The Business of Life with Dr King
Dr Ariel Rosita King brings on a variety of International guests from various countries, cultures, organisations, and businesses to talk about turning
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The Business of Life with Dr King
Inclusive Leadership Through Music with Dr Christine Herring
Music has the remarkable power to connect us, move us, and create lasting memories. But what if it could also make us better leaders? In this eye-opening conversation, Dr. Christine Herring reveals how she's harnessing the emotional resonance of music to transform leadership practices through her groundbreaking book series, "Mind Jukebox: A Mental Playlist for Inclusive Leaders."
Dr. Herring takes us through her fascinating journey from educator to author and leadership consultant. What began as a simple commitment to share weekly leadership tips on LinkedIn evolved into an innovative three-volume series connecting leadership principles with songs that reinforce their messages. Each volume contains 13 "tracks" – concise leadership lessons paired with carefully selected songs that help the concepts stick in leaders' minds long after reading.
The genius of this approach lies in its multi-sensory engagement. When leaders hear "Lean On Me" by Bill Withers, they're reminded to be open to learning from others. When Earth, Wind & Fire's "On Your Face" plays, they recall the importance of managing facial expressions in communication. These musical connections create powerful memory anchors for leadership principles that might otherwise be forgotten.
Beyond her books, Dr. Herring shares insights from Flexcom, her proprietary communication framework that uses four insects – ants, ladybugs, caterpillars, and grasshoppers – to represent different communication styles. She explains how understanding your dominant style (completing tasks, helping people, gathering information, or big-picture thinking) can help you "flex" into other styles when needed for better outcomes.
The conversation reveals Dr. Herring's belief that leadership isn't about position but about how we engage with others and create spaces where people feel valued and respected. Her "handprints versus footprints" concept offers a compelling framework for considering the impact of our communication – intentional or not.
Ready to create your own mental playlist for leadership success? Connect with Dr. Christine Herring on LinkedIn at Dr Christine, and discover the Mind Jukebox series at mindjutebox.com.
Music, lyrics, guitar and singing by Dr Ariel Rosita King
Teach me to live one day at a time
with courage love and a sense of pride.
Giving me the ability to love and accept myself
so I can go and give it to someone else.
Teach me to live one day at a time.....
The Business of Life
Dr Ariella (Ariel) Rosita King
Original Song, "Teach Me to Live one Day At A Time"
written, guitar and vocals by Dr. Ariel Rosita King
Dr King Solutions (USA Office)
1629 K St, NW #300,
Washington, DC 20006, USA,
+1-202-827-9762
DrKingSolutons@gmail.com
DrKingSolutions.com
Hello and welcome to the Business of Life. Today we have a very special guest, Dr Christine Herring. Hello, Dr Herring, Welcome. Hi, Dr Christine Herring, Hello.
Dr. Christine Herring:Dr Herring. Welcome Hi, Dr King. Thank you for having me.
Dr Ariel King:Thank you so much for being here. I'm really looking forward to today's conversation. Would you please introduce yourself to our audience?
Dr. Christine Herring:Yes, my name is Dr Christine Herring. I am the CEO and co-founder of Herring Seminars and Consulting and also the co-founder of Flexcom. I'm based here in the United States and, as I said, I'm super excited to be having this conversation with Dr King today.
Dr Ariel King:Thank you so much. So what subject are we going to introduce today? You have so many subjects that are so interesting. What subjects will we cover today?
Dr. Christine Herring:Well, I really want to talk about a book that I just recently wrote. I just became a recent author. The title of my book and it's actually a series. There are three volumes in the series. The title is Mind Jukebox a mental playlist for inclusive leaders, and I want to talk about this book because my journey to writing the book and my my why for the book, I think can really be beneficial to your listeners, and and so that is the topic that I'd like to land on today.
Dr Ariel King:Wonderful. I'm excited. So why don't you tell us a little bit about why you decided to write the book and everything else about it? Really looking forward to this.
