Episode 1: What is Shared Power?

Written By Freedom Lifted

Mia Henry in conversation with Alysia Tate

“Power is always the underlying issue… no matter the problem.” - Alysia Tate

“We really can apply this understanding and this reclaiming of power to all of our work. ”

- Mia Henry

Welcome to the Shared Power Podcast! This first season will explore how we can actively and collectively work to create shared power in every area of our lives through conversations with activists, movement leaders, and organizational directors. 

In this first episode, Mia is joined by one of the podcast producers, Alysia Tate, to explain the intention behind this season, how we chose episode topics and guests, and why justice and equity work matters in every area of life (no matter your career choice).

Alysia interviews Mia and also shares how she now applies the concept of shared power within the Montessori classroom. 

Listen to the Full Episode

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

  • [5:05] Why we feature 8 conversations

  • [7:03] How Mia chose the episode topics & guests

  • [17:28] How Alysia engages with Shared Power as a Montessori teacher  

  • [29:37] Why justice & equity work can happen in EVERY area of life!

Featured On The Show:

Alysia Tate (she/her) is an equity and inclusion advocate and consultant who currently works as a Montessori preschool teacher. With years of experience in nonprofit leadership, public policy, and informed, investigative journalism, she now works to support her students in growing an awareness around shared power, justice, equity, and inclusion. Alysia is also a producer of the Shared Power Podcast.

Mia Henry (she/her) is the host of the Shared Power Podcast. Mia is the founder and CEO of Freedom Lifted, a training and coaching firm that supports leaders and organizations committed to justice and equity.

Additional Resources:

What is Shared Power? by Mia Henry

Eight Dates: Essential Conversations for a Lifetime of Love  by John Gottman, PhD & Julie Schwartz Gottman, PhD with Doug Abrams & Rachel Carlton Abrams, MD

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Full Episode Transcript:

Mia Henry: Welcome to the Shared Power Podcast, a limited series for organizations and leaders committed to collectively advancing justice and equity. I'm your host, Mia Henry. I'm the CEO of Freedom Lifted and the daughter of activists, educators, entrepreneurs, and survivors. I've had the honor of teaching, facilitating, and co-leading in nonprofits and schools for over two decades. I've learned a lot, but it hasn't always been easy. There are conversations that I had or I wish I had, that create the conditions for more effective collective leadership. In this podcast, we'll explore some of these conversations diving deeply into topics that will help us learn to build trust, navigate conflict, and lead and partnership with one another. If you believe that relationship building is the foundation for effective work for justice, you are in the right place. Join me as we explore the ingredients of leading with shared power. Our first conversation of the series will feature one of the producers of the show, Alysia Tate. Alysia is a justice and equity advocate and a Montessori preschool teacher. With years of experience in nonprofit leadership, public policy, and informed investigative journalism, she now works to support her students in growing awareness around justice, equity, inclusion, and of course, shared power. In this episode, Alysia and I will talk about the intention behind this whole series. We'll discuss how we chose the episode topics, our guests, and why justice and equity work matters in every area of life, no matter what career you choose.

Alysia Tate: Well, hey, Mia.

MH: Hey, Alysia.

AT: It's so great to be with you and be doing this project together. I wanted to kick off this first episode, you know, with you asking you a few questions about how we got here. I, I just think this is such an amazing moment we're in, in history because it's a time when the whole idea of power is being so manipulated and so misunderstood, and there are just these like giant global issues, global and local issues that we need totally new solutions for. And it can leave a lot of people, sometimes me included, feeling really powerless and, you know, and knowing how to make change. And I love that you took this on, this idea of breaking down the idea of sharing power into really understandable chunks. Like it's, it's very user friendly for someone like me who feels like I'm not, I don't have all the decades of experience that you and your guests do, and really a lot of nuts and bolts solutions and strategies, not just for sharing it, but also building it and really like living it out in our, our organizations in our lives. So that's kind of the big picture of how I've been thinking about why this is such an important series of conversations to be having now. But let's talk a little more specifically. So why did you feel like now was the right time to have these conversations about shared power, Mia?

