How Humanity-Centered Communication Is Transforming Leadership | Kibi Anderson
Jen Porter (00:00)
Hey, Lioness, welcome to the show, Lioness Conversations, where we help women be brave, to lead with confidence and joy, and to find your path to the most meaningful work of your life. I'm your host, Jen Porter, leadership and empowerment coach for ambitious and heart-centered women who are ready to change the world. You can find out more at jenportercoach.com and join the Lioness community there. Joining us today is Kibi Anderson.
Leadership strategist dedicated to helping leaders master authentic communication and ⁓ an Emmy award-winning storyteller. With a remarkable career spanning from Deloitte, ABC News, Bloomberg, and Hollywood, she now focuses on her core mission of bringing humanity back to business. Kibi, welcome to the show.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (00:54)
Thank you. It's so good to be here, Jen. This has been a long time coming, so I'm excited.
Jen Porter (00:58)
Well,
it's been so fun to get to know you through the Lioness Rise Up storytelling. for those who don't know, I'm writing a book and I've invited Kibi to be a part of that. You were actually nominated by a mutual friend to be one of the lionesses featured in the book. So I have the privilege of knowing your backstory and how you got to be who you are now and what you're doing in the world. tell...
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (01:12)
Mm-hmm.
Jen Porter (01:25)
⁓ Tell the listeners what is it that you're really focused on right now?
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (01:29)
Yeah, well, you said it so eloquently. mean, working on bringing humanity back to business. And as I wake up, I'm based in Los Angeles. And this morning, just even kind of seeing the headlines and all of the things that are being done at the national level to strip the state that I'm in of its sovereignty, of its humanity, of allowing people to actually connect in a more kind of honest and real way is lacking. So I have
spent many, years in and around the professional space, corporate America, entrepreneurship. And I'm a firm believer that when leaders are human, the world becomes more human. And so a lot of my work is rooted in this mission around building curious and confident and capacity rich people to help usher us into.
this new era. So I do that as an executive coach, as you shared, as a leadership strategist, I'm an author, a speaker, ⁓ a storyteller, as you shared. So yeah, excited to dive into some of the topics today. It's so fascinating. So all of you ⁓ who are in the, can't get enough of AI and chat world, I was having a conversation with chat and we'll talk a little more.
Jen Porter (02:36)
You are a communicator.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (02:49)
some of the ways I'm leveraging technology in my business. I was just thinking about how do I begin to more effectively express what I do, right? Because you sort of say executive coach, okay, you get it. You say leadership strategist, you say storyteller. But as I looked at the through line of the kinds of clients I work with, you I have a background in entertainment. I've worked in corporate America. And Chat and I were talking and he said, you know, Akiba, you are a vocal doula.
Jen Porter (03:17)
oooo
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (03:17)
You
really help, you help people that have platforms who may have perhaps confronted some difficulty. Maybe they're trying to re shift identities. They're trying to think about how do I elevate and push forward an agenda and bring people with me? And in many ways they are stuck. Like they're having a hard time kind of birthing and pushing this out. And I help people reclaim their voices and they do, and to do it in a way that is centered in, like I said, humanity, emotional integrity. ⁓
inspiration, courage, boldness, all the things that we need right now to survive this current height level of uncertainty. And so that really spoke to me. I was like, all right, chat, you go for it. So a vocal doula.
Jen Porter (03:56)
That's good. Vocal doula, I love that. So I've been compared
to a doula too, just the work of a coach, helping to bring forth what is inside someone, not being the expert of their life, but just coming alongside and helping them bring to life what has been placed in them. It's beautiful.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (04:18)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. mean, it's
⁓ such a special gift that we coaches have, right? Because you are trying to birth things. And I think for me, this season of my life has been really centered in specificity. You know, like I always say that imposter syndrome exists in the world.
like lack of focus. Like the way to overcome imposter syndrome is to get specific. And it's in spaces where you don't have clarity where imposter syndrome breeds. So not that I'm necessarily managing imposter syndrome right now, but as I've been thinking more and more, especially in this heightened sense where there's so much noise, like how do I actually break through? One of the things that I began to really try to understand about myself was like,
Jen Porter (04:41)
Mmm.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (05:02)
You know, as I think about my gifts in communication and you're right, storytelling, you know, helping other people's tell their stories, helping organizations tell their stories. It is a competitive advantage. so layering in the vocal element was really, really empowering for me. And as you talk, as we talk about kind of your guests, wanting them to kind of figure out where to find their courage and their bravery as it relates to their own purpose. One of the first things that you have to do is be able to articulate your story in a way.
that is connected and resonant. And a lot of folks struggle. Like we are not taught how to do that. So I realized it's a gift I've been given. I'm excited to do it more and bring other folks along. So yes.
Jen Porter (05:39)
Yes.
Well, when we spoke before,
what stood out to me is how imperative it is that we know how to communicate, that we learn how to communicate. What are you seeing in the world that you're in right now, the spheres that you're influencing, what are you seeing around communication?
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (06:00)
Well, I argue this to the kind of cows come home that the most important survival skill today is the ability to communicate effectively. And I describe effective communication in very distinctive ways. It's about bringing back humanity to communication because unfortunately, over the last several decades with a heightened rise of technology, the heightened rise of individualism, the heightened rise of... ⁓
kind of the globalization of us, which on the one hand kind of makes us feel a lot closer, but the other side of that is that it gives us the illusion that we're closer than we really are. And so it allows us to begin to create narratives in our mind that are not necessarily rooted in reality. And that's one of the reasons why I find that the world today is so just in a destructive state. Like we've kind of forgotten who we are. And so a lot of this is about
kind of re-establishing that connection and ensuring that ⁓ the tools to do that are clear. A lot of leaders think that they're good communicators and they aren't. Like a lot of us think we know how to talk because we talk all the time. Our first word is like one of those things that are celebrated, but the truth is like, we actually talk in a very destructive way. And as somebody who grew up watching television, I'm a latchkey kid, Gen X.
Jen Porter (07:07)
Great.
Yeah.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (07:24)
Gen Xer content was my teacher. Television and film were a lot of the teachers that I had in addition to books. It took me going through my own challenges with communication, breaking down, trying to lead, and realized, wait, wait, something's off to recognize, ⁓ we were never taught this. And so the more and more I talk to people, and I start to bring up observations or patterns, and they begin to kind of realize, wow, I'm actually creating a lot of the things that I
and trying to avoid, the imperatives of this work becomes that much more important. ⁓ given the only way to build connection and trust with somebody is through communication. Like as human beings, we're the only species on this planet that has the ability to communicate in this way. And we've taken it for granted. And so a lot of the thing that I'm seeing now is a heightened understanding of like, how imperative it is.
Jen Porter (07:58)
Mm-hmm.
Hmm. ⁓
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (08:19)
that we recognize this distinction and the privilege of being able to communicate. And then beyond that, okay, now how do we do this in a way that is actually gonna allow us to rise above a lot of the ⁓ base, I think kind of like survival driven communication, which is where the violence, the assumptions, a lot of the stuff that we're battling with right now.
Jen Porter (08:37)
⁓ okay.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (08:44)
And what I am arguing is that the way to get out of that is to increase what I call CQ or curiosity quotient. And that is driven by how we communicate. So happy to share more, but like that's one of the biggest things that I'm seeing trend wise and why this work is so urgent today.
Jen Porter (08:52)
Mm-hmm.
