January 14, 2025 • 55 mins
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SHOW DESCRIPTION
In this episode, I explore the concept of Kintsugi, an ancient Japanese art of mending broken pottery with gold, and how it parallels personal and professional growth. Special guest Coach Damon Utsey, a leadership coach, joins the conversation to discuss the significance of personal development in leadership, the importance of male allies and sponsors, and how to recognize and cultivate true leadership skills. We also explore the impact of emotional intelligence and how creating safe spaces can empower women in their careers. This episode features a moving spoken word piece that celebrates the journey of self-acceptance and embracing your unique "wholeness" after experiencing setbacks.
TL;DR
Learn how the ancient art of Kintsugi can inspire your personal and professional growth. This episode features a leadership expert and explores topics like male allyship, emotional intelligence, and creating safe spaces for women leaders.
Time Stamps
00:00 Introduction and Personal Story
02:36 Exploring the Concept of Being Broken
02:51 Introduction to Kintsugi with Coach Damon Utsey
04:58 Damon's Background and Leadership Philosophy
11:03 The Art of Kintsugi Explained
15:48 Applying Kintsugi to Personal and Professional Development
23:59 Feedback and Personal Development
25:53 The Importance of Women in Leadership
29:24 Cultural Perspectives on Leadership Styles
29:55 Proving Ourselves in the Workplace
31:32 Emotional Intelligence and Growth
34:14 Creating Safe Spaces for Women
37:36 Identifying Male Allies
40:26 The Role of Sponsors
42:53 Challenges for Young Leaders
46:10 The Importance of Allies
50:15 Closing Thoughts
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RESOURCES
Note: I do not have any affiliations with, sponsorships or endorsements from any of the resources mentioned. They are listed for your reference.
Mental Health Resources
Ph: 988
National Institute of Mental Health
Sexual Violence Resources
Ph: 800.656.HOPE (4673)
Substance Abuse Resources
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
GUEST
Coach Damon Utsey
IG: @DamonUtsey
FB: @DamonUtsey
LinkedIn: @DamonUtsey
TikTok: @skratchlabd
Credits
Podcast Editor: Payton Cross Productions
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Coming up next on Coffee,Cocktails, and Clarity.
Shai Boston, CPTD (00:04):
If you leave a job crying, if you have
nightmares about your job, ifyour job drives you to the
hospital or to mental healththerapists, it's time to go.
Attitude reflects leadership.
Damon Utsey (00:15):
Kintsugi is ancient Japanese art, it's about 400
years old.
They fill the cracks with goldand it becomes something that's
beautiful, piece to be displayedand it still has use.
Shai Boston, CPTD (00:26):
I am chipped, not broken.
I no longer call myself brokenwhen I am and was always only
chipped.
I.
Am.
Whole.
and so are you.
Several years ago, I was workingfor a gentleman and we had kind
(00:46):
of an interesting workingrelationship.
I won't say it was the bestrelationship, won't necessarily
say it was the worst one I everhad, but what was interesting
about it was I had beencontemplating whether or not I
was going to leave thedepartment or leave the company.
(01:10):
Every time I had a conversationwith this raise his voice.
He would say that I wascondescending to him and talk in
a condescending tone.
He would have his office doorclosed.
He was in another state, but hewould have his office door
closed.
And I would get DMS, instantmessaging, from his secretary or
the secretary that worked in theoffice saying,"What are you
saying to him?
He's talking so loud.
What's going on?" And I'm like,I'm not even talking.
(01:33):
I'm not saying anything.
And I knew that it came to anend, which is my personal
philosophy of if you leave a jobcrying, if you have nightmares
about your job, if your jobdrives you to the hospital or to
mental health therapists, it'stime to go.
I will never forget that Friday.
I was on the phone with him,getting ready to leave, go on
(01:55):
vacation, and when theconversation was done, I was not
only bawling my eyes out I feltvery much broken...
Hey girl, have you been lookingfor a safe space for women to
have authentic conversationsaround everything that impacts
our life, careers, andrelationships?
(02:17):
I'm Shai Boston, and on thisshow, I talk about all things
connected to our personal andprofessional development so we
can live our best and authenticlives.
Grab a drink.
Sit back and let's have a chat.
It's time for some Coffee,Cocktails, and Clarity.
That's what we're talking about today in our
(02:39):
discussion.
We're talking about what does itmean to be broken?
In fact, we're talking about theJapanese art of Kintsugi and are
we really broken?
I have a very special guest withme.
He's a friend of mine that isalso a leadership coach and he
specializes in coaching usingthe foundation of Kintsugi which
(02:59):
we're going to talk about today.
Welcome to the show Coach DamonUtsey.
How are you today?
Damon Utsey (03:07):
I am doing well Shai.
Thanks.
How about yourself?
Shai Boston, CPTD (03:09):
I'm doing good.
Well, I'm glad that you can behere today.
And of course I start every showtalking about what beverages
that we have.
So what beverage are you havingtoday on the show?
Damon Utsey (03:19):
Today I am enjoying a cup of Spanish almond loose
leaf tea, purchased from a localfarmer's market here in
Colorado.
It's delicious.
I love loose leaf tea.
That's all I have in my cabinetnow.
Shai Boston, CPTD (03:30):
Nice.
I have to try that.
Well, I have a combination ofthings because I couldn't make
up my mind what I wanted todrink.
So I have my trusty old waterhere.
If you guys know me, you alreadyknow I love KPop.
So it's in my Suga, who is fromBTS, in his water bottle.
And I also have some cranberryjuice, which I'll probably sip
on.
(03:50):
Mm All right, let's get into it.
We're talking about being brokenand what that exactly means.
And for many of us listening,for many of you ladies, you have
been laid off this year.
You may have been forced toresign from a job or you may
have had to make some difficultlife choices.
Some of us have had to turn tobeing caregivers.
(04:11):
Some of us became new moms andalso have to make choices about
returning to work or not.
Not only that, we've also had todeal with workplace trauma in
many cases.
Yes, this is a show about womenand we have a man on the show
today, so we're going to getback to that in just a moment
and why we have him here.
But we all have dealt withsomething in our personal or
(04:33):
professional lives that has madeus feel like we were broken,
much like the situation that Idealt with a few years back.
And so today, that's one of thethings that we're going to talk
about, and I have all of mylittle trusty notes here so that
we can make sure that we'rehitting all the key points that
we want to talk about today.
But we're going to talk withDamon and talk more about
(04:53):
Kintsugi, what it is, and we'regoing to tie that into our
personal and professionaldevelopment.
Before we get started though,Damon, why don't you tell us a
little bit more about you andwhat you do, and how you came
into leadership development?
Damon Utsey (05:07):
Sure.
Absolutely.
first off, I am a husband to mybeautiful wife of 28 years,
Andrea.
I'm also a dog dad to my two furboys, Bennett and Boulder.
We have a lot of fun out here inColorado.
We're in the Denver metro area.
We love it out here.
Right now we're enjoying thesnow in the mountains.
I love all things outdoors.
(05:28):
That's why we're out here inColorado.
Cause it helps me ground myself,as a leader I think that's very
important that we groundourselves and that we have a
release at times, and whatbetter way to do that than being
outside, right?
Shai Boston, CPTD (05:40):
And you got Weimeraners, so they're runners.
Damon Utsey (05:42):
They are runners, so they keep us busy.
They do.
Five and nine year olds.
My background, little over 30years I've been in the retail,
and I like to call it thehospitality space because I
believe retail is a part ofhospitality.
When we think of hospitality, wethink of restaurants, hotels and
things of that nature.
But retail is the same thing.
We're inviting people in ourplaces of business, our
(06:04):
storefronts, whatever it may be.
And those are our guests whenthey come in.
So that's why I consider retailto be hospitality also, because
those are our guests coming into spend their hard earned money
with us.
And, I've been in variouspositions, leadership roles in
retail, whether it be working inpurchasing, location operations
(06:25):
and logistics and distribution.
So I've run the gamut of it.
And over that course of time inrestaurants and retail, I've
seen a lot of leadership styles.
I've seen the good ones and I'veseen the not so good ones.
We're going to be nice, right?
For the ones where there's somedeficiencies or some gaps, which
has led me to in the past year,pivot, being actually in the
(06:49):
trenches and working that andworking with individuals there
and developing those leadersthere, and seeing that there's a
need for this in allorganizations.
And leadership is a passion ofmine because I'm actually having
an impact on someone's life.
So when we work together and Ihelp them with those skills that
they already have, and watchtheir careers grow and their
(07:09):
trajectory, we are literallychanging their lives.
We're changing their families.
We're giving them an opportunityto create a better future for
themselves and their families.
And I also believe that youdon't have to have a title to
lead.
That's kind of a misconceptionwhen people talk about what does
the leadership look like here?
(07:31):
I believe you can lead fromevery level from the most junior
person on your team to the mostsenior person.
You don't need a title to lead.
I mean, I've had several leaderson my team that had no interest
in going into"an official formof leadership" with the title
and all the responsibilities,but they would run my operations
and run my teams when I wasn'tthere just as good, if not
(07:54):
better than, I would, because Iempowered them and gave them the
tools that they needed tosucceed.
And that's what I do now when Ihelp other individuals as well
as organizations, entrepreneursin particular, those that are
trying to grow their businessand trying to grow their teams,
I come in and help them growthose leaders on their team so
they can go out and focus on thehospitality side of their
(08:16):
businesses.
Shai Boston, CPTD (08:17):
Understood.
And you know, you said twothings there.
I just wanted to piggyback offof, because it's my personal
philosophy.
Number one attitude reflectsleadership.
We talk a lot about culture.
You hear that a lot being theright"culture fit".
I'm looking at LinkedIn.
I'm looking at people that arelooking for jobs.
I'm looking at recruiters andthings like that.
And some have removed that outof their terminology, if you
(08:40):
will, when it comes to doing jobsearches, but a lot of them
still have it there.
We want the right culture.
You will know the culture of anorganization based on their
leaders.
You will know the culture of anorganization when you look at
the employees that are there.
Even as entrepreneurs, if thepeople that they're hiring to
work with them, the othercontractors they may be working
(09:02):
with, the other employees theymay be hiring, because attitude
reflects leadership.
If there is a funky attitudegoing on or sporadically you're
getting some good vibes andyou're getting some not so good
vibes that tells you the cultureisn't very good.
That tells you that theleadership is not very good.
For those that might be lookingfor jobs or looking for a fit,
and you're wondering aboutculture, that's one thing to
(09:23):
keep in mind.
The other thing that I noted,that I'm a firm believer in, and
I tell everyone this, you canlead and communicate effectively
from every seat at the table.
Doesn't matter if you're at thehead, if you're at the middle,
or wherever you are, you canlead from every seat at the
table.
And that's something that Ilearned years ago.
(09:44):
John Maxwell has a book called"The 360 Degree Leader", and it
was probably one of the firstleadership books I ever read,
but it talks about how to leadup, laterally, and to lead down.
And when you can learn andmaster those, you definitely
become a well-rounded leader.
So I agree with you on all ofthose points.
And just to give a littlebackground, Damon and I actually
(10:06):
had quite a few friends incommon, but we just had never
met.
And one day I get thisnotification on LinkedIn, like
this guy wants to connect withyou.
And I'm like, who is this?
And I'm looking at all hisconnections.
I'm like, I know this person,this person, these are people I
know personally.
So I'm like, Why do I not knowhim?
But he looks familiar." So weconnected, we did a Coffee Chat.
(10:27):
Whole vibe.
I don't have anyone on my showthat I don't have a vibe with.
Damon's a whole vibe.
And the one thing he asked metowards the end of our coffee
chat, we talked about some ofeverything.
He goes,"Hey, have you heard ofKintsugi?""Yes, I've heard of
Kintsugi!" And so we went off ona tangent on that.
So that's how we met andconnected.
And that's one reason why Iwanted to bring him on the show
(10:49):
and also to have a male voicebecause we also need male
allies, which we'll talk aboutin a little bit.
But, going back and talkingabout leadership and everything,
let's go ahead and ease intotalking about the concept of
Kintsugi.
What exactly is Kintsugi?
Damon Utsey (11:06):
So Kintsugi is Japanese art, ancient Japanese
art, it's about 400 years old.
Started with tea ceremonies.
And what, basically what happensis if a vessel breaks, say, for
example, my coffee cup.
Okay, you see my cup that I havemy tea and I have this crack
here.
This a daily reminder for meactually that we all have,
(11:27):
cracks.
But this crack, what wouldhappen is most people would look
at their mug.
When the person chipped thismug, my wife was like, we got to
get a new mug because the mug ischipped, we can't do this.
That's generally what ourculture is like.
It's broken.
It's chipped.
It's not, technically, pleasinganymore.