MH: Yeah, I mean, I absolutely agree that it's, it's such an interesting time in our history, and I don't know if there's ever an uninteresting time in our history if we're paying attention, but

AT: True.

MH: certainly the, I, yeah. You know, so, but certainly the idea of power, I think is not only, you know, being misunderstood and misused, right? I mean, this is - the misuse of power is like the, you know, tragedy of, of any moment, right? But it's also also being understood and claimed, and power is seen as corrective in a lot of ways. So, you know, we understand how people are, are rising up collectively right across the globe to fight fascism as fascism becomes stronger, right? Or fascist ways become stronger in different places.

AT: Right.

MH: We see people using media or developing media and using media in ways never before seen, right? So it's really democratizing voice and access and, and visibility. So I think that people are touching power and, and holding power and seeing it, and feeling it in, in ways just kind of never before seen, you know?

AT: Hmm. But why eight? Why did you wanna have eight conversations about power?

MH: Right! The, the eight conversations really came from, in all honesty, this book by John and Julie Gottman. It's a relationship book, right? I saw my relationship with my partner really deepen after going through those eight conversations. Even though we had known each other for years before we read that book together, there were stories and insights that I had never heard before, and I don't think I would have had we not had intentional time together and, and, and really took the prompts seriously. And so to recreate that, I think for people building organizations together, I thought would be a, a great gift. And I think what the eight groups have done is give me the opportunity to create a framework that lets people, that allows people and invites people in to pay as much attention to that internal work as they do to the, the campaigns and, and the movements that they're building.

AT: I mean, this is such an example of the brilliance of Mia Henry's mind, right? Like, I love how you think, how you, how your mind travels through something. 'Cause I don't think I fully put all those pieces together when we first started talking about this, but it's so perfect that this came out of a book about dates. A book about data with your life partner, because every conversation you have is, it comes down to relationships. And all the people in these conversations are people you have very meaningful relationships with from a variety of different, you know, projects or organizations or whatever. So, you know, I would love to share how I've been reflecting on this 'cause I have a very different life day-to-day from yours. But first,

MH: Yes. Yeah,

AT: before I get to do that, I, I want you to, to, to say a little bit about like how you chose these eight people. You know, just give us some, some examples. What, I mean, 'cause, because we could have an entire conversation about each of these eight people 'cause they're such amazing, interesting, it's such an interesting mix of folks. But just talk a little bit about how you chose some of these people for some of these topics.

MH: Yeah. So, oh, I've been, I'm so excited about this podcast, and I wanted to, I wanna just take a second before I forget to thank you, Alysia, because it was because of your encouragement that this project even is happening and the podcast is happening because I, you know, just would never do it without, without, without trust, people I trust believing in, in the power of the work. So, once I gave myself, you know, permission to, to host the podcast, on one hand it was easy to choose who was going to, who I wanted to bring on, and on another hand it was like, I'm so, I've been so blessed with incredible relationships with amazing people.

AT: Yeah.

MH: And I've gotten a chance to do real work with them, you know?

AT: Yeah.

MH: That it was hard for me to limit the list, you know, and that, so that is why, you know, I'm like, okay, can we do another season? There's so many other people.

AT: Yeah.

MH: But there were people that kind of, yeah. Well, first I haven't talked about what the eight conversations that I came up with are, but, you know, we talked about a few of the, the conversations in the Gottman's book for co-directors or anyone trying to share power. So it's not just, clearly it's not just for co-directors, but it could be for people who are co-leading a project or even, you know, collaboratives, people, 3, 4, 5 people who are trying to, you know, collectives, people who are trying to lead together. What are the conversations? So I wanted to first start with this idea of telling our origin stories, how we come to the work, right. So much in the Gottman's book was about looking back on how we were raised, you know, and that can be really painful for some of us.

AT: Yeah, Yeah.

MH: Or, you know, it could be beautiful or it could for many of us, most of us, a mix of both.

AT: Yeah.

