Empathy as a Leadership Strategy | Ajit Dodani on Belonging, Burnout, and Self-Awareness

Introduction: Ajit's Background and Journey to Empathy [00:00:00] Ajit Dodani: Back in India, I was slapped in my head by uncles going, you're not supposed to feel, men are not supposed to feel, you know? [00:00:07] Dr. Blake Brisbois: Right. We're dealing with people's, uh, you know, challenges. [00:00:10] Ajit Dodani: Yeah. [00:00:11] Dr. Blake Brisbois: To empathize is to in, in some way take that on, even if true for the hour that we're with them or true. [00:00:17] Ajit Dodani: So, foundation of empathy, high level of self-awareness, understanding of people alignment and self-awareness is everything. [00:00:23] Is everything all. And, and I'll, I'll we'll go into that later. I answer your question right now about evaluation. How do you average and all that. [00:00:30] Narrator: Welcome to Look for the Helpers, a podcast by Engage Therapy in Agora Hills, California, hosted by Adelina Brisboy, licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and her husband, Dr. [00:00:44] Blake Brisboy, licensed psychologist. Thanks for being here. Meeting Ajit: The Origin Story [00:00:50] Dr. Blake Brisbois: Yeah, so we've known each other for I, how long it's been, [00:00:55] Ajit Dodani: how long. Enough. Yeah. Well, harsh and I were trying to place it too, and I think, yeah, so Ahmed was about 14, 13, 14. Now he's 27, so Yeah, you're right. [00:01:05] Dr. Blake Brisbois: Yeah. So 2000. Yeah. Yeah, that sounds about something. [00:01:08] It's been over a decade. It's, it's been over a decade that we've known about each other. I, so yeah. Adelina, uh, my wife, uh, was working at Milken Community High School at the time, right, yeah. Where your son was attending. [00:01:18] Ajit Dodani: No, no, no, no, no, no. [00:01:19] Dr. Blake Brisbois: So [00:01:21] Ajit Dodani: what was, what was the story? So, so, um, Amit was, Amit was speaking at an event mm-hmm. [00:01:30] Where Alina was. That's right. Yes. And Alina, we were walking out in Alina and as we ended up talking Yeah. Awesome. And that's how we connected, that's how the relationship started and that's [00:01:40] Dr. Blake Brisbois: when he was doing my name, my story. Right. Can you tell me a little bit about, 'cause it was such a cool. Program he was doing at the time. [00:01:47] Ajit Dodani: Right. So are we recording this for the Yeah, we [00:01:50] Dr. Blake Brisbois: just, we'll just edit it. [00:01:51] Ajit Dodani: Okay. So, um, I said, because do you, Alina fill you in that Harsha is gonna record one way. She's gonna do the Oh, okay. So, yeah, so, so I just wanna set the context in that. Yeah. So that we. Don't. So double up, double up on any of that stuff. [00:02:07] Um, so yeah, so Amit was running my name as story, right? Empathy change making school systems, speaker workshops, all that fun stuff. That's how we connected, [00:02:17] Dr. Blake Brisbois: right? Yeah. And then we've kind of stayed connected through the years. Yeah, that's true. Some dinners and some kind of consultations and, and professional. [00:02:26] Consultations. Um, so now, um, you know, Alene and I obviously are in engage, and, uh, you have Empathi, you right, Ajit, correct? Yeah, yeah. By the way, this is Ajit Ani. Um, and you, your background is, is A CFO, correct? From CFO to Empathy Strategist [00:02:42] Ajit Dodani: Correct. Yeah. So my background, obviously, it's a quick background. Born in India, moved to the country. [00:02:49] Mm-hmm. India lived a crazy, wild. Fun middle class life. [00:02:53] Dr. Blake Brisbois: When did you Im immigrate. Uh oh. When I was 19 and a half. 19 and a half. [00:02:57] Ajit Dodani: Yeah. So moved here, moved to the East coast. I have a crazy story coming here. Losing everything. First job, the typical immigrant first generation where you go through the rollercoaster of losing, winning, the insecurities of moving here as an immigrant, navigating that, but worked really hard became the CFO of a brand for the West coast, for United colors of Benetton. [00:03:21] And then just had the most incredible sprint in the career. Yeah. And basically that's when I realized that. I was born in empath and back in India, I was slapped in my head by uncles going, you're not supposed to feel, men are not supposed to feel, you know? Yeah. Culturally. That's right. Very typical in some cultures. [00:03:42] And then that became my superpower. The ability to understand or employees our customers. Yeah. And really designing things. Related to business outcomes that were also taking care of both the employees and the customers, which became a very unique kind of journey for me. Yeah. Documented. I'm a journaler. [00:04:03] So documented that whole process, wrote a formula for trust on Melrose Avenue, wrote a formula for empathy on, you know, like So [00:04:12] Dr. Blake Brisbois: you look back on these journals? [00:04:13] Ajit Dodani: Yeah. And they, they're the foundation of the work that we do now. Ah, okay. So literally the, the formula, because, you know, empathy was considered like. [00:04:21] This thing. Either you had it or you didn't have it. Right. But today we tactically teach empathy as a strategy. So that's what I do right now. I'm an empathy strategist. So people, what are you talking about? Yeah. So yeah, so the journey was that, so, you know, I fell back, you know, fell my, what was considered by some, as you know, that would be your weakness really became my superpower. [00:04:43] Yeah. And I say this because a lot of. Men sometimes, as you know, are told. Sure. You're not supposed to connect with that other side of you. Right, right. Yeah. So I had a background in finance. I went to the fun, crazy. I went to the Cochrane School of Art in DC mm-hmm. Have this crazy design side of me and fun sides. [00:05:02] Yeah. Empathy as a Learned Strategy [00:05:03] Dr. Blake Brisbois: As an empath, like what's been, you feel like reflecting on your journey to get where you are now? Right. And you know, maybe thinking about where you'll be like. What experiences you think have impacted you and how have you? 'cause I, I agree that empathy is, is something that I think yourself and I think Simon Sinek Right? [00:05:20] Has really, there's some, been some real, uh, leaders in that thought process as far as leadership and that sort of thing. Now. Um, yet I look back on my own kind of history, right? Mm-hmm. And I feel like I, through experiences sometimes honestly, traumas have been able to tap in a little easier to empathy. [00:05:40] Like even like leading a business, right? Mm-hmm. Like I remember I reflect back on when I was in companies as an employee, right? And reflecting on like now. Having been on both sides, both sides as an employee, but also as a business owner and, and running a business, it's just, it hits different Yeah. You know, it, it, I can have, I can tap into a different empathy even in hindsight mm-hmm. [00:06:01] To places I worked like, wow. That must have been so difficult for those leaders, you know, at that time to, to do that. Um, so I don't know if, if it's something that you feel, you know, you said you were born with it and I, I believe you. And how has it grown? I guess The Impact of Trauma and PTSD on Ajit's Journey [00:06:15] Ajit Dodani: so, you know, you. You're born, being an empath is something that you're born with. [00:06:20] You can't, you know, can't teach that, that part, right? Sure. So you could feel more sense more. So I remember ever since I was young, so if you talk to all my family, they'd go, he could walk into a room and sense more, feel more, and I conversations were happening. I would catch onto an emotion fast, faster. [00:06:34] Pick up on it. Yeah. Lean into people that were hurting, identify that real quick and then that, so that part was very real. So if, it's so funny, I meet my friends, my uncles, my aunts right now, and they go and they'd look at the work that I do. They go, I'm not surprised because you know when you were young and they tell me stories of when I was young. [00:06:55] Yeah. But at that time it was told, don't. You're not supposed [00:06:57] Dr. Blake Brisbois: to feel. Well, I wonder how that interfaces with it, right? Because you can be socialized either to, like in my profession, of course, like we're, that's our training, right? Is to perspective take to to empathize with what people are going through. [00:07:10] Not to sympathize, but to really Right. Like access something inside of you that could understand where they're at. Yeah. Right. Which is empathy and. You know, my mother was from Cuba. Ida wasn't born there, but she was. Right. Yeah. And