Thriving Through Change and Embracing Personal Growth with Dana Neiger

Welcome to another episode of Strive 365, the podcast dedicated to helping you push through challenges and thrive every day, no matter the odds. On this episode we had guest Dana Neiger. She is an author, CHRO (Chief Human Resources Officer), and the Co-Founder of HIVE Talent Acquisition Firm Inc.

She is passionate about helping individuals live better lives and has become a guiding light for personal growth and self-improvement. In this episode, we dive deep into Dana's book, “Before I Knew It, They Were Gone : A Jewish First-Generation American Woman's Journey through the Darkness,” where she provides practical guidance for living a better life. We discuss key strategies and tips that listeners can implement to enhance their daily lives.

Dana shares her personal journey of overcoming challenges, maintaining a thriving mindset, and offering valuable insights from her experience as the CHRO/Co-Founder at HIVE Talent Acquisition Firm Inc. We explore the intersection of mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being, and how these aspects contribute to living a better life. Dana emphasizes the importance of embracing change, finding opportunity in adversity, and prioritizing self-care. She offers advice for individuals looking to advance their careers, make meaningful progress, and achieve work-life balance in today's evolving job market.

Dana also discusses the essential qualities and habits of effective leaders, the creation of positive and supportive organizational cultures, and the impact of giving back and being involved in philanthropy on personal growth and well-being. Join us as we uncover practical steps and mindset shifts that can ignite personal growth and self-improvement. Discover how Dana's insights and experiences can guide you towards living a better life, mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Get ready to be inspired to strive for greatness and thrive every day. https://www.dananeiger.com To learn more about Justen and his limitless health & wellness business Flexxmp go to www.flexxmp.com or www.justenarnold.com

For all things Justen Arnold including links, affiliates and discounts go to holler.id/justenarnold FREE ACCESS TO MY PERSONAL JOURNAL https://flexxmp.phonesites.com/flexxmpjournal www.flexxmp.com www.justenarnold.com where you can check out his NEW book "Purpose Through Pain: Living a limitless Lifestyle in the Presences of Adversity" Remember this podcast is 100% listener supported! We appreciate any and all support whether it be monetary or by likes positive comments and shares.

Episode Transcript

(00:20):
Hey, Welcome to another episode ofStrive three sixty five, the podcast dedicated
helping you push through challenges and thriveevery day, no matter the odds.
We're here to help guide you tolive a better life, whether it's mentally,
physically, emotionally, or spiritually.I am your host, Justin Arnold
in the amazing Rock Box studio herein Rochester, New York. Today we
have a very special guest. It'sDana and it's Dane Nice charges butchered your

(00:41):
name. I apoloedize Danner's and authorh RO, chief human resource officer and
the co founder of High Talent Acquisitionfirm. She's passionate for helping individuals live
better lives, and she's become aguiding light for those seeking personal growth and
self improvement. She's helped countless individualsnavigate challenges, embrace and unlocked their full
potential. Her commitment to fostering positivecompany culture and her involvement in community and

(01:06):
philanthropic initiatives have made her respected figurein the field. Now, with that
awesome introduction, why don't you adda little bit more to that data.
Glad to have you again. Thankyou so much. I appreciate you having
me justin nice to be sure,and thank you so much for the very
kind introduction. I appreciate you.Yeah, it's all from our last meeting
and just talking and just getting into know you and learn a little bit

(01:27):
about you. And that's what Igot from it. So there you go,
thank you for sure. So yeah, a little bit more to add
on there, just to get thejuices flowing, the creative juices, right,
Yeah, so loving the intro.I'll add in that the book launched
January of this year, before Iknew if they were gone. That's awesome.

(01:52):
Where'd you guys launch the book through? Where do you get? Like?
Where could people pick it up andstuff? Yeah, that's a really
great question and ask so locally tothe greater metro Atlanta area, there are
some local small business bookstores Read ItAgain Books in the Swanee Johns Creek area
of Georgia is definitely housing it.Cheris and Decatur, Georgia is housing it.

(02:15):
It's also online. You can findit at Target dot com. You
can find it Barnmerical dot us.Yeah, you can find it at hate
to say it, but the Amazon. Right that, we don't want the
small business owners knowing that you know, we do that, but that is
available for those who are interested inthat. Yeah. I mean when I
launched my book, I was conflicted, but then I realized Amazons is like

(02:37):
ninety some percent of the marketplace.So's it's all about helping more people,
right, So if you well wecan fight the machine, it's also like,
you know more, it's going toget a bigger reach to help more
people. So that is correct,and the goal is to help as many
people as possible. Realize that gettinginto therapy after whatever your trauma was is
so necessary for your healing journeys.So you're right, yeah, and that's

(02:57):
how we connected to because another wehave similar stories, but just the trauma
factor and just how we're trying tofind purpose through it, lived through it,
and that's why you ultimately wrote yourbook. So why don't we go
down that reo. Why don't youtell us a little bit about why you
wrote the book and then even youknow a glimpse of it for those that
have not Yeah. Absolutely, Soit wasn't supposed to be a book.

(03:19):
It was actually the close a fullcircle to many many years of therapy that
I had been in to get overthe passing of my entire immediate family.
I unfortunately lost both my parents andmy brother along the way in life,
and I am orphaned now. AndI'm sure anyone out there can imagine,
even if they've lost one person,let alone their entire immediate family, what

(03:39):
that could possibly do to you.After many, many years of therapy and
realizing that I do deserve love,that I do deserve all these things that
I had sort of mentally put onthe back burner or almost just compartmentalized and
claimed that I didn't need your wantin my life right, finally got to
the point where I met a fantasticgentleman. We got married, we have

(04:01):
a son, We built our ownhome, you know, in Atlanta,
and we are a thriving part ofa seemingly thriving Jewish community, which is
wonderful. But to get there,right, to get there and to be
accepting of these things, and bythe way, I'm not not complete,
still very much a broken person.I'll probably be in therapy for the rest

(04:23):
of my life, but I'm okaywith that now because I've started it,
and because the journey is different foreverybody. So I wanted just something written,
not necessarily a book, but amanuscript of some sort to fully close
the circle or the loop or thegap or whatever you want to call it
on that therapy. And what endedup happening is I was at a very

(04:46):
busy point. I own high TalentAcquisition firm, which is a human resources
and recruiting consulting firm in Sandy Springs, Georgia, and we've been in business
for six years. Shameless plug forus. I am this chroo here,
the chief human resources officer. Mybusiness partner, the lovely Veronica Jenkins,
is our CEO. We are blackowned, woman owned, a DVE and

(05:08):
a government contractor. Super proud ofall of those nakes codes there. And
I just was at a point inmy life where work was getting really busy,
but I really wanted to complete thisproject on this manuscript, and so
I worked with a ghostwriter, andthe ghostwriter and I became really good friends.
Now we talk all the time andare involved in each other's lives,

(05:29):
et cetera. But during that process, it took about six months we were
together, we got it written andI was done. At that point,
I was super excited. She askedme, would you mind if I showed
this to a publisher friend of mine, just to get some professional advice.
So I said sure, Oh,well, one showed it to another,
who showed it to another, andbefore I knew it, I had a
few publishers coming to me saying,you need to get this book out there.

