COVID 19 could bring a profound or notable transformation in how Americans spend, save, and invest their money; how businesses function; and how people engage. The impact of COVID 19 could reverberate for decades. Some predict that it will be like the Great Recession of 2008. Others draw comparisons to the Great Depression of the 1930s. Are either one of these accurate comparisons? We know for sure that we are in an economic, social, and political crisis. We will explore with our conversationalist: The way forward for Main Street, the social-political economic nuances necessary to carve out effective pathways to recovery, and whether there are conceptual roadmaps that hold the key to reimagining a thriving US workforce and economy.

Show Topics and Highlights

How do we support businesses and potential growth phases?

“We were able to bring together 49 strangers from across the world who had a common purpose.”

“We're interested in the kinds of stories that in what we call wicked problems that are actionable.”

The single most consensus oriented response of the of the whole seven day sprint was around one idea . . . be a better leader.

“As African Americans historically know, we've always been under pressure in a lot of different ways. And it's just like another opportunity to see how resilient are we as a people.”

The inertia of the old normal is the biggest obstacle to the new normal.

Think about what would happen if you replace the word “the” with the word “a”.

“You can improvise out of structure, you can't improvise when the entire environment is improvising like it is now.”

This is the environment that's ripe for innovation to occur. People are definitely going to rise and innovate. 

Profound Conversations Executive Producers are the Muslim Life Planning Institute, a national community building organization whose mission is to establish pathways to lifelong learning and healthy communities at the local, national and global level.   MLPN.life

The Profound Conversations podcast is produced by Erika Christie www.ErikaChristie.com

Full Transcript

Rasul Sha'ir

So I was always in a space of how do we support businesses and potential growth phases? And so part of that was how do we look at entrepreneurs in general. And what's unique I think about wakeup in terms of the work we provide is we just don't look at the idea of economic vitality. We also look at the wellness of the entrepreneurs as well. A lot of emphasis in mental well being that was long before even COVID-19 happened. That was just a part of my personal attraction to the organization because there's a lot of focus on bringing your whole self to the business. As you mentioned, what is your family life look like? What does it look like? building up opportunities and resources for your children, extended family. And so one of the things we launched about a week ago, which is when initiatives that I'm spearheading is called our lab sessions, which is learning and building. And out of those discussions, we discovered that one of the things a lot of entrepreneurs, obviously, in addition to the financial support and assistance is that a well being anxiety dealing with the anxiety How do we deal with the psychological impacts, as you just articulated? And so we actually are aggregating data and information and stories in terms of how are you being impacted? and psychologically, what are the anxiety stressors, you know, all those different levels in terms of challenges that we're working with. So we add to the sessions, which we hold about every two weeks, just the fact of people being able to get together and discuss and share and learn as a quick story. One of the entrepreneurs was applying for the payment Protection Program, which I'm assuring a number of folks are aware of the big program that was going to the SBA. And sometimes if you are applying, and you're not getting the response or the engagement, you might think that maybe I'm not moving quick enough. I'm not moving fast enough. Or you know, I'm doing something wrong, because you're not getting the response. Sometimes you get turned down and when they get to aggregate and connect with others, And similar stories, then at a minimum, their understanding, oh, I'm not the only one that's going through this. And so just the opportunity to connect, just I've mentioned Connect independent of all the other things you mentioned, you know, how it's impacting family and friends and livelihood and, you know, just security and safety, literally tomorrow in the next week, just at that moment, being able to connect with other entrepreneurs and just engage and collaborate in terms of discussion and sharing of where we are and why we're here has been very valuable. So that's what we've been doing in terms of just in the past two or three weeks in terms of addressing some of these issues.

Linda Howard

Excellent. I'm going to bring Mike and Donna into this conversation, either one of you can jump in. But I had the pleasure of experiencing the 21 day story, the seven day sprint. And I thought it was quite fascinating in terms of the questions that we're asking the feedback that came From those who participated in it, so can you give us a little bit of information about that seven day sprint and what you were after? With that seven day sprint?

Donna Pahel

Mike, do you want me to give an overview?

Mike Bonifer

Yes. Okay. Yes.

