Examining the Challenges Community Association Attorneys Face and the Corporate Responsibility Community Associations Shoulder with Marcia Narine Weldon, Law Professor

This week, in Part I of a two-part series, Donna DiMaggio Berger and guest Marcia Narine Weldon, Harvard Law School graduate and University of Miami School of Law professor, explore the intricate intersection of corporate responsibility, consumer rights, and the increasing influence of ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) factors in today's dynamic business world. In this thought-provoking discussion, they address the challenges and pressures faced by community association lawyers, volunteer board members, and management professionals in an increasingly divisive environment.

Delving into the sphere of corporate activism, Donna and Marcia examine how companies adeptly navigate legal obligations and shed light on the often-overlooked impact of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Furthermore, they critically assess the role of government in shaping business regulations and its significant effects on consumer rights. The conversation becomes even more fascinating as they navigate the delicate balance of corporate responsibility within private residential communities, emphasizing the paramount importance of transparency and active member involvement in decision-making processes.

In addition to corporate matters, they thoughtfully explore the concept of resilience, the transformative power of grit, and the intriguing possibility of birth order's influence on individual success. Leveraging their personal experiences, Donna shares insightful perspectives on how stepping out of comfort zones aids in cultivating grit and building resilience. They also delve into whether generational differences may impact resilience. This engaging discussion is essential listening for those intrigued by human rights, corporate responsibility, and personal resilience.

Don't miss out on this captivating and informative dialogue that offers invaluable insights for professionals and individuals interested in navigating the complexities of today's business landscape while upholding ethical principles and fostering personal growth.

Conversation highlights include:

• What are ‘human rights’ and how to properly use the term.
• When companies fail to uphold high standards, what actions can consumers take?
• How should volunteer boards navigate corporate governance in private residential communities?
• Is it true that negative thoughts and stress don't necessarily indicate unhappiness or poor health?
• How negative thought behaviors can be detrimental to a person's mental health.
• What strategies can be employed to effectively challenge negative thoughts?
• Does the legal profession attract unhappy individuals, or does it contribute to their unhappiness?
• Does the competitive nature of law firm environments contribute to mental health challenges?
• How can attorneys avoid absorbing the toxicity of their clients?
• How to establish more reasonable expectations regarding the attorney-client relationship?
• What are the different impacts of anxiety, stress, and depression?
• What are some healthy ways to increase dopamine and serotonin levels?

BONUS: Learn whether loyalty in the attorney-client relationship exists and what to do when it disappears

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Hi everyone. I'm attorney Donna DiMaggio-Burger, and this is Take it to the Board where we speak. Kondo and HOA Attorneys like to analyze and process things, but that doesn't necessarily make them good at self-analysis and processing the stressors in their lives. Serving as Community Association Council can certainly accelerate burnout, given how closely we work with volunteer board members and their management professionals to solve serious problems that affect people in their homes. In today's increasingly uncivil environment, our volunteer board members and management professionals are also suffering from burnout. Can we really retrain our brains to be more resilient? Today, I am fortunate to be talking with Professor Marcia Narain Weldon about how to challenge your negative thoughts and feed your positive thoughts, as well as how the intersection of business and human rights has more impact on the Community Association lifestyle than you might think.

Speaker 1: 0:54

Professor Weldon earned her law degree cum laude from Harvard Law School and her undergraduate degree cum laude in political science and psychology from Columbia University. After graduating, she worked as a law clerk to former Justice Marie Garibaldi of the Supreme Court of New Jersey, was a commercial litigator with Cleary Gottlieb's Dean in Hamilton in New York and as an employment lawyer with Morgan Lewis and Bakias in Miami. She spent several years in house. As the Vice President and Deputy General Counsel of Rider, a publicly traded Fortune 500 company, she oversaw the company's global compliance, business ethics, privacy, government relations, environmental compliance, enterprise risk management, corporate responsibility and labor and employment legal programs.

Speaker 1: 1:36

Professor Weldon teaches legal writing, transactional lawyering, corporate compliance and social responsibility at my alma mater, un Law School. She's been admitted to practice in New York, new Jersey, florida and before the US Supreme Court. She's been interviewed by the Wall Street Journal, new York Times, verge, the Guardian, npr, marketplace Compliance Week and other news outlets around the world. And among all her other endeavors, professor Weldon blogs weekly for the business law Professor Blog. So, professor Weldon, welcome to take it to the board.

