KGCI: Real Estate on Air - eXp Culturecast - Episode 2 Global Forgiveness Day

Episode Date: December 13, 2024

Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the culture cast. This is our episode on Global Forgiveness Day. So we want to dig right in. So we're celebrating Global Forgiveness Day. For those who don't know, this is a day that celebrated worldwide. This year, it's on July 7th, 2023. And we are just talking about the insight you can gain and the personal freedom you can gain through the act of cultivating a forgiveness mindset. So our first point, we're just talking about the insight you can gain and the insight. So our first point, we're just talking about the insight you can gain and the insight. And the insight you can gain through the insight. So our first insight, we can question we're going to ask is can you share your thoughts on the importance of forgiveness and fostering a diverse equitable and inclusive environment within e-hp realty for both agents and staff? Absolutely. So forgiveness, I think, plays a crucial role in creating a positive work environment where everyone feels valued and accepted and respected. I think by practicing this, that we can move past understandings where sometimes maybe you couldn't or. where we're really hurting our clients or our team members or, you know, something else. And it really helps to build a relationship of trust, which is essential to have a diverse background.

Yeah, that's really, really true. And, you know, I would just say that, you know, often in our roles in the DEI world, we have to practice forgiveness because we encounter a lot of, you know, ignorance. So we, we encounter a lot of people who are not intentionally, saying something or doing something to hurt others, they just don't know any better. That's why our job is education. That's why our job is to help people guide people through those moments. And for that, we have to have a real forgiveness mindset, you know, because we have to look at this compassionately. And we sort of have to have a level of grace under fire that I think others could emulate in their

jobs. You know, I'm not just talking about for DEI professionals, but for everybody, there's a little bit of that when somebody comes at you a little sideways, you have to treat it with grace and realize that you may not know what's going on in their life, that kind of thing. You just have compassion for others lived experiences. You don't know what somebody else is going through. We often saw that, you know, in school, the kid that was the bully had some stuff going on at home, right? Always. That sort of mindset carries over to the workplace, carries over to the real estate world,

carries over to our clients, cares over everywhere, where, you know, there's the old adage, hurt people, hurt people, right? So we have to, you know, take those things into account. That's why that helps us foster this DEI culture. And just, you know, being ready and willing to not always be on the offense about what is offensive to us. Like, oh, you can't say that. You know, that it's, we try to be more conversational and more welcoming and all that business. I think that's really the key point, you know, just to have that conversation to figure out where you can meet in the middle and why you weren't there in the first place.

And that is crucial in forgiveness. Yeah, for sure. I mean, we just did our pronouns training for Pride Month. And that is one that we always tell people, this is a safe space. You can come in and ask questions. The number one people reason that people don't want to learn this stuff about pronouns. They want to choose ignorance in that case because they're afraid of asking their own question and inventing someone, right? Right. We've got to give people those spaces to be able to ask. you know and that comes with forgiveness built in already when you say you have a safe space for somebody to say something you know anything they want to say that's i'm i've already forgiving you

for something you would do in the future right so that's a good mindset to have sort of in general i think a lot of our managers and you know people that that uh that manage people really should should keep in mind as well So talking about forgiveness, I know we, I picked you for a reason for this podcast. You have some good insights here. I'd love to know if you could share a personal or professional experience where forgiveness was crucial in resolving a conflict or a misunderstanding and how it impacted the relationships involved.

So I have two. The first one is a situation where I had to forgive myself. I had during the height of COVID, I helped my father with the end of life in hospice for six months. And he was a very ill man. And I had to learn things, wound care, how to insert an IV, a catheter. I became a nurse overnight. And I didn't know what I was doing. You know, I didn't know if I was doing it right.

I didn't know if I was handling it correctly. And in that situation, for still working on it, honestly, forgiving myself or not knowing how to do it or feeling that I was doing it correctly or maybe I could have done it better. You know, and sometimes I think forgiving yourself is way harder than to forgive someone else because we all hold ourselves to our own moral compass, right? Yeah. If for some reason you let yourself down personally, it's just so hard to get to get over that, right? And on the flip side, some things are just non-negotiables. And someone breaches that boundary. I don't always believe everybody in your life deserves forgiveness.

But for my sake, I had to learn how to accept it and forgive the situation. maybe not the person, right? Right. And that one's totally different because that's a different podcast on this specific story. But sometimes you just can't forgive, but you have to accept. And if you can't do that, then you can't heal and move forward. And I mean, those are mine. You know, sometimes we're asking for forgiveness and sometimes we're there to give forgiveness.

And for me, sometimes when I have to ask for it is way harder. than giving it to someone else yeah that's really true and I think you know accepting what happened is a is a key part of the healing process right you're not able to move on unless you can accept what happened and even if you can't give forgiveness I mean accepting that that doesn't make you a bad person right that's a it's another level of forgiveness there for yourself for me I've I've always struggled I I think the age old thing, the first people that anybody has to forgive is their parents, right? And with me, my, you guys have probably heard my story before on other episodes of this or, you know, elsewhere in speaking engagements for me.