But what the Japanese art ofKintsugi does is they take that
(11:48):
piece and they still believethat piece has value, and
they'll take that piece, they'llmend it.
They'll fill it with, a lacqueror a putty, sand it down,
restore it to it's place.
But then what they do with thecracks, once they're done, they
take and fill those cracks withthe precious metal in the
lacquer, so gold, silver,platinum.
(12:09):
And what happens is that pieceactually becomes more valuable,
more beautiful, than what it wasto begin with.
So say, for example, I have anexample here.
This nice bowl is whole.
It breaks most of us with throwit away.
Japanese art of Kintsugi, theytake that same bowl and they
fill the cracks with gold and itbecomes something that's
(12:32):
beautiful, piece to be displayedand it still has use.
Shai Boston, CPTD (12:36):
Exactly.
And it's interesting because Iremember, I heard about Kintsugi
from, I was listening to alecture that was being given and
they talked about that and Ithought it was fascinating.
So I went and looked it up andfor those of you, who might be
listening to the podcast ratherthan just watching it on
YouTube, you've definitely seenKintsugi somewhere.
(12:58):
Just imagine anytime you've seena broken piece of pottery or
something like that, and you sawthe gold inlay, more than likely
that was the Japanese art ofKintsugi that you saw.
And so when the person mentionedit in their speech, I was like,
I need to look that up and whenI looked it up, I was like, this
is me.
I get this.
I so get this.
And so what ends up happening alot of times is that we are
(13:21):
dealing with situations whetherin our personal or professional
lives, like I said earlier in myfirst example, that we feel that
we are broken.
We feel that it breaks us downand we sometimes feel valueless.
We feel useless.
And when we think about thewhole art of Kintsugi and what
it stands for, we are then madeto believe not only can we be
(13:43):
made whole again, and put backtogether, and yes it's a new
version of you but you're alsostill very much valuable.
And so that's one of the thingsI like.
What was your introduction toKintsugi?
Damon Utsey (13:57):
Much like you Shai, it wasn't through conversation.
I actually saw it on a TV show.
It was Ted Lasso we we'rewatching.
It was Ted Lasso one night and Ihad some stuff going on with my
team and it was mentioned, andsame thing, I said,"Let me dive
this rabbit hole." And then whenI saw it, I recognized them
like,"Oh, wow, I know exactlywhat this is." And it's been
something for the past year anda half that I've been studying
(14:19):
and really seeing how itcorrelates to us as people and
with our teams and how we canbuild better teams.
But yeah, that's, that was myexperience with it.
But then my wife and I were ableto take a trip to Japan.
One of the things on my listthat I wanted to do was I want
to take a Kintsugi class.
I want to learn more about thisand what better place to learn
from it than its birthplace.
(14:41):
And that's where I learned thatit's an art that's 400 years
old.
It started with the teaceremonies.
But then what I also learned isthat it's a very long, tedious
process.
So for an actual piece, if it'sdone the correct way in the
correct style Kintsugi, it takesabout two months for a piece to
able to get to where it's ableto be used again, because once
(15:01):
that they're filling in thecracks, takes time for the
lacquer to dry for your gold todry.
I mean, so it's a whole longdrawn out process and actually I
have our pieces.
We did a quick version of it andthis one of the pieces that I
did, and this is the piece thatmy wife created.
And, but like I said, it was,two hour class.
And just in that two hours, itwas very, very, very tedious.
(15:23):
And they come around and theylook at you and no, you know, we
need to focus on this area alittle more, sand this out, feel
this with your hands, it is verysensory.
And the instructors, for theclass, if you looked at their
hands, they had calluses and alot of them had no fingerprints
just from really moving over theedges and feeling to make sure
everything is smooth.
It takes time to do.
Shai Boston, CPTD (15:45):
Wow.
You know, that is so interestingand fascinating to me.
Let's tie it back to theleadership for a second.
You'll hear stories about peopleare just born leaders and things
like that.
I don't know if I necessarilyagree with that per se.
I think some of us might be bornbossy, but I don't know we're
born leaders.
You ask my
Damon Utsey (16:02):
siblings, that's what they'll say.
I'm the oldest.
We're bossy.
Yeah.
Shai Boston, CPTD (16:05):
Yes, same here.
I'm the only child on my mom'sside and the oldest on my dad,
so I was definitely bossy.
But I think one of the thingsthat can Kintsugi teaches us, is
that leadership skills takestime to develop, that we need to
smooth out our rough edges, thatwe're going to face challenges
that are going to break us.
(16:25):
And even just in life ingeneral, we're going to face
challenges where we feel likewe're broken.
And we still smooth out thoseedges to bring them back
together.
And when we bring them backtogether, we're going to fill
them with all the skills andknowledge and everything that
we've gained.
Keep smoothing it out, keepsmoothing it out.
And then it starts gettingfilled with the fine metal, the
(16:46):
gold and things like that, thatkeeps it valuable and makes it
even more valuable.
It was already valuable and nowit becomes even more valuable.
So it's the same thing with uswhen we're talking about the
skills that it takes for us, thethings that we need to cultivate
to do our personal andprofessional development.
For me, I always say personaldevelopment changes who you are.
(17:07):
So like your communicationskills, things like that, that
actually changes you from theinside out and your professional
development changes yourknowledge.
So Kintsugi is a way ofdescribing the way that we
transform ourselves.
We're already valuable.
We're gonna take those pieces,add more to them and transform
ourselves into something evenmore valuable.
(17:27):
And we do that when we'reworking on becoming better
leaders, no matter what seat wehave.
We do that when we work on ourcommunication.
We do that when we work onowning our voices, owning our
spaces, and owning our presence.
So with that in mind.
What are some lessons that youhave seen that can be applied to
women in particular, with theart of Kintsugi, leadership, and
(17:50):
so forth.
Damon Utsey (17:52):
Oh, so many lessons.
So many that can be applied.
Throughout my career, I'veworked for many influential
powerful women leaders.
When I started working, it wasin the co-command and control
style of leadership, whereyou're going to do what I tell
to do because I'm the boss.
(18:12):
And it was very male dominated.
Most of the leaders they weremale.
So it was very rare when therewas a woman leader, and when she
did come up to the ranks, youwould hear the talk from the
men, oh, this, that, you know,and once working for them and
being on their team and actuallyhaving them develop me as a
leader, cause those were myfirst steps into leadership
(18:34):
roles were under women leaders.
I learned so much from them.
There was so much that Ilearned, but the one thing that
I did see is that they, a lot oftimes, allowed that negative
speak from the other leaders oreven other team members or other
people on their team, devaluingwhat they had to offer, which
(18:54):
didn't make sense.
So once I got an opportunity to,get rid of that stigma, because
even, with that the way I wasraised, my mom was a very strong
woman, so she always made surethat we respected everyone
regardless of your gender, age,race, whatever.
I would take the opportunity toget to know them and get to see
what I can learn from them andthen come to their defense when
(19:15):
things would happen.
But see that those cracks thatthey thought they had, or that
they had, it would help themfill those with gold by really
having their back as whether Iwas their assistant or just the
person on their team, reallycoming to their defense and and
to their back and upholdingtheir values and helping them to
progress.
(19:35):
So that's what I will say tothose as far as Kintsugi goes,
regardless of what anyone maysay or the view that they may
have of you, those cracks orthose deficiencies that we have,
you have an opportunity to fillthose with gold.
You can go two ways with it,right?
You can either let it remainbroken and in pieces, or you can
(19:56):
take it and build yourself backup, build whatever it is that
they're saying, and it takethose pieces and fill those in
with gold.
And I appreciate the fact thatyou spoke about personal
development because that's oneof the most important things is
the first question that I willask someone when I start working
with them, What are you doingfor personal development?" and a
lot of times, like"Personaldevelopment, what are you
talking about?" Okay.
(20:17):
What books are you reading?
What podcasts are you listeningto?
What videos are you watching onYouTube?
What are you doing to buildyourself up as a leader or just
as a person in general?
What are we doing to work onourselves?
That's how we're filling in allof those cracks that we may
have, that's the gold that'sgoing in.
Like you said, you're working onyourself and those qualities
(20:39):
that you have, once you startputting all that stuff together
and you start seeing how itworks, that's where the self
confidence comes in.
And that's where whatever anyoneelse says doesn't really matter
because you know you're worth,you know your value as a woman
in a leadership role or a womanon a team.
You know what you bring to thetable.
And that's the one importantthing that I always stress is
(21:02):
make sure you know your worth,you know your value because a
lot of times that noise that wehear and the things that people
are throwing at us is they'reintimidated.
A lot of it's intimidation.
A lot of it's their owninsecurities that they're
projecting on you.
So you have to kind of cutthrough that mess and see the
gold really stop and pause.
This is another thing I teachis, the power of the pause.
(21:24):
Before you allow someone else'snegativity to affect you and
see, okay, where's this reallycoming from?
What do I know about thisperson?
What do I know about theirbackground?
Why would they hurl this at me?
Or make these accusations orwhatever.
And once you really dig deep andfind out where the source is
coming from.
It's just that it's just a lotof noise that you can ignore.
Shai Boston, CPTD (21:46):
Exactly.
You know, it's interestingbecause in, I did a series of
episodes, it was actually goingto start off as one episode,
possibly two, and it ended upbeing three.
So episodes 9, 10 and 11, alltalked about owning our power
and owning our voice, ourpresence, and our spaces.
And that's one of the things Italk about is knowing what your
value and your worth is.
(22:07):
And those are two differentthings in my eyes.
In the sense of, your value isthe knowledge and the skills
that you're bringing to thetable and I define the worth as
the number that can go toquantify what those are worth,
as far as dollars and cents andthings of that nature, those can
fluctuate in other people's eyesbecause they may not have ever
(22:29):
seen your value, your worth andwhat you bring to the table.
And we know for us women andespecially if you're women of
color, but you know that whenyou come into a room, when
you're coming into these spaces,your value starts getting
diminished in the eyes of theones that are in that room, in
most cases, because they don'tknow what you bring.
they don't know not just whatyou bring as far as skills, but
(22:51):
what you just bring as a personinto the space.
And then, there are times whenthey know what you bring and
they still want to devalue youbecause they don't like the
package that it's coming in.
Whether it's a woman or thatyou're a woman of color.
Those are some really key pointsas far as what you said about
knowing the value and worth ofour personal currency.
(23:13):
That's what I call it.
My personal currency.
Those are the things that I'mbringing.
And when you know what you bringyou know how to better
counteract some of those thingsthat are happening.
We're going to take a quick adbreak and when we come back,
we'll continue our discussion.
Ready to level up your life?
Let's unlock your full potentialtogether.
(23:34):
As your expert coach andstrategist, I'll guide you to
achieve your goals.
For a limited time, name yourprice on my coaching and
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Terms and conditions apply.
Don't miss this incredibleopportunity.
Click the link to learn more andstart your journey.
Coming back, we we're talking about our
personal currency and all ofthose sorts of things and the
(23:57):
feedback that we receive.
One thing that I want to put outthere before we move on and
continue this, because there'ssome other really important
things I think we should talkabout.
As a coach and a trainer, I donot use the words criticism.
But, a lot of times when we hearfeedback, people confuse
constructive criticism andfeedback.
(24:19):
When I hear the word criticism,what that says to me is"I want
to cut you down" but I'm notgoing to give you any type of
solutions.
I'm not going to commend you.
I'm not doing anything else.
I'm not even recognizing whatyou've brought to the fore, I'm
just telling you what you didn'tdo right and I'm walking away.
When you're taught how to giveproper feedback, it's actually
(24:39):
considered a sandwich.
You're going to say somethinggood, recognize what this person
brings to the table, the middlepart the meat of it is here's
some areas of opportunity.
I don't call them weaknesses.
These are areas of opportunity.
We all have them.
And then you close out withsomething else good that they've
done.
And you've created this nicelittle sandwich that someone can
say,"Oh, I can feed off of this.
(25:01):
I can take this with me." I justwant to put out there for our
audience, if someone is comingwith you with constructive
criticism, you can take whatthey say.
There might be some legitimacyto it that can apply today.
There may not be.
Take what you need out of it,and throw the rest away.
When it comes to the feedback,if it's presented the way that
(25:22):
I've talked about, take it, feedon it, eat on it, marinate on it
because there's value in that.
And that fills up those spacesas well, to allow you to become
even more valuable.
I just wanted to throw that outthere because I loved your point
about when there's feedback andhow do we take it?
Because more often than not,we're going to be criticized as
(25:43):
women more so than our malecounterparts are going to be for
a lot of things, depending onthe leadership situation.
We talked about leadership andall these sorts of things.
I want to touch on, a littlebit, you clearly are an ally for
women, which is one reason why Iwanted to have you on the show.
I do not have men on the showthat are not allies to women
(26:05):
that do not know how to centerwomen's voices in conversations.
