Shift Your Narrative, Create Positive Change with Christina Blacken
In this episode of Good Enough for Now, we chat with public speaker, performer and founder of The New Quo, Christina Blacken. Christina shares her wisdom on the value of enhancing our narrative intelligence - the power of storytelling to change behavior.
Through self-reflection and intentional reasoning, Christina shares how we can strengthen the ability to delineate the narratives that prolong inequity and systems of oppression. We can then consciously choose to rewrite these stories to ones of collaboration, creativity, and innovation in order to make positive change.
Tune in to hear Christina’s tips on how to strengthen critical thinking skills, build healthy habits around social media, and transform your life by centering your values and increasing your narrative intelligence.
LISTEN NOW
three reasons why you should listen to this episode:
Discover how to curate information and strengthen your historical knowledge to limit overstimulation and enable positive change
Learn how both story and value audits help to clarify what is important to you
Explore how to find hope and personal power when it feels impossible
Highlights
Early on in her career working at a prestigious law firm, Christina was passionate about making big changes in the legal system. To her disappointment though, she soon discovered that the narratives around work were not healthy, and not aligned with her values.
Christina Blacken: … as I got into it, I learned that there were some really set narratives about work that I thought were really toxic. That hierarchy is more important than creativity and talent. The idea of you needing to conform to be taken seriously or to be promoted. So how you speak, how you look, how you dress.
After leaving the law firm she moved onto the nonprofit space, Christina learned tools for behavior change, but to her disappointment again, she began to see similar threads about the narrative of work that she experienced at the law firm.
Christina Blacken: But again, that organization at the time and the leader who was in front of it who's no longer there, had this antiquated old school set narrative about work, which was again, hierarchy and conformity and all these really inequitable and destructive things that created this gap between what we valued and what we were actually making and doing and how people were being treated.
Christina speaks about how our culture doesn’t encourage time for self reflection about why things are the way they are. She notices our conventional narratives unraveling, and uses infinite growth as an example of one of the many narratives that doesn’t hold true to the reality of our world.
Christina Blacken: I think one of our biggest challenges is we are purposely not given time for self-reflection. And we are purposely given very little information about why things exist as they are. So for example, the way that conventional businesses run and the goals that they set, where did they come from? Why are these considered good business? Like, they come from somewhere. Even this idea of infinite growth is a new economic model and concept that was made in the last 50 years. Before that most economists believed we have finite resources. There's no way you can have infinite growth. But there was this concept of, oh, technology will help us outpace our resource limitations. Which is turning out to be untrue.
Christina shares what she’s seeing when it comes to folks asking the questions like, “Why do things exist as they are? Why does my life feel meaningless when I’ve done what they said I was supposed to do?” She speaks on the increasing awareness of empty promises inside a conventional life that lacks fulfillment and meaning.
Christina Blacken: Maybe you have a midlife crisis where you're like, wait a minute, the white picket fence and the two and a half kids, and the “get married in this way and have this kind of job”. Something's missing. What's going on here? Is this a fit for who I am and what I want? And there are other people who maybe discovered that a little earlier.
And I think younger generations are coming up to this pretty early now where there are certain conventional promises and narratives and stories about how the world works and what we should value that are failing them.
Christina believes that without self-reflection and a clear sense of the social-cultural stories that are playing out, it’s a slippery slope to simply replicate the status quo over and over, and thereby maintain the oppressive systems that are keeping us small.
Christina Blacken: And so I think the process of self-reflection and really getting clear on social cultural stories, where they come from and how they shape our institutions is really important. Because if you don't do that, even if you're a change maker, a person who wants to make an impact, it is so easy to replicate the status quo and then to slap a new bow on it and be like, look at that innovation. It's like, but it's the same replication of oppressive systems and structures and behaviors and practices. But you've given it a new flavor.
Christina explains how to build narrative intelligence starting on the homefront. She speaks about how narrative intelligence can lead to a more meaningful life.
Christina Blacken: So I would say it starts there with how do we increase our narrative intelligence and understanding social cultural stories, where they come from and how they affect our beliefs. And usually that starts at home. Your family of origin has a set of narratives about the world and you learn those pretty early about how it works, who deserves what, what you should be afraid of, what you should value, how you should organize your life. And examining those and figuring out which of these are empowering and useful for me and which of these are limiting is a huge step. And using your narrative intelligence to have a more conscious and purposeful life.
Christina explains why it’s important that we make a conscious decision about the information we consume.
Christina Blacken: I think consumption is really important and conscious consumption of what we ingest in terms of information is extremely important because not all information is good information. Some information is factual, imbalanced and historically accurate. And some information is manipulative and exploitive and meant to hoard resources.
Christina shares how important it is for everyone, especially kids, to have a baseline knowledge of how the world works so that they aren’t easily pervaded by misinformation.
Christina Blacken: If you have a baseline foundation that just has knowledge and information of how the world works, it's a lot harder for that to be penetrated by conspiracy theories, and lies and manipulation. So giving kids really clear historical information that is not biased and full of lies is incredibly important.
Using the example of the civil rights movement, Christina explains why it’s important to have a baseline knowledge of history in order to understand how the world operates.
Christina Blacken: … [the history of the Civil War] it’s imperative to know because it'll give you a lot of information as to why things are the way they are. Why do businesses operate a certain way that they do? Why are we passing certain laws for protecting certain groups or other groups? Like there's a reason that this is happening.
Further reflecting on how we can sift through the noise and use our self-reflection to create healthy narratives, Christina shares her perspective on social media and curating our inputs so that we maintain focus and avoid overstimulation.
Christina Blacken: … Realizing that we don't have to consume everything or be on all the time. Even before social media, I think about the amount of time I was distracted by inputs, and constant bids for my attention. And it wasn't a lot, you know, I read my books in my room, you know, would hang out with my family, my friends in the neighborhood, ride my bike. You would try to catch someone on the phone and if they weren't there, they weren't there… The pace of inputs and bids for attention was significantly lower. And so I think people need to make a concerted effort to create space, whether it's through meditation, taking social media breaks, really curating their inputs. It's so important because when you're exhausted, your brain gets lazy and it's hard to discern what's true and what's not when you're overwhelmed and constantly on and constantly being stimulated… And that alone can really, you know, distort your brain.