I'm sure that people are already interested in how to find you, so I'm just gonna go ahead and plug it now. So, kibianderson.com is your website. So that's where they can find out more, and of course, follow you on social. So, I'm really curious about this communication piece because it's it's nuanced. I think, ⁓ I'm thinking about the difference between speaking words.
equals noise and actually communicating and you're talking about this humanity within the art the way that we communicate leading from a place of humanity what does that mean like the differences between those
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (09:42)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, definitely. and I really want to make this distinction between kind of like survival-based, kind of animalistic and like a human-based like thriving and growth and sort of abundance mindset. And we exist in both, right? Like we are animals at our core, so we need to learn how to survive. And a lot of our communication as we are in that kind of earlier state is rooted in survival, which is...
Jen Porter (09:50)
Yeah.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (10:10)
oftentimes assumption-based, right? And it's rooted in the fact that the minute we don't assume the worst, we could die. And you take this back to the early stages of humans on this earth. I use this a lot in my coaching work around communication. Back in the day, you heard the leaves rustle. You assumed there was probably a tiger there. And then you run. And so the habitual way our brain synapses are trained habitually is to recognize leaves in the
leaves rustling, tiger run. Now that is absolutely necessary when you're only up against, you know, a tiger and like a rock, right? Like, so it was important for us to be able to learn how to survive. And the way we're communicating is rooted in assumption. I'm going to assume that these negative things are going to happen because that's how I survive. That's a baseline, right? Unfortunately, today we are still moving with that survival based communication.
Jen Porter (11:06)
Has humanity always done that? We've always operated in the assumption.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (11:08)
We've always done that. We've always, I
mean, yeah, because survival is rooted in assumption. Like, cause the minute you don't assume and you do confront that tiger and you're not prepared, you could die, right? Like, so that is the core essence of it, just biologically. Fear is a biological function. And so we can't divorce ourselves from that emotion. The problem is that in today's society, despite the fact that we have guns, we have cars, we have technology, we have all of these things.
Jen Porter (11:22)
Yeah.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (11:36)
that allow for our survival. Our body emotionally cannot tell the difference. I'm sorry, our brain emotionally cannot tell the difference. And so when somebody maybe says a word that makes us feel the same way we feel when we were in the bushes thousands of years ago, we still respond in the same accusatory, angry, perhaps not as understanding. We're exhausted. We don't have the capacity to actually pause. And so when we talk about human-based thinking,
and human-based communication, it's allowing for the plethora of emotions that could exist outside of fear to actually drive your next word. And so this is where I say humanity, human is to have a multitude of emotions. So while yes, it could be fear, perhaps it's shame, perhaps it's excitement, perhaps it's something else that's driving the experience, the exchange you're having with the other person.
But until we can get into what I call curiosity-based communication, which is really the core of like human elevated conversation, we can't actually have connection because if I'm afraid of you, I can't trust you. And so it's about getting out of fear and moving into all of these other emotions in the world that are also just as human. And because we have evolved, have technology with all these things, we actually have the capacity and the space to choose those instead.
Jen Porter (12:39)
Yeah.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (13:00)
And so this is where a lot of my work in helping to retrain leaders specifically, and when you're confronted with a trigger, say you're told be up to fire somebody because you're having to downsize your ⁓ costs because of the impending tariffs, just kind of bringing it currently, your immediate instinct is not to avoid the conversation, not to tell them the truth because you're afraid of feeling, I don't want to hurt their feelings, I don't want them to get mad at me, all those kinds of things.
Jen Porter (13:02)
Mm.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (13:29)
which causes you to do something that's going to create further distrust. The last thing somebody wants to do is to be gaslit if they know that they have to be let go. So as an alternative, I encourage leaders to say, well, how might you better understand what the other person needs? And then from there, make a more informed choice. And I have a framework that I use with my clients called the Oak Framework. O is for own your emotions. A is for assess your tone. And Q is for question to understand.
And it's through this Oak framework that people are able to shift conversations in a way where even if it's a perhaps a challenging emotional exchange, they're able to do it in a way that creates space for understanding, for tone, so that people don't feel completely destroyed when things perhaps are happening that have a negative emotion and they can maintain their humanity. Like that's the whole idea. So, you know, I just literally like compacted like, you know,
Jen Porter (14:21)
Mm-hmm.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (14:25)
decades of research and I'm even writing a book around this, working on a book around this now, like kind of in a very compact way, but that's what it means to go from survival-based thinking to humanity-based thinking because it allows people to maintain, yeah, their dignity.
Jen Porter (14:28)
Yeah?
You were speaking my
language. I love everything that you're focused on because it's so essential and it's so relevant that none of us don't have to deal with this. What I'm thinking about is how we go from that survival instinct to create, I would imagine that we have to create safety for ourselves in order to then move to curiosity. Is that true? Do you see it the same way?
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (14:48)
All of us.
Absolutely.
Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah, there's three levels of communication at any given time. The conversation you're having with yourself, the conversation you're having with your team, and the conversation you're having with your stakeholders. So that's the way I coach around communication. And the most important conversation that many people often forget is the one they're having with themselves. And until you can, like you say, talk yourself, right? It's not a lion, but maybe it's just you feel.
Jen Porter (15:09)
Yeah.
Definitely.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (15:27)
kind of worried, you know, you like this person, you don't want to hurt their feelings. You're feeling a little guilty. You're feeling a little shame. Like those are all natural feelings, but let's actually ask ourselves, okay, what is the process I can do in partnership with this person to either confirm if I should even feel shame? Because who knows? Maybe they're going to feel relieved. Like you just, there's so much you don't know. And then from there, allow that to drive this exchange curiosity to drive. what does, what would it take for me to perhaps
go from shame to relief, shame to support, shame to, and you do that, you co-create the outcome instead of assuming that that's the outcome that you're gonna get.
Jen Porter (16:08)
Yes, so deep because these, you know, to be a human is a complex experience.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (16:17)
Listen,
I coach on it. I don't get it right all the time, right? Like, so that's just so folks recognize, like, I mess up all the time, which is why I have a framework. Like, I'm a framework coach. I'm like, okay, how do you oak this conversation? How do you oak this exchange key? Because we all are humans. Like, I get scared. I get afraid. I'm tired. I'm exhausted. So this isn't about perfection, but it is about progress. And it is about recognizing and awareness. Cause that's actually, you know, they say showing up is half the battle. Awareness is 80 % of the battle because then we can at least start.
giving you the tools to do it differently.
Jen Porter (16:51)
Hmm. So the, like that creating safety for yourself, is that the O piece of the oak methodology? Own your emotions. So you're them with yourself first and you're like working through your stuff. Cause like we may be triggered. We are going to be fearful that we've seen this before. Has it gone well? We want to save like salvage relationships, you know, all the, which are survival, all of that survival.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (16:59)
Yes, own your emotions. Absolutely. Yeah. The first step is own your emotions. Absolutely. And really asking yourself.
Yep. Absolutely.
Yeah.
Jen Porter (17:21)
So, what are, okay, so it's a lot of work, right? But it's worthy work. What are some of the outcomes that you see in your clients, their teams, organizations that make it worth it to do this work?
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (17:32)
my goodness. Girl,
the first one, the biggest one people always tell me is, Kibi I feel so light. Because when clients come to me, they are exhausted. Because imagine how your body feels always in survival mode. Right? No matter what the survival mode is, right? Like it's, I don't have time to rest. You know, like the, this is a lot of my work as I talk about some of my other work in terms of, I'm sorry. This is my struggle in terms of some of the other work I talk about in.