Unknown Speaker

So our sprint format that we use, whether it's seven or 21 days, was, it was born more than a year and a half ago. But we really feel like it was born four times such as these, because it's meant to empower distributed and diverse groups of people. So when we invented this thing, we already had in mind, people who weren't physically together necessarily, and being able to bring them together in Russell, you had mentioned a safe space, when we think as a space is always inclusive, right. So we wanted to be able to utilize technology to be able to bring people together that way. So during the course of one of our sprints, and people participate via either their mobile device or their laptop, it's a dynamic web experience. We don't have to they don't have to use an app or anything like that we make it really easy to interact with us. And we serve them a message that has exercises in it. And we call these story prompts. So we're immersing the contributors into a story on a daily basis throughout the course of the sprint. And this allows them to become immersed contextually into a posture of problem solving, which is a lot different than if we would just survey people. We want to posture them to empathize and to really seek to understand and help to alleviate the pain associated with the problem. And we do this through these story prompts that we serve, and they don't take more than 90 seconds or two minutes each day. And we feel that the way we take that delivery of what they have to contribute, allows them to be psychologically safe when they're doing it. And we take that in at different times of the day. And we call it honest data, because we want the unvarnished truths to be coming through to us on a daily basis. And we feed those contributions forward. So they contribute first individually, but then that all converges on on the group level.

Linda Howard

Talk a little bit about the one you just did, because that was quite interesting in terms of the title was a business it was

Donna Pahel

Business that's unusual. Leading leading in the new norm. And soas we often do, Michael, or I or Joe will have an idea and we and I had texted Michael and I said, hey, let's run a sprint with as many people as we can gather up from around the globe, and let's try running it faster because, you know, the sense of urgency 21 days all sudden seem too long. So we said can we Can we do this in seven days? And so we did it we brought 49 leaders from across different industries and academia together. And over the course of seven days, we did run all 21 prompts, which was really intense. Like I felt like we were back in our college days burning the midnight oil every night. But we were able to bring together 49 strangers from across the world who had a common purpose that they shared. And that was how do we become better leaders in the new normal and what does the new norm look like? And so all we do is support them with our framework to allow them to contribute at full potency and come together to co create a story and a roadmap for how to solve the challenge of business as unusual, Mike, I'm sure you want to add to that.

Mike Bonifer

Well, Want to go back to it? We were interested in cocreation. So there's a lot of opinions out there. Now. In fact, we're drowning in opinions about this stuff. And the other thing, we're drowning in data in waves every day and a lot of it is contradictory. You can find data that says the Santa Clara study by Stanford University shows that the infection rate is not what we thought and then you can find another scientific, you know, a peer reviewed paper, or a paper that's in the process of being reviewed that states completely the contrary. And both can be true at the same time. And so we've got to deal with this complexity. And the way we deal with it with 21 day story is locally. We're interested in the kinds of stories that in what we call wicked problems that are actionable. So a client cannot do anything about states or countries reopening policies, generally speaking, we don't know anybody that's that's influencing Or can do it at that scale. What they can solve is what are our employees going to do? Or as Rasul said, How am I going to feed my family through the summer until we get back on our feet. And so we're interested in those problems and we don't have the solution. It's we we provide a framework for a group to get to the solution have something that they can actually act on. And that's, I think, very important in terms of what we do.

So what was one of your most profound takeaways from that exercise? And then you have kind of your summary data, if you were to say something that you could share with people that in terms of the way forward in business?

Yeah, well start. I'll start and then Donna, you can flesh it out. I think the overall sentiment of begin with gratitude no matter where you're coming from, or what your role is, what kind of what the meeting configuration is where You're meeting how your meeting, begin with gratitude, you know, be be a better listener and listen to people and be grateful for what your teams are contributing.

Donna Pahel

And one of the biggest insights that is true. And I'll just add one more thing, too that, Rasul, you talked about fear. And fear is a really interesting character. Because we have fear when we're being attacked. We have fear when we're under distress in times like these. But we also tend to have fear when things are going really, really well, right, that sometimes we get into the mode of the fear of, you know, what if this great thing ends, and so forth, and so we really just encourage everyone and we encourage ourselves every day to think about questioning everything and we're slowly started to go there, right? We have to rethink and question every single thing and not from a posture of insecurity or feeling But one from confidence in the new possibilities that are going to come to bear. And that is much easier said than done. But I have found that that is one of the critical components from a mindset perspective that can really literally change your reality from one moment to the next.

Mike Bonifer

May I add one more thing, Linda?

Linda Howard

Sure.

