Culture: What's a CEO to do?

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0:00:01.0 Announcer: We've been about this work, diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, shared through the voices of a White woman and a Black man. We bring lived experiences. We have pursued D&I progress for most of our professional lives. We use Crazy and The King to cover news, tips from colleagues and host incredible guests. Listeners count on Julie and I to transparently drive the conversation. We thank you for rocking with us. Check it. Julie, kick off the show.

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0:00:39.6 Julie: Welcome, welcome, welcome to Crazy and The King.

0:00:42.5 Torin: Off the top, shout out to Kendrick Lamar. I'm telling you, The Heart Part 5 is absolutely must listen to music. And J, most of the time, I don't really bring up music and things of that sort because I just... I don't know. I mean, it's not as if we don't use profanity every once in a while here, but a lot of the music, it has the N-word in it, or oftentimes, sometimes it may have the N-word in it and I don't like to promote that, but I will tell you, that song is absolutely incredible. So off the top, shout out to Kendrick Lamar. Your talent is something that should absolutely be recognized. I appreciate the thoughtfulness that you use to curate your music. What's popping, partner? How you feel?

0:01:35.0 Julie: Oh, well, I feel awesome. I already have the video picked up or queued up for as soon as we hang up for Kendrick Lamar. And yes, bad words. A, we use them way more than sometimes and B, I know that there are other words we don't encourage in rap music and some R&B, but the talk about mental health, the talk about actual society and all that stuff in rap music and R&B music is completely so absorbing and on point. So many people dismiss it because the language and they shouldn't. They absolutely shouldn't.

0:02:16.9 Torin: Yeah, no, it's important. It's absolutely important. So we have a rich show in front of you today. We really wanna talk about just a variety of things, but there is a couple of stories that we want to focus on. And number one, forced sterilizations somehow made it on top this week, forced sterilizations. And it makes me think about... I can't even remember what we covered a couple of years back where a couple of states were trying to put... Force people to go through this Christian therapy or something of the sort, so that they would kinda denounce their transgender leanings or interests, or their LGBTQ... You remember when we talked about that?

0:03:04.3 Julie: Yeah, yeah, conversion therapy.

0:03:06.0 Torin: Conversion therapy. Thank you, thank you. That's the phrase. So in Germany, what we found in this article, it was a tweet, but we found that Trans Germans used to be forcibly sterilized to change their legal gender. And many right now are fighting for justice, which was the headline of this particular tweet. Did you see that, J?

0:03:32.8 Julie: Oh, yeah. I mean, this is incredible, right? So this is what, 1981-2011, around 10,000 Trans-German citizens faced the fate of forced sterilization. So basically, like you said, I wanna change my gender, I wanna go through that transition legally and in order to do that, in Germany, you had to go through incredibly invasive and unwanted surgery to be sterilized permanently to change your legal gender. Absolutely incredible.

0:04:09.7 Torin: And you know what? What I wasn't understanding, I had to read it a couple of times, but help me to understand this. So there was a portion of the tweet where basically you couldn't just denounce that you no longer wanted to believe or move in a certain way, but that you had to go through this invasive surgery. Am I hearing it, am I understanding it correctly?

0:04:35.5 Julie: Yeah.

0:04:36.5 Torin: Denouncing it was one step, then you had to go through the surgery to sort of make it official. Am I clear on that?

0:04:44.5 Julie: Yeah, yeah. So absolutely, it kind of harkens back to it, an episode we had a couple of weeks ago, where a transgender inmate impregnated some women in her cell block in her prison in New Jersey. And this basically, before a person could transition, they were forced to undergo permanent sterilization in order to be legally recognized and protected with their gender transition.