You touched on it a little bit,about why you became an ally for
women.
Why was that so important foryou?
And how did it help to enhanceyour career, as well, when you
did center women more, inconversations and you showed the
value that they brought to thetable?
Damon Utsey (26:25):
Most of the leaders that I worked for were women,
and I learned a lot.
When it came to just differentlessons.
How to be stern, how tocommunicate, or in some cases
what not to do.
I took it and I valued thoselessons and some of those women
leaders, I'm still in contactand in touch with them to this
(26:45):
very day.
They check in on me"Hey, I justwant to see how you're doing,
how things are going." I believethat everyone has, like you
mentioned before, a seat at thetable.
I've seen so many male leadersor men that were in leadership
roles that they were no betterthan the woman leader.
I just believe that they bring alot to the table that we as men
(27:05):
don't have at times that don'tbring to the table.
Cause if we look at ourworkforce now, a good majority
of our workforce are women,they're working mothers, someone
trying to put themselves throughschool, they're daughters.
Having that woman in aleadership role, they can
address things or they canapproach situations that we as
men, we're coming sometimes as abull in a China shop, we want to
(27:26):
break things.
What I've learned over the yearsis that no, there's different
ways to approach things.
And like I said, I've learnedthose from my women leaders,
they bring kind of a differentperspective to things.
And that perspective is, I'mgonna say it, it's better than
what we as males can do attimes.
That's one thing that I alwaysspeak to those that I am
(27:47):
mentoring or that I'm workingwith or someone that I see that
wants to move up, is you neverlet someone take your voice away
from you.
Everyone has a voice and manytimes as women, what I've seen
in the past and my experiencehas been that, men will a lot of
times trying to take their voiceaway from them or try and
silence them.
It actually kind of reminds meof one of your episodes where
(28:09):
you were talking about a balloonand filling, and not letting the
air out, and not allowingsomeone to take your voice away
from you.
And that's a piece of advice Itell every woman leader that I
work.
I will always stress it.
Do not let anyone take yourvoice away from you.
That's the one thing that we allhave that we need to use and we
need to exercise is our voice.
(28:29):
Many times we'll find theleaders are the ones that have
the loudest voice.
They talk over people, they'rethe highest paid person in the
room and many people, they'llfall in line lockstep, where
many times our women teammembers, leaders and other team
members, they have better ideasand that's what I came to learn
over the years of being inleadership roles.
(28:49):
I was that young leader.
That young 20 something yearold.
I was 20 when I first had myfirst leadership role, and boy,
I failed horrifically because Iwas still leaning on that whole,
I'm the man, I'm the command andcontrol type deal, but over
time, and of course through mybeautiful wife kind of corrected
me and checking me a lot, shekeeps me in line.
(29:09):
But actually listening andreally knowing what I don't
know, because as a leader wedon't know everything and we
don't have all the answers.
Shai Boston, CPTD (29:17):
You know, let me ask you this, not to get into
anything divisive, but it'ssomething that we do have to
address.
Do you find that from a culturalperspective that there is a
difference in leadership stylein men, let's say, white men
versus men of color, there's adifference, or do you find that
they kind of overlap in a waybecause they're men number one,
(29:41):
and then maybe two because ofthe various cultural aspects,
they're coming at it from thoseperspectives.
There is.
They overlap.
I will say this, there is a lotthat's
Damon Utsey (29:50):
very similar.
As far as the brute bull inChina shop.
But then I find with men ofcolor that there is also we have
to try and prove ourselves alsoto our white counterparts.
That I'm capable of doing thisjob.
I can do this job.
So many times you find yourselfcoming in a little hot, a little
harder than most, cause we feelas if though there is something
(30:12):
to prove.
I will say, cause the many yearsthat I've been doing this, I've
been guilty of that.
Yeah, I've been in thatsituation where it's"No, I got,
I've got something to prove"because I was the only person
that looked like me, I was theonly person of color in a
leadership meeting when we hadour manager meetings.
But then realizing, once again,with little age, this is why I
have these gray hairs, andmaturity, and learning and
(30:34):
personal development is like,"You know what I don't have
anything to prove to anyone butmyself." If I'm the type of
person that lives by the moralsand the standards that I was
raised with and the way I wantto be treated and realize that's
the way I need to approach myteams.
That's how I need to talk topeople.
(30:56):
A thing with me, I would alwayssometimes buttheads with other
leaders because I thought,"Oh,you're too soft.""You're not
hard enough on people.""You gotto come in and break them.""Stop
having these conversations withthem.""Stop engaging." But guess
what?
The teams that I had versusother teams because of the
engagement, because of treatingthem like they were human, not
coming in trying to provesomething.
(31:16):
They were higher performingteams.
They were loyal teams.
They were the teams that I couldgo away for two weeks and not
worry about anything becausethey would run it the same way,
or like I said, or if not betterthan I would run it, because I
would allow them to have thatautonomy to do what needed to be
done.
Shai Boston, CPTD (31:32):
So it sounds like, too, that part of this
growth that you had inrecognizing how to become a male
ally to the female team membersand leaders, was growth in your
emotional intelligence.
Would you say that that'ssomething you also learned from
women?
Because, generally speaking,women tend to be on the
emotional side and men tend tobe the logical.
(31:54):
So would you say that thathelped you in your emotional
intelligence growth?
Damon Utsey (31:58):
Oh, a hundred percent, a hundred percent,
absolutely.
To the point where my women teammembers or other fellow leaders,
they felt comfortable enough tolet me know if I had taken a
misstep or if I had saidsomething that would hurt their
feelings.
They knew that I was vulnerableenough to allow them to be able
to come and speak with me andlet me know.
(32:19):
And like I said, it only made mea better person.
And it continues to do that, ona professional level and a
personal level, just listeningbecause I had a really bad, bad
habit of speaking over peoplebecause I'm the oldest, so I
know everything I'm trying toprove my point.
I'm always, was into the arguingand there was one team member in
(32:39):
particular on my last team, shewould always address me with
"Sir." and that was kind of likemy cue that would snap me out of
it.
So now it's something where I'mmore cognizant of realizing
that's not respectful.
I want the same respect, so I'mgonna do the same thing, but
they felt comfortable to wherethey could do that or, if I hurt
(33:01):
their feelings, or if I saidsomething out of line, they know
that they could come and saysomething to me, they were
comfortable with me because Igave them that permission.
I gave them that autonomy to dothat.
Okay, talk to me.
If I step on your toes, if I dosomething that's not right or
that may be a little off, let meknow.
You ever watch those videoswhere they let a calf out or a
(33:23):
cow that's never been on grassbefore, and they're kind of
cautious but then as soon asthey get out and they realize
what it is, they're like allover the place?
And that's how it was at first,I would do something and they
would be kind of sheepish.
They wouldn't say anything.
I'm like, no, please tell me.
But then after a while, thefloodgates are open.
It was like,"Hey, you're doingthis.""Hey, how about this?""How
about that?" And then all of asudden, my team began to grow,
(33:44):
as far as being cohesive.
They were working well together.
They would come up with ideas,things that I would not think
of.
They would look out for me ifsomething was happening.
"Hey, I just wanted to give youa heads up on this.
This is what's going on.""Okay,great.
Thank you.
I appreciate that." But onceagain, see it builds a strong,
(34:04):
cohesive team.
And it made me a better leader.
And from that pool, I had otherleaders that grew, that were
promoted.
So many other women that rose toa leadership position.
Shai Boston, CPTD (34:14):
I love that because basically you created
safe spaces for us.
That's what holding space means.
There might be women out therenow who don't fully understand
what that means.
Holding space basically meansthat you are creating a safe
space and environment for notonly your voice to be heard, but
for other voices to be heard,such as other women.
(34:36):
So when a woman holds space foranother woman, that means she's
helping to center that woman'svoice.
That means she's including themin conversation.
That means when there's ameeting going on and there's
brainstorming, she's making surethat that person, that other
woman in the room, is beingheard.
And it's the same thing withmen.
When men hold spaces for womenthey will do the exact same
(34:58):
thing.
I think I shared this in anearlier podcast, but earlier in
my career, I had two managersthat I supported, that I was
never going to be an engineer,but they held space for me.
They made sure I was included inall these different meetings.
They made sure that whatever itwas they felt like I needed to
learn to help me grow, they madespace for me to do that.
(35:18):
They didn't block me from takingextra classes.
They didn't block me from"Okay,well, we got a slow time.
Well, here you can do X, Y, andZ to learn more." One of my
managers, I'll never forget hisname is Steve.
It was Steve Husar and ChuckLaustrap, I love them dearly.
Steve would say, it's my job totrain you to replace me.
(35:38):
"I'm like, Steve, I don't wantto be an engineer.
I don't like coding and I'm notinto that." He felt like, even
though I was his administrativeassistant, there were things
that he could teach me, which hedid, that would help me to
uplevel my skills.
And it was the same thing withmy other boss, Chuck.
Chuck often flew to China to dowork.
(36:01):
We worked in supercomputing.
He was always over there doingdeals.
If I had to come in on aSaturday to put together a
PowerPoint presentation for him,Chuck was in the office with me.
He came in, he worked.
If he didn't have work to do, hewas in close proximity.
He might've been reading anewspaper.
He didn't care if I blasted mymusic, he didn't care what I
(36:22):
did.
He was like, if you have to comehere and put in four or five,
eight hours, I'm going to behere with you.
I'm a buy you lunch.
I am going to sit here and talkto you if you have questions,
I'm going to answer them.
And which he often did.
"I'm like, Hey, I've got to putthis map of China on here.
Where exactly was Beijing again?
And where else are you going to?
He taught me a lot about justbeing present and what that
(36:46):
means.
And how that impacts people.
Because going into an office byyourself is the loneliest thing
in the world.
When you have to work andeverybody else is gone, I don't
know how many people haveexperienced that, but I've
experienced that one too manytimes in my life, and you're
going up onto your floor andit's dark and you got to turn
the lights on and nobody else ison your floor.
It's creepy.
(37:06):
It's scary.
And you got to sit down andwork.
And him coming there andphysically being present.
And then also being present tooffer me support if I needed
help in doing anything wasgreat.
I will never forget those twogentlemen.
They were absolutely amazing.
They created safe spaces for me.
I know that's what women needfrom their male counterparts,
their male colleagues.
(37:27):
Let's go into one other thing Iwanted to ask about too, is in
thinking about going intoculture, which we talked about
going into spaces.
From a male perspective, how cana woman identify a male ally,
maybe even before he speaks, buthow can she identify a male ally
in the room?
Damon Utsey (37:48):
It's a good question.
They can identify a male ally bygetting to know who's around
them, know who's in the room,and observe how these men are
treating their other teammembers.
And I'll give you a goodexample.
One day I had a young ladyapproach me.
And she wasn't on my team.
She was in a totally differentdepartment, and she approached
me and she's like,"Hey, Can Italk to you for a second?""Yeah,
(38:09):
sure." She's like, I'd like foryou to mentor me.
And"I'm like, really?" And she'slike,"Yeah, I've observed you.
She's like, I'd like for you tomentor." And I asked, I was like
"Okay, may I ask why?
Because you have like a wholedepartment full of managers,
supervisors." And I was honored.
And she said, because you knowmy name.
I'm like, know your name?
She's like"Yeah, you know myname.
And you say good morning to meevery morning, even though I'm
(38:32):
not part of your department.
You would always speak to me.
You always say, good morning.
And you would use my name.
And then I began to watch youand how you dealt with your team
and how your team speaks aboutyou.
You're the person that I want tomentor me." And I was blown away
by that just to know that one,saying good morning and knowing
someone's name for me, that'sone of the most important things
(38:53):
that a leader can do cause aname is all some people may
have, but that's the mostimportant thing to them.
And if you don't know their nameand you can't get their name
straight, we need to look at whyyou're in a leadership role,
especially if they're on yourteam.
I was blown away by that, andthen knowing that I am being
watched at all times as aleader, that was one of the
things I'm like,"Okay, othersare watching me." There are the
conversations going on about me.
(39:15):
So that's what I would tellsomeone that in order to find a
mentor, an ally, or a sponsor.
Watch, observe other members.
And it doesn't just have to bewithin your ecosystem or your
department.
Look within your organization.
Are there other people, othermen that have these qualities
that are producing these otherleaders, other women leaders,
(39:35):
that are approachable, that havethose qualities and those are
the ones that you want toapproach.
Those are the ones that you wantto ask.
That's another thing I will sayis make sure you ask.
If there is something that youwant and there's a role that you
want or something that you wantto learn, ask someone.
If it's a male leader, ask them;because many times they don't
know what you want until youapproach them.
(39:57):
If you don't ask, it may just goby the wayside and you're
wasting a beautiful talent.
So make sure that you're askingthings.
