April 6, 2020 • 55 mins
Jerry Colonna is fondly known as the CEO whisperer. He coaches some of the world's biggest entrepreneurs - like the former CEO of Etsy and the folks who started Gimlet Media. He helps business leaders navigate uncertainty and chaos. At a time when the coronavirus crisis is devastating the economy and millions of people's lives have been changed forever, the future is nothing but uncertain. Jerry's whole ethos is centered around the concept: better humans make better leaders. And there's never been a more critical time for humanity or leadership. Jerry is the expert. His message is simple: Show up.
Show Notes
- Mostly Human: Silicon Valley’s Secret
- Comfortable With Uncertainty - a book by Pema Chödrön
- Old Maps No Longer Work - a poem by Joyce Rupp
- Reboot Peer Circles: Tips for Launching Your Own Support Group
- Polyvagal Theory
- Bodhisattva
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
First Contact with Lori Siegel is a production of Dot
Dot Dot Media and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
It's extraordinary. What's happening. I'm talking to you thousands of
employees at a company, all at the same time, and
I'm saying effectively the same thing, which is, this is
a time for pilgrims to travel by the stars. And
what are the stars? The stars are our values, our beliefs,
(00:35):
our dreams, our wishes, our aspirations. I am fired up
right now because if we miss this opportunity, I will
be heartwork. And the opportunity here is to finally put
people ahead of profit. It's finally to put people on
(00:56):
the planet ahead of profit.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
We're living in a pretty scary moment right now. The
coronavirus is devastating the economy. Unemployment is skyrocketing, millions of
people's lives have been changed forever, and the future is
nothing but uncertain as we face this virus and the
destruction that's come along with it. I thought we'd all
(01:32):
benefit from hearing from Jerry Colonna. He is one of
my favorite people in tech and well maybe in life.
Jerry helps business leaders navigate uncertainty and chaos. He's known
fondly as the CEO whisper. Now I can attest to
this personally because I've worked with him on my business.
He will make you cry. Jerry is the CEO coach
(01:56):
to some of the world's biggest entrepreneurs, like the former
CEO of Etsy and the folks who started Gimlet Media.
For all you podcast lovers, he coaches founders through the
highs and more importantly, through the low points that we
don't necessarily see. Jerry spent a good part of his
career running one of New York's most successful VC funds,
(02:17):
FLATIRN Partners, and he speaks candidly about his own challenges
with mental health. His book, Reboot Leadership in the Art
of Growing Up is an honest take at what it
means to lead and how to look from within, two
really important concepts right now. Jerry's whole ethos is centered
around the concept better humans make better leaders. There's never
(02:42):
been a more critical time for humanity or leadership, and
Jerry is the expert. His message is simple, show up.
I'm Laur Siegel and this is first contact. I said
(03:02):
this before and I will say it now that we're
rolling like I do feel like you are just like
the equivalent of like a virtual hug. Something about you
is super, super comforting. So I'm really happy to have
you on first contact. And I guess I should start.
I want to start with kind of the basic question,
which is, I guess, like, how are you doing right now?
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Thank you? I tend not to be a silver lining
kind of guy, but I do think that there's something
powerful going on here, which hopefully we'll get to. So
how am I challenged? Yeah, yesterday afternoon, I did, I
(03:50):
think my third client call, and it was a Sunday afternoon,
and that's normal in these times. And I felt completed.
And I am acutely aware of my own limitations right now,
and I am reminded daily of the very same things
(04:15):
that I would advise other people to do, which is
to hold those limitations without shame or guilt. And at
the same time, I am breathlessly blown away by the
joys that I see. I see people collaborating, I see
(04:36):
people reaching deep down inside and finding ways to connect.
I see adventure. I see people just finding their path
to the best possible selves. And I love human beings
more today than I did yesterday, and I love them
(04:58):
a lot yesterday. So that's how I'm doing. How are you.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Same? And I don't you know, I think for me,
I was trying to figure it out. I always step
into other people's stories for a living, and I can
be deeply empathetic, and I can try to understand how
(05:25):
other people are doing and ask them challenging questions and
try to understand human nature. But something that's different about
this story is that I'm in it, and that all
of us are in it together, and that we are
all experiencing issues like you know, anxiety and loneliness and
fear and joy and love and all of these things.
(05:49):
And so never in my career, truthfully have I been
in the story so much as the one that I'm
delving into, you know. So I think an honest answer
is I'm okay, right, Like I'm sitting in you know,
out of quarantine, but in self isolation in New York City,
(06:11):
self isolating, alone, worried about my parents back in Atlanta.
And you know, with these crazy questions you never envisioned
yourself asking in twenty twenty, which is, if I go home,
could I hurt my parents? When we come out of this,
will everyone I know be okay? Will I be okay?
How will I battle my mind? Will I be able
(06:33):
to be an okay leader, a good leader? You know?
Will I have a business out of this? I mean,
you know, truthfully to give you. I feel like with you, Jerry,
like I can't you know, I can't hide, so I
might as well not try. And you know, this show
is called first contact. In our first contact was when
(06:56):
we were shooting a documentary on mental health and depression.
And you turn the tables on me when you ask
me why you want to do the story, and and
I was kind of giving you a non answer, and
you asked me to show up, And that's kind of
in your DNA. And I think this global pandemic has
forced us all in some capacity to have to show up, right,
(07:17):
And so so I guess that's a long answer too.
I'm doing okay. I'm trying to show up for myself
so I can show up for other people. And it
just depends on the minute and the hour, and and
my whole thing has always been trying to make people
feel less alone, and so I think I find purpose
in that. And then I, you know, and then every
(07:39):
day I try to, you know, make sure I don't
implode in my head. So there, that's that's how I'm doing.
So yeah, now that that's all out there.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Yeah, you know, there's something beautiful about you showing up
as you just did. You showed up, and you know,
I'm fond of joking. You know the phrase now mistay
and it's it's loosely translated as the divine in me
sees the divine in you. I like to translate it
(08:12):
as the mess in me sees the mess in you
because it allows us to be be together.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
You know, we had Matt mullenwig on, the founder of WordPress,
and he talked about this being boss level mode, like
this is the most extreme and I just feel like
you're the kind of person who's on the front lines
of some of the most extreme stuff. And so a
lot of folks I know are losing jobs, are having
to lay off people, and are having to learn how
to lead. And I'm sure you're on the phone with
very successful tech entrepreneurs who are I'm sure you're hearing
(08:43):
all sorts of different things. I'd be curious, like, what
is your advice to people right now on how do
you lead during this time when I mean, sometimes it's
kind of tough to get out of bed truly.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Well, there's a lot to say about leading during this time.
But the first thing that I would say actually harkens
back to what you just share it in your in
your check in, if you will, and even in the
reference to the first contact that we had with the documentary,
and that is that, well, everything feels different, and we
(09:17):
all are wondering how different the world will be when
we get through this time, and we will get through
this time. The world is changing, but it's not ending,
and that's really important. Distinction hold onto what has been important,
is what is important, which is what will be important,
(09:41):
which is that leaders have to show up and be
real always, always always. Can I read to you a
quote that I found enormous comfort from.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Yes, please, I'll.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Give you a little backstory on this. So Annie Pama
Children is a Buddhist teacher and she has come to
my rescue many times in my life through her works,
through her teachings on one on one and this is
a quote that I've carried with me for many years,
and I'm going to read the whole things. It's a
(10:19):
little bit large, but it's worth it. She writes, all
around us, the wind the fire, the earth, the water
are always taking on different qualities. We also change, like
the weather. We add and flow, like the tides, We
wax and wane like the moon. We fail to see that,
(10:40):
like the weather, we are fluid, not solid, and so
we suffer. What we fail to see is that we
can use everything, everything we do, to help us to
realize that we're a part of the energy that creates everything.
If we learn to sit still like a mountain in
a hurricane, if we learn to sit still like a
(11:04):
mountain in a hurricane, unprotected from the truth and vividness
and the immediacy of simply being part of life, then
we are not this separate being who has to have
things turn out our way. When we stop resisting and
let the weather simply flow through us, we can live
(11:26):
our lives completely. And that's from our wonderful little book
Constable with Uncertainty.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
I love that it, and it's this idea of leaning
into the inability to kind of control a lot of
what's happening right now and the uncertainty of it. I mean,
something I think about is even quote when we come
out of this right, as we come out of this,
nothing will feel the same again, I mean you are
talking to I'm sure entrepreneurs left and right, like who
(11:56):
are having to lay off lots of people. So you know,
it's like you can't say, world be okay, you know,
because the world is going to look really different after this.
So you know, what you touch on in that quote
is kind of being able to lean into not being
able to control a lot of this, to be able
to be steady and go with it. How do you suggest,
(12:18):
you know, I know, you can't really wave the magic
wand and hew have all the answers you talk to
people at the highest levels, like how do you tell
them to cope with this idea of uncertainty?
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Well, let's go back to what I was saying before
about being real. When we are real and we show
up and we allow space for the full magnitude, the
full roller coaster ride of our own emotional state, the
ebb and flow, the wind, the earth, the rain that
Oni Pemer describes. When we allow the fullness of that
(12:49):
to happen and we don't fight it, this is the key.
