Analiza: Welcome to the Women of Color Rise Podcast. I'm Analiza Quiroz Wolf, proud, Filipina American, mom of two, and former CEO of a nonprofit and Captain in the US Air Force. I'm on a mission to support having more diverse leaders at the table. We'll be talking with successful CEOs and C suite women leaders of color and learning about their leadership journeys. If you're a woman or woman of color, who wants a seat at the table, you're in the right place. Now let's get into today's show.

I'm thrilled to be talking today with Kriste Dragon. She is the CEO of Pahara. And she's had many roles in education, especially before this role. She was a Co-founder and CEO of Citizens of the World. It's a national network of tuition free schools serving diverse communities. She's been a middle school teacher, a UCLA instructor, Board Chair for charter schools on many, many boards. She's also moderator for Pahara Aspen. And you can see this thread that she's supporting all children to get the opportunity so they can realize their full potential and also serving leaders so that there can be diverse leaders so they can realize their full potential. So I'm so excited, Kriste, to have you today, especially with your JD from University of Georgia, your Bachelors from University of Alabama, and then also knowing you’re a mom to three kids in Los Angeles. So welcome, Kriste, thank you for being here.

Kriste: Thank you so much for having me.

Analiza: So Kriste, you know, I care a lot about diversity, equity inclusion, that's something that we both share. And I want to start with your roots, and particularly thinking about race and gender and reflecting on this fabulous path of impact you've had, how did your beginnings, your culture, your identity shape your path?

Kriste: It's such a complex question, because I think every year that I age, I understand more deeply how prewired things have been for me, and maybe for all of us if we're really in touch with our unique purpose and gifts. But in the beginning of my life growing up in the South, the American South is spending most of my time between Georgia and then later Alabama, you know, as a racially ambiguous family, or at least the kids because my parents are of different races, which is much more common now. But that time actually was just not that common. I think there was always this question of inclusion and belonging, I would have never used those words in my childhood, that we were searching as a family, I think my parents were explicitly searching and then I without knowing it was searching for a place that I could feel included, actually belong. And found, interestingly enough, that I was accepted most places because I think when you're ambiguous, especially in a world where that's unique, I think everyone assumes you're a little bit of what they are, maybe. And so I felt like I had access to a lot of places everywhere. Belonging nowhere was sort of what I got to by the time I was in my early adulthood. So it's not surprising that I would be obsessed with thinking about places of inclusion and belonging, which I am, especially across lines of difference socioeconomic, racially, and politically, which were very alive for me in my childhood, especially given that I went to schools during a period of forced busing.

And so we had some fascinating differences throughout our elementary, middle and high school experiences that I think have absolutely shaped the way that I think about what schooling could be and what the risks we run when it's not what it could be.

Analiza: Kriste, can you share with us how you identify and your parents?

Kriste: Yeah, absolutely. If we didn't know each other in such a small world, I'd say what do you think? Because that's usually the way that I try to uncover this construct we have of race and this incredible impact that it's had on all of us as Americans. But I tend to identify as mixed race and don't actually check any other boxes, if that's offered. And sometimes they'll just check, check others. My father is actually Caucasian, born in the south and grew up at the time and housing projects that were segregated by race. And then my mom is an immigrant from the Philippines. She actually just recently passed away from COVID. I don't know that she would have identified as a woman of color, which is interesting, given the way that she presented, but she was 100% about assimilation and believing deeply as her parents had, that that was the best path for us children to succeed. And it wasn't until much later in her life when she started to sort of dive into her real passions and she wasn't as worried about us and how we were going to turn out that we started to explore the cost of that theory she had on her, on me, you know, potentially on my kids as well.

Analiza: Wow. As someone who's Filipino and has full Filipino, Filipino American, both parents immigrated from the Philippines born here in the United States so much of that resonates. And Kriste, I want to go here to this idea, very powerful that you actually talked with your mom about her choices. With assimilation? I actually haven't done that. I'm thinking I'm leading a professional development on how to have recent conversations with parents, particularly AAPI. community. So this is so relevant. And could you share? How did this conversation come up? How did it go? I mean, that's really incredible.

