Jerry Colonna | Breaking the Cycle: Confronting Systemic Racism and Othering

Srini

 Jerry, welcome back to The Unmistakable Creative. Thanks so much for taking the time to join us.

Jerry Colonna

Thanks for having me back, Srini. It's just a delight to reconnect with you. I remember with a lot of warmth and fondness our first conversation. So thanks for having me.

Srini

Yeah, well, likewise, it's such a pleasure to have you back. I mean, you're one of those people, I think, whose work, you know, I quote in my conversations with people, I revisit frequently, I think that it would be an understatement to say that it has had a very, very tangible impact on my thinking, my behavior, and my thought process about running a company. So you have a new book out called Reunion, Leadership, and the Longing to Belong, all of which we will get into. And I wanted to start.

Jerry Colonna

Mm.

Jerry Colonna

Mm.

Srini

By asking what I think is a very relevant question to this book and that is where were you born and raised and how did That end up shaping and influencing Who you've become and what you've ended up doing with your life

Jerry Colonna

Well, I was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1963. So I turned 60 this year and lived in a house, 377 East 26th Street between Avenue D and Claradin Road, for those who know Brooklyn, that was actually owned by my grandfather. And we moved.

and I described this in reunion, we moved rather suddenly when I was 10 years old to a different part of Brooklyn. And then I moved again when I was 14 years old from Brooklyn to Queens. So I consider myself an outer borough New Yorker.

Srini

Hmm.

Srini

Well, so let's talk about the move because I very distinctly remember that. So I think the place I want to start is like one. Give us a sense of what two things were like at the time. One is your sort of perception of truth and media, because I remember when I had Cal Fussman here, I'd asked him about this, having, you know, grown up in that time frame as well. And, you know, being in a position where he literally wrote a letter to the president after the JFK assassination and got a response.

Jerry Colonna

Mm.

Jerry Colonna

Mmm.

Srini

And he was saying, you know, the thing that was so fascinating at that time versus media now is that Walter Cronkite was the one reliable source of truth. But talk to me about this sort of what was going on in society at the time in terms of race relations, as well as it relates to this whole idea of media and truth.

Jerry Colonna

What an interesting question. So I'm a little younger than Cal. I was born a month after JFK was assassinated. But relevant to your question, one of my earliest memories, I was about six years old or turning six, I remember 1969 for a couple of things. One.

I remember watching the eagle landing on the moon, the lunar module. But I also remember, I think it was 1968, I remember the feelings of both Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy being shot. And I was number six of seven kids.

I was also acutely aware of, in that kind of terrified little boy way, of the world at large. There were a number of teenagers, 17, 18-year-olds, who were being drafted to go serve in Vietnam, and some of them were not coming home. My brother, who was of that age, my brother Vito, was...

um, selected, but, uh, had fallen arches or something like that. So he actually never served. But I remember the time and you specifically ask about race relations and, you know, the most relevant piece here was that this was a time, uh, when in my neighborhood in Brooklyn, uh, transformed from a predominantly white, um,

Irish, Italian, maybe German neighborhood, to a predominantly Caribbean and Caribbean Black neighborhood. And African-American, those with roots in the United States for at least two generations. And I remember the tensions that we saw on the television more than anywhere else. There were race riots in.

Jerry Colonna

in little Haiti in Miami, there was riots in Newark, New Jersey, there were riots in LA. And so long-winded, our experience of the world was limited through a small little 20-inch black and white TV, Walter Cronkite being one of the people who explained the world to us. And what it felt like was that the world was coming apart at its seams.

and that it was an incredibly dangerous place. And the truth is that it continues to mark me to this day to think of the world in that way.

Srini

One thing you mentioned is the story of your best friend. If I remember correctly, his name was Marcus, and you never saw him again. And part of this move was motivated by the changes in your neighborhood, right?

Jerry Colonna

Right.

Jerry Colonna

Right, so I was about 10, 11 years old. And it was late fall, early winter. And Marcus had gone to visit relatives in Alabama. And one night my father went out for his nightly run of to the grocery store to get two six packs of beer.

And when he was coming back, he noticed that this older guy was sort of walking down the street kind of drunkenly. He had just come out of a bar. When he noticed a group of teenagers jump him and start beating the guy, and my father reacted by running down the street, screaming, yelling, help, call the police. And the kids, the teenagers, turned on my father.

And they beat him terribly, broke his leg in three places. He walked with a limp for the rest of his life. And within three or four weeks, we moved to a completely different part of Brooklyn, a predominantly white neighborhood in Brooklyn. And I never.

got a chance to say goodbye to my friend Marcus. I never got a chance to say goodbye to the only place that I had known as my home. We took a break over Christmas vacation. I left school and then I came back after Christmas vacation and was in another school. And...

I can tell you about going back and visiting. Which, yeah. So actually, after the manuscript to reunion was done, I still had this yearning to return. And this past summer, accompanied by two really good friends who actually shot a video of this experience, I went back to Brooklyn.

Srini

Yeah, please.

Jerry Colonna

I'd been back to Brooklyn many, many times, and I stayed in Brooklyn. I lived in Brooklyn for many, many years. But I almost purposely, yet unconsciously, stayed away from this part of Flatbush. And this summer, I went back to the old neighborhood, and I stopped in front of the house that I was born in. And I was like, oh, my god.

It was an incredibly powerful experience because it had been 50 years since I was there. And the house is in the midst of renovation. It had just recently been sold. And as I walked down the street, my friends noted that I seemed like I walked with a swagger and I laughed because unexpectedly I felt like I was home. Like.

this is where I belong. And I would point out, well, that's where we played stoop ball, and that was home base for our stick ball, and this is what we did over here, and this is what we did. And as I was standing there, one of the things that was incredibly wonderful was the fact that the street was really well-tended, and that all the homes were really well taken care of, and that there were a lot of young trees on the street.

and planters out front. And as I stood in front of the old house, a man came outside, he was probably a little younger than me, maybe in his 50s, a black man. And I said, fuck it, I'm not gonna get this opportunity again. So I walked up to him, and to be clear, he walked out of what in my mind is Marcus's house.

