What if the future of leadership isn’t about scaling faster or competing harder, but about finding empathy and remembering what it truly means to be human?
Aubrey Morgan Yee invites us into a radically different way of thinking about leadership, collaboration, and the futures we’re actively creating. She is a cultural strategist, narrative practitioner, and empathy-centered futurist whose work bridges emotional intelligence, systems thinking, and Indigenous wisdom.
After experiencing profound personal collapse, Aubrey rebuilt her life around empathy, presence, and purpose. That lived experience now informs her work with leaders and changemakers seeking to grow their impact without losing their humanity.
We explore the idea of radical collaboration rooted in Indigenous frameworks that teach us new ways of understanding time, trust, leadership, and technology. We also talk about alternative and preferred futures, and how imagination is not a luxury but a leadership responsibility. Aubrey shares what her personal collapse taught her about empathetic leadership, how emotional presence and cultural storytelling shape resilient organizations, and why the stories we choose to live by can either limit us or unlock entirely new realities. This is a conversation for leaders ready to question old myths, collaborate rather than compete, and help build futures that are not just more effective but more humane.
To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Listen in for…
- The Indigenous frameworks that teach us new ways of understanding, and how Indigenous cultures are among the most technologically advanced.
- How to navigate fear of change and choose to co-create instead.
- What pronoia means and how it is the antidote to what is keeping systems stuck.
- Why emotional presence and cultural storytelling shape resilient organizations.
“’Indigenous mind’ is just a way of being. It’s a very grounded understanding that there are ways of thinking about what it means to be human, what it means to be a leader, what it means to be in business.” — Aubrey Morgan Yee
Episode References:
The Empathy Edge:
- Dr. Michelle Zhou: Empathic AI is Real, and It’s Here – But We Need Everyone Involved!
- Dr. Cori Lathan: Benevolent Cyborgs and a Techno-Optimist’s View on Technology
About Aubrey Morgan Yee, Ph.D, Indigenous Politics and Alternative Futures:
Aubrey Morgan Yee is a cultural strategist, narrative practitioner, and empathy-centered futurist with a PhD in Indigenous Politics and Alternative Futures. After overcoming alcoholism and burnout, Aubrey rebuilt her life around empathy, presence, and purpose—now guiding others to do the same. Her work bridges emotional intelligence, systems thinking, and Indigenous wisdom to support leaders and changemakers in building more compassionate, regenerative futures.
She’s led cultural transformation initiatives for organizations like Culture Hack Labs and Project Biome, founded the rewilding sanctuary Hokuao Farm & Temple on O‘ahu, and hosts the Beloved Futures podcast. Her book, Our Beloved Futures, is a call to reimagine what it means to be fully human, to face and metabolize the toxic systems of modernity.
Aubrey brings a rare blend of vulnerability, strategy, and deep presence—offering practical insights for leaders seeking to grow their impact without losing their humanity.
Connect with Aubrey:
Our Beloved Futures: ourbelovedfutures.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/aubrey-yee-phd-110153186
Instagram: instagram.com/aubrey.morgan.yee
Beloved Futures: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beloved-futures/id1681375129
Connect with Maria:
Get Maria’s books: Red-Slice.com/books
Hire Maria to speak: Red-Slice.com/Speaker-Maria-Ross
Take the LinkedIn Learning Courses! Leading with Empathy and Balancing Empathy, Accountability, and Results as a Leader
LinkedIn: Maria Ross
Instagram: @redslicemaria
Facebook: Red Slice
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Maria Ross 00:03
Welcome to the Empathy Edge podcast, the show that proves why cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive. I’m your host, Maria Ross. I’m a speaker, author, mom, facilitator, and empathy advocate, and here you’ll meet trailblazing leaders and executives, authors and experts who embrace empathy to achieve radical success. We discuss all facets of empathy, from trends and research to the future of work to how to heal societal divisions and collaborate more effectively. Our goal is to redefine success and prove that empathy isn’t just good for society, it’s great for business. What if the future of leadership isn’t about scaling faster or competing harder, but about finding empathy and remembering what it truly means to be human? My guest today, Aubrey Morgan Yee, invites us into a radically different way of thinking about leadership, collaboration, and the futures we’re actively creating, whether we realize it or not. Aubrey is a cultural strategist, narrative practitioner, and empathy-centered futurist with a PhD in indigenous politics and alternative futures, whose work bridges emotional intelligence, systems thinking, and indigenous wisdom. After experiencing profound personal collapse through alcoholism and burnout, Aubrey rebuilt her life around empathy, presence, and purpose. That lived experience now informs her work with leaders and change makers seeking to grow their impact without losing their humanity. She’s led cultural transformation initiatives with organizations like Culture Hack Labs and Project Biome founded the Rewilding Sanctuary Hokuao Farm and Temple on Oahu, and hosts The Beloved Futures podcast. She’s also the author of Our Beloved Futures, a powerful call to reimagine what it means to metabolize the toxic systems of modernity and build something more compassionate and regenerative in their place. In our conversation, we explore the idea of radical collaboration rooted in indigenous frameworks that teach us new ways of understanding time, trust, leadership, and even technology. Aubrey challenges the notion that innovation only lives in modern tools, sharing how indigenous cultures are among the most technologically advanced through their deep relationship with land, rhythm, and human ingenuity. We also talk about alternative and preferred futures, and how imagination is not a luxury but a leadership responsibility. We unpack how to navigate fear of change and co-create instead, including the concept of pronoia, the belief that the world is conspiring for us as an antidote to the paranoia that keeps systems stuck. Aubrey shares what her personal collapse taught her about empathetic leadership. How emotional presence and cultural storytelling shape resilient organizations, and why the stories we choose to live by can either limit us or unlock entirely new realities. This is a conversation for leaders ready to question old myths, collaborate over compete, and help build futures that are not just more effective, but more empathetic and humane. Take a listen. Big welcome to Aubrey Morgan Yee. Thank you for coming on to The Empathy Edge. I just read your bio to folks, and I love that you call yourself a cultural strategist, a narrative practitioner, and an empathy-centered futurist, so goodness, that’s a lot. So, tell us your story, and how you got into this work, and what you even call this work.
