E272 – Kris Macchiarola – How to create a humanized company and leaders.

Junaid Ahmed 0:10
Thank you for tuning in to hacks and hobbies with your host Junaid. In Season Two of hacks and hobbies were visited by our amazing guests coming from all walks of life want to learn their story, their struggles and their journey on how they got to where they are today. So stick around.

In this episode, we get to speak with Chris Mack. She's a speaker, author and consultant, with an upcoming book coming out hashtag no approval needed. She helps corporations and companies be better emotionally equipped to deal with or have a have a good way of a balance with employees and having that emotion because a lot of the lot of times companies feel like they are robotic. They're just looking for that bottom line. So Chris here helps those companies be emotionally intelligent companies and leaders, so they can run companies that are humanized. Chris, thank you so much for joining us and coming on to the podcast.

Kris Macc 1:26
Thank you Junaid. Appreciate it.

Junaid Ahmed 1:28
Absolutely. So, EQ is is something new that I mean, it's nothing new. But for the longest time, everybody would talk about IQ. And each is a the emotional quotient of somebody or some person. And it resonated with me because as human beings, we have a ton of emotions, and how to deal with these emotions is a completely whole new way of like, we obviously we go through life, right. And we have a lot of help from our parents help from teachers to be better human beings. But like, tell us a little bit about like, Where did the concept of no approval needed? And what inspired you to be an EQ consultant?

Kris Macc 2:24
Yeah, so first, let's go back to just EQ in general. So emotional intelligence has been out for really, the concept has been out for more than 30 years. But to your point, even though it's been talked about in business for a while, it's still fairly new concept for many people. And I was first exposed to it, probably 20 years ago, when I was a psychologist for the school systems. And back then we were going around to entire school faculties and doing a train the trainer model where we would train the teachers on emotional intelligence so that they could train the kids. Because we knew that back then, if the kids were equipped with emotional and social skills, they performed better academically, there were fewer behavior problems and lower absentee rate. So then fast forward to my time in corporate America, and I was exposed to it from a business standpoint, and it just made so much sense to me, you know, with the background in psychology, that we experience emotions, 24 seven. And so what I find so fascinating about the workplace is that so many people are very naive, and thinking that we can separate emotions from business, it's impossible, because that's not how we're wired from a neurological standpoint, our emotions cues into what's going on in our environment. So it becomes critical to learn how to use them to our advantage, so that we can perform at an optimal level at work helps us to understand ourselves better, and how to navigate our emotions, how to express ourselves in a way that's professional and meaningful, how to build strong relationships, how to make good sound decisions, without not allowing emotions to get in the way, and how to cope with challenges. So it man, it's, we're talking about stress tolerance there. So you can see how it would be really important for leaders and individual contributors to be emotionally intelligent at work.

Junaid Ahmed 4:29
Yeah, know that that's just really powerful. Because you mentioned in 20 years ago, teachers would, you know, you're going around

teaching teachers how to make Muslim emotionally intelligent, and I didn't go to school system in the United States, I went to school system, and the totally different country and back in, you know, Saudi Arabia. And I don't know what level of emotional intelligence they had, but we, you know, growing up in totally different school environment for me, and coming to the corporations, like you mentioned, you know, businesses need to be more emotional, intelligent, because the people, the humans that are running it, have these emotions, if AI, or computers were running a business, and you might not need that much EQ in there, or I know. Yeah, so yeah, you're you're absolutely right, that, you know, we need to be better equipped. So with your experience, and working with fortune 500 companies and bringing this EQ. And it's really interesting, because when you mentioned right, EQ has been around for 30 years. And I'm drawing parallels parallels with user experience that's been around for around 30 years as well, because it first came up when when we started using computers, because that's where the user experience comes from. And there's still a lot of companies. A lot of recruiters like, I've never hired for a UX position. So I've been a recruiter for 20 years, but I've never had to hire somebody in this area. Can you tell me something about it? So it's really, really interesting, because it's almost like EQ is in its in its own niche area. Just like UX is just like, so many different things are? So what is one thing that you've done? Or like, what are what are some things that companies are doing to bring it more apparent or become, basically make it more popular?

