Designing Businesses for Margins with Nagela Dales

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Behind every mission, every movement, and every attempt to create change, there's a human story shaping how it all unfolds.
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I'm Dr.
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Pyle Berry, and this is Reframing Perspectives.
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This podcast is for those change makers, those purpose-led founders, nonprofit leaders, growth mindset individuals, and purpose-driven entrepreneurs who believe the work that they're doing in the world should actually make people's lives better.
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Each week, I'm sitting down change makers who are shaping impact in their industries and communities.
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And together, we're gonna explore the moments, the questions, and the perspective shifts that changed how they lead, how they build relationships, and how they create meaningful change in our world.
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Welcome to Reframing Perspectives, the podcast for change makers who believe relationships are the real infrastructure of impact.
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The conversation that I have been waiting to have with such a phenomenal human, someone who sees the world in such a beautiful way, who disrupts things in ways that need to be disrupted, and has so unbothered by it.
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It's so the way you just walk through is just like this this unbothered way that I think right now more and more people need to vibe in the unbothered way.
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Welcome.
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Welcome to Reframing Perspectives.
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Thank you.
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I'm so excited to be here and talking to you and being energized by you.
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I, you know, before we go into all of the incredible things that you have done, I think it's always important to start at the beginning.
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To start with, you know, you're a first-generation Caribbean American growing up in Brooklyn, you know, and you just having ADHD, all of these factors about who you are, how you grew up, what you saw around you, and then to walk into the world of design.
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How did your upbringing, how did you being a first-generation Caribbean, how did living in Brooklyn, how did all of that influence the way that you just as a kid, even just saw the world?
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I love that question.
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And I love the way Bitch you asked it because I often tell people that I think in constellations.
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And so oftentimes I'll go to these, you know, events where people are kind of like, tell me your start.
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And it really just plotting a point of a start in the constellation that created me to be who I am.
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And your question gets me just specific enough into a constellation to answer.
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I would say people who meet me know that being from Brooklyn is half my personality.
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I'm obsessed with being from Brooklyn.
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And everybody's like, especially now I travel so much for work that like every New Yorker will tell you they're they're a New Yorker.
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You won't hear my accent until I say, like, what are we talking about?
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And then it's like, ah, there it is.
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We got it.
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And so, you know, I have been so influenced by all of those things in both the most positive, beautiful ways, and and and some of the hard ways.
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I'd say the beautiful ways is like there's something about, especially my part of Brooklyn, the diaspora is so strong here.
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And seeing people, learning about people, seeing this idea of home and how it's carried and what home means, what family means, what neighborhood means has deeply impacted me because we lived in a world where we needed each other, right?
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You come to this country, oftentimes you, you know, you settle where there's a cluster of y'all.
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You know what I'm saying?
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Because an aunt had a niece who who got you your papers, right?
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Or maybe and didn't, you know.
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And so we needed each other so much to say, I don't speak the language of this country.
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Where do I get a job?
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How do I feed my family?
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And so seeing the idea of home, I think I as a person who deeply believes and loves cooperative economics, I was able to see what interdependence really means and what it looks like.
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And it became a really big part of how I saw community.
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But I also saw how being a black woman, the role you can take on as a caretaker.
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And I watched my aunt and my mom and people that I love need to be superheroes in your community in some ways to make up for the lack of a social safety net, and you have to become the net yourself.
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Um, I love all of the color and flavor of Brooklyn.
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I love, you know, growing up in public schools, like being a gifted, gifted black girl who constantly got into gifted programs and like nobody looked like me.
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And all the ways that messed me up.
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Yeah, talk about that.
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Talk about that.
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Like, what was that like to be in the gifted programs and you know, growing up in in Brooklyn and and being in those rooms where yeah, you're maybe one of the only ones that looks like you that's in that room, and now you're but you're also and there's like bias about that.
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Yes, yes.
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Not only was I black, I was also Haitian.
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And it was not cool to be Haitian until the Fuji's came out and Lauren Hill and Y Clef.
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And I was like, we're we're not so bad, right?
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One time, you know what I'm saying?
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Because, you know, there's an incredible amount of xenophobia around Haitians, and we can talk about that a little bit later.
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But the work of dignity, which I think some of my work is about dignity, comes from the fact that I am Haitian, and dignity is all that we've ever had, and it's what we've been the most robbed of in so many ways.
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But being in those spaces, right?
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Because first of all, you're a first-gen kid, so you're gonna be a lawyer, you're gonna be a doctor, gonna be an engineer, right?
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So you know what I mean?
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It's like okay.
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I was so bad in math, which is like so anti-Indian.
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And it was like my dad would be like, you know, why don't you consider being a doctor?
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And my mom's like, have you seen her science grades?
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Like, not happening.
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Give that up.
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100%.
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It's like, no, we're bad at math because we're fighting a stereotype.
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You know what I mean?
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This is actually, you know what I mean?
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This is liberation work.
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Being bad at math, liberation work for us.
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You know what I'm saying?
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Right.
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Um, I was also bad at math.
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Um also who needs those calculators anymore?
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Claude can do it all.
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Right, exactly, exactly.
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Then I'm like, everybody's Claude, I'm like, what shit did I kill today?
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You know what I'm saying?
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Then I'm like, anyways, back to what I was doing.
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I know.
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It's it's the it's the perfect blend, honestly.
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I feel like uh as a first gen immigrant child who is a creative, like it is like our time to rise now.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Yeah, I um I'll check the ADHD, but again, we'll get to that.
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But you know, being in those classrooms, it took me years to unpack and deconstruct what the school system did to me as a what I used to call a burned-out, gifted black girl.
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But I think one of the key things was I had to become the minor minority in such a intense ways because especially in high school, I was uh there was like the zone program, which is like people who lived locally and it happened to be in a very kind of black neighborhood.
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And then I was in the gifted medsci program.
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And um, I'm like, is there an echo here?
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Maybe it's just me.
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But yeah, so what happened was I was compared to other black kids a lot as something, oh, you're not like them, right?
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And it's non-black teachers telling me this, and it was a very confusing thing as a person who was raised to respect adults and to basically seek their approval of adults, and you know, who saw the pride on my parents' faces when, you know, a teacher was like, Your daughter is so exceptional and all that stuff.
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But I didn't realize that they were putting they were pitting me against black people and other black students in a way that was so dehumanizing and they weren't seeing me, they were seeing my potential or some somehow like my intelligence made me more redeemable than the other kids.
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It's almost kind of like we can't even believe that she could be this intelligent.
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Like there's a difference with again, it's like the presentation of it, right?
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It's just like, wow, like your daughter is really intelligent.
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We're we really want to see her thrive versus, you know, this is an exceptional student outside of like the norms that we've seen.
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A hundred percent.
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A hundred percent.
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And what that does is, you know, you're in these, you're in these classrooms.
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I'm not around a lot of other, you know, black kids.
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I think there was definitely some internalized racism that my parents were dealing with, just trying to being Haitian.
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And then, you know, what they teach Haitians about, like sometimes black American culture, sometimes and wanting to be and respectable with respectability politics and all of that became a really weird thing.
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Of I started to disconnect me from my blackness because as a kid, you spent a lot of time in school, right?
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You know what I'm saying?
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You spent a lot that is your life, and so the teachers kept telling me I was so different from other black kids, and then other black kids were also kind of being like, you're different than us, and that's like, oh, I'm different, right?
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And so that really that lived with me for a long time, and then you don't realize all of the different ways that you start to socialize yourself to be accepted into white spaces.