Speaker 2: 2:06

Thanks so much for having me. I think the thing that's actually that you didn't put in first of all, that could have been much shorter, but the thing that you didn't put in that is going to be really relevant to one of the things that we talk about today is that I also serve as an executive coach for lawyers and entrepreneurs and others and deal specifically with a lot of them who because I still practice law, even with all the professor stuff, and I'm a lawyer coach who still practices law because I love the profession, but the profession is broken and we're now going to be talking a little bit about that today. But I see the stressors firsthand, from junior associates all the way to shareholders and partners, in-house people, and it's tough. So what to your listeners are dealing with? It's happening throughout the profession, so I'm looking forward to talking about that today.

Speaker 1: 2:50

And you are talking to an attorney who has gone through professional coaching. I had my professional coach on Carmelo Milamachi of ACRT in a program in our first season, and I will tell you that that kind of coaching really made a world of difference in my career. So I'm so excited to dig into this today with you, because we do have so many community association attorneys who listen to the podcast. But I think a lot of what we're going to cover here About Marcia is it okay if I call you Marcia? I think it's going to be relatable to our stressed out board members and our stressed out management professionals. So I wanted to start out, though, with the intersection of business and human rights, because I know, you know, I've done my research on you, I've seen your webinars and I've been fortunate enough to attend one. People talk about human rights. Can you just break it down for us to start with? What are human rights?

Speaker 2: 3:45

Yeah, so that's a really important question. Right, and especially because I'm assuming most of your audience is a US audience. Right, in the United States we think of human rights like there's a slave and a mine and it's a child and that's it. But human rights are basically the rights that we have just because we are human beings. They are an alienable right by universal law. Right, there's 30 human rights United Nations is identified. There's actually more that people are thinking about the right to your own data, for example.

Speaker 2: 4:11

But we think about human rights. As I am alive, I have freedom of association, the right to privacy, the right to work, the right to food, the right to life. Those are the basic human rights. But you know, when you ask people in the US what are human rights, they don't get it. Gender equity is a human rights issue, Right, so the things that we deal with on a daily basis are human rights.

Speaker 2: 4:32

Then there's a difference between civil rights. Right, so civil rights are the kinds of things that you're given because the state might say you have a right to have this, or might be a state or local or government regulation. Because you're a citizen, you're entitled to specific civil rights, and sometimes the human rights and civil rights will overlap, but you want to think about it, as human rights are supposed to be universally protected. That doesn't happen all the time. That's why we have issues, but that's what we want to think about. With the rise of ESG, environmental, social and governance factors that investors are looking at when they say to companies what are you doing on these areas? Human rights has become much more important to business even over the past few years. Where they're looking at, are there environmental factors? Are there social factors? Are there governance factors that investors and consumers and governments are looking at? So that's why you hear also now a much more of a prominence when businesses think about human rights.

Speaker 1: 5:22

So we do. You know I do get the weekly podcast breakdown of who who listens and we do. We're fortunate we have people listening in Europe, in Asia, but the vast majority, to your point, are Americans listening to the podcast. People that you know have some some connection to the community association industry. Do you think the United States is catching up with the rest of the world in terms of you know our stance on human rights, or are we devolving?

Speaker 2: 5:50

Well, it depends, right, Because, again, human rights is a big thing, right, Think about human rights and the environment. We look at climate change and we look at the devastation that's happening in Texas right now and all over the world and all over the country where the rising heat and the sea levels I was just in Amsterdam last week and the sea levels issue, those are human rights issues. You're going to have climate refugees, right, so that is a worldwide issue. When you look at the, you know the social stuff, that's, you know, diversity, equity, inclusion, that's workplace safety, so it covers everything. We think about governance. We look at bribery I know there's no bribery in your homeowners associations or anything like that but when you think about political action, committees and we think about getting legislation passed, all of these are issues that touch on human rights, such as why it's becoming more prominent, and even in the United States, even though, again, you might not label the things human rights, but the kinds of things we're thinking about, right. So when we look at whether people's rights to vote, people's rights to, you know, for gay marriage, people's rights for diversity, equity, inclusion, all of those are human rights issues, and in the United States, but again around the world.

Speaker 2: 6:55

I've been in five countries in the past 13 days. In Europe, right, there are tensions everywhere where I think things are devolving. I think people are angrier. We are more connected by technology than ever, but we are lonelier than ever. As a matter of fact, the US Surgeon General's, you know, Loneliness Epidemic. People could actually live a shorter period of time. So everybody is stressed. I'm sure your listeners are stressed, but not just stressed. We're on edge. And when it comes to that, when we're dealing with climate crisis and, you know, economic headwinds and all of these things going on in elections, it tends to make people more brittle and more fragile and more irritable. And so sometimes it's just like that one more thing, if somebody just does that one thing, and then you kind of go off. And so when I talk to people, I try to kind of think about keeping yourself at an equilibrium so that certain things don't set you off. But it's difficult. I think things are devolving, not just here in the US, but around the world.