the immigrant story, right. Of different cultures and how it shapes us. [00:07:25] Yeah. My wife, Adelina, you know, has a father from Iran, a mother from Nicaragua. Similarly, emotions are not something. Yeah. So similarly, if, if we did a, a survey Yeah. Of both sides of our family histories, our family trees. Right. Right. Not a lot of empaths, not a lot of, so we're therapists. So I, I'm wondering like, can socialization then push you think? [00:07:46] The other way. Right. Can kind of, I know. Beat it outta you or Cultural Challenges: Emotions and Male-Dominated Societies [00:07:50] Ajit Dodani: Yeah. Uh, you know, and you push it down, right? So in, in our cultures, like I, I remember, uh, and I, I look back at it, right as to in, I talk about this, that in our cultures, emotions were pushed down. Uh, grew up in a very, uh, male dominated society, and there were certain frameworks. [00:08:09] And so, um, so a lot of folks that had mental health challenges, now that I look back, right? They were told to, Hey, shut up, get out. Right. Do some work. Yeah. That's it. And you know, and they've lived the entire life with that. Yeah. Right. That, that depression or never resolving the trauma that they've been through. [00:08:28] Yeah. And there's a whole generation of, uh, abuse, uh, you know, verbal abuse, you know, physical abuse, all that stuff that, that is real. That people don't wanna talk about it. So I have family, I talk about some of the stuff and I talk about a lot of us grew around families and I would observe and being a journal, I was journalist since I was young, and I'd look around, I'd go, okay, that person is an example. [00:08:51] That person is a warning. So I have journals of all of that, of people's behaviors. Yeah. That were wrong. And I saw how they were destroying. The kids. 'cause the kids we would talk. Yeah. You know, you see the uncle have that emotional dysregulation. So part of what we teach right now at empath, you, one of the things that trans test of time, and you know this Yeah. [00:09:14] The first thing that breaks trust, be it in a family or in a workplace is emotional dysregulation. Guess how much emotional dysregulation I saw in Uh, yeah. In our family a lot. Right, right. So, you know that. That ability. I think what's helped me over the years and perhaps adds, you know, and Hersch and I have learned so much from you guys, right? [00:09:37] Just being around you guys for years, we've cherished that friendship because we were always aligned. I'd see the way you would and carry yourself because a lot of professionals in this space, right? Sure. But the way you represented mental wellness was really very tactical, clean. In, in a way that I, 'cause I, I'm surrounded by them. [00:10:00] I have, you know, folks on my team that, and so the ability to translate this so it's digestible. Mm-hmm. Right. So I, I'm not a therapist, but I teach stuff that is very You do linked to business outcomes. Yeah. So sometimes they, they listen to me now because former CFO talking about this, they go, Hmm. So if I control that, I get better business results. [00:10:26] Okay, let me try to get some help. And I say this because most people don't get help. Emotional Dysregulation in Families and Workplaces [00:10:31] Dr. Blake Brisbois: Yeah, right. To translate it to corporate speak. Right To corporate speech. Yeah. [00:10:34] Ajit Dodani: Yeah. To translate to corporate speak. So, yeah, so growing up with that and then, um, the, the, the true understanding of empathy. So the way I see empathy, and I wanna say, so first of all, you know, you and I know emotional empathy. [00:10:50] Cognitive empathy and compassion. Empathy for, for me, it's all about that compassion, empathy, the ability to feel something because Yeah, to feel something and act on it. It's very empowering. Yeah. It's very tactical, right? Empathy can be very tactical. Right. And it's learned so. Yeah. I, over the years, came up with a formula for how, what does this empathy strategy sound like? [00:11:13] And I say this because you can have too much empathy and you it can, it can burn out. Right. Burn out. Yeah. Right. And I've been there burnout city. So again, all of it comes from mys. Lived experience. So when I introduce myself on stage, I say, I'm not a theorist. Everything I teach comes from my lived experience. [00:11:30] So I realized that you can have too much empathy. So how do you navigate that? Oh, you have to have boundaries. You have to have to understand your values. You have to understand the compass and all that stuff. Operate, understand your energy and all that stuff. Yeah. And then the biggest thing happened 13 years ago. [00:11:45] I got diagnosed with PTSD. You know, I still remember that incident. I'll leave the incident out. But that was a big turning point of deep understanding of mental health. Yeah. That, that's where, um, you know, went to my doctor. I didn't understand what was happening with my brain. Yeah. Literally her, she was looking at me, her, she was my wife. [00:12:03] Right. You guys know her and you know, we, we. I had so much shame around what was going on in my head. Sure. Like, what is going on? I can't sleep. I'm getting triggered with all these different things. It makes sense. And then a few days later I got diagnosed with PTSD and then, you know, the doctor's great doctor knew me enough and everything and you know, said, look, we. [00:12:22] We can take you through this journey, right? All that stuff. There's, you know, all these meds available. Um, I'm a big believer if anybody needs meds, please take them. Yeah. But he also introduced me to the work of Dr. Esi on growth after trauma. Right? Post-traumatic growth. And that transformed my life because that journey and, and the reason why he introduced me, because one of the anchors of Dr. [00:12:46] Ash's work is empathy. He goes. You know, I know you, I remember introducing him and he goes, I know you, I think you might like his work. And then that's what started the journey of high level of self care. And to this day, I mean, this morning I was out at five 13 in the morning, the walk so that I could show up for the engaged community for you. [00:13:08] And I say this, yeah, I can go a few days without it, but don't do a few days. You'll start seeing it. And, and, and I've realized that, that that's all of us. And especially in the last few years, right? We've all gone through stuff. Yeah. Directly, indirectly. Right. Direct trauma. Indirect trauma. We've all experienced it somehow. [00:13:26] Especially the lab. Values Alignment and Hiring at Engage [00:13:27] Dr. Blake Brisbois: Well, I mean, in our field, like I, I think a lot of us are wounded healers. A lot of us that come into our profession Yeah. Have some kind of trauma. And I think there are, you know, a smorgasbord, a, a variety. Of colors, of different therapists that connect to different people. Right. And one thing struck me when he said values, you know, I think like at Engage, um, part of our hiring process, a big part of that is saying, you know, here's our value system. [00:13:54] This is what we value in the work, right? Mm-hmm. What brought you to the work? What is your why? To bring a Sinek, you know, Simon Sinek. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Idea into that. And it really tells us a lot, right? Mm-hmm. And I think in my experience, when values are aligned. It really makes us able to traverse really stressful, chaotic situations. [00:14:15] Um, because you're right, burnout, like in our profession, since we're dealing with people's tragedies every day, right? We're dealing with people's, uh, you know, challenges. [00:14:26] Ajit Dodani: Yeah. [00:14:27] Dr. Blake Brisbois: To empathize is to in some way take that on, even if. True, true for the hour that we're with them or in our IOP program is for quite a bit of hours a week, right? [00:14:36] Yeah, yeah. Um, so I'm thinking about winning you when you're working with a, a corporation, a company, right? I mean, what are the size of the company's empath file you usually works with? For instance? [00:14:46] Ajit Dodani: So our, our clients range from. Obviously I do coaching. I'm a force coaches, council member and all that stuff, so I do individual coaching, but most of our clients at empath, if I, you range between 20 to about 5,000 would be about 70% of our clients. [00:15:05] Okay. Then we have large enterprise clients, right? We're talking global banks. Yeah. And finance technology. Yeah. And all those guys. All the name brands. Yeah. You know, I don't wanna mention any names, but some of the best in the world have understood, right. Why have