And I stuck my hand out, I introduced myself, and I said, I was born in this house, and I haven't been back for 50 years. And he sort of gave me this really odd look, like, what are you doing here? What is this about? But then as we started talking, I noted the planters and how well-tendered the street was. And he had come out to water some pots of flowers in front of his house. And I said, you know.

Jerry Colonna

I was really pleased. And he pointed across the street at this woman who was going back into her house and he said, well, if we don't take care of our house, she yells at all of us. And we started to laugh and we exchanged names. I took a really lovely selfie with him and I told him about my best friend Marcus and how he grew up in that house.

Jerry Colonna

It was a powerful sense of closure. It was a, you know, I left.

Jerry Colonna

terrified and I came back.

Jerry Colonna

with a sense of completion and a sense of closure that is still affecting me. Because this was only just a few months ago.

Srini

So one thing, with that incident with your dad, particularly leading to the kind of injury where he walks around with a limp for the rest of his life, that could easily have planted the seeds for lifelong hate and lifelong racism. Why does that happen to some people and why didn't it happen to you?

Jerry Colonna

Mm.

Jerry Colonna

Mm-hmm.

Jerry Colonna

Mm.

Jerry Colonna

So and I don't think I gave this detail, but the teenagers were black. I think you're right that it could have developed that feeling inside of me. I think that there was and there are, like all of us, there is some internalized racism that it fed.

Jerry Colonna

It was part of a, what happened for me was a larger sense of dislocation and a sense of fear, fear of the other. And, you know, this was at a time, you know, the backdrop of riots and conflict.

At the time, you know, I moved from a predominantly black neighborhood to a predominantly white neighborhood And I started interacting with people who actually had No understanding of anybody outside their small cohort their small demographic And even at an early age 12 13 years old it became pretty clear to me that

this point of view was kind of stupid, that it was that as much as I might, as many of us might be profoundly shaped by systemic racism and a systemic fear of the other. I think.

every time that fear came up for me, I would...

Jerry Colonna

encounter and remember what I knew to be true, which was I had these other relationships that spanned the constructs in which that it felt like it was being forced on me.

Jerry Colonna

I think that the longer term implication or the more obvious implication for my family of this experience was a profound fear of things like the subway or, you know, New York City in the 70s was a pretty, pretty rough environment. And there was that fear.

that was not necessarily linked to a particular person's racial identity. But I want to be clear, like so many people, there's no way that I escaped internalized racism. That still exists.

Srini

Let's come back to the internalized racism idea because I want to dig a little bit deeper into that as well. But there's something that came to my mind as I was going through this book, right? We have this really sort of pervasive anti-immigrant sentiment in our culture right now. And yet, the funny thing is if we trace the roots back of the people who have that sentiment, they're all descendants of immigrants. So talk to me about that.

Jerry Colonna

Mm.

Jerry Colonna

Yep.

Jerry Colonna

Right.

Well, I spend a lot of time on that. And I want to be clear that I think that there is a profoundly powerful through line that connects, whether it's anti-black, anti-Asian racism, homophobia, transphobia, patriarchy, to an anti-immigrant stance.

And you're right, Srini, there is this profound conflict in the American soul, which is to be nativist.

despite the fact that we are all descendant of, well, not all of us, but despite the fact that other than the indigenous folks on this land, the Americas as a whole have been populated by the descendants of colonizers.

and settlers. And there is a, and so we just need to assert that, and then realize that there are two myths that shape the American character. And the one is the myth of American exceptionalism. And now I want to be clear about that, and calling that a myth. I do think that there are things that are exceptional about the American experiment.

Jerry Colonna

But the broad myth of American exceptionalism ultimately leads to a non-critical thinking view of American history. And so that's one myth. And the other myth is the myth of the melting pot. Meaning that if, the myth is if you give up your historical roots.

and you give up language, and you change your name, and you assimilate.

then regardless of say the color of your skin, you will be accepted into the dominant culture. And it's a myth because it's only true for some folks.

And those two myths are so important to the psyche of America that we are almost on a society-wide basis. We will defend those myths.

And in doing so, we create, we feed this sort of anti-immigrant stance. Now I just said a lot of concepts, so I should just back down. Does, am I making sense?

Srini

Yeah, it made complete sense. There's one thing that caught my attention. You called it the American experiment, so I want to come back to that. But let's talk about this idea of internalized racism first. Define that for us, because my sense is from just hearing you say that, it's kind of like, I think, what even I experienced. Like, you know, like I always tell people a joke, it's like you want to test your Indian parents' racism, like bring home a black girl or a Muslim girl, and we'll see how open-minded they are.

Jerry Colonna

Hmm.

Jerry Colonna

Hmm.

Jerry Colonna

Hehehehe

Srini

It's kind of like, is that because I feel like that's sort of an internalized racism, like we just kind of like we're like, okay, all of us know that would be the one test that might potentially be that they they'll say they're okay with it, especially now with me being 45 in single style, like we don't give a damn, we just want you to meet somebody. But like that always has struck me as like, what would that be like, and you know, my friend Damon Brown, actually, who is African American, he's married to an Indian woman and I asked him about

Jerry Colonna

Yeah, yeah.

Jerry Colonna

breaking point. Right.

Jerry Colonna

Right.

Srini

And I was like, wow, you guys have the best food at your wedding. He was like, oh yeah, we had soul Indian food together. I was like, that sounds amazing. And a heart attack waiting to happen.

Jerry Colonna

Well, and so let's expand our language a little bit because the kind of prejudice say that you're, and I'm imagining, are your parents Hindu? Okay. So the kind of prejudice that we're talking about here, I would put under the rubric of systemic othering more than I might use the construct of race to talk about, say, your parents' reaction.