But yeah, get to know people,form those relationships outside
of your area, learn, makeyourself visible.
ask questions, ask a lot ofquestions.
If it's another department, goask those questions.
(40:17):
And then that way you'll get afeel for that male ally, that
male sponsor or that, mentor.
And one other thing, I know youmentioned, allies.
I want to talk about sponsors.
Because there's a differencebetween a mentor, an ally, and a
sponsor.
The sponsor can be the one thatbehind closed doors they're
going to be the one that'spounding the table for you.
(40:39):
They're going to be the onesthat are going to bat for you.
They're going to be the onesthat are going to have those
conversations that you can'thave or that you don't feel
comfortable having.
They have that capital, wherethey're going to go and do that.
And I've done that for severalwomen, on my team in particular,
where they have gone out forputting in a promotion or gone
(41:00):
out for a leadership role.
And several times they're told,no, no, no.
I have one client that I justfinished working with, five
times she was turned down.
And it got to the point where itwas like, you know what?
We need to have a conversation.
I build sponsors because I hadthe capital, and I've done this
to several people.
I'll use my capital because I'vebeen with the company for 24
years.
What are they going to do to me?
(41:21):
So guess what?
I can use my voice.
That's the reason why I wentthrough a leadership role.
So I can use my voice in behalfof whose voices have been
muffled.
Where I can go, I can stand onthe table.
I can say things or ask certainquestions, knowing that I'm
using that capital that I havefor them in their behalf.
And we've had results.
(41:42):
That's what I will say.
I mean, look for someone that'sgoing to do that for you.
Ask someone to sponsor you andask them"Hey, can we have a
weekly meeting?
Can we have a monthly meeting?
Can we have these quarterlymeetings?" To where we can come
up with a career path or acareer plan to work it and
really work it.
If they're like,"Well, I don'thave time" then guess, that's
really not the ally for you.
If they're, Let's sit down,let's do it", you know, they're
(42:04):
checking in with you, holdingyou accountable for your goals,
not being all nice, soft, andwarm and fuzzy.
They're going to have the hardconversations with you when they
need to have the hardconversations.
But at the same time, they'regoing to get you to the level
where you need to be.
Cause that's my belief.
And I'm sorry, I'm on my soapboxright now, cause I'm very
passionate about it.
Shai Boston, CPTD (42:23):
It's okay.
Damon Utsey (42:25):
A leader's job is to train and develop their team
to become leaders.
Shai Boston, CPTD (42:28):
Exactly.
Damon Utsey (42:29):
So, leaders develop other leaders If you're working
under a leader and they don'twant to share information or
share knowledge with you, thenit's time to start looking
elsewhere for another leaderthat will.
There should be nothing thatthey're holding back from you
when it comes to operations orhow to do their job that they're
afraid,"Oh, well, you know,you're going to take my job.
I'm not going to share that withyou." No, that's gatekeeping.
Shai Boston, CPTD (42:49):
Exactly.
Damon Utsey (42:50):
We have to stop that.
Shai Boston, CPTD (42:52):
I agree.
Damon Utsey (42:53):
That's why we have so many leaders that are,
especially young people, thatare getting into roles of
leadership.
And within the first year,they're burnt out.
They don't want to, they don'twant to move on because they're
promoted.
They get this new role, andthose that promoted them they're
not giving them the informationthat they need to succeed.
It's one those,"Well, no onetold me you figure it out for
yourself." Yeah, yep.
(43:13):
That's not what a leader does.
Shai Boston, CPTD (43:14):
Oh, I've heard that so many times.
Yes.
Damon Utsey (43:16):
That's not developing.
That's the opposite.
And then we wonder whyorganizations and stores or
operations are closing theirdoors because they don't have
the qualified people to runtheir organizations and to build
these teams Because we'rehoarding information.
Shai Boston, CPTD (43:33):
And you know, it's interesting.
you had said, I hear that from,especially from a lot of younger
people that are so disgruntledin their jobs.
They're excited.
We all have heard that some ofthese millennials are lazy.
We have all heard Gen Z is lazy.
Don't want to work.
I tell them those are the tworichest generations that we have
(43:54):
existing right now.
We at least have fivegenerations, from boomers all
the way down to Gen Alphas.
So that tells me number one,they're not lazy, the vast
majority.
And then that also tells menumber two, that they do have a
good work ethic.
It's just that when they comeout and they're being put into
jobs and things like that, theyare not given the tools, the
(44:15):
skills and things like that, Ishouldn't even say the skills.
They can come in with skills,they're not giving the tools to
do their job, they're not giventhe bandwidth to do their job.
They're not giving the space todo their job.
I totally agree with you onthat.
And I think, too, based on a lotof what I've heard, it's
definitely impacting women quitea bit.
One of the things that youmentioned that I wanted to throw
(44:36):
out there that I will definitelytestify to is asking.
Once you do your observations,you come in, you get the lay of
the land, so to speak, youfigure out who's who and what's
what, I listened to wordchoices, too.
I listen to not just how thingsare being said, but what is
being said.
That also lets you know, ifespecially a male, is an ally or
(44:59):
not.
But asking for their help andtheir guidance is huge because a
lot of times they want to help.
They're not sure how to approachbecause quite frankly, men are
on guard just as much as womenare on guard about the opposite
sex.
They're on guard about theopposite sex.
They don't want to be, called onthe carpet and misunderstood for
(45:21):
intentions and things of thatnature.
And I know for me, I talkedabout this in a previous podcast
episode.
I had a complete disaster on myhands when it came to doing
budgeting.
I went to, the director offinance for a different sales
department, but he and I hadalways had a friendly
relationship and I justscheduled a one on one with him
and I sat down and I said, One,"I need to vent about the
(45:44):
situation because I don't knowwhat I don't know." And then
number two, I'm asking you ifyou can assist me.
I know that you can't do thebudget and forecasting and
everything else for me, but canyou be there to help guide me?
Can you help answer somequestions I may have?" And he
was there every step of the way.
I've had just as many maleallies as I've had women allies.
(46:06):
And I think you need thatbalance for a number of reasons.
When you do get those maleallies, when you talk to them,
they can open doors for you.
Unfortunately, we do need alliesto do that for us.
That's why they're calledallies.
We can't do anything in thisworld without someone else.
You might think you're doing itwithout someone else.
(46:27):
I don't care if you're anentrepreneur, solopreneur,
whatever you want to callyourself.
I don't care if you think thatyou're the first to do whatever,
you still needed to probably geta bank loan.
You probably needed to get agrant.
You probably needed to make aconnection to somebody that was
willing to manufacture youritem.
You didn't do it alone.
You may have had to work to findthose connections.
(46:49):
Well, if you're using theinternet, you still didn't do it
alone because why?
People had to build that inorder for you to be able to do
the search to begin with.
I know that's extreme, but mypoint is we all need allies.
And so, when we have good maleallies, they can do a lot of
things for us that we may not beable to do that other women may
not be able to do.
(47:11):
In harmony with that, I wasreading a post on LinkedIn that
talked about how there are womenthat get put into positions of
power, with"title" what I meanby power, and then it turns out
they have no leverage.
They have no capital, so tospeak.
They have no power.
They're put there for show.
They're put there for diversity.
(47:32):
They're put there to try todemonstrate equity and all these
other things, right?
Inclusiveness.
So, even they still needsomebody else as an ally.
And generally speaking, whenthose kinds of situations
happen, it's going to be a man.
Let's just keep it real and putthat out there.
I
Damon Utsey (47:51):
can't tell you how many situations I've seen like
that where my leaders, team ormanagers, same thing, someone
will come in, they'll saysomething to them, or they'll
act certain way.
And I'll have to step in.
Are you going to let them talkto you like that?
So sometimes as an ally, it'sthat giving them that push and
showing that confidence boost.
If there's a role that's comeup,"Hey, have you thought about
(48:13):
applying for this role?
Let's see what we need to do toget you there." Are there gaps?
What are you not sure of?
What are you not certain of?
Okay, I'm going to help you getthere.
Let's do that.
They give you that push.
And when you talk about asking,you said you can't get what you
don't ask for.
That's why it's important.
Same thing, use that voice.
And if you're, timid orsheepish, or you don't know how
to use that voice, get with thatally, ask them,"Hey, help me,
(48:36):
amplify my voice.
Be my amplifier for me, help meget there to take those steps
where I need to be."
Shai Boston, CPTD (48:43):
You know, or you can just hire you some
really great leadership coachesthat will help you do that and
that are experienced incommunication.
I'm just saying.
The other thing, the otherthing, too, that, you mentioned,
and I harp on this all the time.
Leaders know how to be goodfollowers and leaders know how
to create other leaders.
I'm not going to get to theleaders, creating other leaders,
(49:04):
cause we already talked aboutthat.
But leaders being goodfollowers, this is another thing
to observe.
And I like to tell my clientsthis when I talk to them,
because when we're talking aboutreading a room, that also means
look at whom is following whom.
Take a look, pay attentionbecause you want to know who are
they looking at that's guidingthem, that's shaping and molding
(49:27):
them?
I have been in rooms where thereare people that I have admired
greatly that I was like,"Youknow what?
I like this person.
I want to get these qualitiesand this and this and that." And
then I see who they'refollowing.
Well, I'm not big on thisperson, so why are you following
this person?" Now there could bea valid reason why they're
following that person.
So I'm not knocking that.
(49:48):
And nine times out of 10, if youtake the time to look, you'll
figure out why they arefollowing that person.
But, you do take the time tolook at that and analyze the
situation before you write itoff and say,"Nope, don't want to
do that because I could seewhere this is going." Or, if
you're seeing modeled behavior,modeled speech, modeled
interactions that tells youright there whether or not you
(50:11):
want to interact.
That's really important as well.
I want to round out our sessiontoday.
First of all, thank you so muchfor being here, Damon.
Your insights have beenwonderful.
Very impactful and veryinsightful.
Where can my listeners find you?
Damon Utsey (50:29):
Your listeners can find me on LinkedIn.
I'm very active there.
Lots of tidbits and posts.
It's just Damon Utsey onLinkedIn, or they can reach me
at CoachDamonUtsey@gmail.com.
That's how they can get in touchwith me.
And I have a lot of bits andpieces and information that I
(50:50):
can help people get to the nextlevel and watch that trajectory
and their career grow.
Shai Boston, CPTD (50:56):
Thank you so much.
Appreciate you being here today,sharing your insights, having
these powerful conversations,especially from a male
perspective of understanding howwomen can be centered in
conversations.
We went and talked aboutleadership and all of that.
So I just want to bring thisback around before I close out
today.
We talked about Kintsugi and soin coming back around, bringing
(51:19):
that full circle to leadership.
Kintsugi becomes more valuable.
The more gold that gets laid onit, the more valuable it
becomes.
The older the piece is, meaningthe more experienced it is, the
more valuable it becomes.
If you find that you have achipped piece, go ahead and
repair it.
(51:39):
Do what you got to do to overlayit, smooth it out, keep working
on it.
That's your upskilling.
And then, you have the goal thatseals it and says,"Okay, I've
learned that here's my value."Do not forget about your
personal currency.
That is the value of yourknowledge, your skills and
expertise, that intellectualcapital that you're bringing to
(52:01):
the table, coupled with thenumbers that you can put behind
that.
That is your actual worth.
How you quantify those skills,that knowledge, that value, the
intellectual capital.
I think that's one thing that weoften forget is that we don't
put the numbers on ourselves.
Put that number on yourself,Boo.
You got that! To end the show, Iwant to share a piece that I
(52:23):
wrote, actually two pieces Icombined into one.
Didn't realize that pun.
And it's all about Kintsugi.
So I wanted to share that withyou.
And as Erykah Badu says:"I'm anartist and I'm sensitive about
my stuff." So I'm gonna need younot to be making fun of folks on
here and getting all up into mymessages, talking about Shai, do
(52:43):
better.
Not a spoken word artist by anymeans, but these were some
thoughts that I had around thethought of Kintsugi.
I'd like to share them with youall today.
I don't break down my poetryinto symmetry.
I don't know what iambicpentameter or if I'm a rambler,
I do know that I am chipped, notbroken.
(53:04):
Ledisi said, these are thepieces of me.
So when you look at my face,just know that it takes every
ounce of me, every piece of mejust to be.
It's all my story.
Embracing them, each piece, hashelped me to start becoming more
whole, feeling complete.
(53:26):
When anybody decides to take adip into the fountain that
causes their pen to drip withpetty and hurt against me,
towards me, to thwart me, I lookat the inflicted wound and
think,"It's just a chip" but itdoesn't have to be a piece of
me.
Whether I'm feeling salty likeFritos, being cheesy like
Doritos.
If I slay like Lays, havetingles like Pringles, I'm
(53:46):
learning to love my complexlayers of flavor to savor my
rising above it all in selflove, because I no longer call
myself broken when I am and wasalways only chipped.
