566. Transformative Storytelling: Creating Cultures of Change in Nonprofits - Christina Blacken, The New Quo

Meet Christina. She’s the founder of The New Quo💭 She’s trained 14,000 leaders across 9 industries using her unique The New Quo Change Model, which uses neuroscience, equity principles, and narrative intelligence (a.k.a the science of story), to help people overcome bias, deepen trust in their relationships, and achieve equitable, status-quo breaking goals. Tune in as we explore how you can build your storytelling muscles + create cultures of storytelling. Spoiler: this episode is for everyone on the team - not just marketing folks ✍️

💡 Learn

• The Power of Storytelling
• How to use the New Quo Change Model
• The importance of questioning assumptions
  
  

Today's Guest
Christina Blacken, Founder + Chief Narrative Strategist, The New Quo

Episode Highlights

• Christina’s story and journey to where she is today (3:15)
• The New Quo change model (8:00)
• Applying The New Quo Change Model at nonprofits (12:00)
• The power of personal storytelling (15:55)
• Building a culture of storytelling in organizations (16:55)
• The role of leadership storytelling (25:00)
• Christina’s One Good Thing: Question your assumptions. (34:30)
• How to connect with Christina (36:10)
  
  

For more information + episode details visit: weareforgood.com/episode/566.

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Chapters

• 0:53 The Power of Narrative Intelligence
• 12:48 Building a Culture of Storytelling
• 26:47 The Impact of Personal Storytelling
• 36:55 Connecting With Christina Blacken Online

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:53

Hey, I'm John.

Speaker 2: 0:54

And I'm Becky.

Speaker 1: 0:55

And this is the we Are For Good podcast.

Speaker 2: 0:58

Nonprofits are faced with more challenges to accomplish their missions and the growing pressure to do more, raise more and be more for the causes that improve our world.

Speaker 1: 1:07

We're here to learn with you from some of the best in the industry, bringing the most innovative ideas, inspirational stories, all to create an impact uprising.

Speaker 2: 1:16

So welcome to the good community. We're nonprofit professionals, philanthropists, world changers and rabid fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.

Speaker 1: 1:26

So let's get started. Becky, what do you know?

Speaker 2: 1:30

I am already feeling really lucky to know our guests today, and I feel like I'm about to get sharpened, so sit back, y'all, it's coming.

Speaker 1: 1:39

I mean, y'all you know we love storytelling around these parts, but this is kind of a different lens on storytelling that we've talked about a little bit. But we brought in a true expert today and it is a huge honor to introduce you to Christina Blacken. She's a public speaker, she's a performer, she's the founder of the New Quo, a line that I'm just completely obsessed with and you're going to get lost on her website as you kind of step into this.

Speaker 1: 1:59

What does this new quo really mean as we talk about it today? But I want to start with a mission that I found on Christina's website that really captivated me. She said my mission is to create a status quo breaking paradigm for leadership that values our needs of belonging, acceptance, autonomy and justice just as much as our material and physical needs. I have a passion to help every person create authentic approach to leadership that's based on radical self-acceptance, outside of the outdated and unjust cultural myths of power. Hello, my friend, I mean what a beautiful way to talk about leadership.

Speaker 2: 2:33

Let's go.

Speaker 1: 2:35

I mean Christina's got a lot of impressive background. Of course, she's trained more than 14,000 leaders across nine industries using this technique, which uses a blend of neuroscience, equity principles and narrative intelligence, which AKA is just the science of story to help people overcome bias, deepen trust in their relationships and achieve equitable status quo breaking goals. So I mean she's been in all the big places, from New York Times to Forbes, to hello, the we Are For Good podcast.

Speaker 1: 2:59

right now she's a Utah native and resident of NYC for the past 14 years. But I'll tell you what we wanted to have Christina on the podcast one, because Julie saw her speaking on a panel and was like, oh my gosh, we've got to have her teaching in this space. But we believe in the power of storytelling around here and we believe in wanting to shift more than just gathering more donations but shift people's perspectives about things and open up their mind to what's possible as we lean into the collective and as we can kind of respect each other in different ways. So Christina is just an incredible teacher in this way. I think we're all going to get a lot out of this conversation. So it is an honor to have you in our house, christina. Welcome to the podcast.

