Talia Fox | The Power of Conscious Connection

Srini Rao

Talia, welcome to the Unmistakable Creative. Thanks so much for taking the time to join us.

Talia Fox

Oh, it's so great to be here.

Srini Rao

Yeah, it is my pleasure to have you here. So I found out about you by way of your publicist, who I think has sent me dozens of guests at this point. And you have a new book out called The Power of Conscious Connection, all of which we will talk about. But before we get into the book, I want to start by asking you what I think is a very relevant question to the material in the book. And that is, what is one of the most important things that you learned from one or both of your parents that have influenced and shaped your values and what you have ended up doing with your life?

Talia Fox

Oh, I love that, right? Because we all come from somewhere. There's like this soil that we were raised in. And this is a question I think about so much. One thing about my father, I mean, you know, I share a little bit about this in my book, but he could not read. I actually found out later on in life that he went through most of his life being illiterate. He's from the islands. He grew up with 21 brothers and sisters learning how to play the drums on pots and pans. And so the message I got from him is the ability that like limitations do not stop you.

and that you can be and really do absolutely anything that you want to do and anything that you can achieve. So that was really great. My dad was just this very energetic, connected person. The thing I learned from my mother's side was this whole idea of, my grandmother actually has this comment that says, you're not better than anybody, but nobody's certainly better than you. And so a little bit of a similar message, but the idea is that,

whatever is missing in the world, you create it, you chart your own course. And you know, my mom said the masses are not for you. And so I really was raised with a lot of ideas around, you know, how to, how to, how to become different and how to sort of chart my own value, my own path in the world.

Srini Rao

Yeah. So you mentioned your dad grew up in the island. So I assume that your parents were immigrants.

Talia Fox

Well, my father is from the Bahamas. My mom is from New York. So yeah, my father, he actually went back to the Bahamas and came back here, but yeah, he grew up and ended up living in the United States.

Srini Rao

You know, there's one story in particular in the book that struck me as it was to your mother in particular. It's a story where she tells you that you are a princess. And, you know, the thing I think that struck me most about that was there were two things, I think. One was that she told you never to tell anybody that, which I think was a powerful lesson in humility, but also telling you that probably instilled a certain level of confidence in you. So talk about, you know, like how that narrative impacted.

you know, the choices that you've made in your life and the way you've gone about, you know, making your way in the world. And what did they teach you about making your way in the world, careers, et cetera?

Talia Fox

So, you know, growing up was tough. And I've talked to my mom a little bit about this. And, you know, my father was a music artist and he was just kind of all over the place. It was a tough upbringing. And at this point in my life, she was a single mom trying to do the best that she can. I mean, she grew up in a world where she felt education was the key to freedom. And I actually had this learning disability, so they thought in school. And so she decided that she was going to literally take any money that she had.

and put me in this private school. And here she is, a single mom at this point, she had three children, and she was getting up before going to work at the crack of dawn, driving me literally almost three hours to a private school to hold up this value of education. And in this story, I was a kid and didn't know all the sacrifices that parents make. So I was really in a situation where I...

I really was upset with my mom for us not having the things that other kids had. So she put me in this private school and everybody was rich and everyone was doing all these things. And what I found out from her is that she was so exhausted and so tired and really sad because she was just trying to make the, do the best that she could, you know, for her kids at the time. And I didn't appreciate it and I didn't see it. And so instead of giving me the long drawn out thought, which of course would make her feel, uh,

in a sense inferior, she didn't give me the whole struggle. She just was like, hey, listen, we're royalty. You're a princess and this is your time of humility. And so you're going among these people, but it's for you to be very humble about who you are and what you have. And so the lesson there was in that moment, I redefined who I was. I started thinking, oh my goodness, I...

I am someone that has something to give. I'm not the underdog. I'm not disadvantaged in any way. I am a winner. And at the same time, I don't have to talk about it. I don't have to share it with anyone. I can just show people who I am with my goodness. I just was, it gives me chills. Sometimes when I tell this story, I start crying because I'm a mom. I later on in life became a mother and I also was a single mom. And so the idea that I was complaining like that just makes me so sad.

Talia Fox

But the concept here is that all of us, including myself, we have these things on our cards, on these cards of life that we define ourselves, we label ourselves. And I really do think that there is magic in holding yourself accountable for labeling yourself something that is going to serve you well for your dreams. And so that's really what I learned from my mother.

growing up and thinking mistakenly that I was a princess when I was very far from it.

Srini Rao

Yeah.

Srini Rao

Well, you know, I think that there are two things that strike me. One is that is an unusually high level of self-awareness for somebody so young. Where did that come from?

