January 29, 2021 • 37 mins
Former White House Presidential Innovation Fellow and best-selling author Amy J. Wilson weighs in on leading change with compassion, the importance of community, and diversity of thought. Learn more about her perspective as we discuss:
- her experiences inside the Obama and Trump Administrations
- Empathy for Change, her debut best-selling book
- building 50 homes in 4 months after Hurricane Katrina
- eliminating systems of oppression by reshaping culture
Guest Biography
Amy J. Wilson is a change leader, community builder, movement maker, and an empathy advocate. Her journey to sparking change started in AmeriCorps*NCCC, leading a project to rebuild 50 homes in four months in the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina. She was a chief architect of Booz Allen Hamilton’s Building a Culture of Innovation movement, which transformed the 100-year firm.
Amy later served for three years as a White House Presidential Innovation Fellow, where she created a shared language and led a movement for innovation and change in government. In her debut book, Empathy for Change, she hopes to inspire others to embrace kindness to enrich the world. In her free time, she enjoys baking pies, traveling internationally, and telling stories.
Connect with Amy:
Amy's Book
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Lady Grey is an award-winning international entertainer and educator. She has been at the helm of numerous performing arts organizations and has performed everywhere from Broadway to the Sydney Olympics. She currently serves as Artistic Director of Lady Grey's Lovelies and continues to work as a mentor and empowerment coach.
Connect with Lady Grey
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Amy (00:00):
I feel like we're better together than we are alone than
(00:04):
I believe in diversity ofthoughts, not just having an us
versus them mentality.
Unknown (00:16):
Hello, lovely humans.
Welcome to the live outrageouslywith Lady gray podcast. I'm your
hostess lady gray. And I havehad the great honor to interview
a number of super inspiringworld changers about how they
live outrageously. So we'regoing to share about how they
(00:37):
push boundaries, they fight forchange, and how they seriously
shake up the status quo. Todaywe are talking about empathy and
change. And I couldn't be moreexcited to welcome Amy J.
Wilson, to the show. Amy is achange leader, a community
(00:57):
builder, a movement maker and anempathy advocate. her journey
includes serving for three yearsas a White House Presidential
Innovation fellow, where shecreated a shared language and
led a movement for innovationand change in government. Her
debut book, empathy for changewas just released. And she hopes
(01:17):
that it will inspire others toembrace kindness, and enrich the
world.
Lady Grey (01:23):
Welcome, welcome.
Welcome, Amy. So great to haveyou here today.
Amy (01:27):
Thank you for having me.
It's I'm excited to talk withyou. But we
Lady Grey (01:30):
are honored to have you share a little bit about
your outrageous journey with usand some of the fabulous
concepts and change that you'rebringing to the world. So I like
to start things off, you have avery long resume of innovation
and empathy and all thesebeautiful concepts. What I would
love to know is what youconsider sort of the most
(01:53):
outrageous moments or thingsthat you're most proud of that
have happened kind of along theway?
Amy (01:58):
Hmm, good question. I would say that I kind of talked about
myself as a public entrepreneur.
And people were like, what doesthat really mean? So I have like
these entrepreneurialtendencies, I feel like I'm an
entrepreneur deep down inside,but I do I have a penchant for
things that are for the publicgood, and impact. So I'm kind of
like a junkie when it comes tohaving impact, which you know,
(02:21):
necessarily a bad thing. But itdoes make you work around the
clock, because you really careabout impact. So there's some
key moments that I would saythroughout my career that really
stand out. And they all involveme being a change maker. First
one that really stands out isafter Hurricane Katrina and
Rita, I stopped my job andconsulting to join AmeriCorps.
(02:42):
And this is the kind ofAmeriCorps call to the national
civilian community Corps. It's ateam based service. And so I was
a team leader. And we were doingthings like gutting out schools
and houses in after the GulfCoast. And when I was there, I
was given this amazingopportunity that kind of set me
in this trajectory to do thisentrepreneurship. And I was
(03:05):
asked to create a rebuildingproject for St. Bernard Parish
right next to New Orleans tobuild 50 homes in four months.
So five zero homes and fourmonths and with very little
resources, because I'm movinginto elementary school at the
time, and it's 110 degreesoutside. And so because it's New
Orleans heat, right. So that waspretty outrageous at a such an
(03:28):
early age, having people rely onyou to do such a important
project. Another thing thatstands out for me is about five
years later, I'm working at thiscompany called Booz Allen
Hamilton. It's a managementconsulting firm, and it was
getting ready to turn 100 yearsold. But in order for us to
survive the next 100 years, weneed to change things pretty
(03:49):
drastically. So I was selectedto be part of a team of five
people to build a culture ofinnovation. And so there was not
really any guardrails, they hadlots of money, they were
throwing towards this becausethis was the future of the
organization. So I became thechief architect of a lot of
things I wrote the innovationplaybook, we wrote, create an
innovation ecosystem, and werecreated the core values around
(04:13):
empathy and change. And then Iwould say another outrageous
moment was just after thathappened, and I gained some
prominence, I was asked by theObama administration to come in
and be an entrepreneur andresidents for the
administration. So what thatinvolves is taking really big
(04:33):
challenges that the governmentis facing your people from
outside of government who comein and just try to make sense of
things and try to improvethings. And so what I eventually
ended up creating was this thingcalled innovation.gov, which had
a shared language for what doespublic sector innovation mean?
We also created a community. Wehad about 5000 people join and
(04:56):
just the first two years it's acommunity That's open and
participatory and peer driventoward the better government
movement. So yeah, those aresome of the things that stand up
for me. When I talk about livingoutrageously, I always am
questioning the status quo.
Lady Grey (05:11):
And that's exactly what being outrageous is all
about, in my opinion, it'sshaking things up. So I feel
like there's so much to unpackthere. Oh, my word. I think I
could probably talk to you forhours and hours and hours here.
So I read a quote from you thatleading change is not about
breaking things, but it's aboutusing empathy to enrich the
world.
Amy (05:32):
Yeah. Empathy is a conscious choice we make. And
it's something that we canlearn. A lot of people feel like
you're just born with empathy.
But it's actually a learnedtrait, Jamil Zaki, who is a
psychologist and the director ofthe Stanford social neuroscience
lab. He's been studying, youknow, neuro, the neuroscience of
(05:52):
empathy for more than a decadein this written amazing book.
And he finds these things. Andso it's actually something we
have proven through science.
What's interesting is thatempathy should be a conscious
choice we make but we usuallyrelegated that to the our
subconscious. So many things inmodern day society block empathy
(06:12):
from presenting itself. And manyusually have a hard time
explaining this concept toothers. So the book that I wrote
was called empathy for change.
And so I started kind of lookingat these two aspects of myself
in the sense that I'm an empath.
I'm a highly sensitive person.
And my biggest strength isempathy. But also at the same
(06:33):
time, I'm a change maker. So Ithink that in order for us to go
in this direction, towardsempathy, we need to have
innovation, and we must redefineit, because what's happening in
our country and in many otherplaces in the world, is that we
are kind of at this turningpoint, this path that we have to
(06:53):
choose, are we going down thispath of narcissism of command
and control of you do what Itell you to do? Or are we going
down this path of empathy. Andwe can certainly unpack that a
little bit later. But for us toveer towards empathy, we have to
have innovation, right. But I'vebeen a leader of innovation for
more than a decade now. I reallythink in the day, we're trying
(07:16):
to create positive change in theworld. In order to get to
positive change, we need to haveempathy plus action,
Lady Grey (07:24):
if you can explain to us because I feel like this is a
core of your messaging, whatempathy is to you? How do you
quantify it.
Amy (07:34):
So when I was going through working with this book, I
created my own definition ofempathy. And it actually
encompasses quite a lot. It'sresponding to the thoughts and
emotions of others, with apurpose of meeting each other's
needs. It's focused on threekinds of empathy, it requires us
(07:55):
to have the whole body approach.
