High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 493: The Pursuit of Authenticity Dr. James Smith, Jr., Keynote Speaker, Coach, Author, and Educator

Episode Date: May 21, 2022

For over 20 years, hundreds of thousands of people, both national and international audiences of all sizes, have experienced the passion, creativity, storytelling, unshakeable positivity and mind-shifting power of Dr. James Smith, Jr. CSP. After 14 years in corporate America, and four years working with several training and development and diversity and inclusion consulting firms, Dr. James formed his own company help others remove self-created and/or organizational barriers to jump into their BIGNESS. A personal-power expert, educator, speaker and coach, Dr. James has taken his message to over 25 countries and has achieved the National Speakers Association Certified Speaking Professional designation – a designation that only about 17 percent of NSA members worldwide have earned. Dr. James has authored three books with The No Excuse Guide to Success: No Matter What Your Boss or Life Throws at You book earning an NAACP Image Award nomination. His most recent book (a co-authored book project), A Collective Breath: Stories of Being Black in America and Visions of Change, was recently released. In this interview, James and Cindra discuss: The true meaning of authenticity Why it is more important than ever before for leaders to be their authentic best His life-changing decision to pursue his own authenticity more often What hinders authentic expression And 3 ways to pursue authenticity more in your life HIGH PERFORMANCE MINDSET SHOWNOTES FOR THIS EPISODE: www.cindrakamphoff.com/493 FB COMMUNITY FOR THE HPM PODCAST: https://www.facebook.com/groups/highperformancemindsetcommunity FOLLOW CINDRA ON INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/cindrakamphoff/ FOLLOW CINDRA ON TWITTER: https://twitter.com/mentally_strong TO FIND MORE ABOUT DR. JAMES: https://www.drjamessmithjr.com/ Love the show? Rate and review the show for Cindra to mention you on the next episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/high-performance-mindset-learn-from-world-class-leaders/id1034819901

Hey, my name is Cindra Campoff and I'm a small-town Minnesota gal, Minnesota nice as we like to say it, who followed her big dreams. I spent the last four years working as a mental coach for the Minnesota Vikings, working one-on-one with the players. I wrote a best-selling book about the mindset of the world's best and I'm a keynote speaker and national leader in the field of sport and performance psychology. And I am obsessed with speaker and national leader in the field of sport and performance psychology. And I am obsessed with showing you exactly how to develop the mindset of the world's best. So you can accomplish all your goals and dreams.

So I'm over here following my big dreams. And I'm here to inspire you and practically show you how to do the same. And you know, when I'm not working, you'll find me playing Miss Pac-Man. Yes, the 1980s game Miss Pac-Man. So take your notepad out, buckle up, and let's go. This is the High Performance Mindset. Welcome to the High Performance Mindset podcast. This is your host, Dr. Cendra Kampoff. And thank you so much for joining me here today for episode 493. I'm so grateful that you're here, and thank you so much for tuning in regularly to the podcast. Today, I have a powerful interview with Dr. James Smith Jr. on the pursuit and power of authenticity. Now, let me introduce you to Dr. James.

For over 20 years, hundreds of thousands of people, both nationally and internationally, have experienced the passion, creativity, storytelling, and unshakable positivity of Dr. James Smith Jr. CSP. After 14 years in corporate America and four years working with several training and development, including some diversity and inclusion consulting firms, Dr. James formed his own company to

help others remove self-created and organizational barriers to jump into their bigness. He is a personal power expert, educator, speaker, and coach, and he's taken his message to over 25 countries. He's earned the National Speakers Association Certified Speaking Professional designation, and Dr. James has authored three books, including The No-Excuse Guide to Success, which earned an NAACP Image Award nomination. In this interview, Dr. James and I talk about the true meaning of authenticity, why it is more important than ever before for leaders to be their authentic best,

his life-changing decision to pursue his own authenticity more often, what hinders authentic expression, and three ways to pursue authenticity more in your life. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a rating and a review for our show. This allows us to reach more and more people each and every week. And if you're listening on your phone, for example, you can just scroll up on the episode and hit review and leave us a rating and review. We would be so grateful. All right, here is Dr. James. Thank you so much for being here, Dr. James Smith, Jr., CSP. Welcome to the High Performance Mindset. Honored, honored, honored.

