Reclaiming the Self: A Journey to Personal & Professional Freedom with Kristopher Schmidt

summary

I'm excited to have my friend Kristopher Schmidt on this week's podcast. In this episode, we explore the importance of being present in our bodies, the need to deprogram societal norms, and the challenges of parenting while navigating personal growth. 

Kristopher shares his journey of self-discovery, the significance of diversity in fostering innovation, and the necessity of creating safe spaces for belonging. The discussion emphasizes the impact of individual choices on personal fulfillment and the collective experience of humanity.

takeaways

• Living well is about being in tune with your body.
• Deprogramming societal norms is essential for personal growth.
• Parenting requires reflection and accountability.
• Embracing different seasons of life is crucial.
• Diversity drives innovation and creativity.
• Creating safe spaces fosters belonging and contribution.
• Self-advocacy is vital in both personal and professional settings.
• Every individual can make a significant impact.
• Listening to our bodies can guide us in our choices.
• Living without regrets is a goal worth pursuing.

Chapters

00:00
The Essence of Living Well

03:04
Listening to Our Bodies

05:57
Parenting and Programming

12:12
Navigating Life's Seasons

19:32
Embracing Change and Identity

25:26
Understanding Ableism and Generational Mindsets

29:18
Navigating Career Changes and Personal Aspirations

33:18
The Importance of Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace

39:16
Creating Safe Spaces for Authenticity and Belonging

47:10
Challenging the Status Quo

48:32
Embracing New Perspectives

49:47
Personal Growth Through Connection

51:02
The Importance of Self-Care

52:28
Advocating for Yourself and Others

54:14
Navigating Conversations on Identity

55:51
Living Intentionally for Future Generations

57:14
The Ripple Effect of Our Actions

59:37
Creating a Meaningful Morning Routine

01:00:46
Living for Your Future Self

01:02:54
Choosing to Live Fully

01:06:06
Connecting with Kristopher Schmidt


About Kristopher:
Kristopher Schmidt transforms organizations by drawing on his unique journey as a queer, HIV+, neurodivergent executive who rose to C-suite leadership in fintech. As CAO, CHRO, and CLO, he's overseen everything from HR and legal to IT and facilities—using his outsider's perspective to reshape power structures and champion inclusive decision-making.

Connect with Kristopher:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/divergentchampion/
https://purpocityconsulting.com/

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a review and share with a few friends so we can all help each other Remember to Live.

To connect with and learn more about me and how I am Remembering to Live, you can find me on Instagram @coreancanty or at coreancanty.com.

To work with me and explore freebies, check out: https://coreancanty.com/links/

If you are ready to re-imagine, re-claim and re-design your life, book a possibility call today.

Transcript

Corean Canty (00:00)
Hello everyone. Welcome back to the Remember to Live podcast. I am so excited to welcome my friend Kristopher Schmidt to the podcast today. Kristopher is committed to fusing divergent experiences and worldviews, creating spaces where everyone feels safe, belongs, contributes, and creates communities of meaning. And y'all know creating meaningful lives and showing up to them is a key theme for our podcast. Kristopher, I'm so excited to have you today.

Kristopher Schmidt (00:28)
I'm excited to be here. It's great.

Corean Canty (00:30)
Awesome. Awesome. So I like for the beginning of every podcast for us to get present and be in this space together because too often we're not present in our lives. So let's just take, take a deep breath together and be here so we can be nowhere else in this moment. Yeah. Awesome. So yes, know, breath's a great tool for us to use that we forget about a lot. Yeah. Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (00:50)
belly breath.

Yeah, one that I just learned actually. I didn't even know what a belly breath was.

Corean Canty (01:01)
that's so cool. That's so cool. So to kick us off, I'm going to ask you the question I ask everyone when we kick off the podcast. And that is, what does it mean to live a life and to live one well? To you.

Kristopher Schmidt (01:16)
Yeah, no thanks. Question of what does it mean to live a life? I think we all have a beginning and an ending as far as we know. that's kind of the basic of what it means to live a life, whether it's a long one or a short one. I think the real magic is in the what does it mean to live one well?

Corean Canty (01:27)
Yeah, yeah.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kristopher Schmidt (01:39)
And so that's a far more interesting question to me than the beginning and the ending because I have very little to say about either of those things. But, you know, the journey has been interesting to live one well. And what I've come to after almost 60 years, not quite, but getting up there is that it's about being in my body and listening to the signals that I'm getting.

Corean Canty (02:02)
you

Kristopher Schmidt (02:08)
and then taking action on those that are consistent with that. Because when I'm able to do that, then I would say that I'm living a life that matters to me and one that actually I can feel good about. that's been the real journey here, trying to, as a friend of mine says, decolonize myself.

Corean Canty (02:28)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, and that's work, right? Yeah, yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (02:38)
It is, it is. I mean, the patriarchy is real. In my family, it was real. living a life that I want to be joyful in and happy with and connected to has required a lot of kind of deprogramming, if you will, from the early days. So that's what it means to me today.

Corean Canty (02:44)
Yes. Yes, yes.

I love that you started out with the body. I think you might be the first person of all the people I've asked that question to that really anchored their answer in the body. Like, cause we forget, like our body is our blueprint, right? Our body is, our body's telling us at all times what we really need, but we learn to ignore our body and listen to everything external.

Kristopher Schmidt (03:22)
Yeah. And everyone.

Corean Canty (03:27)
Yes, yes, yes, yes. So much so that we don't recognize our own voice. I'm coaching so many people right now just on the pure, simple ability to find and hear your own voice so that you can also then amplify that voice into the world. But sometimes, like you said, it takes work to deprogram ourselves to differentiate between the noise in our actual true voice.

Kristopher Schmidt (03:53)
Right, no, absolutely. mean, it started really early for me and then I think there was probably a hiatus and then I'm in another growth phase. the earliest memory of listening to my body was probably, how many meetings have you been in where you're like, I really need to go to the restroom. I'm not able to pay attention to what's going on because I have to, like my body's telling me I've got to go do something. You know, like I really need to do this thing. it like,

Corean Canty (04:16)
Yes.

Kristopher Schmidt (04:22)
we've been programmed to just sit there and suffer. And I was like.

Corean Canty (04:25)
And especially the older you get, the more you suffer, right?

Kristopher Schmidt (04:29)
Yeah, well, we don't even go there. But yes, and it's just fascinating to me where I was like, you know what, and I was in a meeting where the rule was you can't get out of your seat. Like you cannot because it disrupts everybody else. And so I sat at the back and I didn't listen. It's like, you know, I gotta go.

Corean Canty (04:31)
You

And think, yeah. And that starts, that starts in like kindergarten, right? Like we don't realize, we are programmed from the moment we go to school that you don't have control over your own body. If you even have to go to the bathroom, you have to raise your hand and ask someone else. Yes.

Kristopher Schmidt (05:03)
asks. Yes, it's crazy. So getting getting reconnected with all of that historical frameworks that we have about not listening, like, you know, I'm sad. No, you're not. You know, you're angry. No, I'm not. You know, I'm hungry. No, you're not. We just ate. It's like, I'm telling you what I'm telling you. And it's like, Nope, I'm telling you, you're wrong. And like, how, how much

Corean Canty (05:26)
Yeah

Yes.

