Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: So I have built this ability to break groupthink because I see patterns, and when I see patterns, you find the cracks, and I can't help but shine light on the cracks. And your entire generation seems to embody groupthink breaking. I have never been asked such profoundly pointed and unapologetic questions, and I love it. So I think just that. That raw candor, I don't know where it comes from.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: I think maybe a lack of manners, I don't know.
And we spoke a little while off, off the podcast when you first ran this idea by me. Like, what. What could that be like? That, like, makes, I guess, many people in my generation very quick to point out things that are. You'd consider groupthink, right? And kind of break through that. I think the first step is, is waking up to start doing something new. You must admit that we're. You're doing something wrong. And I think my generation is very quick that. To admit that we're doing a lot of things wrong. People are very genuine when they mean that. They are very sincere in that they see a lot of fundamental issues in this world. And I think my generation has been really empowered by the previous to kind of tackle those things.
This episode of Roots to Fruits is produced and distributed by Be Connected, a social media management firm in Northeast Wisconsin.
[00:01:24] Speaker A: Hi, I'm Kelly Williams, your host of Roots to Fruits podcast. And with me today, I have a special guest, and I'm going to give you a little backstory on this special guest. His name is Dal Sada, and he is from the recent graduate of the University of Cincinnati. And I met Dal when I gave a talk at the university. So let me give you a little background. I've been doing these types of talks to universities and from graduate students to undergraduate at several universities over the last, say, seven to 10 years. And this was the first time anyone asked me to tell my story, to put together my background, like how I got to where I'm at, and use it as a way to package wisdom or insights to. To the students. And dad, you can remind me later, I think it was undergraduate environmental studies. What. What was the. The group?
[00:02:15] Speaker B: Oh, it was, it was the most basic of seminars. One of those things that you'd, like, walk in and pray to God that would end fast. And I was like.
And that's why I was shocked that I was, I. It was a truly enjoyable experience, like hearing Kelly speak and, hi, guys, I'm. I'm Daoud. I'm not the.
The voice just floating out there.
And. Yeah, I was.
I was absolutely astonished by the way he, like, spoke and the.
How clear it was. And with such, I guess, charisma and confidence. I feel like this is a. In a field where this is a class around environmental studies, so a lot of people almost have a bit of a defeatist mentality when they walk in the classroom. They kind of talk about things like they're on a downhill trajectory.
And our job is more to mitigate that or I guess get the bucket and funnel off the water from the ship. Right. Rather than patching the hole. And I feel like, Kelly, really, the way you spoke about it made me think, okay, we can patch this hole. We can get this thing sailing again. And it.
Yeah, it made me feel really energized.
[00:03:28] Speaker A: And that was. That was my intention, right? To. To inspire. And I had. And I feel like I have all the reason in the world to. To inspire your generation, because every time that I. That I meet with your generation, and at that, there's something really visceral about. About it that I. That I. I feel like it's. I can hang a hat of not only hope, but confidence in the future around, which is. Some people refer to it as your BS meter is off the chart. Like, you guys smell BS very quickly. But what I realized in putting that presentation together, that I. And I look back and I realize people have been making this connection about me for a long time, which is I've been referred to as the turd in the punch bowl at meetings or the one who asks the really hard questions that either no one's thinking about or everyone's thinking about and no one is asking, which is what group think.
So I have built this ability to break group think because I see patterns. And when I see patterns, you find the cracks, and I can't help but shine light on the cracks. And your entire generation seems to embody group think breaking. I've never been asked such profoundly pointed and unapologetic questions, and I love it. So I think just that. That raw candor. I don't know where it comes from. It.
[00:04:50] Speaker B: I think maybe. Maybe a lack of manners. I don't know. And we. We spoke a little while off the. Off the podcast when you first ran this idea by me. Like, what. What could that be like? That, like, makes, I guess, many people in my generation very quick to point out things that are. You'd consider groupthink, right? And kind of break through that.
And I think is maybe some.
I think the. The first step is. Is waking up, right? To.
To stop Doing.
To start doing something new, you must admit that we're. You're doing something wrong. And I think my generation is very quick that to admit that we're doing a lot of things wrong. Right. I think it. Sometimes it can boil down to like nihilism. It can sound a little pessimistic, but I think there's a lot of genuity. Or is that. Is that the correct word? Very. A very genuine people are very genuine when they mean that they are very sincere in that they see a lot of fundamental issues in this world. And I think my generation has been really empowered by the previous to kind of tackle those things. That's in fact why I even started down this path of pursuing a degree in environmental science and chemistry and the. I work in the H Vac, space and energy efficiency.
So things that are very grounded in the environment.
And I think that started from a place where I'm Palestinian. Filipino. Right.
And so growing up, one explaining my background was just like full of contradictions. It was very, very complex. But also especially the Palestinian side, we.
We unfortunately do not get the best pr, especially growing up.
So I remember being in classrooms in even like the fifth grade and they put on like foreign events, right? And then they, they show videos of Palestine or this is post war on terror, right? So Iraq, Afghanistan.
And it would sometimes be like these fundamentalist groups with beliefs that I share almost nothing in common with. And then people would turn to me and the whole class would go silent. They turn to me and they go, why do they do that? Why do they think like that?
As if my fifth. My fifth grade self was supposed to have the answer to what the Taliban was thinking.