Mike Bonifer

The single most consensus oriented response of the of the whole seven day sprint was around one idea we wanted to find out as any good story does, what is the obstacle to achieving the objective so the objective is be a better leader, let's say the single biggest objective 54% of the 49 people said the return to the old status quo is the biggest so you know when Rasul's talking about these small businesses, really, every there's two things about it that stuck out for me, every business whether it's small or large, in the same boat, it's not just small businesses that are stuck with this and to get going, again, what worked in the past for a small business, big business will not work in the future. They have to be adaptive now in a way that being small they can and nobody knows this better than you Rasul. So you know, I think you're in. They've got the right man in the right place at the right time.

Rasul Sha'ir

So kind like Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you.

Mike Bonifer

So true.

Linda Howard

Donna, you mentioned "fear" as a as one of the big issues. Yes. So this is also one of you know, we look at whether or not the US is going into a great depression, a great recession. One of the things that some of the economists predict is that the fear of what's to come can actually create what people are fearing. So are we hearing a lot of? are we hearing a lot around the fear of a depression or a recession? And any of you can jump in and answer this? So, Rasul, have you been hearing anything in terms of in the small businesses? Or is that a real fear of people?

Rasul Sha'ir

Repeat the question. I'm not sure I understand completely what you're asking there.

Linda Howard

Is there a fear, for instance, among small businesses and entrepreneurs around what whether we're going into a recession or depression, economic recession or depression?

Rasul Sha'ir

The groups that we work with, one of the things that wake up, I enjoy so much and reflects a lot of the work to 21 day stories doing is like how do you tap into this ecosystem, right of collaborators, businesses, business leaders, and wake up is just phenomenal in that regard. I mean, our ecosystem work with our partners, our current clients who actually acts as partners as well, are actually phenomenal in terms of when an opportunity presents itself. Do we sort of sort of cower in despair? Or do we look at this as an opportunity to sort of look at a different angle to sort of understand in a different kind of dimension versus historically, this is where we've been? This is what the ultimate reality is going to be. But how do we sort of look at that in a potentially transformative way. And Matter of fact, one of the final organizations that we're working with, which was launched in 2018, you're actually one of our initial partners in our lab sessions with the DMV black Restaurant Week. Two of the founders for our Tate and Dr. Aaron, two individuals that couldn't be more positive, especially in today's current environment. And I wanted to connect with them because they literally saw the opportunity to rally the troops sort of speak here in DC. And so just within those individuals and just touching them, you wouldn't you wouldn't even feel that in a depression, a pandemic, which was routing that, you know, the whole impetus around that was even literally nipping at our toes. And he up beside the head, literally just banging us on the shoulders every moment. And so in our space, the folks that we work with, and as African Americans historically know, we've always been under pressure in a lot of different ways. And so when this kind of happens, that kind of we kind of kick it into to that third, fourth or fifth gear, so to speak. And it's just like another opportunity to say how resilient are we as a people? And so in our experience, which has been, I mean, so, so, just enlightening, and just been such a breath of fresh air, just a positivity that they've sort of embraced this environment with has been, you know, lots of folks are just studying An anxiety driven because of obviously what's transpiring. But in a lot of ways, significant parts of my day are pretty joyful, to be honest, in spite of other stories that obviously, people are challenging, just just in comprehensible ways, but a number of our partners in our ecosystem are just taking this head on and really sort of jumping into it all the way up to the neck. Just getting to this, enjoy this determination to succeed at all costs. So that's what I'm actually seeing a lot of ways in the work that I'm engaged in.

Linda Howard

Okay, good. So, um, Mike and Donna, what have you seen in terms of like some of the language that you've been hearing and how that might actually shape how people are thinking and processing what's happening now?

Donna Pahel

We, as I as I mentioned earlier, we always encourage people to turn things in Questions, right? Because as you just said, do we do people expect to go into an economic recession or depression, there's going to be varying degrees of reality of that based on someone's, you know, unique circumstances. And you know, this is disruption at a global level. So, as we think about the possibilities, turning things, instead of saying we're going into a depression, we've got to like bear down for that. We really encourage the organizations that we work with to turn everything into a question so that we open up that space. And that's the best way to counteract fear as well is through curiosity. Curiosity is a really great antidote to fear. And so a lot of what we're hearing when I work with companies who want to transform, right, they're either on the brink of demise or they're on the brink of better greatness, but the break is the same. They just don't realize it. It's your precious perspective on it. And so we really encourage the embracing of that disruption, so that they can bring themselves to a state where they're open to the possibilities. As Mike mentioned, the biggest thing that came out of that sprint was the inertia of the old normal is the biggest obstacle to the new normal. And so we've got to get ourselves out of a state where we're, you know, doing the obvious things. All every single company we've talked to they're, they're trying to hurry around digitizing status quo, right? They're like, what are the things that we used to do? Well, we have to hurry up preserve those, the best way to do that is with technology. And we really need to like, go to the roots of what it is that we want to create and the new normal and make sure that we're just not doing a shined up version of the old way. And so we're hearing a lot of people like jumping to that conclusion. But once they get over that hurdle, if we can encourage them to open up that space and question everything, we could start to really get our arms around a transformative new normal.

