Hi friends,
One of my sons started his freshman year at SCAD last month, and he and a few of his friends have started their own Substack. Proud father here šāāļø
One of his fellow collaborators is also one of his best friends, and he was recently at our house, mentioning that he liked my Substack posts.
He then confessed, āBut, I do skip all the ads at the beginning.ā
LOL. Kids these days.
Though I definitely do not put āadsā at the beginning of my posts, I get his point. To him, the small bits I share at the start of my posts are ad-like, and todayās generation will throw a tantrum1 if they donāt get their way, so, without further ado, letās just jump into it.
I didnāt expect to see you here!
Last week, I attended a book talk at The Lola (huge fan) by Meghan French Dunbar about her new book, This Isnāt Working: How working women can overcome stress, guilt, and overload to find true success. (The book is amazing and I highly recommend it!)
When I checked in that morning and was grabbing some coffee, a woman I knew came up and (very nicely) said, āI didnāt expect to see you here!ā I wasnāt exactly sure what she meant until I entered, and well, they say a picture is worth a thousand words:
After we all sat in the circle of chairs in the room, Meghan started by asking everyone to share why they were attending the event that morning. Apparently, my answer was something she hadnāt expected, prompting her to share it in this LinkedIn post, but the simple answer is: I NEED to be in those kinds of rooms.
Rooms where Iām the different one. Where Iām able to learn and show support and grow as a human.
And most importantly, rooms where I keep my mouth shut and listen.
Iām not name-dropping here (mostly because I donāt know her), but Isabel Wilkersonās book, Caste, keyed me into the idea of āradical empathyā when I read it many years ago.
Radical empathy, on the other hand, means putting in the work to educate oneself and to listen with a humble heart to understand anotherās experience from their perspective, not as we imagine we would feel. Radical empathy is not about you and what you think you would do in a situation you have never been in and perhaps never will. It is the kindred connection from a place of deep knowing that opens your spirit to the pain of another as they perceive it.
Iāve been in too many rooms over the years where the vast majority of people were white guys like me.
In other words, privileged folk.
And donāt get me wrong, I like me. And Iām good friends with many people like me. My dad is like me, and I have two sons like me. Heck, one of my two heroes is like me (Bobby and MLK, Jr.).
However, I will never develop empathy for others if Iām always surrounded by people with similar backgrounds and experiences to my own. And in this day, and in this time, and especially in this country, we need more empathy.
I need to be in places where Iām the āoddā one, even if I have to create them.
Places like this one, where King of Pops CEO, Steve Carse, hosted our TAP Forward cohort recently:
Or this one, where at 48in48ās recent global event (which Steve Carse keynoted), I got to catch up with two of my favorite entrepreneurs (Evana and Zoe Oli):
The Point
Raphael Warnock (ok, I am actually name-dropping this timeā¦weāre buds) wrote in his book, A Way Out of No Way, about a time in his life when he was trying to grow as a human. He said:
āMy soul was a sponge.ā
Thatās exactly how I feel right now. Spongy. Open and vulnerable and willing and curious and intentional andā¦soul-spongy.
If possible, try to find yourself in a room where you're the only one who's not like everyone else. I promise itāll be worth it.
I hope youāre happy.
And now for a few of those āadsā š
A book I wrote on leading during a crisis was recently highlighted in Forbes alongside some truly great books.
In a recent update, I mentioned I was enjoying a word-of-the-day email. Iāve since unsubscribed, realizing that even if I remembered the suggested words, I would feel incredibly pretentious using them in conversation. I mean seriously, I could never use words so recondite and abstruse that a wight would not cognize them.
Recent podcast episodes
The kid in question is one of the great young people of his generation, of that Iām certain. Thatās not to say he doesnāt still throw tantrums; I just havenāt seen one.
Jeff, I'm so grateful you showed up, and that you're sharing this perspective so openly. You're genuinely modeling leadership that so many of us need to see in the world right now, and it makes me feel both hopeful and heartened in equal measures.
In great company on that Forbes callout!