Talia Fox

interesting. You know, I feel like a lot of the skills I had early on did come through struggle. I'm the oldest girl of four siblings. I'm an older brother, a younger brother, and a younger sister. And I really had to be very selfless. You know, I think in a therapeutic world, I probably could have benefited from being a little bit more of a kid and not worrying about these things. But, on the other side of struggle, it breeds this care, it breeds character, breeds characteristics. And so,

I had to be there for my little brother and sister. There were times where I had to be there for my mom and to help out. And so, you know, I was at a very early age aware of who I was in the family and how much people depended on me. And so this idea of my identity was critical in some ways when I was young to our survival. It was a big part of...

of my development and it continued to follow me throughout my entire life and my whole career.

Srini Rao

You know, the other thing that I wonder about is what your parents taught you about race and what it meant to be black in America, because we did an entire series and a specific episode on what it means to be black in America. There are certain things that really struck me in that episode. Sean Dove was the founder of the campaign for black male achievement. He told me he said that, you know, we paraphrasing James Baldwin, he said to be black in America is to live in a constant state of rage. And I that always stayed with me. But I wonder, one, what did your parents teach you about it?

particularly given the environment you're in school wise, where you're surrounded by very wealthy people, where I imagine it wasn't predominantly black, correct me if I'm wrong.

Talia Fox

I love this question. It's a big part of my world and my development. So yes, I was actually the only black person in my class at this private school. And that was another factor, not only was there a financial issue, a gap, but there also was just difference. People wondering about my hair, there was lots of questions. I'm what they call ethnically ambiguous. So...

I would actually tell people that I was black and they would say, no, you're not, you're something else. Black people don't look like that. I even have people show me pictures saying that's not what black is. I mean, it was very interesting. I grew up having my identity constantly questioned. It's really interesting. I grew up, my grandmother was one of the first black models in New York. She was on the cover of Jet. And my mother grew up.

her family was quite wealthy very early on. They were publishers in New York and in Brooklyn. And she decided to marry an island musician. They probably don't like that I'm sharing all these stories publicly, but it's my story. So they'll just have to deal with it. But she married this musician. And so this kind of cut her off from the affluent nature of being rich and black in America at that particular time. So I got to see.

the basically my father having nothing, not even being able to read from the islands, I mean, complete, he really understands what it means to live in complete poverty. And I also got to see this other identity, which is what does it look like to watch a black family from the from the 1930s and 40s living with maids.

And they moved into Brooklyn in this Jewish neighborhood where they were just wealthy. And my grandmother actually started, my great grandmother, excuse me, started one of the first affluent African-American social groups. And so she called it Socially Yours. And she wrote about what it means to be affluent, the bourgeoisie in this society and in America. And so...

Talia Fox

In my world today, it's this really interesting combination of knowing what's possible and dreaming and overcoming obstacles, but then also being so intimately on such a heart level, a real level, knowing the struggle, knowing that the struggle is real and that getting the fact that so many people just did not get to start at a level, they were deprived of so many experiences. I mean, my father benefited from

You know, my mother used to say, we must speak the King's English. She would say that to me all the time. My father had a thick accent and I was well-educated and I knew that I had to support and help my father navigate a world where he was not able to be as savvy in that way as I was even at the tender age of eight, nine and 10. I probably could already read better and knew a little bit more about what the world, what was going on in the world. So.

in my life and in my world, these two identities, I think, have propelled me forward to not only, I'm aligned with a little bit of the rage and the upset of society and what happens in the world, but I'm also deeply connected to the hope and the opportunity of the struggle. And so, I don't know, it puts me in a very interesting place that I think is a healthy tension.

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm.

Talia Fox

between knowing, hey, things are tough and not judging anybody and not feeling like, you know, people should be doing something. And also at the same time, knowing that there's hope and knowing that there's something that we can do to make progress and to move forward.

Srini Rao

Yeah. Well, I don't know if you've ever read Isabelle Wilkerson's book, Caste. But I remember, you know, as I read through that, it was like, I felt like I was reading about India and she was describing the life of black people in America. And I thought to myself, I'm like, wow, there really is systemic racism. Like the way the system was designed, it basically limits their upward mobility.

Talia Fox

Absolutely. And what's interesting about it is that systemic racism is baked into the system and it's so baked because it's been a part for centuries, over 400 years, it's been a part of the fabric of how the country has been built that when you bake something, when you put sugar and flour and baking powder in a group, you don't see it blatantly in there because it's just how it is. And so I think

You're absolutely right that there's, there's a big movement around unconscious bias and that's moving, but there's a lot of unconscious things that are going on that people aren't necessarily aware of. So absolutely, yeah.