When we don't fight that, what happens then is that
we can and then hold on to the things that
are actually not changing. See part of the problem right
now is that we have no idea what's going to change. Yeah,
(13:12):
And the truth is, Laurie, certainty is the delusion. Certainty
is the illusion. It's a better word than delusion. Certainty
is not the guaranteed thing. There is no certainty. We
come to the edge of a curb, we look at
the walk don't walk sign. We see walk. We say
(13:35):
to ourselves, I can cross the street safely, and bang
we're hit by a car. That is reality. But we
have to walk around with this belief system that things
are knowable, because otherwise it's unbearable. But what we lose
when we over index on that is the ability to
(13:57):
respond fluidly to the shifts that are happening. And by
the way, I don't know any other leadership skill that's
more important than the ability to read the weather and
respond with fluidity, because everything's changing all the time.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
So the challenge is how do we deal with the
fear that that change arises within us? And that goes
to the other part of that imagery. For me, the
mountain isn't some inflexible, brittle, pigheaded response to the world
around us. The mountain is to remember the things that
(14:39):
are important to us. You know, in your case, Lorie,
telling the human story. It's the tentpole that holds the
entire canvas up of your life. It's who you are.
It's not I'm going to have a job at CNN
or I'm going to have my own company. Those are
(15:00):
manifestations of the tent pole.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
I think that humanity in such an interesting way is
rising to the surface, and it's forcing us to edit
so quickly the people places, the things in our lives
that are so fundamental. And you're right. So for me,
storytelling around humanity and technology and making people feel less alone,
that's been in my DNA for so long and it
has never been closer to the surface, right, you know,
(15:24):
And I think this moment has solidified that. But you're right,
I don't know. I think you know even I don't
know how to describe this. But it's like even being
a leader during this time, right, And you deal with leaders.
There's just in general with tech And we both know
this because we've been in tech for a long time.
(15:44):
You've been in tech much longer than I am. There's
not really a rule.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Book, not that much longer, a right old.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
And you're very successful. You've been in this for a
long time. There's not really a rule book in tech, right,
Like you know, people kind of they do their thing
and and they will follow the rules. But this this
thing that's happened, it's just like you don't know, I
think as a leader, and this is maybe you hear
my own internal struggle, like what is the right thing
to do? Right? And you see all these micro decisions
(16:11):
that have happened and every single leader making them. When
did they shut down the business? Are they going to
lay off people? Are they going to make the hiring
decision that they probably you know, like, I don't know,
do you is there a framework? And maybe this is
just me reaching for something. You're you literally have dealt
with the most successful people, some of the most successful
(16:32):
entrepreneurs who have weathered things. I don't think anyone's weathered
something like this, But like, do you what framework do
you give leaders during this time to help make some
of these decisions?
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Right? So I think what you're asking me really succinctly
is what should we do?
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Yeah? What do you do?
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Right? And So I'm going to bring your attention to
a couple of things. The first is you said intac
there's no rule book. Well, here's a new flash. There
is no rule book, not just a tech. Even our
most codified wisdom traditions, from the Baghavad Gita to the
New Testament, from the Quran to the Sutras of the Buddha,
(17:16):
they're all pointers. They're all pointing out a path. They're
not the path. And that has always been true. Part
of our collective illusion has been to believe that there
is one way to do.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Things, because it quiets our nervous system to believe that
that is so. Yeah, there is no one path, there
is no rule book. And the fact that we are
finding ourselves in circumstances that none of us have found
ourselves in before points to the vividness of the reality
(17:59):
that all old maps no longer apply. Joyce Rupp has
a beautiful poem by that title old Maps no Longer Apply,
and she describes the fact that there's a moment in
life for all of us, whether it's coronavirus, or economic
upheaval and turmoil, or an individual company collapsing, there's that
(18:22):
moment when we realize that the old map that we
have been following is a map that was given to us,
written by somebody else and beautifully gorgeously. What she reminds
us is there was a time when pilgrims traveled by
the stars and they didn't need maps. And what I
(18:45):
did with you just by calling up the point of
storytelling is what I am trying to do with every
single person that I encounter right now, and right now
it's extraordinary what's happening. I'm talking to thousands of employees
that ac come to all at the same time, and
I'm saying effectively the same thing, which is, this is
(19:07):
a time for pilgrims to travel by the stars. And
what are the stars?
Speaker 2 (19:13):
The stars are our values, our beliefs, our dreams, our wishes,
our aspirations. You know, there's a part of me where
you know how I can get preacher like I am.
I am fired up right now because if we miss
this opportunity, I will be heartbrook And the opportunity and
(19:38):
again I don't like silver linings either, but the opportunity
here is to finally put people ahead of profit. It's
finally to put people in the planet ahead of profit.
Can we be done with business as usual? Because you
and I first met, because we looked at the way
businesses were destroying individual lives. Every single CEO I encounter,
(20:04):
usually by video or standing there with tears in their eyes, saying,
four weeks ago my company was doing well, and now
I just laid off fifty percent of my staff. I
was talking to one friend, a CEO. He said, I
just find myself staring out the window all day. And
I said to him, what do you see when you
(20:25):
stare out the window? When he said, the faces of
the employees and their kids. Right, there's no sugarcoating this experience.
This is painful. And what I said to him was,
don't ever forget those faces. Look. I cannot be the
first responder in Elmhurst Hospital, as much as I might
(20:47):
want to go in there, I cannot be, you know,
magically like Dyson just did invent a new ventilator. I
can't magically make medical supplies happen or protect the healthcare workers.
But I can do what I was organized to do.
I can do what I was built to do, which
(21:08):
is to hold people's hearts. And that's how I will help.
And that's how you were helping.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Okay, we've got to take a quick break to hear
from our sponsors more with my guests after the break.
(21:40):
I know we talk about you being the CEO Whisper
and this and that, and that's a nice, great title
that I think totally fits. But the reason why people
call you that is, Yes, you make people cry, but
there's a reason. It's because you force I think a
lot of humanity out of people. And I think it's
because you faced a lot of humanity in your own life.
(22:01):
You were here in New York City for nine to eleven.
You have faced existential depression. Right, You've talked very openly
about that. That's how we first got in contact, because
you've been open in your community and outward about that.
And you've been working with people for sixteen seventeen years.
You've been working with first time entrepreneurs. So when you,
(22:24):
as a leader, have to let fifty percent of your
staff go, or when you are one of those people
that you're worried that your job is not even going
to exist in two months, when we quote come out
of this, right, who knows when we're going to come
out of this. I don't want to put any artificial
timeline on it. How do you, as someone who has
(22:46):
literally been someone who has screamed about our messy minds
and how we have to take care of them for
a long time. What advice do you give your advice
to that CEO saying don't forget those faces? I think
is important. What advice do you give to people when
it comes to taking care of their heads as they
make these decisions that they just a month ago didn't
(23:06):
even couldn't even comprehend.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
Yeah, you could summarize everything by the simple notion that
when a full, real, messy human shows up, they are
better leaders. And that when they use that messiness to
explore their leadership challenges, they go back and they get
(23:34):
to heal the messiness again. That truth remains. And so
what I would say to people right now is you
sit like a mountain in a hurricane, not brittily, but
holding fast to the notion of what does it mean
(23:55):
to be human and humane? This time? There are people
who are laid off inhumanely, and there are people who
are going to be laid off humanly. No matter how
many things you have out of your control, and my god,
so many things are out of our control right now,
(24:17):
you are not powerless over whether or not you act
humanly or inhumanly. Yeah, I'm going to say that again
because it's really important. You have a choice as to
how you are going to hold yourself, and the embodiment
of that choice is the embodiment of the mountain. What
(24:40):
values do you hold to? How do you respond to
the employees who are not being laid off? How do
you hold them and create space for them. I was
on a call today with about two hundred employees at
this one company, and one of the senior executives checked
in and he said, bravely, wonderfully filled with self love
(25:02):
and self care. He said, I've been terribly unproductive today,
and and that's brave because he just allowed himself to
be in that space, partially because he'd opened up his
home to somebody whose borders had been closed and he
had nowhere else to stay. Yeah, that's being human.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
I mean, and there's something so crazy human about this moment.
Look at you're literally looking into my home right we
for our listeners, we're zuming right like, you're literally looking
into my home right now. You know, there's something so personal.
I mean, it's just extraordinary the contrast.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Right.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
I was thinking about it. I woke up this morning
and truly, Jerry, it's like It totally depends on the
day in a minute as to how how I'm doing.
