Choosing Education with Kim Borchers & Denisha Merriweather
In this episode of the Trust Your Voice podcast, host Sylvie Légère sat down with Kim Borchers, who spearheads the Civic Leadership Engagement Roadmap program (CLER) at The Policy Circle and is the President and owner of Bird Dog Recruitment and Consulting, and Denisha Merriweather, founder of Black Minds Matter and the director of Public Relations at the American Federation for Children, to know your truths, and to show up and speak up for what you believe. That may our discussion will spark you to build a network in your community
In this conversation, Sylvie with Kim, and Denisha discuss:
Effective advocacy and community engagement
Choosing and access to quality education
Civic Leadership Engagement Roadmap program (CLER) and its importance
Gender differences in approaching advocacy
We invite our women listeners to consider participating in The Policy Circle CLER program by visiting thepolicycircle.org/cler. It is a virtual program for women from all over the country. There are two cohorts starting this coming September, check them out!
To learn more about Kim visit her website, Bird Dog Recruitment. And check out blackmindsmatter.net to follow and support Denisha’s efforts.
We hope you enjoy the episode! Tell us what you think by leaving a review on Apple podcasts. Stay tuned for more episodes and be sure to subscribe to the Trust Your Voice podcast on your favorite podcast player.
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Read the Full Transcript
Sylvie Légère 00:11
Have you ever felt challenged with making life changing decisions or leading in the public square or simply aligning your thoughts with your actions? Well, then you're in the right place. Welcome to trust your voice podcast. My name is Sylvie Légère. And as a civically engaged entrepreneur, and mom, I understand the challenges of advocating for yourself and others, while attempting to balance your personal and professional demands. I had to develop a personal system have success in every area of my life. And now, I want to help you build your unique system and truly trust your voice, even and especially when it shakes. By the end of each episode, you'll be energized to spark your creative leadership make purposeful connection, and confidently prioritize the matters that bring you the most joy. So let's start the show. Have you ever stopped and looked around where you live and wondered how this all worked? How are the street kept so clean? Or maybe why there's so much garbage everywhere? And how do you get fresh water off the tap? Or is my water safe to drink? Or who decides what kids learn at our school every year? And why do they come out of high school not knowing Google Sheets or ready for job? Have you gone to a city council meeting or a school board meeting? But that's called civic engagement. And when you show up, you want to feel prepared to speak up right. But where do we start? I thought that my guest today will help us answer this question. They are grassroots leaders extraordinaire Kim Borchers is hailing from the state of Kansas. And Kim spearheads the Civic Leadership Engagement Roadmap program at the policy circle. She is also the president and owner of bird dog recruiting, recruitment and consulting, where she focuses primarily on placement of senior talent at the highest level of state and federal government. And we have with us a school choice advocate danisha Merriweather from sunny and hot Florida. Denisa is the founder of Black Minds Matter. And she's the Director of Public Relations at the American Federation for Children. I think that our discussion today will spark you to build a network in your community. Know your truths, and to show up and speak up. Given to Nisha, welcome to the trust your voice podcast. I am so thrilled to have you both on the show.
Denisha Merriweather 02:25
Yeah, this is gonna be great.
Kim Borchers 02:27
Thank you, Sylvie, delighted to be here.
Sylvie Légère 02:30
Thank you. Well, I would like to ask both of you to share with our audience that moment where you decided to trust your voice, and follow your calling Danisha, I'd love to start with you.
Denisha Merriweather 02:41
Yeah. For me the journey in being passionate about education and finding my voice. And that started when I was around 15 years old. I've benefited from school choice. And I went to a private school, and it changed my life. And I don't say that as a cliche. I went from making D's and F's fail in third grade twice, to becoming the first in my family to graduate from high school earning a master's degree along the way. And that's how I found my voice. I began to speak up and I saw things in my community, I saw how the zone schools that I went to, were still underperforming. And I started to share my story share about my experience. And that's where it all started. That's how I became such a proud advocate for school choice, because I saw how it individually impacted me.