Speaker 3: 3:35

Thank you for having me. That's one of, like the best intros I think I've ever had, so I'm like okay, I didn't even pay for that. This is amazing.

Speaker 2: 3:41

You deserve it. On a bad day, go back and listen and get that self-love. You're amazing.

Speaker 1: 3:47

Absolutely. I mean, we're excited to jump into all of your beautiful work and the way mean let's. Let's be honest If you want to go to Christina's website, you can get a 10 part, literally 10 part of her story, which is so good and gives you a lot of context. But would you take us back to Christina growing up? Pull out a couple of hallmarks that really led you on this course to where you are today.

Speaker 3: 4:08

So I was born and raised in Utah and usually people ask me there are black people out there. I'm like, yes, there's about three and a half of us, but we're making it work. And growing up, I always was really passionate and excited about story. It was one of the first times I could actually step out of my immediate environment and see people like me reflected in the things I was reading and seeing. And so from there I was always a writer and somebody consuming story, and I knew at one point I wanted to have some kind of career that was socially impactful and help people. But I wasn't exactly sure how that was going to happen, and I ended up getting into a program called LEAD, which was to help people who are minorities be placed at really great colleges for a summer before their senior year of high school, and that's how I ended up out in New York.

Speaker 3: 4:51

I went to Cornell for a summer and fell in love with it and was like I got to be on this campus and they try to trick you because they get you there in the summer and in the wintertime, it's like winter is coming from Game of Thrones and from there, you know, I ended up leaving Cornell.

Speaker 3: 5:07

I graduated in 2010 and moved straight to New York City and weaved through a couple of different industries, really trying to create purpose in my work and figure out what the unique tools were that I could use, and so I fell in love with story in every position.

Speaker 3: 5:23

I was in from the law world and I was in the nonprofit space for years and then in the media world before being an entrepreneur, and in each of those positions I was using narrative to get people to do stuff, but some of that stuff was not that exciting or interesting to me.

Speaker 3: 5:35

I don't care about selling products or getting really large organizations who are exploitive to buy more things. I was really looking at the tool as, oh, you can change how people show up in their relationships, how they communicate, how they set goals, and started to chase that and dig into the research and build my own frameworks, and it's been a wild journey to get to this point and to take a path that was a little bit untracked. I mean, the concept of narrative intelligence isn't new, but people usually see that in the sense of like artificial intelligence and getting algorithms to create narrative like humans. So that's how most people understand narrative intelligence. But this idea that we can become more conscious of how story affects behavior and then intentionally use it to change our relationship dynamics is kind of new, and it's really the field that I've been swimming in and enjoying.

Speaker 2: 6:22

Well, bravo to you for swimming upstream, salmon, and really creating this like new path.

Speaker 2: 6:30

Because I do think we are changed when we hear story, because there's something that shifts in us when you can relate to someone else, when you see yourself in someone else's story, or if you can't see yourself, and hello, that's when awakenings start to happen with privilege. And I hear you breaking, busting through capitalism with a lot of what you're talking about, to get to the center of the whole human and finding alignment and what our values are. And so I want to talk about this new quo change model, because you have trained more than 14,000 leaders within nine industries. They've gone through this change model and I want you to kind of break it down for us, because I bet there's a lot of people out there listening right now saying, like, what do you mean? There's like a narrative science in my story. What should I be doing with it? How does it affect how I walk through work, walk through my relationships, walk through the way I love myself? All of these like talk about how this model works and how you're seeing it unlock certain things for leaders.

Speaker 3: 7:40

Yeah, it's a really great question and you know, it was developed first by the infield experience I had. So when I was in the nonprofit space, I was using narrative to get young people to volunteer. So I was building these text messaging campaigns and email tools and all these things and seeing people do stuff and I was like, oh, we can get them to go, you know, collect items for people who are struggling or get their family to go to the doctor, like, wow, these are really great insights. And so I started looking into the science and realized that there's really a three-step process of using story to shift behavior and bias within ourselves but also in our relationships. And the first step was awareness, which is really what people skip. It's really becoming aware of your inner stories. We all kind of have an inner library of narratives we picked up over our life hoods and that could be from your personal family origins, the media you're exposed to, the educational system you're in and that deeply shapes your beliefs and your behaviors in all types of areas. And so really helping people to excavate that's important. So in a lot of my trainings so really helping people to excavate, that's important.

