The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Shana Francesca, Founder & CEO of Concinnate LLC, Life Designer, Keynote Speaker & Writer Interview

Episode Date: July 14, 2023

Shana Francesca, Founder & CEO of Concinnate LLC, Life Designer, Keynote Speaker & Writer interview Concinnate.world About Shana Francesca Shana Francesca is a natural born leader, speaker, writer and entrepreneur. She was born into a difficult family life and refused to allow that to define her. As the Founder and Lead Designer at Concinnate, a multi-discipline interior design and life design firm working with clients around the country, she uses her voice to guide people toward their own empathy, resilience, and curiosity about what is possible in their own lives. Shana is unique and powerful and brings that to the stage. Shana grew up in and around performing arts. She became accustomed to the stage and leadership at a young age, dancing, acting, singing, directing and speaking in front of large crowds. This prepared her for connecting with people from the stage. She lives her life leaning into Empathy, Curiosity and Intention and through her design work, conversations and talks, she invites people to do the same. Our present and future are transformed when we take ownership for designing our lives. We write our life's story. We do that with the level of intention we infuse into the many small decisions we make every day. This is the core of her work.

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. Hi, folks. It's Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com, thechrisvossshow.com. Welcome big show my family and friends we certainly appreciate you guys coming by thank you for being here what would we ever do without you folks uh 14 years

we're going on 1500 episodes they're going to start changing all the things from 1400 to 1500 uh two to three new shows a day so if you guys aren't checking out some of the most brilliant minds the people that will inspire the people that will inspire, the people that will motivate you, the people that will take you to that next level, well, you'll walk around with this glow around you, this aura. I don't really believe in auras, but people will get that from you. They'll get that sense of confidence. They'll get that sense of, I don't know, I've run out of verbs to use or adverbs to use. So I'm just going to roll it up there. But you need to refer the show to your family,

friends, and relatives. You know, I keep a list every day of all the people who refer the show to your family, friends, and relatives. And it's just been explosive how much the show grows in the LinkedIn newsletter. But this is the lead in that we use to sell you the plugs.

And of course, tell you that we love you. Go to goodreads.com for chest Christmas, youtube.com for chest christmas youtube.com for chest christmas he does that on purpose uh go to let's see what else is there there's tiktok there's the new threads and uh youtube and linkedin the big linkedin newsletter i think gross like a week go subscribe to that we're gonna be talking leadership today and uh building better communities and building better businesses and building yourself better. Why does that sound like a good idea? Because it is, gosh darn it. Today, we have an amazing woman on the show.

Shana Francesca is on the show with us today. She'll be talking about her amazing work and everything that she does in the form of leadership and speaking, writing, and being an entrepreneur. Her work centers around intentional leadership and living. She believes we become infinitely more impactful as leaders when we understand the power of community and our role inside of it. Knowing that a corporation is a type of community, and we're going to have a lot of fun with this discussion, that community is an ecosystem where it is vital for every part and person is honored

and empowered. She believes our present and future are transformed when we infuse our lives and therefore our work with intention design our and design our lives and realize how powerfully we truly are when we honor ourselves and others as part of community. Welcome to the show. How are you? I'm good, Chris. How are you? I am excellent today. I'm just having a wonderful day and we're going to be talking about some great things that you're bringing to the show. Give me your dot coms, if you would, so people can find you on the interwebs. Yeah. So www.consonate.world. So it's dot not dot com remember that um that's the best place and the places i spend the most time the social media i spend the most time on these days are linkedin

tiktok and threads and i'm at shana francesca on all of those places there's a there's a cool stuff there uh what's uh what does consonant mean i'm curious about that oh my gosh of course i just moved the i I kept a index card that had the definition on it sitting right by my desk and the cleaners just came and I was like, crap, I just moved it. But basically the definition is that it is harmony by design. It is a recognition that there is a precisely accurate way of doing something for us, right? And it's important that we lean into that and that we understand that there is a way to be harmonious with that. There you go.

Consonate. To join fitly or becoming together, becomingly together, make well connected and choose and compose suitably. There you go. Or to arrange or blend together skillfully. I love the harmony concept though, because having harmony and peace and continuum in your life tends to make for good order as it were. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. That's the thing is I looked up a couple different definitions, and I think the one that I really centered on was from dictionary.com, right? Because different dictionaries phrase it just a little bit differently. And I loved the language of it. You know what? We're here on my laptop, so I'm just going to look it up real quick so I can

read that specific definition because I love it so much. There you go. And we can hop into that. Yeah. I love the concept of it. And of course, this is why we do the show. Everybody learns something new. And so I've learned the word consonant today.

