Growing Young Ideas into World-Changing Ideas - Coeylen Barry + Kai Barry

10:58PM May 16, 2023

Speakers:

Julie Confer

Becky Endicott

Jonathan McCoy

Kai Barry

Coeylen Barry

Keywords:

people

story

work

talk

fellowship

community

idea

vision

podcast

mira

give

person

fellows

happen

building

shift

cohort

nonprofit

reframe

sibling

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Hey, I'm John.

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, philanthropist, world changers and rabid fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.

So let's get started.

Becky, what's happening?

You know, everybody says that we have a sibling rivalries. Without the rivalry piece. We're actually talking to siblings today. And I'm so excited. No,

I love this dynamic that we get to have this conversation today with our first sibling's on the podcast. And we're talking about like, really, how do we revolutionize the world with ideas. And if if you want to just get lost in a trap, like fall down the the website of the MIRA fellowship, we are so delighted to be talking to Colin, who we're going to call CO and Kai berry today, they are siblings. And they are pouring into this work about how to translate what's in our heads, what's those dreams that are written on our heart, and putting them into action to surround them and community and to really go and shape the world that we want to live in. And I'll say you guys, I was so moved by the work that you're doing because we were led to you too, by meeting Travis Nene. And he came on the podcast, goodness, probably a couple of years ago. And we've traveled together. And he just saw the world differently because of how he centered ethical mission and ethical storytelling into his work. And I know we found kinship and y'all today. So I'm excited to get to know y'all. But I wanna give a little bit of a bio before I kick it to y'all. So Kobe, she's the director of curriculum at the MIRA fellowship. And she has over 10 years of experience working in innovative educational programming. She, you know, really casually received her master's degree in curriculum and Teacher Education at Stanford. And she joined the founding team of African Leadership Academy as the manager of curriculum development. So later on down the let me say that later on, she launched the ALA in South Africa, where she joined the K to 12 lab at Stanford Institute of Design, and help teacher training and curriculum development. In addition to that work, she works with a variety of world class organizations. She's done extensive educational consulting with schools, both locally and internationally. You know, that's a heartbeat. Education is a huge heartbeat of our podcast here. But she's passionate about the creative process. She spent years refining curriculum and supporting people with a vision, who want to bring it into reality to affect change. And again, the work that I see of the mirror fellowship is surrounding and helping people like myself that have these dreamy ideas, like how to talk about them, and how to translate them into actual definable strategy. So love that you're pouring into this go. And then Kai, I want to talk about your incredible story. He is passionate about story, and its ability to motivate us. He believes that a great idea only motivates one person. But to motivate a larger group, you have to tell a great story. So again, kinship here in the storytelling vibes, he has more than 10 years of experience being a writer, producer, you know, directing award winning films that kickoff and best picture at the Austin Film Festival and all sorts of things like that. But his work has received praise from everything from the HuffPost Entertainment Weekly to variety to New York Times. And so just an incredible storyteller, incredible thinker. And y'all, I'm having all the impostor syndrome having you on the podcast today. Welcome to the We Are For Good podcast CO and Kai. so delighted to have you here.

Thank you. We're so excited to be here.

Yeah. Thank you. It's wonderful to be here.

Well, what an honor. I mean, we love the mission of mirrors, just that we believe that the future really is in the minds and hearts of people, and just waiting to get brought out. So tell us a little bit of your journey and your story, what led you kind of to want to pour into this work. And so I'll start with code, you know, thread a little bit of your experience and what led you to here today.

Yeah. Well, I might actually pass it to Kai to start with. We want to take you way back to when we were kids. Love it.

Oh, that's what we were paying for. Yeah,

yeah. I think we have sort of there's two origin stories. For us. One is the sort of sibling and one is the mirror story. Uncle will tell you the mirror story but the sibling story is just a it's just, it's interesting. I mean, I feel like we could have been very Conflict, siblings, you know, always fighting about things. But really, we never were, I don't know, I'm not exactly sure why maybe it was going through divorce, or maybe it was, whatever it was, it felt like we were always kind of on each other's team. And one story I'll share is this, that I think kind of sets us up each in terms of what we do in the mirror fellowship was hours and hours of playing with Matchbox cars, on our patio, in Menlo Park. And I would draw things in chalk, and CO would populate them essentially, where it's like, oh, this person needs to go to the pet store now. Okay, I'll go and make a pet store. Algo make parking for the pet store, I'll go do this. And then she drives over there. And whoever was dropping needed to get the pets, supplies, I didn't know it was going. But there was this kind of like, give and take of, okay, I'll have a little bit of a vision of how this can be built out. She'll, she populates it with this community side of things. And then it kind of keeps building and it builds the next thing, and pretty soon, the entire patio is just covered in shocking cars. And that was not the only thing that we would do that with. But that's just one story that

I feel like it's exactly what y'all are doing now.

