If you've ever wondered how a Gen Xer's cynicism or a millennial's idealism can shape the future of an industry, our latest conversation is a must-listen. Join me as I sit down with Shawn Deane and the insightful team from ReEmployAbility, Joanna Jewell, and Katie Loadwick, to dissect the fascinating generational dynamics at play in the workers' compensation sector. We tackle the silent but potent effects of workplace silos and share stories that highlight the unique contributions each generation brings to the table, from the seasoned skepticism of those who have weathered economic storms to the fresh perspectives of newcomers eager to make their mark.
This episode isn't just about understanding generational differences; it's about embracing them and leveraging their potential to drive positive change. We'll regale you with tales of corporate culture's whimsical side, including April Fool's Day pranks and music that resonates across ages, all while pondering how empathy and kindness can be powerful tools for systemic transformation. With our guests' diverse experiences and my own leap to a new professional chapter, we're proof that when generations collide, the result can mean innovation and empathy like never before.
If you've ever wondered how a Gen Xer's cynicism or a millennial's idealism can shape the future of an industry, our latest conversation is a must-listen. Join me as I sit down with Shawn Deane and the insightful team from ReEmployAbility, Joanna Jewell, and Katie Loadwick, to dissect the fascinating generational dynamics at play in the workers' compensation sector. We tackle the silent but potent effects of workplace silos and share stories that highlight the unique contributions each generation brings to the table, from the seasoned skepticism of those who have weathered economic storms to the fresh perspectives of newcomers eager to make their mark.
This episode isn't just about understanding generational differences; it's about embracing them and leveraging their potential to drive positive change. We'll regale you with tales of corporate culture's whimsical side, including April Fool's Day pranks and music that resonates across ages, all while pondering how empathy and kindness can be powerful tools for systemic transformation. With our guests' diverse experiences and my own leap to a new professional chapter, we're proof that when generations collide, the result can mean innovation and empathy like never before.
perspective. Perspective is spelled p e, r, s, p, e, c t I v e perspective. The 30 000 foot view perspective put on someone else's shoes. Perspective can also refer to the state of existing in space or one's view of the world.
Speaker 2:Perspective rea audio space or one's view of the world. Perspective. Rea Audio Reemployability. So when you hear the word silos, what do you think? If you grew up in a more rural area, you may think of a tower sticking up on a farm that holds feed and stuff like that. Militarily, you may be thinking of a pit in the ground that holds a missile. If you're business-minded, you think of individuals working independently with no collaboration. Essentially, a silo mentality is when different groups don't share valuable information with other members of the organization. The silo mindset hurts the unified vision of a business and deters long-term goals from being accomplished. Well, what about generational silos? Do you put generations into different silos? I think to some extent we all do. Well, in this episode of REA Audio, we're going to talk about generational perspectives, how they may relate to workers' comp as well and, no joke, we're going to have a little April Fool's fun too.
Speaker 2:Sean Dean, my friend, thank you for coming back on REA Audio. It's been well gosh. It's probably been over a year since you joined us and I had such a good time. We talked for so long. Last time we actually made it into like two episodes and I swore I was going to have you back faster, and then one thing happens, and another thing happens, and now it's been over a year and you've had some changes and we've had some changes here and it's just really great to see you. I really enjoyed our conversation last time, and so thanks for joining me on REA Audio.
Speaker 4:It's my absolute pleasure. And, todd, you have the best radio slash podcast voice in the work comp industry, so any opportunity I get to be on your program it's my pleasure.
Speaker 2:Now I'm blushing. Thank you so much, but speaking of podcasts, you are doing some different things now than you were last time we talked, so why don't you let us know where your professional life has taken you and tell us about your new podcast as well?
Speaker 4:Sure thing, be happy to catch you up. So I had been general counsel in Amitros for a little over four years and they're a fantastic, amazing, mission-driven company. But sometimes life just puts opportunities in your path that you can't pass up. And I was lucky enough to meet some really incredibly caring folks at a company called J29 that I've been out with going on four or five months now and they've primarily been in the healthcare, governmental healthcare space, but we're branching out into workers' compensation with Medicare set-asides and Medicare secondary payer compliance and work comp and other lines of insurance. So I'm there. And then I had the good fortune to meet folks at the Kind Souls Foundation and they were looking to start up a podcast as a platform to get empathy and kindness out in the claims world, and I raised my hand so I have the Compassion, kind Souls podcast going. So, yeah, lots of stuff, lots of good stuff happening, very, very blessed.
