208 | Well rested. Well paid. Deeply appreciated. With Donnie Hill
Our guest on the pod this week is Donnie Hill. Donnie is a business strategist who works with impact leaders, entrepreneurs and strategic advisors to build their thought leadership platform, stand out in their industry and maximize their impact, brand and legacy.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
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Donnie Hill Interview on Social Entrepreneurs & Mental Health
SPEAKERS
Paul Zelizer, Donnie Hill
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, we do a deep dive interview with a thought leader in this intersection is someone who has market tested experience, and is already transforming many lives. For introduce our guests and our topic today, I just want to ask you one favor. If you could go over to Apple podcasts or whatever app you're listening to the show on and do a rating and review. It helps tremendously. Thank you for considering. today. I'm really excited and really honored to introduce you to Donnie Hill. And our topic today is well rested, well paid deeply appreciate it. Donnie is a business strategist who works with impact leaders, entrepreneurs and strategic advisors to build their thought leadership platform, standout in their industry, and maximize their impact brand and legacy. Donnie, welcome to the show. Yeah, thank you so much. Well, we got some stuff to talk about doing.
Donnie Hill 01:12
Oh, for sure. I was thinking about this conversation this morning. And as much as I love it, I I never know where it's going to go because people always bring something new to the table. So I'm really looking forward to diving in.
Paul Zelizer 01:27
So let me let me just give you two contact context points, listeners, before we get into it. When is Donnie and I know each other, Donnie has really good fashion taste. I can tell you that like because we met I was on a tour, but pretty COVID. I like to do these things. And I did one in 2019 called the deep networking tour. And I was in San Francisco and met with some fabulous people including Donnie, and we happen to where if it wasn't the exact same shirt, it was really close, right, Donnie? I don't know. I'm not sure if it was the same or just like, Oh my gosh, but we like had never met each other knew for each other from LinkedIn said, Hey, we need to meet. And it just started out with this howling laughter because we wore the same shirt to that diary. And it was a fabulous networking meaning Besides, you know, so anyway, the other thing why this topic now, recently, on LinkedIn, I posted an article about suicidality for black boys and the levels of off the charts, what we're seeing in terms of the impact of how black young men are dealing and struggling with this incredible confluence of inequalities and inequities and stressors, and we're just seeing a level of suicidality in the research on that it's just off the charts. And Donna, you shared some things that were really pointed in is that we need to get this guy on the show, and now's the right time. So we'll get into all that listeners. But I just wanted to give you a little context of like, you know how this conversation came to be here now with this amazing human. And Donnie, I'm so glad you're here. And thank you for saying yes.
Donnie Hill 03:16
Yeah, I'm really appreciative of you inviting me to be on your show.
Paul Zelizer 03:22
So we're called Awarepreneurs, Donnie. And one of the ways we like to get to know somebody is to ask you about a wellness or a resiliency practice that you personally use to resource yourself for this really important, but not always easy work.
Donnie Hill 03:38
So one of the practices that I started doing, I guess, right, right at the beginning of the pandemic, was the nervous system regulation work. And I, I had been connected with Irene Lyon and her work for a number of years. But I realized, yeah, I think it's time for me to do some of this work, because my nervous system was all over the place, it was really difficult to watch the news and, you know, continue to see the murders happening, in addition to trying to figure out how do I continue to feel safe in my body. And what I found over the course of this past year is really that it's making all the difference in in my work and how I show up and how I think about my contribution within my communities. And so it's something that I do a little bit every day, I can do it. One minute, I can do it. 10 minutes, I can do it for 30 minutes. It's really just dependent on what I need in the moment.
Paul Zelizer 04:48
In this topic, listen to this topic listeners. well rested, well paid deeply. Appreciate it. There's a saying that we teach what we need to learn, right? When I posted that article, you shared some things about your own lived experience in this conversation about black young men struggling in this dark God racist culture that doesn't value black people. Obviously, if our listeners that's not a, that's not going to be a new concept to our listeners, we've had that conversation many times. But they give us a little bit of background like from that lived experience of being a black man in a culture that doesn't value black men. And then we're going to mind the foreword to this word that you can hear listeners what Danny's done with that, but what do people need to know about your lived experience that you haven't always felt? appreciated, cared for? Or valued and see?