Srini

Mm-hmm.

Jerry Colonna

if you brought home a Muslim woman. And so what we're talking about is the relationship between Hindus and Muslims, and let's also reference the Sikhs, and let's reference all the other religions that make up the land that used to be known as India, that perhaps is inclusive of Pakistan or Bangladesh, right? You've got this...

extraordinary experience, you also have a caste system. And so there's this, I mean, you tell me how dominant is it, how familiar is it that say an older generation might categorize people, let's just use that term, categorize groups of people.

Srini

Yeah, I think that that's fair because I'll give you an example. Obviously, cast is one of those things that nobody ever explicitly talks about. But my cousin in there was telling me that the only kids around when he was growing up, cause he was this really hardworking kid and my grandmother was crazy and a tyrant in terms of making him work hard, were the servants kids. And he would go out and play with them and she would get really upset that he was playing with those kids because she thought those kids were headed nowhere.

Jerry Colonna

Mmm.

Jerry Colonna

Mmm, mmm, mmm.

Srini

Like, and he said, how the hell would I know that? He's like, I was a kid. Like all I knew was that there were other kids to play with. I mean, that seems like a sort of categorization example to me.

Jerry Colonna

Mm-hmm. Mm, mm, mm.

Jerry Colonna

I think it is. I mean, we don't know for sure what was in your grandmother's mindset, but, and I'm not gonna attempt to...

Jerry Colonna

respond on cast. Go ahead, yeah.

Srini

Let me give you one other backdrop. Yeah. One other backdrop to that is we're Brahmins, right? And that, that obviously like, it's kind of like, Oh, we're from an educated cast funny enough, like it's not even our cast that is like the people who have the most money in India. In fact, the irony of India today is a lot of the people who are like billionaires many times over came from like almost nothing.

Jerry Colonna

Okay.

Jerry Colonna

Right, right. And so I'm imagining, and you tell me if this is true, I'm imagining that there's a re-examination of the implicit caste structure, where in many cases the caste structure may be going away. But you know, you and I are old enough to remember the riots when, how old were you when Indira Gandhi's guards?

murdered her. Right. It was probably the 1970s. OK, so it was just before you. Because that set off riots in which thousands of Sikh worshippers were murdered. And so the the.

Srini

What year was it? You don't have to tell me.

Okay, so I was born in 78.

No.

Jerry Colonna

You asked about current anti-immigrant feeling in the United States, and I'm gonna put it back into this notion, and then you connected it to internalized racism. What we're talking about right now, where racial awareness, structural dominance, a caste-like belief system are all examples of that internalized.

what I would refer to as an internalized racism or more broadly speaking, an internalized or systemic othering, to use the term from John A. Powell. It's making someone else other than my tribe. It's a kind of tribalism.

Srini

Yeah, I don't know if you've read it. Guessing just pretty soon this conversation you probably have is Elizabeth Wilkerson's book, Cast, which basically outlines the fact that there's almost an invisible cast system in America.

Jerry Colonna

Yes.

Jerry Colonna

That's right. It, it, you know, the, the takeaway that I took from doing the research for this book and writing this book was that, um,

that the paradigm that can manifest in, say, anti-black racism is in fact part of a much broader paradigm in which dominant groups seek to maintain that structure of dominance over the less dominant group, whether it's men through patriarchal systems over women or it's...

say Christian nationalists over say those of the Jewish faith, there's this propensity in the human experience to place people in caste, to use the term more broadly, and then to support oneself in that view of oneself as better than.

In its worst expression, the subcast becomes inhuman, and therefore it's justified to treat them in any way you'd like to.

Srini

Well, let's specifically get into the book. You open by saying, despite the COVID risk, many took the streets to protest. Behind my privileged locked gates and whiteness of my life, I watched as millions of people across the world gathered to demand an end to systemic racism and othering. For far too long, I'd enjoyed the ability to test my way through the discomfort and pain of systemic racism and the oppressive othering of those whose bodies, loves, and beliefs did not fit the heteronormative narrative that so dominates our culture.

Jerry Colonna

Mm.

Srini

I'd been able to turn away from the hegemony of that narrative and its rootedness in and complicity with white supremacy and patriarchy. So tell me what was the spark that made you want to write this book based on what I've just read and quoted from your book?

Jerry Colonna

Well, as I detail, one of the people who was protesting was my daughter Emma. And as I often describe Emma, Emma is fierce as fuck. She, first of all, her mom is Chinese American. And she's very aware of her mixed racial identity.

And I identify as white. I'm ethnically Italian and Irish. And one of the things that happened was that one night she was protesting in Brooklyn, the protests had started at the Barclays Center. And like many others, thousands of others, she moved with the crowd across the Manhattan Bridge and followed by a phalanx of police.

on horseback and they were met by another phalanx of police on horseback. And so they were trapped in the middle of the Manhattan Bridge and she starts texting me terrified because they're pepper spraying. And I realized in this moment that my daughter who this year, last year turned 30, my daughter

was putting herself on the line in a way that her father was not.

And she was put in state, she was part of the large group of protests against the murder of George Floyd or sparked by the murder of George Floyd. But it wasn't just George Floyd, right? It was Breonna Taylor. It was, you know, the countless number of people who seemingly die at the hands of a structural over policing. That.

Jerry Colonna

seem to be an expression of that white supremacy that we're talking about. And you know, for further backdrop, my daughter Emma is the kind of kid who would say to me, you know, whenever I would be, you know, I might get praised by the world for being a little bit more progressive or whatever, she'd sort of cock her eyes at me and say, dad, it's not enough to be an ally. You have to be a co-conspirator.