Kris Macc 6:45
Some companies are really ahead of the curve. And they're, they're very intentional and progressive, in trying to create emotionally intelligent workplaces. I mean, I've done some really significant work with some large global pharmaceutical companies. And, you know, they've had me do not only assessments, where that gives people baseline of, you know, their skill set, but also some one on one coaching, and then we've done virtual webinars, because, you know, the challenge with today's workplaces, organizations are designed with a matrix design, or you have so many remote workers, that people that are trying to decide how do we get training, you know, you have to be really versatile. So we don't only do face to face workshops and training, but we also do virtual, that way you can reach people wherever they are. And so it's really about making the training the coaching accessible. And same thing with the assessments, you know, people can do those online, and then we do one on one debrief through like a zoom call or something. So it doesn't matter what country they're in, it doesn't matter what the time zone is, you know, it just makes it really easy to work with them. But we always start with a needs assessment to figure out more, they're blind spots. So just like we as individuals have blind spots, leaders have blind spots, and organizations have blind spots. So I help them identify those first, and then that helps us decide, you know, what's the type of intervention that we need to co create, to make the most impact and so really fun, and definitely can see the impact, as far as people improving communication, and proving and you know, that they've done a lot of research, actually, that shows that people who are emotionally intelligent, outperforming those who are not using those skills, and there's actually some data that shows that those who are emotionally intelligent are earning about $30,000 more per year than their colleagues. And you know, it makes sense. I mean, these are the people that are closing the sales, they're getting that promotions and the merit increases. So make sense that these people would earn more, buddy.

Junaid Ahmed 9:00
Nice, nice. And how many sessions have a coaching with EQ to somebody required to achieve that level of improvement? And how much is empathy involved in EQ?

Kris Macc 9:15
So points for the empathy question first, I mean, that's actually one of the skills. So the model that that I use is the EQ I two point O. And it's, it's really the most robust as far as scientific validity and reliability. And that's where I went with that model. There are others that are that are okay, I think that, again, the EQ I two point O is the most robust, so there's 15 skills, and empathy is one of them. But to your question about empathy, when you're dealing with other humans, that's one of the most critical skills that you have to know how to use the problem is that it's not always easy to be empathetic towards someone else, especially if we don't like them, we don't agree with them, our empathy switch gets turned off, we need to learn how to turn it back on so that we can be more collaborative, instead of having these adversarial relationships where communication breaks down. But as far as coaching goes, it really depends on the individual. I mean, I would say for most people, you know, six sessions really can make a big difference and giving you that one on one time where you're really talking about situations specific to you. And it's customized to you, and so are the strategies. And that gives you an opportunity to practice them back, we talked about how things are going what we need to tweak. And, you know, again, it depends there are some people but you know, may not meet a need as many and there are some need more. And I worked with, I was hired to work with an ER physician, when I first started my company, and he was really struggling with the people skills part of it. And it was impacting his patient care. And so, you know, I was hired to do an assessment, we actually did a 360 on him, which means that he was able to choose who was going to fill out the assessment on him. And then we compared that to his own self greater assessment, so that we could see where there were strengths aligned, and where there were areas of opportunity to improve and where there were blind spots of areas where he didn't see it all that he needed to work on. Yeah, it was very illuminating for him. But you know, he required a lot of one on one sessions, because of where we were starting, you know, when we first started, it was everybody else's fault. He could not see that he there was any account of personal accountability in the situations that were contentious at work, whether it was with a patient or with another care provider. And by the time we ended it, he was a completely different person. And that was really rewarding to see because he was at the beginning of his career, my fear was that he was not going to be successful was that he was going to get fired. And then blackballed. Because he had, you know, there was so much data that was being collected on him that said, you know, he was not somebody that people wanted to work with. So you need to be able to impact someone's life, like that was was really rewarding for me.

Junaid Ahmed 12:17
Nice. That's really beautiful. And I can relate. I don't know if I can relate, but I'm drawing some parallels and a lot of parallels and, and sometimes you'll see these patterns in families or siblings, right? Absolutely. And it's really interesting. Like, how people deal with it. And like, I've been watching this TV show, called a million little things or, and it's really interesting, the dynamics there, between parent between, you know, siblings, between father and son. And you see, like, where, because over time we build these preconceived notions about our siblings, or about different people, and then you're always going to watch them from that same lens, and you won't take off those glasses and see them from a new light, because maybe there's something different. And having a good EQ or better, more intelligent, I guess, absolutely helps you look through look to look at those relationship from different eyes.