Speaker 2:That's excellent. What do you do on the podcast? What sort of things? Who are you interviewing and how's that, how's that going?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so you'll probably be getting a note from me pretty soon to be on it. It's folks who, anybody who's within the workers' compensation space, who is making a difference for injured individuals or the industry at large. I'm having on to discuss primarily their ideas around compassion and kindness and workers' compensation.
Speaker 2:Well, and that's why I loved talking to you last time and love talking to you now is because of your perspective on the workers' compensation world. It lines up so much with what we try to do here at Reemployability and really that's the overall theme of of REA audio this year is perspective on different things and when we talked last time it was for whatever. It's funny when you do these. Sometimes people say things and you may not have even remembered saying it, and it was very impactful for me because it got me thinking um, we're about the same age and you had mentioned in one just in passing. As a Gen Xer, I'm pretty cynical about things and we didn't really talk much about that comment at all, but as I got, thinking about it.
Speaker 2:I'm like boy, I'm that age group as well and I do. I feel like I'm inherently cynical about things, more so than what some other generations are. And as I was thinking about what we should theme the perspective focus on for this episode, I thought you know what? How about we do generational perspectives? So I'd like to ask you, sean, like why do you think it is that Gen Xers tend to be more cynical than younger generations are?
Speaker 4:Yeah well, first let me just say you look far younger and better looking than me despite maybe our similarities with our birth date.
Speaker 2:If I grew the goatee man, I would be 10 years old.
Speaker 4:I mean, that's a fantastic question and I do now that you've refreshed my recollection. I do recall making that and it was probably in the context of, I think sometimes in workers' compensation we can get ourselves in a little bit of a mental trap in that we look at workers' comp depending on what we're doing, what service we're providing, whether it's on the claim side or on the ancillary services side is an adversarial process, or on the ancillary services side is an adversarial process. And I think if you're coming at it from a generational perspective, where you happen to be maybe a little bit cynical because of your roots and your upbringing, you can fall into that mode of thinking of you know it's us versus the injured worker and I'm just such a big proponent of thinking the opposite way in a much more collaborative mode. Why I get in that trap? No man, I don't know, and I'm not a sociologist or a generational psychologist, but I think. But you know, I think. You know I can only speak from my perspective, obviously.
Speaker 4:You know I was fiercely independent from a young age and you know I was the classic like latchkey kid. You know, out the door in the morning home, you know, maybe when the sun was going down and you know a lot of my. I'm very lucky that my parents stayed married and are still married, but, you know, came from an upbringing where everyone's parents were getting divorced. We were all just incredibly independent. It's not like our parents didn't love us, we just were kind of on our own in the wild and I know that's really different. So I think it created, um, there's some good components to that. There's the fact that we're all self. You know, at least I think if you're, if you were to generalize a generation, you know Gen X is, we've been self starters. Uh, we're super independent in the workplace, we love autonomy.
Speaker 4:But on the other side, you know, I remember growing up I graduated in the late 90s, you know, at the height of the Gen X, like slacker era, like we were called slackers. Yeah, we were, we were referred to as apathetic. The music we listened to was just full of angst. And I think there was also I mean not again, I'm not an expert in politics or anything I think there was just a lot of growing awareness and distrust for institutions, whether they were educational institutions or in the political sphere or in government. And we were, we were all just a little bit cynical.
Speaker 4:I at least feel things weren't looked at through rose colored glasses like they might have been in the 50s and you know I can't speak to the counterculture and you know boomers who were in the 60s and 70s but I just think there was a little bit of disillusionment. But I mean, I think it's great that you're covering this ground because it naturally lends itself to further awareness in the workplace, especially in the workers' compensation realm, where you're dealing with people, and you're dealing with people who've gone through these horrible instances in their life, depending on the severity of their claim, but I'm always cognizant of generational differences because I mean, it's just huge in so many different ways. I'll stop talking. I feel like I'm rambling a little bit.
Speaker 2:No, it's really interesting and it's, you know, like I said, I think I could ask that question to a lot of other Gen Xers and we would probably say very similar things. So I graduated in college in 95. So I've probably got you by a few years, but we're in that same era and it's funny I go through. Music is such a like a foundation, I think, for every generation, right. And so I go through my phases now in the music I listen to. Like in those days I was a big Metallica listener, like I loved Metallica. It made me so angry. When they came out with the Metallica album in the early 90s and everybody started listening to it, I was like, no, they were cooler back in the late 80s, right. But like, even now I go through my phases and I went through my Blink-182 phase a couple months ago and I'm kind of going through my Alice in Chains phase now.
