The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Opening The Corporate Closet: Transforming Biases to Gay Advancement in Corporate America by Kevin W. Jones

Episode Date: October 3, 2023

Opening The Corporate Closet: Transforming Biases to Gay Advancement in Corporate America by Kevin W. Jones Consiliumcoachingllc.com There is a gay glass ceiling in corporate America that few have broken through. Why? It's a different type of glass. It keeps openly gay employees from advancing while confining those who aren't out to remain in their closet. If you're out, you run up against biases that prevent gay advancement. If you're not out, you might advance but you're not bringing your true self along with you. With anti-LGBTQ sentiment on the rise, now more than ever, organizations can widen the opportunities for gay advancement for those both in and out of the closet, and smash that gay glass ceiling once and for all. Kevin Jones wrote this book based on the challenges he faced navigating, ultimately successfully, corporate America as a Gay man. It highlights the author's own experiences growing up closeted in the conservative South as a Gen Xer in the 1970s and '80s, and how those experiences influenced his early career development inside the corporate closet and later advancement once he came out. It also investigates the hidden forms of discrimination and biases ingrained in the collective mindset of straight people as well as those inside the LGBTQ+ community. Blending anecdotes from the author's life with data from multiple sources to depict the unique complexities of life as a gay person in corporate America, he illustrates the challenges, microdecisions and microaggressions that they and their closeted peers face every day. Whether you're gay or straight, however you identify, after reading this book, you will become more aware of your own judgments and biases, both toward yourself and those around you.

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. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. 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. I'm Oaks Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com, thechrisvossshow.com. Welcome to the big show show my family and friends oh my gosh it's monday uh if you're watching this 15 years now from now you're like it's not monday chris and youtube

uh guys welcome the big show our family the chris vosh show family podcast that loves you but doesn't judge you at least not as harshly as your mother-in-law that time you forgot to take out the garbage i don't know what that means but uh, uh, you know what you did and, uh, she'll never forget it, which, you know, whatever you probably earned it. So try and pay better attention and do your chores or whatever. I don't know.

That's what your mom told me too. Uh, guys, we have an amazing author and gentlemen on the show. He is both an author and a gentleman. I have that as certified by the gentlemen authority, um, council, uh, that was founded in 1883. both an author and a gentleman. I have that as certified by the Gentleman Authority Council that was founded in 1883. The shit that I make up in the ramble is extraordinary sometimes,

even to me. And so therefore, you will be learning much from him, not only about gentlemanese. Is there such a thing as gentlemanese? And also his extraordinary book and authorship that he has put into it. And we're going to learn about his life and stories about his life because that's what you're going to learn about. For 15 years, we've been bringing in the Chris Voss Show, the billionaires, the CEOs, the

Pulitzer Prize winners, the newsmakers, you know, all the great authors. And then there's just little old me with a mic. I don't know what that means uh anyway guys we have kevin w jones on the show with us today his hottest new book uh came out june 6 2023 opening the corporate closet transforming biases to gay advancement in corporate america we're going to talk about biases and all that stuff that goes on and how to overcome them and how to build a more inclusive world. And he is a guy, he's a gentleman, as I mentioned before, but he's also a native Texan. He graduated from Baylor University and studied economics in France.

And he then began his career as a French translator for a major telecommunications company, which took him to London. There he moved into a public affairs role, working closely with UK members of parliament. When he returned to Dallas, he began his career with Ernst & Young. As he progressed through the ranks, he discovered his passion for helping people to do what they do best. Along the way, he earned his International Coaching Federation certification and holds the Associate Certified Coach credential. And he has the Gentleman credential as well, I hear.

In his last role with the EY, he became America's Head of Leadership Services, where he led external client engagement around EY's leadership, development, service offerings, including group and individual coaching. And after retiring in January of 2023, he founded Concilium Coaching, a boutique coaching firm dedicated to helping leaders in the LGBTQ community and their allies where he puts his passion to play every day. And now he's on the show. Welcome to the show, Kevin.

