The RIGHT Kind of Uncomfortable

S2E02 - First Grade and the Trauma with Emma Hayes

• Dr. James Pogue • Season 2 • Episode 2

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What happens when early childhood experiences shape your leadership presence as an adult? In this episode of The Right Kind of Uncomfortable, Emma Hayes, Chief Learning and Engagement Officer at State Employees’ Credit Union of North Carolina, shares how a painful moment in first grade set her on a path of self-protection, purpose, and ultimately, transformation.

Emma opens up about the unseen weight many leaders carry, from cultural expectations around food and wellness to the pressures of perception in professional spaces. Her story is both deeply personal and widely relatable for anyone navigating leadership, authenticity, and growth.

www.jamespogue.com

SPEAKER_01:

If you happen to have a professional life in finance or perhaps in the credit union space, and even more particular in North Carolina, my guess is you know our next guest. Her name is Emma Hayes, and she has a vibrant history and a great personality, full of energy and pep and verve. And I'm really looking forward to you enjoying what she has to share with us about what she calls the trauma in first grade. Lots of good lessons, lots of good life lessons, but also those that can be related to leadership, fellowship, and teams. Take a listen. I think you're gonna enjoy this one. Okay, so welcome to the right kind of uncomfortable. Emma has joined us to talk a little bit about one her, her particular journey, her professional journey, and how it and the lessons from it can help us all grow in meaningful ways. But before we get kicked off, I want to ask her to introduce herself in her own way.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you for the opportunity. So excited to be here and share with your audience. I'll just start with a simple I am. I am the youngest of three, the only girl. I am the eldest granddaughter and the namesake of my father's mother. I am a southern bell and all the things that come with that. I am a giver. I am a loving sister, aunt, cousin, loyal friend. Um, and I am a passionate person, and if I'm not passionate about it, I don't do it. So that's in a nutshell who I am. Uh I am also the chief learning and engagement officer for State Employees Credit Union of North Carolina. Uh, in partnership with AACUC, I serve as their chief diversity officer. And uh I am above all, I am a people and planet advocate. So however I can help to better either of those two sign me up.

SPEAKER_01:

So my first follow-up question. Um, you said you're your father's mother's namesake. What does that mean in your family?

SPEAKER_00:

My grandmother is um a legend in our community. She was the safe haven for a lot of people. She fed the community. My grandmother's house was directly across the street from the church, literally across the street from the church. And so people would leave the church on Sunday, and a lot of them took their families across the street to be fed. Um, she helped a lot of different communities develop programs for young people to be educated. She was very, very vocal in our school system. During a time when they were integrating the schools, she was one of those parents that was in the forefront of that fight for equal opportunity and equal access. Uh, she also is such a loving person. Uh, her love and passion for people still lives on. And all of the people whose lives she touched, um, she has made an extremely huge impact, and they continue to tell of her legacy. And so for me, what does that mean? It means huge shoes to fill. I spend a lot of my time making sure that I don't disappoint her. So uh growing up, I would hear that from echoed from my aunts and uncles, you know, don't disgrace the family's name. Again, I'm from I'm from the country, so Southern Bell. Um, but it meant something. It meant something to be my grandmother's namesake. Uh, when I said my name, people knew who I was, first and last name matched. So they knew who I was. And they would they would come back with, oh, I know your people. And I knew what that meant. That meant behave yourself, uh, be on your P's and Q's.

SPEAKER_01:

It also sounds like giving is the family business.

SPEAKER_00:

Servant leadership. That's my grandmother was a servant above all. She served in her community, she served in her family, uh, she served in our church. Um, it was just not what she did, it was just who she was.

SPEAKER_01:

So you and I met in connection to AACUC African American Credit Union Coalition. And on the stage there, you talked about your journey, and part of your journey is your journey with fitness. So, most of us, like when it comes to fitness or academics or professionalism, we see the finished product, but there's a path to get there. How would you describe your fitness journey?

