What’s business like in Santa Monica post-pandemic? Joining Evan Meyer to shed light on the situation is Laurel Rosen, CEO and President of Santa Monica Chamber, for 23 years and running. As a civic leader, Laurel shares what the current state of business is like and what leaders should be doing for their business, their employees, themselves, and each other.
Laurel and Evan always have wonderful conversations, and we’re excited to finally get one on record. In this episode, we discuss:
– The past and future of Business in Santa Monica
– The importance of emotional intelligence in civic and city leadership.
– How to stop complaining and start doing
– And much, much more
Thank you to Loews Hotel for hosting this episode and for their beautiful outdoor fireplaces – room side, poolside, and Meyerside :-). Special thanks to Younes Atallah!
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Listen to the podcast here
Meyerside Chats: Evan Meyer & Laurel Rosen
We are here with Laurel Rosen.
Great to be here with you. One more great conversation with my friend, Evan.
We always have such wonderful conversations. That was one of the reasons I thought it would be great to be here. You’ve had some big life events. I would love to hear a little bit about that and start with what’s on your mind with all of this going on for many years of amazing work running our chamber, so tell me.
It’s great to be here to think about it. We had some fun talking. This is a continuation of many conversations. Being CEO for 14 years and Vice Chair for 9 was an incredible experience. Ever since I let my chair know and the board knows, I have been reminiscing, as you can imagine. People are reminiscing with me how it goes and thinking about the many years of working with people and doing great work together and growing.
When I first came to this position, I was asked to take this position. I didn’t even have it in my mind to even consider. Someone said, “You should do that.” I was sitting on the board, and we had to hire a new CEO. I was on the committee to hire the CEO. This was not even in my consciousness at all. People started reaching out and saying, “You should consider this.” It’s not completely a crazy idea because I have been on the board for years. I was on the Convention Visitors Bureau Board for many years, if not more. I was Chair of the Turning Point Board.
I had an engagement in the community but still, it wasn’t something that I ever considered, even though I was so actively involved already in the chamber. From that moment on and one of the first people I spoke to about it was Pam O’Connor, who was then Mayor. We laughed about it because she started coming at me with the things that I know so well now, but different acronyms and things about the city and politics.
I tease her to this day. She said, “You are going to get it.” Hopefully, after many years, maybe I’ve got it. It’s a lot to learn but also this wealth of growth and experience of being able to be flexible enough to make mistakes. If I’ve learned anything in this job, and it’s about life, it’s learning how to be human. It’s learning how to let other people be human. Often what’s a challenge, especially in this community, is the polarizing and villainizing aspects that can happen, especially when that stems from fear.
Especially in the last few years, people have been afraid. The tendency is to finger-point, villainize or blame. It’s human nature. That certainly is happening in many different ways. Not just in our city but in many places. I also think, with that, we’ve seen beautiful partnerships. We’ve seen this level of collaboration that I don’t think I saw in my many previous years. Not to this extent. People recognize that we have to work together more now than ever. Especially looking at the state of the world and the challenges that everyone sees.
I’ve loved the collaboration over the last two years, whether it’s with our city and economic recovery, whether it’s with our Westside Council Chambers. I’m on the board of the Westside Council Chambers. We represent the twelve cities. We got together every week. A lot of meetings. A lot of Zoom meetings but we got together. This need to collaborate, talk, and express our feelings to see what other people are doing and how they are doing. We got that out of the last few years.
As bad as it was in so many ways and certainly, for any business, including the chamber, it has been a struggle. It has been a lot of work. A lot of seven-day a week figuring things out days. I also think that there’s this evolution that we are seeing. I know I’m seeing it to myself. An evolution not in terms of skillsets or expertise but an evolution in terms of emotional intelligence to be able to still keep going that level of resilience that we’ve had to find. When you’re sitting in the middle of your living room and don’t know what’s coming next and if your business is even going to survive, you have to find that somewhere.
[bctt tweet=”There’s this evolution that we’re seeing, not just in terms of skill sets or expertise, but an evolution in terms of emotional intelligence, to be able to still keep going and have that level of resilience that we’ve had to find.” via=”no”]
I find it my way. Everyone finds it in their way. I do it with my yoga and my meditation, with friends and mentors. People did it by getting dogs. People needed connection. They needed to comfort. I was like everyone else in the beginning. It was fear-based, scared, isolation, eating, acting out, and comforting. That’s the first reaction, and you get to do that for a while, the grieving aspect of it, and then you are like, “Okay.”
Reality sets in.
Also, emotional intelligence sets in. “This is happening.” We know what’s happening now. What are you doing to take care of yourself so you can be of use to other people? That’s what we’ve certainly seen in the last few years.