Kris Macc 13:37
Yeah, I mean, I think to your point, you know, these skills aren't just work skills, their life skills. Yeah. So, you know, the implications for our relationships, whether it be family or colleagues, is really important. And, you know, I think when when I train people to start not just to understand the concepts, but how does it apply to my life, we're at work, it's about getting really curious with yourself, and starting to own your part and things. And you know, when things aren't going, right, well, what can I do to change that, and, you know, if I could start to see if I can start to understand what the patterns are, are my choices and my behavior, that's when I can start to improve, and come up with strategies that will work for me the next time, a similar situation arises. And the other thing is, to your point about the lens, we have to put, we have to become so self aware that we understand when our ego is getting in our way. And when our empathy switches being shut off. And we have to put that in the backseat, but that ego in the backseat, get real curious about what we're doing and why and why we're using that lens to view other people and also recognize that we all want other people to assume good intentions about us. We don't do the same for others. Yeah. And that's when things you know, that's when communication and relationships breakdown. So we have to come from an from a place of, you know, understanding that most of the time, people have good intentions. And you know, there's failed expectations that happened, but that's what an honest conversation needs to happen. Yeah. So,

Junaid Ahmed 15:24
you know, one of the sayings of the Prophet is at, or even even in the Bible, do unto others what you want done unto you. Right. And that comes exactly to the point that you were mentioning that, you know, people want good things up to them. And they want other people to to treat you well. It goes both ways, buddy. Yes, yes,

Kris Macc 15:48
it does. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, one of the one of the things that I help organizations with is creating a culture of trust. And it's so interesting, I wanted I worked with us, a global beauty company, and they rolled this workshop out company wide. And I'll never forget, one of the very first workshops that I did, there were some executives that attended the workshop. And they remember one of the women saying, Wow, and this was at the beginning of the workshop, I, you know, I'm really good at creating trust, because I have good intentions. And I was like, Okay, well, let's, let's hold on to that thought. And then we did an exercise where everyone realized that they break trust, but there they mean to or not, we all do it. In every relationship we all break trust. And you know, we're not always aware that we're doing it. And so then it was, oh, okay, intentions don't always align with behavior. And so we have to understand that listen, none of us are perfect. We all break trust. So how can we repair it? And how can we get better about thinking about building trust? Because most of us don't think about it. Until Trust has been broken. We're not intentionally thinking and every moment how can I build and maintain trust? We're only thinking about when somebody breaks our trust?

Junaid Ahmed 17:10
Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Kris Macc 17:12
Yeah. So it was fascinating. Just like a kid.

Junaid Ahmed 17:16
Yeah. And, and one of the examples from the, from the show was this one gentleman, if he he's like, you know, if she had found out from you, if you had told her, she will trust you better. But since she had to find out a different way, you know, she's not going to trust you. So you have to go through the pain and take this medication or whatever.

So it's, that's really interesting.

Kris Macc 17:46
Yes, the on the topic of trust. Yeah. One of the questions that I asked in the book, hashtag, no Primo needed. And I interviewed women from around the world and ask them lots of different questions. But one of the questions that I asked was, around the topic of deal breakers, and you know, what would cause you to draw a line in the sand and end a friendship or a relationship? And almost universally, one of the top answers was when someone breaks my trust? Yeah. And I thought that was so interesting. And I wish that might work. Because my follow up question should have been, have you ever broken someone's trust? And I'm sure every, everybody would have said, Yes. But yes, our standards for how you know, what would cause us to end a relationship as if somebody breaks our trust. So it's just, you know, humans are so fascinating. And I just, I just love having people, you know, take the mask off and be authentic. Yeah. Which we don't always see, especially on social media.

Junaid Ahmed 18:49
No, we don't, you don't see that at all. And what's really interesting about human beings being interesting. So, you know, a lot of times you keep saying I'm rational, not really,

very irrational people.

