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Navigating the Customer Experience

Join host Yanique Grant as she takes you on a journey with global entrepreneurs and subject matter experts that can help you to navigate your customer experience. Learn what customers really want and how businesses can understand the psychology of each customer or business that they engage with. We will be looking at technology, leadership, customer service charters and strategies, training and development, complaint management, service recovery and so much more!
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Now displaying: August, 2022
Aug 30, 2022

Art Harrison is the Co-Founder and Chief Growth Officer at Daylight. He's an experienced entrepreneur and leader with over 20 years of experience developing and delivering production grade solutions. With a background in computer science and software development, Art was previously Vice President at iNTERFACEWARE and previously founded MXD Communities in 2001.

 

Questions

 

  • Could you share a little bit about your journey, how did you get to where you are today?
  • Could you tell us a little bit about Daylight? And what Daylight does and how Daylight is helping their customers achieve their goals?
  • Could you share with us how is it that consumers or organizations are able to increase their overall customer satisfaction and brand loyalty by offering positive and engaging Omni channels CX at scale?
  • Could you share with our listeners what low-code is for those listeners who are not familiar with that? And why do you believe it's disrupting the CX landscape?
  • You're in the CX space, as well as the design space, could you share with us maybe one or two things that you've seen emerge in the last few months that you will see as an ongoing trend, at least for 2023 in this space?
  • Could you also share with us what is the one online resource, tool, website or app that you absolutely can't live without in your business?
  • Could you also share with our listeners maybe one or two books that have had a big impact on you, it could be a book that you read a very long time ago, or even one that you've read recently, but it still left a great impact on you.
  • Could you also share with us what's one thing that's going on in your life right now that you're really excited about? Either something you're working on to develop yourself or your people.
  • Where can listeners find you online?
  • Now, could you also share with our listeners, do you have a quote or saying that during times of adversity or challenge, you will tend to revert to this quote, it kind of helps to get you back on track if for any reason you get derailed.

 

Highlights

 

Art’s Journey

 

Art shared that like most people, it's been an interesting journey, it's not one that he would have mapped out in advance. But he'd say he’s always been passionate about using technology and building things. And he thinks that's been really the guiding principle of his career. So, he started off very entrepreneurial in the social networking and online dating space when he was in university. And really what he found from that led him to marketing and ultimately led him back to being a founder again, here at Daylight.

 

And it was just a passion to build things that people want to use, and to find ways to delight customers and end users along the way. And even though his career has spanned technical and marketing and other kind of lanes, the common thread has always been, “What do people need? And how can we make their lives better and delight them along the way?” And so, it's been an interesting journey. But he’s always excited about where it's going to lead him next.

 

About Daylight – What Does Daylight Do and How Daylight Helping Their Customers Achieve Their Goals

 

Art said absolutely. And kind of an interest of this podcast, Daylight is kind of in the space of customer experience, in that they're a platform that helps large enterprises primarily, but really any organization that knows how they want to improve the experience they're providing, not just to their customers, but to their employees as well.

 

And they're a platform that allows them to rapidly design, build and deploy solutions that really touch on that interaction between people and process. So, the simplest example he can give you is the TurboTax type of example, where you have the IRS and the United States, the CRA in Canada, any other tax agency, they have a business process, but it's a terrible process for most people to interact with.

 

And TurboTax and the tax industry exists to create a better on ramp that'll guide people through that process in a way that's intuitive to them and is the way they're used to working with other solutions, not just paper forms and addendums. Daylight is a platform that lets organizations build that kind of an experience for any interaction that their customers or their employees are having and to do it at scale across the entire organization. So, they're touching more places, and then proving that experience at every interaction that people are having with the business and their services or processes.

 

How Organizations Increase Their Overall Customer Satisfaction and Brand Loyalty by Offering Positive and Engaging Omni Channels CX at Scale

 

Me: Now, one of the areas that we would love to discuss with you, as we have you on our podcast is could you share with us how is it that consumers or organizations are able to increase their overall customer satisfaction and brand loyalty by offering positive and engaging omni-channels CX at scale? Could you share a little bit about that with us?

 

Art shared that it's a broad question, but he does think there's a lot of ways. Part of the thesis and a hypothesis when they were starting Daylight was this understanding that most organizations are primarily invest in the major touchpoints that they have with their clients.

 

So, you think about any lifecycle of a client, there's the research and acquisition phase or the signup phase, whatever you want to call it. So, how are we going to bring this customer in and most people are investing a lot of money to try and make that experience as pleasant as possible.

 

And then there is the renewal or upsell phase, a lot of investment goes in there. But everything that happens in between that is actually what leads to their satisfaction, their probability of churning or abandoning or leaving that organization and so when you can start thinking about what are all the ways that they need to interact with us, it may be that they're just looking for information, they're looking to change some basic information about themselves, their family, their account. And so, when you start thinking about how do we improve the CSAT scores or the NPS for the employees, it's really looking and saying, “Okay, we know we've got the book ends really well.” But there are dozens of times where that friction, they're leaving friction in place, or they're creating friction for someone just to talk to someone to understand, “Hey, can I change the payment date that I have?”or “I've just got married, I want to update some of my information so that my family is included in my account.”or whatever it may be.