How are you? Hey, Chris. I'm great you it's uh it's good to be here today there you go and it's an honor to have you as well uh thanks for coming on the show with your gentleman ease stuff that i make up and i think i'm gonna roll with that forever uh i gotta google that and see if i just create a new word uh give us your dotcom so people can find you on the interwebs. Yeah, it's conciliumcoachingllc.com. That's a mouthful, but conciliumcoachingllc.com. It's Latin for collaboration and guidance. I'm a big Latin geek, so that explains why you got to have such a challenging thing to look up online. There you go. So let's get a 30,000 overview of the book and what's inside. Yeah. So the book came about because of an idea that I had a few years ago working in corporate

America. It focuses on the challenges that people in the LGBTQ community face as they work their way up the corporate ladder. Some of the challenges are barriers that they put in front of themselves. Some of them are institutional barriers. Some of them are microaggressions. But for all sorts of reasons, people aren't making it up to the top as LGBTQ people in the same numbers and the same representation as other minorities are. So that's having an impact that We're still struggling with the inclusion sort of thing in the corporate world then. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And you know, the thing that I would add is it's, the book also kind of takes my own life and my own experiences as somebody who's also moving, who also moved up in corporate America, but it kind of starts off with my childhood, some of

those influences, because, you know, I always say in my coaching practice, we don't just show up and we're this person who we are today. We bring childhood and all those experiences with us. And so if you show up LGBTQ, you're showing up with all those experiences as well. And those have a big impact on your ability to advance based on what you tell yourself as well as what you hear from others. There you go. I mean, it seems that there's inherent bias in just how humans operate. It seems, you know, but we're trying to overcome a lot of different things. Opening the corporate closet, maybe encouraging people to come out of the closet if they're hiding. Have you thought about sending this to Tom Cruise or John Travolta?

Yeah, I've got it. John Travolta has a restraining order on me, so I can't send anything to him, but I'm going to try it with Tom Cruise. Kidding. There he goes. Kidding aside. Yeah.

Send it as a massage therapist. I've heard about that. Anyway, so give us your story. Give us, I mean, I've given you a little biography on you, but people like to hear your story from your words. Tell us how you grew up and kind of how you went through this journey that got you to where

you are today. Yeah, I grew up and kind of how you went through this journey that got you to where you are today. Yeah, I grew up in southeast Texas in a town called Beaumont, about an hour and a half east of Houston, right on the Louisiana border. Grew up Southern Baptist and in the early mid-70s was in elementary junior high school. So picture that world. And I grew up Mormon. So, yeah, I know that. Well, there you go. We'll have to watch some more notes after the podcast. And all that came with that. And I had a great family, great childhood, except for the fact that I knew something was different about me.

Always knew. And in church, I was probably the loudest singer, the most active participant in the youth choir and youth events, trying to convince everybody that I was better than everybody else so that they ever found out my secret, it wouldn't matter. And you learn really quickly how to hide those things, especially in Southeast Texas, which is pretty much a big oil community and a lot of people who are happy to tell you why your lifestyle is wrong. And I use that word lifestyle in quotes. It's obviously not a lifestyle. You're born with it. But I grew up with that and grew up learning how to hide it and firmly in the closet, especially when I saw how the bullies at my school treated other people. And I'll say one more thing on top of that.

People of a certain age, like me, you're much younger, so you probably don't remember this, but people of a certain age remember Anita Bryant. And all of her, she was the orange juice spokesperson in Florida. And she spoke a lot about the homosexual agenda in the 70s and how gays were trying to convert your children. And I remember all this. I was 10, 11 years old. And this was all at the forefront of my mind on top of our Southern Baptist preacher preaching about the sins of homosexuality and the abomination.

So that's kind of the childhood I grew up in. I mean, it's not as bleak as all that. I had fun times as well. It was this environment that was immersing me in identifying new and creative ways of hiding who I was. Wow. It sounds like it was quite the struggle. So when did you finally decide to come out

and what was the proponent that, you know, made you decide to, you know, step into that light where, you know, you were, you were going to be exposed? Yeah, well, you know, it's a, it's funny because I talk about a little bit in the book, this notion of coming out more than once, which is something I did. And for many people like us, and I digress for a moment, we come out a lot. But to your point, I came out once and for all when I was 25 years old. I'd come back to the U.S. from France. I was just tired. I was exhausted of trying to pretend.

And it just got to be too much emotionally, physically. I stopped going out with old friends because i was so concerned about what they would think and so finally i said enough enough is enough i came out to all my friends all my family and apologies if you hear the dogs in the background they're defending me against the ups man uh so um two crazy Boston Terriers. But anyway, so I, I finally came out once and for all. And, uh, I never looked back. And the funny thing is most of the people I came out to said, yeah, we, we already know. So much for like the big, you know, so anticlimactic.

Well, you know, it's, uh, it's, uh, you know, keeping secrets. I saw this, Oprah had something, said this on the show once. The secrets you keep inside are like poison. And until you let them out, they, they tend to infect you the most. Let me ask you this. When you were in France and overseas doing stuff before you came back to the U.S. and came out, were you able to, did you find you were more accepted there? Were you able to come out there? You know, the funny thing is, no.

