Unapologetic Leadership

Building Courage Through Curiosity, Food and Kids with Derek Wallace

• Cory Dunham

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0:00 | 34:22

What if the secret to confidence, leadership, and overcoming fear… started with trying something new?

In this episode, Derek Wallace shares how using food as a gateway to curiosity can help build courage, connection, and confidence—not just in kids, but in all of us.

From walking away from a successful corporate career to building a purpose-driven movement, Derek reveals how growth begins the moment you step into the unfamiliar—and why curiosity may be the most powerful leadership skill of all.

If you’re ready to think bigger, lead better, and live with more courage—this episode will challenge and inspire you.

About Derek Wallace

Derek Wallace is the Founder and Executive Director of the Mind Open Fork Ready Project, a nonprofit that uses food adventures to nurture a generation of more curious, courageous, and compassionate kids. Through events, educational programs, and media, the project fosters empathy and prepares children to be positive global citizens—one meal, one conversation, one shared experience at a time.

Derek’s journey didn’t begin in media—it started in the flooring industry. After 17 years in sales and marketing leadership at a large textiles manufacturer, he made the bold decision to leave a toxic environment and pursue something more meaningful.

Inspired by an episode of Chef’s Table and a desire to share food and cultural stories with his son Henry, Derek identified a powerful gap: while cooking resources for kids existed, storytelling through food and culture did not.

That insight led to the creation of Kalamata’s Kitchen in 2019 alongside former Le Bernardin sommelier Sarah Thomas. What began as one of the most successful children’s publishing campaigns in Kickstarter history quickly evolved into a nationally recognized media brand—featured in The New York Times, CBS This Morning, The Today Show, and Bon Appétit, and named a James Beard Foundation media award finalist.

Today, Derek leads the Mind Open Fork Ready Project, bringing this mission to communities nationwide—while also mentoring founders, advising mission-driven organizations, and helping shape the next generation of leaders.

He lives on the New Hampshire Seacoast with his wife Jennifer, son Henry, and their doodles, Woodrow and Parmigiana.

Connect with Derek

SPEAKER_02

Welcome to Unapologetic Leadership. If you felt stressed, overwhelmed, wrestling with the imposter syndrome, wondering if you're just not good enough, then this podcast is for you. So here's your host, Corey Dunham.

SPEAKER_01

Welcome to Unapologetic Leadership, where I have a distinguished guest, Derek Wallace, who is the executive director of the Mind Open Fork Ready Project and co-founder of Kalamada's Kitchen.

SPEAKER_00

Welcome, Derek. Thanks for having me, Corey. It's great to see you today.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, you too, you too. So basically you're all about food. So tell me more of what how you help people, how you serve people, and what you do.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I'm all about food. What we believe and what our organization, what we do at the Mind Open Fork Ready Project, is we use food as a way to help parents raise more curious, courageous, and compassionate kids. I mean, as you well know, food is this universal connector, I believe. And it's also something that there's deep stories and tradition that are embedded in all the foods that we eat. And it's such an amazing way for us to learn about each other. So what we created is this platform that allows kids to not just celebrate what's special about themselves, but also what's special about their friends by trying something new for the first time. And at its core, it comes down to if we can use food as a way to help kids understand that something that was once unfamiliar is actually an amazing experience, then we think that they'll go through life open-minded, which is what we want to see. We want to see kids who are afraid of the unfamiliar, that they actually run toward the unfamiliar because it's interesting and cool and fun and it's an adventure. And what better way to do that than through trying kimchi and sencocho and doll for the first time?

SPEAKER_01

You just spoke Spanish to me, and I don't speak Spanish. But I I know kimchi and I love kimchi, and I'm so glad I was introduced to that when I was young by my sister. But I I resonate totally with this whole thing being a kid and being afraid to try anything except hot dogs, pizza, and hamburgers growing up.

SPEAKER_00

Right.