they understood? It's very clear because deep empathy. [00:15:26] And an empathy strategy embraced increases revenue by 85% over an organization that doesn't embrace an empathy strategy. This is not research done in my backyard in West Hills. It's, uh, research done by Deloitte and Ernest and Young, 85%. Oh, those are The Business Case for Empathy: 85% Revenue Increase [00:15:44] Dr. Blake Brisbois: small names. Yeah. Heard of that. Ey and, yeah, [00:15:49] Ajit Dodani: and I say that because these, you know, the, the world is doing the research and the writings on the wall right now. [00:15:54] It, it takes brave leadership to embrace this kind [00:15:59] Dr. Blake Brisbois: of, so I can say the KPI, right? I can, I can see that being the selling point, right? And the execution. I'm thinking right. My not being in the business world, but me and my wife running a, a very small business, you know, a mm-hmm. 20 person operation. Mm-hmm. [00:16:14] Um, you know, at times, you know, there is a burnout toll mm-hmm. With Selfcare, right. Of empathy, whether, and again, our profession with clients as well as our staff. Now, for you, when you're working with, you know, A-C-E-O-A-C-F-O. This might be controversial. I don't know. I, I think sometimes a superpower of A-C-C-E-O is that they're not the most empathic. [00:16:35] They make decisions for corporations that are. What they are. I mean, I just saw a Nissan just cut 20,000 people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They had to cut 20,000 jobs. Right, right. To survive. 'cause they're, they're losing like 5 billion a quarter. Something crazy. I can't imagine as a, as a company or as a boss or a leader. [00:16:54] Right. Right. So when you're working with, you know, but scale that back to somewhere that's 2000 people or something, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Like, okay, taking your walks at five. I'm down with that. I'm with you at 5:00 AM taking a, a workout. [00:17:06] Ajit Dodani: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. [00:17:07] Dr. Blake Brisbois: That being said, like. When you say like, that's a fine line, I think it is a fine line, right? [00:17:12] To find like empathy while also taking care of oneself and making decisions. Right, right. That sometimes are really hard decisions. So I don't, I dunno if you can speak to that of like, your experience. Oh, oh, this is my work. CEOs are empathic to begin with, you know, like, like have it I guess. Yeah. Empathy Strategy: The Four-Circle Framework [00:17:27] Ajit Dodani: So, you know, those that get it, get it. [00:17:29] Um, so here, here's how we see it. So. It's an additive function. I recently wrote an article about this where it's the biggest thing that people think it's an or function. Mm-hmm. Either you care or you get business result. Right. Um, empathy strategy. That's why the word strategy. And I remember there's a strategy. [00:17:52] Yeah. And, and I say this, the, I remember the first I was talking to a bunch of folks around me, I said. I, I'm, uh, going to copyright empathy strategist and an empathy strategy, and they're like, empathy strategist. So that's a job title. That's empathy. Yeah. So I'm an empathy strategist. I'm I copyrighted empathy strategist. [00:18:10] Right? And I say that because how do you teach this? So here's the journey and maybe I'll, let me go back to the journey of an empathy strategy for the, you know, workplace and specifically designed around that, right. Is number one, it's. High levels of self-awareness. So our, our journey of 30 plus workshops is high level of self-awareness multiplied by stakeholder understanding. [00:18:35] So you have high levels of self-awareness multiplied by deep stakeholder understanding, multiplied by a strategic action. That means it's linked to an outcome that we all agree on, right? So if you have high levels of self-awareness. And you have great understanding of your stakeholders and align it to a business output or communal output or whatever, be the output. [00:19:01] All of a sudden, the framework becomes additive. That you can say, I can do all of those, and we've proven a time and time again, you know, when somebody's laying people off and if they're doing it because they're trying to protect people. I, I, you can do both, right? I've been in a situation where I've had to fire people. [00:19:21] Dr. Blake Brisbois: Yeah, [00:19:22] Ajit Dodani: because you know, just like you said, values, right? Let's talk about that for a second. I'll go over, jump around a little bit, right? You spoke about values, right? So with values, what we do is we build under the values of the, you have the operational pillars. Under the operational pillars, you need to have standards. [00:19:41] Under those standards are communication standards, accountability standards. Clearly laid out. Yeah. With clear follow up on a regular basis for every employee. Yeah. Guess how many companies do that? Not many. Not many. Guess. How many companies sit down with the employees and talk to the managers, talk to the employees one-on-one? [00:20:01] Not very many. Right. But those that do it regularly suddenly see the engagement go up. They're aligned to what they're looking to accomplish. [00:20:11] Dr. Blake Brisbois: Yeah. [00:20:11] Ajit Dodani: Right. And, and whenever there's a problem. Right. Whenever there's a problem, we teach this framework, right? We do scenarios, right? There's a problem that's come up. [00:20:21] Client has called, we lost a client. Something's happened, right? We need to start the conversation like you guys teach. What is the common problem we're solving? That's the first thing. Okay? We agree. That we are here to serve the customer and it has to be aligned. I'll give you a great example. Recently coaching to senior leaders at a large enterprise. [00:20:43] Right? And I'm there, you know, they're talking pretty openly. They hired [00:20:48] Dr. Blake Brisbois: you, [00:20:48] Ajit Dodani: they hired me and with them for a few years now, and then I work with the entire organization and, you know, I, I join all their meetings and I'm hearing them talk. I'm like. I have a question for you. Could we align on what's the outcome we're trying to get? [00:21:01] Yeah. Because most people get defensive when problems happen. [00:21:04] Dr. Blake Brisbois: Well, you also, you're the new guy. Yeah. That's being hired in outside. That's, oh, this is, here's a strategist, here's a consultant. Right, right. That's that tough spot. That's a, yeah, that's a tough spot. Maybe you want That's familiar to you. Yeah. [00:21:14] Being team from India. Yeah. Going against the stream. Yeah. Yeah. Aligning Teams on Common Goals [00:21:18] Ajit Dodani: But that is the ability. Right. But it's a formula around whenever you have a problem, first we must. Get everybody aligned to a common goal that we're looking to accomplish. There you go. [00:21:27] Dr. Blake Brisbois: Yeah. [00:21:28] Ajit Dodani: What's the common goal we agree on? And then naming it. [00:21:31] Yeah. Oh, we, oh, so we agree that that's what we saw. Yeah. So what we did is it aligned to the common goal? Yeah. And all of a sudden, it's not you against me, it's us against the problem. You [00:21:39] Dr. Blake Brisbois: know, it's funny 'cause I'm, I'm thinking through my lens of our profession. Yeah. And when, you know, a teenager, preteen, you know, adult comes into our iop, right. [00:21:48] There's times where they, they want to be there and there's a lot of times where, you know, they, maybe they need to be there. Um, you know, and they, and they don't necessarily want to be there. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And, you know, making sure that the first thing we do is try to align on what, what brings us together. [00:22:04] Yeah. You know, and really making that the priority, you know, not to skip steps and go into like, well, here's the brass tacks of what we're doing. Yeah. Here's the interventions. Yeah. No, no. What's the goals? Yeah. Well, here's the goals that I came up with, but let's. Let's align on that. Right? So you're saying when, when that's aligned, there's a little more buy-in initially for [00:22:21] Ajit Dodani: Huge. [00:22:22] Huge. And so if the values are there, the operational pillars are there, the standards are there, the regular follow-ups are there. Yeah. Because it's not, if it's when the fit is gonna hit the Shand. That's my favorite statement. I call, I keep talking about that. You know, in the corporate world, in our world, every day the fit is gonna hit the Shand, but is that, yeah. [00:22:38] How do we stay grounded and make sound decisions when that happens? Yeah. Right. And I put up a post this morning on this, you know, it's like when crisis happened. You, you don't arise to the occasion, but you fall to your innate training. So what we do in, in, in organizations is we do a lot of scenario training. [00:23:02] I'll give you an example. Like Role-Playing and Scenario Training [00:23:03] Dr. Blake Brisbois: role plays, [00:23:03] Ajit Dodani: role plays on a regular basis. Most companies don't. I'm sure people love. Role plays. Right. They, you know, I say this because during the fire, so many organizations reached out to me. They didn't know how to take care of the employees. But while moving the company forward, [00:23:20] Dr. Blake Brisbois: I imagine a lot of people were just, [00:23:22] Ajit Dodani: they were frozen. [00:23:24] Frozen. They were frozen. And I say this because they didn't have the language established in advance. I, we had two entities very close to the fires that we've been working with for years. We had done this work. That CEO goes afterwards, he goes, oh my God. Yeah, we had prepared for this. And I say this because, let's look, let's look at the fires, right? [00:23:45] Does that happen to all of us? Stuff happens, yes. Right? Stuff be the, so every day sociopolitical stuff, internal stuff, and employee stuff, right? So when that happens, if you've role played that, hey, for a small thing, hey, you get, you get sick right here. Here's what our standard is. So. You and I are talking about it as leaders to the organization. [00:24:07] Yeah. Then your managers are talking to the individual contributors. They're roleplaying with each other. Yeah. If you now think you're like sick, come on Aji. Do you know what happens in organizations when people get sick? Some of them have not been taught this framework. What happens? They just get quiet. [00:24:22] Oh, I'm. Versus the person who's been trained understands they're aligned with the values and the purpose and the vision of the organ. They go, Hey, just wanna let you know I'm sick. I was working on this. This person can handle this. This person can do this. You can get this done and get this done. Then fire happens. [00:24:37] Hey. My family member, my friend just lost a house. I need to show up there. Here's what I was working on. Here's what we need to do. I know the company needs to keep the lights on, so here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna go take care of them. I'll need to work later. [00:24:52] Dr. Blake Brisbois: Yeah. [00:24:52] Ajit Dodani: Guess what? If you've role played that scenario? [00:24:55] Yeah. The fit hits the han. Yeah. That's what they fall to. They fall to the level of their training. Yeah. But most people think because they're an inspirational leader. Yeah. They'll just, Ooh, we'll go through it. Now that's, that's denial, right? [00:25:09] Dr. Blake Brisbois: I mean, [00:25:09] Ajit Dodani: well, [00:25:10] Dr. Blake Brisbois: you practice free throws when no one's looking right. [00:25:12] You, there you go. Practice. There you go. So like when you're in the game, it's game time. Yeah. Yeah. You got that down to muscle memory. Now I'm thinking about the pandemic, right? I mean, there is the fires, right? We've had unfortunately, quite a bit of, um, yeah. Shifts. Um, and the pandemic is one that I, I felt most of us were unprepared for True. [00:25:30] At the time. So it's been what, five years now? Geez. That's, that's been, um, you know, it's not something I role played, I'll be honest. Yeah. You know, it's not something that we, we workshopped that nobody prior. Nobody for that one. That being said, it happened and it happened quick. Right. And, and it forced change very fast. [00:25:46] I mean, there how you operated one day. To the next could not be the same. [00:25:51] Ajit Dodani: Yeah. The Pandemic: When Crisis Hits Without Preparation [00:25:51] Dr. Blake Brisbois: Right. And it froze a lot of people. Right. I and I, I, I, you know, when I was, I think I was a business owner for about a month at that point, when the shuts down shutdown happened. Right. And when I reached out for help, you know, with, with certain things, I got a mixture of support, some amazing support that really did push us through that time, um, to actually do great work and help a lot of people, um, right. [00:26:16] That being said, a lot of people were, were frozen. [00:26:18] Ajit Dodani: Yeah. [00:26:18] Dr. Blake Brisbois: Um, you know, by which understandably so. Like, just like, well what? I don't have a playbook for this. Yeah. So like, so when you workshop those with big companies Right. Which I imagine a big enough company, there's a lot of scenarios that could Oh yeah. [00:26:31] Oh yeah. Go, oh yeah. Sideways. Uh, how do you, how do you manage that? [00:26:36] Ajit Dodani: No, we, we, it's, it's, it's great to create systems designed on the industry. So some, some, you know, we have some standards around some of them, but then we customize it. So basically whether it's a technology company, an engineering company Yeah, a FinTech company. [00:26:51] Dr. Blake Brisbois: So you that, you know, do do retail because know, you know, united colors be, and I remember it wasn't the sweaters back. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Have the bashed sweaters. Thanks. Thank you for [00:26:59] Ajit Dodani: that. That's true. Some of us still have those. Yes, yes. Whenever I speak invariably somebody go, [00:27:03] Dr. Blake Brisbois: oh, I still have a sweater. [00:27:04] Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so re that was, but you work with a variety if, if path IU is not [00:27:09] Ajit Dodani: Yeah. So from railroad systems to large mm-hmm. And small engineering firms to large and small technology firms. I said as a fractional, a lot of AI startups. [00:27:21] Dr. Blake Brisbois: Um, outta curiosity, what, what's the, you know, how's the empathy in, in tech? [00:27:27] How's the empathy in tech, right? The leadership, I should say. Empathy in Tech and AI: The Human Advantage [00:27:30] Ajit Dodani: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the biggest opportunity right now, Uhhuh. So if AI equalizes our intelligence, right, guess who's gonna win the most human person? Yeah. The person who can be present, that's a huge problem. Right. Today, the biggest problem I have is getting staff to stay present in a meeting. [00:27:57] Sure. 'cause they're distracted. They're sitting in the meeting. Right. Right. Now you and I are sitting, three of us are sitting here. Part of our brain is going a little bit. Again, we're trying to be centered. Human, but it's human. But you know what? Amish Jaw just put out a book. 40% of people's brains when they're sitting in a meeting is not at the meeting. [00:28:15] Yeah. So how do we stay present? Right. Right. So let's talk about technology, the rise of ai. And I love, so yeah. So give you a quick backstory of ai. AI comes out. My son messages me, he goes, dad, 'cause he knows I've been startup off ai, you know, technology, startups, all that stuff. Satisfactory. He goes, dad, yeah this is, you're gonna be your baby. [00:28:36] And I went nuts. Literally the second day it comes out. Yeah. I deep dive, looked at it, start studying it. 'cause it impacts our workforce. Sure. Course impacts people. And we take care of people. Yeah. Empath. I does everything to create a world where people feel like they belong. Right? Right. And if AI is gonna alienate them and all that, scare them, all that stuff, we need to understand it. [00:28:56] So I did it for myself. I did it for the people that we serve. And my God, what a journey was. Just understanding how it can, you know, I am not afraid of any technology change. It's how do we augment this? Right? And we literally started seeing what's happening, observing. So for literally nine months, I did not. [00:29:16] Speak my, because I'm starting to watch what's happening in my clients, what's happening in the industry, attending a lot of conferences, hearing people speak, a lot of anxiety. [00:29:22] Dr. Blake Brisbois: I am a [00:29:22] Ajit Dodani: lot of anxiety at that point. And then a year later, um, ended up at a stage of one of global companies presenting our framework around humanizing AI adoption and, um. [00:29:36] That framework around humanizing AI adoption has gained traction, and we've delivered it now literally hundreds of times we're doing deployments across tech organizations. Why? Because think about this. Let's go back to, with AI rising, this becomes more real. Yeah. All of a sudden, 'cause if you go to LinkedIn Yeah. [00:29:56] And you see AI generated content, you know, all