Sylvie Légère 03:33
Yeah, that's amazing story, Kim, you have a passion to equip women to be effective advocate share that moment when you realize, yes, I'm the right person to take that baton and really run with it.
Kim Borchers 03:46
Great question. Sylvie. I think for me, I had been doing advocacy work, not really knowing it was advocacy work for close to 20 plus years. And when COVID occurred, I was getting pummeled with requests from women and men all across the state and in my community, trying to figure out how to navigate through the decisions that were being made by government. And what I realized at that time, is that I needed to help individuals understand how their government worked, because government was making decisions that was having adverse impacts on them and their children. And so you and I had been in conversations with each other, about how do we kind of move women from understanding policy to action, and that's really the genesis of clear, it was realizing, okay, we've got to scale this. So women from all across the country can be better prepared to go out and to impact their communities where they live because they know their communities and their community members know them.
Sylvie Légère 04:46
I love that both of you, you know, danisha I know your story where you could not read at grade level when actually you transferred to a private school and you became an A student and that became like your passion too. really help people have access to incredible education. But I'm wondering, you know, when we start engaging locally, do you guys think like, we need to have a passion, or a big problem to address? Or do you think that there's value in first, like showing up understanding what's going on, and then that passion is going to come? Kim, I'd love to hear from you.
Kim Borchers 05:22
Thank you Sylvie. You know, I think for myself, it was during COVID. And what I recognized, I was doing advocacy for close to 20 years, but would not have called myself and an advocacy activist of sorts. But people were coming to me asking for help, and how to navigate through the impacts that government was having on their families, on their jobs, and so forth. And it was then in there that I realized we needed to be able to equip women and men to be more effective and understand how their community works. And you and I had been in conversations with each other about how do we move women from public policy to action, and that's where Claire was born is creating a roadmap of sorts for women to understand how they can be engaged and effective as they're advocating for the things that are important to them in their community.
Sylvie Légère 06:14
Yeah, it's an incredible feeling when you realize you're like, Yeah, I'm that go to person, and I have to just own it. And this, I have to own it. And I have to kind of share that knowledge and equip people to achieve their goals and engage in an effective way. And I think like danisha, I love like your story. And one thing you did not mention is that actually, in fifth grade, you were not at reading level before you transferred to a different school, that school system had given up on you, you didn't care about school anymore. It's until you change school, that you achieve your full potential. And I think that's when you realize you're like, How is this possible that I can go from being completely checked out not care about school, and everybody giving up on me and feeling stupid to being an A student in my class? And that's that moment? I'm sure that it was, I guess it was when you were 15 year old, that you felt it danisha? Did that moment ever leave you? Are you every day you wake up? You're like, Yes, this is what I need to keep trusting my voice and keep doing is providing access to great education to everyone.
Denisha Merriweather 07:25
That's right you know, when I failed the third grade twice, because I was not reading on level I couldn't read. And I remember those feelings. And sometimes those insecurities still creep up to this day of not feeling like I am able and adequate, smart. You know, I just knew I was dumb. And those feelings of you know imposters and I don't want any kid to feel that way. No kid should experience trauma in school. And that's why I advocate so passionately for school choice for education freedom. Right now. We have trauma stories, you know, we have stories of parents, who are pulling their kids out of schools that don't work for them, and putting them into environments that are more conducive for learning. That's good for now. But the hope and the passion and the prospect of this movement is that every kid in America despite their zip code, their family income, their background, their interests, their ability level, is able to pick the school from the beginning that their parent wants them to go to so they don't have to experience trauma in school in the way I grew up high school. And experience definitely contributes to that and keeps me motivated every day.
Sylvie Légère 08:42
Every day. Yeah, Kim, when you know, people started engaging law locally, Nisha had a passion. But do you think that everyone needs to have a passion or a big problem to address? Or is there value in first like in just showing up and trying to just understand the state of affairs? And if you will?