We're so grateful that you're here today. I heard you speak at the National Speakers Association Influence last summer, and then I saw you at the Winter Conference this year, and I was, I'm just so excited and delighted to share with the High Performance Mindset community a little bit more about your message, and I'm just so excited and delighted to share with the high performance mindset community a little bit more about your message, and I can't wait to dive in. So welcome. Thank you, Sandra. Ditto. I'm honored to be here. I'm looking forward to our discussion. Let's play. Let's get messy. Let's have a good time. Awesome. Well, let's start with, tell us a little bit about your passion and what you do right now.

Several, several. One of my passions is the Philadelphia Eagles. No, let me stop. I'll talk professional. I'm passionate about autism research and support. I have two children, two sons. My bonus son, I don't say stepson, my bonus son and my biological son are both on the autistic spectrum. They both are nonverbal.

And I want to make sure that they have a fabulous life when my wife and I aren't here. We want them to get the same type of love. So I'm doing research and making connections to make sure their world today and their world tomorrow will still be fantastic or as fantastic as it can be. And I'm also passionate about speaking and helping people get out of their own way. No more excuses, no more self-created barriers, move the pessimistic, the victim, the negative person out the way and step forward with a powerful, passionate, purposeful individual. So that's, those are the two things I'm most passionate about. I appreciate that you answered that question with both like family and professionally. So thank you

so much. So tell us a bit about, you know, you're a speaker and a coach and an educator. Just tell us a bit about your journey to. Well, I think about the biggest honor in speaking, in my opinion, is to grace the main stage at the National Speakers Association. So tell us about how you got there. My journey to the main stage started a long time ago when I was a member of the Jackson Six. People thought there were five of us, Michael, Marlon, Tito, Jackie, Jermaine, but James, I was the one that never made the pictures. But I was part of the group. I would, in my living room at home, I would get a brush to be the microphone. I would get a broom to be the guitar and I'll put my toys, stuffed animals on the couch. And I would perform and sing in front of my audience, ABC, the love you save. I want you back from there. I, I, I guess fell in love with entertaining with, with speaking, with having fun in grade school grade school, my teachers would always say, my work was excellent, but my work habits were not the best because I wouldn't stop talking.

I'm running my mouth, running my mouth. And now all these years later, I'm 61 years old and I get paid to run my mouth. I worked in corporate for 14 years. And while I was in corporate, I saw a lot of vendors coming in to do professional development workshops, presentation skills, diversity, career development, you name it. And I started really checking them out because I loved what they were doing. Some were good, some were not so good. And right about that time, I posted for my marketing position because I didn't like it anymore. And I ended up in human resources training and development. So that's where I began to cut my teeth. I loved it. I ended up working 14 years corporate, one of those vendors took me out to lunch. I told him what I wanted to do. And he said, have you ever thought about being a subcontractor? What's that? He explained it to me. He hired me once my boss gave me her blessing. When I got a gig, I would work a four-day work

week or take a vacation day. And I was doing diversity consulting work for him for three years while still fully employed. And I said, this is what I want to do when I grow up. And he put it out in the universe. The last organization I worked for, we were acquired by another bank. At the time, I was a vice president of business learning resources. And if I was let go, I would get six months salary, six months severance. I said, bye-bye, corporate. I did my best. Bye-bye. It's part of that Jackson six. I like it. And that's where I started this journey,

a journey that will only end when I expire because I'm not going to retire. This is my, this is my ministry. I could not imagine doing anything else. And I've done it internationally, 35 countries, 45 states, and I just keep getting you're talking about it and the way that, you know, you describe it to us. So thank goodness you made the leap of speaking full time. Cedra, the word passion, you know, spelled P-A-S-S-I-O-N. Yes. I like to believe that it means pass I on. So I'm passing on my enthusiasm, my experience, my energy, my vulnerability, my courage, regardless of what I'm speaking or coaching on. Excellent. And I know you speak on at least four different topics.

Today, we're going to talk about all of them in some way. So authenticity, presentation skills, personal power and diversity and inclusion. And I guess the first question that I have for you is let's dive into this idea of authenticity. And honestly, I love that you're talking about this topic as a man, because I think these ideas of like vulnerability and authenticity, I think, you know, they're in my book, my book is called Beyond the Grit, Dr. James, and it covers 10 practices of high performers. And one of them is authenticity. And I find that it can be really difficult for people to practice. And I just use the word practice because I do think it's something that we have to practice. So I would just I'd love for you to start with, you know, you talk about living, leading and speaking authentic, authentically

every day. What does what does that actually mean to you? Sure, sure, sure. When you were framing the question, you took me back in my head. When I was growing up, I heard refrains like big boys don't cry, you know, right, you know, show me your muscles, all these narratives relative to being a strong, tough young man. Well, in that moment, suppose I didn't want to be tough. Suppose I wanted to be emotional. I wanted to let it out. I was weird or raised not to do that. Hmm. So there was, I guess, a, a, a need an urge to explore this for a long time. When I was in corporate, I heard fake it till you make it. Go along and get along.

