Unleash Your Inner Goldilocks: How to Get It Just Right

The true wealth of a society is not measured in currency or material assets, but in how the women of that society are treated. Be it education, healthcare, career choices, or life choices, when women are not free to make their own choices, the underlying society is not free and it is not truly capable of realizing its collective potential. Supporting women, empowering women and celebrating women is not solely dependent on the men in a society. Good and strong men already do this because they know that they need a strong woman by their side to face their own challenges. Alongside these good men, we women should stand shoulder-to-shoulder and pull each other up. We can never forget that we hold our destinies in the palm of our own hands. This week, my guest will be Traci Campbell, the Founder of BIBO, an organization focused on recognizing empowered women, celebrating their positive social impact and laying the foundation for a collaborative effort to magnify the goodness.

Traditionally, public safety has been a male profession but overtime, women have entered the profession and brought about the much needed diversity of thought, solutions and culture. This is not the easiest profession for women to be in because females in the profession not only face the traditional risks of the sector but have the added exposure unique to women. These are our mothers, sisters, daughters and aunts who go out there and deal with the societal challenges as well as shape our world by bursting stereotypes. As we spend the month honoring our first responders and grappling with the public safety dilemmas of the day, we will be remiss if we do not explore the role and impact of women in the profession. Please join my strong role model female Public Safety Professionals to understand their journey, their contributions and their challenges. As we empower our girls and shape our communities, let’s showcase the strength of nurturing public safety.

Public Safety is one of the fundamental needs of any society and providing the service is the duty of an elected government in a viable democracy. Just as a society should not let a fox guard the hen house, those who enter the professions of Public Safety need to be carefully selected and trained to be responsible stewards for those they serve. Personal biases and conflicts of interest when co-mingled with the delivery of public safety, the public trust will be eroded resulting in conflicts between those serving and those being served. The irony in such a situation is that the ones being served fund via the mechanism of tax the compensation for those who serve. At a time when the relationships between communities and public safety professionals are in peril, there is no better time to seek ways to turn the tide. It is imperative that we find a path forward rooted in ethical leadership for our collective safety and empowerment.

9/11 was a day that shocked America and the world. It was a day that commercial planes were weaponized to kill innocent civilians from different walks of life with the intent of causing terror. Regardless of our disagreements, there is no reason to terrorized or kill for a cause; as rational human beings we have the ability to find a compromised solution that we can all live with. Taking the approach of “An Eye for An Eye” will definitely establish a world of blind folks as once vengeance and cycle of terror begins it will be hard to break it. In dedicating this Episode to the victims and first responders of 9/11, I want to help us learn from our shared loss and find a way to build anew. This is the time we must all come together, never forget and live up to our true spirit of resilience and unity. Let’s stop the cycle of causing fear, let’s get to know our neighbors and let’s build a community we want our children to grow-up safe in. Let’s make our humanity count!

The life we sustain by our choices are our own. This is nowhere truer than in a capitalist democracy where our choices drive the market and our civil society through our vote and subsequent participation in the democratic process. A functional democracy that intends to be sustainable cannot be treated as a spectator sport by the citizens. It is very much a contact sport that requires educated and fact based active participation if it is to benefit the voting citizens. At the core of that participatory democracy is an empowered citizen population that understand their own self-interest. Each persona’s self-interest is not one-dimensional because it needs to address the interest of a person in the four functional roles, namely •Worker •Consumer •Investor •Citizen If we want high pay as workers, we need to understand that we cannot have all our goods and services free or cheap. Let's spend an hour understanding and exploring Self-Interest to shape our choices just right!

Leaders are those who influence others and evokes the sense of purpose in others such that others willingly follow the mission of the leader. Influencing others is less of a science and more of an art. At the foundation of this art form is the skill called emotional intelligence. Emotional Quotient (EQ) is the measure of emotional intelligence and this is very different from IQ. While IQ helps the individual accomplish results on their own, EQ helps the individual accomplish results through others. Therefore, EQ becomes vital for leadership development. An authentic leader knows how to manage themselves and serve others to emerge as a servant leader. Emotional Intelligence is a Heart and Mind synthesis skill that enables quick decision making and effective judgment while not being judgmental. Join this conversation to get involved and sign-up for the 2-day conference at https://www.agacgfm.org/Chapters/GreaterChicago/Training-Events/Event-Calendar.aspx to continue the dialogue.

I have been asking listeners of this show to email me at drkashenry@hotmail.com or send me messages on my Show FB Page https://www.facebook.com/DrKasHenry/. As promised, this episode is dedicated to 3 very special listeners getting an opportunity to ask me questions and engage in a direct dialogue as they seek to chart their own course of life in an authentic way consistent with who they are. These three listeners make up a combination of young professionals and career changers who are finding their passion, shaping their paths and making their place in our world. Like Goldilocks, these 3 listeners work at getting things Just Right and I am honored and super excited to have them on. It is my hope that this open and honest conversation will help others in their own Leadership, Empowerment and Social Impact pursuits. I also hope that this influences others to reach out and join me on future episodes as we make this shared transformational journey.