Mike Bonifer

We can have meetings that are just as bad on zoom as they were in a conference room. And just as boring, same games, same leader arriving late and everybody's sitting there working on their boat, you know, it's the you so but now's the chance to replace some of the bad habits. I want to I want to go back to the quote, Linda that you began our session with. And if, if we look at you can look around you right now that plant behind you the books in the bookcase, the end, just on my desk, it's all there because it began with a thought. Everything that's around us, everything we can touch, everything that moves in the world begins with a thought about that thing. And this, so any recovery has to begin with a thought about that recovery. So people like those that Rasul cited. We can't ask people to be a certain way but but there are people who are adept at envisioning that putting those thoughts in motion. And this is going to sound like I'm a paid publicist for Rasul here. I assure you there is no transaction around this. I just replaced Tron with Rasul and it's like a one to one. But we're here today. In this session, I am because of a thought that Rasul had in 2008, early 2008. And it was curiosity. He's going Who's this dude out in LA writing about improvisation for business. And I've never heard of rustle sugar before, you know, out of the blue, here comes a guy and within a year we were visiting and hanging out. And that was an inflection point that that led to this. It began with a thought. And then a couple years ago I was in I gave a presentation on storytelling in DC for a bunch of media folks. And Karim Ali comes up to me afterwards, and I'd use that The word equality in my presentation. It was one of the simplest and most profound conversations. This was the first profound conversation. He came up to me and he goes, think about what would happen. This was you and Jamal and Karim think about what would happen if you replace the word equality with the word equity. And that's all he said. We didn't discuss it, we didn't go any deeper into it. But I was like, four days afterwards I was going Wait a second, the whole world shifted. For me and my understanding of narrative and and who, you know, owns a narrative, quote, unquote, who has equity in a narrative because we always think of equity as an outcome. equity is also a design. It's there for a reason it's there because somebody had a thought about how the pie should be sliced. And now we have a chance to bake a new pie and think about slicing in a different way in a more equitable way. So I think you know, the thinking about it and using curiosity as the lever into those new thoughts. Asking questions. Knowing that two things we're not alone. And we're still here, a friend of mine said that last night in a Writers Workshop, Peter J. Harris, who's a poet, who is the child of DC. His brother was the DJs famous sports DJ Karim, you know who he is, but with Ed green and, and he goes, we're still here. And I cling to the strength of my African American friends, and especially the women. It's been 400 years we're sitting here looking at, oh, man, it's been a rough six weeks. It's been over 400 years, and we're still here. And I just take a ride on that strength. I take a ride on the persistence and the resilience and the positivity, the light that can shine through the worst of hardships. And that's for me personally and we feed that as much as we can into 21 day story that by And so, you know, but it begins with with thinking it goes back to your first quote. That's everything

Linda Howard

Now Mike I'm gonna let you keep the mic for a little bit

Mike Bonifer

You're gonna be sorry.

Linda Howard

You mentioned that your involvement with the movie Tron yeah so are you seeing anything in that movie that informs what we are currently experiencing?

Mike Bonifer

There it is right there Tron [Mike holds up a Tron award]. Absolutely you know there's a it's I didn't realize it until a couple weeks ago and he goes what what are we gonna put on the blog post and I go, you know, I Steven Lisberger who directed and created Tron the movie Tron had this saying that he came up with around the time of Trump the sequel Tron Legacy a few years ago and he goes Tron came true and he kept saying whatever happened was, tron came true. And you know, we conceptually we kind of understand that is that Oh, we're living in a virtual world like we're all on the game grid video games are big, you know, eSports is big. So I kind of shelve that thought, but I've been thinking about it a lot lately. And that was a that was a character. The story was about a character who was seeking equity for what he had created. And he had to go into this virtual realm to write the wrong and he found that everything in the virtual world was an avatar of the physical world. So the the, the, the malicious CEO in the real world was the arch villain in the virtual world. The cubicles were replaced by the game grid, and it was still like fight for your life on the game grid. So I think the opportunity is to take Tron as a cautionary tale and go you know, Let's not do what happened there and recreate the physical world in virtual space. Because it goes back to what Donna was saying, Let's not bring the old bad habits with us. Let's use this as an inflection point. You know, people have been here before, on a community level for sure communities have suffered disasters and come back strong. And we have to look at local models. We have to find our first thoughts, best thoughts, most innovative thoughts, as locally as we can as frugally as we can get the innovation we need to get to it. So I don't even have any idea whether that answers your question or not Linda, but that's my riff.