And what she challenged me to do was, okay, put your money where your mouth is, or live into the words that you're talking about. Because the truth of the matter is, I have been talking a good game for many years about better humans becoming better leaders. That's like my shtick, that's my whole gig. That's what my first book reboot was about, it's what my coaching is about.

But if I just stop at encouraging people I work with to feel better about their leadership, to act better in small ways, if I just stop there, then I'm being an ally and not co-conspirator. Because the truth of the matter is, the world is suffering right now from rampant systemic othering.

And I would argue that to be a leader in the world today means confronting that othering from wherever it comes, whether it's from your own internalized racism and or in the world at large. So that's a long-winded answer to your question, but that's what sparked this book.

Srini

Well, let's get into this because I'm thinking back to this episode we did. And I know you actually referenced John Dove in your book as well, who's been a guest here. And I remember this was when the George Floyd thing was going on. And we did an episode about what it means to be black in America. And we together a lot of really interesting clips from our guests. But one of those was from Trevor Noah. And I remember when I heard it was a monologue about society being a contract. You may have seen this.

On the Daily Show and I remember I went to Sean Dove and I was like we want to use this clip But it cost four thousand dollars to get the license for it Do you think you could help us raise the funds and he literally just paid for it and sent, you know He paid Viacom and got it for us. Yeah, I was like wow, okay Yeah, he's amazing and I was really excited to see that he's working on a book when I saw yours I was like, oh I need to reach out to him and find it when this book is coming out but one of the things

Jerry Colonna

God bless, Sean.

That's my buddy.

Jerry Colonna

Mm.

Srini

that really struck me about that Trevor Noah clip and why I wanted to use it. And if I remember correctly, we started the episode with it. And he basically talked about society being a contract and a social contract. And he said, people get upset that these people are looting and pillaging and plundering. He said, but then when somebody like George Floyd experiences of what he does, he's like, where's the contract in that? How are those people honoring the social contract that we have in place? And so start there. Let's start there. I want to hear your thoughts on that.

Jerry Colonna

Mm.

Srini

whole idea.

Jerry Colonna

Well, I can speak to this from my vantage point, not from the vantage point of, say, someone who's like Sean, who is in a black man's body. And so from my vantage point, I think that Trevor Noah's concept of that social contract, and more importantly, the contract being broken, is a really important notion.

You know, part of, you know, you like my term before the American experiment, part of the experiment that gave rise to the myth of exceptionalism is this statement that has been less than true since it was first made. All men are created equal. Right? This is part of our founding mythos.

But of course, we stumble over that because, well, what about the women? So we kind of look the other way. And then we look at the people who wrote such statements, like all men are created equal, and realize that many of them were enslavers. So we look the other way there. Or we look at the founding experience of this country.

which was mostly Europeans coming to this land and using technology and other means to displace the indigenous people. And we start to see those inherent contradictions and yet there is something profoundly appealing about that contract, isn't it? I mean, it's what drove

Certainly it's what drove my immigrant ancestors to these shores, was the promise of that contract, which is all men are created equal, that opportunity was available for all, that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were prized above all else. Those are really powerful words, and

Jerry Colonna

When we fail to acknowledge that we break the contract every fucking day, we actually do a disservice to the power of those words.

Jerry Colonna

You know, the promise.

remains.

the promise of what this country could mean.

remains.

Jerry Colonna

And I think that, you know, if you want to strip away all of like, why did you write this book, Terry? You're a leadership coach. What the heck are you doing in this space? Well, I'm a 60 year old white cisgender straight man who finally realized You know, look I've been cognizant of and awoke to systemic racism all my life But I finally realized I do not want to

pass from this mortal place without having punched at white supremacy, without taking a knock against patriarchy, without really leaning into a nativist anti-immigrant stance. I cannot go to my grave not having tried. I cannot look my children in the eye.

if I didn't try. And the fact is, you know, my domain of expertise such as it is, is business leadership. So I'm going to come at this profoundly important question, maybe the most important question of our lives, because what stops us from dealing with larger issues like climate? It's this. You know...

Jerry Colonna

I have a moral responsibility to look at the experience of my fellow human beings through the lens of how can I make it better? How can I make a difference? And I'll be damned if I pass through this life without having tried. That was, if you will, the lesson.

of the summer of 2020, the summer of protests, which felt a lot like the summer of 1968 and 1969.

Jerry Colonna

That was the lesson, is what is my work to do?

Srini

Wouldn't you say that we all have that same moral obligation?

Jerry Colonna

Yes.

There's a quote, an epigraph that I use to start chapter seven of the eight chapters. And it's from the Talmud. And it goes something like this. It is not yours to complete the work, but neither are you at liberty to ignore the work.

It is not yours to complete the work. You do not have to say, shrug your shoulders and say, this is too hard. So therefore I'm not gonna try. You are not at liberty to neglect the work. And yes, Srini, it is all of our responsibility.

I would argue there's a slightly more responsibility for those of us who have power.

And the more power you have, the more responsibility you have.

Jerry Colonna

to actually lean into the question of our time. Listen, babies are being shot to death. Fourth graders are shot in a school room in Ovalde, Texas. Gun violence is the number one cause of death for children under the age of 18. Take that in.

Gun violence. Suicide is the number one cause of death for gender questioning trans teens. Suicide. Take that in. We have razor wire floating in the Rio Grande to stop desperate immigrants from trying to save their babies.

Jerry Colonna

I don't know, I can't imagine a more important act of humanity than for us to take up the mantle of this work. And yeah, people say, well, I'm a CEO, I'm a business leader, what should I do? You're a human being first.

Jerry Colonna

That's your first responsibility.

Jerry Colonna

Sorry, I get a little wired, a little amped up when I talk about this, so.

Srini

That's why I told you we needed more than an hour.