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It wasn't until in my early 20s that I the picture I had was I declawed myself, made myself such the like nice black girl.
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You know what I mean?
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Like, and I felt like if I can show people how nice we are, they'll stop being racist to us, right?
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Like that's what I thought in my you know what I mean, in my late 20s, where it's kind of like, no, like I'm gonna show them how like kind and nice was yeah.
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So, so unpacking the responsibility that I felt to represent my people in every single room, yeah, unpacking the things that I got approval for, and wanting to continue to perform to receive that approval, to receive acceptance, because it's it's hurtful when you're not accepted, when you don't feel like you belong.
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And being like, for me to have belonging, I need to perform for the adults in my life.
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And when I don't perform for the adults in my life, they withdraw their love for me.
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And so I've had teachers where I was just a kid.
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It was the regular things that kid, a kid will do, but they'd be like, Oh, I'm so disappointed in you.
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And they would withdraw from me, they would treat me differently.
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And I had to unpack a lot of those, of those dynamics in my career and not building my career in in the white gaze, to be honest, especially when you're in strategy and innovation work.
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You feel like you need to be co-signed by certain spaces.
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Gosh, there's so much in that.
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Like, so a couple of things I want to run by.
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One is absolutely I can so understand that experience about how you're differentiated because you're an immigrant.
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And tell me how you feel about this, because this is this is just like an observation that I have made, right?
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As an immigrant myself, as a third culture kid.
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So it's like I didn't even belong, like I never grew up in India, but I didn't grow up, you know, I grew up in in America after I turned 10.
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In between, I was in the Middle East.
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And so it's like I just everywhere.
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But coming to the US, and I think this is like doesn't matter where you're from, but when you're coming to any country, any place, the adults, like our parents, are trying to create safety measures and make sure that they like, okay, so where do what I do?
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Okay, what is protocol here?
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What's okay, what's not okay.
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So if the societal conditioning is already telling you, hey, don't go to that neighborhood because that neighborhood is unsafe.
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Now you're like, okay, so if I go to a black American neighborhood, that means I'm gonna be unsafe, stay away from them.
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I'm learning what the things are.
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So now immigrants, without necessarily a choice and not necessarily with a unintentionally, I should say.
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Yeah, they're coming here and their first goal is I need to settle down.
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I need to make it in this country.
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I need to make sure my kids are okay.
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I need to make the right choices so that you know we're furthering our family.
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And so I need to know what is the norm of this culture, of this neighborhood, of Brooklyn, of Queens, of LA, wherever it is, right?
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Yeah.
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And so through that, the byproduct of racism comes in because of them trying to figure out their own safety measures of how am I going to survive in this country, in this community, they start learning all the things of what not to do, what to do.
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And part of the what not to do is to associate with a specific demographic because that demographic is dangerous.
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And then they get instilled with that.
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And then we have to decondition that.
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Yeah.
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Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yeah.
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A hundred percent.
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I mean, you know, I always say being Haitian in this in the Western hemisphere is unlike any other experience just because of our experience of being the first, you know, free black nation and you know, you know, getting our independence.
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And then a lot of one of the reasons why I do what I do is because people don't understand how economically oppressed Haiti was by, you know, France, by the United States.
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We were occupied by the United States, the UN occupied.
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Like there's so many layers of that.
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And now when I look back up that experience with my with my parents, you know, what I was able to tell them the older I got and the more I was able to understand who benefits when we are pointing the finger at each other.
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Once you understand that it's a lie, that they will always kind of, you know, move the the goalpost, um, that it changes the way that you show up in those spaces and it helps you unpack certain things.
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And I was able to tell my parents and help them understand and know that it's a lie.
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They're they're telling you this is what keeps you safe, and it's actually like a huge lie.
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It doesn't keep you safe at all.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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And the other thing that you touched on that I think is really and like you said, it's at the essence of what you do at Open House, it's at the essence of everything you've done is dignity.
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And your first experiences of that as a child, as a gifted child, as a, you know, who is trying to understand or know how to navigate this world is just simply being you, but now having to narrate all these narratives that are put onto you, taking all of those pieces and paired with ADHD, I think is honestly in a weird way, it's a gift, right?
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Like I think ADHD is such a gift and to the world because you are able to see things in ways that others just don't see.
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And I think that when you pair dignity with, you know, an ADHD brain, what you're seeing are all the gaps in design, all the gaps in our society.
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Like as you're talking about Brooklyn and the community and the collective and how everyone is engaging with each other.
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I mean, think of like dignity is the most purest way of like humans just being respected, humans being safe, humans feeling seen, humans feeling that, oh okay, I belong in this community.
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Like I'm okay in this community is everyone to have some form of dignity.
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No one wants to be mistreated.
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And so you enter the world of design, you enter the world of you know, seeing things and knowing how to, you know, design for a specific world, though.
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But a specific world that wasn't built for a majority, it was built for only a specific community and specific group.
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And you saw all the challenges that are through that, and it made you want to step away.
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But first, we get into the stepping away piece.
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Let's talk about what it was like to enter the world of design, to work with some of the most incredible, you know, visionaries and creatives, innovators in that world.
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But again, they were all short-sighted.
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They're they're granted as big innovation, you know, visionaries, but they were they're only doing it for a self-selected group.
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Yeah, yep, yep, yep, yeah, yeah.
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Um, this is like I say, this is my pulpit.
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I have many pulpits where I'm like, you get me going, you get an organ, you get a choir, right?
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And design is one of those things because what I mean it when I say design saved my life, like I mean that to the core of my being.
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Design saved my life.
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I discovered Carol Dweck's work around growth mindset and fixed mindset.
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And, you know, because even to go back to your other kind of point about ADHD was it took me 15, 20 years before I felt I could see ADHD as a benefit.
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Because when you are a, you know, when you are an ADHD person and you are a child of immigrants and you grew up in poverty and all of these different things that are occurring, you don't have the systems or understanding to support yourself.
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And so I felt so deeply broken for so much of my life.
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I was a smart person with all this potential, but I couldn't focus sometimes.
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I couldn't concentrate sometimes.
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I couldn't do, there's so many things I couldn't do.
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And when I discovered design, I found I found a hook to hang my hat on, right?
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Design was, design taught me agency more than anything else in my life.
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When I say I design for agency, it's because design taught me agency.
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And you are an ADHD kid who has to teach herself so many things because your parents don't speak the language, right?
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Everything feels impossible, everything feels overwhelming, and you experience lots of like turmoil comes from, you know, again, all the systems that affect us and family dynamics and all that kind of stuff.
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And so design meant, when I found design as a boat, it meant everything to me.
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And so I felt like I thought I had sailed the boat to this beautiful island called design thinking and all of these design people as I was building my career.
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I was like, this has been the boat that I've been living on.
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It saved my life.
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I love it.
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I can't wait to, you know, hit the shores of design.
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So I got on the shores of design and it was cute, right?
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It was palm tree, there's coconuts, you know.
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I was like, this is a great time.
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I'm having a I've gone to design jams and design jams and design sprints, design boot camps.
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You know what you'd be doing, right?
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It's like meetup.com, event, right.
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And I started working with, you know, as as in the nonprofit space, I was working with like designers who was working, you know, in Nambia and all of these different places.
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And so I thought this island was hospitable to my black body.
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And you start to get off where my boat left me, and I started to get to the other side of the island, and I was like, oh, this island is not hospitable to my black body.
00:17:53.839 --> 00:17:54.960
This is not it.