Kim Borchers 09:01
Know, you know, I think it's I think it's now important more than ever, I think part of the reason why we are in a bit of a challenge and dilemmas that we have in our communities today is because when you wait for a problem, sometimes it's a little too late, right? You're having to do a lot of cleanup before you can even address the problem. So I think there's tremendous value in us being more engaged, just showing up having just some intellectual curiosity about what is happening in your local community. I think it's really sad. If you take a look at the percentages of voters who participate in local elections. It's the lowest out there something in many instances, it's seven to 8%. Seven to 8% of voters show up for the folks who are going to be on the school board who make decisions about their children, and on city councils and in your county commissions and those folks tax your property. You've got big chunks of taxes coming out from those individuals. and only seven 8% of people are showing up for voting. So I think there is tremendous values I mentioned COVID. I think COVID was a real eye opener for us to begin to realize that civic engagement is not the same as politics. They're two different things. And so we can all be civically engaged. So I think I'm encouraging people. And that's what's great about clear the women who are participating in the program. They're just trying to figure out, you know, what, what are my interests? What am I really passionate about? That at the end of the day, I think I'd be willing to carve some time out to help my community improve. So I don't think it has to be a problem or a dilemma before you get engaged.
Sylvie Légère 10:41
Yeah, I think there's a there's also a great story with the policy circle clear program, where one of the assignments is to meet your city council person, right, and one of the participants met her city council person, and she asked, well, what's going on around the community? And they said, well, there is the Department of Transportation wants to transform this road into a one way street. And it's going to affect businesses that are on the wrong way of the one way. And there's a whole coalition of businesses, maybe you want to talk to them and get involved, and this person got involved. But not only that, she became the facility Community Dialogue facilitator between the Department of Education this coalition to community at large, and then they actually managed to convince the Department of Missouri Department of Transportation to change their plans, because she effectively was able to facilitate a community dialogue and get them to understand the impact on the viability of these businesses of doing this road. And, and this just happened, right, her showing up. And so I want to ask you both, once you want to see a change in the way something functions, where do you start? And my opinion is you need to start to have a goal and maybe having a vision, would you share that? danisha? Do you want to share a little bit about this idea of having a goal when it comes to impacting education?
Denisha Merriweather 12:01
Yeah, you know, for a very long time, our goal within the educational reform space was to have students be able to pick and we started, you know, I would say we started small based on the types of legislation that we could pass providing students with private school scholarships for special groups, so lower income students, and students with special needs. And then charter schools came about, and we expanded that, you know, it's a public type of choice. And now, you know, I think the major goal across the country is really to burst the bubble and allow parents to fully customize their child's education through education savings account. And just recently, Arizona has become the first state in the entire country to have universal school choice, or every single kid will have an education savings account in the state. And that is remarkable. And I think that is the goal. An education savings account, just for everyone listening is a type of school choice program that is set up through the state legislatures to allow students to use their public dollars. So families will use their tax dollars to pay for any type of educational expense that their parents can occur. So that's tutoring, that is laptops, note books, that is, you know, private school tuition, of course, oh, therapist, they can be customized based on anything. And in most cases, those funds can also be saved and rolled over and saved for college. So it is a fantastic program. And that is a goal in the education in school choice space to have every kid in America have access to those funds, because the belongs to them like it belongs to the parent, and that money will follow the kid. And it's remarkable to see what Governor Ducey did in Arizona just recently. And I'm hoping Florida's next, because that will be really awesome. And not just because I live here, and just it spread all across the country.
Sylvie Légère 14:16
So this is kind of having a goal of a systemic change, right in education policy and a state level. Kim, I know that the clear program, this civic leadership Engagement Roadmap program in the policy circle, also, there's a track that's focused on education, and it kind of asked about articulating what you believe about education if people want to impact their local school. Can you talk a little bit about that also, like so. It's awesome because Denisa shared, okay, if you want to have a systemic change, of the choice that people have, anybody can have a choice in where and how their child is educated. Establishing education, setting accounts is one way and then you can also be an ad Look at for changes in your own schools, you want to talk about like, a little bit like how people how maybe the program and how people can define their goals?