Iterating What about UCO? Yeah,

so fast forward, my husband and I lost our first daughter during childbirth. And my brother was there for the whole thing. Like he was kind of he was right, right, right there. And I have this distinct memory of sitting on my couch and being in this, like, how do I go on like, what, what do I do from here, and Chi kind of sitting there and doing the perfect balance of I'm going to be here with you let you be upset all those things, and then trying to put a little light at the end of the tunnel. And he brought up the fact that Stanford was founded in honor of their son who they lost. And in that moment, I felt myself shift to like, okay, we can do something good with this, we can somehow make something positive out of this truly terrible situation. And so we started to build the idea of putting posters on the wall and that sort of design thinking way that we do things, and came up with the idea for the merit fellowship, really grounded in the idea of do it now. But we don't know how long life is. So make things happen now. And then kind of harkening back to our time on the in the chalk, sandbox of our patio, take some time to play, take some time to understand what it is to hopefully get to the best possible solution, as opposed to just driving forward with whatever your first thoughts are. And that was where we started. But the other piece that I feel like I wasn't as conscious of when we started, but that has become very central is the importance of community throughout the entire process. So losing a child, anyone who has a kid or can imagine it is is the worst possible thing. But our family was amazing. Our friends were made, we had this kind of support through the entire process that made me realize we can do really hard things as people if we have the right support around us. So that's kind of where the Genesis story of the marrow fellowship came from.

Gosh, you guys, I mean, one my heartfelt condolences to you CO and I, thank you so much for sharing what is truly, probably the most painful part of your story. And I feel so much love. And what you just said right there. And I feel it between you two. I mean, we were joking before we hit the record button, like who gave who the new keys and it's like no, that didn't exist in Chi and COEs relationship, because there's, there's been like you've raft each other in your community right there like from the beginning. And I have to tell you, I have a nine year old daughter, who we call it pretend that I'm using my air quotes the way that she storytellers. And we do it with chalk. And we do it with stuffed animals. And we do it with, you know, whatever she has right there in the moment. And, and I think that there's something very precious and empowering and creative about allowing someone to go through that process. And I think the thing that's so special about Mira is the activation piece, and we talk about one person at shifts on this podcast all the time, like how do you make a 1% shift to actually get unstuck, to try something to do innovation. And so I want you to talk to the audience about the mirror Fellowship, which to me is so extraordinarily disruptive and wonderful and you talk about throughout history, monumental change has come from simple shifts in perspective. Talk about this as some tone setting for this conversation and just share for or listeners, like, how do you share the history and the overview of this mission?

Well, I think yeah, I'm not sure exactly where the thought comes from. I mean, I believe it very much. But the, it's looking back and really seeing like, there's a shift at some point in how we think about things that then leads to people saying, Oh, I can do something I can contribute there. I can see this in a different way. And if you think of like how much, you know, John Muir and his contemporaries, going and looking at a piece of land going and looking at Yosemite going and looking at a beautiful place, and saying, Well, this shirt, you could chop down all these trees, that's one thing you could do, but also, we could preserve it. And that like, just those little things, that how much that kind of a shift, and a reframe, for how we look at the world can change what it is right, like oil existed for, as always existed, right? It's always been there. It bubbled out of the creeks and people used to do fertile for, for any kind of ceremonies or other sorts of things. And then at some point, someone started refining it and turned it into the thing that has changed the entire world. Good or bad? I don't know. But it's, it's that moment, it's how can I see this problem that I'm looking at in a different way that I think then unlocks, you know, so much possibility. And that's kind of where we want to give people a chance to spend a little bit of time in and think, Wait, is there another way to come at this? Is there some other way that I can see this problem that takes all of the things that I'm frustrated and just steps aside? You know, just go over? He said, we'd say that a lot to people are like, Oh, they're running into a wall? Like, can you just go around the wall, we may not have to climb it in. So that's, that's kind of where that comes from, is like, is there a way that we can set it up for people so that they understand that a lot of that thinking that happens at the beginning, is actually very, very worthwhile. And it's not just about like, first hit the, you know, hit the ground, running as fast as you can, and just productivity, productivity, productivity.