Speaker 1: 7:49

In your class you teach at the University of Miami Law School. Do you address at all I know your focus is corporate governance right what is the responsibility of these corporations in terms of addressing and maybe even protecting human rights? Do you address the difference between what the what private sector should be doing versus what the government should be doing?

Speaker 2: 8:11

Absolutely. Don't forget that in many, you know many places, there are some companies that are much larger, they have their revenue is larger than the GDP of many small countries, right, and in many situations, companies can be more powerful than we call states as opposed to countries, right, and so I do think there is a concern that I have that you know. Let's take the United States right. In the former life, I used to run our pack and our lobbying and government relations. You know, I used to go train in China. They said isn't that bribery? I said no, it's completely illegal.

Speaker 2: 8:45

But in fact, you know, companies have huge power to either make or break legislation. We may have seen recently with, you know, artificial intelligence and Sam Altman from Open AI and others pleading to government please regulate us, regulate us. But that almost never happens. As a matter of fact, that never happens. This is the first time that I can remember that happening because companies, by definition, want to forestall or avoid litigation. They'd much rather regulate their own cells, and so it's hard for consumers to know what to do. And when companies have the ability to tell government we don't really like this legislation, but we think you should do that legislation, and when companies are involved in. You know helping to draft the legislation. By definition, you're going to get something that's going to favor the companies. So, from a human rights perspective, the state or the country has a duty to protect human rights Businesses. All they have to do is just you know respect, which means don't make it worse, and that is because businesses don't want to have any particularly legally binding obligations.

Speaker 1: 9:44

Sometimes they do make it worse and I want to talk about that Absolutely. We just concluded the Florida legislative session and we're both sitting here in the state of Florida having this conversation. Community associations are impacted heavily by very powerful industries. I can name banking, banking, construction insurance. You know a lot of my communities are suffering with huge increases. I get calls every week from communities saying are people just can't pay for this, we can't raise the budget this much, we're going. There are people on fixed incomes. We're not going to be able to afford this. And yet we've got these industries going to our legislators and lobbying for new legislation that protects their business model at the expense of consumer rights in our state, and I'm sure this is happening not only throughout the country but throughout the globe. If companies won't hold themselves to a high standard, what can consumers do?

Speaker 2: 10:36

Well, here's the problem. All companies say we really care about our professional reputation. They all say that I don't know if that's true. To be perfectly honest and I say this because companies will make public statements, they'll do advertisement, they'll engage in greenwashing or other kinds of things to make themselves look like fantastic corporate citizens they might say you know, we're really, really green, but they don't have any women in management, right, or something like that. Right, it's what's called the CSR halo effect.

Speaker 2: 11:03

People think that if something is really good in one area they're great with the environment they must be great with employee relations, which is not always the case. And the thing is consumers don't really know because, again, why don't companies want to be regulated? Because they don't want to. So what do governments do? They say well, do some disclosures, say what you're doing, and that way investors and consumers can decide for themselves. Consumers don't have the time for that. You know, no consumer is going to go into Walmart and say Johnny, I can't buy you this Nintendo game because I don't believe Nintendo is doing enough for the environment. Right, this is not going to happen, because then Johnny is going to whine and cry and you're going to be the bad mother and you're going to get the gift right. So, and companies know that. So the only time that things really work is when consumers take massive action.

Speaker 2: 11:47

But you have to be careful in that as well Because, for example, people might say boycott. You could boycott those companies. But you know, and it's probably a little different in insurance but let's say it's a clothing company, you boycott the clothing company. There are people in Bangladesh and China and Yemen that no longer have a job right. So there are a lot of people that are in the human rights area say be careful about boycotts. And then you might have the other thing, which is a buycott, where people say is this happening with Chick-fil-A? When many people say I don't want to support Chick-fil-A because of XYZ, then people say, oh, we love Chick-fil-A and we're going to counteract that.

Speaker 2: 12:18

So, really, when consumers get themselves where they get the knowledge in plain English and many of these disclosures are not in plain English, so even if a consumer wanted to read it, they wouldn't but they have to take the action to call out that behavior in a way that is more sensitive than I think.