 

When they can look at that and say, “What are all those touch points? How can we make a bigger impact and improve the experience across all of those areas?” And furthering that to like, how do they want to have that experience? It's one thing to say we're going to make everything available online and self-service and there is a core group of customers that care about that. But you need to also think about, well, sometimes there's a lot of information there, or it's someone that doesn't want it, they just want someone to take care of it for them.

 

You have to look at the entire lifecycle and all of the interaction points and find ways to create a more natural experience in any of those.

 

But one of the key things that they talk about at Daylight when they’re talking with customers, is changing this mindset of, “I have a business process, I have something that I want to accomplish and so I'm going to push it on to the customer in the way that I need it for them to give me their information.” So, you think about a bank, they have a process for anything, you want to open a new checking account, this is how they need the information. And historically, they would even if they were digitizing it, they take their process and put that online. But that's not how we think, as consumers, we don't think about their business process, we think about the outcome we want to have or the experience. So, you have to kind of evaluate all of those touch points from the perspective of the person doing it and try to make those improvements.

 

What is Low-Code and Why is it Disrupting the CX Landscape?

 

Me: Now, in preparing for this interview, I noticed that when you were introduced, it was introduced that you were a good candidate to speak about how low-code is disrupting the CX landscape. Could you share with our listeners what low-code is for those listeners who are not familiar with that? And why do you believe it's disrupting the CX landscape?

 

Art shared that typically, a low-code, it can mean a lot of things for a lot of people but the simplest description of that is historically, anything that you were building new, a technical task required software developers, designers, people on the technical side of the spectrum, to understand your needs, and build that solution for you to the best of their understanding. And what low-code does is it changes the paradigm so that by reducing the technical bar to build new solutions, you're shortening the distance between the person who actually knows the problem, and most likely even knows what the solution would be. And that solution getting built.

 

So, low-code exists in just about any category, any industry, he'll think of some brand names he has no affiliation with but, whether it's GoDaddy or Squarespace, or any website builder, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, you had to learn HTML, you had to learn how to code a website.

 

Now, you can go on to a low-code solution where you're dragging and dropping and building something that is professional grade, that looks amazing, that works on any device, that's low-code transforming, who can build websites. And when you think about the experience realm, whether that's digital experiences, the employee experiences for someone that works in a branch, the tools that are going to make your call centre more effective, any area that typically was relying on a service like an integrator or an SI, or a technology team within their own organization, they were waiting in the queue, depending on the size of their budget to get work done, they might have to wait months and months, they get something done eventually, but it's not what they wanted.

 

Low-code really changes that because now that person that is on the front line, who knows this is where it's always problematic with a customer, “I wish that I could just automatically do these couple of tasks or I wish I knew what to do when they said that they want to purchase this product or change their account in this way.”They understand that problem and low-code empowers them to build if not 100%, 80%, 90% of their solution directly, and keep changing it when they actually use it in the field. And so, it just means the iteration, the time to value and the bar or the barrier to making these better experiences is dropping. And that means you're going to continue to see improved experiences that are really meeting the needs of employees and customers across all kinds of organizations.

 

Me: All right, so basically making things more accessible to the average person. And I guess it really boils down to as you were saying, as I was listening to you, it really boils down to, I believe, also ensuring that everybody can have access to do the exact thing. When you were speaking just now, I was thinking of Canva. And I was thinking of back in the day, if you wanted to do a flyer or some form of publication for marketing or advertising, you typically get a graphic artist or even an advertising agency who have the talent in house to get it done. But I mean, you can become your own designer with Canva, they've made it so easy. And I thought of that when you're talking about making the design process and the coding process so easy.

 

Art stated that that's a perfect example. And he'll tie it back, again, he spends a lot of his time talking to these large enterprises that literally have 10s of 1000s of processes that are happening across the organization and insurance company has all different types of claims and policies and managements and call centres and issues that they're dealing with. The bank has branches and wealth products and everything else, they have so many. And going back to that TurboTax analogy, a lot of them are stressful. Like doing your taxes is inherently a stressful thing. You're worried if I do it wrong, am I going to get audited? Am I going to make a mistake? You kind of feel adversarial, like the person that I'm providing this information to doesn't actually have my best interests at heart.

 

When you can take all of those processes and reduce the cost to actually make something that's more intuitive, more delightful, you're enabling the people on the business side who know that we can improve the experience, our satisfaction scores, to make that improvement. You're improving the lives of the people that need to provide the information in.

 

As he said, often stressful experiences, it's like taking a test, you're really changing the dynamic of what can be addressed, how easily, how cost effectively it can be and then dramatically changing the types of experiences that can be built, you can take something like taxes, and turn that into something where it's more conversational. “Hey, did you change jobs this year?” “Great. Tell me about your new job.” “Did you get married?” “Great, there might be a tax benefit for you.” You took something that was previously just here, fill out box 66 and made it into something that now feels like, “Hey, this is working with me, this is a very different emotion, a very different experience that I'm interacting with this organization or this business process.”

 

In the CX Space and Design Space, What Are Things That Have Emerged in the Last Few Months that Will be an Ongoing Trend in 2023?