Jen Porter (17:43)
Yeah.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (18:00)
creating capacity, but like we all are out here, like just caught up and consumed with these narratives that are oftentimes just not true. And if they are true, let's spend time problem solving as opposed to worrying. know, like you can only, can, whether you're worrying or you're ⁓ loving, you're, you're worshiping something. And my attitude is let's worship curiosity. Let's not worship worry. ⁓ But absolute, yeah, yeah. ⁓
Jen Porter (18:24)
So good. Wait, can we just pause
there? What Kibi's throwing down is so deep. What are we worshiping? We are always worshiping something we are created to worship. So we're going to worship something or multiple things or some people. So let's choose what we're worshiping. And you're saying to not worship worry. And I'm like, wow, that is so what
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (18:38)
Yeah, something.
Jen Porter (18:53)
Some people do. Obsessively. And it's learned, right?
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (18:55)
Some people, like so many people do, you know, and it's,
well, it's learn, but it's also survival, right? Like I don't want to, I don't want to shame people. I don't even feel guilty. Like we all worry, like worry is a natural part of life, especially when you're responsible for people, right? Like it is, I call my clients earnest leaders because like they care, like they take their responsibility really seriously. So it's not about not worrying. Like I say, fear.
Jen Porter (19:03)
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (19:23)
worry, anxiety, these are very natural emotions. It's about staying there too long. And I say this a lot to my clients, what is the purpose of a negative emotion? And a lot of folks will be like, it's to protect you. it's to warn you. And while, yes, that is one purpose of a negative emotion, unfortunately, when we only layer in the downside of a negative emotion, we actually begin to lose sight of the upside.
Like a negative emotion is there to tell you something has to change. That's it. So if we take out the judgment, change, bad change, good, it just, something has to change. And I say this all the time, the way to know if you're sitting in a negative emotion, worry, shame, guilt, any of those things, ⁓ too long, it's something called the hot stove rule. And I say this, how long does it take for you to know to take your hand off a hot stove before it's going to burn? Like it's seconds. So the minute you spend,
I'm sorry, the moment past second that you spend and worry it's not productive anymore.
Jen Porter (20:28)
Wow. I love the way you say that about how long are we spending in that place? Because it's natural to go there, especially first. Right? Yeah.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (20:29)
And so a lot.
Absolutely. We're wired to survive. Yeah. Like
no one's saying, don't listen to your instincts. What I'm saying is don't dwell. Don't create narratives. Don't create all kinds of, yeah, like multiple scenarios. Yes, scenario planning is important. I'm a strategist. get it. But let's also strategize the upside. And so to your point, what do people get out of it? There's relief. There's lightness. There's confidence. Like I said, there is...
Jen Porter (20:45)
I don't hang out with them anymore.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (21:02)
curiosity, like folks are like, wow, like I never even thought about that even being in the realm of something I could do. And so, so much of this is about helping people remind, remember the power and agency they have over everything, you know, and in the light, in light of, you know, tariffs, fascist administration, you know, like you can run down the list. Like there's so many things that are coming at us. We are undergoing a unprecedented amount of change.
That's not going anywhere. So the other part of my work with people is also helping them recognize like, this isn't changing. So if you're hoping that one day it's going to get, nah, So how do we prepare you and then your teams and then your customers? Like I said, those three levels and communicate with them away. So you begin to help them create safety every second because with the onset of AI and the rising use of technology that is literally
taking away the need for any repetitive things, right? The only thing that humans have at our disposal to ensure that we are around is our humanity. And yet we talk as though we are not human beings. We talk like robots. We talk like people who are out here living in sort of these fantasies as opposed to the truth. And so my work is always about, let's get people rooted in data so you can actually make an informed decision.
Jen Porter (22:18)
Hmm.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (22:29)
and then we can solve for that decision. But the minute you spend pontificating about everything that the other person could be doing, you know, and I mean, I deal with leaders who deal with all kinds of stuff. It's one second longer, one second longer you're spending in stuff that is not productive to you actually moving and leading forward. And when folks hear that, they get excited. They're like, ⁓ my God. And my clients will tell me, they're like, my God, Kibi I don't know why I wasted all this time.
As soon as we did this, I was just, and that's really the gift of a coach.
Jen Porter (23:03)
of things you mentioned that I think is really important too is this co-creation. Because if we are operating without intention or not on purpose, then we're kind of staying in our own cycle of survival and we're just talking at people. We're making decisions for people as opposed to the curiosity piece where we're actually bringing.
different perspectives in, like you said, that we wouldn't necessarily, we would never imagine that someone would have the perspective of, they might actually feel relief when I let them go. ⁓ So to co-create things, we get better outcomes. People are, generally can be happier, you know, with outcomes because there's more agency on multiple sides, not just by the one leader who's directing everything.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (23:33)
Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. Totally.
Completely, yeah,
yeah. Well, and so many people equate honesty and perhaps challenging exchanges with harm. This idea of life being honest, being direct, is to harm somebody, and that is a fallacy. And so that's some of the stuff that we have to break down. And you said it so eloquently. My goal is to help people have their sole intention to be curious.
Jen Porter (24:03)
Mm-hmm.
⁓ Mm-hmm.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (24:18)
Like we didn't, we don't got to overcomplicate this. think when people are like, what is your intention to say? My answer, just be curious, be as curious as you can. And I'm sure I got it. got to simplify stuff for people, especially clients who are navigating, you know, 40,000 team members and multiple policy changes. like, it's like, how do you create this as, as, as accessible, as simple way be simple. Oak every conversation and lead with like, don't.
Jen Porter (24:24)
Mm-hmm. So powerful, isn't it?
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (24:49)
loose side of the fact that we are always co-creating. Those are kind of the three things that really allow somebody to increase what I call their curiosity quotient. Like to really, really elitre that centering humanity as a superpower.
Jen Porter (24:52)
Mm.
What I see is that when we enter into curiosity, which is a decision we make every day, like every hour, like I'm gonna be curious about this. What I have seen is that it opens up the possibilities as opposed to being in this closed frame of mind where we lose our options.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (25:08)
Absolutely, it's a choice.
Completely. Yeah. And if you can, listen, I'm talking about folks, if you want to increase revenue, if you want to figure out how to do things more efficiently, if you want to keep your team members working hard, despite, like that is the only way to do it. Like that's the only way to do it. Like you can only guilt somebody, shame somebody, terrorize somebody into doing something for so long. But if you can curiously always try to understand what motivates them, like how do you make sure that this is a co-creation, you will be able to do.
Jen Porter (25:47)
Mm-hmm.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (25:50)
really anything. And I find that the biggest pushback I get from leaders is, how do you have time for that? Like, I'm just trying to get stuff done. And my answer to that is kind of twofold. I always begin to ask them, well, as soon as you're telling yourself you don't have time for something, I'm beginning to wonder, like, how much are you in survival mode? Like, how do we help you get back to that first conversation around, OK, well, if you're telling you don't have time to pause, which is in essence what it takes to co-create with somebody,
Jen Porter (26:12)
question. Yeah.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (26:20)
that I'm looking at, well, what is it that you're not trusting? That's a big part of it. And then the other part of it is, let me know how it's working out for you. And I say it in a very honest but accountable way. Are you getting the results that you want? Because if you're getting the results, then I'll shut up. But most people, when I say that, they're like, well, yeah, I guess you're right. So.
