- Leading with intention where every step - Matters.

That's what's coming up.

How do we negotiate with our team over screen time?

How do we engage in conflict in a healthy manner with our spouse?

And so I take that ability that's really inherent in so many humans, and I break it down and then I, I help people find a path to it.

Moments of crises, - That's when people become very vulnerable.

And that's when trafficking happens.

When there's vulnerability, - Having a voice, having a point of view is your own personal power.

And just empowering others to be able to express themselves.

That's the beauty of it.

- The Whitney Reynolds Show is supported by 10 West Real Estate Group providing multifamily investment in property management services.

Kevin O'Connor Law Firm, when it comes to your personal injuries, we take it personally.

Respiratory Health Association, healthy lungs, and clean air for all.

Together at Peace Foundation, remembrance, resilience and Comfort, creating a hopeful space for those who are grieving.

Joe perillo.com where you can browse our selection of pre-owned vehicles.

Joe Perillo is based in Chicago and ships all over the country.

Children's Learning Place, a school for our earliest learners dedicated to aiding every child with the power of learning Center for beautiful living, empowering people to live rich, robust, and beautiful lives.

Additional funding provided by FE o, Dr.

Stacey McClain, facial Plastic Surgeon, high five Sports Club, goldfish Swim School, and Girls Strong Empowerment Apparel.

- Hello - And welcome to the Whitney Reynolds show's season 10 finale.

Woo.

What a moment for us as a show.

I'm sure you have noticed some changes here on set.

We are really loving the video boards and the deep storytelling we are able to do.

Our goal is be the strongest voice of hope when it comes to media.

And this season we have gone after that hard.

Today we end things with leading, with intention, awakening the soul of our story.

Come for, for might recognize a new look.

We are ready to take things to the next level.

You'll see Whitney's - Here to share your dream.

It's the re show you I watching the Whitney Reynolds show Straight, be Careful, home, real - Lives.

This is - The show.

And now we turn to the world of Dungeons and Dragons with an actress who leads with intention combining her storytelling roots with the magic of imagination.

Welcome to the show.

Thank you so much for having me, Whitney.

So I was just chatting with you off camera, and I love your energy and your spunk.

You have so many, what I was calling on-ramps to your story.

What landed you on this stage today?

- Oh man.

I think it was just, I'm, I'm obsessed with stories.

I am and I'm just extremely always into what makes a story and what is, what is an interesting detail to follow.

All that to say, I, I, I stumbled into this.

Ultimately, I was just a kid obsessed with stories.

I was incredibly shy in high school.

You shy?

Yes.

I could not do chitchat just save my life.

I just didn't know.

I didn't know who I was supposed to be.

And I, that was the huge struggle.

And then I found improv in college, stumbled into it again.

I'm like, I'm not funny.

I'm not gonna make it.

But I secretly wanna act.

Sorry, dad and I got into improv and that's actually where I really found my voice.

And I found people who celebrated my voice.

And it was the first time ever realizing that I didn't have to amend myself to fit a mold for others as I had spent so much of my life - Doing.

I could just be, I know for me personally, when I told people I wanna be a talk show host, they're like, well, you're gonna have to get a news job.

And maybe, you know, that doesn't really just happen for people.

Was that one of those things of like improv couldn't be full-time for you because you were told Oh, only so many people make it.

- Yeah, exactly.

And the answer is there really are very few opportunities in in general of like, you can make this your full-time job.

There's just so much competition and so few slots.

And it was a case where I had been told by many people like, what a fun hobby for you, so glad you have it.

How are you going to earn your living?

Which frankly is fair.

And so I had a, I had a nine to five for 14 years and would work on it on the side.

But the reason why I think I'm here today is because I did it.

Because I love it.

And when you do it because it fuels you, but it doesn't have to make your life in releasing that, somehow I found my way back to it.

- And you mentioned your production company.

Yeah.

And that is something that I think as a woman, I just wanna give you a high five.

You go girl.

You're also big on issues within that production - Company.

- Tell me about what gives you that firm voice to say we really wanna create change with what we're doing.