Yeah. I'm going to have to incorporate that in my thing. I used to have one of those apps where you try and learn a new word every day. exactly. Yeah. And, and while that's kind of,

there's a funny story behind the name. It's not super funny, but it's an iconic story. So the dictionary.com definition is to arrange or blend together skillfully as parts or elements put together in a harmonious, precisely appropriate or elegant manner. There you go. And so you help do this through what you do with leadership, leadership workshops and

consulting. And I think you'd probably do some coaching as well. Yeah, a little bit. The focus of my work right now is on public speaking and on facilitating workshops because I really want to, I love getting this information out to as many people as possible, as quickly as possible. And I also really love, I've been on a stage in one form or another since I was a kid. And so it just kind of came naturally to me. And I was like, why am I not doing this and charging for it? Oh, let's do that. There you go. So tell us a little bit about your

upbringing, your hero's journey, what got you into leadership and all the business and stuff that you're doing now. Yeah, so I grew up in an evangelical Christian cult and in an abusive household. Those things tend to go hand in hand, abuse and cults. I should mention that I'm giggling because my audience knows I grew up in a cult too as well. Yeah. So we talked about this in the green room for just a second ahead of time. We're like, oh, similar journeys. So I grew up seeing very intentional leadership, but very intentionally harmful leadership, right? In ways that there was no accountability, there was no recognition of harm, there was no steps taken to diminish that or repair that harm. It was all just, this is in the service of God, and, you know, we all need to basically martyr ourselves and their suffering here on earth

so that you can receive your reward in heaven, exploitation of labor, so on and so forth, and hiding of child sexual violence, predatory behavior, pedophiles, so on and so forth. And part of my own story is that, and this is like trigger warning for anyone. You might want to just give us a little mute for a minute. If, if you grew up in an abusive household and still are triggered by the discussion of that. My first instance with,

with rape was at three and a half. And it was my, my babysitter's son. The thing about unhealthy people is they do not attract healthy people. Right? So when your parents are abusive, they tend to surround themselves with other abusive people. And so, as a child, it becomes a very dangerous environment, both inside and outside of your home, right?

Pete Yeah. Kirsten Especially because I went to Christian school at the cult. So, I was never not being exposed to abusive behavior, right? Pete Wow. Kirsten And to manipulative leadership. And then my father groomed me from the time that I was about five or six until I was 15. He forced me to take a chastity pledge, a purity pledge at the age of 12 in front of 2,500 people. And then he sexually assaulted me at 15. And honestly, that sexual assault at 15 was one of the worst things that

ever happened to me because I thought, okay, he's an abusive person, but he'd never do that. And when he did, it cracked something open inside of me that just said, there's something not right here and this cannot be living. This cannot be what God would want. If God is real, this cannot be. This cannot be. This cannot be. And I cannot and I will not live this way. And so, I started surrounding myself with exterior ideas in the ways that I was allowed to,

right? Because in a cult, you're not really allowed to tap into information outside of what the cult approves, right? So, I was only allowed to listen to Christian music. I was only allowed to read Christian books, so on and so forth. But I started reading like C.S. Lewis, his nonfiction. And I started reading some other books that I could then like sneak in. And somehow I got to read, you know, like Elizabeth Elliot books and like books that like, I don't know, I think they just didn't know what I was reading. And so, you know, all of these things, I started, you know, kind of diving into Jane Austen and starting to recognize like, hey, there's a world outside of this one where people are questioning the nature of their reality, right? And they're

challenging authority. And so, I just started kind of questioning and trying to access different information. And I used my bedroom wall like a vision board. I put quotes that I was finding up on the wall. And I would go through the JCPenney catalog and circle all the things. You know, the big thick one you'd get like every season. And I'd circle all the things in there that I wanted to be part of this life that I got to decide for myself where I could wear what I wanted because there's also an restriction of what you wear. I didn't, I wasn't allowed to have a lock on my bedroom door. My bedroom door was never allowed to be shut unless I was getting changed. And that had to be a very finite period of time. So on and so forth.

There was measures of control throughout my life. And so what that led to as a teenager, me recognizing that I needed to study, right? I needed access to a world outside of it. And as I did that, and as I learned more about the world, it started my deconstruction journey that really led me. It was like a 20-year journey, no lie, like 20 years of slowly starting to question and allow myself to walk away. But in that process,

I started questioning what is leadership? What does it look like to create healthy community? What does it look like to actually honor people? Well, how do we create that kind of support that and the group dynamics and the sense of belonging that we crave as human beings, but how do we do it in a way that honors people, right? Honors their story, their lived experience, their authenticity, and actually benefits from it because we aren't requiring people to show up how we want them to or how we need them to, but how they want to, right? There you go. Growing up in a toxic environment with toxic people and people you can't trust, trust is a big issue for children and and have the race can i ask was it a stepfather or was it a birth father oh birth father birth

oh yeah yeah yeah people don't realize that like 75 of sexual assault and rape happens by either a family member or close family yeah yeah and it escalates uh with someone who isn't, you know, a step parent. And so that's why I was kind of curious. And it's unfortunate. But it led you on this path of trying to, you know, bring stabilization to your life, you know, empower yourself, you know, find yourself as a human being. That's usually what toxic people are trying to take away is, is your humanity and your independence and thinking for yourself. And so you went on the journey to find this. So how did that journey go? What you've, you've over 20 years, you said you've gone down this

