September 14, 2021 • 50 mins
Why did the pandemic cause everyone to quit their jobs? In the season 2 premiere, Leo is joined by Tech Recruiter Sean Page to unpack this question. They discuss scarcity vs. abundance; religion; common pitfalls of inclusivity; and how to find a job you feel passionate about.
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By: Leo Yockey
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:14):
All right, we're doing this werolling. Hello, and welcome to
the season two premiere of theLeo Yockey show, the show where
I, Leo Yockey interview guestsabout the universal truths and
their unique life story likethat. That's a slightly
different description than inseason one. See, we're already
(00:35):
off to a different start. what'swhat's new with y'all? How has
life been in the last two weekssince we put out a full episode?
Yeah, it wasn't much of a breakbetween the two seasons. But
that's because I'm reallyexcited. Listen, I started this
podcast, partially because I wasquitting tech forever. And I
(00:58):
wanted to start pursuingcreative stuff. While I figured
out what I was going to do next,and I've come around full
circle. I am going back to tech.
I'm really excited about it,actually. And I think there'll
be more conversations about itin the coming episodes. my
conversation with my guesttoday, Shawn page, was really
(01:19):
the first seed that got plantedthat helped me realize that
maybe going back to tech is theright decision for me after all,
and that it's okay, I can I cando it. And my world isn't going
to fall apart again. I metShawn, through the tech Twitter
universe, black tech, Twitter, anod to former guests of the
(01:41):
show, Paris, Athena. But anyway,Shawn is a technical recruiter.
And I've always really enjoyedwhat he's had to say about
diversity inclusion in the techworld, as well as some of his
views on spirituality. And luckyfor us, we were able to talk
about both in this interview. SoI really excited it's a great
(02:02):
way to start the second season.
Without further ado, here isShawn page.
All right. Hey, Sean, how youdoing today? I'm doing well,
Leo, thanks for having me today.
Yes, thanks for coming on. I'vebeen really excited to have you
(02:24):
on the show. I mean, you'veyou've kind of been with me now
through the various stages thatI've been in, in the last like
six months or so I think Italked to you, either right?
Before I quit my last tech jobor right after kind of somewhere
in that realm where I was like,oh, cuz I was actually going
through the recruitment processat your, your former employee,
(02:45):
I'll let you take the lead onwhether or not we're naming
them. But you know, we so wewere kind of talking then. And
I'm like, yeah, I'm still gonnabe an engineer. And then I got
to talk to you later. And I waslike, I don't think I want to be
an engineer anymore. And you'relike, I don't think I want to be
at this company anymore. Soyou're kind of we're kind of
(03:05):
both in, in flux and intransition. And a lot of it, I
think, kind of, we're kind ofriding the waves of some of the
changes that are happening onmore of a macro level. So I'm
really excited to kind of diveinto some of these these life
topics with you.
Yeah, no, thank you so much. No,I funny enough. Yes. So as Leah
(03:29):
was kind of mentioning, orhinting, yeah, I used to work
for a startup company called webflow. I started off my tech
career there, started off aslike a lead recruiting
coordinator. And then I gotpromoted, and I was managing the
talent brand there. And then Ijust decided to kind of quit, I
realized that for me, you know,what I was really looking for
(03:52):
was more autonomy and morecontrol over the recruiting
processes. And so I'm actuallydecided to go backwards a little
bit. And I went to a smallerstartup called propel, propel
his product is focused on lowincome Americans, and provide
them with financial solutions tohelp mitigate some of their
costs of, you know, being lowincome in America, and so are in
(04:15):
the US. And so working for thatcompany, I now am a senior
recruiter. You know, I'm thefirst recruiter there. And so
I'm just going to be managingthose whole recruitment
processes, like really helpingto build out like a very DNI
focus and minded RecruitmentProgram from scratch. And so I'm
really excited to be in thislike, you know, very major
(04:36):
change maker seat to really havecontrol over that. And so it's
kind of like we were talkingabout, you know, a little bit
earlier about careers, you know,as you continue to kind of go on
and you continue to learn moreabout yourself. It really helps
shift and mold your attitudesabout what you're willing to put
up with or what you're willingto seek out in the workplace.
(04:56):
And so I kind of had thatepiphany. I think a lot of
people it's Today, in this, Iforget what they call it, but
like this quit this huge, hugequit movement, I think a lot of
us are starting to realize that,you know, we really need to find
out like what our passions areand, and quarantine really
opened our eyes up to like timeis but at the essence right now
(05:17):
we really have to be out here,I'm really thinking deeply in
attentionally about what we wantto do next in our careers
because careers are part of ourlives. But it shouldn't be the
full part of your life either.
And so I just think it's reallyinteresting just to see just how
much movement and in the marketthat's going on today and how
much we're seeing peopleactually choose themselves in
(05:37):
the in the workplace.
Yeah, definitely. Because kindof like, what what I was saying
to you before, before we startedrecording is like, some of this
mindset of really thinking aboutwhat you want to do, and and
really thinking about how youwant your career to look like
it's one thing, like, forexample, in my, in my world, you
(05:57):
know, to be a software engineer,it's one thing to be a software
engineer, it's a whole otherthing entirely to say, I want to
be a software engineer at thiscompany, kind of company that
offers these kinds of benefits.
And does this kind of work outin the world. And it almost
feels to some degree like tohave that mindset is, is it
(06:19):
almost feels like Oh, so youwant to have your cake and eat
it too. You know what I mean?
It's like, you know, shouldn'tyou be grateful for what you
have? Because I think that thatwas the mindset that my parents
had is the mindset that myparents had to have. Right,
because the world was differentback then. And why have you put
into any thought into like, whyyou think that that has shifted
(06:42):
so much for our generation, asopposed to like our parents
generation? Yeah, no,I think that's a really great
point. I think, you know, frommy standpoint, I think a lot of
what our parents and our parentsgenerations and generations
before that went through was aperiod of scarcity. You know,
you were talking about peoplewho who endorse the Great
(07:02):
Depression, people who enduredthe civil rights movement,
people endured slavery, and allthese other major events that
happen in the world. And we'renow entering a new age of like
new types of events, like wejust weather Donald Trump, we
just, you know, now we'regathering all the things that
are going on the borders ofimmigration, I will weathering
(07:23):
all the issues that are going onwith climate change and stuff
like that. And so I think,because, you know, a lot of
people are kind of like reachingto the point enough is enough,
is really shifting our mindsetto more of a mindset of
abundance. You know, we'rereally thinking about what do we
what do we have today that wecan really celebrate within
ourselves and with the peoplearound us? And how can we really
(07:45):
think more deeply about ourconnection with just like
capitalism and thinking abouthow we're consuming and things
of this nature, and and so Ithink a lot of people are now
like, stepping back and reallyrealizing that like, from this
place of scarcity that we'vebeen living in for many, many
years, you know, we've been likereally damaging the earth, we've
been damaging each other, we'vebeen damaging, anything that we
(08:06):
touch. And so I think comingfrom a place of abundance means
leaning back into spirituality,people are becoming more just in
tune with their connection withthe earth and how they're
connected to other people. Andso I think there's just as a
large amount of people who aremore and more waking up to the
fact that they need to thinkmore in a style of abundance and
stop being so concerned aboutwhat can I consume and start
(08:28):
thinking more about what am iconsuming now? And what impact
is that having on the people inthe planet that I live in, in
and I interact with?
Yeah, absolutely. And I'm soglad that you you made that
connection, that we're divinginto the deep end, so early, so
(08:49):
to speak, because i i agree thatI think that spirituality does
have a lot to do with it. Ithink that not even necessarily
to say that spirituality andabundance mindset, not even
necessarily to say that that isopposite of Christianity,
although in some ways it kind ofis. There's there's just some
places where they don'tnecessarily coexist really well.
(09:11):
But I do think that Christianityand capitalism go hand in hand
really perfectly in a way thatspirituality and abundance
mindset and capitalism don't.
And it does seem like there isis more of a breaking away from
our culture as a whole on themainstream being Christian by
(09:33):
default. And in that we'restarting to see some of these
shifts take place. I know forme, I actually grew up in a new
age church I grew up in, there'sactually called religious
sciences, the exact church thatI grew up in and all throughout
high school. It was like I wouldalways say I grew up in
(09:58):
religion. Just science, it's notScientology. It was always like
it had this lengthened namebecause I always had to say, it
is not Scientology. It was notScientology. But it did. It was
born out of this. I think it wascalled New Thought movement that
kind of came about in the earlyin the last century. And you
(10:18):
know, there's there's books likethe science of getting rich and
thinking Grow Rich all kind ofcome from this same, this same
philosophy. And I've talked tosome friends that also grew up
in this church with me, I mean,we went to what we call it like
hippie church camps, like wewould literally up a bunch of
teenagers all standing around ina circle, literally setting each
(10:41):
other energy and tellingeverybody that you're beautiful,
and you're the face of God, andthat we are hugging each other.
I mean, we seriously did. AndI've been talking to some of
those friends, I'm still intouch with them. The somatic
healer that I told you aboutthat will be a past guest to the
show at this point, Stephanie.
Yeah, you know, we we've talkedabout how growing up in that
(11:04):
kind of primed us for this, forthis new mindset that the world
seems to be in now. And I knowthat you're kind of doing some
things on your journey. Youyou've talked a lot, you know,
you talk a lot publicly aboutlike, Tarot and astrology and
stuff like that. What was yourpath into this? Like, spiritual
way of being and living?
(11:26):
Yeah, no, that's a really greatquestion. Well, it's so funny
that you've had to describeliterally my own upbringing when
it came to spirituality. Soreally? Yeah, yeah. So I'm a
Unitarian Universalist.
Oh, what up? Yeah. Yeah, verysimilar. Very similar. My mom
and stepdad go to a UnitarianUniversalist Church now in my
hometown, because science churchkind of fell apart.
(11:49):
Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah, yeah. No,that's, that's so interesting.
Yeah. So like, literally thesame model of upbringing, you
know, doing church lock ins,like being the one blackface in
a sea of white people doing,like, you know, stuff. And, you
know, it was a very greatupbringing in the sense that it
really challenged my connectionto not just what Christianity
(12:11):
is, but what are all what isreligion, right? I think a lot
of times, you know, when peopleare, you know, practicing a
religion, it's kind of blindfaith where, you know, their
family member, or, or members oftheir family are the ones that
are really pushing for them to,like, pursue religion. And so
there's no personal realconnection beyond the familial
(12:31):
when it comes to religion versuslike, for me, my, in my
household, no one actuallypushed me to go to church, like,
you know, I had a period of timewhen I was like a Unitarian
Universalist. So it was threeyears when I decided I just
didn't want to go to church. AndI had that whole, like, break
from church. And then I decidedto go back because I realized
that I was missing some, like,spiritual aspects of my life.