You mentioned collaboration and something that I can say I’ve experienced firsthand in my own neighborhood, not just in Santa Monica but the collaboration between the neighborhood associations and the bids. The case of Ocean Park. The Ocean Park Association, The Main Street Business Association, and this was something that previously wasn’t explored to the depths that I saw here, where we are working together to work for the residents and the businesses simultaneously as one unit and think about their different needs but collectively.
It was truly the community that I signed up for in Santa Monica. It’s funny because there are so many wonderful things, then we have this obviously very sad event called COVID. It brought out the best in a lot of things, and I found that people will find the silver linings and make lemonade out of tough situations. They will adapt, and we did our best here. I was proud of us. I know that was our collaboration firsthand. I know that experienced right on my block.
I love the music. Part of it is that whole going out your front door and playing music for your neighbors. That was so cool. I loved that. I wasn’t there but I still got to enjoy it and see people having a good time, and your right, making the best of it. Make the best of it as much as you can, and we saw so many incidents of that time and again through this period. Based on what’s happening in the future and us getting to a place that we want to get to, there’s going to be a lot of reflection on these last couple of years in terms of who we are and what we’ve learned as people.
In terms of bringing out the best in people, what do you think we can learn and give back to the future of Santa Monica in terms of being performing in a way that we haven’t had to perform before? The collaboration and the level of efficiency. We had to cut things that weren’t important or deemed less important and focus on the things that were deemed more important. Some people agree or disagree on what those things are but there were some hard decisions that were made.
Many hard decisions.
It was sad. It was jobs that were lost but we had to make it through. It feels now that we are at a neutral place again that has a lot of goods and ups and downs. There’s at least a complacency around this is the way the world is. It feels a little bit. We don’t have the same reaction of, “What are we going to do?” It’s more like, “We are going to do,” and that’s what I’m feeling. I’m wondering how your experience with the businesses now going forward. How are they feeling in general in Santa Monica? What do you think needs to shift to keep things moving in that positive direction?
When you were talking, it was interesting. I was thinking about the aspect of change and referring to that change’s heart. I heard someone speak a few years ago at one of our wonderful events. It was the celebration for West Side Hunger Coalition, and a woman got up. She had gotten off the streets, living in her car, and got up to the podium, the room was filled with dignitaries. Five hundred people in this room. She says, “Hi, my name is Mary, and there are only two things I have a problem with, and that’s change and the way things are.” I get that. I relate to that, and many people do but change is not easy.
Disruption is a part of who we are as a world, as a culture, and as a human but still, there are pain points along the way. Those pain points are evident not only in our own experience but also in the experience of the businesses. There has been this struggle to do the things we want to do and the way we want and used to do them. Things are changed and may never be the same. That’s what the definition of disruption is. You got to grab as many pieces as you can, put them back together, and see where you are. Part of what we are doing is seeing what pieces we get to keep and what pieces need to be changed and filled in, and remolded.
That’s what’s happening with our business community now. One of the things I’m going to say about that and what we have been thinking about because you know me well enough. I’m going to wear my chamber business hat. I’m going to wear the Laurel spiritual, nonprofit, that hat is always as well. There are different levels of complexity in this conversation. As a business community, we need to understand what disruption is and how we work with it to possibly, hopefully, succeed. Also, understand when it’s not going to work when you need to shift, and that’s part of the disruption itself, understanding shift.
“I can keep doing this but am I losing a lot of money? Is this something I want to keep doing? If so, how do I change this or how do I shift?” That’s one thing people are looking at, and you are seeing it all over the place. People are changing careers. The guy on the deli down there is now going and becoming a real estate agent, whatever. It’s happening. We see it but there’s another part and this has to do with the collective consciousness in a community, which is to understand who we are and understand what our strengths and weaknesses are.
We happen to have a butter ability because we are a hospitality town. We are in a beach town. We were hit harder than many places. Places that have industry, they have different industries there. They have manufactured. They had the good fortune of having business industries that were making more money and more successful. We’ve had this conversation with some of our larger businesses who are anchors. Who are our anchors in the community? Who are the ones that are knocking out of the park? What are the industries that continue? We know that healthcare is incredibly strong in this community. One of our best assets. We are global leaders in healthcare. It’s strong.
Saint John’s and UCLA.
Kaiser has a presence. Cedars has a presence, and many other children’s hospital has a presence. It’s strong here but what are those under industries what’s interesting and I don’t know about you. I’m sorry to anyone. I don’t mean to offend but there’s so much construction going on, especially in my own block. I see a yellow construction vest. The fact is there are different industries that are hurting but people are doing things. They are out there. They are creating.
Are real estate folks who I felt were still hurting? They are not. People are coming to this town. Things are happening but with that is that complexity. How are the landlords and the real estate people understanding what their product is now? As an example, some of our larger landlords are taking some of these massive suites. It became coworking was the thing. You took out all the offices. You put everyone in a big room, and now, that’s not going to work so well in this environment. What do we do? Employees don’t want to come back.