SPEAKER_00:

Back to my grandmother, she was also an amazing cook and a baker. So she had an insatiable sweet tooth. So she cooked dessert with every meal. So whether it was some kind of sweet biscuit with breakfast or pound cake with dinner, we had something sweet all the time. Um, and because of it, naturally, there is this inclination to be heavier because we didn't eat a lot of um pause. Because we indulged in foods that were sometimes high in sugar, um, very carb dense. Um we were not that rich, so we didn't eat a lot of protein. Protein costs more than a bag of flour. Uh, so we we tend to be a bit healthier, voluptuous even. Um, and so it was a mindset shift for me. So my journey started with changing, changing my mind about my relationship with food. Food used to be something that I would reward myself with. It was kind of when you're a kid, you do something good, they give you ice cream. And so you start to form these habits really early in age, and I had to change and shift that mindset so that food wasn't fun, food was for function. And now I eat to fuel and um not for fun. And so that's a part of the journey is making it a lifestyle, not just a diet. It's not just dieting, diet is something you turn on and off, but I literally had changed my mindset so that it's a decision with every meal, um, with every morning when I wake up. My mindset is around how do I fuel the body so that it gives me what I need and I give it what it needs.

SPEAKER_01:

Would you say that when your mindset shifted or as it was shifting, that what you saw in the mirror um was to your liking? And I say that sort of in this broad context of we got body image stuff that is happening uh both with men and women, perhaps differently, however, in terms of how it's uh received and how it's given. But did you your mind was in the beginning with X, and you look in the mirror and you say, okay, this is what I see, and this is how I feel about it. Then my mind starts to shift. This is what I see, this is how I feel about it. Would you were you would is life even the right word to describe that? How would you put that together?

SPEAKER_00:

I think when I first started my journey, I didn't have no clue. I didn't know that I was as unhealthy as I was. I didn't know. Um, it was normal in my family to be heavier. In fact, when I started losing weight, my family was concerned. They I got calls from my family members saying, Are you okay? Are you what's wrong? Um, you don't seem to be eating. Food is how we show love.

SPEAKER_01:

Were you heavy or were you just heavier?

SPEAKER_00:

I was um heavier. Um, but in my mind, I was fit, I was healthy, I was, you know, like every other person. There wasn't, I couldn't tell a difference between me and someone a size 10. I clearly wasn't a size 10, um, but I was I I could stand to lose a few pounds.

SPEAKER_01:

We have all these um kinder, gentler words. Kinder, gentler words, fluffy, um, uh uh juicy, um, all of these words, but I, you know, I I wonder sometimes if these words are keep the person that we're using it towards, even if it's the person in the mirror, from seeing the rest of the story.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I think for a very long time I drew a lot of comfort from the fact that it's not that bad. Oh, this isn't that bad. And to the point that I didn't even notice that the sizes were changing. The sizes changed from eight to ten to twelve to fourteen. Like I it didn't register. And then one day I you I looked in the mirror and I was like, wow, my my hips are wide. Um, wow, I I can't wear, I just I just got this, I can't wear it.

SPEAKER_01:

Um, but it was- would you have said my hips are wide, or were you thinking my hips are too wide for that dress? Too wide. Is it was it too, or was it just uh I'm making some moves here. I'm I've grown.

SPEAKER_00:

It was it was the latter. It was, oh, my hips are wide, or my hips are wider, right? Than they were, and that's me comparing me to me, to a former version of me. Retrospect, hindsight, looking at the me that I was when I started this journey. I was I was I was a big girl, like I was in a size 16, headed to 18. And for me, and the frame that I'm in, and the way that I felt like and and by felt like I it was getting difficult to breathe while I'm tying my shoes. It was um it my back started hurting, my knees started hurting, like I was starting to feel the impact of the weight that I was carrying on my joints and on my body, and all the weight that I was carrying wasn't just physical weight I was carrying, mental and emotional weight, which was masked in what I was eating.

SPEAKER_01:

And so you get to the tipping point where you decide to make some decision. What did that day look like?

SPEAKER_00:

That day, I will never forget that day. I went to the doctor. It was my annual, it was my regular appointment. I went to my doctor and he said to me, Um, he took my blood pressure. Uh actually, you know, just before you go back, they take your blood pressure. And so I hadn't seen my doctor yet. It was just me, um, intake. They took my blood pressure, and she was like, Hold on. Because she's got the chart, so she knows what it should be. She looked at it and she was like, Hold on, let me take that again. And she took it again. She took it three times, and then she put me in a room, in a dark room, a dark, quiet room.

SPEAKER_01:

Did it was it actually dark, or we just was it like, was this this this your spirit was not feeling good?

