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Hey, I'm Jon.
And I'm Becky.
And this is the We Are For Good podcast.
Nonprofits are faced with more challenges to accomplish their missions and the growing pressure to do more, raise more and be more for the causes that improve our world.
We're here to learn with you from some of the best in the industry, bringing the most innovative ideas, inspirational stories, all to create an impact uprising.
So welcome to the good community, we're nonprofit professionals, philanthropists, world changers and rabid fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.
So let's get started.
We're just so honored to be here and to have the space and we really wanted to hit mental health right between the eyes because the reality is, I don't think we were okay before the pandemic. And the in we know that the pandemic really heightened the what are anxiety, compassion fatigue and these kinds of things. And we have curated the most amazing humans, I feel like we have hyped them up, we need to introduce them now. Our first panelist is a Nneka Allen, CFRE. She is the principal and founder of the Empathy Agency. She is in Toronto and I oh my gosh, we're holding it up. She has the most amazing book that is a must read, for all development professionals called collecting courage. That is a really macro level view of how it is to be a black fundraiser in this industry. And I love the empathy that's embedded there. Thank you and Nneka, we're so glad that you're here. Aila Malik, our queen of leadership and evolved team building is out of San Francisco. And she is the founder and CEO of Venture Leadership Consulting and the way that she brings teams together in the way that she sees the one person is so human and amazing. We're going to Tennessee with our darling friend Eleanor Wells, who is a triple threat. She is not only a nurse, and a counselor, but she is an amazing human. And so she is going to break down all of the compassion fatigue burnout that we're going to talk about today. And we love having your insight here. And last but certainly not least, our favorite Haitian friend, Jean Pierre-Louis with capracare out in New York City, who is also running the most amazing nonprofit. He's the executive director and founder of capracare that is doing the very difficult and hard work on the front lines of Haiti out in Fond fried. So we are going to have a dynamic conversation. Thank you all for being here. And I want to kick it, I think first to Eleanor, we want to kind of set the stage and define what we're talking about in terms of specifically compassion fatigue and burnout. Could you define this a little bit Eleanor, because there there is a very big distinction between compassion fatigue, and burnout. And we'd love any stats that you could wrap around it as well.
First of all, what an honor it is to be on this panel. And I'm so excited to see all of you all I've listened to all your podcasts, you are amazing individuals. And it is such a pleasure to be on this panel with you. And I'm so, so excited to be a part. And so to start talking about burnout and compassion fatigue, it's really boring to give a definition and signs and symptoms. So I'm going to tell a story. So when I was in coaching school, I needed a lot of coaching hours. And so I approached a nonprofit that I had been on the board of I had been a volunteer, I've actually been an employee of the organization and asked them if I could coach some of their staff around the topic of burnout, because that's just what I'm so interested in. So it's very interesting that they connected me to their admissions team. And this is an organization that serves women dealing with drug addiction. And so the admissions team is the front line, the answering the phone call to those who are seeking this kind of treatment. So what I found was a group of basically on the whole young women, most of them were right out of college, mission driven, so excited to be involved with this kind of work and they just loved what they did. At first and I saw then months later, and these young women were tired, they were worn out, they sat at their desk all day long, they never took a break. They all talked about that they weren't gaining weight, that their relationships were suffering because they got home. And all they wanted to do was veg out on Netflix and sit on the couch. And so there was a real sense that something was not right in this organization with this group of women. And the more I dug in, though, I also heard things like, you don't know the stories that I listen to all day long. Because what they were listening to were stories, either of someone who knew they were at the bottom and needed treatment, or a husband, or a mother, or a sister, or a best friend that was calling and sharing these unbelievable stories of what was happening to their loved one. So here's the difference. Burn out with those situations with those women where they were overworked, underpaid, they felt like they couldn't take a break. They sat through lunch, because if they got away from the phone, they would come back and have too much to do. So burnout is more workload, organizational type of situations. But these women also were suffering from compassion, fatigue, because they were listening to stories all day long, that were tragic and hard. And they didn't, their bodies didn't really understand, Oh, that's not my story. I'm just hearing those stories all day long. And what they were really experiencing was secondary trauma. So they were starting exhibiting the signs of PTSD, which can look very similar to burnout. But the etiology is different because it's coming from trauma, not their own trauma, but hearing that trauma all day long. So when you look at nonprofits, we see this in so many different ways, depending on what the mission is, and what the, you know, what their their mission is all for. They can. People can be hearing trauma all day long. And they don't know what to do with it. They don't know how to compartmentalize it, their bodies are reacting to it. But then they're also in really difficult work situations. So you're you're dealing with the burnout, and the compassion fatigue. So in I know, you'd also asked about statistics, it's really hard to wrap your arms around that right now. The story I just told was pre pandemic. But we know that since the pandemic, the rates of burnout and compassion fatigue have soared. We're seeing it in nonprofit, we're seeing it in schools, we're seeing it in ministry, we're seeing it in, of course, the medical field, I've read things as much as 50%, I've seen things upwards to 60 to 70%. We really can't wrap our arms around it. But what we do know is that it's here, it's growing in there, it's something that we really must address.