pathway and now you have your own companies. Tell us about where that's at right now. Yeah. So I started out in the world as an interior designer. That's what I went to school for. And through that work, because I recognized in my own life's journey that there was a significant correlation between my physical environment and my mental health. Right. And so every time something terrible would happen inside of my home, I would move furniture, organize something, move something around. And it was like I needed to break the association with what was and reset the stage of possibility in the way that when you walk in to see a play, the stage is supporting the actors. It's empowering what's going on. It's creating culture and an atmosphere, right? And so I really needed to change that picture that was showing up in my mind and that I was physically seeing every day to say, okay, this is a fresh start, right? And that led me to become an interior designer, but I did it from

the place of this psychological recognition, right? And I also did it from the place of knowing that there's a lot of people in the world who don't feel safe in their home, that don't feel like they can take up space in their own home authentically, and who don't recognize that our home is the practice place for how we show up in the rest of our lives, or that it can be, right? And so I started having these conversations, and my clients are judges and lawyers and business owners and entrepreneurs and very successful people, right? And we would launch into these deeper conversations and they're like, you really need to be doing something with this, right? And one of my clients who's the head of neuroanesthesiology at UPenn, he said,

you know, I tell everybody that you're my life coach and my interior designer. And I was like, oh, you do, huh? And what's interesting is I had already been doing coaching for like group coaching for two and a half years on these concepts. I hadn't given myself permission to really step into the role of speaking on these things and being an expert in these things, even though people were coming to me who were twice my age at the time to like have these discussions with me, right? And so, you know, that's ultimately, I just stepped into it. I took ownership of it and

the learning and the education that I had done in my own life and how I applied it in my own business and helped other people applied it in their businesses. And then it's just grown from there. Yeah. There you go. And you've got some upcoming, uh, looks like some upcoming workshops too, where you talk about intentional leadership. There's one starting in July 19th, September 21 of 2023, I should mention, and other ones. So what is intentional leadership? What is, what's the definition of that and how you expand on that? Yeah. So there's a, I created it as a formula, the easy definition, right? And I think because the laws of mathematics make it really interesting and easy

to define it that way. So I'll explain. So the formula is be curious plus be respectful in parentheses times practice accountability equals intentional and ethical leadership, right? And the thing is that curiosity without respect is intrusive, right? And respect without curiosity is uneducated. And then when we put those two things together, right, in parentheses, we're doing those first, we're in doing those two things together, being curious and being respectful, we're establishing trust, we're establishing lines of communication. And then we're able to then practice accountability because accountability starts with us, right? But we are able to, it is able to be amplified by the people around us, right? And without establishing that trust, we can't, they don't feel safe to come to us

and bring their concerns, their thoughts, their desires, their, you know, whatever it is that they're seeing about the company that can be pushed forward, moved forward, adjusted, changed, so on and so forth. If there's not that trust already established, then we're not really leading. We're kind of fear-mongering. I love that concept of business. So you talked about curiosity and being respectful. Yeah. Why is curiosity important? Now, so you talked about curiosity and being respectful. Why is curiosity important? Yeah, great question.

So curiosity is what opens us up to be able to learn. If we aren't curious, if we're putting ourselves in the position of expert, there is nothing for others to teach us. There's nothing for us to learn, right? And I use this great example there. So I was a semi-professional salsa dancer for four years, performed, competed for four years. I still dance, just don't perform and compete. Right. But my very first teacher, she owned the studio and she'd been doing this forever.

She was in her late 40s at the time. She always taught the level one classes. Everybody's starting out new. Her name's Barbara. And she, and Barbara, you know, taught all these classes and she really wanted to get to know us as people. And of course, because I'm a naturally curious person, I was like, Hey, Barbara, you know, why do you teach these classes and tell me about yourself? Right? So she tells us about the fact that she learns a new dance every year. And from somewhere in the world, it could be nationally, it could be locally, but usually she's diving into dances from around the world. I said, interesting. Why do you do that?

She's like, you know what it does for me as a leader, as a business owner, is to constantly connect me to learning and understanding what it is to be a student, what it is to not know. And it makes me a better teacher because I'm A, learning from other teachers, and then B, also keeping myself in the place of student. The thing about that as a leader is it's extremely valuable because it keeps you connected to your people, right? And it keeps you connected to understanding the ways in which you can run your business better. There you go. And it's deeply important for our learning. And you talk about leadership and business as a community, as a concept. How does having a curious organization, sometimes I refer to it as a learning organization. There was a book years ago on how to build learning organizations that I incorporated in my life.

How is that important in building a good, healthy community in your business? Yeah. So when we get curious, we can get to know our people. We can recognize that. We can do something like what I call a curiosity walk, right? So go around. And in your personal life, it can look like just literally going on a walk and something you think you know everything about, just Googling it after your walk,

right? And learning more about it. I did this with Poison Ivy a couple of weeks ago, and I learned so many things I didn't know about Poison Ivy. And it became this whole metaphor about leadership that's incorporated in my talk, right? So curiosity enhances our work, enhances what we do, and I'm using it all the time. But it drives an organization because then we can get to know, as we get to know our people, we can understand who they want to be, how they want to show up in the world. And when we remain continually curious, as our people grow, learn, and change, we continue to be invested in their growth, in their learning, in their changing, and how they want to be able to show up and be a part of an organization and what they're bringing to that organization.