Kristopher Schmidt (05:33)
So it goes deep and wide. it's not just our families. It's all these other systems that are designed to, I don't know, that's where I get into the ARC stuff. It's sort of like, well, you gotta be a good cog because if you aren't there, then this thing doesn't happen. And then this other thing doesn't happen. And then that's what happens. So you gotta like, whatever you got, that's your problem.

Corean Canty (05:45)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Right. But you know, what I realized, I've done a lot of reflection this weekend because I had milestones in both of my kids' lives. I had my son who just graduated from Georgia Tech and my daughter who's had her birthday two days later and she turned 29. So like my kids are, you know, grown and just doing a lot of reflecting as you know, like to especially do on the weekends. And the part about, you know, a lot of it's these bigger systems, but even me as a mom,

was reflecting on and taking accountability for how much of that I had programmed in me and put on my children. How much we even as parents think we're doing a good job because it doesn't come with a rule book. We just have to figure it out in whatever type of parent you are or whatever capacity are where you're influencing a child as they're coming up in the world. I just know all of the times. I came from the school of...

Kristopher Schmidt (06:33)
course.

Right.

Corean Canty (06:51)
Well, I'm the mom, do it because I told you so. My son is a very highly intellectual, high IQ, very logical person. So even as a child, I would get so frustrated because he'd always be like, logically, he would ask me questions that were the right questions to ask. And I would just like, instead of taking the time to slow down and be like, whoa, let me listen to this little human being who's still connected in some way for all the things I'm not connected to anymore.

Kristopher Schmidt (07:16)
Right.

Corean Canty (07:17)
It was like, but just do it because I said so because we don't have time because we're busy because I'm in the hamster wheel and I don't have time to like pause at the hamster wheel, right? And he's just in here like, but mom, this doesn't make any sense.

Kristopher Schmidt (07:26)
Right, right. No, and I would say, you know, because I've got two kids of my own and they're a little younger than yours. Mine's 13 and 12. But, you know, we in the earliest days, I would say to the kids, don't it's like, it's not my rule. So we need to do this because so my son was using profane language at school. And I said to him, it's like, dude, it's just a word.

Corean Canty (07:31)
Mm-hmm.

Kristopher Schmidt (07:55)
Okay, so at home, it's just a word. I'm not gonna get super excited about it, it's just a word. But I need you to know that when you go to these other settings and you say those words, like other adults get really excited and they might not like go along with it or roll with it. you you gotta kind of think. So what I've been trying to share with my kiddos is it's context, right? So like you can do some of this stuff with your friends, some of your friends.

Corean Canty (07:57)
Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (08:26)
can't do it in the classroom. So you've got to sort of read that. And I've got an autistic son, so it is all rule-based for him. So it's like, this teacher's rules are different than this teacher's rules. And so if you want to succeed, and that's really what it is, if you want to succeed. Now, I just did a post recently about trying to deconstruct the systems that we're in, like stand up for folk and that

Corean Canty (08:28)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

you

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kristopher Schmidt (08:55)
It's like, well, why does it have to be that way? And your son's question is probably some of that. Like, why do I have to ask to go to the bathroom? Well, yeah. And I would say to my son in those moments, if I had the presence of mind, it's like, well, if everybody got up to go at the same time, one, there's only one bathroom, right? And so there'd just be a line. And all class would stop. So it's kind of a regulating thing.

Corean Canty (08:58)
Right.

always his question. There's always his question and they're so right though. Like his questions are so right.

Kristopher Schmidt (09:22)
so that we have only one or two kids out of the room at the time. And then there are other kids who maybe really have to go, but they're gonna like go because they wanna chat with their friend or they wanna get away from the work or, you there are all these reasons and they're not bad reasons, but you just have to sort of understand what they are and then, you know, figure that out. And then.

Corean Canty (09:32)
Yes, yes, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, it's like the masculine and the feminine, right? We need the structure, but it needs to be a healthy structure. It needs to be a healthy structure so you have the flexibility and ability to be creative and move about within it in the right way, because we do have some structures that don't actually serve us. But we do need some sort of structure, right?

Kristopher Schmidt (10:05)
Yeah. Well, and I, you know, I called them like agreed upon rules for the most part. You know what I mean? It's sort of that, you know, you can look back at human culture. We go back, you know, hundreds of thousands of years and what we do today would seem very strange to somebody just a hundred years ago. Right. I mean, this whole like, I have a phone in front of my face. Like, I don't know what that would look like to people. Like, what are you doing? Right. Right.

Corean Canty (10:09)
Yeah, yeah.

Right, right.

Everyone's walking around just like this, right? Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (10:35)
So, you know, and a friend of mine, he's like, it's a dopamine hit, really. mean, the whole thing, this whole thing is like, it's designed just like I was listening to another podcast, Michael Pollan, the food critic and some other, he's done some other stuff, but he's like, basically he did a write-up of caffeine. was, that drug was used to help keep workers in place.

Corean Canty (10:41)
Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (11:03)
That's why they gave people coffee breaks. You know what mean? So it's like the whole thing just kind of, when you start looking at it, you get like, my God, how many choices am I really given? You know, which is why I go back to trying to anchor myself in the body. Because if I'm listening to my body, my body says it needs, then I've got a source of information, truth, that I can kind of...

take with me no matter where I go. So that's kind of the work that I've been doing lately as I left corporate and was on that hamster wheel for 20 years or more.

Corean Canty (11:46)
Yeah. Well, and you've actually made a lot of like interesting pivots in bold choices in your life as you've kind of been on this journey from beginning to end, whatever it may be. And like you've done, I like that you say that because I feel like there's this thing, right? There's this thing out there. It's kind of like you're either corporate or you're not. It's like you're in corporate and if you leave corporate and you try something different,

it's almost like a negative to go back or, you know, sometimes it's too big of a risk to leave. And we don't realize like, we get to play and experiment with our lives. We get to try different things and you've been open to doing that. And you've also been okay with saying, you know what, this is the choice I need for this season right now. Can you talk a little bit more about like what that means? Because I don't think we look at our seasons in life enough.

Kristopher Schmidt (12:30)
Right.

Yeah, no, I just was talking to somebody the other day. It's like, how many degrees do you have exactly? How many things are like, you know, it's like, well, yeah, OK. So I'll give you a little overview. know you and I have talked about this. you know, so I was supposed to be a doctor when I was a kid. That was the family business. And I was just going to come back and own the family business. And being queer kind of like threw a wrench into that because I lived in a little town and that wasn't really going to work.

Corean Canty (13:04)
Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (13:05)
And then I wasn't, you know, I've got a disability, let put that in air quotes. It's dysgraphia. like organic chemistry was extraordinarily hard because I flipped all the isomers because the visual stuff is just terrible. My son's great at it, but I'm awful. So I moved away from that and I became a lawyer because I didn't know what else to do. I mean, I was supposed to be a professional. So if not going to be a doctor, what's the next one? a lawyer. Okay. I'm going to be a lawyer.