(05:51):
This book will help people. AndI thought, oh, well,
it's not me about me anymore.You know, I've done my thing,
I did my full circle on thismanuscript, and you know, I come
to this conclusion in my therapy.Now apparently you have to get it out
there so you can help other people. Yeah, and so it kind of
accidentally became a book, and thatwas exciting. Yeah. So there's some

(06:14):
similarise there with us as far aslike the deserve love, finding love,
like receiving love. And you know, I was always a big giver,
so I totally understand that. Anda lot of listeners who can relate to
our stories can relate to that.And you founders woo therapy, and it
seems writing you didn't say it,but I got a question, and because
I would say, you know,I went through things and and for me,

(06:38):
therapy wasn't the wasn't It works fora lot of people, but just
didn't seem to have the effects forme. But I started writing when I
was in my teenage years. ButI never considered myself a writer, nor
could I write a book. AndI found once I wrote that book,
that was again an accident, becauseit is this, you know. I
went on a mission trip and abuddy encouraged me, and then it turned

(07:00):
into probably the most therapeutic thing Iever did. And then the next step
was reading it like five times,going through my emotional stages. So did
you find that to be Did youfind it to be very therapeutic? The
writing experience and then publishing anthartic?Oh? Yeah, incredibly cathartic. Absolutely.
I can totally relate to what you'resaying because there's so many feelings,
all the fields, right, somany emotions, so many things that you

(07:23):
go through. And like I said, I didn't even expect it to be
a book. It was supposed tobe like a private personal I don't even
know what you want to call project, if you will, like personal pet,
project, whatever you want to callthat, right, and then it
turned into this and now it's outthere and people are actually buying it.
I even got my first royalties checklast week. Oh isn't that the best?

(07:44):
Yeah, yeah, it's insane,Like I don't even feel like I
deserve to be paid for wanting thisto get out there to help others.
But at the same time, yeah, it's nice. Absolutely, it goes
right back into what you've already investedinto it, right, Yeah. I
mean I remember when I was goingthrough the process, like I was so
dull, you'll never get rich offa book per se, maybe the things
that comment, but the book itself, And I was like, well,

(08:05):
that's not the goal, right,like that, The goal was to help,
you know, at least one person, which I could say that,
and I'm sure you can say that. You said you sold out. I
believe, like, didn't you saysomething or something that you sold a bunch,
right, A couple a couple,a couple of the first book events
that I did, right, theysold out? Congratulations, good for you.
Yeah. And if you guys haven'theard it, I don't even think

(08:26):
you mentioned once you mentioned the nameof your book, the title. I
don't know if we mentioned it.Absolutely, so sorry. Yeah, before
I knew it, they were gone. A Jewish first generation American Woman's Journey
through the Darkness. It's a longtitle. No, well, it sounds
like title like my title is purposeue paying and then the subtitle is finding
limitless potential in the presence of adversity, so like it gives more to it.
I think I love titles and subtitles. So no, no, it's

(08:50):
a it's a. I haven't readit, but I have checked it out
and I did the whole Amazon lookthrough, so it's definitely something you guys
should check out, especially you canrelate. I know we have a large
Jewish community here in Rochester, sodefinitely, like for those that are listening,
this would be a great, greatread. So I'll try to make
some connections there. But something elseyou said, you know, you said

(09:11):
you're you're still very much broken.I believe we all are, you know,
I believe we're all. I liketo consider it this and I put
it in my second book, thatwe're all There's a quote I can't remember
what's by. I'm gonna butcher rightnow, but it's basically like we're all
masterpieces but a work in progress.You know, we're all, we're all
perfectly imperfect in a way, likeyou know, we're as long as you're
continually to work on yourself and improveevery day and have self awareness and what

(09:33):
you were doing. So I don'tneed to tell you all that, and
I just always want to remind peoplethat are listening that, like, no
matter are broken you feel. Evenpeople on what you put on a may
put on a you know, apedestal or whatever, they're broken too in
some way and they're just working reallyhard and their works in progress. So
that's awesome. Anything else you liketo share about the book. It's very

(09:56):
close to my heart because it ismy memoir and I love telling people at
forty three years old, yes I'veactually a published author. I wrote my
memoir. And they look at melike you're you're so young, what are
you talking about? And I'm like, you're right, very young in number.
However, quite a bit of lifeexperience in these short four eight three
years, if you will, right, Yeah, you've had a lot of
experience and then you have stories thatand everybody's got a story. And again

(10:20):
I've said this over and over again, just because it worked for me,
it sounds like it worked for her. It doesn't mean you have to write
a book, but it finds somekind of outlet. Could be painting,
could be some form of art Ilook at, right, it could be
dancing expression. Like that's why likeart in various forms of art form are
such a good They're a better releaseand a healthier release, right than you
know, finding other vices. I'mnot saying don't ever drink again, but

(10:41):
I'm just saying these things are away to actually cathotically and therapeutically, like
get through whatever you're dealing with,whatever that might be. And if you
have more of them, if youwrite, dancing and paint, more power
to more of the merrier. Butjust if you're not doing any form.
So such as we get older,we tend to look at those things.

(11:01):
Is I feel like like I stillplay music with my kids from time to
time. I grew up playing drumsand being a percussionist and went to college
and played and I still do itbecause it's a therapeutic outlet. I feel
better after it. So I alwaysencourage people. You know, maybe it's
not writing, but find some kindof artistic and artistic is your definition,
right, So I put it inquotes to with my hands. All right,

(11:22):
let's shift gears. So you've obviouslyhad a successful career. Sounds like
a successful life, especially through theBook and Everything, can share some insight
into how you've overcome challenges and maintaineda thriving mindset, especially as you know
your position with HIVE throughout your journey. Sure, yeah, so the most
important thing to constantly remember is empathy. Empathy plays such a huge part in

(11:43):
anything that you do in life.Right, you don't know what the person
next to you on the train,you don't know what the person next to
you in traffic, you don't knowwherever you are, people are always going
through shit. Part in my language, you really need to be aware of
the fact that you're not the onlyone living in this world. And sometimes
that self awareness can really take youto the next level, to the point
of success or failure in business,success or failure in relationships right and everything.

(12:07):
So part of I feel the successof High Talent Acquisition Firm RHR Consulting
firm is definitely managing and maintaining thoserelationships to the point where people not only
know they can rely on you,but they respect you, They come to
you, they think about you firstamongst all others in that similar craft.
I like to use the word crafta lot too, because I don't have

(12:31):
a creative side as much as Iwish that I actually did as far as
like artistic outlift, et cetera.Except for the journaling and the writing and
things like that. That's creating andyou have, Yeah, it's a little
bit creative, but like I wouldn'tbe able to take a logo and be
like, this is what you needfor your logos. That's not my kind
of creation. Like my producer Scottis creative and does amazing things here in

(12:52):
this rockbox studio here, but Ican't do it. But you think he
does an incredibly creative and there's anothershout out, but I didn't do that
because he's like paying me or there. But he's the best in town.
It's just like, but I wouldn'tconsider myself an audio engineer, but man,
what he's able to do. AndI just look at all the wires
here and I'm like, I don'teven want to start the I'm not going
to watch the YouTube video. I'drather just pay somebody, just like the
contractors over at our house working onour kitchen right now. Like people ask

(13:16):
me, why don't you just dothat yourself? I was like, that
would take me a year of justwatching YouTube videos and then another year of
just sitting in, then a yearof getting yelled at by my wife because
the kitchen's not done. So I'drather just pay somebody in six weeks to
do my kitchen and let their creativejuices flow, you know. So we
have our areas and on that note, it's actually a perfect segue justin to