 

Me: So, we're approaching pretty much the end of 2022, I can't believe that we're almost in the final quarter of the year, like it just started. And you're in the CX space, as well as the design space, could you share with us maybe one or two things that you've seen emerge in the last few months that you will see as an ongoing trend, at least for 2023 in this space.

 

Art shared that for him, and he’s only one perspective and as he says to his own clients, the clients of Daylight, he’s in the vendors mindset. So, as much as he works hard to stay neutral or to be very open and really help people find the best solution for them, regardless of his organization, he still only sees it from his perspective, so always a grain of salt. But what we are seeing, not just in the last couple of quarters, but really for the last few years, particularly during the pandemic, it's escalated, and it continues to grow, no one is stopping work on the customer experience. But some of the same teams and technologies and approaches that people have really heavily invested in to improve customer experience is shifting to include a lot more on employee experience.

 

As we've all been remote as we have, as consumers, we are seeing these better experiences, it's really hard to have an amazing experience shopping online or interacting with your Robo Advisor account for your investments, and then going to work and using the worst technology or being stuck to deal with terrible processes, terrible communication channels. So, we're seeing a really increasing push on the need to improve employee experiences to do their job, whether they're directly supporting customers, or whether they're doing internal things, HR, anywhere else.

 

Because it's becoming essential to retain the teams that you have, people just don't want to, they have the flexibility to work anywhere, because the barriers of geography are kind of breaking down. So, the importance of improving the quote, unquote, customer experience of your employees seems to be always increasing and we're really seeing some exciting changes to how people are supporting their teams across the board.

 

App, Website or Tool that Art Absolutely Can’t Live Without in His Business

 

When asked about online resources that he cannot live without in his business, Art shared that that is a tough one, he would say it's not a glamorous tool by any means but for him, it is probably, he would say any video conferencing. For him, he spent so much time just talking to people, understanding what their objectives are, what their goals are, whether that's his team, whether that's their customers, whether it's just peers in the industry. And if they didn't have access to that, and the ability to still make connections, even when they’re geographically dispersed or kind of on locked down with a pandemic.

 

He feels like this last couple of years would have felt really isolating, he wouldn't have made the connections and the growth that he’s made personally, professionally with his team. So, there's a lot of other way cooler tools that he uses kind of in with his marketing brand, or his technology brand. But if you took away his ability to just connect with people, see their faces and still build meaningful connections, he doesn't know what he would do. So, he thinks that still to him is the most valuable app.

 

Books that Have Had the Biggest Impact on Art

 

When asked about books that have had the biggest impact, Art shared that he’s going to give a weird one here and it's just because he consumes a lot of information. A lot of it is articles and long form. But there's a book, when you asked him that there's a book, a professor recommended when he was young, and this is not for everyone to read. But it made a big impact on him just opening his eyes in the numbers way.

 

So, it's not about CX or UX, but there's a book called the One Two Three…Infinity: Facts and Speculations of Science (Dove Books on Mathematics) by George Gamow. And it was a computer science professor that at the time basically said, “If you can read this and understand this, then I want to work with you on some side projects.” So, it became a motivation for him to just expand what does infinity even mean? And for him, the keener in him to want to get in the good graces of that professor. So, that just had a big impact on him. And his wife actually recently purchased that one for him, because he had talked about it. Something that I had read in my university days.

 

Then the other book that comes to mind, and he’s just beginning it right now. And he’s had it on his shelf for a long time, someone handed it to him before, it's called The Book of Business Awesome/The Book of Business Unawesome by Scott Stratten. So, that's another book, he can't see the impact it's made on him yet but that's next up that someone has recommended, and he’s going to be reading next.

 

What Art is Really Excited About Now!

 

When asked about something that he’s excited about, Art stated that one of the things he’s really excited about, well, he’s always excited about his family. He’s got two kids that are going through transitions of kind of where they are in life. They did their first year away at a sleepaway camp this year, they're in middle school, one of them is in middle school. So, the keeping up with them, his son actually recommended a podcast to him, a business podcast, he's 11 years old, that he’s actually loving.

 

He’s really excited about the changes of, they're giving him interesting things that are stretching his mind now. So, that's pretty cool. And one of the things, he’s excited about, it's a little cheesy, but they made a big investment at their organization in a communication framework. It's kind of under a selling framework. It's a little plug for the group there called The Value Selling. What he really likes about it is it really gives a framework for how to have conversations, to understand where people want to go, what's stopping them from getting there? And then what they believe the solution would be and how to attach to that.

 

Now, usually that's used to sell or to do better by your clients and be aligned, he’s really excited about what it's been doing for his organization, for the one on ones. Something he’s wanted to get better at is how does he mentor and provide one on ones and coaching to the team? And using that same framework of them saying, where do I want to go? You want to be promoted? You want to get to this point in your career? Well, what's stopping you? And what do you think you could do to further that, and then being able to have them know where they want to go and support them is putting a lot more direction to the one on ones he’s having.

 

And he’s really excited about how that's going to make him a better manager, a better leader, and how he’s going to help the people on the team that he directly interacts with get where they are ultimately wanting to be in their lives, because that's what breeds a great culture, a great team, and just great people across the board, whether they stay with them or not. So, he’s really excited about that.

