Scarcity vs. Abundance: Which Mindset Drives Better Leadership?

[0:00]  in the US there's a broadly held narrative that if you're experiencing poverty or financial hardship it's solely your fault after all others have picked themselves up by their bootstraps and so can you this is a common narrative that we fight here in the United States thinking that poverty is a result of choices rather than systematic oppression that often impacts so much of our communities today we're breaking down this exact concept with this amazing CEO Jesus joins the show who is the CEO of up together today we're having a conversation about scarcity mindset about serving the community about impact and about innovating in spaces where the people need our help let's get into the episode I moved from Puerto Rico when I was almost 10 years

[0:48]  old to ammer and I went from a place of scarcity to a place of abundance and understanding um from those two positions you know as I got old and I studied and I learned that I was a victim of essentially that move that if I were to stayed in Puerto Rico my life would have been different and I got to see how others suffered as a result of those systemic issues and I could articulate it in quite the same way but I knew that there these inequalities were designed and affecting folks and I was really clear because of my own experience like well if we can do something about this why wouldn't we try so Jes Zeus in our previous conversation

[1:50]  you asked me a really important question and I think it's a great place for us to start off on today's conversation you said if you were making brownies in your house and ran out of sugar would you go to the store or would you go to your neighbor why did you ask that question and what does the answer show us about the current state of our communities yeah I think for me in this work uh for anybody to really understand the challenges that come with people facing financial hardship but also the isolation and the lack of um vulnerability that we're feeling to be able to seek support and guidance um and take it away from a dollar value but to our own personal experiences I've learned that that's one of those

[2:37]  questions that people all of a sudden is like all right like there's something fundamentally that is missing in our society that we used to have that we no longer can have and so that question to me like and I've gotten to ask it across the country and I think like you can always tell with people there's an aha moment of like oh wow right why why can't I do this anymore um and I think it speaks to this bigger uh piece that as a country like we're beginning to see right uh the trends of isolation that are occurring more and more and you know like the the simple term of everybody's more connected than ever but more alone than ever right um and I think that that really Waits on an inability for us to to look for those personal connections

[3:26]  for that vulnerability to occur to really up that isolation that is continuously to grow inside of the country you know I remember hearing the simple phrase when I was a kid and we heard it all the time in school right United they stand and divided they fall and it seems like today in society especially here in America we are more divided than ever meaning it seems like we're tackling challenges that we come across from a societal perspective as an individual and man is it tough to turn the tide when you're only you're you feel like you're the only person out there yeah and I think for the last and it does like coincide with um the way that we've been Distributing our resources right for since the early 80s we are we've been othering this problem of support of investment in people and

[4:17]  saying well everybody else needs these things and they come at your expense and you should really be protective in Catching and holding whatever resources you can grab because that's the way that you'll be able to succeed um when historically the opposite was true right that actually when we have a really strong abundance of investment in people and their abilities and those connections everybody thrives and everybody does better and I think that that that has contributed greatly to the point now and I think Keen to your uh statement which is like we don't even feel like we can even have conversations with one another because we have such a perception that we that the the Gap in between our understanding our Comet

[5:04]  understanding is so wide it's not even worth our conversation oh that's a really interesting Nuance to kind of double click on we have an assumption right and that assumption is keeping us from digging deeper which is often where we find that common ground and I feel like that's kind of an underlying current of this I want to I want to first of all I have to give you some props we are closing in on 15 years that you've spent working in and building up the organization up together so by the time this releases we're going to be closing on that 15 years man so huge congratulations there I want to talk about what Drew you to this organization specifically and the big challenge that you guys are trying to fight sure um so I had been working as a community organizer in Boston and then growing up inside of a small organization that had

[5:53]  been able to like get some size um and um an ability to be able to affect change in the community that we work with which is Jamaica plan the high Jackson Square neighborhood the organization the high Square task force and in doing that work I'm working specifically with young people and doing organizing like I I I lived in the community I I got to do this I got to see the change uh yet I had aspirations of saying like wait can we can we take this to a bigger scale right like can we help sort of promote these sets of values about investment in people and giving them the critical tools that they need to affect change um and I understood that there was like a ceiling in the nonprofit sector to be able to do that at scale in that way uh timely that I was then invited to hear