Don't speak truth to power. Don't reveal your entire self. Keep something in. And then of late, what really led me to my research was people saying, I'm one way at home and I'm one way at work. And I wanted to know why couldn't you be whole at home and at work? And people would say, nope, you can't, you can't, you can't. Corporate culture playing the game. And I called on that and decided to do my research. And I went into my research believing that authenticity was a matter of either or. You're either authentic or inauthentic. And I wanted

to find out why people weren't more authentic all the time. And through my research, I now believe that authenticity is a matter of degrees. It's more or less, not either or. If I choose not to be more in this moment, it's because I'm choosing not to. If I choose to be more in that moment, it's my choice. I believe authenticity is around being the best version of yourself as often as possible. And depending on the situation, you may choose to be less or more, but it doesn't mean you're being inauthentic. Because I don't tell you what I did over the weekend with my mom or my family, I'm not being inauthentic. I'm just choosing not to reveal those deep personal details. And the detractors, the researchers who don't believe in authenticity say, humans cannot be authentic all the time. We can be authentic in that moment,

but it doesn't make us an authentic person. A painting is authentic. A piece of jewelry is authentic. It's never changing. But every day we get a chance to become like a kaleidoscope. We're always evolving. We're always becoming. We're always changing. But in that moment, yes, we could be authentic, but it doesn't define who we are. Yeah, I love that. So authenticity is not either or it's more or less. And humans cannot be authentic all the time. It makes me think about the barriers that I experience in terms of, you know, when I feel like I'm more authentic or less authentic. And I think the thing that gets in my way is a judgment, right? Judgment of myself or sometimes

on stage, you know, it's like, oh, well, what's the audience thinking? I've learned to just silence that inner dialogue and work to be me because I also feel like when I'm my full self, I can connect with people much better than when I'm judging myself. So I think judgment is one way that gets, you know, at least for me, of what gets in our way of being authentic. What are what do you think about that, Dr. James? And like, what are some other things do you think get in our way of being and expressing ourselves? One, self-created barriers. The stories we tell ourself relative to if I am authentic, this is what's going to happen. The perception that we have the power to hurt someone's feelings, the power that if the thought that if we are

authentic, people aren't going to understand us, they're going to judge us. We fear speaking truth to power because if we do, we create punishments and penalties that we believe will happen as a result. And we would just rather go along to get along. If you talk about the areas of diversity, equity, and inclusion, we're at our best when we're young. We ask questions. We want to play. We want to know why you have that pimple on your cheek. Why did you shave your hair? Why did you dye it? Now as adults, I'm not asking. I'm not saying anything.

No, no, no, no. We still have that that inquisitive mind, but we don't act on it as much because we fear something negatively may happen. And we don't feel safe. And also, Cendric, we live in a society where it's acceptable to be less authentic. Coach, tough game. What happened? Why did you lose? Well, I have to put my players in a better position. It's my fault. I could do a better better job of coaching your quarterback threw 10 interceptions what happened well uh we called the wrong play and come on tell us the truth right Mr. Brady Mr. quarterback uh you guys lost the Super Bowl how do you feel about that it's just another game I'm gonna go home to my wife and my kids I'm a. I don't care about the fans. I care about my family. He can't say that. Right. Right. So, Mr. President, you just had that tough meeting with the other party. How did it feel? Well, you know, character building time. You know, we're just

putting the country first. Okay. Right. Can we really give and receive authentic communication? I believe there's a lot of room for improvement. I know that there's a lot of room for improvement. And I think maybe even the way that people are criticized on social media, that's one of the barriers I see why people don't necessarily speak their mind. One of the things I know, Dr. James, you talk about is this dual threshold model of authenticity. Tell us a bit about that and how we could apply that to our own lives. When I was working on my research, my advisor, Dr. Deanna Geddes, had studied emotion when she was working on her PhD. And she showed me this model. I'm like, this is amazing. Can we substitute emotion with authenticity?