Kim Borchers 15:08
Absolutely. You know, I think before you can solve a problem, you have to understand what your expectations are, in this instance Tanisha. What are your expectations as a parent, for your child being educated? And if those expectations are not being met? How do you lay out that plan, I use this analogy of a vacation. So you're all excited about vacation, but getting in the car and being excited is not going to get you to your vacation? Destination, right? You're gonna have to think about how much money do you need to say, Where are you going to stay? If it's a long drive? And ultimately, where is that perfect vacation? What does it look like? So then you can check all those things off when you get there, and you go, Hey, we've arrived. So one of the thing Sylvie, I will will say, especially with parents on the education front, I've noticed they're trying to tackle every single issue. And that gets very overwhelming. And so I encourage people to get very focused on what's the most important thing, not that these other things aren't important. But you know, what they say, if everything's a priority, nothing's a priority. So I encourage them, first of all, look, what is the number one priority for you, and go to the individual who is closest to your child and making that particular priority, a priority for them as well. And that's in your local school. And I've been amazed at the number of parents who know they've gone to the school board before, they haven't spoken to teachers, and they haven't spoken even to the school principal. So building that relationship, I think, is really important, because the reality is, you could probably acquire some advocates for you, if you build out those relationships, effectively.
Sylvie Légère 16:51
The focus of our conversation here is around education. But you can really transpose that to any kind of issues. And even in your company, right? If you want to change something in your company is first is really having a clear goal. That is laser focus that is measurable. And that's precise, right? And the vision of what it will look like it could be just garbage pickup around in your neighborhood, right? This is an issue, there's a lot of garbage, how does this get picked up? And the vision is it gets all cleared all the time, right? There's a regular process clear. So having a goal is really important. And a lot of times that is missed in community engagement, like you said, right? People want to tackle so many things. And also it's being able to communicate that goal. I know like in my book, trust your voice, I have a chapter around facilitating complex dialogue and formulating the goal. And the vision is a really first piece. The other piece and Kim, you touched on this a little bit that's sometimes in very often overlooked is who are all the stakeholders that are impacted that influence that may want to keep the status quo, right? Or who are gaining from the current situation, or who are the one who would be become an ally, to achieve your goal. So let's talk a little bit about stakeholders danisha, I'd love for you to share in education, who are the stakeholders in a state and maybe in various communities?
Denisha Merriweather 18:16
Yeah, I found it in organization with a project of the American Federation for Children called Black Minds Matter. And for this particular movement that we've launched, the stakeholders is the black community. And my goal with this project is to make sure that one, everyone in the black community knows about their options in education, that they're champions and advocates that they're voting, they're putting their vote behind their beliefs. And then lastly, to encourage and champion, this really niche group that we found, which are the black school founders, these are individuals who founded schools, I call them education entrepreneurs, they are 90% of them saw a need in their community with black and brown students saw the dismal impacts of the public education system and said, Hey, we need to try something different. Most of them were educators within the public school system, and said, you know, let's give this school founding a try. And so, for me, this is a really big group of our stakeholders and on our website, black minds. matter.net. We have the first in the only directory of black owned schools. We have over 300 schools that we've identified to date. Sure, there are many more out there and to build them up to be champions because most of these schools, their choice schools, I mean, you can't found a public school. These are choice schools. These are private charter homeschool, micro school, and it's really cool. And then most of them are also operable because of Choice Program. It seems, so they wouldn't be able to keep their doors open. If there wasn't the systems in place, if there weren't parents who were advocating and saying, We want these scholarships, we want this charter school. And these are really community driven schools. And so for the project and the lane that I'm in, those are my stakeholders.
Sylvie Légère 20:25
Hi, Sylvie, here, are you ready to trust your voice, I've got something just for you. Get your copy of my newest book, trust your voice. In the book, I give you big ideas and practical steps to gaining confidence so that you can take on new challenges in your life and trust your instincts and your own voice. You can find it on amazon.com. And you can also reach out to me at Sylvie at trust your voice podcast.com If you have any questions or feedback about the book, or this show, so now let's get back to the episode. What's interesting is that you're providing a platform across the nation for these owners, these school owners, these educational entrepreneurs to connect and to kind of share in their advocacy. So that is really amazing. Kim, love to hear your thoughts about stakeholders and identifying all the stakeholders in a community and sometimes unlikely allies, right, or previous enemies that might become ALLY on specific issues.