Shards, I see.
I am broken.
Unexpectedly you betray me.
(54:06):
Anxiety, PTSD, you shared themalmost gleefully, giving out a
PhD in lessons only you couldgive me.
I am broken.
Years of turmoil, pain, hatingyou, not loving me, searching
for something, anything, to fillthe black hole full of the voids
you forced me to swallow.
(54:26):
Kintsugi.
The Japanese craft thatdescribes me, the woman I came
to be, living life finally free,filled with gold, my truth now
told, I became bold, lovingmyself no longer on hold,
shining bright, I see my ownlight, hardened from the fight,
not living in fright, I'm notbroken.
(54:47):
Loving my entire soul, I've cometo know...
I.
Am.
Whole.
and so are you.
Thanks for joining us today.
I know your time is valuable andI appreciate you choosing to
take the time to chat with metoday.
(55:08):
I hope our conversation helpedyou to see things more clearly.
If you like this episode, don'tforget to subscribe so you can
always be alerted to my newepisodes each week.
Enjoy the rest of your day ornight and let's get together
again soon for some Coffee,Cocktails, and Clarity.
Coming up next on Coffee,Cocktails, and Clarity.
Shai Boston, CPTD (00:04):
If you leave a job crying, if you have
nightmares about your job, ifyour job drives you to the
hospital or to mental healththerapists, it's time to go.
Attitude reflects leadership.
Damon Utsey (00:15):
Kintsugi is ancient Japanese art, it's about 400
years old.
They fill the cracks with goldand it becomes something that's
beautiful, piece to be displayedand it still has use.
Shai Boston, CPTD (00:26):
I am chipped, not broken.
I no longer call myself brokenwhen I am and was always only
chipped.
I.
Am.
Whole.
and so are you.
Several years ago, I was workingfor a gentleman and we had kind
(00:46):
of an interesting workingrelationship.
I won't say it was the bestrelationship, won't necessarily
say it was the worst one I everhad, but what was interesting
about it was I had beencontemplating whether or not I
was going to leave thedepartment or leave the company.
(01:10):
Every time I had a conversationwith this raise his voice.
He would say that I wascondescending to him and talk in
a condescending tone.
He would have his office doorclosed.
He was in another state, but hewould have his office door
closed.
And I would get DMS, instantmessaging, from his secretary or
the secretary that worked in theoffice saying,"What are you
saying to him?
He's talking so loud.
What's going on?" And I'm like,I'm not even talking.
(01:33):
I'm not saying anything.
And I knew that it came to anend, which is my personal
philosophy of if you leave a jobcrying, if you have nightmares
about your job, if your jobdrives you to the hospital or to
mental health therapists, it'stime to go.
I will never forget that Friday.
I was on the phone with him,getting ready to leave, go on
(01:55):
vacation, and when theconversation was done, I was not
only bawling my eyes out I feltvery much broken...
Hey girl, have you been lookingfor a safe space for women to
have authentic conversationsaround everything that impacts
our life, careers, andrelationships?
(02:17):
I'm Shai Boston, and on thisshow, I talk about all things
connected to our personal andprofessional development so we
can live our best and authenticlives.
Grab a drink.
Sit back and let's have a chat.
It's time for some Coffee,Cocktails, and Clarity.
That's what we're talking about today in our
(02:39):
discussion.
We're talking about what does itmean to be broken?
In fact, we're talking about theJapanese art of Kintsugi and are
we really broken?
I have a very special guest withme.
He's a friend of mine that isalso a leadership coach and he
specializes in coaching usingthe foundation of Kintsugi which
(02:59):
we're going to talk about today.
Welcome to the show Coach DamonUtsey.
How are you today?
Damon Utsey (03:07):
I am doing well Shai.
Thanks.
How about yourself?
Shai Boston, CPTD (03:09):
I'm doing good.
Well, I'm glad that you can behere today.
And of course I start every showtalking about what beverages
that we have.
So what beverage are you havingtoday on the show?
Damon Utsey (03:19):
Today I am enjoying a cup of Spanish almond loose
leaf tea, purchased from a localfarmer's market here in
Colorado.
It's delicious.
I love loose leaf tea.
That's all I have in my cabinetnow.
Shai Boston, CPTD (03:30):
Nice.
I have to try that.
Well, I have a combination ofthings because I couldn't make
up my mind what I wanted todrink.
So I have my trusty old waterhere.
If you guys know me, you alreadyknow I love KPop.
So it's in my Suga, who is fromBTS, in his water bottle.
And I also have some cranberryjuice, which I'll probably sip
on.
(03:50):
Mm All right, let's get into it.
We're talking about being brokenand what that exactly means.
And for many of us listening,for many of you ladies, you have
been laid off this year.
You may have been forced toresign from a job or you may
have had to make some difficultlife choices.
Some of us have had to turn tobeing caregivers.
(04:11):
Some of us became new moms andalso have to make choices about
returning to work or not.
Not only that, we've also had todeal with workplace trauma in
many cases.
Yes, this is a show about womenand we have a man on the show
today, so we're going to getback to that in just a moment
and why we have him here.
But we all have dealt withsomething in our personal or
(04:33):
professional lives that has madeus feel like we were broken,
much like the situation that Idealt with a few years back.
And so today, that's one of thethings that we're going to talk
about, and I have all of mylittle trusty notes here so that
we can make sure that we'rehitting all the key points that
we want to talk about today.
But we're going to talk withDamon and talk more about
(04:53):
Kintsugi, what it is, and we'regoing to tie that into our
personal and professionaldevelopment.
Before we get started though,Damon, why don't you tell us a
little bit more about you andwhat you do, and how you came
into leadership development?
Damon Utsey (05:07):
Sure.
Absolutely.
first off, I am a husband to mybeautiful wife of 28 years,
Andrea.
I'm also a dog dad to my two furboys, Bennett and Boulder.
We have a lot of fun out here inColorado.
We're in the Denver metro area.
We love it out here.
Right now we're enjoying thesnow in the mountains.
I love all things outdoors.
(05:28):
That's why we're out here inColorado.
Cause it helps me ground myself,as a leader I think that's very
important that we groundourselves and that we have a
release at times, and whatbetter way to do that than being
outside, right?
Shai Boston, CPTD (05:40):
And you got Weimeraners, so they're runners.
Damon Utsey (05:42):
They are runners, so they keep us busy.
They do.
Five and nine year olds.
My background, little over 30years I've been in the retail,
and I like to call it thehospitality space because I
believe retail is a part ofhospitality.
When we think of hospitality, wethink of restaurants, hotels and
things of that nature.
But retail is the same thing.
We're inviting people in ourplaces of business, our
(06:04):
storefronts, whatever it may be.
And those are our guests whenthey come in.
So that's why I consider retailto be hospitality also, because
those are our guests coming into spend their hard earned money
with us.
And, I've been in variouspositions, leadership roles in
retail, whether it be working inpurchasing, location operations
(06:25):
and logistics and distribution.
So I've run the gamut of it.
And over that course of time inrestaurants and retail, I've
seen a lot of leadership styles.
I've seen the good ones and I'veseen the not so good ones.
We're going to be nice, right?
For the ones where there's somedeficiencies or some gaps, which
has led me to in the past year,pivot, being actually in the
(06:49):
trenches and working that andworking with individuals there
and developing those leadersthere, and seeing that there's a
need for this in allorganizations.
And leadership is a passion ofmine because I'm actually having
an impact on someone's life.
So when we work together and Ihelp them with those skills that
they already have, and watchtheir careers grow and their
(07:09):
trajectory, we are literallychanging their lives.
We're changing their families.
We're giving them an opportunityto create a better future for
themselves and their families.
And I also believe that youdon't have to have a title to
lead.
That's kind of a misconceptionwhen people talk about what does
the leadership look like here?
(07:31):
I believe you can lead fromevery level from the most junior
person on your team to the mostsenior person.
You don't need a title to lead.
I mean, I've had several leaderson my team that had no interest
in going into"an official formof leadership" with the title
and all the responsibilities,but they would run my operations
and run my teams when I wasn'tthere just as good, if not
(07:54):
better than, I would, because Iempowered them and gave them the
tools that they needed tosucceed.
And that's what I do now when Ihelp other individuals as well
as organizations, entrepreneursin particular, those that are
trying to grow their businessand trying to grow their teams,
I come in and help them growthose leaders on their team so
they can go out and focus on thehospitality side of their
(08:16):
businesses.
Shai Boston, CPTD (08:17):
Understood.
And you know, you said twothings there.
I just wanted to piggyback offof, because it's my personal
philosophy.
Number one attitude reflectsleadership.
We talk a lot about culture.
You hear that a lot being theright"culture fit".
I'm looking at LinkedIn.
I'm looking at people that arelooking for jobs.
I'm looking at recruiters andthings like that.
And some have removed that outof their terminology, if you
(08:40):
will, when it comes to doing jobsearches, but a lot of them
still have it there.
We want the right culture.
You will know the culture of anorganization based on their
leaders.
You will know the culture of anorganization when you look at
the employees that are there.
Even as entrepreneurs, if thepeople that they're hiring to
work with them, the othercontractors they may be working
(09:02):
with, the other employees theymay be hiring, because attitude
reflects leadership.
If there is a funky attitudegoing on or sporadically you're
getting some good vibes andyou're getting some not so good
vibes that tells you the cultureisn't very good.
That tells you that theleadership is not very good.
For those that might be lookingfor jobs or looking for a fit,
and you're wondering aboutculture, that's one thing to
(09:23):
keep in mind.
The other thing that I noted,that I'm a firm believer in, and
I tell everyone this, you canlead and communicate effectively
from every seat at the table.
Doesn't matter if you're at thehead, if you're at the middle,
or wherever you are, you canlead from every seat at the
table.
And that's something that Ilearned years ago.
(09:44):
John Maxwell has a book called"The 360 Degree Leader", and it
was probably one of the firstleadership books I ever read,
but it talks about how to leadup, laterally, and to lead down.
And when you can learn andmaster those, you definitely
become a well-rounded leader.
So I agree with you on all ofthose points.
And just to give a littlebackground, Damon and I actually
(10:06):
had quite a few friends incommon, but we just had never
met.
And one day I get thisnotification on LinkedIn, like
this guy wants to connect withyou.
And I'm like, who is this?
And I'm looking at all hisconnections.
I'm like, I know this person,this person, these are people I
know personally.
So I'm like, Why do I not knowhim?
But he looks familiar." So weconnected, we did a Coffee Chat.
(10:27):
Whole vibe.
I don't have anyone on my showthat I don't have a vibe with.
Damon's a whole vibe.
And the one thing he asked metowards the end of our coffee
chat, we talked about some ofeverything.
He goes,"Hey, have you heard ofKintsugi?""Yes, I've heard of
Kintsugi!" And so we went off ona tangent on that.
So that's how we met andconnected.
And that's one reason why Iwanted to bring him on the show
(10:49):
and also to have a male voicebecause we also need male
allies, which we'll talk aboutin a little bit.
But, going back and talkingabout leadership and everything,
let's go ahead and ease intotalking about the concept of
Kintsugi.
What exactly is Kintsugi?
Damon Utsey (11:06):
So Kintsugi is Japanese art, ancient Japanese
art, it's about 400 years old.
Started with tea ceremonies.
And what, basically what happensis if a vessel breaks, say, for
example, my coffee cup.
Okay, you see my cup that I havemy tea and I have this crack
here.
This a daily reminder for meactually that we all have,
(11:27):
cracks.
But this crack, what wouldhappen is most people would look
at their mug.
When the person chipped thismug, my wife was like, we got to
get a new mug because the mug ischipped, we can't do this.
That's generally what ourculture is like.
It's broken.
It's chipped.
It's not, technically, pleasinganymore.
But what the Japanese art ofKintsugi does is they take that
(11:48):
piece and they still believethat piece has value, and
they'll take that piece, they'llmend it.
They'll fill it with, a lacqueror a putty, sand it down,
restore it to it's place.
But then what they do with thecracks, once they're done, they
take and fill those cracks withthe precious metal in the
lacquer, so gold, silver,platinum.
(12:09):
And what happens is that pieceactually becomes more valuable,
more beautiful, than what it wasto begin with.
So say, for example, I have anexample here.
This nice bowl is whole.
It breaks most of us with throwit away.
Japanese art of Kintsugi, theytake that same bowl and they
fill the cracks with gold and itbecomes something that's
(12:32):
beautiful, piece to be displayedand it still has use.
Shai Boston, CPTD (12:36):
Exactly.
And it's interesting because Iremember, I heard about Kintsugi
from, I was listening to alecture that was being given and
they talked about that and Ithought it was fascinating.
So I went and looked it up andfor those of you, who might be
listening to the podcast ratherthan just watching it on
YouTube, you've definitely seenKintsugi somewhere.