Srini Rao

Do you remember any of your first or early experiences with racism? Because I remember being an Indian kid in a place like Brian, Texas. And funny enough, like I was this anomaly, because nobody knew what to make of me. But the kinds of things that I would hear in the back seats of my, you know, friends, parents cars, like these are well to do, like highly educated white people. And the just blatantly racist things I heard in the back of their car, this day, I'll never forget them.

Talia Fox

Yeah, you know, it's really interesting. I, because I am considered ethnically ambiguous, I have been probably dealt with racism, people thinking I'm Indian. I've experienced a lot of racism. I think sometimes I look a little Latina. And so I've had people come and scream English words in my face when I was trying to order something, assuming that I don't speak English.

I actually, my mother and I were walking, this is in Las Vegas, I must've been about 10 years old, and a car drives by and they just threw bottles at us, and they called us slurs. The Latin American community, I won't even repeat it, but it was really scary to not only experience racism in the black world, but then I kind of was able to get all of it. During 9-11, I was in DC on the train, I had these...

kind of, I love, I have a connection. I watch Bollywood movies, I love Indian food, and I even love Indian dress, so there's some kind of, I don't know if I became that way because of where I look, but I had my hair in a long braid and I had these kind of fancy earrings on and something that maybe someone might think is from another culture. And it was during 9-11 and people were on the train, somebody was throwing peanuts at me and I just couldn't believe it.

So yeah, I have experienced firsthand so many things. Yeah.

Srini Rao

Yeah. Well, I know you're a single mother and I want to bring back a clip from a conversation I had with Desiree Adway, which I think will make a sort of nice jump off point to talk about that experience. Take a listen.

Srini Rao

So one I wanted to hear your take on that

Talia Fox

Well, you know, it almost brings tears to my eyes because I'm actually in a place in my life today where my two sons that I've raised as a single mom, and I think I've done quite well. I started a business, built a business. I, you know, do a lot of caretaking in my family. I've raised my son, I'm giving a lot of myself. And so I'm really in a place right now in my life. And I'm talking to other women about that, where what is it?

What does it look like to not have to nurture everyone? And what's interesting about it with what she said that literally there's a story that's woven around it. You know, it's not just a story, it becomes such an identity story that gets woven in us. Luckily I have the princess story too, but I, you know, I'm not getting weighted on hand and foot, but that story that gets baked into who you are.

And, you know, honestly, without the caretaking, without doing so much, I literally would have to, for myself, recreate a new identity. You know, there's also something that's going on. So I wrote this book, and I loved the book, and I decided to be very vulnerable in the book, and I decided just to write the book that I wanted to write. What I don't talk about as much is that, you know, as a part of my company and things that we've done, we advise a lot of really big...

people and we are behind the scenes giving this advice. And I don't know if many of my clients wouldn't necessarily want the world to know that I strategically am giving advice or kind of maneuvering things. And it's interesting. So I have like a lot of non-disclosure agreements and things like that because there's something about, I wonder, I mean, I think it makes sense to have the non-disclosure agreement, but I do wonder if there's something about my identity being black, being a woman.

It's like, I wouldn't want her to market in any way that there is some strategy and that she's guiding some of these really big decisions across a lot of different companies. So, you know, that's as I listened to that clip that you just shared, um, a lot of emotions come up from a personal level, from a business level. And, and I do think that there is definitely some, some truth in that. And it's, it's a struggle and that struggle is real.

Srini Rao

Yeah, well, you know, I think that had I not read the book, like just based on, you know, what we would find on your LinkedIn by or about page, I would have never guessed in a million years that somebody who teaches at Harvard, runs a business like you do, would be a single mother. So talk to me about sort of the one misperceptions that media creates about the lives of single mothers, particularly, you know, black single mothers, because, you know, unfortunately, like, I think the way that black single mothers are portrayed in the media is through movies like,

Boys in the Hood or stuff that John Singleton does, which I think is wildly inaccurate. But also talk about the experience of it, like how has that informed you both as a parent, as a business owner and how you show up in the world?

Talia Fox

Well, you know, being a single mom, it is a part of my identity because there's a certain emotional quality of that. I mean, I think that I was able to provide my kids with everything that they needed, including, you know, private school educations and college. And, you know, I did Christmases. I created a village with my family. I created community. And so I also shared with them that they don't have, there's nothing missing. There's no lack that they have.