So the.
And I say that because I think from a very young age I got comfortable with disagreeing.
And when I had a teacher in the.
My junior year of high school and at that point I really had no idea what. What was next for me, right? Everyone said, okay, the next step is college, right?
To anyone listening, please don't think that way. That it's instantly. It's the high school is the pipeline to college and that's it, the closed and shut book.
But I thought, I have no idea what I'm going to study, but what could it be?
And I had a professor that.
[00:07:48] Speaker A: In.
[00:07:48] Speaker B: This science professor in like honors bio or honors chemistry or something like that. And she spoke so profoundly about the climate crisis and that this is the most pressing issue of our generation and that like it or not, this is what's on our plate now. So we can either choose to address it head on or kind of disassociate from the issue, ignore it. Right. Let it grow.
And I thought to myself, well, I've already been fighting an uphill battle for most of my life, so what's wrong with picking one more unpopular thing to fight for? And I thought if I could do anything for a career, I'd want to be an advocate. And that's why I went down the pursuit, a career in the environment and sustainability.
[00:08:38] Speaker A: And you didn't just stop there. You, you were part of the, I think you were the leading the sustainability initiatives at the university as well.
[00:08:47] Speaker B: Yeah, I was the undergraduate director of sustainability at the University of Cincinnati. And big picture speak is that I was the student liaison and voice for all things concern regarding sustainability on the university's campus. I worked a lot with administration, especially a, a close mentor of mine who was the vp, Director of campus services. So things like buildings, dining halls, hours of operations, grounds, everything. So it allowed me to be very engaged with decision makers on issues that I hold, very hold. Held very dear to myself and still do.
And it allowed me to be that advocate for the student body because a lot of people care about these things. Right. When we speak about sustainability, it's kind of like a buzzword now, like you say, and be like, oh yeah, that's, that's good.
But it's hard for people to feel grounded in the issues and actually dive into them and impact them in a genuine way. And I, that was my job, being the liaison between people's passions and desires and the actual change on the ground. And I was very, I was very blessed, very fortunate to be put in that position and to be able to have a say in things like our selection of our dining hall operation, how we operate, how our waste program works, speaking about the campus master plan and what, what is the campus going to look like? What are the green spaces, these things like that.
So that was a big part of my, especially my later years at the University of Cincinnati.
[00:10:28] Speaker A: And I bet you learned a lot at just the, the, the almost overwhelming areas of opportunity to improve sustainability across the board.
[00:10:38] Speaker B: Oh, a hundred percent. I, this field of sustainability is the field of sustainability as a whole.
I think it's something that grew too big for its bridges a little too fast. And what I mean by that is that people saw the issue and the need before they figured out how to address it. So a lot of these roles got created because a lot of companies said, oh my God, environmental, these environmental issues are on the horizon and our shareholders are are going to care. Right. The look in The S&P 500, the companies that have a closer focus and drive towards sustainability issues, whether that be in reporting environmental metrics or ESG goals, they have outperformed the rest of the S&P 500 over the past several years. So people see those indicators and they're quick to act with their, by making roles, but they don't know what they, what they want to ask out of those roles. So what are you going to do when you have a new spot to fill but you don't even know what you're, what you want that person to do?
You're going to take someone you already, you already know. So they move up Jim from the, from accounting and they put them, and put them up in the sustain, the sustainability department that just got made. And Jim knows nothing about this things. You know, Jim might be a terrific accountant, but he doesn't know what are the decisions that are actually going to be most impactful towards making a more sustainable and efficient company and environment.
[00:12:13] Speaker A: Right?
Yep.
I see it everywhere because we, we, we created an extractive system to create what we're at and everyone's in their little part trying to create a circle out of it, right. And it doesn't, you don't make a circle. You just learn and move on. And you said something really important about grounding grounded in the issues your generation, man, that really hit me hard because that's kind of what, what I see too is that, you know what, so when I, you know, this, this book, Tiny Hands, the Soft power model itself, my two target demographics for this book are, are mothers.
And I don't care if they're in diapers in high school or have their own families now, but those, the, the mothers of the world still have so much coherence and, and, and love for humanity and, and to make this world a better place. And I feel like they're frustrated and kind of living in their own hydrated islands with who they, you know, like I feel like they need help. But really it's for, for your generation. Because every time I meet with your generation, I get that same strong sense that I've got the energy, I've got the desire and I, I'm gonna, I'm gonna change the world. But I feel like there's a lot of searching for the grounding for which. What does that mean? What do I do?
And breaking groupthink is the first thing you can do because in any situation, when you're dealing with somebody that doesn't get it they're hard headed, they're, they're dismissive is figure out what the question is. There's always that one question that they don't even have to answer. The question answers itself.
And if we just all look for that question, instead of getting pulled into the emotionality of, of, of any debate, you gotta just say what's the question that throws the water on it, right?
[00:14:07] Speaker B: I would like to take a step back and say I didn't always know what that question was to ask, right. I didn't know, I wasn't, I, I didn't come out, this didn't pop out my mother and was this certain of myself and like the career? In fact, even if maybe a couple years ago, right, Maybe even two, I would have had some, drawn some pause in terms of what's the best way to ground myself in these issues that I care about and how can I actually impact.
And it was a professor, close professor of mine, I'll say the name because I hope people also read his literature.
