196 | Use Your Difference to Make a Difference with Tayo Rockson
Image of Tayo Rockson, guest for episode 196 of the Awarepreneurs podcast
Our guest on the pod this week is Tayo Rockson. Tayo is a diversity, inclusion and anti-racism consultant. He's also a writer and podcaster on a mission to build the next generation of global leaders and corporations. He is the author of Use Your Difference to Make a Difference.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
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Tayo Rockson Awarepreneurs Interview
SPEAKERS
Paul Zelizer, Tayo Rockson
Paul Zelizer 00:01
Hi, this is Paul Zelizer, and welcome to another episode of the Awarepreneurs podcast. This podcast is all about the intersection of three things, conscious business, social impact, and awareness practices. Each episode, I do a deep dive interview with a thought leader in this intersection, someone who has market tested experience, and is already transforming many lives. Before I introduce today's guests, and our topic today, I have one request, you could go over to iTunes or whatever app you're listening to this on and hit the subscribe button, do a rating to review it helps tremendously. Thank you so much. Today, I am really excited to introduce you to Tayo rockson. And our topic today is user difference to make a difference. Tayo is the diversity inclusion and anti racism consultant. He's also a writer and podcaster on a mission to build the next generation of global leaders and corporations. He is the author of the book, use your difference to make a difference. Tyler, welcome to the show.
Tayo Rockson 01:03
Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited for this interview.
Paul Zelizer 01:06
We got some things to talk about, I think. Yeah, yeah,
Tayo Rockson 01:10
yeah, yeah. And the energy is palpable, you know, we can feel it. And it translates to, you know, across the digital wave. So I'm excited to dive into this.
Paul Zelizer 01:18
I'm super excited. We're called Awarepreneurs, Tayo. And one of the ways we like to get to know somebody is to ask you about a wellness or an awareness practice that you personally use to bring your most resourced and resilient self to this really important, but not always very easy work.
Tayo Rockson 01:37
Wow, you know, in the line of work, that I'm in, you know, diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, accessibility and anti racism, it can get draining once in a while. And a lot of times you can feel like you're the only one. Because, you know, a lot of times you are the only one. And self care becomes something that's important to you. So one of the I so I practice self care through several methods, therapy every Friday, at 4pm. Eastern. I haven't meditated as much as I should, but I do that when I can. And then, you know, just basically trying to exercise in multiple formats. I box I you know, lift and I do a bunch of other things. But those things that allow me to be present and allow me to exert energy, or ways that I practice self care.
Paul Zelizer 02:30
So I was doing some research for this show. And I went back and I watched a TED talk that you did a while back and heart like prettier history of growing up is you. I've heard it called third culture, kids, like you grew up in many different places, and that you spoke very pointedly about what that was like for you. And I think that might have influenced some of what your trajectory in life has been. Is that fair to say? Yes, yes.
Tayo Rockson 02:57
You know, the first nine years of my life was spent in and out of two military dictatorships, I lived under three military regimes. The third one was a transition government to civilian rule. So you know, a lot of what I initially witnessed growing up was oppression, and suppression, right. And so when you grew up that way, you start thinking about different ways to find positivity and find joy, you, you inhabit your own worlds, and I used to create a lot of universes, if you will, in my head, you know, I it would be through the mediums I, I consume through social, you know, through TV, whether it's superheroes or I got lost in books that I read, just because those were safe spaces for me. But when we transition to civilian rule, my dad's job as a diplomat began to take us to different parts of the world. And now, I was now going to be I didn't know then. But I. But looking back, I've been black on four continents, and that with, you know, the blackness in each of these continents come comes with his own set of experiences. And I went from experiencing an identity crisis to then figuring out how to find myself. And that journey led me down the path of writing and writing lots of speaking and consulting and where I am right now, but it was, I think, it's always it's always been a lifelong journey of journey to self rather, and a lot of adventures along the way.
Paul Zelizer 04:24
And black on four continents. My mind is just trying to wrap my brain around that statement. That's a really powerful statement. And I can only imagine what that's been like and what you've learned from that. When in the TED Talk, the TED Talk is called the art of diplomacy. You talked about how being different taught you some things. Can you give a couple highlights there, like, you know, I think this the title of your book is, you know, using your difference to make a difference. That experience taught you settings about how to move back and forth between very, very different groups. And navigated as a young person coming of age in the world. What did you learn?
