← We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits
We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits
698. Contagious Culture: Why Better People Build Better Organizations - Kyle S. King
00:38:29
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- [00:03]
A
The challenges were that marketing had dried up. The executive director said it's a fundraising issue or that donors don't care and all of these different things. And what we identified is that the real root of the problem was a lack of buy in and that we can't solve problems if we don't agree on what the problem is. Nonprofit organizations, they're trying to solve everything or they're trying to solve symptoms and they're not really clear on what is the actual root of what we're trying to do.
- [00:32]
B
Hey, I'm John.
- [00:33]
C
And I'm Becky.
- [00:34]
B
And this is the We Are for Good podcast.
- [00:37]
C
Let's get started.
- [00:41]
B
Becky, oh my gosh.
- [00:42]
C
Incredible. Human alert. You're in for a treat.
- [00:45]
B
Yeah, like we're gonna have a good day instantly if Kyle is in the house, right?
- [00:49]
C
Kyle's are so important in my life. I am married to one. I have seen how they have changed the world. And then Kyle S. King drops into our community. I meet him at community and coffee and I watch generosity and joy explod explode out of him. And that is what we're going to channel today.
- [01:07]
B
Yeah, we are going to try to bottle up Kyle King over here. You may know him, he's a speaker, an author, a podcaster. He's the founder of the Shine Institute. But we're going to kind of dive into some topics that are super resonant between us as community builders. It's about culture as a fundraising strategy. We're going to talk about leadership alignment. We're going to talk about scaling without the burnout. And I can't think of a better person to be in conversation with because I've gotten to know Kyle better as of and he just, the way he shows up with no ego, with putting others and kindness at the forefront, it's life changing. It's life giving. And so I'm really excited for this conversation to like just hear how he thinks about things and to put it in practice together. So I'm gonna tell you a little bit about Kyle and then we're gonna of course kick it to you for a bigger story, my friend. But he spent his career helping mission driven organizations secure philanthropic and partnership support by doing the deeper work first, which is aligning that leadership. It's tightening operations and sharpening stories that really do move donors, staff and communities to act. He is an eight time. This is not a typo. You've written eight books.
- [02:16]
A
Eight books. Yeah.
- [02:18]
B
I just, I can't even comprehend. But he is an incredible keynote speaker. He's the Founder of the Growth alliance, which is this high accountability accelerator built for nonprofit leaders who are ready to scale their impact without burning out or the people that are in their mission. He started his nonprofit journey in college when he founded Project Shine, and in that same conviction that the right community and the right systems can change everything. So you can imagine how we are kindred spirits with Kyle. To have you in the podcast chair, my friend, means the world. Good to see you.
- [02:48]
A
It's so great to see you both. And I'm literally a Rabbit fan, like the introduction said. I was like, I have to say that
- [02:56]
B
we get called out for that line.
- [02:59]
C
I feel like we're your rabid fans as well. That's. The reciprocity goes both ways, Kyle.
- [03:05]
B
I mean, we gotta start this conversation just hearing a little bit of your backstory. Take us to some formative experiences growing up that, you know, may have been meaningful kind of punches along the journey that have brought you to where you're at today.
- [03:19]
A
That's a great question. One of the recent terms that I heard last year, around six to seven months ago, was this idea of this African bird called Sankofa. And the. The theme around the bird is that the bird only flies forward by looking backwards. And there's been many times in my own life that I didn't address the past and understood how that past and how those seeds in my past helped me build and construct everything that I've been able to be fortunate to build today. So I can't move forward into what I'm doing today without giving recognition to my parents. So my mom and John, you know this. So my mom was pregnant at 13 years old with my sister. No father relationship until she was in her 40s, single mom in South Jersey. And my dad, he was one of 13. He lost his mom at 6 years old, and he never had a father. And about two weeks ago, I remember sitting in front of my dad at my house on the couch, and my dad literally sat at his. His mouth. He was like, I never remember one conversation that I had with my father. And it was just such a powerful moment. And I. I say that story because my mom then went to becoming, with no college degree, the first black executive for Balcar of North America. Now she's at Amazon as an executive with no formative training or anything. And my dad was a pastor. He was a community builder. And I've seen how as a coach, he's helped many, many athletes make it to college and professional athletics. And for me, my story began understanding that anything is Possible that as a two parent suburban black man from Gwinnett County, Georgia, that if my parents could make it, I could make it. But one of the things that I, that my parents taught me is you, in order for you to lead, you have to lift.
