The Kindness Matters Podcast
So. Much. Division. Let's talk about how to change that. Re-engage as neighbors, friends, co-workers and family. Let's set out to change the world. Strike that. Change A World. One person at a time, make someone's life a little better and then do it again tomorrow and the day after that, through kindness.
Kindness is a Super-Power that each of us has within us. It is so powerful it has the potential to change not only your life but those around you, too. Let's talk about kindness.
The Kindness Matters Podcast
Lisa Demmi on Fostering Inclusive Environments
How do you effectively transition from in-person to virtual presentations without losing impact? Find out as we chat with the amazing Lisa Demmi, a sought-after public speaker and DEI advocate. Lisa opens up about her own journey, sharing the hurdles she faced and the creative solutions she discovered along the way. She passionately discusses the crucial role of kindness in fostering an inclusive environment—personally and professionally—revealing that treating everyone like your best customer can transform your approach to DEI.
But that's not all! We also take a closer look at how embracing change can lead to monumental growth, illustrated by the inspiring story of a small home-based business blossoming into a multi-million dollar success. With personal anecdotes and reflections on historical and technological advancements, we delve into the power of curiosity, the necessity of stepping out of comfort zones, and the undeniable impact of kindness. Join us for an episode brimming with insights and real-life examples on how inclusivity and open dialogue can pave the way for a more equitable world.
The Kindness Matters Podcast is part of the DEN-The Deluxe Edition Network. Check them out to find your next favorite podcast.
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Did you find this episode uplifting, inspiring or motivating? Would you like to support more content like this? Check out our Support The Show Page here.
This podcast is part of the Deluxe Edition Network. To find other great shows on the network, head over to DeluxeEditionNetworkcom.
Speaker 2:That's DeluxeEditionNetworkcom.
Speaker 3:Kindness, we see it all around us. We see it when someone pays for someone else's coffee or holds the door open for another person. We see it in the smallest of gestures, like a smile or a kind word. But it's different when we turn on the news or social media. Oftentimes what we hear about what outlets are pushing is the opposite of kind. Welcome to the Kindness Matters Podcast. Our goal is to give you a place to relax, to revel in stories of people who have received or given kindness, a place to inspire and motivate each and every one of us to practice kindness every day.
Speaker 3:Hello and welcome everybody to the Kindness Matters Podcast. I am your host, mike Rathbun. We've got a fantastic show for you today and I can't wait to get into it. But first, as you noticed, I am a member of the Deluxe Edition Network. This podcast is, and they have a podcast of the month for the month of June, and the podcast is Hilf, and I'm not going to say it anymore because I can't, but your host, don Brody, will take you through history, every subject you can imagine, and break it down in ways that only she can. You may have seen her on the History Channel. It's a fantastic podcast. Make sure and go check it out. Also, make sure to check out the show notes, where you'll find links and discount codes for two companies I've partnered with Sunday Scaries, a company that makes broad spectrum CBD gummies, and Coffee Bros. They make an amazing blend of coffees. I use both of these products and they are nothing short of amazing.
Speaker 3:And now let's get into the show. Hey, welcome everybody to the show. I'm Mike Rathbun, your host. I already told you that earlier, but I have a fantastic guest on today and she is a highly sought after public speaker on business and DEI and how the two can come together. And please, welcome to the show Lisa Demme. Lisademmecom. Welcome to the show, lisa.
Speaker 1:Hi, mike, nice to be here.
Speaker 3:You know, I'm much more prepared than I would appear to be. I'm much more prepared than I would appear to be. Oh God, so you've been a public speaker for quite a while, have you not? Yeah?
Speaker 1:Yes, I have. Yeah, I've had a public speaking business for about wow, let me do the math here at least 10 years.
Speaker 3:Sorry, I didn't mean to put you in that position where you had to do math right away on the show. Thanks. This interview is over. Oh my gosh Now.
