Episode 42: Exercising Empathy and Embracing Who You Are with Rich Robles, Senior Director of Diversity & Inclusion at Novant Health
“The biggest lessons came from those moments when I failed.” - Rich Robles
Do you think about how you make other people feel? What if you were to focus on just that – how other people feel in your presence?
Failed it! Fam, grab your notebooks, and give a warm welcome to family man and hope dealer, Rich Robles. Rich is a D&I leader at Novant Health, with an impressive background in diversity and inclusion and learning and development. Listen in as he shares his own failure journey through the lens of his professional and personal life. You leave feeling empowered, inspired and in awe of this man’s journey!
In today’s episode, Rich tells us all about:
The importance of connecting with your clients at a human level
Exercising empathy as a leader
Giving yourself a break for your own mental health and for your family
Embracing who you really are
Links from show discussions:
Connect and engage with Rich on LinkedIn
About the guest: Rich is a senior director of diversity and inclusion at Novant Health. In his role, Rich leads strategies and work that create a culture where people feel included, engaged and have a sense of belonging while achieving Novant Health’s goals.
Rich’s background includes both consulting and internal roles in the areas of organizational development, culture transformation, merger integration, and change management. He has led work for companies such as Motorola, PepsiAmericas, McDonald’s, Schering-Plough, Chicago Tribune Company, The Spiegel Group, and Exelon. Rich worked at Bank of America where he held roles responsible for organizational design, culture change, and team effectiveness. Prior to Novant Health, he was a senior consultant at The Center for Intentional Leadership where he helped clients create high-performing teams and cultures.
Rich received an M.A. degree With Honors in Industrial & Organizational Psychology from Roosevelt University and a B.A. degree in Psychology from Huntington University.
Rich is committed to the Hispanic community in Charlotte, and he has recently been appointed to the Governor’s Advisory Council for Hispanic/Latino Affairs. Additionally, Rich is a board member of Urban Promise and The Latin American Chamber of Commerce Charlotte.
Rich grew up in Guatemala City where he attended a military school before moving to the U.S. He resides in Charlotte, North Carolina with his wife and four daughters. In his rare moments of spare time, he enjoys anything related to his favorite soccer team, FC Barcelona, traveling to other countries, and summers at the beach with his family.
About the Host: Erin Diehl is the founder and Chief “Yes, And” officer of improve it! and host of the failed it! Podcast. She’s a performer, facilitator and professional risk-taker who lives by the mantra, “get comfortable with the uncomfortable.” Through a series of unrelated dares, Erin has created improve it!, a unique professional development company that pushes others to laugh, learn and grow. Her work with clients such as United Airlines, PepsiCo, Groupon, Deloitte, Motorola, Walgreens, and The Obama Foundation earned her the 2014 Chicago RedEye Big Idea Award and has nominated her for the 2015-2019 Chicago Innovations Award.
This graduate from Clemson University is a former experiential marketing and recruiting professional as well as a veteran improviser from the top improvisational training programs in Chicago, including The Second City, i.O. Theater, and The Annoyance Theatre.
When she is not playing pretend or facilitating, she enjoys running and beach dates with her husband and son, and their eight pound toy poodle, BIGG Diehl.
You can follow the failed it! podcast on Instagram and facebook, and you can follow Erin personally on Instagram here. We can’t wait to connect with you online!
Erin (01:33):
What up failed it! Family it's time for your failed it! Fam member of the week. Maybe I thought I would try something different today and rap our reviewer. Okay. This comes from 210common. All right. That's our user 210common and their review starts with relatable, honest, inspiring. Here we go by the drop a beat I'm new to the podcast world, but what a way to start maneuvers obsession that doesn't run the content is so relatable, honest and inspiring. Thank you. You guys. I'm going to not quit my day job. I'm going to stay here. I'm going to keep running, improve it and talking to you on my podcast closet, but 210common, thank you so much for this review. Welcome to the podcast world - we are honored that we are your entry into this lovely platform, and we'd love to thank you for it.
Erin (02:32):
So send us an email at info at learn to improve it. Dot com. We're going to hook you up with one of our e-learning courses. We called improve you's. We have 10 of them available and you can choose from anything that speaks to you like networking, thinking quickly on your feet. We've got a variety. So you pick yours that speaks to you the most. We'll send it to you and you get them every week, for three weeks, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, straight to your inbox, audio PDFs, and a worksheet of learning all the time and help you enhance the soft skill of your choice failed it! Family - you know what I'm going to say. If you could leave us a review on iTunes, I will literally give you a hug. And then if we ever meet in person, which I hope we do one day when that day comes and we can be safe, I hope I can do that.