Speaker 2:And when you listen to that music from that era, it is, I mean, and it's not poppy, I was more alternative. So the pop music was the pop music. But I think that alternative music is what really highlights what our generation was about and a lot of that music is just like gosh, you know, disillusionment was about and and a lot of, a lot of that music is is just like, gosh, you know, disillusionment Exactly Like like for sure. You mentioned the boomers. I think they were very idealistic and they were our parents and and our generation was like, yeah, it's not really like that, you know, and and I think we're more realistic um, in the way, totally.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and I think the, the, the, the. You know we were one of the first generations to, I mean, really grow up on tv and I think in the at least, depending on where you're at on the gen x spectrum, like the height of it, was a lot of tv that was where the protagonist was super sarcastic and kind of angsty, uh, and a lot of that spilled over into just how, I think, folks of that generation carry themselves. But it's important. I mean it works in some instances, but in others, I think, especially for a younger generation that I'm inspired by, because they seem to hold ideals that we didn't have at least my generation, I say we, you and me, todd, didn't have.
Speaker 4:And I think they they look for things in their work life that we don't, and you know I'm trying to take a page out of their playbook. I think they really are looking for altruism in helping people. I mean it's right up If you read some of the research, it's right at the top of the list when they talk about job satisfaction and we never thought about like work life balance. That wasn't even a phrase that was used. You know that's something you know much, much more recent. But I guess, to get back to my train of thought, I think different generations can learn from each other to better ourselves as a collective in an organization, because, I mean, I can't go around being, you know, the classic late 90s angsty, sarcastic person. It just doesn't work.
Speaker 2:No, it doesn't work. It's easy to slip into, though I do that all the time I catch myself and it sounds like you're very intentional about trying to see things through other people's filters and and and having done what you've done, you know, as as an attorney in workers' comp and the other things. So do you see that other generations maybe approach workers comp like? Take injured workers, for example?
Speaker 2:if you had one that was a boomer, one that was a gen x or one that was a millennial? Do you see them approaching their injury or their experience in recovery differently? And again, I know it's hard to generalize and I'm not hard to generalize.
Speaker 4:I mean I think you could problem. You could try. I, you know, I tend to see it more. The people who've been in the industry longer you know someone 20, 30, 35, 40 years might be a little bit more, uh, cynical than someone, let's say, who's only been only been in it two or three years as a rosy-cheeked adjuster at a desk.
Speaker 4:I love the energy of the younger generation and I feel like in the workers' compensation space we can capitalize on that in a much better way.
Speaker 4:I mean, we're constantly talking about, oh this, you know, this great work shortage that's coming, this huge wave of boomers who are looking at retirement in our space and what are we going to do about that? And there's all these, you know, huge cohorts of young people who are out there looking for jobs to help that help people. And I'm the first to always tell folks I'm even telling my 13 and 16 year old kids hey, if you want to find a job where you can help people and make an impact in someone's life, come do workers compensation. I actually think I have my son pretty close to wanting to do something, probably law school first. But you know, and I think we can, as a Gen Xer or even a baby boomer. We can sort of pivot our viewpoint to sort of sing not to use your music analogy to their tune and recruit them in a much more meaningful way and engage them as colleagues when they come on board.
Speaker 2:Yeah, All right. Well, I've got some trivia questions I'm going to ask. Well, they're not really trivia questions there's. There's some kind of fun things. We just had April Fool's Day. I'm not a big April Fool's Day fan. It's too much work for me to figure out good gags and then have them bomb. There's my cynicism there, right so, but I can remember some really good corporate gags in the past. I don't know if you remember when Burger King came out with like hamburger flavored toothpaste that was. That was a big one quite a few years ago. Do you have any favorite April Fool's gags that you recall?
Speaker 4:Oh my gosh, Let me think. Probably none that I'd want to indicate on a public podcast or your viewership with so one, that all any prank that always impresses me and I'm originally from Southern California but I've been, I'm in Massachusetts and been back here for the majority of my life now is, and your viewers can Google this at home. I know every year the folks, the super smart folks at MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, do a prank and I don't know when it's around. I don't know if it coincides with April 1st I don't think it does but I believe one year they were able to get an automobile up on top of the building that overlooks the Charles River. I don't know how they did it. They're super smart, they're engineers, but the fact that they were able to safely get a car up on a roof is hats off to them. It's pretty impressive.