Speaker 1:and I've spoken to a lot of speakers and did you have troubles making that switch from in-person speaking and then during the pandemic. Oh yeah, so I do have my certified virtual presenter certification, which we all got, that when COVID reared its ugly head, um. But if I'm being honest, I did not do a lot of virtual presentations over the the the pandemic, because I just I'm not. I. I will so caveat one of my favorite presentations ever was just a virtual presentation that I just did. That being said, they generally are not my favorite, um. I'm much more um, I kind of get in the audience and get super interactive with people, and it's really hard to do that on a computer screen.
Speaker 3:It really is. As a matter of fact, I've seen a couple of your highlight reels, if you will, and you are. You're the person that gets out there and actually interacts with the audience, and I think most speakers good speakers do that, but you are really out there and that must've been agonizing to not be able to do that.
Speaker 1:And I'm an extrovert. So it was like a double whammy for me. I was like I can't speak in person and I can't be around people. So I was like, yeah, but, um, you know, I think we kind of all every speaker kind of all said, okay, this is what we have to do. This is the landscape. If you know, if if we're committed to our craft, then we have to do that. We have to get better at it. And I will tell you, it has been baby steps, but I definitely have gotten better at virtual presentations. I don't hate them anymore, I prefer in-person presentations. But I've gotten a lot better at virtual because I think I got rid of that whole I have to be around people kind of thing. Right, I got rid of that whole.
Speaker 3:I have to be around people, kind of thing. So right, You're able to set it aside and go. This is how I make money. Now I do this.
Speaker 1:Well, not so much. This is how I make money. It's more about this is how I share my message, and if I have to share it virtually, that's better than sharing it Virtually is better than not sharing it at all.
Speaker 3:So yeah, absolutely 100%, and your message is so good. We talked and I love what you said. I speak on kindness and treating everyone as if they were your best customer, because is that basically? Is that the theme of your talks, your presentations?
Speaker 1:I mean kindness, yeah, I mean honestly. There's kind of this stigma against DEI now, and I think you and I talked about this. You can have the letters, take the letters, I don't care what you do with them. Right, take the letters, I don't care what you do with them. Um, but the the the overall arching idea of DEI, in my opinion, is being kind. It's being kind to other people, it's you know. You talked about treating each person like they're your best customer. I think about how you treat your best customer. What if you treated every person you know like your best customer? What if you treated every person you know like your best customer? How different would your life be and how different would their lives be?
Speaker 3:Or even complete strangers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, absolutely Everybody everybody.
Speaker 3:For sure. So for those of my if there's anybody in my audience that doesn't know DEI stands for diversity, equity and inclusion. Is that right, yeah?
Speaker 1:And it's a theory, I'm just going to throw it to you on that one. Why do we talk about DEI? So diversity, equity, inclusion, so the way I look at it, I'll try to explain it as simply as I can. So diversity means there's a lot of different opinions, a lot of different perspectives, a lot of different backgrounds. Equity means that everybody understands that you have what you need to level the playing field, so not that everybody gets the same thing necessarily, because everybody doesn't need the same thing. So if I'm a short person and there's a tall person and we both need to see, the tall person doesn't need a ladder, they're already tall enough. The short person needs a ladder.
Speaker 1:And then inclusion is that everyone's invited, everyone's included. So I think that, from a business standpoint, if you have a business, you're probably already experiencing diversity, whether you know it or not, whether you're practicing it or not. It's whether or not you're practicing equity and inclusion. And then there's another letter. There's a, b, as in boy, as in belonging, and yeah, there's a, b as in boy, as in belonging.
Speaker 1:B-E-I-B. Yeah, and I think the B is actually maybe the most important letter of all of them. So if you are treating your people as if they belong, you're covering everything else probably.
Speaker 3:Yeah, oh yeah, probably so, because you're already. Everything else, probably, yeah, oh, yeah, probably so, because you're already. Yeah, you're encompassing that, the inclusion in that, if you're already treating them like they belong. So how does what necessitates oh boy, it's the big words they're gonna do me in um, when somebody comes to you and says will you come and speak to our organization, our, our company? What are they hoping to get out of that?