Yeah, I think your acknowledgment of that just being a bystander can be trauma on a different level, because I think we focus on just the direct, but there's all this indirect happening at so many levels, does somebody else want to jump in with your experience that's on the panel.
I'll just add one piece. So just for background for the audience, I am now a consultant, I spent about 14, 15 years in the juvenile justice space, going in and out of incarcerated facilities working with young people. And now for the last 15 months have been I now am a CEO for hire. And I'd come into organizations and do turnaround artistry. And the last organization that I've been the CEO of for 15 months is in the foster care space. So they're always Human Services direct line. And in the pandemic, one of the other interesting pieces was our leadership team began to express that at the leadership level at the C suite or the senior director level, you only actually get the problem situations and we had a lot of them, right people who were isolated. We had overdose deaths. We had all kinds of things in our programs. And so what rises to us is the liabilities and the crises. And what our senior leadership team expressed was that because we were not in the office, we didn't also get the happy feelings of knowing when we had client successes. So frontline was still getting clients success. They were also getting all the hard times, but actually upper management so to speak, though I hate that term were only getting the difficult situations and so we started getting really intentional All about lifting up clients success stories via email and staff meetings that were virtual, because people were having far higher rates of compassion fatigue, because all they were seeing was the trauma and not not the celebration. So I just wanted to add that piece.
Holy smokes Isla that was so wise and, and heartbreaking. And I think it's really indicative of what we're discovering. Because once we start to pick up this thread, and the nonprofit sector, I mean, it just starts to unravel just simply by virtue of asking the question of how are you doing today. And now, I would love it if you have results, because we would love to know how our audience is doing today. It's, it's really the beginning of a journey. And so I am so glad to see that everybody's really doing fairly well today. But you know, we see you all who are not doing well, if you're being if we're being honest, you're doing poorly, we understand that. And I think this is a space in a table where it's like, it's okay to not be okay, right now, and to name that and claim that. And so, you know, I would love to kind of transition to Nneka and I want to talk about, there's a lot of converging dynamics at play for how we got here, both historically and with the current reality of what we're facing right now. So two driving forces in the last 18 months clearly had been a global pandemic, but just even this unrest with social justice. And so mica has this amazing book that we've referenced. And that is not us. We're not getting no royalties from selling amigos book, we just it is so powerful, because these are our friends who are in the sector, who are going back to their trauma, and they're talking about what it meant to be other eyes are pushed down in the sector. And I think about having that even pre pandemic pre racial injustice. Can you talk a little bit about what you're seeing in your sector because we really want to shine a light and Nika on what mental health is doing to our friends of color and those that are not at the table?
