Episode 116 – Martine Kalaw

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Martine Kalaw 0:00
I have learned so much in the last three years on balance. And what I learned is that there’s really no such thing as balance. When you are a solopreneur or entrepreneur, it’s really more of a dance, right? You’re sort of giving and taking and contributing more time to one area versus another at certain points. Right now, my emphasis or my efforts are really around my for profit business at this very juncture, because the demand has just gone up for obvious reasons around diversity, equity inclusion conversations, and I work with global organizations, you know, and sometimes global companies will reach out to me for cross cultural communication conversations, which all falls into, you know, diversity, equity inclusion, because that there’s a pull there. What I’m doing right now, as far as my foundation is really focusing on research, finding grants, learning as much as I can, even though I’ve lived experience. It’s really important for me to collect stories from others because this foundation is not about my journey. It’s about the journey of others. So it’s really critical that I do the work to learn and listen.

Richard Matthews 1:22
…3, 2, 1

Hello and welcome back to The Hero Show. My name is Richard Matthews and I live on the line today with Martine Kalaw. Martine, are you there?

Martine Kalaw 2:16
I am here, Richard, nice to be here.

Richard Matthews 2:20
Awesome. Glad to have you here. And for those of you who are following along with our journey, we are still stuck in Kissimmee, Florida for our travels because of the whole Corona stuff. Martine, you’re coming in. You said from DC, is that right?

Martine Kalaw 2:32
That is correct.

Richard Matthews 2:34
Awesome. How is it? How is DC Actually, I know on the news, they’re making it out to be pretty terrible, but is it as bad as they make it out to be up there?

Martine Kalaw 2:41
You know what? I’m there? It depends on your perspective, right? But there is, it is the nation’s capital. So it would make sense that it’s the culmination of a lot of different emotions. A lot of different feelings and sentiments are happening and a lot of action Thankfully, I’ve sort of been socially distancing kind of keeping to myself. So I stay out of the action.

Richard Matthews 3:07
As long as you are safe and healthy, right?

Martine Kalaw 3:09
Safe and healthy. And once in a while I venture outside, but it’s very humid out today. So I’m staying in the cool air conditioned home.

Richard Matthews 3:19
Yeah, this is our first time for summer in Florida in our travels, and it rains a lot here. I was not expecting that like every afternoon, you can almost set your clock to it. So for our guests who don’t know you, I want to run through a quick introduction of what you do. And we’ll get into your story. So Martine is an organizational development expert, published author, speaker, consultant and leadership coach for corporate executives got over 10 years of professional experience working with fortune 500 companies and tech startups, developing people to increase performance and productivity. And I know you said you’ve got some new things that are going on in your business. I’m going to share a little bit about those. So basically, to start off with tell me what your business is like now. Who do you serve and what do you do for them?

Martine Kalaw 4:01
Absolutely. So, Richard, I do a couple of things. So my business is I’ve got two arms in my business. One is for profit and one is not for profit. The for profit business really focuses on consulting and training on diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as Management Development. And I work so my audience or my clients, are corporations, businesses, organizations, typically those that have gone through mergers and acquisitions, or who are wanting to foster a more equitable organization and response to, you know, the national conversation around race relations. So that’s one arm of my business and I also do speaking engagements around that. The other arm of my business that is more nonprofit based, is really focused on immigration. I’m particularly working with stateless persons and undocumented immigrants or dreamers, because that’s what I was at one point. And so what I do in a nutshell is I have a foundation that supports this community. It’s called stateless and dreamers foundation. acronym is a sad, sad foundation. And its job is to provide individuals, stateless persons and dreamers with resources so that they can have a lawful home in the United States of America.

Richard Matthews 5:33
Awesome. So for just for those of us in the audience who might not know, can you just give a brief definition of what the stateless person about a dreamer is?

Martine Kalaw 5:41
Yes, absolutely. So I’ll start with a stateless person who does not have a country that or nationality so essentially the country that they were born in, does not recognize as a citizen, and sometimes they will migrate to another country. That also doesn’t recognize them as a citizen. A lot of that has to do with there a lot of reasons why someone becomes stateless. One of the more common reasons now is through climate change. So when people have to migrate or they lose their particular country, or region is no longer livable, they’re forced to migrate to a new location. And so they no longer have a nationality of that existing place or that former country because it’s no longer livable. And if they’re not received as a national as a resident of the new country, they don’t have status. And that’s one way that they can become stateless. There 12 million stateless people in the world, I was one of them, and that my story is a long story. But ultimately, I was born in Zambia, my family’s from Dr. Congo, both countries in Africa. I came to the United States when I was four years old legally with my mother and I became an orphan after my mother and stepfather died, I fell out of status and I had no state and no country to recognize me. dreamers typically are individuals who actually come to the United States as a result of coming with their parents, typically legally. And the average age of dreamers is two years old. And because they lose status, or they overstay their visa, that’s typically the common way they lose status, they become undocumented. And, and so that’s how they fall into the category of dreamers because they came in as children as minors. And then, you know, eventually, you know, grew up as undocumented immigrants in the United States.

Richard Matthews 7:45
So what you do with your foundation is you help those people get their legal status situated here in the States.

