini: One thing also that I believe I've read it in your profile, I think, one thing that you said is this one. You talk about that you believe in horizontal leadership and decentralization. And before, you pointed out several times that you cannot rely on the system. You know, we have to move it from dependency to be more independent. So why do you believe that it's important to have an approach to leadership that is more flat and decentralized? Paulinho Muzaliwa: Everyone needs to have the opportunity to lead. Everyone has the opportunity to feel like, yes, I'm responsible on something that can impact the whole community. And everyone could have, we always look on inclusion a

    40 min

  8. 24/07/2024

    Lead Compassion: Gunnar George on Creating a World of Hope and Joy

    How can we make our common road lead to a world of hope and joy? Our guest today is Gunnar George, author of the book Aha... Wow! Yes, and leadership development expert. Gunnar George believes that the most effective leaders are those who are compassionate, inspirational, and have a vision that promotes hope, joy, and sustainability. He challenges the notion of transactional communication in business and personal interactions, advocating instead for authentic and emotionally engaging exchanges. By developing others and maintaining a vision that encompasses societal and global impacts, compassionate leaders can play a significant role in creating a better world. Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Amazon Music, or your favorite podcast platform to learn how to become an authentic and emotionally engaging leader. Subscribe to Pity Party Over for more insightful episodes. Questions? Email Stephen Matini or send him a message on LinkedIn. #LeadershipDevelopment #EmotionalIntelligence #TransformationalLeadership #GlobalImpact #Sustainability #CompassionateLeadership #BusinessTransformation #AuthorInterview #NewBookRelease #PodcastEpisode ... TRANSCRIPT Stephen Matini: The first question that I have for you, being someone who wrote a book, is how is the whole experience of writing a book? How your idea for “Aha... Wow! Yes.” came by? Gunnar George: Oh, the whole experience. It's a long experience, actually. It started many years ago. I thought I wanted to write a book. And I also worked in a company that had a different way of leading. We were consultants working with strategy and big transformations. And we had a different way of leading change that most of the traditional consulting companies had in those days. So we said to ourselves that we need to write this down sometime. And I had that in the back of my mind for many years. And then I've worked a lot with leadership development programs lately. And one of the things that I realized is that the more you share, the more you get and sharing is sort of the sharing of knowledge and experiences and views and so on. It's really what that is the core of leadership development. I met so many fantastic people and been part of extraordinary things in meetings with companies and transformations in big companies and so on. So I thought I need to share myself what I've experienced and what I've noticed and observed. But I didn't want to share it sort of to give advice, more to sort of to share my observations and my reflections on that. But it is a fantastic experience to see it grow and to see it take form. And then also, another thing is that the people you have around you and the people you meet, as soon as you start to talk about it a little bit, people want to contribute. And I have a friend who likes Paulo Coelho and he often quotes him and says that you have to be careful what you dream of because universe will conspire to make it happen. And that is sort of joked a little bit about it sometimes. But when you write a book, you see that almost like this is true because people come from suddenly from nowhere and say, I can help you or I can do that. So it's an amazing experience in that way. Stephen Matini:When you thought about writing a book, what was your initial biggest wish for the book? Gunnar George: I wrote it in English, in a simple kind of easy to read English. So I wanted to reach out to as many as possible in the world, not only to English native speaking countries. That was one of the thoughts I had. And then one of my wishes also that people start to think more about, “Aha... Wow! Yes,” which is the title of the book. That is sort of if we need more emotions in business, we need more emotions in society and positive emotions. And often when we structure things or do strategy work or communication work, whatever, we use why, what how as a structure that is sort of, you check that you have covered, why, what, how? And my thing thought with it, my wish with this was that “Aha... Wow! Yes,” would be the new why, what, how. So that is also a wish that I had. So I have in the book, I had sort of this “Aha... Wow! Yes,”, circular that I spoke about many times in the book. Stephen Matini: One thing that struck me when you and I met, you were talking about the importance of contributing to create a world of hope and joy, which, you know, these days, it seems to be so important to do, considering all that is happening, all the negativity. How do you keep that hope and joy within yourself? Gunnar George: I try to find it in the people I meet. I see sort of the positive things and heard an interview with the previous foreign minister of Sweden the other day. And he said that he had hope for, he saw hope in the world because we haven't done the transformation with women. Women has sort of, that is still a big transformation for the world. And he saw a