Really? That's the short answer. Yeah. I would have thought. Well, you would, right? You'd think, oh, this is Europe. It's pretty open, pretty liberal. But if I think about the time period, this was, say, 1990, 91, 92.

We're still in a time period where you've got sort of this Latin culture and people are largely Roman Catholic. And so even in the large cities, there is this sort of sense of machismo. And if you're gay, then you're, you're all these things, all these stereotypes. And so I pretty quickly realized when I was there that as liberal as it is in many ways, from a social safety net perspective, socialized medicine, and so on,

when it came to those old societal norms, they were still pretty homophobic. So I stayed firmly in the closet. Wow. That's, that's amazing. You think about where we're at now, where we, we, still pretty homophobic. So I stayed firmly in the closet. Wow. That's, that's amazing. You think about where we're at now, where we, we, we're supposed to progress so far that, uh, we understand everything and it's supposed to be more inclusive, but we still

have more work to do, which I guess, uh, leads us right back into your book. Did you, did you, uh, did you find that when you went to work with, uh, it was Ernst and Young, I think. Yes. That you were experiencing sort of biases, you were trying to advance through the corporations? You know, what's funny about that time period with Ernst & Young, when I started there in 2005, and I was out from day one. And the big difference was a lot of life had happened, but also I had a partner by then who's my now husband, Simon. And I said, I am not going to be unfair to him by pretending I'm somebody I'm not. And so for the very first day I was out.

And from my own perspective, what was limiting was not the firm. The firm was and still is very supportive of DEI efforts of people bringing what we say, we bring your full self to work every day. And so it wasn't so much that the firm had any limitations on me, but I put some limitations on myself. And part of that is, and I talk about this in the book as well, it's easy to say, with all due respect to Ernst & Young, it's easy to say bring your full self to work because they did encourage it. But I had clients. And most of my day was spent working externally with people in the oil and gas sector who may not have been quite as accepting of the LGBTQ community as people within the firm. And so I had to make these micro decisions all the time about how I interacted with these people,

what I would tell them, what I wouldn't, because it might affect my career indirectly if they decided they didn't want to work with somebody who was gay. Yeah. And it's definitely an issue. I remember our first sexual, as our company was growing and becoming large and expanding pretty rapidly, I remember, well, we used to talk, we're like, well, it's a matter of time until somebody pulls a sexual harassment crap in the office.

And I remember one time my vice president walked into me and I'll just make up some names here he goes uh yeah we got a sexual harassment complaint finally and uh i was like oh who is it he goes it's bob and doug i'm just making up names here and i was like bob and doug do we have a do we have a woman works for us named bob like i literally did and i was like i was like what there's no women's names there and he goes yeah there's not and uh we had a gentleman who was uh who was who was pretty uh openly gay and uh and he was sitting next to uh in our telemarketing and they were sitting next to a guy who was really had a problem with that

when people were gay and uh yeah it was the he was uh it was it got all bent out of shape and almost a fist to cuss which is extraordinary because you're like you know let people live their lives man like what do you do but wow but you know that's that is more common than you think i had my own experiences with that and there is this notion that if you are than you think. I had my own experiences with that. And there is this notion that if you are gay, you're going to be, especially when there is a, when there's a power dynamic going on.

Oh, really? Yeah. If somebody is hitting on you and they are more powerful within whatever the organizational structure is, or they perceive they have more power, they think that as a gay person you're even less likely to stir up crap than a straight person because you have more to lose now that's a

perception and i'm so glad that men are standing up more for themselves in these situations that's definitely a power narcissistic sort of Machiavellian move. I don't know. Absolutely is. So in your book, you talk about you going through what you went through. And so it's kind of a memoir and then also some advice. Yeah. Yeah.

So the memoir part is shared some of this about my childhood, growing up, coming out of the closet, getting back into the closet, kind of transitions into how we live our lives once we fully come out. And if we haven't come out, what are the reasons? What could be different if you came out? In my coaching practice, I talk about this a lot, but in the book, I don't judge at all. I can't walk in anybody's shoes but my own. And the fact that 47% of people who identify as LGBTQ still aren't out in the workplace tells me there's a bigger problem here. know yourself, know your environment, but also be aware to the possibilities of bringing your full self to work and what that might do for you. Back to your point about what Oprah Winfrey said, when we poison ourselves like that from the inside, we continue this vicious cycle of limiting ourselves professionally. And so while I'm never going to tell anybody, you'd better come out. You need to do this for the greater cause. I do gently question and

highlight the value in being your full authentic self. There you go. Now, does that play into what you talk about called the pink camouflage? Yeah, yeah. So, you know, when I think about minorities, when we think about whoever, whatever minority group you bring to mind, we typically think of people who we can identify as a minority, visible minorities. So whether it's women or people of color, you know straight off the bat who you're dealing with. And you make adjustments and assessments about people. I mean, it's not just because it's a woman or somebody of color. We look at each person we see and make these micro assessments about that person. The difference, if you're gay, as LGBTQ people, we can hide who we are under certain circumstances. And so that translates to this notion of peak camouflage.

