The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Inclusify: The Power of Uniqueness and Belonging to Build Innovative Teams by Stefanie K. Johnson

Episode Date: July 28, 2020

Inclusify: The Power of Uniqueness and Belonging to Build Innovative Teams by Stefanie K. Johnson Inclusifybook.com Wall Street Journal Bestseller In this groundbreaking guide, a management expert outlines the transformative leadership skill of tomorrow—one that can make it possible to build truly diverse and inclusive teams which value employees’ need to belong while being themselves. Humans have two basic desires: to stand out and to fit in. Companies respond by creating groups that tend to the extreme—where everyone fits in and no one stands out, or where everyone stands out and no one fits in. How do we find that happy medium where workers can demonstrate their individuality while also feeling they belong? The answer, according to Stefanie Johnson, is to Inclusify. In this essential handbook, she explains what it means to Inclusify and how it can be used to strengthen any business. Inclusifying—unlike “diversifying” or “including”— implies a continuous, sustained effort towards helping diverse teams feel engaged, empowered, accepted, and valued. It’s no use having diversity if everyone feels like an outsider, she contends. In her research, Johnson found common problems leaders exhibit which frustrate their attempts to create diverse and cohesive teams. Leaders that underestimated the importance of group coherence and dynamics often have employees who do not feel like they belong; leaders that ignore the benefits of listening to different perspectives leave some people feeling like they cannot be their authentic selves. By contrast, leaders who Inclusify can forge strong relationships with their teams, inspire greater productivity from all of their workers, and create a more positive environment for everyone. Having a true range of different voices is good for the bottom line—it allows for the development of the best, most innovative, and creative solutions that are essential to success. Inclusify reveals the unexpected ways that well-intentioned leaders undermine their teams, explains how to recognize the myths and misperceptions that drive these behaviors, and provides practical strategies to become an Inclusifyer. By learning why uniqueness and belonging are so imperative, leaders can better understand what makes their employees tick and find ways to encourage them to be themselves while ensuring they feel like they are fully part of the group. The result is a fully engaged team filled with diverse perspectives—the key to creating innovative and imaginative ideas that drive value.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. Chris Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com. The Chris Voss Show.com.

Hey, we're coming here with another great podcast. We certainly appreciate you guys tuning in. Be sure to give us a like. Subscribe to us on YouTube.com. If you're listening to the audio version of this on all of our podcast syndication channels, you can watch the video version of this on youtube.com, Fortress Chris Voss. So cool. Embrace technology. It's pretty cool. You can even use your phone for that as well. Anyway, guys, refer the show to your

friends, neighbors, relatives, dogs, cats. Get them involved. Get them to listen to the show. Sign them up. Go to the ECBPN or chrisfosspodcastnetwork.com. I've been seeing some great referrals for the show, people giving us five stars, so we certainly appreciate the folks going to iTunes and doing that. We'll give a shout-out tomorrow on some of the people who have been doing that. And also, we have, of course, the most excellent guests in the world, like the whole world. We search the whole world for the most excellent guests, and we mine them, and then we bring them to you. And one

is here today. It's Stephanie Johnson, or I should say Dr. Stephanie K. Johnson. She's a researcher focused on the intersection of leadership and diversity, and she works with the best companies to implement evidence-based procedures to reduce unconscious bias and increase inclusion. And she works with the best companies to implement evidence-based procedures to reduce unconscious bias and increase inclusion. And we've actually been talking about this a lot with Black Lives Matter and some of the discussions we've been having. So this is a great segue into discussions we're having in our social life around the world. She's a member of the MG100 Coaches and was selected for the 2020 Thinkers 50 radar list. She's the author

that we'll be talking about, the nation's bestseller, Inclusify, harnessing the power of uniqueness and belonging to build innovative teams. She publishes her work in the top journals and received $3.8 million in external grant funding. She has represented her work at over 170 meetings around the world, including the White House for a 2016 summit on diversity in corporate America. Media outlets feature Stephanie's work include The Economist, Newsweek, Time, Wall Street Journal, CNN, ABC, NBC, everywhere. She's been everywhere. She's appeared on Fox, ABC, NBC, CNN, and CNN International. So welcome to the show, Stephanie. How are you?

I'm well. Thanks for the very kind introduction. There you go. Or I should just probably call you Dr. Johnson, huh? No, please call me Stephanie or Steph. All right. Sounds good, Steph. And Stephanie, give us your dot coms where people can look you up on the interwebs. DrStephJohnson.com, D-R-S-T-E-F Johnson, and InclusifyBook.com, and then the corresponding hashtag. So, at DrStephJohnson, hashtag Inclusify on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn. Awesome sauce. So, I've been getting a chance to read your book, but before we get into that, give us just a little background on you, kind of your origin story, what made you get to the point of maybe wanting to be a doctor, and then, of course, writing this wonderful book.

For sure. It's funny that you ask that because in the book, there's these different archetypes of leaders and each one starts with the origin. So meritocracy manager origin. So I guess this is Stephanie Johnson origins. I have no idea how I ever decided to go get a PhD and write a book and stuff like that. I'm probably like the least likely person to have a PhD. I grew up in near East Los Angeles, pretty poor. Neither of my parents went to college. And I just had this idea when I was a high school student that I wanted to go get a PhD. I wasn't really sure what that even meant, but I like never really stopped working toward that goal. So as soon as I went to college, my first year, I told my professors, I want to get a PhD. And they were like, really?

You know, that's like very strange for a freshman in college to say, but I had read about it on the newly created internet. This is in the nineties about this whole, like getting a PhD in psychology. And that's, that's what I ended up doing, even though I'm now a business professor. But I'm just super curious about people and in particular leadership, like what makes people follow leaders? Why do we love leaders so much? How can we be better leaders? Awesome sauce.

You have the same sort of interest that I do. That's the reason I have a podcast is because I'm curious about people. It's interesting to me the path that people take and the choices they make and what they do with their lives and how they lead them and their motivations and what takes them down that thing. I grew up in a cult of religion, and in leading that cult, I've always studied like why people believe what they do because you know I've seen what that looks like in the Jonestown sort of element

and we're seeing some of that now in politics and things that are going on where there's you know cults of personality etc etc and so I've always like looked at people what motivates them to lock on to these things and of course leadership is a great thing for me too, because I've been a CEO since I was 18. So I've always owned my own companies and becoming and preparing for a leader was one of those things that I looked in for. What is, what made you want to host a podcast? I mean, obviously you're curious about people, but. Yeah. And it uh, it's, it's, uh, cause I get to interview people and find out where they go, like where they came from, what motivates them. Um, and, and to me it's interesting. Like it's a, it's a real, I love stories, collecting stories, you know? And so that's always interests

me and how that works. Uh, so in your book, Inclusify, um, uh, tell us, uh, what Inclusify, tell us what Inclusify is about. Yeah. So it's a book about how leaders can be more effective at leading inclusively. I guess anyone can read it, even if you're not a leader, but it's really based on my research that I was studying unconscious bias and leadership. And I found overwhelmingly that people had really good intentions, at least when it came to inclusion. I never have not met anyone yet who says, no, I actually don't want to be an inclusive leader. I just I don't want to hear others' opinions. You know, even people who don't want to hear others' opinions, they don't believe that. And some leaders thought they were doing a really great job.