Corean Canty (13:27)
Yeah. Lawyer, right? Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (13:33)
And I got out of law school and I was in this place where I'm just really interested in the advocacy for the underserved or the underdog. And my first job was an advocate as a mental health guy advisor. mean, we were doing this because we had families that the education law just came out in the late 80s and...

They had funded a bunch of these advocacy groups and they needed people to go out and help parents get the resources they need. Little did I know 20 plus years later, I would be using it for my son and my daughter. But I then became a public defender and I went and I was in therapy and my therapist said, you hate it, this isn't something you like, you don't like all the bureaucracy, what are you gonna do about it? And I'm like, I don't know. She's like, well, if you don't have a plan, then it's not gonna change. And I was like.

Corean Canty (14:10)
Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (14:28)
Okay, six months from now, I'm going to open my own office. 20 something years old, so I'm stupid. I, you know, okay. Like, well, why not? Why not? Let's go. You know, and I did that and I opened the office and, know, freaked out, for the first two or three years until you figure out like, okay. You got it. You don't know where the next client's going to come from. You don't know what the next, where the next paycheck is going to come from, but somehow magically it just keeps happening.

Corean Canty (14:31)
Yeah.

Take the leap, right? Yeah, yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (14:56)
So, you know, that lasted until I was about 10 years. And then I found out I was HIV positive. And, you know, I wasn't expecting it. I went in just for a regular old health checkup and nobody in my life that I was with was positive. it didn't just didn't occur to me. And my life got slammed. I mean, I was like, what the F, right? So.

Corean Canty (15:18)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. And that's a time when that was a very scary thing to hear. Yeah. Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (15:23)
yeah, no, it was terrible. mean, I had friends who were dying, who had just died, you know, or who were in the process of dying. And the three drug cocktails had just been approved. I started on AZT, which was awful medicine. And then Crixivan was this brand new protease inhibitor. And I was part of their clinical studies. And it had some of its own side effects, kidney stones and some other nasty things, but whatevs.

Corean Canty (15:28)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (15:50)
And I had a friend of mine, I was now working at a university as the assistant dean of technology. decided, well, if I could be a lawyer, could probably go figure out how to.

Corean Canty (16:02)
I mean, Dr. Lawyer Professor, let's check off all the boxes they give us,

Kristopher Schmidt (16:07)
Right? I just like, okay. But this woman, she's lovely. Her name is Denise Woods. She's an amazing woman. Her mom had breast cancer and survived. And she had breast cancer. So we were kind of going through this like life-threatening thing at the same time. And so I had somebody to talk to. You know, I had other supports. My family was not supportive. They were actually terrible. you know, Denise was great. And about a year and half into it,

you know, of the diagnosis, I was like, okay, the medication seems to be working. think I've gotten myself stabilized. They don't know how long this is going to last, but you know, I could be remembered by a bus before I die of this. So what the hell am going to do? So, you know, I ended up going to California, San Francisco for a vacation and I had met Kimberly, which is somebody that you and I both know.

Corean Canty (16:46)
Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Kristopher Schmidt (17:04)
And Kimberly, and I was saying, you I really don't think I'm made for education because I don't understand this like nonprofit oriented stuff. It's just like getting close to the dean's office and having a window just doesn't make any sense to me. Who cares? So I have to go. And the dean of course was like, no, you're never going to leave because once you get an education, nobody ever goes. I was like, okay. But I got a job and I like gave them, you know, the obligatory one month's notice and I moved to California.

Corean Canty (17:11)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Right, right, right.

Kristopher Schmidt (17:33)
And it was the dot-com bubble burst that was happening at the time. So I was out there for two years while this little company that I was part of was in a state of, know, big euphoria and then collapse. And with that, I moved back to the Midwest, which is kind of where I was.

Corean Canty (17:36)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (17:52)
I wouldn't say I was born there, but I was raised in the Midwest. Upper Midwest is kind more liberal than where I was from, so it seemed like a good place, and I had a love interest, so I all lined. Well, then I became a personal trainer, so I worked at Valley's, because I didn't have a job, and I didn't know what was going on. The company was in a tank. Then I was like, you know what? I really like this. I think what I'm going to do instead is I'm going to become a certified massage therapist.

Corean Canty (18:07)
Mm-hmm.

Well, and just before, like, I think that's such an important thing to just double click on because society says certain things are valuable in this world and certain things have status. And you know what I'm saying? And a lot of people who had the title, you know, or on the path to like doctor, okay, well, not doctor, but maybe lawyer. Okay. Well, maybe not lawyer, but professor. Like there's a certain level of status in our society related to those things.

Kristopher Schmidt (18:22)
So...

Sure. And we are.

Corean Canty (18:51)
And there's a lot of people who wouldn't be brave enough to then go be like a trainer or a massage therapist after having already had those titles and they would have held themselves back from finding something that they might've enjoyed or loved because of being caught up in, what is everyone else going to think?

Kristopher Schmidt (19:09)
Well, there's what everybody else is gonna think. And then I wanna be perfectly gracious towards everybody. I mean, I have had the privilege of being up until like what, 12 years, 13 years ago, single and no obligations with kids. And things change when you've got little humans. So I don't wanna make it sound like, everybody should just go off and run and try the next thing. You got mortgage and bills to pay and stuff like that. So there's valid reason. there's.

Corean Canty (19:21)
Mm-hmm. Right. Yes, they do.

Yeah, yeah. But there are more options for people. So like, there are some people who are like, sit in despair because they don't think they have any other options. Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (19:41)
Yeah, and I think that that, deconstructing what's super important and having had somebody who's like, as I'm approaching 60, like, how's it feel to be older? I'm like, every day above ground is better than being dead, as far as I know. So, yeah.

Corean Canty (19:57)
Yeah. You know what? And let's make, let's show up to it, right? Let's remember to live it. We were given this day. Let's live it. Yes. I love that.

Kristopher Schmidt (20:04)
Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know about tomorrow and I never know about tomorrow. And I think that that, you know, sort of life threatening illness early in my life, my dad had cancer and he died when he was 49. And, you know, I, he was miserable. He was miserable most of his life. And I was just like, I refuse to let that sense of dread and whatever just run my life. I'm just not going to. And so I've had the seeds of, you know, this

decolonization for a long time. Another post I did recently was about talk back, right? was like, just, you know, like, you're not feeling it. How do you know how I'm feeling? know, it's, or I heard this podcast of a young woman who is trans, and they said something that was just struck me so profoundly was like, being queer is fundamentally a somatic experience.

and I'll let that sink in. What that means is, in order for me to come out, I had to acknowledge my body.

Because I'm going against every system that exists in order to be me. So, there you go.

Corean Canty (21:24)
Yeah. I recognize and honor in that, like, regardless of what society may think about people who are other or different, if you are the one that has to sit in the space of recognizing, I am actually different than everything that's generally easily accepted in this world, no matter what that difference is, and I'm going to show up in this difference.

That's a brave choice. And that's also not the easiest way to live in the world, right? That's not the easiest path laid out for you dealing with external things, but it's very hard internally to not live it.

Kristopher Schmidt (22:01)
No. Yeah.