I can hide this. If it's in my best interest, if I feel threatened, if I feel at risk, if they're one of a million different circumstances where I think I shouldn't be myself, I can hide that. And we learned that early on in life. If you grew up in, say, a family that was homophobic, If you're black, if somebody decides to make a racial slur, that's pretty awful because they know you're black and they're saying it to your face. It's awful regardless, but if they know this and they're saying it to your face, pretty crappy. But if somebody doesn't know you're gay and they don't like gay people, they will talk about it freely.

I have experienced that firsthand. And so many of us growing up, we got those signals early on that it wasn't good to be gay. We heard it firsthand and we learned how to camouflage ourselves with this peak camouflage so that we learned how better to make ourselves accepted in society. I guess that's true. I mean, there are biases against people of color and women that, you know, inclusion is trying to solve in the marketplace. But because you can usually see who's a woman and who has different, who's from different races.

But, yeah, I mean, I mean, I have a pretty good gay dark cause I, uh, I have a lot of, I've had a lot of gay friends over the years, so I can usually tell I've learned, but, uh, um, you know, it, you know, I, I, I've been a CEO all my life. I run companies since I was 18. The one thing I learned a long time ago is I ran out of good ideas in like, what was it, 1995 or something? And that's when I went, I need you people, everyone who works for me to come up with great ideas. And I learned that I am not the arbitrator of all the great ideas in the world

and probably less so as the older I get, the more the brain fogs over. And you never know where the great ideas come from. So I became an idea collector, and I love going to all my people and going, give me ideas, write stuff down. I don't care what it is, just wing it, throw it, give me anything, give me something. And I've learned over the years that some of my most profitable ideas have come from people that have worked for me that sometimes you, you know, they could be a line cook or a telemarketer or, you know, some person that maybe isn't even the executive thing.

And they can have a great idea mainly because a lot of times they're maybe the forefront of the business where they're in the front line seeing what's really going on with my company that I'm not aware of. And so I'm not the arbitrator of all the great ideas and I don't think any leader really is. And so, you know, saying I don't like this person or that person for whatever different reasons, you know, unless they're just an awful human being or they're, you know, lazy worker or something. But I've never, trying to say, well, you know, certain people don't have great ideas is just insane and cutting yourself off from that lifeline. I mean, there's sometimes where my business has been saved because, you know, just anybody

in my company comes with an idea that I would never expect to come up with a great idea or something or, you know, just minor adjustments to my business. So it just seems to be insane that people are running with these biases because you just never know where good ideas are going to come from. And that's not the only reason to be inclusive. There's a lot of other reasons.

You want people to live their full life and their true authentic self because if they can be self-actualized in your company, they're going to do better and be better people and and deliver better results and now that kind of sounds like i'm just thinking of people as results or new people but they're going to be happy you're going to be happy and and the world's going to be happy how does that sound did i round that out nicely i i love you said that and and i would add one thing to that which is to your point you've got people sitting around the table and you're the leader and you're getting all these great ideas if they all look and act like you the

same background you're probably going to get similar ideas to what you've already come up with you need that diversity around the table like to your point to get those great ideas yeah and and people bring diversity i think from their different journeys of life you know there's that famous uh one of my favorite speeches is by Steve Jobs, and he talks about his journey of life where he failed college. I never went to college. And so our journeys and his aspects of looking at stuff was very different than most people's. And you just never know people's different journeys or stories in life, the things that they learned that they can apply to your business are all going to be different.