Christina summarizes her beliefs on two things that are essential to help build critical thinking skills and healthy narratives about ourselves and the world so that we may move toward collaboration and our full potential.
Christina Blacken: So those two things of - improving a historical knowledge and the accuracy of it, and curating the inputs and how much your bids of attention are happening on a daily basis can make people a little bit stronger in their critical thinking. And the ability to know which myths and narratives are creating inequity, creating destruction, creating a reduction in all different metrics of human flourishing, and which of these are ways that we can rally together and collaborate together like the Avengers and reach our fullest potential.
Christina reminds us that social change is incremental. It only takes a small group of folks with shared goals to create change. She explains what gives her a peace of mind when it comes to her work and seeing positive results.
Christina Blacken: And what's given me peace is realizing that most individuals are probably neutral good. So most individuals are like, I don't wanna actively destroy, you know, the planet or other people… So even if you gave a small, say 10% of this neutral good, some sort of framework and tools to be more conscious of the traces they make and the goals they set, what is the ripple effect that could have in terms of what you're buying, what you're saying, what you're making? I think people forget that social change is incremental. And most of our major movements were started by small concerted handfuls of people… we don't need everybody to agree, we don't need everyone to feel like a change maker at heart. We just need a small percentage of people who feel like the status quo isn't working. And to have them collaborate and have a shared goal that other people can get excited about.
What we actively choose to consume within our sphere affects inspiration and motivation. To diversify your consumption and boost your creativity, Christina suggests doing what she calls a story audit.
Christina Blacken: I tell a lot of people also to do what I call sort of a story audit. So what are the stories and narratives that you're consuming regularly? Who do you listen to in podcasts? Who are you watching on TV? What are you reading? And if most of those people look like you or they're from a very similar demographic, switch it up because you'd be surprised what can inspire you and get you to think differently. Divergent thinking is imperative for being creative. So if you're in your comfort zone all the time, you're gonna be down and not feel inspired and motivated to do things.
Christina talks about aligning with our power structures and harnessing the time and effort we do have control over in order to live more true to ourselves.
Christina Blacken: So this idea of understanding where are my power structures? Where do they lie? How am I leveraging them, and how am I using them in ways that feel conscious and intentional and considers their impact holistically, not just for myself, but what is the benefit to others, to the planet? And so the more that people can do that, I think the more we can create this kind of conscious and intentional, meaningful life that's not just driven by fear and survival.
Regardless of someone’s privilege or power structure, Christina shares the importance of aligning one's values and being intentional about the things we have control over.
Christina Blacken: Most individuals are like, I'm just trying to survive. I'm just trying to pay my bills and I get it. I've been there. We're all kind of swimming in this sea, in this muck of capitalism. And ultimately though, even if you only have 10% of your time, energy and control, what are you doing with the 10%? Is it 10% aligning a little bit more with your values? Or is it being given away to someone else's values and someone else's power and structures in a way that's not serving you? And so I think that's a question a lot of people need to ask themselves, no matter where they might be in terms of their privileges or formal power.
Christina shares how hyper competition is one example of a narrative that exists and how it gets in the way of connection, relationship building, and forward movement. As soon as we recognize it for what it is, and decide to change the story, we might find ourselves working more collaboratively.
Christina Blacken: …hyper competition. So the idea of there's not enough for everybody, we've gotta compete to the death literally. And that means that there's really low levels of trust in relationships, there's low levels of sharing information and collaboration, which then leads to a ton of problems.
The values that have always worked for me, community collaboration and respect and kindness, those have propelled my life forward. Anytime I was hyper-competitive or fear-driven, that didn't work, it wasn't useful, it was not helpful for me. So even if it sounds like it's a way to protect ourselves in a way to survive, it's not leading to what we may want.
Christina shares what she hopes to deliver in the book she’s writing.
Christina Blacken: I wanna write something that helps people to not feel apathetic and completely hopeless about the really immense social and environmental issues. We are facing some real serious issues and I think people are getting more clear about it… Like there are things that we can pivot and fix if we become clearer on understanding the systems around us and how they got to where they are. And how we could choose differently. Because that's really what I'm trying to teach. Here's how we can make clarity of the noise and give you a direction and a path to potentially choose.
What Good Enough For Now means to Christina:
I love this question because one of the things I talk about a lot is the fallacy of perfectionism and how it essentially stops us from the innovation necessary for all the problems we're facing. And good enough for now means self connection. So this is a concept I just was reading about the other day. Self connection is the idea of having self-awareness and self-acceptance and self alignment. So you're aware of who you are, you are accepting the parts of yourself, even the parts that might be flawed and you're aligning your life with the things that you care about. And good enough for now is doing those things because you are trusting yourself that you are good enough as is, and you don't have anything to prove. You don't have these massive major things you need to change about yourself to find love or peace or stability.
That to me is good enough for now. It doesn't mean that you can't strive for goals or change, but it does mean you need to trust yourself and accept yourself as you are. Especially when there's so many societal messages that say you're not good enough, you're too fat, you're too black, you're too gay, you're too this, you're too old, you're too disabled. Whatever that thing might be. That essentially is a lie. And that keeps people in the toxic topsy-turvy consumption wheel of if I just consume this thing or get this thing or achieve this thing, I will feel good enough to be able to exist. And I promise you, you could do all those things and still feel really unhappy and really disconnected if you are not accepting of yourself and aligning your life with what you genuinely care about. So good enough for now for me is self-acceptance, really.
And the idea that I am valuable, even if people don't see it or want to hear it or thank me having big curly hair and looking a certain way or being a bustier woman, whatever it might be, that I still am inherently valuable human that deserves kindness, respect and love, even if I'm not this conventional thing that people say is the most valuable thing in our society. So I hope most people take that message and learn you're good enough as is. You don't have anything to prove. You deserve kindness and respect and the basic human rights every person should have because you're good enough as is.