Speaker 2: 12:35

Cancel culture is a problem, but to say you know, I'm sorry, donna, burger Corp said that they do XY and Z but really they don't. That's when social media campaigns can be useful, because at some point it could put so much pressure that other companies may say I don't want to do business with your company because you're tainted, right? So whether the company will stop doing the behavior is when consumers stop buying. When other companies say we can't do business, when the government says we're not going to do business because of your reputation, that's when things happen. But consumers have to get knowledgeable and they have to act in concert, because a lot of times consumers get angry and then they're like they move on to the next thing and the next outrage and the company has dodged that bullet and they have to worry about it.

Speaker 1: 13:20

You worked at a Fortune 500 company writer, and I'm wondering how all these companies decide who's winning and who's losing in this battle. Right, for instance, you used to play. How many people are going to shun us because of the action we just took and how many people are not going to love us and follow us because of the action we just took? Does shame play any role? Let me give you an example that I'm thinking about in my industry, in the community association industry. As you know, we had the horrific Champlain Towers collapse. Now the media just Down the street from my house Okay, the media all rushed to judgment and it's this, and it's this and it's this, and we still don't know exactly what it is. But I know the New York Times just came out two weeks ago and now the new media cycle is that they believe it's a construction defect, which is what many of us in the industry believed it was that it start outs bad and gets worse from there. On the one hand, we have that. That just came out.

Speaker 1: 14:19

On the other hand, the Florida legislature, the builders lobby, just lobbied to reduce the statute of repose in Florida for construction defects. It used to be 15 years, then it was 10 years, now it's seven years In some communities. They don't have well, they don't have standing until they go through transition, which is the developer sells out all it's inventory. Now the governance is handed over to the volunteer board members, correct? Here's the problem. What are they thinking? How do consumers find out? Should they go look and see which builders are part of the Florida Builders Association and then say we're not going to buy homes from them if they're going to make it hard for us to to ensure that we're living in a safe building? I mean, how convoluted can this possibly get?

Speaker 2: 15:02

It's difficult, right, because, again, consumers either don't know, they don't have the time and they don't know what to do, but never underestimate the power of collective action. So, a year ago, a friend of mine, her daughter, was killed in an apartment complex by a maintenance person. Because they came in, they had access to the keys, she knew a bunch of lawyers. A bunch of lawyers and a bunch of law students got together, put petitions in place and now there's a new law, maya's law, which deals with. And that happened in the space of a year with the Florida legislature. Right, because there was an emotional argument to be made, right, and you can't have change unless there's shared values, right. And so this is why it's hard, because so many groups will want different things that they're not going to get together, in which way the company can say, well, I'll let them fight amongst themselves, but nothing's going to change. But when you get a bunch of people, it is a bipartisan thing. If you make the argument, really, congressman Schmuckeremo, do you really want somebody to be entering the apartment of your 17-year-old daughter without any kind of notice? You probably don't. That doesn't matter what political party you're part of. So sometimes we get so focused on what parties we're in, that we don't think about. Okay, what's really important, what's the shared value? The shared value is my 85-year-old grandmother should be able to live in peace in a safe home. It's just all about the messaging, but so often we're so focused on, like our political positions or our stance, whereas really we all have this shared common interest of this.

Speaker 2: 16:30

Now, companies, by definition, are meant to make money.

Speaker 2: 16:34

Right, they have shareholders, and you'll find a lot of companies are not taking more of a stakeholder approach when it comes to.

Speaker 2: 16:41

I care about the community, I care about other interests, but the bottom line is people want to make money and when you have money and power conflicting with I don't want to call it the little people, but regular consumers who don't have that much power the only way they can do it is get people in government to say you have to think about this. You, as government, have to think about your role. You represent all of us, not just the people who give you the PAC money, and I am the person who gave out the PAC money. Right, so I am aware. But here's what I would do when I would go and talk to government. I would say did you know that if you change this law this way, 4,210 of your constituents will be affected. Because we had it down to a science, because we knew that the main interest of that government person was to get reelected right, and if we could say this is actually enough Money or votes, or constituents.

Speaker 2: 17:34

And it's sometimes it's money and votes. So if consumers and citizens learn how to do advocacy and they're at workshops and they know the words, the phrasing there's an art and a science to this it's not impossible for consumers and residents and homeowners to win. It's just a matter of they have to understand the rules of the game.

Speaker 1: 17:55

And we used to. I run an organization here at Backcarg called CALL, the Community Association Leadership Lobby, and for years we would do that. I remember flying up on a plane with 60 community association leaders and trying to herd them around Tallahassee to meet with legislators, but there really has been a change in the winds, so to speak. I do think that the average person is losing a lot of ground when it comes to influence. There was one glaring exception to what you said about shared values. To me it stands out. It's the do. We all expect our children to be safe in schools, and I think everybody agrees that they want it, but they're such different ideas of how to accomplish it.