Tayo Rockson05:05
That’s a good question I explained this way to talk you're talking about is called the art of diplomacy. But I include that in the framework called using difference to make a difference, which is my mission statement and also the book title. And I believe that in order to be able to connect effectively across cultures, you have to be able to use a difference to make a difference. And there are three ways that I believe you can do that you can educate, make sure you don't perpetuate, instead, communicate. Under the educate part, it's it's a combination of two is two pronged. So it's self education, in education of self, medication of environment, with education of self, you need to be aware of your, your btvs, you know, your biases, your triggers and your values. If you think about your biases, your biases, they're not, you know, necessarily bad or good, but they do inform how you see the world. And the biases, or, you know, they come from several things from could be fear, it could be story, it could be avoidance, or it could be because of security. So, fear, maybe because you've had a series of repeated bad experiences with a group of people, right? It could be story, maybe you're told something by parents, by school religion, something you consume through media avoidance, you avoid something and so what fills, you know, what fills in the gap of those things that you that you don't have, or the ignorance gap that you have, or things that you might have heard the stereotypes or, or things that you probably picked up from people around you in your circle of influence, and then security a way for you to feel better about yourself, identify your biases, then your triggers. This is this is why I love you first question, what how is your body reacted to several things, if many of us don't listen to our bodies, and you know, I'm someone that has panic attacks occasionally. And a lot of times when something is happening, my body's telling me that look, something is happening, you need to pay attention to it, but your body reacts. Interestingly, in different ways. When you are happy, sad, you know, angry or whatever emotion you're feeling, when you don't know what your triggers are, you're not going to be able to be aware of what the environment is, and then your values. A lot of times, most people will tell you that they don't know what the values are. And the problem with this is that it Lee leaves us in a conditioned and programmed mindset. Because if you don't know what your values are, you that don't know what you stand for. If you don't know what you don't know, if you don't know what you stand for, you're susceptible to people influencing your views. And so a good exercise for this is to come up with your five core values, and then intentionally fill those value cups every day. My five core values are, you know, curiosity, courage, compassion, creativity and joy foresees in and J. So that's, that's the internal education, you know, your btvs understand that. The education environment, which is the art of diplomacy, which we're talking about, is knowing how to be an active listener, being an active member of your community, and learning how to collect and gather information. And I learned that from my dad, my dad is a diplomat, as I said earlier, but collecting and gathering information is key. because things change as information comes into the mindset into your your, your si Geist, and so you collect and gather information and learn how to figure out what we just apply to ourselves. What makes other people laugh, smile, frown, you know, all those things. And then active listening involves asking open ended questions, ask questions, allow people to tell you, and invite you into the world. So you get to experience that. And then, you know, being an active member of your community, this is to improve your worldview. Because your worldview is, you know, lived experiences, but exposure. Now that's just the education part. The second part is, the second part is don't perpetuate. And the third part is instead of communicate. But I mean, in the book, I dive into different ways to open dialogue, and then the don't perpetuate is about making sure you take everything you've learned individually and apply that to a system.
Paul Zelizer 08:59
And what I like is you've got such a crisp way of languaging things, right? It's such a crisp way and and I can like see the bullet points on watch this. Like as you're talking, I can watch this book outline right itself. I mean, did you wrote it, but I can like see it being written. Now you could just imagine what it looks like in your mind. Like, wow, that is a mind that knows how to like state things so humans can remember it. So just a bow that skill I as somebody who's paid attention to marketing and messaging for many years now. I just bow your way you you've got something going there. And obviously you didn't just start thinking about this yesterday.
Tayo Rockson 09:38
No, no, no, thank you so much. When you have a lot of time to yourself. You just find out that you see things and patterns. And that's one of the things I noticed with biases with with any of the problems we have today, there are patterns that have continued to exist and when you add privilege and power dynamics to that it can become dangerous. And so I wanted to then Come up with a pattern that I noticed that made me feel seen, heard and understood for who I really was. And then I started gathering information through my podcast and every other thing to get to see the patterns for things that made other people feel seen, heard and understood for who they really were. And then, you know, it led into this framework. And I learned that I'm quite the teacher. I prefer teaching and a lot of times, my friends make fun of me in a talk the same way you talk or like, you know, you talk is soundbites in frameworks.
Paul Zelizer 10:31
They call you professors, like the professor.
Tayo Rockson 10:34
I am a professor. One of my nicknames is Prof.
Tayo Rockson 10:38
But I didn't know, this is one of the things By the way, why when you if you don't pay attention to how people see you, you're missing a big part of self awareness. Right? A lot of people see themselves how they see themselves, but the external self awareness is, is a lot of the things we miss out on. And if you ask me, as a kid, I wouldn't be able to, I would have said, Professor me What, why I'm not. I, you know, I want to be an athlete. That's what I wanted to be when I was younger, but it's very important, I just gave into it. And it really feels the most natural when I‘m teaching.
Paul Zelizer 11:10
So we'll put a link in the show notes to the book, I also want to do a shout out to jen mavros, who introduced us Hi, Jan, we'll put a link to junzo. There's so much there that you just shared and Gosh, we could be here for you, could you do you teach many, many courses on all this tile? So talk to me about this experience of like four continents and so many different cultures and traveling around the world. At some point, you had this idea that those experiences a deep dive look and how humans were they in a wide variety of cultural contexts and situations? He said, you can use this to make a difference. Yeah, I think I've ever heard somebody say that before. Like, when did that start to come on your radar?