00:17:55.119 --> 00:18:02.960
And so I would go to design spaces and we would, you know, design for solutions, and I would bring up race, and everybody looked at me like I had said a cuss word, right?
00:18:03.119 --> 00:18:14.960
And I was literally told that thinking through a racial equity lens made me a biased designer, and it made me a worse designer because I was assuming the solution or assuming too many things.
00:18:15.119 --> 00:18:15.359
Wow.
00:18:15.519 --> 00:18:18.160
And I was like, and that makes you self-conscious, right?
00:18:18.319 --> 00:18:21.440
That makes me feel like maybe I'm not a good designer.
00:18:21.680 --> 00:18:21.920
Right.
00:18:22.000 --> 00:18:31.680
Because you're told this by people who have proven incredible success in that industry, and they're telling you, like, shh, like, don't, don't go there, don't go there.
00:18:31.759 --> 00:18:42.880
You're gonna go towards a it's like there's a front-facing part of the like when you're describing this, I'm thinking about like the resort, the beautiful, like, you know, the tiki, like all the things like the fires and everything going.
00:18:43.039 --> 00:18:54.160
And then you go behind, you know, and now it's like the broken roads, it's the rocks, it's the you know, the sewage is there, it's the gutters and all this stuff.
00:18:54.240 --> 00:18:56.079
It's like, yeah, we don't go there, right?
00:18:56.160 --> 00:18:57.279
And it's it's that.
00:18:57.440 --> 00:18:57.759
Yes.
00:18:57.920 --> 00:18:59.359
And again, like design saved my life.
00:18:59.519 --> 00:19:03.680
So it was never the design in in, you know, in so many ways.
00:19:04.079 --> 00:19:06.559
But yeah, what I thought these are my people.
00:19:06.880 --> 00:19:12.799
And not only were they not my people, they actually saw me as an inferior version of themselves.
00:19:12.960 --> 00:19:14.880
And then as only being brought on.
00:19:15.119 --> 00:19:20.240
They also did not treat racial equity or the lens of racial equity as strategy.
00:19:20.400 --> 00:19:22.480
They treated it as lived experience.
00:19:22.640 --> 00:19:26.079
And so I got a lot of language of pay for your lived experience.
00:19:26.160 --> 00:19:28.559
And I'm like, no, I'm giving you like a really great strategic framework.
00:19:28.640 --> 00:19:29.680
Like, I'm actually killing it.
00:19:29.759 --> 00:19:30.960
I'm wicked snipe.
00:19:31.039 --> 00:19:32.559
I'm kidding the game right now.
00:19:32.640 --> 00:19:34.640
Uh, and they were like, no, thank you.
00:19:34.880 --> 00:19:35.359
Oh my god.
00:19:35.599 --> 00:19:36.400
No, we appreciate it.
00:19:36.480 --> 00:19:37.359
Thank you for your story.
00:19:37.599 --> 00:19:38.400
This is why I love the work.
00:19:40.640 --> 00:19:45.680
But that's that is why I love what you do, because for you, empathy is strategic.
00:19:46.079 --> 00:19:47.759
It's a tool, it's a resource.
00:19:47.920 --> 00:19:50.720
Like going through all of your work, I'm like, she gets it.
00:19:50.880 --> 00:19:52.720
She gets what empathy can be.
00:19:53.039 --> 00:19:58.240
But my empathy was treated as it actually like typecasted me.
00:19:58.480 --> 00:20:00.240
You know, it stereotyped me.
00:20:00.400 --> 00:20:07.119
And my ability to see racial inequity was only because of my blackness, not because I was black, also and smart.
00:20:07.359 --> 00:20:08.240
You know what I'm saying?
00:20:08.480 --> 00:20:09.279
Right, right.
00:20:09.519 --> 00:20:10.000
Yeah.
00:20:10.240 --> 00:20:22.319
You know, and I think that that's what's so powerful is the way that you what you said before is you decolonized your ideas from productivity, worth, and success, transforming your trauma.
00:20:22.480 --> 00:20:30.000
And then you mentioned and talked about in a in a keynote about the way to humanize the people around you is to ask for their hardest stories.
00:20:30.240 --> 00:20:53.119
And what you've done now with open house is you've built an entire model proving all of these people wrong and showing them how racial equity, uh, just inclusion, you know, thinking about all of those pieces and how that can actually be your superpower in the way that you create communities that can thrive off of the businesses that you build.
00:20:53.200 --> 00:21:01.200
And we've seen this, the statistics are out there that more diverse businesses are actually significantly profitable.
00:21:02.240 --> 00:21:09.680
When we think about again, I'm stuck on the word dignity because one, I think that we're losing it day by day.
00:21:10.160 --> 00:21:24.720
Just it's compounded to the point where it's it, I think people are truly exhausted about even uh being able to, like, even the word empathy is exhausting to people right now because of how much they've been compounded with having reduced dignity.
00:21:24.960 --> 00:21:38.000
Um when I think about this, you know, I think about things like for example, when we have these like low curbs now in our sidewalks, that was because we needed to have wheelchairs go up multiple.
00:21:39.440 --> 00:21:41.039
Who else benefits from this?
00:21:41.279 --> 00:21:47.839
Everyone, mothers with strollers, you know, like elderly, like there's so many people that benefit from that.
00:21:48.000 --> 00:21:50.319
Now you have those ramps for groceries.
00:21:50.480 --> 00:21:51.599
Guess who's taking it?
00:21:51.839 --> 00:21:57.279
Regular people who don't have any of those disabilities that are taking their shopping carts up there, right?
00:21:57.440 --> 00:22:05.200
Like, so when we take design and we Actually, build it from the lens of someone who it may be inaccessible to.
00:22:05.440 --> 00:22:07.839
We actually build it for the whole world.
00:22:09.519 --> 00:22:09.920
Yeah.
00:22:10.079 --> 00:22:19.119
Like I would love to hear a story because I know some of your work is around empathy, of a time that empathy created something in a room.
00:22:19.279 --> 00:22:20.880
Um, so I'd love to hear that.
00:22:21.599 --> 00:22:26.160
You know, we talked about design and the boat and the island that that wasn't so great.
00:22:26.400 --> 00:22:28.720
But the island that was actually really great, right?
00:22:28.799 --> 00:22:33.119
The the society, the community that I found myself into was I discovered liberatory design.
00:22:33.200 --> 00:22:45.839
And so liberatory design is actually created from a lot of the folks who created, you know, the standard D school and design thinking, but it was like it was focused on education and to say, you know, equity is giving every child what they need in order to thrive.
00:22:46.000 --> 00:22:56.640
And so I started to find all of these other designers who've been working um on these things and what it, what that community showed me was design had always been a part of my community.
00:22:56.799 --> 00:23:02.240
It had always been a part of how we related to the world and how we, you know, showed up to the world.
00:23:02.799 --> 00:23:10.400
Um, you know, when I hear you talk about the ramps, I think about design justice, which is you design from the margins, you design for the whole.
00:23:10.640 --> 00:23:12.319
And that is what my brain is always doing.
00:23:12.480 --> 00:23:16.079
My brain is always going, designing for the margins, designs for the holes, right?
00:23:16.240 --> 00:23:18.799
A silly example is I'm a girl with a wide foot.
00:23:18.880 --> 00:23:20.799
I am a girl with a wide foot.
00:23:20.880 --> 00:23:22.400
It is hard for me to find shoes.
00:23:22.480 --> 00:23:23.279
You know what I'm saying?