That's why I love the show is people come on and tell their different stories. And I get to just live in the, in the hybrid of, of so many different variations of people's lives. There's no, there's no one right way, but, uh, so it's great that your book helps people deal with maybe coming out and encouraging them to live their full authentic life. You talk about the gay glass ceiling being real. Tell us about that and what you wrote about in the book about that. Yeah, you know, it comes from the notion, obviously, of the glass ceiling for women. And the gay glass ceiling i i talk about it being a different type of glass and i think in many ways it can be thicker especially when you think of the

intersectionality you have women who are also lesbians you've got you know you're not in just one group but in many cases the the reason that the gay glass ceiling is there and what i talk about is this notion again of whether it's self-limiting or whether it's being limited by forces outside of your control, you have so many other barriers to making it through to the C-suite or whatever level you want to get to in corporate America. And not only are the barriers that aren't there that you or somebody else may put in your way, but you're also looking at different societies. You may work for a multinational, but that multinational may have offices in Dubai or

Malaysia. And you can't get those same opportunities as a straight person because it's illegal to be gay in those countries. And so you're not going to get those same opportunities for mobility, for the experiences, for the contributions to your organization, if you can't go to those same places that straight people can go to. And so even in the best organization, if you're a multinational, I just use that as an example. There are many others I talk about in the book, but if you're an organization and you're limited in where you can go, then you're also limited in your career opportunities. There you go. And it's dangerous to go to those countries. It's dangerous. Absolutely.

Yeah. It's a life or death sometimes in some of these places. And some of the community or societies there aren't too inclusive oriented. so let's talk about what you do with your coaching services at conciliumcoachingllc.com uh tell us about some of the leadership coaching services you do you do it for the lgbt community and their allies as you put it uh talk tell us about how you service that how you provide that and some of the different opportunities you offer people. Yeah. So first of all, I start off as a fundamentally a leadership coach and whether you're LGBTQ and ally, whatever your background is, I'm, I'm a leadership coach.

And then I bring that empathy as a gay man myself to my coaching practice with the LGBTQ community. And what I tend to focus on, not exclusively, but largely so, are the unique issues and challenges that this community face in their own career path. And that may not be laterally moving up within an organization. Often it is. It may just be navigating the politics, navigating how you deal with being gay in an organization

while also trying to move up or move around. And then with the allies, a lot of the coaching comes into play when they're trying to figure out how to be more supportive of their LGBTQ colleagues. That work.

Challenges they may face standing up for when it would be easier to stay silent. And all this comes into play in coaching because the idea of coaching is that... I went to the Hudson Institute, great program for coaching. And the way we learn it is we empty ourselves out emotionally and physically and intellectually are there for the individual. They fill us up with

what they need to talk about so that we can approach the conversations with curiosity and a desire to know more about where they're coming from. And so that's the approach that I take in my coaching. The difference I'll say is the further up I go in terms of the people I'm coaching, so let's say C-suite or maybe a level below C-suite, what I'm often working on there are people who are either allies or very few LGBTQ community people at that level. But what I'm working with are people who are allies or people who may be my generation, Generation X, maybe some who are still baby boomers, and they're struggling. They're struggling with how to embrace the notion of this next level of diversity compared to what they entered the workforce with 30, 40 years ago. And they want to do the right things. They just don't know how to go about ago. And they want to do the right things.

They just don't know how to go about it. And they don't want to get themselves in trouble. They don't want to get the organizations in trouble. And they want to be a more empathetic leader. And so often what I spend my time with and coaching with folks at that level is how to embrace that empathy. I'm not telling them they have to change their religious, their spiritual beliefs, their societal views. But if they want to be an inclusive and an empathetic leader, and I'll say that with an asterisk that I'll come back to, but if they want to be an inclusive and an empathetic leader, then it's in their best interest to figure out what's inside them that they can pull out in order to be able to do that and be as effective and inclusive as possible.

There you go. So let me ask you this. Are you seeing, you know, you mentioned the boomers, and, you know, they grew up in a generation that, you know, they had some pretty hard biases and stuff, and they struggled to overcome it. Even at Gen X, you know, we've had to, you know, we've had to do some cleaning of our biases and kind of understanding the world. And there's kind of been an arc of change for us. And I think we were more kind of, I don't know if we were more open-minded. I don't know. It's not a show about Gen X's personalities.

But are you seeing, my understanding is, is what they say is that the new generations like millennials and I think Gen X is on the cusp and the new generations like millennials and and i think gen x on the cusp and and the new gen z's um are are you seeing that they're more open to everybody and more inclusive and uh the future is looking brighter on that pathway is that happening the way everyone says it is yeah i would say the short and short yes yes. And I have been very fortunate at Ernst & Young, by the very nature of our organization, I've been able to work with people straight out of college, all the way up to people who are retiring at 60, 62 years old. And so I've seen multiple generations.