Well, there's a both and inside of it and you'll hear that a lot out of me. I don't think in dualities very well but What I what I think about that is that it's so drag queens trans people, know folk That's especially hard, you know because there's there's this whole other piece like, you know, I can

I don't want to say past, that's the wrong word, but there are moments in time I'm walking down the street and nobody pays any attention to me. And there are folks who just can't do that. mean, whether you're in a wheelchair or you've got some others, enormous physical disability that is just always present. I know I've talked about this with some of my friends, like I had crossed eyes when I was growing up as a kid and everybody noticed.

So it's sometimes that noticing like, just am this thing and I can't ever get away from it. Well, if you can't get away from it, then run to it. Right. I mean, Billy Porter, he wrote a book, Unprotected. I love him. He's a door. He said, just adore him. But, you know, he was, he was one of those kids. It was just like, I was just a flaming queer. Like I couldn't not be queer.

And then you don't really have a choice. What are you gonna do? Well, a lot of people kill themselves and that's why there's a lot of suicide among young gay folk and other people who are different or not the same. But if you come out the other side, you're gonna have some trauma and there's stuff to work on and I still do it. But you you know stuff that other people who don't have to do that just know.

Corean Canty (24:00)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (24:00)
I you just know it because it's in the fiber of your soul. I'm the little guy who was twirling around at two. I come out when I was 18 and my mom's like, I knew it. What do mean you knew it? Well, since you were two, I knew it. And I'm like,

Corean Canty (24:19)
Yeah, moms know their children, regardless of what the thing is you try to hide from your mom. We know. Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (24:24)
Well, yeah, but yeah, and then there's all the thing of like we were talking earlier about how we're trying to get our kids to fit into the context. So there was all this stuff like stop being a sissy, butch it up, don't cry, quit being so sensitive, right? There's all that. And it's, it's, it's hard. I mean, it's, it, maybe it's better today. I hope. I know I've done.

differently than my folks did for me with my autistic and neurodivergent daughter. But, you know, I mean, even today I have conversations with my mom and we were just talking about this this weekend. ADHD is really, really present in my family. So my my niece was coming over to help my mom's in hospice and she's like, she just never picks up. She never sees anything. And I was like, you know what? My daughter, who's 12, is exactly the same.

And she's been that way since she was like two. And, you know, like take her clothes off, walk across the room, get something else. And I like, and I'd say, pick up your rooms. Like there's nothing on what? What do mean? What? Like the whole floor has got stuff on it. I don't see anything. You're it's just some. Yeah, exactly. And I'm and I was telling my mom, I'm like, you're trying to get this 30 something year old woman who's your granddaughter to be different. Now, you know, you might.

Corean Canty (25:26)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm, yeah.

Yeah, your brain's somewhere else, you know, it's already moved on. Yeah, yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (25:53)
she's had 30 years. And I said, yeah, she's had 30 years, but if she were in a wheelchair and didn't have legs that worked, you wouldn't be saying shit like, well, she's had 30 years to figure out how to work around with. you know, like quit, you know, can't we just accept some of this stuff that, you know, othering, you know, like the or ableism or whatever this stuff is, it's just like she's a beautiful person. She's extraordinarily generous, you know.

Corean Canty (26:02)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (26:23)
she comes over and deals with you all the time and doesn't say a word and yet you're going to focus on the thing that she can't do. So.

Corean Canty (26:32)
Yeah. Like we're so, some of us are so like, especially like my mom, I she's in her eighties. And sometimes when you spent that long, like in a certain mindset and, and came up in a world where there was no work on yourself, right? When, our parents were young, there, there was no such thing as like working on yourself or changing your mindset or evolving theirs. This is the town you were born in. This is the household you were born in. What you learned there, that's how you spent your entire life. Right? Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (26:51)
You

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Corean Canty (27:01)
Yeah, so it can feel sometimes like you're up against something that cannot be changed. But the reality is we're seeing change every day. Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (27:11)
Well, and that's the consonant, right? mean, you look Octavia Bauer wrote that book where change is the only constant and change is God. So I left that kind of circle back. I left the piece about being a certified massage therapist and decided I was going to become a counselor. So I got my master's in counseling. And as I was at

Corean Canty (27:16)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kristopher Schmidt (27:39)
exiting that program, decided now, really, it was like eight years between like finding out was positive and here I am. I was like, I always wanted kids. I always wanted kids. My brother and I and sister all talked about kids. My sister had three, my brother has five. Yeah, a lot. And, you know, we talked about I was going to have eight. So, you know, I was like, OK, well, I'm going to live a long time and I'm going to I want children.

Corean Canty (27:47)
Mm-hmm.

Mm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Kristopher Schmidt (28:08)
I mean, I had a grandmother who, she was my step-grandmother, but she didn't have kids. And she often talked about the regrets that she had in life, not having her own children, own children. Through adoption, my granddad just wouldn't do it. So I was like, you know what? I'm not going to live my life with regrets. I'm just not going to. So yeah, that part, like that, you know? And then I started looking at what it was going to cost me to adopt. And I was like, crap, I can't do this on a salary of a, you know.

Corean Canty (28:16)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yes, yes, that part. Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (28:38)
Intern in mental health. So I had a friend who said, there's this job. You'd be perfect for it. And it was an attorney. So there I did. I was like, OK, well, I'm going to go back and I'm going to do that. So I get enough money. Yeah, exactly. And I pulled it out. And I entered in my corporate, my second corporate kind of career after having left being a lawyer.

Corean Canty (28:50)
Yeah. You had that tool in your tool belt that you could use when you needed to, right?

Kristopher Schmidt (29:08)
You know, it was great. mean, it had its drawbacks, of course, because as we were talking about, there's lots of rules and systems and schedules and deadlines and yeah, on purpose.

Corean Canty (29:18)
But you went in intentionally. And this is the thing I think sometimes we forget as we kind of come up in the system of this is what you should do. This is what you're supposed to do. This is what the path looks like. This is what you should do. Like we just do it because we should instead of really understanding why am I doing this? What do I want my life to look like? How is this job? Whether you're going into entrepreneurship, whether you're going to a corporate job, whether you're like, I want to go, you know, build a farm and, you know, live that type of lifestyle.

Kristopher Schmidt (29:46)
Yeah.

Corean Canty (29:49)
What is the life I really want to live? And in your case, you were at the season in your life where you're like, I really want to have kids, you know? But I understand to raise some humans in this world, I got to have some money because they're not cheap and it's just the system that I live in. like sometimes we don't always agree with the systems, but we have to learn the systems and learn how to work with the system so that we can utilize the systems to help support the life we actually need to live. And so I coach a lot of people on like,

Kristopher Schmidt (29:59)
Yeah.

Corean Canty (30:14)
When you're looking for your next role or your next job, don't by default be like the next job I have to be automatically has to be this title because that's what should happen default into what season am I in? What amount of money do I really need to make? What type of life do I really want to live? Like what's what type of time? Like there's so many other variables that you can use to find the right way to make a living so you don't have to not do the living part. We forget.

Kristopher Schmidt (30:41)
Yeah.

Corean Canty (30:41)
to actually do the living and making a living. And it's a tool. I love that you're like, that's the perfect example of, know what? I have this tool belt, I've learned these skills, I've done this corporate career. And at this season of life, I'm going to utilize that to be able to build the life I want right now.