(12:58):
Just imagine anytime you've seena broken piece of pottery or
something like that, and you sawthe gold inlay, more than likely
that was the Japanese art ofKintsugi that you saw.
And so when the person mentionedit in their speech, I was like,
I need to look that up and whenI looked it up, I was like, this
is me.
I get this.
I so get this.
And so what ends up happening alot of times is that we are
(13:21):
dealing with situations whetherin our personal or professional
lives, like I said earlier in myfirst example, that we feel that
we are broken.
We feel that it breaks us downand we sometimes feel valueless.
We feel useless.
And when we think about thewhole art of Kintsugi and what
it stands for, we are then madeto believe not only can we be
(13:43):
made whole again, and put backtogether, and yes it's a new
version of you but you're alsostill very much valuable.
And so that's one of the thingsI like.
What was your introduction toKintsugi?
Damon Utsey (13:57):
Much like you Shai, it wasn't through conversation.
I actually saw it on a TV show.
It was Ted Lasso we we'rewatching.
It was Ted Lasso one night and Ihad some stuff going on with my
team and it was mentioned, andsame thing, I said,"Let me dive
this rabbit hole." And then whenI saw it, I recognized them
like,"Oh, wow, I know exactlywhat this is." And it's been
something for the past year anda half that I've been studying
(14:19):
and really seeing how itcorrelates to us as people and
with our teams and how we canbuild better teams.
But yeah, that's, that was myexperience with it.
But then my wife and I were ableto take a trip to Japan.
One of the things on my listthat I wanted to do was I want
to take a Kintsugi class.
I want to learn more about thisand what better place to learn
from it than its birthplace.
(14:41):
And that's where I learned thatit's an art that's 400 years
old.
It started with the teaceremonies.
But then what I also learned isthat it's a very long, tedious
process.
So for an actual piece, if it'sdone the correct way in the
correct style Kintsugi, it takesabout two months for a piece to
able to get to where it's ableto be used again, because once
(15:01):
that they're filling in thecracks, takes time for the
lacquer to dry for your gold todry.
I mean, so it's a whole longdrawn out process and actually I
have our pieces.
We did a quick version of it andthis one of the pieces that I
did, and this is the piece thatmy wife created.
And, but like I said, it was,two hour class.
And just in that two hours, itwas very, very, very tedious.
(15:23):
And they come around and theylook at you and no, you know, we
need to focus on this area alittle more, sand this out, feel
this with your hands, it is verysensory.
And the instructors, for theclass, if you looked at their
hands, they had calluses and alot of them had no fingerprints
just from really moving over theedges and feeling to make sure
everything is smooth.
It takes time to do.
Shai Boston, CPTD (15:45):
Wow.
You know, that is so interestingand fascinating to me.
Let's tie it back to theleadership for a second.
You'll hear stories about peopleare just born leaders and things
like that.
I don't know if I necessarilyagree with that per se.
I think some of us might be bornbossy, but I don't know we're
born leaders.
You ask my
Damon Utsey (16:02):
siblings, that's what they'll say.
I'm the oldest.
We're bossy.
Yeah.
Shai Boston, CPTD (16:05):
Yes, same here.
I'm the only child on my mom'sside and the oldest on my dad,
so I was definitely bossy.
But I think one of the thingsthat can Kintsugi teaches us, is
that leadership skills takestime to develop, that we need to
smooth out our rough edges, thatwe're going to face challenges
that are going to break us.
(16:25):
And even just in life ingeneral, we're going to face
challenges where we feel likewe're broken.
And we still smooth out thoseedges to bring them back
together.
And when we bring them backtogether, we're going to fill
them with all the skills andknowledge and everything that
we've gained.
Keep smoothing it out, keepsmoothing it out.
And then it starts gettingfilled with the fine metal, the
(16:46):
gold and things like that, thatkeeps it valuable and makes it
even more valuable.
It was already valuable and nowit becomes even more valuable.
So it's the same thing with uswhen we're talking about the
skills that it takes for us, thethings that we need to cultivate
to do our personal andprofessional development.
For me, I always say personaldevelopment changes who you are.
(17:07):
So like your communicationskills, things like that, that
actually changes you from theinside out and your professional
development changes yourknowledge.
So Kintsugi is a way ofdescribing the way that we
transform ourselves.
We're already valuable.
We're gonna take those pieces,add more to them and transform
ourselves into something evenmore valuable.
(17:27):
And we do that when we'reworking on becoming better
leaders, no matter what seat wehave.
We do that when we work on ourcommunication.
We do that when we work onowning our voices, owning our
spaces, and owning our presence.
So with that in mind.
What are some lessons that youhave seen that can be applied to
women in particular, with theart of Kintsugi, leadership, and
(17:50):
so forth.
Damon Utsey (17:52):
Oh, so many lessons.
So many that can be applied.
Throughout my career, I'veworked for many influential
powerful women leaders.
When I started working, it wasin the co-command and control
style of leadership, whereyou're going to do what I tell
to do because I'm the boss.
(18:12):
And it was very male dominated.
Most of the leaders they weremale.
So it was very rare when therewas a woman leader, and when she
did come up to the ranks, youwould hear the talk from the
men, oh, this, that, you know,and once working for them and
being on their team and actuallyhaving them develop me as a
leader, cause those were myfirst steps into leadership
(18:34):
roles were under women leaders.
I learned so much from them.
There was so much that Ilearned, but the one thing that
I did see is that they, a lot oftimes, allowed that negative
speak from the other leaders oreven other team members or other
people on their team, devaluingwhat they had to offer, which
(18:54):
didn't make sense.
So once I got an opportunity to,get rid of that stigma, because
even, with that the way I wasraised, my mom was a very strong
woman, so she always made surethat we respected everyone
regardless of your gender, age,race, whatever.
I would take the opportunity toget to know them and get to see
what I can learn from them andthen come to their defense when
(19:15):
things would happen.
But see that those cracks thatthey thought they had, or that
they had, it would help themfill those with gold by really
having their back as whether Iwas their assistant or just the
person on their team, reallycoming to their defense and and
to their back and upholdingtheir values and helping them to
progress.
(19:35):
So that's what I will say tothose as far as Kintsugi goes,
regardless of what anyone maysay or the view that they may
have of you, those cracks orthose deficiencies that we have,
you have an opportunity to fillthose with gold.
You can go two ways with it,right?
You can either let it remainbroken and in pieces, or you can
(19:56):
take it and build yourself backup, build whatever it is that
they're saying, and it takethose pieces and fill those in
with gold.
And I appreciate the fact thatyou spoke about personal
development because that's oneof the most important things is
the first question that I willask someone when I start working
with them, What are you doingfor personal development?" and a
lot of times, like"Personaldevelopment, what are you
talking about?" Okay.
(20:17):
What books are you reading?
What podcasts are you listeningto?
What videos are you watching onYouTube?
What are you doing to buildyourself up as a leader or just
as a person in general?
What are we doing to work onourselves?
That's how we're filling in allof those cracks that we may
have, that's the gold that'sgoing in.
Like you said, you're working onyourself and those qualities
(20:39):
that you have, once you startputting all that stuff together
and you start seeing how itworks, that's where the self
confidence comes in.
And that's where whatever anyoneelse says doesn't really matter
because you know you're worth,you know your value as a woman
in a leadership role or a womanon a team.
You know what you bring to thetable.
And that's the one importantthing that I always stress is
(21:02):
make sure you know your worth,you know your value because a
lot of times that noise that wehear and the things that people
are throwing at us is they'reintimidated.
A lot of it's intimidation.
A lot of it's their owninsecurities that they're
projecting on you.
So you have to kind of cutthrough that mess and see the
gold really stop and pause.
This is another thing I teachis, the power of the pause.
(21:24):
Before you allow someone else'snegativity to affect you and
see, okay, where's this reallycoming from?
What do I know about thisperson?
What do I know about theirbackground?
Why would they hurl this at me?
Or make these accusations orwhatever.
And once you really dig deep andfind out where the source is
coming from.
It's just that it's just a lotof noise that you can ignore.
Shai Boston, CPTD (21:46):
Exactly.
You know, it's interestingbecause in, I did a series of
episodes, it was actually goingto start off as one episode,
possibly two, and it ended upbeing three.
So episodes 9, 10 and 11, alltalked about owning our power
and owning our voice, ourpresence, and our spaces.
And that's one of the things Italk about is knowing what your
value and your worth is.
(22:07):
And those are two differentthings in my eyes.
In the sense of, your value isthe knowledge and the skills
that you're bringing to thetable and I define the worth as
the number that can go toquantify what those are worth,
as far as dollars and cents andthings of that nature, those can
fluctuate in other people's eyesbecause they may not have ever
(22:29):
seen your value, your worth andwhat you bring to the table.
And we know for us women andespecially if you're women of
color, but you know that whenyou come into a room, when
you're coming into these spaces,your value starts getting
diminished in the eyes of theones that are in that room, in
most cases, because they don'tknow what you bring.
they don't know not just whatyou bring as far as skills, but
(22:51):
what you just bring as a personinto the space.
And then, there are times whenthey know what you bring and
they still want to devalue youbecause they don't like the
package that it's coming in.
Whether it's a woman or thatyou're a woman of color.
Those are some really key pointsas far as what you said about
knowing the value and worth ofour personal currency.
(23:13):
That's what I call it.
My personal currency.
Those are the things that I'mbringing.
And when you know what you bringyou know how to better
counteract some of those thingsthat are happening.
We're going to take a quick adbreak and when we come back,
we'll continue our discussion.
Ready to level up your life?
Let's unlock your full potentialtogether.
(23:34):
As your expert coach andstrategist, I'll guide you to
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Coming back, we we're talking about our
personal currency and all ofthose sorts of things and the
(23:57):
feedback that we receive.
One thing that I want to put outthere before we move on and
continue this, because there'ssome other really important
things I think we should talkabout.
As a coach and a trainer, I donot use the words criticism.
But, a lot of times when we hearfeedback, people confuse
constructive criticism andfeedback.
(24:19):
When I hear the word criticism,what that says to me is"I want
to cut you down" but I'm notgoing to give you any type of
solutions.
I'm not going to commend you.
I'm not doing anything else.
I'm not even recognizing whatyou've brought to the fore, I'm
just telling you what you didn'tdo right and I'm walking away.
When you're taught how to giveproper feedback, it's actually
(24:39):
considered a sandwich.
You're going to say somethinggood, recognize what this person
brings to the table, the middlepart the meat of it is here's
some areas of opportunity.
I don't call them weaknesses.
These are areas of opportunity.
We all have them.
And then you close out withsomething else good that they've
done.
And you've created this nicelittle sandwich that someone can
say,"Oh, I can feed off of this.
(25:01):
I can take this with me." I justwant to put out there for our
audience, if someone is comingwith you with constructive
criticism, you can take whatthey say.
There might be some legitimacyto it that can apply today.
There may not be.
Take what you need out of it,and throw the rest away.
When it comes to the feedback,if it's presented the way that
(25:22):
I've talked about, take it, feedon it, eat on it, marinate on it
because there's value in that.
And that fills up those spacesas well, to allow you to become
even more valuable.
I just wanted to throw that outthere because I loved your point
about when there's feedback andhow do we take it?
Because more often than not,we're going to be criticized as
(25:43):
women more so than our malecounterparts are going to be for
a lot of things, depending onthe leadership situation.
We talked about leadership andall these sorts of things.
I want to touch on, a littlebit, you clearly are an ally for
women, which is one reason why Iwanted to have you on the show.
I do not have men on the showthat are not allies to women
(26:05):
that do not know how to centerwomen's voices in conversations.
You touched on it a little bit,about why you became an ally for
women.
Why was that so important foryou?
And how did it help to enhanceyour career, as well, when you
did center women more, inconversations and you showed the
value that they brought to thetable?
Damon Utsey (26:25):
Most of the leaders that I worked for were women,
and I learned a lot.
When it came to just differentlessons.
How to be stern, how tocommunicate, or in some cases
what not to do.
I took it and I valued thoselessons and some of those women
leaders, I'm still in contactand in touch with them to this
(26:45):
very day.
They check in on me"Hey, I justwant to see how you're doing,
how things are going." I believethat everyone has, like you
mentioned before, a seat at thetable.
I've seen so many male leadersor men that were in leadership
roles that they were no betterthan the woman leader.
I just believe that they bring alot to the table that we as men
(27:05):
don't have at times that don'tbring to the table.
Cause if we look at ourworkforce now, a good majority
of our workforce are women,they're working mothers, someone
trying to put themselves throughschool, they're daughters.
Having that woman in aleadership role, they can
address things or they canapproach situations that we as
men, we're coming sometimes as abull in a China shop, we want to
(27:26):
break things.