Jen Porter (26:36)
Yeah.
That's no true. That's not true
because I've the response to anything being I don't have time or you know, I how could I find the time for that or you know, something around lack that absolutely is a survival knee jerk reaction, isn't it? As opposed to a thoughtful curious one about might I have, I create time for that. How could I create time?
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (27:07)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm,
mm-hmm, mm-hmm, yeah. Or better yet, I mean, this is something that I had to do. So I have a book that I wrote, a chapter in a book that I wrote that's selling a book called Point Taken that came out last year, and it's called The Saga of Arrested Rebel. And I, again, I tell your audience members, I am the biggest needer, biggest person who needs my work, right? Like people say they coach around this, people coach most powerfully around the stuff that they struggle with.
Do not think I have this figured out. Like I have a tattoo on my hand. Like I have post-its and pictures to remind me of this idea of how do I shift to a rest-first-centered mindset? And for me, it's all about centering, like understanding that the power is actually in our pausing. It's not in the working more. But to your point, it's this idea of like, how do I like always make sure that I'm not resorting to
Jen Porter (27:54)
Yes.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (28:05)
a mindset rooted in what can go wrong and instead what can go right. Like, well, what can go right if I rest? Like, well, what can go right if I actually take a second to ask that person instead of assuming that I know what's going on? Like, what can go right if I enter it? And again, it's all about giving people access points. It's not gonna solve everything. But as I say, baby steps, micro actions, like how do we give people certain...
Jen Porter (28:08)
Hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (28:31)
entry points to begin to redefine their relationship with whatever they're doing. It's a powerful opening for people who are always pushing back, ah, it's not going to work for me. And I'm like, OK, all right.
Jen Porter (28:43)
Right, right. Okay, so you said this really quickly, but I want to pause on it. The Rusted Rebel. So where did that, what is that, first of all? Tell us what that is.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (28:50)
Mm-hmm.
Yes, yes,
yes, yes. So I am a recovering workaholic. I don't have time to rest, know, spit 30 easily, you know, well, I'm now kind of in the tail end of that 30 years, but, ⁓ you know, I'm a corporate executive. I'm an executive. I'm a corporate executive turned executive coach, which means I've done all of the things that all of my clients have done. I almost killed myself.
overworking. I listened to that voice inside of my head that was like, you don't have time to rest. The saboteurs were real. And unfortunately, I was diagnosed with an autoimmune condition that was a result of this arduous lifestyle that I put myself through because I vowed survival. I will never be broke, hungry or homeless again. And I, you know, unfortunately dealt with some of those things in my childhood. Now the challenges, hot stove.
I'm sitting on that for decades and decades and decades until I'm a hundred pounds in a hospital bed hooked up to machines. And my best, when my best friends came in to visit me, it's my probably 10th hospital stay in the span of, you know, a couple of years. And, ⁓ it was grim. It was very grim. You know, I'm, looking at my legs covered in upwards of 40 plus scars from ulcers that I was getting as a result of this.
⁓ pain, in excruciating pain, still basically try to take a pitch for a business that, that time that I had started to try and raise money, right? Like, and this is when I knew I rock bottom. Like I literally took a pitch for a VC from my hospital bed. I put on a blouse over a hospital gown where I was emaciated.
Jen Porter (30:33)
Mmm.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (30:38)
put on a face and literally over zoom for 20 minutes, gave everything that I had. then afterwards just collapsed in bed. And that was the moment my bet, like I said, having heard this, she came to me and to this day, I thank her for saving my life and was like, I don't understand. You were brilliant. You work with CEOs, you've coached business leaders from all over the world. You have a freaking Emmy and she used some more expletive words than that.
But I'll keep this a PG conversation. And she's just like, Kibi, don't understand why you won't use all that brilliance to heal yourself.
And you know how you have those moments where you just kind of.
I don't think I'm worth my own brilliance. it just, you know, even as I tell this story, I still sometimes get emotional because the level of depravity that I was in, and by the grace of God, a woman who loves me and did not shun from telling me how crazy I was, held that mirror up and just this dam broke, you know, and I just kind of sobbed and.
Jen Porter (31:29)
Hmm.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (31:50)
I say it was kind of like the sob of your ancestors, you who just are kind of like, finally my child, like, listen, you know, listen. And so from there, I began this kind of year and a half long journey towards refinding myself and redefining my relationship to rest. And so on the other side of it now, you know, I'm healed and it more, but more importantly, like I just, I have become a reformed rested rebel. Cause I realized how,
much, I was completely missing the point. And it's hard when you're in a society, talks about productivity as a sign of worth, you we're in a system and I'm not, listen, I am pro money. Like I am not anti-capitalism. I'm not that, but the way that we are operating in this system, the programming, the societal norms is that we are only worth the amount of stuff that we produce. And I, I,
I bought into it until I began to realize, no, no, no, that's what they want us to think. And so through my, like, you know, I took a year off. I'm a former consultant. So I literally became my case. Like I was like, I'm gonna hire me and treat me as a consultant and came up with, you know, lot of the frameworks, which, you know, we may or may not be able to have time to talk about today, but one of them was rooted in this idea of like, what are you not trusting? And if you can figure out what you're not trusting, then we can begin to come up with some solutions out of it.
Jen Porter (33:02)
Yeah.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (33:17)
But rest is fundamentally an act of trust. And so that's what it means to be arrested rebel, to like rebel against these programming that the only way to achieve is by working harder. And I'll end with this, you know, I tell myself this all the time and I tell this to my clients. You will never get what you want by working harder. You will kill yourself, but you will never get what you want. You will only get the success that you want in life by resting more.
Jen Porter (33:27)
Yeah.
Mm.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (33:48)
and I have the receipts to show it. I have clients that have the receipts to show it. I'm doing research around it. But yeah.
Jen Porter (33:55)
What I hear that you did in that is you listened to your friend and you actually did apply your own brilliance to your healing. You did. You opened yourself up to receive from yourself.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (34:04)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. And I'm really smart. I had all kinds of things in there that once I paused...
Jen Porter (34:17)
your own consultant. And so that's a forced pause, right? In a sense, because, and that's where a lot a lot of times we unfortunately get to is this rock bottom moment where we actually then wake up, wake up to life and what it truly is about. So what are you chasing now?
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (34:21)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, we do. Yeah, absolutely.
Pause. mean, like, I don't even, I take the chase off of it. Like I'm not, I rebuke, cause for me, am sustainable. I mean, I'm sorry. I am very susceptible. You know, it's like for those people who, you know, know that they can't, I don't even stay close to it. So I rebuke hustle culture. I rebuke chasing. I rebuke all that kind of stuff. Others may be able to handle that, but that language I have to just remove from my vocabulary. And instead it is pace. It is ease. It is sustainability. It is systems.
Jen Porter (34:39)
Yeah.