Dr. Christine Herring:Okay.
Dr. Christine Herring:So, as I said, the title is Mind Jukebox.
Dr. Christine Herring:Well, the subtitle is A Mental Playlist for Inclusive Leaders, and the way I came about this title is, as I began to think about on my journey to entrepreneurship, how our mindset, what our mantras, what we tell ourselves has the ability to have such an impact on us and everything I do.
Dr. Christine Herring:I have three daughters the youngest is 28, then a 37-year-old and a 38-year-old, and, being a Black woman and having three daughters, it was really important for me to be not just to tell them that they could be successful, but to show them and everything I do I do for them. But I've also discovered, as they become adults, that now we have this reciprocal behavior relationship, that they're not just learning from me but I'm also learning from them and my oldest daughter, as I've been scaling and growing my business, my oldest daughter, vanessa, had said to me one day that I needed to get on social media and I was like social media is not my jam, I don't enjoy it, I found it to be a time suck and and there was also a big learning curve to being on social media, knowing how to like and you see what some people's content and what they're doing out there.
Dr. Christine Herring:It's like it can be a little intimidating, but she said to me she said, mom, it's not that challenging, you just find something that you really like to do and you talk about it because, as a business owner, you want to establish yourself as a thought leader in the, in the, in the business world, and and so, as I said, I that reciprocal behavior. I tell them and I've given them advice and I've expected them to take it. I can't not take their advice when they're giving it to me. And so she said just choose one platform, because there's TikTok, there's Instagram, there's Facebook, there's LinkedIn. And she said choose one.
Dr. Christine Herring:And I decided to choose LinkedIn and I decided that I was going to write something on LinkedIn, decided that I was going to write something on LinkedIn, and I made this announcement on a year ago, two years ago, on New Year's Day, that I was going to do 352 tips on inclusive leadership and I was going to provide weekly tips. I had no idea how long, how many tips that was going to be, how long, how many tips that was going to be. Once I got started I was like, oh my gosh, I committed to a weekly tip for the rest of the year, but I don't believe in not keeping my word. So I started making my tips, writing, writing, writing. And my husband and I were having a conversation and he said you know, you're putting all this time in creating this content. You have to think about a way to repurpose it. And thus that was the birth of my book. And I was like you're right, I have all this content. So I'm going to take this content and I'm going to repurpose it into a book content, and I'm going to repurpose it into a book.
Dr. Christine Herring:However, I didn't want to just create just another book out for the market. I wanted to create a book that I felt leaders could definitely connect to and that would take in mind their availability, their time, and I wanted to have some kind of twist that would be engaging and draw people in, and so music is something that has always been very important in our home. You know, we would get up in the morning, my husband would have the music on, we'd have dance battles before the girls went to school. We'd have rap battles on the weekends I can't remember the name of that particular, freestyle, freestyle Fridays, that's what we would have. And so music has always been really big. But music speaks to the soul, I think, of everyone. It's like that, it's like that connector Right. And so, as I was thinking about my, I was thinking about my content, I was thinking about who I'm writing for and why I'm writing.
Dr. Christine Herring:The idea of remixing our mental mantras came from my niece. We were having breakfast one day and she was also co-signing what my daughter said and said you know, auntie, you really need to get yourself on social media, even if it's just, you know, doing some short little videos, and you know you can talk. You know we start this kind of brainstorming. And she came up with this idea around um remixing. You know, like, like playing a, um, a record player playing, and you having a thought and that thought being negative and then you remixing it to something positive. And I was like you know what? That's a great idea.
Dr. Christine Herring:And so I sort of that became the overarching theme for writing my book, and what it's based on is that there are 13 tracks, and what I did was I took each track, like each inclusive leadership tip, and I wrote it around. I thought about what music could connect to that, because words are words, but if you connect something to a song, you're likely to remember it, and so I started thinking about all of my tips and the music that could go with it, and then I also started thinking about my own life experience. So it was this kind of space that I put myself in, thinking about my leadership tips, thinking about my own experience as a leader, and then thinking about the songs that I could connect to it, and so I can keep going.