[6:40]  from the founder of the then Family Independence initiative uh Mao M Miller who shares about coming after a number of decades in Social Service work feeling similar frustrations and and an inability to be able to affect change inside of a community even though he had grown an organization to a significant size and had dedicated so many resources to it and and being recognized as one of the best in the country and feeling like a failure because he knew he wasn't reaching that CommunityWide impact and that resonated with me as well as then sort of stating and saying and we're consistently looking at the people most affected by uh poverty and saying you you're not part of the solution we can

[7:28]  do for you which ran against my own understanding and my own uh work in organizing which is always people are the answer so so that sort of Awakened and I was just like yeah what why are we letting go why are we giving up on these people constantly right like we're constantly told ah they can't do better let's try to fix them as best as possible um and so I I I was lucky enough to be hired as a director in Boston of the new uh branch of this work and quickly by connecting with people uh got it even at a deeper level um of the opportunity and at that point it's sort of like um I always compare it as taking the the blue pill the red pill in the mat Matrix right like once I once I was

[8:16]  unplugged I was like I can't see it the same way again you know there's an amazing quote in your guys's website and I want to kind of used that as a segue into talking about this macro challenge that we're dealing with right on your guys' website it says in the us there's a broadly held narrative that you're experiencing poverty or financial hardship is solely your fault after all others have pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and you can too why are we getting this so wrong man I think that the initially the concept came into being hey there there's people struggling with Hunger there's people struggling uh with meeting their day-to-day needs we we can create a way to be able to address that right and uh I think whether it's Martin Luther King Jr or rbert F Kennedy like they saw an

[9:05]  opportunity Lyndon B Johnson as president say like well we can fight poverty we can do something about it um and and that doing something about it became institutionalized in a way that by the time the late 70s and 80s come about that people were just like that mindset of like well why can't you figure this out by now why are we continuously putting money on you and and and having to save you in that way uh to be able to meet those basic needs not seeing the systemic uh challenges that people were facing for their inability to be able to do better right whether is some of the historical ones such as racism uh sexism uh segregation that came with that

[9:54]  racism or the the way that we instituted policies like red lining that were based on racist policies to be able to take away value dollar value inside of these communities and you know we talk about these things as there were thing of the past but there very much exist today but I think to your question that at that point in the 80s then that they were like well we can just vilify these folks put the blame on them and have government take away the responsibility of having to to support them and care for them because it's their fault in that way and it was that false narrative that I think a took away money and resources from people but B started

[10:42]  investing in wealthy individuals who then gathered so much wealth that they didn't know what to do with and create a philanthropy to a point now that it's a multi-billion Dollar business that is now continuously on the back of poor people looking back at those same folks and saying well I can help you do better not recognizing all of the advantages that they have gotten to be able to build that wealth and that those advantages actually when appli to any person they'll be able to build a wealth for themselves as well I think it's really important to kind of double click on the systemic issues that we're dealing with here now I was talking to another amazing CEO in the nonprofit space um out of a food bank in Alabama and he was talking about you know one of the biggest challenges we have in sector

[11:29]  of community services nonprofit work is often the leaders of these nonprofit organizations come from middle to upper middle class Lifestyles and values and so when they come into these community-based you know populations of people who truly need help they're looking at it through the the lens of their lived experience but one thing that you cannot understand is when I'm looking at Jesus across this digital table I'm Looking Through My Lens of experience but when you're looking back at me there might be invisible layers or traps that stop you from coming to this side of the table and I feel like unless we truly empathize and understand everyone's true conditions and challenges it's very difficult to speak from a higher level at people who can't even understand what you're saying because of all the perceived obstacles