Others recognized they weren't doing that great a job, but they still wanted to. And it just made me realize that this is a huge gap that we don't teach leaders how to be more inclusive. We just tell them you should be this and we're not going to define it for you, but your job is going to be based on your success at this. And so I thought this is what we need is an easy guide of like, how can I build on my strengths and be more inclusive? And you do a great job of laying the foundation. You, you know, when you start out in the book, you talk about, you know, why we have these, why we kind of have this internal thing where we want to belong.

We want to be involved. When you, when you're not invited to the party, you, you know, you feel that FOMO or the, or the, you feel, you feel excluded and, and you. You feel that FOMO or you feel excluded and you don't feel a part of something when you want to. And so you lay a good foundation into why this is psychologically important for us. Absolutely. Yeah, it's like the two most basic

and essential human needs, right? Like we all want to be accepted and loved and valued. And it feels so bad when you're not. I don't know anyone who hasn't had that experience too where you're left out. But then at the same time, we want to be ourselves. We don't want to only be accepted if we totally fake everything about ourselves. Does that create an economy where, let's say someone's a racist, but they want to be themselves and they want to be included, or cancel culture. I'm not saying cancel culture is bad, but cancel culture where someone's like, well, I want to do whatever I want and be Bill Cosby, and I don't understand why I'm not included.

Yeah, you know, maybe, um, I like to say it's your, you want to be your true best self. So, okay. I mean, there's definitely a lot of stuff about me that I'm not, I'm just going to leave it out of this conversation. I don't think anyone at work needs to see it. I actually don't want anyone to like recognize the aspects of myself that are not my favorite. There's like all things that we're struggling to become better people. And I guess I would put like racism and like raping people in that category. Definitely. Sadly, I mean, I don't know. I'm not a total psychologist, but I would think with mass killers and other things, they do probably prescribe to be the best at what they do.

I don't know. I don't know what was the name of Bill Cosby. But I was just wondering about the psychology of that, of trying to force yourself onto people because you're like, I want to be included, but I want to be me. And that's kind of a broad spectrum of what you want people to accept. And maybe that's the reason for your book and some of the details that are in it is you need to look inside yourself and go, are you really the best person to be putting forward to society and making a contribution, a good contribution, I should say. Yeah, I think so. When's when I'm talking about bringing your

whole self, it's like the core aspects of your identity. Like if you're, you know, kind of a liar, that's not, you don't need to bring that, right? It's more of like, I am a woman, I am a parent, I am Hispanic, like all those things that are really central to how I see myself. I think you should be able to bring that. But I had this person on LinkedIn the other day say he was a white guy and he messaged me to one of my LinkedIn contacts. Hopefully he never watches this, but he said he doesn't think his diversity is included and he feels like the book, Inclusify, really voices that everyone should be included and he's like a white guy.

So I'm like, you know, lots of white guys have things they're not included for. Like you could have, it could be a disability. It could be being conservative. It could be your sexual orientation. It could have been growing up poor is one of the things that causes people to feel stigma. So he responds with, no, I like to be spanked. Oh, that sounds like what a lot of women get on the internet yeah i yes and i'm like so that part don't bring it to work like yeah and don't share i don't care what you do but do not

share this on at work or on linkedin with me i mean does he want to be does he want that like at work where that's accepted or something i I don't know. I don't know. He just said, can you help me? And I was like, N-O, delete. Where do you want to publish that, buddy? It sounds more like he's... But if he did write a book about that, I would read it. Yeah, it would be interesting.

Like 20 or 30 years ago, because I'm old. Let's see, what word do I put it? About 20 years ago, because I'm old, let's see, what were we put at? About 20 years ago, I had a friend, and this is before a lot of LGBTQ acceptance and stuff. I mean, this is before, I think, Don't Ask, Don't Tell, or around the Don't Ask, Don't Tell era of the Clinton thing. You know, and a lot of America still wasn't accepting of gay rights and everything. I'm glad they are now. And I had a friend, and she just had a small company of like two or three people. And a guy one day showed up at her office.

She had an employee for a while that was a guy. And one day he said, I'm going to show you who I really am, and I'm going to try being who I really am at work. And's like oh okay well show what that's about show the next day in a dress and makeup and full drag um and he's like this is who I am and she's like well we're a business and and we're not really I mean she that was it was a challenge let's put it that way. Yeah. Um, because he was, he was, you know, whatever. And that, that was pretty early days to be, be doing something. I think nowadays you, you might have some more exclusively. I don't know. I've never, I haven't shown up to work in a dress yet.

I'm still working on that. I know that was one of the interviews I did was with gap CEO and he, the CEO at the time talked about an employee that he really valued who dressed as a woman who identified as a man. So he identified as a man but dressed as a woman. And

how it's important to create a space for people to be able to be that part of their identity. And I think that's different than asking your boss to spank you i think i think nowadays it's more it's probably more acceptable and and of course there are laws and stuff now that protect lgbtq people and i think it's appropriate but but i mean that's that's example of sometimes where you're like whoa okay but yeah spanking definitely

might be we need to keep that away for a while. That's why I think this is actually, to me, such an interesting topic because it's always evolving, right? The things that we're talking about now are just so different than in the 90s when I learned about the internet. Hopefully that doesn't become a thing, though, because one of my problems used to be was we had so many employees that, you know, every now and then you catch people on the copier or you'd have problems in the office after hours with people having interpersonal relationships, let's call it that. And I wasn't a big fan of that, especially since it was my office and my copier. So there's that. So let's talk some more about inclusivity. Why is it important? What is the basis of this and why it's important to us in our society and businesses? if you don't feel like people recognize your uniqueness and you feel like you don't belong, there's a lot of psychological distress. Like people feel very invisible. They might feel like they want to quit. They can actually suffer from depression and anxiety for some of those things. So it's obviously it matters to the individual, but then if you scale that up to the organization,

organizations that have more inclusion actually outperform other organizations. They have better decision making because people are willing to voice different perspectives. They have lower turnover because people aren't quitting all the time because they feel like they can't be themselves. They have greater innovation because they do have like different breeds creativity. So that I think all organizations would be elevated if we could actually bring out that inclusion. Rising tide lifts all boats. That's what I would say. I think so. Yeah. And then leaders it's for them. It's like, this is your job, dude.

