What does kindness look like when the person you love is healing from pain you can't fix?

There was a woman in Stephanie Duguid’s hometown who knew everybody’s name before they’d finished unpacking their boxes. They called her the Welcome Wagon Lady. She was also Stephanie’s mom. Margie wrote notes. Hundreds of them. She remembered students twenty years after they left her classroom, and she kept showing up long after the welcome basket was delivered. Dr. Stephanie Duguid lost her unexpectedly on her third day as a teacher, and what carried her through was everything her mother had already given away. Fifty years later, those notes are still finding their way back. In this episode: What a Welcome Wagon Lady actually did in the 1970s, and how Margie turned strangers into friends in a matter of minutes The student who held onto the family recipes for twenty years, and the cookbook that came out of returning them A stack of postcards dated 1975, mailed back to Stephanie just a few months ago by a woman she’d never met The weekend Margie came to visit with two suitcases, one for clothes and one for stationery, stamps, and her address book Why social media is everybody’s A side, and how Margie got people to show her the B side Flowers in the morning, a car accident that night, and the third day of teaching that changed everything “What would Margie do?” and what to do when you can’t find a mentor Leading with kindness without letting accountability slip About Dr. Stephanie Duguid Dr. Stephanie Duguid (yes, it’s pronounced “do good”) is a leadership culture strategist, keynote speaker, and founder of Do Good Leadership. She spent more than thirty years in K-12 and higher education as a teacher, athletic trainer, and administrator, and she now helps organizations build cultures where people feel seen, heard, and valued. She holds a Doctorate in Educational Leadership and is the bestselling author of Exponentially Elevate Your Leadership Impact. Connect with Stephanie Website: drstephanieduguid.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drstephanieduguid Instagram: @drstephanieduguid Facebook: facebook.com/DoGoodLeadership YouTube: youtube.com/@stephanieduguid

What does kindness look like when we start communicating clearly? Think about the last time you were frustrated with someone. Did they actually know what you wanted? Dr. LauraLynn Jansen says most of the friction in our relationships comes from expectations we never said out loud. In this episode, she makes the case that clarity isn't the opposite of kindness. It's one of the most generous things we can offer other people, and ourselves. In this episode: Why clarity is a form of kindness, even when we think of kindness as softness How to recognize the unspoken expectations you're carrying What happens in a relationship when those expectations stay unspoken The "gremlin" and how unclear expectations at work feed imposter syndrome Why so many of us choose silence over asking, and what to do if you're afraid asking will make you look incompetent The basics of Nonviolent Communication: feelings, needs, and requests Why clarity matters even more in a world of AI and automation About Dr. LauraLynn Jansen LauraLynn Jansen, Ph.D., PCC, is an award-winning scholar-practitioner, keynote speaker, and Co-Active coach who's spent more than 20 years helping people and teams build sustainable connection. She's worked across healthcare, government, the military, nonprofits, and private enterprise. Her doctoral research on what it means to feel truly seen earned the Academy of Management's 2023 Promising Dissertation Award. Her signature message: technology can accelerate what we do, but it can't replace how we relate. Connect with LauraLynn: Website: lljansen.com

Have you ever been around someone who makes you feel like you could say anything and it would be okay? Romaine Waller is one of those people. She's the woman who says hi first at the grocery store, the friend whose confidence is "a vault," and the leader who reminds her clinical research teams that at the end of every piece of paper is a patient. In this conversation, Romaine shares why kindness currency is unlimited, how she stays kind and direct at the same time in a highly regulated corporate world, and what it takes to become a safe, judgment free person for the people in your life. In This Episode Why Romaine always says hi first at the grocery store, and the lesson from her mother that shaped everything: "It doesn't cost you anything to be nice" Kindness currency is unlimited. You never run out, and it costs you nothing to spend it "At the end of everything we do is a patient." Keeping compassion at the center of data driven clinical research, and remembering there's a human on the other end of every email Kindness isn't soft, it's a strategy: how curiosity and listening open the door with teams set in their ways What it means to be a vault friend, and how to become a safer, judgment free person for others A first look at FIND T-squared: the Feeling Inside No one Dares To Talk about Romaine's challenge to dig deeper: are your relationships authentic and meaningful, or surface level and exhausting? About Romaine Romaine Waller is a U.S. Army veteran, an operations and strategy leader in clinical research and clinical systems, and a self-described connector of people. She holds a steadfast belief that knowledge and information become truly transformative only when shared, and that the most powerful technology in any room is still human compassion. Her CliftonStrengths of Positivity, Developer, Connectedness, Belief, and Maximizer are basically a fancy way of saying she's going to hype you up, help you grow, and refuse to leave potential on the table. Whether she's leading teams or mentoring the next generation of leaders, Romaine is proof that kindness isn't soft, it's a strategy. Connect Connect with Romaine on LinkedIn. Learn more about Nicole and The Kindness Podcast at nicolejphillips.com.