And then we can better honor that, right? And incorporate that and work as an ecosystem, right? And create this organization as what I like to call a bubble of life because National Geographic defines an ecosystem, right? And I see a community and an ecosystem as the same thing. An ecosystem is a geographic area with a variety of organisms living together, supported by the land and the weather, right? And so when we honor our people, right, and we empower our people, we're functioning like the land, right? We're supporting our people and empowering them to show up as ourselves. And as a leader, when we are being the weather, we're governing culture. We're making sure that we are holding our culture

accountable. We're being accountable ourselves. We're including a diverse group of people, so on and so forth. So we are able to really be community and be a true ecosystem. There you go. Culture is a really important word. I love what you've said there. Honoring people, taking care of the land. There's kind of a, in the comments you use about taking care of the land, there's kind of a, what's the word I'm looking for?

Where you're taking care of the resources that you have, basically. Yeah. And you're honoring them. I love how you use honoring people, which is really important. You know, in today's business society, you know, I think a lot of people get lost and like, well, we're all just working. And then you get fired and then you get hired. And there seems to, it's a very cold, icy place.

And, you know, in today's world, people are looking for more, especially Gen Z and millennials, of course. You know, Gen X, we were just kind of like, whatever, man, we're just here for the ride. And, you know, and then the boomers were just like, I don't know, I can't feel anything. Yeah, and silent Gen is, I don't know what's going on with silent Gen. Yeah, that's why they're silent. I don't know what's going on with silent gen. Yeah, that's why they're silent. I don't know what that means. But no, I like these concepts because culture is so important. Like you have to be so intentional when you're building a company as an entrepreneur or when you're a CEO of what kind of culture, you know, whether it's going to be healthy or toxic.

And you, of course, have designed some of the underpinnings of that. So if I'm the CEO who says, I don't want a toxic culture anymore, or I've taken over a company that has this issue, what is the new tone? What is the new culture that I want to set forth? And that resonates and comes from leadership, whether you're a parent, whether you're a coach at the school or coaching sports or wherever you are. I mean, everyone's a leader really

when it comes down to it. Yeah, everyone's a leader. Yeah, exactly. I was just going to say, whether it's their own life or an organization or a team or a family or whatever it is, like you're leading something. Someone's looking to you for inspiration. Someone's looking to you for inspiration.

Someone's looking to you for modeling, like meaning like you're representing something they want to accomplish in their life. They're using you as the model for how to get there. Right. There's some way, shape or form you're leading. People use me as a model for a car crash and they just watch this slowly

happen. And then they're just like, look at that. Don't do what he does at all costs, but they just watch this slowly happen. And then they're just like. Look at that. Don't do what he does. Avoid at all costs. But they love the funniness. They like watching. Because it's entertainment.

I suppose. Yeah. In the six-hour way. But no. These are important. The ecosystem bubble of life. I like that comparison. Because.

Yeah. It's an analogy of how the universe works. In a healthy way. I think it's kind of healthy. the universe works in a healthy way. I think it's kind of healthy. It depends on if you get eaten, the bubble of life and the tide pools, I suppose, by that. Or whatever. But no, the bubble of life and an ecosystem is how things survive, how things thrive, how things live, if you're not getting eaten by the crab or whatever. And it builds a better culture.

You know, tell us more about this honoring people and why is it important to honor people? Why do we need to be nice to them, I suppose? And respectful is another word that you use. Yeah. It's about kindness. It's about honesty. It's about being able to be candid with one another and respect and respect right because an ecosystem is a lot of things happening at the same time it's and not or right it's not like it's an ecosystem is not you

have to be this or that an ecosystem is a lot of things happening and like together as and does right um you're not having to choose one or the other. And it's a matter of them balancing each other and benefiting one another. When you're honoring somebody, their life may be different than yours. And I kind of hope that they are. Their life is, right? Yeah, that would be weird

if you had a company of all the same people. Well, many companies hire that way. They hire people to be a good culture fit, but oftentimes that's code for your lived experience is almost the same as mine. And we come from really similar backgrounds. And so you, you are not going to buck the system.

You're going to fit right in. Right. And we're, we're, we're leaning on respectability politics and we're leaning on homogeneity instead of leaning on the understanding that diversity drives profitability. And I know that moving towards diversity is a scary thing. So we got to dive in and have those conversations and create these underpinnings of respect and curiosity and

accountability so that we can usher in people, a diverse group of people, and then be safe in that environment. There you go. And safety and security is important to people. They want to go to work for a company that's doing things that they feel is going to go places. I mean, you see a lot of people making choices in this, especially with this new environment that we're in where there's an abundance of demand for jobs and employees can quit and do whatever they want and go to other things. But I like what you're talking about there and you've given me an epiphany. Um, and that's why we do the show cause we get epiphanies.