This is the world that they live in, and there's nothing missing. I had to make peace with this identity as a single mom. And there was a point in my life where I kind of stopped harping on it. Because every time you say, you know, single mom, there's an association with struggle. And that association can be real, because the whole idea is that, you know, emotionally you have these children, and it just doesn't feel, in my particular case,

Like I had someone to lean on, or there was even sort of a stigma around what does it look like to have to go to different events and, you know, you're playing the role of the mother and the father. So there's a toughness emotionally, there's a toughness financially, there's a toughness physically, but it's different for everyone. And you know, I do believe that in our lives, like everyone has a different lot in life. Everybody has some struggles. I will tell you, I...

I became next an organizer. I became really good at living life efficiently. And it was to the point as I was growing up, I helped a lot of parents that had children that were just, their lives were kind of a mess and they were overwhelmed and they had two people in the home. And so, the stigma that it's a struggle or that there was some big mistake that you made in life, there's truth to it, but the mistake part is not. I actually in...

In some cases, I decided I got to a particular age and I wanted to have children the way that when I look back at my life, my life went so beautifully actually. It was almost perfection. So I resent the fact when someone says, well, you know, things went wrong for you. I'm like, no, it actually was beautifully right. I had children a little earlier than some of my friends. I loved it. I feel free. I feel, you know, like I was excited to show up for them. So there were so many things that

Talia Fox

went well as a single mom, and at the same time, there's empathy for the struggle.

Srini Rao

Yeah. Well, let's actually get into the book. So talk to me about what the impetus was for writing this book. Like why this book? Why now? And why was this the book that you chose to write?

Talia Fox

So I love this book, no pun intended, because the model in this book is L-O-V-E. And the reason I wrote this book was because I have been studying leadership for 20 years. I've been working with organizations. I've been investing in my personal and professional development, taking thousands of classes, teaching thousands of classes. And I realized that we needed some kind of hack.

to be able to understand what we need to do to get better across all elements. So I know that there's some level of efficiency. So that's where I came up with the system that is, I actually say it's like the 10,000 hour rule that became really popular with Malcolm Gladwell, which is if you read any leadership book, professional development book, if you did therapy, whatever, it all will boil down to four specific habits that you need to master and it will really help you stay.

more conscious of what's going on with you and the world and more connected to your power to change it. So that's the big piece. The other part of the book is I actually wrote the first version of this book in 2014 and it was basically academic vomit. Like there was just a lot of tools and tips and it was very strategic. I threw the whole thing out and I decided to make the book itself a conscious connection with me and a conscious connection with my experience as a person and with other people.

It's difficult because there's thousands of books that talk about it, you know, not thousands, there's millions, billions of books, I don't know how many, that talk about all kinds of different things. And I wanted to write a book that not only shared something that was really useful, but shared it from a perspective that was very real and conscious and connected.

Srini Rao

Yeah. Well, you opened the book early on by saying that without connection, we cease to be truly alive and present in the world. Remember the connective power we had as children, that youthful authenticity that made us laugh with abandon, cry without shame, compliment with sincerity and love without fear. If you've ever been drawn into conversation with a child as they rambled on about school or play, you know how contagious this type of pure enthusiasm can be, how connected it makes us feel.

So what happens to that between childhood and adulthood? Why do we lose that?

Talia Fox

So, you know, to add to the question you asked is why now with this book is, you know, we are, I feel like people are sad. I feel like we feel disconnected. I feel like there's so much going on in the news and all around the world that there is this call. It's almost a movement to get back in touch with that life in that world that's not so serious where we

are not judging others, judging ourselves, are not pushing ourselves to be perfect all the time. We are just messily connected. I also love children, this idea of, if you've ever seen a child have a temper tantrum, I love it, they just will yell and they seem like it's the end of the world and they're so upset and like three seconds later, you give them a lollipop or you give them something and they're completely happy. I mean, even deliriously so, right? And so,

I would love for us as people not to hold on to so much stress and so much worry and not to be so concerned about what we're getting, what we're giving, but just to be present and to be connected to this life and this shared experience on this planet like the children.

Srini Rao

Yeah. Well, let's talk about each one of these. Let's start with listening. You say that listening is the single most important way to improve our relationships, build community and achieve our goals. Conscious and connected listening is more complex than it may seem. Often when we think we're listening, we're actually just waiting for the chance to share the voices in our heads. Obviously, I think this was my favorite chapter mainly because of the fact that, you know, I host a podcast. So I think like so much of this resonated with me. But how do we get better at this? Because I feel like.

It's amazing that you know, even in my personal life, people hear a horrible listener and understand how the hell you host a podcast.