Speaker 3: 8:40

So in a lot of my trainings, people are examining their early stories of leadership. Who are the leaders in your communities, your schools, your government agencies that you interacted with? What did they look like? What did they sound like? How did that shape your beliefs and ideas about what power should look like? And usually people have humongous breakthroughs where they're like, wow, I've never had these particular demographics as a leader, or, you know, I only saw people like myself as a leader and I never even questioned. You know what leadership should look like and it's always a surprise. You never can assume what someone's inner stories and experiences just by looking at them.

Speaker 3: 9:09

And there's four key elements of that awareness portion that I talk about, because there's kind of a repeating set of events that happens in someone's life, which is origin moments. So the first time you're doing things and the stories from that adversity moments which we clearly have lots of those I mean, that's all we talk about in the news is many of our adversity moments. And then you have innovation and success moments, and so being able to excavate those things can give you clarity on your goals, your values and maybe some of the biases that might be in the way of how you communicate and show up. And then the second step of the model is really attunement.

Speaker 3: 9:42

So, after you're examining your own inner stories and narratives and getting clear on your values and goals, how are you attuning to the others that you collaborate with and work with in a group, whether it's professionally or personally? Because if you don't understand their stories, you can't really understand who they are. And so it's asking the right questions, really getting clear on what is the unique challenges and barriers they face because of their demographics and because of social cultural policies, and then how can you find mutually beneficial goals and values to create a shared narrative around? And then that third step is action. So, once we've created clarity of what are our shared goals and values, what's our plan, what is that kind of narrative we're creating, the action step is implementation. So I can give an example from a project I worked on. I worked on a really large project for Nextdoor, which is a pretty big tech platform you might be familiar with.

Speaker 2: 10:29

They help neighbors get their information. Every time I lose my dog, I need that Nextdoor. They're, like, you know, my cat.

Speaker 3: 10:37

Freddie got lost. There's always some post about some cat or some dog being lost.

Speaker 3: 10:40

So many dogs and cats have been found through Nextdoor. But they had a huge challenge in moderation because a lot of their moderation is by volunteer and essentially they didn't have a consistent training across the board for how moderators step into conversations in their neighborhoods and de-escalate conflict and help with creating trust in the communities into conversations in their neighborhoods and deescalate conflict and help with creating trust in the communities. And so I designed a training model using the new quote change model to help people to one understand how they are leaders in their communities even if they don't feel like it, how they have a huge impact on how people feel and how they can use narrative to essentially build deeper trust in the conversations they're creating and making in their neighborhoods. And at the time there was really challenges around race and class and bias in the platform, and there still is. But we were doing lots of interesting tests and seeing how do we essentially incrementally change our behavior across the board. And we had at the time I think it was 45,000 people signed up to do this moderation training and about a third completed it and it was through volunteers, so they weren't required to, but it was essentially hey, you'll become a better moderator in your neighborhood if you try this model and implement it into your conversations.

Speaker 3: 11:47

And then we had Stanford University evaluate the training and the behavior on platform and we saw people changing their behavior six months past the training. So they were identifying microaggressions faster, they were having better conversations. Some people were taking this offline into their families, so outside of the platform, they were using these tools and I think it was eye-opening for people being like oh, if I shift these small things about what I believe in terms of the stories I know around my neighborhood or different identities, I actually can make a huge impact in how I connect with people and it feels like something I can do today Instead of it being this huge throw everything out. Equity is really hard. How am I going to ever be involved in this? I think that's the part that people realize like, oh, change is incremental and it starts at the interpersonal and when we make small shifts in the things we believe and share, we can have huge shifts in the outcomes.

Speaker 1: 12:42

Christina Blacken.

Speaker 1: 12:43

Oh my gosh, yeah, like what a mic drop that you just so casually shared this example. That, to me, is like what we talk about here is like an impact uprising. How do we integrate, how do we make small changes, the one good things into our daily life through collective power? How could we shift our sector, shift our world for good? And this is exactly what you're sharing. You have the playbook for it. I'm so obsessed with this. Would you kind of like, let's, let's bend the arc toward the nonprofit leader that may be listening today. It's trying to grow a movement. What do you think is the unlock that's available to them as they kind of infuse this kind of thinking, and how they show up like what's available for their teams, their communities, their culture that you see.