SPEAKER_00:

It was rainy, so it was gray and cloudy, and so outside was dark, which matched because there wasn't a lot of sunlight coming in. Uh, so it was gray and dark and cloudy, and uh the lights, for whatever reason, this day seemed a lot dimmer. And it was probably me and where I was in that moment, but the lights seemed a lot dimmer. And she told me, she said, I'm gonna come back and take it again in about 10 minutes. And at that moment, I knew something had to be wrong. So when she came back to take it, she said, Your blood pressure is high. Um, the doctor's gonna come in and talk to you, but I'm going to need for it to come down before we allow you to drive home. Wow. So we're gonna give you quiet time and we're gonna see if there is something that is triggering, because it could be white coat syndrome, if there's something triggering this response that's spiking your blood pressure. And she came back and it had gone down just a little. Um, after the doctor came in, he shared with me that he thought he was gonna have to put me on medication.

SPEAKER_01:

So the the dark room was actually a version of a quiet room because we need to calm all this down. Maybe something happened, whether it's the white coat I'm wearing, or you had a tough day at work, or something, and we need just to how did that it was that sounds a bit scary?

SPEAKER_00:

It was it was um scary, but it was extremely eye-opening because both of my parents have are or were at the time medicated to treat uh high blood pressure, and so um I thought to myself, it's something I can control. Um, I can control my stress level to a certain degree, I can control my eating, uh, I can control exercise. These are things that would impact my health, my blood pressure.

SPEAKER_01:

All of this was in your head during the quiet time.

SPEAKER_00:

During the quiet time, during the quiet time when she already she previewed for me what might be coming my way. And that's when I thought to myself, I gotta get this together. So he came in ready to write me a prescription because this was my second time where he saw an increase. The first time it wasn't that bad, but this at this point, it was to the point where he was like, We're gonna have to write you a prescription. And I asked him, Can you give me three months? Give me three months, and if I come back and my blood pressure hasn't improved, we'll do it. But I believe I can I can change some things, and I went home and I uh I changed some things.

SPEAKER_01:

What happened in three months?

SPEAKER_00:

Three months, my blood pressure went back down to um so I will my diastolic at the time was 110. My systolic at the time was 180, so I was 180 over 110, which is extremely high for someone at my age, and my age at the time was so I came back in 90 days. Um whereas my systolic had been 180, my diastolic was 110, it came down to 120 over 90, and it was steadily on the decline, and he was like, Okay, whatever you did, keep going in that direction.

SPEAKER_01:

And so it was about those numbers, not really the weight per se, it's about these other key numbers that he was like, I'm worried, right? As opposed to your overall weight per se, I'm focusing on that. It was these other things.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, he wasn't focused on the weight at all. I wasn't focused on the weight at all. I hadn't seen myself, and so that day I went home, I started making some changes, but I also took a picture. I took a picture of myself, and I contacted a coach because believe it or not, I was in the gym every day. I was training people, I was teaching classes, so I was teaching in the class about 20 hours a week at the gym. I was teaching gym classes, boot camp, aqua aerobics, all the things about 20 hours a week. I was doing all of that at that weight with those numbers.

SPEAKER_01:

That makes it more scary.

SPEAKER_00:

That's why it was so scary. That makes it way more scary. That's why it was so scary because I thought I was doing all the right things. Um, but I'd noticed, yeah, I started having headaches, my back, I started seeing little spots, and they were all indicators.

SPEAKER_01:

And so was it a give me the top two or three changes that you made that led to either your 90-day success story and then the continuing work thereafter?

SPEAKER_00:

I stopped I minimized my concern for things outside of my purview.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, including people. So that's the sort of mental, emotional, uh stress component.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

I gotta get some some people further away from me, some things further away from some responsibilities further away from me. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh, and then I changed my diet.

SPEAKER_01:

I cut salt, I cut sugar to zero by 90%, 70%?

SPEAKER_00:

I cut salt a hundred percent. I didn't okay, and let me say added salt. I didn't add salt to anything, and I didn't use anything that had salt as an ingredient. Then I cut sugar, so I didn't add sugar to anything because almost everything we eat already has sugar in it, so I didn't add any sugar to anything, and I didn't eat anything that was sugar-based, so no desserts, no cut the sugar. Dairy stopped with the dairy, so um I already didn't eat ice cream, but there were some other things I like creamer in my coffee, uh, cut back on caffeine, cut back the caffeine, uh, went from drinking coffee to tea, uh, like literally overnight made some changes. Um, but the biggest change I would have to say that I made was really managing my stress level.

SPEAKER_01:

So you gave those those two things, uh, first being additive stressors was number one. Number two is the nutrition-related pieces. So when I think about, so you talk about the disconnecting or creating distance between people, places, and things, right? Part of your work requires the ability to connect genuinely across all kinds of differences, and some of those differences to your point of what people eat or what their scores are are unseen. So, what are your thoughts on the most critical unseen barrier that you have had to work with people around?

