Leading with Purpose: Susan McPherson on Building Connections and Creating Impact

In this episode of the Impact Table podcast, host Marssie Versola introduces a playback of a Visionary Speaker Session featuring Susan McPherson, founder of the social impact communications firm McPherson Strategies and author of The Lost Art of Connecting.  Susan shares about her impact journey, and how she came to value the importance of authentic connections and being especially intentional as get lost in today's digital age.  Susan shares the 'Gather, Ask, Do' framework for fostering meaningful relationships and advises on overcoming obstacles in personal and professional growth. 

Listen in to this powerful conversation and Visionary Speaker Session playback.

Impact Table Visionary Speaker Sessions are private member and invite-only gatherings that bring respected women leaders in impact to share about their personal leadership and impact journey and important lessons learned along the way. 

Our guests share an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at their own leadership and impact journey and share tips and tools they’ve learned, giving members the ‘real talk’, connection and truth we all crave and inspiration you can take with you on your own path.

Transcript

0:04

Welcome to the impact table podcast. The impact table was born out of a simple idea that women in social impact need a space to connect, learn, and grow together so that we can claim our full leadership potential and maximize our individual. And shared impact in this podcast, we share thoughtful, heart centered and powerful conversations with each other and women leaders in social impact who we admire. We bring you authentic behind the scenes stories, the unfiltered truth that we all crave tools to navigate your own journey and a whole lot of inspiration. Wherever you are in your leadership journey, take a seat at the impact table. Let's get started. Hi, welcome back to the impact table podcast. My name is Marci Versola and I am your host of this podcast and also the creator of the impact table. If you are new, I'm so glad that you're here. If you are a regular listener, welcome back. Today, we're going to do a playback of one of our visionary speaker sessions. Our Visionary Speaker Sessions are private events for members and guests, and in these Visionary Speaker Sessions, we invite in leaders in impact who have already led a meaningful career, a meaningful career in impact, and we invite them to share about their own leadership and impact journey, and we ask them to share behind the scenes. view behind the curtains view of what it's really been like to navigate their impact journey. I can't wait to introduce you to our visionary speaker Before I do, I want to invite you to join us at the Impact Table. Here we are. In the new year and I can't tell you how excited I am for this year. We have. So many amazing plans and programs in store for our members and the wider impact community. And I am honestly just so humbled and honored and excited to bring to life a multitude of opportunities to gather, to grow and to elevate each other this year. I can't wait to introduce you to our visionary speaker Before I do, I want to invite you to join us at the Impact Table. If you're already a member, I'm so So excited for you to be able to take advantage of our new offerings. This year, in addition to our leaders circles, visionary speaker sessions and ally meetings, we are adding optional quarterly assessments, including human design, Enneagram and more and quarterly celebration gatherings, which I'm so excited for. I'm also really excited about hosting two, possibly three Connect and Elevate retreats this year, one on the East Coast in the late spring and one in Northern California in the fall. We are also introducing one to one coaching for members and the wider impact community and have curated a powerful roster of sector experienced, specialized coaches to support you wherever you are in your impact journey. So if you're not yet a member, I invite you to join us. To claim seat at the table, to be a part of what is quickly becoming the largest, most impactful network of women powering social good, leading for the future, and changing the world. If you're a mission driven woman doing the world's most important work, whether you work in a non profit, a foundation, whether you're a CSR or ESG practitioner, or work in tech for good, or a B Corp, or maybe you're a social entrepreneur, or whatever. If you are committed to living a life of purpose and using your work to create a better world, you don't have to do it alone. Join us. You can learn more at www. impacttable. com. we have. So many amazing plans and programs in store for our members and the wider impact community. And I am honestly just so humbled and honored and excited to bring to life a multitude of opportunities to gather, to grow and to elevate each other this year. All right. So with that, I'd love to kick off this playback of our recent visionary speaker session.