Talia Fox

Yeah, so I think the first step is to realize that listening in this world is not intuitive. It's not just something that you say, yep, I'm going to be a better listener. It actually requires skill. And the skill associated with listening is definitely this emotional intelligence. So it's the idea of being present in the world and being able to be connected to everything that's going around you. Like you're really, you're hearing the birds outside, you're focused on what someone is telling you. You're appreciating them.

you're really present in the moment and just connected to this time as opposed to being so distracted. I mean, that is the key. What's interesting, the reason this builds better communities and does so much for us is many of us have gotten to this habit where someone is saying something that is different or that is even in conflict with what you currently believe. Maybe it's politics, maybe it's race, maybe it's something else.

We can't even listen to it. We have to turn the television off and we have to leave the room. So there's this element of us not being able to control our own experience and our own emotions. I listen almost as a meditative experience where I remind myself that someone speaking to me and sharing information, it's not harming me. I can listen, I can get to know this person better. I can choose to share my ideas and...

I also can choose to just say, well, that's an interesting perspective. With listening, it's also choosing to know if this is a good way that you want to spend your time. So one thing that I do is I set boundaries, healthy boundaries around listening. So I may listen. I tell people in the team, I have 10 minutes or 15 minutes, and I actually put a timer. I know it seems obnoxious, but people say this to me all the time. When I put that time around for 10 or 15 minutes, I am really listening to you. And.

fully engaged, fully there, and there is nothing that can interrupt our time. But when that 15 minutes is over, I might say, hey, let's talk about this again, and I'm fully there and fully engaged. So there's a lot of complexity here around this skill of listening, but we have to realize you're going to have to practice and master it. And it's a lifelong journey of setting timers.

Talia Fox

meditating, being there with people, connecting with people, and making some very specific and intentional choices to get better. So, you know, in the book, I talk about most people have a very self centered way that they listen. And what that means is that we're always listening to see what's relevant to me, what am I getting out of this? Is this wasting my time? You know, how is this important to what I need to do? And so if we can just say, wait, I'm listening, because one, I'm practicing the art of listening.

I'm practicing the art of being present, and I'm choosing an actual strategic way that I'm going to listen, depending on the point of the connection. So, you know, if someone is sharing something with you and you need to really use that information, you absolutely should interrupt. Don't let them finish and tell you 80 different things when you're not gonna remember any of it. You have to interrupt and say, let me get a pen, or you have to interrupt and say, wait, I didn't get that. Can you repeat it?

But if someone's sharing a really heartfelt story and they're sad about something, or they just want to connect, or need a listening ear, that's when you just make the appropriate, culturally appropriate eye contact, take deep breaths, and just listen, without having to give advice, without having to have any judgment around what they're saying.

Srini Rao

Yeah.

Srini Rao

You know, of all the things you said that caught me, the one that struck me the most was the idea of without having to give advice, because I feel like the moment somebody starts telling you something, particularly in the world that I play in and probably the world that you plan, the default is to go into coaching mode for so many people.

Talia Fox

Yeah, well, that's very difficult for me because often when people are sharing things with me, they want me to be in coaching mode um, and I will sometimes ask do you Do you want me to be in coaching mode and they'll say yes and with that? Yes, you You I actually study this stuff So it's okay to be in coaching mode like something I might share with someone is likely going to be very helpful And they're coming to me for that however, there's some other things where people are they want to just share with an update or

They want to share a really great story and it's not my thing. It's not my lane. It's not about coaching. It's just about listening and enjoying the experience.

Srini Rao

Yeah. Well, you know, I think the other quote that struck me in this chapter was that you said that listening doesn't require agreement, but it demands presence. And, you know, that reminded me of some of the podcast guests that I have, like, yeah, I have friends were like, okay, well, some of these people are very religious. I'm like, look, I don't agree with everything my podcast guests say, you know, but that doesn't mean that I don't have something to learn from them. Because I think so often, what I find is that we tend to dismiss the value of the message because we can't, we dislike the messenger.

Talia Fox

Absolutely. And not only do we tend to dismiss the value, we lose the opportunity to make some connections. And let me tell you what kind of connection I'm talking about. I'm not just talking, I'm not talking about being friends with the person or connecting with them, but sometimes listening to something and noticing what it's creating for you internally, like whether it's upsetting you, that's a connection to something that's really important to you.

So I tell people all the time in coaching, it's not what they said that was interesting, it's how triggered you were by it that's interesting. And so if you're listening, you have this opportunity to really identify those things inside of your life and your world that are really important. A lot of people, you know, they don't wanna listen to feedback in certain areas of their life, or they don't wanna hear, you know, someone,

maybe that they feel is inferior to them in some ways, give them advice on something. And I tell people, anytime you are listening to someone and you have any emotion, there's wisdom in that emotion. That's why listening gives you an edge and makes you really smart because, you know, follow the wisdom, follow that discomfort. Allow the, let's just say someone sharing something with you that you just feel so against, allow that to bubble up, allow that to turn into something.

useful for you. You don't feel that energy and have it move you forward. What we want to do is just cut people off, not listen, leave the room. And what's interesting, it's like, yeah, you leaving the room or yelling or just going off. That really is going to be... Will that actually help at all? Anyone or anything? Likely not, right? So...