00:23:23.519 --> 00:23:32.640
But as we are trying, as as we are getting better society of understanding gender inclusion and all of these lines about who wear, you know what's benefiting for me?
00:23:32.799 --> 00:23:42.880
This flat foot, wide foot girl is benefiting from it because now there's certain brands who are being like, oh, I'm gonna be more gender inclusive in who I think wears this shoe.
00:23:43.039 --> 00:23:46.240
And now I'm like, yes, give me that shoe.
00:23:46.400 --> 00:23:51.039
I can now benefit from it because, you know, the homies are wearing it as well.
00:23:51.440 --> 00:23:51.839
Yeah, yeah.
00:23:52.319 --> 00:23:53.920
And and that, that right there, right?
00:23:54.000 --> 00:24:03.680
Like, I have always fundamentally just been so frustrated with this idea that in order to do social good, that means you need to be some form of a martyr.
00:24:03.839 --> 00:24:12.720
And that in order to do some kind of conscious work, that you need to create a model that you are not reaping the benefits of either.
00:24:12.880 --> 00:24:41.359
And all that's doing is keeping the same group of people that they know that are going to turn around to become social workers, community organizers, keeping them in the community, keeping them socioeconomically low, so that they're they're just repeating the same cycles and they're not benefiting from the fact that like we can't, we can't escape the fact that even as change makers, even with all of us who cared so deeply about making social good, we cannot escape that we just do live in a capitalistic society.
00:24:41.440 --> 00:24:43.119
Like that is just what we live in.
00:24:43.279 --> 00:24:50.319
And if we instead of going, you know, against the river, it's like, how do you use the river to your benefit, to your advantage?
00:24:50.720 --> 00:25:00.079
And that is where, like, I do feel like the rise of the B Corp companies, the rise of social conscious companies was amazing, you know, was amazing with what tech has been able to do.
00:25:00.880 --> 00:25:09.680
And so what you do at open house is help encourage entrepreneurs and help encourage even large organizations you've worked with.
00:25:09.759 --> 00:25:18.480
It's not even just like startups, it's like large organizations to help them to design, think about what is their user experience going to look like and feel like.
00:25:18.640 --> 00:25:35.920
And to me, what you do with that empathy is just baked right in, you know, because you're ultimately telling business owners, founders, creatives, like entrepreneurs to think about how do you you have this passion for this product because you saw a gap in the society.
00:25:36.480 --> 00:25:40.960
But you need to convince your users why this is so beneficial.
00:25:41.200 --> 00:25:49.519
And in order for them to get it and understand it, you have to have them experience the pain of what it's like to not have this.
00:25:50.400 --> 00:26:04.880
But if the user experience is not taken into account from how it's actually going to be built with the community who it's benefiting, then you're missing out on an entire market-focused research.
00:26:04.960 --> 00:26:14.640
You're you're missing an entire gap that could actually a great product, a great solution, could end up having no traction and fail completely.
00:26:14.799 --> 00:26:18.400
And then the founder is like, well, I guess that wasn't really a viable product.
00:26:18.559 --> 00:26:19.759
It's like, no, it was.
00:26:19.920 --> 00:26:27.119
You just didn't look at how the people around it could actually be the traction that are going to build the momentum for what you're doing.
00:26:27.359 --> 00:26:32.880
I mean, you know, if I were to say, like, what's the scaffolding of open house is a business model design.
00:26:32.960 --> 00:26:34.160
I'm a business model designer.
00:26:34.319 --> 00:26:42.160
And the reason why I became a business model designer was because I wanted a those who wanted to do good, I wanted to, I wanted to make it sustainable.
00:26:42.640 --> 00:26:52.559
And I wanted to build a huge library of business model designs and patterns that are dignity forward, people-centered in a real way.
00:26:52.799 --> 00:27:01.839
Um, and part of being a child of immigrants and part of being black is to understand that innovation is as futuristic as it is ancestral, right?
00:27:02.000 --> 00:27:03.920
And there's so many things that we have forgotten.
00:27:04.000 --> 00:27:14.000
So even before the rise of B Corp, a lot of my work is on the Reconstruction era, which was the era where formerly enslaved people were now able to have autonomy and build their communities and neighborhoods.
00:27:14.160 --> 00:27:17.839
And there is such a huge boom of black innovation and inventions here.
00:27:18.000 --> 00:27:20.240
Now, of course, that was not allowed to thrive.
00:27:20.319 --> 00:27:24.799
There's lots of stealing of black patents, but that is where a lot of cooperative economics comes from.
00:27:24.960 --> 00:27:33.039
And there's so many models, there's so many economic models that are like I teach a lot about indigenous economics that's based on reflexivity and reciprocity, right?
00:27:33.119 --> 00:27:37.599
Like there's there's so many other molds and things that have been here before capitalism.
00:27:37.680 --> 00:27:42.640
And I always say that the lie about capitalism is that there is no other way, right?
00:27:42.880 --> 00:27:48.400
And so the work I talk about at Open House is how to decenter capitalism because you we do live in a society.
00:27:48.559 --> 00:27:53.039
I can't say, you know, that's capitalism all the way, but we can decenter it.
00:27:53.119 --> 00:27:56.799
And I'm going to give you a thousand recipes on how to do that.
00:27:56.880 --> 00:28:01.599
And it's going to feel nourishing and it's going to nourish your business and your body and your community.
00:28:01.839 --> 00:28:02.559
Oh my God.
00:28:02.720 --> 00:28:05.839
It's also like I'm just like taking, I'm just thinking about my business.
00:28:05.920 --> 00:28:07.279
I'm just thinking about the things I'm doing.
00:28:07.359 --> 00:28:11.599
And I'm just immediately, it's yes, like it's like, how would you decondition that?
00:28:11.759 --> 00:28:16.240
But you know, it's still, it's not removing it, it's deconditioning it.
00:28:16.319 --> 00:28:33.599
And and I want to kind of have you really define that because I think that when people, especially change makers who want to make a difference, and when they hear that, you know, we've got to de-center capitalism, we've got to decenter this, they're really hearing it as if then I shouldn't be talking or thinking about money.
00:28:33.759 --> 00:28:45.920
When it's like, no, money is what actually moves things, but you need to know how to rebuild your relationship with money and the way it's being generated, energized to move what you're trying to do.
00:28:46.160 --> 00:28:53.359
So I'd love for you to kind of just dive in a little bit deeper about that and what how you kind of share that framework in open house.
00:28:53.680 --> 00:28:54.079
Yeah.
00:28:54.240 --> 00:29:03.440
Um, if I love a resource, if people want to kind of like some thinking behind this, one of my favorite books is by, I believe I'm saying her name correctly, Marjorie Kelly.
00:29:03.519 --> 00:29:05.200
She wrote Ownership Economy.
00:29:05.359 --> 00:29:08.480
She also wrote um Democratizing the Economy, I believe.
00:29:08.640 --> 00:29:10.720
And she has such good, solid models.
00:29:10.960 --> 00:29:14.480
One of my favorite language pieces, where I think a lot of this is language.
00:29:14.640 --> 00:29:16.559
I think I find language to regulate.
00:29:16.720 --> 00:29:22.240
She goes, you go from being a profit-prioritizing company to a profit-making company.
00:29:22.480 --> 00:29:27.519
Such a small shift in language, but it's so impactful.
00:29:27.759 --> 00:29:32.720
We make profit, we don't prioritize profit because we're prioritizing people, right?
00:29:33.039 --> 00:29:34.960
But we are making profit.