Martine Kalaw 7:51
Yeah, so providing resources because the critical piece of getting legal status is being able to have someone represent you as a reputable attorney. Being able to source and identify a reputable attorney and have the resources to be able to afford an attorney, also having the resources to afford mental health support, because this process in this journey, as we may see, reflected in the news, it’s very painful. It’s draining. It’s traumatizing on so many levels. And so being able to provide these individuals with resources to an attorney, and mental health counseling, and also rehabilitation services, so professional development training, that’s one of the things that I’m familiar with. So being able to support them and resume building and positioning themselves to go into the workforce when they are able to. So all of these things, help them to secure themselves and create a home lawfully in the United States and allow them to be thriving members of, you know, of America, the United States Senate America.

Richard Matthews 9:00
Absolutely. So just because I’m curious, how does your sort of work life split into those two categories between your consulting practice and your nonprofit practice?

Martine Kalaw 9:10
That’s such a good question. And I think that’s one that I have learned so much in the last three years on balance. And what I learned is that there’s really no such thing as balance when you are a solopreneur entrepreneur, it’s really more of a dance, right? You’re sort of giving and taking and, like, contributing more time to one area versus another at certain points. So right now, I’ve been you know, my emphasis or my efforts are really around my for profit business business at this very juncture. Because the demand has just gone up for obvious reasons around diversity I for the evolution conversations. So Oregon and I work with global organizations, you know, and sometimes global companies will Reach out to me for cross cultural communication conversations which offline fall into, you know, diversity, equity inclusion. So because of that there’s a poll there. What I’m doing right now, as far as my foundation is really focusing on research, you know, finding identifying grants, I’m learning as much as I can, even though I’ve lived experience, it’s really important for me to collect stories from others, because this foundation is not about my journey. It’s about the journey of others. So it’s really critical that I do the work to learn and listen. So that doing that and so that gives me a little bit more time to really focus on my my for profit business. And at the end of the day, it’s also really about being able to put food on the table right and being able to also contribute to my non nonprofit. So that’s that’s how I’m sort of doing the same thing. These two worlds right now.

Richard Matthews 11:02
I’ve always hated that whole work life balance scale that they use as a metaphor. Yeah, it’s like this idea that you’re somehow you’re gonna get it to measure up perfectly and it never works that way.

Martine Kalaw 11:15
It never works. Even with sleep, you know, the funniest thing and I’m sure I’m going off on a tangent. So please stop me, Richard, because I love tangents here. But I, you know, I thought oh, as an entrepreneur, I will have, you know, it’s so exciting because now I don’t have to work for anyone else. I work for myself, I have all this time in the world. I can just wake up when I want. I can go to sleep when I want, but I find that I’m working way more now than I ever had before when I work for somebody else, but it’s so rewarding and it’s absolutely rewarding for me and every day. I am so fortunate that I can I can show up for myself, and, and for these dreams that I have, and it has an impact, a greater impact, you know, it’s got a ripple effect on, you know, on other people and that’s what really motivates me and drives me to keep going.

Richard Matthews 12:15
Absolutely. So what I want to find out from you then is your origin story, right? So we say on the show all the time, every good comic book hero has an origin story and is the thing that made them into a hero. Right? That they are today. You know, I want to hear that story from you. Were you born a hero? Or were you bit by the radioactive spider that made you want to start a business right? Or did you start in a job and eventually move into becoming an entrepreneur? Basically, I want to find out where you came from, to start doing what you do now?

Martine Kalaw 12:41
Yeah, that’s a really great question. Was I born a hero. I’d love to say that. I mean, but I honestly think that, you know, I had the potential when I was born with the potential of being a hero. However, maybe I had to develop the strength to wear that cape because if I were a superhero, I might have a cape, I’m able to fly and maneuver everywhere. And I developed, you know the muscles to be able to fly in and be a superhero through my own journeys and my struggles and my challenges, particularly of being stateless and undocumented. And I was in deportation proceedings for seven years of my life. So really fighting to not be placed in a detention facility indefinitely, knowing that if I was I probably wouldn’t make it out alive. Right. And so, for me, it was really about survival, and what it takes to survive and I didn’t just want to survive, I wanted to thrive. So it was really about my ability to learn how to get people to not just help me because I never wanted anyone to see me as a charity. But to really want to invest in me right to see, wow, this person, this young woman has potential. And it behooves me to want to see you know, her out, you know, a lift, lift through live out her vision. And so that is what I was committed to doing. And so I started to gain muscle memory on getting people to invest in me. I learned how to use my voice and to tell my story. I learned how to multitask. I mean, at the same time that I was working a job I also had I was maneuvering through to immigration lawyers, I was going to immigration hearings. I was having emotional breakdowns maybe once a week, if not more, because I was terrified of where my life was going and what would happen to me physically. Because of my lack of status, I learned to network. It was really about not just about showing up in a room, but it was about building relationships and following up on those relationships. I also learned the power of my voice. I mean, I said that earlier about storytelling, really how to harness my voice and how to not appear downtrodden. Even when I felt I didn’t know if I felt my best to position myself, you know, so that people really saw me as someone who, yeah, this is what she’s worth, you know, my time. People don’t necessarily, you know, if people feel pity for you, they see you as charity and and it’s short lived, you know that the time that they spend on supporting a short lived, but when people you know when they’re inspired by you and they’re inspired by your story, your energy, your vision, I mean, they’re committed, right, and it’s not necessarily financial. It’s just their emotional commitment, their time and so these skills literally influence everything that I’m doing today. You know, I’ve spoken on a TEDx stage, I speak all the time I get paid to speak about immigration, about diversity, equity, inclusion and about management, training, and my own story. And every time I speak, people come up to me afterwards and say, “You’re an amazing storyteller. Where did you learn that skill?” And I’m thinking, I mean, my whole life, all that I had to tell my story. That was what I was forced to do as a result of my immigration journey. Every time I went into that courtroom, I had to retell my story to get people to hear me. So that’s where I develop that skill. You know, this unit, as far as being a consultant and a trainer and having to show up and you know, I’m coaching CEOs of companies. I’m advising you know, that head of human resources and other companies, I’m training individuals who have much, you know, have 10 year in their companies and I show up as the expert, how am I able to do that, because I had to do it all my life, I was always fighting for people to see me fighting for my ability to survive, you know, to, you know, should, it was during those interviews that I had for college for grad school, it was really about my ability to get that person to want to invest in me. So these are actually the critical skills that have helped harness the business that I have today, the work that I do, it’s really about my ability to tell stories, my ability to empower other people, right through my own experiences, my ability to get people to see me and hear me and also my diplomacy. I learned that you know, just through my experiences, my journey, and then like ability to multitask.

