Breaking the Cycle: Laura Cooper on Reconnecting Families in a Digital World

[0:00]  I found that it's not just our children it's our adults our parents and we have parents that are your age and even younger that are so caught up in that that they totally walk away from the parental duties and they walk into this universe where they are trying to be the hippest the you know cutest the whatever it is that they are not um and again it it it what does it do it further divides them from what's happening right now this this precious moment this seminal moment they can't get there because they're trying to get back to what's happening with this and can I put a picture up that bests the picture of you that's on the ship or on the you know

[0:49]  wherever and so it has truly truly um instead of and there's a lot of good of course that self-help and how to get healthy but instead of that what it is is how do I best you and how do I you know fit in how do I make up for all this lost ground that you know because they are obviously having the best time of their lives and I want that too me too and how do I get there and they're showing us except you never get there there's no Nirvana um you know this world that we live live in in real time and in real space is messy complicated never solved with a tight bow it's never

[1:40]  what's the word everybody uses now perfect perfect you know nothing is perfect it just isn't all right guys welcome back to a brand new episode of the heart and hustle podcast now I'm incredibly excited because I'm talking to another amazing leader here across this digital table if you will today we're talking to Laura Cooper who is the CEO at Lee County Youth Development Center Laura welcome to the show oh Kenan thanks so much I'm so thrilled to be here this is exciting

[2:28]  you know I love hosting the podcast because we get to learn about the heart and hustle of amazing leaders like you and by definition the work that you guys do takes a lot of heart and it takes even more hustle so my question as we kind of get started here today is how is your heart doing today Miss Cooper um my heart is doing pretty good today uh Kenan been a a tough couple of weeks um in terms of uh situations with my children and and with my staff but I'm in a real good space uh you know ever hopeful uh ever hustling so thank you for asking about my heart I appreciate that of course ma'am so here's here's a question for you you know one thing I think that's really important for us to recognize is the work that you guys do is so critical for serving the community right being able to uplift Generations

[3:16]  not just the kiddos who you guys serve but also the parents as well and so what do you think the biggest challenges that we're facing in society today with the work that you guys do um again I've been in the work in now for over 30 years and so I've kind of seen things e and flow so a lot of my work is certainly research based but a lot is anecdotal so I'm going to speak uh to you from the heart and make it anecdotal if you will I think our biggest challenge is what we're doing right now there are not conversations and relationships being built uh between our children and their parents and of course I'm not going to uh get into the generational argument about the ancient

[4:05]  generation and you know the digital world and all of that I think all of that's necessary Kenan but I think what we're missing and it's causing a big gap and the research kind of bears this out are those tools those everyday tools that we need to build a relationship to build a family and everybody's family looks different and and we respect that but at the core there have to be conversations interactions uh routines um uh I guess if you will um what does this family look like and what are the things that they kind of cllean to uh is it church activities or sports activities uh reading um Outdoors act activities those things are sorely

[4:55]  lacking and yes do we still have a lot of the EXT external things um generational trauma uh poverty uh abuse um all those things are are are there and tangible they're going to be there anyway but relationships really seem to solve and soothe a lot of those ill so that's to me is the biggest thing we're facing uh is that uh people are not connecting parents aren't connecting uh in fact they're disconnecting and uh that's making uh life real challenging for a lot of the people I see one of the points I'd like to bring into the podcast is in 2022 the Surgeon General came on to a national broadcast and said the biggest threat to the American society is not another viral pandemic

[5:43]  like the like covid but rather an epidemic of isolation and loneliness and when you think of isolation and loneliness people say okay we're thinking about seniors who might be isolated we're thinking about teens but this is something that impacts everybody the foundation of our families the foundation of our communities how do you think we've gotten to this place I know that you said you didn't want to really talk about like the digital like challenges that we face and the anxious generation but all of these things are swirling together to create these problems that we're facing yeah uh you know again our surgeon generals have been so wonderful through the decades you know they put the um uh notice on cigarettes uh when cigarettes were being pushed out to adults and to Children I'm old enough to remember the camel man and and all of that and you know