Srini Rao

Yeah. Well, you know, we'll get onto the observation piece here in a second, but it reminds me of something I wrote down once I said, you know, I had this mentor who was really hard on me and I hated him at the time for it. Years later, I realized what he was doing was preparing me for much bigger stakes situations. And like the conclusion I had grew from that when it came to listening is that so often the things you want to hear feel good, but the things you need to hear actually are good, even though they're not pleasant in the moment.

Talia Fox

Great, absolutely. But we have to show up and just be open to the messages that are coming to us, which I think is really important.

Srini Rao

down.

Let's talk about observation because one of the things that you say about observation is that observing is about taking little grooves and stepping back to see how they converge into one another. But then you go on to talk about systems thinking, where you say systems thinking is a discipline of observation defined simply as a process of looking at the world as an interconnected network. In systems thinking, we often use diagrams or maps to break down the components of any given situation, and we pay particular attention to the links between these components. Those links are the path to a shared understanding of reality.

That may be my favorite quote in the entire book. Because like we live in this very interconnected, interdependent society. And the funny thing is, I don't think we realize how much our individual actions impact the collective outcomes of society.

Talia Fox

Absolutely, and we also live in a world where I would say that we are probably, and I'm sure there's some research or data on this, but I'm just going to throw some numbers out there. I feel like people are 80% operating based on assumptions and no evidence. We just, like literally, like we're operating, most of us are operating, 80 might be generous, right? It's just all assumptions about everything. I mean, and people are making some very serious

Srini Rao

Ha ha!

Talia Fox

all of these assumptions. We even make assumptions about what's gonna make us happier, right? I wanna move to a big house because I want this, our goals, our dreams. They're all assumptions that one thing is going to be better than another thing. I had this coaching client that, she was in a situation where she had a boss that she loved and was working for a really long time. And then she found out that this boss was actually leaving and she was so devastated.

And she felt like she had to find a new job. And she started telling me all of these reasons why her life was going to be awful and things were gonna just get bad. And I just asked her, I said, have you ever contemplated the possibility of something being better? And have you ever really, what's the feedback loop? Like what evidence do you have that anything that you're experiencing right now is true?

And there was just no evidence. There was, it was all just assumptions. It was all kind of this made up world that turned into a crisis and nothing had gone wrong. You know, and what ended up happening is that, you know, the change in leadership created an opening for amazing new opportunities and possibilities and some things that she had been waiting to happen in her career for years, almost magically appeared in her life. Yet she was looking for an exit strategy.

So yeah, systems thinking is where it's at, I will tell you. It is this idea of being a studier of life as opposed to a judger of life. So as you look at connections, what is the connection between being exhausted and gaining weight? What's the connection between the words that I use and how my children behave?

whatever that is, there are all of these connections. And you don't say, ah, there's a connection and just move on and say, that's it. You try it, you experiment, and then you see what is real. What's the reality of that decision and that choice?

Srini Rao

Yeah.

Let's talk about values. I really appreciate this because you said when you ask someone to make a choice, you see their values in action, simply asking someone about their values results in all kinds of vague platitudes. People will say all kinds of things when trying to come up with the most socially acceptable response to a direct question about values. And I love this because I think the fact that you mentioned that we often end up with vague platitudes is often what happens because when we read books by people like Simon Sinek, it's like start with why.

like the truth is that your why is not something you just sit down and figure out in an afternoon. It's something that kind of reveals itself through your actions and through the work that you do. And, you know, to me that values has always been one of those things that I felt was really nebulous. Like if somebody had talked to me about what are your values when I was in college, I was like, this sounds like a bunch of new age nonsense. Why are we talking about this?

Talia Fox

You know, it's funny, I, it's not appropriate for me to ask people to give this to me, but if I really wanted to know people's real values, I asked to see their bank statements. I do an end of year kind of assessment of what I spent my money on. And when I really think about what's important to me, you can sort of start to see the kinds of things that you valued by the choices that you made there. That's one thing.

And you're absolutely right. I think one, people think that they have particular values, but they don't know where they got it from. Maybe it's from their parents, or maybe it's from something else, or their idealistic values. But we wanna really ask ourselves, what are we choosing? And are these choices a reflection of what we want to be important, or what is important in our lives? You know, it's a critical part of our experience.