Erin (03:26):
But my point to you is I would greatly appreciate it. So at our team, we work really hard behind the scenes, giving you this content each week and your review helps us share this message with more people in the U S all over the world. We've got listeners from everywhere coming in now. So we're so excited about that. You drop us a review. We're going to read a review a week from the failed it! Fam and then provide you with one of our e-learning courses as a way to say, thank you. My friends, my failed it! Family. You've heard it here. Now. Let's get into today's episode. Let's go, baby. All right. Okay. Failed it! Family today I am so jazzed. I have jazz hands. I cannot wait to introduce you to my guest, my friend, Rich Robles, to our show. Welcome Rich.
Rich (04:23):
Thank you for having me here today.
Erin (04:25):
You're welcome. I'm so excited. We're going to jump into all things, failing it in just a minute. But before we do, I have to share with our failed at family, all of your highlights, because you are a very successful purse fence. So let's discuss the successes of Rich Robles. So Rich is a senior director of diversity inclusion at Novant Health in his role, rich leads, strategies, and work that create a culture where people feel included, engaged and have a sense of belonging while achieving Novant's health goals. Now Rich's background includes both consulting and internal roles and the areas of organizational development, cultural transformation, merger integration, and change management. Now he's led work for companies such as Motorola, Pepsi, McDonald's, Chicago Tribune, and Exelon, which by the way, Rich, those are some of my clients. Anyway, Rich worked at Bank of America, where he held roles, responsible for organizational design, culture change and team effectiveness.
Erin (05:28):
Now, prior to Novant, he was a senior consultant at the center for intentional leadership, where he helped clients create high performing teams and cultures. Now, Rich, you've received an master's degree with honors in industrial and organizational psychology from Roosevelt in Chicago, and a BA degree in psychology from Huntington university. He has committed to the Hispanic community in Charlotte, and he has recently been appointed to the governor's advisory council for Hispanic Latino affairs. Now, additionally, Rich is a board member of the urban promise and the Latin America chamber of commerce Charlotte. Rich grew up in Guatemala city where he attended a military school before moving to the U S; he lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, with his wife and four daughters. And in his rare moments of spare time, he enjoys anything related to his favorite soccer team, FC Barcelona, traveling to other countries and summers at the beach with his family. Rich, welcome again today.
Rich (06:38):
Wow, let's go. That's right. We, I forgot that we, you and I are from Chicago, so to speak.
Erin (06:52):
That's what I was going to share with our, we call our audience the failed it! Family. So I, I want to share that little insight with them Rich because you and I met three years ago and Charlotte, we connected, I think, through LinkedIn. And then we met in person back when you could actually meet in person. And yup. And we realized that we were both from Chicago. And then I realized you had fulfilled your dreams of snowless Springs. And you moved South to Charlotte and you were my Southern inspiration because I'm in Charleston now.
Rich (07:26):
Yes, exactly. And that was, that was before you had a baby and you were getting a lot of sleep.
Erin (07:34):
And ain't that the truth, these are not shopping sprees under my eyes. These are real bags, people, real bags under the eyeballs. I love this. I'm so happy that we a connected. I'm so happy to have you here on the show. Rich, you and I talked before we hit record, and let's just share with the audience, because this is a vulnerable thing that we're asking you to do to come on the show, to talk about your fails. Talk to me about how you're feeling right now.
Rich (08:03):
Oh, and I can, I told you this is scary because no one has ever asked me before. Why didn't you come in and share your failures with hundreds of people and talk to them about where you have really sought in your professional life? No one talks about this and it's yeah. I don't know if it's a taboo. I don't know if we're all not comfortable being vulnerable, but that's really the journey I've been on for the last, I don't know, six, seven years learning more about who am I when I asked myself who am I, I can't just think about the good things. I also have to think about what has shaped me, who I am today. And to be honest, it's in those valleys of my own journey. Whereas I think I've learned the most. So when I was reflecting about the questions that you were, you know, you had sent me about today, it's like, no, the biggest lessons came from those moments when I failed.