Richard Matthews 17:53
It sounds like your journey sort of forced you to become the hero you are right to learn these skills and develop them in order to get where you are, which is, which is an interesting thing, right? Not all of us have to go through that type of a crucible to build our skills. Right. We have other things that we’ve done. But yeah, it sounds like you’ve come out on the other side of that with a lot of skills, which I think ties nicely into my next question I have for you, which is about your superpowers. We say every iconic hero has a superpower, whether that’s a fancy flying suit made by a genius intellect or the ability to call down Thunder from the sky. In the real world heroes have what I call a zone of genius, right? Which is a skill or it’s a set of skills that you either were born with, or you developed over time that energize everything else that you do, right? They’re the ones that bring life to all of your skills. The superpower is really what sets you apart and allows you to help other people slay their villains, right and come out on top in their journeys. So if, you know looking through all the things that you just mentioned, what do you think the one skill is that is your superpower that really lets you help others?

Martine Kalaw 19:02
I would say empathy. Empathy is my superpower. Because it’s allowed me to maneuver into different spaces and see things from different lenses and different perspectives. My own story of my own journey has forced me to sort of live in different spaces and connect with different communities of people. But my ability to be empathetic has allowed me to also understand somebody who shows up or understands or comes from, has a different perspective. My willingness to listen, my willingness to understand, my willingness, my assumption that for the most part, people have their intentions are generally good.

Maybe the way they communicate is not always effective, or it’s not always clear, but I always I generally have I go into conversations With that assumption, or if that person is not does not have a good, positive and good intentions towards me, I still go into the conversation, assuming that there’s something I could learn from this. So I really do have this ability to be empathetic, and then illustrate that with up to others. And I think that is what gives me the superpower. And that has allowed me to maneuver through life because I’m able to mirror other people in a lot of ways. And we all know, you know, one of the key credit criteria or one of the critical components of sales, is mirroring. When someone is able to connect with you, because you’re able to connect with them. There’s a level of comfort that’s established. And so that really starts with understanding the other person and for me, it really starts the foundation of that is empathy.

Richard Matthews 20:59
Empathy. It’s an interesting superpower. I’ve actually been surprised how many people I’ve had on the show that empathy is a superpower that they mentioned. As to where they are, a lot of them tend to be in that coaching consulting space because it might be, you know, a foundational skill there. But empathy is that ability to put yourself in the other person’s shoes like physically and mentally and emotionally and really understand them and where they’re coming from and how they view the world. And then be able to pull yourself back out and give them good advice because of that, because you see the world the way they see it. And it’s not something it’s not something that everyone can do. Right and it’s an interesting skill to both learn and then also put into practice and in a really good way, and it’s one of the things that has always struck me like the best. Like is, this is probably off topic, but you know, the best villains in you know, in comic books or in TV series or anywhere. They’re always the ones that you can connect with. You can empathize with what they’re feeling and what they’re doing, right. And because nobody is a villain in their own story, right, like, like you said they have they have good intentions. Yeah. And, you know, generally speaking, I say, I’ve said all the time when people know better, they do better.

Martine Kalaw 22:17
So I love what you said, that statement, that quote, no one’s a villain in their own story that’s so accurate. And in the work that I’m not surprised that some of your past guests have also said empathy because at the end of the day, it’s the work when you think about being an entrepreneur, and really, people you know, you have to influence people right to get any to even share and communicate your product. It’s really about influencing people. You really do need to be able to connect with them. And then, at the end of the day for me, you know, I use empathy as a tool, an avenue to empower people, right? I use empathy, to connect with people so that I can then share my story, get them to share their story, and then therefore empower them. And that’s in the nonprofit space and the for profit space. My job is to empower people.

Richard Matthews 23:21
You equip them with the tools they need to come out on top in their journey.

Martine Kalaw 23:27
That’s correct.