And I think I represent just everyone else too, you know,
Like I don't think that I'm unique in this, so
I'll say it. But like, you know, it's just there's
a stark contrast. It's silent outside, and then there's like
(26:07):
this war being fought. Right then they're these sirens and
it almost feels like this thing is kind of closing
in on us. And then you think, like will things
ever be the same, And so it's just like these
days of really trying to mentally, you know, be productive
and be there for a present for other people, your parents,
(26:28):
your employees, your friends, your family, you know, and then
also really try very hard to create a structure for
yourself to move forward. It's unlike anything I've ever experienced,
so I'll be open about it. I just think it's
it's extraordinarily humans, as human as it gets, you know.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
You know, there's not one person and in fact, of
the billions and billions of humans who have existed, not
one has been through this before. So in the social
distinct isolation that you're going through right now, don't lose
sight of the fact that whatever fears you're having, whatever
roller coaster of emotions you're having, whatever ups and downs
(27:13):
you're having, not alone.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
I think that's so important to realize that we are
all collectively alone, but going through this together. I know
that you guys put out and I read it, and
actually it was super helpful to me. Under the reboot
guidelines like what are for mandatory like isolation? Here are
some guidelines of what you can do as leaders are
(27:37):
for a company and for connection to provide care support.
Could you walk us through some of those? I love
the idea of giving people just like tangibles, right, could
you walk us through like some of what you would suggest.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
So what we did, and you're right. First of all,
what I would say is, and this is a message
that I've sent to my small little company in band
of broken hearted Warriors, that we are. What I've said
is we were built for this, not for these times,
but for this call. And this is how we will
(28:11):
be helping is to lean in and be there for
individuals and large and small organizations to help them in
their processes of being human right now. And so this
is a document that Chris the band and Brink, one
(28:33):
of my colleagues wrote, which is really a summary of
what we've learned in offering virtual peer support groups, and
just for context, one of the things virtual happy hours
are great, and one of the challenges is that we're
all taking on this sort of odd little burden of
trying to make each other happy. Yeah, and that can
(28:58):
create a kind of illness that doesn't allow the fullness
for the experience. And so one of the first things
we always recommend is you start with a check in.
And you and I actually did this, and we started
with that very famous Jerry question of how are you
and you turn the tables and you started with me.
(29:18):
You tried to catch me. I know what you're doing.
And the thing is that we have always advised that
business meetings start with a check in, and a check
in usually goes. We tend to use from polyvegel theory red, yellow,
green as a means of identifying how we're doing. Red
(29:42):
obviously is not in the best of all places. I'd
rather be somebody's else. Yellow, I'm kind of in the middle, Green,
I'm good to go. And it's a way of quickly
being able to identify our feeling state, and then people
are welcome to name any color or not use any
color at all. We're actually putting out a little recording
(30:02):
about how to do regular green check ins. But the
point of the check in is to establish an emotional
rapport with people. I'll add that one of the really
powerful things a video is if you can manage to
tilt the computer or your screen or your camera in
such a way so that you can look into the
camera with your eyes so that your partners can see
(30:25):
your eyes. It's really powerful because when we're at physical distance,
what we lack is the emotional rapport that comes from
being able to read each other's energy, and it can
increase the sense of isolation, especially if people are on
a video call and they're actually looking away, like if
I turn my body away. Yeah, okay, So that's a
(30:46):
really important piece. The second is we often think of
setting the container, and I always talk about a glass
of water, and an empty glass is her useless and
water without a glass is useless. And so when you
(31:07):
set the intention to have a peer support group and
a peer check in, that's the water, that's the content,
that's what it is that we're really there for. But
if you don't have a proper container or a proper
set of rules about how to do it, it can
quickly become useless, and so we have a couple of
(31:29):
norms and guidelines that we talk about. One is presence
really show up, really be there? So simple thing, turn
off the notifications on your computer nobody else needs to hear.
A second, much more important is you ask questions before
(31:49):
giving advice. In fact, dial down the advice giving, dial
up the questions, how are you feeling? What would be different?
That sort of thing. It's often helpful to sort of
bring forth a particular issue that the group is working on. Hey,
you know, if it's four or five vice presidents at
(32:11):
a company, you might come forth and say, hey, how
are we going to be communicating about this layoff? And
there may only be one person who has to deal
with it, but by talking about it together it can
be really powerful. First of all, you can get more perspective,
which is always helpful, but you can get more support
(32:31):
in that regard. There's a whole long list of things here,
and there's lots and lots of links on that, and
I'm sure you'll.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
Make that well, we'll put it in our show notes. Well, definitely,
we definitely will, And I love that. I'm going to
ask you. I don't normally do these types of questions,
but because you're on the front lines and you're hearing things,
i'd be curious to know. And I'm going to ask
two questions at once because i don't want you to
think I'm just asking the first. What is the most
heartbreaking thing that you've heard from a CEO over the
(33:01):
last couple of weeks, And what is the most heartwarming
thing you've heard?
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Well, actually, the most heartbreaking thing I've heard is not
actually from a CEO, but it's from a woman who's
so many people are worried simultaneously about their children and
about their parents, just like you are worried about you know,
your parents and are they safe and are they actually
listening to you? And this woman, she was part of
(33:27):
an all hands conversation and she was just talking about
her father, who was an immigrant from China, lives in
Sheepshead Bay and is a postal worker. And he takes
the D train, I imagine, or maybe the F from Brooklyn
to Penn Station to work at the Farley Post Office,
(33:51):
the main post office in New York City. And I
can't get that man out of my head. Yeah, how
dangerous to get on a subway which is I'm sure
empty in a community right now that is struggling mightily
with racism coming from our highest leaders, and he wants
(34:16):
stay home. I mean, I can't stop thinking about that man,
and I can't stop thinking about that young woman who
cares about her father. Yeah, you know, I grew up
in Brooklyn. It's kind of obvious from my accent. And
(34:36):
there are a lot of people who think of New
York and the glitz of New York. They think of
New York as Manhattan between ninety sixth Street and Wall Street. Maybe,
but that's not my New York. My New Yorker postal
workers and sanitation workers, and I'm sorry. You know, the firefighters,
(35:06):
the ambulance drivers. You know, somebody's going out and repairing
traffic lights and it ain't me. You know, these are
the people I grew up with. This is where grit
really means. We talk about so much about resilience in
(35:27):
leadership circles. You want to know resilience. Catch a subway
that started off in the Bronx at three o'clock in
the morning or four o'clock in the morning and watch
people going to work with construction boots on or white
nurse's shoes. Think of the woman who emigrated from Haiti
(35:52):
who's a nurse in Elmnhurst Hospital. You know Elmhurst, Elmhurst,
what one hundred and twenty one hundred and thirty languages
spoken in that one zip code that's New York. That,
as you can tell, breaks my heart. And you know
(36:15):
there are people like that in every community.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
Yeah, what do you think?
Speaker 2 (36:22):
Well, can I give you the joyful moment?
Speaker 1 (36:24):
Yeah? Yeah, sure.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
So one of the moments of joy was actually something
that happened internally for the company. And I've had lots
and lots of moments of joy, usually around seeing human
beings come together. But last Friday, you know, many of
my colleagues have have little rugrats, little munchkins, and you know,
my youngest is twenty two, so it's been a long time.
(36:51):
And so I did story time for one of my
colleagues four year old and just over video read a book.
And you know, it was more for me than for
him because he could barely but asam as the tank engine.
But you know, a promise I've made to myself as
(37:14):
a CEO is that I'm not going to forget that,
and I'm going to not wait for times of crisis
to inquire about the health and well being of my
colleagues four year old son. You know. So there's a
tinge of bittersweetness in that joint.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
Okay, we've got to take a quick break to hear
from our sponsors more with my guest after the break.
(38:00):
What do you think resilience is in the era of coronavirus.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
Well, it's really important to remember about resilience that we
oftentimes misunderstand. Resilience is a kind of false a capacity
to always take a punch, right, to take a punch,
get knocked down and stand up, And that's great if
you can do that. But true resilience is the ability
(38:30):
to duck. I'm a boxer, right, and you know my
boxing coach would yell at me if I stood there
blithely taking a punch because you don't really last very long.
And so true resiliency, true grit if you will, it's
the capacity to sort of really be flexible and to
(38:53):
shift and to respond differently to changing circumstances, and so
resiliency in the age of coronavirus, I think resiliency in
this age requires us to go back to and remember
what was vitally important about us in the first place,
(39:14):
what brought us together, and what remains what is true regardless.
Resiliency being in the form of being able to withstand
the heartbreak of connecting with a postal worker who's commuting
on a train at five o'clock in the morning or
(39:35):
something like that, and know what is our work to do,
and knowing that my job as a leader right now
is to hold myself steady, to remind people of their
true worth, their true values, and call that forth, call
forth that humanity. As you mentioned before, I suppose in
(39:59):
the end, resiliency is really a quality of leadership in
that way, more than a thing unto itself.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
When you talk about holding close what's important to you,
I think I've done a lot of thinking about what
is important to me during this time. Thank you, Quarantine,
What is that for you?
Speaker 2 (40:25):
Are you going to make me cry? So you referenced
the fact that I've had my own existential depression and
suicidal feelings and an attempted suicide when I was a teenager,
and then a return of those feelings in my thirties,
(40:49):
and as I left that period and entered a new
period still connected to the pain of that. I began
exploring Buddhism and it works for me. And I don't
mean to proselytize. If find what works for you is
(41:10):
fine by me whatever. But it worked for me because
of so many different reasons. But one of the things
that I found fascinating is the notion of the Bodhisatva.