SPEAKER_00:

Perception. The biggest barrier I've had to deal with is perception. People think they know you. People think they know themselves. Um, but for the most part, people think they know you, so they come to conversations, they come into a relationship with a certain expectation that they don't articulate, even a business relationship. They come in with expectations that they don't articulate. So for me, it is extremely important that I spend time level setting and laying forth expectations, setting boundaries, um being completely open, honest, transparent about what the expectations should be so that it helps people understand what they are going to get from me.

SPEAKER_01:

And the hope then is I guess because you're role modeling this then, that I or they would say, Okay, that's what you want from me or from this experience. This is what I want from you and this experience, and we have some meeting of the minds, hopefully. That's the hope.

SPEAKER_00:

That's the hope, but it's also articulated. I will say, hey, I will tell you what I need from you. I need you to do the same for me.

SPEAKER_01:

Do people do that?

SPEAKER_00:

Not always. And I think part of the reason why they don't do it is because they don't really know how to articulate, or they don't believe that I'm being completely honest with them when I say say that. Say say what you need. I I'm not a mind reader, um, so I don't know. Um in some instances, we haven't had enough interactions for me to know your cues. So give me a little time and opportunity. Um, but I really just I need you to lay it out on the table.

SPEAKER_01:

Do you think that people who are more seasoned in their careers are more comfortable sharing? Or do you think in today's sort of nouveau environment where some of our younger colleagues have gotten very comfortable expressing themselves since they were infants, are more comfortable saying, This is what I need or I think I need? Who's generationally, who's better?

SPEAKER_00:

I think that's an interesting perspective to put it in to kind of look at it from that view, from that lens, because I think it's just person-dependent. I think there are some people who are extremely self-aware at an early age, and there are some people who are extremely self-aware as they mature, but across the spectrum are people who are completely unaware, and that's the difference.

SPEAKER_01:

So, speaking of being unaware, or potentially unaware, let's pretend that you have the superpower being able to go back in time. And you go back and you find little Emma at whatever age you want to choose, and you tap her on the shoulder and you can whisper in her ear, it. What age, Emma, are we talking to? Okay. And what are you telling her?

SPEAKER_00:

I'm talking to Emma between the ages of four and six. Okay. Between four and six, my parents divorced. Um, we'd lived across the street from my grandmother. We lived in a community that was only family, um, like for a few miles around was only family. Um, and it was extremely comfortable. I knew everyone. Um we moved between four and six, and we moved to a new community, further away from the family, into a community where we didn't know, I didn't know as a child, a lot of other kids, uh, which meant I had to move schools, so I became the new kid in school. Um, and my brother is an extreme extrovert, so he makes friends really easy. He's also a clown, so he makes people laugh and people love him. I, on the other hand, I'm a bit more of an introvert. I spend time building deep relationships, few deep relationships instead of a lot of surface broad relationships. And at that age, in the first grade, it's just that's a hard place to be, to be the new kid. But I would I would go back to her and I would say to her to trust herself, don't shrink and don't let people box you in.

SPEAKER_01:

What did shrinking look like for her? From the outside looking in, what what were the symptoms that little Emma is shrinking when she was asked a question, when she walked in the room? What is that look like?

SPEAKER_00:

So going back to first grade, I was the tallest person. There was one kid in my class who was a low boy who was taller than me. So I was I haven't grown much in statue since the sixth grade. That's so I was essentially this height in the sixth grade. Um, so I was really tall in the first grade, so I stood out automatically. Um and I they they called me teacher's pet because I enjoyed conversations with the teacher, um, responding to the questions from the homework that we had to do. Um, and so as the students in the class started making assumptions about what that meant and started calling me outside of my name and tagging me, it made me stop doing some of those things, or it made me purposely answer the question wrong or not answer at all. Um, so that I could put myself in more favorable light with with some of the students. Um, it made me less apt to build those relationships and share um openly with my classmates who I was in terms of what I liked and what I didn't like, or so I didn't give them opportunities to know me. So I started to pull back from the first grade all the way through until I graduated high school. Wow. Because I went to school with that same set of the same group of people all the way through high school. I didn't have true friendships until I got to college.

SPEAKER_01:

So those folks received a muted version of you, a shrunken version of you.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So in these conversations, right, kind of uncomfortable conversations, I like to provide something I call the inclusion moment or your inclusion moment. And I wanted you, if you don't mind, to take a moment and tell us a story. A story where you're the main character, and it would help a stranger understand who you are genuinely, authentically.