And we did. And essentially, it's a model that has three thresholds. You start in the suppression area. You move to the expression area, and then there's the impropriety area. The suppression area as a speaker, as a person in the workplace, you're basically suppressing your level of authenticity. You don't share your truth, you don't speak truth to power, you just show up, go along and get along. The likelihood of you moving into a leadership or ranks of leadership are slim and none because you're not expressing your power.

Then you move to the expression threshold. And that's the threshold we believe is rocking. You're sharing your truth as much as you can. You're being you as much as you can. You are feeling good about what you're saying. You're being vulnerable. You're commuting, you're communicating your thoughts, your expressions. the impropriety threshold. And that's the threshold where your level of authenticity supersedes or goes against the values and norms and beliefs of the organization, of the family, of the group. For instance, if you're a narcissist, this is being a narcissist 2.0. If you're any type of is, whether it's a sexist, a racist, it's homophobic, it's that level of authenticity overdone and it's not welcome or appreciated. organizations to expand their threshold for authenticity to around four through eight, with 10 being getting into impropriety, but four through eight. And there are factors that play a role in us crossing those thresholds, and that includes the culture, our team members, our leadership. Those entities play a role in giving us more courage, permission, confidence to express more authentic communication.

Yeah, James, I hear a lot of people say, well, you know, when you're thinking about authenticity, you know, that they might just say, well, this is just who I am. And maybe what they said was sexist or homophobic or racist, or wasn't like what you said, aligning with the company's values. And I appreciate that you, you called it, uh, in propriety threshold, right? Like there's a name for it. Um, give us a little, your point where they said, that's just who I am my response to that is that's how you choose to be in that moment when we do these personality indicators and they said I'm this I'm that no no that's who you choose to be in that moment I speak for a living I coach I train people would say I'm an extrovert because I'm running my mouth all the time I'm getting my energy from the people I'm running my mouth all the time. I'm getting my energy from the people I'm speaking to.

But when I travel, I choose to be an introvert. I don't talk. If I'm on a plane sitting next to you, you won't get a buzz out of me other than you think, can I get by you to go to the bathroom? Right. I put my sunglasses on, my hat. I pretend like I'm asleep until I'm asleep. Unless I'm on a marketing campaign, I want you to buy my next book. And I hold my book up in front of my face. But it's, Cedric, one of my favorite quotes is that when we're young, we look a lot like our parents. But when we get older, we look a lot like our choices. What are we choosing to be given the situation?

That does not define that's just who I am. That's who you're choosing to be in that moment. Yeah, that's helpful because I think it takes more of the personal power back. Like you feel like you have a choice instead of, you know, well, that's just who I am. Right. I'm curious for those people who are listening, because I know they're probably asking or thinking in their mind, how do we, you know, what would you suggest if we want to express our authentic self more often, right? Not suppress it, but express it. And I think especially for leaders, this is so important so that, you know, kind of what I was saying is I feel like I can connect with people who are their full authentic self. So give us a sense of what you might, you know, advice you'd give for people, let's say you're coaching or you're on stage training and they want to show their more, their authentic self more often. Sure. Sure. Number one, you have to know who you are because authenticity is a matter of

self-knowledge and self-regulation. How do I behave based on what I know about me? Number two, develop your personal values. What do you stand for? My organization, our personal values, our organizational values is the word GLUE, G-L-U-E. G stands for goal-driven, L stands for leverage, U stands for urgency, and E stands for excellence. And the people on my team know that if we are utilizing this glue, we're gonna stick together

and we're gonna stick to our principles and the results are gonna be unfathomable. So develop your, know who you are, number one. Number two, develop your personal value set and live according to those values. Number three, stop making up stories. In life, something happens to us. And as a result, we tell a story and that story is usually negative. We believe if I say this, this is what's going to happen. And again, it's usually negative. So if I tell my boss I don't like it here, he, she or they are going to fire me.