Richard Matthews 23:30
So, I want to flip that question on its head, right. So if your superpower is empathy, then you know you have the fatal flaws the other side of that, so every Superman has his kryptonite, and every Wonder Woman can’t remove her bracelet’s victory without going mad. You probably have a fatal flaw that has held you back in your business, right? Something that you’ve struggled with some of the ones that I struggled with, you know, growing my business has been things like perfectionism that has kept me from shipping products or lack of self care. Right. Let my clients walk all over me instead of standing up for, you know, myself and my value and those kinds of things or, you know, being a visionary but lacking the discipline to actually implement the minutiae of the everyday stuff. Right. Those are some of the things I struggled with. But I think more important than what the flaw is, is how you’ve worked on rectifying it. So people who are in our audience might learn a little bit from your experience there.

Martine Kalaw 24:20
Yes, my fatal flaw which I am learning to, I mean, evolving from is saying yes to everything. I was that yes, woman because it makes me feel so good. Because, you know, I love the reaction people have so people would, you know, and it was saying yes to a myriad of things, people would have all these suggestions on things that I could do for my business. I say, Yes, that sounds great. Or would you like to interview on this show? Yes. Absolutely. Would you like to do this? Absolutely. Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And then I found that I was burned out right. And they were something that just were not inj direct alignment with where I was trying to go. And by saying yes to everything, I was constantly pulled in multiple directions, and it was just a distraction. And I wasn’t able to accomplish what I wanted to accomplish.

And it’s, it’s easy to become a little to lose sight of your focus when you say yes to everything. And one of my favorite sayings is like when you say yes to, when you say yes to everyone else, you’re saying no to yourself. And that’s ultimately what I learned. And so I now hold back on saying, Yes, I typically, because I still love the sound of saying yes, and I love the reaction I get. But before I do that, I typically ask if the person can share a little bit more information. And then I also ask, when can I get back to you atleast give myself a day to really think about, you know, this opportunity that I’m being presented with because most things are presented as opportunities, right? So it’s easy to want to say yes to all of them. But I have to come back, you know, sit with myself and go, alright, well, this is where I’m trying to go with my business. This is where I’m trying to go with my nonprofit. And how does taking on this opportunity align with where I’m, you know, where I’m headed and my goals. And what I’m finding is that oftentimes, it’s not, it’s not an alignment. It’s nice to have, and it’s cool, and it’s fun, and it’s exciting. But it really is an indirect alignment with anything I’m trying to accomplish. And so I’m able to then, you know, politely say, No.

Richard Matthews 26:40
Well, I’m glad you said yes to come on our show.

Martine Kalaw 26:44
But I’m so excited to be here. Thank you for having me.

Richard Matthews 26:48
One of the things that just strikes me because I’ve been there right. It’s that it’s a self care right where you put yourself last, you put everyone else first. Yeah, it’s that, you know, they tell you everyone who’s been on the plane, they always say put your own mask on first. And you can help put the mask on your kids or on your neighbors or whatever, right? And if you don’t take care of yourself, then you can’t, you can’t do what you need to do in your business and you know, actually provide value and do those things. And that comes from everything from taking care of your health to knowing when to say no, to you know, I, we’ve talked all the time about giving yourself permission to play, right actually go out and relax and enjoy a little bit of this life that you have only one chance to live. Because it helps you be more creative when you come back to work. So I think that self care. Yeah, that self care thing is a hard thing to learn. Especially, early in my entrepreneur career, I have thought that and the mistake of thinking right, the more I said yes. And the more work I did, the better results I would get. And I realized that all it was doing was making me sick and tired.

Martine Kalaw 27:47
Yeah. And then you’re running around in circles, right? I can say that. It’s not a coincidence that you know, since in the last four or five months, you know, since the onset of COVID. In this pandemic, I’ve slowed down a little bit, you know, in terms of my, my wanting to get involved in various volunteer opportunities and, support and do things for all these, you know, friends, every request that I used to get, I would say yes to I slowed down, right, because of the pandemic and us having to, you know, be indoors, more often than not, I’ve slowed down and that I’ve been able to get a lot more clear on what I’m trying to accomplish. And as a result, right and that and there’s been more self care because of it as well. And as a result, my business is thriving a lot more.

So it’s no coincidence.

Richard Matthews 28:45
That is awesome and I’m glad to hear that. Because I know you know, in my own life, as I learned to say no more and as I learned how to do proper self care, my business has grown as a result of that. But I want to, I want to move on and talk a little about your common enemy, right? And so, if your common enemy is something, you know, every superhero has their arch nemesis, so to speak, it’s a thing that they constantly have to fight against in their world, right? You know, in the world of business, it takes many forms. But generally speaking, we put in the context of your clients, right? So the these corporations that you’re working with, and it’s a mindset, or it’s a flaw that you’re constantly having to fight, fight to overcome, right, so that you can get them better, cheaper, faster, or higher degree of results, whatever it is you’re looking to do for them. It’s that thing that you’re constantly banging your head against the wall and be like, dang, I always have to fight against this with my clients. If you had a magic wand, and you could just bop them on the head before you started working to get rid of that. What would that common enemy be in your business?