Dr Ariel King:But I didn't know. I love that. No, can I ask them? So the 13,? Can you just give us an example of two of the 13? It's absolutely fascinating and it's so interesting.
Dr. Christine Herring:I have my book here in the audience. I'm going to we'll. We'll share how they can get it. But the first track is called the book. The song is lean on me, bill Withers Lean On Me, and the the.
Dr. Christine Herring:The title is Be Open to Learning from Others, and so I talk about a few songs that have the power to move us, to bring us together and to inspire us to be better people. Lean On Me by Bill Withers is one of those songs, and so I give an example of how inclusive leaders don't just count on themselves, but they use a team, and together we're better. Right, you can go fast by yourself, but you can go far with a team. And so at the end of the song, at the end of the reading which each track is only one page, because I said I wanted a leader to be able to pick this up get a nugget, a really strong nugget, in 10 or 15 minutes maybe, put on the song, listen to the words and then think about how they can use those words to inspire their leadership journey, about understanding how to be vulnerable, how to lean on someone or be that someone that someone else leans on.
Dr Ariel King:I love that. I mean just now, even when you talk about it, I can. I can hear the song in my mind and I can already say oh yes, I understand that. Fabulous, that's absolutely fabulous.
Dr. Christine Herring:Another one that really was speaking to me is teach your facial expressions to use their inside voices, and the song connecting to that is On your Face and it's like. Inclusive leadership is about creating a culture of belonging, respect and equity. It involves impactful communication, both verbal and nonverbal. Your facial expressions are a powerful form of nonverbal communication and they can either build bridges or erect barriers within your team absolutely, absolutely.
Dr Ariel King:Can you tell me what are the words of those songs that I don't know? If I know that song, I'm just very curious what are the words that actually go with?
Dr. Christine Herring:that um, um, it's written all over your face. You don't have to to say a word. Um, yeah, I love that.
Dr. Christine Herring:It's written all over your face, that's fabulous, yeah, and so um, um, that, that that's all. You're not familiar with. It is by Earth, wind and Fire on your face, and it's a powerful example of the connection between facial expressions and emotions. An inclusive leader. Sometimes what our faces are showing are not actually accurate as to what we're feeling or what we're intending to give off to our team. And I know, when I speak and I've had to learn this there's been a lot of times when I've been, you know, speaking at an event and you know you look to the audience, like I personally get my energy from the audience. So I'm looking at the audience and I'm looking for those people who are, you know, giving me that positive energy.
Dr. Christine Herring:And there have been times when I've misjudged someone's facial expression. I'm thinking they're not feeling me and so I'm trying to avoid looking at them because I'm not getting the energy that I need to be getting in that moment. But then they'll come up to me afterwards and say, oh my God, what you said really touched me. Or, you know, I was moved by what you shared today. This was so, so wonderful. And I'm thinking what you shared today, this was so wonderful. And I'm thinking I would have never gathered that from their facial expressions, and so we have to really be cognizant of our own facial expressions, but also thinking about how we might misread the facial expressions of someone else.
Dr Ariel King:That's such a very good point, especially as a leader. Um, looking at the teams, we might be leading all the people around us not really taking in what they mean to communicate, so that's extremely important exactly, exactly.
Dr. Christine Herring:And so my um, my, my desire with creating this series was to create a movement, an inclusive leadership movement where because to me, leadership is not about position or title, leadership is about how you engage with others, how you create, how you inspire others to bring their best selves to the table.
Dr. Christine Herring:And so I think everyone I believe in 360 degree leadership everyone has the capacity to lead from where they are.