Kriste: Yeah, I'm probably gonna cry. I'm just gonna warn you about that. Because the first guttural reaction I have to that is just do it soon. Because you don't know when they're not going to be around. You know, when my mom, she got COVID. And she was gone, like 21 days later. And so I actually thought I had years. We buried my mom's mom two years before she died. So in my mind, I've got 20 years with my mom to unpack all these conversations. So my honest answer is I didn't talk enough and deeply enough about it. I am grateful that we had, we did start those conversations. And I do have some things to share on that front.

My headline is, treat every conversation like it might be your last and make sure anything that you want to ask, answer or talk about is talked about. For us, I think my mom had a point in her 60s where she had poured so much into ensuring that we were going to be okay, and she was really just dedicated her life to her kids. And she was starting to really ask the question about what her purpose was.

And my parents were both so good. And I'm sure I'll speak about this at different points in this conversation. But my dad really instilled in us this idea that if you figure out what you were born to do, and you do it, the rest will fall in place. So he actually encouraged us not to think so much about, of course, to consider finances and things like that, like it's very real, but where my parents grew up, they wouldn't be talking to us about that. But that the driver was actually in service of our purpose, you know, and in my family, that was what God put you on the planet to do, and really communicating this idea that because if you don't do it, it won't be done. Like you were literally put on the earth to do it. And no one else will pick it up and do it, the world will just miss whatever it was that you were supposed to offer.

And so interestingly, my mom, I think, had raised us that way, but hadn't asked the question of herself. And so she got into her 60s, she ended up discovering what that might be for her. And she wound up doing a lot of teaching and healing bodywork with the aging population, so her peers and creating more comfort in people's lives. And so that was the doorway in this like she was uncovering what potentially had held her back or what had stopped her from.

From getting into that a little bit earlier. We had conversations, we weren't on the same page. To be frank, like she, I'm pretty sure that if we were here together now, we still wouldn't be on the same page.

So I had to really decide if I was talking with her to be understood or if I was talking to understand her. And I know those two things can coexist, but I actually find in mother-daughter relationships, sometimes they don't. I'll tell you my biggest regret of those conversations is that I came to most of them as a daughter, and not as a woman and friend to my mother. And that's the opportunity that I lost.

Because I think I spent a lot of time pushing my opinion and trying to make sure she understood why I believed what I believed and frankly trying to change her mind about what she believed. And I wonder what it would have been like to just sit with my mother as a woman and let her know that I understood her and she made sense.

Analiza: Kriste, my deepest condolences for your loss.

Kriste: Thank you. She's still around though. She comes to us and has birds and so I see her everywhere. All the time.

Analiza: The reflection to be with your mom. And it's like Stephen Covey has, I think one of his seven habits, right? It's like, seek to understand before being understood, and I don't know that this is like you, it for you. But I'll share for myself when I hear some of these anti black statements that come out of my family's mouth. I'm just like, and no, no, I'm not going to understand that. That's just wrong. And I can't yet hear you. I wonder, can I be a friend? And can I listen?

Because it's not like our family showed up just with these programmed in their heads. There's a reason for it. And there's stories for it. So if you've had that as a friend, how would you put aside these deep convictions and within yourself so that you can be the friend because that's like, there's self care there right to like, not be about the self. And yet first before you reach out to others you gotta make sure you're okay. So I'm curious if you have thoughts about that.

Kriste: Yeah, this may be hard to follow, but this is it. This is my initial reaction. You know, I think in very technical terms, if I were to push back on my mom. And the overhype or focus on assimilation at the core of that there's all kinds of stuff about self love, and not enough of it and belief in one's own full power and identity.

But I don't think that was necessarily the right door to go into this. I think what might have resonated for her a little bit better is just this technical idea of there being an external standard, right?