Like your job as a leader is to bring all your employees with you and help every one of them be as successful as possible. That's what you signed up for if you're a leader. So I think this is just another skill that people need to work on. It's not different from learning how to give feedback or how to create schedules. This is just something that in 2020 with a very diverse workforce that we all need to be working on to do better. And it's important too, because I mean, as a leader or as a head of a corporation or a manager or any place in the, in the, in the organization, you want to, you want to take advantage of everyone's, you know, ability to work. Everyone's ability to contribute. One of the rules in my companies was I don't have all the ideas.

Everyone has an idea. There was no dumb questions. I didn't care where the great ideas came from because the less burden it was on me to come with all the ideas was great. And so being able to have, you know, a corporation or a society work at its fullest means, you know, making inclusion for everyone so they can contribute and they can feel a part of it. I remember in the 90s, we had to start, you know, dealing with sexual harassment and different things like that because that excludes people and makes them feel alienated or women's rights, women's issues, how they're treated in the workplace, et cetera, et cetera. We just had a great interview yesterday regarding some of that. And so, you know, I had to relearn. I had to learn all that stuff and go, hey, what's okay.

So this is a part of how we have a healthy environment, making sure that everyone feels included, everyone feels like they're contributing, everyone's not being marginalized in some way, shape, or form. And that became really important then, and even more important now, where we're dealing with race relations, LPGTQ, just making sure everyone contributes. You talk in your book about how sometimes people show up at meetings and they get kicked out of the meeting because someone thinks that they're not, you know, shouldn't be in that meeting. They find out later they're not, but you talk about how that rejects a person's feelings.

One interesting thing you talk about in the book was at an event, a gentleman went to a CEO after party or something of that nature or some sort of event, and when he opened the door, the CEO thought that he was help staff from the hotel and said, we don't need anything. And that destructive element of kicking one's self-esteem and making someone feel excluded is hurtful, and it lowers productivity.

Yeah, and that was a tough story. It was a black man, I don't name him in the book, but who worked in finance and was from the South. And like most, you know, the big financial firms are in New York. And so he was at this conference and he was invited to this great party. Like maybe you have these things where there's like, oh, wow, I got an invite to this thing. That's a big deal. And so he went up, you know, actually he said he rang the doorbell in the hotel room. And when the guy hosting the party, who's, you know, the big wig guy

answered the door, he thought that the gentleman was help staff. And so he turned him away. The guy goes downstairs and he's like, oh my gosh, he's just thought I was hotel personnel because I'm black. That's like, that's why. And to me, the part that like hurt was the fact that he didn't want to see that guy again the next day because of the embarrassment. And like that guy shouldn't be embarrassed. You know, maybe the CEO maybe should be embarrassed. But just that like feeling of like, I think it's shame, right? When people think, oh, you know, it happens a lot.

I think particularly for women and women of color and people of color that people think they're the support staff or cleaning people. Like some studies showed a large fraction of female faculty have been confused for support staff or cleaning staff. And there's like just especially I think when you have that feeling of like imposter syndrome already, like I'm supposed to be here and then people tell you like, no, actually, you're not. I think you're a secretary. Copy these things for me. Yeah. Well, I think even even worse, it shows racism or misogyny in the case of women, where people have their either unconscious bias or conscious bias. I mean, we recently saw recently where one of the congressmen, forget his name, but he said a bunch of ugly misogynistic stuff to AOC. And it was wholly inappropriate.

But you could tell from his comments that there's a lot of misogynistic sort of bias to him. So let's talk about unconscious bias because one of the challenges that I have is I deal with a lot of people because they speak out on Black Lives Matter. I speak out against racism. I speak out about people that support racism and they're pushing it. And there's a lot of people in our society that have, I call it closet racism, but maybe the more appropriate term is unconscious bias. I mean, I think it's probably both. There's some people with unconscious bias and there's apparently just a lot of people who are straight up racist, right? Yeah. There's, there's a lot of people straight up racist and there's a lot of people who have

unconscious bias. I mean, the one thing I've learned from your book and a lot of different discussions I have is I think we all have unconscious bias at some level. And do we ever get fully clear of that? I mean, do we just have to go through a lot of psychotherapy to clean it up? We still have, we're still going to have some of that. I think we always have it.

It's, and the way I describe it is it's basically a mental association between two things. So if you think of a car, what do you think of a Corvette, a Ferrari? Like what's your just car? What is it? BMW. BMW. Nice. Okay. Other people might think of, you know, a Ford or something, right? Like that's your prototype. And it probably relates to, you know, something, what you've seen. And I use the secretary example like in fact most secretaries are women

like this is a true fact or if you look at surgeons and nurses most surgeons are men most nurses are women but it doesn't mean that everyone who's a woman is a nurse right and you see a woman in a hospital it is more likely statistically that she's a nurse than a surgeon. And those are unconscious biases that you expect the person to just like you're following the likelihood ratio. And I think that's all the unconscious biases. I don't know that that we can work on that, but I think we're still going to be influenced by what we see around ourselves. The part that I see is like where we should focus is the point at which you say, pardon me, nurse, can you call? Can you call a doctor? A doctor, right? I think that's where you can stop. And like, just, and I think like when people have these experiences, then for like

six days later, they're like, oh, I have to remember, like, I shouldn't do that. But then we just fall back into our old habits because it's easy um it saves time just to say nurse and then the nurse says actually i'm your surgeon good luck good luck this afternoon that reminds me of a tiktok i just saw last night or the night before um there's a there was a gal who's a doctor and she's a minority. And, and, uh, she said, I just say the life of a guy who's covered in KKK, uh, tattoos, wait till he wakes up and finds out who saved his life.

