Christina Hale: Episode 965

Transcript

[0:00:55] BB: On today’s episode of Author Hour, I’m sitting down with Christina Hale, who has just authored a new book called, Why Not You? Here’s a brief description: You’re young, motivated, passionate and capable. You care often more than others. Maybe the state of our climate concerns you or the divisive political tension in our communities feels like an urgent priority. No matter the compelling cause or driving principles, you can create change, but only if you take the first step. In “Why Not You?” civic leader and former state legislator Christina Hale shows you why no matter your age, now is the time to find your platform and pursue the vital causes that inspire you. Here’s my conversation with Christina Hale. Welcome into the Author Hour Podcast. I’m your host Benji Block and today, I am honored to have Christina Hale with me. She has just authored a new book titled, Why Not You? A Leadership Guide for the Change Makers of Tomorrow. Christina, welcome to Author Hour.

[0:02:02] Christina Hale: Benji, thank you for having me.

[0:02:03] BB: Yes, so excited to talk to you and I’ll give just a bit of your bio here off the top, you’re a former state legislator for the Indiana General Assembly. First Latina to run for state-wide office in Indiana, which is incredible, and then last year, 2021, you’re appointed by the Biden-Harris administration to head communications for the US International Development Finance Corporation. So Christina, that is a lot going on in your life and then you’re like, “You know what? Let’s put a book in the mix as well.” Congratulations on the book and that is quite the bio.

[0:02:38] Christina Hale: Oh, thank you. It feels pretty good, it feels pretty busy, but that’s how I like it.

[0:02:43] BB: Yeah, that’s how you roll. Okay, give me a little peek into your life. Fill in what I just said because that’s the bio but you’re going to be able to put it better in your own words. Tell me a little bit about yourself and what leads to the writing of this book specifically.

[0:02:59] Christina Hale: Well, I’m a pretty cause-driven woman but for me, it all starts with the why, what makes you want to set your hair on fire? There were so many things that I thought I needed to push some change about but really, I had a moment where I learned that one in five girls in my state, by the time they would graduate from high school, will have been raped or sexually assaulted and that just dovetailed with a lot of experiences of friends of mine starting at a really young age and I realized, I had to do something about it.

[0:03:35] BB: Wow. Well, I love the analogy that you use there of setting your hair on fire and we’re going to talk about that as we get more into the content. Let me ask you just another practical question on the topic here because you have such diverse experience. You could have chosen a number of ways to go with the book project but you chose to give a leadership guide for change makers of tomorrow. You want to talk to young people here. Why this topic? Why wanting to go, “Hey, what sets your hair on fire?” and really make this the focus?

[0:04:05] Christina Hale: Well, taking a look at the past several years, Americans are frustrated. Young people are really frustrated and they see so many issues that do want to make them set their hair on fire. They want to do something, they want to show up. But you can’t drive real change just by putting upset messages on your social media posts or showing up in a rally. Real change comes from positional leadership. So, I want to help young people with the servant leadership mindset, who are really connected to their why, really set themselves up to pursue positional leadership so that they have the microphone, the office, they can propose a legislation, they can make that change. And they might need a little inspiration to do it, I’m there for that. But also, how do you even get started?

[0:05:03] BB: Yup. I think that is often the issue, right? We see a plethora of things that we could get involved with or issues in our world and we go like, “Where do I even start?” It’s like standing in a cereal isle at a grocery store of being endless options of issues that I could jump in on, where do I even start, so thanks for addressing that. I want to read a quote here because I loved how you summed up some of the passion to pour into servant leaders. You say: “If you want the big fancy title, then put this book down right now and give it to someone who actually cares. But if you have a genuine servant leader’s mindset, and you’re eager to prepare for positional leadership, then this book is for you.” So then talk to me about the ideal reader, obviously, you’re saying young person, looking for positional leadership, but what’s giving you inspiration? Is it a younger version of yourself as you’re writing this? Is there someone you had in mind that you're writing this for specifically?