Erin (09:01):
Yeah. And that's, that's what this show is all about. And I appreciate your vulnerability and sharing that you're nervous because we have people from the corporate world. We have entrepreneurs, we have comedians come on this show and everybody has a different mindset. And I know a lot of people listening can probably sympathize and empathize with you that if they were asked to come do this, they would also feel some hesitation. So we're gonna, we're gonna tread as lightly or go as deep as you want to go Rich today, because this is your, your show. I'm just here for it. All right. So I want to start in sort of the beginning where I know, well, not the beginning. Let's start back to you being in Chicago. What made you move to Charlotte? First of all, and you might hear my assistant in the background today failed it! Fam. he's waking up he's 18 months. And so I, my, my podcasting closets hits close to his bedroom. So here we are. This is real. This is real Rich. Okay. So what brought you from Chicago to Charlotte?
Rich (10:09):
And by the way, I get it, being real, because it is Friday afternoon when we're recording this. And my kids know that it's Friday, you know, we're approaching Friday night, which is movie and pizza night in our family. So you're going to hear my kids in the background.
Erin (10:22):
That's it. And everybody listening, if you're on your commute or taking a walk, this is real life, you know, we're just going to share it. We're just going to share. Okay. So tell us how you got from Chicago to Charlotte.
Rich (10:34):
Yeah. So when I was in Chicago I was working for an organization called Archstone Consulting and I was doing merges and acquisitions, restructuring for pharmaceutical companies in the East coast. And so my life consisted of leaving early Monday mornings, leaving early Monday mornings, taking a flight from at O'Hare and landing at Newark sometime mid morning, and then catching a flight back, hopefully on a Thursday night. But a lot of times their flights were canceled or delayed. I wouldn't get home until Friday night. And sometimes I remember getting home Saturday mornings. It took a lot of my time being away from home at that time, my wife and I had two daughters. And I just found myself in a space where, wow, I did. This is not what I dreamed it would be like when I was, you know, how, when I was thinking about having a family dreaming about that, because at best, I was a part-time dad, not even a part-time husband to my wife. And so we were now looking for something different and that's when Bank of America kept knocking and invited me to be part, you know, considering a role in moving to Charlotte, North Carolina.
Erin (11:53):
Oh my gosh. That's amazing. So Bank of America brought you to Charlotte and then what would I want to know? Cause I just did this recently, inquiring minds want to know what brought, what was your mentality shift coming from? Cause I know you lived in Evanston and Chicago, but you still had that city around you in Charlotte's a wonderful city too, but what was your mindset? What did you have to shift mentally in your brain? Coming from Chicago to Charlotte,
Rich (12:17):
To be honest, Erin, they were all good things. Because you know, people, I remember people saying, Oh, my commute is 30 minutes. I was like, my commute in Chicago sometimes was an hour and a half each way when I had to go and see local clients. So weather-wise traffic wise where my office was uptown. It was the best of the best, you know, as far as, you know, I will say changes that I had to make. It's not like we have 20 restaurants that specialize in Cantonese food. You know, we might have one or two, but they're really good here. So I have yet to want something in Chicago, that I haven't been able to find here. So, you know, the shifts that we had to make were in a positive way. I don't remember. I remember still being scared because we were in the South and it was a different culture and environment, but we adapted very quickly here. So it's a welcoming culture too.
Erin (13:19):
Yeah no, and I, I totally, you know, empathize with that. And I think the South has changed a lot in the, in the, over the fast few years, especially like with all of the work that you've been doing and all the good you put in the world when you're moving from some, a bigger city to a city, Charlotte, a big city, your mindset has to shift, you have to shift, and then you jumped right into a role with Bank of America and you were in organizational development and learning and development. So what would you say your main focus of L & D was?
Rich (13:52):
Yeah, the focus was, you know, number one to manage the different restructures that were happening within Bank of America. So at the time it was 300 plus 300 plus 200,000 plus employees of Bank of American, large, large organization. And there were a lot of changes going on within the bank. They were not acquiring any more organizations from the house side, but I remember, you know, managing the mergers of large businesses just within, you know, an, a one division of the bank. We were also, you know, the role also included work and leadership development, and that meant managing our top performers, building succession plans for critical roles at the bank as well as managing the entire performance management system. And so how do we identify emerging leaders within the business?
Erin (14:47):
That's a big role to fill. Okay. That's just a few things, a few things. Let me ask you this. If you were to pinpoint a major lesson, learned through a failure, here we go. Rich, we're dipping a toe into the failure. If you were to pinpoint one of your biggest fails as a leader in that role, what would it be?