Tayo Rockson 11:59
Because in Nigeria is a country with over 250 ethnic groups, right. And this is a country that was formed based on British interests, a lot of
Paul Zelizer 12:08
European call it colonialism. Yes,
Tayo Rockson 12:12
It's definitely colonization. And so a lot of European countries in 1885, he decided to carve out the continent and you know, based on that, and so, one of the things that came about from that is you have a lot of tribes bunched together in a geographical region that would not have been the Jove your graphical region of choice if left alone, right and and what that led to, when I was growing up as why we had a lot of dictatorships a lot of tribalism, a lot of fights, a lot of ethnic clashes, and people vying for domination so they can be seen, heard and understood. And that that led me to just reflect on the history of the world. And the history of the world is we have an uncomfortable relationship with anything that's different, at least anything that's different from what we've deemed as the, the standard and, and normal. When I'm saying we, that is the privileged, powerful, right? The people in power at the time, if they deem, let's say, you know, heteronormative way of life is the way of life anything that that they deem as a threat to that is a problem, jail, kill religion, Christianity versus Islam, or Islam or any of these things, right? my tribe versus your tribe, men and women, all these things. And I just started to notice that cycle, play over and over again, even in the trivial elements. I'm a huge sports fan, as I said earlier, and I you know, I definitely have a big I have teams and we have rivalries. But on those elements, sometimes people will tell you, if you get to the granular details of things, I live in New York, I've heard New York Yankees fan, say, I'm not gonna be I'm not gonna date a Boston Red Sox fan who does that, and vice versa. But because we have such an uncomfortable relationship with difference, it leads us many times, if we're not careful to the worst of ourselves, we tap into the worst vices of ourselves. And so I wanted to flip it and said, Why don't we use our differences to make a difference and create more seats at the table for different experiences? Because the truth of the matter is, there's no one person that is just one thing, all of us are intersectional, we have multiple interests. And many of us due to pressure sometimes just favor one particular thing and suppress the other side of that. So out of first personal frustration, of having to fit into multiple identities to suit a certain audience. I decided to open that up and see if I can make that popular. But it's not just me, though. Many people have done it before me. I'm just picking up the mantle from ancestors like, you know, Nelson Mandela, who influenced me and Angela Davis was still alive that lay mark, you know, Martin Luther King, Obafemi awolowo from here and now I'm the secret I could go on and on. Right, so I'm just doing what I noticed other people do. And I as you identified earlier, I tend to be a teacher. Professors I came up with a word for it.
Paul Zelizer 15:04
That's a good one. Yeah, you're good at this whole teacher, Professor thing, my opinion. So, here, I want to hear more about the work. But I want to I want to ask you a question, and might not be the easiest question. How do we? How do we talk about difference? Which is something I'm really engaged in? I'm I grew up Jewish. And, you know, we certainly have had our experience of being other than with very significant consequences. How do we talk about difference without disappearing? power? structure, structural inequality? That's one way to talk about it. Sometimes people just oh, well, like, it's like, you know, New Mexico, there's red chili and green chili, it's literally our state question, right? Do you want red or green with that burrito in New Mexico use chilies, these, you know, sauces that are based on the chili plant and the chili pepper. And the red ones are more mature and they you know, you dry them and you grind them up into this red smoky paste on the red person or Christmas in green chili is like a little bit earlier and its development has a different flavor. And you know, like what kind of chili you put people don't usually kill each other over what kind of chili you pour over your burrito. But some of these differences have led to extreme suffering and even loss of life. So how do we talk about difference without those structural issues getting disappeared?
Tayo Rockson16:30
You know, being yourself is one of the bravest things you can ever do in life. And it starts with that, I think. And again, it's one of the bravest things you can do. But by practice, the practice of being yourself is the best way to do that. And that's what I did. You know, when I was when I launched the podcast, I didn't know what I was going to do. I had just, you know, essentially, you know, I quit a job, I had a near death experience. I went to, you know, to New York City, because it was a city that reminded me of, of a transient nature I was thinking of and I just thought, you know, as I'm getting my MBA, I need to find out a way to express multiple sides of myself that I don't get to do on a normal day. And so the podcast was that outlet. And then I brought on people that grew up in a similar way that I did. And what I noticed, as I was bringing them onto the platform is they kept saying similar things. Wow, I never get to talk about this. Whoa, that's a thank you. No one has ever asked me this question. That is so interesting. I wish I got to do this more. Thank you for reminding me it was just all these things that seemed basic, and seemed core to who you are germane to who we are. Yet, we don't practice that because we don't create those opportunities. And so there's that level of intentionality first. So when you create that level of intentionality, and commitment to being yourself and practice that, you then create a community of people who are like minded, and I know you're very into community. And there's the consistency of doing that. And what that does is it builds a network. Because if you think about privilege and power, that's also a community and community of people who are committed to keeping a system that privileges them and preserves their privileges rather, and power. It's the same way you counteract that you have to practice being yourself, create a community of other people doing that. People get to see you doing the same sort of thing. And that's how the revolution starts.