So, um, but you're talking, the thing you were talking about, and I see this a lot on LinkedIn and with recruiters and stuff and friends of mine that work in that business and then people that are trying to get hired by jobs and they talk about linkedin but you bring up a good point i i hear that a lot from recruiters what we're trying to get people to fit into our culture and in reality uh you've got to have a diverse group of people now not just not just diversity as opposed to you know race and and and different people as as d there's a lot of d what do they call them d programs programs um we've had a lot of diversity people on the show authors and stuff that are officers diversity officers uh and people but uh not only that but difference of mind in and and journey

you know one of the problems I always have when I worked in companies is I had a real entrepreneurial sort of experience, uh, mindset and experience. And so I could look at things and go, why don't we do it this way? And everybody else would be like, Oh, we always do it this way. And, and so I would stick out like a sore thumb in my last company I worked for before I worked for myself successfully was, I was an entrepreneur there. And back then, no one really talked about this stuff and being an entrepreneur and stuff. It wasn't a big thing. In fact, I didn't even really call myself an entrepreneur.

I'm just like, I don't know. I just run a company. But, you know, I stuck out like a sore thumb. And so they're like, we're going to make you an entrepreneur because you're weird. And you see things from outside the box. Unfortunately, my CEO was the same as I was. sore thumb and so they're like we're gonna make you an entrepreneur because you're weird and you see things from outside the box unfortunately my ceo was the same as i was he and he saw a budding entrepreneur and he knew that i could see stuff outside of the box and i looked at this from a different angle as opposed to just like that you know that walled in sort of uh i don't know what

you do and i do it and i think more people do that now you know that was when i was a kid uh which was like you know 10 years ago or so um a liar uh but uh um you know now it seems to be you know people are looking for that they're searching for meaning and stuff but i love the fitting concept because you know years ago i said to my last boss there i said why why is that guy that's on the board who's always the negative Nancy? He's always negative. Whatever sort of idea you put up, he's going to shoot down.

He's always got the alternative antithesis. And I said, you know, you should get rid of that guy. He's really annoying in board meetings. And my CEO said, no, you need that guy. Now, he may be wrong a lot of the time because he's just taking opposing things. When that guy is right on the money and you have a circle of yes men telling you, yeah, yeah, sure, it's a great idea, boss. And that guy is going, no, it's a stupid idea. You're going to lose millions.

That guy is going to save you millions. Correct. Correct. So that concept of what you talked about, I don't know if you want to expand on that a little bit. Yeah, I do. Don't get people that fit in as much. People are going to challenge your ideas and concepts. Well, okay. So we'll go back to my poison ivy analogy, right?

So we didn't dive into it too much, but we're going to now. Did you learn that by accident, by chance? Yeah. So this is my own curiosity just leading me to all kinds of metaphors, because I love a great metaphor. So this is why I say it's really valuable for leaders. But I take my own curiosity walks. And one day, a couple of weeks ago, I was noticing there was a ton of poison ivy growing up along the forest edge. And I was like, huh, I was like, you know, I don't really know anything about poison ivy except that it causes a rash. So let me Google it and see what is poison ivy's position in the ecosystem. And so poison ivy grows at forest edge most often. It usually grows between a field and a forest. And it works in a couple of ways. It filters runoff water.

It also helps to keep undesired seeds from ending up landing on the forest floor that would end up being detrimental for the forest. Not only that, but it is an important food source for deer. It is a home for small animals and amphibians like frogs. And it also grows berries and is an important food source for birds when they're migrating in the fall. Now, I didn't even know it grows berries. I didn't know any of that. Now, at the end of the day, does poison ivy still cause a rash? And am I going to reach out and touch it now?

No. going to reach out and touch it now. No, but I do have a deeper and more nuanced understanding and appreciation for what poison ivy does within that ecosystem. It is necessary, it is important, and it still causes a rash, right? And so it's important for leaders to understand that by not including the people who quote unquote cause you a rash, right, you are missing out on significant benefits that would save you time and money. And Pixar is one of the most successful companies in the world and has never had a public bomb at the box office because they have a culture built around just that, including people who have different opinions and honoring those opinions, recognizing that they don't have to do something with them, but it is important to

listen to them, to take them into account, to recognize they might be valuable and to decide if they're applicable or not and either apply them or sit them to the side. But they're still going to honor and respect the opinion and the person who gave them. And it's vital for their company to thrive, right? And so more and more leaders need to be doing that, recognizing and honoring that poison ivy belongs in your ecosystem. There you go. I'm hiring poison ivy today. Hey, it's our department. You know, but the don't hire people that fit in is really important, you know, because having, having some rebels, having some people that, you know, don't march to the lockstep of the culture of the company, don't have the same experience. I mean, it kind of harkens back to, you know, I don't know if

you remember reading the stories about IBM and remember how IBM had this culture in the fifties and forties, the IBM man, and everybody wore black suits. Everyone wore a black hat. Everyone wore a black tie, I think it was, or something, you know, whatever. Everything was company wardrobe sort of thing. And then somehow we hit the 60s and everyone did acid and everyone, colors! Or something, I don't know. I don't know what happened. But there's a story about that and how that was really detrimental to IBM's ability to innovate and culture and different things.

And then I think Hewlett Packard and some people in Silicon Valley came along and definitely changed that. And, of course, it was kind of interesting because it contributed more to the human spirit in a company. And the culture fit in, things that you're talking about there. And so it made for a better ecosystem or bubble of life, as you like to say. Yes. Yeah. And when people thrive, I mean, that's a beautiful thing. I kind of learned by being on a spur with capitalism stuff.