(12:52):
And so I think, for me, myjourney with spirituality was
always something that wasfoundational to my identity. And
so for me, you know, growing upin that faith, it really
challenged my notion of like,you know, how do different
religions like really professtheir relationship to God and so
I got to go to like so manydifferent churches, I went to
(13:13):
synagogue, I went to mass like Iwent to like, all these
different religious likeceremonies and holidays and
things like that. And so I thinkbeing a part of that religion
that was really just open tolike other religions and like,
really, they also talk about incelebrate that their religion is
based off the knowledge of allthese different sources, we call
(13:34):
them the six sources. And so forme, like, I think that was such
an eye opening experience,because I'm always someone that
I don't believe I don'tnecessarily believe in boxes,
and I don't like putting peoplein boxes. And so for me, being
in a faith that was like, kindof like virtually boxes, like
was variously not had didn'thave a box, it was just kind of
special thinking when it came tolike spirituality. And that kind
(13:57):
of led me up to my spiritualitytoday, I've met so many
different people within thatreligion. And so a lot of them
expose me to like all thesedifferent like, rituals and
practices and things of thatnature. And so that's how I kind
of got into astrology and Tarot.
And for me, like I realized,like that was, those are the
tool, two tools that Ipersonally use to have
(14:17):
connections to my ancestors, andalso to, to have a connection to
the planet and to people. And sothat was sort of how I kind of
got to where I'm at today, wherenow I'm kind of just like, very
open when it comes tospirituality. And I've realized
that there's so many differentways of how to really be someone
who is spiritual, and there's noreal one recipe of doing it. And
(14:38):
I think that's just a lot ofwhat life is like a lot of times
we're we're trying to go on tofind paths that other people
have gone on to but I thinkwe're all slowly realizing those
defined paths of the past areactually being eroded. And we
have to define new paths. And soI think it's just so important
for us to when we're you know,trying to be spiritual people,
or we're trying to To figure outwho we are to remember that
(15:00):
you're the ones that aredefining your path, like yes,
you have other blueprints tofall on to you. But you're the
one that is truly defining whatthat new path looks like for
that new for that nextgeneration.
Yeah, yeah. I love that. Yeah,growing up, in, in my church, we
were always taught, see, see thegood in every religion find find
(15:23):
something good in every singlereligion and I think we have I
was actually just earlier todayas I was listening to a podcast
with a Palestinian comedian wasa gas Yeah, her name is Mei
soon, something I don'tremember. But anyway, she, the
(15:47):
host was asking her a little bitabout the Israel Palestine stuff
going on. And, you know, onething that she mentioned after,
you know, kind of giving adownload of everything that was
going on, she made a point tosay, you know, like, it's it's
very difficult to make thedistinction. But there is a very
real distinction that what iswhat the Israeli government is
(16:10):
doing is not to be conflatedwith the religion of Judaism,
you know, and that these are twoseparate things. And I think
that we have a version of thatgoing on in our own country
where we've kind of conflatedthe abuses of power. And I guess
that's it, the abuses of power,that that and the veiled hatred,
(16:34):
and sometimes not so veiledhatred, that comes with
Christianity and kind ofunderstanding as difficult as it
is that you know, Christianityin and of itself did not do this
Christian, just like anyreligion, they're just tools.
Yeah. And you can use a tool to,you know, create and build
(16:59):
compassion and to connect withothers. Or you can use a tool to
divide and to, you know,dominating and exert power over,
you know, defenseless people andstuff like that. And, you know,
all all that being said, like I,you know, there's, there are
aspects of Christianity that Iactually find really beautiful,
(17:20):
and really inspirational, youknow, and it's been a struggle,
I think, you know, like, in myhometown, you know, growing up,
you know, as like a little butchlesbian in my small town and
having this very ginormous, veryinfluential Baptist Church,
making my life unnecessarilydifficult and having this like
(17:41):
other very large Christianchurch with a very large teen
group where they said, you know,don't hang out with kids if they
don't go there. So it madeeverything so socially difficult
for me for no reason at all. Itwas it was a journey for me to
kind of decouple those things,but I'm so glad to have gone on
that journey. Because kind ofbeing able to it almost sounds
(18:05):
like inherently sinful the waythat we've you know, the the way
that we've kind of been taughtto understand religion in this
country, but here in America,where everything is just a
hodgepodge, to kind of createreligion, or to see religion as
like a choose your ownadventure, almost like a buffet,
where you take what you want,and disregard what you don't,
you're so radical, but it is sofreeing to be able to do that.
(18:29):
It's for me to be able to belike, you know what, today, I'm
gonna, like, go find somerandom, like, Bible verse and
contemplate on that, and thennot think about Christianity
again for a month. And thenyeah, you know, do my own
version of Tarot or meditationand things like that, you know,
like, it. It's really cool thatit seems like more people are
(18:50):
kind of opening up to that, youknow?
Yeah, yeah, no, definitely,definitely. I agree with that.
And I think a lot of it stemsfrom the fact that like,
religious freedom is like, alsosomething that's really new to
us, you know, we're as much aslike, you know, certain
political parties wants tocensor and say that we're a
Christian ethio state, like,there's no actual, like,
(19:13):
defining religion in the US, youknow, the founders didn't want
us to have religion to infectthe state, because they realized
that, that separation of stateand church was so important,
because they saw the impact thatit was having on Europe. And so
like, you know, seeing it todayand seeing just like the
religious freedoms that we have,it's just so like, you're just
(19:33):
saying, it's so powerful. It'sso impactful that I think a lot
of people take it for grantedtoday. They don't realize that
like, if you were you know, bornback in the 1718 century years,
you're talking about being anatheist, like, you could be
hanging in the middle of thesquare right? Like that's not
something that like people were,you know, cool with and it's not
that people today are likenecessarily 100% like, you know,
(19:56):
ready to embrace atheism but Ifyou still have the the
protections of the law to beable to not only practice and
believe that in your, in yourschools at your home, you know,
and to also to be able to havesome protections, if you know,
for instance, like with medicalthings, you know, there's like
(20:17):
religious protections and thingslike that. And so I think
there's a lot of ways that oursociety is allows people to
practice their beliefs. But Ialso think, you know, we're
also, you know, a society thatlike, challenges, beliefs as
well, right? I think we have alot of like, you know, Christian
groups that are out here who arereally trying to challenge
(20:38):
whether or not like religionshould be the major focus of the
US. And I think that is reallycausing people to really
question whether or not religionis a positive or negative thing.
And I think those conversationsare just so important, because
like you said, before, religionis just a tool, the Bible, the
Quran, whatever, you know,religious texts that you
(21:00):
prescribe to, those are tools,it's the human behind the tool
that creates the experience. Andso I think it's so important for
us to remember that and when,when we're having because like,
for instance, like, growing up,as you you, I remember, like,
certain adults were coming fromother religions. And so whenever
we use the word God, like, therewas a visceral reaction, like,
(21:21):
they were so upset, like, theycould not even say the word God,
because they were so harmed bytheir past religion, and seeing
that from my eyes that like,insane people get upset and
angry over you just having theuses of God and like, in a, in a
human or, or a song or somethinglike that, like, seeing those
(21:42):
reactions really shows you justhow much harm is has been caused
by religion. And so I thinkthere's just needs to people
need to just remind themselvesthat like, hey, like, let me
separate the pain from like, thepain from the actual artifacts
from the actual people who arecausing the pain, right? Like,
it's not the artifacts that arecausing this, it's the people
(22:03):
behind it. And so I think it'sjust so important for us, like,
you know, when we're trying toembrace these things that we
need to remind ourselves, like,we have to separate the
experience from the actual,like, source of truth of what it
is. And really, by doing so wecan really critically evaluate
it on a level that's going tolet us be able to either be
receptive to it, or to trulyreject it as something that's
(22:26):
not useful to us.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean,Christianity, or any religion
really could go away tomorrow.
And you know, the people thatwere using it to abuse power
will find something else tolatch on to, to veil, their
abuse of power. You know, it'sit's us kind of separating the
people from the artifactsExactly. Like you said, and
(22:47):
yeah, it's so important. It's socool. Man, I, I did not expect,
I was hoping to broach thissubject with you, I did not
expect that we would get so deepinto the real talk. So thank you
for going down that rabbit holewith me. It's I love talking
about this stuff. I think it'sso cool. And it does seem like
there is a lot more of anappetite for that stuff in and
(23:07):
for these conversations and anopenness to explore paths of
spirituality that aren'tnecessarily the ones that that
most people grew up with. Imean, we grew up with this. Do
you ever feel like I think aboutthis alive? Do you feel like
there is a privilege or anadvantage to having grown up
(23:31):
with this, with this faith? Andwith some, at least some
understanding of these of theseprinciples that we've been
talking about?
Yeah, I mean, I think there'slike, yeah, there's definitely
some privileges in terms ofbeing more open minded and
receptive. And like when you're,you know, dealing with other
(23:52):
communities that may notnecessarily believe what you
believe in, because, you know,our like, you know, at least in
our religions, you know, they'revery much so the practices are
so centered on like, being in aninterconnected web of life, and
like, how do we interact thispeople? And how do we think
beyond our identities? And howdo we connect to ourselves like,
through that, that commonconnection of being a person and
(24:13):
so I think when you have thattype of belief is a lot easier
for you to interact and be withother groups and to be a little
bit more receptive to how youmove through those groups. And
so I think that is a privilegeto be able to think in that
manner, and to actually havethat like kind of open
mindedness. But I think it'salso a double edged sword to
write because I think especiallyI'm sure you have experiences
(24:35):
like this as well, where there'smembers within our faith who,
you know, blindly believe thatand so they sometimes get people
who shouldn't get the benefit ofthe doubt, like rapist or racist
or whatever, they'll give themthat leeway because they think
about connection to human. Youknow, human a human means that
we have to forgive people. And Ithink, you know, forgiveness,
(24:57):
you know, it really depends onwhat you I believe in when it
comes to forgiveness. But Ithink when you're talking about
like people who do systematicharm or that harm other people,
there's a way there's a gracethat you can give to those
people and be like, Hey, I'm nottrying to inhumanely punish you,
but you do have to, like, bekind of like, you know, we have
(25:17):
to acknowledge the harm that youcaused. And we have to, as a
community heal from that. And soI think it's just so important
that, you know, when we talkabout the openness that we have,
that we are critical about thatopenness, right, like, you know,
just because you it's likeinclusivity, right, it's like,
you know, a lot of peoplebelieve that inclusivity means
that every single person shouldbe able to belong in the same
(25:40):
space, and should be able tohave the same access to the same
opportunities or whatever. Butwhen you're when we're talking
about a Jewish person and aNazi, in the same room, like
does inclusivity still exist?