Jerry Colonna

Hehehe

Srini

So, one of the things that you say in the book is, it's time we recognize how our traditional definitions of leadership maintain systemic oppression and othering. It's time for a new definition of leadership in which inclusivity and equity are the center of our actions as leaders so that belonging may flourish. And before we hit record, I told you that I thought that this was literally a radical restructuring of the entire notion of society at large. And you said, well,

I think it's leadership, but I would push back against that and say, I think it's far bigger than that.

Jerry Colonna

Hmm. Well, maybe it is far bigger than that. Maybe it is. But sometimes, Srini, I think what happens is if we see the enormity of the task, we shrug our shoulders and give up.

And so for whatever reason, as a business person, I have been trained to look at points of leverage.

And if we start with redefining what does it mean to be a successful leader?

we will affect a profound change. We will affect a systemic change. And so I like to focus on points of leverage. That's how you move the world. So in this case,

We judge leadership, especially in business, by the accumulation, maintenance, or increase in wealth.

Jerry Colonna

You can take all the complex metrics around OKRs and KPIs and stock valuation and this. And I'm stupidly familiar with all of those things. But in the end, what are we really measuring people by? We're measuring people by, did they make someone richer? Themselves, shareholders, whatever.

OK, I get that that's an important lever. But the problem is that we limit our point of view to just that accumulation or increase in wealth. We don't actually do the moral thing and say, well, how did you increase that wealth? And to be somewhat facetious and tongue in cheek about it,

I can create a fentanyl lab in the United States and sell fentanyl-laced opioids throughout the United States and make a ton of money. That's immoral. We already draw these lines. There are things that are acceptable and things that are not acceptable to us individually. What those things are varies from person to person.

But for the most part, we limit our work to things that we would define as legal. Okay? For the most part.

Jerry Colonna

Since we're already applying a moral structure, why not expand that moral structure? Why not say that part of the business of a successful business is to create more leaders? That part of a business that is a successful business is to create a greater sense of inclusivity so that all people who encounter that business, either as customers or employees,

have a greater sense of belonging. Now I know that's quixotic. I know that that's.

high in the sky or as you point out maybe results in a changed society. But what are we on this planet to do if not to make the society better? And again how am I going to how are you going to look your nephew in the eye when he grows up and starts to realize the way the world is wired? How are you going to look him in the eye and say well I was too busy

filling the blank.

to actually do the work that's before me.

Jerry Colonna

Sorry to make it so personal, but you see the point I'm making.

Srini

having this conversation with you, I'm thinking about Silicon Valley CEOs like Travis at Uber and some of the behavior that we've seen in which it seems that people in positions of power are abusing and exploiting their power for the accumulation of wealth.

Jerry Colonna

Yeah. So well, I think you ask a really important question. So let's define various forms of power. And by the way, there's a fantastic book on this called The Right Use of Power. I'm blanking on the author's name, but she is quite compelling. But if we take a step back and we talk about

power that is projected onto us by dint of our identity or, you know, my case, my body. So there's very little that I do that, that there's very little that I have done to warrant the power that I can wield. So there's that kind of power. But I think what we're really focused on right now is the power that comes from role.

And the role is being a person in business leadership. And implicitly you talk about sort of those who wield that power with toxic consequences. In some ways, my first book speaks as much to that as the second book. But in the second book, in Reunion,

I speak about the fact that so many of our leaders, business leaders, political leaders, lack the moral guidance of elders. The kind of people who would box your ears and say, sit up straight, wear clean underwear, be nice to people. Right, there's this like, this gap that happens.

And I think that some of the business leaders in particular in Silicon Valley, or more specifically in the sort of technology sector, have that lack. But I think that there's a corollary challenge, which is that there's a mythological understanding or misunderstanding of perhaps libertarianism.

Jerry Colonna

or even more broadly, meritocracy. There is such a profound belief in, say, meritocracy that it causes a rejection of any effort to balance the scales.

equity. And there's a whole psychological reason why that that's going on. There's a belief system that I have what I have merely and only because of my own efforts, not because I might have been advantaged because of the caste I have come from or because of the gender with which I identify.

or because of the way I have been racialized. For us to acknowledge the fact that those experiences created certain advantages somehow gets internalized as a diminution of my own accomplishments. And that's so unbearable that any effort to create fair and equity

fairness and equity within an organization gets tossed out the window. So again, I just said a lot in response. Did that address?

Srini

Well, so let's talk about the process of doing this because you allude a lot to understanding what our ancestors went through. But speaking of accomplishments or something that stood out to me, you said that for years my life was marked by the persistent sense that I was nothing. For example, if I wasn't doing something, accomplishing something and that the clear sign of my worthiness was what I had accumulated more than say how my family felt.

Srini

in probably the last nine conversations I've had this year, it would be this sense of not feeling like you're enough. Like, it seems almost universal. Like, Jennifer Wallace wrote this amazing book called Never Enough When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic. And it just felt, in every conversation, it seems to be a theme.

Jerry Colonna

It's-

Jerry Colonna

Yeah, yeah. Well, it's pervasive. And I mean, you know, it's one of the themes that I lean on and explored dramatically in Reboot, the first book. And it's one of the themes that people related to so greatly. As a result, people feeling that their own stories were being

described in Reboot. In Reunion, I link the pervasiveness of this experience in a kind of non-conscious. I'm not asserting in a conspiracy theorist way that somebody has designed this whole system. But I am asserting that a pervasive and persistent sense of not being enough, not being good enough,

is actually quite useful to the system as it operates. It's quite useful because it creates this inherent fear and so that the hamsters run faster and faster on the wheel in order to get rid of the feeling of not being enough. And we see this in businesses.

For example, we see this when companies will sit on, and this is a crazy number, $1 trillion of cash and place it overseas out of the reach of US tax authorities. For what reason? I mean, at some point,Here is the text with the timestamps removed:

Jerry Colonna

How much is enough? If you look at this phenomena, and Jennifer's book does a great job of looking at it from a personal perspective, if you expand that and look at it on a collective basis, the never enough mindset will lead us to extract every drop of fossil fuels.

will lead us to extract every piece of lithium out of the earth, will lead us to extract every ounce of labor free or low paid that we can possibly get.

it will lead us to a point of our own devastation and annihilation.