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. So good to be with you, Jon and Becky, I just want to say I'm joining you from Abbotsford BC. So in the summer I, I made a move from Ontario to British Columbia, just for anybody out there who knows me that they would say she's not in Toronto. And I also want to point out that it's not just my book. It is is an anthology and a collection of stories first person narratives of my sisters and brothers in, in fundraising, both in Canada and the United States. So I want to share that, that it is it was a collective effort. Yeah, it I love this idea of looking at mental health and mental illness from a pre COVID Post COVID perspective, because I think all of the things that Elanor and Aila shared are true and were true for us. Pre COVID Racism was also true for us pre COVID. And so COVID is just this other layer on top. And so I think it's, you know, really important to first say, you know, racism is a mental health issue, because it causes trauma. Right? And trauma paints a direct line to mental illness, if it's not taken seriously. You know, past trauma is predominantly mentioned as the reason that people experienced mental health conditions today. And so, racism is an obvious form of that. And it's just the tip of the iceberg. You know, the way racism expresses itself overtly. It's only the tip of the iceberg. There's this covert current, constantly, perpetually happening. And I think the stories and collecting courage really lay those realities bear for the readers. Everyday people of color are experiencing subtle traumas colorblindness. Alien in my own land. Nneka, where are you from? I'm from Canada. No, no. Where are your parents from? They're from Canada, too. And where are their parents from? Well, they're from Canada, too. So the long story is my parent, my family's been in North America for nearly 450 years. We descend from American slavery. And so answering that question over and over and over again is like this revalidate revalidating of who you are and why you're here and why are you taking up this space? The ascription of intelligence. Well, you you speak really well. Oh, you're so articulate, right criminality clutching purses, you know, black people are walking by or, you know, feeling a sense of fears. You know, as black people get close the assumption that black people are only the beneficiaries. In the nonprofit sector, this is really prevalent, that we have nothing to contribute. The assumption is that we are only takers. That we can't be donors, that we're not philanthropists. We survived predominantly white spaces where our contributions are ignored, discounted. And I found that the impact of racism for me personally has been humiliating, dehumanizing, painful, illness inducing both mental and physical. You know, we're visible, you know, people see our blackness. So we can't hide that. And then as I was saying, at the top, you know, you layer on the stress of COVID. You know, I think about the first few months of the pandemic, and I was still working full time in a fundraising role, and doing my consulting part time. And in that, in the first four months, I had lost 14 people. 14 people in my world died. And none of my colleagues had a similar experience, nobody asked me about my experience. Nobody asked, well, what is how is COVID impacting you, or your family or your community so there was nobody to relate to the experience that I was having of COVID at that time. So in many experiences, you know, I have found pre and post COVID, these realities have caused us to flee or try to escape our organizations for our own well being.
I mean, and Nneka every time you talk, and you share. One, I feel my heart gets crushed at the realities of what are friends of color, having to face every single day and fundraising to I always want to thank you for sharing as vulnerably as you do, because I realize it's a trauma for you to come back and have to share this each time. I want to thank you for sharing. And I just I think it gives a different lens, and I can see the comments. Shivani I really love your comments about you know, how many times have I've been told, Oh, you speak English really well, I mean, just those kinds of comments that are so cutting and biting, that we've got to rewire our brains to think about how painful they are. And I love and Nneka that your company is called the empathy agency. Because empathy to me is the great catalyst for, you know, pouring into our mental health and taking care of ourselves. And so yeah, I can see this as resonating with people that are in the audience. And I just think even as hard as these topics are, guys, we have got to dive into them. Because cognitive diversity and understanding the role that someone else has played in the way that their lived experience has informed their life is going to grow our hearts, it's going to grow our minds. It allows us to come into community and kind of unite. So I would love for anybody else on the panel who wants to riff on that or jump in, please jump in.
I'm kind of speechless. Just thank you for you know, your vulnerability, what you've had to say. It's just so important that we, we understand and we connect, and that just thank you. I just appreciate where you're coming from. And it's, it's so, so important. You know, it makes me think too, that we have a way that we help a process that we help people deal with compassion fatigue and burnout and the very first step is grieve. And we don't give ourselves time to grieve. And it can be grieving of loss of expectation, it can be grieving of, it can be grieving of so many things, right that like my life hasn't gone like I wanted it to or I thought it was gonna go this way or I had this great mission that I really wanted to start something and it's not working like I thought and hearing your story that there's just there's opportunity and need to grieve. We've got to do that. And I know Becky and Jon, y'all talk about and I heard it on all of your podcasts, just that community, we need to grieve as a community, we need to bind together and work together to get through this. This is not a one step one, person process. In fact, Becky and Jon know the word self care kind of makes me, you know twitch because about that, yeah, it's just not self, you know, I mean, it's so much more than working by ourselves, we have got to bond together, we've got to help each other. We've got to grieve these places together. It's just super, super important. So thank you, I really appreciate it.
Thank you for saying that, Eleanor. And if I could just add that you're absolutely right about grief, and how it is frequently discounted in our society and the important role that it actually plays in healing. In order to get to grieve, we have to tell the truth.
That's right.