Or they may say, why don't you like it here? But we forecast failure. So those three again are know who you are. Number two, develop your personal values. And number three,ulation and being able to regulate yourself. I think you're right that people, we tend to tell ourselves stories about failure or that people won't accept us if we really follow our true authentic self. I think, yeah, I've done my own share of personal development work. And one of the things I really learned from one conference I went to, someone said, wow, your passion, your energy is the thing that makes you unique. And I was like, wow, no one's really told me that. And for a while, especially working with a lot of male teams and let's say male sports

teams, professional teams, or even speaking in front of males, like, I think I, I suppress that a lot. Well, you know, maybe they won't like me if I'm really passionate. But after that comment, it made me realize, oh, I think if I own this more, right, that would help me just also be myself more often connect with them. But, you know, with them. But I've learned to just really embrace that about who I am. And if you think about your life, Sandra, we experience a lot of bumps in the road in order for us to learn anything. We take hits. When we speak truth to power, we're going to take hits. We are.

However, is it worth it? If you get wounded, are you going to learn to walk with the wound? If it's worth it, you're going to do it. And our mindset for it. We tend to chase what we want. And I want you to chase even more. That's why my keynote on moving from ally to advocate is so popular. There's a lot of allies out there. But where are our advocates, the people who will stand up for us to go at it alone, to be our voice, to speak for us when we don't have a voice. Allies to me seem like people who think about doing it, write about doing it, say they have your support. When I hear advocate, I see someone in front of me saying, be careful. I've got to leave her alone. You know, my sons are nonverbal.

I advocate for them. Many of us have elderly parents. We advocate for them. Think of the spirit and energy that goes into being an advocate and then compare it to being an ally. It's night and day to me. And being an advocate is a risk. It is. And I think one is really giving and serving and focusing on other people.

I'm curious, Dr. James, can you tell us a bit about your journey to embrace more of your full authentic self? Oh, wow. It's been some journey. Raised in a lower class environment until I was 11 years old and we moving on up. We moved into a middle class area. My parents divorced when I was 11. My mom raised my brother and myself. And because we were smart, we went to smart schools, and those schools weren't as diverse from the ethnicity and race standpoint. Then I went to high school, and my high school was 99% Black African American. I graduated in the top five of my class. Then I went to college. My college at the time was 99% white. And there was a shift in me.

I didn't feel smart. I still maintain my physical sports love because I played football. But outside of the football field, I didn't feel as smart. I didn't think I looked as smart. I started to go along, to get along. I just wanted to fit in. And admission into that group was for me to take on a new name. And that name was Jim. I became Jim Smith. I didn't really like it, but if that was the ticket to get in, okay, I'm Jim Smith that's my nickname and it's a name that played a role and me still working hard but me not speaking truth to power me going along to get along me becoming a people pleaser me wanting to impress you do the right thing and it worked to an extent from a accumulate awards, accumulate gifts and highlights. But inside, I knew I wasn't being as much as me as I can be.

Unless I was in the classroom, the door was closed and they got all of me. And I was Jim up until 2020 during the pandemic when in May, I believe it was May 25th, George Floyd was murdered. And, you know, for years I've been saying politicians need to do better. Athletes need to do better. Entertainers, they all need to speak up. Educators, speak up. Someone else needs to speak up. And I'm a speaker.

And being home all that time and watching TV, I said, you know, I have to stand up. I have to be a voice of reason. I have to fight for equality or advocate for equality and inclusion. And I'm going to do it being all of me. And the first thing I'm going to do is go back to my birthday, James. So James Smith, Jr., this has been some journey and where I'm at now, you're never going to wonder what's on my mind or what I'm thinking. If you ask me a question relative to an area of inclusion or diversity, or if someone's misspoke in the past, I would hear it and just shake my head and not say anything. And that's called silent support. Silence is violence. Now, if someone says something egregious, like, you know, Dr. James, when I see you, I don't see color. In the past, I would, okay. Now I say, oh, time out, time out, time out. I think what you're attempting to say is you don't let my color or my race play a role in how you treat me.

But that's not what you said. What you said is you don't see something that's profound and significant to me. My skin color, my gender, my name, that quality, that's so important. I wonder how some women feel. I can't speak for all women, but some women feel when the speaker or the leader say, all right, guys, let's bring it in. Guys? James, you don't want to get me started on guys.