Aubrey Morgan Yee 03:50
Yeah, you know, my husband has a hard time describing it sometimes, too. So, you’re not alone, don’t worry. You know, I call this work Empowered Futures. So, for me, I’ve been many things in my life, I’ve been everything from an entrepreneur. I ran a leadership development foundation for a while. I’ve been, you know, a writer recently with my book, but I also got my doctorate in future studies. So, some people don’t even know what that is. It was in the political science department, but it’s alternative futures, and I paired it with indigenous politics, and really what that is, is the the desire and ability to help people, groups, organizations, governments? Some people do it in the corporate world, but I’ve focused more on like the social change realm, envision at plan for and then enact preferred futures. So, like, what is the world we’re aiming to create, and have like a focused area of study that actually helps us to, in collective ways, co-vision, co-dream, and then co-craft pathways towards those futures that we’re, we’re seeing. So that’s kind of the driving force, and it’s for me helping people remember that we do that, that we’re really good at that as humans, that imagination is a superpower, and our ability to imagine new ways of being new. World from a place of love and empathy, like that’s all we need to create magic, so you know it’s sometimes it’s facilitation, sometimes it’s writing, sometimes it’s leadership development. It shows up in different ways, sometimes it’s consulting with organizations to help them craft their visions, but it’s all from that place of really believing that our imagination is a superpower, that when we come from love and empathy, we can build really beautiful futures together.
Maria Ross 05:23
So, oh my gosh, amen. Sister, I love it all. Yeah, and I love the fact that you know you did study into futures, and what a time to be well versed in that, you know, as study after study is coming out about reminding us of the human skills that are our advantage in the age of AI, and that in the good scenario, AI is taking the doing and the tasks that drain us from that work and leave us more space and openness and
Aubrey Morgan Yee 05:56
exactly
Maria Ross 05:57
time for the things that we naturally are better at doing, and that we’re gifted with doing. So, what? At times, for your background and expertise, what a moment you’re meeting right now, as we kind of get into this. What is your view on that? Where has the role of technology come into play to either unleash that potential in us as leaders and as human beings or hindered it.
Aubrey Morgan Yee 06:22
Oh my gosh, there’s so many things I could say on that. I’ll start with lots to say on that topic, but my one of my mentor and beloved PhD advisor, Dr. Jim Daters, and really well-known futurist in the field, he used to always say full unemployment, that’s the goal, and this one we were talking about AI, maybe 15 years ago, and he was like, he’s been thinking about it for much longer, but he said, you know, look, if there’s a way in which we can have, like you said, this technology that takes the mundane tasks that maybe we don’t want to have to deal with off of our plates, and then we can go back to sort of a renaissance of like poetry and art and surfing, or whatever it is that you love to do. Yeah, it’s like, so this fear of losing jobs is tied to a world in which we have to work to survive, and so if we shift that mindset to something else, then something else becomes available. I think one of the main issues around technology, and this is where I’m really interested in helping more people in the collective consciousness, like in the wider public, reawaken their imaginative capacity, is that the way AI is being brought out into the world is to reinforce toxic systems that aren’t helping the average person, right. So, it’s to create profit for big corporations, it’s to fund and fuel systems that don’t actually liberate people, right. So, what would it look like if AI was in service to, you know, people and their liberation and their ability to live more richer, fuller, fulfilling lives, so you have to question the genesis of the technology and where it’s coming from and who’s controlling how it’s being rolled out into the world, except the technology itself can do so many different things, right? So
Maria Ross 07:51
it is, and I’ve had many AI innovators on this show. Someone that’s coming to mind is Michelle Zhao, from she’s the founder and CEO of a company called Juji, which creates empathic AI solutions for industries and companies where they don’t have enough people, and it’s instead of being about pattern matching, it’s about discovering the anomalies, and got, you know, things like college guidance counselors or things of that nature that can really just help probe people with the right questions to find their own path, right.
Aubrey Morgan Yee 08:23
Yep,
Maria Ross 08:23
and I remember, you know, before I started talking to all these AI folks, I tend to be a Luddite, I’m a late adopter, even though I worked in tech for many years. Yeah, and I’ve been the one that’s been like, ooh, I don’t know, and she was the one that kind of turned me around, her and another woman I interviewed, Corey Lathan, who calls herself a techno optimist,
Aubrey Morgan Yee 08:41
yes,
Maria Ross 08:41
they got me convinced of we all have to get involved with this technology, because if we don’t, the bad actors take over.