I mean, look, I'm not the first to say this. Every wisdom tradition I've ever encountered warns about this mindset. People go to war because they can't assuage their never enough feelings, let alone create toxic work environments. And, you know, an achievement mindset is an example of

this kind of pervasive lack of belonging even to our own self. That's what I really try to connect it to. See, if I know to whom I belong, if I know where is home, if I know that I'm going to be loved unconditionally, then maybe I can wield power in a way

Jerry Colonna

that creates love, safety, belonging for everybody else.

And that just feels like a better way to live.

Srini

Let's talk about the role of ancestors, because you say that to complete the process, to grow fully into the adult we were born to be, we must also be free of what happened to our ancestors. As hard as it is to release ourselves from the travails of childhood, it's often harder to let go of what happened to those who came before us. This is what it takes to become the ancestors our descendants deserve. We must each see fully see our ancestors. This is the foundation we must unearth and sometimes rebuild.

to become the person, the adult we were meant to be. And as I showed you before we hit record, I was trying to kind of understand this and I had my AI chat tool, I said, connect the entire experience of what Jerry talks about here to the British rule of India. And I was kind of stunned by what it came back with. And I thought, wow, this is really interesting. In fact, just to give you sort of one quote here in terms of the thing, so like.

Jerry Colonna

Hmm.

Jerry Colonna

Mm-hmm.

Srini

Basically, it says, Colono's concept of othering is also relevant to the British rule of India, and this is what struck me the most. It said the British often perceived Indians as the other, a group fundamentally different from themselves. This perspective allowed them to justify their actions, including the exploitation and oppression of the Indian people. This othering created a deep divide, disrupting the sense of belonging and unity.

Jerry Colonna

Yeah, so take me back to the question again.

Srini

What is the role of this as far as our own process of reunion? Talk to me about what we need to be doing in terms of understanding our ancestors. Because to me, like I said, that was just a surface level answer to help us get through this, to give us a jump off point for this.

Jerry Colonna

Hmm.

Jerry Colonna

Well, maybe the best way to explain it is to ask what happened to you. What happened to you, Srinivas, when the connection to British rule in India became so clearly identified? What happened for you? What did you see?

Srini

Well, so let's keep in mind that, you know, my parents were out of India by the time I was born. Even though I was born there, I never lived there, but they saw it. Yeah. So they saw it. And my dad has told me stories about this. He said, he's always said, he's like, India was one of the richest countries in the world prior to British rule. And he said, they came in and they pretty much took everything. And there are two things that I think about. I remember one of the things that was.

Jerry Colonna

But your parents were born in India?

Jerry Colonna

Mm-hmm.

Jerry Colonna

Mm.

Srini

paradox that I had to finally resolve like for the longest time I Had thought especially given the nature of the work that I do that kind of just goes against the traditional Indian grain of dr lawyer engineer, whatever That my parents advice to choose and pursue stable careers was incredible was misguided and narrow-minded But then I had to really understand it from within the context that they were giving that advice, which was that

Jerry Colonna

Hmm.

Jerry Colonna

Mmm.

Srini

They grew up in a situation where their life outcomes were binary, poverty or security, nothing in between. It isn't the India that you see today where some kid comes out of a slum. Like you had no upward mobility if you didn't get educated and you didn't have a stable life. And that, from that point forward, I realized that the advice that they were giving was based on the experience that they had.

Jerry Colonna

And what was that experience?

Srini

that for them it was very clear that it was either poverty or security. There was nothing in between.

Jerry Colonna

and what happened to their parents.

Srini

That I don't know a great detail about, but chances are they were probably, at the time when their parents were young, probably that was when the British ruled India.

Jerry Colonna

Right, so because partition only happened, what, in 1949? Right, and the partition happened partially after the British withdrew after the World War II. Right, and so what you're talking about is the consequences of millennia of, or centuries of colonialism, right?

Srini

I believe so, yeah.

Jerry Colonna

still reverberating, if you will, through the experience of you, maybe even down into your nephew And what you did prior to reading the book and what you've done after reading the book

Here is the text with the timestamps removed:

Jerry Colonna

How much is enough? If you look at this phenomena, and Jennifer's book does a great job of looking at it from a personal perspective, if you expand that and look at it on a collective basis, the never enough mindset will lead us to extract every drop of fossil fuels.

will lead us to extract every piece of lithium out of the earth, will lead us to extract every ounce of labor free or low paid that we can possibly get.

it will lead us to a point of our own devastation and annihilation.

I mean, look, I'm not the first to say this. Every wisdom tradition I've ever encountered warns about this mindset. People go to war because they can't assuage their never enough feelings, let alone create toxic work environments. And, you know, an achievement mindset is an example of

this kind of pervasive lack of belonging even to our own self. That's what I really try to connect it to. See, if I know to whom I belong, if I know where is home, if I know that I'm going to be loved unconditionally, then maybe I can wield power in a way

Jerry Colonna

that creates love, safety, belonging for everybody else.

And that just feels like a better way to live.

Srini

Let's talk about the role of ancestors, because you say that to complete the process, to grow fully into the adult we were born to be, we must also be free of what happened to our ancestors. As hard as it is to release ourselves from the travails of childhood, it's often harder to let go of what happened to those who came before us. This is what it takes to become the ancestors our descendants deserve. We must each see fully see our ancestors. This is the foundation we must unearth and sometimes rebuild.

to become the person, the adult we were meant to be. And as I showed you before we hit record, I was trying to kind of understand this and I had my AI chat tool, I said, connect the entire experience of what Jerry talks about here to the British rule of India. And I was kind of stunned by what it came back with. And I thought, wow, this is really interesting. In fact, just to give you sort of one quote here in terms of the thing, so like.