- [05:14]
C
And.
- [05:14]
A
And it was really stamped in me when I got to college because our theme at Alabama A and M University was service of sovereignty. And it's all about the ability to get opportunities to lead starts in how you're servicing and how you're showing up for other people. So watching my dad and mom get, you know, allowed kids to live in our house and just gave their heart and gave, you know, their grit to be able to make it. For me. My grit and my ability to serve is the least that I can do to this world because I grew up with certain privileges. So from, you know, starting a nonprofit organization as a junior in College and raising 100 grand to publishing books, to building a nationally recognized publishing company, to being first generation college athlete and first generation college, you know, graduate, all of these different things were on the backs of the relationships that I've had. But then people in front of me or behind me that I stood on the shoulders of. So I, I have to give credit to my parents, to mentors in my life that saw more in me, but then taught me that the best way moving forward is to humble yourself and really be empathetic to what the community needs.
- [06:23]
C
Okay, I have a lot of comments about that. Clearly we're going to get into the topic, but the most important question is, what are your parents first names? Because we want to shout them out and say the name of our heroes and the people who motivate us give us their names.
- [06:37]
A
Of course. So my dad, Gary King, and my mom, Tara King, 36 years now in November, being married,
- [06:45]
C
that, I mean, that is incredible. And I just want to correlate what you just said there, that this is not just something that you say, it is something that I've seen you do. And there is this spirit of generosity, which is really what I'm hearing. Like when you live in gratitude, when you pause and recognize what others do for you, it is to me, such an accelerant to want to pay it forward. And watching what you have built and how you have paid that generosity forward in the communities you've built, in the nonprofits you've built, in the kids that you have molded. I want. Can I just say, like, you came into community and coffee, or maybe it was office hours, I can't remember which one. If you're not in our community. Please join. We are. For goodcommunity.com there's a little plug, but Kyle comes in. This is how I met him. And people are dropping their problems and their challenges, and we're workshopping them in real time. And Kyle is saying, here's a funder here. Here's somebody that would fund you. Hey, contact me, and I can get you in contact with this. At one point, he says, I love this organization. Let me volunteer for you. Send me the link. And so I just think that spirit of generosity that comes out, you honor your parents and everyone who you came, who came before you, and I love the ripple that you're creating. And so I want to talk about culture as a fundraising strategy, because the culture and the vibe and the ethos you bring is epic. And you've got this really cool term. It's called contagious culture, which I'm obsessed with. Clearly, I have it on the back of my wall here. But I want to talk about what is contagious culture mean in practice, and why should nonprofit fundraisers and professionals care about it?
- [08:29]
A
So three pillars come out of contagious culture. Number one is kindness. Number two is community, and number three is capital. And I believe when we're kind, which. And the economy today, that sometimes a conversation that we don't have, that's the foundation showing up with generosity, showing up as a. As a amazing human being, showing up with no ask, and being the person that wants to solve the problems, give the solutions, and be a good person. That establishes community, because what we recognize in everything that I've done over my years, relationships have been the breadcrumbs to my destiny. Destiny. So who are the people that. When we think of this word community, it's defined as shared interests, shared commonalities, shared mission forward. So we can't understand the things that we share if we're not showing up as our authentic self and we're truly just giving. So then once we give, once we have a belief that bleeds into other people, once we have kindness that is contagious to other people, just like COVID 19 spread. If. If we're positive and we're kind and we're just empathetic and integral, that also spreads as well, that allows us to find our people. And then from there, now the conversation goes from us just having these conversations to identifying, okay, well, where are the funding priorities for these things? Okay, how can we collectively solve these specific problems? And what I identify is that we're searching for capital. We're searching for collective or creative fundraising opportunities, but we don't have community around that specific problem. And we're not good people. So we're going in selfishly. We're going in individually instead of collaborating together as organizations, collaborating together as leaders to identify ways that we can work together to solve these problems together. No puzzle. And my, my, my kids are big in puzzles. No puzzle can be solved with one piece of. We all are our own individual piece. So if we want to complete the puzzle, we have to identify who are the people out there that have the other puzzle pieces so that when we bring these pictures that are done to funders, they're able to support it.