It's someone named Dr. David Stradling. And he taught this course on environmental activism and the history of different activist movements. What made them succeed or fail and what drove people to actually have change that was lasting.
And what I came to find is that across the spectrum, all of the most impactful and successful environmental movements were grounded in very human centric change, very specific change. Something that you as the listener can think, I, I can impact this and this impacts me, right? I'm thinking of things like the antitoxins movement, the anti dumping, uh, and those really contradict things like the marketing that was fed growing up. Things like the Coca Cola polar bear that's on the little glacier and it's melting away. And you think to yourself, oh my God, I gotta get him off that glacier. Uh, but then as soon as the ad ends, you remember you've never seen a polar bear in your life and you have no desire to go, go on that glacier with him, right?
So, so just as soon as, like, just as soon as those kind of emotional arguments pop in your head, they fade away very fast.
And I realized that the best way to do that is speaking about issues that are directly impacting people now, not in the future, and giving them solutions that they can act on now as well.
So a good example of that would be instead of talking about the climate crisis or climate change as this thing that's coming down the pipeline, right? Hey, we've all heard the bell ringers and people saying, or the studies that tend to contradict themselves every couple years with a new metric saying by 2050, we're all dead. Or 2070, the ocean levels arise to X amount, right? And these things, people are quick to get pessimistic and kind of blow it off. And even myself, right, I'm someone who, I'm, I'm fully bought into this stuff. And even I can think, okay, are you, are you really sure about that metric? Like, there's just too many what ifs in the chain of hypotheticals that you have to keep going down to reach that calculation.
But a much better way to speak about it is the climate crisis is already here, right?
The, it's not the polar bears on the ice caps. Well, it's not just that. It's the floods in Texas and Tennessee that are causing trillions, trillions in dollars over the past decades. It is the wildfires in California that are robbing people of their home safety and livelihood, right.
It is the smoke that you can smell even when you're in New York, right. Coming from the, coming from the, from Canada, right. It is the raising shorelines in, that are in the more frequent hurricanes that are affecting people all the way from Florida to my mother in the Philippines, right. So it's an issue that's here right now. And to think about it as some thing down the line is almost a distraction and it kind of takes away from the movement as a whole.
So I don't know if I maybe got a.
[00:18:16] Speaker A: No, that, that's perfect.
[00:18:17] Speaker B: Gone out on that.
[00:18:18] Speaker A: Two things came to mind and that was, that was beautiful. Doubt I forget the percentage, but it's a pretty high percentage of the global population that lives within 100 miles of a shore. So climate change, like, there's going to be a lot of displaced families. And you know, through your schooling, you've heard that. You remember me saying it. I'm a fan of the word entropy. And look, every time you build or buy a house, you're technically bracing against entropy. So you place a house on a cliff or on a beach front, your, your entropy may get you maybe a little closer to you, but there's something else about your generation that I want you to comment on. And, and so this is a big, big part of what, what the book is about is coherence.
And, and I surmise that that Einstein that E equals MC squared, that C is not only the speed of light, it's the speed of coherence squared. And what does that mean? Coherence is when two humans connect in, in a, in a way that is Greater than the self, right? That, that natural energy of. We're gonna, we're gonna fix this.
And there's all kinds of things about telepathy and all of these great connection to consciousness and, and all of the, and I can tie all that through the lens. The book talks about that. But the reason I'm bringing it up now is none of that happens until you have internal coherence. But we're in a world that feeds off of making sure we're internally incoherent, right? That we're not regulated. Because I, I have a phrase, I say don't collaborate until you co regulate meaning your heart rate, your rhythm, your breath needs to match the people for which you're, you're engaged with, you're organizing with. We don't take that time. We don't, we don't breathe before meetings. We just, it's all performative. So we've taken true reverberant natural nervous systems and souls and we've put them in such hornifying environments that they become performance driven.
Distant from connection, not open through. So you become hydrophobic, not hydrophilic. And I just feel like your generation is already ahead of, of my generation because you embrace mental health. You put it out there, it's not a secret. So you're just really big about self care. And I like some thoughts on you about that because it's something that I've noticed and I, and I'm so glad that it's there because it's so easy to become incoherent to the point that you blame everyone else for being incoherent. Right. Dissonance.
And I see a lot of that, especially with older people, you know, And.
[00:20:54] Speaker B: I think you, you said like a good word. I'd describe it at times, like performative. Right. It almost feels that people can sometimes disconnect their office self from the rest of the world. There's a, I think there's a popular show called Severance or something like that where it's kind of all based on this concept of separating your office self from your real self. But the, it's almost like played to a T because people think that's so ridiculous. But that's what people genuinely do, right?
People walk in these meetings like, okay, let me put on my game face. I remember, oh my God, my. I'm recent grad of college, so the, My first internships. I remember coming to the office and telling myself like, okay, I need to be in there at exact before 8 on the dot and I need to leave exactly, exactly. After five, right? And I need to wear X, Y and Z. I need to look like this when I'm in the office and I need to do this right. And I realized I was like, what the hell is wrong with you? There's only four other people in here. They like this. This is after Covet, everyone's working online, right?
And the. It can sometimes become way too performative. And I think the best way, the best cure for that is being truly authentic. And I think people have become a lot more authentic with how they speak about their mental health and their well being, which I find very refreshing.