Like, do I still have them inthat same space? And my argument
is now, how can you have twopeople not only just competing
ideologies, but one personspecifically wants to cause
(26:03):
physical harm that will may leadto death to the other party, you
can't be inclusive in thatspace, like, you have to
acknowledge that there's alreadyrecognizable harm in that space.
And you have to be able tounderstand that and in sometimes
being the the way to be the mostinclusive is to know who to
exclude, and who know whatgroups traditionally, or
(26:24):
historically can't be in thesame room together. And so I
think there's this likeblindness that also comes with
that openness, that likesometimes that I see from,
especially from, you know,people who describe as liberal,
that they don't really thinkthat deeply about that like,
kind of more so like, yes, wewant to be open, and we want to
all communities be able tointeract. But we also have to be
(26:44):
critical and understand thehistorical nature of these
groups, and understand that it'snot a Kumbaya circle, it's not
just like, Oh, we can all cometogether and seeing Amazing
Grace, and that we're all gonnabe good after that. Like, that's
a fantasy. It's there'shistorical harm that different
groups have caused. And so youcan't have that inclusive
environment, that trulyinclusive environment that a lot
(27:06):
of people dream about, becauseof the fact that these groups
have not healed, these groupshave not been able to heal. And
we have to recognize that wehave to make sure that when
we're creating these spaces thatwe're thinking about the hit not
just the current present, butthe history behind those present
relationships.
(27:27):
Yeah, absolutely. And I thinkthat man, I'm so glad you
brought that up. And this isactually going to tie very
perfectly into back intocareers, we're gonna, we're
gonna go all the way from, youknow, Todd talking about, you
know, religion in the ways thatit, you know, divides people all
the way back to career stuff.
But I do think that, you know,so this is actually something
(27:51):
that I've, I've kind ofstruggled with a little bit,
that blind faith that you'retalking about, like, just kind
of, you know, almost like forforgiving people who don't
really deserve it for lettingpeople in to spaces. And
sometimes that space is anactual physical space, like a
working environment or somethinglike that. And sometimes it's a,
it's my own emotional space,like letting people into my
(28:14):
heart that don't really deserveit. And I think that that is
like the peace of abundance, thepeace of inclusivity the peace,
the peace of all of thisinterconnectedness that doesn't
get talked about enough is thatto be able to most of what it
takes to make room for what youwant in life. And, and make room
for your vision involves sayingno, no, to learn to say no. It's
(28:39):
It's such a paradox, right?
Because you want to follow thislike year of Yes. And like
saying yes to things and beingopen and receptive, while also
getting really, really good atsaying no, it's like getting
getting really clear about whatyour vision is that you are
seeing, yes, and being veryreceptive to those things, while
(29:02):
also learning to say no, in andit's such a it's such a
difficult line to walksometimes, you know, especially
for me, I was actually justtalking to another church friend
about this recently that weboth, you know, like will it's
so easy, I think to get intorelationships where, you know,
(29:23):
in, in hindsight, it's like, ohmy gosh, this person didn't
treat me well at all, like wedidn't even have aligned values
but if I like dumped them forthat or whatever, if I walk away
from this situation, am I justinherently thinking that I'm
better than them and and i thinkthat also falls into the the job
(29:44):
stuff like we were talking aboutearlier. It's like, if I am not
grateful for what I have, thenaren't I just, man, I just lost
it if I if I'm not just gratefulfor what I have. Then I'm just,
oh, wow, I totally just have it,but it does, I'm
(30:11):
sorry, I can't even help youthere. I don't, I'm not even
sure what were you tryingto think of? I know, it's, it's,
um, if you are sitting thinkingthat you have to be grateful for
what you have is not allowingthe space for the things that
you actually want. So, beinggrateful for chairs is kind of,
(30:31):
like you said before it, itrelates to scarcity mindset. And
so all these things connect, youknow, and I, and I do think that
like, kind of raising thatvibration in one area of your
life makes it so that it'sactually really difficult to get
that vibration in other places.
And that's kind of what I wasasking, like, when you when I
(30:51):
said, you know, like, is this aprivilege for you? Because I
think that, you know, no matterno matter where that spiritual
journey took you initially, youknow, it's like, it's like, no
matter, like, if you improveyour relationships, so to speak,
using this mindset, like, now,it's gonna be so much easier to
improve work, you know what Imean?
(31:11):
Yeah, yeah, no, I definitelyagree with that. I think, you
know, a lot of times, you know,I think a lot of our struggles
really start from within, Ithink a lot of people, you know,
when we, when we talk aboutstruggles, like when it comes to
finding a job, or like, youknow, get it finding that
significant other or, you know,trying to have a better
(31:31):
relationship with our family, wealways look at the external
issues first, before we startwith the internal issues. And so
we've always want to blameeverything on every other aspect
within our life, is being causedby external factors that we have
no control over. And, you know,that's one way to think about,
and I used to think about that,you know, whenever I had a
(31:53):
problem, I always would, youknow, count out all the risks
that was around me that wascausing me not to be able to get
to the solution that I wanted.
And I realized, like, prettyearly on in my career, that's
actually a detrimental mindsetto have. Because like, by having
that like, mindset is actuallycreating fear within yourself.
You're so fearful about all theother risks that are around you
(32:13):
that you can control that youstop to think you stop realizing
that there are things you dohave control over, right. And
you want to blame your destiny,not because I'm failing because
of the things around me, I'm notfailing because of me, like I'm
doing all these things. And it'snot being receptive. I hear
about hear this all the time,from people who are applying to
jobs and things like that. Andthere's true there are factors
(32:34):
are stopping you, right? Likethere are bad recruiters out
there. There are people who arenot like truly trying to, you
know, hire for diversity, thereare people out there who don't
have good intentions when theyhire people, like all those
things are true, but also what'salso true in the sense and what
I've, I've also found from liketalking to different job seekers
is there's people who are veryrooted in fear, they're fearful
(32:56):
that they can't find that, thatthey will, you know, go and put
their application out and findout, they're not the hot person
that they thought they were. Andthat scares them that scares
their ego, or they're fearful ofthe fact that like, maybe the
next place is going to be worsethan where I'm at today. And so
they're like, I rather just goand stay with the beats that I
know, then go to the unknownbeats that I haven't dealt with
(33:17):
before. And you see scenarioslike this all the time. And so I
always tell people, this is why,you know, for me, and and guess
this is the privilege part,right? Like spirituality is your
core is who you are as a person,and how you move in the world.
And so when you have a goodfoundation within yourself, it
allows you to be able to realizethat like, which you need to be
(33:38):
worried about is not all theseexternal factors like yes, these
are important. Yes, these arerisks. But the business biggest
risk is you, you're actuallyyour biggest risk. And if you
don't know that, you need torecognize that. And you need to
realize that if you're not intouch of yourself, you don't
love yourself, you don'tunderstand who you are, then
it's so much easier for peopleto take advantage of you, it's
(34:00):
so much easier for a job takeadvantage of you for a
significant other to takeadvantage of you because you
don't even know who you are, youdon't even appreciate who you
are. And so if people recognizethat, and they look for people
like that, like and that's howpeople find themselves in those
bad situations. And a lot oftimes I'm not going to say all
the time, it's a lot of it isalso luck, too. But I think a
lot of it has to do with thefact that when you have low self
(34:23):
esteem or you have a lot of selfdoubt, it really prevents you
from being able to move forwardto the ways that you want to be
in your life and your career,your love wherever else about
you that it's important to youand so that's why I always tell
my people that I work with whenI'm like dealing with job
applicants and stuff like that.
(34:44):
You see me on Twitter, I alwayshype people up because I
understand that you know not alot of people are out here
rooting for other people and nota lot of people are out here
trying to help other peopleestablish their own self love.
And so for me like my job as arecruiter is to The biggest hype
man for every as many people asI possibly can, now, I'm still
human to you, I can't hype upevery single applicant that goes
(35:08):
through the pipeline. But theones I do get to connect with
and the ones that I do get tohave that first initial call
with, I always end up rootingfor them. Because that is my
job, my job is to make sure thatthis person knows that I believe
in you. That's why I put you inthis pipeline. And I want to see
you do your best because at theend of the day, I want to see
you get what you're you'reworking towards, but you want
(35:31):
because applying for a job islike the most. And you know this
from your own job. It's the mostenergy draining experience ever.
And so it My job is to give youthat little bit of energy, if
anyone else is not going to giveyou that energy, I'm going to
give you that energy in thatpipeline. So that you can do
well so that you can reach thatgoal that you're looking for.
(35:51):
I love that. And and you knowfor you, you know, I know, my
first thought when I saw thatyou you got this job at propel,
which by the way, just from whatyou described of the company's
like mission. And what they doalso just sounds like it aligns
very well with your values. Andokay, so I go on to Twitter,
which by the way, I see maybethree tweets at a time when I go
(36:14):
on Twitter, I spend very littletime on there now, but ended up
on my timeline. And my firstthought was, oh, they I mean,
this must be a really good fit.
Because with where Sean is atright now, he's not going to
just say yes to anybody. So howdid all these things that we've
been talking about? If you canjust kind of summarize, we're
(36:34):
almost out of time here, like,What? What was that process for
you? Like, what, what made yousay, yes, to this to this
company? Like what what did youkind of go through? Like, what
what were you bringing into thatrecruitment process? To be
certain that this was what youwere looking for?
Yeah, that's a really greatquestion. So I would say for me,
(36:57):
the first thing I did was bevulnerable, I actually went out
on my personal Twitter, and Iwas like, towards the end of my
relationship with my lastemployer. And I realized that
towards the end that like, youknow, the values that I thought
we both shared, weren't actuallythe true values of the company.