Donnie Hill 06:02
Yeah, it's, it's really interesting. So I was born and raised in Mobile, Alabama. But now I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, as Paul mentioned. And so I am a black man and a queer man. And that is a very interesting intersection. Because the messaging growing up or the messaging on the news is in our home, why people are less than, and then within the black community, some segments of it are gay people are less than, or the LGBTQ community is less than. And so it was this constant, a barrage of messaging of you're an abomination, You're horrible, you're worthless, you're insignificant, you're a piece of crap. And that as a five year old, taking that in, and growing up really does a number to your sense of self, your self esteem, your confidence, the whole gamut. And for a number of years, particularly in middle school and high school, I was picked on and t 's. And that ended up sending me in to depression. And I try to navigate my experience by getting involved in sports and other extracurricular activities. So that I could really find a way to, to help myself. And so as I was becoming more successful in my activities, I was becoming more depressed as well, and didn't really know how to talk to my parents about it, I didn't have the vocabulary for it. And so I'm dealing with all of this emotion, emotional turn, but have nowhere of processing and learning and nowhere of getting it out. And back then, there was a lot of negative stigma around mental health and depression, and, oh, well, we don't go and talk to therapists. So culturally, you're also getting these messages of suck it up, no pain, no gain. go to church, pray about it. And for some of the listeners who are listening, in the south, you have Baptist churches, I grew up Southern Baptists and Catholic. So I had the Catholic guilt on one side and the Southern Baptist fire and brimstone on the other. And thinking, wow, and then where, where do I go? To get some help? And how do I deal with the potential backlash that might come at me for saying, hey, I need help, or I need to talk to a therapist or people how are people going to perceive me? And so it's really this battle with myself around how do I how do I deal with my depression, and the suicidal ideation. And so my way of dealing with it was, I just don't I just continue working harder and continue to do better in school. I continue to excel in my sports. And it worked to a certain extent until it didn't. I was a pole vaulter at Stanford. And I was, I think it was my junior year, I was on campus. I stayed there for the Thanksgiving break. And I went over to talk to my coach and I'm sitting in his office, and I feel a little bit of pain in my chest and he's talking to me and we're watching video, and the pain just gets more and more and so I lay down on the floor and I grabbed my chest and My coach, he said, I think we need to take you to the emergency room. So they rushed me over to Stanford emergency room. And they hooked me up, did an EKG and all the things to to make sure my heart was okay. And the doctor came in and said, Oh, I think he just had a severe, a severe panic attack. And by that time, I started working with a therapist. So I knew I was clinically depressed, I knew I was dealing with anxiety. And the psychiatrist came in, and he started asking me a series of questions. And the last question he asked me was, do you want to stay at the hospital? So I put my head down and shame and nodded. And he said, Great, then I'm going to get you some paperwork. And is there somebody that I could call? And at that time, I, I had a, I didn't have the greatest relationship with my dad, it was more on my end than his, because I didn't feel seen. And there was just a lot of anger towards him. And he called me and he said, Hey, I'm going to come out there. And I told him, No, I don't want to speak. He said, I'm going to come out there. And I said, No. And he said, okay, and I checked my check myself into the volunteer side of the psych unit. And later on that night, my dad walked into the room. And the nurse came in. And he started, she started talking to me and asked me a bunch of questions. My dad had never heard me talk about suicide before. But the the lady, as you know, did I have any thoughts of suicide at that moment in time? And I said, No. And then she has had I had any at the beginning of the week. And I said, Yeah, and I just saw my dad cry. That was probably one of the few times that I had seen him. Uh, seen him cry like that. I was like, okay, there's something here needs to change, because this isn't working for me. And it's not working for him. And that was really the beginning of my shift around. What does it mean to actually feel deeply appreciated? And what does it feel to be seen and to be heard, and it's been a journey ever since.