Speaker 3: 13:22

Yeah, I think the first step for me is really the story habits and story rituals that I talk about. So story rituals is the process of creating spaces for story sharing on a regular basis. So typically that's meetings. It could be one on ones, maybe it's your retreats. If you build the habit of story being integrated into that, you're more likely to be able to collect information, get ideas, build deeper bonds. Get ideas, build deeper bonds. So one quick example I do an icebreaker in a lot of my trainings called story of your name, and it helps people to tell a very quick anecdote about the meaning of their name, where it may have come from some interesting fact, and it allows people to immediately learn beyond stereotype about the people they're working with. Find a way to actually remember their name, because half the time we will not remember somebody's name unless there's something that's got to it.

Speaker 2: 14:04

No shade yeah.

Speaker 3: 14:07

And essentially it builds trust in a very rapid way. So it's like a team building exercise, but it's a fun icebreaker that you can integrate into meetings in a pretty simple way, and I've gotten tons of feedback over, you know, dozens and dozens of trainings. At this point that it's a memorable piece that you can integrate in a ritualistic way. So that's one thing that nonprofits can do for sure is, how are we creating space for meaningful story sharing that is low risk, is not too personal or too out there, but still allows people to build trust and go beyond the snap judgments and assumptions we attach to one another? Because that's one of the main battles we have in interpersonal relationships is automatic bad narrative making, where we project a particular story on a person and that can create a ton of distrust, which means you can't collaborate. So I would say that's a big one.

Speaker 3: 14:54

The other is story habits. So it's really, how are you consuming and interacting with stories as an individual? So I tell people to do what I call story audits. So you essentially are looking at the things you're consuming your podcast, the TV shows, the books you consume and do. Most of those people look like you and if they do, what is one new thing that you can add to your repertoire that you're consuming, because the more you push yourself out of your comfort zone, the more divergent thinking you'll get, the more culturally competent you'll become, because you'll have more lexicon and examples and experiences to pull from, the more creative you'll be. So you'll be surprised if you have a very homogenous consumption of story.

Speaker 3: 15:33

The likelihood of you being a great storyteller or communicator or connector is pretty low, and so that's a habit that's easy to build, even if it's only once a week or you're doing a little audit once a month to add to the way that you're building your skills around communication and narrative making.

Speaker 3: 15:47

And I think, because of the nonprofit space, most people look at narrative making as sort of this like look at these poorly marginalized individuals in whatever way and we're coming in to save them. And I think being able to take a step back and really learn and have a fuller range can give you more empowered narrative making that can feel mutually sharing and kind of committed, versus like a person who's kind of creating a savior narrative that may not be accurate to what's really happening with the issue and also allows you to create a narrative that gets to the root of issues. I think there's a lot of performative storytelling in nonprofit spaces where the solutions are band-aids and not really addressing the root of equity and equity problems, and so when you're able to expand the narratives you're consuming about society and culture and history, you're more likely to create ideas and goals that get to the root of equity problems and not just the performative surface part of it.

Speaker 2: 16:38

I'm Becky bobblehead over here, I'm like yep, yep, yep, yep and also yep yep on that too. But I think when people you're attacking this from such a beautiful angle because I think when people think about storytelling, it feels light and fluffy or something that goes into the marketing budget or something we'll do if we have time for it later. But you have just made a case for why. It's everything. It's our interconnectivity, it's our empathy, it's awakening. You talked about this cognitive diversity and different lived experiences, and it also is such a challenge for us to go inside and see the stories that we're telling ourselves. Are those even the right ones? And I think just asking questions and flexing that muscle that is your listening part, which I struggle with mightily as someone who tends to be very talkative and I have to make a conscious effort to really hone in and listen. But to your point, I thought it was such a great example about the.

Speaker 2: 17:48

You know the origin of your name. That is something that everybody can talk about and I think about back when I was interviewing. I still do this when I interview somebody for a job. My very last question, john, you'll remember this that I ask everybody is what are you passionate about? What do you? What lights you up and why?