And CO I mean, this is just, I don't want people to get lost in the heaviness of it, because this is a mindset shift. And we talk often, maybe almost every podcast about the power of mindset shifts and habits and thinking differently. I mean, I absolutely love this explanation. And CO I'd love for you to just go deeper and give us kind of the structure of Mira and the history and how it came to be what it is today and how you're helping people shift those mindsets into action that is actually changing the world.

Yeah, absolutely. So we, our curriculum is basically, we start by having people take some time to just we call it the reframe, to take time to just dig into what am I really doing. And then we move into prototyping and community building. And then we end with storytelling. So the idea is, you get to reframe your idea, understand it, you get to get it out into the world and kind of both build your own belief in it and refine it, and then you start to share it with a broader world. But to ground it a bit more in that reframe piece, I think this is this is the piece that we're continuing to work on make making it better within our Well, I guess all of it, we're continuing to work on making it better. But it's the time that when we say that, like play in the sandbox, just see what's out there, understand, try to not bang your head against that wall, you can walk around, we give our fellows a number of different kinds of prompts to go out and talk to people understand what they need, we give, we encourage them to do an analogous immersion where they hopefully learn something totally different. And I want to give you one example actually have of what that looks like. So one of our fellows, Lynn came into the fellowship with very smart accountant actuary, who had been working in financial wellness, trying to support people with their financial planning, but doing it from a very sort of corporate perspective and felt like the incentives just weren't aligned. So her vision was how do you do it in a way that is more centered on the people. But she came in very much with a vision of like, okay, what are the tools they need? What are the resources, how do we help them plan, et cetera. And she started out with the interviewing process, and in the interviewing process, she just kept saying, like, wow, people are really uncomfortable talking about money, this is hard to even get to the place of understanding what they need. And then so she so that insight of like, money is hard to talk about, which we all know, but you know, it's not necessarily at the forefront, led her to think who else talks about hard things. And then and so then she went to a couple of Alcoholics Anonymous meetings to see what they did, how do they talk about hard things? And that was a huge shift for her essentially she said, Oh, if I if this is about financial wellness, this is about comfort with money and comfort talking about money. So based on her experience there she could created this very simple one hour introduction to the what she called the money health collective, which is kind of a, a, a financial wellness organization that just gets people comfortable talking. So they go through and they talk to somebody relatively anonymously, they'd go through some fun activities. And I've gotten to do it myself, I'm somebody who is not comfortable talking about money. And I definitely shared things with whoever the random person was on the My partner in a way that I do not. But what she's seen is that simple conversation, that one hour conversation, like she did some pre and post polling, and people said they were at least 25% more comfortable talking about money, and making money decisions based on just the simple shift. So that's just one example of how the kind of the reframe piece can be so so powerful,

John, I can see your face and you are obsessed with this right now.

I just I love when I understand, I knew there is a kinship with you all from just kind of immersing in your work, but then I hear you put words to it. And I'm like, Okay, this is why, you know, this is asking the bigger, better questions, this is not sticking with the status quo. Because I just believe there's so much opportunity, and I think you y'all champion that so well, too. So we kind of live in this place, though, in the nonprofit space, that there's a lot of scarcity, you know, I mean, we spent our careers in it. And, you know, we prided ourselves that we tried to think outside of the box often and try to like not get sucked into kind of that place. But I know a lot of organizations want to change. I mean, we've met them, we've been on the road at speaking and people come up to us, and they want to be they have these really incredible ideas. So I want you to speak to them, specifically. So for organizations and individuals that want to incubate these world changing ideas that are on their heads and hearts. What are some of the key factors that contribute to like doing that successfully?