Aubrey Morgan Yee 08:49
I think that’s very true, and if
Maria Ross 08:51
we want to ensure that it’s embedded for the good of humanity, then all of us should be jumping in and trying to, you know, populate the learning models and doing all the 100% Yeah, so I love learning
Aubrey Morgan Yee 09:02
from us, you know, they’re learning from us as we learn with them. So, if we’re approaching them with empathetic relational ways of being, then we change the actual way that the technology operates,
Maria Ross 09:12
for sure. And, yeah, not leaving it to, you know, the reason there is bias, the reason that there’s the challenges there are, is because only a small subset of people have been involved in the creation and the population of these tools and technologies, and so the more that we can get involved and say, well, no, there’s another way, there’s ethics we can talk about, there’s values we can talk about, the better it’ll be for all of us. So I want to, you know, kind of riffing off of that, I want to talk a little bit about your work with indigenous frameworks and what that tells us about technology, time, trust, leadership. Explain to us how those worlds fit together and what maybe a modern leader listening to this, who might be about to change the podcast. Because they think this is going to go woo woo. Tell us, how it actually really fits together for the benefit of leaders and organizations.
Aubrey Morgan Yee 10:07
Yeah, absolutely. Well, so you know, indigenous mind is just a way of being. I grew up in Hawaii, so that’s where it, you know, I think for me it’s a very grounding understanding that there are ways of thinking about what it means to be human, what it means to be a leader, what it means to be in business. What you know, a Native Hawaiian friend of mine, who’s an amazing leader, come well at you know, he was sharing with me because he now runs the Hawaii Office of Innovation at the University of Hawaii, and he’s doing it from an indigenous perspective, and he said, you know, our ancestors had incredible technologies, the Hawaiian Palace, Iolani Palace, one of the first places to have electricity in the whole United States, so there’s not like a separation between technology and indigenous ways of thinking, and indigenous ways of being are technologies, right? So they’re just earth-based technologies, they’re ways of understanding how to work with the natural landscape that we’ve been given, and our connection to earth, and our understanding of our capacity as earthlings, so I think there’s a way in which thinking of them as separate, it’s not actually separate, they’re one in the same, and so leadership itself, when it’s empathetic and adaptive, is coming from that place of understanding the interconnectivity of all of us, right, so that we’re actually, we’re not separate, we’re actually all interconnected, and we’re coming from that perspective of seeing that interconnectivity as a strength and our ability to collaborate, so for example, in the Hawaiian way of being, for many years was sustainable with very little outside contact, because they had a system of agriculture called the Ahu Pua, and it was from mountains to the sea, and each part of the island was broken up into a pie-shaped structure that was based on watersheds, everyone had their piece, so if you manage, say, the banana patches, and someone else managed the fish farming down at the ocean, and you traded between each other, so each person had their area of specialization and expertise, and then there was a leader, or an elite, or a chief that oversaw that whole operation, but if they weren’t doing a good job, people could leave and move, so there was a way it was democratic as well, so like, if you didn’t like what was happening, you could move, but there was a collaboration that was happening that was beautiful and elegant, and played to everybody’s strengths and their responsibility, and allowed for this sustainability that was close to 1000 years, supporting what they believe may have been a similar number of people who currently live in the state, so if you think about that level of efficiency and capacity with very little outside input in the most isolated islands in the world, there’s something happening there that’s a deeper intelligence that I think is important for leaders to pay attention to.
Maria Ross 12:30
I love it. I mean, especially that idea of every, every person, every player owning their part, and you know, empathy is the fuel that enables all those people to understand each other and see things from that other perspective and be willing to find common ground or find an alternative way to accomplish something rather than this is me and mine, right, and I only care about me and mine, but to be able to look at the bigger picture and say, hey, we’re all working on this together, we all don’t have to be the same because we can’t, we wouldn’t be able to bring different strengths and perspectives to the table to actually accomplish what we need to accomplish, and that’s the whole underpinning of, of why diversity works in an organization.
Aubrey Morgan Yee 13:13
Yeah,
Maria Ross 13:14
having those differences is great, but you can’t stop there, because if you don’t have empathy, you don’t want to understand the differences, you don’t want to understand the other points of view, so you need that, you know, it’s like it’s the lubricant, it’s the fuel that makes it all the fascia, right? Exactly, yeah, the fascia, I love that.
Aubrey Morgan Yee 13:32
Yeah,
Maria Ross 13:33
so I want to talk a little bit, because you had, you have a personal experience, and I know that you have talked about this personal collapse and what it taught you about empathetic leadership and starting again. Would you mind sharing that with
Aubrey Morgan Yee 13:49
us? Yeah, so like there’s been a couple, which one would it be? Each one, yeah, yeah, no, maybe the most recent in like moving from my, my last position and becoming sober and that whole experience. Yeah, I mean, that was one of the most recent collapses. Becoming alcohol-free was a really beautiful understanding of the ways in which my actual hyper empathy of really feeling the world and feeling in some ways unable to manage and cope with feeling all that was happening around me, and using alcohol as a numbing agent for that, coming through that, and realizing that there were other ways that I could use, you know, breath and the ability to really look at what’s happening in the world from a perspective of like my own inner safety and sanctity, and not needing to use outside, whether it’s alcohol, social media, whatever it is that you might be using to kind of numb out, there’s so much happening right now, especially in this moment, we’re just totally overwhelmed with information, so for me it was just a really like taking that out of the picture and saying, okay, what is it that I need to be whole within myself and able to bridge this gap and face the world as it is and be actually a really useful agent of change, and that has radically altered my way of being in my life, and I’ve become. Infinitely more productive, and actually able to sit with, you know, the troubles of the world from this perspective of if we have collectives and we’re working together and we’re using this empathetic form of leadership that allows for people to be in community with each other as we face some of these big challenges, and you know, relying on our diversity and seeing that we all have a part to play, and it’s not my job to save the world, that was the other thing I was really burdened with, was like, “Oh my god, I’ve got to save the world, and it’s like, “No, nobody’s going to do that by themselves. Yeah, you know, but we have this in this sort of individualistic culture, there’s this belief that I’m never doing enough, you know. So, if you can really take a step back and, like, like quell the numbing, allow yourself to really start to feel and see that if I’m doing my part really well and with integrity and then I’m aligning myself with others who are doing their part really well with integrity and together we’re working short towards shared and common goals that’s a much more empowered place to be coming from so that’s yeah wow been a great one for me that has a lot for also freedom, you know, and a free of rest and right relaxation,
Maria Ross 16:05
right? Yeah, and thank you for sharing that with us, and for anyone listening who, who wants to get to that place that you are coming to,
Aubrey Morgan Yee 16:15
yeah,
Maria Ross 16:16
but doesn’t have that collapse. Is there a way or a road that you would recommend to them, of how to embrace that, like, I don’t know, that it’s like when they say, oh, artists have to be suffering in order to create great art, I don’t believe that, right, I
Aubrey Morgan Yee 16:30
don’t either,
Maria Ross 16:31
and so you know, for someone that’s like, well, how do I get there without the, you know, life-changing thing, I almost died from a brain aneurysm years ago, and I had a life-changing moment, but I also try to share ways and lessons, so that you don’t have to have a brain aneurysm to embrace some of these models. So, for you, where would you say folks that want to get to that point of stopping the numbing, reaching out, being a more collaborative, empathetic, heart-centered leader? What are some ways that you could offer for them to get there?
