Why Work-Life Balance Is Non-Negotiable for Leaders

[0:00]  hey what's going on everybody welcome back to the heart and hustle podcast today we have an amazing conversation with the CEO of a Boys and Girls Club we're going to talk about what pivotal role they play in the community for supporting youth who often need support but don't have those resources around them we're going to talk about Gio's personal Journey her parents moving from El salador talking about how she wanted to be a house cleaner at the young age of five or 6 years old and her mom said you're not doing this work we've sacrificed way too much for you to be here now today's conversation is all about leadership goals casting a vision and inspiring the next generation of great leaders who are going to serve our community and youth let's listen to Gio's story on heart and hustle but i' never acquainted the fact that being a Hispanic and a female as a CEO is so

[0:51]  there's such a small percentage of us out there and the type of meaning that that gives to the Society of as a whole right that they can see someone that looks like them that sounds like them that speaks like them um that can you know we're not just leading to lead but we're leading with heart for who is that group that we're serving right and how um what are their challenges and how can we empathize and relate and in some cases sympathize um with their strife and their challenge Gio when you were you said in your late

[1:44]  20s you had an experience where you were working in France you were going into a long weekend and your boss said to you why are you taking your laptop let's talk a little bit about that story oh my goodness you know I remember thinking why why does that matter yeah I'm going to way to the beach but I might have some downtime I'll get some work done and my my boss turned around and said no no no in in France when we take holiday we take holiday it's intended for you to have rest and repo bring me your laptop he took my bag put it under his desk and said I'll see you on Tuesday and I walked out of there thinking to myself what am I going to do with my time now when I'm not like busy and it was the first time time that an adult taught me the lesson of the

[2:34]  importance of just being still and being comfortable with your thoughts and yourself and nothing else and it's the most beautiful gift that that boss ever gave me that that story came up because you know one of the things we were talking about in our previous conversation was some of the challenges of being able to recruit the next generation of great leaders who want to contribute back to the community in the form of the boys and girls club or whatever program they're a part of and we recognize that today it's super challenging to be able to cast that vision for work life balance when it seems like we've got it so out of funk so how you kind of tackling some of those challenges you know I um it it's always a it is an interesting challenge that we're living

[3:20]  in today right I think Co um gave a lot of a lot of us uh that pause that many had not experienced of that balance of I can work from home and and still do my job and have laundry going and prep dinner and you know multitasking from a home environment um and then there's jobs where you're in the people business and you can't do that right you have to like show up and clock in and clock out but it is important to have some sort of balance um I tell my team all the time right family comes F Health and family comes first if you don't have your health you don't have anything and if you don't have your family why are you working right that's that's the reason a lot of us have jobs is so that we can provide for our families um dream with our families um do you know travel

[4:08]  whatever that case might be but it's usually connected to a nucleus that we connect with um I think younger Generations they may see that family as a group of community and friends that they may want to go on a cruise with or you know do other things with that isn't blood family but that built family engagement um and so it is an important thing to help the workforce know how to balance that because you can't just play hard and then work like not so hard right it it comes it has to coincide and it has to when you're at work you're at work and when you're having fun you're having fun um in that regard and so I know for me and my organization a couple of years ago it was one of the things that we talked about we have a lot of part-time staffers um in our organization and we you know sat down

[4:57]  and said how do we how do we teach this and part of that is you know most part-time people don't get PTO time and so that was a policy that we incorporated and took to our board and fought um for our staff and you know one of the most beautiful things is I remember I sat down with a group of my executive staff and said you know I'm going to have to take away some of your vacation to account for this vacation for these people um below us and not just you but me too right we're all going to have to give a little bit to get a little bit for everybody and it was the most beautiful thing to see see be like no yeah that's important and so we did we put in a a one hour for every 30 hours worked which is in line with you know the the um ACA and being able to get one hour of sick pay for every 30 hours that you work um and so we said you know we're going to mimic that so