[6:30]  I think for the Next Generation it may have been a uh I think it was a camel too but anyway um what has happened is that those things uh that you're mentioning the the digital um universe and it's it is a universe into itself has been out there with no restrictions Kenan none there were no guard rails placed uh on these things and so by mosis people have gravitated to them because they were what bright shiny objects and everybody's child needs one everybody you know wants one nobody wants to be you know left out and you know what has happened is again we recognize it uh Zuckerberg has been

[7:18]  brought up before Congress everybody knows it's out now how do you unring a bell Kenan the Bell has been wrung and people are truly truly addicted and now again um you can have is that the name of the movie everything all at once at the same time or something like that you can have all these things going on but then two things can be true at the same time we need technology we need all of these things to move uh America forward to move the universe forward but at the same time you've got to have guard rails up around those things that can move us forward because you've got children I'm talking toddlers toddlers addicted to screen um and that has not voted well

[8:07]  all the way up to education state of Alabama actually is pushing legislation at this time about um telephones and cell phones in the classroom and really pushing back hard on that again the research is out there yes there's a lot of good that having the phone and and having the teacher interact through the phone with the student a lot of good that that's done but it has not outweighed the bad uh and that's the research finding so again U they are pushing hard there's legislation out there right now to remove cell phones um from the uh classroom not just because of the academic um uh lack of attention that it has caused but because of all the confusion and the anxiety and the disruption um that it's brought into uh

[8:58]  those classrooms spaces which really are sacred places where uh our children and our future kind of hangs in the balance you know I I graduated from high school in 2009 so I was born in 1990 graduated in 2009 and back when I went to school um you were not allowed to use your cell phone in school in general right you couldn't have it in the classroom teachers would take it away you couldn't use it in between classes teachers would take it away and that was part of something I became used to and then as I got older I started seeing that those rules became a little bit more LAX and my intuition started to go off and say I don't know if we truly understand what's happening on these devices people aren't just texting anymore but they're they're accessing Snapchat and the internet and all of these things in uh I want to say it was 2021 right when we were going

[9:46]  through the pandemic as a nation there was a a documentary that was released called um uh the social Dilemma on Netflix and it was a breakdown of how powerful these social media platforms are not because of their ability to distribute information but rather to change your behavior in such small ways that you don't even notice it and when I I always like to bring this up yes and I'd love to get your perspective on this as well when I graduated from high school and I went to college was the first time that I experienced Facebook now Facebook back in the day used to be a chronological documentation of your network of friends throughout the day somebody'd wake up in the morning and you'd see a post and says like can somebody please turn off the alarm that's going off in the student parking lot people would comment and be like it woke me up too I'm going to go get

[10:32]  breakfast if you want to join me it was a documentation of the day and then all the sudden it became an algorithm that was designed by incredibly smart people like behavioral scientists to keep you coming back time and time again and before you know it the world of social media that we once knew that was a curated list of your friends became an access point to the world where you saw people from Dubai in Germany in Miami Flor Florida and Las Vegas and la and it started showing you these images that naturally took your mind to the place of comparison I don't understand why these kids are more successful than me why aren't they dealing with the stresses that I'm dealing with and that in itself was a negative spiral that started creating some of the tragic mental health struggles that the people go

[11:18]  through today correct correct you're absolutely spoton with that and that's one of the reasons the first thing that we take from our children that live with us in our residential dos um um they come with a lot of DSM 56 diagnosises um are those cell phones and electronic devices they're gone and this is what happens this is what replaces that they start craving books and you can go all the places you just mentioned you can go to Germany Dubai China Switzerland in a book but what you don't have in this book are Real Time images of individuals that you are comparing yourself to where how they talk how they walk what's their