Oh my gosh. A woman, a woman in a minority. Uh, so, uh, so he's got an awakening going on there. Like hopefully he'll have an epiphany,

um, to change his life. So that's interesting to me. So people start down these roads of unconscious bias based upon this sort of data or information that is commonly available. The part where it gets toxic is when people start, say, for instance, racially biased or biasing in the biz in the business uh a good example racial bias are xyz minority uh lives in does this or does that and that's their classification we see a lot of we see a lot of uh i don't know what you call modeling or profiling where you know certain news channels will be like oh those people do that and i've heard you know

i've heard that sort of thing those people do that. And I've heard that sort of thing. Those people do that. I mean, you can even say the thing about white people, white people do this. There's a lot of thing there. But, of course, we're a majority, so we're not really persecuted. It's always kind of interesting when people try and pull that card. And the same is probably true in business where people go, where maybe, okay, so maybe a good example is I'm a CEO. I kind of think of women as secretarial, like you mentioned. And so when I'm looking at interviews, maybe I favor men

on an unconscious bias. Would that be true? Absolutely. Yeah. So that's, that's example where you should get rid of that. Yeah. Especially at the C level, if you're interviewing for, you know, potential board members or other members of the executive suite or senior vice presidents, like the CEO is usually not interviewing. But at that point point the correlation is so strong between white guy and board member old white guy and board member that it's difficult to like overcome that and really see someone who doesn't fit that prototype as like a good potential. Like it just seems like weird. Like I haven't seen any, you know,

young female Asian board members. And so when you interview one, it's like, um, but it's, I think it's focusing on the criteria that you're looking for rather than just like making the gestalt view of like, looks like a board member.

Do you have to be aware of the con you have to you have to how do you start becoming conscious of your unconscious bias how do you start digging through that that uh that uh harass yeah that's a good question i think interacting with people who are different from yourself will start to turn stereotypes into individuals right like if you've never met someone of a certain race, all you have is your stereotypes. But when you have friends and colleagues that you get to know that have those differences, then it starts to like muddle the stereotype a little bit. But I think I just kind of assume all the time that I have unconscious bias. And so rather than

just trying to overcome it, I try to instead focus on changing systems and structures that help me overcome it because we're bad at overcoming it, right? Like it's first you have to recognize, oh, this might be a point where I have unconscious bias. And then now your brain is like totally preoccupied with that unconscious bias thought, like, wait, I have this bias. Does that make me a racist or is that a sexist or both? And then now your brain is like totally preoccupied with that unconscious bias thought. Like, wait, I have this bias. Does that make me a racist or is that a sexist or both? And then you're supposed to also be evaluating this person. It's like, it's too much.

So I think if you can actually create systems that do that for you, that strip away the bias, it helps. I think unconscious bias training can help when paired with actions. Conversations, I think, help. If you start reading, read a few of these books or blogs, just read five things on Forbes. You'll see the same things come up over and over again. So it starts to become clear pretty quickly what the biases are. And as long as you don't assume you're better than everyone else on the planet, you just have to recognize that you have those biases too.

And like, yeah, that's not acceptable depending on, I guess on your organization. Yeah. If you think you're better than everyone else on the planet, that's a whole new level of psychiatry. That's right. Well,

there's people who still say they don't think they have unconscious bias. Yeah. And that's why it's important they should order your book and read it. And that's the discussion that we've actually been having for a long time here on the Chris Foss Show, especially recently with Black Lives Matter, is unconscious bias. You know, part of my journey with Donald Trump coming into office was looking at white nationalism and some of the other different things and aspects, some of the different keywords he was using. And so I started to really have to start doing that journey internally. And I had to do the same thing with me too,

with the me too movement. Cause at first I was kind of shocked. Like I didn't understand. I'm like, people are asking people out on dates and hitting on them and this is bad, but I didn't understand the monster element of it. You know, I don't send pictures of private parts to the women. I just, I don't know why since the beginning of phones i've known that that's not cool yeah um and and plus god knows where it's gonna end up like even though i was married i still wouldn't do it i'm like first time i upset her that thing's going on the internet um yeah and and it's just yeah you know so me too was was hard to deal with uh until i heard the stories and then once i heard the stories, you know, Weinstein and the, I mean, that you're just like, okay, there's people that date way differently than me.

And that's not even dating that he was doing. But, you know, evidently I'm quite the gentleman, I guess. But seeing the horror stories of what was actually going on and the horrible things men have done, you know, over the years I've yelled at friends that if i catch them uh sending uh sending stuff to people i'm just like dude that's not the way to do this thing just ask her out man and if she says no then move on there's a million fish in the sea i've dated i've been single all my life i've dated all my life it's it's just you just maybe it's because i'm a salesman so i just understand the

numbers game. You just go, okay, they're not interested. Next, okay, that's one less person that I know that doesn't like me, which seems that there's a lot. No, I'm just kidding. Did you think Me Too was harder for you to kind of get your head around than the resurgence of Black Lives Matter over the last few months? I've always tried to deal with racism and my racist issues. Being an employer back in the day, of course, you couldn't be racist. One of our companies was a mortgage company, so we had to sign the equal rights, equal housing laws and stuff.

So I understood what those meant. I had read those documents because I was asking people to sign them in the mass um and you know i'd always studied i grew up i've talked about a few different things on the show i grew up uh having seeing racism and having a pretty deep impression of of how it was bad and i you know even as a child i was like why is this why are people so ugly and hateful um and i talk about some uh one of my, one of the pictures that had a huge impact on me was Martin Luther King standing in his front yard and there's a burnt cross there. And his one to two year old child or three year old child is standing next to him. And there's a picture where he holds him.

And I remember thinking the empathy of that going, God, my God, what is that like? Not only from the child's perspective, but having to explain that as a father. And so, you know, early on I watched Bobby Kennedy and a lot of people. And so, you know, but even then I've had to deal with unconscious bias. One of the things I discovered in 2016 with the new president was that, you know, there are certain keywords that were being used that were very white nationalist, very racially biased. And, and part of what a lot of people have is unconscious bias. When you like use words like our culture and you're like, uh, that only means certain

people's culture, right? Uh, I see what's going on there. Um, me too. So I was kind of prepared for black lives matter. I supported it when it came out uh during the obama years and i understood what it meant and and um and uh everything else i couldn't figure out why i didn't get traction like it did but unfortunately we had to go through some ugly stuff to to get traction now but uh the me too thing kind of caught me by surprise because

i'm a gentleman. I date. I don't like – I mean, I don't date as much as I used to when I was younger and thinner. But I've always just – it's always been a numbers game to me. So you date. You find somebody. You ask them out. I mean, like I don't even use lines. I just go, hey, you want to go out sometime?

There you go. It's not complicated. You still make it complicated. I mean, if a girl wants to go out with you, she'll go out with you. And so Me Too is hard. But then once I started hearing the stories and the horror, then I was like, there's some really jerky guys in this world. There's some real jerks. And they are some ugly, nasty people who need to get kicked to the thing. Um, so yeah, that was hard, but then I had to gear my brain around it and then I had to start saying, what unconscious biases do I have? Um, is there toxic masculinity that I have? Um, is there, is there, you know, attitudes that I have towards women? What are my attitudes?