(13:37):
yielding to the experts, letting thesubject matter experts do what they do best,
right, And that's part of theother success of high talent acquisition firm
is there were very few when wefounded in twenty seventeen, very few HR
consulting firms in the greater Metro Atlanticarea doing what we did. Let alone
in the United States. We dowork nationally and so we've had the opportunity

(13:58):
to get involved with a lot ofdifferent types of environments but all over the
country. And that is partly becausethere's a certain human aspect to human resources
that has been missing for many,many years. But bring it. That's
interest. You say there's a humanaspect missing, but continue, Yeah,
Yeah, that human aspect that's missingis literally picking up the phone or getting

(14:18):
on a plane and then reaching outto that client base. Right. Our
clients know who we are, notjust by you know, seeing our picture
on LinkedIn, but because they actuallyrecognize us. Like I happen to have
red hair right now, that's likesuper trendy, but it's not my actual
hair color. But for example,people will know that about me. Oh
Dana changed her hair, you didn'tknow, or oh Dana's wearing this today,

(14:41):
you haven't seen her yet. Likethey know what we look like because
we interact with them, and wemake it a point to say we're here
for you. We're offering these services, and we may or may not be
local to you, but I'm goingto get on Zoom and talk to you
if you're in California and we've gota three hour time change, right or
I'm going to get on whatever yourplatform of choice is, not just on
the phone, not just text messages, and definitely not just via email.

(15:01):
Communication. As far as those relationshipsis so cute. Yeah, And I
would say, I mean you mentionedat the beginning how you were women own,
you're black owned, you're Jewish.The diversity there, and I would
say that's unique as well, andjust representation how big it is, but
also just being aware, like,for example, people that don't know me,
don't know. My wife's black andhaving biracial kids, and it's given

(15:26):
me a perspective that I never gotto grow up in things that I've learned,
and just when you're in that environmentthat people may not understand, especially
from hr, especially from hiring,especially in the climate like that. So
talk a little bit about that,just having that as like who you are,
having that opportunity, and just beingout there for that population as well.

(15:48):
Absolutely, I mean yeah, ourwhole name and the whole reason we
founded high We were founded on thedei aspects that have become so wildly popular
since the pandemic, but we werefounded before the panic in twenty seventeen.
My business partner and I her beingyou know, identifying as black and also
honestly, I'm not outing her becauseeveryone knows, but identifying as a lesbian

(16:08):
as well and married at one pointand they had a child together. I
mean, regular family right like tous, we don't see any difference there.
It's just people living their lives andwe're a part of each other's lives.
We are living, walking, breathingbillboards for what we air quotes preach
over here right at five and ifyou look at my LinkedIn profile, for

(16:30):
example, people often comment and whetherthey're positive, negative, or just sort
of neutral in between. Often commenton the fact that my rainbow flag is
still up, you know, onmy LinkedIn profile picture all year round.
And I said, well, yeah, because we're we support queer all year
over here for example. Right,it's a fun little one liner. Yeah,
I mean, I was just talkingto my wife about this, like

(16:51):
Black History Month. Yeah, it'sa month, but like we should just
love all year along, right,like you should's whatever cause you support.
It shouldn't be a one day,one month, you know. I mean
you see it from people who supportveterans to whatever you're passionate about your cause,
but it just should be a threeor sixty five day thing of just
caring about people like no matter whothey are. And I love that.
I agree with you. Yeah,I love what you just said there.
That's such a great, great thing. So you kind of mentioned on COVID,

(17:15):
did that affect you guys in anyway positively? Negatively? First negatively,
but then the outcome was quite positive. So like many small businesses and
probably nonprofit arena people were not inthe nonprofit but I'm just trying to think
of others that were probably vastly immediatelyaffected by the pandemic shutdown, right,
I would say that first week ofMarch we were like, oh, things

(17:38):
are happening. By the second weekof March, every single one of our
government contracts had been unfortunately taken backby those government entities, and then by
the third week of March, almostour entire business, as far as HR
consulting, which was at that timepre pandemic, we were more twenty five
percent consulting, five percent recruiting asfar as our business was concerned, and

(18:03):
the revenue coming in, and thatrecruiting part by that third week of March
was completely gone, like zero work. Everyone had taken back everything that they
wanted us to be working on becausethey didn't know what was going to happen.
So we had to pivot fast.The current client base that we had
needed us for these HR consulting reasons, they had no idea what was going
on with PPP loans, et cetera, et cetera. So we did a

(18:25):
one eighty and really started marketing ourneeds immediately to our client base first to
make sure that they understood and wordof mouse sort it started taking place.
Oh just pull hive, they knowwhat they're doing. Yeah, turned into
a whole thing where we needed tostart our marketing campaigns and make that pivot
adjustment there as well, to thepoint where then we became seventy five percent

(18:45):
HR consulting and really only twenty fivepercent talent. And that's actually been a
nice switch for both of us.Yeah, from that perspective. Yeah,
I mean, you briefly talk aboutit, but how'd you guys come up
with the name hib or where didit come from? Super cute? Actually,
both my business partner and I andvarious parts of our lives were known
as queen bees. I'm a QueenBee to some Parisian cousins of mine,

(19:07):
and she's Queen Bee with some ofthe various grips that she's in and she
at the time, and she mayeven still be using it. Am I
sorry to out her again. Mybusiness partner is sort of allergic to life.
We talk about her needing to beliving in a bubble. Just keep
her. She's not here, soyou got to bring her up right,
Yeah, I know, but it'snot bad things. I just, you
know, I feel like I'm tellingher life story without her being here to
laugh at it or at least approved, So I always get to let nervous

(19:29):
about that. But she actually isthe one who sort of came up with
high because she was using a honeybody wash at the time, and I
was like, you know what,that's a really great idea, and I've
just sort of came together. Itjust made sense. Hive is life.
We need honey, we need thebees. We know, like you know
everything. Man. I was justreading a thing about like how almond milk
has taken over and how that's affectingthe bees and everything, and so is

(19:51):
it not to get off topic,but it's just like they're important part of
life, So you're very important.So much better that I drink coconut milk
and not almond milk. And likeI've been telling people very very passionately,
but also trying to kind of notbe that bitch using that right like empathy,
why yeah, but also letting peopleknow you've got to be really careful

(20:12):
with your owmens these days. Andthey just kind of look at me like
I'm crazy. So I'm in thecocon milk fam not because I've been drinking
coconut milk for a year. Sothis is totally off Celtic, but it's
very important to hell. So it'sstriving. I started drinking Coconu milk.
I became lactose intolerant, and Ireally didn't like to taste of all of
milk, and then it was actuallybothering me. And then I realized a

(20:33):
lot of nuts just bother me,and cocon and mug is the only thing
that I can drink that gives mea similarity to milk that doesn't bother me,
and I just think it tastes better. So and then I found out
about the almuds, like Tame Arnoldover here already doing it, but you
know, and and for those thathave like any kind of like ibs gut
issues and still want like some milk, I direct my clients to that because

(20:56):
from a like inflammatory standpoint, it'sit's probably one of the lowest outside of
like I'm on, I'll be honest, like people are gonna just drink water
all day, Like it's just notrealistics giving me to make water exciting for
years, right, Yeah, they'retrying to flavor it, but those sometimes
can be worse than just that.And yeah, I get I get,