MH: So, but I thought it was really important because there's a story as to how I came to do the work I'm doing as well. And it often does start with how we were raised, you know? But sometimes it's just even talking about what job or work we were doing right before this one. And if, how, how we felt coming out of that work. Because a lot, a lot of people that I was working with in organizations had not healed from, from trauma and broken trust for, from ideas being stolen from them. You know, they had not, they had not maybe even addressed those things, much less entered a, a space of healing from what happened in their previous job or their previous work. And they were bringing that, usually unconsciously, bringing that into the work they we're doing now. You know, so it's not just about like a romanticized, you know, talk about our origin stories and you know, who, you know, how our mama inspired us and everything.

AT: Right, right.

MH: And I say that because that's part of mine, but it's also like, and I've been underestimated in previous jobs. I've been ignored, I've been overworked, I've been underpaid. All these things have happened in previous work. So it doesn't matter that you're, I'm in a new job that, you know, maybe trying to do everything right. I haven't necessarily healed from the things that happened to me, just even in the previous job. So telling our origin stories was a really important conversation, I think, to start with for people, because it was giving people permission to talk about the past and how the past was impacting how they were showing up in the present.

AT: Yep.

MH: And then the other conversations, defining leadership, connecting identity and power. As you know, my training work that we do now always starts with that connecting all our different identities, right? Racial disability, or say, race, disability, gender, sexual orientation. So many different ways that we identify. How does that impact how we understand power and how powerful we feel? Our communication style, talking through communication styles was a conversation. That's one that we have at our team at Freedom Lifted quite often using both like assessments and, and like formally with, with assessments like Clifton strengths and that kind of thing. But also informally, you know, making how we make decisions, how we navigate conflict, how we spend most of our time as, I call it embracing zones of genius, which comes from Gay Hendricks' work. But it's really about how we, how do we identify our gifts, our true gifts, the things that we uniquely bring to the world, and how do we spend most of our time sharing those…

AT: Yeah.

MH: with one another? It's basically really how do we bring our, truly our best selves, but we have to know what our best selves are. You know, we have to,

AT: And not beating ourselves up for the things that we, that are not our true gifts. That's part of what I love about that,

MH: that are not...

AT: that conversation.

MH: Right.

AT: Yes.

MH: I know. I love that. You know, not just, just, just, you know, the strengths are strengths for a reason.

AT: That's right. Absolutely.

MH: Use them!

AT: Yep.

MH: And then, and then following through, right? And again, these are inspired by the conversations I wish I had had with a lot of people that I've worked with, and also the support that I offer leaders today, right? And that following through piece was so important to talk about, because we can't, we don't, we're not always able to show up fully for, for anyone.

AT: No, that's real.

MH: How do we, we just can't. We, we're going to fall short. That's part of the human condition. How do we communicate with each other?

AT: Right.

MH: When we do, or when we know we have to, you know, step back, fall back, take some time, or we're not gonna be able to meet that deadline, or we're not gonna be able to, to, you know, follow through on, on the finishing of a project or any kind of work, right?

AT: Right.

MH: We need, we need time. So following through was not just about making each other do finish everything, and how do you deal with people who don't do what they're supposed to do?

AT: Right.

MH: Which honestly, the Mia of 10, 15 years ago would have, that would've been the conversation. But how do we hold each other and how do we respond to each other? And how do we communicate with one another when that inevitably we're not going to be able to show up in the ways that we first imagined and envisioned.

AT: Well, and how do we start with a foundation of a really trustful, non-transactional relationship that's built so that we can be honest, we can, you know, admit when we have stumbled, we can ask for help. We can, you know, and, and we can challenge each other where we struggle. You know? That's a beautiful part of that conversation, I think as well.

MH: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So those are the eight, those are the eight conversations. And I won't name the names because I want people to tune in!

AT: They're great names though.

MH: They're great names and they're great people. Just really wonderful people who without hesitation said yes to having the conversation. And there're people that, like I said, I've been able to work with in some type of meaningful way to build, build something, whether it be, again, a campaign, an organization, or maybe just build my confidence. I've been able to build something with each one of those people. So we all have a little history. And so it's a lot of fun. It's been a lot of fun to have each of those conversations with them. Yeah.