[12:16]  for them to be able to be as beneficiary of the system as you are yeah absolutely and I you know going back to like why I ask that question like often times I'm trying to get people to stop thinking of how do I affect these individuals who are facing this poverty and to begin to think of themselves and what they benefited from what were critical um moments of either investment or connection or network that catalyze them to be able to do the next best thing for themselves that they drove that for themselves in all sorts of different ways whether it it's like a parent or of an acquaintance being able to be like oh you're trying to get that job I'll make a call for you or a parent or an acquaintance being like oh you want to start that this business I I got a check

[13:04]  for you or you're going to buy uh a house here's the mortgage on the writer you should go to right like all of those pieces all of a sudden like it it takes away from that othering and goes like oh that's right I this is how I benefited this is how I was able to stabilize this is how I learned and the people that supported me in that learning to be able to do better which is over and over and over and over again the case right and yet when you're given a chair and a desk and you sit around a boardroom and you're said hey there's people who are struggling with poverty what should we do about it it's it's not me right it's them and what can I do for them and I think your point then even makes it uh harder when you've never been in the position you've never

[13:54]  had those life experience you've never gotten a sense of what racism is personally to be able to be like well we can we don't have to deal with those things we can just concentrate on helping you learn how to be able to manage your checkbook because that's what's going to make a big difference and you take a small action in a day today life as indicative of a way to change a life which is just not true right like it's the cumulative effect of all those contributions that make a life and those connections and those relationships and those Investments not managing your checkbook right and that's the conversation that we often times get in the middle of that is just like well I know better I know if I manage a really good checkbook P will be better it's almost a misconception that

[14:42]  we're speaking like there's a silver bullet to be able to change these issues and solve these problems rather than a hundred golden BBS that we have to be able to address right it's a huge misconception and and I think simply put going back to those concept is well you don't have to figure it out stop sitting in a border and trying to figure it out your best resource is always a people who are affected by these challenges by those current conditions put them in the position to be able to figure it out and I guarantee you you're going to learn something there's going to be a benefit as a result of that and you don't have to spend a huge amount of money on infrastructure you don't have to like develop uh outcome charts to like cast and iterate on how to get the equation right for these individuals like they will always get it right they know the

[15:30]  equation for themselves there's going to be failures along the way but that's something that we're all afforded and especially if you are in the oper teers of society you are afforded a huge amount of failure for those who are higher Stakes all of a sudden you're like well you can't fail because of that no that's not true like everybody can fail which is more dangerous to have one and to not know why you won or to have lost and understand why you have lost Jesus I think the the latter uh because um and again like the I think again from a very personal experience um for that kid who right now is struggling to get the nourishment

[16:19]  that they need the basic just you know and and we see it an epidemic right now and homelessness right like we I'm Oakland Cali California I can't tell you the crime that it is that there are so many kids in the Oakland Public School System who right now are homeless right and who are thinking about that meal um and I think that you know when you shed away an inability to have those basic needs it makes it really hard for you to see anything else um and I think if we are truly can be a place of opportunity and and and also like I I really love uh as people talk about communities that have been economically depressed how many Einsteins we have here uh who has the

[17:09]  ability to build the next rocket or cure the next disease or come up with the next wonderful website that you're going to love like we're depriving ourselves of our best resources and our best minds and thinking but that requires your imagination to understand that to your point about filters then you eliminate those filters and everybody is going to contribute they may not contribute the way you want to but they're going to contribute this is a really interesting perspective to me as I you know I'm a business owner and a common conversation that we hear across the landscape of business right I'm just using this as an analogy is if you want really good talent you should go overseas Eastern Europe is a hot bed right now for developers and other technical Talent

[17:56]  pay them less get great Returns on that that but one of the things that I think is kind of a narrow sided perspective on this is if you would just look around the talent is around you but the people who need the I would say Equitable step into the position where they can show up just aren't getting it and it seems like we're robbing our own future as a country by looking elsewhere because we're looking for a quick return instead of investing into the people who actually need it which is really interesting yeah and and at all times under mining that investment like repeatedly and then being like well how come like we can't get that same kind of talent right like those folks are so much more hardworking um and I that you know like they they have this go to to want to be able to contribute at a level that we