They’ve learned to be efficient at home. It’s easier to have them at home. It’s less expensive to have. What do we do? You can take each industry and see what the disruption is, and hopefully, some way smarter people than me are doing that and figuring it out for our businesses. If you want to succeed, this is the disruption, the change, and the path you need to take. Whether it’s having a digital marketing presence, you are becoming more creative in the techno world, what does that look like for your industry?
I look forward to those conversations continuing. Hearing from people who are making it, who are successful, whether it’s in hospital, construction or real estate or whether it’s in some level of manufacturing. It’s the restaurant you can see in our town. There are best practice models in this town. There are people that reacted. I know one in particular.
I’m not going to mention their name but one who you know as well that is making way more money during COVID than they ever did before COVID. I’m hoping our businesses aren’t lamenting and sitting inside and hoping if they put that shingle out again and sit there patiently that they think magically people are going to come.
People have to suit up and show up and figure out ways to help themselves. By doing that also, asking for help. One of the things, even in my chamber for the last couple of years, we were trying to figure out what is the most important thing that we can be doing now in this environment. It was about connecting people, about resources, “Show me the money. How are you doing? Who’s going to be there for you? How do we get together? What are the best practices? How do we support the business community? How do we work with our city?”
I would say resources and strong advocacy, collaboration, and coalitions are vital. We are still doing that with the strike team. We have a business strike team that’s going to be continuing to work and go to our council. We met with the chief, with the new city manager. I’ve met with them numerous times. “Here’s where we are at. Here are the challenges. Here are the opportunities. What are we going to do?”
The good news is that we have new leaders. We had some shaky leadership there for a while without having so many people out of position. Now, we have strong leadership. We have a strong city manager. We have a strong police chief, great men, great guys, strong, emotionally intelligent, and want to work with a business community, which is fantastic.
There were some unknowns there for a while too. There was a time when there was some leadership missing here. I know a lot of people were scared, and we didn’t have a city manager. We didn’t have a police chief. It’s nice to see that. There were a couple of people that were off council at that time. There were only five. There was some transition. It has been nice to see that we’ve come back together, and it sounds like you feel good about where we are at.
I’m hopeful. That’s the most important thing to say. I’m hopeful. That doesn’t mean we can rest on the Laurels. Get off of me. I’m hopeful but with a cautionary note that there’s work to be done. There are things that our city needs to do to heal our city.
Give me one of the things that you think would be something that people can take away.
I’m going to give you the one based on the conversation we had. You have great people and city staff. There are some incredible people that work for the city, but you create a dysfunctional family. You take away staff. You make them work harder for the same pay or maybe even less, then you take away leadership. They are working harder. Their leadership is in question. They don’t feel supported or directed and what that does is everyone is afraid even to take a chance to do anything. They are worried. They are not the leader or afraid of the repercussion or too dang busy. You create these dysfunctional.
Government has that a little bit anyway.
A perfect storm. I know. That was one of my requests for the new leaders to heal and support your staff. That’s important now because we need them, and they deserve it at the end of the day. Think about police fire. Think about all those frontline people. You’ve done beautiful things around that, as always. We need to acknowledge those people that had to show up no matter what and still continue to acknowledge that and thank them. The other part of it is, and this is not with COVID. There has been something that we call compassion exhaustion that people want to give, want to care but there has been a such deluge of need, dysfunction, fear, violence, crime, and mental illness. People are so like, “Enough already.”
The term was used heavily around the homeless crisis.
Yes, it is used there because people are tired.
It’s hard feeling bad so much too because there is a lot of compassion but people don’t know what to do. That exhaustion comes from, “I don’t know how much more bad I can feel sometimes. It hurts. It hurts to keep feeling this bad.”
The mental illness, we have so many conversations around here. There’s not enough time to delve deep into that honestly, but the fact is we need to focus on mental illness as part of our safety issues. We have to. There’s no weight of getting around that. We are not doing enough in that area as a region. There’s work being done and going to be more good that’s happening when we met with the chief. We heard some very promising things about increases in staff, working with fire, and getting funding for more mental health services.
[bctt tweet=”We need to focus on mental illness as part of our safety issues. There’s no way of getting around that and we are not doing enough in that area as a region.” via=”no”]
It’s all beautiful stuff. It’s like trying to dig way out with a soup spoon. However, that’s why everyone needs to do it together. One soup spoon, not so much. With a thousand soup spoons, we will probably get somewhere. You asked me earlier, and I will respond in this way. What other people and I need to do is that we need to take care of ourselves. We need to find our own emotional intelligence and resilience. We need to be able to do that so we can be of service to others and have the bandwidth that we are not exhausted but it is our responsibility at the end of the day, not only to take care of ourselves and our families but to take care of each other.