of a sudden all of that stuff is happening out there. Yeah. Okay. It's great. The person that'll win the game, the person that's able to put their face and a voice. [00:30:06] Dr. Blake Brisbois: Yeah. The ideas. [00:30:07] Ajit Dodani: The ideas, yeah. The humanity behind it. So the first thing is presence. The second thing is the ability to communicate clearly. [00:30:14] You, you and I know, you know, AI is only as good as the prompts that it's iterative. Yes. It's iterative. Right. And I've taught, I use almost. Most of the tools out there, right. For different purposes. Not most. Yeah. But the ones that I need, they have learned, and I go, you're wrong. This is who I am. These are my values. [00:30:30] This is what I stand for. This is, this is the languages I speak. This is how I write. This is how I think. Right. You're wrong. Nope. I would not answer. Yeah. And I say this because today, you know, you, we are able to do that right now. So the, in the, in an AI world. Yeah. One of the best things people can do is learn to be more human. [00:30:49] Yeah. And one of the most incredible things you can do to be human Yeah. Is learn self-awareness. Knowing what BS you carry into a meetings. One of the favorite things that you'll appreciate, this I teach framework across every organization. It's the first, it's the, it's the first foundation. Yeah. Is when we're showing up, are you self-aware? [00:31:14] Right? So you, first of all, are you mentally, physically present? You and I know people are not. So we teach them how to follow an trade in rhythm rather than just the circadian rhythm, right? Take a break every 80 to hundred 20 minutes uhhuh. So now guess what? Today I have large corporations to small organizations operating. [00:31:31] Yeah. Where every 92, 2 hours, they're actually taking a little trade-in break. And you know what that does well, Presence and Self-Awareness in an AI World [00:31:37] Dr. Blake Brisbois: if I'll say this. Breaks are one of the hardest things for, to get people to do. Yeah. You know, it's like you, you lean on like, well these are the laws. You've gotta take a break. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, I don't wanna take a break. [00:31:47] Can I sign a piece? Can I sign it away? It's like, no, no, no. We want you to take a break. [00:31:50] Ajit Dodani: Yeah. [00:31:51] Dr. Blake Brisbois: Yeah. [00:31:51] Ajit Dodani: It's hard. I'll give you, can I tell you a story? Sure. Yeah. I. Course we're teaching this for eight months. This is my favorite story. You probably, if ever me, I always talk, we're teaching this to a very large national organization. [00:32:03] 30,000 people. We're teaching some of the senior leaders and we're doing cohort number. I think there's one yet was one where the senior most leaders were there and the CEO told me, look, this guy, he doesn't like any of the stuff. He doesn't believe in any of the stuff. Yeah. So for eight months he kept his camera off. [00:32:23] Went through the entire cohort and suddenly on the eighth one, suddenly we see his camera come on like, oh, ooh, he's about to say something. And we were like, uh, a CEO. Like looked, we are on Zoom. And the CEO o looked at me and everything like, okay, let's see. I just wanna let you guys know. And he's been the company for 30 years. [00:32:41] I just wanna let you guys know this is some of the best training that we've been through with, [00:32:46] Dr. Blake Brisbois: with, with that affect, with that, with [00:32:47] Ajit Dodani: that affect change my relationship with you. It changed my relationship with my daughter. Oh, chills. I say this Blake, because guess what happened? He would listen. You know, he very tra, he hadn't read a new leadership book in 25 years. [00:33:08] He hadn't, like, I learned this and he would quote books that I'd go. No longer valid. Yeah. Yeah. Guess what happened? He found out because in our, in our training of, uh, stakeholder understanding the port, so the first is self-awareness, second is stakeholder. We teach neuro inclusion. Right? Neuro inclusion. [00:33:27] Neuro inclusion. So it's, you know, neurodiversity. Sure. That's what you, you guys help support. So neuro inclusion is basically neuro inclusion at work and it's a business purpose because one out of five of us are neurodiverse. Yep. If you don't have a business product or a customer service organization that understands that, and you think a customer's overreacting or behaving weird or lazy or weird, you know, the word weird comes out so many times when you talk to a customer. [00:33:51] Yeah. I go, I, I do this across large finance organization, and they'll go, that customer's weird. And I go, hold on a second. Or sometimes the leader will go that, you know, that person. Really? I go, hold on a second. Yeah. What if we changed our meetings the way we operate a little bit to make them more inclusive? [00:34:07] Right. Guess what this leader go back to. He never realized that his own daughter was Neurodiverse. Second thing was he was never present. [00:34:14] Dr. Blake Brisbois: What does that look like for empath when you identify a system, right? Right. That's not as neuro inclusive Right. As they could be. Um, what does that look like to, to set up a meaning that is more friendly to someone who might be a DHD might be on the spectrum. Neuro-Inclusion: Supporting Neurodiversity at Work [00:34:29] Ajit Dodani: So beautiful. Right. So everything that we do, if one out of five of us mm-hmm. We gotta make sure the systems, I'll give you a great example. Yeah. The one thing that part of our neuro inclusion workshop is around how do you operate neuro inclusive meetings. Mm-hmm. And the first thing we teach them is, look, normally you have a meeting of 12 people, you have a meeting, the same four people talk at the meeting, and the eight people with the ideas never speak up. [00:34:59] So guess what? We have large organizations today that'll say, Hey, this is not an urgent meeting. We're solving a problem and we know everybody communicates differently. We're gonna have this meeting and we'd love to hear you guys, but this meeting is not gonna close till the next 48 hours or 24 hours. We need all your ideas. [00:35:15] We need you to email it to me. Send it to me. [00:35:19] Dr. Blake Brisbois: All [00:35:19] Ajit Dodani: right? So it gives them an option. Option options. Yeah. Just a small thing. You, you know this, some people are not gonna, they have the most brilliant ideas. Yep. And they're not gonna speak with mm-hmm. 24 eyeballs or not. [00:35:31] Dr. Blake Brisbois: It's not gonna be space. [00:35:32] Ajit Dodani: Space. There's no, they don't feel safe. [00:35:34] They're safe air time. Right? So they sit down. We've time and time and time again, we've done this across various size or innovation numbers. We track innovation, right? Suddenly contributions and ideas start to grow up. And the manager like. I had so much brilliance on my team, I would listen to the four people. [00:35:51] Yeah. Always. And the rest of the eight were kind of muted. Right. So just one small thing like that. Yeah. Could completely [00:36:00] Dr. Blake Brisbois: change. So it's really a family system you're saying? So meaning. You know, there's different roles, like we talk about in family therapy, right? It's like, yeah. You know, there might be someone that's the quiet one. [00:36:10] Yeah. Doesn't mean they don't have ideas. Yeah. You know, and it means that maybe they need a different like, platform. Yeah. And, and way, uh, 'cause you know, I think like, I'll, I'll speak for our family, like my wife, Alina, you know, we're, we're in a meeting, we're in a group. She doesn't like to have silence. [00:36:28] It's uncomfortable. Which is a very common experience, right? Yeah. So she's gonna feel that she's gonna boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Right? But then there's someone, kind of, even senior leadership, someone she respects is kind of quiet, you know? Mm-hmm. It's like, well, we need to like find a way. To your point. [00:36:43] That's a great idea. I hadn't thought about that. But like, you know, giving them the idea of emailing. [00:36:47] Ajit Dodani: Yeah. [00:36:47] Dr. Blake Brisbois: But like, really Right. A meeting where there's enough airtime that's maybe silence even though it's uncomfortable for someone to then step into that. Right. And take that chance to be like, I have an idea. [00:36:57] I have an idea. [00:36:58] Ajit Dodani: Those are the best ideas. Best, let me give second story. This is, I'm very passionate about this 'cause, you know, uh, it's my world too, because of what I have to navigate. CEO comes