Anytime someone tells me a value, I say, what evidence do you have that that's a value today? What evidence? So someone will say, I'm kind and I appreciate family. And I'm like, well, what did you do today? That actually is a reflection of that. And so that to me is a very, um, critical way for us to get to the core of what's really our values. So then we can begin to start to frame and choose our behaviors that lead us to.

new ideas, new experiences, and potentially new values. But it's very complicated.

Srini Rao

Well, let's finish this up by talking about engagement. You say that engaging others in questions that challenge the mind and test limits is a simple way to tap into the power of a conscious connection, a connection designed to achieve limitless possibilities. Finding creative ways to engage with each other is the secret to turning teams, communities, societies, and countries into

innovative powerhouses. Can you expand on that? And I feel like there's like a bit of overlap between engagement and listening. So can you kind of make the distinction between the two?

Talia Fox

Yes, so this system that I call the love system, it builds on each other. So first, you wake up in the morning and you're listening. You're listening to the thoughts in your head. You're listening to other people. You're completely present in the world. That's bottom line. You want to do that. You're increasing your emotional intelligence. The second thing is you wanna be smart. So you're looking for connections. You're using systems thinking. And so this is all of the information.

that you're getting from the world. You're just present and understanding and studying what's happening, consciousness, right? Conscious about what's going on in the world. The next two, both values and engagement, is what do you do with that information? So with values, you take what you listen to, you take what you observe, and then you have to, we only have so much time and resources, so you have to make some decisions about what you're going to prioritize and how you're going to.

you know, move about the world and you allow your values to kind of guide some of those really tough choices. And then we have to be able to develop the skill of connecting and engaging in the world and engaging with others. And so that's where we develop this skill of I love it, the discipline of the tongue. So you actually work on your capacity to clearly and concisely talk about your values, to take in what you heard and be able to

articulate what it was that you heard or what it was that you understood about the world. And so all of this is about how we communicate and how we show up in the world. And then the other piece of engagement is working on the kinds of questions that you ask people and sort of some things that the kinds of conversations and engagement that help us feel more connected and less divided. Right? There are just some things that people say, some questions that people

are not useful, not helpful, not kind. I have this experience with, you know, some people describe themselves as being direct, but I'm like, are you being direct or is that just rude? And they say, well, it doesn't matter, that's who I am. And I said, so you don't value kindness. And they said, what do you mean? I do value kindness. I said, well, you can't decide if something's rude. You don't get to decide that. The other person is experiencing is rude.

Talia Fox

So what in your value system makes you not flexible in changing your approach? If connection, having friends, being, you know, leaving a legacy behind, if all these things are important to you, why wouldn't you change that behavior? So this person had an engagement issue because I said, what do you value most? They said kindness. And I said, and you're not moving in that direction with this, with what you're describing as a direct approach.

Srini Rao

Yeah.

Well, talk now about the results that this is produced in people's lives. Obviously, if these big companies are hiring you to work with them and all this stuff, because I think on the surface level, what people might be hearing is, okay, wait, this all sounds great, but how does this, what are the tangible outcomes of this? Is I think that is almost always our default, unfortunately, when it comes to prescriptive device. I can tell you I'm notorious for that. Even when it comes to books, I'm like, am I going to learn something that I can use in my life from this? But I realized often those things end up showing up unconsciously years later.

Talia Fox

Yes. So the love system is something that you practice on a regular basis. And I will tell you there have been so many outcomes for this. One, I'll start with me, and then I'll give you some other people. I've had the opportunity to use this system in order to lose weight, in order to get new contracts, in order to start a business, in order to negotiate some really tough conflicts.

I actually really genuinely believe that there's something in this love system that creates miracles. And what I mean by that is I have been, you know, sitting on a bench somewhere and I will, I'm so interested in observing and listening, somebody will just say something and it was the exact answer or something that I needed to hear to solve a really important problem or question. Or I, you know, I have, I have watched people all go outside.

This literally, like using a love system in the workplace on a regular basis, this is a guarantee and I don't like to make guarantees, but I will here. If you had the potential for being a leader, getting a promotion, any of those things moving up, I guarantee you anyone that I've worked with, I would say every single one, they are the go-to leader in their organization and they 100% are hands down the choice for whatever promotion comes up.

And if they don't get that promotion, they go to another organization and they even use the love system in interviewing. It's so powerful. And the reason is because I want you just to imagine this person. So here's a person that comes into an organization and they're really listening to what all of the leaders are saying, they're understanding priorities, they're not self-centered thinking about things. They're observing how the culture works. They're really watching and they get super smart and super in tune with what's going on.