Like, the way they raised us was to deeply believe that the truth, the beauty and the power within us, like God is within us yet, when you're forcing this assimilation agenda, like it's in the medical, frankly, to what we're being, on the one hand, told. And so I think my mom had bought into that so much, especially in a beauty standard way, and there was a lot of pain there. And so when I came in, as the daughter trying to push my agenda, I was trying to do my own healing work. And I don't regret that.

I mean that my mom's understanding and approval for me is wrapped up in my own self love and self care. But what I missed and what I didn't understand, given how much earlier she was gone than I ever expected, is like she was swimming in her own version of that, and the pool was probably twice as wide as mine and twice as deep. You know. And I don't know that I did enough to come alongside her and help her process that and wonder if in doing that, I would have unlocked then some of the stuff that lived between us, right?

We had a beautiful relationship, I don't mean to suggest otherwise. And there were some things that were like some places we couldn't go together, probably because we were swimming in the same pool of pain, frankly.

Analiza: Yeah, there's this idea of generational trauma that's passed mother to daughter, but like grandmother and great, great grandmother. And as the CEO of Pahara, there's so many beautiful readings, like Grandmother's Hands, where you're just like, oh, my gosh, they're, it's coded into our DNA, and our body adapts and holds, and how do you release it, allowing not just our brains to function and, and trying to communicate with each other, but actually bringing in the body. So I love your organization in what you do, and how you bring about new ways of thinking, to heal, and do that also with others and help others heal. So, so beautiful.

Kriste, can you share with us, you know, we're talking about parents, and there's this idea of the sandwich generation, this idea that you're caring for your children, and you're also caring for your parents. And so you and I connected on this, and I'd love to do some reflection here.

As you think about the life the relationship you've had with your mother, celebrating her still even like sharing wisdom with others, then also reflecting on your father and the time you have with him. And just like, how do you think about both having an impact in this role as CEO, and you're on so many different boards and have influence on the country.

And also, there's a consideration that time is limited, and we want to value that. So love to open it up in a very general way for you to take it anywhere you'd like. Yeah, what are your thoughts about that balance?

Kriste: It's a really good time to be asking me that question. Because as I shared with you, my dad is very sick, he has late stage cancer, and we had no idea until about four months ago, and he was presenting perfectly healthy, and then just his bone started breaking. And it was a sign of how long he's probably had the cancer because it has already hollowed out his bones and it's causing all kinds of problems for him. And so I don't have this totally figured out.

But I'll tell you the kind of stuff I'm thinking about right now. I don't think I realized when I moved so far away. So when I moved, it was in my early 20s When I moved from Atlanta to LA. And I think in my heart, I thought I would go back. I ended up having children, literally nine months after I landed here, having my first child. And while there's a beautiful career story that I can tell about that, I also think I'm probably positive that I didn't stop and ask as my kids get more inundated in their life here. And as my career gets more inundated here, what are the potential transition points to go back so I never consciously really decided to stay, I just never decided to go back, if that makes sense.

So what I missed there is really thinking through what it would mean to live this far from my parents through the upbringing of my three children, through all the highs and lows of life and marriage and parenting. And then especially at the end of their lives, which for my mom was very fast and this probably neither here nor there for my dad is laying out severe real things. You know, I go back as often as I can, but I don't see him nearly as much as I would like, given what I know is probably not as long of a future together as we had hoped.

And so like four months ago, we had no reason to believe we were. And, you know, have years, years and years together…

Analiza: When you think about your kids' connection to your dad, I'm curious if any of that comes into play, or it's like, and that's okay. If you're like,wWell, I'm really focused on spending time with my dad, which is fine. I'm just curious if it comes into play here.

Kriste: You know, this is an interesting one, because at some point, my kids were like, You haven't taken us anywhere. We only went to Atlanta, and I was like, Oh, there's another just unrealized choice, well, unconscious choice that I was making. And it was unknowing, I didn't know any better, you know, we got here and I didn't realize you're gonna have a certain number of travel chips and some combination of what you can afford, what days your kids are not in school, and how much vacation you have.