(37:17):
And so, for me, you know, I, Irealized that, you know, from
that experience that like, youknow, you know, everyone's on
their different journey, when itcomes to DNI and I want to
respect that. And I definitelydo want to give people credit
when credit is due and who arepushing the ball forward. But I
come from a background of beingreally radical when it comes to
(37:39):
DNI. And so for me, when I'mbeing hired to do something, I'm
going to truly do it. So whenyou ask me to, like, create a
DNI program, I'm responsible forevery single person that I hire,
right? Like, it's not like, I'mhiring, you know, putting black
and brown people in your your,on your desk, and like having
(37:59):
them work as engineers, orproduct managers or designers,
or whatever. And then I just goabout my day, like, I think
about those people, because notonly is my reputation attached
to it, but they're also people,they're, they're my people,
they're my community. And so Ihad to be responsible for that.
And so when I start to recognizethat, like, hey, you're not
doing the steps in which toreally help people move forward.
(38:22):
And to really empower thosepeople, I had to start thinking
about myself in that situation.
And so I decided for the nextcompany that I wanted to go
with, like, I not, you know, Iwanted to stop further. Like, I
didn't want them just to have aproduct that they say, like, you
know, we really care about ourcustomers, you know, we really
want to have this diverse set ofcustomers, that's great. But
what I really liked about propelis that they've specifically
(38:46):
called out low income Americans.
And like, for me, seeing thatlike specific call out and
seeing how our CEO, how manypeople across the leadership
team talk about low incomeAmericans every single day, that
to me was just such a green flagthat I just had to apply to it.
And, and I'm not saying like,you know, propell was like, you
(39:08):
know, like, top choice either.
Like, it was one of manychoices, like I was interviewing
at 30 different startupcompanies like, like, large like
institutions to and so for me,being in that scenario, I had to
be really intentional about whatthat next step look like. And I
really had a struggle because atthe end, at the end, I was
between propel, and another andthe Democratic National
(39:31):
Committee and so, you know, andthat was for a different role
that was for like a propel was asenior recruiter role. At the
DNC, it was a chief of staffrole. And so that was going to
be really verymy for her, and I was going to
be reporting to their CTO, andall that stuff. And so for me,
you know, being in that scenarioand seeing, you know, just how
(39:52):
far I got into my career, Irealized that, you know, there
was choices that I had to makeand between these to different
offers, I've realized that thechoice I had to make was the
choice for me. And I had tochoose me and, and, and for a
lot of my career, I always choseTitle I always meant like, title
crazy, I've been like trying toget myself into, like fischli
into management. I've alwaysbeen management, Jason. But you
(40:15):
know, I've always been someonewho's been more influential than
someone who had a bunch ofreports. And so for me, like,
I've just been so passionateabout like, wanting to be a full
manager and wanting to, like,have that opportunity again,
because I had that at one pointin my career. And so I've been
trying to fight to get back tothat point. And so for me, it
was just like, it came down tothe like, I could have chose my
(40:38):
career, or I could have chosemyself and just be an
environment that I know, reallymatch my values. And what really
helped me just be more centeredas a person. And so I ended up
choosing propel, because Irealized that like, you know, I
kept choosing title after titleat the title, and that wasn't
making me happier, like,choosing the title wasn't making
(40:59):
me happy, because theenvironments that I was being
put in, weren't necessarilyenvironments that were really
100% conducive to all my skillsets, all my knowledge, all my
passion. And so now being partof propel, I feel like I'm that
much closer to a vironment thatreally matches what I'm looking
for, from an employer. And, andfor me, that's so important. And
(41:20):
that's why when I like do myscreenings, you know, like,
people will talk about this allthe time attack and like,
they'll say, you don't need tobe passionate about being
attacked. Like that doesn'tmatter of law, right? That's
fine. It's true. And Idefinitely agree that there's
like, you know, you always needpeople who are going to be like,
just like the nine to fivers,you're going to go in, do what
they need to do and go out. Butthe people who are going to
(41:42):
really move your organizationforward, are those passionate
people who are actually able tonot just do their job, but
they're communicating it well,they're going out there and
talking about what they do,they're branding themselves in
their work. And that just showsso much more about what those
people can do, and how much moreof those people are willing to
do. And so like for me, I thinkthat like being in an
(42:05):
environment that reallyactivates and allows me to be
passionate, just helps meproduce my best work, it helps
me get to that next step. And itmight not be what the same path,
what it might look like, if Icould took the Chief of Staff
role. But ultimately, I get todefine my career, I get to
define what that looks like. Andthere's so much privilege and
but there's so much freedom inthe fact that I'm able to do
(42:30):
that on my own. And to do that,as a black, queer male, in the
tech industry is huge. And so Iunderstand that I recognize that
privilege. And I just encouragepeople, that if you do have that
privilege, if you have theability to choose yourself, do
it like stop being afraid to dothat in your career, and your
love life, whatever aspect ofyour life that matters to you.
(42:53):
Because by not choosingyourself, your that is probably
why you're feeling burnt out.
That's probably why you'refeeling like you don't have
connection to the things thatyou're doing. And so reconnect
with yourself to really figureout what is what what do you
actually need? Not what do youwant? But what do you actually
need for you to actually moveforward and be the person that
(43:16):
you want to be in this in thisworld?
I, Shawn, I love that so much doyou do you have a couple of
minutes for me to kind of goover what what the what I got
out of this the takeaway here toknow we're going slightly over
time here. So what I'm what I'mhearing for your story, and I'm
kind of, I want you to hearthis, but this is also you know,
(43:39):
for the listeners is to be ableto have a job that you feel
passionate about. First of all,it takes understanding that the
responsibility is in your hands,you have the responsibility, you
also have the power, right. Andyou have the responsibility to
(44:00):
be vulnerable, which takes a lotof courage. And sometimes it
takes time to build thatcourage. But it really does take
being vulnerable and beingwilling to share what it is that
are your true values. Becauseit's not about like you said,
it's not about what you'redoing. It's about what kind of
why you're doing it. And that'son your individual level, as
well as the macro level as acompany. It's not just what are
(44:22):
we doing, but but why. And youkind of mentioned that the, you
know, the CEO, talking about andcalling out specifically low
income people was important toyou. And then at that point, you
know, once you got to align withthat, it also becomes a numbers
game. And that's so important, Ithink, to be able to stay in
that abundance mindset versusscarcity. Because if I'm
(44:44):
interviewing with only onecompany, if I'm dating only one
person, right? Like, it's goingto feel like oh my God, this has
to work out or else X, Y and Z.
Whereas I said I was like, Oh myGod when you said you were
interviewing. I mean I'm surethese weren't all eggs. At the
same time, but it's stillinterviewing 30 with 30
companies that really gave you alot of options to really kind of
(45:05):
play around with those valuesand see what does that look like
in action and to really kind ofkeep your feet moving and to
stay in action on your end andmaking sure that you're kind of
putting in that work to get towhere you want to go. And then
from there, and this is a reallydifficult part that I'm still
struggling with too, is nonattachment to the results.
(45:27):
That's what I hear, when I hearyou talk about you're kind of
moving away from being reallyfocused on titles, it's non
attachment to the outcome, andjust understanding that no
matter what your title is, thatwhat's really important is that
you're living your values. Andby practicing all those things
into really putting that intowork. You now I mean, hopefully,
(45:47):
right? You're still new, youknow, you're still probably on
his honeymoon phase, you'llyou'll be a little better. And
by the time this comes out, butit really sounds like you have
put yourself in a good positionto be able to be passionate,
because compared this route toare just gonna apply to
whoever's hiring and hopefullyor x out and well, man, if I'm
unhappy, it's their fault,because they suck and they're a
(46:09):
bad company. But you know.
Exactly, exactly. That was areally beautiful summary. And
yeah, you got it.
Perfect. Thank you. I try. I'vedone a few of these now. But
yeah, I think you know, that'sthat's pretty much about how
much time we have think thankyou so much for coming on shine.
(46:30):
I like I said it did not expectthis conversation to go so deep
into spirituality. I'm so gladthat it did. I think it is just
again, a reflection of how muchthat that is a part of both of
our individual identities. Andso yeah, I really appreciate the
opportunity to be able todiscuss that with you. I hope
that the listeners enjoyed ittoo. But I think that they will.
(46:52):
Yeah, no, just thank you so muchfor just having me part of this
show. Like, it was just such agreat experience to be able to
just the flow and just be inconversation. I really love this
format. So this was really fun.
But yeah, no, I just want peopleto know, listeners who are
listening out there. Like, ifyou're looking for any like
recruitment advice, you're justlooking for a champion, as
you're going through yourrecruitment process. You can
(47:14):
always follow me on Twitter, myhandle is at Sean, capital T
talent, capital W at the end,you can always follow me. I'm
always there just providing,again, like tips and just
encouragement, because Iunderstand just how hard this
like recruitment process is,especially for those who are
trying to break into tech. Andso you know, I definitely just
(47:37):
want you to know that I'm outhere rooting for you. I'm Leo's
are rooting for you. We're allrooting for you. So keep up the
good work and just know thatyou're not alone.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Thankyou again, Shawn, do you have
anything else you'd like to plugor promote before we head off?
No, I think that's it. That'sit. Yeah. All right. Perfect.
(47:59):
I'm just gonna hit stop herereal quick. But thank you so
much, Shawn. Yeah, of course.
That was a really fun.
Oh, man, that guy real deep,real quick, did it. You can
expect a lot more that in seasontwo of the Leo Yockey show. And
(48:20):
hey, if you enjoyed what youheard, please consider giving me
a five star written review.
It'll go a long way. It is trulylike currency in this world. And
let your friends know whatyou're listening to make a
screenshot of this and make ityour Instagram story. tag me on
Twitter, I have the links to allthat in the show notes. Speaking
of the show notes, if you're intech, and you're looking for a
(48:42):
new job, Shawn also wanted me toinclude the link to the job
board at propel. So that is alsoin the show notes. Please check
it out. I certainly will bebecause dammit, Shawn, we got to
work together at some point. Andhey, I'd like to hear from you
too. If you have someone thatyou'd like to see interviewed on
the Leo Yockey show, let meknow, hit me up on social media.
(49:05):
Or you can send me an email. Myemail address is Leo at Leo
yockey.com. All of the linksagain, are in the show notes. I
cannot wait for the nextepisode. Thank you all for being
on this journey with me. It'sit's continuing to be a blast.