Kristopher Schmidt (30:57)
Yeah, no, I'm absolutely what's one of the reasons why I adore the work you do. So there you go. Yeah. I mean, I've got people who just resonate and your work is just hugely important, I think, and reminds us of choices that we have and things that we can sort of do. you know, for me, there was then once I'm in the system,

Corean Canty (31:05)
thank you.

Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (31:27)
Then it became a little bit of like, well, do you want to do this? And I, of course, like, I'm competitive. So I was like, sure. Can you do this? Sure. How about this? Sure. So I went from like, you know, an associate general counsel all the way up to chief administrative officer over this period of like 20 years, right? Because I just kept saying yes to the stuff that I could do.

Corean Canty (31:34)
Yeah.

Mm.

Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (31:50)
And, you know, my last act in corporate was I'm really pretty good about, I love what you said, looking at the environment and seeing what is, right? Like not what I want it to be, not what it should be, but like what it really in fact is. And when you can look at what really is, then you can start to make better informed choices. Like, do I need a different job? Do I need a different, you know, relationship? What do you need in order to make all this stuff?

Corean Canty (32:05)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yes. Yes.

Kristopher Schmidt (32:20)
work. And this organization that I was part of, you know, for probably the last three years, they really needed to downsize and restructure their leadership team, which would include the role that I possessed. And, you know, I looked at that and I was like, this is just, this is nonsensical. This, this whole structure just doesn't make any, any logical sense. And I, you know, I had a chance to pitch the board and

different CEOs, but they were in the process of trying to sell themselves. And the analogy that I use is even if the house would be far better if you tore out the wall between the kitchen and the living room area to open it up, if you have the house on the market, that's not the best time to do that work. Right? So three years, I was stuck by circumstance in this environment where we couldn't do what was the right thing to do because it didn't suit

Corean Canty (33:06)
Right, right.

Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (33:18)
the purposes that they were in. Now I could have been mad, I could have left. And instead, what I did is I stayed hoping that the economy would turn around or that there would be a buyer and that we would take this stuff and we would go do something with it. Then the economy didn't. mean, COVID happened. And here we are. So we got a new CEO and the plan that I had was on the books and they took 35 % of the business and they just got rid of all that cost. And the CEO left.

Corean Canty (33:35)
Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (33:48)
said, OK, I don't know if I believe you. So I'm going to have you help me execute the plan. And then 60 days afterwards, and it was all working. It's like, I don't need you anymore. I'm like, no, you don't. And I've trained all these people. So I left under my own design. And then I started on the secondary journey, which is, what am going to do? And so I was in that. already always ways of thinking, which is kind

Corean Canty (34:01)
Right.

Kristopher Schmidt (34:16)
And I was like, I can't be a chief administrative officer flying all over the place. have, at this point, I'm a single parent with two kids. My son at that time was, I mean, he was at meltdowns. I was getting called all the time, go to school, and it just wasn't going to work. And so I was like, I can't do that. So I chose to go into consulting and do fractional work. And that's worked out okay, but it isn't where my passion really is. And my passion is, in fact, in...

helping unlock the diversity of people and bringing out innovation and creativity, you through that safety and belonging, the things that we talked about at the beginning, because, you know, one of the things I got to do, I mean, this was the privileged part of my corporate career, was, you know, being that queer leader who was, you know, just out. And I never apologized for it. It wasn't like I was trying to pass, as, you know, I had given up on the whole idea of passing.

Corean Canty (34:57)
now.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (35:15)
Not because I can't when I, I guess, choose to. But, you know, I mean, I started this new job. Now this was at this time like eight years ago. But one of my first acts was to fly all over the world and introduce myself as one of the new leaders running the human resource area. And I just, you know, talked about my life. Like, I've got two kids, I'm married, you know, you know, my husband's name is blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, and.

Corean Canty (35:38)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (35:44)
people were just like, okay. And there were people who were within the organization who were gay who were like, I didn't know you could do that. I was like, okay. And you don't have to. I mean, my presence doesn't require you to do anything. I'm not gonna out you. That's not my job. But you know, I have to also acknowledge that my white cis

Corean Canty (35:50)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Right.

Right? Right.

Kristopher Schmidt (36:13)
gendered appearing, know, heteronormative stuff isn't for everybody. And I was, you know, leading our ERG and the diversity council and this young woman, lovely native. And she said, what gives you the right to be a person to speak on behalf of all the people who are diverse in this organization? I was like, huh.

Corean Canty (36:19)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Kristopher Schmidt (36:41)
Well, there is a really interesting question. Why don't we look at it? And everybody in the room was like, know, because there's this thing like, of course, I, yeah.

Corean Canty (36:43)
Yeah.

Yeah. But also bravo for like, let's use our voice, right? If we, if we don't understand something, can we speak up and then just actually have conversation, like real conversation around these things? Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (36:59)
Exactly. So two things were, mean, a number of things were going on, but a lot of people were like, don't offend the executive. Right. Like, okay. Right. That whole power structure. Yeah. Right. Which I was like, whatever. I'm, I'm, I'm here because you want me to be here, I think. And if you don't want me to be here, then I will let somebody else do this. This is not something that I'm feeling like I have, like I own.

Corean Canty (37:03)
Yeah.

There's that whole kind of false power hierarchy thing. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (37:27)
And so I just took her question, even though it had that tone of voice that was kind of condescending and a little bit like, and I said, well, let's unpack that. said, you know, let's talk about that. said, so I was born. And when I was born, I was born white. I didn't do anything to be white. I didn't work to be white. I just was white. And it's kind of the same thing with being a guy. I didn't do anything to be a guy. I just was born.

Now, does that have privilege? Of course it does. Absolutely. If I suggested that it did not just, you know, throw me out, you know, but I said, I will share with you as being this little queer kid from the age of two who was twirling around and being bullied and, you know, told that I was wrong all the time. Maybe, just maybe I have a few experiences in my life of being othered that I could use to help support a broader group.

people than myself, right? So that's allyship, I think. And it got really quiet. And it was like, was like, okay. You know, and it was just an acknowledgement. Like I'm not trying to own being a trans, you know, black woman. I'm just not. It's like, I don't have a clue what your experience is like exactly. But I can listen and I can support and I can, you know,

Corean Canty (38:29)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Right, right.

Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (38:56)
And I can know that unless you feel safe to speak up, you're not going to belong. And unless you can belong, you're not really going to contribute like your best self. You're just going to be showing up. so safety and

Corean Canty (39:10)
Yeah. And you're not going to feel good at work or be happy or have the wellbeing that you should while you're making it. Yeah. Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (39:16)
that you deserve. mean, it's your birthright. That goes back to the somatic stuff, right? if you're, and this is the work that I'm still working on, like the cortisol. So I got beaten all the time as a kid. And so I walk around holding my breath. That's the work I'm working on right now. And, you know, it's like, why are you holding your breath? It's like, there isn't anything here. Like, and the other piece was, if I talked back, I got hit.

You know, and so talking back was talking back. learned how to do that in a very indirect way. and so now I'm trying to unpack some of that stuff from, know, continue to unpack some of that stuff for myself, but I can take those experiences and I can look at other people in an organization and say, unless you can really fully show up, I'm not getting all of the value out of you being in that role.