ABOUT
Christina Blacken is a public speaker, performer, and founder of The New Quo. The New Quo is a leadership development and equity consultancy, helping leaders create inclusive practices, habits, and goals through their narrative intelligence, which is the psychological power of story to change behavior. She creates transformational learning experiences on the topics of leadership, equity, and behavior change, and helps emerging and current leaders to use behavioral-science based narrative techniques to disrupt bias, build better relationships, and communicate new ideas with deeper connection and influence to achieve status-quo breaking goals. She's applied this methodology to a variety of equity problems, from social media content moderation, to creating equity goals and practices for every area of a business, to helping companies create more inclusive language in their content and services. She's trained 10,000 leaders across 9 industries, and has been featured in Forbes, Business Insider, and Nasdaq.com among other outlets.
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Stephanie Kruse (00:05):
Welcome to Good Enough for now a podcast aimed at dismantling perfectionism. One conversation at a time. I'm Stephanie Cruz and along with my guests on the show, we share stories of false starts, unexpected U-turns, and moments of reinvention that happen as we move through life. Tune in to feel a little less alone and a little bit more together. Let's get into it.
Stephanie Kruse (00:36):
Hey everybody, it's Stephanie. I just wanted to come on and say I'm so excited to share the second episode of season two with you. It is January a time for reflection and regeneration. And as much as I would love to be embracing that, I have to say the year has started off quite slowly for me and with the, because I have a cold, which I'm still recovering from. And the only thing that I've been focused on really is how can I just leave myself with a new thought to ponder instead of have to make forward action. So my thought has been, what if I just allowed events, opportunities, friendships, to come to me instead of pushing so hard to make those connections and activities happen? What if I just waited? I'll leave that with you and enjoy the episode.
Stephanie Kruse (01:37):
Christina Blacken is a public speaker, performer, and founder of The New Quo. New Quo is a leadership development and equity consultancy helping leaders create inclusive practices, habits and goals through their narrative intelligence, which is the psychological power of story, to change behavior. She creates transformational learning experiences on the topics of leadership, equity and behavior change, and helps emerging and current leaders to use behavioral science-based narrative techniques to disrupt bias, build better relationships, and communicate new ideas with deeper connection and influence to achieve status quo breaking goals. She's applied this methodology to a variety of equity problems from social media, content moderation to creating equity goals and practices for every area of a business to helping companies create more inclusive language in their content and services. She has trained 10,000. Yes, you heard that right? 10,000 leaders across nine industries and has been featured in Forbes, Business Insider and nasdaq.com among other outlets. Welcome Christine Blacken.
Christina Blacken (02:47):
Thank you. It's so funny to hear my bio read. I'm like, oh, I was doing some cool things. I've done some interesting stuff.
Stephanie Kruse (02:52):
Why don't we just like have someone read our bio to us every morning when we wake up. Imagine how good we'd feel
Christina Blacken (02:58):
A little boost. Better than coffee.
Stephanie Kruse (02:59):
Exactly, exactly. Christina, we always start out with this question cuz it helps us start off with who you are and what's going on. So tell me where you are in your life right now.
Christina Blacken (03:12):
Well, where I am physically is Brooklyn, New York, across the street from one of the best parts in the city called Prospect Park. And I love this park because it kind of reminds me that there's always an oasis of nature wherever you can potentially find it, even in the most unexpected places. And then where I'm at in my life in terms of my career is really moving towards thought leadership in a serious way. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, because I have these kind of big concepts and abstract ideas. I've been teaching and training in these companies and I've wanted to put it into a book. So I've been in a book process for the last few months of really distilling down what do we do when we feel hopeless, especially in an inequitable world. How do you find clarity, peace, and personal power in that kind of space? And then personally, I'm feeling a little bit at peace even though it's been a very challenging time period for so many people.
(04:09):
A friend of mine, my birthday's coming up in a couple of weeks and she asked me, well, what's your word for next year? And I was like, I don't really do words. I typically have like a set of values and ideas that I like to organize my life around, but I'm like a word that's bubbling up for me right now is wonder. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And I think it's because finding inspiration in unexpected places and continuing to tap into that for myself is so important for creating impact in the world. And I feel like we don't have enough wonder in our lives in general, the older that we get and the more that we move through this kind of mucky system that's not working for all of us.
Stephanie Kruse (04:39):
Yeah. It reminds me a little bit of when we're curious and we ask questions, we can't sit in that place of, oh, I know this already, you can't tell me anything new.
Christina Blacken (04:51):
Mm-hmm <affirmative>.
Stephanie Kruse (04:52):
Let's talk a little bit about kind of what work you've done and then I wanna get into the book you're writing cuz those can be two very different things. <laugh>
Christina Blacken (05:01):
Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yep. As I've learned
Stephanie Kruse (05:03):
<laugh>, even though you know one is feeding the other. So when you think about your work of narrative intelligence and bringing that to clients to disrupt the bias conversation and create a new way of thinking and talking about those topics, how did you figure this out for yourself? Where did you come to this place to make it a business, to make it a consultancy practice?
Christina Blacken (05:31):
Well, it starts off with my early stages of my career, which happened to start in the law world because I was like, Ooh, I'm gonna change the world one legal brief at a time. It's gonna be amazing, it's gonna be the new civil rights. You know, I've just had all these kind of lofty ideas. And I moved to New York City from Cornell University and got this really prestigious job at a litigation firm. And at first was like, this is amazing. They have this really storied legacy history of doing incredible legal work. And as I got into it, I learned that there were some really set narratives about work that I thought were really toxic. That hierarchy is more important than creativity and talent. The idea of you needing to conform to be taken seriously or to be promoted. So how you speak, how you look, how you dress.
(06:16):
And as I ran into these things I was like, wow, this is really a disconnect from what I value and how I wanna show up in the world and what I'm being asked to do. I was being tasked to work crazy hours, I mean 24 hour shifts at one point. For cases on organizations that had done horrible things to people and our goal was to reduce their consequences. And I'm like, I don't wanna slave away at my desk for this. I'm like, is this what I had spent all this time and energy and money in school for? So then I thought to myself, what would I like to do to be able to make an impact if I could have a choice? What is an industry that could get me closer to closing what I call the values gap? Things that I care about and how my day looks on a day-to-day basis.