SPEAKER_01

And I just didn't want to try it. But as I've learned, and my sister got me into a lot of these different foods and cultures, I was like, oh my gosh. And now, pretty much there hasn't been a food I have tried through many different cultures that I have not loved. And of course, that's an issue for me eating too much of it. But that's an amazing, awesome process. And developing the courage for kids to just try something, try something new.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, you know, I think, Corey, I think that the themes fit really well with your perspective. And I know that you speak a lot about things like imposter syndrome and things like that. It's all a matter of comfortability, right? And if you're a kid, let's just say you're a seven-year-old kid and your friend comes to school and they have, let's just say, a curry in their lunchbox. Well, that's unfamiliar. And aversion to the unfamiliar, I think, feeds things like imposter syndrome. And if we embrace that discomfort, then we learn at a very young age. Hopefully, we can reinforce for kids at a very young age, that finding, you know, pride and excitement in that discomfort is something that is a condition that we're all grappling with. But I wish that I knew that at five years old. It took me a long time to start to find some comfort in those areas that you know made me feel insecure.

SPEAKER_01

That's awesome. No, I I totally agree. And there's so many people like I look at you as very successful in all the things you've done and that you're currently doing because you haven't just stopped at your development, innovation, how you impact the world, because I've seen your resume, I've seen and we've talked about some of the things you're currently doing, which is exciting for how you're impacting the world and through kids, which is a great, great investment because they're gonna be our future, which is important. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, no, this is great. So if you don't mind, tell me a little bit about your background and how did you grow up with this? How did this start?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, I mean, my professional journey started. I graduated college, I went to Syracuse University, and I often tell people that when I graduated, the only thing more impressive than my fancy degrees and my academic achievements was my student debt and uh, you know, financial obligations. So directly after college, I was thinking about going to law school and realized that a more practical and smart decision for me would be to join the workforce. And I started in a sales territory working for a company, a textiles, US-based manufacturer of textiles. And I had a territory in Prince George's County in the Washington, D.C. area. And then I sort of propelled through that organization pretty quickly over. Well, I was there for a pretty good amount of time. I ended up staying there for 17 years. But at some point in that journey, I started to realize that the environment wasn't productive for me, that it was actually toxic, and that the situation I was in was not a reflection of the values that I held, you know, important to me. And at the time, my son was young, and I wanted him to look up to me. He was three at the time, but I wanted him to look up to me as someone who was aligning myself with people that I admired. And so that's when I sort of made this very, very hard pivot in my career to starting a kids and family media company. We talked a little bit about the core of what we do, but it's all built around this brand called Kalamata's Kitchen, which is a children's food media company that gets kids excited to explore cultures through food. It's all built around a little girl named Kalamata, a fictitious little girl named Kalamata, and her stuffed alligator pal dente. And as a media concept, you know, this is a million miles away from a sales territory in the textiles industry, right? So, but we launched this and it immediately started to gain a lot of interest. So we went from a very, very successful Kickstarter to meetings with the biggest players in the world in media in about a year. And that was a rocket ship and something that I think, you know, reinforced that what we were trying to do and the purpose behind it really resonated with people, that people understood the authenticity of the message and the world that we wanted to live in, one where kids were excited to connect with each other, using food as that bonding opportunity. So we built a media business around it. But then over the course of the last handful of years, as the media spaces continue to develop, and our animated series and the book series continue to move in a direction I realized that core to my purpose was showing up in communities, in schools, at live events, really focus on the social impact aspect of what we do, which is what prompted me to want to start a nonprofit extension of our work called the Mind Open Fork Ready Project.

SPEAKER_01

That's very cool. That's awesome. And I mean, it sounds like to me, in some cases, this would be pretty daunting to start up some of these projects. How do you begin to start up projects? Is it collaboration, relationships, communication, or what's your process?

SPEAKER_00

Well, the first thing I always tell people that when you have what you think is one of the best ideas you've ever had in your life, the next thing you should do is call the smartest person you know. And that's exactly what I did. So I called my now business partner, Sarah Thomas. And, you know, the way that I tell the story is I begged her to join me in this work. The way that she tells it is there was no begging. She explains that I sort of offered her the dream job that she never knew existed. Sarah is the child of South Indian immigrants and grew up as a child who really did explore the world and cultures through food. She has an educational background in literature. And at the time that we started this business was an advanced sommelier at La Bernard Den in New York. So now I'm speaking French. We're going back and forth, but she was working at the height of fine dining. But I think that answering your question is building that coalition or the bedrock of the people who believe in why you're doing something. To me, that's really important. Some people can operate really well in a solo environment. That's not me. I need partners. And those partners sort of like help you through the highs and the lows and the challenges and the celebrations and all of those things. Having someone to share that with, that's for me key to the whole process is building the people who are on board with your work.