Speaker 1: 18:38

That's the one area where I think we're not even close to coming up with a solution.

Speaker 2: 18:43

Well, we can have shared values, but that doesn't mean we're gonna have a shared solution, because, again, everybody's gonna be. The shared values have to be such that we are willing to sacrifice something that is important to us for the common good. That's where I don't think we have that right now. I agree.

Speaker 1: 18:58

So most community associations are not-for-profit corporations and I'm talking to a business law professor here. So we often hear Marcia, the human rights, my rights, are being trampled by people living in these communities. Right, the one school of thought is my rights are being trampled if you're telling me I can't park here or I can't have these people over as guests, or I can't have my pets. On the other hand, we've got people saying you're trampling my rights. I bought in this community because these governing documents say Axe and I want you to enforce it. So how do you recommend that a volunteer board of directors navigate governance when the corporation is operating in a ministry, a private residential community? This is very different than a for-profit commercial concern. But I would venture to say that corporate responsibility is most important because, look, I can choose not to go shop at a certain store because I don't like their values, but if I live in this community, it's right in my face, the governance.

Speaker 2: 19:57

So years ago I was part of one of these associations and it was difficult. It was like my flowers I have too many flowers. You have the garbage cans out there, so we find people. Can we do $100 of violation? Well, I didn't know this was a rule, there was a whole. It was very stressful. I went only because I wanted to make sure I didn't do a violation. Right, I was like let me be on these boards, I'll make sure I don't screw up Because so many people they fall in love with it. Nobody reads the rules before they come in, they don't pay attention, right, they go. They was like I love how everything just looks so clean and neat and wonderful and they don't realize because there's rules to that.

Speaker 2: 20:30

But I remember when I dealt with our association, I remember we had to really have because there was almost fisticuffs in some of these meetings, right, and it really came down to what I think is a kind of roles, responsibility and respect. Right, Because, let's say, there's new rules gonna be put into place, when do the members get to be informed? Versus they get to review, versus they have to approve something? Who gets to decide on this violation? Do people understand? Is there training? Is there discretion? Right, and Do the board members believe that the process is legitimate? Because people will agree with? The people will live with the decision that they don't agree with if they think the process is legitimate and fair.

Speaker 2: 21:10

So if you're not enforcing the rules uniformly, right, if it's a. Well, you know she's the vice principal, so I don't want to mess up my relationship with her because my kids in that school, so I don't care that the begonias are, you know, six inches higher than they're supposed to be. Right, that's what we would argue about. Okay, nothing. But if you're not doing it for everybody, it's like having a boss. The boss has got to fire early and often If Donna is a superstar and commits a violation, donna has to get fired, because if you fire Jose, who did the same violation, your process lacks all credibility.

Speaker 2: 21:42

People want fairness. It's not necessarily about fairness, right? I just need to know what are the rules and is everybody gonna be held to them? And if there's an exception process, what does that look like? You know there's in business and business, new rights. You talk about this concept of a social license to operate. You can have all the government licenses you want, but if people don't believe you should be there, then the rebels are gonna shut down your oil pipeline and you're not gonna have any oil at the Exxon station, because it doesn't matter what your business rules are, what the legal stuff are. I don't think you're legitimate, I'm not gonna support you. It's the same thing. So these boards have to have that social license to operate and they have to make sure that people understand, with a lot of transparency, how did this decision get made? Was there an exception? And then the respect like what are the rules of debate?

Speaker 2: 22:27

I was in Guatemala a few years ago and I was like a church, like an elder. You couldn't speak until they pointed a stick at you. Then they point the stick at you and you can speak and you get five minutes to speak and it is done. That kind of stuff works wonders because otherwise people will go on and on for 45 minutes and not say a lot. Now make speeches, so just kind of, what are the rules of debate and decorum?

Speaker 2: 22:47

And then finally maybe even think about a start, stop and continue, exercise right to get the community members together, you know, say, okay, these are our rules and regulations, figure out with the association lawyer what can be amended and how that process works. But even in the conduct of the meeting, what should we start doing? What should we stop doing? What should we continue doing? And then if you say, look, we don't promise that we're gonna do anything that you guys are suggesting, but we wanna hear what you have to say, then I say, at least pick one thing that people have suggested, because then they feel that there's buying in the process and again, people will accept a decision generally if they're reasonable, rational adults. Let's put that caveat in there that they don't agree with if they felt that they were heard.