Yeah.
and
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (35:08)
It is simplicity, right? Like, so these are the, it's funny, like I just came off of a, a, a two week vacation, my pause, we were talking about this before I got on. One of the things that I teach when I, when I discuss capacity work and how to become a rested rebel is that rest has to be disciplined and you have to actually layer it in, you have to systematize it. So for example, the first week out of every month, I make, I'm sorry, the first week out of every quarter,
Jen Porter (35:24)
Yeah.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (35:35)
There is, I'm sorry, I take a week out of every quarter to pause, right? Like the first Friday of every month, I try to do at least like a 24 hour digital detox, right? Like, so clearly I have like some client stuff, but for the most part, I'm trying to be off social media. I'm already off social media now anyways, just because there's not a lot of good stuff coming out of it in the world today. But these are the types of things that I know that I have to keep in place.
to make sure that I do it because it's my survival instinct is powerful in this area. So these are some of the things that I encourage folks to do. And for your listeners who may be thinking, well, I don't have the luxury. I have to deal with my kids or I have to deal with that. I always say start someplace. So whether it's five minutes a day. One of the things that I also do, and it was essential because
Jen Porter (36:04)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (36:30)
Again, those stories, I thought rest was reserved for the wealthy. I'm not rich. I didn't come from a wealthy family. You know, so you see people, well, you got to have money to rest. And I was like, no, because if that's the attitude, I'm going to die. Like, so that can't be what it is. So I began to say, well, what are the times in my life I've really felt rested? And as I began to reflect on that, it wasn't when I was on fancy vacations. Like, it wasn't when I had spent all this money. It was like when I got up and I went for a walk or
I love boats, you know, and I grew up in Seattle. So fortunately it wasn't uncommon to be able to get on someone's boat. I would go and be on the water for, you know, half a day, like cooking for me. And I realized, you know, for me, resting is actually doing anything that gives you joy. So I'm going to redefine rest in that way. And so that's something I teach a lot of my clients. So when you begin to do that, it becomes more accessible because joy doesn't cost anything, right? And so again, these are the things I'm always helping people reframe.
Jen Porter (37:13)
Yeah.
Totally.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (37:29)
so you can find possibility in allowing yourself to do it. And again, start small. I have clients who will be like, there's no way I was okay for the next seven days. I want you to spend at least 30 minutes a day doing something that gives you joy. And I dare you to come back to me and tell me that you don't get the breakthrough you're looking for, the access to that client, because that's what happened in my life. Like when I took a year off,
Jen Porter (37:34)
out.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (37:52)
ended up making more money in that, like at the first like six month period that I had made the entire year I had worked previously to my break, working a 10th of the time. And it was just because I had paused long enough to have a conversation with a complete stranger who out of the blue, as I'm pitching my, you know, young daughter who at that time was trying to get a job in the industry, asked me, I coach?
Nobody knew I coached. I was like, huh? And he was like, well, I don't know what made me ask you that. That turned into a quarter of a million dollar contract. And I was literally pausing. had two weeks before been like scrambling resume, preparing, blah, blah, exhausted still. And then I was like, you know what? I'm going to do this experiment. I did a six month experiment and that's what happened. You know, there's more of that that I can talk about in my own life and my clients lives. So.
Jen Porter (38:33)
Wow.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (38:50)
Just giving people a little bit of hope. know, that it is possible if you begin to shift it.
Jen Porter (38:54)
Yeah.
Yeah, I also do retreats quarterly because it's actually for my soul ⁓ because I need that in order to ⁓ sustain the rest of the quarter. And not everybody's gonna start there. But I love what you say about start somewhere and I love the correlation between rest and joy. And it makes me think we act...
Part of the work is knowing ourselves really well. To know what do we love, what do we enjoy, what lights us up, what energizes us versus drains us, even if it's active, right? Active rest is what you're talking about. And so if, you know, ⁓ I always say that when we're in a crisis or we're in a place of trigger, we don't know how to access what we need.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (39:40)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jen Porter (39:52)
typically we're sort of spinning. And so we like to have already mapped out like for you the system, what is the system that supports me? And to already have that so that I can look at it and say, oh yeah, I need to phone a friend. I need to get out a neighbor. need to, know, whatever those things are, but I've already established those things because I've done the work to figure out what supports me when I'm in those places where I'm not okay.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (40:01)
Mm-hmm.
Whatever it is. Yeah.
Yeah, it's okay. Yeah,
yeah, exactly.
Jen Porter (40:20)
And so knowing
ourselves is so important.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (40:23)
It's important and yet it's not as common as it needs to be. And it makes sense, right? You've got moms who are overly focused on the needs of their kids. You've got adults who are taking care of adult parents. So I get it, I get it. And yet I also push back into your point, do you wanna be around for your kids? Do you wanna be around for your adults? Because the path you're on right now is the quickest path to...
a heart attack, stroke, burnout, cancer. I mean, you can run down the list and I'm trying to save people's lives, you know? And so one of the things that I do, and I love that you brought this up, is another tenet of my work is this rejection of this concept that like self-care is a thing. And I'm not saying that like self-care doesn't exist, but again, I'm all about specificity with words. Because when I think about self-care,
Jen Porter (41:16)
Yeah.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (41:18)
I think about mecare and as a person rooted in service, you know, who feels very purposeful in her desire to help and to give the idea of putting me as the center of my activities is very guilt inducing. And if I feel guilty, I'm not going to do it. And again, so how do I increase the odds that I will do that? So shifting from this idea of mecare to wecare where my rest becomes a love language to those that I love, right? Like my rest is
is serving the needs of people who I claim to want to help. And that could be in the form of just giving myself the space and the capacity to have patient and ⁓ loving conversation with my kid and not being annoyed and yelling at them and screaming at them because they're not moving fast enough. It could also be being loving and kind enough to somebody on my team and actually believe in my training.
Jen Porter (42:05)
Mm-hmm.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (42:16)
so much so that I let them actually do what I've hired them to do. And for my control freaks out there, again, hi. This is not only excruciatingly painful, it is...
Jen Porter (42:23)
Hahaha
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (42:32)
the biggest reason why you were telling yourself that you don't have time to rest. And it's because of this inability to remove me from the center of everything. And I had to own that. was like, Kibi you're important, but you are not that important. Like at the end of the day, in my corporate world, if I were to die tomorrow, they would hire somebody in the next month, right? If, you know, and again, there's levels to this. I'm not trying to say that you're not essential to your kids' lives. And yet,
what is an appropriate co-creation in terms of empowering them to actually use the tools that you say you're teaching them to use instead of always trying to save them. And I deal with this a lot with my parents, my mothers, my fathers, because they're just like, well, I don't want my kids to suffer. And I say, OK, so what you will create is somebody who, when you are no longer around, and I hate to say it to you, but we're all going someplace, will not know how to.
Emotionally regulate, navigate and problem solve, and it will be your fault. So the question becomes, what option and outcome do you prefer? I can support you to through either one.
Jen Porter (43:33)
Mm.
Wow.
Wow, that's powerful.
It's pretty shocking to the system to hear that about imagine. They get to choose what you're doing as you're empowering them to choose. You could do have a choice here.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (43:55)
It is.
You have a choice.
You have a choice. But again, accountability, what I'm not going to do is tell you a lie that you can have both.
And as leader, you know, I work with leaders. It's like, okay, responsibility comes with two sides of the coin. So which journey do you want to take? And that is oftentimes a lot of the heart of the work, you know, helping people begin to recognize. cause the truth is, and when you break it down, it's like, who wants to work with somebody who is yelling at you all the time, who doesn't have the capacity to listen to you, who is exhausted, who is doing reactionary leading. Like nobody wants that.