0:05:14.5 Torin: Yeah and 32% of Germans think that they already have enough rights, so we're now thinking about just the German population at large. And basically, what they're saying is, "Listen, this is a non-starter. This is not important." So 32% of Germans feel like people in the LGBTQ community or LGBTQIAA community have enough rights and 20% of Germans said that they have too many rights. This was actually a poll, a recent poll over on YouGov, Y-O-U-G-O-V. And here's the deal, I don't care what you think.

0:06:00.8 Julie: Right.

0:06:01.4 Torin: What we are saying is that somebody forced them to go through a surgery, changing everything in their life. These people want some degree of recourse and I just feel like, Julie, people who have been aggrieved should have some recourse, they should at least be able to pursue recourse and let the chips fall where they made that. So I may be in the... Let's see, if 32% feel like they already have enough rights, then I'm in the 68% or possibly 68% that are saying, "Now let them have some recourse and see what happens."

0:06:42.1 Julie: Yeah, I mean but if you do the math right 32% have enough rights and 20% say they have too many rights, that's basically 52% of Germans who say, "You're good or you got too much.

0:06:55.5 Torin: Got it. Yeah.

0:06:55.6 Julie: And so you and I would sit in the 48% that say...

0:06:58.4 Torin: That's right.

0:07:00.4 Julie: "If you force me to make a decision to not have a child, you made me undergo an unwanted sterilization, there's some compensation and some re-compensation."

0:07:11.2 Torin: Yeah.

0:07:11.8 Julie: We'll cut that part out. But that is due back to those 10,000 people.

0:07:17.6 Torin: I love that, I love that. Also last week in our episode and if you missed it, crazyandtheking.com, crazyandtheking.com. But last week, I asked the question concerning DEIB folks, people like myself, you, so many others that we know in the space. And basically the question was, are we doing enough? Are we genuine in the work that we are doing while we are advocated and fighting for access and presence and a seat at the table and resources and support, development and we're fighting for all of these things for people in general, are we doing enough to prepare them for the downside of this? You know, automation is coming through, jobs are being lost, a lot of these people that we are putting in creative economies, perhaps even manufacturing, frontline, labor economies, a lot of these people are going to be out of work just as a function of technology and advancement. And so I asked the question, are we doing enough? And so I found this article around Google yet again, offering small businesses, all small businesses in the US, I stress that, every small business in the US can benefit from what Julie and I uncovered. So it looks like Google is offering $100,000 certificates. So every small business in the US can benefit from that and I think that's a good thing.

0:08:51.0 Julie: No. I mean, it absolutely is. The conversation that we had last week was probably one of my favorite ones that we've had in four seasons of having these conversations because we took the scope and the scale of the way people think about DEIB to an entirely different level. And so with that conversation, I think that we really advance that and I always appreciate the things that Google is doing. They do a lot of fantastic things for non-profits. Seeing them do this work around certifying people who work at small businesses, it's really, really fantastic. And I think as DEI leaders, just like we talked about last week, this is what we should be talking about. This should be a part of every conversation on the table, up-skilling, re-skilling, all of the buzz words, we should be at the table for those conversations.

0:09:46.6 Torin: Yeah, absolutely. And this really is a really, really big give on Google's part, so every single US business up to... Is eligible to receive up to 500 Google career certificate scholarships to up-skill their employees. 500 up-skill scholarships and the value of those 500 or up to 500 is around $100,000. What they are saying is that if your business has the capacity and you can upscale I guess the professional platform of 10 people, 20 people, 30 people, 50 people, as many as you can do up to 500, they will do that. They are basically giving your business $100,000 to say, "I wanna make sure that America's workforce is better prepared for tomorrow." I thought that this was like absolutely incredible. I just thought about how many small businesses that I know, convenience stores that may need somebody to come through and re-run or re-deploy technology and the people that own the store don't have the acumen, they don't necessarily know what that looks like. I think about my clothier, my clothier is an incredible, one of the best and well-dressed men here in Baltimore City, put him in front of a computer and he's like a deer in headlights. He absolutely does not really submit himself to that type of learning, building websites, social media marketing, all of those things. And this right here I thought, was an awesome thing. I'm like literally sharing it with all of my friends via direct email.