(21:17):
I get a non like a likea on what do you call it?
No sugar addative like vanilla coconut milk, and I love it. Yeah,
that's my choice, little extract.Yeah, I forget. I think it's
so coconut or whatever. The onesthat make the yogurt and the ice cream,
I think, I just yeah,so delicious there you. I just

(21:37):
they do not promote this show,I probably have to say, but they're
so good. That's what I drinkare getting. I would totally have them
as a sponsor for this show becausethey are so delicious. See this,
this segment is brought to you bySo Delicious incorrectly I loves. Please send

(22:02):
us free samples. There you go, there you go, and send it
all my guests. So, soyou talk about on your website, and
I'm sure you talk about it onyour book because those are correlator as well,
and just by looking around you talkabout just you know, thriving especially
through things and all aspects of life. So how do these areas in insurrect
and intersect and what advice do youhave for you know, our listeners are

(22:25):
cheap balance and areas from mentally,physically, emotionally, and those areas it's
a good one. It's a goodone. Okay. So I'm going to
be real with everybody for a second, and I'm going to say I did
not used to be like this,But I am an avid daily meditator and
manifestor. I used to not belike this, like I said. And
actually, when my mother was stillalive and going through her own cancer battle,

(22:48):
she stopped the chemo treatments, theradiation, all of the stuff that
was chemical based, and decided toembark on her own type of mental treatment,
which was literally spending three, four, sometimes even five plus hours a
day meditating by going inside her bodyto fight her own cancer. And as

(23:10):
an angsty teenager, I honestly thoughtthis was a total bunch of shit,
a too bunch of crap. Iwas not really impressed with any of this
until I saw the pictures. Okay, when she showed me the photo of
the before and after of the tumor, she had me because the before was
obviously a very angry, large,scary looking type situation, and the after

(23:32):
was mild and small and seemingly insignificantin a good way. Granted, she
realized she wanted to live some lifebefore losing life. And she didn't want
to meditate that many hours a day, and so that was in the end
the decision personally that she had tomake, right, And so everyone makes
their own decisions. But what Iwill say is meditation from the perspective of

(23:55):
even starting off blindly and not knowingwhat you're doing and just sort of feeling
your way through to you know,some some sort of level of and I'm
not going to say that I believeor don't believe in it. I'm just
going to say some sort of levelof Doctor Strange esque type, leaving your
body, you know, all ofthat sort of greater good. I think
when you get to the point whereyou can actually find comfort in anything,

(24:17):
it makes you feel better and it'snot bad for you. Right. So
I'm not talking about vices like smoking, drinking, drug sex, self sabotage,
but certainly talking about the things thatare positive for you. I do
strongly believe that if you can findcomfort in any of those things, then
they're doing their part. They're doingwhat's right for you. Yeah, and
you're talking true comfort, Like wecould say that people, oh, I

(24:40):
need a drink after a long day. You mentioned that, and they have
recently more recently found like we know, you know alcohol is a toxin,
it actually can long term effect yourhormones and sleep cycles. And they've been
finding this for years, but evenmore recently, like how it actually increases
your stress level. So it's reallynot comforting you, and I must say,
don't do it again. It's justbecause I have an occasional cocktail.

(25:03):
So this isn't judgment, this isjust fact and finding true comfort. In
fact, I talk a lot aboutinfected it in a podcast episode because so
I wrote a chapter about finding comfortthrough discomfort for because people. I don't
know about your experience, but Ididn't used to meditate for the longest time.
In fact, it was very uncomfortableto quiet the mind, to calm,
like it was just it just youknow, for people that have experienced

(25:26):
trauma and different types of like especiallychildhood pain and things like that I've experienced
and potentially you've experienced. You know, it's hard because you want to you
know, you don't realize it,but subconsciously, when you're dealing still working
through things, it's it's like youwant a busy mind, you want to
stay active, you always want todo stuff. So that was hard but
I'm with you, and in fact, you know, I know it's funny

(25:48):
that this topic comes up pretty regularlyon here. For the people that are
striving and like all aspects of theirlife, but there's still of course works
and progress is they find daily meditation. And and for those that meditate,
who I used to think it waslike hippie stuff, but I realize it's
so beneficial. I do it multipletimes a day, and I tell people
that, don't you know, youknow, if you meditate regularly, there's

(26:10):
a saying goes it's like then youprobably just need five percent minutes a day.
If you never meditate, you needto meditate at least an hour,
like just to tell you, likehow important it is you need it like
those that avoid it, and Ijust it looks different for everybody. For
me, I do it usually,you know, like I do it in
a cold tub in the morning.So sometimes I need like stimulation. I've
got like an acupuncture matt that Ilay on sometimes. So sometimes it's something

(26:33):
like that if you need to listento bite neural beats. But I just
always encourage people to find it becauseyou set it right there, it gives
you, like true comfort you know, to be able to you know,
and it's so simple. And that'swhat I tell people in the health like
that aren't in the health sector,like me, Like the things that people
need to be doing are actually reallyso simple, you know, we just
don't. We've gotten away from it. They're like to somebody, get out

(26:53):
of nature, play, move free, meditate, you know, eat real
food. If you can't have alittle farm or garden if it's within your
capacity, or even something of thatnature, because you know, the closest
to the realist thing, you're goingto be better mentally and physically. Anything
else on the mental, spiritual,physical health side that you're doing to just

(27:15):
thrive or encourage people to do.It's very challenging. But I try to
read energy around me as best aspossible, and I'm really not that good
at it. And it's a separateform. So I know, we just
talked about the meditation. Everything isenergy, right, but we're all made
up of electra electromagnetic or whatever it's. You know, we've got energy,
energy flowing all around us, theforce, if you want to call it

(27:37):
that. Right from the perspective,and certainly not trying to get religious or
say that anyone is it does itmore or better than anyone else. I
think all of us have the capacity. It's being self aware. Right,
So, just as we were talkingabout before with needing a drink or wanting
a smoke or whatever the case maybe, no judgments. If you need,
want whatever, those things fine,but don't utilize them from the perspective

(28:00):
of not understanding that they are fillinga space. They are going to not
fill that space. You will remainthe empty hole in that particular thing that
you're trying to fill with said vices. Right, So instead of allowing them
to be the thing that gives youcomfort, utilize them being self aware by
saying, I know this sig isn'tgoing to do it for me, but

(28:21):
I just need it in this moment, and I will be better in a
second from other things, right,And that's fine. The self awareness is
the most important first step in myopinion. And I used to do the
same thing. And I talk aboutself sabotage a lot in the book filling
space and filling time because I didn'tlike you and I and you said so
eloquently earlier, justin I don't Idon't want to be alone with my thoughts

(28:42):
I don't want to be alone with, you know whatever. Getting comfortable with
that can take a really long time, depending on what that trauma that you
suffered or traumas that you've suffered areor work. Once you get to the
point where you can get more comfortablewith that, and it could be various
things that could get you to thatpoint, drinking, drugs, hallucinogenics,
whatever the case may be. Again, no judgments, but once you get

(29:04):
to that point, you won't needthose things anymore to feel comfort because you
will be filling that space with somethingmore meaningful than you could ever meagine.
Yeah, and that and that's health. And if people did that, you
know, who knows, Like I'veknown people that have done that. They
were like on different kind as likeantidepressants and medication and they were having different
side effects and then they switched overto just meditation. It was a hard