I will say passion is to encourage people to get involved in the community because of what you are saying, the importance of getting involved and being there for each other. It’s so easy to get distracted by news, which in my opinion, it’s hard to even know what’s real and what isn’t at this point in the news, given all the trolling, AI, and deepfake.
You can almost come up with stories out of nowhere and share them on social media that are written by a bot. In fact, Tristan Harris was talking about this in a podcast. He was a guy who did The Social Dilemma. If you get too distracted with all of that, reiterating what you hear and see, and they say, “Believe only none of what you hear in half of what you see.” They say that for a reason.
If you take all that into consideration, the only thing left to do that can prevent you from being locked in your house is being an armchair quarterback. That’s your line. The only thing you can do is get up and try to make a difference for something you believe in on whatever side you are on. I appraise people who get out there to do something because sitting around and doing nothing means you are unhappy.
You are miserable, and who knows how legitimate that information is? When you are doing, then you are part of the solution. You are part of and at least at the local level. It’s so easy to get involved. This isn’t like, “How do I change the federal climate policy?” You are talking about preventing an accident on your corner by putting a stop sign and fighting for it.
I will go one further. It’s going down your hallway and checking on the senior that’s there three doors down. Being of service to others can be these small random acts of kindness, as we say, that have big results. I love where you are going with this because the thing that I thought about when you were talking is that people feel powerless. There’s a choice here. Not an easy choice but there’s a choice here. You can sit like your armchair quarterback in front of that TV, in front of CNN or what have you, and go into trance. To me, it’s almost like science fiction. I will look at these people sitting and looking at CNN for hours or in a trance.
It’s like the casino people all day pulling the slot machine.
It’s the discomforting thing because you are not feeling you’re in a trance but you are powerless. Ultimately, it doesn’t serve anybody, including you and especially you. Service has to do, in my experience of many years in service organizations, that you have to create that bridge to service for people. You have to give them an achievable path. You have to give them small little things to do, and it snaps them out of this minutia, this best intention land to say, “That wasn’t so bad. That was great.”
An example of that is the work that I did through the Homeless Action Network with West Coast Care, who I adore. I adore the cast around in all of them. While we started the toiletry bags for the homeless because it’s easy. It reaps rewards and creates humanity. It creates collaboration for people of all ages. People feel good about them. It’s easy to do, and then when you hand over that bad to someone who hasn’t been able to feel human in a long time, someone is looking at them and treating them like a real person and handing them this gift of self-worth.
John, on the beach, “When was the last time you brushed your teeth, John?” It’s these small things that have great reap rewards. Creating that bridge is important. The big things are important. For people like you or others who are ready or practiced in service, then what’s the next step? What are these greater magnificent things we can achieve together? People are not feeling empowered. They are feeling exhausted. We have to find those ways to do things together that make a difference.
Maybe now it’s going to make a difference in one person’s life. Maybe tomorrow there will be ten people’s lives. For me, my experience in many years and directly running the chamber are those things that I didn’t even know when people came to me and said, “You did this. You said this, and it changed my life or made such a difference. You don’t realize what that did for me that day.” If more people could get that light bulb coming on going, “That felt good.”
It feels good to do good. To be able to figure out ways to help people to get out of their trance and their minutia and their inability to act because there are so many people who have the best intentions. They do. I did for many years. I have been completely dedicated to service for many years now. Before that, I was filled with the best intentions. “That sounds like a great idea. I wish I could do that,” and it doesn’t serve me.
The one thing that I tell people, that I try to encourage them in terms of service in this chaotic world we live in, when you open your eyes, you know that at least you’ve done a little bit to make life a little better for yourself or someone else. That can mean the world. That gets me out of bed. That can be the difference between someone giving up and someone standing up and moving forward. It can be.
It’s that sense of meaning that I don’t know what percentage of people feel that or don’t but that is what gets you out of bed in the morning. It gives you the spark, the energy, the vitality to go and keep doing what you are doing. If you don’t have that, it’s easy to stay in bed. It’s easy to be depressed. That’s a Viktor Frankl concept, Man’s Search for Meaning, which is a great book to recommend to the world.
When you have that sense of meaning, any suffering is ceased us to become suffering at an extreme level. Even more important, if it’s something that you care about and believe it’s within you to deliver to the world, you get joy out of that, and it gives you satisfaction, that’s about as good as it gets to create a sense of meaning, a sense of purpose, and a life that’s worth living. If you can provide an economic model and value, that’s the ultimate. Now you can run a business that can do that. That beats you up every day. You can survive, feed your family, and keep providing this incredible service.
There are cool businesses out there. We have this new Lala Cafe that opened. That’s working with people who are less advantaged. There are so many reasons. In Santa Monica, how do I love the, “You are a tough sister but let me tell you, I love you like a sister because of the people who do show up.” There are a lot of people who show up in this community who care. It is being careful that we don’t lose our way when we care so much about things that we have a vision that can become narrowminded the way things should be.