The first one is cognitive. AndI call up the head, am I willing
to take your perspective in thefirst place, am I choosing to
decide whether I want to takeyour perspective and what's also
interesting in this idea ofchoice, is that you also only
have empathy for people that youvalue. So if you don't value a
certain gender, or race orethnicity, then empathy won't
(08:18):
even happen in the first place.
So that's certainly part of it.
And the second piece is theheart, which is emotional
empathy. Am I willing to feelyour feelings and emotions but
what's interesting there is thatwhen you have emotional empathy
is you have to understandyourself, and community with
others. And then the third one,which I call the hand, is that
(08:43):
part where you're like, I'mtaking your perspective, I'm
there I'm feeling with you. AndI'm willing to help if you need
it. That's a key component. Thecompassion piece is like, Okay,
I see you as a person, I reallywant to help you. I found over
my career, that withcompassionate empathy, it
(09:03):
doesn't say you do act. So weneed to add that extra layer
where it's like you're actuallyacting upon it. And the last
thing I'll say about that is alot of people describe that
empathy is feeling with somebodyand not for them.
Lady Grey (09:20):
Mm hmm. That's fascinating. I, you know, I've
never heard anybody break itdown into those separate
categories. And that's reallyintriguing to me. I think a lot
of people strictly talk aboutempathy, and sort of that
emotional piece that immediatelycomes to mind. People who are
empaths have a hard time withbig room full of buzzing emotion
(09:43):
or heightens energy and thingslike that and keeping themselves
in a place that's balanced. Ithink also addressing these
other concepts of, you know, thecognitive peace and the
compassion, peace and compassionbeing both a willingness to help
but also actually doingsomething about it and step into
it. One thing that you mentionedwas the inability to have
(10:06):
empathy for people that we donot value. I feel like this is
really relevant. In today's dayand age, there's a lot of people
that are not looking at thatpart of themselves critically
and saying, Hey, what's theorigin of my inability to
empathize? And it comes back totheir inability to value the
(10:27):
person. Do you have any advicefor people that are maybe doing
some self analysis,
Amy (10:32):
I think, awareness unpacks a lot of things for you. I've
dealt with a lot of trauma in mylife. And I have spent many
years going through therapy andunderstanding myself, and how I
relate to the world. When wetalk about empathy. There's four
words that kept showing up in myresearch when I was talking to
(10:53):
people, and also doing the deepresearch to understand like,
what is it nature versusnurture? How do we build
empathy, and the four words kindof stick out? Number one, its
dignity. And Dr. Donna Hickstalks about dignity. We all
inherently are valuable andworthy as people, if you don't
believe in this, you're notseeing these people as humans,
(11:16):
right. So dignity is anessential element in human
existence. We're born with it.
We are valuable or invaluable,priceless and irreplaceable. So
a second thing that's key for usto either give empathy or not
give empathy is humility.
Another person I interviewed andworked with for the book was
this woman named AntoinetteCarol. She's in St. Louis,
(11:40):
Missouri, and she created thisorganization called the creative
reaction lab. And this is whatthey say humility is recognizing
the influence of your own biasesand perspectives. When trying to
understand another's emotions,thoughts, experiences, and
actions. Empathy is the act ofattempt to understand another
person's perspective, byimagining how you would feel
(12:01):
think or act, if put in theirsituation. And empathy and
humility, help us understandothers while also acknowledging
our biases.
Lady Grey (12:10):
That's brilliant. I won't interrupt your list of
four words.
Amy (12:15):
But that's brilliant.
Thanks. But it is brilliant,right. And that's why I put it
in the book. This is a directquote from the work that she
does. And I should mention thatAntoinette Carol and the credit
reaction lab, are working onsolving systemic racism in this
country. So they have thisperspective that the systems
around us have been designedwith oppression in them. So we
can actually redesign them andreclaim the power, reclaim our
(12:37):
agency to change the worldaround us. Fascinating work that
they're doing. And it's formed alot of the work that I'm talking
about and other organizationsI've talked to. So going back to
the four things, another thingis have curiosity, having a
strong desire to know or learnsomething about someone or
something. If you don't havecuriosity about people about
(12:59):
things, then you're not going towant to know more, right? You're
not going to want to overcomethose biases. And those
assumptions that you have, wewere talking about the humility
piece, and the last one equity.
So why equity matters is thathistorically underinvested
communities such as black andLatino populations, females,
(13:24):
transgenders, people withdisabilities, etc. They face
disproportionate racial andeconomic inequalities or
inequities. And so it limitstheir social, economic and
cultural growth, because ofsystems of policy, education,
housing, etc. And thesedisparities propagate, because
of the barriers that have beenbuilt between various people in
(13:47):
the world equity is differentthan equality, right? equality
is giving sameness, everybodygets the same thing. And
actually, equity is differentoutcomes for different people
based on where they are in thepecking order, so to speak in
society. Wow, that's a lot toprocess for people. And it's all
(14:08):
really good. So I'm encouragingeverybody to pick up this book,
and give it a good solid readand use it as a self examination
tool.
Lady Grey (14:17):
You had mentioned earlier to me about it being a
love letter to people that wantto be world changers.
Amy (14:23):
Yeah, that's right. In the introduction of my book, one of
the things that I was told in myjourney was that this person who
was in a place of power waslike, I'm giving you a magic
wand. And this magic wand opensup a lot of doors for you. You
can talk to whoever you want,you can do whatever you want,
you can change the world aroundyou. And I'm also passing it on
(14:46):
to the next generation ofchangemakers or people who think
that they can't make changehappen. I want to pass that
magic wand to say, Yes, you can.
Wonderful.
Lady Grey (14:55):
Yeah, so I guess if we get into a little bit more of
the nitty gritty of How this issort of presenting itself in the
world around us right now, Iknow that you mentioned the rise
of narcissism and this idea ofcontrol and how that might play
a role. Can you tell us a littlebit about what your encounters
with that have looked like andmaybe unpack empathy deficit
(15:18):
disorder?
Amy (15:19):
Yeah, absolutely. Like I said, I'm a public entrepreneur,
myself, when you're in a placeof leading change, you are
coming up against a lot offriction from a lot of
organizations that you'reworking with, because you're
changing the status quo. Andwhen you talk about socio
economic spectrum as well,that's where a lot of research
(15:39):
is showing is that if you haveless wealth, you actually have
to rely on community toparticipate in the world. So
there might be a single mother,who needs to rely on her parents
to take care of her childrenwhile she goes to work, when you
are wealthy, and you are higheron the socio economic spectrum,
you can hire somebody to takecare of your children. So you
(16:02):
are essentially getting intothis place of, of I'm an island
unto myself, I don't need otherpeople to do what I need to do,
the more wealthy you are, themore you can choose who is part
of your community. And you canhave exclusivity. So this all
creates a really interesting,powder keg of narcissism, like
(16:23):
not, I'm not saying all peoplewho are wealthy and have power
are narcissists, but certainlymany of them are, one thing that
people can do is to provideopportunities for them to be
part of community a lot more.
And then also to haveopportunities where you can try
something out and fail at it, Ihave an interesting story that
kind of explains this idea ofold power and new power, about
(16:46):
looking at how globalization andtechnology is shifting us into
this place where we're goingfrom this top down leader driven
world where it's like you do, asI say, and I when I tell you to
do, it's kind of like 20thcentury thinking, you know,
building a model t, which is acar. For those who may not know
(17:08):
what a Model T is, it was a, itwas one of the first cars that
came out in 2011, that you hadto explain that. I just thought
there was nobody who might notknow what a Model T is, unless
you've watched like, you know,the History Channel. It's like
assembly line, it's like, youknow, the people who are the
workers do not have the power,the people in the top have the
(17:30):
power. And that's command andcontrol. You do as I tell you to
do and power is directional.