(29:26):
battle, but they're they're either haveThese are clients that have had that have
either gotten completely off, which isamazing, or just even decreased the amount,
which is another cool thing. Andit just shows, like you know,
it's not always I can't say that'sgoing to happen with everybody. You
know, but just it's worth atry, right because it's free, and

(29:47):
I like what you said there aboutit. It's you know, these things
aren't filling space. So it justthinks about like what are you filling your
space with? And I love yourposition, Like we already introduced who you
are and what you do. Andso for somebody like her to be talking
about this, you know, thiscan this will you know have an effect?
Yeah, mentally emotionally, but notjust personally professionally. And I think
of if you just you know,during your work day, Like my wife

(30:10):
went from working in the news tobeing in the corporate world and uh,
it's a go go go now she'snot used to, like she realized she
had did have some downtime even onthe hours her words, not mine,
sucked in the news getting up atlike four am, or working weird hours
and working you know in those timezones. But now you know she works

(30:32):
a normal like you know, eightto four and nine to five type thing,
but she's on call and there's likecall up to call after call,
so sometimes she doesn' get a breakfor lunch, and so she has to
found that downtime and she sees andwe've had conversation like this. She sees
why people in the corporate world canrevert to vices and things of that sort.
She just, you know, likeshe'll have a cocktail on the weekends

(30:53):
and you know, occasionally, butit's just she's realized she's needed this downtime.
She really said she would go crazy, and so she's grateful for it
and thankful. So I'm just sharingthat too for somebody that's in that world
that I'm witnessing. So man,So, speaking of career, you know
and the people you work with,I think, can you share some success
stories from your career or where you'veseen individuals push through challenges and come out

(31:18):
stronger on the other end? Ohyeah, absolutely. So I talk a
lot and my business partner and Iconsult a lot with woman owned, female
owned businesses, especially in the GreatEventro Atlanta area. A lot of them
are black female owned businesses, right, I mean, black female entrepreneurship is
really truly the foundation of Atlantic culture. And so that was one of the

(31:41):
reasons why we felt so strongly aboutmaking sure that we reached out to other
companies that were similarly what's the wordI'm looking for, similarly labeled as we
are right that they see themselves aswoman owned specifically, or black owned woman
owned specifically, or a dB disadvantagedbusiness entity for example, right, and
wanting to explore that and turning itinto the fact that all of us have

(32:06):
very similar positive and negative and learningcurves for what we've done. I mean,
I will say, watching a blackowned, woman owned business go from
one hundred thousand dollars in revenue intheir first year to a million dollar company
under our two I don't want tosay tutelage, right, but it kind
of under our support system of makingsure that they had a back office and

(32:30):
the appropriate tools necessary for their youknow, advancement and their success. Man,
that there is where we got intothis. I'm bat that's pretty cool.
Like, you know, so Iassume, I know there's a lot
of leaders that listen to this podcastand you deal with them. So what
are some essential qualities or habits thateffective leaders possess? You know? How
can an individual cultivate these traits intheir own lives? Yeah, So what

(32:53):
we're pushing a lot these days inthe same family of the empathy side is
empathetic leader. It's there's a differencebetween the stick and carrot mentality. Right,
here's my stick with my carrot onit, and if everybody follows and
does what I say, you'll getthis reward, which is a total bunch
of bullshit. We would prefer themore trust and entirely for you. Yeah,

(33:17):
yeah, I just did right.I was very really up there from
that perspective, because this is thetrue difference is everyone knows you can read
as many books as you want.You can have some white, corporate,
old white dude tell you right whatthis means to you. But the reality
of it is, I'm a semiyoung Jewish woman with a black business partner
who happens to be a lesbian workingin Atlanta, and we're kicking button taking

(33:39):
names. You want to talk tous, great, you don't want to
talk to us, that's also fine, right, but we will tell you
no longer are the stick and carrotleadership days. That is a boss,
a boss marking orders from on high. Right, you have to come into
a room with your team and youhave to say what's important to you today.
Okay, great, you're going tolead that. And I want to,

(34:00):
you know, want to be hereto support you. Tell me what
you need, how many people youneed on that, et cetera, et
cetera. Put it out there,support it, and naturally allow your leadership
to rise to the top. Asis not everybody's meant to be a leader.
So the ones who stand out aregoing to be the ones that you're
going to help cultivate. The oneswho maybe aren't sure yet, you're going
to continue to employee develop them tomake sure they're getting what they need,

(34:22):
so on and so forth. Andthis is not new, but it certainly
is considered the newest way of doingthings, if you will, in this
day and age, right as faras business is concerned, as far as
leadership is concerned, and there's ahuge difference again between being a boss and
being a leader. A boss willbart orders from on high, as I

(34:43):
said, will stand and make otherpeople feel insignificant and adequate right just to
get what they want done right,whereas a leader will make sure that they
understand that they're not perfect and thatthey make mistakes. I am not winning
any parenting awards in my personal life. For example, my son ate a
cupcake for dinner last night. Fuckit, Like, what am I going
to do? You know? It'shis birthday weekends. I mean, he's

(35:04):
not having one tonight, right,but his birthday was Saturday, So I'm
not going to argue that's one mostargument. Have your cupcake for dinner,
right, like whatever? Yeah,it's the cupcake every day for breakfast,
lunch, and dinner that we needto like talk about. But if it's
like, yeah, we have alittle discussion. Yeah, if he's sneaking
cupcakes into his room or like hey, I'm going to go to the store
after and he's bringing home like atwelve pack, like we have to have

(35:25):
a conversation. But yeah, it'slike what conversation about how diabetes were whatever?
Like it's your household. Yeah,you're approaching I like that. I
don't know if I've heard the StickingCare, but obviously I know what you're
talking about, and everybody does that. You're you're talking about the little I
think it was the last guy justrecently, the one I just posted.
I talked to a business owner andhe referred to if you take care of

(35:46):
your people, how to take careof you and and and he worked for
people that were like sticking Cared.He he's a he owns a local chimney
cleaning building like it's a chimney companyand it's pretty cool. But he's worked
for a lot of different contractors andwhen he got into it, he was
just a lot of people told him, you're not gonna be able to do
this, You're not can real thatand just how it was like a stick

(36:07):
and caret mentality was a boss andhe just realized because he been through a
lot, he'd been through addiction,he'd you know, I met him because
I was his coach trainer and everything, because he'd he'd fallen off a roof
and wheelchair round and thought he wasgonna be there for life. He's not,
but he's gotten out of it.Yeah, yeah, and he was.
And when he did that, helost his job. He was like

(36:28):
losing everything. And now he runslike a multimillion dollar business all because he
used like his adversity and the thingsagainst him and just what he learned from
bad bosses essentially and turned it intolike being a good boss. And he
realized this, man, if Itake care of my people, take care
of my clients, it's still work. It's still not easy, but it's
easier and it's easier to deal withdaily because they can have real communication,

(36:50):
conversation. And you didn't say quitelike that, but it sounds like essentially
similar in the way of just youknow, how you treat your people being
a leader, being a developer,providing tools, Right, you know what
do that be, whether it becontinue education and things like that, anything
else you want to share on that. I mean, I would say the
stick and carrot thing is also identifiedby command and control, right, And

(37:14):
when you have controlling and overly controllingleaders, there's a problem there when you
have people who don't understand delegation andthe fact that being a good delegator of
work is also part of employee development. It helps build character, it helps
build natural leadership, It helps peopleto understand what it looks like to progress,