Martine Kalaw 29:43
That’s a great question.I actually have two but I’ll start with one if we have time. I’ll go into the second one. So for me, it’s usually being able to clearly identify who is the decision maker right away right? Being able to access the decision maker for that business or that organization right away, and it doesn’t matter, sometimes, you know, I’m always very clear when reaching out to organizations as to what my, you know, my mission is and what I can offer, and whom I’d like to connect with and speak with. But you still, there’s usually some level of bureaucracy or you know, red tape that, you know, that’s just standard for most organizations, some organizations have more of it than others. And so it would just be great, you know, to be able to go directly to that decision maker, as opposed to spending a couple of days talking to person x and then being passed on to person y and then going back. So that’s just something that I mean, I imagined that quite a number of people in my line of work deal with and you can be as clear and as direct as you want to be, but that’s sometimes just part of the process. And that’s quite frankly, some of the things that you know, someone like myself when you know you’re hired within an organization, that’s one of the things you want to support the organization and being able to, to work through.

Richard Matthews 31:19
The whole idea of finding the decision maker, and I remember when I was working with companies, like I worked for a company once where I was in, like the C level executive team. And I remember like, it’s such a, it’s such an interesting world, because like every decision, it’s like, the whole team has to come in and weigh in on whether or not they have any expertise in that area. And it’s like, like, I was the marketing director, and it’s like, hey, I’ve got it. We’re gonna run this marketing campaign. And the finance director would be like, well, I don’t like that messaging. And I’m like, but you don’t understand psychological messaging. Like, I know, you could tell us whether or not we have the budget for it, but I don’t understand why your opinion is valid. That’s just the corporate red tape that you deal with and all organizations do that. So when you come in as an outside consultant, you sort of have to play that ping pong and figure out okay, who’s the person that’s actually going to say, Yes, that’s right. You know, allow me to help them the way that you know, they hired me to help them.

Martine Kalaw 32:12
Yeah. And it also just, it requires just knowing how to navigate people and I and that’s why I’m really grateful that I spent 12 years in the corporate world because I also know just the corporate dynamics and how to maneuver through various leadership era executives and so that’s been really helpful and beneficial for me. But absolutely, it’s that corporate red tape is not always ideal.

Richard Matthews 32:38
It’s not always the flip side then of your common enemy that is your driving force. Right? So just like Spider Man fights to save New York, Batman fights to save Gotham, where Google fights to index and categorize all the world’s information. I want to know what it is that you fight for, right? Your mission, so to speak, what is that?

Martine Kalaw 32:56
Giving people a voice and I mean, when you think about it in the context of not for profit. It’s giving stateless persons, dreamers a voice and an opportunity and a way to create their own identity. And that starts with their voice. It’s really, you know, and this community is often, they often feel they lose their dignity in the process of having to fight for themselves. And they feel disempowered. And when that happens, they lose their voice. And so I want to restore their voice and their dignity. And when you think about in the corporate setting, when I come, you know, come in as a consultant, and then as a trainer, it’s typically to support new managers, to give them the tools to be effective, right, and have a voice and influential voice within the organization in the company. When I come in to do diversity, equity and inclusion work, or consulting, it’s the same thing. It’s to help the organization have a lot more clarity. On the people and circumstances that don’t allow for some individuals to have a stronger voice in the organization. So at the end of the day, that is what I do, it’s I helped to harness people’s voices.

Richard Matthews 34:18
So the thing that reminds me of runaway something that I talk about all the time with building relationships, right I say that as human beings just as a species, we’re storyborne people, right? And we judge the depth of our relationships based on how much of the other person’s story we know. Right? So it’s sort of like a climbing stair step of like, an acquaintance is someone who you might know their name, but you don’t know their story. Right? And a friend might be someone whose story you know, right. And you know, a best friend might be someone who, you know, a lot of their stories and like your closest friend. Yeah, right. Where are you? You know, like my wife. For instance, I’ve heard every story that she has to tell my wife and she says all of mine, the only way that we can grow our relationship any deeper is to go out and create new stories together. Right. And that’s how we judge the depth of our relationships by learning each other’s stories. So when you’re talking about giving someone their voice, you’re teaching them how to tell their story and how to hear other people’s stories. So that you know, because when you hear about, you know, the dreamers, and you hear about stateless people, you hear about this in the news a lot, until you start to realize and hear those people’s stories. It’s hard to connect with them to understand the problem that they’re facing,

Martine Kalaw 35:39
Because it’s facts and figures are not stories when you hear someone’s story. That’s where the empathy comes in. That’s where you’re able to see a little bit of yourself and then and that’s where that human connection comes from and where it develops, right. And that’s where that understanding comes from, as well.

Richard Matthews 36:00
So my next question for you then is, is generally it’s practical with a sub practical portion of the show, we call it the hero’s tool belt. But I want to focus a little bit on how you help people develop their voice. So what I would say is, you know, every superhero has their tool belt, right, you know, awesome gadgets, like batterrangs, or web slingers, or laser eyes, or whatever. And talk about one or two tools that you use every day in your business, right. And, you know, it could be anything from your notepad, your calendar, your marketing tools, your product delivery. But if we could I want to talk if you have any specific tools you use to help people learn to develop their voice or to develop their story, but you know, where do those sort of fit into your practical like tool sets?