It's like downward, usually. Butnew power, which is this
phenomenon that's been happeningin the past decade, and
accelerating at a very fastpace, because of technology and
globalization is we're beingshoved into this place of open,
(17:54):
transparent, participatory waysof changing the world, right,
not just changing the world, butof being part of the world. So
now, power is not just at thetop power is a current, you can
direct it to people that youneed to direct it to. So I
personally experienced thisfirsthand. I mentioned before I
(18:16):
worked as an entrepreneur inresidence for the White House,
and technically the name what'scalled the Presidential
Innovation fellow. So I have,you know, a span of up to four
years to make impact in thefederal government. That kind of
impact is really fast. Usuallypeople are running marathons, I
was running a sprint. So youknow, I was ruffling some
feathers. In the last 18 monthsof the Obama administration.
(18:40):
When I came in, I startedworking on research for
innovation and change ingovernment. By the time it was
done, we had about 600 pages ofresearch and 15 reports, talking
to hundreds of people across thespectrum and trying to define
what does really innovationmean, but two weeks before the
2016 election, I take on thisnew job, we take this
(19:01):
information, create a sharedlanguage, a playbook and a
toolkit, create the federalgovernment movement I mentioned
before, but I we had a lot ofsuccess in the work. But it was
a very grassroots movement. Somy chance was, I was actually
given an opportunity to startthis new center of excellence
that was being stood up. And itwas about the people side of
(19:22):
change. So I was trying to thinkabout how do you create 21st
century agencies, so working atHousing and Urban Development
and other organizations at thispoint, I'm getting closer. I'm
in the Trump administration, I'mgetting closer to working
directly with the white house asopposed to a grassroots
movement. And I hear rumblingsthat they want to know more
(19:45):
about my work. And so I wantedto understand their vision. So I
get into a meeting and I'mtrying to explain like all of
the progress we've made withthese hundreds of people and he
stops me in mid sentence and hesays you are Thinking about
everything wrong, you need tofit into what we're doing.
Unknown (20:05):
The box,
Lady Grey (20:07):
the dreaded box, okay? And this is Trump, you're
talking about, right?
Amy (20:14):
Trump himself is somebody at the front office of American
admissions. And so I was veryconfused. At that point. I was
like, Well, I'm here tounderstand what you're doing,
right? Like, I've been needingto understand your vision, and
articulate what you're doing sothat I can see how I fit into
it. And as the meetingprogresses, there was some
bullying involved. And then, atthe end of the meeting, he says,
(20:38):
You work for me. And you workfor this president. He was like
our conversations over, we'redone here. And it was very
jarring. And what happens a fewweeks later, happens to be the
week of Halloween in 2018. I wasremoved from my post, the White
House ordered GSA to dismantleinnovation.gov I could never
(21:00):
convene the federal governmentmovement again.
Lady Grey (21:06):
breaks my heart.
Okay, so
Amy (21:08):
yeah, that's Oh, I know, let's pause right there.
Lady Grey (21:11):
Man, I do a lot of work talking about breaking
boxes, and these boxes thatother people put us in that are
defined strictly by their beliefsystem, their worldview of how
we should conduct ourselves, andand we get comfortable there,
when we're in a place that isn'tempowered when we don't have a
(21:32):
knowledge of what's outside thebox. And we become blind to the
possibility for change becauseof it. And I think we stagnate
we end up not acting on ourinternal desires and dreams and
the things that we have beengifted as human beings from
birth. And I am so fascinatedthat not only is that still a
(21:54):
thing that people are doing toeach other, you know, but it's a
deliberate thing. It's not evenjust an accidental imposition of
your own beliefs on someoneelse, which is obviously still
happening. But it's a deliberatething. And it's happening in our
workplaces. It's obviously inyour situation happening because
conformity is valued abovechange. And, like you said,
(22:18):
equity and acceptance andcompassion, it makes my hair
stand on end, when I hear youtalk about somebody saying, you
work for me, and this is whatyou're gonna do. It's that not
valuing someone.
Amy (22:30):
Yeah, it was very, very disheartening. I have a short
quote from my book here that I'dlove to share that kind of talks
about how I was feeling afterthis happened. Please do so it
says what happened here wassignificant, traumatic and
frustrating on a personal level.
It was also teach me a lessonprofessionally about power
control and future change. As Istarted peeling back the layers
(22:54):
of this multifaceted onion, Istarted to unravel a few things.
Number one, those in power werepurposefully destructive because
they were threatened by amovement of people working to
change government, somethingthey couldn't control. And
number two, this leadership didnot value or give empathy,
command control. And top downleadership was the nature of the
(23:15):
beast, I was both a product ofand affected by a dysfunctional
system that I was holding up butcouldn't hold anymore
Lady Grey (23:24):
trying to hold up an entire system. It's exactly
that, and especially as anempath, it feels like you have
the weight of the world on youin those moments. Wow. How does
the need for survival as anempath come into play for you?
That was a very uniquesituation. But even if you're
just in your day to dayencounters with some of those
(23:46):
difficulties, how do you protectyourself?
Amy (23:49):
Hmm, that's a good question. You know, we have
Maslow's hierarchy of needs,which essentially is like food,
water, shelter, these thingsthat you need as a human. But
then there's some things thatare human needs this person,
Monica hersa, who doespeacebuilding says, These are
non tangible human needs, manyof them have to do or being able
to have challenges in our lifeand become resilient and to
(24:15):
overcome those challenges in ourlifetime. I think that part
about being resilient is reallyimportant. I spent 12 years in
management consulting, before Iworked at the White House. So
that kind of created a hardenedshell for me. I feel like we're
better together than we arealone than I believe in
(24:36):
diversity of thoughts, not justhaving an us versus them
mentality. So I think there'spower in numbers when it comes
to that. And what's important,has been certainly important
with me is this feeling ofhaving community around me, I
had a series of eight to 10leaders who were volunteering,
but they believed so fully inwhat we were doing for the
(24:59):
public good. We all like hadthis higher vision and purpose
that really bonded us together.
You know what I was crying whenI was when I was getting hit
left and right by a lot ofleadership. They were the ones
who picked me up when I neededit, and they could understand
what I was going through. And Ican, I'm gonna get a kind of
book clumped about that rightnow. But it's important after I
was removed from my post, andthis terrible thing happened in
(25:25):
my world, I said, you know,enough's enough. And I had to
stop the world and get off for asecond. So I decided to take a
sabbatical. But I was like, Ineed to heal, or I'm not going
to be here anymore. Because Iknew that I needed to write I
needed to process what happened.
So that's when the book started.
And, you know, many, many moreblessings came through. And
(25:47):
anyway, so those are some of thethings that I personally did,
stepping away, and saying, no,really makes a difference.
Lady Grey (25:56):
Going back to something you said about
community, we are surrounded bypeople that want to hold our
hand. But we have to find thatgroup of people to be able to
deconstruct your box to be ableto step out into your greatness,
and to change the world. Andwhatever way it is that you're
(26:17):
meant to change the world. Ifeel like that support is key.
And that community of people whoare like minded and encouraging,
allows you the freedom to bebold.
Amy (26:29):
Yeah, I wanted to like add something to what you were just
saying. So I go into theimportance of community and one
of my chapters, because I thinkit's an incredibly important
piece of empathy building.
Number one, if you just stayalone, and you're having your
own thoughts, and you're notengaging with the community,
that box that you were talkingabout shows up, right, you're
(26:50):
just keeping yourself in a box,and you're not open and curious
about other people in oursociety. Today, we are split up
in networks, more networks andcommunities and a network seeing
is only a small portion of whoyou are. Facebook, Twitter,
you're putting up a face thatonly a portion of these people
(27:11):
are seeing, they don't see youas a whole person. And if you
look at community, they see youas a whole being that has all
different aspects to you. Andit's not just you're not just a
monolith, that is something thatwe've walked away from, I have
another chapter where it'scalled understand before you are
understood, which is a StephenCovey Seven Habits of Highly
(27:33):
Effective People. And that goesinto more details. But
essentially, it's just that thelack of community is
contributing to divisivenessthat we have in our country and
around the world.