 

Where Can We Find Art Online

 

Website – www.daylight.io

LinkedIn – Art Harrison

 

Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Art Uses

 

When asked if he has a quote or saying that he tends to revert to, Art shared that he does and he’s going to overshare a little bit. It's not a famous quote, it just comes from his dad, and he’s the third Art or Arthur, the third, his son is now the fourth. They've been the Harrison family line, they’ve kept that tradition going and just from an early age, his dad would just kind of like no matter what adversity they were in, no matter what they’re going through, he's like, “Don't worry, it would either be intermix, you're either a Harrison or you're an Art, it's going to work out, and it's going to be fine.”

 

And it's not that he was some wild success, it's just that he really managed stress well, and just knew that life would work out the way that it was supposed to. And it really just embedded in his DNA. And so, whether it's the hardest day, professionally or personally, whether he’s struggling with something, whether he’s excited about something, it's just in there, and it's kind of repeating in his brain all the time that like, it doesn't matter if it's going to work out, he’s going to prevail.

 

And he would say just to anyone listening, like that was the same philosophy even when he had the new-born babies, he and his wife were stressing about they're not sleeping, he just had that same mantra, it's going to work out, he’s going to figure out what it is that's making this baby upset and he’s going to prevail. And so, that simple phrase of like it's going to work out is what drives him and it makes you be willing to take on any challenge, knowing that at the end of this, there's a solution. It's going to work out even when it seems like it didn't work out, that is it working out, it's still leading you where you needed to be. So, that is the kind of quote or mantra that is always with him.

 

Me: I love that, amazing. And I think at some point in our lives, we all need to kind of give ourselves those kinds of affirmations. Because life can become overwhelming and daunting and sometimes it does feel like all the doors are closing around us. But if you do have that mindset, as Rhonda Byrne from The Secret says, “Thoughts become things,” then if you believe it's going to work out, it will work out.

 

Art agreed that it will and it really lets you look differently at the things that seem to be the roadblock or seem to be the setback is that it's still going to work out, he doesn't know how yet, but he then tends to look back at all of those negative points and know that he wouldn't be where he is today if he hadn't been there. So, you change your perspective on everything when you just know that it's working out the way it ideally can. To him it is his superpower because it really does make everything seem possible.

 

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Links

 

 

The ABC’s of a Fantastic Customer Experience

 

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Aug 10, 2022

Dr. Fred Moss is a holistic Physician, Restorative Coach, Podcaster, Psychiatrist Expert, Witness at Welcome to Humanity with Dr. Fred Moss. Dr. Moss arrived on Earth on March 01, 1958 and from that very second has been earmarked to be a healer. The family he was born into, was in chaos, and in many ways was counting on his arrival to bring health and wellness back into balance. Little Freddy had his hands full and over the next 6 decades, he has made it his business to bring healing to the world around him, not only to his family and friends, but to the community and world at large, what a journey it has been.

 

Questions

  • Could tell us in your own words a little bit about your journey?
  • Could you share with us as an organization, maybe one or two things that you can do as leadership in an organization or putting in place some form of programme to support team members where mental health is concerned in order to strengthen the customer experience?
  • If there was one thing to do immediately to assist ourselves when we're feeling out of balance. What would you suggest that one thing would be?
  • Could you share with us what's the one online resource, tool, website or app that you absolutely can't live without in your business?
  • Could you also share with us and I'm sure you've read many, many books across your lifespan, especially in the field that you are in, but maybe one or two that have had a great impact on you, it could be a one that you read a very long time ago, or even one you've read recently, that you'd like to share with our listeners?
  • Could you also share our listeners what's one thing that's going on in your life right now that you're really excited about, either something you're working on to develop yourself or your people?
  • Where can listeners find you online?
  • Do you have a quote or a saying that during times of adversity or challenge you'll tend to revert to this quote? It kind of helps to get you back on track if for any reason you get derailed or get off track. Do you have one of those?

 

Highlights

 

Dr. Moss’ Journey

 

Me: I know we read a little bit about your journey. And I didn't read your entire bio. But if you could tell us in your own words a little bit about your journey, I know your bio, the part that I did read did indicate that you have been doing quite a bit of work since you landed on Earth. And so, could you just share with our listeners a little bit about how you got to where you are today?

 

Dr. Moss shared that it has been a long strange trip. It's been a little over 64 years now and young at heart for sure. And there's lots of work to do. He arrived on that March 01, 1958 with the whole idea of being counted on to bring joy and pleasure and love and reconnection to that family. And for the first couple years, he probably did pretty good until his brothers got annoyed and irritated with him, he had two brothers, still do who 10 and 14 years older than him. And they taught him how to be precocious. They taught him how to read and write and do math, even before he arrived in kindergarten. Because when he arrived there, he was ahead of the class, he was doing things that most of the kindergarteners didn't want to do, he was like interested in flashcards and books and stuff like that.