Linda Howard

It does. It does. And what I'm actually hearing is that, you know, what, and and seeing as well is that a lot of a lot of individuals, a lot of businesses are basically repackaging the same thing and just trying to do it. And they trying to do it in a, in a virtual space. You know, I I can can I became a vegan took on a vegan diet quite a few years ago. And one of the things I started doing is I started veganizing all of the old recipes and saying, you know, how do I make macaroni and cheese with all the vegan ingredients and that's what kind of came to mind when you know in this conversation that we're basically digitizing the same bad ways

Mike Bonifer

Have you seen rabbits and wolves on Instagram. Do you follow rabbits and wolves that that some of the best vegan recipes you will ever see a little sidebar? Sorry, everybody.

Linda Howard

But But yeah, what are we seeing that kind of thing now, where we're that's essentially what we're doing as opposed to rethinking And, you know, how do we begin to rethink things so that there is that more equitable distribution of wealth and where we will find that there is more equity in what we're doing in businesses in America now. Ask Rasul to maybe chime in there.

Rasul Sha'ir

I really loved the way Donna sort of posed it. And the idea of part of the building bots, and this is curiosity. Quick backdrop a little bit further for me is my impact and curiosity and how it impacted me was dramatically shaped. I was actually in the Peace Corps in southern Africa, Namibia, to be specific, in the late 90s, early 2000s, right around the fall of apartheid. In a maybe it was South West Africa at the time, right above South Africa and talk about the requirements in this session. have been curious if you come to any foreign country, South America, Middle East, what have you with any preconceived notions or trying to repackage your own thoughts to have them sit and exist in the same way? Madam, sir, you will be very disappointed and hurt and confused, and struggling in all kinds of ways, because it just doesn't fit. It doesn't make sense. And so one of the things that I sort of personally had to sort of unpackage to a certain degree. Listen, you know, one of the things pervasive United States idea, obviously, some people are sort of mentioned that apartheid was slavery on steroids as an example. And so you hear that, you know, he sort of as an individual, like myself, go into that country in that environment. And so that sort of sits in a certain kind of way. And as you have to ask questions, at least a person who is really trying to understand the nature of the company context and the culture and the stories that sit there, you begin to slowly discover that, Oh, this is not we're not in Kansas anymore, so to speak. And the idea of what slavery meant in post apartheid, South Africa and what it meant United States juxtaposing sort of these two realities, was just just absolutely phenomenal in terms of require me to rethink what you know, the idea would meant to be an American, what it meant to be a volunteer what it meant to be an African American, what it meant to be living on the continent. And quickly, you learned that I need to ask a lot of questions. I really need to be, as Donna had said, so so eloquently, extremely curious. And if you're not doing that, as you just said, Are we just repackaging stuff because we're not wondering, can we do something better? We're not wondering, can we do something in a slightly different way that might bring a different kind of experience? So for me, it's just like that curiosity piece. is absolutely essential. And I don't have the answer to this, like, how do you drive curiosity within individuals. But I've always been a personal believer that if we truly believe in innovation, so to speak, or if we look at sort of recalibrating our thought process, you have to be curious. Because if you're not wondering about how are they doing it over there? Is it different than when we're doing what I'm doing? Or how are they moving to the forest over here versus there, then you're not really creating the opportunity to sort of learn, you know, and so for me that as a lifelong student, that's one of the things is actually essential. Once again, as Mike pointed out, I was like, Who's this dude, writing about surfboards and Sufi writers in Australia? That was a blog post that I was gonna say, who's this? This is who's this guy in California, you know, talking about this stuff. And I was curious and I had zero expectations and he's not gonna hit me back Hollywood guy, blah, blah, blah. You know, I don't know this. Look dude, up. Washington, DC. But it wasn't it wasn't even 48 hours and hit me back and said, Hey, I'd love to talk. And you know, all these years later, we still constantly sort of riff and improvise, and around curiosity and learning and new opportunities. And so once again, just I can't even stress, Donna, in terms of that space, in terms of she hit in terms of curiosity is such a cornerstone in terms of where's the real value that we're either missing or real value that being created? And that's the idea of what are we can we do differently? And where can we expand our curiosity to create different spaces that allow us to really go where we were trying to go or makes more sense to go?