Speaker 1:um, I mean, it depends on the organization, but I think they're probably hoping for a few things. Either they want a more energized, um, innovative work, workplace, work culture, and they want to attract dynamic talent and they want to retain dynamic talent, and or they want to make more money. Because when you do all those things, your bottom line is infected, infected, is affected greatly. It's not just me, no, it's not just you. It's affected greatly. The more diverse your workplace is, the more included they feel, the more engaged they are. Then you have more innovation, more teamwork, more problem solving, better customer service, maybe more offerings, and all of that translates into making more money for your business. So imagine this you have this great workplace, great work culture and oh, by the way, you're successful and you're making money.
Speaker 3:Right, Absolutely, and you can. You come to this because your parents had a business and they were doing this before we ever heard about DEI right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yes, yeah, yeah. I don't think they ever knew. I mean, my, my, my dad is probably he's still alive and he's probably like I'm, I don't know what. He would say some colorful language about dei. You wouldn't know what it was, but I mean, this is so. This is like 15 ish years ago and or even longer, because they started the business longer ago. The 2005 is when I started working with them and their business went from two bedrooms in their house, two extra bedrooms in their house, to buying a building and having 20 employees all over across the state of Florida and beyond. Wow, and the way they did that was by employing what we would maybe now call a DEI policy of some kind, but it was just basically treating everyone well, including everybody, having good communication, allowing contribution across the board, being very transparent with the team and then having fun on top of it. And that just was a recipe. That just. I mean we exploded into a multi million dollar business within five years or less, actually less than five years so that was three years.
Speaker 3:What type of business? It was an inspection inspections and engineering okay, yeah, that's crazy. Okay, that's crazy. I mean crazy good, right, but wow. So I'm trying to think there's a part on your website where you said that you hate change, but not really used to hate change. Right, because change is, it is right, yeah, it's always happening. What made you embrace change?
Speaker 1:I mean, like you just said, mike, it's always happening. So I mean, I could fight against it for the rest of my life and be a miserable human being, or I could embrace it, and I actually even like to think about it as curiosity. So you know, maybe not being you know, like sometimes when something comes up and you're like, oh man, I don't, I don't even know how to do that, like, why not be curious about it? Because you know the way I explain it when I'm talking is, um, when you first rode a bike, very few people that I know could ever just get on a bike and ride a bike Right, and you might've fallen off. You might've said this is horrible, and I bruised my knee and I'm bleeding and my favorite jeans are ripped.
Speaker 1:Well, if my knee and I'm bleeding and my favorite jeans are ripped, well, if you never embraced the change of that, if you never embraced the unknowing or the fear of maybe hurting yourself again, then you might not have ever learned how to ride your bike and you might not have ever. I mean, who didn't like riding their bike as a kid? It gave us a lot of freedom. So imagine, as adults or business owners, if we never embraced that. I mean, we could still do well, but we would be living inside this little teeny box. And if you don't embrace change or the fear of the unknown or something different, then you're never going to grow, you're never going to innovate, you're never going to be more than what's inside your little box.
Speaker 3:Right, right, and I think there are some people that are like that. There's a lot of people, probably a lot more than I maybe want to admit Not me. I love change. Now, why is it that we don't come to that realization sooner in life?
Speaker 1:sooner in life. You know what I think it is. It's like when we're kids. We don't know that we can't do something, we don't know that something is different, we don't know hate, we don't know race, we don't know religion. We don't know any of that. And I think a couple of things happen. It's you know, know who are you raised by, what's your environment when you're being raised up and who do you surround yourself with? And to even put another layer on it, what if you surround yourself with people who, who you're trying to impress, who you really don't like? Now, not only are you afraid to embrace something that is important to you, but you're trying to look good and trying to go against the things that are innate to you Right, you know? So, like, if you're trying to hang out with the cool kids and the cool kids are doing crappy stuff, where does that leave you?