Lady Grey (27:48):
I'm going to spend some time with that one
personally. Holy cow. Thank you.
Unknown (27:53):
Thanks for that. Yeah.
Lady Grey (27:55):
So in addition to Stephen Covey, who I obviously
have spent time reading and usesome of those concepts in my own
life, I know that we have ashared love of Rene Brown. And
for me, the concept of daringgreatly by being vulnerable, and
living authentically is reallykey. And I'm wondering if that
(28:15):
resonates with you in your lifeand your desire to be a change
leader? Yeah, absolutely.
Amy (28:22):
I mean, brene Brown Daring Greatly is one of my favorite
books. Bernie Brown is agoddess, somebody once compared
me to Bernie Brown. And I waslike, Are you kidding me? Like,
like, I don't know if I couldget to that level of amazing.
She's one of my amazing teachersin the world. And she teaches so
many things to many people. AndI believe vulnerability is
really important. But what'sinteresting is that the
(28:43):
beginning of Daring Greatly, shehas this quote, that is from
Teddy Roosevelt. And a lot ofpeople caught the man in the
arena speech, and I alwaysforget the real name of it, but
it's like something about theRepublic. But the paraphrase
here essentially says, it's notthe man who counts that's in the
stadium that's there that'swatching you. It's the person in
(29:04):
the ring, who is getting marredby the blood, sweat and tears of
the thing that's happening, thatreally matters. If you're just a
spectator watching what'shappening in the world, you're
perpetuating the systems ofoppression that are oppressing
people every day. So it's thepeople who are daring, greatly
pushing against what ishappening and what's right and
(29:28):
what's wrong. That literallymakes the difference. And those
are the people that you canlisten to and take advice from
and thoughts from because thepeople who are the spectators
are just watching and notparticipating. They don't really
have skin in the game. They'renot actually doing the work in a
lot of ways. We all have aresponsibility to dare greatly.
(29:50):
Those who are Daring Greatlyshould be banding together and
working with each other.
Unknown (29:55):
Mm hmm. Yeah,
Lady Grey (29:56):
I think I found the right quote, The credit belongs
to The man who is actually inthe arena whose face is marred
by dust and sweat and blood, whostrives valiantly, who airs who
comes short again and again.
Yeah, like the freedom to makemistakes.
Amy (30:13):
Exactly.
Lady Grey (30:14):
So let's talk through Amy's outrageous advice. This is
the section of the show, if youhave something else that you
need to talk to us about, likehow to make a brilliant peach
pie or something like that, youlet me know. I hear you like to
bake pies.
Amy (30:29):
I do. Yeah, that's one of my things.
Lady Grey (30:31):
I could not bake a pie to save my soul. Seriously,
I have all the respect for you.
But I would love to talk throughfirst steps that people can
take. So we people can pick upyour book and work through some
of their own biases, evaluatetheir values, and maybe those
three different categories havehad, and I'm gonna let
Unknown (30:53):
cognitive
Lady Grey (30:54):
emotional and compassion is
Amy (30:56):
that, did I get that?
Right? Get it? Right, yeah. Justsay the head, the heart, the
hand,
Lady Grey (31:01):
head heart. And okay, but so let's talk about action.
What are some steps that peoplecan actually take to get out of
this box, get on a path tocompassion and leading change
with empathy?
Amy (31:14):
What do I stand for? What do I value? In a lot of ways,
we're being fed a lot of thingsfrom the media there, there's
people shaping our world. It'snot just the media, it's school,
we're taught about specificthings for various reasons. So
always try to look for the otherside of the story, try to
(31:34):
understand where you lie on thatwe need to have a culture
change. culture change happensbecause of a movement and not a
mandate. In order for that tohappen. We need to step up as
employees of people who do haveinfluence Google, some of their
workers are unionizing. They'reasking for equal pay for some of
(31:55):
the workers that might beworking a third party that
aren't paid as well. But they'reasking for a better say, of what
their companies are doing in theworld and the ethics behind it.
How do you build a culture withleading with the heart, right,
leading with this emotionalaspect of ourselves, because
change is inherently anemotional act that we have,
(32:17):
right? So we need to acknowledgethat our emotions while we're
going through the change. So Ijust talked about some of the
things we personally can do tryto look at values, etc. But this
is for a bigger culture. So amicro changes, number one,
acknowledge that empathy is notan inherent trait, but something
we can build, realizing that wecan learn empathy, that we can
(32:40):
choose empathy, bring them fromthe subconscious into our
consciousness. Number two islook for Phantom norms and work
in communities that you're in.
And that's usually the peoplewho have the dominant voices are
the ones whose voices get heard,and they tend to have more
power. So when we're talkingabout culture, listen to the
(33:01):
people who might be a little bitmore quiet, make sure that you
most people are being heard thiskind of feeds into the third
piece with the micro work we cando is get other people who are
championing empathy, connectwith other people, I love to say
that like, you know, go to thepeople who are leaning in and
expanding around you and areexcited about you than the
(33:23):
people who are like movingbackwards. Because then you can
build coalitions of people,right. And that's how change
happens. A couple things in themacro side of things is like,
creating policies that allow youto have more empathy, or allow
you to put in your performanceplans, having communication
channels that create increasedtransparency. And at the end of
(33:44):
the day, you want to recruitpeople to come into your company
that lead with empathy, and havethat as something in your
recruiting process, diversifyyour leadership, if you if
you're looking around, andeverybody around you is the same
gender, or the same color, oreven like disabilities, you want
to have like both hidden andphysical disabilities, you want
(34:05):
to just have like a variety ofpeople who think different
things about it, because in theend, you're going to be stronger
off, and more empathy is goingto be had. Well, I
Lady Grey (34:15):
really appreciate that advice. I think it's great
because it touches people kindof where they're at. There are
some people who are at thebeginning of that journey, and
some people who are CEOs, maybelooking to change their hiring
policies and things like that.
So I think that's great advice.
So before we go, I like to giveeverybody the opportunity to
(34:36):
give a shout out to anyonethat's a big supporter or
someone that you want torecognize. Do you have anybody
you'd like to say hi to?
Amy (34:47):
Oh, gosh, we're gonna say hi to your mom, you know,
Unknown (34:51):
Hey, Mom. Hey,
Amy (34:52):
Mom. There's been so many mentors. I have not done this by
myself. I think of all the womenthat have supported me, you
know, and my mom is certainlyshe's my biggest fan like most
moms are. But I also think aboutsisters, I have three sisters,
I'm getting verklempt thinkingabout it, too. They pushed me to
do things that I normallywouldn't do, and they lift me
(35:15):
up. I keep thinking about one ofthe best leaders that I've ever
had during everything that washappening with the Trump
administration. Her name isKelly Olson, I think about her
frequently, she always stood upfor me to fight for what I
believed in. And what shebelieved in one man that comes
to mind is what two I want tosay is Joby Aurora. He is you
(35:37):
know, work with him in thebetter government movement. We,
you know, he donated,volunteered so much of his time
to help build this because hecared so much about the federal
government movement, and thenkind of a friend named Alexander
Romero or he called row row. Andwe we were our fellows together
last year, and he's justincredibly empathetic,
(36:00):
empathetic, human and justwonderful person all the way
around. And I really looktowards his
Lady Grey (36:06):
his guidance. That's fantastic. Well, big shout out
to all of them. So that wraps upwhat I wanted to kind of talk
about today. Although again, Ifeel like there are so many
things that I'm going to want totalk to you about as soon as I
dig into this book and reallydevour it. So you are welcome to
come back on this show anytimeto talk about empathy and
(36:27):
leadership and change. I reallyappreciate your voice. Thank you
so much for the time.
Absolutely. Hey, friends, I hopeyou enjoyed this interview. If
you'd like to learn more aboutAmy Wilson, you can check her
out at www dot Amy j wilson.com.