And Bodhisattva isn't just another saint. I was raised in
the Catholic tradition, so I have a deep and profound
awareness of saints at Bodhisatva is someone who could attain enlightenment,
(41:36):
who could leave suffering behind, but chooses to take rebirth
time and time again until all beings are free from suffering.
So what matters to me, Laurie, is my body. I
(42:00):
am wired to care. I am at my best when
I am caring. And what matters to me is love
and compassion. And what coronavirus has taught me already is
that which I thought was true, I have now confirmed
(42:23):
is in fact true. But the only response to fear
is love. It's the only response that works. And so
when we're terrified, find the compassion. You know, fred Rodgers,
loving wonderfully used to advise children to look for the helpers.
(42:47):
All amend that by saying, there's a helper inside of you.
Look for that helper because we can all do something special.
We can all do one little.
Speaker 1 (42:59):
Thing, pulling it out a little bit. I something you
said earlier I thought was interesting about business is changing
after this, Like as we come out of this, you
talk about, you know, maybe people will look at people
over profit. Maybe things will be different when two, three, four,
(43:20):
six months, a year down the road, Like do you
think that businesses change? Do you think that we lead
with heart?
Speaker 2 (43:28):
Like?
Speaker 1 (43:28):
What do you think happens to businesses?
Speaker 2 (43:31):
I don't know for sure, but I know what I
would like. I don't I can't tell you with certainty,
but I know what would be a tragedy. And what
would be a tragedy is if we let this time pass,
and we let all those lives go, and we still
find ourselves squabbling over nonsense, and we do that a lot.
(43:58):
I find it hard to believe that that the vast
manejority of us will somehow forget what this time period was. Like.
I don't believe humans are like that. And I think
back to what happened in the nineteen thirties after the
Great Depression hit. And not just the stories that we
(44:21):
tell of our ancestors who saved every little bit of
string and turned it into a ball because they had
grown up in the depression, but because of the entitlement
programs that were created as a result of that, the
commitment the government made to taking care of people. I
think in a similar fashion, they were entitlement programs that
were created despite its profound racism. The nineteen fifties, we
(44:46):
created the middle class because there was a commitment that
that sacrifice was going to mean something. I know that
we have the capacity to do that as a species,
not just as a country. Yeah, and you know that's
my hope and my wish, and you know, to me,
(45:06):
businesses are the best organization structures to manifest social change possible.
They are fast, they are efficient. For the most part,
they do miraculous things. We just need to make sure
that the leaders are leading from their heart, That's.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
All I do. Wonder, having covered tech and having seen
us through this tech lash and having watched it come
all the way over the pendulum swing one way, I
wonder if we come back. I wonder if this is
a reset for many of these tech companies that are
now kind of the most powerful companies in the world.
I wonder what this will mean for them.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
Well, you take a look at Amazon, which you know
is of course a tech company, but is also a
logistics giant. Yeah. Right, let's hope that giants like Amazon,
And I think it's true. I think they were having
I mean, I'm talking to some of these leaders, and
they see it. They have, if not then direct family,
(46:04):
then they have cousins who are impacted. They see the
lives impacted for this, and they want to do something. Yeah,
let's just hope that they have internalized a change.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
I had this thought before I got on with you.
I just what does this virus mean for the American dream?
I look at friends of mine who have small businesses,
folks who work at restaurants. I'm already seeing jobs lost,
and so that question of like, what does this mean
for the American dream? I don't know, what.
Speaker 2 (46:36):
Do you think, Well, what does it mean for your dream? Oh?
Speaker 1 (46:39):
I think it means for my dream. It means it's
more tangible than ever, you know. I think storytelling is
kind of a method of survival for me personally. But
I also think I said this in my last episode,
which is my favorite Joan Diddy U quote, as we
tell ourselves stories in order to live. Well, that's essentially
what I I've got to do for myself and others
(47:02):
right now. But that's you know, I think for me,
that's that's my dream. And I think that survives I
think that survives this, you know, hopefully, I mean for
me personally, hopefully. You know. I think about those things
because we are a small business and we are you know,
we are new, and they came out at a weird
(47:25):
time and we had to throw everything out the window
and rethink from quarantine like many other people, right, like
a lot of other folks. But it got me thinking
about the American dream, Like.
Speaker 2 (47:38):
I think what you're referring to is the American dream
of an individual crafting their own future. Yeah, so I
think let's make a distinction. There are some dreams that
will be dashed. That is true. There will be some
dreams like was it Iraine Hansbury who wrote that will
(48:02):
dry up like a raisin in the sun from the
Langston Hughes poem, But the American dreaming will go on
the act of dreaming is more important than the dream itself,
because that's resiliency. I spoke to a venture accelerator this morning,
(48:24):
a group that incubates lots and lots of entrepreneurial endeavors,
and their entire mode of operating has to change right now,
and I reminded them of their purpose, which was two three, four, five,
six months from now, nine months from now, whenever it
is that we are through this period. Their job is
(48:47):
to take care of those dreamers so that those dreamers
can manifest their dreams. The dreaming will continue, but what
we dreamed up will be different. Right now, somebody is
inventing a new ventilator. Right now, somebody is saying, the
(49:10):
logistical nightmare of not being able to get seven cent
mass that's how much they cost, apparently, and ninety five mass,
the logistical nightmare of not making enough of those is
going to be solved by an American dreaming entrepreneur or
(49:32):
an entrepreneur from another country. Yeah, that will not stop.
Speaker 1 (49:38):
I am so excited to watch technology entrepreneurs step up.
I mean I got into this in two thousand and
eight interviewing entrepreneurs when we're coming out of the recession
when there was the iPhone launch, the app store, it
was launched, and there was just like this canvas for creativity,
right and like people dreamed like there were a ton
(49:58):
of dreamers. And I have a feeling that we're going
to have a lot of dreamers come out of this,
that we're going to have a lot of people who
have a lot of heart, who have seen things happen
to their parents and their friends, and have seen that
there is a system that is broken. I hope you
know that that ethos of tech that I so fell
in love with as a startup reporter, you know, in
(50:20):
my early twenties, I can hopefully not to try to
find a silver lining, but I can see that, I
can see that we are going to I hope we
are going to have We're already seeing that, and that,
you know, that makes me really happy.
Speaker 2 (50:32):
So, you know, in the early days when I was
a VC, one of the entrepreneurial archetypes that I could
not stand back and I would not back were people
who were in it for the money. I just I
just I couldn't. I couldn't bear to be around them.
One of the things that will happen in this time
(50:53):
period is those people who are pursuing something because they
think it's a path to riches will probably not continue
pursuing things. But the people who rise up are the
people who genuinely lean in and say I have an
idea that might help, And that, to me is the
essence of entrepreneurship. I have an idea that might help.
(51:18):
Wouldn't it be cool? If would it be cool if
we could triple the production to ventilators inside of two months?
Here's an idea, right, That's the American dreaming process.
Speaker 1 (51:35):
I want to end on something you said that I
love that this is in your book. I like scribble
notes in your book. I'm like a crazy person, and
I just think it's really fitting. You See, the call
to lead is the call to be brave, and I
think all of us are trying to lead in some capacity,
whether or not we own our own business, whether or
not we are parents trying to figure out how to
(51:59):
homeschool are chill, But I think bravery is a big one.
So I appreciate that statement. And I don't know if
you have anything you want to add on it, but
when it comes to this moment, but I think it's
super fitting for this time.
Speaker 2 (52:15):
Well, I agree with you. It's I think the call
to leadership is a call to bravery, But the call
to bravery is a call to be human. And I
think that as much as anxiety and fear is a
foundational component of us and our survival technique, just as
(52:36):
true as that is the truth that we are a
called to be brave. It takes courage to grow up
and become an adult. It takes courage to hold ourself
steady like a mountain in a hurricane. It takes courage
to homeschool our kids, to use a video call to
(52:59):
talk to a parent and remind them to stay inside.
And it takes courage to put that structure to your
day and go about your day. It takes courage to
admit that you're afraid. That's true bravery. And that's the
most fundamental source of joy that I'm experiencing, is because
(53:22):
I see bravery every day time and time again. Maybe
what we should say, you know how we've all taken
the saying to each other stay safe, Maybe we should
say stay brave.
Speaker 1 (53:35):
I like that. I really like that stay brave. This
episode is coming out on Monday, April sixth. If you
want to talk to Jerry. I'm hosting a town hall
with him tonight at eight pm. Check out my social
media for a link to register. We want to hear
(53:56):
your questions about leadership and resilience in these crazy times.
I'm at Lori Siegel on Twitter and Instagram, and the
show is at First Contact Podcast on Instagram and on Twitter.
We're at First Contact Pod. Also feel free to reach
out directly. I know this is a tough time for
a lot of you. You can text me. I'm at
nine to one seven five four zero three four one zero.