Susan: 4:30

So welcome Susan. Thank you, Marcy. It's wonderful to be here. And I'm in a hotel room in Atlanta. I normally live in Brooklyn Heights right near Manhattan, but I'm here for what used to be TED Women, and now it's TED Next. So I'm, it's a very normal hotel, and there's the bed right behind me. And I'm very dressed up because I was at this event today, so it just felt good to keep the dress on, and then I have to go to a dinner after this, but I gather most of you are in California. Oh, wait, somebody's in Tarrytown. Tammy, you're in Tarrytown. You're on my dime zone. Yeah, we've got Washington. We've got Canada. We've got we've got folks all across the country and the world. And I wanted to just share with the group Susan had shared earlier, I'm in a hotel room today. Is that okay? And I responded like immediately, of course, that's okay. Like this conversation. is about the truth of what it's like to navigate as a woman leader and impact. And we like the real stuff. And so if you're in a hotel, like the more the real, the better, you know? And so, yes, hotel room. Amazing. So Susan, I would love to just hear from you and just help us help the group get to know you a little bit more and tell us a little bit more about your impact journey. Sure. I often say I've had nine lives at this point, but now it's kind of 10. And I am turning 60 on Halloween. Which I say those words and I'm like because it's strange. But I was just telling Marcy, I was recently fetted by 26 friends in Julia, Italy for six, nine, seven days to celebrate a month before we couldn't do the birthday. We couldn't do it over my actual birthday because the election was so close after and people just wouldn't feel comfortable getting on a plane and going away for a week. But, talking about the ultimate and connecting and about two months before the journey started and people had signed on to, to come, I had started a WhatsApp group and. Post trip, the 26 women who are from all over the world, Australia the Netherlands Mexico, Venezuela, they're all now friends and looking at all of you and Marcy listening to you and you're just your beautiful way you articulate what this is, it made me think of those women and because the age range went from 32 all the way to 70. Different races, different religions, everything. But it was just, you bring a group of women and most many of them work in some sort of impact. You bring them together, we can solve the world's problems. So I just wanted to share that. And I'm probably still a little high off the trip, not from drugs, but just from the joy I keep now. I'm like, did it happen? Because it was like so magical. And it's like now I'm in Atlanta. Not quite Foulias. But anyhow, a little bit about me. But I'm more, I'm actually really excited to talk to all of you. I run a social impact communications firm, which I founded 11 years ago. I started the company at 48 and it was a placeholder until I found my next job. And I share that because many of you are probably somewhere in your forties. And I know in my mid forties, I was starting to think. My life's over like professionally. And I share that because it very much was not, and the magic that was created from founding the company. Believe me, there's several wrinkles that also came. It's not all, but being able to put my own name on the door and hire people and help inspire people and help grow people has been, the one of the ultimate joys in my life. But the tissue between, or the. The connective tissue between connectivity and connection and impact is the fact that I never would have been able to build a business if I hadn't spent much time in my 20s, in my 30s, in my 40s, building connections and taking those meetings. Because in the first five years of the company, 90 percent of our business was inbound. So that what that taught me was all those relationships I had built in the impact world came back to support us, maybe not through directly hiring us, but recommending. And in 2021, the height of the pandemic, I published my book, The Lost Art of Connecting. And what that book helped culminate was this connective tissue, like you need to build connections to build impact. But prior before, founding an impact communications firm, I worked in various portions of corporate responsibility. So I was coming at it from the private sector, but every time I would move to a new place, I would end up joining or getting involved or supporting a nonprofit and inevitably because of that, the companies I was working for would have me be the person to help them decide who to fund in terms of nonprofit sector, what galas, To attend, you live in New York, there's gala every other day or every day. And by just sheer nature of that, I became an expert in corporate, like corporate philanthropy, corporate funding. And in 2005, one of the nonprofits I had gotten involved with, which was called B Peace, Business Council for Peace. It still exists today. It was and is a network of business professionals. At the time it was about 400 women in all walks of life that were using their business acumen, their connections, their superpowers to help women entrepreneurs in areas of conflict. So Afghanistan, Rwanda, this is again early aughts El Salvador, Guatemala. And I had the privilege to go and spend two weeks in Kabul in 2005, working with women entrepreneurs. And I share this story because it was the first time in my life I really saw business being a force for good, right? We weren't giving these women money. What we were doing was training them, helping them understand how to be better marketers, how to in, in their own cultural nuance. But after I came back and I came back to New York, I was I really want to spend more of my daily working hours on helping business be better. More authentically good for the world since they have so much power so that, between 2005 and 2013 when I founded my company, I just dove in and taught myself, got to know people in the space, ended up on the board of USA for UNHCR, which took me all around the world to refugee hotspots the Syrian refugee crisis imploded in 20 around 2015 2016. I visited refugee camps and in Kenya, Uganda. I visited Sicily to witness the boat rescues of people in the Mediterranean in 2018 in 20 2018. 