Rich (15:14):
This is the part, the part where you might have to edit my pause here. Because you know, when I think of, I think back about Bank of America and the fails in that role. So one thing that I had a shift when I went from managing something at the corporate level, so a centralized office to be in inside one of our businesses. And I went in thinking strategy. I went in thinking, how do we restructure this to work better? And something that I failed to do at that point looking back is I did not sit down with my client internally and ask my clients, listen, tell me about what you're dreaming. Tell me about the challenges that you have. I went in thinking what they wanted was a subject matter expert. And I left behind the thing I'm very good at, which is building relationships, understanding my clients, which I do now. But back then just be engrained in that role.
Rich (16:18):
Oh, that I fail miserably because this first two months were just hard because I was not connected to my leaders. And the reason why I was not connecting with my leaders, is because I felt the pressure to come across as professional to the pressure to come across as subject matter expert. And I am here to add value and you're going to love me, but I fail to get connected at the human level with my clients. So looking back, of course, you know, that's something that I'm never gonna do that again. What was I thinking then? Very quickly, of course my mentors and people around me said Rich you need to have a different approach in this. This is not working. You know, it's not something that you're doing company-wide, this is for a specific business, get to know the business at the detail level and get to know your clients that I would say that's one of the biggest thing that looking back, I'm like, Oh, how did I miss that?
Erin (17:12):
That is first of all, amazing that you have the, the sort of bird's eye view now to look at and see that. Right. So, and thanks for sharing that Rich. Did that feel good? Did that get feel good to get a fail out there?
Rich (17:26):
I did. It's just, you know, it's really as part of my story and if, if I don't share it, I know I share my stories with my kids. I'm like, why am I not sharing these things out loud? Because I wish I knew this about other people who I see, wow, they're so successful. But to get to something you have had to fail or had a bump in the road or a manger, you know, you fell flat on your face kind of things.
Erin (17:51):
So you realized from that role, you were essentially more transactional in your approach to leadership development than you wish an organizational development, then you want it to be, so then you left bank of America. You did some work in consulting. And now you've been at Novant health, which is one of the largest healthcare providers in the Southeast and maybe the country am I, am I right in saying that for the past three and a half years, you've been in this diversity and inclusion role. I want to dive into that because not only are you at the center of the pandemic we're all facing in healthcare. So at a major healthcare organization, but you're also at the center of this social and racial injustice that we as a nation are experiencing. And you are a leader and in the D&I space for this organization, what has this past year and a half been? It's not even been a year and a half Rich. It feels like a year and a half. What has this year been like for you? Can you share with us what, what you felt and some of the things in this leadership capacity you've had to deal with?
Rich (19:03):
Yeah. First of all, you're right. It feels like we've been here a long, long time. And, you know, in March it will be a year that we've been in under this pandemic. And then what we're calling labeling civil unrest, but it's really racial inequalities that we have been more aware of as a country. So nothing in the world. I don't know if anybody would raise their hand and said, Oh, I was prepared for this. I don't know that anybody was prepared to see and experience what we saw last year and where we are still experiencing in our country. So some of the things that I've felt was at first like, wow, this is overwhelming. How do we begin to even peel back the layers of some of the topics, the themes, but also the emotions of what different people are feeling, whether you're a person of color, whether you're a person with a different ability, whether you're a person with a different sexual orientation or gender identity, you know, we all had different feelings and we all want it just to have a seat at the table and let that be equal to everyone and equitable to everyone.
Rich (20:10):
So different emotions for me, it was frustrating being a person from Guatemala, being a Latin American, you know, leader, but also just, you know, a Latino guy who lives in Charlotte. What is my role in all of this? And how do I feel? Do I, one of my emotions, can I actually go and write it down? Do I tell someone about how I'm feeling just frustrating at times is anger. And at times it's just frustration and even finding the words to say to others. So many things that I, you know, I began feeling in March and then in June.