Paul Zelizer 18:25
You've mentioned the word podcast at least six times so far. And you know, my name is Paul, and I'm podcast obsessed. Alright, so I'm raising my hand. I am podcast obsessed, and you've used the word podcast at least six times. So I got to ask you about your podcast. Tell us about your podcast.
18:46
podcast is called as Toby nomads, and I guess I've mentioned it a lot. I didn't even realize that because it was
Paul Zelizer 18:52
it was Lord caster. Awesome, right? I mean, come on.
Tayo Rockson 18:54
Yeah.
18:56
It's your right, yes,
Tayo Rockson 18:57
subscribe to this podcast and listen on, leave a five star review, and then tell your friends and family. You know, my podcast is called as told by nomads. And the mission statement is huge difference, obviously. But it is evolved over the years. I launched it in 2014. August, officially. And then I just used to bring on people that grew up in multiple back in multiple cultures. At first that was that was the goal. You know, that's why I was called a study nomads. And over the years, even months, evolved into people who really, you know, got attracted to the mission statement usually difference and make a difference. So I would start to get pitches from people saying, Well, I didn't grow up there. But this is my idea. I didn't grow up here. This is what I'm idea. And then it became this podcast for change makers and entrepreneurs who are really interested in dismantling systems of oppression and advocating for innovative ideas. Right. And that's one of the things that I I've learned in the journey of self is that where you start is not where you're always going to end up so and it even when you're fighting systems of oppression that you're trying to to to impact change you're going to realize that maybe a method that you had you know needs some you know adjustment and how ready are you to adjust that right and so these are some of those things that i learned but that's how it started and then i've been i mean i'm almost at 600 episodes now so
Paul Zelizer 20:30
600 oh my god. So here's a question for you so you've been doing this since 2014 right we're recording this in 2021 600 episodes you seem like a pretty smart guy and you seem like a guy who would be fairly thoughtful about how you invest your time you must think that putting in 600 episodes i know what it takes to make an episode and build a podcast and schedule gas and come up with topics and metrics and market etc etc this this probably you're getting some value out of this aren't you yeah what's the value why have you invested the time to create a podcast for seven years to 600 episodes
Tayo Rockson 21:15
well selfishly i'll take the selfish part first it's just as chance for me to learn this is school in many ways you know when you talk about the ability to learn from thought leaders from different parts of the world on several things and you're one of the first places that they're coming to share that idea that to me is is hard to pass up on and then it acts as a place for me to also test out research you know research and things you know sometimes if i you know i'm working on a second book for example right now and i wrote one during my writing my first book i would just say hey you know what i'm writing a book and connected infected because coaches let me talk to people that are good at connecting effectively across cultures and then you know if i you know if i like the idea is i'll say hey could i you know quote you and use that so it serves as that and then also the listeners you know the listeners are the ones that kept me going multiple times when i first started i used to get a lot of emails and i still do but i remember the first few emails they were they were so long because i knew it from people that were much older than me and and they will just say you know this is the first time i felt seen thank you so much and they'll dive into personal aspects of their lives and i couldn't believe that it was because of a guest i brought on episode i had and that let me know that i had a duty and once you once you connect with a duty and and purpose it's hard for you to let that go you know there have been days where i haven't wanted to record or i just felt like i was tired but i always get back to the north star because of you know reminding myself of all those things i just said
Paul Zelizer 22:59
well sad and congratulations that's we just published episode 192 yesterday so i'm a baby podcaster comm still a big deal
23:07
still a big deal not many people know me if you look at many people
Paul Zelizer 23:13
and then people walk away
Tayo Rockson 23:15
exactly
Paul Zelizer 23:16
please don't want no you're just getting oh hang in there oh gosh yes
Tayo Rockson 23:20
exactly so you're doing well that's a long that's a good nice long congrats
Paul Zelizer 23:24
it's been a good run and one of the best decisions i've ever made but yeah so let's do this let's take a quick break here word from our sponsors and when we come back i want to hear how all this kind of comes together as an enterprise like who you work with and how you work with them that's one of the reasons our listeners when they send me an email they say paul i love that you talk and you guys were like talking about podcasting but like how does tayo make this all work as a business to help people and live a good life so we're gonna ask them those questions when we come back but first a word from our sponsor do you have a business that's about making positive impact and you want to grow in terms of helping more people and in terms of bringing in more income you want to live a good quality life if you do i'd like to talk to you about podcasting why well we were just talking about that but let me tell you a little bit about what i found out when my mentor said paul you might want to check this out podcasting is pretty exceptional in two ways one is the listeners we were just talking about that listeners to podcasts or research tells us there's so many ways that it's a very unique group that i think listeners to this podcast might really want to think about but i'm going to talk about three today number one is that people listen to podcasts are what are called early adapters we like innovative ideas and we listen to podcasts to kind of keep the you know flow of new ideas and exciting things and new approaches to things Going. podcast listeners are natural leaders, people in our networks, whether they're professional or personal turn to us and say you always have interesting ideas and creative ways of thinking about how would you approach blah, blah, blah? Or what do you know about this. And the last one is the people who listen to podcasts, in general, make more money, not just a little bit more money, but quite a bit more. So that's a pretty unique constellation. And then there's the medium of podcasting itself. If the average podcast episode is 43 