- [10:43]
B
What you're saying is everything, like, I don't, I don't know how else to encapsulate it, because I think this is why our values, like, are like magnets together. It gets to the core root work. It gets to how we actually solve things. And don't just keep talking about things forever. It gets to that community is kind of messy, and it's not a simple formula. It's showing up in the in betweens. And I just think that you're painting a better picture of what this could look like, because I think a lot of us feel overwhelmed by the moment. If you look at any media feed, if you look around our communities, but there is a lot of hope when you start to think about that, you are not the single puzzle piece trying to solve this. It's completely overwhelming for one person to solve any of this. But each of us doing what we can do starts to make so much more sense and paints a picture of hope that I don't see out there very much. A galvanizing force of hope. So you kind of teed us into this, but I want to directly ask you what's, like, a mistake that you see nonprofit leaders make in trying to build community, whether that's with their team or with donors.
- [11:56]
A
That's a great question. So last Friday, we launched our first or two weeks ago now, our first fundraising, Friday morning fundraising series in Charlotte where we're trying to localize community, build conversations and curated experiences around fundraising, philanthropic giving. And during the event, we brought up a case study. And it was a random case study. I think I found it on, like, an AI platform. And in the case study, the goal for the various social impact leaders in the room was one thing to identify the roots of the problem and then identify a solution in your small groups that we could be able to move forward to solve this nonprofit's problem. So some of the challenges were that marketing had dried up, the executive director said it's a fundraising issue or that donors don't care, and all of these different things. And what we identified is that the real root of the problem was a lack of buy in and that we can't solve problems if we don't agree on what the problem is. We can't create a creative solution and strategic alliances and real partnerships if we don't identify and collectively agree on what the problem is that we're actually solving. So once we identify the problem now, collectively we can get buy in on that problem and then put all of our ideas to together to solve that issue. Then answer the question, okay, who are the organizations out here that care about this solution? Who are the organizations out here that can be able to help us move the needle forward in this specific way? So now it allows us to focus in, I think nonprofit organizations. They're trying to solve everything or they're trying to solve symptoms. And they're not really clear on what is the actual root of what we're trying to do. I talked to an amazing non profit leader, Claire, that runs the organization, strong like Sloan. And I asked her a question and I said, Claire, you know, what's your vision for your organization in three to five years? And she simply said back to me, she said that our organization doesn't exist anymore because we actually solved the problem of pediatric cancer. And that was so powerful to me. Like are we building organizations aligning with one root cause so that we can build creative solutions, intentionally mission driven solutions for that specific problem? So that's one of the problems that I see.
- [14:23]
C
Personally, I just think you're lifting something to a 10,000 foot view. And as you were talking, I was thinking about Darren Walker's book From Generosity to Justice, where he's talking about like that we are just solving tactics and problems on the front end when we really need to be looking at the systemic problem that is at the root. And so I want to talk about Growth alliance because you've built this and I want you to talk about how you scale impact without burning out your people or your mission. Do you. Why do you believe that burnout is a fundraising and a leadership problem and not just a wellness problem? Because I'm ready to get into this.