A big thank you to Amy, forteaching us to live a little
(36:49):
more outrageously. Well,outrageous friends. It has been
my honor and my pleasure to haveyou here today. I hope that you
took away some outrageous ideasfor your own life. If you
enjoyed yourself, make sure thatyou're subscribed to live
(37:10):
outrageously with Lady gray onwhatever your podcast app is.
You can also connect with mepersonally on
facebook@facebook.com slashoutrageous lady grey, or on
Instagram at lady dot gray.
Also, be sure to check out thewebsite at www dot live
outrageously.com. Once again,this is lady gray encouraging
(37:32):
you to go out and liveoutrageously.
I feel like we're better together than we are alone than
(00:04):
I believe in diversity ofthoughts, not just having an us
versus them mentality.
Unknown (00:16):
Hello, lovely humans.
Welcome to the live outrageouslywith Lady gray podcast. I'm your
hostess lady gray. And I havehad the great honor to interview
a number of super inspiringworld changers about how they
live outrageously. So we'regoing to share about how they
(00:37):
push boundaries, they fight forchange, and how they seriously
shake up the status quo. Todaywe are talking about empathy and
change. And I couldn't be moreexcited to welcome Amy J.
Wilson, to the show. Amy is achange leader, a community
(00:57):
builder, a movement maker and anempathy advocate. her journey
includes serving for three yearsas a White House Presidential
Innovation fellow, where shecreated a shared language and
led a movement for innovationand change in government. Her
debut book, empathy for changewas just released. And she hopes
(01:17):
that it will inspire others toembrace kindness, and enrich the
world.
Lady Grey (01:23):
Welcome, welcome.
Welcome, Amy. So great to haveyou here today.
Amy (01:27):
Thank you for having me.
It's I'm excited to talk withyou. But we
Lady Grey (01:30):
are honored to have you share a little bit about
your outrageous journey with usand some of the fabulous
concepts and change that you'rebringing to the world. So I like
to start things off, you have avery long resume of innovation
and empathy and all thesebeautiful concepts. What I would
love to know is what youconsider sort of the most
(01:53):
outrageous moments or thingsthat you're most proud of that
have happened kind of along theway?
Amy (01:58):
Hmm, good question. I would say that I kind of talked about
myself as a public entrepreneur.
And people were like, what doesthat really mean? So I have like
these entrepreneurialtendencies, I feel like I'm an
entrepreneur deep down inside,but I do I have a penchant for
things that are for the publicgood, and impact. So I'm kind of
like a junkie when it comes tohaving impact, which you know,
(02:21):
necessarily a bad thing. But itdoes make you work around the
clock, because you really careabout impact. So there's some
key moments that I would saythroughout my career that really
stand out. And they all involveme being a change maker. First
one that really stands out isafter Hurricane Katrina and
Rita, I stopped my job andconsulting to join AmeriCorps.
(02:42):
And this is the kind ofAmeriCorps call to the national
civilian community Corps. It's ateam based service. And so I was
a team leader. And we were doingthings like gutting out schools
and houses in after the GulfCoast. And when I was there, I
was given this amazingopportunity that kind of set me
in this trajectory to do thisentrepreneurship. And I was
(03:05):
asked to create a rebuildingproject for St. Bernard Parish
right next to New Orleans tobuild 50 homes in four months.
So five zero homes and fourmonths and with very little
resources, because I'm movinginto elementary school at the
time, and it's 110 degreesoutside. And so because it's New
Orleans heat, right. So that waspretty outrageous at a such an
(03:28):
early age, having people rely onyou to do such a important
project. Another thing thatstands out for me is about five
years later, I'm working at thiscompany called Booz Allen
Hamilton. It's a managementconsulting firm, and it was
getting ready to turn 100 yearsold. But in order for us to
survive the next 100 years, weneed to change things pretty
(03:49):
drastically. So I was selectedto be part of a team of five
people to build a culture ofinnovation. And so there was not
really any guardrails, they hadlots of money, they were
throwing towards this becausethis was the future of the
organization. So I became thechief architect of a lot of
things I wrote the innovationplaybook, we wrote, create an
innovation ecosystem, and werecreated the core values around
(04:13):
empathy and change. And then Iwould say another outrageous
moment was just after thathappened, and I gained some
prominence, I was asked by theObama administration to come in
and be an entrepreneur andresidents for the
administration. So what thatinvolves is taking really big
(04:33):
challenges that the governmentis facing your people from
outside of government who comein and just try to make sense of
things and try to improvethings. And so what I eventually
ended up creating was this thingcalled innovation.gov, which had
a shared language for what doespublic sector innovation mean?
We also created a community. Wehad about 5000 people join and
(04:56):
just the first two years it's acommunity That's open and
participatory and peer driventoward the better government
movement. So yeah, those aresome of the things that stand up
for me. When I talk about livingoutrageously, I always am
questioning the status quo.
Lady Grey (05:11):
And that's exactly what being outrageous is all
about, in my opinion, it'sshaking things up. So I feel
like there's so much to unpackthere. Oh, my word. I think I
could probably talk to you forhours and hours and hours here.
So I read a quote from you thatleading change is not about
breaking things, but it's aboutusing empathy to enrich the
world.
Amy (05:32):
Yeah. Empathy is a conscious choice we make. And
it's something that we canlearn. A lot of people feel like
you're just born with empathy.
But it's actually a learnedtrait, Jamil Zaki, who is a
psychologist and the director ofthe Stanford social neuroscience
lab. He's been studying, youknow, neuro, the neuroscience of
(05:52):
empathy for more than a decadein this written amazing book.
And he finds these things. Andso it's actually something we
have proven through science.
What's interesting is thatempathy should be a conscious
choice we make but we usuallyrelegated that to the our
subconscious. So many things inmodern day society block empathy
(06:12):
from presenting itself. And manyusually have a hard time
explaining this concept toothers. So the book that I wrote
was called empathy for change.
And so I started kind of lookingat these two aspects of myself
in the sense that I'm an empath.
I'm a highly sensitive person.
And my biggest strength isempathy. But also at the same
(06:33):
time, I'm a change maker. So Ithink that in order for us to go
in this direction, towardsempathy, we need to have
innovation, and we must redefineit, because what's happening in
our country and in many otherplaces in the world, is that we
are kind of at this turningpoint, this path that we have to
(06:53):
choose, are we going down thispath of narcissism of command
and control of you do what Itell you to do? Or are we going
down this path of empathy. Andwe can certainly unpack that a
little bit later. But for us toveer towards empathy, we have to
have innovation, right. But I'vebeen a leader of innovation for
more than a decade now. I reallythink in the day, we're trying
(07:16):
to create positive change in theworld. In order to get to
positive change, we need to haveempathy plus action,
Lady Grey (07:24):
if you can explain to us because I feel like this is a
core of your messaging, whatempathy is to you? How do you
quantify it.
Amy (07:34):
So when I was going through working with this book, I
created my own definition ofempathy. And it actually
encompasses quite a lot. It'sresponding to the thoughts and
emotions of others, with apurpose of meeting each other's
needs. It's focused on threekinds of empathy, it requires us
(07:55):
to have the whole body approach.
The first one is cognitive. AndI call up the head, am I willing
to take your perspective in thefirst place, am I choosing to
decide whether I want to takeyour perspective and what's also
interesting in this idea ofchoice, is that you also only
have empathy for people that youvalue. So if you don't value a
certain gender, or race orethnicity, then empathy won't
(08:18):
even happen in the first place.
So that's certainly part of it.