Martine Kalaw 36:44
That’s really great. So I’ll start with some of the tools that like, you know, standard tools that I use for my business. One is yes, my calendar I cannot, I could not function without my calendar. I actually have. I’ve got a Google Calendar. I have an Outlook calendar, I got to figure out how I can sync those two together, but all my other calendars sync together, and then I have a to do list. So every night, you know, I write down all the things that I need to get done for the next day. And then I also have expensify. So that’s, you know, I track my finances and you know, do all the bookkeeping, in various spreadsheets and systems, but it’s really important that all of those receipts and everything else, you’re able to collect them and, you know, upload those receipts because in the past, what I learned was doing that waiting until the end of the year, to collect all that information to pass it on to your accountant is a nightmare. So you know, it really saves you time you create a system and Expensify is just one of those things. And, you know, there are lots of other tools out there like that, where you can just take a picture of your receipt and uploads and then it goes right into a spreadsheet. So that’s it. As far as providing or tools for stateless persons or dreamers to develop their voice or enhance their voice, a lot of it has to do with, so one of the things I tell people, the first thing I tell this community is, even if they don’t, I’m not helping, I’m not giving them a voice, they already had one. I’m just helping them to harness their voice, right to restore it. And the power of them, being able to tell their own story and knowing that they have the right and they control their narrative and who hears their narrative. So that’s the first thing and then one of the first the other things I tell people, particularly that community when they reach out to me is create a timeline of your story and just bullet it because sometimes, you know, that idea of listing or writing out a story is overwhelming for most people. So just bullet out a timeline. Right, just from the beginning to end or the beginning of the immigration journey to the end, what happened? Where were you, etc, etc, etc. And that’s where I start, because that’s where I when they can share that with me I can start to fill in the blanks by prompting them with questions. So can you tell me this? Can you share this? And then the other thing I asked them to do is once you create those bullets, the other thing is I have an iPhone and you know, I recorded your voice memo, record you telling your own story to yourself on your voice memo. There’s a couple of reasons why that’s beneficial one, because you get comfortable hearing your own voice and you connect with the power of your own voice when you hear it. That’s the first thing. The second is if they needed to talk to or connect with an attorney. Sometimes these stories are so traumatic and painful. It’s hard to have to relive it and retell it over and over. So it’s you record it already. Right, you can just press the play button. As like the first you know, that initial conversation you have with your attorney or consultation, you can just pass on that recording to your attorney, your immigration attorney. And that becomes a framework in which they can, you know, start to understand your case. And so I think that’s really, really powerful. And that that can be useful for not just stateless individuals and dreamers, but anyone who’s gone through something that’s really trying and requires, particularly around social justice issues, and they know that they will have to, there’s an element of them having to reshare that story in some capacity to access you know, some level of freedom.

Richard Matthews 40:49
Yeah, it’s interesting because we do, you know, I help people build brands, right. That’s what that’s what we do is we help them build their brand and one of the things that you have to work on is learning how to tell your story. And it’s that we do the same kind of things where it’s like, Hey, you know, let’s, let’s talk about the timeline of your story. And, you know, you know, we go through things like your origin story, which is the beginning, right? and things like that. And, where the big shifts were in your, in your life, the things you know, it went, you know, here’s what it started out, like, and here’s when we ran into our big thing. And that led us to our new, our new discoveries, right, like, they always follow that sort of a hero’s journey. So it’s interesting to me that like when we talk about marketing and getting, you know, in order to build a brand, you have to learn how to tell your story and learn how to put it in your voice. And we do the same kind of thing. It’s recorded, you know, and then transcribe it and then work on it and massage it. So it’s interesting that we use the same sort of tools to help people build their voice in marketing that you guys are using to help dreamers and stateless people build their stories and build their case to become citizens.

Martine Kalaw 41:52
And it’s the same framework that I use when I lead a storytelling workshop with corporate executives. It’s the same framework because there is, I mean that the fundamentals of storytelling are the same. Absolutely. That’s so cool to know. I love that.

Richard Matthews 42:36
…

I want to talk a little bit about your own personal heroes, right so every hero has their mentors, right. Frodo had Gandalf, Luke had Obi Wan, Robert Kiyosaki had his Rich Dad and Spider Man had his Uncle Ben, Who were some of your heroes were they real life mentors, speakers or authors? Maybe peers who were a couple years ahead of you, and how important were they to what you’ve accomplished so far in your business and your nonprofit?

Martine Kalaw 44:07
Yeah, absolutely. So there’s one hero, who it was her name is Immaculee Ilibagiza. I heard her speak when? 15 years ago, all right. And she was speaking to- she was a speaker. She was survived the Rwandan genocide. And she was speaking to this organization of I guess, they essentially they were former inmates, and they went through this program that supported them so that they, you know, they they weren’t part of that recidivism rate, you know, the likelihood of, you know, individuals to get to go back to prison after they’re released. And a friend of mine worked for that organization and invited me I was a little nervous, like, Okay, I’m going to be in a room full of inmates. That was my own, you know, ignorance and concerns, but I went anyway. And I sat off to the side and I just listened to her and I watched her. She owns the room. She has so much power, so much strength, so much grace, and I’m so much authenticity in how she shared her story. It almost sounded like it was the very first time she told it. And I know that sometimes storytellers have a tendency, some storytellers become very mechanical right in how they tell their story over and over again. But when I observed her it felt very authentic, it felt very real. And I remember, I was so young then and I thought, I want to be just like her. That’s when I knew that I wanted to stand in a room like whatever my career would involve me being in large rooms of people and I would be the person speaking and I would be sharing my story, my experiences to harness everyone else’s powers or super powers. And I knew that I wanted to be an author and because I read her book, and I just thought, oh my god, she’s been through so much. And then I was also clear that, you know, what I say is sometimes you read books about individuals that escaped horrific experiences. And, you know, there’s sometimes this feeling of overwhelming, this overwhelming feeling where people go, Oh, that was so awful. And they close the book, and they put it aside and they never look at it again because they can’t process it. It’s just too painful. It’s beyond their capacity, you know, of comprehension. So I was clear that I did not want that either. You know, I wanted to be like an Immaculee, where people read her book, they learned about her story, and they wanted to do something, right. They learn skills from her experiences. And so she was my hero. She still is my hero, right? Um, I just wanted to do that. And so I literally decided from that day forward, like, I’m going to get over my fear of public speaking, I am going to win my immigration case, because when I do, I’m going to be standing in front of people, myriads of people, large groups of people and telling my story. And then I’m also going to be able to teach people something and at that point, I didn’t know what it was. But that literally influenced the trajectory of my life. So she is my hero.