Uh, you know, that whole sort of discussion. Uh, one thing I, one thing I did, uh, shortly after Trump became president was I, I did, and I did this on my own. I sat down, I said, you know, I'm going to start doing, I'm gonna start looking at faces. So when I go to the store, I'm going to look at everyone's face, especially minorities, and I'm going to, I'm going to listen to what, what, what I decided about that person. And then I'm going to say, why do I, why did I make that choice? Why am I making that choice? And what unconscious bias do I have that's causing me? And is that real or not? Or am I, you know, making really bad judgments on people based

upon unconscious bias and prejudice and it was an interesting experiment it's taught me a lot because now i do it a lot so i don't know if that's a smart thing to do maybe that's it for me maybe that's one thing people can do is just you know think through the impressions that you're forming and why you're forming them. Yeah. And it's not fun because sometimes you go, Oh wow. Yeah. Wow. I didn't realize that was, yeah, I'm really making some bad judgments there. Uh, whether it was the me too, or whether, whether it's racism and I had a, you know, there's a lot of different keywords that are used in prejudice. Um, in, in, in, there's a lot of different keywords that are used in prejudice. And there's a lot of different assumptions that people make. You know, the inner city.

I've always heard that, though, all the crimes in the inner city. And, you know, certain people do certain things, you know. And then, of course, it's tied to, you know, manifest destiny and this whole whiteness of America and this weird 400- uh issue that we have in in our perception of what our history is or what we think is our history and and the exceptionalism or entitlement or elitism that we think uh white people think they have and so uh it's kind of interesting because a lot of that plays into that unconscious bias. And maybe we need to have inclusivity taught in elementary schools. Yeah, I know a lot of schools are doing, like, anti-racism training,

at least at the college level. I don't know about in elementary schools. But, you know, I do think this is a conversation we need to have. And that book, I think I say this, but there's a lot of the CEOs I interviewed, and these were people who were doing this like really well. So like Mark Benioff at Salesforce, I think he's a great inclusive leader. Kevin Johnson at Starbucks, he's a great inclusive leader. But they say like, we didn't learn this in college or mba school or whatever right because think about it like this hasn't been a conversation it's like we should all just know obviously like you said don't sexually harass people that should be obvious and don't be racist

but i think for the more um subtle things i i don't know that people were are equipped with what that means and what they're supposed to do. And then, like, I kind of think the rules have changed, right? Like, I'll say my parents' generation, my mom really talked about as a Mexican-American being, like, really told to try to fit in. So, like, a lot of her peer groups stopped speaking Spanish, didn't teach their kids Spanish, stuff like that, because they were trying to like fit in. And so that, you know, that was a norm for the times. But try telling that to your millennials or Gen Z. They don't want to fit in.

That's not how like they were raised. They were told to like be themselves over and over again and so it means we don't just have to learn this tough skill of inclusifying we we need to relearn what we were taught before and that's hard right it's it's not just like if you've never done it before it's like you've been doing something one way for 20 years and now all of a sudden people are like, actually, we need to do something else because this isn't working. You bring up a good point at cultural changes. And over my lifetime, that's one of the things I've seen so many people have a hard problem with, or even people like me who have to learn and grow and try to adapt to that. I've always been, maybe it's because I come

from an entrepreneur sort of brain where I understand that things have to change, things have to get better. As a society, we have to become better. And this is an evolving thing. The beautiful part of America is, you know, we have this free speech. So we have this ability to have these discussions and try and figure out, and sometimes we're pretty and sometimes we're ugly, and hopefully we always, through the zig and zag, as Obama used to put it, we get to where we're supposed to be. You know, one of the things I've been talking about with Black Lives Matter and discussions

we've been having with a lot of great African-American writers is I really think a lot of this stuff needs to be taught at the elemental school sort of level when kids are young. Because I know it's being taught a lot of colleges, but I really think, like, it needs to be taught when they're young. Because a lot of kids that I see that are exhibiting a lot of misogynist or racist elements, they're mirroring from their parents. And so by the time they get to college, that sucker's already laid in to their brain. And so I think it's better that we attack that stuff when you're young. And, you know, I think

there should be, you know, full classes on racism. What is it? How not to be one? How to identify it? Inclusivity and being able to look at oneself internally. There should be more psychology stuff, I think, when you're two, is how to look inside yourself and go, why am I the way that I am? And then businesses. I notice a lot of colleges now have inclusivity professors on their things to help make sure that the college is doing that. Should every business have like a inclusivity department now? I think so. I mean,

a lot of them do already have maybe a chief diversity officer or diversity inclusion belonging officer. I think you need it. The CEO I think is always really the chief diversity officer because if they're not behind it, it's really hard to get traction. But in addition to their role in it, there needs to be someone who's carrying out action on diversity and inclusion. And it's not just human resources because it's overall strategy,

right? Of the company and human resources to be part of strategy too. But I think the diversity and inclusion resources to be part of strategy too but i think the diversity and inclusion is more than just hr right it really is if it's not everywhere then it's you're not doing it right so yeah more and more companies are are doing that um and imagine they're doing internal training and making sure all the employees are up to par on that sort of stuff and i think that's good i really do i'd like to see it teach the younger level though, of course, but I can't imagine that happening though.

Cause like there's still schools where they can't teach evolution, right? Like you think those schools are going to start teaching anti-racism? I have one of those problems where I, I believe in something that's better than this. I'm a John Lennonennon imagine type thinker where i think about what the potentials are for a thing but evidently i was born a few hundred years too early so i'm just trying to hopefully get us down the road but yeah you're right i mean people would be probably fighting it but it is interesting to map how society changes and evolves um and the

struggle people go through uh you know i mean i went through that struggle with me too where i'm like what is this what is this stuff going on and then of course you know like i say i mean once you once you hear the stories you're like oh that's not cool at all you know um and i mean if you're a guy who has a lot of misogynistic tendencies and is a real jerk to women, for you, that wasn't a wake-up call. For people like me, that was kind of like, what? Yeah. There are some real jerks in this world. You know, attacking or being mean to women because they say no to you because they won't go on a date?