Linda Howard

And and Rasul, I'll just, I have to share that I had a very similar experience with South Africa. I lived in South Africa for two years. And that was in the early 90s. And it was the same type of thing. I thought that I could go into South Africa and I thought It would be a lot of similarities because of apartheid in the African American experience with slavery. And it does require for you to, to rethink and understand that you cannot just plant your experience into someone else's experience without without understanding it. So I just want to echo that. That was for me also, that being curious and understanding that when you're going into a new space to try to do things in a new space, you really have to be in that space. And in that time, and not back where you were, physically or in time, the mats and I think that's also what I heard, you know, my talking about as well is that, you know, when people want to get back to the status quo, when the status quo is the past, there was a, you know, another quote that I and I I have the quote right in front of me, but it's, you know, we can't change, you know, we can't really change what's in the past, the only way to really to reveal the secrets is to push play. So we got to push play to move forward. And so my question to any of you can kind of jump in is, where do you see this way forward? for, for us, for businesses, how do we begin to shape and influence not just kind of step into this as the new reality but how do we begin to shape this new reality?

Mike Bonifer

Go ahead, Donna.

Donna Pahel

I was just gonna say we could definitely look for a copy of the roadmap that was co created by the 49 global leaders and offers some you know, good practical advice, but also, you know, provokes in a way that, you know, some leader could choose to say, you know, whatever, you know, humanity and what's that? No, it's all about humanity. It's always been about humans, even increasingly, you know, the more digital this world becomes, the more critical the human to human interactions are going to be as part of that mix. And so really taking the time as Mike said, simple things like gratitude, and opening up space, there was someone who recommended letting someone else make a decision that you typically would, you know, leaders going to have to overtly trust their people and hope that they can earn the trust back of their people in this new realm of reality. And I wanted to something occurred to me as you guys were talking one of the economic aspects that came to bear in the sprint Really was around closing the gap between the highest paid organization or the highest paid individuals and organization and the, the central frontline. And the frontlines always been essential. But the way we recognize and show gratitude toward the frontline is going to have to change because there's no going back to where we you were and how things used to be.

Linda Howard

And I think we've seen too, that that frontline has become the central workers in so where we may not have put a lot of value i'd now regularly when I go into the supermarket, I thank the cashier for coming work. Yeah. And because that is just something that we have typically overlook the impact and the significance of those that are out on the front line. And I think leadership has has also done that but we can see that these are the essential workers Now that are providing us with the things that we need in order to live and thrive,

Mike Bonifer

I want to give you a snapshot from my Disney days about what old equity design look like. There was a guy my age was an executive. On the business side of things he had abandoned his dreams of being a filmmaker to go for the money, essentially, not that he sold out. He had a family and all of that this was a career choice. So he told me one day we just optioned this screenplay for $250,000 and I got the option for $1. And I was an aspiring screenwriter at the time and got $250,000 like that writer just scored that writer Wow. $250,000 for a screenplay and he goes, No, no, no. We're never going to exercise the option. We just wanted to tie it up because we have a similar property here and we didn't want this getting out to another studio. And I started to think about the rift between this ends Game of where the equity was $1 you got $1 that's all you're ever gonna get, versus what was going on in that writers house that screenwriter, probably a young screenwriter going 250 and the amount of heartache that lay ahead for that writer for whoever that was the illusion that there was wealth that was going to be generated in some way when there was never any intention. So that was a long time ago, but that began this like divide for me so that when Karim Ali and Jamal Williams said, Hey, think about the word swap that one word and the implications and so we began collecting language. Over the past three or four years, the profound conversation group, we call it the social architecture of language. And I'm going to give you my favorite word swap because it's the simplest and it has to do with equity. Think about what would happen if you replace the word the with the word. So every time you were tempted to save The solution you say a solution. Every time you're tempted to say, the idea, you say an idea. It invites participation. And it's a way for your story and my story to become our story. And whenever the story is going to be in the future, it's going to be our story. It's not going to be any anybody's idea that they've got right now anybody's script for it. It's going to be a way that at a very local level, we look each other in the eye we listen. We're curious about one another's narratives and histories and your story of my story become our story. And that's, that's really the business we're in. When you get right down to it is how do we take these individual strands of narratives and perspectives and weave them together so that at the end of 21 days or a seven day sprint, we have a group has our story? And that's the most powerful thing that we can do right now. Is That mechanism?