AT: Yeah. Well, all those stories come out in the the ways, I mean, you, you've talked to people that you've supervised, you've talked to people who've been your boss. You talk to people who've you've been on boards with, you talk to, you know, mentors. It's like part folks you've partnered with to create something new. Folks you've been in an established organization with. It's like, it's such a nice potpourri that it, I think it, there really is something for, for everybody. Even someone like me who's not doing community organizing work or even working in a nonprofit right now. I've, I've gotten so much out of so many of the conversations.

MH: Oh, that's wonderful. There's so much pressure these days, you know, Alysia, to, to niche down and speak and speak and speak to the specific audience. And I so struggle with it. 'Cause I'm like, I wanna talk to everybody about everything.

AT: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

MH: Just a quick break to note that the Shared Power Podcast is sponsored by Freedom Lifted and our flagship training program, Justice at Work. Justice at Work offers blended learning and professional development for organizations and individuals who are strengthening their commitment to justice and equity in their workplaces and in their communities. This training combines discussions with online modules that teach frameworks and critical history to help you examine the relationship between identity and power. You'll even have opportunities to join live group discussions facilitated by me, Mia Henry. Go beyond diversity and inclusion to find your role in building a more just and equitable world. Learn more and sign up at freedomlifted.com.

AT: I mean, should I tell you a little bit about how this resonated for me? Because I, I mean, folks listening may not know sort of what I'm up to. I mean, I have had this, this history of doing all kinds of different nonprofit work and work in government and philanthropy and journalism. But now I'm a Montessori teacher.

MH: Wow.

AT: I teach three to six year olds. It's a completely different life. And you are one of the people that has just been a ride or die for me, encouraging me through a really hard stretch of not knowing what to do differently in my life and to just let trust myself and let myself dream. But you've been one of the people that's held me while I was in that scary place. And so it is a totally different life. But, but I will, I will tell you. So, so, so I've experienced all these issues in a lot of ways looking back on my career. But even with my current career, the this principle that power is always the underlying issue that you is, like, that's just such a light bulb for me. I, and I mean, it seems like, duh, but when you are a teacher of young children like that is, that is like in your face, like right here all the time. Just because young children respond differently from adults. If you misuse your power, they don't, they can't just get up and walk out of the room and not speak to you again. They will literally cry or fall down on the floor if they, you know, it's terrifying for them to be overpowered. So it's like a daily reminder. But, but the other thing about that, that we've, we've said a few times in this conversation about relationship building being at the core. I mean, I have experienced that in so many ways. When we focus on the work and the tasks and not each other. It's, it's like, those are separate things. I, I was led, I was in an organization like the one you talk about where everyone has a shared, marginalized, I, marginalized identity and including the leader of that organization. And yet it was, it was so hard because it was as if the only thing that was valued was, was productivity.

MH: Mm hmm.

AT: And, and everything else was actually devalued or we were penalized for, which made that a a totally unworkable kind of situation. You know, for me, after just a couple of years, you know, that was really hard. But this, this other piece that you talk about relationships, that we have to know each other. We have to know our stories. We have to understand how we entered this space. I've been thinking about that a lot because one of the principles, I'm not gonna get into a whole thing about Montessori, 'cause that's a whole, there are many podcasts about great podcasts about Montessori education. But one of the core principles is around observation, right? That we create an environment for the children and we observe how they use it, and then we make changes based on that. But, but on a deeper level, it's, it's not just about watching them and making little notes about what they do and don't do. I mean, that is a part of it, but it's really about knowing this child. You know, when a child is doing something, when a child is walking around, interrupting other children all morning, the the thing I should be doing is asking, what is that child seeking? You know, that three or four year old, they can't tell me their whole story. I can learn some of it from their parents. I can learn some by, by just how they interact. But I can, I can consider, I can consider that they are bringing a lot into the classroom each day and focus on helping meet that, meet them in that place rather than some preconceived idea of where I think they should, you know, be at.

MH: Yeah.