minutes long, you have time to get into the intersections and the nuances and how things combined. It's not like a 13 word meme that you have to put up on Instagram or something like that. When you put those two things together, it's quite an exceptional, medium for change. And for connecting with a certain kind of audience, if you have innovative ideas about change. If you'd like to get some help thinking about podcasting, whether you want to be a guest like Taylor's today, or you want to be host, I have the honor today, and where you want to do both. But we're partners as a podcast success team, or we'll walk you through every step of the way, from the technical decisions to how do you get it out there in the world to how do you use a podcast to increase your impact and your income. It's called the podcast success team. And you can find out more at aware printers.com forward slash podcast dash success. And thank you to everybody who's in the podcast success team that sponsors this podcast. So dial in the second part of the show, we like to joke let's put on our social entrepreneur glasses. So like, from from a perspective of like, we get the themes of what you're doing with user difference to make a difference? How does it work in terms of like, who do you tend to work with now? Hmm,
Tayo Rockson 26:53
That's a good question. I work with people in several industries. So there's the the media, there's workplace, and schools or education institutions. When I'm working with workplaces, I usually work with companies anywhere from fast growing startups to global companies, multinationals. And my job is to go in there to do a range of things. Some people could maybe just want my speaking services, sometimes they want workshops, other times, for longer projects, they want consultations. And so if it's a consultation, it's usually about a year a project for about a year where I work in phases. And the first thing we do is to, you know, to figure out what the problem is, and then we, we identify those gaps. And throughout the consultations, the you know, I offer a lot of my trainings, but also, I'm advising on different ways to create those inclusive environments, based on the assessment that I just did. So that's that, that keeps me busy a lot. So there's that. And then you have the, the, you know, we just have Black History Month. So one of those things is everybody remembers tires, black. So, let's, let's have a speaker. And outside of that, that month, though I speak quite often I speak, you know, maybe three or four times a week, especially because of zoom now. And so there's that with schools, similar, you know, but there's the there's the added layer of curriculum development, you're teaching teachers and administrators and superintendents, different things, right, you wouldn't teach them. There'll be some similar things that you teach in companies. But there, there are other things here because you want to teach them how to be culturally responsive here to teachers and students. And then, you know, workshops, and then curriculum, advising and things like that. And sometimes I teach my book as a curriculum as well. So there's that. So that also is workshops, comms consultations to speaking. And with media, a lot of times, you get different media opportunities, you know, podcasting is is a foreign media, you would just, you know, read in a sponsorship, right. So there are multiple outlets that you can have. And then, you know, with media, there's, there's the video aspect, there's the audio aspect, and depending on who wants to work with me, based on what I represent, there's the element as well. But I'm also a professor and a writer, so you have all those elements as well.
Paul Zelizer 29:27
Do you sleep? I do.
Tayo Rockson 29:32
I do.
Paul Zelizer 29:33
That's a lot.
Tayo Rockson 29:36
I didn’t used to as much as I mean, I'm getting better.
29:39
Everybody that way.
Tayo Rockson 29:42
Well, yeah, yeah. But that's, I gotta say this I don't want the audience to think that it was. It was easy or anything because it was quite the journey. Right? You know, I came here. You know, if someone is not a citizen, I'm you know, I'm an immigrant and when You try to find the job, based on your passion as an as an immigrant or someone who's here as an international student, your options are very limited and limited in the sense that you have to apply for certain visas that might be, you know, capped at a certain number. And then based on that, even if you got that job, you don't have the, you don't always have the option to just quit because you don't like it. Because if you quit, you might be sent out of the country because you don't have a status. So it was it was interesting to figuring that out, right? Because I, I remember, when I left my job, after you know, you know, realizing something that you want to do, I decided to move to New York City, but I came down in status, visa status. And I needed to go to school so that I could be legal. And while in school is when I was figuring this stuff out. And then the visa that I eventually got was, you know, it was one of the most anxiety inducing things, but it's something I'm very grateful for, but it was a process, it was very expensive. And then no matter how much I saved for it, you weren't guaranteed to stay in it. And so I had to operate in the sense that I could get sent back home with less than three weeks to pack. Or I had a client for six months. And you can imagine navigating that. That mindset, so just always understand. And then it wasn't popular, no one was doing. And you don't want thought that it will be make any sense to do what I was doing. Because people thought, well, you disguise too young and this guy's here, it wasn't there. But when Trump got into power, and things started changing, it became something that started to become okay to hire people for. So I say all this to say that I was doing all these things, but it doesn't mean I was necessarily getting compensated for them. Initially, I was just doing it because I knew it was a problem. And I loved it. But I had to have some level of faith at some point. Just
Paul Zelizer 32:07
deep, honoring, thanks for sharing that with us. And I'm sorry, it's such a scramble, I wish I wish we had more in place for people who were starting up doing such impactful important work and didn't have to be such a scramble. And I've told this story on this podcast, very different circumstances not not equating at all. But as I was a broke social worker where the kid burned out, right? The scramble to even with citizen status and being in a white body, you know, I didn't have that much to transition to what I do now. And it was really scary at times. And I it was a real scramble. And I I wish that wasn't the case. And I can only imagine what that was like for you. So just I'm sorry. And I'm glad you stuck with it because you're doing such important work.