- [15:03]
A
So I have a very controversial view on this topic. And I do because I don't believe that it's either A, a leadership problem alone, nor do I believe B, that it's simply a wellness problem. I think there's two completely different spectrums where it's like, is it a me problem or is it the leader's problem? I think it's an organizational culture issue and we have to go a little bit kind of like going down to the root again when we identify the leader. Has the leader created the condition for the single mother that has this book of business, that has these donors that she needs to be able to reach out to and has a job? But have you created the condition where she doesn't feel unsafe, where if she has to go to her kids appointment or her kids practice, that she's going to be on the chopping block? Have you created the condition and the environment within your organization to allow that married family that is going through chemo to be able to take off a week even though that major event is coming up within two weeks? That's your most major fundraising event. So I think it's our responsibility as the leader first to be able to create the conditions around metrics. So Davidson College does this. Amazing. Rather than them having metric or close goals, they have ask goals. So it's not about how much you're closing, it's about how much are our major gifts gift officers asking for in a given year. So now we can assess, are we developing people in a way where they're getting better with their ask, they're getting better with their communication, they're getting better with their relationships? We're not just judging based upon closes, because if we judge based upon closes, the data shows 18 months for fundraisers, and they're out the door finding another position. And based upon what we've seen about relationships, we need longer time. We need more time. So when we look at changing metrics, when we as leaders create the condition, it allows us as individuals to be comfortable setting boundaries, not having to put our priorities of family or parents or kids or spouse number five from the job and all of these different things. So, yes, it does require the me to say, like, hey, these are my priorities. This is my time blocking. These are the things that I feel comfortable coming to my leader about to be able to say, like, hey, I'm struggling with this area, but I'm going to be honest, I was a little off this morning because I was just trying to get my son to school and all of those things. So I think it's all of us. It requires the team member, it requires the leader, but it also requires the janitor, it requires the assistant and the administrative assistant to create a culture where we're all on the same page. Together?
- [17:49]
B
Yeah. I mean, this. This is giving me what. What season was this?
- [17:55]
C
I was literally thinking, giving me ptsd. Truly. Because I remember being four. Four weeks postpartum. No, I was five weeks postpartum with Julia. And I remember, like putting my Spanx on so I could squeeze myself into a gala dress. And John and I went and directed, like a 500 person gala, you know, trying to raise a million dollars. And I. That's what it took me back to. Because I never in my brain thought that I couldn't be there. And when I told my CEO I was coming, he said, oh, thank goodness. You know, I wasn't sure how we were going to do it without you. That further reinforced that belief that I should be coming out. So, yes, I am so glad we're talking about this, but, John, I'm sorry, I just took off.
- [18:44]
B
You're actually opening up my. My Rolodex. I was going more the positive slant,
- [18:48]
C
but I'm good for both sides. Much, much improved.
- [18:53]
B
It was Mark Miller Ted Vaughn's book, which is the banner behind you is like, culture built my brand. But I remember, like a season, really, like having these conversations on the podcast that just kept coming back to, like, how can we say that we're about one thing and we're trying to change one thing in the world and. And it's not modeled at the most core human centric in our teams. That disparity is so problematic and you're naming it. I think we're in the nonprofit space. All of it is about creating connection and uplift and opportunity and taking care of the most vulnerable. It's like, how are we not building a workplace? That's the same thing. And I want to be careful to say, create a safe place, because I love that you use the words, the conditions, so someone can feel safe. Like, that's, that's the container that we're hoping to build as leaders. I'm curious, my friend, like, what is leading with heart really look like when you yourself are running on empty? Because I think you want. You can want that for your team. And then I think you can tend to pile on with the leader as the leader, because you want to, like, insulate people, but what do you do with that?
- [20:02]
A
So you know me, John, I'm a very frank person. You can't lead with heart if you're burnt out. You know, if we were having a conversation on the phone and you noticed that your phone was on 1% and it was going to die, you're no longer present in our Conversation. You're trying to scramble around the house and find a charger. It's the same if we're driving. If we're driving in our car and the dot, dot, dot to empty comes on. Like me most of the time, because I never like to get gas, especially now. Right. I'm not focusing on. I'm not focusing on my son talking to me and what he's saying. I'm just focusing on how much my. How many miles do I really have left to be able to get before we end up on the side of the road. So anybody listening? My challenge to you is to. You have to. One of my pieces of advice that I always give is, you have to fill you up and you have to find a charger before you're able to accurately and effectively lead other people. Like, you can't lead other people. And so you learn how to lead yourself. And you have to. Whether it's a podcast, like We Are for Good, whether it's a book that they've mentioned earlier, whether it's meditation, whether that's song or getting in nature, all of these different things, you have to identify ways for you to get back connected and aligned before you can really be able to pour into other people. Like they always say, you can't pour from an empty cup. Now, if you are filled, what does leading with heart look like? And I have another story, of course, please. So a few years ago, pastor at a church where I was serving in the youth ministry, he gave this amazing talk on when he started in ministry. And he started in ministry, he. He left this mega church where he was leading and on stage, and he came to North Carolina and he. He called himself the snack passer outer. He was in the kids ministry.