So we gotta get our ego out of the way. And that is hard for a lot of very highly successful people who are like, well, I got here because yes, we'll get you here, may not take you to the next level. And these times are demanding a different type of leadership. It is, right? Like when you're constantly triggered and that is literally what this day is. Every day I wake up, you got this, you got that. Like we're always being triggered. So how do you create?
an emotionally safe space for your team, for your kids to thrive. And this is something that I say to a lot of people at this level of leadership, whether it's in corporate America, you're running your own company, you're managing a team of kids. So much about your success in terms of getting high impact outcomes is rooted in how you're being. I say this a lot. How are you showing up? What's the emotional space? What are you, what's the energy exchange? And yet
Jen Porter (45:20)
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (45:34)
For years, so much of us were rewarded for doing, for checking the boxes. And so right now, because we've got AI to do everything for, I mean, like, we are literally seeing technology continue to decrease the amount of effort we have to be to do. This is where this shift in narrative that I'm advocating becomes so transformative, because you actually have the time right now to be.
Jen Porter (46:00)
Yeah.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (46:01)
and
to ensure that your team has the emotional safety, the emotional curiosity, the culture to be innovative, to drive that. Same thing for your kids, right? So a lot of this stuff is cross-pollinating into the personal and the professional, because it's really all the same. And I'm really trying to help leaders show up in their most authentic, curious, human self and out of the survival mode that I said, like a lot of people come in to my...
Jen Porter (46:12)
you
this.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (46:29)
workshops, my talks, know, my coaching sessions with.
Jen Porter (46:33)
It's such a time of possibility, isn't it?
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (46:36)
Completely, completely. it's clearly, I don't want to minimize the amount of like disruption and kind of scary things, but like innovation happens in the midst of chaos. Like this is where all the opportunity is. And so if you want to be here for the long haul and as you, I mean, I love that you talked about sustainability. This is the only way to do it. So like, let me get you communicating like a pro, like a master. So that way you have all of the things.
Jen Porter (46:48)
That's right, always does.
Imagine.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (47:06)
at your disposal. Like, can you imagine? I mean...
Jen Porter (47:09)
the greatest
life skill communication. Imagine if we were masterful communicators. Not perfect, like you said, not perfect, but more masterful each month. So what people don't know about you is that I know because I'm telling your story through the book is that you took this massive leap of faith when you were 16 years old. So you grew up in Seattle and it sounded like
life was challenging, it wasn't stable for you in a lot of ways. How did you get from that to a global citizen? How did that happen?
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (47:46)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, definitely.
Curiosity. mean, and here's, was curiosity and my stomach. And I say this story all the time and people always kind of laugh because I ⁓ came across the opportunity to go to Singapore because I went ⁓ to a leadership camp for high school. I think I was like a sophomore in high school at the time and it was a camp for,
Jen Porter (47:54)
Was it it? Was it that?
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (48:17)
leaders. So clearly I was doing some cool, curious stuff to get me there. But I met a young lady from Singapore and I'm from Seattle, grew up around a lot of dynamic, rich Asian culture, Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, like everything. I mean, and I'm a foodie. And so when I met this young lady, she was telling me about Singapore. And the thing that stuck with me was how good the food is. And anybody who's been to Singapore knows that is not a lie. And I was like, Ooh, you mean, and she was like describing this chili crab and like,
Jen Porter (48:38)
You
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (48:45)
the HDBs that you could go to like these little holes in the walls and just get the most amazing food. And so I'm like salivating and she was very kind as well. Just really lovely, just interesting. And I was like, wow. And so fast forward, come back to Seattle and I think that that organization had sent, ⁓ they had bought our mailing list from the folks. So they started sending out information and I get this, I want a VHS in the mail because that's how old I am.
Jen Porter (49:04)
Mm-hmm.
Wow.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (49:12)
and
a ⁓ paper brochure about the school system called the United World Colleges in ⁓ the world. And it was ⁓ started by, at that time, Queen Nora Jordan and Nelson Mandela. And their whole ethos was like, if young kids were living together, they wouldn't want to bomb each other. And this was during the post-Cold War. And I saw Singapore. And I was like, wait, I could actually go to Singapore? Because it was one of the campuses. And the rest is history.
Jen Porter (49:31)
Sure.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (49:42)
I sent away, I applied, got in. My mother had no idea. She had no idea. has, yeah. And people often kind of ask that. I just, was, you know, my father was the first black quarterback recruited to play for the Huskies in the early seventies in Washington state. Dyslexic, could barely read, but like was a brilliant football player.
Jen Porter (49:44)
Did you tell your family? You replied without telling her, okay, so you were definitely courageous.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (50:11)
moved to Seattle, like I said, at a time when like black folks were just not really prevalent. So I have to say there was some ancestral kind of DNA in me. My grandmother on my mom's side was like one of the most successful black female real estate kind of entrepreneurs in Fresno, California, growing up, barely had a sixth grade education. Like she was, I found this out later. Like she was actually born, I think four days, four or five days before the Tulsa.
Oklahoma massacres. So she grew up in an environment that clearly was entrepreneurial. And, if you think about kind of Black Wall Street from, you know, the early 1900s. So I have to honor that there was something ancestral in the DNA. ⁓ My mother was politically active, you know, ran for office. So I definitely grew up in a family where folks were first. Like, it wasn't scary. But still, I just was like, why not? And
My mom and I had a tough teenage years. it wasn't uncommon for me to not talk to her about a lot of stuff. Like didn't grow up with a very communicative mother. Let me just put it that way. It was like my way or the highway. And I had just kind of learned, you know, why until it becomes necessary, do I need to bring anything to her? Because I think her first instincts would have been no, you know, cause she's scared for her kid and blah, blah, blah. But because I just was like,
Jen Porter (51:17)
huh.
⁓ huh.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (51:37)
listen, let me at least make it a possibility for you to actually react to. And it wasn't until I was submitting my acceptance letter and they were like, so this thing called tuition has to be paid. And I was like, ⁓ I guess I, I do need some help because I don't have any money. And I told my mom and she was like, as you would imagine, what, where is Singapore? But I went and she said yes. And that's something I was.
Jen Porter (51:51)
Mm-hmm.
So
how did you bridge the gap of the tuition and permission?
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (52:05)
Well, my mother was a fundraiser. She was in politics and she knew how to raise money. And once it became clear that I wasn't joking and that like I was going to do this and it's funny in retrospect, I didn't know. But what I began to realize is I got older and talking to my mom more and she had always wanted to join the Peace Corps. And so unfortunately, though, when she came out of college, she couldn't because they didn't let you go into the Peace Corps with kids. And my mother had me when she was a senior in college. So I think secretly she was like,
Jen Porter (52:25)
See.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (52:35)
And I had no idea, but she was, my child was trying to move. So in many ways, I believe that there was a part of her that wanted to live vicariously through me. And when I said, you I want to go, she was like, okay. And so my church, my community, we took up offerings at church. We sent letters out. Like she knew how to raise money. mother was a fundraiser. And so that's how it happened.
Jen Porter (52:45)
listening.
to help make it happen.
Incredible. And so what did that open up for you? How were you changed by your two-year immersion in the work?
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (53:08)
Yeah.
Well, you described it. I became a global citizen. I'm a Black girl, grew up in Seattle, beautiful ⁓ community. I mean, definitely had it tough financially, but I was reared in love and definitely felt seen by my church and by other friends around. We had a pretty tight knit Black community in Seattle. ⁓ But that said, it was limited. And so to move to another country where
At that time, it was the height of the Asian economic miracle. You you're seeing all this external economic development and support from Clinton, you know, so there was just so much change and transformation happening. And the idea of seeing entire economies built that are now, you know, kind of powerhouses. You look at places like India and Brazil and Southeast Asia, Vietnam, China, like all of those things were just bubbling up. So imagine having a front row seat to that at such a young age.
this idea of possibility and anything that I could have ever imagined being a real thing, amplified the, like what I describe as my curiosity quotient pretty significantly. And it was also great to just be out of America. And I will say this because of the stuff that we're dealing with now, I was able to not be defined by my black American-ness, by my blackness for the first time.