(54:19):
We're also going to be hosting more Zoom town halls,
not just tonight, on different issues during this time, so
follow along and participate for some human ish contact. First
Contact is a production of Dot Dot Dot Media, executive
produced by Lori Siegel and Derek Dodge. I will say
we're being creative and executive producing this from home at
the moment. This episode was produced and edited by Sabine
(54:42):
Jansen and Jack Reagan. The original theme music is by
Xander Singh. I'm sending my thoughts to each and every
one of you, guys, and so is our whole crew
at First Contact during this time. I hope that everyone
is staying home, staying healthy, and staying human. First Contact
(55:06):
with Lori Siegel is a production of Dot Dot Dot
Media and iHeartRadio
First Contact with Lori Siegel is a production of Dot
Dot Dot Media and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
It's extraordinary. What's happening. I'm talking to you thousands of
employees at a company, all at the same time, and
I'm saying effectively the same thing, which is, this is
a time for pilgrims to travel by the stars. And
what are the stars? The stars are our values, our beliefs,
(00:35):
our dreams, our wishes, our aspirations. I am fired up
right now because if we miss this opportunity, I will
be heartwork. And the opportunity here is to finally put
people ahead of profit. It's finally to put people on
(00:56):
the planet ahead of profit.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
We're living in a pretty scary moment right now. The
coronavirus is devastating the economy. Unemployment is skyrocketing, millions of
people's lives have been changed forever, and the future is
nothing but uncertain as we face this virus and the
destruction that's come along with it. I thought we'd all
(01:32):
benefit from hearing from Jerry Colonna. He is one of
my favorite people in tech and well maybe in life.
Jerry helps business leaders navigate uncertainty and chaos. He's known
fondly as the CEO whisper. Now I can attest to
this personally because I've worked with him on my business.
He will make you cry. Jerry is the CEO coach
(01:56):
to some of the world's biggest entrepreneurs, like the former
CEO of Etsy and the folks who started Gimlet Media.
For all you podcast lovers, he coaches founders through the
highs and more importantly, through the low points that we
don't necessarily see. Jerry spent a good part of his
career running one of New York's most successful VC funds,
(02:17):
FLATIRN Partners, and he speaks candidly about his own challenges
with mental health. His book, Reboot Leadership in the Art
of Growing Up is an honest take at what it
means to lead and how to look from within, two
really important concepts right now. Jerry's whole ethos is centered
around the concept better humans make better leaders. There's never
(02:42):
been a more critical time for humanity or leadership, and
Jerry is the expert. His message is simple, show up.
I'm Laur Siegel and this is first contact. I said
(03:02):
this before and I will say it now that we're
rolling like I do feel like you are just like
the equivalent of like a virtual hug. Something about you
is super, super comforting. So I'm really happy to have
you on first contact. And I guess I should start.
I want to start with kind of the basic question,
which is, I guess, like, how are you doing right now?
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Thank you? I tend not to be a silver lining
kind of guy, but I do think that there's something
powerful going on here, which hopefully we'll get to. So
how am I challenged? Yeah, yesterday afternoon, I did, I
(03:50):
think my third client call, and it was a Sunday afternoon,
and that's normal in these times. And I felt completed.
And I am acutely aware of my own limitations right now,
and I am reminded daily of the very same things
(04:15):
that I would advise other people to do, which is
to hold those limitations without shame or guilt. And at
the same time, I am breathlessly blown away by the
joys that I see. I see people collaborating, I see
(04:36):
people reaching deep down inside and finding ways to connect.
I see adventure. I see people just finding their path
to the best possible selves. And I love human beings
more today than I did yesterday, and I love them
(04:58):
a lot yesterday. So that's how I'm doing. How are you.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Same? And I don't you know, I think for me,
I was trying to figure it out. I always step
into other people's stories for a living, and I can
be deeply empathetic, and I can try to understand how
(05:25):
other people are doing and ask them challenging questions and
try to understand human nature. But something that's different about
this story is that I'm in it, and that all
of us are in it together, and that we are
all experiencing issues like you know, anxiety and loneliness and
fear and joy and love and all of these things.
(05:49):
And so never in my career, truthfully have I been
in the story so much as the one that I'm
delving into, you know. So I think an honest answer
is I'm okay, right, Like I'm sitting in you know,
out of quarantine, but in self isolation in New York City,
(06:11):
self isolating, alone, worried about my parents back in Atlanta.
And you know, with these crazy questions you never envisioned
yourself asking in twenty twenty, which is, if I go home,
could I hurt my parents? When we come out of this,
will everyone I know be okay? Will I be okay?
How will I battle my mind? Will I be able
(06:33):
to be an okay leader, a good leader? You know?
Will I have a business out of this? I mean,
you know, truthfully to give you. I feel like with you, Jerry,
like I can't you know, I can't hide, so I
might as well not try. And you know, this show
is called first contact. In our first contact was when
(06:56):
we were shooting a documentary on mental health and depression.
And you turn the tables on me when you ask
me why you want to do the story, and and
I was kind of giving you a non answer, and
you asked me to show up, And that's kind of
in your DNA. And I think this global pandemic has
forced us all in some capacity to have to show up, right,
(07:17):
And so so I guess that's a long answer too.
I'm doing okay. I'm trying to show up for myself
so I can show up for other people. And it
just depends on the minute and the hour, and and
my whole thing has always been trying to make people
feel less alone, and so I think I find purpose
in that. And then I, you know, and then every
(07:39):
day I try to, you know, make sure I don't
implode in my head. So there, that's that's how I'm doing.
So yeah, now that that's all out there.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Yeah, you know, there's something beautiful about you showing up
as you just did. You showed up, and you know,
I'm fond of joking. You know the phrase now mistay
and it's it's loosely translated as the divine in me
sees the divine in you. I like to translate it
(08:12):
as the mess in me sees the mess in you
because it allows us to be be together.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
You know, we had Matt mullenwig on, the founder of WordPress,
and he talked about this being boss level mode, like
this is the most extreme and I just feel like
you're the kind of person who's on the front lines
of some of the most extreme stuff. And so a
lot of folks I know are losing jobs, are having
to lay off people, and are having to learn how
to lead. And I'm sure you're on the phone with
very successful tech entrepreneurs who are I'm sure you're hearing
(08:43):
all sorts of different things. I'd be curious, like, what
is your advice to people right now on how do
you lead during this time when I mean, sometimes it's
kind of tough to get out of bed truly.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Well, there's a lot to say about leading during this time.
But the first thing that I would say actually harkens
back to what you just share it in your in
your check in, if you will, and even in the
reference to the first contact that we had with the documentary,
and that is that, well, everything feels different, and we
(09:17):
all are wondering how different the world will be when
we get through this time, and we will get through
this time. The world is changing, but it's not ending,
and that's really important. Distinction hold onto what has been important,
is what is important, which is what will be important,
(09:41):
which is that leaders have to show up and be
real always, always always. Can I read to you a
quote that I found enormous comfort from.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Yes, please, I'll.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Give you a little backstory on this. So Annie Pama
Children is a Buddhist teacher and she has come to
my rescue many times in my life through her works,
through her teachings on one on one and this is
a quote that I've carried with me for many years,
and I'm going to read the whole things. It's a
(10:19):
little bit large, but it's worth it. She writes, all
around us, the wind the fire, the earth, the water
are always taking on different qualities. We also change, like
the weather. We add and flow, like the tides, We
wax and wane like the moon. We fail to see that,
(10:40):
like the weather, we are fluid, not solid, and so
we suffer. What we fail to see is that we
can use everything, everything we do, to help us to
realize that we're a part of the energy that creates everything.
If we learn to sit still like a mountain in
a hurricane, if we learn to sit still like a
(11:04):
mountain in a hurricane, unprotected from the truth and vividness
and the immediacy of simply being part of life, then
we are not this separate being who has to have
things turn out our way. When we stop resisting and
let the weather simply flow through us, we can live
(11:26):
our lives completely. And that's from our wonderful little book
Constable with Uncertainty.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
I love that it, and it's this idea of leaning
into the inability to kind of control a lot of
what's happening right now and the uncertainty of it. I mean,
something I think about is even quote when we come
out of this right, as we come out of this,
nothing will feel the same again, I mean you are
talking to I'm sure entrepreneurs left and right, like who
(11:56):
are having to lay off lots of people. So you know,
it's like you can't say, world be okay, you know,
because the world is going to look really different after this.
So you know, what you touch on in that quote
is kind of being able to lean into not being
able to control a lot of this, to be able
to be steady and go with it. How do you suggest,
(12:18):
you know, I know, you can't really wave the magic
wand and hew have all the answers you talk to
people at the highest levels, like how do you tell
them to cope with this idea of uncertainty?
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Well, let's go back to what I was saying before
about being real. When we are real and we show
up and we allow space for the full magnitude, the
full roller coaster ride of our own emotional state, the
ebb and flow, the wind, the earth, the rain that
Oni Pemer describes. When we allow the fullness of that
(12:49):
to happen and we don't fight it, this is the key.