Paul Zelizer 12:38
Thank you for sharing that story, Donnie. And first of all, I'm so sorry, you didn't feel appreciated. And I believe you. And I'm sorry, you didn't feel appreciated and seen. And I also want to say, I'm so glad you're still here telling this story, and you're helping others and you and I both know people who aren't here. And I'm just yeah, I'm so glad you're still here. You and me both what would you say it either to the person themselves wind back to the Donnie who wasn't feeling appreciated and was having these thoughts and was struggling with these mental health issues as a result of not feeling seen and appreciate our to go, we don't talk about it in my community. You're supposed to pray about it, but you don't talk about and nor What would you say to somebody who's in some kind of caring connection with somebody who's in that space of feeling not appreciated, or not yet supported?
Donnie Hill 13:43
Yeah, I think what I would say to to someone who's willing going through the depression or dealing dealing with suicide, suicidal ideation is is this. God It sucks. And it sucks because you feel so alone, when even in the midst of having a bunch of people around you. And I think one of the the hardest things for people to do when a when they're in the darkness is one, put any any more emotional effort to, to want to try and reach out and get help. Because that's just more that you have to expend. And sometimes it's like, is this more even worth it? And I think the thing that I would tell people is, in all honesty, it it could potentially be a difficult journey to get out. Out of the funk. But I think it's a really important journey to make as you get out of the funk. Because the ability to see yourself and to take care of yourself is going to be more important than any kind of validation that people could give. I think that that has at least been the biggest learning for me of like, wow, I'm really a very cool human being. And I love me. And I'm glad that I'm here. And had you asked me that 16 years ago, that wouldn't have been what I, I would be saying, it was more of why am I here, if I'm such a horrible human being
Paul Zelizer 15:46
going from that experience Dani so much anguish and stress and to doing this work, and we're gonna get into the nuts and bolts hang in there with us listeners, you know, we're gonna get granular, we're not gonna, we're not gonna lie. We're gonna dig into it in a second, right. But anything you can tell us like, when we have challenging experiences, and then we, my reference point, or my analogy is like horse manure in a garden, take them anywhere, right out of the back end of the horse, and you throw it into the garden, it'll kill the plants, like litter, yeah, too much nitrogen, it's not the right just not the right time to take it right out of the back end of the heart. If you can't post it, give me one of the richest things you could ever most nurturing things you could ever do. For a garden. It's the garden is a business that has impact and values as well as income, as you know, one of the things that's producing or does it mean things it's producing anything you can share with people about that process of going from, you know, really raw to the process of being skillful with our history and being able to share it and being able to put it to service to help others?
Donnie Hill 17:10
Yeah, I think one of one of the most interesting things that has happened, let's say more so in the past five years, is that the more the more I'm bringing my story into my work and talk about the mental health aspect. The more people relate and connect with me, and I think part of it is because a lot of business owners and entrepreneurs, they might not be suicidal, but they might be a lot of them are dealing with depression, a lot of them are dealing with high levels of anxiety, and trying to figure out how to navigate that process. And I think, normalizing, hey, this is, this is an experience that many people are having. It's such a gift. Because when you don't feel alone, you don't feel like this weirdo in the midst of quote unquote, normal people. And then you get when you hear other people's stories, it also gives you hope of like, okay, I don't know if my journey is gonna be exactly like theirs. But at least I know someone got through the journey, and that they're finding their way. And so it becomes this, you get to become, provide people with some level of hope and clarity and compassion and guidance, because now you're, you're laying out a roadmap for them. So I think I love the analogy of the horse manure and turning it into like a rich fertilizer being because that that is such an important part of business right now. It's like, people don't care that I'm a strategist, they don't care that I do leadership development work. The fact that I can help them with those things is great. But what I find people resonate more with is like, wow, that was your experience. As a, as you were building your business. There's, that's been your experience as you've been moving through your career. Oh, thank you for sharing that. With me. That's much, that's much more helpful, because now it gives me an idea of some of the other things I should be looking out for. And you're gonna actually be able to help me and walk me through that process, or at least provide some ideas for me to walk through that process. Like the example that I give people is, is navigating relationships as you are building your business. That's not a common conversation amongst entrepreneurs, but it is a very important conversation because Most relationships are challenged when one person is the primary breadwinner and they've been doing the same thing. Or they get this steady paycheck every two weeks, where the other one is the one building the business. And their partner doesn't understand like, why is this taking so long, I thought you were going to have this up, you know, two weeks ago or whatever. And it, it ends up. It ends up in a lot of ways creating community around the different aspects. So what it means to really be an entrepreneur or small business owner.