Aubrey Morgan Yee 17:05
Yeah, I mean, I think there’s so many different tools nowadays, too. You know, so figuring out those ways and where and how you might be, you know, checking out from your life and really starting to pay attention to gratitude for the moments that you have, because I think gratitude is like a really grounding force that helps us remember the impermanence of our life, you know, because we’re only here for a short time, and we actually don’t even know how long that is, as you experienced, you know, hopefully not everyone has to go through that moment of really facing that so starkly, and yet that is the one universal truth, right? So, how can you really get grateful for the moment that you’re in? Start to notice the people around you. One of the things I really love to do, too, is just in my daily life try to connect on a human level with the people you run into everywhere you go, you know? Like TSA lines, one of my favorites, because that just has to be the hardest job, right? I mean, it’s like it’s like not that interesting. People are mad at you, like it’s kind of a bummer. It’s, you know, it’s the weird hours, like I can only imagine, and for a while they weren’t even getting paid, you know, when the whole government shutdown happened. So I approach those kinds of situations, and I offer this as something to try with, like your heart fully open, and really like try to engage with people, catch their eye, say hello, offer a compliment, find a way to like connect with their heart, yeah, really see them as a human, and as you start to do more of those just daily practices, do it in your workplace, maybe someone that you don’t otherwise feel connected to, who might even bother you, like try to actually connect with them. It just starts to open your capacity to see that there’s so much humanity out there that we’re not paying attention to when we’re not seeing each other as humans, you know. Yeah, and when we open our heart that way, it changes everything.
Maria Ross 18:42
Well, and it’s so funny, because before I ever called it like a gratitude practice, or even, you know, consciously knew what I was doing, I would always have a better day when I had a quick exchange with the barista,
Aubrey Morgan Yee 18:54
yes, or said
Maria Ross 18:55
hi, you know, waved hi to the garbage collectors as their truck drives by, and that was just more like in that moment, in that day, I had capacity, I was in a good mood, I felt like sharing it, and then the days when I’m not, the days where I feel broken down, when I feel depleted, now, as you know, a 50 plus person, yeah, I take myself to those things, because it actually does change my mood, and it changed my changes my perspective of at least this has gone right today, right? At least I made that person smile, and it’s so funny that you say that, because my 11 year old said to me one time, ‘Mom, why do you have to talk to everybody? I don’t, I’m not the like the jibber jabber at the checkout line, but you know, I will just engage, or he’ll say, ‘Who was that? and I’m like, I don’t know, they were just someone I was passing the parking lot that I, yeah, said something to where I like your sweater, or whatever it was. We had a moment, right, and I tried to explain to him, I was like, Honey, you need to connect with people, like,
Aubrey Morgan Yee 19:52
yeah,
Maria Ross 19:52
you’re out in the world and you’re humans in the world, and you don’t know if, like, you just smiling at that person is, if you have the capacity to do that. At maybe they need that on that day, and hopefully somebody does that for you on a day that you don’t feel like smiling,
Aubrey Morgan Yee 20:06
exactly.
Maria Ross 20:06
So,
Aubrey Morgan Yee 20:07
yeah,
Maria Ross 20:07
I just.. I love, and then all the, you know, in my later years, I found out that’s a thing, that’s a strategy, totally.
Aubrey Morgan Yee 20:13
Yeah,
Maria Ross 20:14
but it does work, it does it. I don’t know why, but it just does. It does uplift you, yeah.