Jerry Colonna

Hmm.

Jerry Colonna

Mm-hmm.

Srini

Basically, it says, Colono's concept of othering is also relevant to the British rule of India, and this is what struck me the most. It said the British often perceived Indians as the other, a group fundamentally different from themselves. This perspective allowed them to justify their actions, including the exploitation and oppression of the Indian people. This othering created a deep divide, disrupting the sense of belonging and unity.

Jerry Colonna

Yeah, so take me back to the question again.

Srini

What is the role of this as far as our own process of reunion? Talk to me about what we need to be doing in terms of understanding our ancestors. Because to me, like I said, that was just a surface level answer to help us get through this, to give us a jump off point for this.

Jerry Colonna

Hmm.

Jerry Colonna

Well, maybe the best way to explain it is to ask what happened to you. What happened to you, Srinivas, when the connection to British rule in India became so clearly identified? What happened for you? What did you see?

Srini

Well, so let's keep in mind that, you know, my parents were out of India by the time I was born. Even though I was born there, I never lived there, but they saw it. Yeah. So they saw it. And my dad has told me stories about this. He said, he's always said, he's like, India was one of the richest countries in the world prior to British rule. And he said, they came in and they pretty much took everything. And there are two things that I think about. I remember one of the things that was.

Jerry Colonna

But your parents were born in India?

Jerry Colonna

Mm-hmm.

Jerry Colonna

Mm.

Srini

paradox that I had to finally resolve like for the longest time I Had thought especially given the nature of the work that I do that kind of just goes against the traditional Indian grain of dr lawyer engineer, whatever That my parents advice to choose and pursue stable careers was incredible was misguided and narrow-minded But then I had to really understand it from within the context that they were giving that advice, which was that

Jerry Colonna

Hmm.

Jerry Colonna

Mmm.

Srini

They grew up in a situation where their life outcomes were binary, poverty or security, nothing in between. It isn't the India that you see today where some kid comes out of a slum. Like you had no upward mobility if you didn't get educated and you didn't have a stable life. And that, from that point forward, I realized that the advice that they were giving was based on the experience that they had.

Jerry Colonna

And what was that experience?

Srini

that for them it was very clear that it was either poverty or security. There was nothing in between.

Jerry Colonna

and what happened to their parents.

Srini

That I don't know a great detail about, but chances are they were probably, at the time when their parents were young, probably that was when the British ruled India.

Jerry Colonna

Right, so because partition only happened, what, in 1949? Right, and the partition happened partially after the British withdrew after the World War II. Right, and so what you're talking about is the consequences of millennia of, or centuries of colonialism, right?

Srini

I believe so, yeah.

Jerry Colonna

still reverberating, if you will, through the experience of you, maybe even down into your nephew.

And what you did prior to reading the book and what you've done after reading the book

Mm-hmm.

Srini

that he would be feeling that as well.

Jerry Colonna

How could he not?

You know, that's a conversation that would be, to go back to the book for a moment, that would be a reunion conversation. That would be a reuniting with certain aspects of your father's experience.

What choice, what drove his choice to go to Australia to get the PhD? What drove his choice to come to the United States after Australia?

Jerry Colonna

What were the messages he heard as a kid that got internalized? See, I think you're right to sort of lean into this question of never enough. One of the powerful things about never enough, especially in cultures of where colonization is a phenomena, is that it ensures the survival.

of the descendants because they will always strive and will always find a way to survive.

But the consequence is the inability to relax into a sense of persistent belonging. I'm okay just as I am.

I'm okay. And I will work hard because it's fun or because it's creative. I'm not working hard out of anxiety, out of a fear.

Srini

Let's talk about this in the context of parents with children who are listening to this. We started this conversation by you talking about your daughter and her basically calling you out to walk your talk. So for parents who are listening to this, who have to prepare their children for a future that is inherently uncertain, unpredictable, and as you said earlier, at that time it looked like the world was coming apart at the seams.

Jerry Colonna

Mm-hmm.

Srini

If I were to pull together the headlines from NBC News tonight from the last week, I would conclude that the world is coming apart at the seams.

So in a world that is coming apart at this seems for parents who are listening to this, what is their moral responsibility to their children in the society that we live in today?

Jerry Colonna

Well, I'll tell you another story. I'll answer that by telling another story. This is not something that I shared in the book, but sort of implicitly was in the book. Many years ago, my daughter Emma, Emma teaches at a charter school in Nashville and she started off as a teacher.

And then eventually she's now the director of curriculum. So she oversees all of the teachers. And her dedication to the kids in East Nashville, which is an economically disadvantaged part of the city, most of the kids are...

Jerry Colonna

are black, her dedication to those kids is profound. Many years ago, there was a young man named Michael Brown, who was shot on the street in Ferguson, Missouri, and lay there for four hours before the police came, and he died, in part because of the lack of responsiveness to his...

what eventually was his murder.

And I remember Emma calling me up in tears. She was training to be a teacher at the time with the same dedication. And she very tearfully said to me, Dad, what's the point? Michael Brown was a good kid. What's the point of me trying to educate kids who become really good kids if they're just shot to death?

And I cried with her. What is the point of trying in a world where kids are shot to death?

or kids are...

Jerry Colonna

denied entry into the United States that might give them safety and security or gender affirming care is denied in their state because of a lack of understanding about the complexities of misgendering.

Jerry Colonna

And I said to her, I quoted my friend Parker Palmer, who speaks about a phenomena called the tragic gap. And like the rabbi who wrote in the Talmud, Parker says that we're all asked to live in the tragic gap. And the gap is between the world that could be and the world as it is.

And he makes the point that if we give over to the world as it is, and this is the lesson for the parents, if we give over to the world as it is, we condemn ourselves and our children to a kind of corrosive cynicism.