Speaker 2:Yeah, those types of things are fun. I like it when corporations don't take themselves so seriously that they actually do something kind of fun on April 1st. So, okay, a couple more questions, and this kind of goes back to the generational thing. Um, first one, and there's some, a few few music things in here. When I say 60s music, what word comes to your mind? Oh, hendrix. Okay, yeah, that's good, that's good. Okay, I'll be. I'm gonna be asking some of the millennials in the office here and gonna be asking some some older folks as well to see what they say. What I think is interesting and I'm going to kind of blow my point here but my, uh, my daughter looks at 90s music and she calls it oldies and that makes me very angry oh, dagger in the heart, doesn't it I?
Speaker 2:know, but she listens to it, which I'm very proud of. Um, okay, so, hendrix, I like that. Okay, uh, name. Name a Taylor Swift song Sean.
Speaker 4:Oh my gosh, Okay, hold on, my daughter would kill me if I got this one wrong. Lavender Haze.
Speaker 2:Okay, I don't know that that's a right or wrong answer.
Speaker 4:We're going to have to double check. I'm pretty sure it's Lavender Haze.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, all right. How old is your daughter?
Speaker 4:She's 13 years old.
Speaker 2:Okay, so is she still a big Swifty.
Speaker 4:Huge Swifty Massive and she's going to see Olivia Rodrigo coming up. Very cool. Huge Olivia Rodrigo fan.
Speaker 2:Nice. See, that's fun. I like it when they can bring us into their world. I remember my first stadium concerts. It certainly wasn't Billy Joel or Taylor Swift, it was probably the Monsters of Rock in Buffalo, new York, at the old Rich Stadium.
Speaker 4:Oh, that would have been great.
Speaker 2:But I hear.
Speaker 4:Every time I hear an Olivia, Rodrigo or Taylor Swift song, I'm like, oh my gosh. You know my daughters, Emma, you know, have you checked out this or that band? Because they're definitely pulling from influences, you know, yes, From here to there.
Speaker 2:So yeah, yeah, that's fun to hear and as many and you may agree or disagree. You probably will agree because your daughter loves Taylor Swift, but you know there are worse people for kids to have as idols right now and I think personally that she is brilliant in the way she's marketing herself and I think overall it's a good message that she has, and so there could be worse things that kids are following.
Speaker 4:For sure. And how brilliant is she that she did this tour. You can't even really buy tickets for it. People are mortgaging their homes. And then she releases it on the big screen and everyone flocks to the box office. She was front row with her friends dancing. It was like a concert within a movie theater.
Speaker 2:And then she puts it on on-demand and we pay money to get it on on-demand. So she is. She's brilliant. Yeah, very smart, okay, last question Sean you ready for this? Sure, what's Jenny's number?
Speaker 4:Oh, are we going to the so sorry hold on. Are we going to the eighties? Here Could be Is it 8-6-7-5-3-0-9? You got it, my friend.
Speaker 2:Good job. I saw that on TikTok, I hate to admit it. They did a challenge where they went around an office and they asked everybody what Jenny's number was. And I'm going to be asking the folks here in the office and we're going to see who knows it and who doesn't.
Speaker 4:I froze up for a second.
Speaker 2:I was I went to it.
Speaker 4:I went to the seventies and went no, that couldn't be it. Woo, I got it.
Speaker 2:You got it. That's great, so remind us again the name of the podcast that you're doing and where can people find it.
Speaker 4:It's a little bit of a plan where it's comp passion.
Speaker 2:Comp passion.
Speaker 4:I like that, yeah the word compassion, but but with C-O-M-P sort of capitalized as it's emphasized in there. Yeah, and how often do you post? We release an episode once a month and we just released our March episode today. Excellent.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I will check that out on my way home today. Compassion, I'm looking forward to hearing it. That's great.
Speaker 4:Thanks so much and I'm looking forward to having you on the podcast as well.
Speaker 2:Thank you, that would be a lot of fun, sean. We definitely have to get back together on a different topic again soon. Don't let it be a year and a half before we do this again.
Speaker 4:Most definitely, it's been my pleasure and I appreciate the opportunity to be on your show.