Kim Borchers 21:25
Absolutely. Denisha. I love your story. And I think part of figuring out who the stakeholders are, in some ways is you've got to step back and look at the big picture. If you run into a burning building, you can't see what all the dangers are, you need to step back a little bit and go okay, if I run in, how am I going to get out. And so I think when you build out stakeholders, it's building relationships where you are at because you may be surprised to your stakeholder is a stakeholder could be someone who can make a phone call to someone who's a decision maker who you don't have a relationship with. So what I encourage people to do, because you have to build out some credibility. When you go into many of these issues. When I first got involved in activism Sylvie, we were relatively new to our community, I did not have a lot of relationships here, my husband was starting his practice in medicine. So I tried to come in and tackle a lot of this by myself, and you become exhausted. And you realize I can't do this alone. So it was over time that I realize not only is there effectiveness in numbers, but what you also make sure as you're not carrying the entire load. I would also say 20, something plus years ago, it was brought to my attention that our public library was allowing minors to access pornographic material in the public library. And I thought at the time, well, if people knew about it, they would be as outraged as I was. And the reality was, that wasn't the case. And I recognized that folks who I thought should have been invested in this conversation as stakeholders, which would have been the library leadership because of liability. They weren't concerned. Because there was no liability. In Kansas state statute, there's a protection for public schools and public libraries, for the dissemination of pornographic material. And even 20 years later, as we're talking about this, it's amazing to me, you look at all these parents who are very upset as they should be as to what's happening in their kids classroom with literature, they need to go back and look at what their state laws say about this issue. I believe that in many instances, if those statutes change, you will see a massive shift and how those issues are addressed. Once people are liable, their behavior changes. And so those were things Sylvie, I didn't know, I learned in this process. And so that's I always go back to when people want change. I go, what is the guiding document that is permitting people to continue down this path? Find what that is? And if you need to change that, how do you change that?
Sylvie Légère 24:03
Yeah. And I think like, also the other piece, you know, around stakeholders, it's not just all allies, not just people that are with you, you kind of need, you don't want to be blindsided by the opposition. So you kind of need to know who else who benefits from this. And it goes back to Okay, how did this happen in the first place, going back a little bit on the root cause in some ways, but it's worth making a whole list of who are the stakeholders, for against just impacted touch, their life will change your neighborhood would change. And this also applies I think, in business, you know, in your corporate life, if you want to see a change, you have to really go through in a methodical way and make the list of all the stakeholders and what's the why, for them to get engaged. You need to ask that question. I think the other big question is always is money. Right? And if you're going to show up and speak up, well, it's really helpful to understand the costs of implementing a change range of maintaining it, of developing it right. And love to hear your thoughts there about following the money about understanding budgets. So Kim, do you want to start off on this?
Kim Borchers 25:13
Sure. One of the things that we incorporate into our clear education program is understanding school budgets. And Donna Arjan, who is kind of our expert speaker to us at that time, we know all I mean, Tanisha, you probably know this too, all these school budgets, they're doing it in different formats, and it can be confusing, and you almost want to your eyes glaze over, you want to throw your hands up and say, I can't understand it. Donna does a very good job in aiding you in this course, to ask certain questions. And those questions will help get you where you want to go. There's also a very interesting website called open the books that I would just encourage people to go to. So you can go in and actually see, what are the budgets? What's the line items in your school? And how are they spending the money, one of the things I had advocated for was something called school based budgeting. And you really have to do it. But most patrons don't realize that budgets are created by the individual schools, but you just have an overall budget. As a taxpayer. That's what you see. And so what I wanted to be available to every single parent was a school based budget for every single school. So if you look and see that a heating and cooling bill is five times higher in this school than another that's the same size, what are we doing about that? That's money that could have been used on education. And so I know people go, Oh, heating and cooling. But when you're talking hundreds of 1000s of dollars, that's how many reading specialists, teachers that could be hired to help kids. So those things matter. But school districts push back on school based budgeting. And I just always find that interesting. And so why is that?