And if you live 3000 miles away, some percentage of those, if you're close to your family, are going to go to your family. Now, if my parents had been able to come out here more often, maybe that would have been different.

And we do see each other, you know, until my mom passed, and until COVID, we saw each other a phenomenally high number of times, I think, given what it could have been, you know, but it's not the same as coming to all of their events at school, you know, every Grandparents Day or whatever. And I didn't think that through when I was putting my kids in their schools, I didn't think to myself like, oh, you know, if we were back home, those thoughts occurred to me, obviously, as I was raising the kids that can we were so settled here, and it felt like pulling our feet kind of out almost out of cement, you know, my and at the time, I was in jobs that were actually based here, and I wasn't working nationally.

So I wouldn't go as far as to say it's a regret, because I don't think you can pick out one thing and change and have everything else be the same. I deeply believe that the puzzle is what it is. But I do really love conscious decision making intentional discernment. And I didn't have that frame of mind, partially because of my age. And partially because I didn't talk to people about it. I didn't do what I would do at work, you know.

I didn't go to like five people who had done this before and say, Hey, what are the pros and cons? And let me wait, let me do all of that. And so that is what I am coaching my daughters, and soon to be my son who's a little bit younger, but I have one daughter who is out of college. And I'm saying to her like, listen, there are no bad decisions in a perfect world. But there are trade offs and choices. And so just be conscious when you're making them. So you know, you're signing up for what you can live with. And I'm watching her, you know, as early as 23 start to really think about how close she wants to be to her family, because she knows what it feels like to have been really far away. And she's still very close to my dad and was very close to my mom.

Analiza: It's community, something that I've learned a lot, even reflecting through Pahara that we have taken for granted. So so much of what you said resonates because when I think about my life design, it's been very career oriented. What's the next job? How can I grow an impact? And where is the consciousness also, on the family side, particularly with the parents, I feel like that's that. And while trips are great, it's not the same as swinging by grandparents day, or just knowing your friends are being integrated. So I'm curious, like, as you think through even now, right life is, we're not going to, you know, regret the past because things aren't specifically in silos where they won't impact the rest of the picture of the puzzle. But as we think about life, and just chapters not specific to yours, I don't want to, you know, make it so personal.

But as we think about these trade offs, and entrenchments Is there a way I wonder if there's like, Okay, I live right next to my parents, right? And then there's I don't live a crap way across the world, right? I'm just getting more polarized about this, or there's other flexible ways. I'm curious to have you seen other ways that's not next door neighbors, or not halfway across the world, where people who have made it work.

Kriste: So this is sort of what I mean by just doing it all consciously. Like if I had, if I knew then what I know now, I would have, like, made the priority list with my mother, sat down with my parents and said, Look, I'm going to live in LA. Like, that's where my career is. And that's where I felt at the time like I belonged. And that probably is still true. I still feel like this is the place I was supposed to have been for the period I've been here. But we could have said, so what does that mean? Like how much time do we want to spend together, and we could have just made different financial choices, honestly, and prioritized differently long periods of time together. Now it would have meant we didn't do other things, you know, it would have meant we probably would have been a lot more in partnership around how we thought about real estate, you know, how we thought about where we thought about real estate, honestly. And maybe it even would have pushed them to think about the potential of relocating out here, which we never really talked about. And I don't know why we never talked about that, like this thing when you get to the end that I'm clear on what we didn't do.

But I don't know why, you know, I don't know, we're just busy or if that's just not how my parents were raised, and therefore they didn't raise the issue, and I didn't either. But I think that, while I don't have a specific answer to your question, I do think we didn't give it a good run of creativity, to try to figure out what that would have been.

So I'm trying to do something different with my kids, you know, I'm trying to say, look, the world suggests that we should all save, retire in our own separate places, you know, maybe in the same city, but still separately, be very independent of one another. And I think there's another way for us to think about it. You know, what would it look like for us to think about ourselves as a unit, knowing there will be people added to the unit? Because I assume my kids will, you know, some number of them will have life partners or whatever. But what would it think about? What would it look like to make a plan around what we prioritize, which, you know, might be that we prioritize being within driving distance, so that we're not doing this on our own? You know, I'm not getting old on my own. They're not raising kids on their own? Is it my best day that the conversation looks like that? On my worst days? It looks like me pulling the car over and saying, Can you imagine how much easier this would be if I had stayed close to my mother?