When people thrive, the ecosystem thrives. Everyone thrives. Everyone benefits. You know, and I grew up with watching communism and the USSR communism and the USSR and hiding under a desk as a kid and seeing the difference between their community and, of course, eventually follow their ecosystem because people couldn't thrive, because there wasn't that human ability to shine and be humans. And you look at these different aspects and you go, well, this is why a lot of companies are sucking and failing. Yeah. And I think no matter what, the key is accountability, right? It doesn't matter what your political system is. It doesn't matter if it's communism, socialism, capitalism, like we have here. The thing that is missing in most governments,

and I think is missing here in the US, is the direct democracy, is the one person, one vote, is the accountability, right? And that's the part that I think is bled down into and fostered into corporate environments is this lack of accountability, right? Because back in the day, back before Reagan, corporations, corporate CEOs could not earn 400 times the lowest paid worker or the average worker. They could only make, I think it was 10 or 20 times, right? There was a cap on that earning. They were required to pay their people livable, equitable wages, right? And there's not that accountability in our system anymore. And 60% of people in the United States make less than $40,000 a year.

And so this is why it comes back to, we need to have accountability as leaders. We need to be honoring people's humanity. We need to be honoring their contribution. And we need to be careful of respectability politics. And saying that just because someone hasn't gone to college, they're less valuable and they deserve less humanity simply because they didn't go to college. They're still contributing and they're still a human being. And as far as I know, human beings are the only beings on this planet that have to pay to live here. And if we are denying access to the money required for people

to live good, healthy lives, we are being inhumane, full stop. There you go. You know, self-accountability is one of the things we've really been missing. Since the 50s, it has fallen off, and we've moved from a culture of logic and reason to one of emotionality and a lack of self-accountability. And we've become a real victimhood culture.

Like, you see a lot of victimhood competition in our culture now. Everyone's competing for, I'm the bigger victim than you. And with social media, it's almost become kind of come like a brand where it's like, I'm a bigger victim than you are. I'm the biggest victim this week. And I fell into poison ivy, so my life is worse than yours even though you might have gotten hit by a truck or something you know and you see that on social media i see that on lead like a lot of different interviews of people now start out like i i was a victim and you're like you had a hangnail dude like yeah i i think there's a lack i think what you're getting at

is there is a lack of recognition of privilege, right? And there's a lot of people who don't understand that accountability feels like oppression when you've sat in a place of privilege. Oh, maybe that's why people get it confused. They do. Yeah, and that's why I say you have to practice accountability and you have to start somewhere, probably therapy. But the way that you can recognize whether or not you've sat in a place of privilege is to sit back and really recognize, are you held to the same level of accountability as every other group around you? Are you blamed for something simply because of the color of your skin or your gender? Are you

truly given a pass, right? Or do you experience less harm simply because you exist as a particular kind of person? Well, then you are experiencing privilege. And that doesn't mean, in that aspect of your life, you're experiencing privilege. It doesn't mean that you haven't struggled. It doesn't mean that you haven't fought and worked really hard to get where you are. It just means you've had to undergo less harm to get there. And a lot of other people have had to undergo a hell of a lot of harm and fought their way through it. And so it's really important that we recognize what accountability is. And we really recognize that it's not oppression. There you go. We need everyone to be accountable at all levels.

You mentioned something about not being, I think, discriminatory towards people whether they've gone to college or not. You know, a couple of days ago we had the authors of the book Lead Like a Marine on, and they talked about how they kind of had a weird policy. It wasn't weird, but it was different than the opposing thing. And they got some crap from investment bankers over it. But they were more interested in finding people that had great work ethic,

that would work hard, that were learners, that wanted to broaden their horizons. But maybe they didn't have a college education. Maybe they didn't have experience in that field. And one of the concepts they talked about was, you know, you can teach someone how to do a certain job most times, you know, like if you're, you know, if you want to teach somebody to be an underwriter for a mortgage company or, you know, a lot of things you can teach, but you can't teach someone to show up on time.

You can't teach someone to have a work ethic where they have a passion or they care about their work. If they're a lazy person who just doesn't, somewhere they got built that into their life or growing up as a child, they just don't care. I mean, you can't fix that no matter how much you teach them or have the right culture. I love the fit-ins concept. Yeah. And the thing that I've learned about people is that I've never met a single person who doesn't want to be heard, understood, and valued. I haven't met a single person who doesn't want to contribute. I have met people who've been taught through life that nobody cares about their talk about words. Nobody cares about their contribution where they have been

thought looked down upon they have been they have very little has been expected or wanted not even expected but wanted from them when they have tried to contribute it's been slapped down or demeaned and so they give up right and so i don't know that there is necessarily lazy people as much as there's people who have learned that the system is built against them, so why should they bother to try, right? And so when we build an equitable world, when we build a place where people are honored, they want to contribute. They want to be part of it. It might take a minute for them to trust into that environment, to trust that they're really truly valued and