[5:45]  our staff um in an Essence gets one hour of sick leave and one hour of PTO time uh that they get to a crew because we think it is important um even if they're just part-time to have that repo and and to be compensated um for the hard work that they do with with the community and being you know Changers of society it's not an easy job that is a heavy burden to carry and making sure I want to make sure that I don't have for everybody who's watching today it's very difficult to pour from an empty cup the worst thing would be if I poured that coffee all over me um you know I think about The Balancing Act of being in the people business community service showing up it's very difficult as a leader I'm guessing to have to navigate I would say the the social wants to do everything

[6:35]  hybrid right I talked to a lot of leaders in community organizations mental Behavioral Health that space and they say it's tough because a lot of the people come into the organization have a interpretation that we can do this work remotely but if we're truly showing up for the people who need us most that means that we have to be there in person and I feel like it's that human connection which makes you guys so impactful in the in the community it really is I mean you can't you can't Mentor a child um Ely right it's when you look at all of the studies that engage there's this wonderful Ted Talk of a seven-year-old and the importance of what happens in the first five years of life of a child and how you have you know their brain development and engagement and how important it is to make eye contact and engage and to get off of the devices right when we're engaging with our children because it

[7:22]  really does send a message to them about what's important and that's where they're learning their initi social skills and engagement so for an organization like boys and girls club who typically starts serving you know youth at the age of five right they've gone past those first five years so if they've had neglect if they've had food scarcity if they've had insecurity of where their head's going to land at the end of the night right we're dealing with children with trauma at five years old right who who feel unsure who want to hit who want to yell who don't want to follow instructions because you know they have to fight for the little that they have and that's what's been shown to them for 5 years or more um so it is it is a hard work in the in the people work that we that we

[8:10]  do but it's such a rewarding experience um you know over my three and a half years at Boys and Girls Club at the West Valley one of the things that I I you know just always look at some of those young kids that I met right in 20121 and now here there are about to finish Middle School go on to high school about to graduate high school and go on to college and you see the transformation that has happened because there's trusted people coaches that are there day in and day out um that they can come in and talk to that they can say hey I'm really struggling with this or hey so I overheard this thing what does that mean and they might not feel comfortable asking their parent or asking a teacher but they are comfortable having that conversation with their coach or their Mentor at the club and it really you

[8:58]  know is is an important work of being able to um Safeguard sometimes be able to find them um additional support and guidance or counseling depending on what they're going through to guide them through that next you know step of their Journey um of Engagement so I feel like the role that the boys and girls club plays in the community is kind of to the old adage of it takes a village to raise a child you know when I think about the just challenges that we face in society today isolation and loneliness alltime highs perceived connectedness to others all-time Highs but there's a huge discrepancy there so when it comes to doing the work that you do with all the things that you could have done with

[9:45]  your professional career your energy your time why was it this path that we went down what were some of the early Inspirations that kind of LED you here you know um what is the old biblical saying the Lord won't give you something you you can't handle yeah exactly right and and the reality is that it is our own layers of our own little onion and journey that we've created that prepare us right um I I think one of my favorite um verses or concepts from The Book of Esther is Right you've been prepared for a time just as this and you don't always know what you're going through how it's going to come up in the future or how it's going to support um those areas but I think for me um I'm a first generation American both of my parents immigrated

[10:34]  to this country my mom was 16 when she came from El Salvador my dad was 24 they married they had their kids here my brother and I and you know I think part of my childhood Journey as a first generation American gave me so many understandings and I remember I was probably in like I don't know I was like in preschool I was probably four or five years old um and I told my mom like I don't need to read why do I need to read I'm going to clean houses just like you and my mom turned around and she was like you're not going to clean houses like we've sacrificed everything for you to get an education and and for you to to be able to achieve more and do more and so um I really credit her for instilling in me what I call my servant

