We recently connected with Krystal White and have shared our conversation below.

Krystal , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s the kindest thing anyone has ever done for you?

I racked my brain trying to come up with a commendable answer to this wonderful question.

When I tried to determine one that was the most poignant or the one that was the most meaningful, a single moment eluded me.

What easily flooded into my focus, were times when I was in a dark place, an unsafe place, an uncertain place, a toiling place, or a place of a lot of weeping and gnashing of teeth.

I’m sure you’ve visited some of those places, too. I’m hopeful you stumbled upon kindness heroes while there, like I have.

The brightest lights shine the most intense in the moments of our most certain darkness.

I’ve had my fair share of those moments—stretches of emptiness, seasons of dis-ease, and several life milestones of failure and rejection. In general, people were really kind to me while I was going through a divorce in my early 20s, when anybody significant passed away, or when it was clear from my facial expressions or my physical form that I was sick, shocked or surrendering to something bigger than myself.

Some cool philosopher who lived in a different era than now, in a wildly different body and culture than I inhabit, and with less student loans that I have, said: “if the only prayer you ever said was “thank you,” it would be enough.”

I don’t, completely, buy it.

AND, right now, I say “Thank you” to people who spread kindness, including that philosopher and the specific human that taught me about him.

….Honestly, I think what matters most about kindness is the unexpected-every- day situations where people are kind to us, when we don’t “deserve” it (like when I’m driving unpredictably in a grocery store parking lot). Or when they choose kindness when we aren’t looking for it (like when someone says and means: “do you need someone to talk to?”). Or when they choose kindness when you were just a little bit “nice,” but they out-do you with kindness “Glitter”(like that stranger who bought my Red Eye, after I let him go ahead of me in the coffee line because I was trying to practice patience).

I also think kindness counts most in the folks who are kind enough to DO LIFE with you, or kind enough to say “you’re not IT for me” or who apologize when they fart in public.

Finally (see! I’ve apparently got a lot to say about kindness, even though I don’t have a singular anecdote)…Finally, for the record, I publicly acknowledge the kindness of every single human being on the planet that I’ve ever kept waiting, went over our allotted time together, or with whom I arrived too early when they weren’t yet ready for me. I am a wrench in clocks.

I recognize the kindness of those, in the midst of me naming this very blatant bad habit, who to continue to show up, or whom continue to stay.

Krystal , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’m not special. Like many of your readers and those folks you feature here, I wear different hats and play different roles. The future of our work identities will look like a patchwork quilt that we individually, and then together, weave together. It will express diverse interests, projects, talents and the multifaceted ways we contribute our time, talent and treasures to the world.

I run a leadership development consulting business called The Executive Shaman. Our mission is to identify, to deeply develop and optimize, and to position leaders so that they can mindfully influence prosocial group dynamics. We help teams (vs individuals) discern their blight blind spots and deal with their resistance, so that they get in their own way less. This sounds very serious! Yes, the world needs more leaders NOW than ever before. But we bring a lightness and levity to the process. We harness joy and grace, and amplify the honest, non-linear process of becoming a united “front.” We don’t coach leaders in a vacuum and eventually must engage with whomever they are leading, collaborating or living with…because we believe that is where most of us need the most support.

Recently, I’ve been gushing on about a new startup called Free Leadership. We strive to rebrand leadership as a function of quality support versus one of achieved status. We will be part of a movement that centers leadership as a form of connecting people, fostering trust and wise optimism—the modern do gooders of our communities, and the backbone of our collective wellbeing.

We really believe that leaders of our personal lives are our friends, our mentors, and the natural coaches that help us become better humans.

Friendship is the antidote for every major illness society faces today. As the world gets more and more polarized over this next decade, I am convinced that some people will bring the medicine of friendship to those who are ready for it. Medicine is often uncomfortable, even the kind that tastes of sugar. We can learn to be patient with each other ‘s pain, without tolerating foolery. We can learn to connect without the price of placation conformity and self deception. We can also train each other on how to be a better, or find better, friends.

Clearly, if we leave it up to what’s “natural” for us as a society, we’re going to outsource friendship to our pets, our phones or our politics.

That way is a “no, thank you,” for me. For others who feel similarly, our nonprofit is devoted to finding and empowering people who want to be better friends/need better friends, want to be mindful mentors/need mindful mentors or who want to coach others/who need to be coached. If there was a place and a space that cultivated skill in those roles and then proliferated them through our neighborhoods, we’re pretty sure that this would reduce not only mental health issues and conflicts but it would it would FEEL like the world was a better home to live in. We’d be happier, wiser, less myopic and confused, and we’d have more of a willingness to share resources.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

Giving advice. Gone are the days where someone saying “You should [fill in the blank]” is inspiring to me. I cringe inside when I hear “If I were you, I’d…”

That’s akin to giving someone bubblegum when they are tell you they are dehydrated.

Still, I went to grad school under the impression that giving advice was a noble thing to do. I looked up to the teachers, natural coaches and mentors in my life. I falsely believed that giving advice was how they made a difference.
I found out very quickly 1) people usually change as a direct result of receiving advice and 2) it requires more skill to NOT give advice versus the other way around. In my first year getting my Phd in psychology we were given 1 client only, and 1 rule only: never give advice. We provided our service to our client as a group of students and professors watched behind a one-way-mirror. This observation motivated us even more to unlearn advice giving.

I am slow to unlearn lessons learned.

I think it’s easy to equate giving advice with helping. Same with listening to someone else. They both are on a continuum of stepping back or stepping forward. Both are good in intention or polarizing in reality, if over-used in either direction for too long, or with too much intensity. Both contribute to wonky power dynamics.

The people who helped me the most in my life were the ones who believed in me more or even LIKED me more that I did, especially when I was pretending to be small, scared or stupid. They held the line of aliveness, especially when I shut down,fell under the spell of unworthiness, or chased false idols. They were the ones who helped me understand myself better, not follow in their footsteps. They were the ones who pointed out when I wasn’t managing my ego, not the ones who gave me tips to succeed. They were the ones who refused to lower their standards so that I didn’t have to deal with my own feelings, not the ones who avoided hurting my feelings.
Sure, these humans probably also gave me advice from time to time, too. The truth is, I just don’t remember if they did.

I do remember the name and the face of every single human who ever helped me move my furniture, helped me to stare into the mirror, and helped me throw a party.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

Here, I’ll be short and sweet.

My dissertation examined thriving boys and at-risk boys, defining how they were identified in the community, how they perceived themselves, their world and their future. The muse for that deep dive was Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search For Meaning. In the 20 years since I first devoured it, not a single month has passed by without me hearing someone reference this book.

It’s not about the book—which is remarkable. It’s about Us, as humans. It’s about how we all are alive, here, right now. How we all are searching for meaning. How in diverse ways, and with different capacities, aiming for better. How, we either are going to define what matters to “Us”, or it is going to be defined for us. Either we are going to live out that reason TOGETHER, attempting to cohabitate and collaborate and create beauty for one another, or we are going to do business as usual.

I adore this foundation—we all have a WHY. More so, I adore that now, we can go beyond that and focus on how it’s up to US to be responsible for the HOW of our lives.

Now, here, the next generation of leaders will look different than they ever have before…and they will demand that HOW we do things matters just as much, or even more, than any of our cognitive justifications.

Contact Info:

• Website: freeleadership.org
• Instagram: @freeleadershipinc
• Facebook: @drkrystalwhite
• Linkedin: krystal-white-phd-801179109
• Other: theexecutiveshaman.com