Speaker 3:hey everybody. We'll be right back with more of my conversation with lisa demi right after this brief message from another deluxe edition network podcast hey, what's up everyone.
Speaker 2:I'm dylan and I'm cameron and we're the hosts of barstool film school, a conversational comedy podcast about the very best bar movies, you know, the ones that are like perfect to watch when you're hanging out in a bar with friends. Now, uh, I'm a writer and a film school washout and I'm a bar owner, so we gotta know what we're talking about. You would hope, tune in every other week, wherever you get your pods, as we take on a new flick, and we will pair those flicks with some cocktail to see if they pass the bar. Now, uh, what do you say, cam? Shall we pour ourselves another round? Let's do it all, right leaves you in.
Speaker 3:Yeah, is that what happened? Is that what we were talking about with this? I have a note from when we chatted said playground mentality need to be in yeah, I think.
Speaker 1:Well, it's two things you need to. I think the playground mentality is that you can't just sit on the sidelines, um, you need to be in the game, and I think something that's really important about DEI is that, or about even change. Let's take the letters out. Something important about change is you have to speak up, and so if you look back in history at all the things that have changed in the world, you know women voting, blacks voting, you know LGBT marriage and some of those. Some people might say, well, those are all things I don't agree with, but if you look at all these places where the world has changed, there was someone who spoke up and continued to speak up until something got addressed.
Speaker 1:And I think if you had people who were just like all right, well, I'm just going to tolerate it, nothing's going to change, right? But if you have people who get out there and actually, you know, stir the pot, then it brings the attention to others and it has to be addressed because it's not going to go away.
Speaker 3:Oh, for sure, I, you're absolutely right. I there have been, you know, we. I think back and like just talking about change and and like my grandmother. Okay, for example, she was born in 1900.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:So before cars, certainly before airplanes, certainly before rockets, ships and space travel right. And yet in her lifetime she went from probably quite literally horse and buggy when she was born to seeing man walk on the moon.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:That's a huge amount of change in one lifetime, and I think today we tend to think of it in much smaller terms. It's like but what? 15 years ago I had a flip phone, yeah, and 10 years before that the best I could do was a phone on the wall. And now I'm reaching out to people that in Florida, there you go.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And I'm talking to people in Florida. I booked a Zoom call with somebody in Brisbane, australia, talking about having to do math. Like, how many hours is that ahead of me? Am I going to have to get up in the middle of the night to talk to them? But yeah, there's a lot of change in the world that happens in our lifetimes and for sure you can either go the flow and embrace it or you can just continue to live in your little tiny box.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and imagine, you know, you bring up a really great point, mike, you know, when you're talking about your grandma, you know. So if we would have stayed in our little tiny boxes in the 1900s, we certainly wouldn't be doing this we, we, you know, transportation would be way different we, we wouldn't know people from other areas.
Speaker 1:we would, I mean, we would know places that we could walk to or ride our horse to, probably yep, you know so think about the, the industrial revolution, and, uh, you know no, that's too different, we can't do that yeah, can you imagine if someone said you're, you know, like if someone told edison, you're insane trying to, trying to, to invent, you know electricity and a light? Are you crazy?
Speaker 3:Yeah, what's wrong with candles or gas lighting?
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 3:But yeah, so change can be scary for some people.
Speaker 1:It's scary for a lot of people, I think.
Speaker 3:It really is. And yet I wonder if they don't think about their thoughts on things you know, before they make up their minds.
Speaker 1:Oh, people don't think before they make up their minds. I'm convinced of that, Particularly in the digital age that we live in now. People are listening to respond and not listening to understand.