[11:23]  leader heart where I love to lead I love um being being Visionary and strategic and engaging um at at really big levels love big hairy audacious Concepts goals initiatives and engagements but I think I pull from my own Journey right and the kids that I serve the kids that our organization serves many of them are immigrant kids many of them are first generation Americans right and so it's how do you share that possibility I've um I remember think think it was in 2022 so I was in my role for about a year and I was being recognized um by vaa which is an association here in the San Fernando Valley that um works with you know

[12:11]  industry um and they were recognizing the club and the leadership right of what we've been able to accomplish um in the last 30 31 years as an organization um but I got to be the leader at the helm when that recognition came through and I got up I gave the acceptance Fe did that whole thing and I remember coming down um and one of the workers from the hotel Hispanic man came over and said it's so wonderful to see a Hispanic woman at the helm of this organization and I just want to say congratulations and you know I know I'm Hispanic I'm very proud of my Heritage um but I'd never acquainted the fact that being a Hispanic and a female as a CEO is so

[13:00]  there's such a small percentage of us out there and the type of meaning that that gives to the society as a whole right that they can see someone that looks like them that sounds like them that speaks like them um that can you know we're not just leading to lead but we're leading with heart for who is that group that we're serving right and how um what are their challenges and how can we empathize and relate and in some cases sympathize um with their strife and their Challenge and so we hire from within in that regard right many of our employees are um club kids who've come through the organization right um I've got leaders who when I chat with them he was like hey I came to the club to learn

[13:48]  how to play the guitar and here I am six years later right um serving in this way or I came because you know I I met friends and now I'm working here but going to college and so it's a very fun environment but I think that that's the beauty of the work that we all get an opportunity to do is to look within and to find ways that we can um give back um in ways that we ourselves have have been given right I'm very appreciative to the mentors along my journey that um told me education was important right um who told me that reading was important um and and who gave me those gifts that are not money oriented right the ability to read has nothing to do with our social economics we can read beautiful

[14:37]  thing partnership with our public libraries right um and so it's it's finding those opportunities to connect um with young people and uh tying tying the circle back to what we know what is the um there's a saying I tell my team you can't give what you don't have right it's the same concept of you can't pour out of an empty Cup right right so if I have love I give love if I have anger and hatred I give anger and hatred to the world and so um it's important that you know we find ways to fill and and to bring people that have that common goal to want to make it better and easier for the Next Generation Um right um I sit here back sometimes I I tell my staff when it comes to like planning for retir right I'm like if you all can like take

[15:26]  our advice and do what we didn't do when we were your age like by the time you're my age you're going to compound at such a different faster rate and be in a different position but you know it's it's that old you know challenge that when you're 20 there's things you just don't understand until you're in your 40s and by then it's too late but you know of in the 40s are trying to help them be like no really like we've been there we've been there we've got lessons to teach and and opportunities so that what took me five years can take you two and a half um and that's I think the beauty of why I love doing what I get to do and I feel so privileged to be able to serve um is because I do recognize my roots and where I come from and the fact that someone invested in me and I can now turn around and invest in others um so that Society can hopefully continue

[16:15]  to be a little bit better over time it's it's so inspiring and it makes me kind of you know feel a certain way to see how impacted You Are by the work that you do you know it's amazing to think about the people who sacrific so much to put us in a position just to have an opportunity and I often you know over as I've gotten older I think about my responsibility very much like you think about your responsibility for the people who came before us the grandmothers the grandfathers the greats the greats right my great-grandfather was a sharecropper in Arkansas it was literally a sharecropper to have a piece of land that his family could live on in trade for his labor my grandfather was born in the 1930s was discriminated against because of the color of his skin my father was the first entrepreneur who

[17:02]  took incredible risk to give me the opportunity that I have here today and when you think about no matter what your religious affiliation is If people could look down on you at a mentor one time say Keenan could you imagine what your great-grandfather would think if he was looking down the barrel of the camera at you having these conversations he' be like oh my gosh look how far we've come and that responsibility weighs heavy it's a burden that I feel like is worth worthy of carrying into the future because when you work with the youth like you do we're looking for examples of people who have succeeded ahead of us that prove to us that we can do it too and just you showing up as who you are Gio is uh doing that every single day and I know that you recognize that but I want to put the public Spotlight on the work that you do because the impact that you