Aubrey Morgan Yee 20:20
It helps you to see that there is always something to feel grateful about, even in the hardest moments, and, like, you said, if you’re having a hard day, it might be someone else paying it back towards you, right? So, it’s like, it doesn’t mean you always have to do that, but I had a funny experience where, like, recently I spilled the cacao in my car, and it’s like dark chocolate, right, and it’s like, honestly, and my husband’s, I love that you spilled
Maria Ross 20:39
the cacao, not, yeah, and like the evidence, it’s the, yeah,
Aubrey Morgan Yee 20:43
and I looked at my husband, and I was like, well, think of all the times I’ve drank a cow in the car and didn’t spill it, you know, and it was like just a perspective shift of, yeah, I could either be upset about this or I could clean it up and go, well, that happened, you know, and it’s like just letting things be like that, yeah, I also saw a thing recently that said, you know, the opposite of paranoia is pronoia, and it’s actually a term, and it means the belief that the universe is always working in your favor. So, I’m like, okay, you know what? If I get to tell myself a story, why don’t I tell that story? Much better. Yeah, I never
Maria Ross 21:12
heard that term before, and I’m totally stealing it. It’s like, even if
Aubrey Morgan Yee 21:15
things go wrong, there’s something in there that’s a lesson, or it’s leading to something else. This might feel really awful, but then the next thing that comes couldn’t have happened because of that thing, right? You know, so it’s yeah, perspective.
Maria Ross 21:28
And this is where I get into the work I do now, because we spend the bulk of our time, many of us spend the bulk of our time at work, and so we don’t have to just apply these things to our lives in the off hours, like we should be bringing this into the office, and this is why
Aubrey Morgan Yee 21:41
absolutely joy
Maria Ross 21:42
is like the fifth pillar of my framework, because it’s about these, these little moments, these happy accidents, these these moments of discovery, or moments of shared, you know, shared, not shared trauma, I don’t want to say it that way, but shared challenge, right? Yeah, can we find the levity even when the work is hard, right, can we find the levity in our world and the joy in our world, even though there’s so many other things going wrong, and I don’t know for sure if this is connected, but when you talk about the indigenous mindset and the indigenous spirit, it feels to me, and you can correct me if I’m wrong, like that is so closely aligned with this idea of sort of, you have free will, but everything happens for a reason, and everything can be a learning opportunity, and that’s not Pollyanna, that’s actually just what other response can there be,
Aubrey Morgan Yee 22:33
totally. And then it’s all connected, and joy is part of, you know, the revolution, you know, it’s like joy is necessary, even when you’re feeling like, for you know, indigenous peoples who are oppressed for centuries, joy was a form of like bringing the community back together, joy and celebration, even in the hard times. Yeah, there’s celebration and there’s joy. And I think the other piece, too, is there’s a real strong sense of the communal body of like the community, whether it’s the workplace, the home place, the actual community being like there is you, there’s me, and then there’s the we, and they’re all operating at the same time, so it’s not, you know, again, like in many ways we’ve been taught in Western dominant culture to be individualistic, and what this is saying is, no, actually, there’s a we that when we focus on that communal body and think about what does the we need, what does the business need what does this community need? What does this, you know, organization need, right? In addition to each of us, and because we’re part of it all together, that shift in mentality can really make it more enjoyable experience and more successful.
Maria Ross 23:33
Well, and I think that’s where clarity comes into play, too, of being really clear on what is our mission and what is our purpose, whether it’s an organization or a community or a family, right? What’s our north star?
Aubrey Morgan Yee 23:43
Totally, do
Maria Ross 23:44
we all know where we’re going? So, when we trip and fall, we can still get up again and know that we’re heading in the right direction.
Aubrey Morgan Yee 23:51
Yeah,
Maria Ross 23:52
and you know, the companies that I’ve researched and profiled, and the teams that I’ve profiled, they have a very clear sense of where they’re going, even if, and this is the funny part, or the interesting part, I should say, even when leaders create micro cultures within a dysfunctional organization at large, you can create this little island, you can create this, this little community that’s like, hey, we’re going to be there for each other, and I mean, you know, you can think later about if you all want to be at that organization, but you don’t have to wait for it to come from a CEO of a large organization. If you are a leader, and we’re kind of all leaders, right, we all have a sphere of influence, but if you are in this environment where you can impact that group to be like we are a community, I think that’s that’s the wisdom and that’s the lesson we get from indigenous communities, and Mike, I have a question for you. This is kind of.. we’re kind of.. I know we’re going all over the place, but I’m just.. I’m loving this with you. Do you think that our country, and I know we have listeners all over, but the United States can ever get to a point where we’re less individualistic and more. Communal focused,
Aubrey Morgan Yee 25:01
I’m an optimist, so I say yes. I don’t think it’s something that could happen overnight, although I do believe in radical remission. I think it happens in the body, it could happen in the social body, it’s totally possible. And I think there’s a strong movement towards us. I think actually technology could really help, and is in some ways, you know, it’s the double-edged sword, right? Yeah, we’re so interconnected, and we’re so interconnected, so it’s like we never turn off the devices, and yet we’re able, like you and I are able to have this conversation that never could have happened right a few years ago. So there’s there’s something there that I think, and I think there really is in the younger generations this greater understanding of we’re in this together.
Maria Ross 25:38
Yeah,
Aubrey Morgan Yee 25:39
and again, it’s like there’s all of it. There’s the challenge of technology and the separation it creates, and too much screen time, and all that. And yet I see this pulse in the younger generation of really believing that there’s something else coming. So I mean, it would require a lot of shift and change, but I do believe that it’s possible. And that’s where I think the work of alternative and preferred futures is really important, because the more we start to articulate these shared visions and really share them out more widely, and get people actually believing that it’s possible, so much of what you know happens that we call impossible becomes possible because of belief. So, if the shared belief is there and the desire is there,
Maria Ross 26:17
yeah,
Aubrey Morgan Yee 26:17
and empathy is a key piece of that, you know, because compassion and empathy helps us to see that we’re in this, we’re in this together. I believe that’s possible, but I am an optimist, but I believe in gospel
Maria Ross 26:29
too. And I love hearing it from someone who’s kind of studied this, and yeah, is looking at that. I think
Aubrey Morgan Yee 26:34
you know, I think when things fall apart, we actually come together. You know, people that I hear a lot of people like the fear of things falling apart. I actually think when things fall apart, it’s when we band together the strongest, because we realize, like, oh, we’re actually facing something big, like, we need to look who’s next to me, can we lock arms,
Maria Ross 26:50
right?