[0:05:59] Christina Hale: You know, I’ve worked with teenagers and young people for a lot of years and I’m always inspired by their passion and their care and they are frustrated and fraught right now, whether it’s a latest school shooting or you see something coming out from the supreme court that you really disagree with, presidential politics got a lot of people hot, right? They still do, and COVID is another layer of stress, and it really exposed a lot of things that you might not have noticed. Like teenagers who would have to hang outside at Taco Bells and Panera’s trying to catch free WiFi just to participate in their school work. It just I think revealed a lot of whys to people and so I want to be really clear, I’m not looking for people to agree with me. I want people who are servant leaders, who are in it for the right reasons, who are getting connected with their why to get involved, to jump in with both feet and whatever your politics are, I don’t care, we don’t talk about that here. This is about being a cause-driven, why-driven, effective positional leader.

[0:07:10] BB: Yup, I want to go further into this in the book actually. I like that you said this in first chapter, first, the bad news, right? You’re going, let’s lay out some of what we’re actually facing. You did some of that there but let’s go a step further because man, complex, messy times and you say, man, the unfortunate reality that we have a lot of messes to clean up, and it’s just a time where being a young person, for a litany of reasons, just feels like it’s harder than ever. Talk about the scale of our current challenge and what you’re seeing there. It can set us up to jump in, because there’s a plethora of issues but it’s also a very unique time with the scale of the problems we’re facing.

[0:07:54] Christina Hale: It is scale and it’s also in our face all the time. We’re talking about generations of people who are, for the first time in human history, documenting their lives online, for example. They’re having relationships with each other that are completely electronically mediated and they can’t escape from it either. I mean, it’s all night long. You know, people are, especially young people, just connected to their phones, connected to their friendship networks, people they know and go to school with, people they’ve never met or game with, in person, it’s a whole lot. Part of it is dehumanizing, part of it gets to be really bullying, and part of it is so constant all the time that these issues just weigh down on you till you get to the point that, “Hey, I got to actually do something about it and not just let it creep into my mind and all my senses at all times.” “I want to take action and make real positive change for people”, and that’s what this book is about and who this book is for. Those people that see something and have gotten to the point that they got to do something about it, something good.

[0:09:09] BB: Yeah. It’s one of those things too where it can either lead to a hopelessness or just feeling like you're drowning and it’s overwhelming. We hear this or we see it even play out in a lot of the movies that people love, but those darkest moments become opportunity for immense change, and you talked to that. You speak to that, you say that it sounds counterintuitive but even though there’s these heart wrenching, life changing moments, ultimately, that can fuel us to do greater, bolder things, and this played out in your life. So, let’s go personal for a second, Christina, tell me, I believe you were 19, but give me some of your story and how you saw one of your darkest moments become moment for a life saving kind of changing moment?

[0:09:53] Christina Hale: Well, you know, certainly I think, when I was 19, I became a mom which was a really scary and unplanned thing for me and there is a lot of personal story there, but there’s also a really formative moment when I was much younger than that.

[0:10:07] BB: Oh, interesting, okay.

[0:10:09] Christina Hale: I was 13 and I got a knock at my window in the night and it was a really close friend of mine, and she was reporting to me that she had been sexually assaulted at a party, and it was not something I was equipped to deal with as a friend. I was full of a lot of bad advice and a lot of empathy at the time but that really has stayed with me always. Fast forward, how many stories have I heard of that, we see the scale, the CDC lets us know just what kind of epidemic issue this is for young people, girls and boys and, long story short, I was that young girl. I became a woman running for office and I was determined to work to help encourage reporting, to protect victims from this kind of violence. Make it easier for them when they do report that they can connect with the services they need, whether they’re medical or if they need emotional support, if they need further protection. There’s so much to it, so much to unpack and to do, and I knew I had to make what change I could, having lived through these things knowing that it’s a real problem and that Benji, think of the title, you know, why not you? It's because so many people think like, all this is going on, “Why me?” you know? Or, “I can’t, I’m too small, I can’t do it” and so, this book too is to say to that person, you mentioned hopelessness, it’s not time, we don’t have time to be hopeless right now. We’ve got to take action and you know what? You can do this. You can do this and this is how and we’re going to talk through why you should do it, how to get started and really help you kick start your journey to positional leadership.