Sylvie Légère 26:50
Yeah. And it's hard to understand, it's hard to find a budget for school. And I think this applies to everything right. It just doesn't matter what the issue is, it's always helpful to kind of follow the money and understand the budget. And you're right, in education. It's amazing how it's been mentioned, very often Tanisha, I'm sure that when it comes to school choice, and especially setting up education savings account, there's always this argument, right, that choice will divert money away from public school. would you respond to that?
Denisha Merriweather 27:17
Yeah. And we'll just one, you know, reaction to Kim's remarks, I had the pleasure of working at the US Department of Education with Secretary DeVos for two years. And when I tell you, you are so totally right, that local districts, and states in general don't want to do the work of that transparency piece that you spoke about of making those school budgets and how monies are allocated, transparent enough so that parents can understand them, because it is so complicated. And you'd be surprised on where money is routing to. And to get to your question. So the Yeah, the average per pupil spending in America is probably about $16,000, if not 15 to $16,000 per student. And so this concept of the money following the kid would be remarkable. Imagine a parent each year sitting with $16,000, in an account that they could use to customize their child's education. Most parents would walk into their child's school and look around and say, $16,000, you know, per kid that's sitting in this classroom, where is the money going? And so when people say that money is being taken away from public schools, and diverted, you know, to these choice programs, you know, I say hogwash, do not, because most of the programs that are for students to go to a different type of school, are way less than what the average public school student receives. So a student that's going to a private school, the average scholarship amount in this country is about $9,000. In charter school students, they are public schools, they don't get $16,000, their average is about 11. And so the students who are staying in traditional public schools are receiving way more funding than students who are going to choice schools. And so that's just not right. And then for people saying that, you know, that's going to divert money from public schools, it does kind of beg the question of, you know, if the status quo is so afraid that students are going to leave, then maybe they should do a little bit more, you know, development to make the schools a little bit better, or listen to the parent who are wanting and demanding for something different to take place in traditional public schools, because all things can change. And that's what I hear with the clear program is training of people to make an impact in their schools. And so folks who are working in different systems should listen to their stakeholders, and that's what can happen in the tradition. whole system. And so the concept of education savings account the concept of education reform, within local schools, within the choice space, it all really goes back to what you're talking about with a clear program, listening to parents listening to stakeholders, and using your voice and trusting in that, because that's really where it starts. And that's how we got school choice, because parents stood up, and they spoke up.
Sylvie Legere 30:28
It's also interesting, like this idea of diverting money from one area to the other when public education is educating the public. So it doesn't matter exactly like who does it, right. And also, we are living in a individualize and customizable world. And it's crazy to think that education is still based on the way things were done 175 years ago, when we know today that everyone learns very differently and have very different gifts. And why are we not unleashing that, that's just my thought around this idea that so much money that needs to go to public education, where all children to public is public education. So, you know, we're wrapping things up here. And I'd love to hear you've talked about, you know, we can't take on an issue alone. And I'd love to hear you guys both advice, maybe like one tip or your driving principle, when you are building a coalition. I know like, Kim, you've worked on a variety of issues with very different people, can you share with us what you feel is a different approaches difference between people, how they approach advocacy, and maybe just like your driving principle to help people build coalitions.
Kim Borchers 31:40
I think one of the things I've learned is like any great business leader, I was once told, I always hire smarter people than me because they can do nothing but make me look good. And I think whenever you're leading an initiative, I think the leader needs to have the humility enough to recognize what they're good at and what they're not, and that they involve other people who have diverse skills and talents, that will benefit the entire movement, and that you make it about the goal, not the person who's leading the movement. Sometimes people get kind of caught up in themselves, they love reading their own headlines. And so I think in order to build this coalitions is people who want they like people, they know how to build relationships and networks, but to there's a level of humility and leadership, and that they exhibit that as they're moving that mission forward. And I think that's where you have very effective advocacy
Sylvie Légère 32:35
Denisha, you've worked in the space of education at the state level change what is your advice on building coalition and bring people together?