00:29:35.119 --> 00:29:40.079
And so I say, what does it mean to be a profit-making company, not a profit-prioritizing company?
00:29:40.160 --> 00:29:40.480
Right.
00:29:40.559 --> 00:29:42.720
So that is one way I love to do that.
00:29:42.960 --> 00:29:43.599
Again, chill.
00:29:43.839 --> 00:29:46.400
Like I have like the adrenaline rushing in my chest right now.
00:29:46.480 --> 00:29:49.119
Like I can't even describe to you like what I'm feeling.
00:29:49.200 --> 00:29:53.920
But um, this is the ADD brain that's also going wild inside hearing all of this.
00:29:54.160 --> 00:30:06.480
So I'd love to hear, you know, an example of a company of a founder who came to you, came to open house, went through your framework, what they came with, what they were able to create, and you know, what that impact has been.
00:30:06.720 --> 00:30:07.200
Yeah.
00:30:07.440 --> 00:30:23.119
Um, so when um when this was more a project that they're trying attempting to get funding for and that they're still kind of working through, but was building an indigenous DNA company, and that came out of a collaboration think tank project.
00:30:23.279 --> 00:30:33.839
And the reason why I love bringing up this this point because when you are profit prioritizing, the problems you choose to solve are safer sometimes, right?
00:30:34.240 --> 00:30:34.559
Right.
00:30:34.720 --> 00:30:35.599
It's risk averse.
00:30:36.480 --> 00:30:37.759
Risk averse, right?
00:30:37.920 --> 00:30:40.160
Uh, and and people are like, well, that doesn't mean anything.
00:30:40.240 --> 00:30:47.279
They're like the AI is I'm like risk averse as far as like social uh uh social reputation.
00:30:47.440 --> 00:30:47.680
Right.
00:30:47.839 --> 00:30:51.680
It's like you want to be vanilla, you want to be neutral, but it's like neutral never wins.
00:30:51.920 --> 00:30:52.240
100%.
00:30:52.559 --> 00:30:58.559
And so at Open House we always unless Amy So someone, I'm like, listen, I'm like, okay.
00:31:00.480 --> 00:31:03.519
Um, so freaking racist.
00:31:03.599 --> 00:31:04.640
But, anyways, we won't go there.
00:31:04.799 --> 00:31:05.119
Exactly.
00:31:05.359 --> 00:31:09.359
We talk about inclusive innovation, and one is who gets the title of innovator.
00:31:09.519 --> 00:31:13.680
The second one is which is most related to this question is what problems are worth innovating for.
00:31:13.839 --> 00:31:15.359
So who's deciding this is a problem?
00:31:15.440 --> 00:31:24.319
And the way this DNA company came about is because there's an insight that indigenous folks, especially people who indigenous American, like American folks, right?
00:31:24.400 --> 00:31:36.400
Turtle Turtle Island folks, were getting the wrong teeth pulled because their kind of skeletal jaw structure was so different than what people have been trained on that they're getting the wrong teeth removed.
00:31:36.480 --> 00:31:42.480
And it took a long time to be like, oh, the DNA people have this like specific kind of you know, mouth, tooth, jaw structure.
00:31:42.640 --> 00:31:47.920
And those and it came like, how how different is you know, uh indigenous DNA?
00:31:48.240 --> 00:31:58.160
And why that project is one of my dream projects is because when it comes to DNA and data sovereignty, there is a lot of tension there.
00:31:58.319 --> 00:32:05.519
There's a lot of tension as to what gets documented, who documents it, who has access to information.
00:32:05.680 --> 00:32:20.000
And so we had to do actually a lot of work on how do we scale this as we pitch it to potential investors, understanding that there's always going to be a process of chiefs, of elders who are going to say no to us.
00:32:20.160 --> 00:32:24.559
So, how do we build a business model that was able to withstand all of that?
00:32:24.799 --> 00:32:34.799
And so, what we had to do instead of relying on strictly a B2C kind of business model where we have indigenous and native folks purchase DNA kits and that's how we would do it.
00:32:34.960 --> 00:32:50.880
What we opted to do was give partial ownership to a lot of the tribes and have have a cooperative platform model where they all own the technology because they felt more comfortable with the governance of the technology, knowing that they had a way of saying it, right?
00:32:51.039 --> 00:33:01.839
So when it came to investing, there's already this kind of you know governance and operational model that we had built where we know how investing would go because they had a say in it.
00:33:01.920 --> 00:33:04.000
And it was less of going back and forth.
00:33:04.079 --> 00:33:10.559
The other thing that we had to do is figure out what was our key business model if it can't just be, you know, DNA kits.
00:33:10.640 --> 00:33:13.440
And that is we started doing uh research, right?
00:33:13.599 --> 00:33:22.799
And saying who is funding the most innovative research when it comes to indigenous folks and DNA and migration patterns and what does it look like?
00:33:22.960 --> 00:33:28.079
And so what they did was they became part of a uh research capacity building.
00:33:28.319 --> 00:33:36.000
We started building up that part of that business model of saying we will have the ability to tell our stories, but do it with people who are already in our community.
00:33:36.160 --> 00:33:38.160
So that's kind of an example of it.
00:33:38.240 --> 00:33:44.480
It was me when we got this insight, it was me who was kind of like, well, what if we did this, you know, like DNA platform?
00:33:44.720 --> 00:33:51.680
The same thing why um 23andMe was so popular for so long was because black folks were like, Ancestry.com is not hitting it, right?
00:33:51.759 --> 00:33:54.000
We didn't have an Ellis Island to go through.
00:33:54.720 --> 00:33:58.960
A lot of our, a lot of, you know, a lot of our documentation is is not there.
00:33:59.200 --> 00:34:08.559
And to have like this group of people, trust me, to navigate them through data sovereignty and having to understand how do you operationalize data sovereignty.
00:34:08.719 --> 00:34:23.519
So it wasn't just permission, it was, you know, how was our tech, it was our code, it was our cybersecurity, it was how we do investor relations, it was how we do our channels, how we do our marketing, what we talk about, and like building all of those pieces out.
00:34:23.599 --> 00:34:36.480
So they were able to walk away with a not only a business model that would be able to support saying, hey, you know, we can't always rely on the DNA kit programs because we don't know what a certain, you know, the data sovereignty of this tribe might be.
00:34:36.639 --> 00:34:38.559
Here's a second way that we can leverage it.
00:34:38.800 --> 00:34:42.639
But also we really care about the governance and operationalizing our values.
00:34:42.800 --> 00:34:43.840
So what does that look like?
00:34:43.920 --> 00:34:51.199
Like we want a lot of our, a lot of our uh conversations and elders were like, we want to see this before we say yes to your to your business model.
00:34:53.119 --> 00:34:58.559
And so I always love telling that story because I think it's one of the coolest innovations and I really help they're able to raise their funding.
00:34:58.719 --> 00:34:59.440
That's incredible.
00:34:59.599 --> 00:35:07.679
I mean, that is such and it's such a real problem that, you know, they're not able to get proper medical care, they're not able to get proper attention.
00:35:07.840 --> 00:35:15.599
There's obviously a massive generational mistrust with, you know, the colonizers essentially and them.
00:35:16.079 --> 00:35:21.440
And and they haven't been well studied because, you know, they've been ignored, they've been abandoned more so.
00:35:21.599 --> 00:35:25.039
I mean, it's really actually interesting as well to think about that.
00:35:25.119 --> 00:35:30.719
If you take a pause in a moment, we hear so much obviously about the immigrants who built America.