[0:12:11] BB: Okay, so let’s go there then. I think that’s fantastic, the crucial point is to start actively working. You actually have to do something, I would call that playing offense, going on the hunt, looking for openings, opportunities to get involved, where is your suggestion? What is your suggesting as to where to start?

[0:12:30] Christina Hale: You start by showing up Benji. You got to show up, you got to put yourself out there. There are a lot of clubs in high schools for people who are politically affiliated with one of the parties. There are a lot of cause-related clubs, you care about the environment. You care about school violence, these kinds of things. There are organizations that you can join and get involved with now and you show up and you meet people and you network, but it’s also about learning the rules. Elective leadership, pathway to position leadership, there is often a lot of rules involved and the people who succeed learn the rules and they learn how it all works, the nuts and bolts, and that’s the beginning of your roadmap to the next steps.

[0:13:19] BB: Was it being affiliated with a club for you that taught you the rules or how did you personally get into that side of things? Because I think there’s a lot of people who would go have a passion project or I have this thing that I am involved in but they may not go to that step.

[0:13:31] Christina Hale: They may not and I talk to a lot of people about just finding the rules where you are. You know, organizations tend to make it pretty easy right now. So much information is available on the Internet and is easily researched but, like I said too, it’s figuring it out, how it works, and where you’re getting started. Maybe at your school, you are running for your school student council or student government. Maybe it’s your environmental club, maybe it’s something else and you begin to pursue positional leadership, running for office and taking on more responsibility, and those activities become transferable skills and really connect the dots for your next step forward.

[0:14:17] BB: I think another piece of this too is being—you find community there, which I think is a piece that, for a lot of young people, they are missing when they’re living in a highly digital screen first world. This takes you out of that environment and into one where you’re truly connected in just a different way.

[0:14:34] Christina Hale: That’s true but I also want to encourage people, community exists in a lot of places, even online.

[0:14:41] BB: Yeah, that to both ends for sure.

[0:14:42] Christina Hale: Yeah, it’s at both ends, definitely.

[0:14:44] BB: True. Okay, there’s so many opportunities, and I think one of the chapters that stood out to me, we have talked around this but maybe not directly at it, is just the readiness to say yes. I think leaders have to say yes without having it all figured out. Sometimes we put leaders on like a pedestal or something and we go, “They probably don’t have something like imposter syndrome” or they deal with actually just saying yes when it feels like we aren’t qualified. Talk about that and that component of, “When an opportunity arises, I am going to be the type of person that just sees it as an opportunity and says yes.”

[0:15:18] Christina Hale: Far too many of us wait to be perfect, right? Until you are fully baked perfect, and that day never comes. I’ll tell you right now, I don’t believe that there are any perfect elected leaders out there or perfect candidates. You know, everybody should be a work in progress because I think a big part of servant leadership and that mindset is being open and listening, always learning, being committed to a lifetime of learning. But you do at some point need to jump into the game and it can usually happen one of two ways. You plan for it, you’re methodical you have a goal and you take the prescribed steps you’ve outlined to get to that goal. Then, sometimes, life just brings it right to you and your state representative has resigned in office or there’s a seat that came up on the student government because your friend moved to Colorado or just a thousand things. Life just happens and you have to be ready to say yes when it does, and you have to be ready to say yes when it doesn’t, when you’re going to have to plot out your own pathway there too, but it only happens when you are intentional and you engage.

[0:16:41] BB: We’ve thrown out the term servant leader several times here. What does that term mean to you? What is that person? Describe a servant leader.

[0:16:48] Christina Hale: A servant leader is a person who is committed to using their skills, ability, experience, their passion and energy for the greater good. It is about being part of and improving something bigger than yourself. You are showing up because you know it’s the right thing to do because you can make effective change, be helpful, do the right thing. What I say is, do you have a good heart? Do you have a good mind? Are you in it for the right reasons? Then yes, why not you?

[0:17:23] BB: Good mind, good heart, that speaks to where the book starts to conclude on this idea of building your character not just your resume. It takes me to thinking of virtues, of thinking of values, the type of person we want to be both publically and behind closed doors. What are those virtues for you personally Christina, and then we can go what are some questions that we can be asking to define that for ourselves? But let’s start with you, personally, what are those virtues, those characters that matter most?