Oh, my gosh. And maybe it's easier for me because I'm a salesman i don't know you know to me no just means okay great next yep um i used to go out on a friday night or saturday night to the clubs i get four or five girls numbers and ask them out you know right and so to me it was just always a numbers game you know and then that way you have a better chance of finding the person you like, as opposing just to attaching to one person. And God knows you may not get along or, you know, you marry them and then you hate each other for the next 20 years. I didn't want any of that. So I was like, I was like, it's a numbers game,

million fish in the sea. Yeah. You, you play the numbers and hopefully you find the one. And I guess I'm still searching. Aw. I think that there's still, I mean, there's definitely jerks at the nightclub, but I think that Me Too is more like the workplace. So if you applied that and asked out all of your employees, still probably not the best.

Yeah, and you saw a lot of that in the Me Too thing where I'm trying to think of the interviewer who was asking a lot of employees out and being creepy, Rose. Charlie Rose. Charlie Rose. Yeah, he got busted for he was kind of being creepy with his employees. Matt Lauer. Matt Lauer.

Wow, yeah, there you go. And, yeah, crossing that line then being retaliatory i mean a lot of it was being retaliatory when when the women said no or when the women pulled away um and destroying their careers uh destroying them their their reputations etc etc and making so they can't work you know fox news there you go that's a that's a whole ball of wax. We just saw a new lawsuit come out on that. I'm not sure they're going to win that one with the reputation they have, but I guess that's their problem. But this is important because, you know, not only from just getting the most

from all your workers, make sure everyone feels involved, make sure everyone has a high productivity level, but it's also a great way to avoid lawsuits and problems and issues and and everything else i mean i my vision is that we could be this utopian society we're all get along we all operate logically and cerebral and our emotions are all connected well and and we just uh we become the society that lifts everyone up and i don't know we all wear white robes or some crap that you've seen in some science fiction movie. We're all like, you know, better world. But I don't know, like I say, I might be a few thousand years born.

A thousand now. Yeah. I mean, I think we can get better. I feel like this is the first time that I'm truly optimistic about the future. You know, maybe thinking more like you in a positive way, because I think the thing that was hardest to change about businesses when it came to, you know, sexual harassment or gender bias or racial bias was really the status quo. It's like, but this is how we do it. We do all of our, we take all of our candidates out to dinner and drinks before we hire them. Right. And sometimes those are situations that

lend themselves to inappropriate behavior. And in the last four months, how many candidates do you think were taken out to dinner? I don't know. None. It's COVID. Right. It's like, we've just trashed the way we did everything. It's all different. And now I think that means, okay, that sucks. But it means that we have the opportunity when we build it back together to build it better. We're like, rethink these things. Do we need to add back the overnight trips to customers? Do we need to add back the going taking people out to the bar also like in my field of academia every job interview you go to is always an overnight because it takes more than one day you give a presentation but you always go to dinner and have

drinks i don't know they just do this and i've had students who are like i don't drink what am i going to do right and you could just say don't drink. What am I going to do? Right. And you could just say, don't drink. But then you feel like they're going to be discriminating against you and biased against you because you're not fun. You don't fit the culture. You know, you're not someone they want to have a beer with because you're like, no, I don't want a beer. You know, there's ways of cheating around that, too. I mean, I've had friends that were alcoholics and they had, and they would order it on duels and we understood and supported them because we know what they were like when they were alcoholics. Yeah. You know, I mean, I think in the job interview, there's

something different that I remember. I went to, this is like a give a talk. It wasn't technically a job interview, but we went out and everyone was drinking and I didn't drink. Um, not because at the time I wasn't an alcoholic. I don't think I drink. Not because at the time I wasn't an alcoholic. I don't think I am still, but at the time I wasn't, I was pregnant. So I was like, I really shouldn't drink. But I also didn't tell them I was pregnant because it was like, I don't know. I don't know if I wanted to disclose that yet. I wasn't very pregnant.

And months later, someone told me that they asked if I want to drink. And I said, no. And said no they go oh that's right you're mormon and i was like am i like i i didn't think i was i was like raised catholic and i think i'm kind of christian but um they were like no so they took that perception that they thought oh she's from colorado and she doesn't drink and they put the pieces together and decided I was Mormon. It was like, wow. And it was just cause you were pregnant. And I know that's, that's wild. I mean, I mean, one of the, one of the things I usually do at when I'm out to events and stuff,

I usually don't drink. Um, you know, I might have a drink just to loosen up a little bit, but, but I'll cut it off because usually I'm doing business like at big events that used to be held before the coronavirus. Uh, and so I'll just have a Coke. And so like, if anybody says, you know, what are you drinking? I'm drinking a rum and Coke. Yeah. Yeah. They're not going to taste it. So, you know, they don't know the difference. Um, but, uh, no, you bring up an interesting point though. Um, one of the issues with a lot of those different events or you know taking someone out to dinner or whatever the case may be um can we fully trust everybody like you know i've been

a ceo of a lot of thousands of employees over the years uh i don't know that i could ever no matter how much you how much i i could people through a whole years with inclusivity training. I'm not sure I trust every single person to go to dinner and not create a scenario for temptation to do something stupid. You know what I mean? Yeah. So maybe, maybe we kind of have to throw out some things or I don't know, maybe we just have to make sure that they operate in large groups. Exactly. I mean, I think the point is we have to figure it out new newly again. Right. Because right now we're doing none of it. And so as we start incorporating these things back, we can be a little more thoughtful about how we're doing it. Because I think when these procedures and habits and processes were developed, it was like a very homogenous workforce.

And that was, it made sense. It was fine, but it's not now. And so as we're deciding, like going forward, do we need to do, do we need to do the heavy drinks at all of our conventions? And, um, maybe not. Right. Like, yeah, it's just a huge opportunity. I think. Because one thing leads to another and then they're they're doing stuff on my copier uh so uh you know and and and i've seen how hard it is in an office especially with somebody who's who's uh you know very beautiful i've seen how hard it is to keep guys on the street narrow. I mean, I've seen it. You know, I mean, one time we had a super hot, very flirty secretary up front, and I could not keep my office guys out of that front area to keep from talking.

Oh, wow. And she was very flirty, so I couldn't, you know, it was like between both sexes, they were just helping each other out. And so, yeah, I just don't know. Hopefully we could become a more cerebral society where we go, hey, man, there's a certain place for certain things. I've always wondered about the issues because back in prior to sexual harassment and me too and stuff, the majority of people met there, the majority of people that met each other and got married usually was from work, which kind of gives you an idea of how much stuff has been going on there for

a while. Yeah. And I've always wondered like, how do we pull back from that, you know, and be able to support me too. And, and yeah,

but you know, now we have like online dating when you don't need to date people at work. I think but now we have online dating. You don't need to date people at work. I think you date people at work because you're there all the time. It's like that's the only people you have exposure to. But now while you're at work, you can skim through the dating apps, I guess. I guess. Maybe that's what people are doing now.