2018. 19. Yes, before the pandemic, I went to the border of Venezuela where people were fleeing. And I just share that because by getting involved in nonprofits, even today, I'm on the board of the 19th, which is a women's news platform at the intersection of gender policy and politics. That has kept me honest and our work at McPherson Strategies, which is the firm I run, we work with corporations, NGOs, and very occasionally individuals on how they show up, how they talk about their impact, how they showcase their impact and all the things that float around that. Public relations are, paid media, social media, digital media to get visibility for social good. I'm single. I'm childless. I have no parents. So that allows me to do a lot more than most, when people are like, how do you do it all? I'm like I don't have these other things which I think is important because those things take up a lot of time and they're valuable. So I never expect it. Other people to be like going to all these places like refugee camps because you probably have more like pressing things at home, but this is somehow I missed that day at school. So I never had children, but I have lots of friends. Is that, do you need, do you want more? We want so much more. We want so much more. I can't wait to hear even more. I the book is fun. If you love connecting, I highly, I highly recommend it. It's not because it's not just my voice. I interviewed about 30 really amazing people who can build connections to power their lives. I can't wait to hear more about it. If it was 300 pages of me, I'd be like, yeah, no. Laughter. It really is such a beautiful journey and I would love to hear more about some of the challenges that you've, you faced along the way, like what were the obstacles that you faced? I'm sure there have been many, there are so many for all of us, but I'd love to hear any that really. Stand out to you and really how you've overcome those obstacles over time. I don't know if I've ever overcome them rather than either gone through them or around them, right? Tragically, my mom was killed when I was 21 in a horrible hotel fire that happened in Puerto Rico, which was so detrimental to my life in my 20s. Because it was number one, obviously so shocking. Number two, so horrific and terrifying, but also Once you go through something like that, nothing compares. Even today, when something, horrible happens, and work wise, or dating somebody, and it doesn't work out, I'm wait, you've been through so much more, right? So in some ways, at a very young age, it was a great equalizer to help me. It also gave me, pardon me I'm just going to try anything, because what's the worst thing that can happen? It's already happened. But obstacle wise. I'm very tiny. And It doesn't appear that way right now, because I'm taking up the whole screen, and why there was one part of the pandemic I actually liked, and that was this, because when I go into public rooms, no one sees me, I'm, my license says I'm 5 foot, but I'm 4'11 and shrinking, that's the one thing that happens as you get older, you get shorter, which I can't afford to do. But always being the smallest person in the room was definitely challenging. I, people didn't see me. And early in my professional career, there was some connection. When you're short, you're young. I would walk into meetings, and men would just consider you not of age, because you were so tiny. It boggles the mind. I see a few shaking of heads. But It also forced me to be more boisterous, more outgoing. Again, how do you solve for your challenges? You figure out ways around them. I have never been able to walk in high heels, so that wasn't the way to solve. But it also, In some ways, it helped me be really much more inquisitive about others because I knew if I would be asking people questions about themselves, they wouldn't look over me because people like to talk about themselves. As you can see right now, I'm doing it. I love that. First of all, thank you for sharing about your mom and that experience and I lost my dad when I was 19 and I think when we have those moments of life that are so unexpected at such formative ages, whatever it is, if it's a loss or whatever the big T or little T trauma, I think it's so formative to our perspective on how we view the world. And even as you shared, you were able to adopt this kind of WTF perspective of the worst thing has already happened. Or I've already experienced all of this let's just go live life and, do the best that we can. And so thank you for sharing about your mom. And also I was having a chuckling moment because I don't know how many people know, but I also am very small. So I am like five, two on a good day. I like to say what I would give to be five, two, it's not five, two. It's like maybe five, one stretch. Real do a lot of yoga stretch real high. Your point about, being able to take up. space and being a woman, whatever height you are living in, for my experience, like living in a man's leadership world, I had that same experience of if I'm not, this tall and this big and this much space in a room, you just don't get taken seriously. And thank you for sharing that experience. And then also, the gifts of being on Zoom over the pandemic and being able to, take up more space physically or just be perceived differently. So surprise to anyone who, or not surprised, anyone who's coming to the retreat this week who we haven't actually met. I'm actually quite small. I guarantee you that is what people are going to be talking about, is height. I know. Isn't it so funny? Like get together, people will be