(06:58):
Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so I thought pretty hard about it. Did some research and was like, okay, the nonprofit world makes sense. So I pivoted into the nonprofit space and ended up getting a job at an organization that's still around called Do Something. And it was my first taste of narrative as a tool for behavior change because our job was to use these new media tools like social media, email and text message to get young people to get off the couch and go volunteer on social causes. And it was before it was sexy and cool, you know, this was over 10 years ago. And I was like, wait a minute, I can make a story and I can put it in a text message and send it to 40,000 kids and they will actually physically go do something about it. Pun intended. Really. Like, it's like I can't believe this is so exciting.
(07:42):
But again, that organization at the time and the leader who was in front of it who's no longer there, had this antiquated old school set narrative about work, which was again, hierarchy and conformity and all these really inequitable and destructive things that created this gap between what we valued and what we were actually making and doing and how people were being treated. So I kept saying this gap, I'm like, why do we keep claiming we wanna make an impact or do something positive and yet the actions don't match? And so I started digging into the research around story and how it affects our brains, how it affects our beliefs and our biases because I was just curious, one from a social impact perspective as a nonprofit individual, but also because I've seen it through my career that narratives around business and success and leadership get in the way of our full potential and innovation.
(08:31):
So I started finding all this really interesting research about what it does to your brain and how biases are built through narratives and media, education, politics, etc. And I was like, I'm gonna teach this. I just think this is interesting. I'm gonna start going to conferences and making my own presentations and really teaching the power of stories and tools for change. So it started out as me doing public speaking as a side hustle. And then eventually I was like, oh, I could create a set of tools and teach this into companies and maybe this could be my business because I always wanted to work for myself eventually. And I just began with really small steps of what are the problems that I care about? What are the tools that I'm actually good at and understand and how can I apply it in a unique way to this problem?
(09:14):
And then start small and build relationships and kind of grow it from there. So The New Quo really evolved over a, I would say 10 year period, but it became a business from 2018 onwards after doing tons of research, tons of ideation, a lot of reflection and like dark nights of the soul kind of thing. And what am I doing with my life? How am I gonna have an impact? What does this matter? Like what can I control? So that is really kind of how I got on this path and direction. And if you had asked me in like say high school or college, I would've never thought I would have this path. I always was a storyteller. I mean I was a writer since I was a young kid, I'm a singer and performer. So I always loved narrative of this way of expressing ourselves and showing a new perspective and experience in the world. But I never really thought of it as like a career path. So it's interesting to see how it's shaped up when I was just like, you know, you never know what pivots your life will take you on.
Stephanie Kruse (10:09):
Yeah. But you had this core, I don't know if you wanna call it a desire or your curiosity and desire to connect a purpose with the how. So you had been in these jobs and as a recovering ambitious attorney myself, uh, you know, I wanted to be an attorney and then I worked for attorneys and I heard they were all miserable. And so there went that. But I imagine you probably got that same advice
Christina Blacken (10:38):
<laugh>. I did, I had a couple lawyers cuz I asked them just to do re recon before thinking about law school, how do you feel about your legal journey and your job? And they were like, don't do it. Like 70% of them are like, if you could go back, I would like, they just were like, don't do it.
Stephanie Kruse (10:53):
Isn't that crazy. And so, you know, you saw this disconnect obviously in that world, even in, you know, you went to this quote unquote purpose-driven place, right. With do something. And you also saw it there. So it wasn't about the what, right? Either law or political action, but it was the how. And so as you have gone on your own journey to tell the stories or figure out how to create narrative, how easy is that for people to understand to separate those two things?
Christina Blacken (11:29):
I think one of our biggest challenges is we are purposely not given time for self-reflection. And we are purposely given very little information about why things exist as they are. So for example, the way that conventional businesses run and the goals that they set, where did they come from? Why are these considered good business? Like they come from somewhere. Even this idea of infinite growth is a new economic model and concept that was made in the last 50 years. Before that most economists believed we have finite resources. There's no way you can have infinite growth. But there was this concept of, oh, technology will help us outpace our resource limitations. Which is turning out to be untrue. I mean, it is November out here, it is a cool 75 degree, it's not supposed this warm.
Stephanie Kruse (12:13):
I know, right!
Christina Blacken (12:13):
So people are like, wow, there's this unknowing and sort of this subconscious, "why do things exist as they are and what are the societal and cultural stories that have shaped the goals and the organizing principles of the institutions around us"? And that is a journey in of itself that most people haven't really been able to take quite yet. And sometimes they do in small chunks. Maybe you have a midlife crisis where you're like, wait a minute, the white picket fence and the two and a half kids and the get married in this way and have this kind of job. Something's missing. What's going on here? Is this a fit for who I am and what I want? And there are other people who maybe discovered that a little earlier. And I think younger generations are coming up to this pretty early now where there are certain conventional promises and narratives and stories about how the world works and what we should value that are failing them.
(13:03):
And we've seen that even right now with the election and politics and what's been going on. Young people want something to change. And so I think the process of self-reflection and really getting clear on social cultural stories, where they come from and how the shape our institutions is really important. Because if you don't do that, even if you're a change maker, a person who wants to make impact, it is so easy to replicate the status quo and then to slap a new bow on it and be like, look at that innovation. It's like, but it's the same replication of oppressive systems and structures and behaviors and practices. But you've given it a new flavor. That doesn't mean that it's innovation. So I would say it starts there of how do we increase our narrative intelligence and understanding social cultural stories, where they come from and how they affect our beliefs. And usually that starts at home. Your family of origin has a set of narratives about the world and you learn those pretty early about how it works, who deserves what, what you should be afraid of, what you should value, how you should organize your life. And examining those and figuring out which of these are empowering and useful for me and which of these are limiting is a huge step. And using your narrative intelligence to have a more conscious and purposeful life.