[18:45]  really don't see here but I I would argue that's exactly right there's not only that ability but there's enough wealth here that if we are doing that at our best it actually will trickle out in a much more uh Equitable way and sustainable way outside of the walls of this country and and could potentially have a really positive powerful impact I mean think of a world Jesus where we are the talent bed where people are being picked to go to other parts of the world because of how hard we work and how talented we are like what a dream for the American culture yeah and and to that end like we become our best export which is like right like the the funny part of imperialism right like it's is like oh let us always Force and and take for our

[19:35]  gain at that expense I was like no actually if you do this with generosity with love with support you don't have to force anybody people will want to right uh I was I had the privilege to go to South Africa probably about 18 months ago and you know to learn about that country and and its history obviously that's really complex and uh and sort of the effects of apartheid but one of the things that they talked about was so the right now China and Russia see the talent that is there and they're just like why aren't we investing more here why are we connecting them um and and benefiting right and having this highin

[20:22]  ship right with with South Africa and one of the South Africans said it's like ain't nobody in South Africa saying that they want to be affiliated with Russian or Chinese culture no they want Levis and they want right like they want to be associated with us culture but we don't give them the time of day right and we're not looking to to expand our investment in them and I I I use that as a way to I think your point of thinking we can be we can not only care for ourselves we can be caring for others as a result but we limit our ability to do so because of this sort of thinking that somehow we're going to be able to get the most toys at the end it seems like we are constantly you know robbing from Peter to pay Paul instead of coming from a

[21:10]  place of abundance right and this was a a conversation I was having with a young entrepreneur um a guy here in Las Vegas Tyler shout out to you because we always see each other in the gym and he was saying you know from his belief in the bigger system of Faith he said you know one of the things that I've been taught is in some of my toughest times I have to go out with a heart of abundance to provide for other people who have less than me and those returns will come back to me he said you know I just randomly came across this activity something that was going on I won $625 cash and man I needed that $625 bucks but I had a feeling that came over me where I said I should just go out into the streets of Las Vegas and hand out these $100 bills to people who need it more than I do what happened the next day customers started flowing his way

[21:58]  and he said man this is a true lesson in having a mindset of abundance if we can serve others the good benefits will come back to us I want to talk a little bit about the scarcity mindset that we talked about in our previous conversation and some of the I would say intertwined strings that we've been pulling on in today's conversation a little bit yeah I'm and I think to your point the and the easiest way I can describe it right like the when we think about like the largest wealth transfer that has ever happened in this country it happened after World War II and the GI Bill and our ability to be able to have anybody who wanted to be able to purchase a home purchase a home and and the US government was the underwriter to be able to get those monies out to people to be able to purchase their homes and it stabilize

[22:46]  that generation right like we are here built on that investment now I want to add parenthetically right like it was done only for white individuals in this country nevertheless they had an impact of one that is still being CED like people are still uh inheriting wealth out of that action and I there was never a question right um to that segment of the population they were like well they just delivered for us and we are going to deliver back to them and we're going to put them in a position to get education to get housing and be able to then have an impact and it led to one of the largest levels of prosperity in this country equally like that was a middle class like it grew and I think that you know today we propose that and people

[23:34]  would be like well how many how we're going to pay for that and who's it going to benefit and how will we structure it and how do we limit it or is it something that we can really afford the question really becomes is something that we can't afford right like it it whether it's health care whether it's housing whether it's public education I think that continuously saying that we can't afford to invest in people and those abilities and meeting those basic needs is what is really beginning to continue to show all these symptoms in our country and this divide but also the hunger this the scarcity that people are feeling in their lives to be able to make an meat that we're continuously just piling on to that by taking more and more away from them I