AT: You know, and similarly with building, like building trust, that's all about building trust and…

MH: Yeah.

AT: …and following through. 'Cause I will tell you, when you don't follow through on things you say to, to little children, they are devastated. And they show you when they're devastated. You know, we, we get a game face by this age, especially as Gen Xers. We probably had a game face when we were like two. But, but, but little ones, when they're asking for something and you say, oh yes, I'll, I'll, I'll get right back to you. And then you don't do it. Like, it just chips away. It chips away at that trust. And they will stop turn, they will stop turning to you for anything. And then people wonder why by the time they're teenagers, they don't wanna talk to us, right? 'Cause they've had 10 million experiences of adults not being able to follow through, because who can, right? It's, we're all busy. We all have 10 million things to do, but it's really hard when we can't. So I, I try to really, not, if I can't do it, I just tell them, you know, no, I'm sorry. I can't, you know, I try to, I try to at least be honest and forthcoming about it. And they're usually pretty forgiving. But it takes a lot of humility. And I feel like humility is another theme that came through in all the conversations is really, it's okay to make mistakes. It's okay to know, you know, what you're not good at. And the, I had the privilege of working when I worked in government, I worked for a leader who was smart enough. She said, you know, she really loved to hire people that were smarter than her and surround herself with people who knew more than her. And I loved that as a model. And I felt like that made her a much more effective public servant. You know? So, so those, those are the ways that even for a Montessori teacher, you know, these, these conversations really resonate. And of course, in thinking about my adult colleagues in the school, you know, how can I employ some of these tools even on an informal basis? Because I think it, these are great tools just for any team, any group of people trying to think together about challenging the status quo. And I'm, I'm grateful that I get to work at a school that has a very explicit, you know, commitment to social justice. But like any place, you know, struggle as we all do to live that out, you know, on a daily basis. But I think these tools will help me do it better than I could, you know, before these podcasts. So thank you for, you know, making the conversations broad enough that, that they can be really accessible to other folks.

MH: Well, I mean, I just love the, the stories that you have shared, and particularly when you were talking about the, watching the, the children and then, you know, adjusting the environment. So it's best for how they are showing up in their best selves in the environment. Right? And so, you know, the way I talk about power, a lot of times people think I'm like, oversimplifying power when I talk about it is just, you know, resources, safety, voice visibility. I don't think I'm oversimplifying. I think it's just core. I think it's, it's just a core in it that we have to hold onto and remember.

AT: Yeah.

MH: And that we need to remember that it's, it's for everyone. I think we also talk though about how, who has power and who doesn't like in that scarcity place, I'll go back to my concerns around some of the early, I think people have evolved, some of the early DEI trainings really looked at privilege a lot, right?

AT: Yep.

MH: And it was very identity based and identity focused. And we do have, you know, amazing people out there doing anti-racism training. So this is not a critique of, of that, because the, a system of white supremacy, of course, is very part, much part of this country's DNA. And we have, you know, definitely multiple identities that we have. And if we are only looking at, you know, identities that have privilege or they're part of what, what is dominant society and where we happen to live and be, and we're not looking at the other ways that people can have power, I think we limit ourselves.

AT: Right.

MH: And so, you know, we'll start a conversation around identity, but we never end there.

AT: Right. Right. Right.

MH: 'Cause. Even if we're black people who have built power, or gained power, or have power through positional power, we are, we still have, we still have power. We're not just rendered powerless because we don't have, don't have privilege. Privilege is just one way to gain power. Yeah? And then, but we know again, from the past and from the present even, that we can build power, people without identities, people with oppressed identities. I wouldn't be here now, I always say that if black people and black women in particular hadn't come together to build power, to write, to share, to, to hit the streets and speak out, if they had not done that, I wouldn't be able to do this podcast. Yeah? So collective power is, is real. And when we build, we can, we can get resources, voice visibility by coming together, right. And we can get in, in our organizations through positional power, through the positions we're given. We can also even, you know, we'll get power. We will try to get power through, through things that might be in conflict with the law. Right? We're not doing it necessarily to break the law. Right? And these laws change, and sometimes laws are unjust.