0:11:32.4 Julie: Yeah. And A, I love that you have a clothier and B, what an amazing opportunity to grow and up-skill and hire diverse talent who needs that first foot in the door, who needs that next level up, for nothing out of your pocket. As a small business, there's nothing more that we're looking for, right? Opportunity to grow people, unlimited amount of spend on our part.

0:12:00.4 Torin: Absolutely. Gotta tell you, so here's a fun story, we are going to end on a really good note up top in the show. And I think somewhere in the show, Julie has an address to share with you, but this is a historic and homage type send-off. The last surviving Tuskegee Airmen who lives in Rhode Island, his name is Victor Butler, he's asking for birthday cards for his 100th birthday. Listen, when I saw this, when you popped this one over on our chat earlier this morning, I just smiled, like I literally saw myself smiling. Like here we are about to lose such an incredible piece and contribution to history, yet we can smile while we have him. We can absolutely smile while we have him. I loved this story.

0:12:56.1 Julie: Yeah, no, I mean I absolutely did. I was reading it this morning and he loves to do puzzles, I love to do puzzles. Like when... Honestly, like when I'm at my most anxious, I will sit down and work on a puzzle, something that keeps my hands busy and I find it very calming, like it quiets my brain and he does the same. And just again, an amazing part of history, he was a mechanic in Tuskegee and he talks about how wonderful it was to be on the airfield, but it was the town that was bad. Right, it was that White people didn't find it acceptable for Black soldiers to be walking around and how much he's been through and to share that story and then just the little pieces of him around, he promises to read every card, he loves puzzles, like all of those things, like I'm absolutely sending a card. And if you wanna send a card, wait till the name drop and we'll give you all the information on how to reach Mr. Butler.

0:13:57.5 Torin: Okay, so the good part is, you and I, we are connected, even when we're not recording, so I think it would be fun for you and mom to do a card together. I don't know if you're gonna draw it with crayons or markers, but just snap a shot if you can. If mom is not afraid of the camera, put that join up in the air, snap a shot of you and mom sending Mr. Butler a card and send it to me, so we can keep that in our history books. We got a couple of historic pictures. My favorite historic picture of you sitting at the United Nations right now. Our drinking pictures don't count, that...

0:14:33.0 Julie: I love those.

0:14:33.2 Torin: United Nations picture is historic. Alright, cool. So that will do it for J and I in the small talk, quick commercial, we'll be right back.

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0:14:49.6 Torin: So in a flash, officials at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst are denouncing a follow-up racist email sent to Black students and organizations on campus. Oh, a follow-up, how cute. The email actually sent last week refers to Black students as, wait for it, as animals and taunts the lack of progress on the previous investigation into a similar racist email sent in the fall of 2021. I suppose they didn't receive enough attention and which is the reason, J, they just had to do it all over again. I read somewhere that long-termism, long-termism should not be confused with long-term thinking. I've never heard of long-termism and you probably have not either and why not?

0:15:48.3 Torin: Because this is another super-wealthy, long-termist-type thing, which is the reason that the far future, in their opinion, could contain way more value than exists today or has existed so far in human history, which stretches back some 300,000 years. Long-termism, long-term thinking, I'm confused. And while I have your attention, let me insert this PSA. Some companies have still not adopted any formal structure regarding DEIB. You are playing with a ticking time bomb that will have a lasting impact on how you grow during this next phase of business. I promise you, you've been warned, differently, no siren, no sound effect, just a reminder. And lastly, Peloton is trying to position instructors as influencers and Taco Bell is creating a musical with Dolly Parton and Doja Cat. Now, if you don't know who Doja Cat or Taco Bell are, phone a friend.

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0:17:07.6 Julie: Alright, welcome back. I'm gonna need to find out more about the Doja Cat musical because I love Doja Cat. I also love Dolly Parton.