[12:07]  look what's their you know everything and it diminishes it diminishes those uh individuals that are watching it and you know what Kenan I found that it's not just our children it's our adults our parents and we have parents that are your age and even younger that are so caught up in that that they totally walk away from the parental duties and they walk into this universe where they are trying to be the hippest the you know cutest the whatever it is that they are not um and again it it it what does it do it further divides them from what's happening right now this this precious moment this seminal moment they can't

[12:55]  get there because they're trying to get back to what's happening with this and can I put a picture up that bests the picture of you that's on the ship or on the you know wherever and so it has truly truly um instead of and there's a lot of good of course that self-help and how to get healthy but instead of that what it is is how do I best you and how do I you know fit in how do I make up for all this lost ground around that you know because they are obviously having the best time of their lives and I want that too me too and how do I get there and they're showing us except you never get there there's no Nirvana um you know

[13:46]  this world that we live in in real time and in real space is messy complicated never soft with a tight bow it's never what's the word everybody us is now perfect perfect you know nothing is perfect it just isn't and that's something that people are chasing and missing out on what's happening right now and it's causing a lot of anxiety depression suicidal ideation um all of the you know things that we know about uh that uh do not serve people well they do not and you know one of the things that I like to point towards and I love asking you know amazing leaders like yourself is do you think that some of the the tough times

[14:35]  in your life the challenges the Heartbreak if you will the being let down have formed you to be the person who you are today you've learned from those bad experiences as well yeah Kenan thank you for that question I think I've learned more from the bad experiences than I have the triumphs and the experiences that were most affirming um and I know that you've heard this story about the Chrysalis and the Butterfly I know that you know all about it okay if I'm the butterfly that's cut out of the crysalis can you actually miss Cooper can you can you share the story for the audience who might not have heard that story before absolutely absolutely just real briefly and I'll chop it up but anyway um there was this um Chrysalis um and of course it's a butterfly inside

[15:22]  the Crysis and he's just pushing pushing to get out and and and um uh a I guess Good Samaritan is saying gosh that that that butterfly should not have to struggle like like that let me cut it out so I cut it out and and the Butterfly fell out on the ground and it could never fly it just St you know uh scootered around on the ground and finally died however that butterfly that had to push pull breathe in breathe out everything to break through that crysalis flew beautifully the colors were fabulous because their lungs developed all of that caused them to develop all those muscles that they

[16:10]  needed to fly they were developing them by pushing through the crysalis again that's life if we if we don't give people opportunities to struggle to fail to fall to falter um you know ask Jaylen Herz he said you know highest of highs lowest of lows you know that's what it was what fueled his motivation to be the MVP and the champion Road tide uh uh what fueled that was losing two years ago I don't know that he would be Super Bowl you know champion and MVP had he not had that downfall and before that University of Alabama you're benched you know by you keep you know that's what

[16:59]  fuels the fire I hope that really motivates a lot of people and encourages them um that story well you know I uh I I commend you for throwing in the Roll Tide there because you guys should be proud of of jayen and everything that he's accomplished but you're right I mean the struggles are the things that make us the resistance that we see in life is what makes us stronger right I mean if you were to think about you know if you're if anybody who's listening and watching today has been blessed enough to bring children into this world right you do have to let your children fall you do have to let them get up you have to let them stand you have to let them uh struggle and trip if you were to completely protect them their entire life and you never wanted them to experience any type of resistance what life would they live right they become stronger in the same way than we're talking about the butterfly and the Crysis yes it's it's an amazing

[17:46]  experience you know one of the things that I also like to kind of talk about on the podcast is just the perspective of you know times do get better um you know often we think that escaping from moments that make us feel uncomfortable is the best thing that we possibly can can do in a moment you know that's one of the biggest worries that I have um Laura about these little devices I read a book back in 2021 called indestructible by um an art by an author I forget his last name but his first name is near he used to be a behavioral scientist who help meta in Instagram and Snapchat create these tools to keep people coming back time and time again but he had an aha moment in his personal life where he was trying to work on a project late at