Richard Matthews 47:37
Awesome. Yes. That’s really cool. And, just just because I’m curious, one of the things that I’ve noticed happens a lot is the people who are your heroes don’t always even know how much impact they have made on your life. Does she know at this point, or is Is she still –

Martine Kalaw 47:53
I mean, she’s a celebrity. So I don’t know what she knows. I mean, I may I probably, I sent her or you know, you post something on Twitter but I’m sure she gets a lot of tweets from thousands of people around the world so I don’t know that she knows.

Richard Matthews 48:09
I sort of always, it’s always struck me right that you don’t always know who you’re influencing, right so you have to get up every day whatever it is you’re doing give it your all give it your hundred percent because the people that you’re impacting they have like you have that ripple effect when you give your value to the world. That’s what she was doing. She was giving her value as best she could. And look at you know, just just a little ripple effect from one person that hurt her all those years ago, right? You’re doing now as a result.

Martine Kalaw 48:37
A 45-minute conversation presentation, or speech and change the whole trajectory of my life. Absolutely.

Richard Matthews 48:47
Yeah, it’s amazing. So, what I want to talk about then is I think something that goes along well with this is called your guiding principles, right? And you know, one of mine is to give your all all the time, right? You know what I think ties into that last point. But one of the things that make heroes heroic is that they live by a code. For instance, Batman never kills his enemies, he always brings them to the Arkham Asylum. So as we wrap up this interview, I want to talk about the top one or two principles that you use every day in your life. Maybe something you wish you had known when you first started on your hero’s journey.

Martine Kalaw 49:20
Well, I’ve always known this and because it’s worked, and I really believe it, I don’t just know what I believe it. And it’s, you know, I really believe in the impossible I you know, it’s in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland that, you know, I think, you know, I think 1000 impossible things a day. You know, I literally, that’s I, when I was younger, I called it daydreaming, I would just daydream about all these things that I would, that I wanted to experience in life and all the places in the world I wanted to travel. I was just daydreaming but little that I know that I was actually visualizing and some of the best athletes. Some of the most influential, you know, figures in our world, visualize and so what you do is you basically live out on, you know, you live out an idea that hasn’t come to fruition you live it out and then you’re actually able to manifest it. I didn’t know the power of visualizing and I just called a daydreaming and little that I know that everything I visualized like it hit me just a few weeks ago like oh my gosh, I used to daydream all this stuff, and I’m actually doing it and it’s just mind blowing. And so I and it really comes from when you visualize sometimes some people will refer to you know, the, what your desire is lofty goals. I don’t believe anything is lofty. I believe anything can be achieved.

And so that’s just that’s just how I live my life. And that’s how I’ve gotten from where I came from as this orphaned undocumented, you know, girl from Zambia to the person that I am today, you know, it’s because I just live in this place of impossibility. And I make it possible. And then the second one is that life is not fair. It has never been okay with me. So that’s saying that, oh, life is just not fair. I’m not okay with that. And so that’s why I do the work that I do. That’s why I do the work that I do around diversity, equity inclusion in workplaces. That’s why I do the work that I do with managers and equipping them to be more effective managers, because it’s not okay to just accept that life is not fair. Well, if it’s not, and what can we do to make it more equitable?

Richard Matthews 51:53
Awesome. Yeah. I really loved the whole point about visualization. I remember, you know, about 10 years ago I had a, I had something I called a dream board right that I had up on our wall and it was just like newspaper clippings and magazine clippings of all the things that I wanted to do in my life. Yes. And we had moved a number of years ago and I had taken all those down and put them in a folder. And I pulled them out a couple years ago and realized that every single thing that I had clipped and put on that board I had done and so it included everything from like, traveling full time with my family to you know, like I wanted a nice set of chef’s knives and like it was like little things like that and I had all sorts of stuff on my on my board and every single one of them I had done in my life because I put them on the board. And it’s amazing how you can you can affect the outcome of your life by doing those things and like my wife and I do things like you know, when we were stationary, we used to go to open houses in the you know, in to the nice area of town with all the fancy like mansions and stuff like that and we go and look at RV’s before we could actually buy an RV and travel and stuff like that. Right? And it’s this idea that you can affect the outcome of your life by the inputs that you put in. And, you know, it’s it’s powerful thing a lot of people don’t know that they can do it and like I had people tell me I was crazy and –

Martine Kalaw 53:20
Well, yeah, can you not everyone will get it and so, one of the things I was cautious of I suggest to anyone, particularly those who are on this entrepreneurial journey is you don’t have to tell everyone your dreams and your goals, not everyone will get it, not everyone will support you. And it’s only based on their own experiences and their understanding. You know, and so some people will caution you because they think they’re trying to protect you, but it might actually end up holding you back. And so you really want to be mindful of what you say and who you tell your dreams to. Some people are better off telling you their dreams after you actually make it happen, right? Because it’s just you don’t want to. Yeah. So that that’s something I just wanted to add to what you’re saying.