[24:23]  mean this is an this is an underlying current of the American society you know what I mean which is is I need to accumulate more for myself and stop others from having what I already have and I feel like there's a conversation that we should kind of touch on here which is the younger generation seems to be more aware of these problems than any other generation did I'm not sure if it's because of social media and everything else that I see but I can't tell you how many times even the other day this popped into my mind as we were sitting here I saw a girl on who put out a Tik Tok personal page 350,000 people like this video and she was breaking down what it would cost to end homelessness to end Hunger in the United States to be able to put people in all these different situations and the numbers did not total up the total

[25:10]  amount of money that we just gave to another foreign country for Aid and she said how let's break down these numbers again she went very enthusiastically back down through the numbers and she was like we sent more money away than what we need to be able to reinvest and solve all these problems that are affecting our society today and I feel like the younger generation is not going to put up with the idea of our government continuing to hand things out but being scarce in that mindset about helping our own people here which is really challenging yeah and I I will build on that real quick right like if it was philanthropy doing it they'd be like well what's our our return on that and and what are we like well hold on one second what's been our return on these hundreds of billions of dollars that we've invested in bombing others or supplying the military ability for

[25:58]  people to fight these wars how does it make our day-to-day life better and I I understand that there may be ways that people say well there's less of this or less of that um in regards to violence coming into this country but the the bottom line though way is that you're absolutely right going back to the uh pain Peter to uh um whatever the friend is this is where like my Spanish like loses okay but um it it absolutely is undermining the country to be able to provide some basic institutional supports that we can build from and and the opposite is happening is actually saying and take out those

[26:46]  institutional supports right privatize uh your ability to provide education to people private privatize Healthcare where only people who have the resource can get good health care and that and even at that right like it doesn't even mean now that you can get good healthare because we've taken those components away there's a a really interesting blurb or quote that I like to bring into these conversations the scariest experience is obtaining the life that you thought would make you happy but it not feeling how you hoped for how many times will we make this same mistake this is a common common issue that so many people deal with and we kind of just touched on it with the American idea of let me accumulate accumulate accumulate hoping

[27:33]  that it's going to fill this dark hole that I have inside of me now in our previous conversation you referenced a study that is going on at Harvard talk a little bit about that and how it's the antithesis if you will to the exact problem that we just talked about yeah um so it's been happening now for I believe seven or eight decades and a book came out last year to to show a little bit about uh its results that they've seen But essentially they started with just a small group of men and being like you know I think mostly plugged from Harvard and saying like what what will their trajectory be over the next 10 years and essentially they've been able to get the funding to expand that over decades and grow it into uh not just from the small set of white men but uh a much more diverse uh population but essentially the bottom

[28:23]  line is that it's our relationships that fulfill us is our connections that actually provide us with good um not only that that sense of fulfillment but also a sense of uh good health of an ability to thrive in our old age and that isolation and holding and and being um sort of Coast off to the world will not only give you poor health but also uh lead to an early death and and those are like when you think about if that's true if we know and have proven that that's true then what are we doing right like what where is in our in our national budget uh a way that we're investing in one another in those

[29:11]  connections in the way that we support in the places that we can like uh whether it's the Arts or the comments like whatever the place may be for us to be able to celebrate and enjoy one another in those relationships and I often say that piece because when we talk about like giving people money they always like that they're like oh we could just fix it by giving people money it's like no what we're doing is eliminating the pressures of that scarcity for people to have the ability to build that life for themselves that includes having others around them that support them and help them get to a place of thriving and this is a a really a conversation that needs to be had more often in public settings like this

[29:59]  because I'll tell you what J Zeus some of the scariest experiences I've ever had in my life were chasing materialistic items finally getting to the point where I could afford those items purchasing those things and then having it change nothing about my life have you ever had a similar experience as you've kind of matured through time well um a little bit but what I will say is that I always made really bad decisions in my own personal life or community um so I my mom will not like me saying this but I remember like leaving college and and being like well what makes me happy well working with people makes me happy like making an impact makes me happy and this is a late 90s so make taking a job in this sector at that time