Stephanie Kruse (14:16):
Yeah. I think what you're really tapping into is so powerful. You know, if you think about it, even in human history, there's mythologies, there's fables, you know, religion, right? The Bible, there's narratives that have existed for centuries one, and you're the expert in this like one because that's how humans connect to one another. Right? Through story and generation and what's valuable to you, like you just explained. And two, because it serves some kind of purpose, it might not all be positive, it either keeps people in line or it benefits a structure or an organization doesn't always mean it's good or it's good for everyone. And I wonder sometimes, you know, thinking about what's coming next, whether it be the next generation and how they're thinking about the world that they're inheriting and what ideas are valuable to keep and what are things that should be reevaluated. Is some of the challenge of it now is because of just the information overload.
Christina Blacken (15:22):
Mm-hmm. <affirmative>,
Stephanie Kruse (15:23):
How do you get through the noise to be self-reflective about what you're hearing?
Christina Blacken (15:28):
That's a really great question because I know so many friends, for example, who are like, I am exhausted with the news cycle. I'm exhausted with social media. I'm gonna tap out, I'm gonna play with my cats and like, make a meal. I just can't do it. I think consumption is really important and conscious consumption of what we ingest in terms of information is extremely important because not all information is good information. Some information is factual, imbalanced and historically accurate. And some information is manipulative and exploitive and meant to hoard resources. As we've seen, there's been tons of very easily fact checked lies that have spread on social media because people are driven by fear and anxiety and the fear of things changing and the fear of potentially losing power or losing resources. And so what I find really interesting about it is I think we have what's called historical amnesia.
(16:21):
So it's sort of like if you ask the average person basic historical facts about how our system works, they have no clue. They're like, I don't know when women are able to vote. I don't know when we allowed people of a certain demographic background to get married. Like they don't know any milestone factual things or what it took to get there. And I think that alone can course-correct a significant portion of information curation. If you have a baseline foundation that just has knowledge and information of how the world works, it's a lot harder for that to be penetrated by conspiracy theories, and lies and manipulation. So giving kids really clear historical information that is not biased and full of lies is incredibly important. And most people aren't getting accurate historical knowledge until college when it comes to social cultural dynamics or power dynamics.
(17:13):
Because that's a specific thing. If we talk about the civil rights movement for example, and what happened then and why it occurred, that is a power dynamic. It's a social movement and I think people think that's like, oh it's nice to know, but it's imperative to know because it'll give you a lot of information as to why things are the way they are. Why do businesses operate a certain way that they do? Why are we passing certain laws for protecting certain groups or other groups? Like there's a reason that this is happening. So I would say that's the first thing. The other thing is also realizing that we don't have to consume everything or be on all the time. Like even before social media, I think about the amount of time I was distracted by inputs, and constant bids for my attention. And it wasn't a lot, you know, I read my books in my room, you know, would hang out with my family, my friends in the neighborhood, ride my bike.
(18:00):
You would try to catch someone on the phone and if they weren't there, they weren't there. You're like, well we tried to call you <laugh> and uh exactly. That's it. Or you're on the internet and someone tried to call and you get kicked off the like, the pace of inputs and bids for attention was significantly lower. And so I think people need to make concerted effort to create space, whether it's through meditation, taking social media breaks, really curating their inputs. It's so important because when you're exhausted, your brain gets lazy and it's hard to discern what's true and what's not when you're overwhelmed and constantly on and constantly being stimulated that is not healthy to get a ping from slack and a ping from your social media and a ping from your phone and a ping from this every hour of every day. And that alone can really, you know, distort your brain.
(18:48):
So those two things of improving a historical knowledge and the accuracy of it and curating the inputs and how much your bids of attention are happening on a daily basis can make people a little bit stronger in their critical thinking. And the ability to know which myths and narratives are creating inequity, creating destruction, creating a reduction in like all different metrics of human flourishing and which of these are ways that we can rally together and collaborate together like the Avengers and reach our fullest potential. Because some narratives are great. It's like, oh, a shared future where people have their basic needs met. Wow. It's not a crazy radical idea, but this idea of people having food, water, shelter, healthcare, education, all those things basically met without they're having to be knocked down protests and fights about it would be an amazing future. What does that narrative look like and how do we get there? So I think those are the two keys to get us on that path so people could be more discerning with what they believe.
Stephanie Kruse (19:46):
Yeah. And I think you brought up something else when you were talking about the power structures and you know, I think about working in companies, my background is marketing and that is about messages that is about telling stories, right? It could be about selling a hard drive <laugh>, right? It might not be like a lovely story, but it's a story. And I worked for a hardware company for a while and it was, you know, the next model of servers are coming out and yeah, maybe our competitors is better than ours, but ours is cheaper. But we just need to create enough fear, uncertainty and doubt as to whether or not theirs is as good. And it is playing off of, "you're gonna miss out as a customer. You might not get the best price if you don't come to us". And instilling that fear to create doubt enough to change behavior. So that's the negaive, I mean I would look at that in a negative way. The positive ones almost seem like sometimes we don't get enough of. How do you think about that for yourself? Because I imagine there may be times when you're doing your work that you're like, oh man, this is, this is a lot. Like am I gonna get beyond this hill ever? To change some of this behavior. So what do you tell yourself that helps you in those moments?
Christina Blacken (21:12):
Yeah. Well I forgot to mention in my career, I worked in marketing for a while after the nonprofit stint.
Stephanie Kruse (21:17):
So you know <laugh>,
Christina Blacken (21:18):
So I know it's like do we need to sell more widgets or Nikes or whatever? And I have one reason why I went into that field as I was developing The New Quo was to understand behavior change and messaging. Cuz that's all it is, is you give a message to hopefully change someone's behavior. Typically when it comes to buying things. And what I learned is that most people are motivated by a couple of core key emotions. Either they're motivated by seeking some sort of pleasure, so that's humor, escapism, entertainment or they're motivated by fear. So there's anxiety and, and doomsday stuff and feeling like the unknown, wanting to get some sort of tradition or peace or structure stability while fear is there. And what's given me peace is realizing that most individuals are probably neutral good. So most individuals are like, I don't wanna actively destroy, you know, the planet or other people.