Speaker 2:So how did April Fool's Day start? Well, according to USA Today, while there are some similar holidays in ancient Rome and Britain, the eldest and tidiest historical reference comes in a Flemish poem from 1561 in which a nobleman sends his servant on a fool's errand on April 1st. April Fool's seems a little lower key this year. I don't know about you. The one joke I got was from a company called Baskin-Lather. They sent me an email that said my debit card was charged $317.09. Kind of funny, maybe. I mean I can see how maybe that might have freaked a few people out. I wonder what kind of response they got.
Speaker 1:This prank is called the fruit fly. First, take a paper towel and put a raisin in it. Then say to someone whoa did you see that huge fly? Squash the fake fly with the paper towel, quickly show the raisin and then eat it. Done right, this will be a smashing success.
Speaker 2:Joanna Jewell and Katie Lodwick are both employees at Reemployability. Now they have different roles and represent different generations. Their perspective was enlightening. Joanna is 100% millennial and Katie is kind of a hybrid, born on the cusp of both Gen X and a millennial. After my first question, katie is the first to answer and Joanna, the millennial, is second. If you were able to think of your perspective on the world and bring it down into like one word, what is your one word perspective of life and the world?
Speaker 5:I would. I would just, if I really had to have just one word, which is very hard, I would say opportunity. I think, where we are right now as humans, we have the opportunity to do things right or we have the opportunity to blow it and ruin everything the economy, the environment, for future generations or, you know, our kids', kids.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah, can I use two words, of course.
Speaker 2:You want to be a millennial because you can't follow direction Right.
Speaker 3:Well, I think this perfectly encapsulated its tarnished idealism, which actually really goes with what you said, katie, because I do think that at the beginning, millennials were like so hopeful and there was so much change and you know, the Internet was new and everything was so exciting, and then it just felt like, no matter how hard you try, everything kind of collapsed around you, and so there's this sense of a little bit of hopelessness Maybe that's the one word, okay there's this tarnished sense of a little bit of hopelessness, maybe that's the one word, okay is there's?
Speaker 2:there's this tarnished sense of idealism. So I feel like, like so my parents are boomers and I've we we were kind of talking about boomers and how they were, you know the 60s generation, and they were very idealistic and and I think that kind of led a little bit into the cynicism of gen x. And I almost feel like, as you get older, obviously you're, you know, when you're younger you think you're going to take on the world and you're going to change everything, and then reality kind of comes in a little bit and and then when you get older, then it's you have a totally different outlook. Do you all feel like you're going through that process as you've grown, both being from different generations, have? Do you feel like your outlook, or your one word, or your, your phrase of your outlook on life, has it changed since you've gone from high school to after high school to where you are now?
Speaker 5:I think my outlook is just more realistic. I still feel like we have a lot of potential, though I think that the potential to do things better and get better is still there. I think I'm more realistic about it though.
Speaker 3:I think that I'm a little bit younger than you and I feel like in this age bracket there's a lot of hopelessness, because we were in our young to like early teens when 9-11 happened.
Speaker 3:That completely changed our worldview, and then, when we were getting into the workforce at 08, the entire economy collapsed, and so you had these years of like if you go to college, get a good job, you're going to have the life that you want. But that's not what happened for the majority of millennials, like. In fact, we were never really able to like start our careers the way we would have wanted to because of the economic collapse, and so there are people who graduated from college with tens of thousands of dollars in debt, who are never going to be have the same opportunities that their parents had, and so I think there is a sobering kind of reality of the life that largely, I feel like millennials see that the life that we have is not at all how we grew up. I feel like most of us are going to end up in in worse straits than what our parents were in.
Speaker 2:Sean and I were talking a little bit about the potential of the younger generation, of the millennials, and then those that are actually coming after the millennials, which are called Gen X and Gen Z.
Speaker 3:Gen Z and Alpha.
Speaker 2:One of the things that Sean said that I thought was interesting was generations that are younger than Generation X tend to be more people oriented. You're, what it is that you expect out of your job is different than what Generation X expects. We were laughing because here at Reemployability we have Wednesdays where we go fly kites and we have puppy day and we have all kinds of stuff like that, which is great for those people that gravitate towards that and it helps reset their day and helps them to be more productive, whereas Sean and I in Gen X we're just like, just let us do our work right, and so we're much more cynical about that. And of course, it's hard to overgeneralize. I know there are people that feel differently than we do, but the whole point of that is that we kind of feel like because millennials and Gen Zs tend to be more people-oriented, they really have much more of an opportunity to change things. What do you think about that?