Speaker 1: 23:29

That's whether it's your community association or your boss, it's funny you mentioned that because I just had a client today asked me a question. Cite to the statute and say you know what the statute says? We have to allow owners to speak, but it doesn't say that we have to allow them to speak before we take the vote. So we'd like to take all our votes and then have them speak afterwards, because it's very irritating. Everybody's speaking. Of course they're not all speaking at once, but it's not productive. It's a meagerness of spirit and in my opinion, it's contrary to what the intent is, which the intent is just what you said People wanna be heard. There is a belief for many people that it's a board meeting, it's the board's business. But maybe I say something to you, marcia, and you're just about to vote and you go. You know what? That's a good point. That's a good point. I might change my vote now, but if you make me wait till afterwards, now I have no ability to perhaps impact your decision making.

Speaker 1: 24:31

I do think there's a level of defensiveness on both sides. Maybe you've got boards. I know I sat on my board for two years by HOA board, two longest years of my life. I like to say I did it, I put in the time it was good to do because you get that perspective.

Speaker 1: 24:46

I think you do get beaten down and particularly when you've got these communities where you've got people who've been on these boards for years the longest person ever was, you know, I teach classes I'd say keep your hands up if you've been on the board more than 10 years, more than 20. One lady her hand was still up at 40 years. She'd been on a condo board as directors for 40 years. So you know, yeah, she's probably a little beaten down over that time. But I think all of your points are well taken. In terms of creating the transparent environment. Some boards, I think, hunker down and they have fewer meetings when there is a lot of work to be done because they just feel like they got to get it done. My recommendation you have those large projects, set the expectations, let people know what's going on, communicate more, have more meetings.

Speaker 2: 25:33

Absolutely, absolutely. And if people don't want to go, they don't go, but at least they can't say I didn't know this was happening. When did this rule change? How come I didn't get to get informed?

Speaker 2: 25:42

And again, people can be outvoted it's a democracy, right, but at least if they have the chance to say and I think you're right and that's why really stating kind of even, what are the rules of discourse? How long do you get to talk? What are you know? When are we gonna shut you down? Because it could be that one sentence that has somebody say I never thought about that. Okay, I'm gonna change. So if you say, all right, we're gonna follow the rules, the rules say that you know you can talk after we take the vote. That has that the process. That's going to be seen, as others, as just, it's actually going to be seen as an insult, and when people are insulted, they're they, they're even worse. And then, when you really need their vote for something, they're not likely to be helpful. And I don't know if any of your boards have term limits, but I think there is a benefit to that at some point.

Speaker 1: 26:21

Yes, under the condominium act there are eight year term limits. I think it'd be overridden. You can get on and get off, or if nobody else is running, or if you have a small community. I want to just transition a little bit, because everything we've been talking about as community association council we're there, we're living it, you know we're, we're kind of, you know, absorbing a lot of this. I recently attended your Florida bar webinar. It's called harnessing the power of stress, developing grid and a growth mindset. I enjoyed it and when I was watching I said I got to get her on the podcast because, again, we have a lot of community association attorneys who listen and we're all a little stressed right now. We got a lot going on in Florida. We're dealing with the post surf side requirements and upcoming deadlines 2024 deadlines, want to make sure our clients are safe. This is an episodic representation as community association council and by that I mean we're not corporate council to a large, like a writer.

Speaker 1: 27:17

We're not sitting in house, we only hear what the clients tell us. So there could be a lot going on over here in this community and unless they pick up the phone or email us and say, hey, we need your help, we're going to be completely going off the rails and we don't know about it. So that's something that keeps me up at night. Is association council, is the episodic nature of our representation, kind of want to give our listeners a little walk through a little bit, because I so loved your webinar. You talk about harnessing grit. So what does grip mean to you and how do we harness it?

Speaker 2: 27:48

So think about grit, as you know, emotional resilience and, depending on how old your listeners are like, all their listeners might be thinking, if they know the Gen Z years, those are the Gen zoomers and they we joke that they have no resilience, they have no grit because they've. They most parents of this younger generation has, you know, made sure they got to soccer practice and ballet practice and made sure their feet didn't have to touch the ground and if they got to see we were going to complain right. So now, if there's a hard thing so I'm also a professor and I've been having, like people that getting a B plus and they're crying to me they have a job already, they've graduated, but their B plus has upset their GPA thinking, wow, it's a resilience, right. So we think about resilience is how do we know the kind of grow from stressors and the way to harness it is? I actually say you've got to build it like a muscle, right.