Paul Zelizer 20:42
And there's a ton of research listeners, if you don't know about it, I'll put a link in the show notes. How high of levels there are of mental health issues in the entrepreneur community. It's not something historically that people have been comfortable talking about. But you know, me listeners, of course, I've talked about everything that nobody wants to talk about. If we haven't talked about it yet, come on. Go to our contact page episode and tell me we should be talking about it right. But literally, I will put a link in the show notes. And we talked about this with Johnny Crowder, I don't remember the episode number but the founder of coke notes, fabulous mental health support app, and growing really tremendously. And we talked about the high rates, anxiety, depression, suicidality, and other mental health challenges that entrepreneurs face. I love entrepreneur, life specialty love social entrepreneurs. And we deal with this more than the average population. And historically we suck at talking about it. We're getting better, let's keep getting better, please raise it in your communities and with your colleagues. And let's normalize. This is just part of having an entrepreneurial system nervous system, and we can get help we can be of service, we can compost these issues. It's not a game Ender. Johnny talked about his history. Here's Donnie talking about his so many entrepreneurs who are acknowledging, getting support. Let's keep building momentum and talking about these issues. entrepreneurs. Thank you. I'll get off my soapbox. Now. Ronnie, talk to us a little bit about we'll get into the nuances. But Alright, so you had this history, you did a bunch of work, composted it and give us a snapshot now just a top level snapshot. What does daddy's work look like? And who does he tend to work with?
Donnie Hill 22:38
Yeah, so a high level overview, as you mentioned that I'm doing a lot of work with sponsored social entrepreneurs. I'm doing a little bit of work with corporate leaders who are really interested in thinking about their legacy, and or their thought leadership and where they want to go. So most of the time, I'm working with the disruptors, but I'm working with the combat I call them the compassionate disruptors, because they're really aware of the impact that they have as human beings. But oftentimes, they're more on the reluctant side. Because they're wondering, like, Who am I to do this work? or Why do I want to talk? or Why should I be the one to talk about it. And so there's a lot of work that I do with them around their visibility or putting together their message, and really stepping into that level of leadership. And that's where the the nervous system, our practices and regulation work is super important. I think one of the things that I'm more and more excited about every day, is this idea of how do we use our biology to help us have success in our business versus fighting against it because most of our most of the work that we do as entrepreneurs is usually about bypassing our body or doing some kind of override, or simply ignoring our body. So it's all of this mental stuff that's happening. And then there's this disconnection in the body. So we ended up going into burnout, or chronic fatigue, adrenal fatigue, cancer diagnosis, heart disease. And when I think about that, from a well rested, well paid, deeply appreciated perspective, it's really about how do we come back into alignment with ourselves and how do we, how do we go with our natural rhythm in order to build our business versus versus running ourselves into the ground?
Paul Zelizer 24:54
You're talking my language Donnie, I'm a neuro geek, right? A neuro geek and social entrepreneur. Oh my gosh. So, so let's do this. In a minute, I want to come back and really unpack well rested. Okay? What do you know about that Donnie, because you've thought about well paid deeply appreciate, I want to unpack each of those and how you work with thought leaders and entrepreneurs to help them do that. Before we do that, just want to take a quick break and hear a word from our sponsors. Do you have a business that's about making the world a better place, and you want it to grow both in terms of impacting more people, and in terms of your income, so that you can live a good life? So I'd like to talk about podcasting a minute. And here's why. When you look into the research of who listens to podcasts, it's a pretty unique and pretty special bunch. I think it's a real opportunity for you listeners, three things, for example, that I found out as I dug into the research, number one people listen to podcasts are early adaptors. It's why we listened to podcasts, we love new ideas. And if something makes sense, we listen to Donnie, and he gives us a tip, we're pretty quick. We're like the first 10%. We listen, it makes sense. We go find out about it, and we implement it, we're in the first 10% to do it. Number two, podcast listeners are natural leaders. We're the people that people turn to in both at our workplaces and in our communities of faith. And in our families. We're the people that are oftentimes just identify and people lean into us. So to have your innovative idea on the horizons on the radar of somebody who other people are turning to and poignant moments in their lives, you can see why that could be a really good thing. And lastly, podcast listeners make more money, not just a little bit more, but they have a lot more resources to invest in these new ideas. When you put that all together. Do you see where I'm going with this listeners. If you'd like to learn how to leverage podcasting, either as a host have your own show, or as a guest, Donnie is a fabulous guest today, we have a podcast success team will walk you through every step of the way of learning how to be either a successful host or successful Gaster. Both in terms of moving the needle to get more people aware of and purchasing your products and services in your social business. 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 and helps to sponsor this podcast. So Danny, alright, three phases here. three buckets start with well rest. You've thought about this theme of rest and kind of the culture of overwork and unpacking that. What does a impact leader or social entrepreneur who is either pretty darn tired themselves or sees this culture of overwork and sees the hustle and the grind? And they say, I don't want that I want to be well rested. But how do I do that? What do you want to say to that person about well rested?