- I think first and foremost, I was really fortunate early on in college and beyond to find people who love storytelling like I do and appreciate the power of the voice.

Comedy in general is considered to be quite masculine and quite powerful.

Anybody who doesn't fit a very specific mold of what that is, therefore is generally expected to be more quiet and is not encouraged as deeply to just go forth and use their voice.

So what I'm passionate about and what I had to discover very much so on my own as someone who spent a lot of time trying to be what I thought I should be.

Instead having a voice, having a point of view is your own personal power.

And just empowering others to be able to express themselves.

That's the beauty of it.

That - Is the beauty of it.

And speaking of expressing themselves, let's go back to Dungeons and Dragons.

Yeah, I brought my son.

We were sitting next to a woman fully dressed in medieval wear and then they said, pull out your phone and it's going to be interactive.

So all the norms that I'm used to at the play where I'm hiding the phone, I'm supposed to be staying quiet.

This was completely a different story.

And it sounds like every performance changes for the viewer that doesn't know about Dungeons and Dragons tell us what are they gonna get?

- The 20 sided tavern is incredibly special to my heart because it is this amazing cross-section of storytelling, gaming and just interactive, sort of adventuring together and in a theatrical space.

So the crazy thing is you aren't gonna find anything else like this.

There nothing else like it exists.

And with Dungeons and Dragons, the whole point, it's not about Dungeons, it's not about dragons, it's about telling a story together.

So with this show, for a lot of people who might have heard of the game but have never played it and and don't know the rules, you don't have to.

That's not what it's about.

It is just about a bunch of people coming together and actively contributing to a story.

And what I love about 20 Sided Tavern that I think is so hard to, to replicate and what you experienced is everyone there can contribute.

Their choices are validated in the moment through like playing on your game through shouting out names, through what you choose to wear.

You were so celebrating passion in there, man.

It's a place to celebrate people and to celebrate lovers of story.

And that's what I love because it's such a welcoming environment.

Like no haters come to the tavern.

- Mm.

- It's not space for that.

It was great.

- Right.

Well, speaking of the audience, your number one fan to AKA, your understudy, your mom, she's a Chicagoan.

What has it been like to have her, how many shows has she been to?

30, how many?

I got a shout - Out.

Jodi over the years has seen probably 30 to 40 shows and she is the one who encouraged me to just keep going.

Because the hard thing again is when you're trying to get your voice out there and there's so many moments and so much rejection and just so much quietness, you never know what you're doing.

If it has impact, my mom was the one who went, you have, you have impact on my darkest days.

And I remember shortly before the 20 side Tavern became what it became.

I was feeling really low.

And my mom, I love her so much, she sat me down and she just goes, you're not allowed to stop.

She goes, sorry, you're meant to tell stories.

You're a storyteller.

So you're not allowed to stop.

You could be sad, but you're not stopping - When you are off the stage.

What is something that our viewers might not know about you?

- I mean, besides being a professional nerd, I think I just, I am, I, I just, I, I hold workshops now for like helping to tell storytelling that is a little bit adjacent to what I get to do, but I think just again, getting the word out that like, Hey, you have a point of view and let's, let's get it out.

There is just a passion of mine.

And besides that, I bake a mean three layer cake.

- Oh my goodness.

Well, you have so many different layers to you and your story.

I really, yeah.

The job.

Thank you so much for coming on.

Yeah, thank you for having me.

- It was back in the nineties.

I was 15 years old.

I grew up in a family with two Chicago police officers for parents.

My father was a sergeant.

We had a nice home, a safe area of Chicago.

And I went to a good school and he died when I was 10.

And shortly after that, my mom got hurt on the job.

And so she was in, in and out of surgery and I just kind of lost my way.

And I made the mistake of getting in the car with a person who I thought just wanted to go out and have some fun and, and go to the restaurant.

And it turned out to be a trafficker.

- Corinne's story is a stark reminder of how trafficking can hide in plain sight and how a simple dinner and drinks can take a dark turn.

Corinne's nightmare ended when her trafficker was finally caught.

But even with him behind bars, the fear never fully left.

That's the heavy burden so many survivors of trafficking, Carrie.