Dr. Christine Herring:And so, while it might be thought well, a mental playlist for inclusive leaders, people might begin but might at first think well, you know someone in a leadership, like a CEO or someone in a lead, but leadership is for everyone. And so I wrote this book with the hope that it would create a movement that people are really thinking about how they're showing up and how they're engaging with other people, how they're creating those spaces where they're creating that sense of belonging, how they're creating those spaces where they're creating value for others. And then thinking about how do you take this book and apply it to your everyday interactions, but keeping in mind that I created the playlist based on my lived experiences and now you can create a playlist based on your lived experiences. So every song that these are the songs that resonate with me, but maybe there's another song that matches that title or that tip that resonates with you, and now you can have that song and add it to your playlist. So I've started everybody off with three volumes of tracks, but now you can add your own tracks.
Dr Ariel King:That's really fantastic. And can I say that there are three volumes. What's the difference between volume one, volume two and volume three?
Dr. Christine Herring:So they're all written. This was writing, becoming an author, writing a book. This was such an amazing journey for me because you don't know what you don't know, and it was a learning experience, right. And so the books are written with the same theme through all three volumes. The difference between them are the lessons to be learned and the songs. So there are 13 songs in each track, which gives you 39 songs that you know you can have and I can't. And now, after writing these books, if I hear one of the songs, it immediately takes me to that leadership tip Right. And so, besides the cover of the book, which was, I you know, shout out to the photographer, imei Aliquiva. He was the one that did my covers, and so each cover is different on the front, but the lessons to be learned and the music inside that, the songs that I chose are what differentiates each book. I love that.
Dr Ariel King:Can you tell?
Dr. Christine Herring:us. Okay, I'm sorry, no, go ahead please. I was going to say I also had an amazing illustrator. So I, by trade, am an educator, so I started my career in the classroom. I taught elementary education and then I, you know, moved into leadership and so I wanted this book to represent all of the pieces of me, and so I wanted to have where you can listen to a song. But I also had an illustrator who the illustrations on the opposite side match the words.
Dr. Christine Herring:So, you know, you got the visual, you got the audio and then you can read it, and I wanted it to touch people in many different ways, and so it was a, it was a, and then I had to get a book designer, and so it was. It was so. It was such I can't even think of the word how it all came together, how all three of these people were the right people for what I needed for the project that I was doing, and they were all amazing. Red Herring, they were my book designers. Emily Marco she was my illustrator and all three of them although they never met each other and they did not, they were all working from different places and spaces it all came together beautifully as one successful collaboration.
Dr Ariel King:That's fabulous. And and did they collaborate on all three volumes?
Dr. Christine Herring:Yes, yep, all three. I was they, they, they work with me throughout the entire project. So when volume one and I dropped volume one first just because of my impatience, I didn't. I couldn't wait for the whole, you know, for all the writing to be finished and it be ready to go. So I gave people like a sneak peek by dropping volume one and and then I did some some book talks and book parties after volume one dropped last summer, this 2024 summer, and volumes two and three are at the printer now and there'll be available in a box set as well.
Dr Ariel King:That's really fabulous. I love that. So is there a main difference in volume two and a main difference in volume three? I know that they have different lessons, so 13 lessons in each volume and is there? Does it progress in some way, for example, between volume one, volume two and volume three? I'm just trying to figure out what some of the differences are, and also, can you start with volume two, for example, or volume three, and then go back to volume one? I know it's a strange question, but this seems quite interesting to me. All the possible music.
Dr. Christine Herring:Okay. So that's an excellent question because I would say a main progression was happening in me. I saw my writing changing as I went from volume one to volume two to volume three. As I said, I'm a new author, so this is my first book uh series and I think that by the time I got to volume three, uh, I was on fire and so volume, and I talked about that at one of my book talks. I was like, by the time I got to volume three, I was like, oh man, I wish that, I wish that's what I would have dropped first.