0:17:17.1 Torin: You love Doja Cat?

0:17:18.2 Julie: Oh, I love Doja Cat.

0:17:19.4 Torin: Okay, got it, got it, got it.

0:17:20.4 Julie: I love Doja Cat. Love Dolly Parton. Okay, also love Taco Bell. There's the bad thing about me.

0:17:26.2 Torin: Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, you still eat at Taco Bell, really?

0:17:31.0 Julie: So like once a quarter, I eat at Taco Bell two tacos, I have to say.

0:17:35.5 Torin: Okay, so now, this is... I was gonna... You see my finger's up, I couldn't even get it out fast enough. This is like the second time on record where you admit to stopping in a drive-through, where if he knew you were parked in the drive-through, he would absolutely have a fit. Like he would...

0:17:53.7 Julie: Yes.

0:17:54.4 Torin: There used to be a car dealership, I'm sure they're probably several of them, when you didn't pay your auto-payment on time, they literally would flip a switch and your vehicle just wouldn't even start. Like if Chad knew that you were in these drive-ups, he would probably cut your... Which reminds me, I don't know if you have any friends with a Tesla, but apparently, when the pandemic started, I just learned this a couple of... I just learned this last week when I was in Chicago. Apparently when the pandemic started, Tesla sells a feature and basically, in the cars, there's a lot of software. Well, there's a piece of the software that says, you can go X number of miles on a charge, or you can go X plus a number of miles on that same charge. But what you have to do is kinda unlock that piece of the software. Like literally and you're paying an extra 10000 or 15000 to be able to unlock that piece of software.

0:18:58.3 Julie: No shit. Oh wow.

0:19:00.0 Torin: Same battery but in the software, it tells the battery, "Okay, we'll let the person's vehicle go this far or pay an extra fee, a premium and we'll let the vehicle go even further." And apparently during the pandemic, they flipped that switch on a bunch of the vehicles who had not made that investment, just so that they could be able to go that far. I was like, "Wow, that's crazy."

0:19:27.3 Julie: Wow, how generous, what the fuck?

0:19:29.3 Torin: How generous, how generous. Well, we'll get to you eating at Taco Bell another time. [laughter] That's a whole another show, that's a whole another show, but we got bigger issues right now and Taco Bell is a part of culture. There is a culture out there that really loves Taco Bell, but when I think about culture and I say this often Julie, culture doesn't start inside of the corporate corridor, it starts inside of our circumstance and our condition. Culture includes these Return to Work policies, culture includes how we look at voting laws or children in cages, culture includes the most recent Supreme Court leak around the abortion ban, if you will and whether or not the political parties that be will switch and be able to codify or not codify. Culture is all of that and what I think is going on right now is that more organizations are going to have to heed that warning that I talked about in a flash, they are going to have to find some degree of truth and courage around being able to participate and navigate these culture wars, social imperatives and that deafening corporate silence that I don't think is really working out for too many of them.

0:20:57.3 Julie: Yeah, actually its funny Torin and I were having this conversation yesterday that... I know I say it every time, but the Edelman Trust Barometer is something I go back to month after month, every year after we review it and what the Edelman Trust Barometer was very clear about is that we trust no one right now, except for our own CEOs and that we also expect our CEOs to speak out against injustice and immorality and not make it about politics. And this whole conversation around culture just took me back to that, it's like hey, we've gotta have leaders that have a spine and we've gotta have leaders who are willing to have a conversation that is uncomfortable to some of our employees and some of our shareholders, because mostly if we're led by and this may not even be the right way to say it, but if we're led by what the majority drives us to, we're gonna speak against those injustices that we see every day in our work places and in our lives.