Linda Howard

And how could those that's just listening get access to that seven days friend? Is that something that's going to be publicly available? Is this something we can share out?

Donna Pahel

Yes, we can. We'll send you a link that anyone can sign up to receive a copy of the roadmap. We did it with that intention that we could share it and the people who contributed could share it with as many people as possible.

Linda Howard

All right, so I'm curious as to whether or not we're going to keep this conversation going a little bit longer. We have about 10 more minutes. So I will, if anyone has any questions, if you can type them in the question box and we'll, we'll keep talking. And if we see some questions, I'll ask Erika Christie to just kind of chime in and, and let us know that we have some questions for either Donna Mike or Rasul but one of the one of the things that I heard in this conversation was around resiliency. And I think that was, I think that was Russell, they talked about resiliency. And, you know, a lot of work that's done like for wellness professionals is that they do a lot of work and training people on resiliency. And is that something that, that you see in terms of small businesses and entrepreneurs, where there was an opportunity for them to get some some, some work on how to be more resilient in these times?

Rasul Sha'ir

It's interesting. There's a friend of mine on Facebook, who her experience she's out in California, Mike's neck of the world and she works in prison populations believe in terms of support and a number of different ways and she was having this negative response. And I guess a lot of the conversations around resiliency and people were using it in a way that just wasn't supportive or wasn't generative. And she had just a lot of just anger around the way was being used. And my response to that was, like anything sort of what's the story that we're using resiliency in the context of right? there? It's for me, Mike, we've talked about this for years in terms of content, people talk about content is king. But we also believe that a part of that discussion is content or context gives me is king. And how you using resiliency really is very can be powerful in terms of the context, how are you using that? And in our context, and our content, our context is an ecosystem which once again, is so much of the work and so powerful in terms of what we're doing awaken that idea of resiliency, and it's a word we throw out there. And so what do we actually mean by that? And part of that is in a way, understand This idea of it might kind of hit on earlier this idea of equity, you know, and with wake if part of what our belief is, is that in order to create prosperity for communities, we have to create equity opportunities for equity to own, you know, not just equality to be treated fairly, which is a different conversation. But of course, it's vitally important. But in that equality, narrative and story, how do we own the ability to own our ownership in that? And that's what essentially as a part of just a DNA of the work that we do to wake it. Like we're creating opportunities every single minute, every hour, every day, every week, every month of the year, to figure out how do we create equity for these individuals to own into creating their own trajectory in life, to the best of our ability. And so, part of that resiliency is creating the opportunity for them to own that what does that mean to be reasoning, that means being able to have to the best of our ability to ability to create our own determination. And entrepreneurship is an avenue that we that we obviously are in. And so in a way, that's one of the sort of a way that we look at this idea of resiliency not necessarily traditional or conventional in terms of resiliency in terms of we're going to survive, we're going to move through this thing. But in terms of resiliency in terms of, how do we at a very DNA level, how are we creating before the conversation gets started the idea what are the building blocks that we need to do? Because as any entrepreneur can speak to Donna can speak to this mic, can, Linda you can as well, in terms of you mentioned earlier about multiple businesses as a serial entrepreneur, you know, how do we, as entrepreneurs, we are really just by the nature way, you know, we get thrown stumbling blocks all the time, I mean, speed bumps our way of life, sometimes speed mountains, which you got to just not roll over, but you got to figure out how to dig under it or go around it or whatever it may be. So in terms of from ours perspective, My perspective resiliency a part of that conversation is really how do we begin to look at the idea from jump, so to speak, of creating the opportunity in the ways for equity to develop that for ourselves.

Linda Howard

So how are we in a situation where this current current environment has, can be categorized in terms of businesses may be a great equalizer? Do you think that it's going to bring in and of itself that it will bring any equity and new opportunities that people may not have otherwise had? And that's for any of you to answer?