Speaker 3:It's very true. It's very true, and that's. We've got a little thing up here where, where I'm living, and there's a proposal, um, to create a muslim community. It would be open to everybody, but it would include a large mosque, and you know that type of thing and the outrage on social media about this. And there was a pastor at a Protestant church in my area and he wrote a really beautiful Facebook message and he spoke out at the city council meeting for that area and he said, unless we get out of our shells and start talking to and learning from other people, from other cultures, from other religions, even, dare I say, other politics, maybe talk to somebody that you don't necessarily agree with politically, if we can do it in a way that is respectful of each other wouldn't life be a whole lot better.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I think that's the whole walk a mile in their shoes kind of thing. I think that people don't really understand. I mean, I have friends all across the board and I still can't 100% walk a mile in most of their shoes because I'm just not immersed in their lives, right, but I, I invite them to, you know, to sit with me and to talk and have, um, you know, recourse about um, about the things that that you know. Like, if anybody wants to talk to me about, about you know how, how is it to come out? How's it being gay in the United States? Um, you know how is it when you got married, how's your family? You know I am an open book and I will happily talk to you about everything because I want you to understand from my point of view that I'm just like you. I think that if people talk to people who are different from them, I think they would realize how much more similar they are than they thought. How much more similar they are than they thought.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've been preaching that for a while now. You know, talk, go to an ethnic restaurant Ethiopian, whatever it may be. You know, talk to the owners. They'd probably be very happy to sit down and talk to you about what it was like to come to this country and settle in and start a business, and I think that you'll find that their experience. You know, they love their family, they want the best for their kids, All of these things that we have in common with somebody else, and there are some people who choose not to look at those things and choose to be bitter. But, yeah, so you're saying back to DEI for a second that the core of DEI is kindness.
Speaker 1:I think it is. I mean. So if you treated everybody with kindness, then I don't think you'd have to worry about equity or inclusion. Because if you're, if you're being kind to someone and and you're um, what's the word I want to use here? Um, I can't think of the word I want to use. But if you're, if you're being kind to someone, then you're more likely to do whatever it takes to help them be included or to help them get what they need to for everything to be on an equal playing field, you know. So if I'm kind with someone or someone's kind with me, I feel like they're going to do whatever they can and I'm going to do whatever I can to make it easier for them. It's like you know, it's um.
Speaker 1:I read this book years and years ago and I remember the way that the author explained it was. He said and I'm paraphrasing this, but he said something to the degree, to the extent of um like I want you to pass the test, I'm going to give you the answers and I'm going to do whatever it takes to help you pass that test, and so I kind of feel like that. I mean, that's something that we carried through with my parents' business Right. You know even so much as you know, like people in interviews, why wouldn't you? I read this article, this um uh, this gentleman on uh linkedin was talking about that. He recently had a an interview and it was the best interview he ever had because it was a conversation, it wasn't an interrogation right you know so.
Speaker 1:So imagine like, if you want to know the best in me, you're going to have a conversation with me. You're not going to point a finger at me, you're not going to tell me how stupid and different and wrong and dumb I am, but you're going to have respectful back and forth conversation with me.
Speaker 3:And I think really that is the root of kindness is actually caring enough to find out about somebody else and then caring about their problems or, you know, on the flip side, caring about their successes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not just the challenges always Like everybody's like. Well, you know, find out what the challenges are. And I think, yes, we need to find out what the challenges are. But I think also, I think, when you know somebody and know you know what their traditions are and you know what they do with their holidays and what food they eat and what their, their hobbies are, and you know it could be another person who's almost exactly like you, you know, let's say, it's another white person and another white person, and I'm learning about the things that they do.
Speaker 1:Listen, I'm all of a sudden, I'm a gardener. Okay, I've never been a gardener before, but one of my friends has been introducing me to gardening and I love it. I love being in nature. I have my own little Shangri-La in the backyard here and it's something that that, you know, I never thought I would like before. But she's like you know, why don't you try this out? And it's, you know, it's something I probably. I think I made fun of my mother before when she was older and I was like oh my, my god, you're a gardener. Okay, mom, you're one of those. Now I'm doing it, you know so yeah something positive.