Kris Macc 19:06
Yes, we are. And we, we like to tell ourselves stories that we believe, you know, sometimes these fairy tales and fantasies about how we who we are and how we live our lives. And, and we're not even always honest with ourselves, much less everyone else.

Junaid Ahmed 19:21
Exactly.

Kris Macc 19:22
And, you know, I was trying to get them to dig deeper and take the masks off. And that was one of the fascinating things about the book was, there were some stories that I heard that people had never said aloud before. And they couldn't believe that they were in some cases telling a stranger the story, but sometimes I'll get to talk to somebody doesn't know you.

Junaid Ahmed 19:46
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Well, those are some going to the mind whole. what's what's really amazing about the mind and

you I tend to this Ted TEDx here in Ashburn, and one of the speakers were talking about the mind, and how there's three portions of the mind. There's the there's the frontal, makes all, you know, all current happenings attending to what's happening. And there's a limbic brain, which does all of your intelligence work, and all of your thinking and all of your, and then you've got the defensive brain. Or the, the lizard brain, I can't remember who mentioned. Yeah, right. So the lizard brain is always, always up front and center, in deciding what, how you're going to behave in any situation whatsoever.

Kris Macc 20:46
Yeah, your lizard brain is really looking at, you know, it's looking at fight or flight. Yeah. I mean, it's responsible for other things like, you know, determine if you're going to, you know, engage in sexual behavior for procreation, and you know, you're going to eat delicious, but it's really survival. Yeah, those things that help us survive as a species. And then your limbic is where your brain is processing those emotions. And then your frontal lobe is all the rational thinking. And so in the context of emotional intelligence, the problem is that, you know, all of our external cues enter our brain through the the primal, the primitive part of the brain, the lizard brain, yeah. And then it has to go through the limbic system, that's where the emotions are processed. But we don't have rational thought attached to that until it reaches the frontal lobe. And there's a little bit of a lag time there. So when you, you'll hear the term emotionally hijacked. And that's when, you know, think about the United Airlines example, where you had the passenger who wouldn't get off and became, you know, combative. And you had the United Airlines workers who also were not thinking clearly and ended up in a physical melee. You know, if people had just paused and allowed their thinking brain to catch up with the emotional part of the brain, we wouldn't have these situations as often where people are doing things that they regret. And it's it. Yeah, so that's one of the things that that I teach individuals and organizations we've got, we got to use the power of the pause, because we're allowing our the primitive part of our brain to put us into fight or flight mode. And that's never good situation,

Junaid Ahmed 22:29
that that is so powerful, because, like, it's going back to the things that, you know, in our religion that teach you like in the Quran, the Prophet says, if you're angry, change your state, like if you're standing sit down, if you sitting

Elaine, sit up to change your state. So you can have that pause, that you next

level of your brain or the flow chart you who fills out.

Kris Macc 23:02
Yeah, you got to buy yourself some time to make a rational decision to choose an appropriate response instead of just reacting. Wow. Yeah. And once you understand that, and then also, you know, from a leadership or even co worker perspective, once you can start to view everything from survival mode, like who's in fight or flight, then you start to look at it like if I'm in a meeting, and I say something, and then I observe a response by somebody, what did I say that caused them to be in fight mode, where they're in a confrontational or flight mode, which is where they shrink back and they shut down? They don't communicate anymore? When you can start to look at those patterns. And you can adjust your behavior also. So there's a two way street there where we can also look at, what are we doing to make the situation better or worse?

Junaid Ahmed 23:53
Yeah, absolutely. And it's bringing me back to one situation that I was in that now I'm being ghosted. Right, so I said something to someone, and they're like, you know, you need to blow blood, do this, this this? Like, no, no, no, I'm not going to do that. Because I'm listening to these guys. He's Seth Godin, you know, he's like, he's, you know, saying you gotta do what you want to do. Because if you listen to friends and family, you're never going to get to that point, then they probably took offense. And there's probably a day or two more of conversation over text. And then after that, just goes to like, no response. Nothing like all right, yeah, yes. You know, I triggered something. And I don't know how to get back to that previous stage.