to me, he goes, man, I'm really struggling with this senior leader. Mm-hmm. We've been doing a deployment with them and I spent some time with the leader as individual coaching. [00:37:16] So the way it works is they do listening sessions. They have one-on-one coachings and they have workshops. Yeah. So I'm talking to him and in the fourth month he goes, I haven't told anybody this, but because since you spoke about neuro inclusion at that workshop, I have a DHD, I haven't told anybody. And all they needed was very clear. [00:37:39] Yeah. Um, standards. Yep. How do you operate a one-on-one? Yeah. How do you do this? Yeah. Guess what? The company had not done it. So now when the companies invested time and created those standards, right. For everything from how do you do a one-on-one? Yeah. What do you do? What do you not do? How do you protect your time? [00:37:59] How do you set boundaries? Sure. Guess what? Everybody in the organization benefited. Yeah. Now that manager would have almost lost his job because the, the senior leader was getting frustrated, like, why is this person not able to, and [00:38:16] Dr. Blake Brisbois: that person with a DH ADHD has superpowers, don't they? They are. Mine is a beautiful mind. [00:38:20] And without some management of that within the system Right. They could really be fried. [00:38:26] Ajit Dodani: So, so like you and I know when we solve for the outliers we make. The entire group more powerful. Mm-hmm. 'cause they all of a sudden, even the best. Even the bed, like the, the loudest person in the room suddenly goes, oh, I have these, oh, wow. [00:38:42] This is great. So I have this structure. Yeah. So we spend a lot of time in creating those systems. Solving for Outliers: Making Everyone More Powerful [00:38:47] Dr. Blake Brisbois: Yeah. [00:38:48] Ajit Dodani: Which, it's a small thing. Right. But a great example of somebody that would've almost been discarded on. Yeah. So if now the entire organization is operating [00:38:56] Dr. Blake Brisbois: at a higher level Yeah. Because really it's about working, I'm, I'm, I don't know why I'm, I'm thinking of Roy and Walt, you know the Disneys? [00:39:01] Mm. Mm-hmm. Right. I'm not gonna diagnose either one. I've done never. But Walt had was the idea guy, you know, the creative, the right brain, the, I dunno if he had HD, whatever it was. And Noy was the, you know, accountant. The CPA that that mind. Right. And individually they couldn't probably have done much. [00:39:20] Right. But together. Whoa. Exactly. That was the most successful, one of the most successful families ever. Ever. [00:39:26] Ajit Dodani: Right. Yeah. And most leaders that don't have that self-awareness mm-hmm. Or don't have that understanding. Right. Uh, they'll just blow past me. But I've been in rooms when a leader said, look, this is the kind of leader I am. [00:39:39] Right. I want you all guys to know this is how I, I'm in this. Yeah. I'm this color person, right. And, you know, I'm, I'm not fond of people putting anybody in boxes. I, I'm not a big fan. The, the only organization that I kind of have fun with is the Gallup StrengthsFinder. I, I like their framing, but when people start saying, you're a blue, [00:39:58] Dr. Blake Brisbois: green, orange, yellow, and like, well, I'm thinking like at Roy and Walt, like, if, if Wolf had this idea, which I, my understanding is he had many, yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:40:06] Of course. Many of them were tremendous ideas and, and a lot of them were not so great. Right. Yeah. Though, he, I guess, must have respected Roy enough and Roy Walt enough to be like, Roy to be the guy. It's like, well, that's a good idea. Let's do that. Let's execute it right. Or, Hey, this idea is not, not something we're gonna really, you know, pursue or whatever. [00:40:25] And they, and, but they worked together in that way. But, but what if Walt had this idea and Roy, you know, rolled his eyes out, or it goes Walt again. Right. You, you, you had a word that I'm, I'm blanking on, but it was on your social media maybe today, or yesterday or recently? Um, about, yeah. What was it? Know something? [00:40:43] No. Know what I'm talking about? Hmm. It was, it was a play on, I think, I've never heard of it yet. [00:40:52] Ajit Dodani: Oh, oh. No. SIBO effect. [00:40:53] Dr. Blake Brisbois: No SIBO effect. That's it. Yes. Yes. Right. Okay. The Nocebo Effect: How Leaders Destroy Confidence [00:40:55] Ajit Dodani: So let, let's, let's go to your Disney and let's wrap that up. Then we come to the no SIBO Yeah. Effect, right? Yeah. Well, how [00:41:00] Dr. Blake Brisbois: I was linking it was if my understanding of no SIBO as I read it, right, the, we don't know placebo effect, right? [00:41:06] Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the nocebo effect, if you tell someone. Or, or even a sarcastic remark and I'm thinking of if Roy was sarcastic with Walt. Right, right. You have an idea to do this feature film about a girl and dwarves. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's gonna cost us. Yeah. We're gonna mortgage our Our house. House for it. [00:41:23] Yeah. You know, like what if that was the relationship? Like, would, would, would that have worked? Right. Is that a no Sibel effect? [00:41:31] Ajit Dodani: No, no. That, that, that I think is a great example of like, uh, you know, the strengths finders where you have, you look around and you see what's everybody's superpowers. Right. [00:41:39] Uhhuh and like when we go into organizations, we identify everybody's superpowers. Yeah. Either done formally through Gallup or just, you know, just individually. They go, you know, this is my superpower. And sometimes you ask them, so what's a superpower you have that you haven't used at work? [00:41:53] Dr. Blake Brisbois: Yeah. [00:41:54] Ajit Dodani: Ask that question, and suddenly you get these answers, right? [00:41:57] Oh dang. They have all these superpowers that I'm not really Yeah, bringing, they don't have a space to bring it. Maybe we find a way to do it. So the placebo versus the nocebo effect. Right? So the placebo effect is, you know, you give somebody. Sugar thing, you're gonna feel better. Yeah. Right. The no SIBO effect, it's a scientific term. [00:42:15] Yeah. That says that If I keep suggesting that you're not leadership material, right, you've always been clumsy. Right. You know, you, you, you, you're all right. It shows up in my voice and my demeanor and the way I dismiss you. The worst is demeaning, demeaning way. The worst is, you know, publicly, I say, I dismiss your idea, and I, I don't have the listening here. [00:42:36] Right? So what happens is you start chipping away at their self-image and it's called the no SIBO effect, right? Just like if I give you a sugar pill to feel better here, I'm giving you a pill to make you feel worse every time you're coming around me. And so leaders need to understand this, right? Right. [00:42:50] So. [00:42:51] Dr. Blake Brisbois: Yeah, it's, well, and how does that, 'cause I, I'm thinking about, you know, there was that research probably in the eighties, nineties about self-esteem, right? Mm-hmm. And parenting. Mm-hmm. And schooling. And, and that, how that led to, well, if self-esteem is based on positive feedback, we're just gonna give all positive feedback. [00:43:09] Mm-hmm. Right. Without maybe the accountability mm-hmm. Of like maybe a more realistic viewpoint mm-hmm. Of oneself. And as a therapist, I've seen that show up in a lot of people of. Feeling that like, well, I need to be exceptional at everything. Mm-hmm. Right. I'm thinking about a study that they, they surveyed so many, uh, a thousand thousands of people, right. [00:43:31] And they asked them, are you below average? Average or above average? Right. And, and at anything, I mean, it could have been washing the dishes or basketball or whatever. Right. And 70% of people said they were above average. Yeah. Yeah. And it, that's impossible. Right. Like I am. Probably average at most things. [00:43:49] Mm-hmm. A few things. I'm probably above average and a few things I'm below average. Right, right. So how, for one sense of self, you think, right? Mm-hmm. There's the no SIBO effect where where it can go one direction, right? Where you're just kind of chipping away at someone's self image and self-esteem and all that stuff. [00:44:06] And also mind that people are mostly average at most things. And they do have superpowers too. Yeah. [00:44:14] Ajit Dodani: Yeah. [00:44:14] Dr. Blake Brisbois: And they have things that maybe the system has to support them in. Right to be successful. Does that make sense? Self-Esteem vs. Realistic