There’s always that balance between having some level of willingness to look at things in different ways because that’s part of service. Respecting someone else’s opinion and understanding that I think there might be something out there that changes my mind. This might be a great idea but maybe you are going to come up with something that I never even thought of. I’ve done a lot of talks about emotional intelligence because it’s so important to people. More than anything, emotional intelligence, it’s a mistake that we don’t teach this in schools because it can make or break someone.
[bctt tweet=”Emotional intelligence is how you deal with your life or how you destroy your life.” via=”no”]
It’s how you deal with your life.
That’s right or how you destroy your life due to the lack of it. If we come from that place if it, at the end of the day, we ultimately pretty much want the same things. We want to feel we are good people. We want to be loved. We want to love. We want to feel we make a difference, all that great stuff. How do we truly get there in the most positive light-filled way of not full prey to our fears and our egos of, “I know better than you?”
How do we do that in Santa Monica? For example. We are a microcosm of what’s happening at a federal level but it’s manageable here to some communities but we experience it. We experience polarity. We experience bitterness sometimes that, 1) Prevents things from getting done but, 2) It’s also not a nice way of being. It doesn’t feel good. They had adnominal attacks constantly, which is, in my opinion, could be construed as childish if you are name-calling in a sense.
You’ve seen that on every level.
How do adults still do that? How are we, name-calling people? Instead of knowing that the end result is to get to common ground, to find consensus. You can’t always get what you want. Not everything that comes out is going to be something you love. Is it manageable? It’s a give and takes, and we must play nicely together. How do we get there in Santa Monica?
Some people are not going to like this. The council has to go to school basically. They have to go to Ethics class. Ethics, teaching, training, whatever you want to call it. Wouldn’t it be great if they were a module that was emotional intelligence that teaches a certain level of decorum, a way to be graceful and treat people well? We learn from our leaders. We’ve seen the best and worst of them, especially this time.
I’m going to step back from that because I’m taking off my chamber hat for a second. I’m taking my little spiritual hat on. We have no power over anyone else. We don’t, and we consider and talk about what we think everyone else should do all day long. We can do that, and there’s a lot that needs to be done. Part of it is looking at ourselves, “How could I be the very best person I could be now? How can I put my ego aside to be more open and available in an authentic way?”
In my next iteration, my next chapter, I’ve talked to a lot of people about doing different types of training and teaching. I love to teach. That is a worthy training session for people to understand how they operate. What are those things? What are those triggers? You said, why do people act like that? It’s because they are triggered, whether it’s from something that happened but it manifests from a deep place in themselves that’s impoverished in some ways.
People don’t react like that when they are empowered, when they feel abundant. They don’t. We lose that ability to feel like that. What we do is react. We strike out because we are feeling almost like a baby. You see a baby who gets swaddled because they are frantic. You swaddle those babies, take the baby, hold them down and say, “You are safe. You are loved.” Each one of our council, from time to time, probably needs to be swaddled. That probably be a good idea.
In all forms of leadership, it’s a very demanding and hard job. Emotionally and you have to have thick skin to be able to handle the type of emails that they are getting and the type of things that people say to them. You have to go in there knowing a certain set of criteria to step into that role. Everyone needs love and support to some degree.
Also, they have to learn. I was speaking to someone about some of this stuff. I said, “I mentor young girls,” which I love to do, help them find themselves. One of them asked me, “What is one of the most important things I’ve learned in my career?” I said, “How to disappoint people.” Certainly council, that’s a very important thing to learn because you will not make everyone happy, ever.
One of the councils said to me that she used to say it all the time and I used to laugh, “I know I’ve done my job when everyone walks away from the table unhappy.” You have to learn how to disappoint people. The chamber had to learn how to disappoint. In politics, we’ve had to learn to disappoint because everyone has opinions on all sides of the fence. You go that way, and those people aren’t unhappy.
Can we accept that? Can everyone learn to accept that now didn’t go your way?
You’ve got a piece of it. Can you accept part of it? Do you have to have the whole pie or can you get a slice?
Is the slice okay, and maybe next time you will get more of what you want but knowing that it’s a give and take.
Maybe you will bring the pie to the party next time.
Why the anger?
It’s fear, lack of abundance, self-loathing, and judgment.
In the North of Montana, huge homes. That’s best quality of life ever.
Lack of gratitude. Whatever way you want to say that, again, it comes right back down to learning emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is gratitude. It’s being grateful for being alive. Being grateful to be healthy and to love. It stems from these very basic but such important places in us. It’s to open my eyes and say, “I need this,” but say, “Hi, world. Thank you for another day. What can I put into the world to make it better? What can I do to contribute?” It’s a funny thing being of service takes you out of yourself and often can help heal you at that moment. We are so busy being self-centered narcissists all the time. “I need, I want, I don’t have it.”