Kris Macc 24:50
Yeah, I think there's a couple important things there. So the first thing that I would say is, anytime you're in any kind of communication, where there's room for disagreement, or there already is disagreement, to stop communicating through text or email, and pick up the phone or see that person in person, because you just the fact that we're using written communication, the brain is scanning for threats all the time, that's, you know, that lizard brain is on 24. Seven. And so it is looking for intent, and tone and meaning where maybe there isn't any intended by the person writing it. Yeah, the brain is, you know, going to see what it's going to fill in gaps. And it's not real good at written communication, it will get it there's a lot of room for misinterpretation. So that would be the first thing that I would say. And then secondly, you know, when things don't go, Well, I think you have to get really good at apologizing, apologizing for your part in it and you know, communicating that, hey, this relationships important to me, I know things went sideways, you know, how can we fix it? Yeah. And I think when you when you come at it from a place of humility, and you let people know that you care, you know, and give a little bit of time for that emotion to settle down. Most of the time, things can be resolved.

Junaid Ahmed 26:16
Absolutely, really good point. be really good at apologizing. And I like to think that I'm, I might be good at apologizing, but maybe I'm overlooking that. And like you said, you know, you your mind starts overthinking and you start telling stories to yourself. Okay, I did what I did, what I should have? And

that's really, really

Kris Macc 26:44
well, I don't think you have to apologize for your, your viewpoint, or right now we are what course of action you're going to take. That's for you to decide. You can just say, you know, I'm so sorry that things went sideways. I was never mindset, you're important to me. Yeah, I want to fix this and actually staying for the part of the, you know, where communication went wrong. Or, you know, if you felt that I disrespected you, I'm so sorry, whatever that was, that was the result. You know, we don't have to agree on on the course of action, but I'm going to take because that's for me to decide. But I want you to understand how important you are to me. And you know, and I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I heard you.

Junaid Ahmed 27:21
Yeah, yeah, that's really good point. I'll work on that.

Kris Macc 27:28
No, I was not always good at apologizing, it took me because my ego would get in the way. And so I think that also is is important is using your ego as a red flag alert. know if you're getting upset with someone else. And if things are always their fault, if you're always right, you know, those are red flags. Okay, my ego is in overdrive. The ego is important. It serves to protect us. But it's sometimes too much for today, you know, back in the days of cavemen, we needed that. But now, we don't need so much ego.

Junaid Ahmed 28:01
Yeah, we don't need it at all.

Kris Macc 28:04
Because we need a little bit we did there are just take advantage. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But most of the time was an overdrive and it's, it's making us do things to cut our nose off in spite of our face. And that's,

Junaid Ahmed 28:17
yeah, no, that's, that's totally on point. Because we are

in this environment in this era, there's a lot more collaboration happening. Then, the individualistic approach at, you know, I'm gonna be an island, and I'm going to do it myself. Yet, it's definitely important to have the ego in check.

Kris Macc 28:46
Yes, yeah, we want to be operating at optimal level, we cannot work in silos, there's very few jobs, that you can work in a silo and be successful. Yeah, we have often we have to be able to communicate with others in a way that's respectful and meaningful and helping us to get done what we need to get done.

Junaid Ahmed 29:09
So what are those jobs? Because I'm asking for a friend

Kris Macc 29:14
for the silence.

Oh, gosh, you know, I don't even I don't even know, because anything that I don't know, I don't know what that would be. Yeah.

I can't even think of one. I'm sure exist.

Junaid Ahmed 29:30
I'm sure there's to do. Because I'm looking from the perspective of I'm looking at construction. I'm looking at civil engineering looking at like any,

Kris Macc 29:40
as you have to communicate with others, though.

Junaid Ahmed 29:43
Yeah. So

Kris Macc 29:46
yeah, I mean, it's interesting, the best position that I worked with, when when we first started working together, he said, I think I want to change my specialty and work in an ICU, so that I don't have to communicate. And I said, Okay, so you may have patients that are intubated, and you're not communicating with them, but the caregivers, are there, the family and the rest of the care team. That's not a realistic option. You know, it's like, we got to fix this. And it's not you changing your specialty. That's not going to work that's going to result in failure for sure. Exactly. But it was it was interesting. I really can't. I don't know, I don't know what that job would be. But when you figure it out, let me know and

Junaid Ahmed 30:31
know us. Slowly. Right. Maybe, you know, I'm driving cross country doesn't require too much communication. Maybe? I don't know, maybe,

Kris Macc 30:42
maybe possible. I don't know enough about how you know how much they have to check in different visors or? Yeah, I don't know. That's the point. Maybe.