Self-Assessment [00:44:19] Ajit Dodani: Yeah, that makes sense. So let, let me then I'll, I'll tell you how we systemize this, right? [00:44:23] Yeah. So we have a framework called sustainable high performance Cultures, right? And so this the formula in the sustainable high performance culture. Now, if you notice, everything is designed as a way that somebody can remember it. Simplicity, [00:44:37] Dr. Blake Brisbois: easy, like our DBT and therapies. Like [00:44:40] Ajit Dodani: acronyms go easy. Adopt easy adoption. [00:44:43] People, you know, you know, wake up somebody in the middle of the night. So yeah. So sustainable, high performance means these are the anchors for it, right? So Mo most, most. So foundation of empathy, high level of self-awareness, understanding of people align and [00:45:00] Dr. Blake Brisbois: self-awareness is everything. Is everything. [00:45:02] Ajit Dodani: And I'll, I'll we'll go into that later. I answer your question right now, but evaluation, how do you average. So what we have is, we have four circles that we said in a workplace there are four circles. First, you need to have a skill set and you, you need to be good at your skills, right. Second is you need to have accountability. [00:45:20] Mm-hmm. Third is you need to have good communication skills. And the fourth is you need to have relationships. Uh, I, I'd started this with 17 circles, 17 things, is that I boiled it down in the end to four over the years that this is it. Everything that I have, I can build under these four pillars, right? [00:45:37] Mm-hmm. Yeah. So now think about this. These are four circles, and it's on my LinkedIn, four circles that intersect. So you have skillset, accountability, relationships, and communication. Yeah. Right? How many people do you know? They have great skillset, but they have very little accountability, right? How many people that have great, uh, communication, but they've not worked on their skillset, that is a huge problem these days, [00:45:59] Dr. Blake Brisbois: right? [00:45:59] So some people just have it and some people need to work on, right? So one or more of those. So [00:46:03] Ajit Dodani: here, here's how we say, you just take that piece of paper, rate yourself from one to 10, seven and a half means you're, you, you, you're, you're comfortable with your level of communication with your team. Then you have your supervisor do the same thing for you, and you sit down and have a conversation. [00:46:20] So it's very clear and you know, I'll give you a great example. A ma manager recently came to me that losing respect with my organization. I'm like, what's going on? So let's fill it out. I've been working with them for a long time. Yeah. And he fills it out. He goes, yeah, communication. You know me, I'm eight and a half. [00:46:34] And relationships, you know, everybody loves me. All that. Eight and a half. Um, accountability. I'm very high. He's a senior manager, skillset. He gave himself a 6.5. I'm like, what? Wait, what? You're the manager? Yeah. Man, things are changing so fast. I haven't had time to upgrade. And this technology company, [00:46:51] Dr. Blake Brisbois: yeah, [00:46:52] Ajit Dodani: guess what? [00:46:53] He's losing respect. So all I told him is, bro, I can't help you here. Right. Get, you know, work on your skillset. And literally, once you worked on a skillset, few months later it comes, he goes. Isn't that great? When you see it work, you see it work. You see it work. Yeah. And communication and like the relationship, for example, so many organizations, especially when it comes to think about the big like. [00:47:17] Finance. Mm-hmm. Tech engineering medicine. Right? Yeah. The, the, a lot of them highly skilled labor that have never been taught how to lead people. [00:47:29] Dr. Blake Brisbois: Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah. That's the biggest, they [00:47:31] Ajit Dodani: destroy people's lives. Yes. They destroy them. Means they mess with their physical, mental health. Yep. They're, they're causing billions of dollars in, oh man, The Four Circles: Skills, Accountability, Communication, Relationships [00:47:43] Dr. Blake Brisbois: I see it every day. [00:47:44] Ajit Dodani: You, and you see it every day. I see [00:47:46] Dr. Blake Brisbois: it. You don't go to get a PhD in therapy or go to medical school and learn any of that, and that's what you're left with. You're left with like, okay, go run a business. Yeah. Go manage people. Yeah. And you have no clue. Right? 'cause you're, you, you've been, to your point, highly skilled in something. [00:48:03] But not, uh, not much diversity. [00:48:05] Ajit Dodani: And then what we do, and I mean I know you know, this is we in an organization we've created now, okay? So you'll be a people leader 'cause you're willing to go down this path or you'll become an sme and we won't let you lead or touch anybody else's lives because they, the folks that are not trained how to lead people. [00:48:25] Because a lot of family run with small businesses. Oh, you're part of the family. You know, you're part of the startup, the original crew, and we are all technologists and we suddenly become the leaders of other people. Yeah. And I wanna share this the, the one thing that really, when it comes to values. Yeah. [00:48:42] The biggest bs, you can edit the BS if you want. It's okay. The biggest BS is that values drives our organization, the real driver of our organization. Each one of us have shadow values, eight shadow values that each one of us have. You know, them control, intelligence, superiority. They're on my shoulder right now. [00:49:05] I have to manage them. I have to be aware. I don't have to connect. I have to manage them and know which one's showing up. Guess what? So, and I see this all the time, great leader, visionary, amazing leader. Then you have a manager. That has all these shadow values of control and recognition that is navigating their trauma that hasn't been resolved at a great place, like engage that hasn't been resolved and they're showing up there and destroying lives. [00:49:37] I, I tell the story all the time. You wanna hear the story of the worst leader that had a high shadow value? I, sure. Okay. That was me. Oh, no way. Uh, I was 27. Is that United Colors? This is United Colors of Benetton. I'm, and my stated values was innovation. We're growing fast. Right? It's a big company. Big company. [00:49:57] We were right here in the West coast and we are growing fast 'cause we are just west coast. Right. We are growing fast. And I would tell my team innovation, contribution, this, that, all that stuff. [00:50:06] Dr. Blake Brisbois: The buzzwords. [00:50:07] Ajit Dodani: Yeah. Yeah. But guess what I was 27, 28. High imposter syndrome. Yeah. Didn't have proper systems right. [00:50:14] To control everything I wanted recognition myself. Yeah. So guess what started to happen? Nobody would speak up. So I would start my meetings by saying, we have this problem. Here's what I think the solution should be. What do you guys think you should do? Anybody speak up after that? Yes sir. Yes sir. And guess what? [00:50:33] And they, and, but the thing is my journaling helped me at that point. 'cause I was journaling and I'm like, why is this like nobody's speaking up. Yeah. And that's, they introduced me to this framework that, oh, within all of us live these. So you have lived stated values. Yeah. Which mean nothing. Lived values is great, but what we really need to regulate an organization and increase self-awareness office, we have like six things that build trust. [00:51:01] Yeah. And we gotta regulate and understand our shadow values because high levels of shadow values break trust. Break innovation interesting. And destroy organizations. And I, I can, like, I have stories of organizations flatlining for years because the boss is control and superiority whatever. Superiority. [00:51:24] Yeah. Whatever, whatever. You can go across the spectrum, how they'd feel superior to others. Sure. Just destroys innovation. Interesting. People just zip up. Sure. I can see [00:51:33] Dr. Blake Brisbois: that. Wow. It's been tremendous. We, we have to do this again, like we're not, we're just started. So how do people find you, uh, on the internet or LinkedIn or. [00:51:45] Reach out to empath you. Shadow Values: The Hidden Drivers of Behavior [00:51:46] Ajit Dodani: How do you find me typically on LinkedIn? [00:51:49] Dr. Blake Brisbois: Well, I mean, you, you are prolific on my LinkedIn. Uh, but, but if someone hasn't yet, uh, found your of the Galaxy, how do they find it? [00:51:57] Ajit Dodani: Just, just connect with me on LinkedIn. Go to a