During the your explanation of racism, and past trauma, actually, you know, just hearing that this makes me feel emotional dystrophy. And the reason why is because I know when I came here, I was nine years old. So that was my first experience coming to America, and that's not what my expectation was. And um Becky, and Jon knows my story on why I started Catholic, it was a personal reason, because of the kids teasing me calling me Haitian, to go back to Haiti where I come from. And I was like, wow, you know, then I took it as a challenge to go help make where I come from a better place for those who are there. But then he wanted some more articles on a deeper level right now, when you're looking at, you know, the Haitians who are at the border, Del Rio, Texas, the Haitian people as a whole 11 million people, you know, who have who have poor, very courageous, either wood resilient all the time, which makes spending about that. But they have always been great people, great contributors to our work. And racism has played a major part in their current blights, for where even the people in Haiti cannot even live in their own country because of the external racism that actually impacts them on, you know, looking at mental health and that how that impacts our whole country, individually individual's, it goes straight to the babies as being born today. You know, explains that just last week, this lady, you know, you have a massive of people going from, from one continent, leaving from Haiti going around of America to come to the United States traveling to 14 countries in the woods and jungles, you know, in planes boat, walking several months, just to make it here and to get to a border with you getting that kind of treatment where you saw people on horses whipping them, you know, trying to send them back where they come from. And now you have the country experiencing the people now experiencing what they are experiencing right now with the whole COVID state, their President been assassinated. Last week, one of our person in the community lost everything to doing Hurricane Matthew in 2016, talking about past trauma, and now having to lose everything again, in this earthquake, and she's a single mom, I mean, everything she was trying to kill herself to lose hope. So when you look at mental health and past trauma and what we currently have, and the role that individuals play in that those who lack empathy, understanding, it really hurts as a human being, because we all human being. So to hear your story about collecting, I want to read the book to go a little deeper by collecting courage because courage were my favorite word. In fact, capracare organizations the definition of it is called an act of courage. So we have to be more courageous right now us you know, the world has two types of people. Plain and simple. You either or good and a few good. Whatever you believe in the past, you're probably closer to God. And if you're not good, then you believe it then that means you are poorly in the theme of evil so you pipe it to the devil. So we are here who you know, in the team for good, you really have to bend to get, and really kind of support those who are going through it. And right now there is no better time for us to really band together and support each other around the problems that we all want.
I just wanted to add a couple of two cents, I love everything you all are saying I need to thank you for keeping it real. And bringing up the consciousness just took it to me took it up to get down whatever the depth level is, you did it really quickly and beautifully and gracefully. I think that grieving though human condition, absolutely. And such a release is, is in a sense, a luxury. It's in a sense a privilege sometimes, because when you are in the midst of survival, it's difficult to make space for grief to then have the energy to continue to thrive and survive. I don't know that that's clinically correct. I'm just saying that I think for many folks that are in the human condition experience, there's a toggle between the energy to breathe and really be be be vulnerable and being in in process with the hurt, versus having to arm up and gear up and continue on. And so what I wanted to bring it into is, I think one of the things so powerful Jean Pierre about hope, I think hope is a, an incredible superpower, for wellness and for resilience. And sometimes to get hope or to have that place where you can be vulnerable and unmasked and real and grieve. You have to have somebody who can relate and understand the systemic experience or vicarious, compounded vicarious trauma that somebody is going through. And so, you know, the buzzword pre pandemic, early on in the sector has been culturally competent services. And I will just say that, that we are in sore need of culturally competent services across the sector, because of systemic injustice. Many folks of color have not been able to be in conditions in which it is easy to get degrees around licensed clinical therapy or doctors or different kinds of degrees. And so what we notice in the sector is that the old guard, a lot of the practitioners and mental health practitioners and experts are not of color. And we have our young people and our constituents that are of color and are carrying around these backpacks of weight, whether vicarious or direct, and or whether again, and again, Jean Pierre, to your point of the hurricane, and earthquake and pandemic, I mean, and, and we have folks that say, you know, I, I don't find the hope in this clinical relationship, because I got to see someone to be someone like I got, I have to have that proximate feeling of understanding and relation. And so I want to lift up that like, the stuff we're talking about. I think and the whole sectors talking about the movements talking about is real, it's heavy, it's not it's not a hashtag, it's not a moment it is it is it is going to be a long time long load of work. And and the things that we used to toss around is buzzwords like culturally competent services needs to come back with more weight and force in this, in this context, we have to give folks, people that they can relate to that are also able to clinically help create vulnerable spaces and safe spaces for grief, for have a chance to breathe and diffuse so that they can get up and arm up and excel an uplift out of the oppression that they've been feeling for generations and generations of generations. So I just wanted to add that I think, you know, we have to also take a look at the sectoral language and the wisdom that we've had in the sector, but we've forgotten over over or maybe we never had the wisdom and in the deep way that we have it now but we need to capitalize on it and really understand what does that mean. So what has to be true for cultural competence services? What were in the pipeline, do we need to create access and opportunity such that we can have the kinds of services that people need now? So I'll just I'll leave it at that.