Corean Canty (39:50)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (40:15)
that I would get if you were. And so that's really the message that I've got.

Corean Canty (40:15)
Mm-hmm. Right. Well, and that, let's pause on that really quick because I think this is the part, especially with all of the stuff happening in the world with this quote unquote DEI backlash.

Even for these companies who aren't necessarily focused on the well-being of their people, right? They are focused on the ROI of the business. Every company is focused on the ROI of the business. And even that statement right there for the people who are only focused on the ROI should understand that if people can't feel their best and feel safe and feel like they belong, and if they're

Kristopher Schmidt (40:44)
Yeah, absolutely. This is a reminder. Take a Pomodoro break.

This is a reminder. Take up on the door of the room.

Corean Canty (41:03)
in a constant state of having to use their energy and their power within themselves to show up as something that they should show up as, or to try to feel safe, or to all of the things that we have to do. I mean, I've been a double only in most of the rooms in corporate my whole career. Then you're not getting the ROI out of having bodies in seats that you could. And that the real ROI

Kristopher Schmidt (41:29)
Right.

Corean Canty (41:31)
comes from what I call ROB, which is the return on being. How can you help people be better in your organization so they can contribute? Because the other thing, us as humans, not only do we need to belong, we also need to feel like we're contributing. We also need to feel like we're making impact. We also need to feel like we want to do meaningful work, but there's too many environments that don't allow that to happen. And so the businesses aren't thriving and the people aren't either.

Kristopher Schmidt (41:54)
Yeah.

Yeah. There's a lot to unpack there. and I would say, I was inspired by a woman who used to be the DEI officer for Target. And she came up as a buyer. I listened to a speech she gave once and she said, you know, when you've made it in DEI, when leaders come to you asking for diverse candidates because it helps them in their business.

Corean Canty (42:04)
Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (42:30)
because those diverse perspectives are having a positive impact on their bottom line. And she told a story about herself where she was a buyer in Target, and she couldn't spend her paycheck on cosmetics at Target because they didn't carry anything that her skin tone needed. Now, she shared that with her leadership, and they were like,

Corean Canty (42:50)
Right.

Kristopher Schmidt (43:00)
blind spot. duh. You know, right. Right, right. So she was perfect. And I think that a lot of times these DEI efforts are perfunctory or they're

Corean Canty (43:01)
Right, it's because like who's sitting at the table making these decisions, right? Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (43:18)
quota based or something and they're not really being driven by that underlying business need that acknowledges that there's a strength and diversity of perspectives that I don't want a yes person. you know, that again, some of the writing I've been to be a quitter quit doing stuff that's stupid and quit hiring people. I mean, I had a really interesting opportunity. had a CISO that needed to be hired.

Corean Canty (43:39)
Yeah, yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (43:48)
And we interviewed two candidates and they couldn't have been more different. And I gave the, I was one of the last interviewers and they said, well, you know, what's your recommendation? And I said, well, one of them is just like everybody else here. And he's feels really comfortable and super affable. And, know, like I just found myself having a great conversation and it was easy. The other guy is culturally different and has, you know, different lived experiences.

wasn't born and raised here, is not a good old boy. And so you're gonna get a different experience with this person. So I'm not gonna tell you who you should hire, but I will tell you that they will be completely different hires based on the background of these two. They're both qualified, like they both have all the chops. So you're not gonna make a bad choice. But we so often, I think,

Corean Canty (44:35)
Right,

Kristopher Schmidt (44:47)
you know, make decisions in business based on who we'd want to go have a beer with. And it's like,

Corean Canty (44:52)
Right, as humans by nature, we like things that are familiar to us. We like things that are, you know, but innovation cannot happen if everyone at the table thinks the same, acts the same. You're just going to have the same and you're never going to grow or achieve, you know, like innovation comes from friction and ideas and different things that you can put out there and explore and create new things together.

Kristopher Schmidt (44:57)
Yeah.

That doesn't come from there.

No.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And that's the real essence of what I think DEI could accomplish when it isn't these other things, right? And then if you acknowledge that, like if you acknowledge that the innovation and the creativity is what we're really after, now I have a problem to go solve to get that. So now I have to create safety for people. Now I have to create belonging for people because that the business imperative, not...

Corean Canty (45:24)
Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yeah.

Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Kristopher Schmidt (45:44)
the other way around where you've got these folks who are like, this is another burden I have to do because I had to get somebody who was different than me. Like it's, they're just annoyed. mean, you know, your kids are, and as you said, it's human nature. You know, we, get annoyed with stuff that we don't understand all the way back to your son. Like, I don't get why I gotta do this. Then if we can't explain it to them.

Corean Canty (45:57)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (46:09)
You know, we rightfully shouldn't have a seat at the table for that conversation. So I think that, you know, the work that you're doing in terms of living your life is on that arc. And mine is, it feels very much like.

Corean Canty (46:13)
Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (46:24)
duh, but it isn't, right? It isn't a duh. It's a duh because I've lived it, right? But I will say, right.

Corean Canty (46:26)
Right, Mm-hmm. But people only know what they know, right? They have to be open to different things, but.

Kristopher Schmidt (46:38)
And they need to see that those...

systems have actually worked. mean, you know this as much as anybody as an executive is like, well, prove it to me. OK. And again, fair. So then I have to go build the, well, here's my portfolio of where this stuff came from. This is the portfolio of examples that I can use. And maybe there aren't any in yours because you've had the same leader or the same structure for the last 10 years and you've never seen it because you've never done it.

Corean Canty (46:58)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (47:10)
But that's the old saying of, know, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. It's like, well, maybe if you hire, you know, somebody with a different perspective, you'll come up with some different outcomes. Now you're gonna have to work. And this, I've got a ton of practical things, you know, so for my neurodivergent friends during COVID, was, you know, there were lots of good ways of doing this. So like, I don't like this kind of.

Corean Canty (47:16)
Yeah, yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (47:39)
being here, like turn your camera off.

Corean Canty (47:42)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (47:44)
I don't like taking notes because I need to focus. Okay, well now we have all these tools that do auto notes. So don't worry about it. You know, and I, you know, I can't tell you the number of execs. Like, all right, you just do the camera. Really? Why?

Corean Canty (48:00)
Yeah, it's just like, why do we have to do things just because we've always done things? Like that's the worst, that's the worst rule. Well, we've always done it this way.

Kristopher Schmidt (48:04)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, well, you but and and this is my duality again. No, I'm not going to fall into a duality. The parent where I want to be because I said so. Right. Because we've always done it this way because your grandmother told me that this is way we do it because we always have ham on whatever the special holiday is. And like, but I don't like ham. It makes me feel icky. Sorry. Too bad. That's what we're going to have.

Corean Canty (48:13)
Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right.

Right, right, right. Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (48:32)
You know, and you're like, really? So yeah, I want to be kind and gentle with my friends who are struggling to come along because, you know, I've got a lot of right-wing family members, you know, and they'll vote in ways that are not in my or my family's interest. You know, and I stay engaged in conversation with them to be like, do you understand how this affects me? Do you understand how this impacts

Corean Canty (48:35)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (49:02)
me what this looks like. And sometimes they're like, I hadn't thought about it. You know, so...