Erin (20:47):
Hmm. Oh, Rich, thank you for sharing that. And you know, I shared this on an, a podcast we just released prior to your episode going, but it's almost here. Here's just an analogy story that I've, then I've sort of dealt with on my own. I was changing my son on just changing his diaper. Okay. We're going from D&I to changing a diaper, but I promise there's a loophole back to where I'm going here. So I was changing him and he was holding this hard copy book and he hit me in the face with this hard copy book. It was good night moon. Okay. So I got good night moon, right to the eyeball. So automatically I start crying because it hurt. It hurt so bad. And then he sees me cry and he starts crying. So then I'm sitting there holding my son and trying to be there for him when he's the reason why I'm crying, which is this whole parenting moment, which made me realize that not only you are at such a space, you're, you're a leader of a healthcare organization, but you are also processing what's happening to you in real time.
Erin (21:51):
And in real time, you are also supposed to be the person to hold others and lift them up and help them through it. So you personally Rich people in general leaders, leaders in HR, leaders in general, parents, we've all had to take on this responsibility of trying to uplift others through this when we're all processing it at the same time. So I mean, kudos to you because you've had, you have a large, large organization to help and you have four daughters and you have, you know, your own internal processes that you're trying to figure out and work through. So thanks for sharing that. And I hope that story makes sense. I went from D&I to diapers, that's what I just did there.
Rich (22:37):
You know what, no, but that's the thing, Erin. Imagine if someone had come in that moment, another adult to say, Erin, Whoa, you just got hit with a book. Why first of all, how are you feeling? What's making you cry? Yeah. And I think for a lot of us, you know, like you were saying, being able to uplift others, I think most of the time why we are craving as someone to just come next to us and said, boy, that really stinks. That really sucks. And just exercise lots of empathy and say, you know, I'm sorry, is there something I can do for you? But even just simply asking, how are you doing? I remember one of my colleagues saying, one day you call me and just asked me how I was doing and how I'm processing that. She said, no one has asked me that before in the last month.
Rich (23:31):
And I thought, Oh, you know, I think that's at the end of the day, we just want someone who's checking up on us, checking in on us and asking us how are, no, really, how are you doing? We can just say it all out loud. You know what? It really, it really hurt them. My son, I'm trying to read a book and it hit me and now I'm crying because it's painful, but also emotional. And you just get it out. And once you get it out, it's like a, you know, like a kid to say, you know what, I want ice cream and started yelling. They won't ask your mess and no. Okay. All right. I will have ice cream. It goes away.
Erin (24:04):
Yeah. I love that. And I've, I think that it's such an easy thing to do as a leader is to ask your team, how are you doing? And we forget in the moment we just, something so simple, but you're right in that, in that parenting moment, all I would have wanted was for my mom or my husband to come in and been like, are you okay? And just having that resource. So question for you, have you, since you're a resource for so many, have you got any type of resources on your end to help with your mental health while you're struggling and going through all of this as well and trying to help others?
Rich (24:43):
Yeah. So you know what? This is something that my wife and I began thinking about the about, about in March and April, because quickly we noticed that Whoa, being at home with now, we have four daughters, everyone on school needing our attention. We're going to need some breaks. So for our own mental health, we came up with a schedule. So Tuesday nights is my night off. And Thursday nights is her night off, we can do whatever we want, knowing that we can't leave the house because you know, we're all quarantining and staying home. So what I decided is that I call my best friend who lives in Chicago. And we had been talking about playing games and I'm like, wait, what if we find a video game we can both play online. We've never done anything like it before. So we figured out how to put our PlayStations on a network.
Rich (25:34):
And this is exactly what I do every Tuesday night. My family knows. And for over the last eight to nine months, Tuesday, nights, nights with Brad. And so that's what I do. I play video games with my friend. I'm in my, you know, on my age, my grown man playing video games with my friend and having adventures in that virtual world. But that's my, you know, one way that I get to escape and have some mental health. I know Tuesday nights, that's what I get to do. Friday nights are a family it's. As I mentioned, as, you know, pizza and movie nights, my wife either makes the pizza, which is the best pizza ever. Of course I'm biased, or we buy it. But you know, that's the thing that we get to do on Friday nights, Saturday mornings, I love doing breakfast for my family and I get up and I do pancakes that hasn't changed. So I wanted our kids and I wanted ourselves to know that, yes, this pandemic is hard, but some things we can, you know, we can keep as the things that we do as a family, but, you know, having those breaks, I know that sounds very simple, but that's something that I, I did for myself or health check or personal health and self care. The other piece that I did was sent an email and at the end of the email had a hashtag don't waste in pandemic.