Speaker 2: 18:07

And you watch just the veneer of someone who's in total interview mode and they've been so stiff and they've been trying to really regulate themselves and everything melts away in that question. I love how disarming it is, because it's human, because it's about something that's important to you, and so I think this notion of if we can go deeper into the storytelling side, we're going to see all these other things start to awaken and pop in other areas and within ourselves. So I want to keep going on that building storytelling muscle. And how do we start to really nurture these cultures of storytelling? So you are such an expert in story as a tool for behavior change and you help leaders just create these little rituals that you're talking about behaviors, habits that come in to better communicate, change and navigate our differences. So can you break down some of these story rituals for us and how can social impact organizations start to build a culture around some of these rituals?

Speaker 3: 19:11

One of them I talk about often when I'm working with clients is creating a story bank. So that is really a set of shared narratives that are a representation of the big inflection points of that organization. So one of them obviously is the origin story. So why does this organization exist? What was sort of the highs and lows, the conflict, the challenges that created why it's existing here and what kind of thing we're trying to achieve? And usually that's the mission statement. It's sort of the backstory, but many times if an organization doesn't have a clear one that everyone's using, it's really easy to just grab it whatever like oh, we are here for this kind of like surface reason that other people may not understand. And so getting really clear on that shared narrative is incredibly important, and I think the other part of it is really having story banks of ideas or moments that are around adversity and how the organization has overcome it that can be shared with the team. So, for example, I've worked with organizations that were really trying to figure out a pivot in their culture because they were going through a huge transition. Everyone is in big transitions right now, whether it's an acquisition or downsizing, and really figuring out what pieces of our story do we want to share with this new part of our team so that they understand what we're trying to achieve together and how we can essentially be collaborators toward that goal, instead of just focusing on scarcity and fear, because most organizations without shared narrative are being driven by fear. We have to do this thing, or else we have to hit this quarter number or else. But that's really not that motivating. So I think it's really important to have shared stories, whether it's in a bank, an Excel sheet, in kind of brand books. A lot of people put them in there, a place where people can go and kind of pull some of those narratives and put them in presentations, put them in onboarding material, put them in emails when they're talking about giving context to goals. I think that's incredibly important and a leader is really modeled that Leaders are. Typically their main job is to tell really compelling stories around where the organization is going and why, and to connect really deeply and empathize with other people's stories to better develop and mentor them. So you're constantly in practice of that, pretty much every single day, whether you're doing it intentionally or not. So that's a huge one that I also recommend, and then outside of that, I do a lot of training in terms of group training and giving them education and cultural context.

Speaker 3: 21:27

So I think most people suffer from what I call historical amnesia. We don't teach accurate history about the world and why it looks the way it does and why we have the problems that we do. And especially in the nonprofit space, there's a lot of assumptions about well, I'm a progressive individual and I care about these things, but then their behaviors do not match their values because they do not realize they might be repeating oppressive ideas or policies or practices, because they don't have the historical context. So I do a lot of history, storytelling and education in my trainings and connecting the dots to now, because it's important for people to ground what they're doing, what they're making and the realities of the world so that they can actually solve the problems that they care about. So a lot of time is spent on that.

Speaker 3: 22:10

And then the other portion in my trainings is also really helping people to figure out how do I show up in the moment when I'm interacting with other people's narratives in a way that is reducing harm and creating safety and trust. So the kinds of questions that you ask how you deal with conflict, how you might essentially stand up for yourself in the face of microaggressions and missteps in conversation. All those tools are incredibly helpful in terms of being able to build the trust necessary to move things forward, and most of this work is all trust building. At the end of the day, if you understand one another and trust each other, you can actually achieve the things that you want. If there's high levels of distrust in the culture, usually not achieving much and you're constantly kind of infighting or spinning wheels or constantly pivoting without achieving specific things, so I think those key elements are incredibly important.

Speaker 1: 22:56

Christina, I mean, could this just be our whole season?

Speaker 1: 22:59

Like just breaking down all of these topics that are so important and I want to give them equal weight. I mean, just what you've shared here is that this bank of stories and the way we actually see and understand the realities of what got us to this place like what a core foundation for us to actually move through the world. Be very clear about what we're for, how we're going to solve it, what's the vision, how do we come together? I just see the importance of this, and none of us here are just trying to create another thing. We're trying to build a movement that actually changes the things you know that are broken or that are inequitable. So I just love this foundation and truly, can you just come back and we continue to bring these down?