It’s a muscle. We practice a type of thinking. We change our perception. We make a choice about what we are willing to think about. We make a choice about what we are willing to talk about. I have a friend. All she wants to do is during the whole Trump thing. I said, “Not having this conversation.” There are people that are addicted to pain and suffering. It’s a fact.
That gives them meaning. That makes them feel empowering.
It’s self-righteous justification.
It’s very similar sometimes I find to sports. It’s a political form of sports where the ability to criticize a person who spent their whole life training has agility and endurance beyond the capacity of most people and the skills required to perform this, and the dedication and determination. For years, their life is spent doing this, and then it’s easy to point fingers and be like, “You idiot had you dropped the ball.” In front of the entire world who’s watching you. “How could you do something like that?”
There’s a level because sometimes there’s a feeling that those people are playing and doing it. It gives them a little bit of power to criticize someone else who’s doing it. That’s similar to politics, where you are not involved. You are not doing much. You are living your life in whatever. You are not doing much in terms of service to the community. You are not civically active but to point fingers and criticize how other people are doing things gives you a feeling of that, meaning that you do have power and control.
It’s self-righteous superiority. Unfortunately, people feel empowered by anger instead of it being empowered by love. Love is much more powerful but people go to anger because it’s easy. It’s an easy feeling to bring up. It’s uncomplicated, primal.
Fear is our first primal response. It’s a response to that.
We have to learn the ways that we shift, and it is that. As you know, I do my non-yoga every single morning. Why? It’s because it helps me shift. It helps me start the day with the right intention. It’s practice. Practice changes our brains. It changes our life. I’m doing it differently now. What am I doing for someone else now? If people took a little bit of time in the morning and set intentions a little. Set some intentions that, “Now I’m going to add to the world and not worry what the world’s giving me.”
[bctt tweet=”We have to learn the ways that we shift.” via=”no”]
Again, it’s easier said than done for everybody. I get that but small steps. I’ve said this a couple of times but it’s important that people don’t have to be overwhelmed by what they think they should do or could do. They can do little stuff. Little stuff makes a difference. It’s lifting your head and looking someone straight in the face when you are walking by them and saying, “How are you? How are you doing?”
I feel like we once talked about that years ago. That was the smallest effort. Maybe it was in civic love or something. I remember talking to you about that. That is the atomic level of contribution to a community. When you walk by a person in your neighborhood who looks safe, we will say generally, you lift your head and smile and say, “Good morning.” The easiest thing you can do. Builds a relationship, makes someone smile, and you add a smile to the day by smiling at them. One smile. That is the atomic level.
What is that trigger? Who are they? Are they suddenly responding to someone in the same way? I don’t know who said happiness. It was like Dalai Lama, “Happiness is contagious.” These small acts are contagious or they can be the other way. When I used to run restaurants, we would say the experience starts in the parking lot because if that person gets a bad experience in the parking lot and comes already in with an attitude, then they go to the host. They’ve got a little bit of edge, and this host be like, “What is the deal with this person? She’s reacting or he’s reacting a certain way.” By the time they gave to the waiter, they were not very nice people.
[bctt tweet=”Happiness is contagious. These small acts are contagious.” via=”no”]
It’s a great tip for businesses, by the way. You don’t hear that a lot.
I used to teach that. It’s called guest first service.
Experience starts in the parking lot. With RideAmigos, a transportation company for years now, one of the things we work on is that employee wellness starts with your commute. Very similarly, when you head to a restaurant or to whatever store you are going to, if you have trouble parking, you got a little edge. There’s a little bit of anxiety there. The more you can remove that on your way to a thing, you want to feel the joy that whole way there or else there’s a little bit tough. The rating of the whole experience drops a couple of points. That’s good advice for businesses, Main Streets.
You can always do a reset. That’s what I tell people. Don’t let it get to a place where that boulder’s rolling down the hill, and you have no control of it anymore. You stop and reset. You understand, and again, it’s emotional intelligence. If you teach emotional intelligence to your staff, then they know that what’s happening now probably has nothing to do with them. Instead of going, “What did I do today?” It’s like, “Wow.” You get to sit with the person, “How are you doing? Are you okay?” They go, “I’m okay. I just blah blah.” “I’m so sorry about that. Maybe I will check into that for you.” You want to be able to let people get back in their bodies sometimes because you see them.
Sometimes when they are angry, they are way up here. They are charging ahead and it’s like, “What do I do with this information now? Do I take it?” It’s like Zen, “Do I let it pass by me or do I take it full on?” It’s these choices that we make in life that make a difference. It has to do with our own healing, our own wholeness. I’m not going to own reactivity. If I go into the world reactive, I’m going to have a reactive day. If I go into the world making a choice not to be reactive, thoughtful, and whole, then I’m doing my thing.