And yet, through incredible courage, she found a way forward.

Her healing began when she discovered the Salt and Light Coalition explaining more about the mission.

We welcome the founder, and now we welcome Dr.

Isabel who started the Salt and Light Foundation that helped Corinne get out of her situation.

Yes, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Whitney.

Hearing that from six seasons ago, sex trafficking is still happening today.

- Yes, - For sure.

And a story like CORs is not uncommon.

- No.

Actually got worse when COVID hit because in moments of crises, that's when people become very vulnerable and that's when trafficking happens, when there's vulnerability.

- Well, and I look at you in this photo behind us, and these are your girls ones that you have found and given hope to you.

Literally some of them, some of them, you're taking them out of the situation and helping them.

Tell us about the Salt and Lake Coalition.

- So Salt and Lake Coalition has the mission to equip, empower, and help survivors thrive.

We equip them by giving them a life skills course for three months.

And we teach them things like self-awareness, how to, you know, draw boundaries with people because a lot of times they never really had that in their lives.

Somebody to teach them that.

And then we go into what we call a workforce development program where we help them be empowered.

Right?

So we teach them skills for the workplace.

We ask them like, who is this woman that you want to be?

Because a lot of women that were trafficked, they're told who they should be.

Right?

They've never thought about like, what is that you, like I remember this one woman who was in cohort one and I asked her, so what do you like to do?

And she's like, Isabel, nobody has ever asked me this.

Wow.

You know?

And then the last piece is that after they graduate, we put them with our partners so they get jobs - Because that's a big component to - Yes.

- They don't feel trapped when they have a - Job.

Exactly.

They have opportunity.

And not only that, that, but we continue to support them.

We have mentoring sessions every week.

We have a retreat every year.

And so we really leverage our resources and our networks to help women.

- And with Corinne's story, you actually found her in a shelter?

- Yes.

She was at a shelter with her baby.

- Do you do that regularly?

Because I look at you and I'm thinking, wow, this is a mom and a woman in our city that believes in people so much, she's going to the shelter to find them.

- Yeah.

So we have partnerships with all of the Chicago shelters, rehabs, hospitals, and these people that see Traffick and survivors coming through their organizations.

They will tell them about our organization.

They will be interviewed.

Unfortunately, we can't take everybody.

We have about a hundred women in our wait list, but we, we serve who we can.

- Yes, you do.

Yeah.

Well, thank you so much for coming on Yeah.

And doing the work you do.

- Thank you.

- Our next guest is leading Millions on social media.

That's originally how I found Real Talk, Kim.

She came into Chicago to share how she is helping people claim their stories from stuck to strong real talk.

Kim not only talks the talk, but she walks the walk in this message of hope.

- I was raised in a very strict religion and there wasn't a lot of grace and hope.

- Mm.

- I was feeling so hopeless after my 18 year marriage ended.

And I was like, God, if you ever get me out of here, if you help me find my way out of this pit, I want to do whatever I can to help people like me.

And so now I just, man, I loving people is my favorite hobby on the planet.

- When you meet people that are at their lowest of low, what is it that can change and do that same spark that you had?

- I always look at it like, it's like God giving you a do over.

And so I guess for me, I would just tell that person, nothing you've lost and nothing you've experienced is greater than what's coming.

I promise you, - Her new book Unstuck provides readers with daily reflection, wisdom, and encouragement.

And her social media platform does exactly the same.

- The enemy will make you think that what you lost was so great, but if you lost it, it couldn't have been great.

Right.

I can't take this pain away.

You gotta get up and walk away.

Hmm.

And so I would tell that person, I would say, if you can just stop giving CPR to dead situations.

Oh, that's good.

Stop it.

Yeah.

Stop.

If it just stop begging someone to stay with you.

Stop thinking that you gotta numb your pain with that addiction or stay in that abuse because you can't see a way out if you just make up in your mind, I'm not staying here.

You gotta make up in your mind I'm breaking this.

And that's what I did.

- Yeah.

- And they can do it too.

- Welcome to the show.

Thank you.

It's so wonderful to be here and it's so great to see you again.