0:22:22.4 Torin: So, pardon me, part of the challenge is that... You briefly mentioned politics a moment ago. Part of the challenge is that typically, when we've looked at corporate America, we tend to think that big corporate America, I don't wanna speak for the smaller side of corporate America, but big corporate America tended to lean more to the right, whether that be in how they made their donations, perhaps how they identify politically themselves, I just think that historically, we've generally seen that corporate America has leaned to the right. However, we found an article over on Bloomberg and the article is titled, "Why Wall Street can't escape the culture wars," actually.

0:23:21.8 Julie: Yeah, no, a great story by Adam Bonica who's an Associate Professor of Political Science at Stanford, he maps out the ideological leanings of industries by analyzing data on what we talk about a lot, political contribution.

0:23:37.3 Torin: And quick correction. The article is not by Adam, the article is actually by Paul J. Davies, go ahead.

0:23:43.7 Julie: Thank you, thank you.

0:23:44.5 Torin: Yep, yep, yeah.

0:23:45.8 Julie: But Adam talks about the ideology and political contributions, which you and I have talked about a lot and has found that the ideological... Ideology, Jesus.

0:23:57.4 Torin: Ideological.

0:23:58.9 Julie: Ideology...

0:24:00.4 Torin: Don't worry, it's only because I got this one, I had more time to look at it than you did. You know how to say it, it's just the tongue twister, that's all, that's all.

0:24:08.6 Julie: Sometimes I'm not sure if do. So anyway, it crossed the center line and has rapidly become more liberal in the targets of its funding since 2012, which I thought was very fascinating.

0:24:23.6 Torin: See it now, yet and when you go to the article and look at it, you know what Adam did, he marked it over the last 30 or 40 years if I'm not mistaken and so if you are really studying the maps or the graphs that Adam shares, it's a slow move up to 2012, you slowly see the shift of these contributions and identification and participations right or left or center happening over the last 30 or 40 years, but since 2012... And I know this to be... I shouldn't say I know this to be the case because Adam as smart as he probably is, is well-researched as this article is, appears to be, there might be somebody, definitely somebody that would refute what he is saying, but I remember when we first started Julie, when I wanna say it was like 2019 when we were just a year or so into our podcast, I remember coming across a HBR article. Was it an HBR article? I think it was an HBR article, well-documented, academic White paper and it really talked about the contributions from corporate America to the right and we count at time of 2010 to 2014 or 15, it's been a huge change in the last four or five years.

0:26:00.2 Julie: Yeah and I find it also very interesting something that we're starting to see. So in this article, they talked specifically about Citigroup CEO, Jane Fraser, who's really like put her neck on the line, right, when she's talking about putting...

0:26:13.7 Torin: On the line.

0:26:14.4 Julie: On the line. Vaccine mandates to combat COVID and now pledges to support female staff who are in states that are banning or criminalizing abortions, in fact, taking a lot of heat from Florida Governor, Ron DeSantis in the last 10 days.

0:26:35.2 Torin: Yeah and there's a number of organizations and part of the reason why we're having this conversation, I know the abortion piece is the topic du jour, it's not the only topic, but it most certainly is a pressing and top of story topic right now. And there are some that say "Well, wait a minute, you know, why is it that Jane Fraser from Citigroup is the only one?" And let me tell you, Jane is catching it from both sides. She's catching it from the individuals who are in support of the abortion ban, regular people, she's catching it from politicians, particularly in Texas. A lot of... Well, actually I shouldn't say Texas, but you got a lot of politicians that are in the Senate that are saying, you know what? Let's not do any business with Citigroup. Whatever contracts we have with Citigroup, let's cut, let's sever those contracts. Let's take that money away from them and so Jane Fraser should not be the only one who is amplifying the need for us to take care of the people that build our businesses.