Mike Bonifer

I'm interested in Rasuls response to that because he's,

Rasul Sha'ir

yeah, yeah, I think what, what I always like to say is, is that at a minimum, I don't have the answers to the world's greatest problems and challenges. And everyone who says that they come to the table Saturday. I'm extremely hesitant to jump on that boat and take a ride across the river with them. At a at a at a minimum,

Mike Bonifer

I taught him that.

Unknown Speaker

Yeah yeah. Under the table I'm giving Mike his 50 bucks. And so one of the things I'm always is like, what's out there for us to consider? You have to what is out there for us to consider. And so at a minimum, the consideration is what happens in the world, right? When our small businesses, mom and pops, entrepreneurs, what happened when that world dries up, or its impact is disrupted, and we literally have that happening right now. And so, and when it comes to business and the individual, it's like, the entrepreneur is sort of that interesting space where like humanity, and this particular conversation kind of business kind of sort of converge. What does the the rugged individual look like? And what does that rugged individual narrative look like when it requires collaboration, which business doesn't, especially now with pandemic? And so that's sort of how I think about the question. You just asked them this this, like, how do we if we consider what's happening now, you know, what would eventuality be, hypothetically, if all this activity were to decimate, and that is an extremely, extremely sobering thought. So at a minimum that becomes considering that and so how do we, what do we need to do to ensure that doesn't happen? Or what do we need to do to sort of begin to look at the remedies to make sure that that doesn't become an eventuality on some form in some fashion.

Linda Howard

And the way you know, the way I'm thinking about it is like when I look at, you know, once people started going online, you know, when the internet became a real viable space, it actually created a lot of opportunities for people to get their music out. Because they didn't have to beg record labels it because they could actually put their music out there without asking someone else's permission. The same thing you have with authors, people begin to self publish, as opposed to having to convince a publisher that someone wants to hear my work and it's worthy. And I'm wondering whether or not some of these opportunities will arise now that now that you know business is going to be different in some of the requirements in terms of the capital outlay you may have needed to be, you know, to be physically present to get on a plane to attend certain meetings in person to be able to to put your work out in a professional studio setting. And now here we are on zoom. So, and those are the kind of things where I'm wondering whether or not this new reality actually is going to create opportunities. Where the entry costs might be a little bit lower to be able to engage.

Unknown Speaker

So if you look at the cost of media production, let's say so there's an industry I'm familiar with custom media production is very, very low. It so there's the barrier to entry that was always there. When I began, you had to get a crew. You had to hire a camera person, you needed a sound person and gaffer, you know, you're pulling three or four people around minimum to do to go just get anything on video. And now what do you do, you plug your phone and and you're getting motion picture quality practically, with your phone. So that's one example. What I was thinking of when Russell was talking is, you know, there's a certain amount of quantum physics in the storytelling work we do. In fact, it's called quantum storytelling in academic circles. And I'm far from being able to do the math behind it. But a quantum physicist will tell you something along the lines of a small amount of intelligent input into a chaotic field can have profound outcomes. So I think small structured inputs into the chaos, the key thing is the structure. Because you can improvise out of structure, you can't improvise when the entire environment is improvising like it is now, you can't improvise your, you know, you can't go in with with a totally improvisational, and, you know, like, made up, like invention mindset. You've got to go in with a very specific structure in mind and adjust out of that. So, I think, you know, Russell and talking about these small businesses, they're going to be more agile, they're going to be quicker to act. They can create the small intelligent inputs. A Cruise Line cannot do that. A cruise line is worried about what's going to happen to these ships. What about that island we just bought in the boat that's at the shipyard that was gonna cost us a billion dollars. best idea ever heard about that is selling to the Saudis as yachts, sell all the cruise ships to the Saudis. Yes. That was a good idea. Anyhow, small amount of intelligent input into a chaotic field is a key and we help people do that. And I've done a probably has a correction, or some no, yes. And you do the "yes . . and"

Unknown Speaker

"Yes . . and." This is the environment that's ripe for innovation to occur. People are definitely going to rise and innovate. And that opportunity presents itself to the largest and the smallest of companies.

Linda Howard

Right. I think I think that that's a nice positive note to end on. We are at the top of the hour and I want to profoundly thank our panelists, our conversation list on a mic and resume for participating in today's profound conversation. And to also thank our our engineer is Erika Christie and my two business partners that helped make Profound Conversations happen. And that is Karim Ali and Samuel Shareef. And certainly we always thank all of you up to date to today's episode of Profound Conversations and for those that will tune in later to listen. Thank you very much.

Mike Bonifer

Thank you, Linda.

Donna Pahel

Thank you.