And today we're talking stoic empathy with you, which is such a unique concept when you think about those two words.

Yet you formed a whole chapter book around it.

- Right.

Well, you know, it's, it's interesting because one of the reviews recently said, this book makes a guidebook feel like a memoir.

So it really is a chapter book, but it's really also a guidebook.

Stoicism at its core is emotional regulation with a pillar of what the stoics, the ancient stoics called justice today.

We would call that morality ethics.

Right.

Whatever's the right thing for us.

And empathy is just awareness of the room, the people around us and ourselves, right?

- Yeah.

- So that we can proceed not in immediate reaction to like the emotive response that it's running through our body, but in line with our own independent view of morality or justice as the case might be.

And utilize the stoic tools to create that balance.

- Well, and I love this because you are taking your own life experiences, the tough stuff that really make you you and helping others with that.

- Yeah, absolutely.

So you know this, because we've talked about this before.

I was born in Iran in 1977, happened in 1979, in 1980, that Iran Iraq war began to wage.

Mm.

And so my childhood, up until I immigrated out of Iran at the age of 11 in 1988, was in the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution, maximum oppression and a war.

So was up to six missile attacks a day, but also energy shortages, long lines, constant fear, et cetera, et cetera.

So that was the environment in was I in which I was being raised.

And what I observed, what I learned about stoic empathy is that it exists in my parents.

- Wow.

- I saw it as they were battling this world.

It was quite remarkable.

- And walk us back through, because that sounds like a tough childhood.

You remember some of those memories of the attacks.

Well, one really good - Story, and it's funny because it's so representative, because it happens so many nights that I can't even pinpoint what night it was.

So it's a picture three o'clock in the morning, right?

You're 11 and your twin sisters are eight, and you're tired and you're sleepy, and you've been woken up by red alert sirens every night this week.

And you're, and you've been spending your days in the bomb shelter, spending - Days in a bomb shelter, spending - Days in a shelter.

And that's your childhood.

That's the childhood.

Yeah.

By the way, it's not some fancy bomb shelter, it's just the basement of the apartment building that we had, but it's the safest place to be.

So three o'clock in the morning when the red alert sirens go on, my parents had to decide a, they had to get themselves outta bed.

They're tired too.

Right.

They're also quite wary.

Right.

And they had to decide based on the pitch of the alert, whether or not they had sufficient time to make it to the basement where the safety was, where the shelter was, or just run to the door frame away from the windows.

Right.

And I remember my parents around me.

And what's really extraordinary in a situation like that, and you'll relate to this as a parent, as a leader, you know, anyone can relate to this, you can't hide the missile attacks from your child.

Right.

You can't hide the fact that there's a war going on outside the window right there.

They're loud and explosive and you can still provide that emotional buffer.

Hmm.

It is precisely your empathic awareness of the needs of your children in that moment that make you concise, wise, emotionally controlled and able to make the right decisions.

And it's this extraordinary capability that people have.

And it sometimes comes up like it's like a superhero capability.

And what I wanna do is I wanna take a look at how do we apply this to our everyday life, right?

How do we negotiate with our team over screen time?

How do we engage in conflict in a healthy manner with our spouse?

And so I take that ability that's really inherent in so many humans and I break it down and then I, I help people find a path to it.

Well, and you can tell you've lived - Many different lives in your years.

I wanna know you, you're saying the stoic empathy can really be something we learned with the visual aid that really taught you.

This was, of course your mom wasn't going to save you by putting your arms around you, but it was that moment and how she made you feel.

And that's what you're saying you can do for others.

You can help people find this - 100%, you can do this for others, you can do this for yourself.

Right.

So you can perform on a daily basis vis-a-vis your children, your colleagues, even people whose interests are hostile to yours.

You can perform in a way that is understanding of their motivations, their emotions and their judgments, understanding and in control of your own emotions, motivations and judgments.

And then maximizes that coupling and that control and that awareness in order to enhance your good relationships and get the best possible result out of the hostile ones that you can, given the circumstances.

What does that teach you?

Or what are you trying to learn in that moment?

Oh, I love that.

That's such a good question.