understood. And they might need to go to therapy to work through it, right? And we might need to provide good healthcare so they can. But it's a matter of people want to be valued. People want to contribute. They want to be liked and be a part of something. And we have to create the environments where they feel safe to do so. There you go. And that probably goes back to my journey I was talking about where I had a hard time when i work for people and then when i they you know my ceo identified they go this guy's gonna go places or at least you know around the block or something um uh i'm still working on going places um the uh you know he and and and gave me the opportunity to walk around

the company and go why do we do it this way and rebuild systems and everything else it was like the last thing i needed to become a ceo uh and uh being able to understand that um you know you talk about let's uh squeeze a few things else in here you're talking about mastering intention and designing our lives. What is mastering intention for those who might not be familiar with that concept? Yeah. And I call it mastering intention, but it's kind of more like, it's like continuous mastery, but you can only fit so many words into a title before people are like, what in the world are you talking about? So we just make it simple and call it mastering intention, but it's not

an arrival point, right? It's a continuous practice. And just like anything, we want to be good at. And so to master intention in our lives is to be able to, and talking about what designing our life is, is life design is not about doing more. It's about being more intentional with what we're already doing. It's about taking a step back and recognizing, hey, I do this thing all the time, but have I thought about in what ways it might be contributing or not contributing to my overall intention for a moment, for my life, so on and so forth? Am I considering the impact that this thing is having? And I say to take it back to like a micro level, right? Talk about walking into our home and being able to, like, if there's a piece of furniture

that's in the way that we're always rounding the corner and we're catching our hip on or we're getting, move the furniture, right? Because it's a physical barrier and you're taking up that space and you need to be able to take that up that space. And it's not supporting you in that moment. Your home is meant to support you. Your office is meant to support you. These spaces are meant to support you, not you it. So if it's in your way, move it, right? And I think oftentimes we don't think that simply about how intentional it can be, but it really does affect the way that we see ourselves because if we don't feel like we can truly take up space that we need to, or that it's there to support us the way that we need to, then we're not living our full truth inside of our own home, right? Especially in our home,

right? That's the place we practice and we get to feel what it's like to take up space in the rest of our lives. There you go. And that's the fertile ground for teaching that. Of course, that's where our security and kind of our base is, if you will. Yeah. We spend two-thirds of our life inside of our home. So how we show up inside of our home, how we allow ourselves to show up inside of our home has a lot to do with how we show up in the rest of our life. That's a great analogy. You talk about leading growth and inspiring creativity through curiosity, transforming your life. Um, it's interesting, you know, growing up, I, I, uh, I once again also grew up through a cult and, and, uh, closed off Christianity and, and the world was closed off for me because it was evil and bad and it was, you know, and, and,

uh, you know, I was lucky enough, like you had talked about early on where I started seeing cracks outside and, and peeking through and going, you know, what's going on here? Finding people like George Carlin, who talked about religion, and other people in my life that I was like, wait, there's a whole world out here. There's a whole humanity. It's not evil and it's not bad. And, you know, Satan is just running wholesale around you know yeah yeah for

me it was uh james baldwin the fire next time oh wow he put it into such beautiful language his discussion about religion and i thought it was so kind and so compassionate and so clear um and so i really uh anyone who hasn't read James Baldwin, you should. But specifically, that book is a deeply impactful book. He is such a wonderful writer, isn't he? Incredible writer, yes. I recommend it for everybody. We had Eddie Godd Jr. on the show for his book, Begin Again, about James Baldwin. And then The Fire Upon Us, Nicholas Bacola was on the show.

He did a whole thing about the big debate between William F. Buckley and James Baldwin. I'm sure you've seen that. Yeah, yeah. Those had to be interesting interviews. Yeah, it really was. And yeah, I'd highly recommend them. If anyone in the audience has not seen the James Baldwin, William F. Buckley debate over race in America. And just the extraordinary way that James Baldwin delivers it,

it is incredibly moving. It's spectacular. And not only the debate, I mean, James Baldwin delivers it in such a passionate human way and highly intellectual. You know, everybody knows James or was uh was was kind of an intellectual in a sort of way i found him annoying but he was kind of intellectual and he just dumped

them to be intellect like people who call themselves or identify as an intellectual tend to be a little annoying yeah at minimum that's that's what people tell me oh not really um they just go you're an idiot uh but uh when you watch it uh just william f buckley is just for a guy who's a professional debater he's just stumpified is that a word um he's just stumped and dumbfounded and he's got like he's got he just like makes up some idiot argument of of all truism or whatever and uh you know he a stuck. So if you haven't gotten a chance to check that out, uh, anything more you want to tease out,

uh, uh, Shana on what you're doing and, uh, how you're doing it, any future projects, your workshops, what do we want to do before we go?

So I do my workshops, um, each one once a month, I do those digitally. Um, but I also do them inside of organizations. So if you check out the descriptions or you reach out to me, I'm absolutely happy to do those inside of your organization specifically for you.

Each one comes with like a 35-page workbook, whether you do it digitally or I come into your organization, because I want people to be able to actually institute these things into their lives. But I'm right now looking and booking for speaking engagements throughout 2024 and connecting with different organizations about doing my workshop there for them and or group coaching, because I can kind of go hand in hand with the workshops. And then, you know, the goal is to next year, start writing a book. So all of that is, is, is in the works and working through that, because I really, like I said, it's important to share what we're talking about here and for people to see leadership as supporting and creating a bubble of life.