Donnie Hill 28:24
Yes. Well, so there, there's some context that I want to give to it, because it's tied to how my my social impact business is set up. And then I'll dive into it. So part of one of the things that I I spent some time doing last year my reflection, and in the pivoting of my business was figuring out what what do I want my business to eat I too. So when people decide to work with me, a small portion of their money will go to an organization called brown sisters. And they provide mental health services for women of color. So as I started getting to learn a little bit more about these women, what I found was so many of them were exhausted, they were emotionally exhausted, spiritually exhausted, physically exhausted, I was calling it soul exhaustion for a while. And that really got to the essence of it. And what I found in my conversations with them, is that if you think about if you think about our systems, they were built on productivity. So everything is about getting to the result. And if you spend all of your time trying to get to the result, and then once that is done, you go on to the next result. never actually any time for you to decompress and rest. As I mentioned earlier, I was a pole vaulter at Stanford. And in the process, when we were doing conditioning pre season, we were doing two a days, for anywhere from an hour to two hours, depending
Paul Zelizer 30:21
on I was a football player, I remember.
Donnie Hill 30:26
My God, you get it. And then as we got in season and closer to the competition, my coach intentionally made us rest. And when I think about high performance, you need a blend of the productivity, and the rest or the practice and the rest. But oftentimes, what I find with my the leaders that I'm working with, is, it's all about the productivity. And it's rarely about the restaurant until something happens until they get sick. So I also worked with cancer patients for a number of years and their families. And I particularly loved working with the caregivers, because the caregivers were running all the things in the household and in the life, in addition to taking care of the patient. And it, it became very evident that until the caregivers had some kind of practices for themselves, they weren't really going to be able to take care of their loved ones. And so I bring that into, into this work, some of it. Some of it is helping them reorganize their schedule, or look at this their schedule, some of it is doing some deep dive work around, you know, is this helping you? Or is this hindering you? and asking them hard questions like why are you doing this? or What does this? What does this mean for you? Is it tied to something that you have a desire to do? Or is it tied to obligation and the obligation conversation is, is one of the most uncomfortable conversations for a lot of people. But it's also one of the most beautiful because once they have clarity of why I've been doing a lot of things out of obligation there, then they then have the awareness to say, Okay, I can either continue doing things out of obligation, or I can make the decision to do something new. And then the last piece is really the nervous system or the somatic practices. And so that is really tied to are you able to sense your body? Or do you only feel from the head up? Do you have any kind of awareness in the lower part of your body? Is your body always in fight flight or freeze? Do you constantly feel activated and agitated, and a lot of the practices that I do, are about helping people reconnect with their, their body, and there's ups and downs, and really begin to learn how to use that and track it. So as you're going through their day to day, they can say, Okay, I'm going into this meeting, and I'm feeling really anxious right now I feel agitation in, in my solar plexus, I have tension in my shoulders, I can feel my back is incredibly tight. Now, if I can just be with those sensations, even in the midst of the meeting, then I have more awareness than I've had before. And it's really this, this slow, gradual process of recognition, and then releasing or recognition, and then acknowledging, and then slowly releasing, and with the nervous system work, I really think of it as being gradual, like you can't do all love it at once, where some people think, Oh, I need I'm feeling incredibly tense. So now I need to amplify the intensity. Well, that's not always helpful depending on the circumstances that you're in. And it becomes it has to become more nuanced. And so that's usually an ongoing conversation that I have with my leaders. And the intention of it is when, when you're able to move with the body and move with your physiology and use it, move it in flow with it rather than against it. It allows you to, to rest and settle in to your work even in the midst of doing things that are relatively intense. If you're in the middle of a launch or you're having to go into stressful meetings or you're, you're doing all day trainings, working back to back with clients. You have Have more capacity, I call it capacity building, you have more capacity to be with the stressors, rather than letting the stressors run. And ultimately, by by being more aware, then you're, you're allowing yourself and your body to really just come back to a place of rest and flow versus dysregulation.