When we don't fight that, what happens then is that
we can and then hold on to the things that
are actually not changing. See part of the problem right
now is that we have no idea what's going to change. Yeah,
(13:12):
And the truth is, Laurie, certainty is the delusion. Certainty
is the illusion. It's a better word than delusion. Certainty
is not the guaranteed thing. There is no certainty. We
come to the edge of a curb, we look at
the walk don't walk sign. We see walk. We say
(13:35):
to ourselves, I can cross the street safely, and bang
we're hit by a car. That is reality. But we
have to walk around with this belief system that things
are knowable, because otherwise it's unbearable. But what we lose
when we over index on that is the ability to
(13:57):
respond fluidly to the shifts that are happening. And by
the way, I don't know any other leadership skill that's
more important than the ability to read the weather and
respond with fluidity, because everything's changing all the time.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
So the challenge is how do we deal with the
fear that that change arises within us? And that goes
to the other part of that imagery. For me, the
mountain isn't some inflexible, brittle, pigheaded response to the world
around us. The mountain is to remember the things that
(14:39):
are important to us. You know, in your case, Lorie,
telling the human story. It's the tentpole that holds the
entire canvas up of your life. It's who you are.
It's not I'm going to have a job at CNN
or I'm going to have my own company. Those are
(15:00):
manifestations of the tent pole.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
I think that humanity in such an interesting way is
rising to the surface, and it's forcing us to edit
so quickly the people places, the things in our lives
that are so fundamental. And you're right. So for me,
storytelling around humanity and technology and making people feel less alone,
that's been in my DNA for so long and it
has never been closer to the surface, right, you know,
(15:24):
And I think this moment has solidified that. But you're right,
I don't know. I think you know even I don't
know how to describe this. But it's like even being
a leader during this time, right, And you deal with leaders.
There's just in general with tech And we both know
this because we've been in tech for a long time.
(15:44):
You've been in tech much longer than I am. There's
not really a rule.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Book, not that much longer, a right old.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
And you're very successful. You've been in this for a
long time. There's not really a rule book in tech, right,
Like you know, people kind of they do their thing
and and they will follow the rules. But this this
thing that's happened, it's just like you don't know, I
think as a leader, and this is maybe you hear
my own internal struggle, like what is the right thing
to do? Right? And you see all these micro decisions
(16:11):
that have happened and every single leader making them. When
did they shut down the business? Are they going to
lay off people? Are they going to make the hiring
decision that they probably you know, like, I don't know,
do you is there a framework? And maybe this is
just me reaching for something. You're you literally have dealt
with the most successful people, some of the most successful
(16:32):
entrepreneurs who have weathered things. I don't think anyone's weathered
something like this, But like, do you what framework do
you give leaders during this time to help make some
of these decisions?
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Right? So I think what you're asking me really succinctly
is what should we do?
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Yeah? What do you do?
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Right? And So I'm going to bring your attention to
a couple of things. The first is you said intac
there's no rule book. Well, here's a new flash. There
is no rule book, not just a tech. Even our
most codified wisdom traditions, from the Baghavad Gita to the
New Testament, from the Quran to the Sutras of the Buddha,
(17:16):
they're all pointers. They're all pointing out a path. They're
not the path. And that has always been true. Part
of our collective illusion has been to believe that there
is one way to do.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Things, because it quiets our nervous system to believe that
that is so. Yeah, there is no one path, there
is no rule book. And the fact that we are
finding ourselves in circumstances that none of us have found
ourselves in before points to the vividness of the reality
(17:59):
that all old maps no longer apply. Joyce Rupp has
a beautiful poem by that title old Maps no Longer Apply,
and she describes the fact that there's a moment in
life for all of us, whether it's coronavirus, or economic
upheaval and turmoil, or an individual company collapsing, there's that
(18:22):
moment when we realize that the old map that we
have been following is a map that was given to us,
written by somebody else and beautifully gorgeously. What she reminds
us is there was a time when pilgrims traveled by
the stars and they didn't need maps. And what I
(18:45):
did with you just by calling up the point of
storytelling is what I am trying to do with every
single person that I encounter right now, and right now
it's extraordinary what's happening. I'm talking to thousands of employees
that ac come to all at the same time, and
I'm saying effectively the same thing, which is, this is
(19:07):
a time for pilgrims to travel by the stars. And
what are the stars?
Speaker 2 (19:13):
The stars are our values, our beliefs, our dreams, our wishes,
our aspirations. You know, there's a part of me where
you know how I can get preacher like I am.
I am fired up right now because if we miss
this opportunity, I will be heartbrook And the opportunity and
(19:38):
again I don't like silver linings either, but the opportunity
here is to finally put people ahead of profit. It's
finally to put people in the planet ahead of profit.
Can we be done with business as usual? Because you
and I first met, because we looked at the way
businesses were destroying individual lives. Every single CEO I encounter,
(20:04):
usually by video or standing there with tears in their eyes, saying,
four weeks ago my company was doing well, and now
I just laid off fifty percent of my staff. I
was talking to one friend, a CEO. He said, I
just find myself staring out the window all day. And
I said to him, what do you see when you
(20:25):
stare out the window? When he said, the faces of
the employees and their kids. Right, there's no sugarcoating this experience.
This is painful. And what I said to him was,
don't ever forget those faces. Look. I cannot be the
first responder in Elmhurst Hospital, as much as I might
(20:47):
want to go in there, I cannot be, you know,
magically like Dyson just did invent a new ventilator. I
can't magically make medical supplies happen or protect the healthcare workers.
But I can do what I was organized to do.
I can do what I was built to do, which
(21:08):
is to hold people's hearts. And that's how I will help.
And that's how you were helping.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Okay, we've got to take a quick break to hear
from our sponsors more with my guests after the break.
(21:40):
I know we talk about you being the CEO Whisper
and this and that, and that's a nice, great title
that I think totally fits. But the reason why people
call you that is, Yes, you make people cry, but
there's a reason. It's because you force I think a
lot of humanity out of people. And I think it's
because you faced a lot of humanity in your own life.
(22:01):
You were here in New York City for nine to eleven.
You have faced existential depression. Right, You've talked very openly
about that. That's how we first got in contact, because
you've been open in your community and outward about that.
And you've been working with people for sixteen seventeen years.
You've been working with first time entrepreneurs. So when you,
(22:24):
as a leader, have to let fifty percent of your
staff go, or when you are one of those people
that you're worried that your job is not even going
to exist in two months, when we quote come out
of this, right, who knows when we're going to come
out of this. I don't want to put any artificial
timeline on it. How do you, as someone who has
(22:46):
literally been someone who has screamed about our messy minds
and how we have to take care of them for
a long time. What advice do you give your advice
to that CEO saying don't forget those faces? I think
is important. What advice do you give to people when
it comes to taking care of their heads as they
make these decisions that they just a month ago didn't
(23:06):
even couldn't even comprehend.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
Yeah, you could summarize everything by the simple notion that
when a full, real, messy human shows up, they are
better leaders. And that when they use that messiness to
explore their leadership challenges, they go back and they get
(23:34):
to heal the messiness again. That truth remains. And so
what I would say to people right now is you
sit like a mountain in a hurricane, not brittily, but
holding fast to the notion of what does it mean
(23:55):
to be human and humane? This time? There are people
who are laid off inhumanely, and there are people who
are going to be laid off humanly. No matter how
many things you have out of your control, and my god,
so many things are out of our control right now,
(24:17):
you are not powerless over whether or not you act
humanly or inhumanly. Yeah, I'm going to say that again
because it's really important. You have a choice as to
how you are going to hold yourself, and the embodiment
of that choice is the embodiment of the mountain. What
(24:40):
values do you hold to? How do you respond to
the employees who are not being laid off? How do
you hold them and create space for them. I was
on a call today with about two hundred employees at
this one company, and one of the senior executives checked
in and he said, bravely, wonderfully filled with self love
(25:02):
and self care. He said, I've been terribly unproductive today,
and and that's brave because he just allowed himself to
be in that space, partially because he'd opened up his
home to somebody whose borders had been closed and he
had nowhere else to stay. Yeah, that's being human.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
I mean, and there's something so crazy human about this moment.
Look at you're literally looking into my home right we
for our listeners, we're zuming right like, you're literally looking
into my home right now. You know, there's something so personal.
I mean, it's just extraordinary the contrast.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Right.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
I was thinking about it. I woke up this morning
and truly, Jerry, it's like It totally depends on the
day in a minute as to how how I'm doing.
And I think I represent just everyone else too, you know,
Like I don't think that I'm unique in this, so
I'll say it. But like, you know, it's just there's
a stark contrast. It's silent outside, and then there's like
(26:07):
this war being fought. Right then they're these sirens and
it almost feels like this thing is kind of closing
in on us. And then you think, like will things
ever be the same, And so it's just like these
days of really trying to mentally, you know, be productive
and be there for a present for other people, your parents,
(26:28):
your employees, your friends, your family, you know, and then
also really try very hard to create a structure for
yourself to move forward. It's unlike anything I've ever experienced,
so I'll be open about it. I just think it's
it's extraordinarily humans, as human as it gets, you know.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
You know, there's not one person and in fact, of
the billions and billions of humans who have existed, not
one has been through this before. So in the social
distinct isolation that you're going through right now, don't lose
sight of the fact that whatever fears you're having, whatever
roller coaster of emotions you're having, whatever ups and downs
(27:13):
you're having, not alone.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
I think that's so important to realize that we are
all collectively alone, but going through this together. I know
that you guys put out and I read it, and
actually it was super helpful to me. Under the reboot
guidelines like what are for mandatory like isolation? Here are
some guidelines of what you can do as leaders are
(27:37):
for a company and for connection to provide care support.