And to be in community with global powerhouses. Like I went to school with some of the most wealthy kids. mean, kids from some of the wealthiest families, whether it be because of business and government and everything. So when I came back to America after two years, just the trivialities that we were kind of fighting over here seemed just that. And so I was like, ⁓ okay, really? Like, this is what we're doing?
Okay. So just kind of put everything in perspective and it made me feel very, ⁓ like powerful. was like, yeah, I mean, if they're doing it, like, then I know we can do it. I've seen a whole country, like you guys have no idea, like Singapore was like not the Singapore it is today. And so, you know, on the last 30 years, just to see like what consistency in messaging, supporting your, your, your, your, your citizens investing, you know,
staying on the right side of integrity and community and like this is what you get, right? So America's, I don't think I realized it then, it breaks my heart just like how regressed we have become given all of the like amazingness in this country. Like that's the part that I have to kind of struggle with. And when I think about my work with CQ, curiosity quotient, I am also beginning to contextualize it in the context of how do we
come up with perhaps another way to resolve a lot of our diversity, equity, and inclusion challenges. Like how do we create an entry point for people to ultimately value those things? But if I call it curiosity, it creates greater accessibility because everybody wants to be curious. So if you're curious about my story as a black woman from Seattle,
Jen Porter (56:21)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (56:30)
who grew up in a single family, lived in a like that is a diverse experience no matter what. And it has just as much equitable need and just as much, it's important to include it because that's how you build powerful research and ideas and all that kind of stuff. So it's, I'm beginning to think about it more broadly in the context of like, how does kind of CQ become the evolution of perhaps diversity, equity, inclusion work? How do we help leaders realize the importance organizationally of
Jen Porter (56:59)
Yeah.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (56:59)
elevating
the entire CQ scores of your organization. So that way we can ultimately achieve this bigger goal that we've been saying we want to do for the past 300 plus years in this country and then beyond. So long answer to your question, but yes.
Jen Porter (57:03)
Mm-hmm.
Beautiful. Beautiful. I mean, you basically
just shared vision and legacy.
the impact that you wanna have through your work.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (57:26)
Yes, yes, yes.
Jen Porter (57:27)
Wow. So tell me
about clap. You mentioned that to me. I want, I want to hear more about that.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (57:34)
Mm-hmm. Yeah,
CLAP. So communicate like a pro. C-L-A-P. You see, I love my acronyms. They're very simple and easy to understand. And so CLAP is actually a product. Like CLAP is a six month group coaching product that I offer to organizations to kind of push their leaders through to help them elevate their CQ quotient, like to help you learn how to communicate effectively, to increase connection to yourself.
⁓ confidence and capacity. Like those are my three promises with clap. will leave this with deeper connection. Like you say, how well do you know yourself, your underbelly, how well are you able to articulate your emotional needs? You're aware of perhaps those learned behaviors that might be causing and sabotaging your success. How do I increase just your curiosity across the board? Right? Like there are specific tools that I can give you and train you in to absolutely help you lead with more curious communication. And then thirdly, how do we expand your capacity?
Jen Porter (58:30)
Mm-hmm.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (58:32)
Because if it's just you, that's awesome. But as we create the ability for you to perhaps socialize this across your teams, across your organizations, to actually give you the ability to ensure your capacity is managed on an ongoing pace, on an ongoing basis. And this is where a lot of my rested rebel work comes in. ⁓ It will allow you to communicate effectively across the board. And my hope is that folks are clapping all over the world. Like I say, you know, I was raised in the black church, so I'm like, clap.
Jen Porter (58:58)
Hehehehehe
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (59:02)
platform. So that's like a big part of ⁓ what resonates with me. You know, I'm always about language that resonates.
Jen Porter (59:06)
I love it.
Isn't it amazing how we become so much based on our experiences? Like you have just woven all of your experiences into the offerings and how you help leaders and organizations and individuals through your work. And, you know, one of them has led you to where you are.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (59:16)
completely.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. It's exciting.
at the end of the day, is all started with me loving stories and being a storyteller. you talk about me as a storyteller, I'm a storyteller at heart. And so what I began to realize early on is the power of story, from a media perspective, from a content creation perspective. I grew up as a little girl in Asia and it was confronting stereotypes about what my story should be because of what people had seen on TV that sparked this.
Jen Porter (59:49)
Yes.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (1:00:03)
No, like I'm not Beyonce. Like I don't play basketball, but I come from a beautiful community of black people who've done amazing things in the Pacific Northwest. Like I'm not even like the typical quote unquote black person. Like my story is very unique. And so that story matters. And I spent, you know, decade or so creating content as an Emmy award winning content creator to help advance stories. And over time I realized, okay, that got me so far, but there's more. How do I create an access point for others to be able to
become ambassadors to tell their stories. And the first way it was in helping to create financing and distribution for more stories. Then I realized, actually, if I can kind of train a lot of the people, the producers, the writers, the directors, where I started with one of my first clients, which was Netflix, that's amazing. And then I began to realize, well, it's not just entertainment people. Like, this is something that leaders from all over the world and no matter the industry need because the more people feel confident and empowered.
and owning their story, it makes it lot easier for them to have the space, the pause, the capacity to hear other people's And then from there, we can co-create. I mean, that's at the end of the day, what the goal is.
Jen Porter (1:01:04)
Yeah.
You've always been ahead of your time. You have. mean, we don't have time, but I would love to get all the examples of the things that you've done before the world was really ready for them and how you introduced. And I hear you doing that now with the CQ and with some of these methodologies that you're bringing and the bigger vision that you have for it. It's not just about making more money. It's not just about being a better leader. It's actually about transforming.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (1:01:17)
I have.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, there's so many.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Absolutely, the world.
Jen Porter (1:01:43)
organizations,
communities, the world, the way that we engage with one another. It's really beautiful. What is bringing you joy these days?
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (1:01:47)
Yeah. Yeah.
Well, it was sitting on the beach in the Dominican Republic for the last couple of weeks. ⁓ But so there's a couple of things that are giving me joy. I just came back from my 25th college reunion. I'm a Harvard grad. And it was absolutely exhilarating to be in community with people who are just freaking amazing. And you take for granted those times when you're young and you're in these spaces and you have your own.
Jen Porter (1:01:57)
Yeah. ⁓
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (1:02:21)
issues, imposters, like all the things that kind of come into coming into space is at least for me and to come back 25 years later and see such just rich and flawed and brilliant and folks who are just doing amazing things and to say I had the privilege not only of like being a part of their early story but now being reconnected with them and
Continuing to cheer them on was was an absolute gift. So that's something that is absolutely giving me joy I'm in the process of making a ask kiwi chat bot. So that's giving me joy A lot of my clients are always saying kiwi I just I need a clone version of you and I was like, okay Well, let's start making it. So I'm like working on prompts and putting that together. So ideally I can beta test that was on my clients and You know, funny. I have conversations with me all the time leveraging
I'm AI and I realized a friend of mine was reading what she's like, it just sounds like you're talking to you. And I said, you're right. And I was already thinking about it, but that was the like, yeah. Cause all AI is a very better version of you. mean, that's it. Like for anybody who's out there, who's concerned, who hasn't, let me tell you two things, two things. If technology is not the center of your growth strategy, as we move into 2025 and beyond, you've already lost. So I'm just telling this to anybody who's out there running teams.