Junaid Ahmed 30:54
No offense to anybody, you know, driving cross country.

I didn't know some people in that area. Actually, my cousin, he, he started a company where he pick he bought a couple of trucks, and you know, he's just doing deliveries. But again, communication is the is the stepping stone for being human. Right? Yes. And the better you are, the better human you are. And it's

Kris Macc 31:27
so important, so important.

Junaid Ahmed 31:29
Absolutely. We will, I am definitely looking forward to your book, no approval, Nico. Um, it's like, and what's what's amazing is, the more I get older, the more I realized how important it is to think how important it is to

have

better communication skills. And being a designer for the past 20 years being it you know, web design, UX design, communication is like the number one thing, you got to be able to talk to your customers, you got to be able to talk to your clients to figure out what type of what type of message are they wanting to share with with their audience, right? Um, what who are the customers? So yeah, communication is super important. And as I grow older, I see a lot of parallels between user experience marketing, having, having good EQ, emotional intelligence, and so many different parts of life. Like, it's super, super important to have. Because end of the day, we're all humans working with other humans with the same set of emotions.

Kris Macc 32:55
Yeah, it's the humanness.

The authentic humaneness that fascinates me, and hashtag no approval needed was my attempt to talk to women from around the world, to see to get under the layers of BS, you know, that persona that we, we put out to the world, but maybe isn't true. We get underneath those layers and talk about, you know, their journey, and life and career and relationships. And being a parent or not. We talked about, you know, marriage and their bodies and sex and libido and affairs, and the future. I mean, so many, so many different topics. But one of the topics we talked about was vulnerability. And, you know, I asked them, what it what are those things that you don't like to admit to yourself or to others that makes you feel afraid? Yeah. That you don't like to think about? and suffer some that was a really difficult question. Because they had never really had a conversation about that before, hadn't hadn't really thought about those things. And, you know, for me, I like, I like the imperfections in humans. I think that's what makes us interesting and fascinating. And I love the authenticity of it. And, you know, I wanted them to talk about the things they don't talk about every day. And so there's there's some things that are, you know, I think I think when people read it, maybe they won't relate to every woman I interviewed. Yeah, what we'll find is that we're more alike than we are different.

Junaid Ahmed 34:42
Absolutely. And you interviewed a lot of women, right?

Kris Macc 34:47
I interviewed close to 60 women and every continent was represented. These were all women in their 40s. Most of them were career women, with the exception of a couple of you know, somewhere, were CEOs. Their journey and their insight was just so fascinating. But they were all confidential conversations, because because some of the topics are, you know, bit taboo, you don't necessarily want those associated with your professional brand. So I don't reveal anyone's name, or any personal identifying information unless I was given consent to do so. So, yes, it's going to come out may 7, and actually is available for pre order right now on Amazon. I just did that yesterday. So. Yeah, and the websites up and running, and there's t shirts associated with it. And so yeah, a lot of activity right now. But it's really exciting. That's fantastic.

Junaid Ahmed 35:49
Yes, I saw your note and a couple weeks ago. And finally, the book is done. And

Kris Macc 35:58
I can't tell you it them. So I'm self publishing, which has been such a growth journey, because the book world is very, very complex. Oh, yes. So much I've had to learn. But just even this weekend, things that should be super easy, have not been easy. And moments of tears mean anytime,

Junaid Ahmed 36:19
yeah,

Kris Macc 36:20
because things are not doing what I want them to do. And so part of that lesson is not just that things are new, and I'm learning but I have to step away, and pause and breathe and go do something not related to it and come back at it with a fresh lens. Yeah, because it starts to make you crazy.

Junaid Ahmed 36:42
Yeah, well, it seems like you took all of your career to come up with this book. And then well, not all of your career, I mean, all of your experience,

you know, and being the consultant and having your company up for the past few years.