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Holy smokes. I mean, I knew our panelists were smart, but the synergy of what you guys are bringing and the empathy and you know, I will just share, I shared my personal mental health breakdown on the podcast and what a nervous breakdown looks like in the modern day. And I had that with privilege. You know, and I just think that when we think about that through the lens, something that we've learned and you touched on it Aila is that you cannot begin to heal until you feel safe. And so for all of you who are listening right now and tuning in my my question to you is how are you making your organization safe? How are you making your employees feel safe, that they can talk to you about their conditions. And so I know we have a poll, and Aila you are bringing up, we can't just talk about it, we got to get active. And that's where the great catalyst of change is gonna happen in our sector. So now, I know we have another poll. And it's about do you all know, if you have access to mental health resources or benefits in your organization, we would love to know how many of you actually have access to that, because this could be a major hole that we have in our sector. So please take that poll, we would love to hear. And that might inform that we need to do a lot more, which that would be my guess, Jon, that we need to do a lot more.
Yeah, absolutely. Aila specifically, you know, she comes in and helps organizations at times of serious transition. And I just think that has to be so compounded right now, you know, the the organization's you're walking into. And so could you kind of walk us through how do you counsel leaders, because we're talking about the individual person today. And I think the humanity of each of the stories that have come up, speak to your individual journey, but as a leader, and I know, we're all leaders on one level, too. But you're trying to manage your own, but you're also trying to shepherd your team and family and the layers JPL you get teams, you know, globally that you're shepherding to, how do you walk people through that? You know, how do you point them in a direction? And how do you prioritize any of that I'm going to kick it to you Aila to riff and anybody can jump in.
And then I'll kick it back to I want to hear what JPL has to say about it, too. I think it's, um, gosh, you know, I think that there's, there's a lot of things that come to mind. So the first one that I mentioned, I think reminding yourself having a very intense and honest conversation with yourself of what is your highest and greatest purpose and joy in this moment, and that may be serving the mission that you serve. And in that case, how do you get proximate to your mission? How do you get reminded about the value that you hold with your mission with everything else that we hold? And the things that come around that don't feel as as clearly aligned? Right. So I think it's about your own personal conversation and personal alignment, at least that's that was something I have used as a tool. And then if I'm, if I'm doubling down on that alignment, it's knowing that it's a long haul, I firmly believe that I one of the things that I often counsel leaders to do is is is dissect where their validation is coming from, is your validation coming from? And no judgement about that, by the way, there's not a judgment. It's not a judgment exercise. It's an exercise of awakening it for many years, my validation came from feeling important and being too busy to I didn't know that it was a secret. It was seductive validation, but I was so busy that I had to work on the weekends. And I just I just had to work I had to work on my validation was that if I leave this organization is going to fold and nobody will be here to do the work, or my validation is that, you know, I am going to be the best leader that this organization has ever had. And I'm going to be the most loved and beloved CEO, or whatever your validation structure is, know it, interact with it and decide if that's what you want. So for me mental wellness in my I have a sprinting culture. So I sprint with organizations and their pace, and then I have to rest and take on another mission and the missions that are, you know, homelessness and foster care. They're very, they're very difficult, you know, very direct missions. And in my own validation structure, I have to remember that for me validation is can the can the mission get completed, beyond the current cast of characters in the seats, the missions that our organizations have are, like, needed for the world. Social justice, like I believe in equity and justice, I believe in that utopian vision where we can take equity as a group as for granted that it just exists, because that's how we are now that I believe that that's what drives me. And so and so getting there is not going to actually happen in my lifetime, I would love for it to. But so it's not about me, it's about how it is that I can contribute to this mission, and leave it and pass it in a way that it will sustain until the work is done. And that may be multiple generations. And so that's so esoteric, but what I what I mean is when you have that perspective, you're begin to create less importance on the stresses of the day, and give yourself the pace and the breadth that you need for the long haul, that the organization, it's okay for the organization to fail, because guess what the organization gets to fix it. And then the organization will actually succeed in its mission. So that discomfort becomes an opportunity of growth in a real sense. And it allows some freedom for me to just breathe and be me and say, I don't feel like getting up out of bed, I just need to garden and not talk, pick up my phone at all, and just be in dirt. I need to drive and sit in my car by myself or be in the bathroom. Like whatever your style of, of inward rejuvenation is, then then it's that and so I just I think it's about having perspective and perspective comes, in my opinion from deep soul searching and asking some tough questions of yourself.