Tayo Rockson 32:59
Same to you, you know, this is a character builder. And you know, I know it's cliche to say that, but it helps you appreciate the journey more and appreciate why, you know, even understanding that there's some level of privilege for us to have even gotten to this point. And so understanding that as much as we struggle, there are other people that have struggled even worse. And so what do we have to do and make sure that other people don't get to experience that. So, you know, I'm, you know, I'm just honored to be here, I want to be alive.
Paul Zelizer 33:25
And part of the reason I did this podcast, there was nothing like like, how did you actually build it? And what's the thing and who hires you and why did they hire you? And you know, how did you start? And what does it look like now as part of my passion for doing this podcast so that the next generation maybe? Doesn't have to be, you know, quite so many wake up at two o'clock in the mornings? And am I really, is this the thing? Am I just, you know, how am I gonna like put food in the refrigerator and get my daughter to the things she wants to do for summer camp like, right? Okay, we can make it a little bit easier just by sharing some information about real life journeys. So, speaking of So, let's say you're doing consulting, you're doing speaking, you're doing workshops, you're doing ongoing trainings. You do curriculum, consultations, you've got this podcast, I imagine that's one of the ways that people you know, find you and start to Satan. Look what's going on over here. This is kind of interesting, like this guy might be able to help with something that we're dealing with is is that fair to say that people sometimes or maybe often find you with your podcast?
Tayo Rockson 34:31
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Tayo Rockson 34:32
I got my first speaking engagement that way. It was a first paid one. Some of the, you know, it was the World Bank. And some of your first
Paul Zelizer 34:43
one was at the World Bank. Nice. That is not a bad first speaking engagement.
Tayo Rockson 34:47
Yeah, first paid one I should say.
Paul Zelizer 34:49
Yeah, yeah. Five. Thank
Tayo Rockson 34:52
you so much. It was somebody listening you speaking of you know, World Bank, a lot of people there are diplomats and people that live in different cultures or something that found their way to my podcasts and they were like hey
35:05
we think
Tayo Rockson 35:07
we heard you episode do you think he'd come speak to a fellow diplomatic kids and i was like yes it's what i am and so it was and they weren't even gonna pay at first because they were saying it was just you know at the world bank it's a good thing and i was just honored and then i think the lady felt bad at the end she said you know what i know we don't have any budget for this but here you go i was like ah this
Paul Zelizer 35:35
to this yeah
Tayo Rockson 35:36
Cuz i was in the middle of my mba and i was just you know i just launched a podcast i was just like happy to anyone even went to pay attention to what i was i was i was thinking but you know i think i was also on learning things about myself where i didn't necessarily see the value of what i was doing i was like i just say it's whatever is what i am and then just understanding that that happened allowed me to see the power of podcasting to your to your to your point and yes people do reach out to say hey could you come do some my school can you come to this year and even with the book i've been able to join a bunch of book clubs which is always fun for me i like surprise joining book clubs and like hey they'll be on like the 10th chapter or something and then now with zoom they just say tough times here times here because that's always fun for me.