Corean Canty (49:08)
Yeah, yeah. It's bringing that macro kind of how we move at work conversation that all of that applies to our individual lives. go, you know, connect with some people that you normally wouldn't have talked to, you know, like put yourself in environments and trying new things that you never would have done. So your personal network or your personal friendship, you know, circle.

Kristopher Schmidt (49:17)
yeah.

changes.

Corean Canty (49:34)
also helps you think differently, also might stretch you a little bit, also helps you see the other side of the coin that you've just never been exposed to because it can add value and enrich your life in a way that you just weren't thinking about.

Kristopher Schmidt (49:47)
Yeah, so I'm going to pick up on that and give you just a couple of examples. So I have gone now twice to a contact improv class.

Corean Canty (49:57)
Yay, know, I love anything improv, right? Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (50:01)
Well, contact improv, though, is like, it's not exactly dance, but kind of. And you're supposed to stay in touch with these folks. So you kind of go, OK. And so I'm learning more about my body that way. The other thing that I've done, I have signed up for an improv class, just regular improv, to go be

Corean Canty (50:05)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kristopher Schmidt (50:29)
present and respond to just what's coming at me without, you know, anything in the background.

Corean Canty (50:33)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (50:36)
And that's me trying to embrace more of my somatics. I don't know, I now understand I need to be outside. So every day I try to take a walk, even when it's cold. And if I don't, I'm not as good a person. I'm not as balanced.

Corean Canty (50:43)
Yeah.

Yeah, same. Yeah. Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (51:02)
I don't have as many as a friend of mine calls them spoons. I don't have as many spoons to deal with what's coming along. resourcing yourself, there's the old saying, we all know like when the oxygen mask falls, put yours on first. And the reason we do that is because we're now resourced enough to be able to take care of others. But we've been so, the system, patriarchy, hierarchy, all of this stuff has been so...

Corean Canty (51:06)
Yeah. Yeah.

Right, right, right.

Mm-hmm.

Kristopher Schmidt (51:32)
Program to like pull all that stuff apart and then we then we expect you to show up as your best self I want you I want your best self. It's like yeah, I can't go to the bathroom when I need to nope. I Can't eat when I need to nope got too many important things like Okay, two of these things do not go together Can we figure out another way and and that really is the questions that I try to ask my leadership teams and

Corean Canty (51:35)
Yeah.

Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (51:59)
Stuff I try to inspire people to speak up, to talk about like, could we do this differently? I'm not saying that the goals and objectives of making money or selling more widgets or whatever it is isn't valuable, because of course it is. That's how we all stay employed and do the things we want to do. But how we do it, the organization of the how is infinitely flexible if we're open to it. using the information like, do I feel safe?

Corean Canty (52:09)
Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (52:28)
do I belong, are really important information to grounded in. But not because...

for business leaders, not because it's that thing, but because if that thing doesn't exist and you don't get this creativity and innovation and the productivity. So I can sell it to the individual to be like, you really need to ask for what you need. Right. And that's what makes me a little bit different because I'm not like coming from the corporate side. And I'm not coming from the individual side. You know, people aren't doing their thing. It's like they don't know they

Corean Canty (52:54)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right.

Kristopher Schmidt (53:08)
the man, the woman, the hierarchy does not know what you need. And if you do not tell them what you need, I promise you'll get it only by chance.

Corean Canty (53:20)
Right, becoming an advocate for yourself.

Kristopher Schmidt (53:23)
Yeah, or others, right? mean, sometimes, you know, we've all been there, but it's like, and I, you know, I've heard somebody, I'm not trans, but I've heard people make trans jokes and it's like, that's not funny. It isn't. And I don't know if there's any trans people in the room when I'm saying it and I don't care. So, you know, we're speaking up for people who don't need to speak up for, you know, shouldn't have to speak up for themselves. It's, you know,

Corean Canty (53:24)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (53:51)
as a person of color, that has to be just this huge burden. I can't even imagine having a conversation with my son. I my son's autistic. And so I'm worried about the police misidentifying one of his rageful fits as violence and him coming to harm. But I can't imagine having a conversation with a son of color saying, guess what?

Corean Canty (54:07)
Yeah.

Yeah, and I've had to have, I still have that conversation every time. I have to say, remember you're a black man. Remember, he's traveling right now. Remember you're a black man. Just remember that and what that means in this world. Yeah, yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (54:24)
That effing sucks. It effing sucks. And it weighs on you. It weighs on every, all the people who are in that conversation. It stinks. And the only way it's ever going to change is if folks that don't look like us or folks who don't have the same interests as us stand up for us. And that's what our life's ship is for. Right? So that's, that's the piece, but you've got to have your own mask on first.

Corean Canty (54:30)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (54:54)
Cause if I'm not taking care of myself, why the hell are they getting special treatment? Right? Which is the DEI stuff. It's like, yeah, because you're ignoring yourself. So I think all of us need to sort of show up and ask for what you need. And we'll figure out collectively if this is the right place, this is the right organization and you can get it. Right? I mean, as we were talking about where I'm at right now, I can't go be a chief administrative officer.

Corean Canty (55:00)
Right. Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (55:21)
and fulfill all my duties to fly all over the world with kiddos that I've got today. So I'm not gonna go there and then be like, hey, I don't expect you to, do you know what mean? So I really do try to break down those binaries, the blocks and the whites and the, you know, this side and that side to be like, you know, we all have something that we can learn from somebody else. And I think until I'm in the ground, I'll probably be

Corean Canty (55:25)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (55:51)
stuff. My granddad was a prototype for that. He lived in 98. A doctor, was still reading articles on medical breakthroughs for fun.

Corean Canty (55:54)
Yeah. man. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, we'll see. I love that. And that's the whole point of like this podcast is us showing up, remembering to live in these ways that not only make our lives better, but there's a way that we can show up and live these lives to also be a beacon of light, to also create spaces and hold spaces of belonging, to also just, you know, little tiny, small things can make the world better for someone else. And if we remember that.

Kristopher Schmidt (56:27)
Yeah.

Corean Canty (56:30)
There's so much impact we can make as just one person. Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (56:34)
and the thing that I learned as I left corporate was we make an impact even when we're not aware of

Corean Canty (56:46)
I think that's the perfect, like that I think is the perfect button for this full circle part of the podcast and the conversation of, you know, sometimes it just takes a little bit of intentionality and you might not never know the impact that you made, but you've also made an impact on yourself. And so I definitely appreciate you being open and sharing your lived experience so other people can.

see what it means to recognize the season that you're in and choose yourself and choose what you need and choose the type of life you want knowing that it might change in the next season because we're all here just figuring out this ride together, right? Like Ram Dass as we're just all like guiding each other home and we can do it in a peaceful way if we are intentional about it. So what.

Kristopher Schmidt (57:36)
Yeah.

Corean Canty (57:38)
I like to wrap up every episode with a few kind of fun questions so people can also get to know you better in a different way. And especially right now this part of the year, if you live where we live in the world, things are getting a little cold and the weather's not always that best. So right now, what is your current cozy?