And what I noticed consistently is people in their 20s, this is just a non-issue, entirely non-issue. Nobody even cares. I'm so used to that dramatic music playing when I say my husband, you know, dun-dun-dun, right? And they don't care. They're like, okay, well, yeah, tell him I said hi. And the older you get, the more you will see some sort of reaction. But even so, what I am noticing, and this is where I say hats off, the younger generation isn't taking crap either from the older ones. And they are more comfortable with calling them out on something that they believe

is fundamentally, ethically, morally wrong. And they see that bias and that discrimination against the LGBTQ community as morally wrong. And they see that bias and that discrimination against the LGBTQ community as morally wrong. And I've seen this happen time and time again. Again, maybe Ernst & Young is a bubble, but I do believe, to your point, overall, they're as bright with these younger generations coming out because it truly doesn't matter to them anymore. There you go. It's good that we're progressing that way. I had somebody tell me one time we were talking about politics and they're like,

it just may have to be that a certain older generation has got to fade away. And that's just how progress has to work. There's some people that really struggle with, you know, if you spend a lifetime, what's the old, you can't teach an old dog new tricks. You can really, you can lead a horse over water and make them's the old day, you can't teach an old dog new tricks. You can really, um, you can lead a horse of water and make them drink. You just have to feed them a lot of salt.

Uh, I gotta use that. That is, that is, feel free. I stole it from somebody on Twitter that told it to me. You know, I think I was joking about how you can't lead a horse of water.

And they're like, you can, you just feed a lots of salt. That thing will drink water. Uh, I gotta get a salt licker. i think you'll find water for sure um so another topic you talked about your book that i was going to have you expand on what is a gay decision diamond what is that right so imagine you're meeting somebody for the first time and i'll use the example uh that actually happened to me i'm sitting next to somebody on the first time. And I'll use the example that actually happened to me.

I'm sitting next to somebody on the plane. And this was right after the Supreme Court ruled on gay marriage in 2015. They started ranting about that. Marriage is Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. Right? That old chestnut. Isn't that beautiful? It's my favorite.

And I was faced with a decision. I'm on a four-hour flight to Boston. Yeah, I love it. Yeah. And so I'm faced with this decision, decision diamond, like in process maps. If you work in project management or you develop process maps, you have these actions. And all of a sudden, you get to an action and it says, okay, before I can take the next action, I have to take a decision. Do I do X, Y, or Z? Yes or no? And so my decision diamonds are the series of yes, no questions that LGBTQ folks have to answer before they can continue on. And so I was faced with my first decision diamond in that situation when I decided, who is this jerk? Are they worth my time? Yes or no? Yes. Okay. Are

they worth my time? Do I want to just listen more to what they say because I'm interested? And by the way, that's also pink camouflage that plays in here but i have to decide then do i say well i'm gay yes or no yes okay am i willing to put up with the discomfort for the next four hours because now i've sat next to this jerk and he's the jerk but now i gotta sit by so the point being we are faced every day with decision diamonds like this. And they all happen in microseconds. We are figuring out and we're so good at it because we've done it our whole lives, whether we were in peak camouflage or whether we were out, they're still there. And so these decision diamonds can get pretty exhausting as well.

If we're having to figure out in every situation, if this person doesn't know that we are a member of the LGBTQ community, we have to go through a series of decision diamonds with that individual. There you go. I mean, you know, normally in a public sphere, I would just use stoicism for that and just be like, I don't know, you're an idiot. I'm not going to waste money. I'm not going to think about you when you're, I imagine that happens in a work environment. And so, you know, you, you're on a team with Bob. I environment and so you know you you're on a team with bob i always like to use bob uh you're on a team with bob that's a great employee's name bob

this seems mean to to try it reminds me of the bob newhart show and yeah i think that might be where i pull it from but uh he was a great comedian um but uh you know you're on a team with bob i just like the sound of the name bob you know you can you can you can negate it with just bob like bob's an asshole just comes across it just does it so well like jack doesn't do it bob fucking bob um so you're on a team with fucking bob and uh bob you know spouts off what you heard on the plane and you know then you have a problem because you're like do i have to continue hearing this for the rest of my career with this dude? I'm stuck on a team with them.

And, uh, you know, again, those are the things that really don't need to be in the thing. I don't, the funny thing about the whole, uh, uh, Adam and Steve thing is I've been single for all my life. Uh, and I have some issues with marriage and divorce, uh, as in like, I never, it's kind of like COVID. I never want to get it on me. Um, and, uh, I'm always, I, there's a running punchline through my life and what I see in my life because I suppose my bias, but you know, I, I see everybody who tells me the hallowed nature of, uh, of marriage and, you know, the sanctity of marriage crap. And you find out they're cheating and they got a mistress on the side and, you know, they ended up divorcing, you know, it seems like every, you know, a guy who's a preacher is telling me about the how nature of whatever, you know,

it's got a hooker in the basement or something. I don't know. And you're just like, oh yeah, oh yeah. The thing there. So I have a whole different bias to, uh, you know, it's got a hooker in the basement or something. I don't know. And you're just like, oh yeah, oh yeah, the thing there. So I have a whole different bias to, you know, if you tell me you're married, I mean, if you tell me you're married, I was fine. I don't care. It's your world. Have fun with that. But it's, I just figured I'd bring that up for the funness of it. I have to say, I love, I love that, that analogy as well. I can tell you all sorts of stories about the sanctity of marriage. And I am married, and I'll tell you,