website, but LinkedIn is the place you wanna connect. [00:52:02] Disconnect on LinkedIn. All my information in there, my link tree is in there. And. You know, I, I, I just wanna let you guys know at engage, like what you've done and we've seen you thrive and has it been easy? Not at all. No. But I've seen the both of you change and grow. And for us, from a distance, you know, we, we've spoken. [00:52:22] A little bit more about your world at times when we've had a chance to do that. Yeah. But to see you make the right decision, to see you do what's right for the people, what's right for the community. And one of the biggest things that is the, is it's not what, what people are saying about you. In other rooms. [00:52:43] So I've been in rooms in different places in this space 'cause I'm connected, uh, to a lot of friends that both of us have in common. Some of them we've met through you. And the respect that the community has for what Engage is doing is awesome. You know? Thank you. You're the That's good to hear. Yeah. You should know that. [00:52:59] 'cause for us, we are big allies of anybody doing that. I'll tell you why I'm so selfish that you guys will, can I tell you why? Yeah, sure, sure. Tell me. I'll tell you why first. We are grateful for our family that you've been there and guided us through certain times and stuff like that. Uh, but I'm selfish because when I show up in organizations and I meet folks that haven't had someone like you. [00:53:26] And, you know, they'll go spend on getting their external Yes. Beautified and all that stuff, but they haven't spent time building that mental muscle. Yeah. Haven't created good habits, haven't learned how to regulate themselves. I've, I, I, I wanna solve that early. Imagine if every kid, if every adult went and understood. [00:53:52] Mm-hmm. All the stuff that you talk about, you know? Yeah. And I would have a workplace which would not have this emotional rollercoaster within it. Yeah. Where it'd be a little bit more steadier. We'd be able to go through chaotic moments. Yeah. You know, I've seen people where they don't manage this spokes of life, and yet I know, you know, when I see folks like. [00:54:14] What Engage does is to help create, so, you know, 'cause if you have such a high index on the workplace Yeah. Or a self-image is so highly indexed on the workplace, guess how often it breaks? Very often. Yeah. So imagine if your self-image is based on everything, including relationships. Yeah. Community service. [00:54:33] Yeah. Personal relat, friendship, finance, health, spirituality. Yeah. Imagine if everybody learned how to live a life like that, how would they show up to work? I'm selfish. Yeah. I would like to have a work workforce that have gone through some of your work. That's Why Engage Matters: Creating Community Access to Mental Health [00:54:50] Dr. Blake Brisbois: why we do it. I know. That's really why we do it. [00:54:53] I think when, when I don't think, I know, when Ellen and I, you know, were presented. The opportunity to, to take on engage. Um, it really came down to like, I don't want to live in a community without engage or something. Like engage. Yeah. It wasn't, it wasn't necessarily important that it was engage. Right, right. [00:55:11] But that there was something like it, you know, I didn't have that here 'cause I grew up in a Gray Hills, right. So I grew up literally, literally in this town. And uh, you know, I feel like if I had that, things would've been better for me. Like I would've been leveled up. So I think that's where. Maybe, I dunno if that's a lived value. [00:55:29] I dunno. Which, how to, how to categorize that. But that really, that's the vision that, that is really something that's, that's the [00:55:34] Ajit Dodani: vision. That's your, we're very connected to Yeah. Horizon that you're chasing, right? [00:55:38] Dr. Blake Brisbois: Yeah. So whatever, you know, I have a, a, a real soft spot for any population that isn't, um, isn't served. [00:55:46] So I think that's, and I remember talking with you about, you know, your family. Mm-hmm. I remember at the time I was not, you know, leadership at, at that point, and. Um, you know, one of the first things we did when we were leaders was to, to try to make therapy more accessible and specifically the IOP programs because the cost at times. [00:56:04] Not at times it's expensive. It's a lot of treatment. Yeah. And, you know, to, to, to try to, as a business figure out, do we, do we scale back the treatment? Do we make it cheaper mm-hmm. For, to make it affordable? Or do we try to maintain that quality Yeah. And that extra, yeah. While still finding ways to work with, whether it's partnering with insurance companies or something like that. [00:56:26] To make it accessible. So, so thank you for that. I, I, I sometimes think about actually some of those conversations that we had, um, and, and my own lived experience of like, you know, what, how do, how do we make this better for the, the customer? Yeah. You know, so they're in crisis and there could be hopefully one less thing to have to worry about. [00:56:44] Yeah. Top of whatever else is happening. So, so again, thank you for coming. Absolutely. Such a pleasure. Welcome. And it's been You're welcome. It's been wonderful. You're so positive and you've been such a positive influence on Alene and I. Thank you for your support and uh, yeah. We'll have to do this again. Closing: Creating a World Where Everyone Belongs [00:56:58] Ajit Dodani: Absolutely. We're both creating a world where everybody feels like they belong. Yeah. They can show up as their, yeah. Okay. Can I end with my uncles? Yeah. So, so my uncles always ask me, so you know, finance to all of the stuff. Yeah. CFO to all the stuff. So, uncle, I'm not doing this for you and me, I'm doing it for your grandkids and you, and they look at me like we, you know, the older uncles Yeah. [00:57:19] I'm doing this because your grandkids, yeah. They're gonna be on a mental health spectrum. They're gonna be on a social view spectrum. On a political spectrum. Yeah. On a sexual spectrum. They are going to navigate, and most of them are gonna microdose on something, whether you like it or not, by the time they're 18. [00:57:36] Yeah. Or something like that. They're gonna take some, and they have, their hair might be blue or pink or orange. And guess what? I want to create a world where they can show up however they want. Perfectly imperfect. Yeah. And our workplaces and our communities can make them feel like they belong. Now Blake, they don't have empathy for you and me, but they know their grandkids are different. [00:58:00] Dr. Blake Brisbois: Well, it's funny because, you know, this, I think this country is built on I immigrants. I, that's, I'm, that might be a country statement in the here and now, you know? And, and that's, that's my belief or that's my, my thought process. You know, I'm, as you say that I'm thinking about a conversation I had with my late ela, my grandmother, right? [00:58:19] Mm-hmm. Cuban immigrant brought her two kids from Havana in a Catholic society divorce, and, and just taking them and going to New York to take a job in a factory was not something that, like, it wasn't, it wasn't for the weak. Yeah. It wasn't for someone who didn't have the constitution that that woman had. [00:58:39] So she was, you know, a tough cookie and, and, and. She grew up maybe in a, a somewhat similar way to Indian culture and, and Cuban culture of like feelings and, and lack thereof, you know, all that stuff. And I remember when I told her I'm going to get a doctorate in psychology. And she looked at me, she goes, you sure about that? [00:59:00] And she really tried to talk me out of it. She really sat me down and she, you know, she didn't have opinions about everything. Yeah. But she had a real opinion about that. Yeah. Um, but yeah, I, I, I think it's funny how. I look back and I, I see a lot of my peers in my profession and a lot of it does come, I think from, from being in a sea of people that don't have access to this. [00:59:22] Yeah. Or don't value [00:59:23] Ajit Dodani: it. Yeah. [00:59:24] Dr. Blake Brisbois: And then somehow, somehow you, in a sea of, you know, you immigrant at 19 years old, I'm an empath and I value this enough to not lose it. Yeah, that's true. And to, to keep, to actually hold onto it and actually like, expand on it and actually like. Preach it to, to the people, you know? [00:59:42] Yeah. Um, so that's, that's amazing. So again, thank you for sharing story. Thank you for being here. And uh, thank you very we'll do it again. Appreciate [00:59:48] Ajit Dodani: the trust. Thanks. Thank you.