Can I just jump in and just piggyback on on that, because I love so much of about what you just shared? My answer is we need to become people focused. And I think that's what you're getting to. Not just focused on the people we serve. So this is you know, from the perspective of, you know, a fundraiser, you know, and so not just the people we serve, but also the people who help us serve those people. So everyone, and I believe that we must route ourselves in a love ethic. Empathy is the precursor to love. But I think if we aim to route ourselves in a love ethic, which presupposes that everyone has the right to be free to live full and to live well. I think that changes how we lead how we live, it changes everything. Bell Hooks, one of my favorites. She believes that in order to bring a love ethic into every dimension of our lives, our society would need to embrace change. Domination cannot exist in any social situation where I love ethic prevails. So the more we relinquish domination and control in our lives and in our organizations, as leaders, way we think and the way we behave, I believe we ultimately decolonize ourselves. And the more we become aligned with love, and like, isn't that what leadership is about? Like, isn't leadership like care of people.
That's what philantropy should be about.
Oh my gosh. I am drinking every bit of this Kool Aid. I mean, this is why we are in the sector. And I mean, I kind of want to kick it to you JPL we call Jean Pierre-Louis. He has a long name. So we call him JPL. I mean, I would love just as we're having this discussion about leadership. I mean, you run this organization, by which I know when the last hurricane hit, there were days where you couldn't even account for all of your staff members. And we were texting back and forth and we were trying to you know, discern the most basic forms of is everybody. Okay, talk to us just a little bit about how you're seeing this through the lens of them. Mental health that is almost reinstituted in a re traumatized in this country of which you are trying to serve. health care, education, mental health services. Yeah, break it down for us.
You know, with us, the name capracare means an act of courage. So when we bring somebody in, we go through the whole history of why is that so? Because capracare is functioning in a country where the daily daily living conditions is hard, is not just the past few months, not just the past year has not just been the past two years, it's been hard since I was born. I mean, I have lived it in a way to experience them, and a lot of patients are, but it's hard. So when we bring somebody in, and we go through the whole, analyzing, talking with them, and letting them feel like this place, here is different, this is something that you could come in here and be your authentic self. And if you have reservation that we need to discuss that. So from the very point of interview, we'll let you be safe. So therefore, you can, you know, share your own vulnerability without judgment. So for our staff that we deal with this whole thing, this whole crisis that we're going through now is hope, hope, for us is a moral obligation for the entire organization, for me, and for the staff. So one thing that we always discuss is to never lose hope, we're not in the position to lose hope, because we have to continue to go through what we go through knowing that there will always be, you know, light at the end of the tunnel, because we always say, you know, it gets darker before it gets light, we always say you know, there will be a rainbow after after the rain days, the sunshine will come through. So that that kind of ways, you know, we continuously drill that and share that with our team. But I also let them be themselves. So if they need a day off, there is no pressure to respond. When the earthquake happened. It happened on a Saturday. Full programs Monday through Friday, Saturday's only youth programming hours, our staff were going through the same thing everybody else was going through experiencing the same earthquake, them too was being injured, like everyone else was being injured, their houses was being crushed or crumble, like everybody's has to work. But yet, I didn't have to call them to respond, they naturally find their way. So they find a way to come back to our headquarters to respond, nurses who had their own injuries coming, doctors who had their own house crushed, come in and respond. So what we have always done is we give them that space where hey, if you need a day, take it if you need more than a day, take it because costly something is happened. So they are in full position of them being able to respond. But I also do not put the pressure of external folks like I could have easily go to Haiti. Now I believe were we to have gone to Haiti, you have plenty people call up, hey, are we going we should go let's. I said no. Let them respond. Because they've been preparing for these things every year, there's different things that they are able to do this by themselves, the minute we go in, you now take the power away from them. And now they feel like they are under light. And there is a different pressure. And they already going through some stuff that we don't need to add the extra pressure. So I literally sit back in my biggest role was to just try to if I go in, I'm gonna say you on first you want to second you take third, we don't want it this way, that's not gonna be good for me. In that moment, they have to be able to be themselves in this react the way they know that they should be react, and they were already doing that. So why go in that and this work that is not the appropriate time to go and give the directions. So that's what we that's sort of the way I lead. So that so now if it's good, they can own it. If it's bad, they can own it. But we