It's gonna be honestly it'sgonna be so much more fun. Once
(49:28):
I'm making money again. And Ican start really investing into
this podcast making it soundbetter. And just being able to
bring more cool content. Soyeah, stick around season two's
gonna be a blast. Stay evolving.
All right, we're doing this werolling. Hello, and welcome to
the season two premiere of theLeo Yockey show, the show where
I, Leo Yockey interview guestsabout the universal truths and
their unique life story likethat. That's a slightly
different description than inseason one. See, we're already
(00:35):
off to a different start. what'swhat's new with y'all? How has
life been in the last two weekssince we put out a full episode?
Yeah, it wasn't much of a breakbetween the two seasons. But
that's because I'm reallyexcited. Listen, I started this
podcast, partially because I wasquitting tech forever. And I
(00:58):
wanted to start pursuingcreative stuff. While I figured
out what I was going to do next,and I've come around full
circle. I am going back to tech.
I'm really excited about it,actually. And I think there'll
be more conversations about itin the coming episodes. my
conversation with my guesttoday, Shawn page, was really
(01:19):
the first seed that got plantedthat helped me realize that
maybe going back to tech is theright decision for me after all,
and that it's okay, I can I cando it. And my world isn't going
to fall apart again. I metShawn, through the tech Twitter
universe, black tech, Twitter, anod to former guests of the
(01:41):
show, Paris, Athena. But anyway,Shawn is a technical recruiter.
And I've always really enjoyedwhat he's had to say about
diversity inclusion in the techworld, as well as some of his
views on spirituality. And luckyfor us, we were able to talk
about both in this interview. SoI really excited it's a great
(02:02):
way to start the second season.
Without further ado, here isShawn page.
All right. Hey, Sean, how youdoing today? I'm doing well,
Leo, thanks for having me today.
Yes, thanks for coming on. I'vebeen really excited to have you
(02:24):
on the show. I mean, you'veyou've kind of been with me now
through the various stages thatI've been in, in the last like
six months or so I think Italked to you, either right?
Before I quit my last tech jobor right after kind of somewhere
in that realm where I was like,oh, cuz I was actually going
through the recruitment processat your, your former employee,
(02:45):
I'll let you take the lead onwhether or not we're naming
them. But you know, we so wewere kind of talking then. And
I'm like, yeah, I'm still gonnabe an engineer. And then I got
to talk to you later. And I waslike, I don't think I want to be
an engineer anymore. And you'relike, I don't think I want to be
at this company anymore. Soyou're kind of we're kind of
(03:05):
both in, in flux and intransition. And a lot of it, I
think, kind of, we're kind ofriding the waves of some of the
changes that are happening onmore of a macro level. So I'm
really excited to kind of diveinto some of these these life
topics with you.
Yeah, no, thank you so much. No,I funny enough. Yes. So as Leah
(03:29):
was kind of mentioning, orhinting, yeah, I used to work
for a startup company called webflow. I started off my tech
career there, started off aslike a lead recruiting
coordinator. And then I gotpromoted, and I was managing the
talent brand there. And then Ijust decided to kind of quit, I
realized that for me, you know,what I was really looking for
(03:52):
was more autonomy and morecontrol over the recruiting
processes. And so I'm actuallydecided to go backwards a little
bit. And I went to a smallerstartup called propel, propel
his product is focused on lowincome Americans, and provide
them with financial solutions tohelp mitigate some of their
costs of, you know, being lowincome in America, and so are in
(04:15):
the US. And so working for thatcompany, I now am a senior
recruiter. You know, I'm thefirst recruiter there. And so
I'm just going to be managingthose whole recruitment
processes, like really helpingto build out like a very DNI
focus and minded RecruitmentProgram from scratch. And so I'm
really excited to be in thislike, you know, very major
(04:36):
change maker seat to really havecontrol over that. And so it's
kind of like we were talkingabout, you know, a little bit
earlier about careers, you know,as you continue to kind of go on
and you continue to learn moreabout yourself. It really helps
shift and mold your attitudesabout what you're willing to put
up with or what you're willingto seek out in the workplace.
(04:56):
And so I kind of had thatepiphany. I think a lot of
people it's Today, in this, Iforget what they call it, but
like this quit this huge, hugequit movement, I think a lot of
us are starting to realize that,you know, we really need to find
out like what our passions areand, and quarantine really
opened our eyes up to like timeis but at the essence right now
(05:17):
we really have to be out here,I'm really thinking deeply in
attentionally about what we wantto do next in our careers
because careers are part of ourlives. But it shouldn't be the
full part of your life either.
And so I just think it's reallyinteresting just to see just how
much movement and in the marketthat's going on today and how
much we're seeing peopleactually choose themselves in
(05:37):
the in the workplace.
Yeah, definitely. Because kindof like, what what I was saying
to you before, before we startedrecording is like, some of this
mindset of really thinking aboutwhat you want to do, and and
really thinking about how youwant your career to look like
it's one thing, like, forexample, in my, in my world, you
(05:57):
know, to be a software engineer,it's one thing to be a software
engineer, it's a whole otherthing entirely to say, I want to
be a software engineer at thiscompany, kind of company that
offers these kinds of benefits.
And does this kind of work outin the world. And it almost
feels to some degree like tohave that mindset is, is it
(06:19):
almost feels like Oh, so youwant to have your cake and eat
it too. You know what I mean?
It's like, you know, shouldn'tyou be grateful for what you
have? Because I think that thatwas the mindset that my parents
had is the mindset that myparents had to have. Right,
because the world was differentback then. And why have you put
into any thought into like, whyyou think that that has shifted
(06:42):
so much for our generation, asopposed to like our parents
generation? Yeah, no,I think that's a really great
point. I think, you know, frommy standpoint, I think a lot of
what our parents and our parentsgenerations and generations
before that went through was aperiod of scarcity. You know,
you were talking about peoplewho who endorse the Great
(07:02):
Depression, people who enduredthe civil rights movement,
people endured slavery, and allthese other major events that
happen in the world. And we'renow entering a new age of like
new types of events, like wejust weather Donald Trump, we
just, you know, now we'regathering all the things that
are going on the borders ofimmigration, I will weathering
(07:23):
all the issues that are going onwith climate change and stuff
like that. And so I think,because, you know, a lot of
people are kind of like reachingto the point enough is enough,
is really shifting our mindsetto more of a mindset of
abundance. You know, we'rereally thinking about what do we
what do we have today that wecan really celebrate within
ourselves and with the peoplearound us? And how can we really
(07:45):
think more deeply about ourconnection with just like
capitalism and thinking abouthow we're consuming and things
of this nature, and and so Ithink a lot of people are now
like, stepping back and reallyrealizing that like, from this
place of scarcity that we'vebeen living in for many, many
years, you know, we've been likereally damaging the earth, we've
been damaging each other, we'vebeen damaging, anything that we
(08:06):
touch. And so I think comingfrom a place of abundance means
leaning back into spirituality,people are becoming more just in
tune with their connection withthe earth and how they're
connected to other people. Andso I think there's just as a
large amount of people who aremore and more waking up to the
fact that they need to thinkmore in a style of abundance and
stop being so concerned aboutwhat can I consume and start
(08:28):
thinking more about what am iconsuming now? And what impact
is that having on the people inthe planet that I live in, in
and I interact with?
Yeah, absolutely. And I'm soglad that you you made that
connection, that we're divinginto the deep end, so early, so
(08:49):
to speak, because i i agree thatI think that spirituality does
have a lot to do with it. Ithink that not even necessarily
to say that spirituality andabundance mindset, not even
necessarily to say that that isopposite of Christianity,
although in some ways it kind ofis. There's there's just some
places where they don'tnecessarily coexist really well.
(09:11):
But I do think that Christianityand capitalism go hand in hand
really perfectly in a way thatspirituality and abundance
mindset and capitalism don't.
And it does seem like there isis more of a breaking away from
our culture as a whole on themainstream being Christian by
(09:33):
default. And in that we'restarting to see some of these
shifts take place. I know forme, I actually grew up in a new
age church I grew up in, there'sactually called religious
sciences, the exact church thatI grew up in and all throughout
high school. It was like I wouldalways say I grew up in
(09:58):
religion. Just science, it's notScientology. It was always like
it had this lengthened namebecause I always had to say, it
is not Scientology. It was notScientology. But it did. It was
born out of this. I think it wascalled New Thought movement that
kind of came about in the earlyin the last century. And you
(10:18):
know, there's there's books likethe science of getting rich and
thinking Grow Rich all kind ofcome from this same, this same
philosophy. And I've talked tosome friends that also grew up
in this church with me, I mean,we went to what we call it like
hippie church camps, like wewould literally up a bunch of
teenagers all standing around ina circle, literally setting each
(10:41):
other energy and tellingeverybody that you're beautiful,
and you're the face of God, andthat we are hugging each other.
I mean, we seriously did. AndI've been talking to some of
those friends, I'm still intouch with them. The somatic
healer that I told you aboutthat will be a past guest to the
show at this point, Stephanie.
Yeah, you know, we we've talkedabout how growing up in that
(11:04):
kind of primed us for this, forthis new mindset that the world
seems to be in now. And I knowthat you're kind of doing some
things on your journey. Youyou've talked a lot, you know,
you talk a lot publicly aboutlike, Tarot and astrology and
stuff like that. What was yourpath into this? Like, spiritual
way of being and living?
(11:26):
Yeah, no, that's a really greatquestion. Well, it's so funny
that you've had to describeliterally my own upbringing when
it came to spirituality. Soreally? Yeah, yeah. So I'm a
Unitarian Universalist.
Oh, what up? Yeah. Yeah, verysimilar. Very similar. My mom
and stepdad go to a UnitarianUniversalist Church now in my
hometown, because science churchkind of fell apart.
(11:49):
Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah, yeah. No,that's, that's so interesting.
Yeah. So like, literally thesame model of upbringing, you
know, doing church lock ins,like being the one blackface in
a sea of white people doing,like, you know, stuff. And, you
know, it was a very greatupbringing in the sense that it
really challenged my connectionto not just what Christianity
(12:11):
is, but what are all what isreligion, right? I think a lot
of times, you know, when peopleare, you know, practicing a
religion, it's kind of blindfaith where, you know, their
family member, or, or members oftheir family are the ones that
are really pushing for them to,like, pursue religion. And so
there's no personal realconnection beyond the familial
(12:31):
when it comes to religion versuslike, for me, my, in my
household, no one actuallypushed me to go to church, like,
you know, I had a period of timewhen I was like a Unitarian
Universalist. So it was threeyears when I decided I just
didn't want to go to church. AndI had that whole, like, break
from church. And then I decidedto go back because I realized
that I was missing some, like,spiritual aspects of my life.