What I've learned over the yearsis that no, there's different
ways to approach things.
And like I said, I've learnedthose from my women leaders,
they bring kind of a differentperspective to things.
And that perspective is, I'mgonna say it, it's better than
what we as males can do attimes.
That's one thing that I alwaysspeak to those that I am
(27:47):
mentoring or that I'm workingwith or someone that I see that
wants to move up, is you neverlet someone take your voice away
from you.
Everyone has a voice and manytimes as women, what I've seen
in the past and my experiencehas been that, men will a lot of
times trying to take their voiceaway from them or try and
silence them.
It actually kind of reminds meof one of your episodes where
(28:09):
you were talking about a balloonand filling, and not letting the
air out, and not allowingsomeone to take your voice away
from you.
And that's a piece of advice Itell every woman leader that I
work.
I will always stress it.
Do not let anyone take yourvoice away from you.
That's the one thing that we allhave that we need to use and we
need to exercise is our voice.
(28:29):
Many times we'll find theleaders are the ones that have
the loudest voice.
They talk over people, they'rethe highest paid person in the
room and many people, they'llfall in line lockstep, where
many times our women teammembers, leaders and other team
members, they have better ideasand that's what I came to learn
over the years of being inleadership roles.
(28:49):
I was that young leader.
That young 20 something yearold.
I was 20 when I first had myfirst leadership role, and boy,
I failed horrifically because Iwas still leaning on that whole,
I'm the man, I'm the command andcontrol type deal, but over
time, and of course through mybeautiful wife kind of corrected
me and checking me a lot, shekeeps me in line.
(29:09):
But actually listening andreally knowing what I don't
know, because as a leader wedon't know everything and we
don't have all the answers.
Shai Boston, CPTD (29:17):
You know, let me ask you this, not to get into
anything divisive, but it'ssomething that we do have to
address.
Do you find that from a culturalperspective that there is a
difference in leadership stylein men, let's say, white men
versus men of color, there's adifference, or do you find that
they kind of overlap in a waybecause they're men number one,
(29:41):
and then maybe two because ofthe various cultural aspects,
they're coming at it from thoseperspectives.
There is.
They overlap.
I will say this, there is a lotthat's
Damon Utsey (29:50):
very similar.
As far as the brute bull inChina shop.
But then I find with men ofcolor that there is also we have
to try and prove ourselves alsoto our white counterparts.
That I'm capable of doing thisjob.
I can do this job.
So many times you find yourselfcoming in a little hot, a little
harder than most, cause we feelas if though there is something
(30:12):
to prove.
I will say, cause the many yearsthat I've been doing this, I've
been guilty of that.
Yeah, I've been in thatsituation where it's"No, I got,
I've got something to prove"because I was the only person
that looked like me, I was theonly person of color in a
leadership meeting when we hadour manager meetings.
But then realizing, once again,with little age, this is why I
have these gray hairs, andmaturity, and learning and
(30:34):
personal development is like,"You know what I don't have
anything to prove to anyone butmyself." If I'm the type of
person that lives by the moralsand the standards that I was
raised with and the way I wantto be treated and realize that's
the way I need to approach myteams.
That's how I need to talk topeople.
(30:56):
A thing with me, I would alwayssometimes buttheads with other
leaders because I thought,"Oh,you're too soft.""You're not
hard enough on people.""You gotto come in and break them.""Stop
having these conversations withthem.""Stop engaging." But guess
what?
The teams that I had versusother teams because of the
engagement, because of treatingthem like they were human, not
coming in trying to provesomething.
(31:16):
They were higher performingteams.
They were loyal teams.
They were the teams that I couldgo away for two weeks and not
worry about anything becausethey would run it the same way,
or like I said, or if not betterthan I would run it, because I
would allow them to have thatautonomy to do what needed to be
done.
Shai Boston, CPTD (31:32):
So it sounds like, too, that part of this
growth that you had inrecognizing how to become a male
ally to the female team membersand leaders, was growth in your
emotional intelligence.
Would you say that that'ssomething you also learned from
women?
Because, generally speaking,women tend to be on the
emotional side and men tend tobe the logical.
(31:54):
So would you say that thathelped you in your emotional
intelligence growth?
Damon Utsey (31:58):
Oh, a hundred percent, a hundred percent,
absolutely.
To the point where my women teammembers or other fellow leaders,
they felt comfortable enough tolet me know if I had taken a
misstep or if I had saidsomething that would hurt their
feelings.
They knew that I was vulnerableenough to allow them to be able
to come and speak with me andlet me know.
(32:19):
And like I said, it only made mea better person.
And it continues to do that, ona professional level and a
personal level, just listeningbecause I had a really bad, bad
habit of speaking over peoplebecause I'm the oldest, so I
know everything I'm trying toprove my point.
I'm always, was into the arguingand there was one team member in
(32:39):
particular on my last team, shewould always address me with
"Sir." and that was kind of likemy cue that would snap me out of
it.
So now it's something where I'mmore cognizant of realizing
that's not respectful.
I want the same respect, so I'mgonna do the same thing, but
they felt comfortable to wherethey could do that or, if I hurt
(33:01):
their feelings, or if I saidsomething out of line, they know
that they could come and saysomething to me, they were
comfortable with me because Igave them that permission.
I gave them that autonomy to dothat.
Okay, talk to me.
If I step on your toes, if I dosomething that's not right or
that may be a little off, let meknow.
You ever watch those videoswhere they let a calf out or a
(33:23):
cow that's never been on grassbefore, and they're kind of
cautious but then as soon asthey get out and they realize
what it is, they're like allover the place?
And that's how it was at first,I would do something and they
would be kind of sheepish.
They wouldn't say anything.
I'm like, no, please tell me.
But then after a while, thefloodgates are open.
It was like,"Hey, you're doingthis.""Hey, how about this?""How
about that?" And then all of asudden, my team began to grow,
(33:44):
as far as being cohesive.
They were working well together.
They would come up with ideas,things that I would not think
of.
They would look out for me ifsomething was happening.
"Hey, I just wanted to give youa heads up on this.
This is what's going on.""Okay,great.
Thank you.
I appreciate that." But onceagain, see it builds a strong,
(34:04):
cohesive team.
And it made me a better leader.
And from that pool, I had otherleaders that grew, that were
promoted.
So many other women that rose toa leadership position.
Shai Boston, CPTD (34:14):
I love that because basically you created
safe spaces for us.
That's what holding space means.
There might be women out therenow who don't fully understand
what that means.
Holding space basically meansthat you are creating a safe
space and environment for notonly your voice to be heard, but
for other voices to be heard,such as other women.
(34:36):
So when a woman holds space foranother woman, that means she's
helping to center that woman'svoice.
That means she's including themin conversation.
That means when there's ameeting going on and there's
brainstorming, she's making surethat that person, that other
woman in the room, is beingheard.
And it's the same thing withmen.
When men hold spaces for womenthey will do the exact same
(34:58):
thing.
I think I shared this in anearlier podcast, but earlier in
my career, I had two managersthat I supported, that I was
never going to be an engineer,but they held space for me.
They made sure I was included inall these different meetings.
They made sure that whatever itwas they felt like I needed to
learn to help me grow, they madespace for me to do that.
(35:18):
They didn't block me from takingextra classes.
They didn't block me from"Okay,well, we got a slow time.
Well, here you can do X, Y, andZ to learn more." One of my
managers, I'll never forget hisname is Steve.
It was Steve Husar and ChuckLaustrap, I love them dearly.
Steve would say, it's my job totrain you to replace me.
(35:38):
"I'm like, Steve, I don't wantto be an engineer.
I don't like coding and I'm notinto that." He felt like, even
though I was his administrativeassistant, there were things
that he could teach me, which hedid, that would help me to
uplevel my skills.
And it was the same thing withmy other boss, Chuck.
Chuck often flew to China to dowork.
(36:01):
We worked in supercomputing.
He was always over there doingdeals.
If I had to come in on aSaturday to put together a
PowerPoint presentation for him,Chuck was in the office with me.
He came in, he worked.
If he didn't have work to do, hewas in close proximity.
He might've been reading anewspaper.
He didn't care if I blasted mymusic, he didn't care what I
(36:22):
did.
He was like, if you have to comehere and put in four or five,
eight hours, I'm going to behere with you.
I'm a buy you lunch.
I am going to sit here and talkto you if you have questions,
I'm going to answer them.
And which he often did.
"I'm like, Hey, I've got to putthis map of China on here.
Where exactly was Beijing again?
And where else are you going to?
He taught me a lot about justbeing present and what that
(36:46):
means.
And how that impacts people.
Because going into an office byyourself is the loneliest thing
in the world.
When you have to work andeverybody else is gone, I don't
know how many people haveexperienced that, but I've
experienced that one too manytimes in my life, and you're
going up onto your floor andit's dark and you got to turn
the lights on and nobody else ison your floor.
It's creepy.
(37:06):
It's scary.
And you got to sit down andwork.
And him coming there andphysically being present.
And then also being present tooffer me support if I needed
help in doing anything wasgreat.
I will never forget those twogentlemen.
They were absolutely amazing.
They created safe spaces for me.
I know that's what women needfrom their male counterparts,
their male colleagues.
(37:27):
Let's go into one other thing Iwanted to ask about too, is in
thinking about going intoculture, which we talked about
going into spaces.
From a male perspective, how cana woman identify a male ally,
maybe even before he speaks, buthow can she identify a male ally
in the room?
Damon Utsey (37:48):
It's a good question.
They can identify a male ally bygetting to know who's around
them, know who's in the room,and observe how these men are
treating their other teammembers.
And I'll give you a goodexample.
One day I had a young ladyapproach me.
And she wasn't on my team.
She was in a totally differentdepartment, and she approached
me and she's like,"Hey, Can Italk to you for a second?""Yeah,
(38:09):
sure." She's like, I'd like foryou to mentor me.
And"I'm like, really?" And she'slike,"Yeah, I've observed you.
She's like, I'd like for you tomentor." And I asked, I was like
"Okay, may I ask why?
Because you have like a wholedepartment full of managers,
supervisors." And I was honored.
And she said, because you knowmy name.
I'm like, know your name?
She's like"Yeah, you know myname.
And you say good morning to meevery morning, even though I'm
(38:32):
not part of your department.
You would always speak to me.
You always say, good morning.
And you would use my name.
And then I began to watch youand how you dealt with your team
and how your team speaks aboutyou.
You're the person that I want tomentor me." And I was blown away
by that just to know that one,saying good morning and knowing
someone's name for me, that'sone of the most important things
(38:53):
that a leader can do cause aname is all some people may
have, but that's the mostimportant thing to them.
And if you don't know their nameand you can't get their name
straight, we need to look at whyyou're in a leadership role,
especially if they're on yourteam.
I was blown away by that, andthen knowing that I am being
watched at all times as aleader, that was one of the
things I'm like,"Okay, othersare watching me." There are the
conversations going on about me.
(39:15):
So that's what I would tellsomeone that in order to find a
mentor, an ally, or a sponsor.
Watch, observe other members.
And it doesn't just have to bewithin your ecosystem or your
department.
Look within your organization.
Are there other people, othermen that have these qualities
that are producing these otherleaders, other women leaders,
(39:35):
that are approachable, that havethose qualities and those are
the ones that you want toapproach.
Those are the ones that you wantto ask.
That's another thing I will sayis make sure you ask.
If there is something that youwant and there's a role that you
want or something that you wantto learn, ask someone.
If it's a male leader, ask them;because many times they don't
know what you want until youapproach them.
(39:57):
If you don't ask, it may just goby the wayside and you're
wasting a beautiful talent.
So make sure that you're askingthings.
But yeah, get to know people,form those relationships outside
of your area, learn, makeyourself visible.
ask questions, ask a lot ofquestions.
If it's another department, goask those questions.
(40:17):
And then that way you'll get afeel for that male ally, that
male sponsor or that, mentor.
And one other thing, I know youmentioned, allies.
I want to talk about sponsors.
Because there's a differencebetween a mentor, an ally, and a
sponsor.
The sponsor can be the one thatbehind closed doors they're
going to be the one that'spounding the table for you.
(40:39):
They're going to be the onesthat are going to bat for you.
They're going to be the onesthat are going to have those
conversations that you can'thave or that you don't feel
comfortable having.
They have that capital, wherethey're going to go and do that.
And I've done that for severalwomen, on my team in particular,
where they have gone out forputting in a promotion or gone
(41:00):
out for a leadership role.
And several times they're told,no, no, no.
I have one client that I justfinished working with, five
times she was turned down.
And it got to the point where itwas like, you know what?
We need to have a conversation.
I build sponsors because I hadthe capital, and I've done this
to several people.
I'll use my capital because I'vebeen with the company for 24
years.
What are they going to do to me?
(41:21):
So guess what?
I can use my voice.