I find it really refreshing that people in my own office can talk about, hey, yeah, sometimes I'm not doing well, or this is going on in my personal life.
Because if we set up this kind of barrier where you're unable to speak about these topics for eight hours of the day, oh my God, you're gonna lose your mind.
That's not how we're wired. It's not how we're built.
[00:22:36] Speaker A: That's not how we're wired. Our central nervous systems didn't sign up for that.
[00:22:40] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
It's illogical to think that it's going to be healthy for you in any respect.
And that's something I found if I had any advice for any of the young listeners who should be taking advice from people much better than me, but I'm going to say it anyways, is that the most successful people I've seen in my career have been the most authentic.
People really crave that authenticity. They crave people they can get behind also. You even look at it in from.
I think the best example is from a political lens, right? People are very dissatisfied, by and large, with their representatives. And you hear very distasteful opinions smoking out pop politics as a whole, right? The divide across the political spectrum. And then you see the people that are buying away the most successful, right, and drawing the most supporters and in the most dissenters, right? But you think of people like Donald Trump or I think of like Zoran Mandani in New York, right? And these are people that are.
I bring those two up because those are two very different people in their political beliefs. But I think they still draw on the same tone that people get behind them because they think they are being their truly authentic self.
They think they are coming to the table. And this is not someone putting on a mask today. This is someone that's from the people, for the people, right? And I'm, I'm not here to give.
I'M not here to give endorsements. Right. But the, we, we crave that authenticity and I'm really glad that we're starting to see it more in the workplace.
[00:24:15] Speaker A: I, I, it's, it's, it's really, really important because what, what you're describing is, is bonding. Ver.
So the nervous system wants to bond. It wants to connect to other people in a very loving, empathetic, you know, community way, just like every animal species on the planet.
And when the nervous system can't get that, it will happily accept the imposter. And the imposter is incoherence.
So, so you start fueling anytime you start seeing hate rising to the top of, of any anything. It's, it's generally a sign of the friction of binding energy versus bonding energy.
And so I, again, I feel like your generation has a great chance of not falling victim to those forces because those forces are, are really strong today. You're being hit at it from, from every direction. So things like yoga, meditation, mental health, therapy, like all of those things are, are important. I mean the book talks about hydration.
[00:25:16] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:25:16] Speaker A: We're 70% water. So are plants and trees. So is the planet. No surprise, right?
If you look at the, the fascia of your body as the antenna and the nervous system as the wiring that fires that antenna with the third eye, that little pineal seed behind your eyes like that needs to be operating in self awareness, not sucked into self absorption.
So when you, when you are at that state of self awareness, the best thing you can do for your body is to hydrate because then you're, you're, you're standing taller because your cells are full. And that's the resonant. When you hear music, that's the vibration transferred through water. So if you hydrate your antenna, you'll start, you'll just feel your energy rising. And so I think you know the. I love seeing young people in my yoga studio and I'm teaching. I love it. I didn't even know, I couldn't even.
There's, I knew nothing about yoga when I was your age. Nothing.
So I see that too. A lot of young people getting into these things, so.
[00:26:15] Speaker B: Oh the.
Maybe I should try yoga if I got it. I, I feel like I already have like the joints and the ligaments of a 80 year old, but I'm 22, so like maybe I gotta get in that, that yoga studio. We'll see.
[00:26:30] Speaker A: Well, yeah, you seem to have a. So tell me, how do you, what is your pro. Everyone has something that they do they're moving. Meditation. It could be running, it could be gardening.
What's, what's yours?
[00:26:41] Speaker B: Well, for me, what really keeps me grounded, I'm a practicing Muslim. Right. And the I, I, I, I think it's interesting because the, when I, we talked about being authentic and I remember in my first, all my first roles, that was kind of something I would put in the very back of my identity whenever it be in the workplace. Because I thought this is the last thing people want to hear. Especially whenever I feel like people bring up faith topics nowadays. Sometimes people, there's a cringe that goes in the face and like, oh, is this guy trying to pedal something? Is this guy saying I'm wrong?
[00:27:12] Speaker A: Right.
[00:27:12] Speaker B: But it's, but it's almost like this safeguard that we put over ourselves when we're afraid to engage with something we're unfamiliar with. Right. I don't feel that same sense, like that same tightness in my chest when someone mentions yoga. I'm not thinking, oh, I don't do yoga. Does Kelly think I'm, I'm lazy? No, the right.
So in all my first roles, I kind of would push this to the back of my identity. It wouldn't be front of mind for myself, but especially recently over the past couple years I mentioned like, oh guys, I, I can't attend this event because I have X commitment or I, is there a place in this office where I could pray? Right. These kind of things or saying oh, I, I can't because of this dietary restriction and not pushing on people but letting them know this is my authentic self and people lean into that people really appreciate. I think I've had a plethora more conversations than I can count of people in the office that I've had almost no connection with before.
Bringing up that I'm practicing and a person of faith. Then all of a sudden it's like a switch where they're like they feel like they can share something that they felt very vulnerable about with me too, because it's personal. Right. And I think it's the most, I think it's the most important question we can ask ourselves because sometimes we can get lost in the corporate rat race and sometimes it's good to take a step back and really ask yourself, what am I doing this for?
Why does it matter? Yeah.