But, you know, my parents did not accept the fact that I was gay, right? And we'd do a period of homelessness. And there was a, you know, a real, you know, when I came out to my dad, that he said to me, well, I'm just sad for you because you're going to die of AIDS. Right. And that led me sort of on a spiral in college, right? Where I went, you know, I was out on my own. I had gotten my way into college on my own without their help.

I had, you know, was working jobs to pay for all my stuff. and I was 17, right? So I, like, just kind of went buck wild, as we say in South. Right. But I made a lot of choices that I regret, you know, life choices and stuff that put me in bad situations with people and bad situations with, you know, addiction. and just like not it was not a healthy place in my life and it took me a long time

to forgive myself for the fact that I was a product of my situation right I can't go back and play that how could I have done this better game

what would my life be like if I had chosen a better major if I had you know picked better friends if I had not dissed this person or that person if I had chosen not to partake when I did partake. You know, you can't do that to yourself. That's the biggest piece of forgiveness for me is giving myself to grace to say like, this is something that happened. Yes, it colors my story, but I have moved on. And you learn from it, right? That's a key component. know that you wouldn't be the same Cody that you are today without those stories right as I would not

be seen Stephanie and I am happy where I am and I would maybe not like to go through the things again that I've gone through but it may me who I am today it's true it's true and I really feel like in our positions in the DEI world we're now able to do some good and the only reason that we're doing these DEI jobs is because we've been through some stuff, right? Right. And, you know, with my parents, it really came around to, do I want my parents in my life? Yes. Am I going to have to forgive them for some stuff that they did? Yes. But forgiveness is not always a road back to exactly how it was before, right? Forgiveness is a way to pave a new road.

and sometimes build a wall because there when somebody does something this untoward with you then you often have to create a boundary right and with my parents they don't have an all access pass to my life because they haven't given me an all access pass to theirs right right they don't it doesn't do me any good to sit around and wonder about how I could change my mom's mind on this. If she's told me for years, I'm not going to change my mind. Right. Right.

Then it's time for me to say, okay, then you don't get access to this part where you could judge me. Right. Absolutely. Yeah. And it's hard. It's learning how to create those healthy boundaries, I think, sometimes. and it's delicate, right?

It's different for every situation, for every person. It definitely is, yeah. So let's talk about the psychological and emotional benefits of forgiveness, both for the people we're forgiving and for ourselves as the forgiving party, right? So in research for this culture cast, I looked at the American Psychological Association. and it says that forgiveness is linked to mental health outcomes, such as reduced anxiety, depression, and, you know, major psychiatric disorders. It even goes as far to say with your physical health symptoms,

and this one just blew my mind, lower mortality rates. All the act of forgiveness. Yeah, yeah. That's, yeah, that's, yeah, that's huge. that the APA even acknowledges that, you know, he's holding on to a grudge can kill you is basically what they're saying there, right? I think that when we finally let go of that grudge, even if the other person's not accepting of their actions or that,

how it makes us, how we are finally free from that stressor in our life. You know, and forgiveness is not something you can see. It's something you're thinking about the whole time, you know, know, it's something that just sleeps in the back, doesn't sleep. It's just always there in the back of your mind. Right. And it's a, it's a burden, right? And we always say when you have a burden, that's something that you can lift, right? There is a way to alleviate the stress of that boulder on your back, right? With this one, it's a little more straightforward. We're talking about forgiveness or, like we said before, accepting what has happened and being able to move on. You always, I also want to note here that you always want to protect yourself as well, because not all apologies or sort of granted forgiveness to you is genuine, right? Sometimes people say, you know, that they're sorry and are they?

Right. You know, so it's about cultivating the personal relationship with someone in such a way that, um, that you can trust that when they say it, right? And if you don't feel like you want to get close enough to somebody to garner that sort of reaction, then, okay, they gave me, they are sorry, let's move on and here's the barrier that I'm going to create, right? Right. You know, if someone repeatedly says they're sorry and they do not change their actions, and it's manipulation.

That's it. Right? If someone's truly sorry, their actions are going to change because of that. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. It's actions speak louder than words kind of deal, right? Absolutely. Yeah. There is a sort of idea of penance, right? An idea of, okay, what are you going to do to make it better? Right. And often it's just, I promise I won't behave that way again. I see the error of my ways, right? That can go a long way. It really can.

It can. We, I'll tell you, you know, we have had situations where we'd have someone say hurtful things about some of our DEI content. And then when we approach. that person to say, can we really think about what you said? You're hurting other people's feelings. Please refrain from this type of comment. When you really dig down and drill in, it's coming from a place, again, of someone who was hurt,

who is maybe lashing out because they're hurt, right? And we more often than not, when we have situations like that, we honestly do come away with the outcome of I now see the error of my ways, right? And I won't do it again. And I haven't had somebody come back and do that type of thing again after they said, you know, I'm sorry. I see you're right. I shouldn't have said that.