That's the reason why I wentthrough a leadership role.
So I can use my voice in behalfof whose voices have been
muffled.
Where I can go, I can stand onthe table.
I can say things or ask certainquestions, knowing that I'm
using that capital that I havefor them in their behalf.
And we've had results.
(41:42):
That's what I will say.
I mean, look for someone that'sgoing to do that for you.
Ask someone to sponsor you andask them"Hey, can we have a
weekly meeting?
Can we have a monthly meeting?
Can we have these quarterlymeetings?" To where we can come
up with a career path or acareer plan to work it and
really work it.
If they're like,"Well, I don'thave time" then guess, that's
really not the ally for you.
If they're, Let's sit down,let's do it", you know, they're
(42:04):
checking in with you, holdingyou accountable for your goals,
not being all nice, soft, andwarm and fuzzy.
They're going to have the hardconversations with you when they
need to have the hardconversations.
But at the same time, they'regoing to get you to the level
where you need to be.
Cause that's my belief.
And I'm sorry, I'm on my soapboxright now, cause I'm very
passionate about it.
Shai Boston, CPTD (42:23):
It's okay.
Damon Utsey (42:25):
A leader's job is to train and develop their team
to become leaders.
Shai Boston, CPTD (42:28):
Exactly.
Damon Utsey (42:29):
So, leaders develop other leaders If you're working
under a leader and they don'twant to share information or
share knowledge with you, thenit's time to start looking
elsewhere for another leaderthat will.
There should be nothing thatthey're holding back from you
when it comes to operations orhow to do their job that they're
afraid,"Oh, well, you know,you're going to take my job.
I'm not going to share that withyou." No, that's gatekeeping.
Shai Boston, CPTD (42:49):
Exactly.
Damon Utsey (42:50):
We have to stop that.
Shai Boston, CPTD (42:52):
I agree.
Damon Utsey (42:53):
That's why we have so many leaders that are,
especially young people, thatare getting into roles of
leadership.
And within the first year,they're burnt out.
They don't want to, they don'twant to move on because they're
promoted.
They get this new role, andthose that promoted them they're
not giving them the informationthat they need to succeed.
It's one those,"Well, no onetold me you figure it out for
yourself." Yeah, yep.
(43:13):
That's not what a leader does.
Shai Boston, CPTD (43:14):
Oh, I've heard that so many times.
Yes.
Damon Utsey (43:16):
That's not developing.
That's the opposite.
And then we wonder whyorganizations and stores or
operations are closing theirdoors because they don't have
the qualified people to runtheir organizations and to build
these teams Because we'rehoarding information.
Shai Boston, CPTD (43:33):
And you know, it's interesting.
you had said, I hear that from,especially from a lot of younger
people that are so disgruntledin their jobs.
They're excited.
We all have heard that some ofthese millennials are lazy.
We have all heard Gen Z is lazy.
Don't want to work.
I tell them those are the tworichest generations that we have
(43:54):
existing right now.
We at least have fivegenerations, from boomers all
the way down to Gen Alphas.
So that tells me number one,they're not lazy, the vast
majority.
And then that also tells menumber two, that they do have a
good work ethic.
It's just that when they comeout and they're being put into
jobs and things like that, theyare not given the tools, the
(44:15):
skills and things like that, Ishouldn't even say the skills.
They can come in with skills,they're not giving the tools to
do their job, they're not giventhe bandwidth to do their job.
They're not giving the space todo their job.
I totally agree with you onthat.
And I think, too, based on a lotof what I've heard, it's
definitely impacting women quitea bit.
One of the things that youmentioned that I wanted to throw
(44:36):
out there that I will definitelytestify to is asking.
Once you do your observations,you come in, you get the lay of
the land, so to speak, youfigure out who's who and what's
what, I listened to wordchoices, too.
I listen to not just how thingsare being said, but what is
being said.
That also lets you know, ifespecially a male, is an ally or
(44:59):
not.
But asking for their help andtheir guidance is huge because a
lot of times they want to help.
They're not sure how to approachbecause quite frankly, men are
on guard just as much as womenare on guard about the opposite
sex.
They're on guard about theopposite sex.
They don't want to be, called onthe carpet and misunderstood for
(45:21):
intentions and things of thatnature.
And I know for me, I talkedabout this in a previous podcast
episode.
I had a complete disaster on myhands when it came to doing
budgeting.
I went to, the director offinance for a different sales
department, but he and I hadalways had a friendly
relationship and I justscheduled a one on one with him
and I sat down and I said, One,"I need to vent about the
(45:44):
situation because I don't knowwhat I don't know." And then
number two, I'm asking you ifyou can assist me.
I know that you can't do thebudget and forecasting and
everything else for me, but canyou be there to help guide me?
Can you help answer somequestions I may have?" And he
was there every step of the way.
I've had just as many maleallies as I've had women allies.
(46:06):
And I think you need thatbalance for a number of reasons.
When you do get those maleallies, when you talk to them,
they can open doors for you.
Unfortunately, we do need alliesto do that for us.
That's why they're calledallies.
We can't do anything in thisworld without someone else.
You might think you're doing itwithout someone else.
(46:27):
I don't care if you're anentrepreneur, solopreneur,
whatever you want to callyourself.
I don't care if you think thatyou're the first to do whatever,
you still needed to probably geta bank loan.
You probably needed to get agrant.
You probably needed to make aconnection to somebody that was
willing to manufacture youritem.
You didn't do it alone.
You may have had to work to findthose connections.
(46:49):
Well, if you're using theinternet, you still didn't do it
alone because why?
People had to build that inorder for you to be able to do
the search to begin with.
I know that's extreme, but mypoint is we all need allies.
And so, when we have good maleallies, they can do a lot of
things for us that we may not beable to do that other women may
not be able to do.
(47:11):
In harmony with that, I wasreading a post on LinkedIn that
talked about how there are womenthat get put into positions of
power, with"title" what I meanby power, and then it turns out
they have no leverage.
They have no capital, so tospeak.
They have no power.
They're put there for show.
They're put there for diversity.
(47:32):
They're put there to try todemonstrate equity and all these
other things, right?
Inclusiveness.
So, even they still needsomebody else as an ally.
And generally speaking, whenthose kinds of situations
happen, it's going to be a man.
Let's just keep it real and putthat out there.
I
Damon Utsey (47:51):
can't tell you how many situations I've seen like
that where my leaders, team ormanagers, same thing, someone
will come in, they'll saysomething to them, or they'll
act certain way.
And I'll have to step in.
Are you going to let them talkto you like that?
So sometimes as an ally, it'sthat giving them that push and
showing that confidence boost.
If there's a role that's comeup,"Hey, have you thought about
(48:13):
applying for this role?
Let's see what we need to do toget you there." Are there gaps?
What are you not sure of?
What are you not certain of?
Okay, I'm going to help you getthere.
Let's do that.
They give you that push.
And when you talk about asking,you said you can't get what you
don't ask for.
That's why it's important.
Same thing, use that voice.
And if you're, timid orsheepish, or you don't know how
to use that voice, get with thatally, ask them,"Hey, help me,
(48:36):
amplify my voice.
Be my amplifier for me, help meget there to take those steps
where I need to be."
Shai Boston, CPTD (48:43):
You know, or you can just hire you some
really great leadership coachesthat will help you do that and
that are experienced incommunication.
I'm just saying.
The other thing, the otherthing, too, that, you mentioned,
and I harp on this all the time.
Leaders know how to be goodfollowers and leaders know how
to create other leaders.
I'm not going to get to theleaders, creating other leaders,
(49:04):
cause we already talked aboutthat.
But leaders being goodfollowers, this is another thing
to observe.
And I like to tell my clientsthis when I talk to them,
because when we're talking aboutreading a room, that also means
look at whom is following whom.
Take a look, pay attentionbecause you want to know who are
they looking at that's guidingthem, that's shaping and molding
(49:27):
them?
I have been in rooms where thereare people that I have admired
greatly that I was like,"Youknow what?
I like this person.
I want to get these qualitiesand this and this and that." And
then I see who they'refollowing.
Well, I'm not big on thisperson, so why are you following
this person?" Now there could bea valid reason why they're
following that person.
So I'm not knocking that.
(49:48):
And nine times out of 10, if youtake the time to look, you'll
figure out why they arefollowing that person.
But, you do take the time tolook at that and analyze the
situation before you write itoff and say,"Nope, don't want to
do that because I could seewhere this is going." Or, if
you're seeing modeled behavior,modeled speech, modeled
interactions that tells youright there whether or not you
(50:11):
want to interact.
That's really important as well.
I want to round out our sessiontoday.
First of all, thank you so muchfor being here, Damon.
Your insights have beenwonderful.
Very impactful and veryinsightful.
Where can my listeners find you?
Damon Utsey (50:29):
Your listeners can find me on LinkedIn.
I'm very active there.
Lots of tidbits and posts.
It's just Damon Utsey onLinkedIn, or they can reach me
at CoachDamonUtsey@gmail.com.
That's how they can get in touchwith me.
And I have a lot of bits andpieces and information that I
(50:50):
can help people get to the nextlevel and watch that trajectory
and their career grow.
Shai Boston, CPTD (50:56):
Thank you so much.
Appreciate you being here today,sharing your insights, having
these powerful conversations,especially from a male
perspective of understanding howwomen can be centered in
conversations.
We went and talked aboutleadership and all of that.
So I just want to bring thisback around before I close out
today.
We talked about Kintsugi and soin coming back around, bringing
(51:19):
that full circle to leadership.
Kintsugi becomes more valuable.
The more gold that gets laid onit, the more valuable it
becomes.
The older the piece is, meaningthe more experienced it is, the
more valuable it becomes.
If you find that you have achipped piece, go ahead and
repair it.
(51:39):
Do what you got to do to overlayit, smooth it out, keep working
on it.
That's your upskilling.
And then, you have the goal thatseals it and says,"Okay, I've
learned that here's my value."Do not forget about your
personal currency.
That is the value of yourknowledge, your skills and
expertise, that intellectualcapital that you're bringing to
(52:01):
the table, coupled with thenumbers that you can put behind
that.
That is your actual worth.
How you quantify those skills,that knowledge, that value, the
intellectual capital.
I think that's one thing that weoften forget is that we don't
put the numbers on ourselves.
Put that number on yourself,Boo.
You got that! To end the show, Iwant to share a piece that I
(52:23):
wrote, actually two pieces Icombined into one.
Didn't realize that pun.
And it's all about Kintsugi.
So I wanted to share that withyou.
And as Erykah Badu says:"I'm anartist and I'm sensitive about
my stuff." So I'm gonna need younot to be making fun of folks on
here and getting all up into mymessages, talking about Shai, do
(52:43):
better.
Not a spoken word artist by anymeans, but these were some
thoughts that I had around thethought of Kintsugi.
I'd like to share them with youall today.
I don't break down my poetryinto symmetry.
I don't know what iambicpentameter or if I'm a rambler,
I do know that I am chipped, notbroken.
(53:04):
Ledisi said, these are thepieces of me.
So when you look at my face,just know that it takes every
ounce of me, every piece of mejust to be.
It's all my story.
Embracing them, each piece, hashelped me to start becoming more
whole, feeling complete.
(53:26):
When anybody decides to take adip into the fountain that
causes their pen to drip withpetty and hurt against me,
towards me, to thwart me, I lookat the inflicted wound and
think,"It's just a chip" but itdoesn't have to be a piece of
me.
Whether I'm feeling salty likeFritos, being cheesy like
Doritos.
If I slay like Lays, havetingles like Pringles, I'm
(53:46):
learning to love my complexlayers of flavor to savor my
rising above it all in selflove, because I no longer call
myself broken when I am and wasalways only chipped.
Shards, I see.
I am broken.
Unexpectedly you betray me.
(54:06):
Anxiety, PTSD, you shared themalmost gleefully, giving out a
PhD in lessons only you couldgive me.
I am broken.
Years of turmoil, pain, hatingyou, not loving me, searching
for something, anything, to fillthe black hole full of the voids
you forced me to swallow.
(54:26):
Kintsugi.
The Japanese craft thatdescribes me, the woman I came
to be, living life finally free,filled with gold, my truth now
told, I became bold, lovingmyself no longer on hold,
shining bright, I see my ownlight, hardened from the fight,
not living in fright, I'm notbroken.
(54:47):
Loving my entire soul, I've cometo know...
I.
Am.
Whole.
and so are you.
Thanks for joining us today.
I know your time is valuable andI appreciate you choosing to
take the time to chat with metoday.
(55:08):
I hope our conversation helpedyou to see things more clearly.
If you like this episode, don'tforget to subscribe so you can
always be alerted to my newepisodes each week.
Enjoy the rest of your day ornight and let's get together
again soon for some Coffee,Cocktails, and Clarity.
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