SPEAKER_00:

So I'd have to go back to that little girl who was in the first grade at a new school with kids she didn't know in an area that was unfamiliar, with no family per se in the area, and she goes to school one day, and all the kids in her class go to recess, and they decide that they are going to get together and they're going to, for all intents and purposes, ostracize her from the rest of the class. So they go to there was a swings and on the playground, so the entire playground area, and just outside of the playground area was a tree line. This is where all the shade is. And on very hot days, most of the kids would try to play in that area. Well, they all decided to go to that area and chant We Hate Emma. That's a thing. That's a thing. They didn't know me, they um had not given me an opportunity to really integrate myself into the to to the class or to be a part of what they had already grown accustomed to as a friendship circles. Um, so the teacher comes over to me and she's like, Are you okay? And everything inside me was dying. And I I looked at her and I said, Absolutely, I was okay. Um, I then made it a point to start conversations with my teacher, and that's where I spent my time. And in that moment, I made up in my mind that I would not endear myself to them, that I wouldn't open myself up, that I wouldn't allow them to hurt me any more than they hurt me that day. So I started to rub some tough skin on it. And that tough skin carried over from first grade through 12th grade, through relationships, through professional, it it there was trauma in that moment that has impacted, um, impacted how I navigate, how I navigate even now relationships. I'm not quick to open myself up. So I think the lesson, the moral is understanding that even early, something that they probably have not thought a second about. They never had a second thought about what they did in that moment, has been something I never forgot.

SPEAKER_01:

Do you think so part A of this question? So you talk about shrinking. So there's shrinking and then protecting. Right? Do you think that the shrinking happened independent of you protecting yourself?

SPEAKER_00:

No, I think they're they go hand in hand. I shrunk to protect myself. Gotcha, gotcha. I wouldn't, I would not have needed to shrink had I not needed to protect myself. But I started shrinking in the moment to protect myself.

SPEAKER_01:

So then my second question then is do you think that today, whenever today is, you know, this part of this time in your life, that that protective stuff or that shrinkage stuff is visible on you?

SPEAKER_00:

They never saw it.

SPEAKER_01:

Not them, but the people you're around now.

SPEAKER_00:

The people that I'm around now wouldn't know it if they saw it because it's become a part of who I am and how I navigate. So it's there now because it had to be there then. And it just carried over and it grew. So it started off really small with okay, I'm going to not answer the question. Now I'm gonna answer the question wrong. Now I'm gonna make myself small. Uh and by small I mean smaller in statute. I'm gonna try to find the other taller people to be like it just becomes a part of how you nav or how I navigated. And in today's world, and as I show up now, um I show up now confident. They they didn't know then that there was a piece of me dying, to the point I make that even now, if someone were to do something, they wouldn't know that a piece of me was dying. I would never let them see that part of me, even though people do it all the time.

SPEAKER_01:

Is there any part of you that's grateful to them for helping to build you into what you are?

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. I thank them. I had a conversation, so this is our 50th. Every so the majority of the people in that class turned 50 this year.

SPEAKER_01:

And they were also part of your graduating class.

SPEAKER_00:

They were my graduating class. So a part of part of that they turned 50 this year, and several of them have had birthday parties and um and I've gotten invitations, we've had opportunities to interact, and um we talked about that moment. I talked about that moment and thanked them for the journey that they put me on because before that, I would say in the south we call it tenderhearted, right? I was tenderhearted, and it didn't take much for me to show my emotions, but in that moment, I don't know what it was about that moment that made me realize I couldn't allow them to see the tender-heartedness because I thought they would exploit it. Now I didn't have language for that at age six. Now I know what it was, but I knew that like every part of me wanted to just break down and cry and let the tears flow and I refused. It it almost felt like I was reaching over my own eyelids and pulling the tears back and saying, You better not, you better not let them see you cry. And it's it that's become a part of when people hurt me, you better not let them see you cry, you better not let them see you hurt, don't show them your pain. For for whatever reason, good, bad, or indifferent, that's just what it is. Thank you for sharing.

SPEAKER_01:

I appreciate you. So I asked you if you might have a question for me.