Aubrey Morgan Yee 26:50
Can we walk through this storm? You know, my friend, who’s an elder, Pat McCabe, an amazing indigenous elder, she talked about the buffalo, and so for the Dene people, the buffalo, and the myth of the buffalo, and the understanding of the buffalo as an animal was when the storms would come, the buffalo would come side by side, shoulder to shoulder, and walk straight into the storm, because they knew if they were together, walking into the storm, they had a better chance of getting through it quickly and with less, less suffering. So, I think that’s kind of, you know, the metaphor of them is, how do we get closer to each other and really like shoulder to shoulder and walk through rather than trying to run in different directions. So,
Maria Ross 27:28
I just got chills when you said that. That is just that’s what I hope, and it’s like I said, it’s not Pollyanna, it’s not a pipe dream. We have, we have enough data and research to show us that,
Aubrey Morgan Yee 27:38
yeah,
Maria Ross 27:39
collaborative is a better way to go than competitive, and I know you have some thoughts on that.
Aubrey Morgan Yee 27:44
Yes, absolutely. I think collaboration is the highest manifestation of what we, you know, think of as the competitive human spirit. But actually, just recently asked another dear friend of mine who does a lot of work with peace and climate justice, and she started something called the Institute for Climate and Peace with some other folks, and they looked a lot at this idea of, you know, we’re talking about collaboration and sort of community building and peace building as a response and a way to mitigate climate change. So, I think there’s this way in which, when we start to see that, you know, again, back to this idea of each of us holding a key to this really big puzzle, and the diversity, you know, look at biology, diversity is everything, right. Diversity is the strength of an ecosystem. It’s the same for us, and the issue, or one of the issues, I think that is really one to face, is that our modern schooling system tends to create more sameness rather than enforcing and celebrating diversity in the 100% sort of public school experience.
Maria Ross 28:41
Yes,
Aubrey Morgan Yee 28:41
and we’ve got to shift that, because that teaches us that, you know, I’ve got to out compete my classmates, I’ve got to memorize everything and get the test right. When actually we should be saying, okay, what are the skill sets in the room? Who’s really good at what? And then how do we collaboratively look at projects together? Some schools do that, but I think that’s really like the key is to understand that we’re each holding a piece, and if we work together and understand each other, really listen closely, pay attention, respect each other, all of those skills of empathy and human connection, we can do huge things, you know. So, yeah, yeah, collaboration is everything. And so I’m really interested. One of the organizations I work with right now is called Project Bio, and our mission is radical collaboration. So we’re really looking at this idea of what does it look like to radically collaborate, which we’re defining as, you know, working across perceived boundary lines, so for-profit, nonprofit, together, yeah, people who government working with community, like, yeah, places where people don’t normally cross, and seeing how you can, like, really merge and start together with shared goals and shared outcomes.
Maria Ross 29:42
Did you ever read the book Citizens? I am going to put a link in the show notes. I haven’t mentioned it in a couple years, but I read it a few years ago, and it was just this profile of different cities and towns and organizations that collaborated with government, and they even profiled a 10. Town somewhere in Asia, I can’t remember where. It’s been a while since I’ve read the book. That’s why they fared so well during the pandemic is because the government kind of collaborated with the people, versus, you know, here’s what we should do. We don’t know the answers, and it’s such great examples of those kinds of shared partnerships of nonprofits coming together with government and bringing the populace along with them, the other people, and that’s why it’s called, it’s more, he talks about it more of like the citizen economy, totally, it’s not, it’s not democracy, it’s not whatever, it’s citizenry,
Aubrey Morgan Yee 30:33
yeah, that totally makes sense, and yeah, you know, when I was much younger, and I was an entrepreneur, and I started a furniture business, an interior design business, my whole focus was like, okay, let me figure out who else is doing this right, and then how can we each do it just a little bit differently, and then share resources and work together, right? You know, versus seeing a competitor, someone you have to like outperform, right? It’s like, what are.. how do we create a unique identity, right? So we can both coexist but still be successful, and then support each other in our growing success, right? And I think that can happen in so many different realms, but we tend to have this belief that, you know, we’re supposed.. there’s scarcity not enough for everybody, so we have to compete for exactly.. I just don’t think that’s true. No,
Maria Ross 31:11
I don’t think it’s true either. And when I back in my brand strategy days as a consultant and an entrepreneur in that realm, I used to call that co-opetition, and it was who’s serving the same audience,
Aubrey Morgan Yee 31:23
yeah,
Maria Ross 31:23
in a slightly different way, and that’s the whole element of brand, is I might be seemingly doing the same thing you’re doing, but I’m not, I’m doing it in a different way, and there’s going to be people that are right for me, or people that are right for you, and hey, what if we co-created something together to serve all of these people, right. Totally exactly. Oh my gosh, I love it. So, can you tell me how a lot of your work is around emotional intelligence systems thinking, obviously indigenous systems? How do emotional presence and cultural storytelling shape organizations? How does that, that combination impact outcomes? I mean, and you can pull from your, your leadership,
Aubrey Morgan Yee 32:07
sure, yeah, work
Maria Ross 32:09
too, but, but can you explain for us? I mean, I think a lot of us are like, yeah, that makes sense, that that would work together, but how does it work together?