And I think keeping that line of communication open, especially in our digital world, just to pick up the phone and have a conversation or, you know, be able to talk to that person to see where they're coming from, we can meet in the middle where we were not in the middle. I think that's something that we really need to think about sometimes too. Yeah, that's it. So what are some like practical tips and strategies that EXP Realty staff and agents can implement to cultivate this mindset of forgiveness and empathy and their daily interactions with their colleagues and clients? So there are the four hours of forgiveness.

Responsibility. You need to accept what has happened and show yourself or someone else compassion, right? Remorse. You know, let that grief and guilt guide you for a more positive behavior change. That, I think, is huge. You know, don't dwell in that remorse, but use it as a tool to propel you forward. restoration. Make amends either with yourself or whoever. And, you know, forgiving's hard. It's not easy. It really isn't, no matter who we're talking about. And then renewal. You know,

use this to renew yourself as a person. We're not the same person as we were last year. I'm not going to be the same person next year as I am this year. And it's all these instances in our lives that has made me who I am today and made you who you are today. And I'm happy with Stephanie today. Am I perfect? Absolutely not. I am perfectly imperfect, just like the rest of us, right? Yeah, that's great.

Yeah. I am, yeah. And, you know, I would say that a practical tip I would give you is that not every act of forgiveness needs to be a physical. conversation that you have with another person, right? Sometimes you have to forgive somebody or forgive a situation in your own mind and stick to it. That's that's a large chunk of the forgiveness journey is something that goes on mentally with yourself. For me, when I want to say something to myself that's an affirmation or an act of forgiveness or something like that, I tend

write it down because then the words feel more real to me that's just a personal thing right right because I can say right now Stephanie I forgive you but like I need to like feel that you know what I mean and I need to remind myself that I have forgiven you right that's an example you don't I don't have to forgive you for anything but yeah that's something that I would always say I you know I sound like a broken record here but you always have to remember that you don't know what's going on in somebody else's life that's one of the main strategies that I'll give you when you're encountering people who are coming at you

sideways is remember they don't they could have something horrible going on in their life right now that they're not capable of dealing with and this is their one outlet right right becoming passionate for them that's yeah and yeah and yeah and yeah know, I'd also say that holding on to negativity can actually have some very serious health implications. So whatever you need to do to let that out, to purge yourself of it, is worth it, right? As, you know, dramatic as it sounds, there have been times when I need to, like with my mom, recently took that trip home to Georgia, encountered some homophobia, really beat myself up for a few days.

over what can I say to change her mind right and it ultimately comes down to the answer is nothing right so to stop my brain from spiraling about all the things that I know would be the most compelling arguments to change her mind I wrote them all down in a letter mom this is what you could do to be more present in my life this is how you should be framing this conversation. I wish that you would just pay attention to XYZ, wrote this four-page letter, and I took it outside and I put in a glass bowl and it set on fire. There you go, right? And now it's gone. I don't think about it anymore. Because you have to have that conversation with yourself. You know, I'm at forgiveness. You can't see it,

but you certainly can feel it at the end of the day. Right. And that, I don't know, I'm at, I mean, this sounds like I'm telling you to do some witchy, hokey, middle school type stuff. But I really mean it. And don't go so far as the fire if you don't want to. But writing letters to those who have wronged me or that I have wronged and in never sending them helps me immensely. And it's something that I practice weekly. It helps me process my emotions. It's also really, really, really good to have a non-judgmental sounding board.

right I have several of those in my life where I can vent something that went on and just the conversation with them even if they're not giving me all the answers I want allows me to explore what I'm feeling right right and then then I'm able to process put it in a box and put it away right or throw the box out no people because I mean you need certain people in your life who will bring up a a different perspective. Something, you know, I have so many people in my life that know is a good thing in this situation. They, they help me explore.

They help me work through all different sides. And those people really have helped me grow as a person and just accept everything that's going on in my life. Yeah. And when you have those kind of people in your life, the first tip I would give you is if they say something that you do not want to hear, that's not a conversation start or let them finish. I mean, it's not a conversation stopper. That's not a deal breaker. If they say, Cody, you're being ridiculous, which it'd be weird if they told you, Cody, you're being ridiculous, unless your name is

also Cody. But, you know, that's not, listen to why they think you're being ridiculous. Because if you've invited them into this position in your life, they know you pretty well, right? And they're giving you some honest feedback. So how about, let's talk about in the context of the HB Realty's commitment to DEI. How can we encourage open conversations about forgiveness and its benefits and what sort of initiatives can we do to celebrate and promote forgiveness day within the company? Okay. For the first thing, I would encourage everybody to check out our healthy mind collective.

They are a great resource group that puts out phenomenal information and everyone can benefit from having a healthy mind.