SPEAKER_01

I think that's awesome. That's awesome. And with some of the things that you're doing, are there times when you felt maybe unqualified to do something, but your inner conviction or faith has kept you moving forward? And how what have you learned from that?

SPEAKER_00

All the time. It happens all the time. I mean, I will start with leaving a career where I was on a trajectory to be a C-level leader in that organization that comes with a lot of you know perceived safety, security, financial success, all of those things. And when you leave a situation like that and you decide that you can no longer stay in that situation, there's a ton of fear. You don't know where you fit in the world. You sometimes you don't know what your value is outside of that environment. And I think people all have had this feeling before. And then, you know, going from sales and marketing leadership for a textiles company to working in media and having implications in intellectual property rights and publishing and consumer products and negotiating major media deals and all of these things, it's nothing but imposter syndrome. And so I think that what I've found comfort in though, and what I've learned, is the only thing that I can really do is present myself with the intention that's genuine to me. And if that comes across to the person as authentic and genuine, and if the mission or the work is something they resonate with, then we can find a way to work together. I've had people who that has not come off that way. It's been a narrow group, but I've had, you know, I can think of one person that just at their core does not, we don't have great chemistry. And but all I can do in that scenario, and that only exacerbates the imposter syndrome, right? Which is, well, I have to prove this person wrong, or I have to show this person how qualified I am to be worthy of their collaboration. And ultimately, for me to push too far in the direction of trying to prove something to that person, I'm not being true to myself. And so for that reason, I think that the key is that if you have the right intention and you approach it from that standpoint, then it's a win regardless of where it goes.

SPEAKER_01

Nice, nice. And do you have any standards or is it just a feeling as to how far do you push? Because there's, as you said, the imposter syndrome and your confidence level, because it's like I'm in new territory here. I I don't know what's possible. I don't know how many people are going to collaborate or support this, but how far do you push in the direction and realize okay, either my idea is great and I need to just talk to enough people, the right people, or is my idea maybe not that great, and maybe I just need to stop what I'm doing here. So how do you figure out Corey?

SPEAKER_00

That's a great question. I will say that, and one of the first people I told about our idea told me that it was by far the worst idea I had ever shared with him. That of all the crazy ideas I ever shared, this was the worst one. And he forbade me from ever telling anybody else about it. Oh my gosh. And I'm not being dramatic. That was now, again, using that as a data point is really what's key because, and I talk to young founders about this all the time, is sometimes I connect with what you're doing, why you're doing. I totally get it. I'll say this is the best idea I've ever heard. Or other times, I don't like the idea. It's not because it's a bad idea, it's because for whatever reason, I just don't see it. And my encouragement is use that as a data point and factor it in because you can speak to two experts in any given industry and get their opinions, and they're going to give you two different opinions. You know, the you're the one who has to determine what's right and what's wrong. I think that as far as how hard you push, fortunately, around what we've done, the push is really around the hard work and the persistence. It really isn't around convincing people. You know, as we've done fundraising in various forms, whether it's for the nonprofit or for the startup business, we've never had to ask anybody to do something for us. We never asked people for money. What we did was talk to them about what we were doing, why we were doing it, and offered them the opportunity to join the journey, join the mission, join the family, and it becomes opt-in at that point. So I think that in general, the more you push, the less receptive people are. So I guess it's just a matter of how you view pushing. Now that said, to me, persistence is everything. I think that there is an epidemic of poor follow-up. And I think that's one thing that's definitely in your sphere of influence, which is, you know, making sure that you're persistent on, you know, standing up for the things that you believe in.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, I think that's important. You mentioned a lot of different things, the persistence, the dedication, the having commitment and belief toward what you're doing, which also gives, I feel, peace about what you're doing, because then, like you said, you're not pushing people. And I've heard analogies similar to that, just like when you go fishing, you don't throw the food at the fish or try to shove the hook down their throat, you plant it out there, and if they're attracted to it, then those that are attracted and comfortable will come closer, ask questions, interact, and potentially take the bait in the sense of fishing. But no, I like that with what you're saying. That's just a piece is what really stood out about me that hey, this is what I'm doing. I feel this is a good cause, these are part of my values. And as you said earlier, if things don't align with your values, then it's like, what are we doing here? Are we just doing things? And I've had to look at this for myself and also when I coach other leaders about are you just doing this for the money? Or are you is this truly aligned with your values? Because if it aligns with your values and your passion and belief system, you're gonna get up every day and pretty much not have to be pulled out of bed, but you're gonna get wake up with some excitement, some interest. And it's a weird feeling when you get it, and it's taken me a while to get to that point with many of the things I've done, because usually it's been, oh, I'm being forced to work. Oh, I have to do this. And really it's just wrong, wrong mindset, wrong values.