(22:15):
I just wanna survive and take care of myself and my community and my immediate network. But most of them don't understand the ripple effect of their actions. So even if you gave a small, say 10% of this neutral good, some sort of framework and tools to be more conscious of the traces they make and the goals they set, what is the ripple effect that could have in terms of what you're buying, what you're saying, what you're making? I think people forget that social change is incremental. And most of our major movements were started by small concerted handfuls of people. Like I did a campaign when I was in the nonprofit space around Martin Luther King Day because we were like, we wanna expand beyond the narrative of MLK. There were so many other activists and social movement people who were not famous that contributed to this.
(23:02):
So let's create something to teach young people about it. So, we created this text campaign called Activists for a Day. And they essentially got to kind of, uh, choose your own adventure text experience of what it was like to be a young student activist because there were so many students at the time who were doing sit-ins at restaurants that were segregated or doing bus ins. They were, you know, doing these really interesting sort of civil unrest or civil protest against really discriminatory policies and practices, particularly segregation. And so it was fascinating because people were like, I didn't realize that there were so many young people who were not famous and nameless that were part of these movements. And that gives me excitement and motivation. I think we had 40 to 50,000 young people go through the experience. Wow. And getting their messages back was really exciting.
(23:52):
When people are given even just a glimmer of a path of a plan of here's an alternative or here is a way to fight back a seemingly unchangeable system, they get inspired to make change and to make difference. And so it gives me peace is we don't need everybody to agree, we don't need everyone to feel like a change maker at heart. We just need a small percentage of people who feel like the status quo isn't working. And to have them collaborate and have a shared goal that other people can get excited about. So that to me gives me peace. I think another thing too is there are actually a lot of interesting and positive stories out there if you follow the right kind of outlets or other individuals. And I try to balance that on my social newsfeed. I follow creators and makers and comedians and entertainers and teachers who are making interesting and dope things in the world to remind myself the innovation's still happening.
(24:45):
Creativity is still happening. There are people who are doing things that I didn't even think were possible, that's still happening. And so we get to choose what we're paying attention to. And it's not easy, especially on social media because the algorithm is biased towards negativity because that gets more clicks. There's a lot of research that's come out that the algorithms purposely put kind of sensationalist, really controversial extreme things up because people click the gory thing cause they're so shocked and that click is all that matters, not the quality of the content that's being given to you. So that's important to keep in mind that your small snapshot of your algorithm on your social media feed is not the reflection of the entire world. And it is so easy to think, oh my gosh, the world is burning and on fire beause I've seen three tweets today.
(25:35):
That says kill X, Y, and Z. And it's like, but that's your algorithm which has been biased towards whatever. And whatever clicks you have, you need to make sure you go outside of your comfort zone. I tell a lot of people also to do what I call sort of a story audit. So what are the stories and narratives that you're consuming regularly? Who do you listen to in podcasts? Who are you watching on tv? What are you reading? And if most of those people look like you or they're from a very similar demographic, switch it up cuz you'd be surprised what can inspire you and get you to think differently. Divergent thinking is imperative for being creative. So if you're in your comfort zone all the time, you're gonna be down and not feel inspired and motivated to do things.
Stephanie Kruse (26:13):
Yeah. I mean kind of back to you right? It's reinvent the narrative that you're consuming just as much as you wanna be asking questions and be in that place of wonder about the stories you believe and the stories you've been told and the stories that are serving whatever structures you participate in. Right. And I think one of the things that struck me as you were just explaining that too, was the idea that we have choice. There's always a choice. And with the world feeling at large kind of out of control, you know, unpredictable, there is always a choice. And I love the activism piece of it. Cause I think about frameworks too. You know, simple things where, you know, even using technology in a good way of, you know, organizations that are saying, okay, well you can just text a few people this message and here's a S lack channel and get on and just text five people. That's a way to be involved in something that you care about. A lot of people don't even know exists. You know, you don't have to be part of the big thing or you don't have to run the local organization to make change. You can do that in five minutes.
Christina Blacken (27:24):
Absolutely.
Stephanie Kruse (27:25):
If you seek those things out, you know,
Christina Blacken (27:27):
It's true. And I think people forget that there are ways in your day-to-day life that you can live what I call a values practiced life, which is clarity of, "What do I value? And does my day-to-day reflect that the kind of relationships I've built, the sorts of products I buy, and the companies that I support, the goals that I set for myself?" And if you do that sort of audit and think, you know what, I really value creativity but I'm not doing anything creative. Maybe I'll have one night a week where I do painting with my friends. I mean like paints these fun little creative murals in the house or vignettes or whatever. Or maybe it's, you know, I really value community but I feel super disconnected. I'm gonna volunteer at my local soup kitchen once a month or something. Right. Like whatever
(28:11):
that thing is the behavior that expresses the value. It's important to do an assessment and see where it shows up in your life and where you might have a misalignment, which is what I'm writing about with this upcoming book that I'm producing, is sort of how do we create more clarity and purpose and personal power in our lives when it feels impossible, especially in an inequitable world. And it is understanding the levels of power that we have. You might have bestowed power from, you know, formal institutions. Maybe you're in a position of leadership, maybe you're a business owner, maybe you're an individual who has some level of wealth, whatever that might be. So you can assess how am I applying my bestowed power. Then there are also powerful ways to make change or to influence people without it being bestowed. So somebody who's a great community builder that doesn't have a ton of money but has really interesting and diverse relationships across industries can make influence and movements by how they move through those relationships.