Paul Zelizer 35:31
Beautiful, thanks for sharing those stani. Talk to us. Let's say I'm an impact leader in business, or a social entrepreneur. And you're hired, and I'm working with you. And when we get to the well paid part of the conversation, I get a little sheepish. And I say, Donnie, if I'm really honest, and you looked at all the things, and you added them all up, and you look at how much I get paid, and you look at how many hours I work, at the average rate per hour that I'm getting paid is really embarrassing. It's really embarrassing. And I want to move it, give me your top three, either the suggestions you make, or the questions you asked to help somebody in that scenario.
Donnie Hill 36:17
Here, one of the questions that I ask is, is really around? Why do you want the money? And it's more than just the ID You want it? It's more than wanting it for taking care of your bills. And so the following question is, okay, assume that your bills are taken care of, and your house is paid for and all of that. Why do you want the money? Because what I find with the impact leaders, because many of them are, I call this, I call this the over givers.
Paul Zelizer 36:55
Nobody on this podcast. We're talking to the wrong people here. The listener as we're looking at you right in the eye right now, you Yes, you and you and you, right.
Donnie Hill 37:09
We want to give and give and give. And that is such a beautiful thing. But I think we in when it's not connected to, to Why are you really giving? And why are we really asking for the money? Or why are we really having difficulty with making money? The conversation goes a level deeper. And then the third question is usually around, where do you feel making more money in your body. So there's often a disconnect, because most people have trauma associated with making money, although it's not the right thing to do, or it's not spiritual, or they have some kind of generational story, your ancestral story, or trauma around money and what it means and not wanting to be seen as a greedy person or a bad person, you know, all the things. And I, when I asked him, where does money live in your body? That easily, they usually have this look of what did you just ask me? That is the weirdest question I've ever heard. And then once they get past that part, they settle in. And they're like, Oh, I never actually thought about that before. Money has always just been this mental construct. For me. It's never been an embodied construct for me. So it's really about shifting their relationship with their money from this mental thing and to this nervous system.
Paul Zelizer 38:56
Thanks for sharing those great questions. deeply appreciate it. How many of you listeners Raise your hand if you ever feel like you're working your tail off to make the world a better place and you're not feeling very appreciated for doing all hands both hands up right now? I have felt that I think some of our listeners have felt that. So again, Daddy, if we were like sitting in intercession or working with one of our listeners who's like, yup, I have not always felt as appreciated as I was like, even though I'm working my tail off. Where do we start to move the needle on that conversation?
Donnie Hill 39:40
Yeah, the first one would be around. Where are you? Were you not giving yourself permission to to bring more of yourself into your work or into your business? Another question would be where do you feel a deep appreciation in your body? Or where does it live? And then the third one is, what are you able to give more of when you are coming from a place of deep appreciation or when you're coming from a full tank of feeling deeply appreciative?
Paul Zelizer 40:33
Thanks for sharing those questions. So Danny put on your entrepreneur glasses for a little bit. And if you look at your business, and you were just gonna describe, like, here's the offerings, the products or the services, here's some of the revenue stream, here's how people find me and the business. What do you see just from, like, here's the facts of what this looks like, as an enterprise right here right now.
Donnie Hill 41:02
In terms of my own personal work,
Paul Zelizer 41:04
yeah, your work with clients? And yeah, yeah, how do people find you? What do they pay you for? And how do you work with them?