like, I have no idea. To this day, I get you're so much larger on social media. I'm like, excuse me. I love it so much. Amazing. So I wanted to move into another question. You've had such a beautiful experience that you've shared and I'm I'm sure so many other moments. If you could go back to any age, At any time and share some piece of wisdom with that former version of you, what would that be? Who would you visit? At what age? Obviously you, but what age would you visit and then what would you share with them? When I was in high school, I was a gymnast and I was, I started, I watched the 1972 Olympics when Olga Corbett won, gold medal in all the events. And that's when I started. So I started at age seven and I was a gymnast until high school, the end of high school, I couldn't keep it up in college. And, but I used to get these horrible stomach aches the week before meets. Cause I always thought I'll screw up and during practice and I won't be able to be in the meet. And it was like a self fulfilling prophecy, right? Because you just, you wouldn't be in the meat because you'd be so nervous, right? And I look back at that and I think about having now built a company, I own my own home and I've done it all on the backs of these shoulders. And I'm like, what was I so afraid of? Yes, breaking my head open on the balance beam, but other than that, like, Why was I afraid? And that's also probably the message I would give the same the girl in her twenties. You can do anything. You really set your mind to. Obviously I'm privileged, I'm a white woman. I had an education, again, I didn't get funding for my business. I didn't get, I didn't borrow money. I didn't, it's all been like this. 88, 90 pound girl. And what was she afraid of then? So I think I would tell her to get strong because you're going to be able to do anything. I love that. So talk to us about your book. I know you're so passionate about connection. Will you tell us? Just more about the book that you wrote and also the framework because I know that you really outline this kind of really simple framework to building more connection And then i'm so excited to bring the group in and to have a discussion and hear from the group as well Yes. Thank you all. A couple of things first. There's a reason the book is called The Lost Art of Connecting and not The Lost Art of Networking. Because my whole philosophy is flipping networking on its head. If you look up the definition of networking in the Merriam Webster dictionary, if anybody still has a dictionary it's pretty yucky. It's transactional. It's all about walking into rooms and thinking about what can you get, what can you walk away with. How can this person help me? And my thesis is let's flip it on its head and think about what can we do to help others? How can we walk into rooms with our superpowers and think of ways we can be helpful to others? Because I guarantee you when you give help to others, the help comes back. It may not be the next day. It may not be in the next month, but it will come back. So when you think about that is the thesis. And a little backstory for years people kept telling me, Susan, you should write a book, you're such a good connector. And I was like, I had to do that exercise when you are thinking about writing a book proposal where you go and you look at the comps, you look at the other books. And there were so many books on networking. And I thought to myself, there's no, why would you want another one? And somebody, a publisher said to me, that means there's an interest. It means there's a reason people want that content. Just if any of you are considering or have, have already written a book and writing another book, don't ever let that minimize your desire. When I was growing up in upstate New York, both my parents were ultimate connectors, but they didn't have the technology we have today. Think of the manual typewriter, the rotary telephone And the automobile I guess to get around to see people that was all. And my father was a professor for 40 years at a woman's college and my mother did public relations for various PBS stations, and every morning at the breakfast table. No joke, they would have the five local newspapers, and maybe yesterday's or the day before is New York Times and Boston Globe because they'd come via the mail, because, there was no. There's no internet, nothing. And this was like late 60s, early 70s. They would every morning clip and cut articles that would make them think of people they knew, relatives, in my father's case, students and former students, my mother's case, journalists. They would clip and cut, go to their respective manual typewriters, short, Type short little missives and send them stacks of envelopes every day. And I assumed everybody's parents did that, okay? But here's the thing, today we are more connected than we have ever been in human history, yet we have the highest rates of loneliness, we have depression. And my contention is we've lost the intentionality that my parents and others did. In other words, that took a lot of thought. That took time. That took energy. And that took really thinking about others. And now I'm all for tech. Don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting we go back, pre, dinosaur days. But what I am, what I want, would love to get us back to is this intentional connection. Which I think, What you have built Marcy with the impact table. It's not just zapping off something, it's thinking about it and making it, exercising it like a muscle. So that really was one of the main reasons. And then just very personally, when you write a book, you get to dedicate it to someone. And in my twenties, when I was really grieving and didn't even understand this the. Immensity of, and I'm, and Marcy now learning about your father, you were probably in a similar situation. I used to daydream about someday writing a book so I could dedicate it to her. So if you