Speaker 2: 23:41

I want to add an example of one that I that I think is so relevant because it's sitting right in front of John and I, and for we are for good right now is last year, after three years of community building, we launched this mental health survey, um, for people who are working in the impact sectors. We were getting so much feedback from the community about how burnt out they were, how overworked they were, how they were trying to find their joy they were trying to find. Some were working into therapy, going into therapy for the first time, and at the bottom of this survey we did an open handed call to tell us your impact mental health story. And, john, I don't know what you thought we would get. I don't know what I thought we would receive. We just kind of put it out there.

Speaker 2: 24:30

But back to your earlier point, christina, which I think is actually foundational in storytelling, which is the trust part. It was like when people feel seen and taken care of, they will share the most unbelievable stories with you. And we got so many hard, hard stories in there, real stories, and I can tell you immediately that when I read them I knew what I was for and what I was not for in this sector, and we're exploring how to share those with consent. But I do think that having a bank is going to teach you things that you didn't even know existed, that are happening in your community, and to have the ability to give them that voice. A platform is really, really powerful, and it's going to take the mission to another level where it's not just transactional. It shows that we're all in this together, so I just had to live that story.

Speaker 3: 25:29

Yeah, I love that. I think there's this, this really fine line between you know, personal storytelling, which is so powerful, and trauma dumping right, where people are like, do I need to let it all hang out? And, yeah, is that really how I'm going to make a connection? But I think there is this really beautiful line of with someone maybe going through an experience where they have a redemptive lesson on the end and they've processed it enough and there's so much to be learned when someone shares that. And I think when we have consistent, guarded storytelling that's intentional and meaningful, that's where education can really happen, because we are essentially learning in first person because of the neuroscience you know I talk about that stories are the only tool we have where we genuinely feel like we're experiencing the story firsthand. So even if you've never had the exact you know situation or demographics of a particular narrative, you'll feel it viscerally in your brain. Your mirror neurons will fire in the same region as the storyteller's brains. You'll feel the experience, you'll smell, you'll have all these reactions and they've done some really interesting MRIs and studies on it. So I think there's this really huge power of transfer that occurs where it's embodied, not just data and stats and statistics. It's really, oh, I can feel this in my actual body. So what do I do with that information and how does that information inspire what I'm doing, going forward?

Speaker 3: 26:47

And this is why I talk a lot about leadership story, because I think everyone does have a leadership story, which I also teach, and that's essentially creating a narrative around your unique skills, your unique challenges and how it shaped, how you're leading, how you're persuading, how you're empathizing with others.

Speaker 3: 27:06

And when people get clear on what that narrative is and use it as a tool for goal setting and value shifting, they're kind of unstoppable. And I think if more people could get clear on what their leadership story is, even without title or status or prestige, we'd have so much change occur. A lot of people think leadership is just a title and it's typically about domination and control and essentially delegation and telling people what to do. And it's really a practice of vulnerability, of collaboration and reciprocation and solutions of some sort. And every single person's practicing that in some way, whether it's in their families, their communities, with their homies. We're all kind of giving and taking and leading each other. And if you're conscious of that and taking and leading each other, and if you're conscious of that and create a really clear narrative of what's my purpose, my values, my goals, my skills and what's the story I'm telling around, that you essentially can change everything.

Speaker 2: 27:54

I have never heard it said that way so powerful that totally reoriented my brain on leadership. That was a completely different way to look at the responsibility that we have walking forward. That was powerful, Christina. Very good the new quote.

Speaker 3: 28:10

Just here to do a little reading on the brain, right, I'm telling you.

Speaker 2: 28:13

The little synapses are firing. Let me assure you they seem confused, but we're going to work it out and process all of this, so keep going.

Speaker 1: 28:20

I mean, yeah, can we double click on this? The power of our individual stories Becky and I try to lean into this of storytelling what we're learning and growing and experiencing along the way through different platforms as well. That's different than the voice of. We Are For Good. We try to like complement that to use both our personal individual stories and organizationally. How can we impact together? And Personal individual stories and organizationally how can we impact together? And I wonder if you would unlock this for us. We lifted it maybe a year ago on the podcast as leaders, as thought leaders, as such a trend that we wanted to buoy because we think that everyone's personal story matters and we want to get those out there. But how do you see that storytelling muscle really activate and open up new doors that maybe we're not thinking of today?