And the second piece is theheart, which is emotional
empathy. Am I willing to feelyour feelings and emotions but
what's interesting there is thatwhen you have emotional empathy
is you have to understandyourself, and community with
others. And then the third one,which I call the hand, is that
(08:43):
part where you're like, I'mtaking your perspective, I'm
there I'm feeling with you. AndI'm willing to help if you need
it. That's a key component. Thecompassion piece is like, Okay,
I see you as a person, I reallywant to help you. I found over
my career, that withcompassionate empathy, it
(09:03):
doesn't say you do act. So weneed to add that extra layer
where it's like you're actuallyacting upon it. And the last
thing I'll say about that is alot of people describe that
empathy is feeling with somebodyand not for them.
Lady Grey (09:20):
Mm hmm. That's fascinating. I, you know, I've
never heard anybody break itdown into those separate
categories. And that's reallyintriguing to me. I think a lot
of people strictly talk aboutempathy, and sort of that
emotional piece that immediatelycomes to mind. People who are
empaths have a hard time withbig room full of buzzing emotion
(09:43):
or heightens energy and thingslike that and keeping themselves
in a place that's balanced. Ithink also addressing these
other concepts of, you know, thecognitive peace and the
compassion, peace and compassionbeing both a willingness to help
but also actually doingsomething about it and step into
it. One thing that you mentionedwas the inability to have
(10:06):
empathy for people that we donot value. I feel like this is
really relevant. In today's dayand age, there's a lot of people
that are not looking at thatpart of themselves critically
and saying, Hey, what's theorigin of my inability to
empathize? And it comes back totheir inability to value the
(10:27):
person. Do you have any advicefor people that are maybe doing
some self analysis,
Amy (10:32):
I think, awareness unpacks a lot of things for you. I've
dealt with a lot of trauma in mylife. And I have spent many
years going through therapy andunderstanding myself, and how I
relate to the world. When wetalk about empathy. There's four
words that kept showing up in myresearch when I was talking to
(10:53):
people, and also doing the deepresearch to understand like,
what is it nature versusnurture? How do we build
empathy, and the four words kindof stick out? Number one, its
dignity. And Dr. Donna Hickstalks about dignity. We all
inherently are valuable andworthy as people, if you don't
believe in this, you're notseeing these people as humans,
(11:16):
right. So dignity is anessential element in human
existence. We're born with it.
We are valuable or invaluable,priceless and irreplaceable. So
a second thing that's key for usto either give empathy or not
give empathy is humility.
Another person I interviewed andworked with for the book was
this woman named AntoinetteCarol. She's in St. Louis,
(11:40):
Missouri, and she created thisorganization called the creative
reaction lab. And this is whatthey say humility is recognizing
the influence of your own biasesand perspectives. When trying to
understand another's emotions,thoughts, experiences, and
actions. Empathy is the act ofattempt to understand another
person's perspective, byimagining how you would feel
(12:01):
think or act, if put in theirsituation. And empathy and
humility, help us understandothers while also acknowledging
our biases.
Lady Grey (12:10):
That's brilliant. I won't interrupt your list of
four words.
Amy (12:15):
But that's brilliant.
Thanks. But it is brilliant,right. And that's why I put it
in the book. This is a directquote from the work that she
does. And I should mention thatAntoinette Carol and the credit
reaction lab, are working onsolving systemic racism in this
country. So they have thisperspective that the systems
around us have been designedwith oppression in them. So we
can actually redesign them andreclaim the power, reclaim our
(12:37):
agency to change the worldaround us. Fascinating work that
they're doing. And it's formed alot of the work that I'm talking
about and other organizationsI've talked to. So going back to
the four things, another thingis have curiosity, having a
strong desire to know or learnsomething about someone or
something. If you don't havecuriosity about people about
(12:59):
things, then you're not going towant to know more, right? You're
not going to want to overcomethose biases. And those
assumptions that you have, wewere talking about the humility
piece, and the last one equity.
So why equity matters is thathistorically underinvested
communities such as black andLatino populations, females,
(13:24):
transgenders, people withdisabilities, etc. They face
disproportionate racial andeconomic inequalities or
inequities. And so it limitstheir social, economic and
cultural growth, because ofsystems of policy, education,
housing, etc. And thesedisparities propagate, because
of the barriers that have beenbuilt between various people in
(13:47):
the world equity is differentthan equality, right? equality
is giving sameness, everybodygets the same thing. And
actually, equity is differentoutcomes for different people
based on where they are in thepecking order, so to speak in
society. Wow, that's a lot toprocess for people. And it's all
(14:08):
really good. So I'm encouragingeverybody to pick up this book,
and give it a good solid readand use it as a self examination
tool.
Lady Grey (14:17):
You had mentioned earlier to me about it being a
love letter to people that wantto be world changers.
Amy (14:23):
Yeah, that's right. In the introduction of my book, one of
the things that I was told in myjourney was that this person who
was in a place of power waslike, I'm giving you a magic
wand. And this magic wand opensup a lot of doors for you. You
can talk to whoever you want,you can do whatever you want,
you can change the world aroundyou. And I'm also passing it on
(14:46):
to the next generation ofchangemakers or people who think
that they can't make changehappen. I want to pass that
magic wand to say, Yes, you can.
Wonderful.
Lady Grey (14:55):
Yeah, so I guess if we get into a little bit more of
the nitty gritty of How this issort of presenting itself in the
world around us right now, Iknow that you mentioned the rise
of narcissism and this idea ofcontrol and how that might play
a role. Can you tell us a littlebit about what your encounters
with that have looked like andmaybe unpack empathy deficit
(15:18):
disorder?
Amy (15:19):
Yeah, absolutely. Like I said, I'm a public entrepreneur,
myself, when you're in a placeof leading change, you are
coming up against a lot offriction from a lot of
organizations that you'reworking with, because you're
changing the status quo. Andwhen you talk about socio
economic spectrum as well,that's where a lot of research
(15:39):
is showing is that if you haveless wealth, you actually have
to rely on community toparticipate in the world. So
there might be a single mother,who needs to rely on her parents
to take care of her childrenwhile she goes to work, when you
are wealthy, and you are higheron the socio economic spectrum,
you can hire somebody to takecare of your children. So you
(16:02):
are essentially getting intothis place of, of I'm an island
unto myself, I don't need otherpeople to do what I need to do,
the more wealthy you are, themore you can choose who is part
of your community. And you canhave exclusivity. So this all
creates a really interesting,powder keg of narcissism, like
(16:23):
not, I'm not saying all peoplewho are wealthy and have power
are narcissists, but certainlymany of them are, one thing that
people can do is to provideopportunities for them to be
part of community a lot more.
And then also to haveopportunities where you can try
something out and fail at it, Ihave an interesting story that
kind of explains this idea ofold power and new power, about
(16:46):
looking at how globalization andtechnology is shifting us into
this place where we're goingfrom this top down leader driven
world where it's like you do, asI say, and I when I tell you to
do, it's kind of like 20thcentury thinking, you know,
building a model t, which is acar. For those who may not know
(17:08):
what a Model T is, it was a, itwas one of the first cars that
came out in 2011, that you hadto explain that. I just thought
there was nobody who might notknow what a Model T is, unless
you've watched like, you know,the History Channel. It's like
assembly line, it's like, youknow, the people who are the
workers do not have the power,the people in the top have the
(17:30):
power. And that's command andcontrol. You do as I tell you to
do and power is directional.
It's like downward, usually. Butnew power, which is this
phenomenon that's been happeningin the past decade, and
accelerating at a very fastpace, because of technology and
globalization is we're beingshoved into this place of open,
(17:54):
transparent, participatory waysof changing the world, right,
not just changing the world, butof being part of the world. So
now, power is not just at thetop power is a current, you can
direct it to people that youneed to direct it to. So I
personally experienced thisfirsthand. I mentioned before I
(18:16):
worked as an entrepreneur inresidence for the White House,
and technically the name what'scalled the Presidential
Innovation fellow. So I have,you know, a span of up to four
years to make impact in thefederal government. That kind of
impact is really fast. Usuallypeople are running marathons, I
was running a sprint. So youknow, I was ruffling some
feathers. In the last 18 monthsof the Obama administration.