[17:48]  have is multiplicative it's impossible to be measured yeah it it is and there's days where you wake up and you're like wow do I for me it's wow I really get to do this right right um and it is truly a joy uh to be able to go out every day and and do the work that I get to do hustle in the way I get to do to uh to make it better for the kids that we serve and also for me the you know 70 people who depend on a paycheck every two weeks for their family right and for themselves and so nonprofit isn't isn't free it's still has a cost right it still has engagement and so I'm extremely grateful um that God has granted the gifts and the abilities for me to connect those who have with the opportunities of how they can take what

[18:37]  they have to make a greater impact in society um that brings about joy and satisfaction and added business to their businesses right and and not just to our staff but to the many many businesses and vendors that we work with right because that money just flows from one place to another economy is such a beautiful thing I love economics right and we don't always understand it um but we have that power um whether we donate a dollar whether we donate a million dollars um to an organization depending on our ability when we make that decision to give something that we could go use in a different way for myself right it's our way of saying like I have belief in the opportunity of what you can do and so you know there's many many philanthropic

[19:24]  people um in this nation and around the world that make it possible uh for people like me to to do the work that I get to do and I I can't like go through this without making note of that in that conversation because a lot of times that gets lost in the process right um as well one of the things that we talk about here on the podcast is our personal leadership Journey now from the outside looking in from the Public's perspective CEOs often have it all figured out everybody's always right and they don't make any mistakes I I want to talk a little bit about your process of maturation as a leader if you could go back to a younger version of Gio who's maybe coming across a tough time or about to embark on a new chapter of her

[20:11]  journey and Leadership what advice would you give to her as she kind of navigates these upcoming years yeah um stay adaptable um realize that gaining advice from other people can help you make better decisions uh along the way um I think would be the the two big ones that I would I would talk to and why did you pick those two things why are those the most important for the younger version of you I you know I think adaptability is something that's so hard for leaders to to retain that right um we tend to be very rigid and like well these things have to be accomplished there's deadlines there's this there's that and there is a lot of that in organizations and companies when you're running them that do require

[20:59]  those areas but adaptability is is something that I think as you know just looking at the last four years right those who who were able to stay adaptable thrived during covid and excelled in ways that those who weren't able to to lean into adaptability kind of you know they lost themselves in the in in the last few years and and their purpose and and what they could do with their life so I think that's you that's part of what comes to me I think about you know fifth grade my parents moved me from public school into private school and man that was tough I thought I was going to go like to private school that it was going to be like such a wonderful experience and and great right um and it was the toughest transition I think I

[21:46]  can think of of my childhood um to to adjust to different ways of doing things and to connect and you know when you get moved in the middle of the school year it's really tough on kids in that regard right so adaptability is such a beautiful skill that I think gets overlooked a lot of times um in in those in you know in in the ways that we do things um in that regard so I think that's why I picked I picked adaptability um and then um in in regards to my brain just wentop what was my second thing that I mentioned taking advice from others I'm sorry taking advice from other people taking advice from others right I think again coming through college again you said you said most leaders we think we know it all right most people

[22:32]  think that most of us also think that you got to be a little I I will say this you got to be a little bit nuts to say yes to sit into a CEO role or to want to be an entrepreneur like there's a special Spirit about us right that that is just special um but the reality is is that um you make the best decisions you can make based off of the knowledge that you have and if if you live in a bubble um then you're limited to the possibility of what you can do because you live in that little bubble but um when you're able to seek out mentors and seek out individuals who are willing to share their wisdom with you or that you're willing to just sit down and have a conversation about what was it like for them right I think it