Rich (26:56):
That is the dumbest thing I've ever read the hashtag. And I said, maybe they're onto something here. So if I didn't waste a pandemic, what would I do? I've always wanted to drink more water so I just got really practical, downloaded one of those apps where you can see the progress of water you drank during the day. And I started drinking more water to this day. I drink a lot of water. It's just a way of giving myself daily challenge. It's not a burden. It's just something fun for me to do. And I'm just competing against myself. So little things like that have been really good.
Rich (27:34):
I do have two friends that I call and I said, you won't believe what I heard today. That was so frustrating. And they don't have an answer again, going back to said, man, that sounds really hard. Who else are you talking to it?
Erin (27:51):
I love it. And that's something, man. Now you make me want to do like a pancake morning. I pictured pancakes and syrup. Like you gave me a visual there of like butter pancakes. There's pizza. Listen, when I come to Charlotte, we're going to have to talk about that. This is very interesting because I think a lot of times we forget as parents, as leaders that we have to put on our own oxygen mask first, before we can help others. It's that airplane analogy. It's that key, you know, fill your tea kettle first, before you can pour tea and somebody else's cap, you know, like it's so important.
Erin (28:27):
And I'm so glad you shared that. And I hope people listening can take some of those and apply them in a way that fits their own life because it's so important right now, mental health is so important. And if it's even, I love the Tuesday night, like you get your night to yourself. I, that is something I think more people could lean into. If you have kids or, you know, you're workaholic and you don't give yourself that time away, schedule that time. And that's what you're doing. You're scheduling that time for yourself. I love that Rich.
Erin (29:00):
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Erin (30:37):
Let me ask you this: going from a high to a low, what was your biggest 2020 fail?
Rich (30:42):
So, one thing that I wanted to do in 2020 is based on that quote that I had actually ran when I was at Bank of America, someone was doing this one of those webinars on work-life balance. And one of the quotes that I saw on the screen was we have figured out how to answer emails on Friday night, Saturday night, but we haven't figured out how to go to the movies on a Monday afternoon. And I thought, man, I'm going to try to figure that out. Now that I'm home and I have to work from home, I'm going to spend a lot more time with my kids. This is just again, guess what? It didn't happen. It didn't. In fact, I was working more hours in front of my computer, in my bedroom.
Rich (31:25):
And when I, you know, I asked my kids, okay, what else can I be doing? I asked them that question, you know, how can I be a better dad for you? What can I be doing different? And they told me this, you know, even the other night, it's like, yeah, sometimes you're not available as much as you think you are just because you're home, you know, part of me me internally is like, no, no, no I'm available. I play games with y'all, you know, all of a sudden I'm going, Oh my goodness. It doesn't matter. What I think, it's how they perceive it, you know, and how I've come across them. So that to me was a big fail for 2020 that I did not get to spend time with my kids as much as I wanted to. We used to take our kids and you know, our daughters out on dates every week and we will take my wife and I will take turns. I'll tell you, I'll probably have one day with them last, last year. I'm like, so if I have this Tuesday night with my friend my sending a good message to my daughters that I'm not spending intentional time with them. Yes it is. So that is something that is, you know, I am going to fix this year.
Erin (32:31):
I mean, it sounds like you are just bored though. You weren't really, you know, helping your company survive our pandemic or, you know, working through the unrest of our nation here with racial injustice. It was, you were just sitting around just looking at your computer, not hanging out. You had some shoes to fill, you're a hero essentially, in so many ways. So I appreciate you sharing that. And I know you'll, you'll change that. It's hard to, to admit those things sometimes, but I love what you said too. It's not what I think is how they perceive it. And that's really what I think the basis of all of this is, is how do we make other people feel, right? How do we show up and make people feel heard? So I'm going to ask you a little, another deeper question there. You have those four daughters I'm going to start a go-fund me for all of the weddings that you will have to pay for now, bless up Rich, that's a lot!
Erin (33:33):
Gosh. Well, as you know, a woman myself, I I'm, I'm praying for you, I'm sending prayers. But if you could tell your daughters any piece of advice that you learned through some of your biggest fails, if you could speak directly to them what would you say?