Dr. Christine Herring:But but that's me as the creator and you, you know you're, you're for me, I'm probably my, my harshest critique, um, critic, but um, but when I talked to my, my uh editors they, you know my, my copy editors, they were they said to me all three volumes are amazing. But they said we can see your voice. You know there's a little change up, there's a little change in how you're telling the stories and how you're sharing the tips. So there's some little changes that you can. You know, you can see if you read volume one or volume two or volume three, you'll see those little shifts.
Dr. Christine Herring:Oh, she didn't do that in volume one she didn't include an actual story, right, and so they've changed a little bit in just the way, but the but, the format is still the same, but the writing, I feel, elevated itself as I went through each volume, which I think is a natural progression. We should always be getting better. It's like, when you know, I would always tell my daughters when they were doing something for the first time. I was like everybody has a first. Anything that anybody is doing, they had a first, and then each time they should be getting better. So you see someone who is running an org, running a company, and they have thousands of clients. They had to some at some point. Start with one client and you know, then they're evolving.
Dr. Christine Herring:Yes, yes and so, and so you can start with either volume. You don't have to start with. Like the way they're written is that you don't have you can. You can leave through and look for a lesson that you need for a specific time. I'll give you a great example. Is that the one one of mine is. Neither one of us wants to be the first to say goodbye, and I write that about.
Dr. Christine Herring:You know having to make a decision for the good of a team and maybe having to let someone on your team go. You know dealing with how to do that with dignity and respect, but also it may be necessary to do and if you prolong it, you can harm or hurt your team. It's not your job to really take care of someone's feelings and emotions. They're going to feel and have the emotions that they feel and they have, but it is your job to have the conversation, to do it with dignity and respect and then allow them the space to process and move to the next thing. And I had an experience that I had to actually do that and what I learned in that experience is that win-win doesn't mean that it always feels good. It can be win-win doesn't feel good.
Dr Ariel King:You know what I mean, so it's like right, and you might not know that it's a win-win until after, because many of us move on when they say you know, when one, when one door closes, a window opens or and and and change is inevitable. So you know a goodbye is always necessary for a hello. So you know a goodbye is always necessary for a hello, exactly.
Dr. Christine Herring:Oh, I love that. That's a bar, I'm taking that, but in a moment it doesn't feel good, right, and so we have to manage our feelings. But we can't manage the feelings of someone else. We have to give them that space and time to process their feelings, feel all the feels that they need to feel, and maybe that relationship will come back and be stronger, better, different, or maybe that was one of those relationships that were just for a season.
Dr Ariel King:Exactly, exactly. What do they say, even if it's a work relationship or a professional relationship, it's season or reason Right. So, yes, that makes all that, makes all the sense in the world. May I ask you I know that you do a lot of speaking engagements Do you also do coaching and workshops, and, if so, can you tell us more about those services that you give in coaching and workshops, especially with leadership?
Dr. Christine Herring:those services that you give in coaching and workshops, especially with leadership, absolutely so. I believe communication is the foundation of all that we do, and so my workshops are specifically geared around helping organizations become better at communicating, and so an inclusive leadership and communication intersect, and so, as a leader, you have to be really intentional and aware of how you're communicating, and so we have. What differentiates us from other trainers is that we have our own proprietary communication tool called Flexcom, and what that tool does is it allows you to identify what your leading way of communicating is, your secondary way of communicating and your minor way of communicating. But we impress upon people that all four communication styles are important and you are not just one or the other, you're all four. And so, because I mentioned earlier, I have a education background, I always am pulling that into whatever I do. And so with our tool, we use four insects ants, ladybugs, caterpillars and grasshoppers and those four insects are tied to traits and we help people understand how do you lead Like, where's your superpower? But then how do you flex into the other three to be able to get the outcome that you want in a particular conversation or collaboration? And so our trainings and workshops, when we partner with someone, we do that with our ideally.