(12:52):
And so I think, for me, myjourney with spirituality was
always something that wasfoundational to my identity. And
so for me, you know, growing upin that faith, it really
challenged my notion of like,you know, how do different
religions like really professtheir relationship to God and so
I got to go to like so manydifferent churches, I went to
(13:13):
synagogue, I went to mass like Iwent to like, all these
different religious likeceremonies and holidays and
things like that. And so I thinkbeing a part of that religion
that was really just open tolike other religions and like,
really, they also talk about incelebrate that their religion is
based off the knowledge of allthese different sources, we call
(13:34):
them the six sources. And so forme, like, I think that was such
an eye opening experience,because I'm always someone that
I don't believe I don'tnecessarily believe in boxes,
and I don't like putting peoplein boxes. And so for me, being
in a faith that was like, kindof like virtually boxes, like
was variously not had didn'thave a box, it was just kind of
special thinking when it came tolike spirituality. And that kind
(13:57):
of led me up to my spiritualitytoday, I've met so many
different people within thatreligion. And so a lot of them
expose me to like all thesedifferent like, rituals and
practices and things of thatnature. And so that's how I kind
of got into astrology and Tarot.
And for me, like I realized,like that was, those are the
tool, two tools that Ipersonally use to have
(14:17):
connections to my ancestors, andalso to, to have a connection to
the planet and to people. And sothat was sort of how I kind of
got to where I'm at today, wherenow I'm kind of just like, very
open when it comes tospirituality. And I've realized
that there's so many differentways of how to really be someone
who is spiritual, and there's noreal one recipe of doing it. And
(14:38):
I think that's just a lot ofwhat life is like a lot of times
we're we're trying to go on tofind paths that other people
have gone on to but I thinkwe're all slowly realizing those
defined paths of the past areactually being eroded. And we
have to define new paths. And soI think it's just so important
for us to when we're you know,trying to be spiritual people,
or we're trying to To figure outwho we are to remember that
(15:00):
you're the ones that aredefining your path, like yes,
you have other blueprints tofall on to you. But you're the
one that is truly defining whatthat new path looks like for
that new for that nextgeneration.
Yeah, yeah. I love that. Yeah,growing up, in, in my church, we
were always taught, see, see thegood in every religion find find
(15:23):
something good in every singlereligion and I think we have I
was actually just earlier todayas I was listening to a podcast
with a Palestinian comedian wasa gas Yeah, her name is Mei
soon, something I don'tremember. But anyway, she, the
(15:47):
host was asking her a little bitabout the Israel Palestine stuff
going on. And, you know, onething that she mentioned after,
you know, kind of giving adownload of everything that was
going on, she made a point tosay, you know, like, it's it's
very difficult to make thedistinction. But there is a very
real distinction that what iswhat the Israeli government is
(16:10):
doing is not to be conflatedwith the religion of Judaism,
you know, and that these are twoseparate things. And I think
that we have a version of thatgoing on in our own country
where we've kind of conflatedthe abuses of power. And I guess
that's it, the abuses of power,that that and the veiled hatred,
(16:34):
and sometimes not so veiledhatred, that comes with
Christianity and kind ofunderstanding as difficult as it
is that you know, Christianityin and of itself did not do this
Christian, just like anyreligion, they're just tools.
Yeah. And you can use a tool to,you know, create and build
(16:59):
compassion and to connect withothers. Or you can use a tool to
divide and to, you know,dominating and exert power over,
you know, defenseless people andstuff like that. And, you know,
all all that being said, like I,you know, there's, there are
aspects of Christianity that Iactually find really beautiful,
(17:20):
and really inspirational, youknow, and it's been a struggle,
I think, you know, like, in myhometown, you know, growing up,
you know, as like a little butchlesbian in my small town and
having this very ginormous, veryinfluential Baptist Church,
making my life unnecessarilydifficult and having this like
(17:41):
other very large Christianchurch with a very large teen
group where they said, you know,don't hang out with kids if they
don't go there. So it madeeverything so socially difficult
for me for no reason at all. Itwas it was a journey for me to
kind of decouple those things,but I'm so glad to have gone on
that journey. Because kind ofbeing able to it almost sounds
(18:05):
like inherently sinful the waythat we've you know, the the way
that we've kind of been taughtto understand religion in this
country, but here in America,where everything is just a
hodgepodge, to kind of createreligion, or to see religion as
like a choose your ownadventure, almost like a buffet,
where you take what you want,and disregard what you don't,
you're so radical, but it is sofreeing to be able to do that.
(18:29):
It's for me to be able to belike, you know what, today, I'm
gonna, like, go find somerandom, like, Bible verse and
contemplate on that, and thennot think about Christianity
again for a month. And thenyeah, you know, do my own
version of Tarot or meditationand things like that, you know,
like, it. It's really cool thatit seems like more people are
(18:50):
kind of opening up to that, youknow?
Yeah, yeah, no, definitely,definitely. I agree with that.
And I think a lot of it stemsfrom the fact that like,
religious freedom is like, alsosomething that's really new to
us, you know, we're as much aslike, you know, certain
political parties wants tocensor and say that we're a
Christian ethio state, like,there's no actual, like,
(19:13):
defining religion in the US, youknow, the founders didn't want
us to have religion to infectthe state, because they realized
that, that separation of stateand church was so important,
because they saw the impact thatit was having on Europe. And so
like, you know, seeing it todayand seeing just like the
religious freedoms that we have,it's just so like, you're just
(19:33):
saying, it's so powerful. It'sso impactful that I think a lot
of people take it for grantedtoday. They don't realize that
like, if you were you know, bornback in the 1718 century years,
you're talking about being anatheist, like, you could be
hanging in the middle of thesquare right? Like that's not
something that like people were,you know, cool with and it's not
that people today are likenecessarily 100% like, you know,
(19:56):
ready to embrace atheism but Ifyou still have the the
protections of the law to beable to not only practice and
believe that in your, in yourschools at your home, you know,
and to also to be able to havesome protections, if you know,
for instance, like with medicalthings, you know, there's like
(20:17):
religious protections and thingslike that. And so I think
there's a lot of ways that oursociety is allows people to
practice their beliefs. But Ialso think, you know, we're
also, you know, a society thatlike, challenges, beliefs as
well, right? I think we have alot of like, you know, Christian
groups that are out here who arereally trying to challenge
(20:38):
whether or not like religionshould be the major focus of the
US. And I think that is reallycausing people to really
question whether or not religionis a positive or negative thing.
And I think those conversationsare just so important, because
like you said, before, religionis just a tool, the Bible, the
Quran, whatever, you know,religious texts that you
(21:00):
prescribe to, those are tools,it's the human behind the tool
that creates the experience. Andso I think it's so important for
us to remember that and when,when we're having because like,
for instance, like, growing up,as you you, I remember, like,
certain adults were coming fromother religions. And so whenever
we use the word God, like, therewas a visceral reaction, like,
(21:21):
they were so upset, like, theycould not even say the word God,
because they were so harmed bytheir past religion, and seeing
that from my eyes that like,insane people get upset and
angry over you just having theuses of God and like, in a, in a
human or, or a song or somethinglike that, like, seeing those
(21:42):
reactions really shows you justhow much harm is has been caused
by religion. And so I thinkthere's just needs to people
need to just remind themselvesthat like, hey, like, let me
separate the pain from like, thepain from the actual artifacts
from the actual people who arecausing the pain, right? Like,
it's not the artifacts that arecausing this, it's the people
(22:03):
behind it. And so I think it'sjust so important for us, like,
you know, when we're trying toembrace these things that we
need to remind ourselves, like,we have to separate the
experience from the actual,like, source of truth of what it
is. And really, by doing so wecan really critically evaluate
it on a level that's going tolet us be able to either be
receptive to it, or to trulyreject it as something that's
(22:26):
not useful to us.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean,Christianity, or any religion
really could go away tomorrow.
And you know, the people thatwere using it to abuse power
will find something else tolatch on to, to veil, their
abuse of power. You know, it'sit's us kind of separating the
people from the artifactsExactly. Like you said, and
(22:47):
yeah, it's so important. It's socool. Man, I, I did not expect,
I was hoping to broach thissubject with you, I did not
expect that we would get so deepinto the real talk. So thank you
for going down that rabbit holewith me. It's I love talking
about this stuff. I think it'sso cool. And it does seem like
there is a lot more of anappetite for that stuff in and
(23:07):
for these conversations and anopenness to explore paths of
spirituality that aren'tnecessarily the ones that that
most people grew up with. Imean, we grew up with this. Do
you ever feel like I think aboutthis alive? Do you feel like
there is a privilege or anadvantage to having grown up
(23:31):
with this, with this faith? Andwith some, at least some
understanding of these of theseprinciples that we've been
talking about?
Yeah, I mean, I think there'slike, yeah, there's definitely
some privileges in terms ofbeing more open minded and
receptive. And like when you're,you know, dealing with other
(23:52):
communities that may notnecessarily believe what you
believe in, because, you know,our like, you know, at least in
our religions, you know, they'revery much so the practices are
so centered on like, being in aninterconnected web of life, and
like, how do we interact thispeople? And how do we think
beyond our identities? And howdo we connect to ourselves like,
through that, that commonconnection of being a person and
(24:13):
so I think when you have thattype of belief is a lot easier
for you to interact and be withother groups and to be a little
bit more receptive to how youmove through those groups. And
so I think that is a privilegeto be able to think in that
manner, and to actually havethat like kind of open
mindedness. But I think it'salso a double edged sword to
write because I think especiallyI'm sure you have experiences
(24:35):
like this as well, where there'smembers within our faith who,
you know, blindly believe thatand so they sometimes get people
who shouldn't get the benefit ofthe doubt, like rapist or racist
or whatever, they'll give themthat leeway because they think
about connection to human. Youknow, human a human means that
we have to forgive people. And Ithink, you know, forgiveness,
(24:57):
you know, it really depends onwhat you I believe in when it
comes to forgiveness. But Ithink when you're talking about
like people who do systematicharm or that harm other people,
there's a way there's a gracethat you can give to those
people and be like, Hey, I'm nottrying to inhumanely punish you,
but you do have to, like, bekind of like, you know, we have
(25:17):
to acknowledge the harm that youcaused. And we have to, as a
community heal from that. And soI think it's just so important
that, you know, when we talkabout the openness that we have,
that we are critical about thatopenness, right, like, you know,
just because you it's likeinclusivity, right, it's like,
you know, a lot of peoplebelieve that inclusivity means
that every single person shouldbe able to belong in the same
(25:40):
space, and should be able tohave the same access to the same
opportunities or whatever. Butwhen you're when we're talking
about a Jewish person and aNazi, in the same room, like
does inclusivity still exist?