Then they go on the website and they start analyzing the values of the organization and their own values. And when it comes to meetings, engaging, prioritizing, all of these different things, they're committed to taking all of that knowledge and then applying it in a way that allows them to articulate that. I mean, you become a game changer in organizations. Last thing, from an organizational level for companies,

Talia Fox

You know, my company, Kusai Global, that's another acronym. It's knowledge, understanding, strategy, implementation. So if you're leading an organization, it could be as big as Google, right? I want you to think about an organization in this day and age that they have a practice and a rhythm of listening to their employees and listening to their customers. Game changer. This is an organization that trains everyone in the organization to be systems thinkers. So that's an organization where you have masses

people that are observing connections, and they are not just making assumptions about what people want, what customers want, what the internal organization wants. They are observing the feedback loops and experimenting to see what works. So in some ways, there's this data-driven experience in observation. Then you have someone in your organization, masses of people that you ask them, you go up to them and you say,

Talia Fox

on a regular basis to operationalize the values, right? So you have someone or multiple people in the organization that are making choices and decisions based on company values. And then lastly, there's a constant multiple managers, all of these employees, they are trained on how to engage appropriately, how to be sensitive around issues happening in society and the world. They are trained to really...

listen and engage and ask critical questions to their colleagues. I mean, you can see that if you have a mass of people that have mastered these four things, it is a game changer. You've covered all bases and you have really solved your innovation problem, your social issues, your engagement issues, your, I mean, it is, it is really a very powerful set of skills.

Srini Rao

Wow. I have two last questions for you. You are somebody who has spent time in our education system. You're an educator. And this is something I always ask anybody who has spent any time in a role of educating young people or students. If you were tasked with redesigning the entire education system in order to prepare us for the world that is coming up, what would you do to change it? What do you think works about it? What do you think doesn't? And what do you think needs to change?

Talia Fox

I'm sorry, you actually went out for just a second. Can you just repeat that one more time?

Srini Rao

Oh, sorry. Josh, go ahead and cut this out, please, I'll ask the question again. Give me just a sec. So you are somebody who has spent time in our education system, and something that I'm always curious about when I talk to educators is if you were tasked with redesigning the education system from the ground up in order to prepare people for the world that we're headed into, what would you change about it?

Talia Fox

This is the best question ever. So we are in a world where the way that we are educating our children is probably going to be useless. We have AI, we have Google. And so information is no longer king. We have access to information. I mean, if you gave anyone an open book quiz and they had use of their computer, everybody would get an instant A.

So the name of the game in this day and age is how do you train people to know what to do when they don't know what to do? So I think training to be a very specific kind of thinker, and yes, I would absolutely apply the love system to the education system, where we have boot camps where people are trained how to listen, to be aware, how to deal and navigate conflict. They are trained to also listen to their hearts.

and listen to the meaning and purpose that they can add to the world. Train them to be systems thinkers, which this whole idea of making connections between what matters and becoming an experimenter around all kinds of things in life. Train people to identify values. Train, I would love to see a world where we have these collective values that we can define in our own unique and different ways, but there's a shared idea.

of what we all feel is important. And then lastly, how do we take all of the information that we get from AI, how do we take all the information we're getting from Google and how do we use that to influence and engage and to start movements that reflect what's really important to us in the world. So yes, it's knowing what to do when you absolutely don't know what to do and you have to have some skills, foundational skills in order to do that.

Srini Rao

Well, I have one final question for you, which is how we finish all of our interviews at the Unmistakable Creative. What do you think it is that makes somebody or something unmistakable?

Talia Fox

Unmistakable. I love the word. I think the realness of who people are, I think showing up just detached from the judgment of others and fully committed and aligned with this idea of I'm in this life and I'm here to leave it all on the table. I think going back to our conversation about children,

It's that childlike energy that makes us unmistakable. And it's that ability to just give of ourselves all of our talents, all of our ideas and just leave it all on the table. I continue to work on that, but that is really a daily goal that I hope that all of us can adopt.

Srini Rao

Beautiful. Well, I can't thank you enough for taking the time to join us and share your story, your wisdom and your insights with our listeners. Where can people find out more about you, your work, your book and everything else that you're up to?

Talia Fox

Wonderful. You can visit me on taliafox.com. You can also follow me on Instagram at taliafoxspeaks. Also, if you're an organization and you're interested in corporate development training, we actually do culture transformation. You can go to kusitraining.com, kusitraining.com and I'm also very active on LinkedIn, so I'd love to connect with you on LinkedIn as well.

Srini Rao

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