[18:32]  night and he kept looking at his phone because he was expecting an email to come in from his boss to give him the approval on a big project and just at that moment he was sitting down with his daughter and they were doing a daddy daughter exercise and for the first time in his life he was able to ask his daughter the question if you had one superpower what would it be and as soon as he asked that question his phone dinged and he looked at his phone and he started reading an email and searching through it and he found that the email wasn't what he was looking for and by the time he turned his attention away from his device back to his phone his daughter had gotten frustrated and asked him well Dad if you're not going to answer me then what would your superpower be and in that moment he realized that the distraction of his own device kept him away from experiencing one of those first moments in his daughter's life together and that is

[19:20]  something that I think we need to recognize the average 18-year-old today and this might be a little surprising to you Miss Cooper spends about 9 hours hours a day on their device 9 hours a day looking at their device if you extrapolate that out for the rest of their life that means they're going to spend 24 years of their life on their screen think about all the moments of human connection having tough conversations being able to uplift somebody who truly needs it that you don't get the opportunity to do because you've been paying attention to this little device that seems like a huge threat to the Human Experience to me and I think think we need to really think about that more intentionally we we've got to think about it more intentionally and again I think the guy that helped with meta he

[20:09]  understood The Addictive nature of this uh and it's just like carbs or addictive everything like that people know that these things are addictive um but what also is addictive is the escapism that people get from this again you hear now a lot about people saying I'm not going to let that disturb my peace I've got to have my peace and you know whatever it takes for me to get my peace I'm going to get there but guys you've forgotten about The Human Experience The Human Experience is not peaceful it's not Serene I do love to to look at you know the Serene scenes um Sunday morning is one of my favorite shows and I always look forward to what's going to happen

[20:57]  what they're going to show out in nature very peaceful very Serene um but that's not life and I don't think you build relationships with people if you're going to walk away when it gets tough go back to your screen when it gets tough you know I've got to go find my peace when it gets tough and not I'm not talking about abusive relationships or relationships where you're diminished but guys you know in any relationship you're going to get nuggets of that people don't they don't rise up to your expectations and they're going to let you down and you're going to be disappointed it's going to be anger it's going to be frustration and all of that which creates what families it creates Works spaces it creates uh communities all of it is very very difficult the

[21:46]  very agency that I work for I was fortunate enough my my uh one of our Founders Miss Walker Tau with me about how very very difficult it was um to start this agency and how many naysayers and how many people she had confidence in but she really lost very few friends because she she said you know I'm imperfect and people ex you know accept me back so I have to accept those things uh and I don't think people are too accepting of that because they can escape to the phone or they can escape to whatever metaverse or ex or or whatever that will affirm some of the thoughts that they're having or just take them away you know um one of the I think one of the most important skills that I can kind of tie into this is the ability for us to

[22:33]  regulate our emotions right when we have that sense of escapism and this is what NE talks about in his book he said you know we've seen a prevailance of like ADHD diagnosis with a younger generation and my question is is do we truly have a generation that's suffering from attention deficit disorder or do we not know how to regulate our emotions because anytime we're in public or in a personal situation where we feel uncomfortable a little une easy a little anxious what's the first thing we do we escape to our device to feel comfortable and so what is the future going to look like for a generation who doesn't have the ability to regulate their emotions to sit in that moment of discomfort so we can come out the other side and realize that it made us stronger I mean my question for you miss Cooper is how are you leading the organization right to inspire other people to do this

[23:22]  important work to be able to serve a generation that needs so much more support than ever not just the kiddos but also the adults as well yeah thanks for that question Kenan um I think I'm leading by being present um uh I want to be an influencer not for you know Starbucks or whatever that's all great I want to be an influencer for Humanity and so do I show my Humanity to my employees and to my children do I show my vulnerabilities do I say I'm sorry do I show them how you kind of get through very difficult situations I question myself about that all the time and I've just read a great book um the obstacle is the way and who's the author Ryan holiday is the author and um great um