0:27:43.7 Torin: You do have a sprinkling here or there of organizations willing to pay travel costs if their employees have to travel beyond a certain number of miles to be able to receive the medical or the health care that they are looking for, but whether it be the Return to Work policies, whether it be Voting Rights Act, which voting rights, which I think far too many organizations were silent on, it could be like the Ukraine we talked about over the last couple of months. I'd love to see and I'm on record for saying it, I'd love to see more organizations, companies speak up about what's happening in Yemen and some of the other countries around. Listen, Julie, we can't... I know that they would say that this... But so much bandwidth. We can't speak about everything. But what I think is, we have enough companies that all of them could stand up for something, may not be this issue, but they're standing up for this issue. I guess what I'm really, really looking for is just that they're not taking the position of being silent and you said it a moment ago, it's about having that courage.

0:28:54.9 Julie: Yeah, I mean, it absolutely is. And yes, what we're talking about with abortion is topical. It's timely, it's news, but like we talked about a couple of weeks ago, right? If you let the devil in the window, the devil's still in the house. And once we go down this road that we're going on... You and I actually shared some interesting videos this week of men standing and blocking access to abortion clinics saying "It is not your body, it's your choice. Your body is my body."

0:29:32.5 Torin: Yeah, I couldn't believe that. I'm gonna tell you, when you sent that across to me, Julie, I looked at it a couple of times because I said, you know how you're on your... Pardon me, I was actually on my phone. And so you know how you pinch your fingers together and try to widen them so you can get in, maybe zoom a little bit. I literally was looking at that tweet and I'm saying to myself, I need to zoom in because I need to kinda see the facial expression, like were they serious when they were saying that, or were they just kind of playing, if you will, being assholes, just being funny. But from what I could see, they were kind of like, yeah, you know how the pop your collar type... Yeah, it's not your body, it's not your... Like literally.

0:30:23.2 Julie: Yeah, yeah and we have Idaho and Mississippi who are both considering bans on contraception now. In fact, Governor, I believe it's Tate, from Mississippi said he would not veto a piece of legislation that disallowed contraception even between married couples. Others, Southern states considering pretty dramatic criminal penalties for women who seek abortions. So the thing is, is we have a lot of companies who are doing a really, really great work around diversity, equity and inclusion and they're benefiting from it. And they're not speaking right now on behalf of women. They're not speaking right now on behalf of Black women, Brown women, women with disabilities who are much more likely to be victims of sexual assault, rape and abuse than White women. And those White women who have more access to go to a different state, who work for Citigroup and can take that time off and can go get those services in another state. We're really looking at companies who are silent on the biggest attack on our civil rights in 50 plus years.

0:31:44.4 Torin: Yeah and Sundar Pichai, he is the CEO of Google, which we talked about earlier, he was actually quoted in an Inc article, a recent Inc article and this is the courage that you're talking about, Julie, but what he said was, so I view it as a strength and I'm abbreviating the quote. But so I view it as a strength of the company when employees speak up. I think it's important for us to take it seriously, internalizing it, acknowledging it, owning up to it, committing and making the company better is how you approach those moments.

0:32:20.6 Torin: Owning up to it and committing to it and making the company better is how you approach those moments, that is what Sundar had to say and I think it's extremely important that we just really, really, really continue to consider how important it is for CEOs and other executives to continue to find a frequency that allows them to speak up and to continue to do their thing. One last point here, as we close this section, mental health issues are continuing to be talked about, they have been talked about more pronounced since COVID started and I surmise, I'm willing to submit to you J, that I think with this whole abortion thing, even more women and more people are going to be participating in conversations around mental health, or feeling like they need the help, the health and support of a therapist of some sort. I just don't think that mental health is going to see a decline in its interest any time over the next short-term period.

0:33:27.3 Julie: Yeah, 100% agree, but you know what really freaked me out about this article is, one, you and I talked a few weeks ago about how much it costs for a ride in a med-evac, in a helicopter and venture capitalists moving into mental health actually, I think, puts mental health access to much greater risk than we think because it turns it into a profit center, it doesn't turn it into a service that we can access as citizens, as humans, it turns it into a cost center, or it turns it into a profit center. And so when we start seeing all of this money move into mental health, we'll start seeing prices go up, we'll start seeing access go down and we'll start seeing lots more wait lists than are necessary because those venture capitalists and those private equity firms are looking for 10x, 15x, 20X on their return and what we really need in this country is a continuation of mental health parity and access that we saw passed in 2008 just after the ACA.