Could you walk us through some of those? I love
the idea of giving people just like tangibles, right, could
you walk us through like some of what you would suggest.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
So what we did, and you're right. First of all,
what I would say is, and this is a message
that I've sent to my small little company in band
of broken hearted Warriors, that we are. What I've said
is we were built for this, not for these times,
but for this call. And this is how we will
(28:11):
be helping is to lean in and be there for
individuals and large and small organizations to help them in
their processes of being human right now. And so this
is a document that Chris the band and Brink, one
(28:33):
of my colleagues wrote, which is really a summary of
what we've learned in offering virtual peer support groups, and
just for context, one of the things virtual happy hours
are great, and one of the challenges is that we're
all taking on this sort of odd little burden of
trying to make each other happy. Yeah, and that can
(28:58):
create a kind of illness that doesn't allow the fullness
for the experience. And so one of the first things
we always recommend is you start with a check in.
And you and I actually did this, and we started
with that very famous Jerry question of how are you
and you turn the tables and you started with me.
(29:18):
You tried to catch me. I know what you're doing.
And the thing is that we have always advised that
business meetings start with a check in, and a check
in usually goes. We tend to use from polyvegel theory red, yellow,
green as a means of identifying how we're doing. Red
(29:42):
obviously is not in the best of all places. I'd
rather be somebody's else. Yellow, I'm kind of in the middle, Green,
I'm good to go. And it's a way of quickly
being able to identify our feeling state, and then people
are welcome to name any color or not use any
color at all. We're actually putting out a little recording
(30:02):
about how to do regular green check ins. But the
point of the check in is to establish an emotional
rapport with people. I'll add that one of the really
powerful things a video is if you can manage to
tilt the computer or your screen or your camera in
such a way so that you can look into the
camera with your eyes so that your partners can see
(30:25):
your eyes. It's really powerful because when we're at physical distance,
what we lack is the emotional rapport that comes from
being able to read each other's energy, and it can
increase the sense of isolation, especially if people are on
a video call and they're actually looking away, like if
I turn my body away. Yeah, okay, So that's a
(30:46):
really important piece. The second is we often think of
setting the container, and I always talk about a glass
of water, and an empty glass is her useless and
water without a glass is useless. And so when you
(31:07):
set the intention to have a peer support group and
a peer check in, that's the water, that's the content,
that's what it is that we're really there for. But
if you don't have a proper container or a proper
set of rules about how to do it, it can
quickly become useless, and so we have a couple of
(31:29):
norms and guidelines that we talk about. One is presence
really show up, really be there? So simple thing, turn
off the notifications on your computer nobody else needs to hear.
A second, much more important is you ask questions before
(31:49):
giving advice. In fact, dial down the advice giving, dial
up the questions, how are you feeling? What would be different?
That sort of thing. It's often helpful to sort of
bring forth a particular issue that the group is working on. Hey,
you know, if it's four or five vice presidents at
(32:11):
a company, you might come forth and say, hey, how
are we going to be communicating about this layoff? And
there may only be one person who has to deal
with it, but by talking about it together it can
be really powerful. First of all, you can get more perspective,
which is always helpful, but you can get more support
(32:31):
in that regard. There's a whole long list of things here,
and there's lots and lots of links on that, and
I'm sure you'll.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
Make that well, we'll put it in our show notes. Well, definitely,
we definitely will, And I love that. I'm going to
ask you. I don't normally do these types of questions,
but because you're on the front lines and you're hearing things,
i'd be curious to know. And I'm going to ask
two questions at once because i don't want you to
think I'm just asking the first. What is the most
heartbreaking thing that you've heard from a CEO over the
(33:01):
last couple of weeks, And what is the most heartwarming
thing you've heard?
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Well, actually, the most heartbreaking thing I've heard is not
actually from a CEO, but it's from a woman who's
so many people are worried simultaneously about their children and
about their parents, just like you are worried about you know,
your parents and are they safe and are they actually
listening to you? And this woman, she was part of
(33:27):
an all hands conversation and she was just talking about
her father, who was an immigrant from China, lives in
Sheepshead Bay and is a postal worker. And he takes
the D train, I imagine, or maybe the F from Brooklyn
to Penn Station to work at the Farley Post Office,
(33:51):
the main post office in New York City. And I
can't get that man out of my head. Yeah, how
dangerous to get on a subway which is I'm sure
empty in a community right now that is struggling mightily
with racism coming from our highest leaders, and he wants
(34:16):
stay home. I mean, I can't stop thinking about that man,
and I can't stop thinking about that young woman who
cares about her father. Yeah, you know, I grew up
in Brooklyn. It's kind of obvious from my accent. And
(34:36):
there are a lot of people who think of New
York and the glitz of New York. They think of
New York as Manhattan between ninety sixth Street and Wall Street. Maybe,
but that's not my New York. My New Yorker postal
workers and sanitation workers, and I'm sorry. You know, the firefighters,
(35:06):
the ambulance drivers. You know, somebody's going out and repairing
traffic lights and it ain't me. You know, these are
the people I grew up with. This is where grit
really means. We talk about so much about resilience in
(35:27):
leadership circles. You want to know resilience. Catch a subway
that started off in the Bronx at three o'clock in
the morning or four o'clock in the morning and watch
people going to work with construction boots on or white
nurse's shoes. Think of the woman who emigrated from Haiti
(35:52):
who's a nurse in Elmnhurst Hospital. You know Elmhurst, Elmhurst,
what one hundred and twenty one hundred and thirty languages
spoken in that one zip code that's New York. That,
as you can tell, breaks my heart. And you know
(36:15):
there are people like that in every community.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
Yeah, what do you think?
Speaker 2 (36:22):
Well, can I give you the joyful moment?
Speaker 1 (36:24):
Yeah? Yeah, sure.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
So one of the moments of joy was actually something
that happened internally for the company. And I've had lots
and lots of moments of joy, usually around seeing human
beings come together. But last Friday, you know, many of
my colleagues have have little rugrats, little munchkins, and you know,
my youngest is twenty two, so it's been a long time.
(36:51):
And so I did story time for one of my
colleagues four year old and just over video read a book.
And you know, it was more for me than for
him because he could barely but asam as the tank engine.
But you know, a promise I've made to myself as
(37:14):
a CEO is that I'm not going to forget that,
and I'm going to not wait for times of crisis
to inquire about the health and well being of my
colleagues four year old son. You know. So there's a
tinge of bittersweetness in that joint.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
Okay, we've got to take a quick break to hear
from our sponsors more with my guest after the break.
(38:00):
What do you think resilience is in the era of coronavirus.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
Well, it's really important to remember about resilience that we
oftentimes misunderstand. Resilience is a kind of false a capacity
to always take a punch, right, to take a punch,
get knocked down and stand up, And that's great if
you can do that. But true resilience is the ability
(38:30):
to duck. I'm a boxer, right, and you know my
boxing coach would yell at me if I stood there
blithely taking a punch because you don't really last very long.
And so true resiliency, true grit if you will, it's
the capacity to sort of really be flexible and to
(38:53):
shift and to respond differently to changing circumstances, and so
resiliency in the age of coronavirus, I think resiliency in
this age requires us to go back to and remember
what was vitally important about us in the first place,
(39:14):
what brought us together, and what remains what is true regardless.
Resiliency being in the form of being able to withstand
the heartbreak of connecting with a postal worker who's commuting
on a train at five o'clock in the morning or
(39:35):
something like that, and know what is our work to do,
and knowing that my job as a leader right now
is to hold myself steady, to remind people of their
true worth, their true values, and call that forth, call
forth that humanity. As you mentioned before, I suppose in
(39:59):
the end, resiliency is really a quality of leadership in
that way, more than a thing unto itself.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
When you talk about holding close what's important to you,
I think I've done a lot of thinking about what
is important to me during this time. Thank you, Quarantine,
What is that for you?
Speaker 2 (40:25):
Are you going to make me cry? So you referenced
the fact that I've had my own existential depression and
suicidal feelings and an attempted suicide when I was a teenager,
and then a return of those feelings in my thirties,
(40:49):
and as I left that period and entered a new
period still connected to the pain of that. I began
exploring Buddhism and it works for me. And I don't
mean to proselytize. If find what works for you is
(41:10):
fine by me whatever. But it worked for me because
of so many different reasons. But one of the things
that I found fascinating is the notion of the Bodhisatva.
And Bodhisattva isn't just another saint. I was raised in
the Catholic tradition, so I have a deep and profound
awareness of saints at Bodhisatva is someone who could attain enlightenment,
(41:36):
who could leave suffering behind, but chooses to take rebirth
time and time again until all beings are free from suffering.