Speaker 2: 28:38

The more you practice doing things that are uncomfortable and difficult, the easier it's going to be. So I tell my coaching clients to do something scary or uncomfortable once a month and it seems really stupid, but I will tell you it has programmed my dream. So I was terrified of heights, terrified. So I've gone skydiving all kind of crazy things.

Speaker 2: 28:55

Right the other day I was dealing with something really difficult and my brain automatically said jumped out of a plane, you walked across hot calls, you did a sweat lodge, you can handle this. I didn't even think about it, it just automatically came. Because I spend time building it like I should probably work on my abs the way I work on my resilience, but I do it so that it snaps back. So there's very little that I go through. I'm like I cannot handle this and you can't do that unless you make yourself uncomfortable or you don't want to dwell in suffering, right, because that is counterproductive. So don't be afraid to do things that are difficult, and when the more difficult things you do, then you're training your brain that I can do that because I already survived all that stuff. We've all already survived the worst things we've already been through.

Speaker 1: 29:38

Just to give some perspective, you know, that's the advice I give my kids. My daughter is actually leaving today to go to Lima. She's wanted to hike the Incan Trail at Machu Picchu.

Speaker 2: 29:50

She just decided to do it.

Speaker 1: 29:52

Mom is a little nervous but I'm very supportive of it. Go do it. You know I'm laughing when you said the Gen Z years and how they've been parented, because one of my friends when he went to law school actually when he was going to undergrad to the University of Vermont Now remember we didn't have cell phones back in our day and his parents actually sent him to Canada. The flight was cheaper and then he had to get from Canada to Vermont and they didn't hear from him. He said it was a couple days they didn't hear from him and he had to go find a pay phone and call them and he's a quite successful person today.

Speaker 1: 30:25

So I laugh about that because that would be unheard of today for a parent to go yeah, I booked you to Canada and now you're going to have to find your way from there to the University of Vermont and just hysterical. But I love your advice about doing what scares you, because isn't that the whole concept now, in terms of biohacking, with the saunas and the cold plunges and whatever it is to trigger certain longevity genes by putting your body through certain stresses? You're talking about the mental, though.

Speaker 2: 30:53

Absolutely, that is both. But there's a mind-body connection, right? So if you think about some of the neurotransmitters and the hormones that affect our levels of happiness or production or productiveness or our fear factors or all those kinds of things, they all work together, right? So, for example, you talk about cold plunges, right? So you might have people might have heard about Wim Hof or others who you know. He's the Ironman who's, like you know, climbed Kilimanjaro and you know underwear and that kind of stuff, right?

Speaker 1: 31:20

And jumping in the water. Yeah, the Arctic water.

Speaker 2: 31:23

So I did a cold plunge, right, I did one for the first time, you know, because I'm a lawyer. I'm like I will outlast everybody, right, and like, just do two minutes and you'll be fine. So I did six minutes and six seconds. But, but it's a mindset thing, right, your physical body feels like I think we're gonna die. But when you learn how to breathe at a certain, when you work on your mindset, it is hugely empowering to be able to do something like that. And that's again one of the scary things.

Speaker 2: 31:49

But, on the other hand, things like deliberate cold exposure the science is very clear about how it can affect the neurotransmitters and how it can help reduce your stress level, how it can help raise your immune system. Now, again, as I said on the Florida bar thing, I'm not a doctor, I don't play one on TV, but I have spent a lot of time getting additional certifications with doctors and neuroscientists, et cetera. But please check with a medical practitioner before you do anything I suggest when it comes to this, because some people are probably shouldn't do it. But deliberate cold exposure they might say, really, I'm not sitting in an ice for six minutes. Take a cold shower.

Speaker 2: 32:22

And you might say I'm not doing that either. I live in Florida. I don't wanna do that. But even the science was. Even if it's a few seconds a day and work up to a minute a day, a few times a week, it actually has dramatic influences on again those neurotransmitters that help your emotional and mental and physical state. So that's kind of one thing that people can do to help build wisdom Because, by the way, when you sit in the shower for cold water, then it's cold water again, it's cold water again. That is also building up resilience, because you're telling your body and you're telling your brain.

Speaker 2: 32:52

You can do hard things and then if you travel a lot like me and you go to some third world country and there's no hot water. You're like I wish I could do this, because I already do this.

Speaker 1: 33:00

I tried to do a cold shower. My water in Florida, in South Florida, never gets cold enough.