- [21:48]
C
My man. I love snacks.
- [21:51]
A
Yeah. He was going around passing out snacks. And there was this story where this young girl was like, pastor Brian, Pastor Brian. She was irate and crying. And then he was like, what's wrong? She was like, I lost my name tag. And he was like, well, I can get you another name tag. And she's crying, no, I want my name tag. So he's like, frustrated, and he's telling this story. And he was like, oh, my God. And then the other pastor, seasoned pastor, goes up to the young lady and he gets down on one knee and he asks, honey, where's your name tag? And she's like, I lost it. I lost him. And then he prays with her, and he says, whatever is lost shall be found. And then 10 minutes later goes by. He's Explaining the story. And then she runs up to Pastor Brian, says, Pastor Brian, guess what? I found my name tag. It was on the bottom of the chair. And he talks about in this story, how he was. There's a difference between service and volunteering. And if we don't have a heart of harvest and a heart posture, to be able to do this work and to believe in people, despite their background, despite their title, despite. Despite where they come from, that is what leading with heart is. It's being able to lead truly with connecting with people on a human to human level. Not Republican or Democrat, not this side versus this side, not anything but just connecting with human beings. Being willing to ask the tough, honest questions and truly listen with your heart and be willing, truly willing to go out there and find solutions for people, even if it doesn't benefit you.
- [23:26]
C
You just took it all back to values, which is, I think what it's all about, is that alignment and leaders, I want you to know we see you and we've been in your shoes, and it is so hard to not give every piece of yourself away because you see your staff struggling or you see the challenges that are facing your organization. But I want you to pause and understand your worth and that we need you in this. And I will also say, to Kyle's point, which I think every single one of those was so brilliant, modeling that out loud, that rest creates that condition of psychological safety of, oh, okay, they're taking off. I can take off. And even if there's a gala coming up, you don't have to squeeze into those Spanx. You don't have it. I guess I'm telling, like, little Becky that story. That's a metaphor. But also, like, I need you to know that we are not chained to these missions. We feel like we are, but what we should be is connected to each other. And I think this is what you're talking about. And these cultures of safety and collectiveness, when they are rooted in kindness and in understanding, in servant leadership, amazing things start to happen. And so I want you to talk to the leaders who are out there right now, Kyle. They're trying to build more momentum inside their organization. They're trying to keep their people healthy. And, well, it is a bananas time in the world. It is a time that our sector is shifting and changing, and we want to be on the forefront of architecting what generosity looks like moving forward. So I want you to look at our camera, tell our leaders what they can do to help build more momentum without adding more to their staff.
- [25:20]
A
I Got you. In two words, you have to play defense. I'm a big sports fan.
- [25:24]
C
Me too. I'll explain this to you later, John.
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B
Okay, I'm going to tap out now.
- [25:31]
A
I especially love March Madness. It's the favorite time of the year outside of football playoffs. And, you know, if hopefully you weren't living under a rock because you know that UConn and Duke played prior to this podcast being filmed. And at halftime, Duke was up their NCAA men's basketball team at FIF by 15 points. Around 14 minutes in the second half, they were up by 19 points. And what happens is, I've always learned as a basketball player that you got to get. You got to cut the game to at least 10 points. And they did that by playing defense. They got small stops, small steals, small turnovers. They played defense. They got. They cut it to nine points and then seven points. And then they put themselves in a position at the end of the game to win the game. And with three seconds left, Becky, and I'm sure you saw.
- [26:19]
C
I watched it. I totally watched it.