I think I mean, it's really creating a space for it. More than anything, I think that that's the absolute thing that we've found from working with people is that, that having that chance to step back just for a moment, and think about it and and then exploring in a, I think we all have that. You mentioned imposter syndrome or something. It's the beginning, I think when we've seen that over and over and over again, everyone seems to feel this imposter syndrome of like, well, I, it couldn't be me who has this idea couldn't be me who makes this thing happen. And I think that what we found is just making as much space for you to be the person or for the fellow to be the person or for the organization to be the person that can come up with this and can think into these spaces. And, and to, to not feel self conscious about that. Like it's not, if you want to go and solve gun control, and just go and ask questions, and really, like be dumb about it, but be intentional about it. That's okay, that's you have to do that to get to whatever the big change is going to be. And so I think that that's what I mean, that's why we've organized the curriculum, to have a big chunk of that time for people to spend there. And then to prototype it, take it, get out other people talking about it, like get comfortable with it, and then really tell that story as well as you possibly can at the end so that other people can join it. And I think it's just it's really, it's, it's not treating it as if it's something else, like the big problems can also be solved. I guess, to answer your question.

I think the one thing I just add to that too, is it is the like, it's the one foot one step in front of the next in front of the next like, I think of the mirror fellowship and it it wouldn't have gotten launched if it wasn't for me having vision then chi having vision and then we have a Director of Operations, Sarah, who just was like, okay, cool. So then this is what's going to happen. And if I if either of us had to do it on our own, any of the three of us it just wouldn't have happened. But the but they just continuing to plod forward because the other thing that I see so often is it's intimidating when you like, you know, our vision is like every single person in the world realizes they have agency and they have ideas and they can change the world. And when you try to do that, on a day to day basis, nothing feels like it's enough. But if you realize if you keep the vision there and you just keep doing like just keep taking steps. You know we have we'll have coaching calls or someone calls in they're like, Oh, we haven't really done anything. And we just come up with Okay, well what's the next little thing that you can do? Because that's the little steps do build even though in the moment sometimes they feel like nothing at all.

Okay, this is resonating with me so much and I honestly feel like John was this for us an episode just to get it all out there get me anything. I'm really glad because We Are For Good is feeling like we're having an existential like growth in this conversation because I think it's so much our story and an entrepreneur story and I think it's so much a Mission Center. story, I just, I want to go back to what you said about just this woman trying to give financial literacy and comfort in it. That is a simple conversation, there was an awakening, she took the steps, she noticed the problem, she socialized them. And then they just started getting activated. John, it reminds me of a conversation we just had a couple of weeks ago with Mark Howard, we're talking about the mass incarceration, you know, issue that's facing the United States right now. And Mark has built this incredible organization called the Frederick Douglass project for justice. And it's literally bringing everyday humans into prisons, to just listen and hear stories about people who are incarcerated. And he says, once we hear story, and not looking at their rap sheet, or the charges brought against them, but we hear the story, humanity unfolds their empathy unfolds, curiosity and building bridges. And that's exactly what this is right here. And I love your design thinking I can actually see like the little post, it's behind chi, I can actually see you guys are iterating. Right now, which is so brilliant. And I do think that sometimes, like the blocks that people have, in this work to take an AI vision to the next step, the next step, they're not always logistical. So talk to us about some of the role mindsets play in this type of systems level thinking and how we can activate them.

Oh, yeah, I would say mindset is 95%.

Right. And it's so weird that we don't even talk about this in training, or we don't have emotional, you know, competency training or EQ training. And it's like, oh, my gosh, that is, that's most of the enchilada right here. We always have a taco reference at some point every other episode we love. So please dive in.

Well, yeah, so I mean, some of it goes back to the imposter syndrome, thing that you all talk about, or that kind of mentioned that you've mentioned, like, it's amazing, we have so many high performing experts, who are used to being good at things and they're used to like not being the expert in what they're doing. And by the very nature of the fact that you have decided to pursue an idea that nobody's ever done before, that could be world changing, you are embarking on something that is going to be hard, and you're not going to be good at it. You know, we have one woman who Naomi, who is a MIT graduate, like she's run her own environmental consulting firm for 20 years, she's done amazing stuff. And she has this vision for how to turn industrial wastes into essentially raw materials for construction. And the number of times she's been I don't know, if I'm the right person for it. And, you know, for us from like, watching it, where like, literally, there's maybe two other people in the world who are as qualified to do this as you. But it's just but it's natural. And especially when you've had that feeling of feeling so comfortable and like your expertise is clear. And then suddenly, you're not. So we we do a lot around mindset stuff as part of why prototyping so central for us, we talk a lot about, you know, it doesn't need to be perfect. To move forward. One of our cohorts came up with the phrase, do it afraid, as a sort of slogan for themselves of like, you know, you're not going to get to a place where you feel comfortable and feel 100% confident when you're doing something that's so new. So helping people shift to that. And then with the prototyping, too, it's, it's shifting from like, you know, a lot of people look at prototyping as a validation as a form of saying, like, is my idea Good. So you want to, when you start it, you want to already have the right idea if you're going for validation. And we try to shift the idea of prototyping is about what am I going to learn? How, how can I learn from this, and sometimes the prototypes that feel like the biggest flops are actually the most successful because of the amount of learning that happens. So trying to just get that into the day to day is a huge piece of it. Is there anything you would add to that guy?