(29:06):
For example, maybe you don't have a formal title that's bestowed on you, but it's still an act of power. So this idea of understanding where are my power structures? Where do they lie? How am I leveraging them, and how am I using them in ways that feel conscious and intentional and considers their impact holistically, not just for myself, but what is the benefit to others, to the planet? And so the more that people can do that, I think the more we can create this kind of conscious and intentional, meaningful life that's not just driven by fear and survival. Most individuals are like, I'm just trying to survive. I'm just trying to pay my bills and I get it. I've been there. We're all kind of swimming in this sea, in this muck of capitalism. And ultimately though, even if you only have 10% of your time, energy and control, what are you doing with the 10%? Is it 10% aligning a little bit more with your values? Or is it being given away to someone else's values and someone else's power and structures in a way that's not serving you? And so I think that's a question a lot of people need to ask themselves, no matter where they might be in terms of their privileges or formal power.
Stephanie Kruse (30:14):
That is so clear when you say it. And in practice it's just like the river's running past you and I feel like you get in these head down moments in life. Right. And you're just running with it, whatever that is. Whether it's making your rent, getting your kids through school, seeing your family, supporting people, and then you kind of come heads up and go, wait a minute, what is this all for? And in that evaluation of values and how you have choices to live in those values that you have, I think that is the key to whatever fulfillment it is we're gonna get outta this life.
Christina Blacken (30:51):
Yeah, exactly. And another thing that's interesting about it, because you know, I keep talking about narratives and I wanna give like a more specific example. So one example of a narrative that drives a lot of our society, our workplaces, our communities, is hyper competition. So the idea of there's not enough for everybody, we've gotta compete to the death literally. And that means that there's really low levels of trust in relationships, there's low levels of sharing information and collaboration, which then leads to a ton of problems, right. And I've found, the older that I got when I was building a business, I was like, well what is my narrative around competition and how do I feel about individuals who are in my space or doing similar things? And the times where people have been really generous with me, where they've shared their contracts with me, where they've shared their price points and the ways that they've gotten where they've gotten and they didn't have to do those things if they were hyper competitive, they'd be like, no, I'm not sharing any of that.
(31:44):
I was like, wow, this is so incredible because now I can trust you build this collaborative relationship and refer people to you. So it's paying back to them. And then I've been able to pay that forward with how I collaborate and inform and educate other people who are entering the space. And so this idea of like, well I don't have any control, I think it's important to understand, at the minimum, what is driving the structures around your life. Cuz someone's doing it. Someone has set goals. Whether you're aware of them or not, that has shaped your life. And do you align with those goals and do they have to be true? And are they leading to the meaning and fulfillment and stability that you're hoping for? And many times when you take a step back, even just a beat, and evaluate the conventional goals that were just kind of handed are not really working that well.
(32:31):
Like hyper competition has led to so many researched understandings around employee disengagement, huge amounts of people leaving quitting jobs. Like there's all these reasons why we're seeing the sort of fallout of people who are like, I'm unhappy, I'm underpaid, I'm overworked, I'm exhausted, and this isn't gonna go forward. So I think that's important. It's how do we reflect and also find examples in our lived lives of when these values are failing and which values are working. The values that have always worked for me, community collaboration and respect and kindness, those have propelled my life forward. Anytime I was hyper-competitive or fear-driven , that didn't work, it wasn't useful, it was not helpful for me. So even if it sounds like it's a way to protect ourselves in a way to survive, it's not leading to what we may want.
Stephanie Kruse (33:19):
Yeah. And the awareness of that I think is the key, right? Of what you're describing is what role are you playing in it and how is it serving you and not letting ourselves always get sort of swept up in that narrative, right. So stopping and questioning. And now that you are, I wanna talk a little bit about your process of writing your book so that you can share this with even more people, I imagine. What are those tools you're gonna give us? Christina <laugh>, that can't be an easy process. So tell me a little bit about how that's going for you, what you're trying to get across in that work and who you're gonna be hoping to share it with.
Christina Blacken (34:02):
Well, it started off because I do a lot of public speaking, so my companies are designed to create these sort of transformational learning experiences for different organizations. It could be a corporate organization with employees, it could be a nonprofit organization with board members for example. And throughout that experience I would use all these different tools of entertainment and education and reflection in writing to get people to understand how they can have better relationships with people who are not like themselves. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So how do you improve your historical knowledge and your self knowledge and your values and what are the behaviors and specific practices that showcase those values in action, particularly when it comes to collaboration or team building or leadership. And as I was doing these public speaking engagements and trainings, I would be asked, so do you have a book? Is there a book that you can promote?
(34:50):
So I'd be asked to straight up, where's your book? Because a lot of people who do this sort of work are like, here's my book. Yeah, you can do this, your staff, or here's my book, this could go to the audience at this conference. And I was like, well see the thing is I don't have one um, <laugh>, but I'm thinking about it and it'll be great. And so I just got so many messages from different people who just expected at this point for me to have a book around the work that I'm doing. And I've always loved writing. I started writing when I was a young kid and my mom tells this funny story where I'd written this poem. I was like maybe six or something. And I was trying to write why is it true? Because it is. That's why, I don't know what I was trying to say <laugh>, but I put, why is it tuned?
(35:29):
Cuz I didn't know how to spell true. And so my mom and my uncle at one of our family gatherings, she's like, we just want y'all to hear this poem from Christina. Why is it tuned? Why? Because it's <laugh>. That's why they're like, do you understand the importance of her words? It was embarrassing, but it would just show that I was trying to get an emotion and a feeling and an experience and a narrative out. And from that age I started doing like writing competitions and would win those. And I write now on my own site and I have a podcast, so I've always done storytelling and I also do storytelling performances. And I was like, you know, I've just enjoyed doing this. I think this is something I can leave behind that can continue to impact and inspire people long after I'm gone. So it's worth investing it.