- [26:21]
A
At 3 seconds left, a player turned over the ball and Yukon got it back with almost one second left. A shot went up from almost half court and they won the game. It was. And this guy was a freshman. And the crowd goes wild. I'm screaming in the household. I'm like, oh, my gosh. And why I use that story is because there's a lot of times as organizational leaders, as social impact leaders, we want to add more, we want to do more. But what I want you to do is I want you to play defense. I want you to identify processes, personnel, and systems that you can stop. Where are the. Where are the leaks? Where are the things that we need to stop doing? What are the crucial conversations that we've been avoiding? What are the things that are costing us too much money that we need to cut? What are all of these ideas that we can streamline? What are the things that we need to address right now? And then once we start to addressing them, celebrate. Every single time something is addressed, celebrate that team member. Celebrate that process being implemented. Celebrate that person being celebrated. Shoot. Celebrate that person losing potentially and moving them out of that position, whatever it needs to go that culture killer. Like, celebrate the progress that you're making within your organization. And look, once you get that 10 point down, once you start getting seven points from the game, now we start scoring, now we start pulling momentum, now we start putting points back on the board. Because our goal as social impact leaders is put ourselves in the position when that funding opportunity comes up, when that grant launches, when that gala comes up to put ourselves in position to win. But we can't accurately and confidently talk to funders or anyone else if we're still dealing with process issues and we're still dealing with personnel issues or our systems are all over the place. So we have to identify processes, personnel and systems. We got to stop the leaks so that we give ourselves the opportunity to be ready once the capital comes.
- [28:23]
B
Is it the year 2026? And Kyle King just made me a sports fan. Like, I'm just like over here receiving the story. Like, what am I doing?
- [28:31]
C
Such a good metaphor too. I mean, honestly, I'm going to give a little gift to the community. Please Google Dan Hurley, who's the coach of UConn, his mother's reaction to that and apologize for the mouthing profanity, but it is fantastic. But I really do love that metaphor and I just think the little moments matter and getting through them together freaking matters and co building those solutions. So brilliant.
- [28:58]
B
And I agree that you having those small wins, it does build momentum. Like seeing something that's been a pain for the team get fixed or move past the word momentum is really strong in the way you shared that because I felt it coming through your words that it's like, then you can transition once you get to that next step. Kyle, we gotta ask you about story. You're an amazing storyteller.
- [29:21]
A
Thank you.
- [29:22]
B
We believe that the power of philanthropy and everyday kindness does something within us in our lives. And I want to ask you about a moment that philanthropy really did something within you that pained your heart, that years later you still feel it. It could be small. It could be big. What's that prompt for you?
- [29:39]
A
I had a amazing conversation with a friend of mine, Lena. She's a humanitarian and she does a lot of work in women's activism. About a month ago, we connected via LinkedIn and she said something to me about how she challenged me. She said, kyle, you know, these big moments, impact is not always the big things, it's the tiny moments. And it really allowed me to start reflecting on not always telling the oh, we got a million dollar gift story or oh, we helped that organization do a hundred thousand or whatever. So I'm so glad, John, that you asked that because, you know, for years I've really tried to think through all of these big moments and you've overlooked all of the small moments. So for me to answer that question directly is when I was an 8th grade ELA teacher, I was in the barbershop. And I was just sharing. And this is when I had hair.
- [30:31]
C
I was gonna say, yeah, when I had hair.