00:35:30.880 --> 00:35:34.239
We hear so much about, you know, the blacks who built America, right?
00:35:34.320 --> 00:35:36.639
Uh, on the the backs of the slaves.
00:35:36.800 --> 00:35:39.039
And uh, that's what America was built on.
00:35:39.360 --> 00:35:52.880
Nobody ever, like the amount that we actually know and understand about indigenous cultures and about indigenous history and and that they're, you know, how they live today and everything is so little, so minimal.
00:35:53.199 --> 00:36:09.760
And so to have something now built specifically for them and built in partnership with them, where they're getting to profit from it, they're able to also help their communities socioeconomically survive, thrive, and give them something that's going to benefit their entire health system.
00:36:09.920 --> 00:36:11.360
I mean, that's phenomenal.
00:36:11.599 --> 00:36:12.800
I I agree with you.
00:36:12.880 --> 00:36:23.920
I think even my journey has been understanding that even how we use the word and think of indigeneity is so narrow because people who live on the continent of Africa are indigenous to Africa.
00:36:24.000 --> 00:36:24.880
Do you get what I'm saying?
00:36:25.440 --> 00:36:34.559
Or you know, it's a it was a big conversation as the basically the genocide that's been happening of who's indigenous to this land.
00:36:34.800 --> 00:36:41.039
And I think, again, as that's the white supremacy goes, this is what indigeneity looks like, and it's what it feels like and experience is like.
00:36:41.199 --> 00:36:45.280
And if it can, one of my favorite quotes from a professor, he's talking about Jim Crow.
00:36:45.519 --> 00:36:49.280
He says, think of Jim Crow as the force invisibility of black people.
00:36:49.440 --> 00:36:49.760
Wow.
00:36:49.920 --> 00:36:52.320
Like, as like, this is why you teach in the class.
00:36:52.639 --> 00:36:56.239
And and when you think about that, is what design does.
00:36:56.480 --> 00:36:59.840
I think design often, you know, surfaces what's invisible.
00:37:00.000 --> 00:37:03.840
But sometimes the way these systems work isn't tell you there's a problem here.
00:37:04.000 --> 00:37:05.679
The system says there's nothing here.
00:37:05.840 --> 00:37:06.719
They are not here.
00:37:06.880 --> 00:37:10.079
You cannot see them, you do not interact with them, they're not in your media.
00:37:10.159 --> 00:37:18.639
You they bear for sometimes that is more beneficial to the systems that something is forgotten than something is remembered and trauma is shown.
00:37:18.719 --> 00:37:20.559
It's just like, no, they're not here.
00:37:20.639 --> 00:37:22.239
So you can't design for what you can't see.
00:37:22.320 --> 00:37:23.840
You can't support what is not seen.
00:37:24.000 --> 00:37:30.320
And so I do think it's really important for us to continue to service things that are really invisible, even though we're like, do we have the bandwidth for it?
00:37:30.559 --> 00:37:32.079
And it's like practice seeing.
00:37:32.159 --> 00:37:33.840
It's not like practice seeing.
00:37:33.920 --> 00:37:36.880
Like you can practice rituals of seeing, as I often do.
00:37:37.119 --> 00:37:42.719
I write names of people that have been, you know, murdered by by the stay.
00:37:42.880 --> 00:37:50.480
I, you know, every time I hear somebody in a detention center who's lost their lives, like I practice seeing because it's a practice.
00:37:50.559 --> 00:37:51.840
I don't have to do it perfectly.
00:37:52.079 --> 00:37:58.159
Yeah, that's and you know, Jim Crow was obviously designed so well and so strategically.
00:37:58.239 --> 00:38:12.480
And what people don't actually realize is that the apartheid in South Africa and also Nazi Germany actually studied segregation and slavery in America to perfect what they were doing there.
00:38:12.639 --> 00:38:18.320
So we often like right now, we look at it as like, oh my God, we're becoming, you know, not this isn't what America is.
00:38:18.480 --> 00:38:19.119
No, no, no.
00:38:19.280 --> 00:38:21.760
This is exactly what America is.
00:38:22.000 --> 00:38:22.320
Yeah.
00:38:22.559 --> 00:38:28.480
And you've just been brainwashed to think otherwise and to be conditioned into it.
00:38:28.639 --> 00:38:36.559
So I think, wow, that that's really powerful to think about it that way because you've been designed to see yourself in an invisible way.
00:38:36.639 --> 00:38:40.960
And that's why your problems aren't important enough to design for.
00:38:41.599 --> 00:38:50.880
And that's where then you bringing it up is being shunned because how dare you bring up something that we've already pushed down.
00:38:51.039 --> 00:38:53.599
We've we've pushed it under the rug, it doesn't matter.
00:38:53.760 --> 00:38:57.440
And now you're trying to disrupt the things that are comfortable here.
00:38:57.679 --> 00:38:58.239
Mm-hmm.
00:38:58.400 --> 00:38:58.880
Mm-hmm.
00:38:59.119 --> 00:38:59.599
Mm-hmm.
00:39:00.000 --> 00:39:00.320
Uh-huh.
00:39:00.480 --> 00:39:07.760
And it's, and the irony is always you meant you mentioned um at the top of our conversation how unbothered I am.
00:39:08.000 --> 00:39:10.000
It's because I've tried to raise money.
00:39:10.800 --> 00:39:14.800
And and I have been doing inclusive innovation work.
00:39:14.880 --> 00:39:20.159
And when you realize how much you have to make a business case for inclusion, you start to give less and less ads.
00:39:20.320 --> 00:39:27.039
And like it feels like I am uh just on LinkedIn, just twerking my life away, being like, Do you care?
00:39:27.360 --> 00:39:28.239
Do you care?
00:39:28.800 --> 00:39:36.239
Once you realize that my ADD brain just went to twerking on LinkedIn and it's just like stuck there right now.
00:39:36.320 --> 00:39:38.800
It's like a record that just like isn't moving forward.
00:39:39.119 --> 00:39:42.400
Just imagining twerking on LinkedIn with all this.
00:39:42.639 --> 00:39:43.920
Anyways, carry on.
00:39:44.159 --> 00:39:45.840
This is I hope that's like this is who I am.
00:39:45.920 --> 00:39:47.280
I hope that's again I said that.
00:39:47.360 --> 00:39:48.320
But um I love it.
00:39:48.719 --> 00:39:52.719
You start, you start to you start to be like, what's worth it, right?
00:39:52.800 --> 00:39:55.679
I and and who do you work with and who do you collaborate with?
00:39:55.760 --> 00:40:10.480
And so when when you start to be in spaces where people, the irony of people are they think their innovations are so great and they're they're they're they think it is easier to disrupt an entire industry than to include people at the margins.
00:40:11.199 --> 00:40:17.679
How is in how are you innovating where you are about to create, you know, a whole army of AI agents?
00:40:19.039 --> 00:40:19.360
Right.
00:40:19.599 --> 00:40:25.519
But somehow including people from the margins is it's it's exhausting.
00:40:25.599 --> 00:40:26.239
It's so hard.
00:40:26.320 --> 00:40:29.199
I'm like, I I don't understand it.
00:40:29.280 --> 00:40:33.119
You either gonna save the world and you're not like this thing's gonna save the world, it's gonna change how the world works.
00:40:33.280 --> 00:40:33.440
Right.
00:40:33.599 --> 00:40:35.440
Oh, it's gonna it's actually gonna change your world.
00:40:35.519 --> 00:40:36.719
It's gonna change this world.