Yes, we understand. So I think we are pretty close to actually making some moves around thinking about property differently than I would have in the way that I was raised. And just thinking like, what does it look like to have a more communal sense of all of it, so that we are setting up the life we want? You know, assuming that if I'm really lucky, I'm in the back half of my life. And I'm really lucky, you know, 20-30-40 years.

Analiza: I want to just build on what you're saying. Because as someone who thinks about career has thought about career and prioritized career and gone off, and not thought about the family unit, and even this idea of residents, I'm just like, wow, Kriste, how do you think about that? I also want to think about how to have my parents be cared for, but I don't think I'm the right person to be the person to care, trying to release guilt about that. I'm curious, Could you say more about residents? Because what does that mean, in your mind? Like, are you this at the mother in law house that you're thinking about? Is it by an apartment building? And then each person has a little apartment? Like, I'm just curious, I know, you're in brainstorm mode. But what comes to mind when you're sharing properties?

Kriste: Yeah, bear with me, because this is going to feel like maybe a tangent. But there was this really interesting moment when we were developing Citizens of the World. And people kept asking us about social emotional work, which, you know, in 2008, we were heavily in our DNA as a component of difference in inclusion, social and emotional development, and what we called core academics at the time. And I would meet people who would say, like, Oh, we don't do SEL. And I was thinking like, No, you do, you're just not doing it. Everyone does, yeah, you got human beings in your schools, like, of course, you're doing SEL, you just may not be thinking about how you're doing it.

If you don't have more macro plans, I don't think I realized the same is true for sort of life planning. Like we're just moving along, saving for retirement and doing these very individual things. But we don't have or at least I didn't, with my parents, sort of a macro like strategy with the why we weren't operating from a shared why. And I'd like to do something different with my kids. So I don't know where we'll all land as a group. And I don't know what it will look like, I don't know if it'll look like I end up investing more in properties for them.

So then they are better set up to take care of me or I don't know, maybe it'll look like we all buy one big house together, which is probably my dream. But I have to wait and see your dream because I'm not sure that they want to live with me forever. But I am more understanding of how like, that's actually what I come from, like my mom's family that is still in the Philippines, they are all still living together. And they're literally in one house, or they're on one huge piece of property and they're sharing, literally birth to death life. And so it's not surprising to me when I really think about it that I would yearn for that a little bit. I'm also not sure that that's not the right way to do it. Like when I look at the options we have for my dad and his form of illness, you know, thank God, we have insurance and things that can get him the care he needs. But the emotional piece of it is really hard to reconcile. And I'm grateful that he is making choices, you know, with the best possible attitude about what we need to do to make sure he's cared for. But is it in a perfect world? But I would do, I would tuck him in with me.

And we figure it out at home, you know, so I don't know what to make of all that. But I'm at a real inflection point of realizing I have, I'm buying into everyday a system with my actions that I'm not sure that I believe in. And it doesn't mean that I won't keep saving for retirement. It doesn't mean I don't believe in, you know, 401K or 403Bs, but I am starting to question the fundamental premise of the way you set some of this stuff up. And I'm doing that not just as a person, but also as someone running an organization. You know, there are certain things we incentivize. And those things we incentivize are based on a certain theory of how one should live.