Yeah, I mean, I would add that Yeah, I agree with all I think that the in terms of in terms of the mindsets, I've also seen a lot like we do a lot we focus a lot on storytelling, which I haven't seen as many other fellowships focus on, and we use it not just as Oh, how do you tell the story or how do you make a pitch, but it's actually a design lever in terms of it's part of the circular process of okay, prototype is that testers and people now, what's the story I can tell and does it connect with people? And then if it doesn't, or you learn something from that you can go right back around and start prototyping or change the idea, but keep going around that circle and including the story A piece of it. And so many people, including Naomi, who CO was talking about, once she got to that story piece, and she felt like she could, she spent the time to iterate and figure out what the right story was to tell and how to how she could communicate it. Her confidence completely shifted, and suddenly it became hers. And I think that, rather than being like story is a performance story is let me tell you what's happening. It's, it's me finding my story for this, that communicates and that people can actually join with. And I think that's, that's been a lot of fun, just to see how much it gets people out of the way out of their own way, once they feel like they have a story they can tell them. And that gets defined. So I think that really helped them find something.

I love how casually you just said that as if that wasn't the biggest wisdom bomb dropped, because story is identity. And it's precious to us. And when it's woven within our own story, it's so personal. And I think this, this is such a rich conversation, in terms of how we're allowing people to tell their story, how we're giving dignity, with their words, and the way that they want that story told. And I just think the sharing piece is so fascinating, because I think the story coming back and saying something didn't work is insightful, it is not, it is not a failure. It is we figured out a way not to do this, and we learn some insights that are gonna give us to the answer. And I think, thank you, COVID, for just releasing us from this perfection that we feel like we're chasing and nonprofit and that things have to be beautiful and buttoned up. Because our work is not buttoned up. This is messy. solving the world's problems is extremely messy. And we've got to talk about it. And guess what we see ourselves invulnerability, and an authenticity and inhumanity and I just think your ability to take these solutions and keep storytelling them is the way that you're going to gather more ideas, more people, more curiosity, more insight, the and I just want to keep saying more and more and more and more, etc, etc. So I'm loving every bit of this, John, go ahead.

I mean, I want to affirm that too. It's got my head spinning, that you really called out the power of learning through the failure. And I think as an entrepreneur, like we've had to learn, we've had to learn that in real time, too. But I think, you know, I talk to a lot of nonprofits that will always challenge them, what are your values? You know, we first want them to pencil out what are the values that are on the plaques on the wall, and then we say, like, what is really the essence of that of why you show up to try to get under belly of those. And I think if your value a lot of people value education and learning. But if you ask the bigger question, that means you're really great with failing because you know, it's gonna be the greatest education. And it's like, what a way to flip the script, you know, to your board, or however you want to talk about this, if we're really living our values, it means we're going to pour in and learn faster by being by failing and being okay with that sometimes, too. So you're just kind of igniting a lot of ideas in my head. But let me let me bring us back to this. Y'all center, these cohorts that y'all put together in community, and you believe in the power of not just working with one individual translating their vision to this incredible plan. But you do it literally, like, at least on your site looks like a cabin in the woods, like working on these cohorts together. And it just warms my heart to thought of like, we're different. We have different experiences, we look different. We came from different backgrounds, but we are pulling for each other in this. And so I want to talk about the power of community what talk about the role that that has? It's our one of our core values, and then how have you seen that really awaken and create more impact in your fellows that go through the program?