Speaker 3: 29:00

That's a really great question, as I think sometimes people are like I don't want to tell my personal story. They're like it doesn't have any relevance or I want to stay very private, and I think all of that is valid. I also think that people connect to the lived experiences of people. So if you're unable to share any of that, it kind of creates this sort of faceless entity that people don't really understand or know, and so what I tell people in those moments is to get very clear Again. If you know your leadership story, you know what your purpose is and you know which stories will match that in your story bank. So maybe you don't need to tell all the horrible things that happened to you, but there might be clear, succinct stories you tell about your values and your goals. So an example you read my website and I talk about my lived experience.

Speaker 3: 29:43

I was part of the Great Migration.

Speaker 3: 29:45

My family was born in the South, they moved to Utah and it played a huge role in my experience of being what I called an extreme minority racially, religiously and politically and seeing how stories in the media, in school, in religious institutions directly shaped discrimination that I faced, and so that's a big part of my personal story and mission was to change these tools of storytelling so that we have better outcomes for everybody, regardless of what environment they're in.

Speaker 3: 30:09

And I tell that story because it's an important part of my own values and purpose. But I don't need to go into every single horrible act of discrimination I faced to be able to connect the dots and to have more of that personal narrative making. And it's also important to know what time and place to tell those stories. So you tell it on a website, you do it in certain presentations, maybe it's in certain emails or pitches, but it doesn't need to be in every single conversation. So I think really strategic and intentional story sharing happens in the right times and spaces. You know, I think sometimes people assume that okay, if I'm going to tell stories, I'm just going to let it all hang out. Every person I meet, every you know person on the street.

Speaker 3: 30:46

I think, that's what scares people off.

Speaker 3: 30:48

Yeah, exactly, and you don't necessarily need to do that. I think there are moments where you can humanize what you're saying by an example of a story. So you know an example. I tell all types of stories in my trainings, but one that I talk about often is living in New York City and riding the subway, because it actually changed my perspective of story because of it.

Speaker 3: 31:08

So I was doing my regular commute from Manhattan into Brooklyn and I was on the subway, mind my business, my headphones in, and I noticed this little boy named Jermaine who was having a great time with his mom hanging out. And this man got on the subway car who looked like he was probably living on the street. He had this distended sort of stretched shirt, was asking for change. And Jermaine starts talking to him and he's like hey, do you want to hear a knock-knock joke? And the guy's like I guess, because it's an odd question I'm sure that he's never gotten before while walking through the train. And so Jermaine tells this terrible knock-knock joke about owls and birdies that has like no punchline because he's a child. We're like he's doing his thing. But at that point him and this individual start having this really beautiful exchange and Jermaine's asking all these questions about his life story. So he's telling the story of who he was, where he's been, why he's on the train, and it really humanizes him and creates this new perspective of this individual you can make a lot of assumptions and stereotypes about, and I was about two stops away from where I was getting off that Jermaine ended up exiting the train with his mom and he told this man like I had a great time. I hope you have a great day. And when the doors closed, the man looked at the entire subway car and he was like I wish we could pop these little bubbles of separation between us so we could really see each other. And then he started making popping noises with his finger in his mouth. I was like wow, this is like a hallmark moment first of all, but I think also it was powerful about it is seeing somebody as small and as young as Jermaine Jermaine was probably like eight years old being so beautifully empathetic and open to someone's life story with no presumptions or judgments, and that exchange allowed this person to be humanized and connected in a way we typically don't see. It's so easy to walk past people who might be struggling and attach really negative and many times inaccurate stories to them. But I think those kinds of moments like if you can take, if I was going to talk about people living on the street or being unhoused, this is a powerful story to highlight those moments instead of just rolling with statistics.