(37:34):
and you're giving people small wins alongthe way, which makes me feel
so damn good, right, Likethat is great leadership. Yeah, and
so you already mentioned somebody how canwhat are some other ways organizations can create
a positive and supportive culture that enablestheir employees to thrive personally Higher high talent
acquisition firms to come in and assessyour current culture promotion. But yeah,
you guys, I mean I alreadytalked about it, so Yeah, there

(37:55):
you go. She can help youout. So your experience as a talent
acquisition gives you any insight into careerdevelopment. What advice do you have for
individuals looking to make meaningful progress inthe professional lives, especially during challenging times
career transitions. Yeah, so it'sa tough time. It's a tough time
in so many different industries and arenasright now, right, I'm not even
going to sugarcoat that, but whatI'm going to say to everybody is,

(38:17):
if you don't have the capacity toreach out to us, you can find
some other recruiter that you can developa relationship with, right, or some
other agency that you can develop arelationship with, And you've got to make
sure of several things they understand andknow your worth and value walking in the
door, Right, That is farmore important if somebody's in there trying to

(38:37):
tell you, oh, well,I see that you're asking for seventy five
thousand, or one hundred and seventyfive thousand, or five hundred and seventy
five thousand, But you need tounderstand this isn't going to happen. That's
not somebody you want to work with. You want somebody who's going to feed
those those opportunities and feed those goalsfor you? Right now? I admit
that I do help people understand whatthe Atlanta market or whatever market we're working

(39:00):
in. The trends are right,but that doesn't mean that they're right right.
And so this day and age,for example, Atlanta and the Southeast
in general, as far as theregion of the United States of America,
used to be a little less expensivethan it currently is. I mean,
right now, you can't come toAtlanta and find a one bedroom, one
bathroom apartment for under eighteen hundred dollars, which seems pretty normal probably for someone

(39:21):
in New York and probably someone inCalifornia, but not so much here in
the South. It's kind of newin the last literally two or three years
that this has happened. And whatis happening there? A smart HR and
talent person would say, well,clearly it's not just inflation. Clearly the
times they are a change in andso getting the word out in a particular
city that's having a transition as faras quality and quantity of work, life

(39:45):
balance and inflationary periods in time.Now you've got to start telling people,
including my clients or people who wantto work with five. They need to
understand if you're not offering bare minimumsixty thousand dollars salary, it's not a
Liverpool wage in your city. Andwe have people come to us all day
every day trying to work with us. Well we're offering commission only, and

(40:05):
I'm like, well, we can'twork with you because I can't sell that
to anyone because nobody in this dayand age is going to take a commission
only opportunity. And I'm sorry tosay that so generalistically. Obviously there are
people out there, but you wantto make you want to find somebody who's
going to stay in that role,and I'm telling you I'm not going to
be able to find anybody who's goingto be interested in that opportunity, right,
yeah, yeah, And that makessense. I mean I would assume

(40:30):
commission would maybe be like small smallbusiness, or you know, maybe it's
a salary plus commission. But yeah, like I totally get it, because
you know, people especially like yousaid, in the climate, and with
their with their uh what they're needingto just especially if they got kids or
whatever their life looks like. Atthat point, I was just still stuck

(40:50):
on Like I was thinking, whenI lived in Kentucky, I had a
nice kind of for like eight hundredbucks A month after I had that same
place here where I live in Rochester, it would be like three times some
munch. I was like, causeI get what you're saying. I lived
in so I've lived in Kentucky,I've lived in Illinois, I've lived here
in New York. I will saythere is a difference, though I don't
know about Atlanta. I've been through. I've been in Atlanta several times as
a beautiful city, so they mightbe the exception of the rule. But

(41:13):
I remember in Kentucky, even inLexington, where I live, which is
a bigger area, like we mighteverything might have been cheaper, but you
know what else, the roads sucked, traffics on there's a lot of like
given day late there wasn't much adoeither. Like here, you know,
say kind of taxes are higher,but we've got a lot in the roads
except for our winners. And Scott'sprobably like way what about April Mage,
Our roads get pretty bad. Butanyway, so you talked a lot of

(41:37):
professionally, like you've offered a lotof value with tips professionally and the things
that you guys do, and youeven offered some things that you do personally.
Do you guys or ladies? Sorry, I apologize, Do you ladies
like help people while helping them ona professional level, do you help them
on the personal level at all,especially like with your book and everything.
That's a good question. So Idefinitely don't tell the book when I'm dealing

(41:59):
with individuals if they asked me aboutit, yes, But yeah, I
definitely don't tout the book because tome, it's a personal experience. Right
If you're coming to me and youwant advice on a resume, and you
don't know me from Eve, andI start coming at you with my book
that seems awfully salesy and then becomesmaybe a little too impersonal for that person,

(42:19):
Like that's not what I'm here totalk to you about. Right,
But I am a big relationship developerslash maintainer. Right. I develop the
relationship, I continue to develop itin order to maintain it for a long
period of time. There are veryfew people in my over eleven thousand connections,
for example on LinkedIn that I couldn'tactually personally introduce you to. And
yes, that is a lot ofhard work. But part of that also

(42:43):
is the fact that relationships matter tome. They always have and they always
will. And I'm not saying andthere's no judgment on people who have even
more connections than I do, whodon't necessarily know all of their connections,
No judgment, just simply stating,if it really matters to you, then
you're going to make that happen.Right. That's anything in life, Like,

(43:04):
let's be honest, right, Soit really matters to you to get
to know people, to understand them, and to truly help them. Sometimes
just pushing the book on them isn'tthe way to help them. No,
Yeah, yeah, I mean sometimesjust having a conversation. You know.
I heard somebody say he's a publicspeaker, and that's an avenue that I'm
looking to grow in my life.But he said he was asked, or

(43:25):
what are you thinking about? Orthe person before he's going on stage,
somebody asked him what are you thinkingabout? Are you thinking about your speech?
What's going on in your mind rightnow before you step on? And
he said, I'm thinking about thepeople. It's like, what I'm thinking
about the people out there? I'mnot I was like, I have nothing
I can work on five minutes beforeI go on stage. But it's all
about the people. How can Ihelp the people? How can I serve
the people? How can I lovethe people? And you touched on that

(43:49):
and I just I just believe that'ssuper important. And it goes back to
what I just said, when youtake care of your people, and and
same thing like at the end ofthe day, like what are you offering
and what are these companies offering totake care of their people or what are
the people that you're working with offeringto help improve because it needs to be
a symbiotic relationship. It sounds like, you know, we're all mutually benefiting
and helping and growing together. Sodoes I'm curious, does I think I

(44:14):
saw somebody want to ask if youdo and what do you guys do?
Do you guys do anything philanthropic forthe community? Yeah, we sure do.
I thought you did, so Iwanted to bring that up because that's
super important too. Really Yeah,so pre pandemic and then obviously not during
the pandemic, but then after thepandemic, we were considered a little more
free to be able to do that, so we partner with Cholah, which

(44:35):
is Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, right, So Children's Healthcare is everywhere. I
think that's the main umbrella, andthen the Atlanta Mark We do a lot
with them over the holidays where wego in, we volunteer with the children's
words, whether they are I honestlydon't even know what the correct term is
to say here, but different levelsof trauma, right, and working with