Amanda Fornal was on a panel at SXSW when someone asked her a simple question: what gets you up in the morning? "To do good," she said, and then she said the rest of it out loud. A few days earlier she had heard a venture capitalist argue that the smart money goes to sociopathic founders, not kind ones. It did not sit right with her logically or emotionally. So on that stage she said, "I'm kind, and I'm proud of it. If you don't want to invest in kindness, that's on you." A few days later she had a name for her next project. She built the website, started interviewing, and talked with more than 100 leaders, founders, and investors across more than 35 countries about one question: does kindness actually work in business? Here is what I appreciated about this conversation. Amanda is not asking us to be nice. She went and checked. She read the academic research before she trusted her own instincts, and she is direct about the fact that a business has a bottom line and kindness has to hold up against it. What she found is that it does, through loyalty and innovation and the kind of psychological safety that lets a team say the half-formed idea out loud. We also got honest about something I do not always admit on this show. I told her that kindness does not sell. Companies hire me for resilience and burnout and mindset, almost never for the word itself. Her answer to that is worth the listen on its own. Connect with Amanda and dig into the research Investing in Kindness: investinginkindnessproject.com Be interviewed for the project. Amanda is still taking interviews and invited you directly: forms.gle/o4gMVQWdFLfmugXY8 Take the survey: forms.gle/Tt3THNeyTUu9Qd968 Hypatia Leadership (her executive coaching work): hypatialeadership.com Elephari (the story preservation platform): elephari.com Women in Exploration: womeninexploration.org Founder Buddies: founderbuddies.com Love Is, the documentary: loveisthedocumentary.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/amandadfornal Instagram: @TheOrangeExplorer Kindness Pays: The Business Case for Prosocial Leadership: https://www.investinginkindnessproject.com/blog/kindness-pays-the-business-case-for-pro-social-leadership Kindness and Retention: What the Research Says About Why Employees Stay: https://www.investinginkindnessproject.com/blog/kindness-and-retention

On October 16, 2016, Mickey Z. started walking the streets of New York City with food, supplies, and gift cards to hand to homeless women. He noticed something first: homeless men will often walk right up and ask for a dollar, while women, already pushed to the margins, tend to sit quietly with a sign and wait. Those women became his teachers. They told him what they needed, what size to buy, what actually helped. Nearly ten years later, Cheerful Giver NYC has grown into a seven days a week mission serving anyone who asks, and Mickey has stopped calling it a project. He calls it a calling. This one got personal for Nicole. She admits on air that she used to be braver, that she once struck up a conversation with a homeless woman in Chicago about the book she was reading, and that somewhere along the way she lost the entry point. So instead of interviewing Mickey, she asks him for help. What follows is a practical, grace filled conversation about the first words to say, why gift cards work, what to do when you get it wrong, and how to stop separating the person with the sign from everyone else you meet all day long. In this episode: Why Mickey started with homeless women, and what nearly ten years of hands on giving has taught him about earning trust How a sign functions as an invitation, and why he will not approach someone who has not extended one Nicole's honest confession about losing her courage, and Mickey's response to the question of where a person even begins The Carnegie Hall regular who told him that one person's eye contact erases the thousand people who walked past Why a fifteen dollar fast food gift card buys far more than a meal: a bathroom, a phone charge, a seat indoors, and the dignity of blending in The mythology around giving cash, and the double standard we apply to how vulnerable people spend money About Mickey Z. Mickey Z. is a writer, longtime New Yorker, and the founder of Cheerful Giver NYC, a street level mission providing food, supplies, and gift cards to homeless people and other vulnerable souls across New York City. Born and raised in Queens, he began the work in October 2016 with a focus on homeless women, then expanded during the pandemic lockdowns to serve anyone within walking distance of his Astoria neighborhood who asks for help. He is the author of multiple books, has written for and volunteered with the homeless produced newspaper Street News, and writes regularly about giving, faith, and compassion on his Substack. He was named a Queens Person of the Week by NY1 for his work. He would like you to know he is not an expert. Links Cheerful Giver NYC: https://cheerfulgivernyc.wordpress.com/ (mission information and all donation links in one place, including PayPal, Venmo, Patreon, GoFundMe, Amazon wishlist, and mail) Mickey's Substack: https://mickeyz.substack.com/ (every post closes with how to support the mission)