always say it's okay if it's bad, because the only way it could be bad is by reaching, trying to figure things out. If you just close your arm, it can't be bad because blame thing. But if you do hope that you're doing things, then we're going to be okay. So that's one way and then of course, we also give the time to enjoy themselves. We have to make time for play. So in during this traumatic time you cannot be all about the work and forget that we are still human beings. What is it that you do that you enjoy? Is it some good food? Let's have some good food. Some music? Let's have some music. Just to get that time together. I have videos where to stop or go into play. same way they know, when they get at the car, you gotta be working three hours to provide medical service. And yet they are singing together, singing together to build the to build their, I would say spirit, because they know what they're going to be experiencing is going to be tough. So therefore the build the extra reserve to be able to go through. That's how
The mental image you've just dropped of hope and of singing together makes me think of community. And I know because we've spent time with each of you on the screen, each of you deeply believe in the power of community. And I want to transition and kind of move and sprint towards some hope as we spend our last 10 minutes together. But Nneka, would you kind of talk about the power of community in what it means for healing what it means for moving and finding our purpose together. And I'll let you jump off here.
I, you know, I could talk for an hour on community but but let me just say, here is where I want to honor my ancestors and my elders, because I'm here because of their courage and their love, which is a guiding light for my life. And I'm not unique. That is true in my entire community. You know, they're the ones that taught me there was no other way to live than in community and it's always outside of community, where I find greater trouble, trouble that surpasses my ability to cope. And so, I have been the benefactor of arms wide open. When I find myself outside of community, come on, baby, come on back, come on back. Right, because it's in community where we grieve, and we love and we fight, we strive and we heal and we survive. That's where we live, it's where we die.
Eleanor, I would love for you to take this question as well, just even purely from a therapy standpoint about how this physically, emotionally and mentally is the thing that can help bring us back to center because isolation is, is probably the way that people feel themselves being pulled. And that is the way that we can never heal. So can you talk us through that through the lens of your medical and coaching expertise?
Yeah, I've just, you know, it's not surprising that we need community because we're, we were created for that. I mean, it's part of our DNA. And if we try to do it alone, I mean, you put a baby in a crib, and they have no interaction with another human being that baby's gonna die, even if that baby's been fed, because that baby needs that interaction with others. So it's, it's in our physical, it's in our makeup. It's it's absolutely what we need. And it's just critical. And you know, as I've been listening to all of you all, man, you're just amazing people. I keep thinking that, I wonder in five years, or 10 years, are we going to look back at the pandemic as a gift. Now, I don't mean it as a gift, because we've lost people that we've loved. I don't mean it as a gift, because it's tearing our country apart. I don't mean it that way. But we are having to rethink really just about everything. And organizations are having to rethink everything. And I'm wondering if, because of all this that has come out, are C suites, can I be more vulnerable? Are our employers going to be more honest, employees be more honest? Are we going to look to the person at the desk next to us and say, I'm really having a hard time? Are we not going to feel guilty about taking a day off? I love what, Jean Pierre, you were saying about your people just taking time off, wouldn't we love a culture that allow that not to be abused, but to be used because we need that. So I'm, I hope, it comes to hope, right? That we out of all of this, we're gonna see, we can't do it alone. We have to have each other. We were built for community, we've got to get rid or rid of these layers where management can't be with employees and employees can't be with management and it gets all you know, let's break some of those barriers down. Because that's where the mental health that's where the well being that's where the hope that's where the growth is going to come from. And we need each other to do that. It's just essential. It's absolutely essential. So we have a saying in our family that when we go on a trip, every great crisis makes a good story. Because if you don't have a crisis, you just say, Oh, we went to the beach, you know, but if you went to the beach, and he lost something, and it makes a great story, right, that's just kind of the way we've always done. I hope that maybe we can look at this time in our lives in the in our world, and look at it as, okay, we've got some really good stories that have come out of this. Because I know in my own life, I hit some, I hit some places I'd never been before, and I had to seek out help and do some things I had, I was, uh, you know, I can take care of myself, couldn't do it this year, and had to seek out some help. That's been good. It's been uncovering some things in my own life that I've not dealt with before. That's healthy. That's, that's very, very powerful. So anyway, I could get on a soapbox about this. But I really, I really do think that we can use this time to learn and to grow and to be better. And, and that's my hope is that we can do that.