Yeah, absolutely. So you know, as I said, at the beginning, with our founding story, the concept of with you have a strong community, you can do hard things, is really, really central to what we do. And when we bring together a cohort, we really intentionally we bring we have pretty small cohorts. And we we bring together people who have really different backgrounds intentionally so that people can ask the stupid question, people can be vulnerable, because, you know, if you're an MIT engineer, and I, you know, have a background in what's a good example, you know, I have a background in science, or I'm sorry, I have a background in community development. I'm not going to understand what you're saying. So it, it helps people feel comfortable being vulnerable and saying, I don't get it. And it also makes it feel more okay. They're nobodies trying to perform because there's not that person across the room here like wow, that person I know that person and they're so smart, and I better be better showed them how smart I am. So we start out with the cohort like building a really strong cohort they meet every other week in one way or another as a cohort and We weave in a lot of personal stuff, you know, just getting to know each other and, and then they also get to just really be vulnerable with their ideas and put them out there and get people to ask questions and move them in an interesting way. We, one of the things we really try to do is take away any feeling of we try to do everything we can to get rid of the imposter syndrome to get rid of the feeling of they need to perform, because because for to be truly creative, you have to be really vulnerable. And so we kind of we think of it as kind of like incubation within their little cohort. And then, as we've grown, we bring in past fellows to to kind of give them the guidance of like, oh, you're feeling this way, don't worry, I felt the same way when I was at your point in the process. So they have that really safe because it's good. And then we start to sort of bring it out. So with the prototyping and community building piece, it's okay, now you need to start building the community around your idea. And that's often the huge shift, you know, when I have an idea in my head, I can walk away from it at any point. But as soon as I've gotten other community members excited, suddenly, now it's got its own wings, and I have to sort of jump on board. And then we sort of wrap in terms of the the core base camp year of fellowship with the storytelling piece, which is that taking your idea to a broader community and making more people feel a part of it. So that piece is just very, very central to how we do things.

It's just so empowering. And it's in, it's so organic, and it really resonates with me, I've got a public relations background, you know, when I think about focus groups, you never put more than eight to 12 people in a group because there's too many voices, there's too much noise, but there is safety in these smaller groups to be vulnerable. And I gosh, guys, I just commend you for what you have built. It is so beautiful, it is so human. It honestly reminds me John, like before we launch, we're for good. For those that don't know, like, we did like a month's worth of warming. And I would say just socializing our dream, and we did not at all, target our target audience. We just talked to people we loved. And it was truly like sending my Spanish teacher you know, Senora Stafford, a message on Facebook and saying, This is a dream that I have. This is what we think it can do. Would you be so kind is if you see something online, listen to an episode, share it with someone tag somebody that you think would get something out of this. And all of a sudden, Senora Stafford is emotionally invested. And we're for good, though she has no connection to nonprofit to social impact. But she does have a connection to good. And so this concept of finding your community, I just want to like put a flag on the ground for people. It doesn't have to be the people that you think will be interested, it could be the people who are rooting for you. And I think that is how we grow community and we grow things that we care about because we start with the people who care about us. And it is not lost on me at all. This mera fellowship started because ko cared about chi and chi cared about Ko and you all cared about Mira, and Mira is legacy. And this gives me so much goosebumps, to think about her joy and her light and what she is inspired and how she changes the world every day, by existing and being your daughter code. This is a beautiful thing that you have put into the world. So we got to talk a little bit about story because we believe in its power. And I want to start with you maybe chi and just we would love to hear from both of you a story of philanthropy, or a moment in philanthropy where you felt changed as a human being. And it stuck with you for a while Kaiser one that stands out to you.

I mean, there was for one of our fellows, she does a lot of CO design. And she worked with in communities, finding out what the important issues are to them, and how they how they can kind of come back and what can happen. You know, because because people who haven't been spoken to, or haven't been taken seriously or don't feel they've been taken seriously, are actually finding a place where they can be heard. And it's incredible, incredible work. And, and two years ago, she started doing work with some veterans and just asking them what they wanted to work on. And of course, veteran suicide came up as an incredibly important thing in every every one of their lives. And, and seeing the power like and I said, Hey, if you're going to talk to these people, and you're talking about about the hardest things, ask them what's like, read some court record something. Let me see what what's going on with you with, you know, how do they respond? Because that's what she was doing. She was having such a hard time. Getting people to know how important this work was the people that will go through the work would love it. And then other people would say, I don't know, you made someone else feel better, is that a thing? And then once she got it down and started telling the story, and even for me to see it, seeing these veterans who have been listened to, and who really brought out what what was important to them, and someone heard it, and seeing their faces and seeing how much it changed. And just putting those clips together, it's like, has one it changed how much people appreciated her, and to change how much her work could get out into the world? And so I think that I'm not enough that quite counts as philanthropy 100%. To me, it. Yeah, it's just, it's being able to see that and tell that story and let people connect emotionally around that.