Speaker 2: 33:04

But people do. Actually and this is another thing for which I help reduce stress is we're talking about that right now is that you can actually stick your head in a bowl of ice water for as long as you can stand it. What that does is there's this thing called the mammalian dive reflex. If you go into water, your brain it says okay, I gotta make sure she's okay, and your brain will start slowing down certain kinds of systems and actually will help relax. You Kicks in what's called your parasympathetic nervous system. Sympathetic nervous system so it makes you take the car off the child because you've got the adrenaline rush. The parasympathetic nervous system helps calm you down, and so that's another thing, but the cold exposure really helps with that.

Speaker 1: 33:46

Okay, I'll let you know how that goes.

Speaker 2: 33:48

When I stick my head in a bowl of full of ice water, I'll let you know how I feel about that, but it's also resilience too, but again it's also the resilience because again, everything that you do that's hard and uncomfortable makes it easier when you're dealing with your obnoxious client or the opposing counselor, like I can deal with this because your body again just learns to. Just you learn to respond versus reacting.

Speaker 1: 34:09

That makes sense. We all have stress. We all have negative thoughts from time to time, some of us more often than others. That doesn't necessarily mean we're unhappy or unhealthy. Having stress and negative thoughts does it?

Speaker 2: 34:20

Absolutely not. Everybody has negative thoughts and I work on my happiness like it's a full-time job, because there are health and longevity benefits to really trying to be, learn how to be happy for no reason. But I get unhappy, I get sad, I get depressed. I just don't dwell on that suffering. What's actually worse is what's like toxic positivity.

Speaker 2: 34:39

Think that you must always be thinking about sunshine, rainbows and unicorns at all time, because you have to think about what the negative thing is that's causing you to be unhappy. And then you have to figure out okay, how do I get out of this? How do I retrain myself to get out of this? Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional. We don't need to sit there in it forever. It's a matter of learning the tools to get yourself out of it so you can be productive.

Speaker 2: 35:01

And when people can't get themselves out of that, those unhappy thoughts, those negative thoughts, that's when they can plunge into like a serious depression, which depression also has certain kinds of chemical this chemical components as well you can have. But when you're focused so much on things in the past that you can't control but all these negative things that happened, or serious anxiety, where you're so dwelling on things in the future that you can't control. That may not even happen when those issues become chronic, when it comes to the point where it stops you from being able to work, to enjoy your family, to be healthy. When you're not getting out of bed or you can't sleep, you're not eating or you're overeating. That's when you wanna worry about it.

Speaker 1: 35:41

I think people have a set point like a default position, and I see this in families where you've got siblings. We all had the same experience, but some of us have a default to being fairly positive, happy, and others have a default to being a little more negative, a little more gloomy.

Speaker 2: 35:57

They have actually done studies on happiness set points, many of them, and they say about depending on your statistic, it's about 40% is genetic and 40% is circumstance. So, and then there's different kinds of things environment, and then I think 10% is circumstance. I went to law school because I can't do math right so this.

Speaker 2: 36:16

It's like, but part of it like maybe less than half is genetic, less than half is in environment. That's why you might have people who say the same thing, like I think she's just miserable. Doesn't matter what we do our ice cream, she's miserable. We took a rose cake. She's just miserable. Why is the other one happy? We didn't even give her a marble and she's like just super happy. But there's some people that had that set point. And the good thing is that you can change. You can train yourself to. You can train your brain, you can train your physiology and your psychology to get more to a happier state, because happy employees work longer. Happy people earn more money. They live longer. You're just better to be around. So there's a financial and health benefits to focusing on learning to be happier, even if you came up in a miserable environment.

Speaker 1: 37:03

I always wondered if birth order played a role, because I'm the third out of four. I think my parents were tired by the time I got there, and even more tired by the time my baby brother, my older two siblings. They had a lot more engaged parents in terms of enforcing the rules. So I don't know, maybe because I was pretty happy, go lucky, but again I was third out of four, I wasn't one or two, so that may have had some sort of a issue and there's a whole science behind the birth order, which is not my level of expertise, but there are.

Speaker 2: 37:32

I was at a meeting with a bunch of really like high achieving super entrepreneurs and I think 80% of them were the first born. It was really interesting. So if you do see certain kinds of things where there's a different level of intensity for the first born than the other ones, we're going to stop here in my conversation with Professor Weldon.

Speaker 1: 37:51

Please be sure to tune into the second part of this episode, where Marcia and I will dig in deeper on how community association attorneys and board members can leave the stress of board and membership meetings behind them. We'll also discuss how to cope with anxiety, stress and depression, how to increase dopamine and serotonin, and why loyalty matters in the attorney-client relationship. Thank you for joining us today. Don't forget to follow and rate us on your favorite podcast platform or visit takeitotheboardcom for more ways to connect zamatocom.