I was determined. So my husband and I, I was determined. He said, well, why don't we get married? We got married in 2016. And he said, well, you know, we could get married earlier. I said, no, I want to wait

until I can have the state seal of Texas on my marriage certificate. That's another story for another time. You're selling my first 10 ex-wives, yeah. I'm just kidding. That's a joke. To your point about fucking Bob, I have experienced quite a few of those guys in my life.

It's fascinating because this is something I have coached people in my coaching practice about as well. When you're in your, and again, these power dynamics, there's such a factor of where Bob is in relation to you and the hierarchy. If you're entry level or junior and Bob's more senior to you, even if you have every right to report him or say something to him, you ask yourself the question, what does this mean for my career and my opportunities for development and advancement? What assignments do I get if I say something to him, you ask yourself the question, what does this mean for my career and my opportunities for development and advancement?

What assignments do I get if I say something? Am I branded the troublemaker? It's easier the further up you go, and the likelihood increases that you are more senior to Bob, because then you can say, hey, asshole, let's have that conversation one-on-one, come into my office, and see if you got a different response because then the power dynamics shift i'm not saying that's the right

way to do it but there is some value in being able to leverage that power to influence for good definitely definitely i mean people just didn't bring their own personal biases in the thing no one wants to hear politics at work no one wants to hear your opinions um and all the interesting stuff do you find uh now evidently you're practicing christian still uh what's it like to deal with all that and in the workplace i mean there's a lot of stuff you can run into in the workplace with with all the things you got going on there yeah yeah well i will say i'm no longer a southern bapt. I'm Episcopalian now. Shocker, spoiler alert, but I am a practicing Episcopalian. And the thing that appeals to me so much about the Episcopal Church is that they have three mental points on a triangle.

There is tradition, scripture, and reason. And that last element of reason appeals to the intellectual in me. We're all intellectual. But we often go into our faith, putting our intellect aside and just say, well, that's God's will, or God doesn't like it because we all assume we know what God's will is. And so we set that intellect. And faith isn't about setting your intellect aside. It's about using your intellect to decide what you believe and what your faith is about. And so that's how my spiritual journey has evolved into what it is now

and being able to use my intellect without apology. But it's funny that you talk about the workplace because with Ernst & Young and with many large organizations, you might have people who you know are practicing Christians or Buddhists or Muslim or whatever it is, Jewish and on and on. And there's so much diversity in that what i find challenging is in my coaching practice i have been shocked when somebody when people say you know i have people approach me in the hallway at work and ask if they can pray over me because i'm gay i shouldn't laugh at that but I mean that is that's extraordinarily dumb that people do that but it is crazy and so

you feel like I can pray for myself I'm Christian yeah yeah can I pray over you for being can I pray to you for being stupid yeah I think there's enough prayers in the world to fix your stupidity but yeah let me get all my other gay folks around me we'll do a prayer chain for you

it is crazy that some of the stuff that you see like that it happens and this one example i uh i said well did you go to what'd you do you go to hr and they said well this was the hr lead who asked to pray over me are you serious i'm thinking you need to find another job. But the point is, this is the kind of stuff that happens in what I would call less enlightened organizations. I appreciate that sounds a little patronizing. But the surprising thing is that it happens at all. But you have people who, on top of having to navigate the corporate ladder just from their own performance and capabilities in relation to being gay now you've got people who are bringing religion into it and asking them if they can pray over them to pray the gay way jeez that's a that's one way to stack the hr complaint

right check all the boxes if you will i shouldn't laugh about that but it is it's so ignorant and stupid i mean the way i always remind companies i just want to do your fucking job and do the work you're supposed to do like all that stuff i don't want to hear about like i'll i'll yell at my employees if they spend like an hour on the phone with their girlfriends or wives because i'm like that i don't pay for that man you go home and do that like i don't know what you do anyway like why would you talk to your girlfriend or your wife for two hours at work you got to go home and talk that. Like, I don't know what you do anyway. Like, why would you talk to your girlfriend or your wife for two hours at work? You got to go home and talk to her some more.