Dr. Christine Herring:Our ideal client is willing to work with us for at least 12 months, because we don't believe in coming in and doing a one-off type training, because that's not enough to create transformational change, and so we want to build a relationship with our clients and partner with them, understanding how to support them. You can do a training. If you do a one-day training before you get to the end of that training, what you're training on can become obsolete in that moment because things with AI and chat, gpt, things are moving so fast, right and to. We believe in building relationships so that we can understand your pain points along the way and be able to address those in real time. And then I also do executive coaching and I do some keynotes. Superpower is in training and workshops because I love to teach and I love to go in and be able to see where we, where we started, and then measure along the way, the track, the progress, to see how we were able to create transformational change along the way.
Dr Ariel King:I really, really love that. And can I ask you know that there are four communication styles. Could you please tell me just briefly one of the four communication styles? It's so curious. I love connecting them to these different animals or these different bugs, so can you just briefly tell us about that please?
Dr. Christine Herring:Yeah, so four um for stuff. So we like to say to what extent do you love helping people? That would be the ladybug. Do you, um, enjoy completing tasks? That would be the ant. Do you enjoy um uh uh, using and um, gathering information? That would be the caterpillar. Or big picture thinking and being creative? That would be the grasshopper. And so that's just kind of like a synopsis, but each of those insects has a bunch of traits.
Dr. Christine Herring:We have like an eight-minute assessment that we have people take and then, after that you take that assessment, we give a detailed report helping you understand, to see the percentages where you fall on the continuum with your communication. And then we also provide if it's an organization that we're working with and everyone in the organization has taken the assessment we provide an organizational report so that the organization can see how their communication landscape. So you can see as an organization, do we communicate more? Do we lead more with our ladybug? I'm a leading ladybug and I'll give you an example of how we use it.
Dr. Christine Herring:I'm a leading ladybug, which means that I enjoy helping people. I want people to feel valued, I take care of people, but sometimes that might not be how I need to communicate with someone if I want a specific outcome. And so you know, my husband has often said to me we've developed language. He might say to me I value the fact that you love to help people and that it's important to make sure everyone is okay, but in this situation you might need to flex into a different style to get a different outcome. And so we talk all about that.
Dr. Christine Herring:I love that, yes, yes, and we have a framework called handprints, heel footprints, and we talk about how. You know a good thing overused, you know whether it's intentional or well, let me go back a little bit. A footprint is an intentional or unintentional act that causes harm. A handprint is an intentional act that overcomes a footprint, and so we talk about how, in communicating, we can be offering footprints when we may have intended to offer handprints, and how do we recognize that, so that we're making sure that we're taking care of each other right, and so we're making sure that what we are intending to communicate is what the receiver is actually receiving.
Dr Ariel King:I love that Absolutely fascinating. Thank you so much. Um, our time is up and it went too fast, so I'm looking forward to inviting you back again, because I'd love to talk about volume two or three or even your workshop. So we're looking forward to talking with you again and I'd like to say to our audience thank you so much for being with us. And remember if I'm not for myself, who will be for me? If I'm not for myself, who will be for me? If I'm only for myself, what am I? If not now, then? When Hillel said that and I said if not me, then who? Thank you so much and thank you to our guest, dr Christine Herring. Thank you.
Dr. Christine Herring:Okay, dr King, can I add one final thing?
Dr Ariel King:Absolutely.
Dr. Christine Herring:Yes, I just wanted to add that you can find me on LinkedIn at Dr Christine, and also, if you're interested in checking out the MindJuteBox series, mindjuteboxcom is where you can check that out.
Dr Ariel King:I want to apologize. I should have said that in the first place. Thank you, and we've got to make sure that we add that also to all of the podcast notes, and then we will be having you again when you have time again for a second interview. 30 minutes is not enough.
Dr. Christine Herring:Thank you all again.
Dr Ariel King:Awesome, and thank you all for joining us for the business of life and we'll see you next time.