Kristopher Schmidt (57:44)
Okay.

hot bath. some salt bath.

Corean Canty (58:10)
Yeah, yeah. I have a bathtub that just sits there so much that I look at saying, going to do that for myself. So I love that you give yourself that. Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (58:21)
Yeah, yeah, that's my big hug, because I can just do that all by myself and go read a book for 35, 40 minutes and yeah, it's great.

Corean Canty (58:32)
That sounds delightful. Yeah. Yeah. And in honor of showing up to our life into the days that we're in, what's currently the favorite part of your day?

Kristopher Schmidt (58:44)
I'm a morning person. So again, I like a lot of solitude or quietude. So before the sunrise and as the days get longer, I sleep more because the sunrise happens later here in the Northern hemisphere. But in the summer, I'm up at like four, 430. And now I'm up at like six.

Corean Canty (59:02)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (59:11)
But I still get that same amount of like, I need about 45 minutes to myself. And I just like pat around, have my cup of coffee, or my, and I'm trying to get rid of coffee. So I'm doing more of the herbal teas these days. Not all the way done. But, and just quiet reflection. Journaling.

Corean Canty (59:15)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (59:37)
of about the day what I want to get done and then you know I'll jump into my day and I normally start with a workout so that I

physically, you know, get my body going because if I don't, I'm just not, I'm just not my best. So that's, that's kind of my morning routine.

Corean Canty (59:48)
Yeah, yeah.

Yes, yeah.

I love that I'm such a fan of slow mornings and filling your cup first. I think they are necessary. Yeah, yeah. Do you have a current favorite feel good song?

Kristopher Schmidt (1:00:05)
you know, I had, it just in Timberlake, you know, from the movie Trolls. So you find these things in the, in the most unusual places and it's kind of can't stop the feeling. It just, I mean, it's, you know, it's just bouncy and fun and bubble gum. So.

Corean Canty (1:00:15)
You

yes, yeah, that's a great song.

Yeah, it's fun. It's fun. That's how Pharrell's happy song is for me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (1:00:31)
Yeah, and I love that one too. I was just like, there's a number of them, but yeah.

Corean Canty (1:00:38)
Yeah, I love that. What's one thing you do right now for your 80 year old self?

Kristopher Schmidt (1:00:46)
Live the life I'm living today.

actually. My 80 year olds. Yeah, I'm gonna cry. But

Corean Canty (1:00:51)
Yeah, well that's the, yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (1:00:58)
reconnecting with my body, you know, so that my 80 year old self has the next, what, 20 years to have, you know, experienced stuff that I got cut off from or that I've cut myself off from or I let myself get cut off from. Yeah.

Corean Canty (1:01:11)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. You know, doing the work so we don't end up with a pile of regrets at the end.

Kristopher Schmidt (1:01:22)
Yeah, you know, and I have really good don't do that. So I have folk in my family who are just miserable. And by all marks should be wildly successful in all the other stuff. And yet in the end of life, like just not. They're mad. They're, you know,

Corean Canty (1:01:47)
Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (1:01:52)
They didn't get to do stuff. People don't do what they're supposed to do. The world's to get them still, you know? And I'm like, my God, no, I don't, I want to be, I don't know if I want to go out on roller skates, but you know, I certainly don't want to be in a place that I feel like somebody owes me something still, or I wish I had done such and such.

Corean Canty (1:01:59)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, yes, so good. Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (1:02:20)
So that's, yeah. I mean, I've got a mom who's, I call her chaos monkey, chaos agent. And unless there's chaos in her life, she just doesn't know what to do. So she creates it. She can't be at peace. And I feel bad. I know why. You know, it's like I have compassion, but I need to work out my stuff before I get there so that I don't do that to myself.

Corean Canty (1:02:33)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Right, we get to choose, we get to choose.

Kristopher Schmidt (1:02:50)
my kiddos and stuff like that.

Corean Canty (1:02:54)
I love that. And in a world where we see, you know, people who do have end of life regrets and that it is too late and also living in a world that's constant distraction, people still want us to be machines on the hamster wheel. How do you remember to live?

Kristopher Schmidt (1:03:09)
Yeah.

I just keep going back to the body.

Corean Canty (1:03:19)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (1:03:20)
I don't, I mean, I don't have any other words for it. It's like, if I'm not.

I'm like, I'm hungry if I'm feeling anxious, if I've got shallow breathing. I was telling you, like, belly breath, I just learned, right? so, yes, exactly. Yeah, that's what keeps me honest with what I'm doing. Like, if I'm doing something, no, there's a difference, you know, it's like, there's, they call it oostress and distress or.

Corean Canty (1:03:36)
Yeah, right. Yeah. Being present with yourself. Yes. Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (1:03:55)
You know, riding a roller coaster is exciting, yet it's safe, mostly. So, you know, I don't want to confuse the anticipation or the excitement that goes along that for being like, I'm not going to do anything. It's going to make me uncomfortable. But if I'm getting that feedback, like the roller coaster is going up like, crap, crap, crap, crap.

Corean Canty (1:04:08)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (1:04:21)
And then I'm like, wait a minute, you're safe. Just enjoy a freaking ride. Woo! You know, and off you go. There's a great scene from, I think it's Parenthood with, gosh, I shouldn't do this because I'm gonna blank his name and this is a bad way to do it. Steve Martin, and he has kids and his wife and everybody else is enjoying the life they've got and it's all chaotic or whatever. And he finally gets the,

Corean Canty (1:04:25)
Yes. Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (1:04:51)
roller coaster. And he's in some scene where all bedlam is breaking out at some play and the kids are doing stuff and the dogs are barking and all that stuff. And he starts with like, you know, and then he realizes like, wait a minute, this is it. And then he starts laughing along with everybody else and enjoying the fact that there's this chaos in this bedlam and it's perfect, you know, and, that's my

Corean Canty (1:05:04)
Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (1:05:20)
My hope for kind of stuff is that when my kids do the goofy stuff, because they do, I mean, my mom's like, they're teenagers, right? I'm like, I don't want to be a teenager again. But you know, no thank you. But it's like, I want to be there, be supportive, and not have that be a big thing. Yeah, that's hard. yeah. that's exciting. And really mean it, not like fake it.

Corean Canty (1:05:23)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Kristopher Schmidt (1:05:51)
So yeah, that's what I kind of continue to check in with myself to stay present, to fully live, to play, be playful.

Corean Canty (1:06:06)
love that, I love that. Kristopher, this has been such an amazing conversation for everybody out there. How can they connect with you? How can they learn more about the work that you do?

Kristopher Schmidt (1:06:16)
Yeah, on LinkedIn, have a book an appointment. And I am at Divergent, the word Divergent, D-I-V-E-R-G-E-N-T, champion at Outlook.com. And then I have a consulting company, Proposite, which is weird, P-U-R-P-O-C-I-T-Y, consulting.com. It's just easier to go to the LinkedIn site.

Corean Canty (1:06:38)
Yeah, we'll put that in the show notes too so people can go click on it.

Yeah, awesome. Well, thank you for being a blessing to me today.

Kristopher Schmidt (1:06:49)
Thank you. It was a pleasure.