00:40:36.960 --> 00:40:37.760
Be real about that.
00:40:37.840 --> 00:40:38.000
Right.
00:40:38.239 --> 00:40:39.920
Your innovations are actually not that great, actually.
00:40:40.079 --> 00:40:40.559
Oops.
00:40:40.800 --> 00:40:46.880
And those innovations that they're thinking is going to disrupt the world because they're trying to disrupt a whole way of new thinking.
00:40:47.039 --> 00:40:51.920
It's like you're actually putting energy into, you're not actually disrupting new thinking.
00:40:52.079 --> 00:40:57.280
You're just creating a new version of the same pattern thinking.
00:40:57.440 --> 00:41:02.000
You know, I I said this on another, I had a guest on Dr.
00:41:02.159 --> 00:41:02.559
Chan.
00:41:02.639 --> 00:41:06.320
He's a neuro neuropsychologist, phenomenal, phenomenal, really intelligent guy.
00:41:06.480 --> 00:41:07.360
And we're talking about this.
00:41:07.440 --> 00:41:13.280
And I was mentioning this about like as we're talking about AI, we're talking about this like new disruption that's happening in our societies.
00:41:13.440 --> 00:41:15.280
Well, why does AI have bias?
00:41:15.440 --> 00:41:18.000
Because the humans that are building AI have bias.
00:41:18.159 --> 00:41:27.519
And then, you know, I feel like there's this pattern and this cycle that we have of every time some new innovation happens, like Google, like social media, like whatever.
00:41:27.679 --> 00:41:38.880
No, we expect this tool to be like as if, you know, the best comparison is like you have an illness and then you get antibiotics, and it's like, here you go, pop the pills, and you're good.
00:41:39.119 --> 00:41:45.679
No, all the thing the pill did was like kill it for the moment, but you didn't actually address the root issue.
00:41:46.000 --> 00:41:58.239
And so I think of technology in the same way is that when you continue to innovate, but you're innovating with the same rules, you're just creating a newer, shinier version of the same thing.
00:41:58.800 --> 00:42:04.400
And so when we then think like, well, why is our world the same way that it was like 5,000 years ago, 1,000 years ago?
00:42:04.559 --> 00:42:07.039
Like humans actually don't haven't changed at all.
00:42:07.199 --> 00:42:09.840
Well, yeah, because we haven't changed the way to think.
00:42:09.920 --> 00:42:16.239
And the way that we have to change our way of thinking takes way more effort, and people don't want to put that effort in.
00:42:16.400 --> 00:42:16.800
Mm-hmm.
00:42:16.960 --> 00:42:17.440
Mm-hmm.
00:42:17.599 --> 00:42:18.000
100%.
00:42:18.480 --> 00:42:32.239
I mean, you know, when I when I tell people, people, one of the arguments that people give is it's not like with with with the internet, people will be like, well, don't you we can't regulate these platforms because people are gonna do it anyways.
00:42:32.480 --> 00:42:34.639
That that's people, that's already people.
00:42:34.719 --> 00:42:38.400
And I'm like, the platform delivery matters, right?
00:42:38.559 --> 00:42:43.280
I I I think a uh a prime example of this is COVID, right?
00:42:43.440 --> 00:42:45.760
I'm like, this is a COVID variant of something.
00:42:46.000 --> 00:42:47.920
We have human nature, then we have white supremacy.
00:42:48.079 --> 00:42:49.760
White supremacy is the COVID, right?
00:42:49.840 --> 00:42:57.840
In the sense of it creates this mutating, um, high network impact thing of this thing that's already hard, right?
00:42:58.079 --> 00:43:00.400
The the neurovirus is not something that's new.
00:43:00.559 --> 00:43:02.559
Well, COVID, how it mutated it?
00:43:02.800 --> 00:43:06.000
Impact, the scale of impact was devastating.
00:43:06.159 --> 00:43:13.119
So when something something is able to mutate and have wide impact, we have to also handle that, right?
00:43:13.199 --> 00:43:15.920
The solution isn't nobody gets sick.
00:43:16.000 --> 00:43:18.960
The solution is we have to tackle COVID.
00:43:19.039 --> 00:43:24.079
And so when we think about, you know, these innovations in these systems, people go, well, it's already there.
00:43:24.239 --> 00:43:27.599
My product shouldn't be held accountable for what's already part of human nature.
00:43:27.760 --> 00:43:32.960
And I'm like, that is irresponsible because you're the part of your product, you're trying to scale it.
00:43:33.039 --> 00:43:34.800
It's this is what emergent strategy is.
00:43:34.960 --> 00:43:36.880
What's in what's it's a fractal, right?
00:43:37.039 --> 00:43:40.239
This a small problem is going to expand.
00:43:40.400 --> 00:43:45.760
So to say that I shouldn't be held accountable for something that you actually want to grow is very wild to me.
00:43:46.000 --> 00:43:47.360
Yeah, no, absolutely.
00:43:47.519 --> 00:43:59.599
I I'm curious about like, you know, as someone who is who cares about social good, who cares about this, what is one thing that, you know, especially let's let's take away the person who's trying to like actually like build and be a founder.
00:44:00.320 --> 00:44:00.880
Design.
00:44:01.199 --> 00:44:11.119
But as a maybe you're a social worker, maybe you are a nonprofit founder, you know, maybe you are a human rights activist or a lawyer, whatever it is, right?
00:44:11.199 --> 00:44:12.239
So you're an individual.
00:44:12.480 --> 00:44:23.519
What could an individual do at an individual level where they can start thinking about how they are incorporating design, inclusive design in their work?
00:44:24.480 --> 00:44:24.960
Hmm.
00:44:25.280 --> 00:44:26.880
Oh, I love that question.
00:44:27.039 --> 00:44:27.920
I love that question.
00:44:28.079 --> 00:44:30.000
There's so many ways that I can answer it.
00:44:30.079 --> 00:44:33.039
So let me try to pick two or three and not go on a pulpit.
00:44:33.280 --> 00:44:37.440
The first thing I'll say is build really generous systems for yourself.
00:44:37.599 --> 00:44:39.679
Build it for your organization, but build it for yourself.
00:44:40.000 --> 00:44:47.280
When I talk about building systems, I build systems that can withstand when you are hungry, tired, moaning, and scared, right?
00:44:47.440 --> 00:44:55.599
Because I've often seen me, myself, organizations build systems that only work when we're all performing at the top level.
00:44:55.760 --> 00:45:04.480
And that is just as a person who has had to experience a lot of trauma than go into a workplace, the systems couldn't withhold that forming, right?
00:45:04.639 --> 00:45:16.239
And so when you're building systems for yourself, build really compassionately, especially if when you're doing good, build systems that help you do good even when you feel bad, even when you feel sad, right?
00:45:16.400 --> 00:45:20.719
So one thing I do for myself as an ADHD person is I have systems of motivation.
00:45:20.880 --> 00:45:26.000
I have to treat motivation like a system, um, or else nothing, nothing gets done, right?
00:45:26.159 --> 00:45:31.760
And so build compassion, build compassionate systems for yourself, build compassionate systems for your organization.
00:45:32.000 --> 00:45:39.679
It's really important for me, because right now my other role is a managing director, that we don't self-abandon in this work.
00:45:39.920 --> 00:45:49.760
It is really important for me to make sure that I'm building systems that keep me in my body, that keep me in myself, that keep me in my community, that keep me connected.