There you go. I'd love to see you do a book on leadership and some of the concepts we talked about because I love the concepts and you're talking about stuff that not a lot of people talk about. I know. I know. I know. That's why I'm doing it. There you go. You know, people still confuse leadership and management. Correct. And that's the same thing. Yeah, I'll talk to people about leadership, and they'll be like, oh, you boss everyone around, you get your title, and then you can boss everyone around. I'm like, that's not leadership. No, that's not leadership at all.

It's not leadership. It's managing. That's death of an organization, honestly. Exactly. You know, I was thinking about this last night when I was at the gym. I was thinking, you know, maybe we should just ban the word manager from companies. Yeah, right. Like, seriously, we should just ban the word.

Yeah. Well, and when you look at organizations, like, not to go off on a tangent, but when you look at organizations like the King Arthur B baking company or gore and associates you see these employee owned companies especially gore and associates you can actually find all of their information i mean both are brilliant and interesting companies at the level of innovation and the level of excellence um but at gore and associates everyone has the same title it's associate oh right and they hold each other accountable. The way that they decide on salaries, everything. And they have a whole PDF. Yeah, they have a whole PDF on their company website. I actually had a friend who worked there up until like a year ago. He worked there for years and years

as a scientist. But incredible. Leaders who are looking to understand what is possible as far as excellence and profitability, when you look at different ways to lead, they should definitely start looking at organizations that do so in a different way. And I have like a recommended reading list as part of my workshop, just to help people dive into that learning. There you go. I like that concept. So do they have a thing where, my friends at Buffer did this years ago and they made some news over it. They exposed, they shared everyone. I wasn't exposed at the time, I suppose. But they shared everyone's income.

Yeah. Up to the CEO and the- Everyone's income is public information to everyone inside of the company. Oh, yeah. Wow. Yeah. Well, that's who to ask loans for. I believe that if you're trying to stifle people discussing their income,

it's because you're not paying people equitably and you're not paying them enough to live off of. Because if you did, you wouldn't care that they're talking about it with one another. That's true. We've kind of seen governments now, local governments, who've had to say, you will tell people what they're up for earned. Because it really became this this bs game that people wouldn't tell you what job you would earn as your job you could earn what was possible exactly

exactly and you go through all these hoops of interviewing and they're like hey at 385 an hour there you go right right yeah better things to do with my time and i think it's completely unethical but i like the association thing so when they give out raises does everyone have to vote in that yeah they discuss it yeah and so there's there's a there's a woman that i follow on tiktok um madeline i think is her name i forget i'll it doesn't matter but um you could probably look her up um but she's writing a book actually she her company they have a every year they decide this. And as the company ebbs and flows, obviously this might change throughout the year, but regularly, every quarter, they get a 1%

raise to keep up with the cost of living. Everybody gets equitably, everybody makes the same, including her as the founder and the owner of the company, so on and so forth. So just, there are ways to do things, right? And so you can look at employee-owned companies, you can look at companies where everybody makes the same and is equitable. You can look at all different kinds of structures and start to understand that when you invest in people and you're paying your people before you're paying your shareholders, there's a lot of growth that happens and a lot of innovation that happens that

causes across the board much more profitability. Yeah. It's an interesting way to grow corporations. And like we talked about earlier, as everyone is quiet quitting and there's that going on, there's the great reset there's a great you know people are changing and flipping jobs and and and they seem to be more focused on uh self-fulfilling sort of things like am i happy here yeah does this matter to me am i doing something that makes a difference we're human we should be enjoying this life this is the only life we know we have right and it And it shouldn't be miserable, right? This is why I say corporations can be a bubble of life because too often I hear people say, you know, I'm trying to create a better work-life balance. Well, that statement inherently implies we aren't living while we're working because it doesn't feel that way for far too many people. And it takes up way too much of our time for us to be pretending like people should feel like they're dying while they're working that's another great analogy the work-life balance sort of thing i'm full of them i'm full of them i think people are this would be great in your book

yeah you know people are starting to really throw that against the wall and go i don't know about this work-life balance stuff yeah you know it's like you say it implies that you know well i'm i'm dead inside at work and then i go home and hopefully I'm a human being. Although I know some friends that when they go home, they're dead inside too. Right, right. They're just trying to recuperate, really. Yeah. And, you know, and they probably need to see a psychiatrist.

I know a few people like that. So, giveusure.com so people can find you on the interwebspace. Yeah, absolutely. So, my website is www.consonate.world. The.world part is important, not.com. And you can find all my contact information there. You can also find upcoming workshops as well. There you go.

Well, Shane, it's been wonderful to have you on the show. The great shows always go along because we get into great discussions. Thank you very much for coming on the show. Absolutely. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. There uh thanks to me honest for tuning in go to goodreads.com fortress chris fuss youtube.com fortress chris fuss linkedin dot com fortress chris fuss and uh threads and all the other silly stuff we're doing on the internet trying to be cool uh and we're not as everyone knows thanks for tuning in be good to each other stay safe and we'll see you guys next time and that's