I will add one on that too. Not to take things personally, as you said. Everyone deals with that to some degree. I know I’ve had to check myself and be like, “Are you taking things personally?” If you are taking this personally and you don’t need to because then you react out of fear and anger again, and you think it’s about you. It’s narcissistic behavior to think everything is about you and take things personally. 9 out of the 10 things that we react to are things that aren’t about us at all. If we knew what the other person was thinking, we would have been like, “I didn’t need to go through those mental gymnastics of feeling that.”
Maybe you could have turned that into an opportunity to love, to be of service. I can’t say how many times when I’ve gotten that, and I’ve gone, “What’s going on with you?” They go, “My mother died.” We have no idea what’s going on with that person. If we have enough self-worth and compassion, we can shift. We can shift them. We can help them say, “I’m so sorry. What can I do for you?” It seems so simplistic sometimes but these are the things that move mountains. They are, and it’s hard for people to understand because they are reacting, doing, and going to make it okay.
People are out in the clamor of worldly things like, “Get out of my way.” We have a lot of work to do in terms of taking our ourselves and each other and making commitments to do that. Not talk about it that sounds great and not indulge. I don’t indulge people in a lot of negative conversations. I won’t because they will find their people.
It’s not worth taking your energy either because then you have to absorb that and then make that part of your day.
Some people like you said, get energy from that, and God bless them. If you want to go and with the friends that go in, “Did you know that?”
They are called internet trolls.
How about it?
They put inflammatory statements on people’s feeds to get a reaction to create controversy, which then the algorithms increase in virality or whatever because people love controversy.
If it’s a sweet, loving story, you will get 23 people with hearts and emojis. You say, “This is great. Thank you for sharing.” You get something that’s nasty, you got 621 people giving you their opinion.
It gets controversial. It’s well known that controversy sparks that interest immediately, the engagement and the likes, the comments and the shares. People love controversy. It strikes the fear emotion. It strikes the I’m right emotion. It strikes the you are to blame emotion, and it gets all of that. That’s a huge part of the problem, even locally. These stories have very little truth to them.
I’m not trying to come off as Pollyanna because I am a strong woman and have been in conflict. I’ve had to walk through things. I’ve had to learn how to stand up and have a voice. What is your intention? If there are things that you have to talk about and you are not of the same opinion, of the same mind as someone, then what do you do as a mature, centered human being to say, “Where do we go with this? How do we get through this?”
The intention is to have a level of dialogue where you are able to get to some level of connection to another person or surrender that maybe we are not going to think the same way. I’m still going to respect your opinion and respect you. Again when I refer to the expression as, “Armchair quarterback.” It’s a difference between not wanting to do something because when I say to people, “Great. Do you want to do something? Come with us over here, speak that counsel.” They are like, “I don’t have time.”
It’s to what end. If your intention is right, it is to be able to have some level of change, have a voice in some way, and work with people because we bump against each other. We don’t all have the same opinions, and we shouldn’t have all the same opinions. I’ve learned in this job to ride that fence a lot and to respect the fact that I may not believe the way you do but I respect you as a person and why you think like that. That’s a difference in terms of seeing real change happen.
If you were to give one magic pill to everyone and start with Santa Monica, that can give them that because, obviously, getting people to take emotional intelligence training is challenging. At the leadership level and also at the civic level because leaders listen to generally the people who are complaining the loudest or where there’s the most need at the moment. Often, there’s controversy around these issues.
What could be that one thing that everyone can do now that we can get a little bit better towards civility or reduction in polarity? Is it turn off social media a little bit? Is it question the information a little bit? Is it give people when they are talking if you disagree with them a little bit more respect but this would let Santa Monica, if we can do this a little be more efficient. Everyone would get more of what they wanted faster, and we would feel better as a community. What could it be? What could be one takeaway?
I will tell you what came into my mind, and whether it’s the right takeaway. What came to my mind was to listen. Allow people to express themselves. One of the things that drive me crazy is people who will not let each other talk. They are constantly cutting into each other’s statements. They know they are not even hearing what you have to say because they have already their come back.
If people slow down, try to be less reactive and allow people to express themselves and listen. It would be more productive because sometimes, when you allow them, “No, I’m not listening. I’m not going to hear it.” That’s important. It’s something that I see less of, unfortunately. A lot of people play this game of consistently cutting each other off in conversations. It drives me crazy if I’m talking to someone and they never allow me to finish my sentence.
Why I even say it is because you know they are not listening anyway. Anything you say is worthless. It’s hitting a cement wall.
There’s no great outcome. It’s two egos.
I wouldn’t call it a conversation.
No, it’s two egos smashing into each other basically.