 

He was also bored, so he became a class clown, there's nobody in elementary school, no teacher he ever had who certainly ever forgot him as a student. Because what he was really interested in more than anything, he thought school was going to show him how to communicate, he loved the way that his parents and his brothers communicated with each other, he could just watch him from the playpen. And he knew that there was something special in the world of sharing ideas with each other and he really wanted to learn how to do that become a master of communication. But low and behold, elementary school was not a place to learn that and he thought, “Oh, maybe the bigger kids, Junior High.” And when he got there, it was even worse. He thought, “Okay, High School.” and then that would be even worse, all you had to do is sit down and regurgitate what the teacher said, and that they would call you a good student and move you ahead. And he just thought that was so absurd.

 

Eventually, he went to college and with the whole idea again, he went to the best college he could possibly think because he loved their football helmets and that was a University of Michigan. And he went there and again, was kind of disillusioned with the idea that what he really had to do was just follow what the professor said and say whatever they wanted him to say and then pass, that wasn't open discourse and that's what I really wanted. So, he dropped out of college and he did what any self-respecting American dropout would do in the late 70s. He had boarded a Greyhound bus and went all the way to Berkeley, California so that he could learn, just figuring out who he was. He had a great summer in Berkeley, but realized he didn't have a job and not much of a future.

 

So, his mom convinced him to come back and try school one more time. He came back, there was a new field that was just growing, you might have heard of it, it's called Computer Science and the only computer that was there in Michigan was happened to be at the University of Michigan. So, it was a two-acre facility, he spent his day and night there, pulling up batch cards like punch cards and then hoping that the batch would run and he did that for a little while until he realized that wasn't going to work, so he dropped out again. This is when the story starts getting interesting because in 1980 when he dropped out, his mom, again convinced him that she should probably get a job. And I thought, yeah, making some money so he could buy a car so he could go around the country and figure out what his life is about made some sense.

 

So, he started working at a state hospital for adolescent psychiatry, State House Psychiatric Hospital for adolescent boys. And that's where really his journey in some ways with this whole idea of mental health began.

 

On January 05, 1980, he began that job and he was a communicator, he knew that he could communicate with these kids and then when they communicated and connected as human beings, well, healing took place in all directions, not just for them but for him as well and maybe even for the people around them. Like treating these people like they were just people and not sick kids who are defective or afflicted but just people just like him who don't really know what to do next, and aren't really sure what their next step was, and really just acknowledging them for being human.

 

He really, really strongly learned that communication and connection was at the heart of all healing of all conditions. The thing he really disrespected though, was the way psychiatry was dealing with these kids. He hated psychiatry, he hated that they would call the psychiatrist and they would come by and interview the child for three seconds. So, they'd say like, “Johnny's up too late.” or “Timmy and Tony got in a fight.” They’d interview the kid for 3 seconds, and then interview them for like 5 seconds and then take out their pen and write an order. And then they have to go haul the kid into the quiet room and hold them down against his will and then fill his hip up with adult grade anti-psychotic injectable medication. And if this puts him out of his misery for the next 12 or 24 hours, they'd somehow call that a success. He found that to be so barbaric and it's still going on in our world today, if you need to know. It's going on every single day in many different hospitals around the world.

 

But he just decided that communication and connection really were what he wanted to be a stand for. And he went back to school solely to become a psychiatrist so that he could bring communication back to that field because he saw the opportunity that psychiatry had to really make a difference in the world that they did that.

 

Over the next 13 years, he completed his degree and completed his residency and completed his fellowship. And low and behold, he graduated as a psychiatrist from a great medical school and a great residency. And there he was, the truth is that psychiatry had gone through a significant change at that time and began medicating people. This whole idea of diagnosing and medicating and Biological Psychiatry falls on the heels of a drug called Prozac. And Prozac had been introduced in 1987 while he was in training, and now he too was becoming a psycho pharmacologist. Now, you can guess that there was some soul sacrifice there, there was a massive heart ache because he didn't want to prescribe medicine, he didn't want to diagnose people, he went into the field so he wouldn't have to do that.

 

But there he was actually living a life that was inconsistent to who he was. And over the next 15 years, he did his best to bring communication there but more and more, he was being contracted and constricted away from the psychiatric field. In 2006, he decided that he would finally start taking people off of medicine, he took some of his low risk people off of medicine, and they just got way better, reliably better. As soon as he took the medicine away, their diagnosis often disappeared. And he thought he was onto something like maybe the medicines actually perpetuate to conditions. Maybe in fact the medicines actually worsen or cause the conditions at times. Now, this made him really angry, and he didn't know exactly how to manage it, but over time, and it's been, what, 15, 16 years since 2006, he’s really learned how to really get respect for not medicating, not diagnosing and then they call him the un-doctor, un-medicated, un-diagnosing, and then un-doctornating people. Really getting that if you're having a miserable time as a human, if you're uncomfortable, anxious, fearful, depressed, sad, confused, scattered, any of those things, it's entirely okay.

 

And it's part of being a human, to be highly uncomfortable at times, to be miserable at times is okay. That doesn't mean there's something wrong with you. We don't blame a log for burning in the fire, if you put a log into fire, it's going to burn, if you put a human on this world, we're going to be uncomfortable. And we start really looking at that and he’s back to getting the connection is at the heart of all healing.