[23:21]  leans into the sense of curiosity right and and and curiosity is that deeper um skill set of like when you're dealing with confrontation or with challenges instead of rebuttal learning to just say so help me understand your perspective tell me why you're thinking that right it just changes everything of the dynamic and so I think listening to others it goes into leaning into that place of curiosity for me uh that I've learned over my year years um of work and service in different ways and so I do come to leadership from that perspective of like I want everybody's op opinion but at the end of the day I'm going to make the decision and I'm going to own it because the buck stops with me and I have to be responsible for the choices that I move in organization in a certain direction I

[24:09]  can't turn around and be like hey you're well I chose that because so and so had that idea I can't do that right and so it's I I really have learned and I think about also I don't know if you've ever been to the um uh President Reagan's Library I have not Valley where I get to live and I'm blessed to live that but there's there's um there's an exhibition of within the museum that talks about how President Reagan made the best choices that he had given the information he had during the Contra era you know area and a lot of times we look at leaders and we're like oh they should have made a better decision well yeah hindsight's always 2020 but when all you have is this information then maybe that was the best decision now we get to see all of this and we're like well there

[24:56]  was this choice and this choice but you know it's a high responsibility in leadership to to make those choices and then take responsibility and accountability for them for for yourself and for your team that you represent that's why one of the superpowers that I want to double click on there that I don't talk a lot about on the podcast but we need to do a better job is the power of changing our mind now one of the things that I love is the thing and I can kind of justify my ability to change my mind is new data equals new decisions I feel like often we have a fallacy that we've built in our mind that says once we make a decision there's no going back but often the landscape changes so much so how do you kind of deal with new data and new decisions how do you handle that you

[25:43]  know I'm I've become comfortable with it I think again leaning into that adaptability right aspect um again I mean my leadership in these last three years is very different than my leadership preo um I think coming through Co and and really realizing you really have control over nothing except for your own mind your own emotions and the actions you do with your own body um really changes the way that you lead your life and therefore it impacts in a ripple effect manner the people that you engage with and connect with um and so I I think that that's part of of of that with that formula that you just said right new data equals new decisions and um it's important for us to recognize

[26:32]  that in in the society that we live in it's ever changing um there's there's always pros and there's always cons on every area we can see the good and the bad um so much conflict in this world going on right now that I can't like ignore the time that we're living in right through this conversation that you just sit there and wished more more people could lead from heart and not from ego um and be able to say hey it's it we've got new data we can act differently we can take different decisions um and hopefully end up at a different spot um because of that change I believe with great leaders like you we're well on our way to doing those things you know it's really cool to be able to sit across this table from

[27:20]  leaders who are thinking so intentionally about these problems leading from the heart the future I was having a conversation I brought this up in the last podcast as well I was talking to an amazing individual his name is Chris Nelson he's the CEO of uh Freedom service dogs in Colorado who trains puppies for veterans so they can have a a battle buddy is what he calls them and he said you know one of the things that we have to recognize Kenan is the landscape of leadership is changing and it's bad news for guys like me and you I said what do you mean by that he said the great leaders of the future and today who maybe aren't getting as much recognition as they deserve are the female leaders who lead our organizations in our community in the private sector in the public sector because let me tell you what all of this

[28:07]  conversation about emotional intelligence empathy compassion kind cander are all things that guys think we need to stack up those skill sets but guess who naturally often has those skills it's our female comrades it's the people who are leading our organizations today who are so powerful at aspiring the Next Generation how do you kind of think about that leadership of being Alpha if you will for the future of leadership is skill sets that naturally women already have that maybe we're playing catchup on I you know I have a mixed back feeling of of that in the sense that I think about my leadership over the last 20 years and I could say that 10 years ago I was definitely not the empathetic leader I am today right really and so um I you know I again I

[28:57]  think about my my husband um I'm going to get real vulnerable with your with your audience right now um my husband tells me Gio you are the most white mem minded female Hispanic female I I I've ever encountered um and you know we've been married 16 years and and it's just it's interesting because of course right in a in that relationship of a spousal relationship partner relationship you you get to see behind the curtain you get to see the the Wizard right and um and so iedit a lot of my empathy actually to my husband um who is an extremely he's he's a we all have empathy in different ways and I think that's something that we also as leaders have to understand is that empathy um or being an empath right um is kind of like