[00:28:41] Speaker A: What you did for those co workers, I'm going to give you a little piece of very deep insight. What you did is you communicated from your nervous system to theirs that you're safe to trust and to connect with because by you being. When you say authentic, I would say you're coherent. You're internally coherent. So I've been listening to a podcast called the Telepathy Tapes about non verbal autism and just they're like crown, they're born crown chakra fully left with, with connection to consciousness, telepathy. It's just amazing. And they get so frustrated with incoherent caregivers, parents, people in general.
And the way to think about that is like, if you're having a bad day, own it.
If you're Muslim, own it. Like, don't hide anything. And it made me, you know, I've been thinking lately, when I grew up, we did a lot of social events, family gatherings, like we, like community helped raise us.
And now we, we went to our front porches and then to our back porches and now we're barely on our back porches with privacy fences. We keep all of our, our stuff inside.
[00:29:52] Speaker B: Right.
[00:29:53] Speaker A: We're trading real connection with swipes and likes.
We're trading blue sky for blue screen and wondering why our nervous systems are frayed. You're being authentic because you have found your. So what? I help when I coach people if they want to get there. You got to figure out that 10 year old self again because that 10 year old child, you knew what offended you. You knew what triggered your curiosity. You knew everything about who you still are today. And when you find that person, you find your truth.
And once you start living your truth, you can't help but to love yourself because you're living your truth. And then you speak your truth and then, you know, you move up, up the chakra stages. So once you have that, the whole idea of being vulnerable is kind of silly. Right?
You're just being authentic. You're just being you. You're living your truth. So thank you, Dal, for, for sharing.
[00:30:45] Speaker B: That on this show because thank you.
[00:30:46] Speaker A: It's so, so important for, for, for anybody of any age listening to this that you gotta find that authentic self. And that starts with rediscovering that 10 year old self.
[00:30:58] Speaker B: Yeah. And, and that doesn't mean opening up the floodgates and being unregulated. Right. Sometimes people can get this misconstrued and think like, okay, being authentic means I'm gonna give, let everyone know exactly how I'm feeling at every single moment. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying there shouldn't be a, a mask that you put over or a second, a shade, new shade that you paid over ever. A new color that you paid over everything, right? But maybe it's. You don't share everything, right?
But you let them know what's actually there, right? And maybe a best way to describe that is if you're having a bad day at work, right? And if someone's unregulated, right. They, in the most extreme sense, right, they might be crying, they might be frustrated, they might be cursing X, Y and Z. You think of all the things we associate with extreme emotions, usually children, right?
And that is just not a good space for anyone if you're unregulated like that, right? I can't be productive. I can't really help you in a genuine way. But if you come to me and say, hey, yeah, I'm not, I'm not doing my, my best today, and I, it's, it's been a little hard, but we're, we're going to get through that. Even though you might deep down be feeling a lot worse than what you just told me, that lets me peep in, peep into the window and know, hey, it's, it's. I can knock, but I'm not going to. I'm not. I can't open that door right now.
[00:32:25] Speaker A: And when you are regulated like, like you, you, you are just what you just said, clearly you have a way of regulating yourself.
Everybody around you, their nervous system, they're not, may not be thinking that you. But they, they sense that they don't have, they don't have to pretend around you.
And that's an enzymatic leader. So an enzymatic leader is not somebody who provides the, the goals and the responsibilities. It's the person who understands who needs hydration, who needs rest, who needs encouragement, who's not afraid to ask the hard questions in a tough room, you know, so it's not about sharing. It's about just, again, living your truth.
Find that first.
[00:33:07] Speaker B: And I wish I knew that from a young, younger age.
I think it's. I'm not going to say this is wholly unique to my generation because I think every generation experienced this growing up where they felt like the goal in high school or middle school is to fit in as much as possible. Be as close to the norm as possible, but slightly cooler, right?
Slightly. You have that one thing. You're like, I'm a normal guy, but I'm also good at football. Or I'm a normal guy, but I know how to do a backflip. Okay, like me, that's pretty, I guess, comical. But I think people are still thinking, think that way today. They think, okay, I can be my normal office self, but I'm also going to let people know, okay, I fly fish every once in a while. Right.
The end. There's still. We're still kind of living in that world where we're trying so hard to put ourselves in this box because we're afraid of what the repercussions of sharing are or the repercussions of being unique in some way. Right. And people always, always respect you more when you are firm in your beliefs. Right. And what you are passionate about.
The.
For example, one of my favorite quotes is I not from Malcolm X. He said, if you stand for. If you stand for nothing, you fall for everything.
Right?
[00:34:27] Speaker A: Yeah, very true.
[00:34:28] Speaker B: People are very afraid now to disagree because at some point, right. If you list me down a whole plethora of your beliefs, whether that be going from faith to fitness to wellness.
The. Eventually you're going to land on something that I'm maybe going to disagree with. Right. And people are afraid of that moment of friction, like they're striking a match and they think, oh my God, this is gonna disintegrate the relationship. And I can wholeheartedly say that is almost certainly not the case. I was.
[00:34:58] Speaker A: And it's a great test of the relationship.
[00:35:00] Speaker B: Yes. Oh, 100.
The. I was a resident advisor in, in college. So they, you know, they say like the junior cops and people almost always the.