Paul Zelizer 36:29
so you're talking about book style that a lot of our listeners either you know have a book in process or they're kind of like percolating on a book so you've written one and you just dropped a hint i didn't know this that you're you're working on a second can you tell us anything about the second one
Tayo Rockson 36:47
I guess what is very similar to what we're talking about is going to be my experiences traveling to different parts of the world i see
Paul Zelizer 36:57
something that's out of the bag
Tayo Rockson 36:59
i said it i said
Paul Zelizer 37:02
We got it here first! Talk to our listeners about what have you learned because you've done quite well with this book you know the podcast is one way that you've got a lot of traction but this book you know part of it is looking in through my social entrepreneur lens it was the right message that book was published if i remember correctly 2017 if i remember correctly
Tayo Rockson 37:22
our book is published in 2019
Paul Zelizer 37:25
Oh that's right the ted talk was 2017 yeah yeah write that book so that book was 2019 so think about what was happening kind of in the larger culture you referenced trump earlier and how that sort of changed the conversation of how people relating to your work so the book comes out in 2019 the book is called user difference to make a difference right we'll put a link in the show notes go read it listeners i think you'll really like it and what so what have you learned other than you know it was a very timely message that you had been cultivating for decades but if somebody is listening and they've got a book in them that they're working on and they want to get the kind of traction that you've gotten with this book what what would you suggest to somebody who's a little earlier on in their journey as an author
Tayo Rockson 38:10
understand your framework so you see how i started this podcast and you were saying you have an interesting way of speaking i started getting used to this so first of all know the problem that you're trying to solve what is the problem you're trying to solve so my problem that we're trying to solve is why is it that we don't have any framework to teach us how to connect across cultures or why do we have problems connecting effectively across cultures and so that informed what the book was going to be about i was a journey to that solution and i said if that's the solution and that's if that's the solution i'm looking for i need to come up with a framework that takes you from there from one spot to another spot and so i painted that picture and then i came up with you know the solution based on research and personal experiences so whatever you're trying to write i always tell i always tell people that entrepreneurs are or are problem solvers with if you feel like you're trying to solve a problem and get intimate with the problem you're trying to solve and figure out every single aspect of the macro and micro that is going to inform your book and then put together the framework right this is the first thing you need to research and when i was writing the book i put educate i put don't perpetuate i put instead of communicate and every time i researched or did an interview i would put it under that bucket under that bucket and then it just the skeleton eventually became a full body because i was clear on that now it took a while right because it was initially a talk at first and i didn't think i could write a book yet but after i gave a talk one on one lady said you should write a book and i said really this would be a book if she said yeah i want to give it to my grandkids and that's what put the wheels in motion but you know understanding the problem you want to solve it and having frameworks will do a lot to Have you?
Paul Zelizer 40:00
Awesome, thanks so much for doing that. And if you could think of like skillful communicators and like this, we're not a religious podcast. But think for a moment about the Buddha, right, I still can remember the three crown jewels of Buddhism. They are the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha, which stand for the teacher, the teachings, the set of teachings, and the community, the Sangha, and of the three, the song is the most important community is most important. So as a guy who's obsessed with community now, this isn't about Buddhism, but the fact that 1000s of years ago, somebody had frameworks, and here we are 1000s of year later, and that body of work is still very robust and still impacting people's lives. Here's an example that many people might have heard of that I just, I'm co signing what he said, and trying to give an example that maybe our listeners might be familiar with.
40:51
Yasser
Paul Zelizer 40:52
Tao, in addition to all that, as if you didn't have enough and you do sleep, and you do work out and you have a life, you also have a membership community and I love community that I mentioned, podcasting, this guy's obsessed about everything, right? Don't even get me started on trail running. But that's another episode.
Tayo Rockson 41:10
Yeah, I don't even know.
Paul Zelizer 41:14
That's another rant and rave. I live in New Mexico. And yeah, just signed up. My buddy and I are going in a month we're doing the rim to rim to rim and the Grand Canyon, you run down into the Grand Canyon, run up the other side, and either sleep the night there and then turn around, do it again. Or if you're really feeling ambitious, you do the whole thing in one day. 10,000 vertical ways and 40 miles, right. So anyway, don't even get me started. But I got started, just like you kind of gave us a hint about your book. Obviously lives life with lots of passion about lots of things. And one of them is community in particular membership communities. And I'll tell you why in a second, but you have one, tell us about yours. And why do you you also have some passion about membership community? What is this one? And why do you like it so much?
Tayo Rockson 42:04
On the heels of the murder of George Floyd. So there are a lot of things going on. Right, I launched an anti racism campaign, a global anti racism campaign. And I was I was just, you know, I was frustrated, I was angry, I was really angry. And burnt out. One of the questions that kept coming to mind was, well, how do we get here? How do we get here, and you can imagine how that continuing to inset incenses me makes me even angrier, but it's like, Okay, I'm going to do a 30 day challenge where I, you know, I talk about how we can work on our biases. And then after that, as I was doing it, I started realizing that there was an appetite for people to really continue to do to work individually, you know, outside of that. So I put, you know, put together a bunch of courses and a bunch of, you know, frameworks for people to follow for themselves independently. And, you know, I call the UID collective, it's a collective, and UID is something you know, it's what I said for everything user difference, it's Mike, you know, this is the first three letters of my company as well. And so that was the impetus for it. It was it was in response to the times that we were having, and it seems like we're now on the brink of wanting to do the work. And so this is my contribution to that.