Like, do I still have them inthat same space? And my argument
is now, how can you have twopeople not only just competing
ideologies, but one personspecifically wants to cause
(26:03):
physical harm that will may leadto death to the other party, you
can't be inclusive in thatspace, like, you have to
acknowledge that there's alreadyrecognizable harm in that space.
And you have to be able tounderstand that and in sometimes
being the the way to be the mostinclusive is to know who to
exclude, and who know whatgroups traditionally, or
(26:24):
historically can't be in thesame room together. And so I
think there's this likeblindness that also comes with
that openness, that likesometimes that I see from,
especially from, you know,people who describe as liberal,
that they don't really thinkthat deeply about that like,
kind of more so like, yes, wewant to be open, and we want to
all communities be able tointeract. But we also have to be
(26:44):
critical and understand thehistorical nature of these
groups, and understand that it'snot a Kumbaya circle, it's not
just like, Oh, we can all cometogether and seeing Amazing
Grace, and that we're all gonnabe good after that. Like, that's
a fantasy. It's there'shistorical harm that different
groups have caused. And so youcan't have that inclusive
environment, that trulyinclusive environment that a lot
(27:06):
of people dream about, becauseof the fact that these groups
have not healed, these groupshave not been able to heal. And
we have to recognize that wehave to make sure that when
we're creating these spaces thatwe're thinking about the hit not
just the current present, butthe history behind those present
relationships.
(27:27):
Yeah, absolutely. And I thinkthat man, I'm so glad you
brought that up. And this isactually going to tie very
perfectly into back intocareers, we're gonna, we're
gonna go all the way from, youknow, Todd talking about, you
know, religion in the ways thatit, you know, divides people all
the way back to career stuff.
But I do think that, you know,so this is actually something
(27:51):
that I've, I've kind ofstruggled with a little bit,
that blind faith that you'retalking about, like, just kind
of, you know, almost like forforgiving people who don't
really deserve it for lettingpeople in to spaces. And
sometimes that space is anactual physical space, like a
working environment or somethinglike that. And sometimes it's a,
it's my own emotional space,like letting people into my
(28:14):
heart that don't really deserveit. And I think that that is
like the peace of abundance, thepeace of inclusivity the peace,
the peace of all of thisinterconnectedness that doesn't
get talked about enough is thatto be able to most of what it
takes to make room for what youwant in life. And, and make room
for your vision involves sayingno, no, to learn to say no. It's
(28:39):
It's such a paradox, right?
Because you want to follow thislike year of Yes. And like
saying yes to things and beingopen and receptive, while also
getting really, really good atsaying no, it's like getting
getting really clear about whatyour vision is that you are
seeing, yes, and being veryreceptive to those things, while
(29:02):
also learning to say no, in andit's such a it's such a
difficult line to walksometimes, you know, especially
for me, I was actually justtalking to another church friend
about this recently that weboth, you know, like will it's
so easy, I think to get intorelationships where, you know,
(29:23):
in, in hindsight, it's like, ohmy gosh, this person didn't
treat me well at all, like wedidn't even have aligned values
but if I like dumped them forthat or whatever, if I walk away
from this situation, am I justinherently thinking that I'm
better than them and and i thinkthat also falls into the the job
(29:44):
stuff like we were talking aboutearlier. It's like, if I am not
grateful for what I have, thenaren't I just, man, I just lost
it if I if I'm not just gratefulfor what I have. Then I'm just,
oh, wow, I totally just have it,but it does, I'm
(30:11):
sorry, I can't even help youthere. I don't, I'm not even
sure what were you tryingto think of? I know, it's, it's,
um, if you are sitting thinkingthat you have to be grateful for
what you have is not allowingthe space for the things that
you actually want. So, beinggrateful for chairs is kind of,
(30:31):
like you said before it, itrelates to scarcity mindset. And
so all these things connect, youknow, and I, and I do think that
like, kind of raising thatvibration in one area of your
life makes it so that it'sactually really difficult to get
that vibration in other places.
And that's kind of what I wasasking, like, when you when I
(30:51):
said, you know, like, is this aprivilege for you? Because I
think that, you know, no matterno matter where that spiritual
journey took you initially, youknow, it's like, it's like, no
matter, like, if you improveyour relationships, so to speak,
using this mindset, like, now,it's gonna be so much easier to
improve work, you know what Imean?
(31:11):
Yeah, yeah, no, I definitelyagree with that. I think, you
know, a lot of times, you know,I think a lot of our struggles
really start from within, Ithink a lot of people, you know,
when we, when we talk aboutstruggles, like when it comes to
finding a job, or like, youknow, get it finding that
significant other or, you know,trying to have a better
(31:31):
relationship with our family, wealways look at the external
issues first, before we startwith the internal issues. And so
we've always want to blameeverything on every other aspect
within our life, is being causedby external factors that we have
no control over. And, you know,that's one way to think about,
and I used to think about that,you know, whenever I had a
(31:53):
problem, I always would, youknow, count out all the risks
that was around me that wascausing me not to be able to get
to the solution that I wanted.
And I realized, like, prettyearly on in my career, that's
actually a detrimental mindsetto have. Because like, by having
that like, mindset is actuallycreating fear within yourself.
You're so fearful about all theother risks that are around you
(32:13):
that you can control that youstop to think you stop realizing
that there are things you dohave control over, right. And
you want to blame your destiny,not because I'm failing because
of the things around me, I'm notfailing because of me, like I'm
doing all these things. And it'snot being receptive. I hear
about hear this all the time,from people who are applying to
jobs and things like that. Andthere's true there are factors
(32:34):
are stopping you, right? Likethere are bad recruiters out
there. There are people who arenot like truly trying to, you
know, hire for diversity, thereare people out there who don't
have good intentions when theyhire people, like all those
things are true, but also what'salso true in the sense and what
I've, I've also found from liketalking to different job seekers
is there's people who are veryrooted in fear, they're fearful
(32:56):
that they can't find that, thatthey will, you know, go and put
their application out and findout, they're not the hot person
that they thought they were. Andthat scares them that scares
their ego, or they're fearful ofthe fact that like, maybe the
next place is going to be worsethan where I'm at today. And so
they're like, I rather just goand stay with the beats that I
know, then go to the unknownbeats that I haven't dealt with
(33:17):
before. And you see scenarioslike this all the time. And so I
always tell people, this is why,you know, for me, and and guess
this is the privilege part,right? Like spirituality is your
core is who you are as a person,and how you move in the world.
And so when you have a goodfoundation within yourself, it
allows you to be able to realizethat like, which you need to be
(33:38):
worried about is not all theseexternal factors like yes, these
are important. Yes, these arerisks. But the business biggest
risk is you, you're actuallyyour biggest risk. And if you
don't know that, you need torecognize that. And you need to
realize that if you're not intouch of yourself, you don't
love yourself, you don'tunderstand who you are, then
it's so much easier for peopleto take advantage of you, it's
(34:00):
so much easier for a job takeadvantage of you for a
significant other to takeadvantage of you because you
don't even know who you are, youdon't even appreciate who you
are. And so if people recognizethat, and they look for people
like that, like and that's howpeople find themselves in those
bad situations. And a lot oftimes I'm not going to say all
the time, it's a lot of it isalso luck, too. But I think a
lot of it has to do with thefact that when you have low self
(34:23):
esteem or you have a lot of selfdoubt, it really prevents you
from being able to move forwardto the ways that you want to be
in your life and your career,your love wherever else about
you that it's important to youand so that's why I always tell
my people that I work with whenI'm like dealing with job
applicants and stuff like that.
(34:44):
You see me on Twitter, I alwayshype people up because I
understand that you know not alot of people are out here
rooting for other people and nota lot of people are out here
trying to help other peopleestablish their own self love.
And so for me like my job as arecruiter is to The biggest hype
man for every as many people asI possibly can, now, I'm still
human to you, I can't hype upevery single applicant that goes
(35:08):
through the pipeline. But theones I do get to connect with
and the ones that I do get tohave that first initial call
with, I always end up rootingfor them. Because that is my
job, my job is to make sure thatthis person knows that I believe
in you. That's why I put you inthis pipeline. And I want to see
you do your best because at theend of the day, I want to see
you get what you're you'reworking towards, but you want
(35:31):
because applying for a job islike the most. And you know this
from your own job. It's the mostenergy draining experience ever.
And so it My job is to give youthat little bit of energy, if
anyone else is not going to giveyou that energy, I'm going to
give you that energy in thatpipeline. So that you can do
well so that you can reach thatgoal that you're looking for.
(35:51):
I love that. And and you knowfor you, you know, I know, my
first thought when I saw thatyou you got this job at propel,
which by the way, just from whatyou described of the company's
like mission. And what they doalso just sounds like it aligns
very well with your values. Andokay, so I go on to Twitter,
which by the way, I see maybethree tweets at a time when I go
(36:14):
on Twitter, I spend very littletime on there now, but ended up
on my timeline. And my firstthought was, oh, they I mean,
this must be a really good fit.
Because with where Sean is atright now, he's not going to
just say yes to anybody. So howdid all these things that we've
been talking about? If you canjust kind of summarize, we're
(36:34):
almost out of time here, like,What? What was that process for
you? Like, what, what made yousay, yes, to this to this
company? Like what what did youkind of go through? Like, what
what were you bringing into thatrecruitment process? To be
certain that this was what youwere looking for?
Yeah, that's a really greatquestion. So I would say for me,
(36:57):
the first thing I did was bevulnerable, I actually went out
on my personal Twitter, and Iwas like, towards the end of my
relationship with my lastemployer. And I realized that
towards the end that like, youknow, the values that I thought
we both shared, weren't actuallythe true values of the company.