Aubrey Morgan Yee 32:16
Yeah, I’ll use maybe the systems thinking and systems mapping, because that was a really powerful tool set that we, I still use in a variety of ways, and actually do now narrative-led systems change, which brings in the storytelling aspect, but you know, any, any sort of work around systems is coming from the deep understanding that we are awash in complex adaptive living systems that are structural, that are around us everywhere, you know, everything from, like, you know, very obviously, like we were talking about the education system, but it can, it can be much more subtle systems that we exist within, and they’re all interacting, and they have these feedback loops, and they’re affecting one another. And so, when we were working with leadership development, and looking, you know, how do you affect something like the future of the state of Hawaii, and the systemic change that we want to see, having to dive into those systems is a collaborative exercise. It requires presence, it requires empathy, it requires, you know, being in the room with people that you wouldn’t normally be with. And so, for example, if we were working on a systems map of something like homelessness, it requires having a homeless person in the room doing an exercise with a politician, right? And how often is that happening, right? But it’s building the empathy across the system, where people can see that there isn’t actually like we tend to want to fall into these binaries, like there’s good people and bad people, there’s someone in charge who’s doing a bad thing, and we’ve got to fix that. It’s actually, unfortunately, much more complex than that. Yeah, and so you know, taking the step back with the system’s lens and seeing that actually there’s all these forces at play, and there’s no one person, and everyone actually has pretty good intentions, and yet the system is designed to produce the results we’re seeing. So, if we all can agree that we actually don’t like the results that we’re seeing, and we’d like something different, then we can start to look into, okay, well, what’s my part in keeping this system in place that maybe I wasn’t even aware of, right? And what’s your part, and how are we overlapping each other that we didn’t see before? Right, we actually would go through these really beautiful facilitated exercises to map that out and start to see the way that different forces were affecting each other, and then untangle that,
Maria Ross 34:14
and then what’s the role of storytelling in that? Is that more about obviously we need to feed the emotional and the logical parts of our brain, and so data and research is great, but do the stories bring it to life when people are actually sharing their experiences?
Aubrey Morgan Yee 34:27
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there’s multiple levels. So, storytelling, I think, is just so powerful and potent. It’s the way we make meaning as human beings. So, in facilitated exercises, storytelling becomes an empathy-building exercise, because it’s like, tell the story of this feedback loop that you’ve noticed in the system, and someone will tell a personal story of their experience, of whether it’s like a policy experience or something they experience in their workplace that then repeats a pattern that creates the system that produces a result we don’t want to see. So there’s storytelling from that perspective, and then there’s the narrative led systems change work that I do that actually. Helps us to see that narratives and story themselves are complex, adaptive, and alive, and that they travel through culture. So we tell ourselves a story every day of the way that work looks, the way that humans interact, you know. We tell ourselves some people tell a story that human beings are a cancer on the earth, other people tell a story that human beings are of earth, and that we’re here to actually be, you know, part of earth’s regeneration. Some people tell the story that that work should be really hard. Other people tell a story that, like, actually works be really joyful. Those two stories create different realities. Yes, and they start to infect our ability to understand how we live our lives. So, I think story is actually a very, very powerful and potent matter of change, and so I think about that a lot, and actually wrote a bit in the book about, you know, sort of needing new myths for this time on earth as humans, because we’re we’re relying upon myths and stories that don’t fit necessarily anymore, or mate, are producing systems that we don’t like, that don’t you know, increase our joy, so yeah,
Maria Ross 36:04
they worked for us for a while. Yes, you know, my work is about the leadership paradigm has changed, and
Aubrey Morgan Yee 36:09
yeah,
Maria Ross 36:10
not that it was bad or good, it’s different now. We need a different paradigm. We’ve got to move from command and control to, you know, instead of power over partnering with our teams and our organizations, and it doesn’t mean we’re coddling anybody. It’s just our problems are much more complex than they used to be, and so what worked before doesn’t work with the problems we’re facing today. And that’s that’s the narrative that a lot of leaders have a hard time with, and I have empathy for them, of like, well, wait a minute, you’re telling me the rules I’ve followed for the last 30 years to get to where I am today. Now you’re telling me, oh, we talk about emotions at work, we talk about what’s going on, and I understand the confusion, and I understand that, like, but this is the way, this is how I got to where I am, and now you’re pulling the rug out from under me. So, yeah, we need to be tender with those people and say it’s not a personal indictment that you adopted that paradigm, because everybody did, but the paradigm evolves. We, my husband always says, like, we learn and we get better, whenever he’s hears like something about, like, well, they used to do it this way, and he’s like, that’s why people learn and evolve, and so it’s, but it’s hard for people to let go, because if they’ve clung to those narratives for so long that have created those systems, it’s almost like you’re telling them to their house is part of identity, you’re burning down their house, right?