do end up reading my book, the, that white page, which says this book is dedicated to, and sometimes people be like, what was the best part of writing the book? I'm like, the dedication page. Because, it's been 40, almost 40 years. And it's just nice now that imprint is out in the world. So anyhow, that's a bit of why I wrote the book and the methodology in the book. Now that this kind of layering of leading with how we can be helpful, it's called gather, ask, do. Okay. In the gather section, which is the first part of the book, you connect with the most important person in your life. And that is you. And you think about what your superpowers are. How can you be helpful to others? And I often, people will say to me, I don't have any superpowers. We all have superpowers, whether you speak multiple languages, whether you make an amazing pot of pasta, whether know the best hummus there is in Sacramento. We all have ways we can be helpful to others, okay? Maybe you're an avid listener of podcasts, so you know a ton of great podcasts. That's a superpower. So again, gather phase, you connect with yourself, learn what your superpowers are, and then you think about what your goals are for the next phase. One year, two years, hell, five years, and think about who is it that you want to connect with or reconnect with to not only help you meet your goals, but ways you can be helpful to others. And lastly, in the gather phase, you think about all the ways you can break that hermetically sealed bubble that so many of us live in, myself included, where we tend to attract people who look like us, sound like us, the same age, race, and color as us. So that's the gather phase. The ask phase is learning to ask the meaningful questions of others so that you can uncover what their hopes and dreams are. And the reason you want to ask those questions is because that way you can be helpful, right? If we don't ask questions of others, we'll never know. And lastly, the do phase, which is my favorite phase is when you take that data that you listen to, when you ask people. What are they hoping to accomplish in the next year, or if they could go anywhere in the world tomorrow, where would it be? Or if there was one problem you could solve and finances weren't an issue, what would that be? But if you listen to people, which is woefully hard, myself included, distractions around, but if you really pay heed. You then can become reliable, trustworthy, responsible, because you follow through, and you do maybe open doors, or you offer help, and it doesn't have to be writing a check, it doesn't have to be helping somebody the next day, but it's making the mental note, and then following through. A year from now or six months from now. So that's the gather, ask, do. And I, my, when I was doing a lot of book talks during the pandemic, there was an assumption that I wrote the book in response to the pandemic. But no, the gather, ask, do could be used at any inflection point in your life when you're starting a new job, when you're looking for a new job, when you're starting a new relationship, what is it? What is, what are the key ways you can better find yourself connecting? Because I do, now there's a lot more talk about how connection solves loneliness, connection solves depression. Between all of us, connection makes the world go round. I often ask people, what is the, like, when you think of all the good things that have happened in your life, I guarantee you, it's mainly because of somebody else stepped in and made something happen. Yes, we all make things happen, but the world's a whole lot better when you have people. rooting for you. Oh, thank you so much, Susan. I just, that last thing that you said, the world is so much better when you have people rooting for you. That is so beautiful and true. And, also just that idea of that. With technology, while it is so powerful, how quickly we have become so disconnected and at the impact table, and you heard the intro, obviously we're so passionate about creating that space to really connect as human beings. And we do that through this, we do that through, we have leader circles and then we have these ally meetings which we just connect to people with each other, to women, with each other, to just have a real conversation as humans. And it is the most powerful. It's like how do we not do this anymore? There's just it's such an important thing. I wanted to also highlight though, something that you said was that there is no system. It's who pops into your mind. And I think that there's actually something really magical about that, that we are taught out of, that we're conditioned out of. I think that we have. This intuition and this perception that serves us as humans that we just don't really pay attention to because we're so busy. And my experience personally has been when someone comes to mind, if I take the action to connect with them, to reach out to them, to just build that connection further. There's always something beautiful that happens to it and the timing is usually really like on point. And so I just wanted to honor that, that it's not a spreadsheet you're working from. It's not like a, in three days I'm going to contact X, Y, and Z, but you're really there in a quiet space and trusting your intuition and trusting what your heart says in terms of who you need to connect with and celebrate in that particular day. I love, you said it so much more beautifully than I did. This has been so lovely. Thank you so much, Susan. I just am so grateful. I know that we all are. And I know too that that we have a little bit of time left. And so I want to be able to break the group into small groups so that you all can have a chat with each other. I know you've got a party you need to get to reach out. Thank you so much. I'd love to connect with each of you and let me know if you're in New York. This was wonderful. Thank you, Marcy. Yeah, thank you so much,

