Leadership Journeys [05] – Yarrow Kraner – “We can’t be of service to the world without truly knowing ourselves”

This is the Leadership Journey series on the Choosing Leadership Podcast.

I believe we all have a lot to learn from each other’s stories – of where we started, where we are now, and our successes and struggles on the way. With this series of interviews, my attempt is to give leaders an opportunity to share their stories and for all of us to learn from their generous sharing.

Yarrow opened up about his childhood and shares how he was bullied at school where he was the only white boy. He speaks about how this experience allowed him to build empathy later on and understand his own privilege as a white man. He shared how this led him to start an organisation looking to find the superhero in every person, and how it continues to shape his leadership.

You can find Yarrow at the below links

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/yarrowkraner/
• https://twitter.com/yarrowkraner
• http://www.yarrowkraner.com/

In the interview, we talk about

• “I grew up in Montana in the U S which is a very small population in the middle of nowhere. Big skies, vast horizons. I think it sort of inspired me to dream”
• “I got beat up every, every other day, anytime that they could catch me before I could get home. And so I started growing this chip on my shoulder. “
• “And to take the moment or to really sort of sit and ask the question of why this person is feeling like that in that moment, you know, I just recognize like, It’s not really me, that they’re angry at the sort of, you know, I’m a stand-in for a lot of injustices that have occurred and, you know, moving, moving kind of through life.”
• “We’re bringing a hundred or so right people together that can lead to collaborations that could impact the lives of a hundred million. But those are sort of seeds. The seeds that are planted.”
• “How do we say the world? It’s like, we have to start with ourselves inside.  We can be as great of service to the rest of the world without truly knowing ourselves and working on ourselves and in our work.”
• “I have to sit with things for a while. The lessons that I’ve learned in the last couple of years is to be patient and I’m not a very patient person.”