lot of hope in that sort of, because it is a man's world. And this transformation is to make it a balanced world with both men and women is, he saw a lot of hope in that. And I agree totally with that. And I see that type of messages and people who think like that, that just brings me hope. And also the young generation. Every time I talk to them, I get amazed a little bit because I think back when we were young, were we that clever and that did we see so much? Did we see the world with that clear? Do we have this engagement or not when we were young? Stephen Matini: And to keep that youthful approach to things, I believe is really important. You know, like I believe for you, one of the key points is learning. And learning for me is one of the components that probably keep me positive, but keep me wanting to keep going. Absolutely. You said a few times the word transformation, which seems to be such an important word to you. What does transformation mean to you?  Gunnar George: For me, transformation. A lot of people talk about change and transformation and it's sort of, and everybody have their different definitions about it. I see transformation as a bigger type of change than just improvements. So transformation for me is a radical change. And you often start from the future and look back. What type of future do we want? And then you look back and say, what do we need to make happen in order for this division to happen, so say. And transformation is also more, it covers both the mindset and the system and the culture of a company or a society. So it's a very thorough change. That is the way I see it. And I think you mentioned learning and learning, I see, is the big way to get there, learning and seeing different perspectives. And I have in my book, I have one of the longest chapters about learning, actually, how to learn faster, faster than the speed of change. Stephen Matini: A lot of people say around learning, oh, I don't have time. I'm busy. I don't have time. I don't have time. So how can you keep what they say? A growth mindset, you know, a learning mindset, despite the fact that so many of us are super busy. How do you carve that time in your opinion? Gunnar George: Yeah, that's the biggest challenge, I guess. I think we need to add the inspiration part to the learning. We need to talk much more about inspiration. And if we are inspired and curious, we will learn much more. And we will create the time. You can see yourself. You have a lot of mails and messages coming all over. And then suddenly one of them, you can spend quite a long time on that. And then you can also say, why do you do that? And I think it has to do with you get inspired or you get, this is something that attracts you. And suddenly you create time. You don't have time, but maybe you spend half an hour or something, you didn't think that you were going to spend half an hour. And there was something that triggered that. And then to learn for half an hour just because it's really interesting. We have a limited amount of time during the day. So I think also we need to set aside learning as part of our work. So we have you answer a lot of emails. That does a chunk in your daily work. But you also need to put in maybe one hour or two hours a day just for learning. I mean, if you take a writer, for example, many writers, they read a lot. And so they have before lunch, they read or after lunch they write or vice versa. And that is about learning and getting new inspiration, new perspectives on things. In business, we have forgotten to take this time to learn. So we need to book it in our agendas, I think. I have a lot of examples and stuff in the book that how to speed it up. Stephen Matini: You said what we find inspirational, and I have to say during the day, a few things are inspirational, but a lot of stuff is boring. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. Emails are God ... such a boring thing. You know, emails, I started writing less and less email. And I'm definitely using more and more of chats because they're faster. But the emails, God is still. I mean, emails have been around for what, 25 years? And still, people complain, oh, I get put in CC and so much stuff. Hundreds and hundreds of emails a day. And you think, yeah, but I mean, what does it do anyway? You know For sure, it's not inspirational.  Gunnar George: But you can ask yourself, what is that really gets your attention? What type of headlines is it? What type of pictures is it that you sort of stop for a moment and give it a chance? Stephen Matini: I have to say that a lot of stuff that I see in business, I find it very transactional. You're trying to get something out of me. And I think that all of us can spot that in a second. And what I'm thriving and what I try to seek is something that feels more simple, simpler and more authentic. Because when everything becomes transactional, then the energy doesn't flow, you know? Gunnar George:  So that is also why I have this “Aha ... Wow! Yes.” When you see a

    30 min
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Descrizione

PITY PARTY OVER is for leaders and anyone shaping a future that doesn’t vanish with greed. We share insights and practical tips from the brightest minds to lift others while lifting oneself. Pause. Learn. Move On.

Informazioni

  • Creatore
    Stephen Matini
  • Anni di attività
    2022 - 2024
  • Puntate
    68
  • Classificazione
    Contenuti adatti a tutti
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2022-2024 Stephen Matini. All rights reserved.
  • Sito web del podcast
    PITY PARTY OVER

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