They're cruising their Tinder. But what's the old line from Silence of the Lambs? You covet what you see every day and that's gonna be a problem yeah and that's a scary analogy right there yeah and that that familiarity i mean well i mean you're a woman you've seen some of the crap that people send you on the internet i'm sure dm you um you know i mean that's that's what these people do that you know especially stalkers and I mean, there's some guys that got nothing better to do with their time all day long. I think it's some weird – it's like a power thing. It's like showing – exhibiting power over people. Is that another unconscious bias or is that a psychology sort of thing?

I think there is an unconscious bias around harassment. And I think it's like, this idea, I think it comes from like, you talk, use the word toxic masculinity. And like, I don't like to say that word, but it's this with them or might seem equally dominant. They like feel challenged by that. It's challenging the social structure. And so I think they, they engage in sexual harassment as a way of kind of like getting back at that woman for making them feel maybe insecure or something like that. I think that's where it comes from yeah fear of rejection like uh in one paper i wrote we called it sexual insecurity it's like i don't if you don't want me then i'm gonna like be a jerk to you because yeah i feel hurt by you and so i'm just gonna hurt you back and and and is some of that's probably tied to some unconscious bias of misogyny.

Like a woman is always less than me. Or a woman should be in the kitchen. I come from 50 years ago. So there was a lot of that that we went through in the 80s where women were rising up, ERA. And so a lot of men were fighting back on that, like, I'm the man, I'm supposed to be the earner, you know. And so I watched that whole thing go down when I was growing up. And men having to come to this, this issue of like, women can be in the workforce, too. They can be contributing, they can do whatever they want. I mean, now, now we're

starting to see a lot more stuff in our in our society where, you know, men can be stay at home moms. If you will. I remember, in fact, I remember, I think it was in the eighties, early nineties, there was a, was it Mr. Mom, that movie that came out? I think there was Mr. Mom. And then also there's one with like three guys, right? Two men and a baby or something. Three guys and three men and a baby. Three men and a baby. That's right. There's three of's three of them yeah and that was like culturally like boom i know like whatever but i think a lot of those guys have some unconscious biases that that base around their triggers for sure where they they see women as lesser in some way shape or form they were raised that way, right? Like their parents said a man's job is to provide for his family. And like they didn't make those things up, right?

It's all the man-on-man and boy-on-boy harassment and hate of like man up. Like I think a lot of – I'm not not that different age than you are but the uh like i think like the worst slur that boys used to throw at each other was like don't be gay which is like this is so wrong every level but i think that's like the ultimate um toxic masculinity sign is like you're threatening someone's masculinity by saying you're not masculine in In fact, I'm going to call you gay. And I think that's like, that's the problem, right? Like if your wife has more power, your girlfriend has more power than you do or makes more money than you do, it's threatening your masculinity. And that you've been told for the previous 40 years that your masculinity is like the most important

thing you have. Yeah. A lot of men are having trouble with that and the unconscious bias of that. So we should talk about that because a lot of men do have issues with that. You know, we've had to rediscover our masculinity. Even for me with racial unconscious bias, I had some discussions that he glad junior was on to talk about his book, begin again by James Baldwin.

And James Baldwin talks about how how we're all raised you know watching during that era of watching john wayne and a lot of my identity uh of being a man is very john wayne-ish because i mean i screw up watching him and that was the influence that i had but what i didn't realize is there's a lot of racist stuff that's in the john wayne sort of element that's oh my gosh yeah america and manifest destiny you know he's slaughtering indians he's always talking horrible to him uh native americans i should say and and uh i i can't remember if there was anything about uh black people in there but i'm sure there was because that's how those stupid movies were um and and so

even now i've had to look back uh from a racial aspect on my john wayne thing and they're talking now about removing john wayne's name off the john wayne airport in orange county oh wow yeah and and so i mean even now i'm still dealing with like, okay, we've got to unravel that thread and fix that boat. Have you seen the Gillette? Is this the best? Oh, yeah, that's right. I love that campaign, P&G. Yeah, and that upsets so many people.

I know, I know. But I thought it was powerful. And I'll say for, like, I have two kids. I have a, yesterday my son turned seven and my daughter's eight. Oh, wow. And I mean, I like, I live this stuff, but that video had a big impact on me. I'm like, we have to make sure. And my son's huge.

Like, he's going to be like six foot four. Like, he's really, he's beefy. Like, really, really big kid. And we're like, we don't want him to grow up with that, right? Because he could totally be that person who's like doing keg stands, like football player, like big, you know, jerk, I guess. Not that all football players or keg standers are jerks. Yeah, let's not have unconscious bias.

I know, that's my unconscious bias is like, there you go. We're like here, you know, we have to make sure that he doesn't think that's the way he's supposed to behave and like never say things like, Oh, boys will be boys or, you know,

it's not, it's like you treat people with respect. You are kind to everyone, you know, not just like, I think the other thing is the never hit a woman or never. You can't choose a girl or like, why don't you say don't hit anyone. Right. Don't hit and especially don't hit any girls. But cause that's still kind of,

you know, it's like, it's a tough balance. We want to make him a good person. We also want to make sure there's like some balance there. Your, your Chris Voss show is blowing away. Oh, is it? Uh, my Huskies are coming in and out and blowing the, uh, they're hitting the, uh, the green screen there. Um, you know, one of the, one of the issues that men have, um, uh, and I can speak from a first person here is we have this kind of interesting way of dealing with each other, especially men. And it's, and it's hard for us when we first have to learn that we have to deal differently with women. And we, we have this, uh,

I'm not sure the correct term. We give each other a lot of crap. You may know better cause your school and stuff. I went to public school. Um, and Betsy DeVos is public school. And as men, we, there's this, what would you call it, a culling? Part of our relationships with each other as men is we break each other's nuts. That's probably the best short way to put it. There's a lot of that abuse that we give to each other's nuts is probably the best short way to put it. There's a lot of that abuse that we give to each other. And a lot of it is it's almost maybe in thinking of it,

you've given me some thoughts here. Maybe it is a masculine and he sort of beat my chest sort of thing. And then I beat my chest and he beats his chest. Let's go kill the dinosaur, you know, some sort of game. and then i beat my chest and he beats his chest let's go kill the dinosaur you know some sort of get the girl basis yeah let's go get the girl uh cavemen kill the kill the beast and bring it back home tribalism you know it's it's like some sort of tribal sort of uh i'm at i'm at a loss for They call it hegemonic masculinity. Is that what it is? Yeah.