 

So, he created a company called Welcome to Humanity in 2015. And that was self-explanatory, all things human are okay. The possibility of seeing all people for who they are and who they're not is okay. The possibility of accepting and even having some compassion and forgiveness for the misery that we all feel is all okay. And they started really communicating and connecting as a healer, instead of as a doctor that he had been prior to that.

 

After Welcome to Humanity, several other different things have sprouted, there was global madness where he was going to go around the world like Anthony Bourdain, and really see that psychiatry is different and the whole idea of mental health is different in Jamaica. And it's different everywhere. It's like what’s sick in Jamaica isn't the same as what’s sick in California. And so, it can't really be if you have a broken arm in Jamaica, you're going to have that same broken arm if you fly to California, but that's not true of mental health and mental illness.

 

And so, the idea that it's variable, meaning that it's transformable, meaning that we can alter this whole idea of what mental health and mental illnesses through conversation. Meaning that we can actually make a difference with people without having to put them on a couch 4 times a week or send them to Tibet or India. Or even give them a bunch of ganja, those aren't the only ways to find peace and we can find peace by recognizing that each of us are in this together.

 

The true voice technology is his most recent finding, after doing the creative eight, the creative eight really took advantage of the art, music, dancing, singing, drama, cooking, writing, gardening, all the creative acts in life can really lead to a reduction of the symptomology. And the Find Your True Voice technology, his most recent book, which he can offer to listeners, actually, is a technology that takes a deep dive into finding our authenticity in the face of any world experience and then speaking our exact truth, like what's really important to us, because you've probably noticed, a lot of people are no longer speaking their truth and they're just saying things that they don't even mean, or not saying things at all, because they're afraid they're going to be dismissed or discounted or censored or cancelled or hurt.

 

And he thinks in these difficult times in the world, more than anything, we really have to count on people to speak their true voice, because we're not going to be taking care of any of the very major problems in the world like COVID or like climate change, or racism or sex trafficking, or war, or all the many things that have really come forth in the last few years as super problems. Unless we have a conversation going, we're not going to be able to deal with those but the future looks pretty grim if we're not going to be able to deal with those things, it looks like pretty calamitous. And the only way we're going to get there is by really finding a way to communicate together. And that's what he’s a stand for now, as he’s been since the moment he arrived on Earth March 01, 1958.

 

As an Organization, Programmes that Can Be Put in Place to Support Team Members Where Mental Health is Concerned to Strengthen Customer Experience

 

Me: Thank you so much for sharing Dr. Moss. Now, mental health is a real thing, I don't think a lot of companies or even countries for that matter, really gives it the attention that it needs and dedication that it requires. Could you share with us as an organization, maybe one or two things that you can do as leadership in an organization or putting in place some form of programme to support team members where mental health is concerned in order to strengthen the customer experience?

 

Dr. Moss thinks if you're really up to having a healthy workforce, a healthy payroll, people who are really able to stand up for what's important in a customer experience, he thinks the number one thing to really get is that all people really want more than anything is to be heard, to be heard, and to be listened to, to actually be cared for, to be appreciated, to be acknowledged.

 

So, if you're going to do anything, he thinks to create an atmosphere in your company, or in your corporation or in your small groups, or even in your experience with the customers were the primary goal is to listen intently to what's being said. And not only what's being said with words, but what's being called for, how can you move the needle forward in a progressive way? What is the environment or the circumstances calling on you to present or you to be with including the possibility of saying nothing?

 

Can you listen for what's being called for to move that conversation forward and provide that creatively? We're all super creative, every one of us, including those of us who think we're not, that's just an old injury when you think you're not. The truth is we're all very creative and we are all listening at our own pace and our own level, and more than delivering what we think is right. And what he’s saying is that more than anything, it's not a matter of speaking, it's a matter of listening to those people who are struggling to say that which is really important to them, whatever way they're doing it. So, he believes that more than anything, the secret ingredient here is definitely listening.

 

Me: So, we need to listen more because everybody wants to be seen, they want to be felt, they want to be heard. I think it's a process for sure.

 

Dr. Moss shared that when people disagree with us, we think it's okay to disregard them and dismiss them and unfriend them and never talk to them even if they are our siblings or best friends beforehand. So, these days we're cancelling people out of our worlds because they disagree with us on some certain issues and that's happened to him and it's happened to most people. He’s lost friends in the last couple years and it's really quite painful. What's really here or there then is, listening is an act of occupation, it's not just what you do in between the time you talked and the time you're going to talk next, it's actually having those ears open and being super curious about what that person is saying, or what they're trying to get across in a way that really acknowledges and respects and accepts and maybe even forgives that person for being as confused as they are when they're confused. Because after all, if you haven't noticed, each and every one of us is thoroughly confused, some of us pretend like we're not and going to get it done. But each and every human on this planet is totally confused. Of course, how could you not be, there’s some crap going on out there. Let's be fair about it, those of us who pretend that we're not confused, are almost more confused, they're more confused, they actually think that it's possible not to be confused.

 

Me: The ones who think they're not confused, they're deluding themselves.

 

Dr. Moss agreed, exactly. Come on. Let's be real about it.

 

Suggestion to Assist Ourselves When We’re Feeling Out of Balance

 

Me: Now, Dr. Moss, if there was one thing to do immediately to assist ourselves when we're feeling out of balance. What would you suggest that one thing would be?