- [30:34]
A
And I was just sharing to my barber at the time what I wanted to do for these kids. I was like, I wanna just show them I was in a failing district, underrepresented school, underfunded school, failing school. And I wanted to just show these kids the world. And one of the biggest things for me is either music or food. Bring people together and it doesn't matter where from. So I had this idea that I was sharing with my barber. Like, man, I just want to be able to bring in a chef. And they have this whole spread and we just talk about, you know, that you deserve great meals and you deserve a five course meal. And tell these kids that no matter where you come from, like, there's opportunities out here where you can do this. And the man next to me in the other chair, I've never met or seen this man before, kind of moves his head over and he said, you know, what's your name, son? I said, my name is Kyle King. He said, where do you teach? And he was like. I was like, I teach at Monroe Middle School right here in North Carolina. He was like, I'd love to pay for your meal. And I said, excuse me? And then he said, yes. He was like, set it up and just tell me the price and I'll write the check. And I said, okay. And he gave me his number. And, you know, people always, you know how it is. They say they're going to support and do the different things. And I got the bill back from the cook that was coming into the class, and the bill was $800. And I'm like, oh, my God, like, how are we going to afford this? And I call the guy and he says, come pick up the check later this evening. And then when I met him, he was just so generous. He was like, you know, I've always been wanting to do something like this, but nobody asked me. And I just felt this feeling in my heart, like just no one asked him. And he was retired as a CEO of this major organization, Fortune 50 Company. And it wasn't just that moment. It was the moment of. And hopefully I don't get emotional. Some of these kids, while they ate baked macaroni and cheese and steak and all these things, said this was their first warm meal that week. Some of these kids said that this is the first time that I've ever had baked macaroni and cheese. Because we don't have an oven in our house. And I use this story because impact starts in the small moments of you just sharing what you're trying to do and trusting that God or the universe is going to sit you next to somebody that will create an experience for kids at 13, 14 years old that they still text me about to this day. And it's up to us as social impact leaders and just contributors to do our part and just to talk about what you're trying to do at a barbershop or at a salon or at a park and just trust that one day the right person is going to be sitting next to you and they're going to be able to create a ripple in a classroom or in a community or wherever it is that will stick with these people for the rest of their lives. So that is my tiny moment. That has always been something that I feel still to this day.
- [33:39]
C
I mean, I think we can all relate to getting a bill and seeing it's $800 and just having your heart drop. That has happened to us at We Are for Good. It's happened in different situations. And this is the hope. And I think we're about to ask you for your one good thing, but I think I'm going to insert mine because what you're saying about leaders, are you telling the story of your of now? What's happening right now? We talk about this a lot. What is the story of now from your perspective? Where are you talking about this? Because there are so many people like Barbershop benefactor, which I'm going to call him, they are out there waiting for you. And the little moments of just sharing your passion and your joy are the most infectious ones. Not the cleaned up, highly produced video that's of your campaign that's up front. It's the raw you saying why it matters and why it fricking matters right now. So, Kyle, thank you for that beautiful story. That is one we are definitely going to remember. Wrap us up with a one good thing. Whether it's a quote or what's something somebody could take away today.
- [34:48]
A
You know, Becky, if you would ask me that a year ago I probably would have given a strategy or a tactic. My one message that I would want people to take away is just be a good human and better people. Build better organizations. And for me, like all of this sounds great. Like I have a lot of I've been gifted to be in rooms and to create a lot. But it took a lot of unbecoming and a lot of decomposing and things that I needed to die within me so that I could be the person to lead organizations and lead change. And a lot of us want to lead missions, but we can't lead our households. A lot of us want to lead causes, but we can't time block and take time for ourselves. And that's just to challenge people to you show up as your absolute most authentic and best self on a daily basis and be unapologetically you. And I promise you there's somebody out there that will love you, that will see you and that will want to put you on a platform and give you a mic to be able to create change in your community. Because you are enough and what you're going through is necessary for you to tell the story for someone somewhere so that you could be able to be the change maker in that community. So show up, be the best human. Read those books, download these podcast episodes. Go take time for yourself so that you can show up as your best self and fully charged so that you can pour from a full cup.
- [36:12]
B
Dang friend, what a conversation today. Thanks for the way you show up in the world. Thanks for. For the way you've seen us and made us feel that belonging that this conversation like comes back to. There's a lot of ways to connect with Kyle online. I want to give you the floor, my friend. I mean, you've got a podcast, you have eight books. Let's go back to that for a second. I mean, you've got the Growth alliance and Culture Lab. What's the best way for people to connect with you online and find you, my friend?
- [36:40]
A
Two ways. LinkedIn. Kyle S. King on LinkedIn. If you don't have LinkedIn, go to Connect with Kyle. Like either one of those will take you to all of my platforms. That's it.
- [36:51]
C
Thank you, my friend. You are a treasure. I'm sure we'll be seeing you quite a bit on the We Are for Good platform. So you keep doing your amazing work.
- [37:00]
B
Great. Thank you.