[29:45]  a gauge some of us have a lot of it some of us have a little of it some of us are empathetic to circumstances others of us are empathetic to situations or to certain types of people or certain circumstances and it all comes from our Journeys um and so you know it's um I'm going to push back a little bit on that concept of women are better empath empaths than men I don't think that that's the case um but I I do think that women have gone unseen for many many years right when I think about even Boys and Girls Clubs Of America right it was started by three women and and back in in the um 1800s when it started it was the boys club and it was the boys club up until 1992 when the organization after almost

[30:33]  30 years of allowing girls to be part of the club finally the movement the Federation said hey we've got to recognize the girls that are at the table and and the name changed right when you think about the fact that our name changed in 1992 to Boys and Girls Club like you sit there and you're like wow and yet it was started by three women in Connecticut right so it it's just I think um I think the differentiation Factor comes sometimes where women don't have as much ego as maybe the male side of of testosterone tends to have um where you know and I think it comes from that motherhood aspect where you know women have to give up their bodies to give birth to life right um men

[31:20]  don't and so I think there's something different that happens there where um and I remember I was gosh I was was doing my internship in El Salvador um early 2000s and um I got the I had the privilege to live with one of my cousins who who was a leader in her is a leader in her own right and and she talked about how if if women were in leadership there would be no children that would go hungry right when you think about a family moms are always the last ones to eat um I think of a wonderful mentor of mine Simon sake right um Leaders Eat Last right there's there's a there's a correlation that happens there and so I think you know leadership is changing um and I think the types of leaders that we need for this next you know Millennium

[32:08]  that we're living in or Century that we're living in is different than what we saw in the 1900s uh but it's just part of cyclical change right just as you look at you know what was leadership like in the 1500s or the 1300s right it's changing Ever Changing um because again as you so eloquently stated new data equals new decisions right beautiful way to tie that back up I couldn't have said it better myself literally um so here's a question for you when it comes to meeting the needs of the community what is on the front of your mind because we have lots of different types of CEOs and Founders here on the show but none of them have ever been representing the Boys and Girls Club so let's give an understanding to everybody out there who

[32:56]  is trying to put themselves in your shoes what challenges are we facing and how are you guys meeting that Bell yeah you know young people today have the their biggest challenge that I think we're all very cognizant of across our almost 5,000 Boys and Girls Clubs of Across America um is the mental health issues right the emotional challenges that they're facing and again it comes back to a lot of this right when you think about it this is an experiment that none of us knew what we were signing up for when we signed up for it right um I remember being in high school when you know car phones were out right and there were these huge mega box right that my father would carry um and I told my brother one time I'm like I swear that thing's going to cause cancer over

[33:43]  all of us like we're going to end up with brain cancer like crazy because of all these waves that we have to use to utilize the devices right and now we're wearing like Bluetooths on our ears 16 hours a day and I'm like oh my God what are we doing but young people grew grew up in a world full of social media I did not have social media when I was a teenager or a kid right um so it's different the pressure the knowing what everybody thinks or might be saying about you is no longer just kept at a dinner table or in the privacy of a conversation of two or three people it's like out there for the world to see and comment on and and validation comes from from it right um and there's this

[34:31]  little thing called dopamine that we get when someone responds or interacts with us or engages to something that we put out there and for me it's different my frontal cortex is totally developed right and girls develop theirs sooner than men right boys take a little longer five more years for Theirs to be fully developed at least so all those changes emotional changes have an incredible impact on on anxiety um stress depression uncertainty where kids have almost been robbed of their childhood it breaks my heart to say that because you know they don't know what it is to just go out and throw the ball in the front yard with their with their neighbor right because you might get run over like stay inside