In that moment, especially if you are someone who's conflict averse, you are engaging in a very safe setting of conflict.

It goes along with the stoic tool of discomfort.

You might do an ice bath in the morning.

You might embrace the discomfort of negotiating for that extra free shot of vanilla, or if you are my husband, you need to become comfortable with vulnerability, with emotional expression, whatever it is that makes you uncomfortable, find safe scenarios to embrace it.

Why?

So that you can practice.

What is it you are practicing, you are practicing expanding the space between stimuli and response.

- Wow.

- So that you are literally, instead of just reacting to the situation, responding to it, and by repeatedly putting yourself in these positions of discomfort, worse comes to worst.

You pay the 75 cents for that extra shot of vanilla.

Right.

So by repeatedly putting yourself in these situations, you become, as the pro athlete does to the ball, you make it move slower and then it gives you more time to make a decision based on what you want to do and who you want to be.

And not a flash of anger at - The moment.

So it's really eliminating that anger.

And the more you do this, the more you learn how to react in these situations.

- 100% anger, fear, jealousy, anxiety.

And we're not really eliminating it.

We're just not letting it dominate us.

Ooh, that's - So good.

- 'cause these emotions, they inform us, they give us information.

Right.

Ah, saber tooth tiger coming towards me.

I must run so I do not die.

If I'm not afraid of the saber tooth tiger, I will die.

Right.

There's a reason we have these emotional responses to the stimuli.

We just need to make sure that we use them as information and not as masters over who we are and how we behave in this world.

- I love that.

You have taught me so much today in your book.

My What are you hoping people walk away with - More than anything?

I want people to walk away with power and awareness of their own power and how to engage in that power in a manner that is ethical and in line with their integrity.

We live in this complex world of power dynamics.

Power dynamics depend on what country you live in, how much money you have, what your economic, social, educational status is.

And they do and it's complex and they all interplay off of each other.

And yet you exist.

You are in this world and you must claim that space or as much of it as you can between stimuli and response.

In order to live as authentic a life to who it is you want to be as possible.

That's what I hope people come away with.

- And to do it with integrity, stoic empathy.

Sher Meen Cruz, thank you so much for coming on.

Thank you.

It's my pleasure.

- I am is Betsy Roddy and I am the great-granddaughter of Sonora dod, who is accredited with being the founder of Father's Day.

I was 16 when she passed, and that's how old she was when her mother passed and her father took over supporting the family.

It's no surprise why she wanted to honor him with Father's Day because he did, took on a role that a lot of fathers at the time didn't do.

It wasn't just about her dad, although he was the inspiration.

She did really wanna see Worthy Fathers.

He honored in this way, just like Mothers Whitworth University contacted my mother and they wanted to do an online digital archive.

It gave me a much broader and deeper understanding at a time when I was older and more ready to appreciate it.

Digitizing so much of this so that it is available to everybody is how I intend to leave the legacy so that at least, again, it's an American story and anyone who wants to, wants to understand it has the ability to do so.

- And there you have it.

Our season 10 finale, I think about the years we've done the show in all the stories that have not only changed our viewers' lives, but personally impacted mine.

Thank you for trusting us with your story.

We truly believe that everyone has a story and that matters.

- The Whitney Reynolds Show is supported by 10 West Real Estate Group providing multifamily investment and property management services.

Kevin O'Connor Law Firm, when it comes to your personal injuries, we take it personally, respiratory Health Association, healthy lungs, and clean air for all.

Together at Peace Foundation, remembrance, resilience and Comfort, creating a hopeful space for those who are grieving.

Joe perillo.com where you can browse our selection of pre-owned vehicles.

Joe Perillo is based in Chicago and ships all over the country, children's Learning Place, A school for our earliest learners dedicated to aiding every child with the power of Learning Center for beautiful living, empowering people to live rich, robust, and beautiful lives.

Additional funding provided by FE o Dr.

Stacey McClain, facial Plastic Surgeon, high five Sports Club called Fish Swim School and Girls Strong Empowerment Apparel - Peril.

Want to stay connected to all things.

Whitney Reynolds will follow us on social media and you'll get exclusive content and updates from the show.

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