Speaker 3: 33:06

So if you find relevant lived experiences that highlight the purpose and the theme that you're trying to push forward, those are the stories to tell. You don't have to tell every single story of every little thing that's ever happened to you. You want to be intentional with what am I trying to convey? How does this humanize or empathize or make empathy for the issue? And if I have a connection, even if it's my own lived connection, how does that help to serve the audience to genuinely understand this problem? So I think individuals need to do that much more often. It is something that you just practice in real time and in your day-to-day conversations and your presentations, and it's as simple as okay, I'm making this presentation about this thing. What is one story I can add that either gives an example or context or a highlight to this issue? And how do I practice this? Make it succinct, make it interesting, add the detail, sight sounds, all of those things and just practice it, and I think the more that people can do that, the more it becomes second nature.

Speaker 2: 34:03

And the fact that that entire framework that you just unpacked there was done by a child right in front of you.

Speaker 2: 34:12

I think kids have such an innate ability to see without seeing fully, if you understand what I mean.

Speaker 2: 34:21

And I just think that is a powerful story of philanthropy. That is a story of how we can be changed if we can only be brave enough to sort of step forward and have curiosity, like that little boy, and have the ability to circle around like that homeless man to say it's time to wake up and see things differently. And I think, if you're someone who values story out there, if you believe in the power of something bigger than yourself, I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I have, because I do think you come for the leadership, you come for the storytelling, but it's the connectivity between the two that is there for the taking If we can only choose to be authentic and vulnerable in those moments. Christina, I just think you're so, so wise. I think we're so lucky to have you in this space. We round out most of our conversations with a one good thing on this podcast and I wonder what's one good thing that you would leave behind to our listening audience today?

Speaker 3: 35:23

One good thing that is a really easy and powerful practice is to question our assumptions.

Speaker 3: 35:29

I think often when we're interacting, even with the people that we love, there will be moments where we'll create an immediate story and attach it to the behaviors that we may not like or may not understand.

Speaker 3: 35:41

And when we take a beat, we can allow ourselves to create a larger narrative without jumping to an assumption that can lead to distrust or a complete erosion of the relationship. And because we're in a society that's taught conflict resolution just through violence and through deep assumptions and stereotype, I think if you can take a beat and question some of those assumptions and create a more open narrative and ask questions and be curious and find resolution, you'll be one of the most powerful people that you could think of, because that's a skill and it's a behavior we don't teach enough, but it's probably the most fundamental one for really genuinely creating healthy connection and trust, and I think that's what we're struggling with the most as a society. As individuals, we have a trust crisis and story is a process of trust building. So if we're able to change the narratives that we attach to others and make fuller ones and more accurate ones, we can probably change the world.

Speaker 1: 36:36

What a beautiful invitation and way to round out this conversation, my friend. I mean that is the kind of leadership that we would love to see proliferate across this sector and beyond, Just like that's how we change the world, coming in with curiosity, coming in with vulnerability in that way. So just so grateful for this convo. Christina, I want our listeners to be able to connect with you and to find and figure out where you hang out online, so we can kind of catch all of your wisdom on the daily. Where's the best place to connect?

Speaker 3: 37:05

Great place to connect is my website, which is T-H-E-N-E-W-Q-U-Ocom thenewquocom. I have my own podcast there that I produced a couple of years ago that have episodes still up and a white paper and contact forms all of that, also courses, if people are interested in doing some immediate solo work around story and leadership. And then LinkedIn is a great place to find me just Christina Blacken and Instagram. I post the things on Instagram and reshare funny memes at times and insights about leadership and personal development and social change and behavior change. So definitely follow me on there if you're wanting more information.

Speaker 2: 37:43

Well, I want to double click on the. Please go to Christina's website because she has done a beautiful job of storytelling. Getting to know her, I found out we both have a shared love of cheese and it also has a mutual hate for us Lactose intolerant.

Speaker 2: 38:01

I know lactose intolerant, I know and also just a beautiful journey that you can walk through with her as you get to know her and if this is really starting to percolate something within you that you want to go deeper, like check out Christina, like go get that training, bring her in to your team, because this is the kind of heart work that's hard work but it's so pays off in the end. So it is such a joy to know you Julie gets extra coffee for connecting you to us and the podcast. Keep doing that great work, my friend. We are truly going to be rooting for you.

Speaker 3: 38:38

Thank you. Thank you. It was an honor to have this conversation and I'm always just so excited about podcasts like this that are changing the narrative on what we believe about social impact and leadership and nonprofits. So thank you for creating space for this kind of conversation and you, my friend.

Speaker 1: 38:54

Such a joy, really grateful.