(37:17):
And so, for me, you know, I, Irealized that, you know, from
that experience that like, youknow, you know, everyone's on
their different journey, when itcomes to DNI and I want to
respect that. And I definitelydo want to give people credit
when credit is due and who arepushing the ball forward. But I
come from a background of beingreally radical when it comes to
(37:39):
DNI. And so for me, when I'mbeing hired to do something, I'm
going to truly do it. So whenyou ask me to, like, create a
DNI program, I'm responsible forevery single person that I hire,
right? Like, it's not like, I'mhiring, you know, putting black
and brown people in your your,on your desk, and like having
(37:59):
them work as engineers, orproduct managers or designers,
or whatever. And then I just goabout my day, like, I think
about those people, because notonly is my reputation attached
to it, but they're also people,they're, they're my people,
they're my community. And so Ihad to be responsible for that.
And so when I start to recognizethat, like, hey, you're not
doing the steps in which toreally help people move forward.
(38:22):
And to really empower thosepeople, I had to start thinking
about myself in that situation.
And so I decided for the nextcompany that I wanted to go
with, like, I not, you know, Iwanted to stop further. Like, I
didn't want them just to have aproduct that they say, like, you
know, we really care about ourcustomers, you know, we really
want to have this diverse set ofcustomers, that's great. But
what I really liked about propelis that they've specifically
(38:46):
called out low income Americans.
And like, for me, seeing thatlike specific call out and
seeing how our CEO, how manypeople across the leadership
team talk about low incomeAmericans every single day, that
to me was just such a green flagthat I just had to apply to it.
And, and I'm not saying like,you know, propell was like, you
(39:08):
know, like, top choice either.
Like, it was one of manychoices, like I was interviewing
at 30 different startupcompanies like, like, large like
institutions to and so for me,being in that scenario, I had to
be really intentional about whatthat next step look like. And I
really had a struggle because atthe end, at the end, I was
between propel, and another andthe Democratic National
(39:31):
Committee and so, you know, andthat was for a different role
that was for like a propel was asenior recruiter role. At the
DNC, it was a chief of staffrole. And so that was going to
be really verymy for her, and I was going to
be reporting to their CTO, andall that stuff. And so for me,
you know, being in that scenarioand seeing, you know, just how
(39:52):
far I got into my career, Irealized that, you know, there
was choices that I had to makeand between these to different
offers, I've realized that thechoice I had to make was the
choice for me. And I had tochoose me and, and, and for a
lot of my career, I always choseTitle I always meant like, title
crazy, I've been like trying toget myself into, like fischli
into management. I've alwaysbeen management, Jason. But you
(40:15):
know, I've always been someonewho's been more influential than
someone who had a bunch ofreports. And so for me, like,
I've just been so passionateabout like, wanting to be a full
manager and wanting to, like,have that opportunity again,
because I had that at one pointin my career. And so I've been
trying to fight to get back tothat point. And so for me, it
was just like, it came down tothe like, I could have chose my
(40:38):
career, or I could have chosemyself and just be an
environment that I know, reallymatch my values. And what really
helped me just be more centeredas a person. And so I ended up
choosing propel, because Irealized that like, you know, I
kept choosing title after titleat the title, and that wasn't
making me happier, like,choosing the title wasn't making
(40:59):
me happy, because theenvironments that I was being
put in, weren't necessarilyenvironments that were really
100% conducive to all my skillsets, all my knowledge, all my
passion. And so now being partof propel, I feel like I'm that
much closer to a vironment thatreally matches what I'm looking
for, from an employer. And, andfor me, that's so important. And
(41:20):
that's why when I like do myscreenings, you know, like,
people will talk about this allthe time attack and like,
they'll say, you don't need tobe passionate about being
attacked. Like that doesn'tmatter of law, right? That's
fine. It's true. And Idefinitely agree that there's
like, you know, you always needpeople who are going to be like,
just like the nine to fivers,you're going to go in, do what
they need to do and go out. Butthe people who are going to
(41:42):
really move your organizationforward, are those passionate
people who are actually able tonot just do their job, but
they're communicating it well,they're going out there and
talking about what they do,they're branding themselves in
their work. And that just showsso much more about what those
people can do, and how much moreof those people are willing to
do. And so like for me, I thinkthat like being in an
(42:05):
environment that reallyactivates and allows me to be
passionate, just helps meproduce my best work, it helps
me get to that next step. And itmight not be what the same path,
what it might look like, if Icould took the Chief of Staff
role. But ultimately, I get todefine my career, I get to
define what that looks like. Andthere's so much privilege and
but there's so much freedom inthe fact that I'm able to do
(42:30):
that on my own. And to do that,as a black, queer male, in the
tech industry is huge. And so Iunderstand that I recognize that
privilege. And I just encouragepeople, that if you do have that
privilege, if you have theability to choose yourself, do
it like stop being afraid to dothat in your career, and your
love life, whatever aspect ofyour life that matters to you.
(42:53):
Because by not choosingyourself, your that is probably
why you're feeling burnt out.
That's probably why you'refeeling like you don't have
connection to the things thatyou're doing. And so reconnect
with yourself to really figureout what is what what do you
actually need? Not what do youwant? But what do you actually
need for you to actually moveforward and be the person that
(43:16):
you want to be in this in thisworld?
I, Shawn, I love that so much doyou do you have a couple of
minutes for me to kind of goover what what the what I got
out of this the takeaway here toknow we're going slightly over
time here. So what I'm what I'mhearing for your story, and I'm
kind of, I want you to hearthis, but this is also you know,
(43:39):
for the listeners is to be ableto have a job that you feel
passionate about. First of all,it takes understanding that the
responsibility is in your hands,you have the responsibility, you
also have the power, right. Andyou have the responsibility to
(44:00):
be vulnerable, which takes a lotof courage. And sometimes it
takes time to build thatcourage. But it really does take
being vulnerable and beingwilling to share what it is that
are your true values. Becauseit's not about like you said,
it's not about what you'redoing. It's about what kind of
why you're doing it. And that'son your individual level, as
well as the macro level as acompany. It's not just what are
(44:22):
we doing, but but why. And youkind of mentioned that the, you
know, the CEO, talking about andcalling out specifically low
income people was important toyou. And then at that point, you
know, once you got to align withthat, it also becomes a numbers
game. And that's so important, Ithink, to be able to stay in
that abundance mindset versusscarcity. Because if I'm
(44:44):
interviewing with only onecompany, if I'm dating only one
person, right? Like, it's goingto feel like oh my God, this has
to work out or else X, Y and Z.
Whereas I said I was like, Oh myGod when you said you were
interviewing. I mean I'm surethese weren't all eggs. At the
same time, but it's stillinterviewing 30 with 30
companies that really gave you alot of options to really kind of
(45:05):
play around with those valuesand see what does that look like
in action and to really kind ofkeep your feet moving and to
stay in action on your end andmaking sure that you're kind of
putting in that work to get towhere you want to go. And then
from there, and this is a reallydifficult part that I'm still
struggling with too, is nonattachment to the results.
(45:27):
That's what I hear, when I hearyou talk about you're kind of
moving away from being reallyfocused on titles, it's non
attachment to the outcome, andjust understanding that no
matter what your title is, thatwhat's really important is that
you're living your values. Andby practicing all those things
into really putting that intowork. You now I mean, hopefully,
(45:47):
right? You're still new, youknow, you're still probably on
his honeymoon phase, you'llyou'll be a little better. And
by the time this comes out, butit really sounds like you have
put yourself in a good positionto be able to be passionate,
because compared this route toare just gonna apply to
whoever's hiring and hopefullyor x out and well, man, if I'm
unhappy, it's their fault,because they suck and they're a
(46:09):
bad company. But you know.
Exactly, exactly. That was areally beautiful summary. And
yeah, you got it.
Perfect. Thank you. I try. I'vedone a few of these now. But
yeah, I think you know, that'sthat's pretty much about how
much time we have think thankyou so much for coming on shine.
(46:30):
I like I said it did not expectthis conversation to go so deep
into spirituality. I'm so gladthat it did. I think it is just
again, a reflection of how muchthat that is a part of both of
our individual identities. Andso yeah, I really appreciate the
opportunity to be able todiscuss that with you. I hope
that the listeners enjoyed ittoo. But I think that they will.
(46:52):
Yeah, no, just thank you so muchfor just having me part of this
show. Like, it was just such agreat experience to be able to
just the flow and just be inconversation. I really love this
format. So this was really fun.
But yeah, no, I just want peopleto know, listeners who are
listening out there. Like, ifyou're looking for any like
recruitment advice, you're justlooking for a champion, as
you're going through yourrecruitment process. You can
(47:14):
always follow me on Twitter, myhandle is at Sean, capital T
talent, capital W at the end,you can always follow me. I'm
always there just providing,again, like tips and just
encouragement, because Iunderstand just how hard this
like recruitment process is,especially for those who are
trying to break into tech. Andso you know, I definitely just
(47:37):
want you to know that I'm outhere rooting for you. I'm Leo's
are rooting for you. We're allrooting for you. So keep up the
good work and just know thatyou're not alone.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Thankyou again, Shawn, do you have
anything else you'd like to plugor promote before we head off?
No, I think that's it. That'sit. Yeah. All right. Perfect.
(47:59):
I'm just gonna hit stop herereal quick. But thank you so
much, Shawn. Yeah, of course.
That was a really fun.
Oh, man, that guy real deep,real quick, did it. You can
expect a lot more that in seasontwo of the Leo Yockey show. And
(48:20):
hey, if you enjoyed what youheard, please consider giving me
a five star written review.
It'll go a long way. It is trulylike currency in this world. And
let your friends know whatyou're listening to make a
screenshot of this and make ityour Instagram story. tag me on
Twitter, I have the links to allthat in the show notes. Speaking
of the show notes, if you're intech, and you're looking for a
(48:42):
new job, Shawn also wanted me toinclude the link to the job
board at propel. So that is alsoin the show notes. Please check
it out. I certainly will bebecause dammit, Shawn, we got to
work together at some point. Andhey, I'd like to hear from you
too. If you have someone thatyou'd like to see interviewed on
the Leo Yockey show, let meknow, hit me up on social media.
(49:05):
Or you can send me an email. Myemail address is Leo at Leo
yockey.com. All of the linksagain, are in the show notes. I
cannot wait for the nextepisode. Thank you all for being
on this journey with me. It'sit's continuing to be a blast.
It's gonna be honestly it'sgonna be so much more fun. Once
(49:28):
I'm making money again. And Ican start really investing into
this podcast making it soundbetter. And just being able to
bring more cool content. Soyeah, stick around season two's
gonna be a blast. Stay evolving.
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