(18:40):
When I came in, I startedworking on research for
innovation and change ingovernment. By the time it was
done, we had about 600 pages ofresearch and 15 reports, talking
to hundreds of people across thespectrum and trying to define
what does really innovationmean, but two weeks before the
2016 election, I take on thisnew job, we take this
(19:01):
information, create a sharedlanguage, a playbook and a
toolkit, create the federalgovernment movement I mentioned
before, but I we had a lot ofsuccess in the work. But it was
a very grassroots movement. Somy chance was, I was actually
given an opportunity to startthis new center of excellence
that was being stood up. And itwas about the people side of
(19:22):
change. So I was trying to thinkabout how do you create 21st
century agencies, so working atHousing and Urban Development
and other organizations at thispoint, I'm getting closer. I'm
in the Trump administration, I'mgetting closer to working
directly with the white house asopposed to a grassroots
movement. And I hear rumblingsthat they want to know more
(19:45):
about my work. And so I wantedto understand their vision. So I
get into a meeting and I'mtrying to explain like all of
the progress we've made withthese hundreds of people and he
stops me in mid sentence and hesays you are Thinking about
everything wrong, you need tofit into what we're doing.
Unknown (20:05):
The box,
Lady Grey (20:07):
the dreaded box, okay? And this is Trump, you're
talking about, right?
Amy (20:14):
Trump himself is somebody at the front office of American
admissions. And so I was veryconfused. At that point. I was
like, Well, I'm here tounderstand what you're doing,
right? Like, I've been needingto understand your vision, and
articulate what you're doing sothat I can see how I fit into
it. And as the meetingprogresses, there was some
bullying involved. And then, atthe end of the meeting, he says,
(20:38):
You work for me. And you workfor this president. He was like
our conversations over, we'redone here. And it was very
jarring. And what happens a fewweeks later, happens to be the
week of Halloween in 2018. I wasremoved from my post, the White
House ordered GSA to dismantleinnovation.gov I could never
(21:00):
convene the federal governmentmovement again.
Lady Grey (21:06):
breaks my heart.
Okay, so
Amy (21:08):
yeah, that's Oh, I know, let's pause right there.
Lady Grey (21:11):
Man, I do a lot of work talking about breaking
boxes, and these boxes thatother people put us in that are
defined strictly by their beliefsystem, their worldview of how
we should conduct ourselves, andand we get comfortable there,
when we're in a place that isn'tempowered when we don't have a
(21:32):
knowledge of what's outside thebox. And we become blind to the
possibility for change becauseof it. And I think we stagnate
we end up not acting on ourinternal desires and dreams and
the things that we have beengifted as human beings from
birth. And I am so fascinatedthat not only is that still a
(21:54):
thing that people are doing toeach other, you know, but it's a
deliberate thing. It's not evenjust an accidental imposition of
your own beliefs on someoneelse, which is obviously still
happening. But it's a deliberatething. And it's happening in our
workplaces. It's obviously inyour situation happening because
conformity is valued abovechange. And, like you said,
(22:18):
equity and acceptance andcompassion, it makes my hair
stand on end, when I hear youtalk about somebody saying, you
work for me, and this is whatyou're gonna do. It's that not
valuing someone.
Amy (22:30):
Yeah, it was very, very disheartening. I have a short
quote from my book here that I'dlove to share that kind of talks
about how I was feeling afterthis happened. Please do so it
says what happened here wassignificant, traumatic and
frustrating on a personal level.
It was also teach me a lessonprofessionally about power
control and future change. As Istarted peeling back the layers
(22:54):
of this multifaceted onion, Istarted to unravel a few things.
Number one, those in power werepurposefully destructive because
they were threatened by amovement of people working to
change government, somethingthey couldn't control. And
number two, this leadership didnot value or give empathy,
command control. And top downleadership was the nature of the
(23:15):
beast, I was both a product ofand affected by a dysfunctional
system that I was holding up butcouldn't hold anymore
Lady Grey (23:24):
trying to hold up an entire system. It's exactly
that, and especially as anempath, it feels like you have
the weight of the world on youin those moments. Wow. How does
the need for survival as anempath come into play for you?
That was a very uniquesituation. But even if you're
just in your day to dayencounters with some of those
(23:46):
difficulties, how do you protectyourself?
Amy (23:49):
Hmm, that's a good question. You know, we have
Maslow's hierarchy of needs,which essentially is like food,
water, shelter, these thingsthat you need as a human. But
then there's some things thatare human needs this person,
Monica hersa, who doespeacebuilding says, These are
non tangible human needs, manyof them have to do or being able
to have challenges in our lifeand become resilient and to
(24:15):
overcome those challenges in ourlifetime. I think that part
about being resilient is reallyimportant. I spent 12 years in
management consulting, before Iworked at the White House. So
that kind of created a hardenedshell for me. I feel like we're
better together than we arealone than I believe in
(24:36):
diversity of thoughts, not justhaving an us versus them
mentality. So I think there'spower in numbers when it comes
to that. And what's important,has been certainly important
with me is this feeling ofhaving community around me, I
had a series of eight to 10leaders who were volunteering,
but they believed so fully inwhat we were doing for the
(24:59):
public good. We all like hadthis higher vision and purpose
that really bonded us together.
You know what I was crying whenI was when I was getting hit
left and right by a lot ofleadership. They were the ones
who picked me up when I neededit, and they could understand
what I was going through. And Ican, I'm gonna get a kind of
book clumped about that rightnow. But it's important after I
was removed from my post, andthis terrible thing happened in
(25:25):
my world, I said, you know,enough's enough. And I had to
stop the world and get off for asecond. So I decided to take a
sabbatical. But I was like, Ineed to heal, or I'm not going
to be here anymore. Because Iknew that I needed to write I
needed to process what happened.
So that's when the book started.
And, you know, many, many moreblessings came through. And
(25:47):
anyway, so those are some of thethings that I personally did,
stepping away, and saying, no,really makes a difference.
Lady Grey (25:56):
Going back to something you said about
community, we are surrounded bypeople that want to hold our
hand. But we have to find thatgroup of people to be able to
deconstruct your box to be ableto step out into your greatness,
and to change the world. Andwhatever way it is that you're
(26:17):
meant to change the world. Ifeel like that support is key.
And that community of people whoare like minded and encouraging,
allows you the freedom to bebold.
Amy (26:29):
Yeah, I wanted to like add something to what you were just
saying. So I go into theimportance of community and one
of my chapters, because I thinkit's an incredibly important
piece of empathy building.
Number one, if you just stayalone, and you're having your
own thoughts, and you're notengaging with the community,
that box that you were talkingabout shows up, right, you're
(26:50):
just keeping yourself in a box,and you're not open and curious
about other people in oursociety. Today, we are split up
in networks, more networks andcommunities and a network seeing
is only a small portion of whoyou are. Facebook, Twitter,
you're putting up a face thatonly a portion of these people
(27:11):
are seeing, they don't see youas a whole person. And if you
look at community, they see youas a whole being that has all
different aspects to you. Andit's not just you're not just a
monolith, that is something thatwe've walked away from, I have
another chapter where it'scalled understand before you are
understood, which is a StephenCovey Seven Habits of Highly
(27:33):
Effective People. And that goesinto more details. But
essentially, it's just that thelack of community is
contributing to divisivenessthat we have in our country and
around the world.
Lady Grey (27:48):
I'm going to spend some time with that one
personally. Holy cow. Thank you.
Unknown (27:53):
Thanks for that. Yeah.
Lady Grey (27:55):
So in addition to Stephen Covey, who I obviously
have spent time reading and usesome of those concepts in my own
life, I know that we have ashared love of Rene Brown. And
for me, the concept of daringgreatly by being vulnerable, and
living authentically is reallykey. And I'm wondering if that
(28:15):
resonates with you in your lifeand your desire to be a change
leader? Yeah, absolutely.