00:45:49.920 --> 00:45:59.039
And what that might look like might be a calendar invite, that might be a check-in document, that might be a conversation, that might be all of the above.
00:45:59.199 --> 00:46:05.440
But build systems that allow you to not self-abandon and become that martyr that keeps you connected to your body.
00:46:05.599 --> 00:46:11.280
Build systems that help you remember why you're doing it, not just how you're doing it, why you're personally doing it.
00:46:11.440 --> 00:46:15.199
And sometimes it's not the sexy thing because you want to see world peace.
00:46:15.360 --> 00:46:19.360
Sometimes you're doing it because you saw your mom cry once because she was hungry, right?
00:46:19.519 --> 00:46:26.480
And so it's so important to have systems that help you with remembering, with memory keeping, with self-check-in, self-trust.
00:46:26.880 --> 00:46:30.320
So that's one I would say that's a really big part of how I live.
00:46:30.400 --> 00:46:34.639
If you, if you were to look around me, I have like six different journals to practice that.
00:46:34.719 --> 00:46:39.840
The second thing I say is invest in keeping community at the center of the thing that you're doing.
00:46:40.079 --> 00:46:48.480
I have noticed the larger an organization gets and the higher up you go, the less you're deeply connected to the people that you are serving.
00:46:48.639 --> 00:46:53.760
And here's how you know if you're doing it well, if they can speak into your life as much as you can speak into their life.
00:46:54.719 --> 00:47:01.039
That's how you know if you're if you're just taking a basically in-person survey or if there's real stakes in your relationship.
00:47:01.119 --> 00:47:10.880
It doesn't have to be, listen, if you are an organization serving a million people, it's not about a million people, it's about saying one of these people has enough authority to say something in my life and I would actually listen.
00:47:11.039 --> 00:47:11.760
Right, right.
00:47:11.920 --> 00:47:17.039
And so that's really important for me that people stay at the at the core of the issue who's most impacted.
00:47:17.360 --> 00:47:18.559
It's the duality, right?
00:47:18.719 --> 00:47:20.320
It's the the give and take.
00:47:20.400 --> 00:47:28.159
You can't be you can't be the one always taking and then expecting to not receive, you know, or disapproving whatever that saying is.
00:47:28.239 --> 00:47:36.800
But um, yeah, it's it's uh keeping people and community at the center of it, profit making versus profit prioritizing.
00:47:36.960 --> 00:47:49.119
It's the relationships and connections of individuals that you are building for and with, not necessarily to take advantage of or monetize opportunity from.
00:47:50.159 --> 00:48:04.079
It's I love the way that you use language to help reframe the shift that no one's saying don't make money, but make money that is actually then use it almost as if like your money has good omen to it.
00:48:04.239 --> 00:48:21.440
You know, you're you're using that money as a way of like the good wishes, the good prayers, how that is then going to be the tool that's going to help make sure that you never see a mother cry about food again, that you never see a kid struggle with his identity or her identity.
00:48:21.599 --> 00:48:36.320
You never see an immigrant having to question which culture do I belong with, and end up internalizing hate for their culture because of just the deep need of acceptance.
00:48:36.480 --> 00:48:50.400
And the fact that you built and founded a design studio that is a business modeling design studio that is really focused on helping founders, entrepreneurs, and large organizations recognize that you have all the tools.
00:48:50.719 --> 00:48:55.840
Just redirect how you're utilizing those tools and it benefits everyone.
00:48:56.000 --> 00:48:57.119
We all thrive.
00:48:57.440 --> 00:49:00.639
So I could talk to you forever about this.
00:49:00.800 --> 00:49:03.599
And honestly, what you're doing is just absolutely incredible.
00:49:03.760 --> 00:49:05.280
It's beautiful.
00:49:05.760 --> 00:49:10.960
And I just want to say thank you so much for being on and for helping to rethink that.
00:49:11.199 --> 00:49:17.440
What is that one way that you have agency over yourself to just redesign, even in your home?
00:49:17.599 --> 00:49:23.360
You could be an individual in your home and be like, for example, right now, you know, my dad is needing to use a walker.
00:49:23.519 --> 00:49:27.840
So we've had to redesign the way the home is to make it more inclusive for him.
00:49:27.920 --> 00:49:28.400
But guess what?
00:49:28.480 --> 00:49:30.079
It's actually benefited all of us.
00:49:30.400 --> 00:49:33.760
So just taking that agency.
00:49:34.000 --> 00:49:35.599
Yeah, a hundred percent.
00:49:35.760 --> 00:49:47.679
I mean, a small design challenge that I give to some of my people is you know, if you want to, you know, do this work, you need different people around you.
00:49:47.760 --> 00:49:49.920
And and they're like, isn't it, isn't it weird?
00:49:50.079 --> 00:49:53.280
Isn't it off to try and make friends with different backgrounds?
00:49:53.440 --> 00:49:57.440
And I was like, when you get on hinge, you are making a thousand design decisions.
00:49:57.599 --> 00:50:04.480
The photos that you choose, the questions that you answer, the people that you say that you want to connect with, you are already doing that work.
00:50:04.639 --> 00:50:05.840
You are already designing it.
00:50:06.000 --> 00:50:10.480
When you want to go meet a certain person, have a certain experience, you're making design decisions.
00:50:10.559 --> 00:50:14.000
I want to have a fancy night out and I'm gonna wear this, I'm gonna go there.
00:50:14.239 --> 00:50:15.679
It's that simple, right?
00:50:15.760 --> 00:50:20.159
It's it's an intentionality that you get to show up with in your everyday life.
00:50:20.320 --> 00:50:27.039
And it may not feel not, it may not be organic, but that's what design is.
00:50:27.280 --> 00:50:36.159
Design is it's humans using their agency to work with people and places and things in partnership to create something new.
00:50:36.320 --> 00:50:38.719
So it won't always feel organic, and that's okay.
00:50:38.960 --> 00:50:39.280
Yeah.
00:50:39.440 --> 00:50:41.360
Just lean into the curiosity people.
00:50:41.440 --> 00:50:42.639
It's not scary.
00:50:43.039 --> 00:50:43.679
Yeah.
00:50:44.480 --> 00:50:46.800
Well, wonderful again to have you on.
00:50:46.960 --> 00:50:47.599
Thank you so much.
00:50:47.760 --> 00:51:04.079
We'll definitely have your you know, open house and everything linked below so people can connect with you on, you know, and twerk with you on LinkedIn and connect with you via email or your website and just and just you know, see the impact that you're making in communities.
00:51:04.239 --> 00:51:14.159
I'm so thankful for you and for your beautiful gifted brain and for just all the wonderful things that you're doing to take the heart and and make it compassionate.
00:51:14.400 --> 00:51:15.760
Thank you so much for having me.
00:51:15.920 --> 00:51:27.920
And I have I've listened to a thousand, you know, conversations and and podcasts similar to but your curiosity, the way that you engage, your authenticity just shines so brightly.
00:51:28.079 --> 00:51:31.199
And I'm just so I'm so honored to have been here.
00:51:31.840 --> 00:51:32.639
Thank you.
00:51:32.960 --> 00:51:34.559
Well, there are many more to come.
00:51:35.039 --> 00:51:35.360
Yeah.
00:51:37.920 --> 00:51:38.639
Hi friends.
00:51:38.800 --> 00:51:40.400
I have a favor to ask you.
00:51:40.559 --> 00:51:49.039
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00:51:49.199 --> 00:51:53.679
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00:51:53.840 --> 00:52:03.519
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00:52:09.360 --> 00:52:10.159
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