Speaker 3:I think it's a double-edged sword, because I do feel to some extent that you're right. However, I feel like there's so much of an uphill battle with the entrenched system that I mean we can try individuals, can try to, you know, participate in puppy day and like, do the fun things. But, um, in order for things to really really change, I think it'll take systematic, large, systematic change. So, whether that comes through legislation or just like differences in how, like corporations, like large businesses, work, I think that's really what's going to need to happen, because really, the world before 2000 is no longer the world. It's not the same world anymore.
Speaker 3:So we're essentially living in a society that has old structures that don't really work for the new people, and so I do think, like you know, like we do have, let's fly, a kite day. But I think that's the little bit of change that we're starting to see, because people realize we've seen our grandparents work their whole life and end up with nothing. We've seen like our parents work so hard that, like you know, some of them are alcoholics, some of them have, like financial issues, they get into gambling, there's all of these things that are very, very prevalent and, because millennials are aware of it. They're like we don't want to live the same life, but the thing is that the structure is still in place.
Speaker 2:That makes sense.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Katie. So which part of you is it the Gen X part of you or the millennial part of you, that has that outlook?
Speaker 5:When it comes to work. Well, I can tell them a mix of both, because I've been here now over 12 years, which isn't necessarily a millennial trait that's more of a Gen X trait, but at the same time I do need more of that interaction that a millennial would need. So I can tell that I am on the cusp, although some of my opinions, I also think, or our opinions are just because we live in the US. I think if you were interviewing two people from Denmark, their answers might be completely different. And I've never US. I think if you were interviewing two people from Denmark, their answers might be completely different. And I've never lived in Europe. I have a couple close friends that at least had a couple shorter stints living in Germany or opportunities to live in Switzerland just because of spouses being in IT work. So I know that also kind of can change people's perspectives, just because it's so different, just from what I hear. So and I've never lived in Europe so interesting.
Speaker 2:Okay, you ready for some trivia?
Speaker 5:Sure.
Speaker 2:All right, here we go. When I say 60s music, what one word comes to your mind?
Speaker 5:suck it out, beatles.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's good Name a Taylor Swift song.
Speaker 3:Ready for it? Invisible. String okay Name a Taylor Swift song Ready for it, Invisible.
Speaker 2:String Okay, ready for the last one, and I don't know how I'm going to do this because you're both sitting here and it might give the answer away. I guess I will ask Joanna first. What's Jenny's number?
Speaker 3:Oh, 867-5309.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, see, did you know, katie I?
Speaker 5:was born in 1982,. Yes, okay, oh, okay. See, did you know, katie? I was born in 1982, yes, okay, good.
Speaker 2:And I stole that from TikTok because I actually saw a lady walk around an office and everybody who was Gen X just threw that number out and anybody that was younger than Gen X was like who's Jenny?
Speaker 4:So good. Good for you, Joanna.
Speaker 2:Nice, you have some taste in culture.
Speaker 1:This prank is called the mayo is yogurt. The next time you have an empty mayonnaise jar, clean it out and fill it with plain yogurt. When someone enters the kitchen, let them catch you eating directly from the jar. Done well, this prank may get you a few yuck, yucks.
Speaker 2:So here's what I learned from my conversations with Sean, katie and Joanna there's hope. There's hope because we're all more or less the same. I don't think we give ourselves enough credit for that. A little over a year ago I had a great conversation with Mike May. He's the account manager team lead here at Reemployability and served a tour in the army in Afghanistan Recently. Mike and I were talking about some of his other experiences in the army and he mentioned.
Speaker 2:One of the coolest parts was how people from all over the country with very different perspectives on life and in very different economic conditions truly have a lot in common when you put people in situations that require teamwork and camaraderie. Every generation has thought the upcoming generation was going to ruin the world. I think if we all try to look through their lenses, we can support their new ideas and even their old ideas, because maybe they can implement them differently than we did. If you work in the workers' comp world, try seeing injured workers and even others in your company as more like you than different. What would you really think or feel if you were experiencing the same type of situation? We're more the same than you think, and intentionally trying to see that makes it easier to empathize and then gain relationships. We're all just people trying to make it living our lives with our own perspectives. Thanks for listening to REA Audio. Please make sure to follow us on spotify or apple podcast or stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts. We appreciate you. Have a great rest of your week.