These people that moved in together that were maybe before the closest of friends or people that got along okay. By the end of the year, there was like some boiling disagreement where these people were at each other's throat. And very often it would be rooted in something that was so minor. It'd be like, oh, I don't like where they put the towel when. When I wake up. Or I don't like how early they. How late they turn off the lights when they go to bed. Right. Things that are such minor disagreements but were so fearful to share it and so fearful of that friction.
But I think it's. It's very healthy. And if there's anything I'd say to my. Any advice I'd have for myself, it's that.
Chase that friction, but don't, don't crave it. I can sometimes be too confrontational or be too happy to be to, I guess, push. Poke the bear. Right. And call out the thing that you said. It breaks group think so if there's any advice I'd have for myself, I'd say maybe slow it down a little, but know when to push.
[00:36:19] Speaker A: Yeah. Like. Like Find it, study it, but don't stick your hand in it too.
[00:36:23] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:36:25] Speaker A: It may take a finger off.
[00:36:26] Speaker B: Yeah. And like.
And not.
Not everything has to be a battle, and not every conversation needs to be won. And some. Maybe it's because I grew. My first jobs were all in sales, so I started thinking about every conversation as, like, wins and losses, which is not a healthy way to do it.
And that's something I've genuinely tried to work on. But I think the.
There's a.
The someone who's part of an organization called the Black Swan Associates. I believe he is a former, like, FBI hostage negotiator. I'm blanking on the name. I think Chris something, but he wrote a book on this topic, and he talks about how with everything, there is a.
With every positive, there is, like, a double negative or. And with every negative, there's a double positive.
So I. I'm just trying to point that out in myself because I don't want to seem a little too overconfident on this podcast, if someone's hearing this audio, they probably think, God, this guy's.
He has his head like three feet up. Is. I'm not gonna say where, but I just wanted to acknowledge that.
[00:37:41] Speaker A: Well, And. And so you remind me of something that I share because I. I feel like it's not talked about enough, which is, I guess, why my. Throughout my life, I've never been really religious. I just can't, in good faith, get blind faith. But I've always been increasingly spiritual. To the point now I. I'm very spiritual.
But I never liked the Ten Commandments. It's like rules. You follow these commandments.
The Yoga teaches us the yamas and niyamas. And the yamas are how you treat your other people, and the niyamas are how you treat yourself. So internal coherence, external coherence. And what you realize is those aren't goals of how to live your life. They're what you become when you become internally coherent and resonating at a higher frequency. You just become those things. And the one that I think is the hardest, that's the reason I'm leading up to it. The hardest one for me and the one that's most impactful for me is the same thing you just said. I want to help so much that sometimes I need to just not.
And so I always think of the yama called non stealing.
So me offering you advice that you're not asking for. I'm stealing your agency.
I'm secretly telling you I don't trust you to make your own decision.
Now I can sprinkle crumbs of wisdom around you and if you follow them, great. If not, you don't have to. It's your agency. So that's one where I always think by getting involved.
So I always, that's one of the ways that I, I keep myself.
[00:39:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:39:18] Speaker A: From getting too far in.
[00:39:19] Speaker B: So I wanted to share that with you. Yeah, no, I, I, I think that's, that, that's something I'm, I'm trying to work on and I appreciate you, you sharing that. Even the, I think there's in, in Islam, there's a, the prophet Muhammad, he said, he said the religion is advice. Right. In every way, shape or form. Every.
We, we are prone to give advice to everyone we.
We are around and there's always. With advice. There's some stipulations. Sometimes we think if I just tell someone, I tell, I tell you, Kelly, you know, Kelly, you got to change that cover for the background to, from white to green. I think it really will really speaks to me more. Right. That's, that's not necessarily always a good advice. That's maybe just you just sharing your opinions. Right.
And advice is, it always needs to be one rooted in the.
You should give advice expecting that they're not going to act on it. Right. And wholly happy with that because some.
[00:40:27] Speaker A: Maybe it's a question. I never thought about it. Maybe the best advice is the deeper question.
[00:40:32] Speaker B: Yeah. And sometimes you might give advice. Right. How many times a day do you get advice from like people on your phone or like social media or people in your office? And it's like a million different things. It's like, oh, you should, you should put pink sea salt on your, on your steak instead of regular salt. I was like, no, I think I like the white stuff. You know, I'll just the, and the. So there's. If you took every single piece of advice that came your way, and I mean accepted it, that and acted upon it, then you wouldn't be you. Right.
So I think firstly giving advice, knowing that or believing that it won't be acted on it and being okay with that, being comfortable with that. And then secondly, when you give advice, there's always a time and place and, and how you should deliver it. Right. Maybe it's not best. I, I'm not married and I've never had any kids that I know about.
But like I'm not married and I don't have any kids. Right. And if I see my coworker Tim Having struggles in with like his marriage. And Tim has a happy marriage.
Thank you for Tim. But the.
If I start giving him advice, Tim might think themselves. He was like, who is this guy? You know, he has no grounding. So we are not always the.
The best people for it. So realizing and actualizing that I think is always very important.
[00:41:57] Speaker A: And, and love. There's a common saying, right. Humans tend to. We all like, we all give better advice than we take.
Right. So advice is easy to give, really hard to internalize.
So I think, I think maybe we. We arrived at something really, really profound here. When you are giving advice always, again, what's the question you can trace? Right? Because the question means there has to be an answer. And that answer should come from the person, not the. Ask her of the question.