We are living in an era where values, integrity and ethics are not thought of as important character traits as wealth, access and power. Human interactions are more transactional. From our smallest unit of society, family, through organizations we each work at, to our country and global society at large, we have daily demonstrations of lack of values, integrity and ethics resulting in breach of trust. Trust is such an elusive concept today and I want us to take a moment to explore it. This show is all about ‘Getting things just right” in all aspects of our life journey. Getting our human relationships just right is at the foundation of personal, professional, organizational economic, national, and societal success. Trust is at the heart of all of this. To help me explore “Trust” is Bob Whipple, The Trust Ambassador. Zig Ziegler said The most influential persuasion tool you have in your entire arsenal is your integrity” and we all know “Integrity Inspires Trust”. Let's talk!

Civil society relies on a functional social contract. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a seminal thinker from the European Renaissance Period believed that “The general WILL of the people should direct the state towards the Common Good. Hence the good of the community is more important than individual interests”. This used to be the way of life in most democracies and societies rooted in morality. However, somewhere along the way, self-interest and accumulation of individual wealth, power and access have become the calling. With this fundamental paradigm shift, civility and civil society have become casualties. Technology, social media and the breakdown of family structure have compounded the situation. Individual pursuit of happiness being the goal, the impact we have on one another is rarely an afterthought. If only, we could all see the red blooded human being, in spite of the differences in the outer trappings we will all start engaging with each other differently. Tune in. Let's talk!

We live in a high-tech world and technology permeates all aspects of our lives. With increased technology reliance, our society becomes more fragile. How are we as individuals and businesses preparing to not just survive but thrive in this high-tech world? Our lives are consumed with smart phones and apps for all financial transactions. Banking, transportation like Uber/Lyft, medical coordination, fitness, and so much more are all managed via apps. Do we even know that Android is responsible for 92% of all mobile app malware are? Do you know that 77% of all malware could be eliminated by all users updating to the latest Operating System but only 4% have the latest? We will explore ways to mitigate fraud risk in our life and our organizations. We will explore ways to mitigate fraud risk in our life and our organizations. Join us to learn from the insights of experts who work with professionals like Frank Abagnale whose life the Steven Spielberg movie Catch Me If You Can was based on.

“The first wealth is health” was the assertion made by Ralph Waldo Emerson and most of us will agree that is the case in life. In a material society, even when individuals chase monetary and material wealth at the cost of their health, there comes a time in their lives that they realize the error of their ways. If health is so important what are some of the things we need to be mindful of? Mindfulness starts with self. How can we develop the quality or state of being conscious and be aware of health and wellness related matters? How do we plan our eating habits? How do we plan our physical activity routines? How do we make time for mental alertness and calm relaxing time as part of our wellness? How do we plan for medical and healthcare emergencies and contingencies? These are all real life matters we must think about, discuss with our loved ones and put in play as a family. A real life experience is shared in this episode so you can take a page to shape your plan.

Learning is an active pursuit of continuing knowledge acquisition to remain relevant and impactful. Learning allows us to be current and agile thereby making innovation and growth possible. Such learning is much broader than course work and education since it prepares one for life. Learning happens in different ways in our modern world and technology continues to expand the ways of learning. Democratization of learning with the technology evaluation has made learning accessible for those who seek it. Just like cross-functional asynchronous work teams in the business world, learning too has evolved to become “at your phase”. How can you embrace the concept of life-long learning, how can you continue to get relevant certifications to demonstrate evolving skills, how can you continually re-invent yourself and remain marketable are some important questions most need to understand! So, tune in and engage in our conversation to learn alongside us.

In a modern-day career trajectory, 3-4 career transitions are expected purely resulting form technology driven workplace transformations. Staying agile, relevant and modern in skills are challenging enough for anyone in the emerging fast phased professional world. This becomes a harder task for women who are entrusted to carry babies to term, raise children, and remain the caregivers of their families. Increasing number of women are making the choice between work and family, some even delaying marriage or bypassing marriage. Another challenge women face is the lack of fellow female mentors. Juggling family and career, women also tend to self-select out of professional networking that their male counterparts naturally develop. How to best harmonize the various roles life thrusts upon us women, how can we lift each other up and how can we take this shared journey while pulling young women along is an important question of our times. Let’s talk!