 

Dr. Moss thinks it's pause. Hold on a second, re configure yourself. Allow yourself to make a mistake, allow yourself to learn, allow yourself to regroup and get curious again, give yourself compassion, forgiveness, acceptance. He guesses you only asked for one thing, and he sees this as one thing. It's like, pause and reset. You can do that multiple times per day, if you want. Pause, reset, pause, reset, it doesn't take very much work.

 

Me: And I guess the average person is just going and going and going and going and it's like they don't actually take time. I think generally people feel like if they stop, and they're not doing something that their productivity will decrease. But in order for you to be more productive, you really do we need those pauses, don't you?

 

Dr. Moss agreed yes, you do. He knows how to run like the devil, he’s a doctor. So, they trained him in medical school to be up 24 hours in emergency rooms, and in psychiatry to deal with suicide, and with homicide, and with alcoholism and drug addiction and overdoses and all those things. He knows how to run hard. But the truth is, in those moments where he can get maybe even 5 minutes, let alone 20 minutes. So, just stop and sit or stop and appreciate. No one ever told him he'd be alive forever. And no one definitely ever told him that this life was not without any misery. So, the truth is, there's massive misery, massive overwhelming misery all over the world. There are great reasons for it, it's not in your head, it's very real.

 

There's nothing wrong with you for being miserable in a miserable world when it's going on, for some reason, we have the capacity to recuperate or to reset ourselves because, have you noticed that some days when you're just so totally spent, like you don't have another ounce of energy left, that later in that same day you might have blissful moments, you might just realize the absolute beauty of life on the same day. That is a gift that came from us on creation and it's extraordinary that this too shall pass still works. Even in this world where calamities are just happenstance, they're just every day, there's shit going on that is just thoroughly and totally unacceptable.

 

App, Website or Tool that Dr. Moss Absolutely Can’t Live Without in His Business

 

When asked about online resource that cannot live without in his business, Dr. Moss shared that he saw that question coming down the pike and he was thinking like, “Where am I right now with that particular question?” And he thinks the cheapest way would be to say something like email or messaging, but we'll go past that. He thinks that Slack is really interesting, although it has flaws. And he thinks that all of the apps, they have significant flaws. He thinks that Google Docs and Dropbox are super interesting, he has no idea what he would do without those two in particular. How would he handle life without Google and Dropbox? There's a lot of his stuff locked up in there, he doesn't even know how to find it.

 

But he thinks some of the more interesting, newer apps, as he learns about them, he’s 64, so he’s sort of on the back edge, he’s not as quite as savvy as some of the 30 somethings like his son whose birthday is today (July 20th). But he thinks that some of those new apps are so extraordinary as they come off the press and the things they do. Some of these apps, they just do amazing things. But he thinks ultimately, the one he can't live without is he'd have to say, unfortunately, is through Google Suite.

 

Books that Have Had the Biggest Impact on Dr. Moss

 

When asked about books that have an impact, Dr. Moss shared that he likes spiritual books. He can't go very far without saying sort of like The Torah, The Talmud, The Mission, or the basic Old Testament Jewish texts, he loves those. He’s not reading them this very moment, but the truth is, when he does, his whole life gets re-centered. So, it's hard to not pay attention to those books.

 

The books recently that he’s really been enjoying, he’s so excited about are by Alan Watts. He thinks Alan Watts is so brilliant, and just re centers all of this nonsense so easily in 10 and 15 minutes snippets. So, you can read little chapters, it's generally readable. And he just takes on this whole idea that time is just an illusion, or space is just an illusion, or that all we really have is now and he does it in a way that he finds to be so entertaining and refreshing.

 

Now, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, he’s sure other people have answered that question, has answered it with that book. He thinks it's a fine book and everything, he doesn't know that it's life changing book in his life. For some people, it really is. But once he gets past the Torah, then he has to get to what he’s reading now. He’s got so many books open in his living room. He has like 40 books that are open in his living room right now that he’s like almost done with or partially through and he just keeps reading. He just pulled off “To Kill a Mockingbird,” he’s like, “Oh, yeah, someday I'm going to read To Kill a Mockingbird, because I understand that that's going to really change my life.” But he’s got like 23 books to read before he gets to that one. And then life goes on.

 

What Dr. Moss is Really Excited About Now!

 

When asked about something that he’s excited about, Dr. Moss stated that that's a great question. He’s working on both with himself and with his people and the new course that he’s developed is called The True Voice Course. And it's about your voice mattering. Basically, it's an online course but it's mixed in with a mastermind, you get his two books, you get access to him, and you get access to a community of like-minded individuals who are really out to bring their true voice forward.

 

He’s graduated over 50 people in his courses to move them from zero to podcasters. So, that's one group of people you get, but you also get people who are really interested in bringing their voice forward. The technology he’s developed is comprehensive and he’s super excited about rolling out that course, you can find it at www.truevoicepodcasting.com and the first 10 people who come into that course are actually going to get it at half price. And that's a significant savings. And they really just want those people to come in, take the course, let them know what works and if there's parts of it that are vague, or maybe they overlook so that they can make this course spectacular for everyone. This course is running out, starting this week and next week, so by the time that this airs, it should have a number of people that are in it. He’s super excited about it because it really incorporates his books and his experience right there into a course where he can source people to find that true voice and bring it over to a world that's waiting.