Donnie Hill 41:11
Yeah, so if, if people come to work with me, then they're usually working with me one on one. I, I'm thinking about doing small groups fairly soon, but I'm not ready to to go there yet. So we'll do I can do some strategy work, which is really about your visibility. So I will work with people around their positioning and their presence their presence both in person virtually on social media and then their I call it their platform. And when I talk about platform, it's really about their their thought leadership, or the idea that they want to use to disrupt the the industry that they're in. If we do deeper work, I'll usually do a six month container around becoming a well rested leader. And in that when we die Wait,
Paul Zelizer 42:12
what did you say, though? The well rested? Can you even put those words? Is it legal the same frame as you are like, Is that legal daddy? Are you kidding me? I love that title, though well rested leader program. Oh my god, do I love that title. Sorry to interrupt, but I like just bouncing in my chair, that is fucking awesome.
Donnie Hill 42:38
I love it. Thank you, I, I usually, for better or for worse, my inspiration usually comes out, like three or 4am. In the morning, and that was one of those. Those aha has a name that came in the middle of the morning, that's like, well, this one has some juice to it. So thanks. Oh, but that one is really more of a deep dive into supporting you as as a leader and your well being and I think about it in terms of your personal sustainability. So we'll do we'll do some nervous system where we'll do some leadership development work, I do a lot of communication, work with, with my leaders around how to how to be more effective in their communication, or how to tell them more clearly, or articulate their their vision or their idea for their industry or their community and really just step into that, from this place of safety and groundedness, you know, back to the earlier part of the conversation that we were having around around my experience with, with mental health and, and being queer and black. One of the biggest things for me, I realized recently was this my desire, my personal desire for feeling safe and at ease in my body. And if I think about that in the context of blackness or if I think about that, in the context of queerness I would say a good portion of people in those communities don't feel safe in their body and they don't feel at ease and the amount of the amount of dysfunction that that causes in the nervous system but in the the anks that it causes mentally and emotionally is, is a lot. So when I think about this now in the context of the well rested leader. The vision that I have is to see social impact leaders and and men of color, women of color. Really feel safe and at ease and comfortable as they're moving through the world. And there's, there's stuff that has to happen in our systems and, and in our communities as well. But if we can begin to cultivate at least a small nugget of that for ourselves, he begins the ripple effect for forward happening in the systems. And Hi, I ultimately would love to see more leaders who, who feel well rested, who are well paid, and who feel deeply appreciated for what they do.
Paul Zelizer 45:40
So share that vision. And I can honestly say, I haven't always been able to say that. But these days, I feel really well rested. I feel really well paid, my clients take good care of me. And I feel really appreciated. And that hasn't always been my 14 years of business, there's been more time I couldn't check those three boxes. So I want to be totally transparent about that. And I can check those three boxes, and oh, my gosh, do I join you and want that for more impact leaders and social entrepreneurs, so many of whom give so much and don't always have that mutual return. So I, I can't say, You've heard me listeners talk about my spiritual highlighter, and I just want to circle the big orange highlighter, like 17 times. This is and I celebrate you for bringing this conversation. Any leader right now, it's a hard time to be a leader, but particularly in the impact in social entrepreneur spaces. I just, I'm seeing so much outpouring and strategizing and so many meetings and so many crisis, you know, management conversations and strategies, and I celebrate all the hard work, and I celebrate you for reminding us in this gorgeous way that you have that we can have these three things even as we're caring about communities that have oftentimes not been well represented, and are dealing with a lot of inequalities and a lot of neglect and a lot of harm. So thank you for bringing that right there. Right. Right to us, our listeners. So thank you. I really, really appreciate it. So five years, sir. Now, Donnie, and like, as you're putting on these granular glasses, like dream with us a little bit, what is your business look like? Five years from now in terms of who you're serving? What kind of scale? Are we talking about? What's the impact of your work five years from now?
Donnie Hill 48:01
It's, it's interesting, it's like you were you were in my writing? Yes.
Paul Zelizer 48:09
We do have the same shirt that we literally pass back for. Why not? Right?