I just want to get one, I really get really clear on that. So that the steps we're taking in terms of what we offer for our employees in terms of the decisions I make for myself, as an aging person, are really aligned to what I want to be true for the way I live and the way I live with my family and my community. And that's not just true for my family, it's also triggered my friend group, you know, one thing that really caught my attention is my parents are in one place for 27 years. And so when my mom passed, there were hundreds of people who still lived in her zip code, you know, who brought casseroles and did all the things that you do when you're local. And that's not my life, like my closest friends are a short plane ride. Some of them are not short plane rides, but they're playing right away. And we are right now so focused on getting together and we see each other and we're really disciplined about it. But at 85, I don't think that strategy is going to work as well. So I do wonder, like, what are we going to build for ourselves, that keeps us together and supporting each other in the back half of our life the way we have in the front half of our life, knowing that, you know, we may develop mobility issues we may need to be with each other longer than five days, a quarter or whatever we're pulling off right now. And so they're all still questions for me. But I think there are questions that just weren't there. 10 years ago, I wasn't thinking about it.

Analiza: I'm grateful I get to talk to you. Now, Kriste, because everyone gets to hear your story. Because we do have time, I can think about things differently. And it's so connected Kriste to even your journey, and growing up with your parents and having them source yourself like from yourself, like self love, God is within you, as well as your purpose. Like that's what you're here to do. And this is so connected, like what is my purpose with my family, with my parents, my children, like, let's figure that out before I feed the system and just mindlessly go through it without this consciousness, these conscious decisions. So I love love that.

And I'm wondering, this Pahara reading, I'm gonna bring it up, and it's about the happiest people, then you might remember it. But the happiest people, what they have in common is they actually are very community oriented. It was like back in the day, but they still live this way today. But people used to stay in one spot for generations, they lived in this community, the whole community, the family lived in a house, like a big house, and different floors. But everyone had a spot, they all helped each other. There was no my family and your family was like all the family working together. And yes, there was drama, but it was we're all in it. And that is actually it's been like a research base, like the happiest that is where the happiness community has been. And so, so much of it resonates. It's just like learning and integration. So thank you for sharing these insights.

And before we do our lightning round, I wanted to get your reflection Kriste because social emotional learning diverse communities, building Citizens of the World, you talk a lot about belonging, and how you felt Yes, I'm included, but I don't really belong. And I found belonging here in LA, even with my very close friends, the plane ride away. So I'd love for you to share and reflect on what it means for you to belong? How do you know you belong? Where are you long now? And how do you build belonging? So that's a meaty question, feel free to take it wherever you'd like, but just belong.

Kriste: Yeah, I do think that my move away from home allowed me the opportunity to immerse myself in communities of values aligned people not really like minded because I actually think there's some pretty serious diversity of perspective and thought, in my broader circle, that there is a values alignment that I really appreciate. And I don't know that that was present for me as much when I was a child. So that's one thing that I think has carried me and brought me great joy in my adult life. I also think I've relaxed a little bit on there being one community that serves anything, like I have different communities for different things.

And I don't want to make it sound transactional, because it doesn't feel that way at all. But you know, when you're parenting, I feel like there are people that but for the fact that we're parenting kids who really love each other, we might not be that close. And yet we find this real intimacy and raise our kids together. And as my oldest has gotten older, I've seen some of those relationships sort of fall into the background, but instrumental for you know, two decades, as my oldest, for example, was getting older. So I've just settled into that being part of life and that's okay. And I don't know if that was my mindset. When I first sort of landed with my first child, I was looking for my people, and they're gonna be my people for everything. And I don't know that it really works that way.

And then the last thing I'd say, which is maybe a newer discovery, for me is that this notion of belonging also just requires a lot of self awareness and self understanding. So I think it's interesting the internal barriers that we throw up for ourselves that actually we keep throwing up from environment to environment, but they're about us there.

Actually not about what's happening externally. But I think we can tell ourselves a story, I can tell myself a story about how it's not something that's innate to me. And so as I've done more personal work, personal development really pushed myself to, frankly, get clear on when something is me, and when it's my ego, then the more belonging, I found, probably because the more authentically I can connect, and the more authentic, they can be vulnerable. Those are, you know, pretty important threshold issues for I think, deep human connection and relationship

Analiza: Kriste, I here, values alignment. I hear, it doesn't have to be everything, although one can be. It doesn't have to deliver all my needs. And I also hear self awareness to see is it me? Or is it my ego? Can you mind sharing an example from me versus ego? Because that would be really helpful to understand? How do you know, it could be done?