28:34

Susan.

Susan: 28:34

And thank you for bearing with my babbling Bye. Thank you again. Bye bye. Bye, Susan. Amazing. All right.

28:43

Wasn't that amazing? I want to say thank you again to

Susan: 28:47

susan.

28:48

for being such a beautiful demonstration of what it means to lead for impact. And I want to thank you for being here and listening in. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with someone who you think would like to hear it, who you think it could help. We always appreciate your comments, likes, and reviews. So please leave us a review if you enjoyed this episode. And remember, if you're not yet a member, And you're interested in joining us at the impact table to be able to be live in our visionary speaker sessions have conversations that matter and really level up your leadership, your impact, your ability to thrive. I hope you will join us. I always like to end with a little reminder, a little encouragement, a little inspiration. I think we all need that, especially as mission driven women who are committed to creating a better world. So as we close today, I hope you can take a moment to remember how deeply important you are, how deeply important the work you do is. We are so lucky to have you and your contributions. Thank you. And your commitment to creating an impact. If you're doubting yourself, if you're tired, if you're frustrated, if you're not quite seeing how it all fits together, I believe in you. I know there is so much good in store for you and those you serve. And as you look for it, as you keep moving toward thriving in your own life, you create a ripple effect that touches. every single person around you and people you don't even know. You matter. And even when it gets hard, you have the strength and the endurance to make it through. Thanks for listening in this week. As always, I am rooting for you and can't wait to see the good you create in the world.