[24:12]  phrase that's kind of toward the back of the book is leading and and and being intentional about it and the Germans have a phrase for it it's called sit FL and uh translated it means s sit flesh that you need to be seated grounded present in order to be that impactful leader that you want to be not just in the great times when it's ra ra sis Kumba but in those dark times where things are going all wrong are you going to walk in the room and and melt down with everybody are you going to walk in the room with confidence saying hey guys we're going to figure this out together it's uncomfortable right now but we've got to figure this out not because of us this thing is greater than us but

[24:59]  because it's the right thing to do and so you what did scholet oara say I I'll I'll worry about that tomorrow or whatever you know we have you know I have uh other times to melt down and fall apart this is not the time so I'm hoping uh Kenan that that's what my team of professionals would say about me because again I learned just a much uh learned just as much from them hopefully as they learned from me U through all of their falters and try triumphs I try to learn something and always always try to be a better version of myself today than I was yesterday that's a challenge so I'm I'm challenging me first and hopefully they're seeing that I look at that as through the lens of ultimate accountability right we first must be

[25:47]  accountable to ourselves because we have that little voice in the back of our head that's telling us we're either being the best version of us or we're not and we know we can do better and we hold ourselves accountable that sets the tone right as a leader for everybody else to measure up against how have you been able to kind of change and flex and grow as a leader right throughout your time in this space what do you think the biggest lessons that you've learned if you could go back in time and impress this upon a younger version of yourself what are the biggest lessons you've learned along this journey oh gosh so many lessons I'm trying to think of the biggest lesson um again I think all of it kind of goes back to my childhood and I grew up on a farm and um you know looking at the EB and flow of life and

[26:39]  knowing that hey a chicken that's running around the yard plucking one day can be you know neck rung and in the and this is the form I actually grew up on in in in a frying pop and next kind of you know the circle and cycle of life and understanding that we are all just here for a moment in time and how can we impact those moments in time you know when you work at a social service agency and you see so much hurt and you see so much Devastation you want to jump in there and be Jesus if you're Christian or Buddha or you know I want to be the person Gandhi I want to be the one to bring all of this together and be the peaceful one and and and and show these

[27:27]  uh children and staff the peaceful way but what I had to learn is that what I do has to be enough if I checked myself and made sure I've given it my best effort and then I have to leave the rest to Jesus or to that higher power because everybody has a piece of the puzzle no one is the whole puzzle so I think it took me a while to get to that point because I have so many tools at my disposal I have a board that trusts me I have staff that trusts me and so that's a lot of power uh and I'm thinking okay I can use all this power to do all it no it's still just a piece of the puzzle and so um it took me probably a good 15 years into this uh

[28:18]  because I was spinning myself out it's like I'm tired spinning yourself um to come to that conclusion that uh if I give my very best effort that has has to be enough and sometimes it's not enough but I've done my piece of that puzzle I can feel uh confident about that I so one of the things that you know we often talk about um is having to do more with less unfortunately in a nonprofit sector right often finances aren't going to cover a 100% of our budget we have to get creative in how we kind of raise money to be able to fulfill on our mission we have to be able to get team members to buy into this mission to do more with their time right we have so many people in our community to serve one of the the biggest topics over the recent years I'm sure you've seen this

[29:06]  in the the headlines as well is technology like artificial intelligence as an example how are you thinking about things like artificial intelligence through a lens of curiosity and how it might be able to help you guys in the future yeah I I do think about that and of course you know we started the conversation about the human touch and um I'm right close to Auburn University and um their Mantra is a lot about the human touch we never can lose sight of that but if AI can come in and help us get rid of building 100 that's the building I'm in right here so much Administration we are burdened down with papers and documents because we have state contracts Federal mandates you know um there's someone audit auditing