Oh, so powerful. What about Yuko?

So my story actually goes back to the very early first year of marriage fellowship, when it was still a pile of posters on a while. And we did our first kind of fundraising push. And at this point, it was mostly to friends and family. And, you know, a lot of people were really excited to help out because of what we've gone through, et cetera. But we got one donation from a friend of mine who I had met, maybe, like, less than a year ago, so not not an old friend at all. And with it, she the donation came in, not a huge donation, just a little donation. But it said, so excited to continue to support this throughout the years. And I had this moment of because, you know, we were early enough in the process that I was like, is this actually going to, I really want this to happen, but this is actually going to happen. And I had this moment of like, oh, wow, if Jackie thinks this is gonna last for throughout the years, then I better figure out a way to make this last through throughout the years. So it was just to like, you know, the point of if one person and it can be it doesn't even she's not somebody who's an expert in the field, she's not, there's nothing that she's just a person who believed in what in our vision and how much it then impacted me was huge.

What a beautiful story, you know, and it's like, we don't want to rob people of that joy, you know, if they don't pull up in our query, when we pull them in our list, these people that just want to surround and support our work. What a cool story for both of y'all. Thank you. So y'all listen to the pod, you know, we start to wind down and ask about your one good thing. So I want to give you space to just share your wisdom you've given me so much like I truly am gonna go back and just celebrate this episode and just sit with it. But let's start with you, Kai, what's one good piece of advice or a habit or a mantra you would leave with our community today?

I would say go back to play. Like it all comes from play. I think that we really like this, like big world changing kind of work. It's not something that's just a good idea. It's something that you actually care about. And so if you can't figure out why you care about it, and how to communicate that, then no one's going to join you. And if you can't play your way there, it's not really your there's just work. It's just work to get done. And so I think, I would say, Make sure not to forget about play. It's important, even if it's a serious big

work time to get out the chalk and Matchbox cars, John, to get back out there with our kids, respectively. What about Yuko? Well, first, I'd

say building on that to like, don't be afraid of I mean, you joke about the chocolate Matchbox cars. But we literally last year, our goal for each summit was how many more? How do we bring more toys into the process because we we do these remote summits where we send people a box of stuff that they're going to play with while we're you know, on Zoom and, and bringing the physical, tangible toys, I think actually makes it a lot easier for people to let go and play if you're playing with a small, colorful person or you're playing with silly putty or whatever it is it actually, we spend so much time up in our brains. And there is we have so many other senses and so many other things that can bring so much to it. So actually getting your hands doing things actually creating things, even if they are you know, we send prototyping materials where people build silly little things, but they can inspire huge things. So just don't be afraid to give yourself that time. And use that use the actual playful toys, play playful music actually create the the physical things that help you move in that way.

They've centered us back on joy, basically, John and it's like National. Yes, I just I feel very heartfelt after this conversation. I'm so proud to know you all. In this work and in this world. i I just want more people to find you. So if people are interested in applying for the MIRA fellowship, if they want to connect with you, tell him tell our listeners where they can go and how they can connect with each of you, Kyle start with you.

We're not the best at it.

We're working on it.

We could be better at telling our story.

Instagram, got it.

And Facebook,

Probably Instagram. Yeah,

We do have stuff. But we, if you're an expert in social media, and you want to reach out to us,

Hey, we got a lot of those in this community, go go find Co and Kai, we want more of these stories told Gosh, it's amazing.

I mean, thank you guys so much. What an incredible talk today I feel seen. And so, so many things are spiraling in my head. Because I can't wait for our community and your latest window. I just want to plug this because I do think this episode is dropping soon. Your applications open until June 1. So if you're listening to this at the initial release, get in there a huge opportunity to get to spend time with not just chi and CO but the incredible people that surround this and the fellows that have been part of it. So what an honor to be in community with you all. Thanks for coming on the show today.

Appreciate you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you so much. This is wonderful.

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