So what matters to me, Laurie, is my body. I
(42:00):
am wired to care. I am at my best when
I am caring. And what matters to me is love
and compassion. And what coronavirus has taught me already is
that which I thought was true, I have now confirmed
(42:23):
is in fact true. But the only response to fear
is love. It's the only response that works. And so
when we're terrified, find the compassion. You know, fred Rodgers,
loving wonderfully used to advise children to look for the helpers.
(42:47):
All amend that by saying, there's a helper inside of you.
Look for that helper because we can all do something special.
We can all do one little.
Speaker 1 (42:59):
Thing, pulling it out a little bit. I something you
said earlier I thought was interesting about business is changing
after this, Like as we come out of this, you
talk about, you know, maybe people will look at people
over profit. Maybe things will be different when two, three, four,
(43:20):
six months, a year down the road, Like do you
think that businesses change? Do you think that we lead
with heart?
Speaker 2 (43:28):
Like?
Speaker 1 (43:28):
What do you think happens to businesses?
Speaker 2 (43:31):
I don't know for sure, but I know what I
would like. I don't I can't tell you with certainty,
but I know what would be a tragedy. And what
would be a tragedy is if we let this time pass,
and we let all those lives go, and we still
find ourselves squabbling over nonsense, and we do that a lot.
(43:58):
I find it hard to believe that that the vast
manejority of us will somehow forget what this time period was. Like.
I don't believe humans are like that. And I think
back to what happened in the nineteen thirties after the
Great Depression hit. And not just the stories that we
(44:21):
tell of our ancestors who saved every little bit of
string and turned it into a ball because they had
grown up in the depression, but because of the entitlement
programs that were created as a result of that, the
commitment the government made to taking care of people. I
think in a similar fashion, they were entitlement programs that
were created despite its profound racism. The nineteen fifties, we
(44:46):
created the middle class because there was a commitment that
that sacrifice was going to mean something. I know that
we have the capacity to do that as a species,
not just as a country. Yeah, and you know that's
my hope and my wish, and you know, to me,
(45:06):
businesses are the best organization structures to manifest social change possible.
They are fast, they are efficient. For the most part,
they do miraculous things. We just need to make sure
that the leaders are leading from their heart, That's.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
All I do. Wonder, having covered tech and having seen
us through this tech lash and having watched it come
all the way over the pendulum swing one way, I
wonder if we come back. I wonder if this is
a reset for many of these tech companies that are
now kind of the most powerful companies in the world.
I wonder what this will mean for them.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
Well, you take a look at Amazon, which you know
is of course a tech company, but is also a
logistics giant. Yeah. Right, let's hope that giants like Amazon,
And I think it's true. I think they were having
I mean, I'm talking to some of these leaders, and
they see it. They have, if not then direct family,
(46:04):
then they have cousins who are impacted. They see the
lives impacted for this, and they want to do something. Yeah,
let's just hope that they have internalized a change.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
I had this thought before I got on with you.
I just what does this virus mean for the American dream?
I look at friends of mine who have small businesses,
folks who work at restaurants. I'm already seeing jobs lost,
and so that question of like, what does this mean
for the American dream? I don't know, what.
Speaker 2 (46:36):
Do you think, Well, what does it mean for your dream? Oh?
Speaker 1 (46:39):
I think it means for my dream. It means it's
more tangible than ever, you know. I think storytelling is
kind of a method of survival for me personally. But
I also think I said this in my last episode,
which is my favorite Joan Diddy U quote, as we
tell ourselves stories in order to live. Well, that's essentially
what I I've got to do for myself and others
(47:02):
right now. But that's you know, I think for me,
that's that's my dream. And I think that survives I
think that survives this, you know, hopefully, I mean for
me personally, hopefully. You know. I think about those things
because we are a small business and we are you know,
we are new, and they came out at a weird
(47:25):
time and we had to throw everything out the window
and rethink from quarantine like many other people, right, like
a lot of other folks. But it got me thinking
about the American dream, Like.
Speaker 2 (47:38):
I think what you're referring to is the American dream
of an individual crafting their own future. Yeah, so I
think let's make a distinction. There are some dreams that
will be dashed. That is true. There will be some
dreams like was it Iraine Hansbury who wrote that will
(48:02):
dry up like a raisin in the sun from the
Langston Hughes poem, But the American dreaming will go on
the act of dreaming is more important than the dream itself,
because that's resiliency. I spoke to a venture accelerator this morning,
(48:24):
a group that incubates lots and lots of entrepreneurial endeavors,
and their entire mode of operating has to change right now,
and I reminded them of their purpose, which was two three, four, five,
six months from now, nine months from now, whenever it
is that we are through this period. Their job is
(48:47):
to take care of those dreamers so that those dreamers
can manifest their dreams. The dreaming will continue, but what
we dreamed up will be different. Right now, somebody is
inventing a new ventilator. Right now, somebody is saying, the
(49:10):
logistical nightmare of not being able to get seven cent
mass that's how much they cost, apparently, and ninety five mass,
the logistical nightmare of not making enough of those is
going to be solved by an American dreaming entrepreneur or
(49:32):
an entrepreneur from another country. Yeah, that will not stop.
Speaker 1 (49:38):
I am so excited to watch technology entrepreneurs step up.
I mean I got into this in two thousand and
eight interviewing entrepreneurs when we're coming out of the recession
when there was the iPhone launch, the app store, it
was launched, and there was just like this canvas for creativity,
right and like people dreamed like there were a ton
(49:58):
of dreamers. And I have a feeling that we're going
to have a lot of dreamers come out of this,
that we're going to have a lot of people who
have a lot of heart, who have seen things happen
to their parents and their friends, and have seen that
there is a system that is broken. I hope you
know that that ethos of tech that I so fell
in love with as a startup reporter, you know, in
(50:20):
my early twenties, I can hopefully not to try to
find a silver lining, but I can see that, I
can see that we are going to I hope we
are going to have We're already seeing that, and that,
you know, that makes me really happy.
Speaker 2 (50:32):
So, you know, in the early days when I was
a VC, one of the entrepreneurial archetypes that I could
not stand back and I would not back were people
who were in it for the money. I just I
just I couldn't. I couldn't bear to be around them.
One of the things that will happen in this time
(50:53):
period is those people who are pursuing something because they
think it's a path to riches will probably not continue
pursuing things. But the people who rise up are the
people who genuinely lean in and say I have an
idea that might help, And that, to me is the
essence of entrepreneurship. I have an idea that might help.
(51:18):
Wouldn't it be cool? If would it be cool if
we could triple the production to ventilators inside of two months?
Here's an idea, right, That's the American dreaming process.
Speaker 1 (51:35):
I want to end on something you said that I
love that this is in your book. I like scribble
notes in your book. I'm like a crazy person, and
I just think it's really fitting. You See, the call
to lead is the call to be brave, and I
think all of us are trying to lead in some capacity,
whether or not we own our own business, whether or
not we are parents trying to figure out how to
(51:59):
homeschool are chill, But I think bravery is a big one.
So I appreciate that statement. And I don't know if
you have anything you want to add on it, but
when it comes to this moment, but I think it's
super fitting for this time.
Speaker 2 (52:15):
Well, I agree with you. It's I think the call
to leadership is a call to bravery, But the call
to bravery is a call to be human. And I
think that as much as anxiety and fear is a
foundational component of us and our survival technique, just as
(52:36):
true as that is the truth that we are a
called to be brave. It takes courage to grow up
and become an adult. It takes courage to hold ourself
steady like a mountain in a hurricane. It takes courage
to homeschool our kids, to use a video call to
(52:59):
talk to a parent and remind them to stay inside.
And it takes courage to put that structure to your
day and go about your day. It takes courage to
admit that you're afraid. That's true bravery. And that's the
most fundamental source of joy that I'm experiencing, is because
(53:22):
I see bravery every day time and time again. Maybe
what we should say, you know how we've all taken
the saying to each other stay safe, Maybe we should
say stay brave.
Speaker 1 (53:35):
I like that. I really like that stay brave. This
episode is coming out on Monday, April sixth. If you
want to talk to Jerry. I'm hosting a town hall
with him tonight at eight pm. Check out my social
media for a link to register. We want to hear
(53:56):
your questions about leadership and resilience in these crazy times.
I'm at Lori Siegel on Twitter and Instagram, and the
show is at First Contact Podcast on Instagram and on Twitter.
We're at First Contact Pod. Also feel free to reach
out directly. I know this is a tough time for
a lot of you. You can text me. I'm at
nine to one seven five four zero three four one zero.
(54:19):
We're also going to be hosting more Zoom town halls,
not just tonight, on different issues during this time, so
follow along and participate for some human ish contact. First
Contact is a production of Dot Dot Dot Media, executive
produced by Lori Siegel and Derek Dodge. I will say
we're being creative and executive producing this from home at
the moment. This episode was produced and edited by Sabine
(54:42):
Jansen and Jack Reagan. The original theme music is by
Xander Singh. I'm sending my thoughts to each and every
one of you, guys, and so is our whole crew
at First Contact during this time. I hope that everyone
is staying home, staying healthy, and staying human. First Contact
(55:06):
with Lori Siegel is a production of Dot Dot Dot
Media and iHeartRadio
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