SPEAKER_00

So you know, Corey, yeah, yeah. And reinforcing that point, what I'll share is when we launched, I shared that we launched via a Kickstarter, but very quickly people were interested in making investment in the media company. And before we knew it, we were taking meetings with, you know, angel investors and institutional investors. And I used to be afraid to tell people that money wasn't my primary motivation. You know, you can watch Shark Tank and see everybody talking about, you know, well, we're gonna make a hundred million dollars together and everything like that. But again, when I would go through those meetings, Sarah and I together would be very upfront about the fact that our personal mission was not financial reward. Now, the good news is we had a very important purpose. Our mission was to implement this programming in communities across the country, allowing kids to celebrate cultures through food. And we were very motivated to do that. And what I learned was that the people who we said that to, A, appreciated the honesty, and B, knew that we were driven. It didn't matter what drove us, it just mattered that we were driven and that they felt like we were going to be relentless in pursuing that goal. And to your point, if you are true to that, then what success looks like for me would also bring financial success to the people who are backing it. Those things can be very congruent. But, you know, I think that at very important decision points, one of the key things I ask myself is what would I do if money wasn't a factor? If I took the money away as a factor altogether, what would the decision be that I would make? And that's usually pretty obvious. So that can be a really good North Star around, all right, let's use that information to then reverse engineer what needs to happen next.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, no, that's beautiful. Because I think, as you said, more people are focused, like you said, on Shark Tank, YouTube, TikToks. There's a lot of things talking about money, success, and doing it in a quick fashion rather than what's the gain or win-win in this situation? What's the impact out there? What's the internal impact? Exactly. I've seen when I focused on money, it took me probably 20, 30 years to realize I am not motivated by money, even though I've always had that as my sole goal. I haven't had much passion or really, I don't know if you want to call it integrity on what's most important long term. But I just love the idea just you had values, you had a long-term goal, and then when people could see your commitment, your passion, your energy, that they could say, wow, like you said, it doesn't matter where it's coming from, what my internal reasoning is, but they can see this as a winning organization or a winning set of people or partnership that's moving in a direction, and they have conviction and that's a key thing for most everybody else to get involved with something, especially if they're living long term financially or if they're mission-driven, or both at the same time, as you said.

SPEAKER_00

So yeah, I I mean, Craig, you said that perfectly. I think that I always say that we win when we create a feeling. I could say that financial success creates a feeling for people, but it's not a real emotional feeling for most. And you know, so the emotional feeling that we create is one that reinforces to people that I like that, I want to be a part of it, I want to be associated with it, feels good. That's the world I live in now.

SPEAKER_01

That's amazing. That's amazing. Now, just real quickly, the fact that you mentioned you speak to young founders, which I love that investing in the next generation because we don't have enough of that. I don't believe we we have enough great leadership in men who are mentoring, and of course it falls down from there. But just investing in the next generation. Tell me about that a little bit. Who are you talking to? What's going on with that, or is that at universities? What's happening there?