Rich (33:51):
Oh, I love this question because I am, this is one thing I'm very pressing to, and that is learn and embrace who you are and be that, but here I'll explain what I mean by that, because that sounds very cliche. You know, be yourself. It's beyond that. So when I left Bank of America, I went to work for the Center for Intentional leadership, as you mentioned, and on my first day, my new boss at the time who became my boss, but also my, my executive coach. He introduced me to some people that first day. And he said, by the way, this is Rich, please say, hello. He just joined us today. He's from Guatemala. That's all he said. And these were prospective clients. And he didn't say, Hey, by the way, he has a background in restructuring and leadership development, nothing. On Wednesday of that same week, I was in the back of the room, taking notes in a large team setting.
Rich (34:51):
And he paused and said, by the way, I want to introduce you to Rich. He just joined our firm this week, please say hello to Rich. He's from Guatemala. I'm like, boy, that's really weird. He didn't say anything else. He just said that. He said it on Friday again. And at that time, I'm like, wait a minute. Why is he saying that? And so I went up to him and I said, Mike, why are you telling people I am from Guatemala? And he just looked me in the eyes and said, because you don't and you need to find out why. And I said, no, I do. I tell, wait, I guess I don't. Why is that? And so I remember it. Then I had to go back into the times when I got to the United States as a teenager, watching, you know, being in Guatemala, watching American movies, all I wanted to be was an American teenager and be all of that.
Rich (35:50):
And I think I began to turn off some things about me. There are about being from Guatemala to the point that I turned. I tried to turn everything off without knowing it. And so I tell that story to my daughters because it was not until now later in life. I'm, you know, I talk about it very freely and now I know what it means. I embracing that value, who I am. And I wish I would have done that sooner when I was in my twenties, you know, early twenties when I was in college, even you all the way back. So I tell my daughters, you know, know who you are, embrace who you are and just be that because that's what the world really needs. People who can be themselves. And, you know, we, we throw this bus we're around like be vulnerable, be vulnerable means, learn to talk about you, the good and the bad.
Rich (36:40):
So this is what I'm exercising today, you know, and talking about failures. But that I would say that's the biggest lesson that I have learned later in life that I wish I had learned before that I talked to my daughters about very often especially our, you know, our daughters who are 16 and 14, you know, learning about who are they? How did they fit in the social circles that they are in? And who are they? Who do they represent? And they asked me questions about Dad, are we Latina girls, or we, you know, my wife is from Michigan, Western side of Michigan. It's a Dutch community, so to speak and everyone in her family, they're tall and blonde and blue eyes. So are not as don't look anything like me or like her. So they're asking themselves questions about who they are and where do they fit? What box did they check when they have to check who they are? And so I talk about them this quite often.
Erin (37:31):
I, this is one of the best stories I've ever heard on this show. I'm not going to lie. If you're a past guest listening, you did a great job. I just want to give Rich some love right now. This is, I am literally sitting here and I have tears in my eyes. That is beautiful. I think that people listening, if you can resonate with that at all. There's, there's so many people out there right now who heard that story and received it Rich. That is honestly one of the best stories I've heard and the best answers to that question I've heard. So thank you for sharing that. And I hope your daughters listen to this one day and they hear that advice from you. And just remember that where it came from is a good place. That's so cool. I freaking love that. Have you ever told that leader who told you that you don't talk about it? That story?
Rich (38:19):
Oh yeah, absolutely. And he knows, and he knows the impact that it's had on me. So he had, after I left and I went to work for Novant Health. Yeah. He and I have kept in touch. We're good friends. And I show him, you know, I, I remember one time I pulled out a picture of our daughters and my wife. He knows them very well. And I said, look at this picture. I want you to look at this picture. They have a better dad and a better human being around them because of the influence you've had on me. So thank you because you helped me see something I didn't see before about myself.
Erin (38:53):
Okay. People get a Kleenex, Rich. No, that is amazing. And the world needs more leaders like that all around us. That is a beautiful, beautiful story. And I appreciate you as a leader, sharing that with us. Let me ask you this question, staying on our failure theme, Rich. What would you do if you knew you could not fail?
Rich (39:22):
I dream about this. I want to hire like 20 people who want to do this work. Want to change the world one conversation at a time and help people just voice it and be themselves and let's go change it. I want to change the world. And starting in this city, there's so much work to do. That's, you know, I love what I'm doing today. And I love my company at work, my team, and I love them. So it's not, I'm looking to leave, but if, you know, if I had that proverbial magical wand, I would just bring 20 people with me. Let's go, let's go change. Let's have the conversations, help people, voice who they are so that they can know, you know what there's hope. And in spite of all the painful things that we're hearing and reading and tweeting and seeing on Instagram and everywhere and on the news, there's still hope. But that only comes from us saying something positive us saying, this is what's painful for me to, to hear and come around each other and say, yeah, that sounds painful. That's why we need more of someone who can act, you know, flex the empathy muscle and, and listen and say, okay, what can we do to change this? That's what I want.