Like what, what the hell? Like, what else do you have to say during the day that you can't wait? Yeah. Like, I mean, in terms of your work is the time to get away from them.

Like get a break. Like my girlfriends, they get five minutes, man. They get five minutes in a day. Maybe if they call twice, they got something they need to run by me or something. But it's like, no, I'll see you at home. I spend eight hours at work and I spend the rest of the time with you usually.

And yeah, I mean, I need some, I need, you know, I'm working here. I'm making some money, man. I got to pay for all that expensive shit you buy on Amazon. I hear you on that. I'm lucky because Simon is a teacher. He doesn't really have the time during the day to talk because he's always in class.

It drives him crazy because I'll text him. I'll say topics for discussion this evening and send like four or five. This is why I'm not married um the marriage jokes but uh you know hey hey you guys have been married for a long time you guys are happy and and all that good stuff um so this has been really insightful and uh hopefully given people you know we we put these on linkedin and linkedin newsletter so you know there's a lot of hr people and hopefully some of them were learning.

You joked about the HR person who, who did the Christian thing. Um, but, uh, you know, uh, the one,

the one thing to remember people is stupid is forever. As I think it was, uh, Ron Brown said one of the Brown, something Brown stupid is forever. It's, you can't fix it. So don't be stupid or try not to be stupid,

or at least try and fix your stupid. Or if you can't fix it so don't be stupid or try not to be stupid or at least try and fix your stupid or if you can't fix your stupid do what shakespeare said it's better to be silent and not say what you think than to open your mouth or then to be thought as stupid than to open your mouth and prove it which is probably should have done a long time ago with the podcast because everyone's been like he's been stupid for 15 years. It's Chris Foss. Anyway, give us your final pitch as we go out about the book, about people onboarding with your services and pick up the phone or the email and connecting you with your coaching services. Thank you. Yeah. So final pitch I would say here is I would love for you to buy the book, but more importantly, I would love for you to be your authentic self, whoever you are, wherever you are. And if you have trouble with that,

reach out to me. If you don't want to reach out to me, reach out to someone. Life's too short to live in hiding and to have those gay decision diamonds draining all of your energy every day. Be yourself, be authentic and reach out to me there you go and and and uh that an add-on point what you said it's draining it is draining when people hide who they are or they hide their trauma or they hide their issues um they're living in the anxiety of it um and uh you know we've talked a lot about trauma and different issues on the show and what people hide what people mentally deal with. And the hiding is sometimes so much work for people and it's so draining.

And I mentioned this for the LGBT community, LGBTQ community. Um, and, uh, and, and it's so much work and you can't, you can't be, you know, I think be as creative and be as you know like you say your authentic self and contribute as much as you possibly could and focus on your life when you're focused on uh like what you talk about the pink camouflage so i learned some new terms today so there you go that's why we do the show great i'm glad that glad to hear that yeah it's all about learn it's all i learn more off this show than probably anybody else does, probably because I have to listen to every episode.

But no, I hope our audience listens and learns because we need to progress and we need to be a smarter world and a better world for everybody because there's no one. You look at the CEOs of Google. He grew up on a dirt floor in India. Poor. There's Steve Jobs who's an immigrant family. There is no one group of people in this world that have all the great ideas.

They just don't. And the more and faster this world revolves and goes revolves and goes and with AI, it's getting a little freaking out of hand. Even I'm at this point going, hang on, can we slow down a little bit? This coaster's going faster. So, you know, it's really important that we give everybody a shot at the title. Thank you very much for coming on the show, Kevin. We really appreciate it. Thank you for having me, Chris. Iris i appreciate being here really enjoyed our time together and thank you for coming and just remember i uh gave you the title of gentlemanese or whatever that sort of gentleman pit i made up at the beginning we improv every ramble in the show

and i just wing it sometimes it's really funny and interesting sometimes i'm like where the hell did that come from but uh that's the that's the power of the stupidity of the ramble. Thanks to my audience for coming in. We certainly appreciate it. Without you, we couldn't do it at all. We had some great reviews come in on the iTunes there. So if you get a chance, go give us a five-star review over there. We really appreciate it.

Imagine having your beverage of choice while dishing with your bestie, Chris Voss, is that smart and boisterous friend with decades of high and low experiences to draw from. It's a back and forth educational forum where y'all can learn and grow a lively, insightful education banter.

Five-star review from someone there on the iTunes. We certainly love you and appreciate you. Those people who take out their personal time to do it. Go to goodreads.com, Fortress Chris Voss, linkedin.ress Christmas, YouTube.com, Fortress Christmas, and all those places on the internet. Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other.

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