SPEAKER_00

I work closely with my alma moderate at Syracuse University. We have a group of interns that we're working with now as part of the Mind Open Fork Ready project. But beyond that, I've judged Holt Prize, which is it for all intents and purposes, it's like a shark tank competition for college students. I speak to college students and then beyond undergraduates and graduate students, people who are sort of new in their entrepreneurial journey. So I'll even take away the age from that because I was at a fairly advanced age when I decided that I was going to be an entrepreneur. But I have a real passion for working with people who are starting something and are looking for the perspective reinforcement in general. They joke around when I coach Little League Baseball, they call me the hype coach because every kid, every kid, I'll find like the one or two things that they are great at, and we will just like reinforce their confidence based on that. And I'm proud of the fact that a lot of the people in my professional network, I'll be the call before they have to make the big call or go into the big meeting because they know that I'll get them in the right mindset around, you know, what you're about to do is go in and offer people tremendous value. You're not asking them for anything you're offering as much as you're asking for. And I think that's a little bit of a unique way of looking at things that often people don't look at. And I love having conversations with all types of, whether it's like I said, college students who are just about to enter the workforce or entrepreneurs of all kinds who are wherever they are in their journey, it can be a really like lonely place sometimes. And they're especially as an entrepreneur, there's a lot of things that you wish you could say out loud that sometimes you feel like you can't. So having that circle of people or that very, very close group of allies that you know will be there for you when you're at your peaks and your valleys is really important. So I'll take pride in being one of those people.

SPEAKER_01

That's awesome. And when did you realize this was a gift for you? Unless this has kind of been the natural thing. Because I know for me, I never leaned on those types of things. I've always been an encourager and uplifter when I tracked it back. This goes all the way back into junior high school. So when I'm roughly 12 years old, and I never look at that as a gift. I always thought, ooh, what do I know? Once again, the imposter syndrome. What am I gonna say that looks stupid and dumb? And then finally, in my 40s and now 50s, I'm finally saying, wow, those are actually gifts learning how to navigate through imposter syndrome or scarcity mindset or limiting beliefs and all that. Where did you start to see that as a gift that you could start to impact or help other people?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, Corey, the perspective that you just brought to that is exactly spot on. I think that, you know, I don't know if Corey of 20 years ago would see himself as a coach in this space and an authority on topics of leadership. I can definitely relate to that. I would often start conversations with, well, take this for what it's worth, or I don't really, you know, I'm not an authority on this. But what I had started to realize, again, once I exited a corporate environment that I think was a little bit of like kryptonite to that sort of exploration of self confidence. Now for me, I've realized that I'm actually good at this, but it's still the journey. I'll give an example of this. I had somebody recently reach out to me just a couple of weeks ago, and there Looking at acquiring a business and wanted to meet me for coffee to talk about what sort of different options they had in that acquisition. And I'm thinking to myself, why are they asking me? I'm not sure why I would be the person, right? I'm not Gordon Gecko at all. But then that said, we sat down for coffee and I realized I actually do have a lot to offer here. I'm very confidently speaking about different financing options that they could look at, what the lending opportunities may be, how they could structure investment around it, all these different things. And we left and I walked away with the, hey, I'm actually pretty good at this. But I also think that the challenge of all of it, though, is the human condition is that we are attracted to confidence and we are attracted to charisma. So being an authority and being an authority that can really help does require that you have that comfort and that confidence. Because if I'm the person constantly showing up saying, I don't know how I can help you, that's not a great recipe for people taking advice that is genuinely good advice. So that's a long answer to when did I realize that? I think it's in the last few years, but sometimes I continue to doubt it myself until I show up and recognize that I really do. If people is from a genuine place of wanting to help and knowing that, you know, what I'm about to tell you is pretty good advice, and I think that you're going to benefit from it.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And I think that's huge because once again, going back to the TikToks and YouTubes, everybody sees all of this, all of this generic advice that they're taking. Like, oh, this person seems confident, they have content, and they're getting that advice rather than I think it's also important, people sitting down in face to face just like they've done with you. So there's a relationship there. There's a little more depth and detail to what's going on and really the listening aspect. Because if it's just a one-way projection like through YouTube and TikTok, it's hard to get all those little nuances of, you know, are you married? Have you been in bankruptcy before? Tried businesses. Are you working three part-time jobs or trying to do this new outfit? You know, all these different kinds of things. And what's your risk? I don't know how you call that risk. What's your risk level?