There we go. You went to college. I just started business at 18 and skipped the whole thing, clearly. But that's why I'm here, so I can learn from smart people like you. We put smart people in the room, as the beginning of the podcast says. So, yeah, we have that sort of issue. And then I remember, I remember having to learn to deal with women differently because I'm like, wow, I can't insult women and do the things that I do with guys. Cause it doesn't like, it doesn't work the same. Like they take it seriously when, you know, and, and and even then like when i was in relationships it was hard

sometimes because that sort of guy would come out and and i and then she'd be upset rightly so and you'd be like chris man you can't treat her like other guys dude it's she's different um and so maybe that's a maybe that's a real issue with our toxic masculinity and and how we have those norms of society. I remember years ago I went to this show that was something like the Caveman Cavewoman show. And it toured around different opera houses and show places. And it talked about sort of our basic element of our psychology from a caveman cave woman sort of element. You had the caveman is a, is a, uh, forget the term. A woman is a gather hunter. There's the hunter gatherer syndrome or not

syndrome, but psychosis. Well, it's a psychosis really. When it comes down to it, it's still around. Um, and so those elements probably play in our unconscious bias coming up through our psychologies, right? I think so. I mean, it's funny, the story you said, um, about treating women because I think that's why we just have to say we have to treat everyone well because I had a, um, there's another business prof I know who got in a bunch of trouble for mistreating women and hit the argument.

Like was it, he's not, it's not a gender thing. He's just a jerk to everyone. And it was, maybe it's true, but it was also like, that's a really hard argument to say like, no, he's not gender biased. He just sucks. Like either way you suck. Right. So you're a horrible person.

Yeah. So he totally got in trouble. So I feel like it's there is the like yeah of course you might have to change behavior a little bit the way the way you treat women but i think there's also like this is 2020 professional professionalism means that you don't like um i can't think of how to say this without using a cuss word, but like, that you don't treat other men that way either. Because a lot of men hate it too, right? Like, pretty much this, I read the statistic, like men have higher rates of suicide, depression, anxiety, and like a lot of it ties back to this fact that they're like, treated horribly,

and they can never talk about it and they never seek any help and so i kind of like we say like oh well women can't handle it but it's like you know what men can't handle it either they're like really suffering because they're being mistreated all the time and by their friends right yeah and a lot of them are lost in their in their masculinity and what it identifies because we've seen masculinity starting to change over the years in fact we've seen the rise of these incels and they can't figure out their masculinity and what it identifies because we've seen masculinity starting to change over the years. In fact, we've seen the rise of these incels and they can't figure out their masculinity either and how it fits into societal norms or at least the norms that they were raised on and now the changes that are being made out there and their unconscious biases. So as you wrap up,

what's the best way that someone, the average person listening to this can start maybe doing an internal search of what maybe sort of unconscious biases they have. Yeah. I think I will say go to my website, drstephjohnson.com, and there's a bunch of videos of different talks and stuff that I've given that talk about unconscious bias in a really like practical way that I think people find useful useful i think that is a great first step they can read inclusify they can read other um blind spot is a good book about unconscious bias um and like this isn't rocket science you know like this isn't it's new and it's different

but people can certainly start to become aware of their biases and then find ways to like mitigate them. And, um, and this is the time to do it. Right. Because if, you know, five years ago you were like, okay, I'm going to change and be this like new person at work. It might be weird, but right now I think, first of all, you don't see anyone at work because you're home. So when you, when you show up again, no one's seen you in like five months. So it's not weird to be different. And people expect that we're all trying to learn together right now and be better.

So if not now, when? Yeah. And you bring up an interesting point earlier on about how not all people are just bad they're just they just have these unconscious biases although unfortunately the results of their behavior from those unconscious biases is bad so um people have got to just get in touch with them you know listen learn uh get your book um try to understand what this is about grow change you know i think that's that's what's made it easier for me going through life is that there's, you know, I understand that change is a necessary factor and an important factor in growth. But a lot of people don't want to change.

Change is, you know, ooh, it's scary, you know. Yeah, but if people have been listening to your podcast for the last few weeks, like, I think they're probably interested in change. Hopefully so, because that's what we try to do is give them tools like what you've done with your book to improve their life and improve their professional life too, not only from a society basis, but a lot of these things that we've talked about today,

Me Too and Black Lives Matter and racial diversity, LGBTQ diversity, all those sort of things are elements that if you step over that line or cross that line, you could be out of a job and you could end up with cancel culture where you're, you know, put into the, you're kicked out of the tribe because you're bad for the tribe. So as we wrap up, Stephanie, anything more we need to know about you and the great book you've written? I don't think so. Just thank you so much for having me. I enjoyed our chat. It was hilarious.

I think you may have missed your actual career destiny as a comedian. Ah, yes. Not an entrepreneur slash podcaster. There's still that. There's still time. We need to be able to go into a comedic thing.

That's half the reason people listen to me is for the funny so be sure to go check out her book uh give us the dot com so people can look that up on the interwebs it's um inclusifiedbook.com but you can actually get it anywhere books are sold it's called inclusify published by harper collins you can get it on at barnes noble or Target or Amazon on Kindle or ebook everywhere you go. Pick it up, make it a gift. You've got plenty of time guys. You're sitting at home a lot of times, read a book, learn about what's going on. And, and I really support this stuff because I want to see us change the society until we can be, whether it's a better company or better America or a better any

country in the world or just as a humanity. For those of us who believe in John Lennon, imagine a thing where we're all just one group of human beings that should care and lift each other up. Learning about this stuff is super, super important. I encourage you to come back anytime, Stephanie, to talk about this. In fact, we've got some other, I think we have some other panels that are coming on for inclusivity. I'll send you an email. Dr. Lawrence Chatter has been on a few times.

He's the inclusivity professor I mentioned. I think him and another author we interviewed recently with male toxicity and male roles and ability of children. It might be good to have you come on as a panelist for that. But to all my audience, be sure to check out our book, Order It Up. Do that internal in perspective. Look inside and go, what kind of unconscious biases do I have? Start listening to what you see, what you feel, what your biases are.

And just because society said that's what they were or what they used to be, they may not be tomorrow. So you definitely want to adapt and get with the times, if you will. There you go. So thanks, Manish, for tuning in. Be sure to subscribe to the show, refer the show to your friends, neighbors, relatives. Give us a great referral.

Go to iTunes.com. Give us five stars if you love the show and what we do here always trying to make it better and that will help uh help everyone see and hear it more and get the word out uh also go to youtube.com for just chris foss hit that bell notification see it all notifications everything we do thanks to my audience stay safe be well take care of each other and we'll see you next time bye chris all right