SPEAKER_00:

I do, and I wrote it down because I I did not want to um squander this opportunity to ask you a question. And I actually I actually had two. I came up with two, and I was like, oh, both of these are good, and I and I wanted that to have the chance, but it's a big buildup. It's a big buildup. Okay, so so my first question is we all have failures in our lives, but I would was interested in knowing for you what role does failure play in your personal and professional growth? And can you share an example of when failure ultimately led to a major breakthrough or transformation?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I wouldn't be good at anything had I not failed a lot. Like I you gotta get to be a really good friend of failure. You know, it's gotta be a familiar place, maybe not a comfortable place, a place that brings joy and happiness, but you know, you better get comfortable with it if you want to be good. And if you want to be great, you better get real comfortable with it. You want to be elite, unique, that you want to be that person, you're gonna fail a lot. A lot. So I hope that I have a good and healthy relationship with failure. The the reality, however, is I don't live out here by myself. So when I fail, it impacts other people. And the older I've gotten and the more I've had the opportunity to spread my wings and my roots have gotten a little deeper, my failures impact more and more and more people. That concerns me a great deal. And it reminds me of this idea of am I willing to fail knowing if I'm this feeling for me it's easier if it's just gonna impact me, but am I willing to risk and potentially fail, knowing it might impact these dozen people, these five dozen people or more? I have to. I have to. I have to jump off the cliff face first. If I gotta build something on the way down, then so be it. I must. I mean, there's there's only so many of us that have been blessed with time and opportunity and resources and support mechanisms to be able to jump, to get to the top of the cliff. So you can jump. So I must. And I will do my best not to fail. And if I do, then I'll start over. You know, as the poem goes with worn-out tools and try to try to do it again.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, but yeah, me and failure, but so talk about that transformational, that time when you failed and it was absolutely transformational. It changed everything.

SPEAKER_01:

I have uh one personal, one professional. So the personal one is my first time going to the national championships in martial arts. And um I was fit, I was fast, I was strong, I was all of these things, and I knew I was competitive. How competitive? We're gonna find out, right? So I'm in there and I'm fighting these guys, and it's a two uh double elimination. So I lost like my second or third fight, so I go into the losers bracket, and I'm fighting these folks, and um they are beating me up. My face is swollen. I don't understand because all the tournaments I went to before this had never happened. And so my instructor walks by, and there's no coaching allowed, but I had a minute in between, I'm getting myself together, and I said, Um, you know, Sensei, I don't I don't understand. They're they're hitting me in the face hard. And uh the rules say light face contact allowed. And he said, Are they hitting you in the face lightly? I said, No. He says, Well, that must be the definition of light today. Then he walked off. And so I said, Okay, let me settle in. It means I'm gonna have to hit people hard. And if they're not seeing the point, then I gotta knock you out. These are the rules of the game that I have chosen to play. So I make it the fight for first and second. I've lost once, and then the guy that I had to beat, he had lost zero times. I have to beat him twice, he's gonna beat me once. He mocked the floor with me. I mean, he embarrassed me.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh yeah. He I was when you say failure, there's it's like I didn't even have any skills. That's how badly he beat me. And, you know, I pick myself up afterwards, you know, I get my silver medal, and I'm like, I'm just not I'm not ready. It was a year later when he told me why he handled me that way. He says, I watched you, and if I you had any thought that you might win, you might win. So I have to take from you, I have to take hope from you. I have to take it right now. There's no time to wait. And he did. So from that failure, it was like, okay, I have to recognize there's certain things you can't take from me. Like our grandmamas may have taught us, you get educated that can't take it from you. Get this. If you get hope, you can't let them take that from you either. Had I kept hope, I might have had a shot. But as soon as he took that, I was toast.

SPEAKER_00:

Wow. All right, quickly. The second one was societal norms. Like this work that we do really is to provide access. So when we think when you think about societal norms, what is one norm, one societal norm that you would change? Um and why? Because you know, on a broader scale, if you think about the communities that we are here to serve.

SPEAKER_01:

A societal norm. That somehow we're different. People go in looking for the difference. You're taller, you're shorter, you're Baptist, I'm Muslim. You're from the states, I'm from Canada. They're looking for the difference instead of letting the norm be. Let's talk about how we're the same.

SPEAKER_00:

I like that. I like that. Well, thank you. I appreciate you for indulging me in my two questions.

SPEAKER_01:

And thank you for joining me on our podcast, The Right Kind of Uncomfortable. I'm really uh deeply appreciative that you peeled back the onion layers all the way back to first grade. All the way back to first grade and the trauma. First grade and the trauma. That that could be the title of this one. Well, we'll have to think.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, thank you. Thank you.