[29:54]  us uh almost daily about some of our programming and so if AI can help us distill that down because social workers at heart don't want to do a whole lot of paperwork and documentation they want to be in the space with their clients trying to help them Reach whatever goals they want to reach and and and and make that difference so but I think um um I just finished a um uh excuse me I just finished a um segment with auburn um 2040 and we were talking about AI in the classroom and AI in um basically the teaching our students and how it can be a positive and I really think it can be a positive in the social service space

[30:42]  or whether you're running a hospital whether you're running a nursing home or as I am group homes Residential Care therapy deposit care it can help really kind of cut down on a lot of the paperwork pieces of it I think we're good uh I I do worry still about it not replacing people my husband sells cars that would be fantastic you know because that's really moving that way don't you think uh people are buying stuff online and absolutely car salesmen are are not as as necessary as they uh used to be and so if a lot of our documentation needs uh can be uh not as demanding as they are now then we have more time to spend with those people in those spaces that need us most so one of the things

[31:31]  that I like to be able to give the guest an opportunity um I'm a big baseball player right um played in college and all that good stuff and one of my my favorite baseball players was Babe Ruth and if you remember anything about the Great Bambino he called his shot to center field and then hit a home run point it out that's right and so my question for you miss Cooper is if you were goingon to call your shot right for 2025 and 2026 the work that you guys are doing what kind of shot are you going to call for the impact you guys are going to make in your community what are you hoping for oh wow oh that's a big one oh my gosh and I'm I'm not a great I was not a great softball player but I did I swung for the fences when I swung so if I'm swinging for the fences and I'm pointing out uh the place that I want to go I think it really has to do with

[32:22]  education uh and that's education for my children that live here with me education for our parents because a lot of them are undereducated um making sure that all roads lead to and through course relationships but education too because that's a lifelong um Pursuit uh and so if we are getting information from the right individuals and we're pouring that individ that information into our everyday life into our work life and in our family spaces I think we are get getting there and so I'm so so proud of the fact that all roads at Lee County Youth Development Center lead to and through our chanta clear Learning Center and that is uh education based uh

[33:10]  Saturday school uh art uh Fitness um of course Reading Writing rhythmetic but we really really are passionate passionate about that so I'd be pointing to education uh as as the space that I want us to really go boldly into the future there well miss coer we have a a tradition here on the podcast where our previous guest wants to ask you a blind question okay now this might be a little interesting for you with all of your experience in the space so I want you to put your curiosity and creative cap on here if you had to go back and restart your professional career all over again and you had to work in a different space what space would you work in and why oh my

[33:58]  goodness I've been in a human services space so so long oh gosh if I could go back and and I didn't want to select or yeah you couldn't it was off the table I couldn't select it I couldn't select it gosh it's funny but I think I would love to be in the retail space with fashion because I think fashion makes people happy and I love that I I think it's something that's ever changing uh it's it's uh people love to shop whether it's shoes jewelry you know clothing items uh I think I would love to outfit people um U I would love to learn more about uh

[34:46]  the structural part of of of pulling uh Fabrics together and uh uh making people happy by uh putting clothing on them uh that makes them feel good and makes them feel confident a long way away from Human Services hey I mean we're talking about happiness right at the base of everything that we're trying to accomplish and so I can definitely tell where your soul is rooted um you know for everybody who's been tuning in watching and listening today Miss Cooper I just have to say you easily is easily to understand how you are the definition of heart and hustle and why you're on the podcast I can't thank you enough for the work that you do and showing up and advocating and pursuing happier healthier more connected community in the work that you guys do seriously thank you so much for joining the show I

[35:33]  really appreciate it thank you Kenan and thank you for what you're doing thank you for shining lights everywhere all through the universe and uh uh you just keep right on grinding keep on with your all right guys we'll catch you in the next one that's a good one bye bye bye bye