(45:01):
those particular children on arts and crafts, right, just having an opportunity just
sitting in the arts and crafts area, and then the kids will come down
and they know that we're there andwe interact with them, or we don't
interact, or whatever the case maybe, whatever it is they want,
just providing opportunities there. I amalso personally very active in the Atlantic community
from the perspective of my Temple.I am actually as of June first officially

(45:24):
co president of my Temple and TempleCan Help Springs, and so our three
initiatives this year are social justice specificto anti Semitism, and education around Judaism
in general and anti Semitism. Andso that is one of the ways that
I'm trying to give back to mycommunity as best as possible, not just
the Jewish community because I know Isaid anti Semitism, but everyone, because

(45:49):
hate, no matter who is beinghated on, is an everyone problem.
Right. If they're hating on Jews, they're coming after you know, African
Americans, they're coming after Asians,They're coming after LGBTQ, plus, they're
coming after every marginalized people you canimagine. So we might as well all
bridge together to make sure that wedon't have to deal with that alone.
So I'm part of this organization.So I live in a town called IRONICOI,

(46:10):
which is basically right outside Rochester.It's all Rochester, uh and and
so I'm part of this community.This organization called One Ironikoid, it's part
of the our town supervisor created it, and he asked me to be on
this board. He's got representation ofpretty much everything. Any When he wasn't
sure, he's like, what elsedo I need to represent? ARONDIKOI to

(46:32):
represent so LGBTQ, black, youknow, white, all all, you
know a little bit of everything.That's cool. There's about I want to
say a dozen or so of us. Anyways, we had we get well,
there's things that we do, butthere's also we have presentations once a
month where somebody comes in. Anda couple months ago, month, three

(46:52):
months ago, we had a womanfrom uh I free the name of the
organization, but it's basically a localJewish organization here in Rochester and she she
actually said, they're trying to getaway Have you heard this? They're trying
to get away of the word antiSemitism. Have you heard this? She
was talking about Jewish hate hate,Yes, okay, yeah, yeah.

(47:14):
I just want to bring that becauseI want people to be aware that that
is starting to and when she saidit, it made sense right away before
she explained it. And then sheexplained it. But do you want to
explain that? Just for those thathave never heard this, I would love
for you to do that. Oh, I would love you to start and
then I can fill in the blanksif that's okay, Okay, that's fine.
Yeah. So it's just getting aroundthe idea. What she was talking
about was well, I remember shetalked about like where the word came from,

(47:37):
and that was part of it,and then she was just talking to
them, Yeah did have you heardthat part? I don't remember, man,
I feel so horrible, but Iremember exactly why I took notes and
I don't have in front of me. But I didn't know this was I
should have thought that this would havecome up, Like why didn't I think
this is going to come out?But it was just yeah, because it
makes more sense too, because let'stell it what it is. If anything,

(47:59):
let's just tell it what it is. It's hateful htiqicate words, propaganda,
whatever it is against the Jewish community. And and but there was some
definition to Semitism where it came fromthat they wanted to get away from that,
and it just you know, wecan identify it, you know,
like we could black hate or gayhate or whatever it might be. Just

(48:19):
that it's it's hateful rhetoric or postersor whatever it might be, is essentially
what she was expressing. Yeah,there's just yeah, okay. So the
interesting thing about moving away from antiSemitism is also very difficult to define.
And one of the things that isa huge struggle in the United States is
a whole right now, and grantedthere is a new definition, it has

(48:40):
just not yet been accepted by afew lingering states, and unfortunately Georgia is
one of those. But we arehoping that this new anti semitism definition.
Will this bill will pass in Georgiasoon, awesome? Like I said,
it's passed quite a few other statesand some that may potentially surprise others that

(49:05):
have beaten others as far as that. But in reality, what it is
is a true definition to fully understandthe hate coming from whoever it's coming from,
how it is said, how itis it expressed, and so that
collegiate and university institutions of the Statescan be sure to prevent their Jewish students

(49:29):
from feelings so isolated and so compounded. With these feelings. Right there's a
lot of antisemitism and a lot ofJewish hate on campuses all over the country,
lit alone, all over the worldright now. But some of these
states have adopted this new definition specificallyso that these students can feel safer,

(49:52):
which is hugely helpful in the places, for example, like Georgia where they
have not yet adopted it. Thingslike on fourteenth, which was Mother's Day,
Emory University, I'm going to getin so much trouble for this.
Emory University had a Palestinian Students andBlack Students organizational discussion that they put together

(50:13):
that was basically veiled Jewish hate.The second sentence, the keynote speaker,
who is a very very well knowntenured professor with Farvard with five degrees,
two of them, I think,being in law. Her second sentence and
I quote was Jews are responsible forPalestinian dex And so that really shocked me
to hear something like that complete outloud. And the people I was sitting

(50:36):
with as I literally was about tostan upa go no, right, sit
down, Dana, there's more.Trust me, you want to hear all
of this right, And we werethere for hours, choosing to be there
for hours on Mother's Day, HappyMothers Day to us to identify that this
was in fact a veiled sort ofanti Semitic issue. And Emory, as
you may or may not know,actually a ton of Jewish students from the

(50:59):
greater New York and Northeast come downand are students at Emory. So that
was very interesting. Yeah, SoI look something up and if I remember
now what she said, it wasactually like a racial term or something like
that. And there was a pamphlet. So this this thing that I looked
up and talked about in eighteen seventynine pamphlet by a German publicist, the

(51:21):
Way to Victory of Germanism over Judaism, and he used the term and then
it became very popular during that andyeah, so and even apologized for it.
But yeah, it was originally alsoused in seventeen eighty one to to
find the language related to the Hebrews, and so it had like a little

(51:42):
bit of racial tone to it.So that's why I believe the history of
it. Actually I'm not comparing itto but I think she said something it's
like a comparing it to a racialblack term, even though it might define
it, but it's that's part ofthe reason it has. It has hate
kind of mixed the history of it. Anyways, the history of it.
It doesn't actually mean it, butthe history of it has hate in it.
And I think that was if I'mcorrect now that I remember what she

(52:07):
was saying. Well, as weget near here to the end, So
is there anything I got asked thisquestion, what are you guys working on?
Is there anything that you Oh?Wait, there was one thing I
was you talked about arts and crafts, and there was something cool about that
that you guys are doing with thethat's so important In fact, there's a
statistic about how they're starting to introducearts and crafts into certain penitentiaries and prisons

(52:27):
and things, and they're having hugesuccess on inmates on like less I don't
want to say this better behavior andalso early release and less return to prison
just by doing more because they're findingThe reason why I started doing this is
because I started finding a lot ofthese the creativeness and a lot of criminals

(52:49):
in our today's prison just didn't havea creative outlet growing up, and so
they won't to release it. Andthere's some studies that have showed when you
don't have the ability to release yourcreativity, you release it in other ways
and things of that sort. SoI think that's great that you're doing that,
But any that, I wanted tomention that because it's so important what
you're doing and I love that you'redoing that, So I just wanted to
applaud you and bring that up.So, what are some of the goals

(53:10):
that you guys are working towards inspiration, whether be you or what do you
guys got in plans or whether itbe HIVE in the near future. YEAHHI
have a study. We did starta new division last year. I think
it was last year, might evenbe two years now. I don't even
know where we are. The paymenthas really done that to everyone, right,
yeah, yeah, yeah, it'sjust sort of like they disappear.