[00:42:27] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. And I think sometimes we have too much of a desire to have everyone live the life we're living when many of us aren't even happy to begin with. Right.
You want everyone to have the exact same opinions as you do or agree with you on every single topic when you just came at that conclusion a week ago as well.
[00:42:51] Speaker A: Right.
[00:42:52] Speaker B: So I think having a lot more empathy and realizing that we're.
We're all on this journey of trying to make ourselves better. Right. I think this life is a test, and the second you think you're not a part of it, then you might as well have just put. Wrote in a big F on that paper.
Right?
[00:43:14] Speaker A: Yep. And so, so fit geographically. We didn't. We didn't cover this yet. So you grew up in Columbus, Ohio, correct?
[00:43:21] Speaker B: No, I. Yeah, I'm originally, I was born Chicago, spent the first couple years of my life out there. And then my family, we moved to Columbus, Ohio, where I. I'd say the Columbus is where I. Where I grew up. And I always. People always ask, like, why do you. Why do you mention both? And I think it's because maybe I'm a little prideful about not being born from.
Born in Chicago, born in Illinois, but more that I'm prideful of not having being born and lived in the same place my whole life, because I think even I see it in Ohio. And that's not a shot to anyone who's like, grown up in the same town I.
Their whole life. But I think I can already be a prideful guy to begin with. And I think I see some people. You walk around Columbus, Ohio, and.
And people are like, oh, this is the best that it gets. And I was like, really? This is. I was like, do you even believe that. Is this really the best we can do? Like the, the no one says to themselves, like, oh, we got it, honey. I. Let's. Let's take the. Go to Columbus, Ohio. And like, what. You know that's. That's code word for I'm cheating on you and I want a divorce. Right. That's not.
If someone says they're like, oh, yeah, honey, I need to take a trip out to Columbus, Ohio. Right. They're like, who are you meeting there? Right. The.
It's not.
I'll. I'll stop being problematic, but it's. It's not the. A vacation town, right?
[00:44:43] Speaker A: No. And being in Cincinnati. No, it is not. Yeah.
[00:44:45] Speaker B: And by any means. And it's a wonderful place. The people there are terrific. Right?
[00:44:49] Speaker A: The people Club, something you and I know, both from Ohio. The most people not from Ohio do not realize is that we are a short, reasonable drive from so much.
[00:44:58] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. And I also say, like, I think that that short, reasonable drive always goes with the people as well. I think people. The people there are very reasonable. The. I like being in a. In a state that. We call it a swing state. Right. But I just think it means we can agree on nothing except to disagree. And I like that. I like that we can. If I. I told you a little about my background and it all started from being comfortable with disagreeing, comfortable with this friction.
And I don't know if that would have been my story if I grew up, say, in. I'm currently live in Seattle, Washington. Right. If I grew up in. The people here are very kind, accepting, and they.
And they share a whole plethora of terrific attributes.
But I don't know if I would be the same me if I was here. So I'm very much blessed and grateful to have grown up in. Around the wonderful people of Columbus.
Thank you, mom and dad.
[00:45:55] Speaker A: Yeah. No, there is something to that. Right? Yeah.
That really resonates with me that some of that friction actually help unlock your truth, your authenticity. Being comfortable in your own skin. And you carry that forward. You carry that forward through the rest of your career. You're going to be a very impactful organizer, manager, leader because it. It's gonna.
It'll. It'll radiate feet outward of your body because you're resonating because you don't have to deal with performative dissonance internally just to fit in. You're just being yourself. And I applaud you for that.
I knew there. I knew there were many reasons I wanted you on the show when I Think about just how much respect I have, how much excitement, how much hope I have with your generation. So there's something I forgot. So what led me down this path was a guy that I know. He teaches chemical engineering at Iowa State, and he used to be in industry. He went back into teaching, and he said several years ago, he asked his freshman chemistry class, you know, why are you here?
And he was surprised that more than half like, I want to save the world or I want to change the world.
So you ask it every year, and if anything, the percentage goes up.
[00:47:06] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:47:07] Speaker A: And I feel like, you know, this, this book and many others like this, this is your generation's guidebook.
Define your way of doing that part. Whatever that part is, you have a part in it. And it starts with understanding coherence and incoherence, because once you're internally coherent, you can't help but be externally coherent.
[00:47:29] Speaker B: So.
[00:47:32] Speaker A: So you mentioned fly fishing. Do you really fly fish?
[00:47:34] Speaker B: No. No, no, no.
[00:47:36] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:47:38] Speaker B: For that, I tell you, I have a whole list of hobbies that I would love to pick up, but I feel like that list is much long. Everyone's list is much longer than their time, Right? Or maybe I'm. I'll say there, in a perfect world, there is enough time to accomplish almost every single one of your goals that you could. You possibly could set out for a day. But my issue is how do I organize that time and how do I spend it meaningfully? So I'm trying to work on that. I'm trying to work on that balance. I. I just played ever since I got out here. I was like, I'm playing volleyball. I'm join.