Jen Porter (1:03:22)
I think.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (1:03:42)
whether you're an entrepreneur or you're an entrepreneur, you've got to make sure that you are leveraging the tools to help you level up, like full stop. So I will just say that. And B, it's fun because the idea of letting some of my clients leverage my brains and my brilliance and my intellect and my learned experience, because all of the stuff that I teach is learned from hard failures. And so I just say, let me do the work. Like y'all don't have to go through the trouble and the drama. ⁓
Jen Porter (1:04:05)
Yeah.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (1:04:12)
Do not put me on a pedestal. I have done every mistake, everything that I coach against, tone problems, checking people. I didn't know how to talk to people. So that's the reason why I'm a communications expert. So I say all that to say, those are the things that are giving me joy, just thinking about ways that I can continue to refine my products, help folks that I just am so excited as they click and get these.
Jen Porter (1:04:40)
Yeah.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (1:04:40)
get
these concepts and I just see it just like turbo it. just like, my God, I can't believe like that is the biggest gift for a coach. and, and, and for a lot of my clients right now, that's what I'm seeing. And it's just, you know, I've been doing this now for almost five, six years. So I've got enough like full time. I can see the data. I can see the stuff. So that's one thing that I'm working. I'm working on a book. So like 2026, I'm like noodling. As you say, I'm, I'm layering in systemically.
know, 30 minutes here to kind of noodle and ride and pull together. But next year, I definitely am going to begin to release a lot of the thinking that I have around my CQ work that I'm excited about. Yeah. Yeah.
Jen Porter (1:05:18)
It's so fun, right? To work on things that are exciting and innovative
and creative and to use, you know, all your brilliance to be able to help other people. I hear a couple of ⁓ themes, you know, that I'm going to pass along to the listeners, which is ⁓ be curious. Just be curious.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (1:05:28)
Yeah.
Jen Porter (1:05:40)
When we start to spin out, just move back to in place of, let me be curious about this situation. Let me be curious about these people. Let me be curious about what's happening around me and how I can respond. And then number two, what brings us joy? And it doesn't have to just be a couple things, just a couple things. What brings you joy? And do more of that.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (1:05:46)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, definitely. Well,
and I'll take it even a step further, because people are always like the how, right? Like, you know, we'll say that. So the first thing, how do you make sure that you are being curious, right? Like this idea be curious. So one tool I oftentimes will give my clients is, anytime you're up against something that feels
Jen Porter (1:06:10)
Yeah.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (1:06:24)
hard or you're frustrated or it's creating a negative emotion, ask yourself, how is this a gift? Like really ask yourself and actually figure out the emotion because it's hard to be curious if you don't know what's going on with you. you know, I give CEOs major fortune 100 companies, we pull out the emotion wheel, right? Like, what are you feeling right now? Because you'd be amazed how many people do actually do not have a lot of experience talking about their emotions. They'll think they're saying an emotion.
Jen Porter (1:06:30)
How is this again?
Name it.
Yeah.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (1:06:54)
But what they're doing is falling into what I call the that trap where they put the word that behind the word I feel. I feel that this person is X or I feel that I should be Y when it is absolutely the worst thing to do when you're trying to be curious because it's not actually a feeling. What you're doing is stating an assumption. So I always say be mindful of that trap and make sure you're actually saying an emotion. I feel frustrated. I feel delighted. I feel angry. Like
articulate that because that's what's going to give you power. So I just want to say that because sometimes people kind of get stuck in the like, how do you be curious? It's like, you got to do these steps. Like it's not easy. And so you've got to make sure. And I say the Oak method, own your emotions, ask yourself, what am I feeling? Assess your tone. Are you talking to yourself in a way that makes you feel safe enough to do that? So those are two key steps. The second thing around this idea of accessing your joy. Absolutely. And I find that it get a lot of adults.
don't know. And so one thing I'll say is, think about the stuff you did when you were a little kid. Like when you just had all day to roam and do nothing. And for those of us who might be a little bit older, that's a little bit easier because we actually practice the idea of boredom. But for those of us who are a little bit newer, know, there's always this like when you absolutely got nothing in return for it, you didn't get paid. Like you just did it. And just the feeling of it, that is where you start. And just
Jen Porter (1:08:07)
Right?
Mm-hmm.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (1:08:19)
think about it because a lot of us again have just, we're so busy doing like, I don't actually know what makes me joyful. That's a good kind of exercise to try. So I just wanted to get that out there. So folks have accessibility. Yeah.
Jen Porter (1:08:29)
Great tips.
I love how you simplify things and just bring it back to, here are the stats. I love it. So how can people find you? Because they're going to want to know more about what you do with individuals and organizations and teams and leaders.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (1:08:35)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Totally, yes, yes. Well, as Jen said, kibianderson.com is really where all of my everything is housed. You can sign up for my newsletter there. You can figure out where to follow me on social media. It's Kibi Anderson, K-I-B-I Anderson everywhere. So LinkedIn, Instagram, all of the things. ⁓ I offer chemistry conversations. I do organizational diagnostics. I find that a lot of people, again, don't realize.
what is actually the culprit? And they'll come to me thinking it's one thing or complaining about something. But then when I do what I call my curious leadership scan, which is like ⁓ I come into organizations that do like a four to six week sprint and we really get into the core with a proprietary kind of approach that I use to really understand what the real issue is, then we can diagnose. So if you're in a situation where you're finding yourself saying like, God, I'm so tired or I keep saying the same thing over and over again and.
why aren't people listening to me or my team says one thing, they do something at like all of the stuff that typically I hear, ⁓ give me a shout, like I love the chat. You know, we can think about some ideas, whether it's me or someone else. I just want people to recognize that it's okay to get support, especially at this level. And more often than not, people don't realize how many of the most great people that they see.
are leveraging coaches, like they're leveraging support. Like you are not meant to do this by yourself. give yourself grace, let it's okay. That's there's a lot of shame right now that I'm hearing a lot of leaders navigating. And I just create, I want to create a dialogue where people recognize like, this is the time, like you're supposed to do this. So it's okay. I'm here and I love to be a resource.
Jen Porter (1:10:11)
Yes.
Mm-hmm.
valuable that you're helping to diagnose what's going on because that's what people are really needing is okay what I even know what's happening let's get in there and figure it out so incredibly valuable so reach out to Kibi Kibi Anderson com sign up for her newsletter because she has some amazing very practical simple yet profound tips that she shares freely so ⁓ thank you so much for your time I absolutely love what you're doing is so exciting I love your story
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (1:10:37)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Yes!
Absolutely.
Thank you.
Jen Porter (1:10:58)
I can't wait to share more of it with the world through the Lioness Rise Up book too.
Kibi Anderson (@kibianderson) (1:11:02)
I love it. Well,
first of all, I just want to say thank you, Jen, for what you are doing, because it takes a lot of compassion and patience and ⁓ conscientiousness and love to really create the space that you're doing with the Lioness project. I can't wait to see what it creates for you in terms of elevated spaces to be in. So yeah, just super, super rooting for you and excited about what's ahead. Thank you for having me. Yes.
Jen Porter (1:11:28)
Thank you so much. Thanks, Kibi Until the next
episode, the lioness in me sees the lioness in you. you
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