[30:47]  was not really beneficial to my bottom line but I was like you I leaned actually my the only reason I was able to move to Boston was because my aunt took me in and I remember my I my mom looking at me one day when she was like so when are you going to like get a real job right like you're you're doing this working Community um and so I think for the most part I got really lucky because I I would repeatedly look to what I knew would fulfill me from that place of impact and I I want to add and say that I was really unique and not a lot of um folks around me were necessarily thinking in that and you can even say um um I could have benefited from thinking a little bit uh more as to how

[31:38]  to be able to build wealth for myself but but I will add that I think that was instructive instructive to me is that you know I I moved from Puerto Rico when I was almost 10 years old to ammer and I went from a place of scarcity to a place of abundance and understanding um from those two positions you know as I got older and I studied and I learned that I was a victim of essentially that move that if I would have stayed in Puerto Rico my life would have been different and I got to see how others suffered as a result of those systemic issues and I could articulate it in quite the same way but I knew that there these inequalities were designed and affecting folks and I was really clear

[32:27]  because of my own experience I was like well if we can do something about this why wouldn't we try and I think that that has led me to a place where yeah no like I I mean I like my wife and I like laugh all the time SC we're like always use our dollars to be able to have life experience and not so much as gathers things not to say that we don't have nice things but that for the most part we're always negotiating in that way and I'm really proud of you for that man and that's uh you you know a mistake that so many of us have made in our careers and I talked to so many CEOs about this exact Journey um often we have that voice inside of our head that tells us we need to AC accumulate certain things to be the person to be the leader the CEO how Society is going to view us but we can tap into that truth like you did

[33:15]  very early about realizing what's important to you and what gets you up and helps you show up every single day I'm jealous that I wasted so much time honestly because of you know hearing that some people were so tapped in so early but can I just emphasize two things one is obviously I was um I laugh at myself because it there was a naive naive right to it that I was just like just go do this right like and but I was also so blast like I can count the people who understood me and what I wanted and would put their arms around me and be like I'm G to help you um and every once in a while buy me a nice thck dinner but I I think like those that is to me what has always been lasting that

[34:03]  I like even today as as I've progressed in this work I often feel like I've compromised some of that now for the work and I I want to go back and be like I miss those relationships I have to come back I have to keep them and and dedicate as much time as I do to this work to them because um and follow times on the fer right like I will not be able to contribute to the same way in this work as I have and they're the ones who are going to like give me my outlet um as I need it as I get older um so I I think that part and I'm sure you have it in your own life like the community that the people who hold you up in spite of your inability to do it is is what it

[34:52]  gotten me uh this far yeah I've always um you know there was a a saying that I heard um on a podcast one time you know I am a family business my co-founder in this business my father we started this back in 2014 so we just crossed 10 years my younger sister has joined the business as well and people often say don't do business with your family it's a huge mistake but I heard the other day on a podcast somebody said you know what life is all about it's all about figuring out who you want to live life with and doing that with them and I always think about the blessings that I have of the people who have been there to lift me up when I couldn't do it for myself those are the most important assets that I have in my life the cars the computers the technology the things the watches all that kind of stuff take it away but it gets really fundamental

[35:40]  when we think about the people in the community who are around us who can lift us up because they're going to be for us they're going to be there for us much longer than all those materialistic items will that's exactly right and I I think going back to like the experience for most the fact that we are not positioning them to make that those sorts of decisions in their lives that instead we're always asking how are you contributing in what way and how much are you getting it's like we're off balance we're absolutely off balance and we're again we're like stealing away our ability um I think to thrive as a as a society as a result because we're we're we're concentrated on the wrong things at all times and I that the

[36:28]  easiest way I keep laughing because they know my son the other day was like making fun of the commercials like when we sit down and watch a football game like and like take this screen for eema right and like right like it's like wait what what do we like how do we promote um the the way that we want our society to be supportive of one another I it it it frustrates me to hack and then I have to like find my my narrow View and be like no I think if we could continue to get on this track I know I can have the impact that at least will create enough of a ripple that I I can feel proud that I I contributed to the best of my ability how do you keep that that perspective in Focus you know