[0:17:52] Christina Hale: I believe in kindness. I believe in empathy. I believe in doing your homework and all those kinds of things that most people believe in too. But I think also, we have an obligation to take action, because these are also your strengths and your superpowers and paying it forward is just how we make things better. This book is for people who might not be able to locate themselves in the bigger project of life. You know, they’re thinking, “Well, I’m just me. I care but who am I to start something and create a movement and run for office and join?” Like, you are that person. You can trust yourself, you know your own heart and isn’t that what we all want? We want the people in charge, the people running things to be in it for the right reasons, to have our backs and to be honest and thoughtful. It’s not about being the fanciest, having the IV league degree and all these qualifiers ahead of time. No, we want every day people, good people who are ready to roll up their sleeves and make positive change. That’s the big qualifier right there.

[0:19:12] BB: Yep. So it almost feels like, and you can correct me if I am wrong, but a lot of these building character pieces, like you can try to define what matters most to you while you are on the sidelines but you’re really not going to know, and you’re really not building actual true, the muscle of character, until you’re in the game.

[0:19:28] Christina Hale: You got to be in the game, absolutely and in the book too, I talk about a woman named Beth White and she is passionate about helping people access the ballot. She wants to make sure that, as a citizen, you get a vote, you want to vote, that it’s convenient, that the elections are well-run, that you can trust in their results. We have seen a lot of these in the news, right? Beth has been committed to that for so many years, finally became a county clerk and that role runs elections for that county. We’ve got them all over the United States but they have other jobs too. So, that’s her cause, that’s her why, honest, fair elections. Access to the ballot but she happens to be in it for the right reasons. So when she had that moment of time, there was a judicial decision that said, “You know what? County clerks also marry people.” The decision came and she became the first clerk in the State of Indiana to marry same sex couples. Yeah and it was a bold move. No one had done it before, she happen to be there. She was in it for the right reasons and she absolutely believes in people’s right to get married and so she took action. It’s not why she ran for that office but she was in it for the right reasons and we just don’t know what’s around the corner next. I think not many people predicted this pandemic, we don’t know what else is there but that’s why the character piece is so important and that’s why it’s so important to just get in the game, because life’s coming at us pretty fast and we need positional leaders with the servant leader mindset.

[0:21:19] BB: Action-oriented, know your why and then say yes. I love that. That’s a fantastic way to start to wrap up here Christina. I appreciate the work on this project so much, for pouring into this next generation of leaders and change-makers. Tell me, if a young person is finished with this book, when someone wants to create change is finished with this book, what do you hope that main takeaways is? Is it just go take an action step or what do you hope that feeling, that action item is?

[0:21:46] Christina Hale: Well first, I just—I’ve got to say something, Benji, and that is, this is not a book about politics. So you might hear some stories and we might be talking about some causes or issues and the reader might disagree with me, and I think that is a fantastic thing to do because it means the reader is thinking and that’s what we want. That’s exactly what we want, but it’s not about politics. This is for everybody. This is not about a mindset, it is about taking action for the right reasons and you’re so right, that’s exactly what we’re looking for and the takeaway is that they walk away with an understanding of why. Yes you, you are ready to step up and start on your journey to positional leadership and why it’s so important that you do.

[0:22:37] BB: Well, besides the book Christina, where can people reach out? Is there a website? What’s the best way to stay connected to your work?

[0:22:44] Christina Hale: Well, you can find me easily on Twitter @haleindie. You can find me online, I am very Google-able and again, my name is Christina Hale and I am on Facebook at Hale Christina One.

[0:23:01] BB: Fantastic. Again, the book is titled, Why Not You? A Leadership Guide for the Change-Makers of Tomorrow. Christina Hale, thank you for stopping by Author Hour. It’s been a pleasure to get to chat with you about the book.

[0:23:13] Christina Hale: Thank you Benji, I really had a great time.

[0:23:17] BB: Thanks for joining us for this episode of Author Hour. You can find, Why Not You? A Leadership Guide for the Change-Makers of Tomorrow, on Amazon. A transcript of this episode and all of our previous episodes is available at authorhour.co. For more Author Hour, follow the podcast on your favorite podcast player. Thanks for joining us, we’ll see you next time. Same place, different author.