Denisha Merriweather 32:45
Yeah, it's actually something that Kim said earlier about, you know, those unlikely allies, when I first started in launched black Minds Matter, I really was focusing on the parents and the students, because that's something that we've done before in the educational reform space with building up those advocate voices. And it wasn't until I took a step back, and realize that this niche group of black school founders was out there, that there had been no coalition building with this niche group. That's what I would focus on. And so my advice for coalition building is to yet take a step back, you know, look at the bigger picture, and who's not being served, whose voice could really contribute to whatever cause you're advocating about, and build them up, create a space for them, to lend their voice to, to advocate in to show up,
Sylvie Légère 33:45
I think it's also the people that are whose voice is not heard, I think that's a really good thing to remember, whenever we take on new shoe or we engage like, Oh, are we hearing really from everybody? And how can we bring them to the table on this podcast I had as a guest, someone with whom we discuss creative economy. And she said, you know, a lot of times we forget to invite artists to the table and have the art perspective and that in any issues, because they come at it with a very different perspective, angle. And even in the in education, it could be an important voice because people with artistic talents don't find their space necessarily in the traditional movement. So I love this idea of like, how can we make the voices that are not at the table, the voices are not heard at the table, or at least hear their perspective on the issue? So in conclusion, I'd love to ask you both when you know, the arena that you're entering in and you know, you've decided to pick up the baton and run with it. What do you tell yourself every day to stay in it and not give up? Kim, do you want to start? Wow.
Kim Borchers 34:51
I wanted to think on that one just a little bit. I think what I constantly remind myself is that be willing to change your plan if what you're original plan was is not working. And I think that keeps me sharp. So if I try this particular path, and it is not getting me where I need to go, the ability to understand I need to step back and change plans. Because sometimes we don't do that, you know, the whole insanity thing, we keep doing the same thing over and over again, expect a different result. So I think that's what helps me fine tune. But I would also say that I surround myself with a lot of wonderful people, I never take any of these tasks on by myself, I cannot, and I will not do it alone. And you don't have to have a lot of people to do great things, is what I tell people. I'm a person of faith. And I would say, Jesus only needed 12 disciples who transformed the world. So if I've got 12 people on my side, I think there's great things that can be done. Now.
Sylvie Légère 35:48
That's awesome. Denisha, share with your parting thoughts here.
Denisha Merriweather 35:51
Yeah, I would say listening to your community, because there's so many times where you know, you doubt yourself, you you do wonder, Am I in the right space? Am I really going at this problem in the right way? And I think that's what the question you're asking, and having that freedom, and that, you know, just that vulnerability to ask that of your community, like, Do you actually think this is a good idea? Do you think that we're doing this in the right manner? Could we be doing this differently? And they will tell you, and so I would say that's been key, you know, for me to ask that question. Like, please tell me seriously, this is good idea. And trusting that, and then that'll keep you motivated to because if they say, Yeah, you know, you're doing this great idea. Of course, that's motivation. But if they say no, you then have the vile validation that you are surrounding yourself with good people who are going to be honest with you. And so that that would be my advice.
Sylvie Légère 36:48
Well, thank you both. Thank you, Kim, and Denisha. So I invite her women listeners to consider participating in the policy circle clear program by visiting the policy circle.org/clear. It's a virtual program with women from all over the country. There's different cohorts starting up actually, this fall. Check it out, because places are limited. And thank you so much, the Nisha, I invite everyone to check out black Minds Matter dotnet and to follow and support Denise's effort. You guys are both just amazing catalysts of change and inspiring dynamos. And I think this was a really great conversation. I hope like everybody takes this information, apply it to your world, the place that you want to change, whether it is in your company, in your business, in your community, in your schools, and I want to thank everyone for joining me today. Thank you, Kim and Denisha.
Denisha Merriweather 37:42
Yes, thank you.
Sylvie Légère 37:46
Thank you for joining me Sylvie on my trust your voice podcast. I hope that this episode brought you a new way to think about your voice, how to trust yourself, and how to use your voice for good in your life and in your community. If you like this podcast, be sure to leave us a review in Apple podcasts. And subscribe to the show in your favorite podcast player again.