Richard Matthews 54:10
So that’s basically a wrap on our interview Martine, but I do finish every interview with a simple challenge I call the hero’s challenge. That’s actually how you ended up on our show from Gyle Grapone’s interview. And I do this basically, it’s a whole it’s a totally selfish thing that I do so I can get access to stories I might not otherwise find. So my question is simple. Do you have someone in your life or in your network that you think has a cool entrepreneurial story? Who are they? First names are fine, and why do you think they should come share their story with us on The Hero Show?

Martine Kalaw 54:41
Yeah, that’s great. I do have a couple of different people. I will list the one of the first people that comes to mind is someone I just spoke with today. And she is actually someone that does work. She has a show and I think it’s a podcast called Blindish Latina. And she really focuses on individuals who are dealing with disabilities and how she wants to create a space in the corporate world, where more people with disabilities, you know, have a space there, and the can and you can have opportunities in the corporate world. And then the other thing along those lines is she wants to help those and support those individuals to feel like they matter because as a response as a result of their disability, or they oftentimes feel it feels like they don’t matter. And so I actually just had a great session with her where she explained to me why Google meets is much more helpful for someone who’s hearing impaired than Zoom. I had no idea she literally walked me through that and explained it. I’m like, oh my god.

Richard Matthews 55:58
Their … abilities

Martine Kalaw 56:02
I just didn’t know. And so, um, she’s just someone that I think is absolutely incredible. And she and you know, in our past work she had started an organization where she really focused on food banks and, you know, healthy being able to distribute healthy food produce to certain communities. So she’s just doing incredible phenomenal work. And absolutely I would love to connect her to this amazing show.

Richard Matthews 56:35
And what, what was her name?

Martine Kalaw 56:38
Her name is Carolina.

Richard Matthews 56:40
Awesome. So we’ll see if we can connect afterwards and give her an introduction for the show. So thank you for that. And, you know, so now it’s basically time for our send off and comic books. There’s always the crowd who cheers on the hero for their acts of heroism and thanks them for their work. So as we close what I want to do is I want to find out where can people find you? If they want your help in the future? Where can they go to light up the bat signal so to speak and say, Hey, Martine, can you come help me? And more importantly than where they can find you is who are the right types of people to reach out and say, Hey, you know what, I’m, I need your help.

Martine Kalaw 57:14
Absolutely. So we’ll start with if you are an organization and business, you know, a large business, a small midsize business and you’re looking for someone to come and support you and having conversations around diversity, equity, inclusion, particularly in response to the national conversation around you know, racism, I am your person. And if you have, if you’re an organization, a business, a startup, and you are promoting people within your company, well they need training, right? You want to equip them with the skills to be able to be great managers. I’m the person for you. And finally, if you know someone who is stateless or dreamer or is just having challenges with immigration or needs resources. Again, I’m the person that you can have somebody you can reach out to. So the best way to reach out to me is on my website. So if you just type in Martine Kalaw. Hopefully there’s a way that they can, Richard, we can give my

Richard Matthews 58:19
We’ll put that in the show notes.,

Martine Kalaw 58:20
Okay, great. www.martinekalaw.com or www.martinekalawconsulting.com

So, www.martinekalawconsulting.com is where you can get all my information about my consulting and my training. And you can also find me on Twitter @martinekalaw

Richard Matthews 58:34
Awesome. Thank you so very much for coming on and sharing with us. Martine, it’s been fascinating to hear what it is that you do and hear your story. And again, so if you’re one of those companies that’s looking to engage with this natural conversation we’re having about racism today. Make sure you reach out to Martine or if you know someone who is in that situation, right where they are a dreamer or they’re stateless and they’re looking for resources. Make sure you reach out to Martine. Thank you so much. coming on the show today, do you have any final words of wisdom before I hit this stop record button. And

Martine Kalaw 59:05
My final words of wisdom is, you know, don’t be part, don’t focus on the status quo where people right now people are saying, Well, you know, all businesses are failing. This is not a good time for all businesses. There’s a lot of opportunity that still exists right now. And it’s really I think that that you can really, you can really access that if you look for it. And so I think there’s a lot of opportunity, don’t give up hope. Keep going. Keep going on. And I wish you all a lot of success and great health.

Richard Matthews 59:40
Awesome. Thank you. I completely agree. I think we are looking at probably some of the biggest opportunities we’ve ever seen in our life today. So I agree completely. And again, thank you for coming on the show today, Martine.

Martine Kalaw 59:48
Thank you so much, Richard. Bye. Bye, everybody.