Did I just touch a nerve? Yeah. I'm not a guy. Exactly. Yeah. I don't see you as a woman you're just one of the guys let's not get it twisted yeah see me and treat me accordingly and you know how you get to treat me now you get a chance to find out how to treat me ask me you observe we talk because i don't want you to treat me like everybody else. People say, what's the golden rule? Treat everyone the way you want to be treated? No silence, more distance, more projects. As you get to know me, leader, you can adjust your leadership style to help develop me based on what you've observed. Yeah. Well, thank you for sharing that journey, Dr. James. I got goosebumps when you said like in 2020, you became all of you and,

and yeah, yeah. And I see you, right. And, and then really took on Dr. James Smith, Jr. Very powerful. I feel powerful. I do. I don't feel passive or helpless or wish someone does something. You know, you said you saw me last year when I did that keynote at Influence Main Stage. When I got back home, since a number of my Philadelphia chapter members did not make it, I did a watch party. And after the watch party,

one of the gentlemen who was on the Zoom call with us said, you really took a risk during that presentation. You took a risk. I just shared my life story. But that still was a risk. You talked about race. That's part of my life. And as a leader, if we can't talk about elements of diversity, how can we manage them? If we can't talk about it, it's conversational. We make it much more challenging. This is my life story. If I were to edit some of that story, you wouldn't have received those goosebumps. Or the people in the audience would not have felt what they felt when I was up there just sharing my April 24th, 1961 up until now.

Yeah. Yeah. Right. And, and, and what I'm hearing is the power of embracing your, your fullness. Right. And, and, and how much courage that takes. And you said something about like, if you want to know how to treat me, ask me. And I think people aren't, don't have, don't ask those conversations or don't ask those questions because maybe it feels like you're taking a risk, that it's maybe easier to treat everybody the same

or just, I don't know, not ask Dr. James how he wants to be treated or referred to than really asking the tough questions and being authentic in these conversations about diversity and inclusion. So what are your thoughts on that? I think you're spot on. I think many of us, again, forecast failure. We don't think it's going to work out. The key, though, to those conversations is what have you deposited into that relationship account before the conversation? If you have not made any deposits and now you're coming for this big withdrawal, that's going to bounce. It's going to bounce because you have not made deposits into me,

into her, into them before then. I call it having front seat conversations. If you think about your car, the items you put in your front seat, your sunglasses, your phone, your water, your keys, they are items that you need. They need to be close by. Your backseat, maybe your coat, your bag, your trunk, emergency items. I believe in life as it relates to diversity, equity, and inclusion. You think about areas like gender, ethnicity, thinking style, veteran status, citizenship, physical ability, or lack thereof. Where are those elements in your car of life? Race for me, front seat.

I think about it all the time. Nationality for me, when I'm home, it's in my trunk. When I travel internationally, oh, I'm very aware that I'm an American. Yeah, for sure. So these elements move back and forth, but being a superior manager, part of being a superior manager is being able to get into the front seat with your employees. What's front seat for them? And the way you do that first is not to ask them what's in their front seat. No, no, no, no, no, no. You're making a withdrawal.

Start by making deposit. Share what's in their front seat. No, no, no, no, no, no. You're making a withdrawal. Start by making deposit. Share what's in your front seat first. And then they'll see you being vulnerable. And then they might be even more vulnerable as well. But they want to see where you're coming from before they begin to be vulnerable, open up, and give you important information. And quite frankly, they're probably thinking, you're in my office all the time. Why don't you know what's important to me? You see my picture, my family, my university. You know what I'm doing on weekends. I'd say I'm golfing, I'm horse racing, I'm hiking. They're there. Sometimes we're so oblivious because it's all about me, what we want, and we lose sight of those factors that are significant to other people. Isn't that true?

And having those conversations will make those challenging conversations. I'll give an example. Okay, perfect. When I first started doing diversity, equity, inclusion work in the, I believe it was the late 80s. My organization had appointed me to be diversity council leader to lead and develop our diversity training courses. And Sindra, initially, I did not want to touch that at all because at the time I was a 30-something-year-old Black man

and all I knew about was being a 30-something-year-old Black man. For sure. I didn't know about sexual orientation. I didn't know about Indian centric initiatives. I knew a lot about me. However, I said, this is going to grow me. It's going to be a risk. People are going to stop seeing me as the corporate trainer and see me as this Black guy who does diversity. But I took it on. And I went to this conference. And it was a training conference for educators and corporate trainers, a lot of different tracks. But I went to all the courses and sessions related to diversity. After the first day, I get on the shuttle bus to go back to the hotel. And there's a woman on the bus. Just me, her, and the bus driver. She appeared to be an Indian female because she had the bat red. I didn't know what that meant. I'm like, I need to know because I'm teaching diversity.