So that's really, really awesome. How you, you know, took your experience and took your degree and took all of that and put it all together in this nice package that people can learn how to be better, emotionally intelligent. But what hobby

would you wish that you got into doing all of this?

Kris Macc 37:30
So you're gonna laugh at me, but I have always wanted to be a singer. But I cannot sing. I mean, I can sing, but it's not good. I'm tone deaf, and I will make your ears bleed. But But if I could, if I could, like wave my magic wand, I would want to be a singer. Because I think besides the fact that I don't have a good voice, which, you know, in my dream world, that would change. Sure. I think I've got stage presence. And so I know I would have fun and I would make it fun for the audience. You know, but I would be it would just be an experience. However, you got to have a voice and unfortunately that is lacking. Well, I'm sure I know. I would be good if I had a good voice. I would be a tremendous

Junaid Ahmed 38:17
Well, it all it takes is practice.

Kris Macc 38:21
I wish I really I missing the gene. Yeah, that allows you to hear how good or bad you are. I really am tone deaf. I'm not exaggerating. Okay at all. All you have to do is listen to Diana wins. Damn, Carrie. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I did one of those was

so bad.

But it was fun. But it was fun.

Junaid Ahmed 38:48
I've been trying to get on her radar. Miss mentioned that, you know, it should be.

Kris Macc 38:58
Yeah. Yeah. Then you could and then you could interview her. But the to swap?

Junaid Ahmed 39:03
Yeah. Perfect. Don't be perfect. All right. So having, you know, one thing I wanted to come back to was when you mentioned the authentic human. And I'm going back to Star Trek, because I've been watching Star Trek Enterprise, the new vision I started couple years ago. And I'm realizing why people were obsessed with Star Trek for the past 50 years. Because you have Spock who's human, half Vulcan, but he's emotionally challenged. Right? And then you have other like, you have Christopher Pike, you have other human beings on there. And they have, you know, very strong emotions, but then they either have to scale back or they're in, in roles where, you know, the emotional, the empathy is needed, for example, being a duck being a medical examiner, or being a medical officer. And then there are other species, there are other aliens on there that are really good at, like sensing danger. And and there's right. And it's really, like, obviously, they're all played by human beings. But it's, they're amplifying one or two or three different emotions that that as humans have.

Kris Macc 40:34
Yeah. Right.

Yeah, I mean, it's, I haven't watched any of the new stuff that I certainly watched Star Trek as a kid. And in a minute, our brains first of all prefer information to be told to us in story form.

Junaid Ahmed 40:51
Yeah.

Kris Macc 40:52
But we want there to be an emotional connection with it. Those are the things that we remember. And I mean, so even if you got something like, why did we love et, because there was so much emotion involved in that story. You know, there was love, there was fear, there was sadness. I mean, you know, these are the, as humans again, we are wired to experience emotions. 24 seven, and it's part of who we are, it's in our core, it's fundamentally such a big part of our of our experience in this life and and our personalities. And so, we have to learn how to use those to our advantage, both professionally and personally.

Junaid Ahmed 41:33
Yeah. So on that note, what would be your favorite movie or TV show?

Kris Macc 41:40
Good question. I mean, I tend to like some of the funny stuff. There's one movie that I don't know how I missed this when it came out, but I didn't because it's older. I just saw it. Earlier this year, the sweetest thing it's with Cameron Diaz and Christina Applegate. And the reason why I like that movie, is because there are shenanigans that go on, you know, they're best friends. And yeah, the shenanigans that happen between the two of them are absolutely hysterical. And they remind me of college days with my best friend. And just so so funny. I mean, like crying laughing funny. You know, it's not, it's certainly not like a, you know, Oscar award winner or anything like that. But just because it hits on that emotional connection and taking me back down memory lane. And, you know, not that we had the same things happen exactly. But you know, similarities that remind me of my best friend, and our time together in college. So yeah. Yes, exactly. And, and those, when you are able to read a book, or see a movie, or listen to a song that you emotionally connect with, it triggers memories, and can be very, very nostalgic. And just, this was a lot of fun to revisit some of those days with my best friend in college. Nice.