Donnie Hill 48:19
Five years from now, I am. I, I really, I'm really interested in having a leadership incubator. I don't know all of what that looks like. But that my vision is to have this community of social impact industry and thought leaders who are thinking, who are thinking about how do we more effectively restore, restore communities? What kind of what kind of economic development projects can we do to help our communities? How do we bring community members into those conversations? So it's not about us? Being a high and mighty saying, Hey, we have the answer for you. We, we know how you can do XYZ, but it's really about No, we have the resources for you. You are living the community, you have the expertise, how can we partner with you, in order for us to to help you change what it is that you want to see. And when I think about working with leaders and this incubator, like there, there are parts of it, where I want to have some, some kind of small portion dedicated to young entrepreneurs, and I think some of these younger entrepreneurs, they're actually gonna teach teachers more than we're teaching them. Just because they have a very different way of thinking, which is beautiful. I want to have a portion where people can come in find potential employment with some of the companies or with some of the leaders or find internships. And then I want I'm not sure if I want there to be a nonprofit arm. But I do want there to be some kind of ecosystem with nonprofits, to where these businesses can can look at partnering with these nonprofits to to serve more of to serve more of the populations that the nonprofits are serving, because right now, I feel like the philanthropy space is going through its own deconstruction and reconstruction. And I'm not sure what that space is going to look like, but I hope it changes.
Paul Zelizer 51:08
Can we please do something about savior ism? philanthropy? Please, please, yeah. Yes, he says, shaking his head having thought, Danny, I can hang out with you all day. And I wouldn't do that to you. And I wouldn't do that to our listeners, if there was something that you were hoping we were going to get to on this really important topic of well rested, well paid and deeply appreciated. And we haven't touched on it yet. Or is there something you want to leave our listeners with? We're going to put your website and all the links and go check out the well rested leader program listeners, please go check out Danny's work, find him on LinkedIn. That's where we stay in touch pretty regularly. We'll put all that in the show notes. If there was something that Yeah, you wanted to leave a listener with on this topic. And we either haven't touched on it yet. Or you want to highlight it as we start to say goodbye. What would that be?
Donnie Hill 52:13
Yeah, it would be. It would be this. You are your legacy. And as cliche or cheesy as that might sound, it's true. There's never going to be another Paul Zelizer, there's never going to be another Donnie Hill, there's never going to be you as the listener. And when, when I think about my work through that lens, and when I think about the leaders work of the leaders who I work with, and when I look at them and their work through that lens, I realize just how much just how important it is for them to be well rested, well paid, and deeply appreciate it, because then it means that there's going to be some inspiration around their legacy, there's going to be some inspiration around taking care of themselves, and really looking at what personal sustainability means and looks like for them. And so my my hope for the listeners here is that if if you don't take anything away from this, really think about the legacy that you are creating, because you're creating one now. It could be positive, or it could be negative, or it could be combination of both. But really put some intentionality in the legacy that you're building. Because when you look back, let's say on the day before you make your transition into out of this world and to another world. Are you doing the work that lights you up? That is part of your soul's work in your hearts work? Or is there something different that you want to bring to the table moving forward? And so there's your opportunity to, to really begin to think about what you want your contribution to be? Because that's how you're going to maximize your impact.
Paul Zelizer 54:17
Donnie, thank you so much for being on the show today. Yeah, thank you. So that's all the time we have for today's episode. Please go check out Donnie site. Go connect with them. It's got an incredibly timely message and I'm super grateful that he was willing to come and share with us. We love listener supported listener suggested topics and guests. If you have one, please go to the aware printers website. Look at our contact page. And right there we have the three criteria we use. We try to be really transparent. You can see right there this is what we're looking for somebody or you have a topic that you'd like To find a leader, we're really blessed to be able to engage people who are doing really world class work. So you don't even have to know who that topic you know who should help us into that topic. Tell us your ideas, and we'll go find the person or if you've got the person, please increase increasing number of our guests come from listener suggestions, and we want to hear from you. So for now, I just want to say thank you so much for listening, please take really good care in these intense times. And thank you for all the positive impact that you're working for in our world.
What is the Awarepreneurs podcast?
The Awarepreneurs podcast is a renown social entrepreneur podcast - Listen Notes lists us at one of the top 1.5% of all podcasts in the world. It’s hosted by Paul Zelizer, a leading social entrepreneur coach and community builder in the sector. Each episode, Paul does a deep dive interview with a thought leader in the space.
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