(36:14):
But the book writing process, it's so unique for each person. It's a creative process for me. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it's sort of been me like having these weird random moments of thought late at night and dropping in my phone, dropping in notes and <laugh>, talking to people, notes everywhere, notes everywhere. I have all these little notes and these little things where I've kind of been mulling and mulling and mulling on these ideas for a while. And then two months ago I signed up for this writer's workshop that essentially is sort of a mastermind to get clarity on your narrative and the structure of it and the direction you wanna go. And we're finishing that up in the next week. So I was like, this has been great. Cuz now I have sort of my formal process and framework to move through the meat in the bones of the book. And the book is slowly evolving. I kind of think of it as a combination of like, as sort of historical memoir meets practical tools mm-hmm. Around, you know, social change and the things that I've been talking about. Mm-hmm. Where really it answers the question, how do we find hope and personal power when it feels impossible? And that's really <laugh> what the book is sort of about. Which is a big question. That's
Stephanie Kruse (37:17):
A book we all need
Christina Blacken (37:18):
<laugh>. Right? It's like, what do we do when we feel like these things are out of our control and there's all these inequitable systems that are harming all of us. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> categorically, even the people at the top of these systems are being harmed. And what does it mean as an individual who feels like I have no power to be able to create a, a life that feels more intentional and conscious and socially impactful. And it's really for a person who feels committed to wanting to live a life that's not just driven by autopilot. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> or by other people's beliefs and behaviors that are leading to really destructive outcomes. And that's a lot of people. I actually saw a tweet a couple weeks ago, it was a tweet by a young person and they were like, does anybody else feel really serious inertia about the future where I just don't feel motivated or excited about our conventional and traditional work structures?
(38:06):
And I feel like I'm lost because I've put in sort of this situation where I feel like I don't, I can't change it. And 150,000 people liked this tweet. Wow. And there were so many people who were responding saying, I feel stuck. I'm in a chronically underpaid service job. I'm in huge amounts of debt and I'm given little to no tools to get out of it. What am I supposed to do with this? How am I supposed to stay motivated and excited and I see these laws being passed or taking away my rights and my, my, you know, ability to live a healthy life? And so seeing that, I was just like, wow, I wanna write something that helps people to not feel apathetic and completely hopeless about the really immense social and environmental issues we were facing some real serious issues and I think people are getting more clear about it. So we were facing extreme social unrest, we're facing extreme environmental events. Like there are things that we can pivot and fix if we become clearer on understanding the systems around us and how they got to where they are. And how we could choose differently. Because that's really what I'm trying to teach. Here's how we can make clarity of the noise and give you a direction and a path to potentially choose.
Stephanie Kruse (39:19):
I love that it is clearly needed by evidence of the <laugh>, the tweet responses you just cited. And I think there's been some other examples of that we're way beyond just the like, oh, I'm 25 and I don't know if I wanna be an attorney or not. You know? Yep. We're way beyond that. Right.
Christina Blacken (39:37):
Way beyond.
Stephanie Kruse (39:38):
And I think about that too because I think about both, you know, the elders in my family that are at a place in their life where they have less time ahead of them than behind them and what they're seeing and all the change they've experienced. And then I also think of people, my children's ages, you know, teenagers and how are we making it seem good to wanna grow up mm-hmm. <affirmative> and to strive for purpose and meaning for them. So your book can't come fast enough. I think I'm so excited for you and I'm gonna definitely wanna read it. So one of the things that we ask every guest, the title of the show, good enough for now, what does that mean for you?
Christina Blacken (40:27):
I love this question because one of the things I talk about a lot is the fallacy of perfectionism and how it essentially stops us from the innovation necessary for all the problems we're facing. And good enough for now means self connection. So this is a concept I just was reading about the other day. Self connection is the idea of having self-awareness and self-acceptance and self alignment. So you're aware of who you are, you are accepting the parts of yourself, even the parts that might be flawed, and you're aligning your life with the things that you care about. And good enough for now is doing those things because you are trusting yourself that you are good enough as is, and you don't have anything to prove. You don't have these massive major things you need to change about yourself to find love or peace or stability.
(41:12):
That to me is good enough for now. It doesn't mean that you can't strive for goals or change, but it does mean you need to trust yourself and accept yourself as you are. Especially when there's so many societal messages that say you're not good enough, you're too fat, you're too black, you're too gay, you're too this, you're too old, you're too disabled. Whatever that thing might be. That essentially is a lie. And that keeps people in the toxic topsy-turvy consumption wheel of if I just consume this thing or get this thing or achieve this thing, I will feel good enough to be able to exist. And I promise you, you could do all those things and still feel really unhappy and really disconnected if you are not accepting of yourself and aligning your life with what you genuinely care about. So good enough for now for me is self-acceptance, really.
(42:04):
And the idea that I am valuable, even if people don't see it or want to hear it or thank me having big curly hair and looking a certain way or being a bustier woman, whatever it might be, that I still am inherently valuable human that deserves kindness, respect and love, even if I'm not this conventional thing that people say is the most valuable thing in our society. So I hope most people take that message and learn you're good enough as is. You don't have anything to prove. You deserve kindness and respect and the basic human rights every person should have because you're good enough as is.
Stephanie Kruse (42:38):
Thank you for that. I feel like you're talking to everybody's inner child, <laugh>
Christina Blacken (42:44):
The inner child is like, let me relax, please let me rest. Yes. Like
Stephanie Kruse (42:49):
<laugh>. Exactly. Exactly. Oh my gosh, yes. I'm gonna take that with me. This has been such a great conversation, Christina. I can't thank you enough for coming on and spending some time with me. I feel like I've just gotten all the years of your wisdom and then some just talking to you. So thank you. Where can people find you?
Christina Blacken (43:09):
Well, thank you for having me. These are great questions and something I'm gonna mull on myself and really continue to dig into because there's just so much to unpack here. People can find me on my website, which is the new quo, T H E N E W q uo.com and they can also check out my podcast, which is sway them in Color, which is S w A Y them in Color on all podcast platforms. And that's a starting point for learning more about what I do and hearing me rant and rave and hearing my stories as well.
Stephanie Kruse (43:41):
Thank you so much.
Christina Blacken (43:43):
Thank you.
Stephanie Kruse (43:48):
Thank you so much for joining me. Please share the show with your friends by word of mouth, send them a text and baby leave a rating and review. It really helps people find good enough. For now, don't forget to also follow on your favorite podcast player like Apple or Spotify so you can get new shows automatically each time they're released. You'll find show notes at good enough for now, pod.com and you can connect on Instagram at good enough for now pod. See you next time.