0:34:53.2 Torin: Yeah and so that's a great place for us to end it when you talk about that parity versus the capitalistic leanings of the VC firms. Pardon me, what I want for each and every one of you as listeners inside of your respective organizations, Julie just mentioned something that was passed in 2008 and it is the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008. The acronym for that is MHPAEA, again, MHPAEA is a federal law. Research the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, which basically says that your business or your company cannot provide more or better benefit for surgical procedures versus mental health procedures. Cool?

0:35:49.2 Julie: Awesome. Alright, let's catch one more break and we will be back for Her Voice.

0:35:55.6 Torin: So, this week in our Her Voice segment where we amplify women making moves, Atlanta's super popular vegan restaurant, Slutty Vegan. I actually had a chance to visit it back in March when I was in Atlanta. Slutty Vegan just raised $25 million, it is now valued at more than $100 million. Pinky Cole opened the flagship store in 2018 and within months, had done about $4 million in revenue, this right here J, this is not bad for a four-year-old business that started taking orders on Instagram.

0:36:29.7 Julie: I love it. So also moving on up, we have Splunk promoted Katie Bianchi to SVP and Chief Customer Officer, the Nashville Electric Service promoted CFO, Teresa Broyles-Aplin to CEO.

0:36:48.4 Torin: And this is old, but it deserved a little bit more of shine, Mallory McMorrow is a Michigan State lawmaker busily doing the people's business when she had finally had enough. And if you have not seen the five-minute rant on YouTube of Mallory McMorrow ripping into one of her political colleagues, it is absolutely a must-watch, she gave them the business for business. For business. [chuckle] Loved it.

0:37:22.4 Julie: And late for sure, we have Tracey Meares who was a senior in 1984...

0:37:27.7 Torin: A senior in high school, by the way.

0:37:29.1 Julie: In high school, on her way to becoming Springfield High School's first Black valedictorian. The Illinois' native was ecstatic, but in the days leading up to her graduation Meares said there were some peculiar events happening, one in particular that she remembers is an Assistant Principal caught illegally removing her file from a counselor's office at school, come on.

0:37:53.5 Torin: So all of this time later, she finally is awarded that valedictorian status that she absolutely deserves, shout out to you, Ms. Tracey Meares. Real quick mention, if you are one of the 88% of HR professionals according to Workville and you have dreaded going to work in the past six months, consider scheduling a coaching session with a good friend of mine, she's down in the islands, I don't know if she's gonna fly you down to the islands, but virtually, she can at least try to get you right. You can find Julie Turney on Twitter at @iamjulieturney, @iamjulieturney, T-U-R-N-E-Y.

0:38:35.7 Julie: All right and now to the name drops. If you would like to send Victor Butler, the last surviving Tuskegee Airmen, a birthday card, you can mail it to Victor, V-I-C-T-O-R W Butler, B-U-L-T-E-R, care of Gary Butler, PO Box 3523, Cranston, Rhode Island, 02910. Happy birthday, Mr. Butler.

0:39:05.2 Torin: And let me tell you something, what would be fun in every single person who mails on the outside of your envelope, click the #crazyandtheking. Seriously, every envelope that you send, on the outside, put the #crazyandtheking. I close reminding each and every one of you to share the pod with your digital tribe and to find your voice, Julie and I simply want you to be better humans. We ain't asking for a whole lot, we just want you to be a better human, we want you to build better culture, better teams and work places and we promise in exchange for that, we'll be back next week. For now, J and I are ghosts.

[applause]

0:39:45.6 Julie: See ya.

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