I walked over to her. Good afternoon. Hope you're enjoying the conference. My name is Jim Smith, Jr. I came because I wanted to learn more about diversity. I'm a diversity council leader, training leader. And I always wondered, what did the dot mean? What does it stand for? What does it represent? She started laughing and said, Mr. Smith, Mr mr smith this is crazy you know why my company just appointed me the same position and i'm here

for you should i call you black or african-american right the shuttle went back and forth for an hour or so with we were in contact. Why? Because we weren't afraid to ask the question. And we did it in a vulnerable way, which indicated that we were sincere, we were real, we just wanted to understand and learn. Yeah, wow, it's a powerful example. And I think people aren't, you know, they don't want to ask those questions, right? They would rather be silent, which you mentioned. So, Dr. James, what, you know, I realize people are on a different, you know, various continuum on their awareness of diversity, inclusion, and the topics we're talking about today. But do you have any advice or a takeaway that people could use to kind of think about how can they grow in this area? Sure, sure. Several. Number one, to be vulnerable. Number two, to have an open spirit. Number three, to know that you're not always going to say the right thing. But because of your spirit and your grace and your countenance, the person will receive that and coach and educate and say, that's okay.

No one is perfect. Also to know that it's never over. We are lifelong learners. Yes. And I believe from an authenticity standpoint, we're at our best when we're young and when we're old. You know, my grandmother, when she was alive, I go to visit her. She'll, you put on weight. What you been eating, people? Or a neighbor mr smith mr smith wow you've been working out you look good

they will share their truth in all those years in between we collude we keep it in. We forecast failure. We make excuses and we make poor choices. And Cedric, listen to this. We make poor choices, but we call them mistakes. Yeah. By saying mistake, it seems like it just happened. It was a mistake. No, you made a choice before you made the mistake. The choice turned into a mistake. How often do you hear people saying, I made a poor choice that time? No, I made a mistake. If I hurt you, if I bothered you, I didn't mean to. to learn, I think that will play a key role in keeping us trending in the right direction as it relates to diversity, equity, inclusion, and authenticity. Yes. Yeah. Well, great suggestion there is to share our truth more often with kind of an open spirit.

I appreciate that. And you used the word power, and I know I'm going to have to have you on again, Dr. James. We didn't even get to talk about presentation skills, but let's end with some ideas about personal power. And when you think about this idea of personal power, why do you think that's relevant today more than ever before? before. It is so relevant. My last book was called The No Excuses Got You Success, No Matter What The Balls of Life Throws At You. And I believe we make a ton of excuses, which puts us in a place of being a victim. In 1990, a group from Germany, I believe their name Snap. The group is called Snap. They made a song that's still popular today. Now, I hope your listeners don't cringe when they hear me attempt to sing it because I sing like no one's listening and dance like nobody's watching. But it's, I've got the power. I've got the power. We still hear it today. Well, if we have the power, why do we consistently give it away? When we say that's going to be a tough audience,

we just gave the audience that power. When we say you make me mad, we gave that person our power. You're not going to like me, we gave that person our power. Oh, the pandemic, I need people, I can't speak virtually, you just gave the pandemic your power. We consistently give our power away and blame it on people and circumstances. It's being intentional, it's being personally responsible and accountable for what happens to you and how you handle what happens to you. When the pandemic hit, Sandra, for the first month or two, victim vocabulary, because 99% of the solutions I provided were done in person. Yeah. I couldn't even spell Zoom.

Right. And now look at you. You learned it quick. I lived from March through September without any billable income. I reached out to my friends who were doing webinars and Zoom and that crash course and how to do it. And then I fell in love with it. And I said, listen, when you watch the news, that news journalist is in a room full of people

and they're clapping. No, they're not. They're in a room with a camera and they're talking to the camera and they're having a one-on-one and you feel like they're right in your living room. They don't have an audience. No one's clapping, but they make you feel as though you have no one-on-one with them. And I said, I'm going to do this. Last year, I've been in business for 20 years. I would say last year, not the top two, top three year I've had. And 90% of my offerings were delivered via Zoom or from a distance.