It’s independent conversations taking stimulus. It’s two response machines independently responding.
The obvious choice is kindness. If I was to say, what I think is the most obvious is to make the choice to be kind no matter what.
[bctt tweet=”Make the choice to be kind no matter what. Kindness shifts everything.” via=”no”]
That is a choice.
It’s a powerful choice because kindness shifts everything. When you are being critical, when you are judgemental, not to make that choice, so just be kind. That’s not necessary. You don’t need to put that in. Sometimes I will say, “What you are about to say now, is that helpful in any way? Is it? Is it helping you? Is it helping anyone?” Sometimes it is not. To learn to say, “That doesn’t need to be there.” I don’t need to impress my ego into this situation.
How about learning not to respond to everything you hear? You can be silent, and that’s much more powerful.
I watch people who do that. I know people who do that and respect people who do that. You can imagine how many meetings I have been in over the last many years. I’ve watched the people who are less active listening. They do the right things. They are active listening, and when they feel the time is right to add something productive, they do, and guess what? Everyone listens. As the person who would be like, “I think.”
They usually speak low too in a softer voice.
They speak metered, which is beautiful. The Obama way, I’ve tried to learn that the meter, when I do public speaking, is to be metered. It is powerful because you are making statements for a reason. You are saying something for a reason. “I feel this way because,” and I love that. I love that thoughtfulness that comes with that too, with the goal to add something that’s beneficial. Not to hear myself speak or to let you know what I think. If I do that, I have to tell you, there are times. In my head, I’m going, “Blah, blah, blah.” Was that necessary, honestly? “Did it help you or anyone else?”
Less is more sometimes. How do you see taking all this in? How do you see the future of Santa Monica? Let’s play for the next 10-15 years.
That’s an interesting thing to ask me because I’m leaving it in months.
That’s exactly why I’m asking.
I will tell you based on history, not necessarily the future. Historically, this town has risen and fallen in many different ways, and it continues. At the end of the day, talk about gratitude. Look around, folks. One of our managers used to love to say, “Santa Monica, an embarrassment of riches.” Look at the people, the beach, and how close we are to all these opportunities to hike and nature and experience your whatever spirit is to you in those moments, for people to have fun. The sink tank that’s here. You think of the biotech firms here at Rand. I could go on and on and the wealth, the assets of Santa Monica. Do we have a prompt? Does anyone have assets as we do on so many different levels?
Honestly, they don’t. I know it. I travel and still do the travel and tours board for over the years. I have been to other cities, states, and countries, and people are like, “Oh, Santa Monica.” They may not know anything else. They have that special reverence, and they should. In the future, we’ve got work to do. There are tough things but Santa Monica is Santa Monica.
We will always survive. We will always be one step ahead of most cities, and you hear that. I hear that. I hear that all the time from people. “They are nice but you guys, Santa Monica? My favorite.” No matter what next door is telling you, we will recover and be stronger than we were. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and we are still here to tell the tale, honestly. I’m excited. I may not be doing the same thing I’m doing but I will always have my ear to the ground about what’s going on here. Many years of friendships, colleagues, and mentors that don’t go away.
I’ve made many friends here. I have many people I love, admire, and am interested in. Nonprofits that I will continue to sit on their boards and see how I can give back, to be of service in ways that I can and enjoy. Enjoy these places. It’s a fun place to be. When you think of all the great things you can do here, it’s a pretty fun place to be.
It’s why it’s Santa Monica. It’s one of the highest-demand places to live in the entire country in the world. Are you excited about your next chapter?
I am. It feels good. I’m excited because I feel like I’ve done what I need to do. That, I know. There are some unknowns in the future now, which is great. I want it that way. I don’t want to make too many decisions now other than go to Thailand. That’s about the only decision I’m making. It feels like the right time for me. It feels good. I feel good about it.
We praise your hard work here. You are loved and appreciated. I know how hard it is to put in that dedication and deal with some of the things you’ve dealt with over the years. It’s hard work being a civic leader, so thank you.
I nurtured that baby for a long time. I’m hoping to lovingly place it into someone else’s hands or can help things, continue to be great and have new ideas and do all sorts of fun stuff that I’ve not even thought of and cheer them on. That’s what I hope for.
I wish you the best, and I’m always here for you. Thank you.
Thanks for this. This is always fun. We always have a great time.
This is always fun, and I suppose the end of our conversation for this episode but hopefully, you will be back again on version two of this.
I will come back and tell you all about Thailand.
I love it. It sounds good.
That’s an experience I will be happy to talk about.
Thanks for everything. Thank you again to Lowe’s for this beautiful fireside chat.
Important Links
- Laurel Rosen – LinkedIn
- Westside Council of Chambers of Commerce – Facebook
- West Coast Care
- Man’s Search for Meaning
- RideAmigos