SPEAKER_00

Tolerance. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Tolerance. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I think that's entirely right. And you're highlighting as well the environment that we live in from a media perspective in general, is I see people all the time with followers and content and all of these things that are giving objectively bad advice. And because it's all built upon charisma and confidence or perceived confidence or projected confidence in a list of followers, and a lot of people, let's of all kinds, can find themselves lost and not unsure whether it's within their job or whether it's in their personal life or any aspect of their journey, and they're looking for someone who they think can help them. And I think that there's a lot of fake versions of that out there. And that's why I appreciate what you're talking about is the depth and the building of a relationship. Some things can't be simulated and can't be sort of fostered through a screen without two-way communication. And those are really important details.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Yeah, and that's a problem I see with so many people seeing all of this generic advice, if you will. Not that all of it's bad, but many times, like you say, when they show them how many followers they have, or hey, so many people have reached you know maybe a million bucks after three months or something, they throw this out, and many times those are exceptions. And my belief system, those are all exceptions. That yes, there is somebody who has made the success. But most people, some of these things take time, it takes confidence, it takes, like you said, building up your and as I've told my kids too, I say I've joked with them many times, but it's also serious. I tell them, hey, I'm testing you on this because of how you perform or answer this or the responsibilities I give you. This is a test to see how you'll handle the next thing. And so I appreciate when you said sitting down just a few weeks ago or a couple weeks ago that you had to actually get in that conversation, then you realize how much knowledge, wisdom, and really experience that you have to prove to yourself. Because I'm still on the reserve side of my confidence level of how much you can actually offer. Because I don't want to give people bad advice either.

unknown

Right.

SPEAKER_01

But I also but we also have to realize too, in a coaching relationship, mentoring, or anything, there's always two parts to it. There's my responsibility, integrity, which I feel you have a ton of, but then the other person, whether they're the client or the listener, they have also their piece of responsibility, accountability, and they have to do the work too. It's not just, oh, I got this advice and it didn't work. No, as you said earlier, are you persistent? Are you dedicated? Are you committed to this idea that you want to start? So yeah, just really.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and I think that, you know, picking up on a point that you made there as well, as a person who gives advice or mentors people, sometimes I'll be presented with a question and I just learned the power of being honest and saying I don't know. Yep. Because, you know, that's part of it too. A lot of people will make up an answer to sound good or to feel like they're an authority. And I think that in general, you know, leaders who lack sort of that emotional intelligence are very uncomfortable in the I don't know. But the last thing that you want to do when someone asks you an opinion on something is make something up or project to them something that could be genuinely bad advice. So, in some circumstances, it is actually, I think this is really good advice. My experience tells me that this is good advice, or I'm gonna give you an opinion, you take that opinion for what it's worth, and I suggest you gather other opinions from people because I'm not sure how convicted I am in this, or I'm not the right person to be talking about this. I can put you in touch with some people who are. It's a great question, but I don't have a good foundation of knowledge, and that's an important part of the relationship as well.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, no, I think that's great. That's one I've had to learn too is the power of just saying, I don't know. Because starting from a young kid, never wanted to look stupid or dumb.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And yeah, and just as an example, too, I went to Eastern Michigan University and I took a calculus class. Of course, this is 30, 40 years ago now. I failed that with a D plus because I didn't want to raise my hand, ask questions, and want to look stupid, and I never got help. I had to retake it, and this is all coming out of my money since I didn't have scholarships. I was able actually to pay for all five and a half years of my college, mostly through working part-time throughout the whole year, full-time during the summer, full-time during the school part-time during the school year. But I took that calculus class a second time and I did the same thing, and I thought, well, I'll just pick up some of the crumbs from my previous class, but I didn't ask questions, didn't the same exact thing, and I got the same exact D plus, and that also helped me to realize the conviction that that was dumb. I am never doing that again. I gotta raise my hand, I gotta speak up, I gotta get beyond this fearful way of life that I'm living. And that was in my 20s, and I've even told my kids that many times, don't be stupid like your dad at that point in time. He's much smarter now. But just learning that lesson of being willing to raise your hands, speak up, and also just be honest that hey, I don't know this answer, but can I have a couple conversations or research that and see if I can point you at least in a better direction?