Amy (28:22):
I mean, brene Brown Daring Greatly is one of my favorite
books. Bernie Brown is agoddess, somebody once compared
me to Bernie Brown. And I waslike, Are you kidding me? Like,
like, I don't know if I couldget to that level of amazing.
She's one of my amazing teachersin the world. And she teaches so
many things to many people. AndI believe vulnerability is
really important. But what'sinteresting is that the
(28:43):
beginning of Daring Greatly, shehas this quote, that is from
Teddy Roosevelt. And a lot ofpeople caught the man in the
arena speech, and I alwaysforget the real name of it, but
it's like something about theRepublic. But the paraphrase
here essentially says, it's notthe man who counts that's in the
stadium that's there that'swatching you. It's the person in
(29:04):
the ring, who is getting marredby the blood, sweat and tears of
the thing that's happening, thatreally matters. If you're just a
spectator watching what'shappening in the world, you're
perpetuating the systems ofoppression that are oppressing
people every day. So it's thepeople who are daring, greatly
pushing against what ishappening and what's right and
(29:28):
what's wrong. That literallymakes the difference. And those
are the people that you canlisten to and take advice from
and thoughts from because thepeople who are the spectators
are just watching and notparticipating. They don't really
have skin in the game. They'renot actually doing the work in a
lot of ways. We all have aresponsibility to dare greatly.
(29:50):
Those who are Daring Greatlyshould be banding together and
working with each other.
Unknown (29:55):
Mm hmm. Yeah,
Lady Grey (29:56):
I think I found the right quote, The credit belongs
to The man who is actually inthe arena whose face is marred
by dust and sweat and blood, whostrives valiantly, who airs who
comes short again and again.
Yeah, like the freedom to makemistakes.
Amy (30:13):
Exactly.
Lady Grey (30:14):
So let's talk through Amy's outrageous advice. This is
the section of the show, if youhave something else that you
need to talk to us about, likehow to make a brilliant peach
pie or something like that, youlet me know. I hear you like to
bake pies.
Amy (30:29):
I do. Yeah, that's one of my things.
Lady Grey (30:31):
I could not bake a pie to save my soul. Seriously,
I have all the respect for you.
But I would love to talk throughfirst steps that people can
take. So we people can pick upyour book and work through some
of their own biases, evaluatetheir values, and maybe those
three different categories havehad, and I'm gonna let
Unknown (30:53):
cognitive
Lady Grey (30:54):
emotional and compassion is
Amy (30:56):
that, did I get that?
Right? Get it? Right, yeah. Justsay the head, the heart, the
hand,
Lady Grey (31:01):
head heart. And okay, but so let's talk about action.
What are some steps that peoplecan actually take to get out of
this box, get on a path tocompassion and leading change
with empathy?
Amy (31:14):
What do I stand for? What do I value? In a lot of ways,
we're being fed a lot of thingsfrom the media there, there's
people shaping our world. It'snot just the media, it's school,
we're taught about specificthings for various reasons. So
always try to look for the otherside of the story, try to
(31:34):
understand where you lie on thatwe need to have a culture
change. culture change happensbecause of a movement and not a
mandate. In order for that tohappen. We need to step up as
employees of people who do haveinfluence Google, some of their
workers are unionizing. They'reasking for equal pay for some of
(31:55):
the workers that might beworking a third party that
aren't paid as well. But they'reasking for a better say, of what
their companies are doing in theworld and the ethics behind it.
How do you build a culture withleading with the heart, right,
leading with this emotionalaspect of ourselves, because
change is inherently anemotional act that we have,
(32:17):
right? So we need to acknowledgethat our emotions while we're
going through the change. So Ijust talked about some of the
things we personally can do tryto look at values, etc. But this
is for a bigger culture. So amicro changes, number one,
acknowledge that empathy is notan inherent trait, but something
we can build, realizing that wecan learn empathy, that we can
(32:40):
choose empathy, bring them fromthe subconscious into our
consciousness. Number two islook for Phantom norms and work
in communities that you're in.
And that's usually the peoplewho have the dominant voices are
the ones whose voices get heard,and they tend to have more
power. So when we're talkingabout culture, listen to the
(33:01):
people who might be a little bitmore quiet, make sure that you
most people are being heard thiskind of feeds into the third
piece with the micro work we cando is get other people who are
championing empathy, connectwith other people, I love to say
that like, you know, go to thepeople who are leaning in and
expanding around you and areexcited about you than the
(33:23):
people who are like movingbackwards. Because then you can
build coalitions of people,right. And that's how change
happens. A couple things in themacro side of things is like,
creating policies that allow youto have more empathy, or allow
you to put in your performanceplans, having communication
channels that create increasedtransparency. And at the end of
(33:44):
the day, you want to recruitpeople to come into your company
that lead with empathy, and havethat as something in your
recruiting process, diversifyyour leadership, if you if
you're looking around, andeverybody around you is the same
gender, or the same color, oreven like disabilities, you want
to have like both hidden andphysical disabilities, you want
(34:05):
to just have like a variety ofpeople who think different
things about it, because in theend, you're going to be stronger
off, and more empathy is goingto be had. Well, I
Lady Grey (34:15):
really appreciate that advice. I think it's great
because it touches people kindof where they're at. There are
some people who are at thebeginning of that journey, and
some people who are CEOs, maybelooking to change their hiring
policies and things like that.
So I think that's great advice.
So before we go, I like to giveeverybody the opportunity to
(34:36):
give a shout out to anyonethat's a big supporter or
someone that you want torecognize. Do you have anybody
you'd like to say hi to?
Amy (34:47):
Oh, gosh, we're gonna say hi to your mom, you know,
Unknown (34:51):
Hey, Mom. Hey,
Amy (34:52):
Mom. There's been so many mentors. I have not done this by
myself. I think of all the womenthat have supported me, you
know, and my mom is certainlyshe's my biggest fan like most
moms are. But I also think aboutsisters, I have three sisters,
I'm getting verklempt thinkingabout it, too. They pushed me to
do things that I normallywouldn't do, and they lift me
(35:15):
up. I keep thinking about one ofthe best leaders that I've ever
had during everything that washappening with the Trump
administration. Her name isKelly Olson, I think about her
frequently, she always stood upfor me to fight for what I
believed in. And what shebelieved in one man that comes
to mind is what two I want tosay is Joby Aurora. He is you
(35:37):
know, work with him in thebetter government movement. We,
you know, he donated,volunteered so much of his time
to help build this because hecared so much about the federal
government movement, and thenkind of a friend named Alexander
Romero or he called row row. Andwe we were our fellows together
last year, and he's justincredibly empathetic,
(36:00):
empathetic, human and justwonderful person all the way
around. And I really looktowards his
Lady Grey (36:06):
his guidance. That's fantastic. Well, big shout out
to all of them. So that wraps upwhat I wanted to kind of talk
about today. Although again, Ifeel like there are so many
things that I'm going to want totalk to you about as soon as I
dig into this book and reallydevour it. So you are welcome to
come back on this show anytimeto talk about empathy and
(36:27):
leadership and change. I reallyappreciate your voice. Thank you
so much for the time.
Absolutely. Hey, friends, I hopeyou enjoyed this interview. If
you'd like to learn more aboutAmy Wilson, you can check her
out at www dot Amy j wilson.com.
A big thank you to Amy, forteaching us to live a little
(36:49):
more outrageously. Well,outrageous friends. It has been
my honor and my pleasure to haveyou here today. I hope that you
took away some outrageous ideasfor your own life. If you
enjoyed yourself, make sure thatyou're subscribed to live
(37:10):
outrageously with Lady gray onwhatever your podcast app is.
You can also connect with mepersonally on
facebook@facebook.com slashoutrageous lady grey, or on
Instagram at lady dot gray.
Also, be sure to check out thewebsite at www dot live
outrageously.com. Once again,this is lady gray encouraging
(37:32):
you to go out and liveoutrageously.
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