Erin (40:37):
You are a hope dealer. That's what you are a hope dealer. I love it. I love that. Okay. Let me ask you another failure question. What did you fail at today? Rich.
Rich (40:49):
Oh, my daughter asked me, Hey dad, can you keep? Cause she knew I had a break between 9:30 and 10:00 AM. And I said, yes, of course. And at 9:30 a meeting popped in my screen. And so I said to my daughter, honey, is it possible that we can move it to 11:00 AM? She's like, Oh sure, no problem. She's very flexible. She knows that. But I fail at keeping my promise that I would be available to her at 9:30.
Erin (41:21):
Oh well that's you know what? You're learning. We're all learning from that mistake. But failures are part of this process. Rich. Okay. So you have given us so many great juicy chicken nuggets of wisdom here, and I am so grateful to you. There's one thing that we have left to do, and this is called the fail yeah lightning round, Rich. This is super easy and super fun. It's a little bit of improv, a little thinking quickly on your feet. You're going to nail it. Here's how it works. I'm going to ask you a series of questions and you're going to respond with a one-word answer. And if you say more than one word, I'm going to give you a fail yeah! Just like that. Like that. This is it. You can do it. Are you ready for the failure ightning round? Alright. One word to describe your early career
Rich (42:10):
Passionate.
Erin (42:11):
One word to describe where you're currently at in your career.
Rich (42:15):
Curious
Erin (42:17):
One word to describe your future self.
Rich (42:21):
Peaceful
Erin (42:22):
I love that word. Okay. One word to describe your favorite boss.
Rich (42:27):
Positive.
Erin (42:27):
One word to describe your least favorite boss.
Rich (42:31):
Micromanager.
Erin (42:32):
One word to describe your parenting style. I'll let you go with that one. It was a hyphen. That's fair. Okay. One word to describe your parenting style.
Rich (42:40):
Present.
Erin (42:40):
One word to describe your work from home fashion style
Rich (42:45):
Casual
Erin (42:48):
And one word to describe this interview.
Rich (42:53):
Inspirational.
Erin (42:54):
Yes Rich! Okay.
Rich (42:58):
But not from me, from you, like the questions that you're asking me are making me reflect, so I'm not coming out dressed at all. I'm inspired. And I was like, you are, you're asking me the right questions to think through like, Oh my gosh, all right, I've got some work to do, but it's just inspiring me to do something bigger with my time. And so this has been inspirational to me having this discussion and the questions that you're asking.
Erin (43:21):
See, that's the full circle effect because you're inspired. I'm inspired by you and now you're inspiring our audience. So look at that. There's some inspiration station going on over here, but I, I, I appreciate that rich and I I'm so proud of you. You were nervous to come on and look what you did. You just shared some awesome insight with our audience. They're going to love it. Tell the failed it family where they can find you on any social platform or they wanted to ask you a question, where should they go?
Rich (43:51):
Absolutely. The easiest way you can find me on LinkedIn. So just look for me Rich Robles, you type it in and it comes up. You'll see me from Charlotte, North Carolina. So please get in touch. You're welcome to message me. Anytime I get a lot of messages and questions from people. I'm happy to engage in conversations because I learned from, you know, what people, the questions people ask helped me think through different ways.
Erin (44:16):
I love it. We'll link to your LinkedIn, put link to your LinkedIn in the show notes. But rich, thank you so stinking much for bringing your voice, your talents, your wisdom. And I can tell you for a fact that the failed at fam is going to get so much from this episode and from hearing your story. So thank you for the work that you're doing in this world. Thank you for, for being in healthcare for being in the DNI space and for sharing all of your fails with us here today and to the field at fam fail. Yeah. Fail frickin. Yeah. Hey friends. Thanks for tuning into failed it! I'm so happy we're along for the ride. And if you enjoyed today's show, head on over to iTunes to rate and subscribe. So you never miss an episode. New episodes drop every Wednesday. I'll see you next week, but want to leave you with this thought, what will you fail at today and how will that help your future successful self? Think about it. I'm proud of you and you are totally failing it. See you next time. [inaudible].