Fuck it. I'll just grab all the toys I can get and I'll just take care of myself.

But if we also live only for the world as it could be, we condemn ourselves to what he calls irrelevant idealism. And so the task of each of us as adults and each of us as a parent, each of us as a business leader, as a political leader, is to stand in the middle of that gap.

is to recognize that those headlines are horrifying.

Jerry Colonna

But if I give up because those headlines are horrifying, then I am not the ancestor my descendant deserves. But if I live in this airy-fairy world of like a changed society and everybody's kumbaya getting along, then I'm out of the action. I'm not actually taking part in creating the world that I know.

I want to see. So the task for me, the task for you as an uncle, the task for parents, the task for elders is to stand right in that really, really difficult place between the world as it is and the world as it could be.

and do our best.

That's it. It's as simple as that and it's as hard as that.

Jerry Colonna

Remember something, Srini. You are not at liberty to neglect the world.

Period.

Jerry Colonna

Talk about liberating.

The only thing you have to do is try.

Jerry Colonna

Again, that simple and that hard.

Srini

crazy repeated many times in this conversation.

Jerry Colonna

Morality to me, I'm sorry, morality to me seems simple, but hard.

Srini

Well, like I told... Yeah, sorry.

I apologize for misunderstanding your request earlier. Here is the HTML text with the timestamps removed: ```html

Jerry Colonna

And I think that that's our task, is to move towards the moral stance.

Srini

Let's wrap this up with one more area. One of the things that also caught my attention is that you say, live long enough with the construct of less than, live long enough with your back against a wall and a knee or foot on your neck, and that construct becomes your reality. Substitute the words seller, colonizer, or even members of a master race, a better class, a more deserving cast, and you can see how much constructs feed the power dynamics that pass for organization structures and community hierarchies. As I had mentioned to you earlier, I thought this was about far more than leadership. I thought what you're proposing here is a radical restructuring of society as a whole. And the question is... How do you even begin this work while you account for the self-interest that so many people are driven by? I think back to Adam Smith and the Wealth of Nations, where the quote that stayed with me from that book was that self-interest is the engine of prosperity. To a degree, I think that is true. I think that what we have seen as a society, as a country, as a species, is self-interest pushed to the point of diminishing returns.

Jerry Colonna

Yeah, I think that that's true. Look, where do you begin? Wherever you need to begin right now. For me, it was God gave me the ability to put two words together in a way that some might find compelling. So my work to do is to use that ability to put words together. that might cause a revolution. So be it, that's my work to do. The risk is that I might lose status. The risk might be that I might be canceled, to use a common term. But I'm not at liberty to neglect this work. I have to do this work. If I'm gonna be... true to my own values, if I'm going to operate with integrity, then I have to do this work. So where do we begin? We begin right in our own lives. We begin in our own organizations. We begin by asking ourselves these questions. Your observation about Adam Smith's observation, I think, is spot on. We are at a point where self-interest as a motivation is at a point of diminishing returns. It has led us here. Now, the truth is, All of our wisdom traditions warn us against this point in time. This is not the first time the human species has dealt with this. Unfortunately, we deal with this all the time. And this is what I mean when I think about our elders. Listen to our elders. Read the philosophers. Read our spiritual leaders. They have prepared us for this. This is our moment.

Jerry Colonna

This is our moment to contribute mindfully to the world that can be. And we will fail. So what? Do it anyway.

Jerry Colonna

That's what your nephew is wanting you to do.

Jerry Colonna

What are you going to say to him 20 years from now?

Jerry Colonna

It was too uncomfortable. I wasn't sure of success.

I was afraid of the loss of my achievement and status.

Jerry Colonna

What will I say to my grandchildren?

Jerry Colonna

Anything less than I tried my best, that doesn't... I can't sleep at night. So I will try my best.

Jerry Colonna

And I'll close by saying this, I think you're right. I think I am calling for a larger change than just in leadership.

Jerry Colonna

But I'll repeat, the lever that I would deploy are business leaders. Because they've not actually been drafted in this fight. And it's time that they put their shoulder to the wheel.

Srini

Well, as always, a deeply profound conversation as I expected. So I have one final question for you, which is how we finish all of our interviews. What do you think it is that makes somebody or something a mistake?

Jerry Colonna

Hmm

Jerry Colonna

Can I tell you what I hope it is?

Srini

Yes.

Jerry Colonna

A willingness to be wrong.

a willingness to be corrected. And I say that because, Srini, in writing this book, that was one of my fears.

Um, and I had to lean into that. I had to say to myself, all right, so what if I'm wrong? So be it. Let's all be corrected and I'll live.

But I won't fail for not having tried. That's my commitment.

So I think that's what makes people unmistakable.

Jerry Colonna

to try.

Srini

This, as I said, has been deep, thought-provoking, riveting. I think one of those conversations that people will have to revisit many times. I can't thank you enough for taking the time to join us and share your story and your wisdom and your insights with our listeners. I think that this is probably one of the most important conversations we've had on the show this year.

Jerry Colonna

Oh, God bless you for saying so and thank you so much for really preparing yourself in the way you did. I feel honored. There's no other word for it. I feel honored that you took the time to really understand what it was that I'm trying to do with this book.

Srini

Amazing. And for everybody listening, oh, actually, sorry. Josh cut this out. Where can people find out more about you, your work, the book, and everything else?

Jerry Colonna

The best site will be is reunion.reboot.io. Actually on that site, you'll have an excerpt of the book. You'll have a collection of stories of belonging written by a variety of different people. There'll be a little mini documentary and we've not yet announced it, but we're launching a limited edition short series podcast. to go along with the book. And we're leaning in hard to support this book. So that's the best place to go to both experience the book and pre-order, which is pre-orders are a good thing. That's what we're looking for.

Srini

And for everybody listening, we will wrap the show with that. ```