(53:31):
So I apologize for that. ButI think two years now we've had a
new division within Hive that is sortof an entertainment arena, and funny enough,
people are probably going, there's nohuman resources in the entertainment arena,
and you're right. So that's whywe are trying very very easily and express
a lot of the things in there. With the me Too movement having done
what it is doing still currently,thank goodness, there's just a lot of

(53:54):
room for policy and procedure to beput in place in very ways in the
entertainment and music industries, as faras labels, as far as incubator projects
are concerned. So that's been veryexciting there and a huge breakthrough personally.
I would like to say that Ibecause of the book and sort of around

(54:16):
the book, a speaking circuit hassort of taken off, and I am
booked through twenty twenty four. Thankyou, thank you, very awesome with
openings of course, so if anybodywants me or needs me to speak,
we will make it happen. Butit's been very awesome. And I'll shamelessly
plug my alma mater, Agnes ScottCollege, the private women's college Indicator Georgia
and state that as soon as theyfound out that I had published my book,

(54:38):
they were coming to me and wantingto know, Great, what are
we doing, how, what arewe happening? What speaking engagements do you
need from us? Right, whichsort of then has has flown into other
opportunities and specifically, like talk aboutreally specific. I'm speaking around the country
to various women's collegiate athletic teams ofvarious levels and divisions. So division one,

(55:04):
two, and three. I happento play three sports at Agnes Scott
while I was there, soccer,basketball, and softball, but that was
Division three. But nevertheless, stillamazing many sports in college is great.
Yeah, who cares what division itis if you go to college and play
a sport like I played soccer too. But you're incredible, So that's awesome,
You're sweet, Thank you incredible.But I think one of the things

(55:27):
that we're sort of relaying and relatingon is people, not just women.
It has sort of turned into moreof a female thing for me as far
as the people who are attending,but people at the collegiate level and also
involved in sports of all the gendersare not well. They're just not well
right now. There's a huge mentalhealth just deficiency these days from everything that

(55:51):
everyone is going through. And Ithink that's why the speaking circuit is taking
off, is we can relate toeach other. It is very challenging in
life when you've lost a parent ora sibling or your entire family or whoever
whatever you've been through to identify withothers who haven't. And I do talk
about that in my book, andI bet you two can relate to that

(56:13):
as well. Yeah, I meanyour story's different, but mine was.
You know, I've got lists,but I mean mine starts as early as
five and six and childhood abuse andtrauma and you know, a house fire
and like boom boom, boom boom, all the way up through ten,
just like you know, and thenthe one thing in what I've always been

(56:34):
able to do is navigate like I'vegone through my stuff. But it's just
like the reason I was able towrite it because I've always overcome adversity and
I didn't realize I was doing it. It just seemed like that was I
want to live, like I decidedthat I wanted to live. They're like
suicide. Even though I kind ofladd in moments. It wasn't a choice.
It's not what I a choice.I wanted to go down to.
And I have a quote in mybook and I even have a tattooed on

(56:55):
my leg that you know, I'mgoing to paraphrase a little bit, but
essentially that you know, we're allhere for a reason, and the world
is better with you here. Itreally is. You just got to find
it. If you need help.You know, there's always somebody yeah cry
crying. It is we just youknow. And I looked at it the
other day as I was dealing withsome challenges. But everything now is so
minor. But we're all here fora purpose. And I've always been able

(57:19):
to find joy. And it doesn'tmean i'm always but it doesn't mean like
I'm like smiling when I'm getting beatup or beat down. It just means
I'm not able to navigate, findmindfulness and eventually find joy and differentiate what
joy and happiness is. So that'sessentially what my second book is like how
to find joy through storms of ourlife. That's not the title, but
that's essentially what I'm getting through onthis next one. The first one was
purpose, the next one is howdo we maintain joy and the importance of

(57:43):
it? But you know that youhave to because there's people out there hurting,
especially a mile more than ever,especially post COVID. So I love
that you're doing that, and we'vetalked a lot. So just one more
question. Is there anything else youhaven't mentioned? You know, for the
viewers since it is Strive three sixtyfive and we aim inspiring guide listeners to
live a better life you, isthere any other practical steps mind shift or

(58:06):
mindset shifts, or anything else thatyou'd love to mention on, whether it
be personally or professionally, to helppeople strive every day? Just be kind.
Kindness really does matter. Right inthat moment where you could mouth off
to someone, or you could saysomething mean, or you could roll your
eyes or whatever the case may be, just don't. It'll make you even
stronger than you already are. Imean, justin you and I have that

(58:27):
in common. I can tell theway that we've been talking our former communications
et cetera. You and I clearlyjust handle things a little differently than other
people do, and there's nothing wrongwith that. Right in my own family,
because we lost my dad and thenmy mom before I lost my brother.
My brother lost both his parents thesame time I did. Oh,
we were different ages and we weretotally different people handled it very differently,

(58:52):
and it's okay. You have toknow that it's okay. It's going to
be okay. It's funny. Ididn't realize what shirt I was wearing,
and we talked a lot about butactually I don't know if you saw.
It says no fear in love,and I just think that's very important and
if we can be kind and ifwe can love, and somebody teach my
kids every day. You know,you'll never win an argument like a true

(59:13):
fight argument everyone loses, like whenit's like a screaming match, But you
can have a better effect when you'rekind. You know, if you have
to choose between kindness or winning anargument, choose kindness, because again,
you'll never win that argument is highwhen the argument gets heated and we're talking
about unhealthy arguments as what I'm talkingBecause there are good like me and my

(59:35):
wife have arguments, but they're constructiveand there's feedback and it's we got another
difference. But I'm talking about likewhen they're like screaming, yelling, actual
fist fighting, cursing at each other, like there might be some at the
end, but you know you'll navigatein and around when you can be kind
even when you're arguing, which Ithink you can. Ye not saying that
one thing you know is going tocut somebody off, right it's a pressure

(59:57):
point for them or a total petpeeve or whatever. I mean. We
all know that we push each other'sbuttons because we're at this human nature.
It's what we do. But ifyou can hold back, you're stronger for
it. And when you feel backin the corner, the first reaction is
like you know you want to Yeah, so you got to remember you're not.
So one thing I've done with that, here's my tip is just know
that you're never backed into a corner. You know you can always navigate it

(01:00:19):
around and through. And sometimes thebest way to navigating is, you know,
a kindness, which is so hard, but it makes things easier in
the long run. It's hard initially, but I remember when I've made the
back in the corner. How muchlonger it takes for me to work the
challenges through the most loved people inmy life. It's like, and I'm
beating myself up because I'm like,dang it, if I were just been
kind, I probably could have wonessentsion not one, but you know what

(01:00:43):
I mean, I could have navigatedthis a lot better. But now I've
got a cake days and spend moneyon flowers. It costs me more money
and time because I was stupid intwo seconds. So anyways, with that
note, uh, thank you forcoming on here. It's been a real
pleasure. It's been a really wentin a direction I didn't know was going
to go, and I really enjoyedit. This was really cool. This
is beneficial to the employer, tothe employee, to the human being.

(01:01:08):
There was a lot of benefit hereand I really thank you for coming on
here today. So thanks again,and for anyone listening, make sure you
like sharing, subscribe because we alreadyknow there's tons of people that can benefit
by just that free little click thatyou can do with this podcast. So
thank you for turning to another episodeof Strive through sixty five. Take care