[35:20]  stay on your device play a game watch a movie like you know and and um and so I think that that's the biggest thing that's at the Forefront of just how do we show up and how do we help kids know what it is to be kids again right um how do we help kids know how to show up authentically as as themselves and not as what they think they need to show up with because it this is the look or this is the sound or this is the music that I should be listening to right influencing the how or the why I do what I do or say what I say um and so it's it's a big challenge that's out there but the beauty is every single individual every adult has an opportunity to kind of make

[36:10]  an impact and and a transition this morning I was out walking and a high school student um was walking in the opposite direction and I could see by their body language right the shoulders were chunch over the head was down I was like this kid is coming up out of his like 9:00 a.m. class and they've already had a really rough morning like they've gone to period one and you know they're having a rough morning and so as they got closer I was like hey how's it going and they kind of did the whole wait what you're talking to me and he was like eh and I was like I hope it gets better for you and they smiled and kept going their way and I kept going my way and I just kind of sat there and I said you know it is it is something just to smile at someone can change their Outlook um in life and so yeah when I think about the

[36:59]  challenges with our youth it's just how do we how do we help them to extend out their youth their childhood as long as they can um and not feel like they have to grow up so fast and how do we as adults protect them of that by maybe saying hey you're not going to get on social media till you're 16 I'm not going to I'm not going to create a persona for you the day you're born that I'm just going to gift off to you you know when you're old enough to take over kind of thing I don't know I think those are sometimes the challenges um to engage and to connect with with the kids and and to help them to know that it's okay to make mistakes and that you recover right nothing's set in stone new data equals new decisions and I feel like that we're we're going to see my intuition tells me

[37:47]  that we are going to pendulum back towards the early 2000s when we weren't on all of these smartphones and constantly having our attention just pulled away away from us some really interesting statistics in 2012 9% of girls had highly depressive episodes or major depressive episodes as of the most recent data in 2023 31% of girls have major depressive episodes now that just so happens that that Arc is on the same timeline as social media when it popped up I feel like with all of the awareness about health all of the the awareness around Wellness all of the awareness around ingredients in our food and things like that we've done a very

[38:34]  good job at focusing on the physical and I often talk about that as the physical diet but the other side of that is the mental diet I'm hoping that we're going to see a time maybe that's pioneered and ushered in by this new generation that's going to help us get away from the devices because one thing that I wish I had more of was time and I did have those adults who said you should slow down but often I was was like I want to grow up so fast but I wish I didn't do that now today the average 18-year-old spends about 9 hours a day on their device AKA Screen time if you extrapolate that out for the rest of their life any guesses on how much time that is too much 24 years yeah too much 24 years of their time on a device and I worry about the human connection element

[39:23]  and that's why I feel like the boys and girls club and other organizations who are doing such great work work the value proposition that you're creating is not only Community but it's a smiling warm face for somebody who comes through the doors or maybe just comes around the organization is walking past Geo and gets their world shaken up because you took the time to actually ask how they were doing there was a a story I had a guy on a podcast his name was Dr Robert um Kelly he talked about this tragic story of an individual who unfortunately died by suicide after hopping off the Golden Gate Bridge the police officers unfortunately found this body grabbed his ID out of his wallet and went back to his apartment walked inside and found a note and he said hey today going to be the day I'm going to make the threemile

[40:09]  walk to the bridge and I'm going to not be here anymore but guess why I won't do it if one person Just Smiles at me and says I hope you have a good day today not going to do it those small instances in those moments can mean the world to people and I think we need to get back back to the human element of connecting with each other to combat some of these macro issues that we're dealing with and you guys are the perfect start for that because you guys are doing that every single day GM I I will I will say that you know when I think about our mission um to to inspire and enable all young people uh to reach their full potential as productive caring responsible adults like there is so much to unpack in that um but it is that it's that ability for us as coaches to recognize that we have

[40:58]  the ability to enable and to inspire right and that only happens if there's that young person or that youth that we engage with and connect um I love the fact that we focus on full potential and I tell my team you know full potential we reach that the day that we pass right every day that we have breath we have an opportunity to grow and to change and to better ourselves than we were the day before and therefore our potential is always ever exponentially growing into the future and what better ways to to be growing than to understanding how we can be productive caring and responsible in the society that we live in and so my kudos to the