Aubrey Morgan Yee 37:31
Yeah, yeah, say that you know a lot of leadership is grief counseling, yeah, because it’s helping people realize there’s something that needs to be let go of, and yes, it didn’t change, and I also, we do this really great exercise called the two loops of systems change, and it’s speaking to that, where it’s helping people see that systems are always changing, and there’s always a system going out and a system coming in, and it doesn’t mean the one going out was bad and the one coming in was good, it’s just that was the previous world and it had good and bad, and this is the new world, and it has good and bad, but and we’re all on a spectrum of that, coming in and going out, and so we’ll actually put tape on the floor and have people position themselves where they are in the system, if they’re, you know, sort of in the old system or if they’re in the new system, and where they are on those lines, then and then actually build empathy by partnering up with people from other parts of the system and saying, like, what do you need from me to do your job well, what do you think of me from your position, and really get to understand, like across those lines, from someone who’s on the innovation spectrum of the new system, what do they need from the person who’s still in the old system? Because they actually do something from each other, and they have something they can offer, right? You know, all needed and necessary, and one’s not better than the other. No, it’s just we’re in a constant process of change, because
Maria Ross 38:41
it is helpful to know why things were done the way they were done, and how did we get here? Like, it’s helpful, there’s always something around that story completely, because you want to figure out what was good about that, that you can still carry, call it
Aubrey Morgan Yee 38:53
composting, it’s like, what are the, what’s the good compost from the stuff that we’re putting in the compost bin that’s going to create great soil, yeah, for what’s coming next, yeah, and that’s useful, you know. So, it’s not.. it’s not a, yeah, it’s not an either or.
Maria Ross 39:06
I love this. So, what are some of the ways that you have helped teams navigate change and get comfortable with change, given yeah, the lens that you do your work through?
Aubrey Morgan Yee 39:16
Yeah, the things I like to think about is it’s sort of like a three part, ideally, if you know, you can get people. Sometimes people change things happen fast, and they don’t have the time to really sit with the process. But ideally, if you’re able to really sit with the process, that lets you do sort of the historical research to get to the systems change, the system as it is, like sort of what brought us to, you know, for example, like I’ve worked with the public utility in Hawaii, so it’s like understanding how do we get to a point where we have this massive public utility that you know oversees the whole state, like what were the parts and pieces that led to this moment, what’s the system at play, the good and the bad, like not how we want it to be, but exactly how it is, like a clear-eyed vision of the current moment, then moving into the futures, thinking, okay, so we know what is now. Now,
Maria Ross 40:00
what is the
Aubrey Morgan Yee 40:01
future that we’re envisioning that actually is like the renewable energy future or the diversified energy future, whatever it might be. Let’s co-vision that and really articulate it. And then between those two, there’s always a gap, right? There’s like, here’s where we are today, that’s where we want to be. How in the world are we going to get there? And that’s where design thinking as a modality really comes in to co-create the pathways through, and things like theory, you is another great facilitation technique I like to use that helps people co-craft new futures and pathways to get there, but it’s, it’s really that taking the time to understand how we got to where we are, where we actually are, right where we want to go, and then what can we co-design together to move towards that new future,
Maria Ross 40:40
I love that. As we kind of wrap up, I just want to, you know, point out your book, Our Beloved Futures, and you talk about it as a call to reimagine what it means to be fully human. Can you talk about what you want people to get out of that book? What do you hope leaders and people that can influence in whatever sphere of influence they have the future of work. What do you hope they get out of
Aubrey Morgan Yee 41:07
it? I think what that is, is the beauty of being human. You know, when we look at something like AI and all the technologies we have, they don’t even approximate in any way, shape or form the incredible immensity of what the human body and biology and consciousness is, and so it’s, it’s a yes, and it’s yes, let’s embrace technology, and let’s not forget the like gift of what it is to be human, and to really lean into that, because I believe that the technologies we’re given in our physical body, and our brain, and our gut, and our heart, you know, there’s all this work around heart coherence and heart math, and we’re just barely scratching the surface of the incredible nature of our biology, so to not lose sight of that in the face of all this, you know, oncoming technology that’s that sometimes we can be mistaken almost for gods, right? Like, it’s sort of like we get this, you know, starry-eyed, like, oh my gosh, it’s going to do everything for us, it’s like, no, actually, we’re still here, right, and so, so what does it look like to reconnect with what it means to be human together in a workplace to really see each other as humans, and then come from that perspective of how might we bring technology into this field to support our humanness,
Maria Ross 42:14
right? So
Aubrey Morgan Yee 42:15
that we can actually enjoy our life more as earthlings of earth on this incredibly gorgeous planet that’s amazing, you know, like, let’s not forget where we are, you know, and that’s, I think, my hope and my prayer for the book is that people will remember that aspect of ourselves and also remember that our imagination is our superpower, and that we can, you know, like, the optimism to me is just the capacity to imagine, I can see what’s possible, right, if more of us are seeing in that direction, we have a much better chance of getting there.
Maria Ross 42:43
I love it, Aubrey. Thank you so much. I could talk to you longer, but we have to wrap up. I will put all your links in the show notes, but for anyone that’s on the go right now, where’s the best place they can find out more about the work and the book?
Aubrey Morgan Yee 42:56
Sure, so Our Beloved futures.com is my website, and then my Instagram is Aubrey Morgan Yee, I have a lot of stuff there, I’m always posting about the book, and
Maria Ross 43:05
amazing,
Aubrey Morgan Yee 43:06
yeah, so that’s a great place to go too.
Maria Ross 43:08
Okay, amazing. Thank you so much for all these insights today, and such a, such a thought-provoking conversation. I loved
Aubrey Morgan Yee 43:14
it. I appreciate all the work that you do, it’s really important.
Maria Ross 43:17
And thank you, everyone, for listening to another episode of the Empathy Edge podcast. If you like what you heard, you know what to do. Please rate, review, and share it with a friend or a colleague. And until next time, please remember that cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind. For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy, visit The Empathy edge.com There you can listen to past episodes, access show notes, and free resources. Book me for a keynote or workshop, and sign up for our email list to get new episodes, insights, news, and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red Slice Maria. Never forget, empathy is your superpower use it to make your work and the world a better place.