Speaker 1:It doesn't always have to be an ugly thing. It could be something positive and something that that will fill your soul. So you know, I think people always go well, dei is it's a bad thing, it's ugliness. No, it's not, it's people. That's what DEI is it's people. End of story.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that. Okay. Now I just thought of this thing where, if we were just curious enough to ask, yeah. And that goes to a Ted Lasso scene yes, but you're totally right.
Speaker 1:Have you watched that show? I have, I love it.
Speaker 3:Oh my god it's the best show ever yeah be curious, not judgmental, and it's absolutely right. You know, if we would just find that curiosity in ourselves and I know our lives are busy and maybe you don't have time to stop and talk to the clerk wearing a seek, I don't know. Whatever the case may be, maybe you don't have time to stop and talk and find out somebody's story, but maybe next time take an extra couple of minutes.
Speaker 1:Talk to them, you might find a new best friend. You know the, the. You bring up a really great point about time. You know, I think we're all so damn busy and in such a hurry anymore that we don't take time and it's just easier. You know, it's like it's like you're stopping off at the, you know at the drive-thru, because you don't have time to get dinner and you're stressed out. Slow down, people, slow down. Get to know your neighbor, spend five. You know, when we didn't have these right, we spent a lot more time talking to people. Yes, yeah.
Speaker 1:And I think that's something that we're missing is we're not talking to each other anymore. So take you know, get off of Facebook for five seconds, Get off of TikTok, like we were talking about, for five seconds and have a conversation with a person. Listen, you never, ever know and I cannot take credit for this phrase but you never know where the gold is. You never know where you're going to find out something interesting or something that could change your life or something that could protect you or whatever the case may be. But if you don't talk to people, you're never going to find anything else out. It's just all going to be with whatever you got right here, you're never going to find anything else out.
Speaker 3:It's just all going to be with whatever you got right here. Right, it might be that person that you had the opportunity to talk to and you pass it up and that might be your next big idea. That might be, you know, a new friendship, whatever. Yeah, that's fantastic, lisa. Thank you so much for taking the time. I know you're busy.
Speaker 1:Where are you off to next? I've got a handful of engagements and my September all of a sudden exploded. So I'm super busy in September. But I'm happy because I'm working on a new keynote. So now I'm like okay, my keynote's got to be ready, polished, ready, to go by September. So it's giving me a little bit of time to get that thing dialed in.
Speaker 3:So I'll be For those of us who don't speak for a living, we're like September, but it'll be ready and it'll be awesome.
Speaker 1:I hope so. That's the plan. I'm working on it right now.
Speaker 3:Oh, I look forward to seeing you again and talking to you again. It's been absolutely a pure delight and pleasure thank you so much, mike.
Speaker 1:I've enjoyed talking to you and getting to know you and and having this great conversation with you, me as well.
Speaker 3:Take care. Yes, sir, you too. Yes, sir, you too. A lot of school districts and a lot of politics, but it's really just about including everybody and making sure everybody's on equal footing and embracing the diversity that probably already exists in your organization or your neighborhood or wherever. I think we ought to start a changeorg petition to have Lisa Demme go and explain this to every school board, every city council. The woman could probably retire off that. I'm just saying so great to have her and I hope that you took something positive out of this episode. I know I did, and that will do it for this episode of the Kindness Matters podcast.
Speaker 3:We will be back, as always, again next week with a brand new episode. I hope you're excited to tune in. I appreciate every one of you that takes 30 minutes, 30-ish minutes, out of your day once a week to listen to this podcast. You are the ones that are the change in this world when you listen to this podcast and you get motivated to be more kind to others in the world. You're the ones doing it and my hat is off to you. Again next week, brand new episode. But of course, until that time, be that person who roots for others, who tells a stranger that they look amazing and encourages others to believe in themselves and their dreams. You have been listening to the Kindness Matters Podcast. I am your host, mike R rathbun. Have a fantastic week.