[41:47]  leaders out there in this world that created that mission for Boys and Girls Clubs Of America and to every um white P site coordinator director CEO and staff member of this organization that that impacts that mission on a daily basis and the donors and even the government who comes alongside with grants and funding and opportunities for us to to do that mission together um because I think that's the other important thing is it's not just us doing it on our own right um nonprofits have to partner with one another and bring the best of what each one of us has to better our Society where we shouldn't be in competition with one another but rather collaborating with one another to to bring out the best for our communities

[42:35]  that we work and represent in on a daily basis and and I'm like I said I'm just honored to be part of the the one of the pegs in the wheel um that keeps that moving forward and um I will humbly continue to uh try and grow our organization so that we can serve more young people in the West Valley um here in the San fr Valley of California and and engage and impact um in different meaningful and authentic ways you are the definition of heart and hustle and this is why you know you came on the show and why we thought it was so important to highlight the amazing work that you guys do as part of our tradition we have our previous guest ask you a question to wrap up the episode now this is the CEO um an amazing individual from an organization called

[43:23]  up together and his question for you was what are your all-time favorite three records and why as in music records music records yeah oh my goodness that's like the hardest question you're GNA ask me because I'm gonna have to sit there and go like I don't know but I will I guess maybe what I'll say is maybe my top three three songs I think is at the heart of what the question is um one of my number one is is a song written Sayang by um Jason cat cats I believe is his last name um oh have it all and I love that song it's been my my anthem song for probably about five

[44:11]  probably about five years since it came out that I first heard it and it speaks to my soul in how I go about this world and wanting to share with others the fact that they can have it all right and um and a little bit of heart and a heck of a lot of heart and a little bit of hustle right um in that regard but it's just that it's it's a song full of deep desires for someone else not for yourself right and and that speaks really really to my heart a lot um man can I say this in your show can you edit it out if I can't absolutely let it roll what do you got um Shut Up and Dance I think is the name of the song okay um is another one that I absolutely love because I think it reminds me that sometimes you just have

[44:59]  to shut up and go have some fun right it's you get too busy in life and and things get too heavy sometimes and sometimes you just got to stop and that's a song that that is on on on my on our playlist that we love to to listen to and that I feel also speaks um speaks to to me quite a bit um and oh my goodness don't ask me who wrote it because I don't remember I'm really horrible at trivia like I'm the worst trivia person me too um man you made me sweat with that question um the third song that I would think of um that is a big one for me is um oh my goodness I'm trying to remember the name of the song um something about going up oh my goodness can I ask can I do a call line

[45:47]  for some help on the name you can do a call line yeah absolutely can I mute myself for a second or of course y I'm going mute myself real quick thank you I'm sorry I had I'm like I know the words but I don't know the name of it Such Great Heights you did make me sweat just so that everybody knows right um Such Great Heights um and again this is a song my my husband has shared with me um in our in our time together and um it's the song he sings to me uh when I used to travel a lot for business I don't know if you're familiar with the song or not but it talks about you know someone calling someone and being like hey you you been gone for a while when are you're coming back and and talking about the the deep meaning of love and understanding that love has Such Great

[46:34]  Heights and sometimes you know you need to come down from that as well to be here on on the earth and on the daytoday um so I think those would be the three three thing three songs that I would think of that um are at my at my heart for very different reasons um and I should know those the the artists who sing it and the names of it a lot better but I I never would have been able to pull that off on the spot very transparently you know I'm the worst when it comes to titles and artists and stuff like that well I just want to say for everybody who's been tuning in watching and listening today this has been another amazing episode of the heart and musle podcast thank you so much Gio thanks for joining us really appreciate it than Keen for the opportunity to share a little bit of what life is like as a CEO at a boys and girls club and for all your listeners what I would say is go find a club

[47:23]  that's near you and find a way to give back time Talent OR treasure you'll never regret that opportunity and that's a wrap