I'm going to go find a group of people and do that, and do that with. I never played volleyball back in Columbus or in Cincinnat who were into college. And it took me driving directly from work, still wearing my jeans, and meeting my friend at the park with some random group of strangers and playing volleyball for five minutes to say, okay, I broke that habit. I played volleyball for the first time. Now I'll start it again. Reminds me of. In college, I used. The University of Cincinnati has this beautiful indoor pool and a hot tub in their facilities. And I used to pass by looking out the window every day when I'd come home from class and I look at that hot tub and tell myself, I'm gonna go in there. I'm gonna go in there. Right until my. Until my senior year, four years later, the very first day of class, I said, I'm getting in that hot Tub to break. I have to break this habit. And then I think I maybe spent, I grew gills probably by the end of my senior year. I was in there so often. Right.
Yeah. I'm like, sometimes you have to break that habit. And for me, maybe it's, I, I gotta get, get out there and start fish. Spend force myself to go fishing one time and then it'll become a habit. God knows. Yeah.
[00:49:25] Speaker A: Or I mean there's so much to do out there with nature. So. Oh man, there's. I don't think you ever go grow tired. You're in a place people do go to vacation because there's so much to do.
[00:49:36] Speaker B: Oh my God. The most visited place in America flight for flights was Seattle or Washington.
And the most visited place in the world for flying was Vancouver, Canada.
So all right. In this vicinity, all this part of the country, I think it's a very, very beautiful. I'm very happy with the move and I think the people here have been really terrific. I, I described it to you before as the, it's almost been refreshing because I grew up in a space where there were a lot of circles that didn't really grow. Right. People, people were very kind to you. But it was difficult to get integrated with a group that you are maybe were maybe new to at times. And there's always pockets when you find that people like my, you don't need many friends. Right. You only need a couple people. I, I'm trying to remember the name of the activist, but she said don't ever think for a moment that small groups of people, a small group of people can't change the world because they will forever be the only people who ever have or ever can.
I don't know if it was Sigourner Truth or some abolitionist. I'm, I'm blanking on the name, but someone will probably tell you in the comments of this video.
[00:51:00] Speaker A: I, I, I couldn't agree more. And, and you did pick a great, very progressive melting pot spirited area. And, and boy, if you have not been to Vancouver yet, you need to go. It's, it's simply amazing.
[00:51:15] Speaker B: Oh it's, oh, it's beautiful. Oh my Lord. I, I went out there for a day trip a couple weeks back with some friends and I, I was truly amazed. I think it, it blew all my expectations out the water, the food was terrific, the people were friendly and I, I felt like almost like I was in Europe. Like yeah, yeah. Other la.
Yeah.
A big juxtaposition because right outside of that comparing that's Like Washington. Right. The.
And especially rural Washington. Like, these are like commute, like very like small communities where like people, there's not a lot of people coming in and out.
But then you go to, right to Vancouver and it's like, oh my God, it's, am I in Greece? Am I in Spain? Where am I? Or am I in Poland? But it's, it's truly a terrific part of the, part of the world. I hope to make another trip out there soon.
[00:52:11] Speaker A: And in the world of, you know, how we met with sustainability. Right. The state of Washington, the city of Seattle, gold standard. Been doing it forever. So if anyone says it can't work.
[00:52:22] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:52:22] Speaker A: They've been proving it works for a long time and some, some of the best models to adopt. So. So in the field you chose, boy, you're in a, you're in a good place.
[00:52:31] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, 100%. I, I moved out here because of the one, because of the climate and the, but also because of the, the energy policy. God, I never thought that'd be a decision in like, where I would move somewhere. But the, generally, the, the energy policy here is like a big part of why I moved out here. And they're doing a lot of things that make it, I guess, force people to push that needle and move us forward to a more sustainable, efficient and safer world for all of us, especially from the energy space, which is the field I work in. I work in energy and H vac, so couldn't be happier with the move.
[00:53:09] Speaker A: Love it. I'm so glad to hear that. So thank you so much, dad, for being on the show.
Boy, I thank you.
[00:53:15] Speaker B: I didn't know where it was gonna.
[00:53:17] Speaker A: Go, but I loved every second.
[00:53:18] Speaker B: Oh, I apologize. Yours are probably on fire. Probably talk them right off.
[00:53:22] Speaker A: No, this is great. Like, I can't wait to listen to this one because there's so much great stuff in it.
[00:53:28] Speaker B: So I'm fearful. I feel there's.
Maybe it's there, maybe it's just an internal thing, but I always, I always cringe when I, when I hear myself. I was like, oh, is this the. Yeah. I was like, oh, you could always be so much more poignant with. I could always be so much more poignant or could always accumulate. Have articulated that so much better. So I think more than anything, this is going to be a great learning experience for me listening to this back. So thank you for the opportunity.
[00:53:50] Speaker A: Look, I, I say your, your age up until my mid-30s, I, I still to this day, I don't care to listen to myself.
And then I tell you, reading this out loud for the audio version was so awkward at first. I got used to it, obviously. But reading your own book out loud is a hard thing too. So.
[00:54:11] Speaker B: No. And thank you. I just got mine in the mail here a couple days ago. I'm ready to dive right into it. So it's. It's going to be an exciting read.
[00:54:18] Speaker A: Sounds good. Appreciate it.
And like we end every show, bond soft and build strong. Thank you, Dal.
[00:54:25] Speaker B: Thank you, Deli. Thanks for tuning in to Roots to Fruits. If this conversation resonated, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and share it with someone who's ready to grow with us. Let's build something lasting together.