[37:16]  when it comes to you know community-based Services nonprofit CEO as an example burnout incredibly high and I wonder if that's because we're on such such a long journey that often it's difficult to appreciate how far we've come on this journey rather than how far we have to go yeah I I think that's right I we have to do a much better job of um you know like that and I'm gonna mess up the refrain but you know I don't want your Revolution if I can't dance like I I think we need you know we going back to like yeah no this is good this is great work and like when the party like who's bringing the DJ who's bringing the food and how do we break bread and celebrate and support one

[38:03]  another um and I'll tell you I've been guilty of that as much as anybody else of like just being like Oh we just let's let's get through this the impact is so much more so many people depend on us but it if we don't do a good job of I think taking the time to do that sort of Celebration and enjoyment um we're at a disadvantage because we're not living to our to the values that we want and we're not instituting and seeding right the the society that we want um but I I will add that bar is real I'm seeing it in my own organization um and I'm we're that alone um and I think that there we because we're in the people business right because our return is individuals and Community who are facing often times some of the hardest challenges in our

[38:52]  country that it's I it's it's it's hard to like pick back like I I I woke up this morning I was I need a vacation right it's been a few months and it's like no like you need to find those places so that's one thing I I think of the other things I'm the lucky I I have an incredible wife who is not only supportive but also forces me to ensure that I I create the divide and and we find the time together with our family um I have a 14 or 12 and a six year-old and you're busy man every night they're like so what's for dinner and it's like all right like that forces you right to focus on the things that really matter you know there's a a tradition that we have here Jesus on the podcast our previous guest asks you a

[39:41]  blind question I'm interested to hear how you're going to answer this okay okay what is the most recent thing that you've done that scared you and why Char I I took kids to the the kids to like an amusement park and maybe that was one right in I got all jittery but that scared me scared me I I would say in general my like the place that gives me the most anx in especially as a leader inside of an organization is having to both um be in a place that is a vulnerability but also uh in that vulnerability

[40:28]  explaining hard decisions that um will have an impact on people and you know it it's I'm associating a little bit of that Ang with with the feeling of being scared um and there a little bit of Bolt in that way um I think that would be TR to like anything else like like maybe like standing in like if you get me really high I'll look down I'll be like oh my gosh no but there's a similar feeling in that way I a been scared about much uh in more recent days let's let's double click on that answer a little bit so you know being vulnerable with the team also having The Bravery to be able to break hard news to people let's talk about

[41:16]  that a little bit I know that that's a scary process for a lot of leaders but if you can give advice on how you kind of navigate that that would be super helpful for the audience yeah I think a few things one is um to position yourself to get clarity and like to sit with that Clarity and to give your time like I try to meditate and just give myself like the position to eliminate as much of the inputs around you so that you can see what you're facing and and feel confident about the direction that you're taking and so at that point even though I still have those feelings I know that I've done what I need to do um because it can have a negative effect on a person and then the second piece is to to approach with humanity is to to be

[42:05]  able to say he like I'm I'm I'm sure like for individuals like this is not the news that you want Andor you may have a negative uh response to what I'm sharing but I've done my piece I'm going to do it with that generosity and an ability to to hear and and hold myself accountable to what occurring at this time and that and being present as a person I think is the best that I can do in that moment and this people is the burden of leadership you know it's a process we have to continuously be better be vulnerable with ourselves put ourselves in scary position to show up for other people man so Jes Zeus man I just want to say thank you so much for coming on the show this has been an absolute blast and thank you so much for sharing so much about your story your perspectives how we can come together to

[42:53]  be able to solve some of these macro problems that we're dealing with man it's been an Absolut bling well and thank you uh these are important conversations I'm happy to contribute in the way that I can but um I know that everybody's hungry I think to your point around leadership and and what is happening to be able to continuously learn and grow and build and so codos to you and your team for poting us to go well it's been an awesome time having you on the show man everybody that's a wrap we'll catch you in the next one