SPEAKER_00

Corey, I this is what I love about as I've listened to your podcast, is you know, these points in our life where there's a learning opportunity and you recognize it and it sticks with you. And I think that the biggest common trait in poor leadership that I've ever experienced is the inability to raise your hand and say, I need help. The biggest problem, it is the single most common trait, is the inability to say, I don't know, and I need help. And insecure leaders have real trouble appearing to be weak in any way. So what they do is they dig themselves holes of going down a rabbit hole of in the wrong direction and without any help or assistance because they want it to look like they're in control. It's the whole command and control, you know, leadership method. But what you just shared, again, is why I really enjoy the energy and the perspective that you put out via this podcast is hey, I made a mistake, I learned from the mistake, and I'm gonna stand up and tell people I've made mistakes and I'll make more today. I'll make more today. That's part of the journey.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I've had I'm learning this, like as you said, you're still in the journey, which I'm so glad to hear that. And life is a continual process of learning and living fearlessly and learning to live courageously, as I call the path of unknowing or a faith walk, in a sense, is where I really resonate with. So we are nearing the end of this podcast. Is there anything else that you would like to share before we close down?

SPEAKER_00

Well, most of all, like I've said, I appreciate, you know, that I think that we connected via LinkedIn. And I think that this is an example of a platform as and we're fortunate we're living in a globally interconnected world, and there are platforms out there that allow us to connect with people who share similar energies and are putting positivity into the world. And there's always going to be differences in our perceptions or differences in our opinions on particular things. But you know what I would say is, you know, we're living in a complicated moment in history right now, and finding those things and those people who can bring us to positivity, put a smile on our face, and you know, allow us to believe in you know a better future for me. That's through work with kids, through with you. I know that you have your kids, but also in your work with leaders. So I just appreciate that. And, you know, in general, we could be sort of crippled by negativity and division, or we can stand up and say, I'm going to be a beacon of positivity and I'm going to extend a hand to people. So I think that we share that in common and I'm grateful for this chance to talk to you.

SPEAKER_01

Awesome. I really appreciate you, Derek. And what's a good way for people to connect with you?

SPEAKER_00

Well, you could check. We recently launched, we just announced the launch of the Mind Open Fork Ready project, which we're really excited about. This is a nonprofit organization. You can find us at mindopenforkready.org. You can find me, Derek Wallace, on LinkedIn. You can also connect with our Kalamadas Kitchen media property on Instagram and at Kalamadas Kitchen.com. So if you do a little bit of searching, the names are unique enough so that you'll find it.

SPEAKER_01

Okay. And if you can just spell out Kalamadas Kitchen.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's K-A-L-A-M-A-T-A A S. So it's Kalamada like the Greek olive.

SPEAKER_01

Awesome. Thank you so much. Well, thank you once again, Derek. This has been amazing. So thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you, Corey. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01

You're welcome. You're welcome. And I want to thank you for watching this or listening to this episode of Unapologetic Leadership, where being willing to say that you don't know and don't have the answers is extremely important, along with having courage to take steps forward and mentoring that next generation. How it's so important. And especially in Derek's way, using food to create that courageous interaction and belief level in these kids so they can continue to build off of that foundation. Thank you for listening.

SPEAKER_02

So that's it for today's episode of Unapologetic Leadership. Head on over to wherever you listen to podcasts and subscribe to the show. One lucky listener every single week that posts a review on Apple Podcasts or iTunes will win a chance in the grand prize drawing to win a twenty-five thousand dollar private VIP day with Corey Dunham himself. So head on over to Unapologetic Leadership Podcast dot com and pick up a free copy of Corey's gift and join us on the next episode.