Kriste: Yeah, this is a whole process of one's own development. It's just, it's fascinating to me. And the way that I ended up getting into some of this is that when we were creating this social and emotional development framework, and we were talking about things like self regulation, like things that would sound very familiar, but things that obviously you look at the adults in our world and the problems, we're having great skills for us to hone in the early years. And so I started to dip my toe in this, what I would call a human development sector that seemed very out of touch with education, like I had been credentialed, I had been working in schools, and there didn't seem to be the overlap, that probably there should be, but the folks who are setting human development, and then the folks who are actually educating and developing the humans in our society, so I thought that was interesting.

But so much of the work is about understanding my own triggers, my own default behaviors, and the things that I do, when I'm operating out of a place of not plugged into the source of who I actually really want to be, and more out of some reactionary mode, that usually is tied to my ego. So I can't think of a great example of how that has happened. I'm trying to think of a very concrete micro example. I can tell you a broader pattern that I've seen. And we've been doing some pretty deep research now on a couple organizations, and I've been working with the Enneagram, as it's really more than a tool, but as a tool to frame self development or frame the development of self awareness.

And my default sort of way of thinking is success and failure. Like and that's not necessarily true for other people. But it is true for me, it's like my motivating sort of three lines. And it's been interesting to just become aware of the places where I will take action, fearing failure, when I could actually choose to take action and align with what I think is the right thing to do, or the better thing for the world. Sometimes those things align, sometimes they don't.

But I think the more aware I can become, the more we fear. For me, it's fear of failure that is driving my decisions at a really subtle, like deep, not necessarily explicit level. But the more honest and aware I can become of that the more likely I am to be operating out of true purpose. And with true alignment to what I was born to do.

Analiza: Wow. Because I'm so happy to have this conversation with you. I am personally taking away so much for myself for my life, my family, my own children. We're going to mix it up a bit with Kriste with some lightning round questions. Are you ready?

Kriste: I'm ready.

Analiza: Chocolate or vanilla,

Kriste: Vanilla

Analiza: Cooking or taking out?

Kriste Dragon 33:35 Take out

Analiza: Climb a mountain or jump from a plane?

Kriste: Jump from a plane

Analiza: Have you ever worn socks with sandals?

Kriste: I am embarrassed to admit that when I take my dog out in the morning, and when it's cold. I sometimes wear socks and sandals.

Analiza: How would you rate your karaoke skills on a scale of one to 1010 being Maria Carey?

Kriste: Four?

Analiza: What's a recent book you read?

Kriste Falling Upward. Richard Rohr

Analiza: What's your favorite way to practice self care?

Kriste: Walking meditations

Analiza: What's a good professional development you've done?

Kriste: Pahara fellowship

Analiza: What's your definition of a Boss Mama?

Kriste: Someone who is realizing their individual potential, contributing to the realizing of other people's potentials and strengthening connections, human connections between people

Analiza: What advice would you give your younger self?

Kriste: Do you have what you need. And that is within you, I think.

Analiza: And any final thoughts or recommendations to share with the audience?

Kriste: I'm just so grateful for the conversation. When I'm doing things like this. I can't actually imagine that it's going to be helpful to anyone. If it is, I'm so grateful. But I feel deep gratitude to the other folks who have worked with you and been highlighted in this forum or others. I wish you get more of this more often, more of these kinds of conversations.

Analiza: Kriste, thank you so much for your vulnerability, your stories and wisdom. As I shared, I'm taking away so much. So thank you so much for being willing to share with others.

Kriste: Thank you so much.

Analiza: Thank you so much for carving out time today to hear today's podcast. Three things before you go. First, if you found it helpful, please leave a five star review. Second, please share with someone else you can share the link and posts on Facebook and say check it out. Lastly, I want to thank you for being a listener and you can go to get a free self care bonus called juice your joy at analizawolf.com/freebonus. Thank you so much.