No, I would love to see the results of that last poll, I want to know how our friends are doing and how well they're resourced with their benefits, access to benefits. Wow. This is really interesting. Actually, this gives me a lot of hope. The numbers are stronger than I thought they would be. So thank you, everyone for pouring into that. Aila, JPL, any last thoughts about community?
I'll say one super fast I loved when JPL Jean, Jean Pierre-Louis said, talked about kind of giving the community back the power of that moment, right. That's so important. It's such an it's such a like gives me chills, right, knowing when you get to control, you know, you control or need to lead, knowing when you influence, knowing when you witness and knowing when you you step back is such a such a superpower. So the thing I wanted to leave us with in the community, this is more from youth development framework, but I think it's so applicable I make as a parent, it's like a mandate. And as a as a as a human it's a mandate is what makes a really beautiful framework for community is Does everybody have somebody that they consider a mentor, and that doesn't have to be a formal mentor relationship, I consider this panel, my mentors, you, all of you like I am going to figure out a way to be in touch, right? Whether it's podcast or whether it's listening or reading. Maya Angelou is a mentor from the pages right. So it doesn't matter. But where are you finding your your mentorship and inspiration? Where's your community of peers? So who are the people that you can be to Eleanor's point very safe and vulnerable so that you have those moments to grieve? Or tell the story? And then who are you able to influence and bring up? You know, so where are you a mentor to someone else? Or do you have a mentee, or a whole slew of mentees whether formal or informal? And so I urge us, you know, maybe all of us to carry the beacon of identify where are your mentors? Where are your peers? And where are your mentees that are giving you power and strength. And I did an exercise just last thing I'll say is I did an exercise where I did that for myself. And I just said I'm gonna let the people that I think are mentors know, the ones that are living. And I sent them just postcards and said, You're my honorary mentor, you probably don't know what you don't have to do much at all. But just let me be around you here and there. And they were like so jazzed and they started like putting, you know, and so it's also nice to just or you're my, you're my honorary mentee that I just want to I just want to see good things for you. And I want to lift you up and amplify your strengths. Can you let me do that and be a cheerleader? Right, like so. I invite you to think of who those are for you. And if you don't have it, build it. And if you haven't made it and see what see what unfolds for you.
That's great.
Okay, we had scheduled one good thing, I feel like we're everybody's kind of getting their final thought in here. I'm loving this and Nneka, JPL you want to jump in?
Well, I think for me, what I've learned in the past two years now is that, you know, we grow with us, naturally we grow when we feel uncomfortable, right? Seeking to overcome challenges. But one thing I'm definitely looking to do even more now is, I definitely believe that, yes, we grow in communities, not in isolation. So, you know, I'm part of several groups that believes in that and we are committing ourselves to definitely not move away from that. Try to come together. So when we have issues, challenges and values that we can share with each other and look for support from an event. Because the more that we can leave that open be by yourself have just like Nneka says, we can find ourselves in deep troubles, and not be able to have someone else to come rescue us and support us.
So much gratitude. Thank you so much. And you all have been on the podcast and please go listen to their episodes because we get to go a little bit futher.
It'll blow your minds
They are listed on that mental health resources page, so you can get to know them and connect with all of them.
Their organizations, too. So thank you guys.
What an honor.
Jon, and Becky, thank you so much. It's always like heartwarming and heart filling to be in rooms with you guys. I know all of us feel that way. But just.
Absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you.
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