 

When he says that there's a personal aspect to this, he’s doing the same thing with his wife. He has a wife, a gorgeous, unbelievable, amazing human being who he calls his wife. And they have 3 cats, and they live in a pretty cool house and they're just kind of trying to figure out how to create a relationship every single day. And that's the same thing, using the same technology, because if you're not speaking your true voice, and no one is ever going to know you. And that's the way he is with Alexandra (his wife) as well on the way she is with him, and they bring forth art and communication and creativity like the Creative 8 asked for as well as The True Voice, as well as her own special style, which is through dance and art to really create a relationship that's never been done before. So, those are the two things and they're kind of related and these are special times to be able to have come through this life and still be banging away on things that truly do matter, like human connection.

 

Me: Now, for those of our listeners that would want to tap into this programme, is it that it is geared towards a particular type of person? Or is it open to anyone regardless of where they are in their life?

 

Dr. Moss shared that it really is open to anyone. But he thinks what they're really looking for, what they're finding are the people who have felt muted, who feel muffled, who feel fearful, who feel that their voices are not being heard, or that they're not speaking their true voice, and they're eager to do so. Maybe there's a new level of urgency given up all the world issues that we're now experiencing. And these often turn out to be mothers, this often turned out to be mothers on the other side of an empty nest perhaps, or a divorce, or maybe even just mothers who want their children to have the voices. They start realizing that up until now, they've been caring for so many people, but, “What about me? Like, what about the things that really matter to me?” It's the what about me people who are really taking this course by storm, who are like, “Yeah, I forgot how to speak my truth. I want to find my truth. I want to refine my truth. And then I want to deliver that truth.” And podcasting is one spectacular way to do that, it's not the only way, they help people find their voice and then naturally they find when to deliver it and how they're going to deliver it, even if it's just in their family, or if it's on a stage in front of 1000s of people. Either way, it's the same general criteria, they help you take a deep dive to finding that authentic self of yours, rediscovering it, refining it, and then delivering it to the world that really is ready and willing to listen to you.

 

Where Can We Find Dr. Moss Online

 

Instagram - @drfredmoss

Facebook - @drfredmoss

LinkedIn – Fred R. Moss, MD

Email – drfred@welcometohumanity.net

 

Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Dr. Moss Uses

 

When asked about a quote or saying that he tends to revert to, Dr. Moss stated that there's a couple that come to mind. He used to answer this question with a Rolling Stones, “You can't always get what you want, but you get what you need.” He thinks that's a sweet quote. He thinks there's something else, there's, “This too shall pass.” That is a beautiful quote. And that we are spiritual beings living a human experience, there's something very beautiful about that too. He thinks that we are spiritual beings living a human experience can be very helpful as well, getting us centered into the here and now and getting that calamities and disasters and all those things that we hate, no one ever said that wasn’t going to be part of this live. So, this idea of really listening in order to learn seems like it comes very easily from this notion that we are spiritual beings living a human experience.

 

Me: So, we'll have those two, the Rolling Stones, and this too shall pass. Really appreciate that. Now, thank you, again, Dr. Moss, for taking time out of your very busy day to hop on this podcast with us and share all of this awesome content on what you are doing, how you are trying to help people to have more real conversations to really get their message out there and just to be their most authentic and true self, it really was a wonderful conversation. Thank you so much.

 

Dr. Moss shared that it’s his pleasure. And thanks for working through all the all the technological challenges, it really was a beautiful conversation, and he appreciates Yanique and really to Yanique and her listeners. This isn't a pitch for his product, he has a product, it's true. But it's not about that, these are difficult, urgent, real times. And what he really wants people to get is, if you don't speak, no one will ever hear you and if you don't speak your true voice, no one will ever know you. He has a capacity to source people to actually find that true voice and whether you use him or someone else, he’s just really, really, really is interested in people who are ready to put their foot down and get that yeah, in what's left of this short life, even if it's 10, 20, 40, 60 years from now, you want to get heard, you want to be loved, you want to be appreciated. Okay, then let's start really getting with who you really are and making that happen. And whatever it takes to do that he implores the listeners and yourself to really step up because that's all that's left to do as far as he sees.

 

Me: Dr. Moss, so you have a gift for our listeners, please go ahead and share.

 

Dr. Moss shared that he has a gift, he wrote a book this year that he’s really proud of and it takes a deeper dive into this whole notion of how this technology works. He knows the title of the book will surprise the audience, it's called Find Your True Voice and he’s going to send the actual book to the listeners if they just sign up for the book, and you can find that at www.findyourtruevoicebook.com. And he'll send you a copy. And after that, he just want to hear what did you think of that book? Is there something there that can move you forward? Or where is it that this book or his talk is valuable? Because he’s super interested in delivering talks, and having people really get that if we don't speak well….the future looks pretty grim.

 

And if we do speak, we can end all wars. And that's what that book is about really finding a true voice and it's simple to read, fun to read, fun to write, and he invites listeners to sign up for a free copy.

 

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