Awesome. Mindset. Personal power. Mindset. Yeah. What a great way to just describe, you know, how you got stuck in the trap too. I did. We're human, right? So I appreciate just your vulnerability there and just how you really turned that around when you started owning

your power. I'm glad you said turn around because a lot of people say pivot. No, I spawned all the way around. It was difficult, you know, the pandemic in general, right? Because it shifted so quickly. But I appreciate what you said about like not giving your power away to the audience or the other person or, you know, or whatever that might be. We can sometimes do that without even realizing it. it and I thought about that when I was preparing for my keynote and influence last year I actually had slides to show but during dinner the night before my keynote one of the seasoned NSIRs hall of famers he said man I wouldn't use any slides you are an amazing human visual aid it'll take away give them you raw, real, everything, no slides. Yeah. And I threw my slides away. I didn't use them. And my mindset was, should I do some of this stuff? Because this is NSA, conservative. You're about to go raw and real. But I said, if I'm going to go down, I'm going down with my fastball. I'm not going to throw them a curve or a change up. If it's not going to work, I'm going to say I gave them my

all. I gave them my best. I gave them the best version of me. I love it. That was personal power. Well, that's personal power. And then, you know, I think the way that you did it was incredible. And that's what's memorable, right? Like as somebody in the audience, right? I'm not going to remember, right? Just going through the slides, but it was like this true story of, you know, where you're sharing your soul, really. Yeah. Doug Stevenson likes to say, facts fade, stories stick.

I love it. So you're still like a bunch of facts, but your stories, sticky, sticky. Now the speaker, you want to use narrative and words that have sticking power. Yeah, I love it. Well, Dr. James, here's what I took from our conversation today as a way to summarize and wrap up. I, I, I appreciate what you said about authenticity is not either or, or it's more or less. And you said humans are not created to be authentic all the time. But you gave us some really great ideas on how to practice authenticity.

So it was like the dual model or dual threshold model of authenticity, suppression, expression, impropriety, threshold. Hopefully I got that right. And then you gave us three steps on how to do that or how to be authentic more often. Know who you are, which includes self-knowledge and self-regulation, understanding your personal values and stop making up stories. And I appreciated the conversation we were having

about diversity inclusion and just asking, right? And I heard you say a couple of times that we forecast failure. And I'm hopeful that that's something that people took from today is owning to own your personal power means working to reduce that forecasting failure. So where can we find out more about your books and tell us how we can start following you, Dr. Smith? The easiest way, social media, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Dr. James Smith Jr. I have a YouTube channel, Dr. James Smith Jr. And my website, get ready for this, really creative, Yeah. Dr. Daniel Smith, Jr. dot com. I love it. Well, what what final advice or thoughts do you have for us, Dr. Smith? I'm going to give you what since we did not get a chance to speak a lot of presentation skills, I'm going to give you one around presentation skills. It's called the FISH model, F-I-S-H. So great presenters go fishing. The

acronym stands for F-I-S-H, which stands for I. We'll start with the I. The I stands for I, the individual. I, the person listening to you. I, the person listening to this podcast. I, the person watching you from afar in the audience. I need the F, feel your message, S, see your message, and H, hear your message. As a speaker, I have to get you to feel it, movement, gestures, energy, eye communication, vocal variety, feel it, see it. Because you always hear, Cedric, you always hear, you see what I'm saying? You see what I'm saying saying so we have to get people to see what we're saying anecdotes stories illustrations movement stand-up comedians do it the best because no one has or few people have seen stand-up comedians use powerpoint no they don't and you laugh for two hours you laugh for two hours because they're telling stories and

they're using repetition so feel it see, see it, and finally hear it. I'm not talking volume, not volume. I'm being very sexist here because my mother, my female friends and colleagues, at some point they've said, oh, you don't hear me. They're not talking volume. They're not talking volume. They're talking a deeper level of understanding.

So as a speaker, if you want to wow your audience, take them fishing, get them to feel, see, and hear your message. And you did that today on this podcast. Thank you very much. Thank you, Dr. Smith. What an honor to have you. Thanks for the last little piece of content there that I know we all can use. So thank you so much for gifting us with

your time and your talents today. We're grateful for you. We, and we are grateful for you because you're using the show to bring wisdom and knowledge and bring syndrome to their heads and their hearts. So thank you so much for inviting me. And I look forward to seeing you again real soon. Awesome. Thank you. Way to go for finishing another episode of the High Performance Mindset. I'm giving you a virtual fist pump. Holy cow, did that go by way too fast for anyone else? If you want more, remember to subscribe and you can head over to Dr. Sindra for show notes and to join my exclusive community for high performers where you get access to videos about mindset each week. So again, you can head over to Dr. Sindhra. That's D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A.com. See you next week.