Race, religion, color, ethnicity, social class, education, sexual orientation and so much more are used to divide communities today, sometimes unwittingly and other times by design. In spite of the reason the divisiveness is causing untold trauma across our communities across the world. Therefore, now is the right time to talk about how we build the necessary bridges to make the divisiveness powerless and allow members of each community thrive because of their diversity. Food, music and dancing are basic elements that unite humanity. How can we use these joyful elements and create moments of human interaction to engage with one another instead of treating folks as “The Other”? Join me to discuss, understand and execute a call to action leveraging the ideas of a millennial leader who is determined to be the change in his local community.

Public speaking is the single largest fear of humans in general and yet it is the single most important factor that determines professional success. Knowing this, what can we do to first understand the fear and then how can we help each person develop the art of communicating effectively in public in a way to connect with their audience is the central theme of this episode. In a diverse multi-lingual global economy, professional success requires language skills as well as communication skills that are of personal and technological in nature. Tune in and pick up nuggets of valuable insights. Then apply them in your daily lives and focus on continually improving to reach your goal. Speaking your way to growth is both a personal and business strategy that has the potential to transform the journey. Why wait? Let’s get started!

Learning is an active pursuit of continuing knowledge acquisition to remain relevant and impactful. Learning allows us to be current and agile thereby making innovation and growth possible. Such learning is much broader than course work and education since it prepares one for life. Learning happens in different ways in our modern world and technology continues to expand the ways of learning. Democratization of learning with the technology evaluation has made learning accessible for those who seek it. Just like cross-functional asynchronous work teams in the business world, learning too has evolved to become “at your phase”. How can you embrace the concept of life-long learning, how can you continue to get relevant certifications to demonstrate evolving skills, how can you continually re-invent yourself and remain marketable are some important questions most need to understand! So, tune in and engage in our conversation to learn alongside us.

We live in a high-tech world and technology permeates all aspects of our lives. With increased technology reliance, our society becomes more fragile. How are we as individuals and businesses preparing to not just survive but thrive in this high-tech world? Our lives are consumed with smart phones and apps for all financial transactions. Banking, transportation like Uber/Lyft, medical coordination, fitness, and so much more are all managed via apps. Do we even know that Android is responsible for 92% of all mobile app malware are? Do you know that 77% of all malware could be eliminated by all users updating to the latest Operating System but only 4% have the latest? We will explore ways to mitigate fraud risk in our life and our organizations. We will explore ways to mitigate fraud risk in our life and our organizations. Join us to learn from the insights of experts who work with professionals like Frank Abagnale whose life the Steven Spielberg movie Catch Me If You Can was based on.

Leaders are those who influence others and evokes the sense of purpose in others such that others willingly follow the mission of the leader. Influencing others is less of a science and more of an art. At the foundation of this art form is the skill called emotional intelligence. Emotional Quotient (EQ) is the measure of emotional intelligence and this is very different from IQ. While IQ helps the individual accomplish results on their own, EQ helps the individual accomplish results through others. Therefore, EQ becomes vital for leadership development. An authentic leader knows how to manage themselves and serve others to emerge as a servant leader. Emotional Intelligence is a Heart and Mind synthesis skill that enables quick decision making and effective judgment while not being judgmental. Join this conversation to get involved and sign-up for the 2-day conference at https://www.agacgfm.org/Chapters/GreaterChicago/Training-Events/Event-Calendar.aspx to continue the dialogue.

Trust, it is that special something that builds relationships and lasting bonds. Trust can never be bought. It has to be earned. In fact, it takes a life-time to build and just a split second to squander away. Chris Butler was right when he said “Trust is earned when actions meet words”. Who we are and how we act are instrumental in our authenticity. Without authenticity, there is no trust. Being open and honest with factual information no matter how hard the truth is to swallow is also important in building trust. There is no trust without transparency. We live in a time in the US where no one trust anyone or anything and this distrust is eroding our public trust, trust in institutions, trust in civil society and trust in fellow citizens. Join this conversation to get involved and sign-up for the 2-day conference in Chicago on June 4th & 5th at https://www.agacgfm.org/Chapters/GreaterChicago/Training-Events/Event-Calendar.aspx to be the change we need!

Health Care is a major issue for everyone regardless of what they do or how they access services. Quality of service and cost of service together reflect the quality of health care. If you offer health insurance to your employees, you run a healthcare business whether you realize it or not. How you set up and maintain your healthcare program has a direct impact on your organization, your employees, and your community. During this session, get an inside look at how public entities and private employers around the country are reducing their spending 20-40% while improving the quality of care by adopting practical, proven, non-partisan solutions. We will cover real life examples of organizations big and small, rural and urban, public and private along with a blueprint to replicate their successes. Join this conversation to get involved and sign-up for the 2-day conference at https://www.agacgfm.org/Chapters/GreaterChicago/Training-Events/Event-Calendar.aspx to continue the dialogue.