We were lucky to catch up with Bill Kirst recently and have shared our conversation below.

Bill, appreciate you joining us today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

My vision: Echo the stories that need to be told and illuminate the truest potential in others. My mission: Empathy at scale.
My work: Leading with compassion in a digital age.

The story behind my mission stems from a place of having faced pervasive adversity along the way. And in that journey each barrier, betrayal and setback served to alchemically strengthen me, test mettle and form priceless substance with a glow of wisdom.

I learned along the way: My Top 5 GALLUP CliftonStrengths: Empathy | Achiever | Connectedness | Belief | Context
My Top 5 VIA Character Strengths: Love | Love of Learning | Spirituality | Bravery | Appreciation of Beauty & Excellence

As Change management expert I get to provide possibilities anchored in strategy-focused technology solutions and offer consulting to clients. As an author and a poet, I get to provide words that make worlds where people can go to heal.

Bill, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I like to tell people that I didn’t find my craft, it found me. I guess I have been leading change for as long as I can remember. I was a child and very quickly encountered inordinate amounts of change, uncertainty and ambiguity along the way and that required me to grow up very quickly, care for others alongside me and ultimately exhibit the leadership others needed to keep going.

After September 11, 2001, I found myself enlisting in the U.S. Military and went to graduate school to study Communication, Culture and Technology. Built upon my undergraduate degree of International Studies and Russian, I knew that my passions and pursuits would always have to be in the realm of cross cultural communication and technology.

Soon thereafter, I found myself working in consulting supporting government agencies and international institutions go through change. At the core of any of those changes were the humans, and I found myself guiding those humans through process, technology and personal change. I never really had to look for a job, because the opportunities found me, stemming from challenging situations and scenarios where people needed compassionate leadership and a person to show them the way…along the way. That ended up being me, each and every time.

That led to 20 years in consulting where I honed my craft in storytelling and leading change. And in 2021, after they heard my podcast that I started in 2016, I was asked by Microsoft to help them with storytelling and leading a global workforce through change together. And that began my chapter in Technology. After an unexpected layoff, I channeled my grief and loss into my first book, a collection of poetry, titled “EVERWARD.” That led to me being offered a role at Adobe where I have the privilege of leading the company through one of its largest transformations to date while also ensuring we bring our mission to life: “Creativity for All.”

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I had to unlearn the lesson that I thought was the key to success. That was to chase your dream job. I learned after this most recent rounds of layoffs at Microsoft, that the words dream and job should not be in the same sentence, nor phrase. Because if you do what I did, then you weave it all together and when it all comes undone, you lose a sense of who you are and what your dreams truly are. I learned that it is important, in the unlearning, to allow myself to have my dreams and to allow myself to have a good job and ne’er shall the two comingle in such a way as to lose that again all in one irrational business decision. I now have my dreams, which I chase. And I have my job which allows me to live the lifestyle whereby I get to chase and live out my dreams. That is a much better equation. And that only came from a place of deep grief, learning and letting go.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

Simply integrity. Never chasing a statistic. Never falling victim to the algorithms. I stand in my authenticity and my purity of my craft. I remain present in all my interactions and consider it an absolute gift to echo the stories that need to be told in this world. I protect and honor that investment.

Contact Info:

• Website: coffeeandchange.co
• Instagram: @journeyeverward
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/billkirst/

Image Credits
All images by Bill Kirst. Book cover illustration by Rachel Murphy