AT: Absolutely.

MH: But we'll do what we have to do to get power, because we know that we deserve it. Right. We deserve it. And oftentimes there's some, some level of it needed to survive, right? So we will get the resources, we'll get the voice, we'll get the visibility, even if it happens to be in conflict with the law. There are multiple ways to get power. So I wanna make sure, and that's another reason why I do the work that I do, and I I'm hosting the podcast in this way, is because I want us to break out of this identity-based only understanding of who has power and who does not. And then the third thing is that choice to use it. So you, you talked earlier, and you've mentioned before about working for an incredible public leader who always wanted to surround herself with people who were smarter than her. The reason she wanted to do that, right, is that she was in a, she was ready, she was mentally ready to share her power. She had this positional power.

AT: Yeah.

MH: And she wanted to learn from other people. And so she valued the contributions. What, what? She valued the voice. She valued the visibility. She saw people around her, and she knew that she could not do that work alone with her own, you know, individually created intellect. Right? Like, she's not gonna be able to do that. So that is, that's a great example of using positional power, right? To bring more power to more people. But regardless of how we've gained it, we always have a choice in how we use it. So your previous boss could have used it to surround herself with people who would just be "yes" people and just approve anything, any ideas that she had, right? That's a way of just saying, well, I don't care about what your voice is. I only care about my voice. That's using positional power, right? To, to limit the power of other people. We always have a choice on how we're using our power, regardless of how we've gained it. And so I think that that's those three questions: What is power? How can we gain it? And how can we use it? are related, but all have to be looked at differently and separately to understand the many paths to justice. And those many paths of justice can show up in our, how we see ourselves, in our relationships, right, in the, in the communities that we build and the policies we create. So it's so important that we are thinking about how we're sharing power at every single level, every single level together, you know, simultaneously. So I appreciate you just being, being willing to, to walk this, this path with me, of, of bringing power to the core of all of our conversations around justice and for seeing so clearly how it can apply to every role that we have in society and in our work. You know, me, I think we can do, we can do justice in every single, so there's a social justice lens to everything. So that's why it didn't bother me when you were changing jobs, because I knew your heart and I was like, oh, this is great now, you know?

AT: Yeah.

MH: Alysia's gonna go from being a social justice, you know, nonprofit leader to a social justice Montessori teacher. Like, yay! You know? So this is that, that's the, that's the rub, is that we really can apply this, this understanding and this interrogation of power and this reclaiming of power to all of our work, you know? And so people don't, they don't want to claim power because they see power as negative, you know?

AT: Yeah.

MH: But we do want to claim, we need to be able to see where we have voice, visibility, safety, and, and resources. We need to be able to claim those things because we have a responsibility to use those things, right. To bring more of it to more people. That is an understanding of power as abundant.

AT: Yeah.

MH: And we do have to be honest about where we've been denied those things. So the question, you know, the, or the, the work, the curiosity in which you are bring, you bring to your work with the children is one that offers them power. You are seeing them, by observing them, they are being seen by you, right? And not just being, like you said, observed, but you are taking that information and, and, and creating a world that's better, you know, a an environment that is better for them based on what you've understood. You are listening to them, right? Part of observations, both listening and watching, right?

AT: Yep.

MH: You're providing them the resources in the classroom. And I know this personally from, from our own relationship, is that you have done a ton of, of work as an individual, Alysia, to provide more resources for, for these young people, right. In the classroom, actual physical resources and, and also, you know, resources is also space, and it's, you know,

AT: Yeah, yeah.

MH: it's not just stuff.

AT: Yeah.

MH: So yeah. So the resources are there. And then of course, the safety, right? That trust, when we're building trust, what we're, what we're trying to build is psychological, a space of psychological safety. That's what I believe, right? When I trust someone, I trust an adult, or I trust another person in my life, that means that I can be vulnerable with them. I can not, I can, I can fail in front of them.

AT: Yeah.

MH: I can work through things, you know, with them and not be judged by it. Right?

AT: Yeah.

MH: So that's like, and, and actually be valued even more, because I am, I am who I am, right? There's no, yeah. Just, just, it's, it's, it's not having judgment. So this psychological safety you provide, and obviously the physical safety is a, is is a non-negotiable, right? In, in any space. But particularly when we're talking about children, ages three to, what is it? Three to six? Three to five?

AT: Three to six.

MH: Three to six. So this is, so, you know, all of those things are there. So the, you know, people throw around the word empower, empower, empower. But I'm like, what are you real, you know, when we're really sharing power, are we sharing? are we ensuring...

AT: Yeah.

MH: …that all of our decisions are informed by making sure the people have the resources, voice visibility, and safety, physical and psychological safety. Even if you just take, took those right? And applied it to every decision that we make, how we parent, how we interact with our coworkers, how we teach our young people, how we show up as partners, how we show up as friends. You know, we're not hoarding power. We wanna share it. We wanna make sure that everyone in our world has those things so well, it's…

AT: And that, that enhances our own lives. I mean, that makes, yeah, like, like you explained, you know, with you and your partner and those conversations and my own journey in this kind of classroom, it, it's like your relation, you said your relationship, you've known each other for years, but it got deeper, it got better. It got, got closer from, from doing it. You know, I have been in, I've, you know, over the course of the past year as I've done student teaching, I've been in classrooms where that power is not shared, where things are barked at children across the room. And, you know, there is, you know, negative kinds of discipline and these kinds of things, and it's like, yes, we all have our moments, but to, to see that what happens when that's the tone versus when it's a different kind of tone. It's like, no contest. I just have a much better day when I'm in a room where there's more equity, you know, I have more fun, you know, the children have more fun, but I have a lot more fun. So it, it makes, it makes our lives better. And I, and I have to say, like, I just wanna say this before we end this conver, I know we're gonna end this conversation soon, Mia, but really this trust and everything you're talking, it's not theoretical. Like you, literally, when I was going through a very rough depression in Covid, I was living alone, I was really unhappy with my latest nonprofit management job, I didn't know what I was gonna do, you literally opened your home to me. Like, you literally opened your home and said, of course, of course you can have a space. And it just, it meant so much, it meant so much that you did that. And it, it started me on a path of kind of rebuilding my own self-esteem, my own sense of myself, my own, you know, the idea that I could have more in my life. And then as I explored and figured that out, you were like, nothing but totally just supportive in all the ways, you know, whether it was like, you know, verbally or making sure I got out for some walks with you and the dog, or like, really encouraging me to get my own dog, which was like the, you know, the best decision. At first I hated it, but then you were like, oh, it's gonna get better. So all these things. So I think it's just really important to say, like, it's, it's important to share some of these specifics because of course then when you come to me with this idea and you have this brilliant idea and you're not sure how to execute it, I'm gonna be like, yes, we can. I'm gonna help. You know, it, it wasn't, it wasn't charity work. It wasn't for my, you know, put something on my resume. It was just because this is my, my dear friend who has been there for me. She wants to do something. So it's just, yeah, of course. So that's what this like was, and I, and I, I think that's an important thing to just share, because that spirit, I feel that spirit kind of throughout, you know, all the, all the conversations that you had. So I'll turn it over to you now for whatever closing words you'd like to say,

MH: aww, thank you. You’re an amazing…

AT: but I just had to, I wanted all the listeners to know.

MH: ..producer. I mean, it's a, it's been an amazing team effort and I'm so, I'm so happy with it.

MH: Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the Shared Power Podcast. This podcast is a production of Freedom Lifted, a company that provides training, facilitation, and coaching for leaders rooted in justice and equity. It is produced and edited by Cassaundra Sampson at It's 97. Production support also provided by Alysia Tate, Amber Kinney, Alycia Buenger, and the AK Collective. For more information about our work, visit freedomlifted.com or follow us at Freedom Lifted on Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn. Join us next time as we continue to unlock the ingredients for leading with Shared Power.

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Episode 2: Shared Power vs. DEI w/ Lisa Marie Pickens