Paul Zelizer 43:19
And there's like curriculum in there and exercises and right kinds of good things for people who are saying, I want to understand more about using difference to make a difference and what some of those frameworks are, what some of the skill sets are. So it's a fabulous resource links in the show notes, go check it out. So gosh, there's so much I could I could ask you, and I want to be respectful of your time tile. If you were going to, you know, you've been on quite a journey, like literally from day one, Wow, you've seen some things. relationship to how humans relate to each other. And in larger groups, and how they related to you as somebody who's oftentimes from a place that wasn't where they were from, you seen a lot of difference in your world. If there's somebody who's younger on the journey, as both a change maker and or as a social entrepreneur, and they're still working on their frameworks, they're still trying to figure out their revenue sources. They're trying to create a sustainable business somewhere in this space, and they're not quite there yet. What would you say to one of our listeners, and we have awesome young listeners, I'm so grateful for them. What would you say to some of our younger on the journey listeners,
Tayo Rockson 44:36
You know, that I would say you need to find an unmask yourself. First of all, it really, if you lead from a place of value, what I'm saying I'm asking yourself, know your values, your insecurities and your triggers, you're going to be able to pay attention to things that that you love the most. And for me, I've had the one of the most unconventional paths to being a consultant because as I was looking at myself, I saw that my rants and raves centered around things that really made people feel less than. And I would not have been able to figure that out if I didn't really reflect and to hear. So anyone listening, write out your list of rants and raves, what do you go on rants about? And what do you go on raves about it doesn't matter. It could be about I don't know, ref calling a bad call or any of these things, but write it out. And then what you're going to have to do is find out the multiple levels of why so why does that make you mad? Why does that make you mad? And then when you find out why, ask yourself why again? Well, why does it do that? Well, why does it do that? Do that onto you, you can't come up with another reason, same sort of thing for your for your positives, and rapes. And what you're going to find is, you're going to find a lot of interesting trends, as long as well there, then I want you to create a list of, of people that you've worked with the people that you know, personally, people that have maybe just met you and I've become new friends, you live your lives and ask them to tell you, you know, what they think of when you walk into the room, or what comes to mind for that, you're also going to want to look for intersections there, these things give you ideas of things you can start developing and working on. Now, what you find out is not going to be ready made, you know, you will find out that you probably need to read a few more books to develop into who the potential of the person you can be. But it is a path for you to take. And that courage to take that path is usually what separates people from from, from, you know, living a life of regret. And I come from come from Nigeria, Nigeria is my heart, we have a joke. And the joke is you can either be a lawyer, Doctor, engineer, or failure. And by those conventional methods, you could define me as a failure. I've also been fired twice and had a near death experience. Or you could you could define me as a success, because I ended up doing what I wanted to do. At that point, you need to separate yourself from society society's view of what you should be, and then understand who you need to be because you would have had all the information you want. But then the question then becomes, are you willing to take that journey, no matter how difficult it is?
Paul Zelizer 47:25
o I want to be respectful of your time. And I want to ask you one final question. If there was something you were hoping we were going to get to, and we haven't gotten to it yet. Or there's something you want to leave our listeners as we say goodbye and point them to all the fabulous things, your book, your podcast, the membership, your workshop, all the things, it's all the links will be below listeners. Before we do that, what do you want to leave our listeners with?
Tayo Rockson 47:58
Hmm, I, you know, my favorite superheroe is Superman. And that's because I, you know, I'm attracted to the idea of having power and still choosing to do good. And I don't believe that absolute power always has to corrupt people. And I think we're at an interesting time where we have choices to make choices to do good to add value to people's lives to add value to the world. And the privilege of checking out is something that many of us have access to. But I want to challenge people to do good, just because it's the right thing to do, and not for anything performative. And not to get someone's attention, but to do it for the right thing. Because it's not only going to make our world a better place, it's also going to make our world a safer place. And it's going to impact people's lives that you might not know you're impacted, because everyone is always watching. That is my one challenge. Let's get back to value based leadership.
Paul Zelizer 49:06
Thank you so much for being on the show today. It's been just an honor to have you here.
Tayo Rockson 49:12
Pleasures mine, pleasures mine.
Paul Zelizer 49:15
So that's all the time we have for today, listeners do go check out all those resources, they'll be in the show notes. Before we go. I just want to let you know that we love listener suggested topics and guests again, a big shout out to Jen membres. This interview happened because Dan said, Paul, you really want to talk to this guy, your listeners are gonna love what he has to say. Right? Right. If you've got a guest or a suggestion, we'd love to hear it. You can go to the aware printers website, go to our contact page. And we have three simple criteria to give you a sense of kind of what our listeners are looking for. And they told me Paul, here's your criteria. So I use those because I listen to my listeners, right? So go check them out and if you have a suggestion, please let us know what it is. For now, I just want to say thank you so much for listening. Please take really good care and these intense times, and thank you for all the positive impact that you're working for in our world.