Junaid Ahmed 43:00
So on that, um, who would you choose to be a favorite superhero?

Kris Macc 43:07
A Wonder Woman, of course. I mean, that's an easy one, I had

a picture of Wonder Woman on my vision board. And I actually, as a kid back when you're probably too young, but they had under ruse, which were like these little pajama kind of thing. They were called under reason they had for other superheroes. And I had one for Wonder Woman, Wonder Woman. And I really thought I could be her when I was wearing them. So you know, like four or five. And I remember strategically setting up a wooden pan opens a few feet from my bed. And I thought I would jump like Wonder Woman. And so I did. I jumped from my bed, onto this bench, and I met and I landed, except for the fact that then the bench started to rock. I landed flat on my face, and ended up injuring myself. And it just was a fiasco. But I've always loved Wonder Woman. And when the new movie came out, like a year or two ago, I thought it was so well done. And I took my kids and I wanted to see it again. I thought it's just awesome.

Junaid Ahmed 44:19
Yeah, I think I've probably seen that movie two or three times is really good.

Kris Macc 44:24
Yeah, so good. And I'm in some Wonder Women groups on LinkedIn with women from around the world who are just brilliant. Yes. Awesome. So that was an easy question.

Junaid Ahmed 44:38
Perfect. Well, here's one of the last questions. If you are a board game, what would it be?

Kris Macc 44:46
Oh, wow.

I would want to create my own. Do you go? Because I don't feel like any of those would represent who I am today. I feel like I'm gone through so much transformation, especially in my 40. So if there was a game, a board game called transformation. That's that would be my board game. That would be it. Nice.

Junaid Ahmed 45:11
Yeah. Well, you know, there's probably, I'm trying to get that number. Right. But just probably 3000 to 3500 new board games that come out every month. I did not know that. So maybe two could be a board game called no approval needed. Just Ah,

Kris Macc 45:30
yes. That is a fantastic idea. fantastic idea. Yeah, no worries, because that's

Junaid Ahmed 45:36
right. You never know. Because you're building a tribe with your no approval needed. But yeah, I've been

Kris Macc 45:45
not even out yet. And yeah. And there's been so much support and interest and people following the journey, globally, which is just blowing my mind. Yeah. It's, it's been an awesome experience. I never really expected people to care this much.

Yeah, especially as a new author, and yeah,

Junaid Ahmed 46:08
absolutely. Because, like you said, human beings and emotions go hand in hand. And we'll talk about no problem at will. Because, right, we're always asking for approval, like, oh, should I do this? And then, and I'm guessing that's what you're doing in the book. You know, you're,

Kris Macc 46:27
yeah, that's been part of the journey, especially for women in their 40s, we finally reach a point where we are confident, we know ourselves, we like ourselves. And we are not interested in your permission or approval. And that's how, when I was Look, I didn't come up with a title until the end of the book, after I was done writing it. And I went back and look through my notes. And I wanted something that was representative universally of the women that I interviewed. And that was it. So that's how we came up with hashtag no approval needed.

Junaid Ahmed 47:02
Nice. Well, I appreciate the talk and appreciate that you think I'm a lot younger. As we go with that. We can my audience find you you did mentioned you have a website up?

Kris Macc 47:19
Yeah, so finally, my website developer finished the author website. So that's at Chris Mack kr, is ma cc hyphen, author.com. And then there's a Facebook group for the community and that's hashtag no approval needed book. And then my company website is k Mac km ACC solutions with an s.com.

Junaid Ahmed 47:49
Perfect. I'll be sure to include the links in the show notes. And this was an awesome conversation. Thank you so much.

Kris Macc 48:00
Thank you. I appreciate it was an awesome conversation and you should definitely swap with Diana.

Junaid Ahmed 48:06
I will definitely reach out to her. Thanks again, Chris.

Kris Macc 48:10
Thank you Junaid. Take care. You too.

Junaid Ahmed 48:17
Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to this episode on hacks and hobbies. We absolutely appreciate your contribution. You can find additional notes on hacks and hobbies. com. please share the podcast with your friends and tell them what you learned about our guests today.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai