Leading with Possibility with Nathalie Heywood Smith, owner of Heywood Smith Consulting

Erik  00:02

We want to welcome all of our listeners to another episode of MRP, Minority Report podcast with Eric and Kerel. Each episode, we talk with real operators and leaders in media, tech and business, and today, joining us is Nathalie Heywood Smith. Nathalie is the owner of Heywood Smith consulting and evangelist for pox stock. So welcome Nathalie.

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Nathalie Heywood Smith  00:27

Thank you. Thank you. Glad to be here. Glad to be here. I appreciate you guys, and I love this, the broadcast and the work you do. So hats off to you both for doing this for so long and with such great commitment.

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Erik  00:39

Appreciate it. Appreciate it. Thank you so much. Yeah, we talk about it all the time. It feels like Kerel, it goes fast, right? It does, yeah, it was fast. And there were moments, I think over the years, where, you know, it didn't feel as fast, but we're thrilled that you can join us and Nathalie, I gotta ask you, Nathalie, th,

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Nathalie Heywood Smith  00:58

C, H, Nathalie,

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Erik  01:00

I love it. Tell us about your name.

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Nathalie Heywood Smith  01:03

So my name means the Christmas Child. I was born December 17. I'm a sad so is a gift that keeps on giving. Like I like to say, I don't know my siblings agree, but my mother and father definitely did.

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Erik  01:18

Speaking of Mom and Dad, tell us a little bit about mom and dad. Tell us about your family. Where are they from?

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Nathalie Heywood Smith  01:24

Jamaica, core to the core, my whole Jamaican family. So I identify very much as a Jamaican, even though the only time I really have any kind of inflection or accent is if I've spent some time on the island, up in a hill, in a little hut where no one can see me. It may happen, but I identify very much with my American self and my Jamaican self. I have very loving parents. I will tell you. My father probably taught me to be curious and question things, but my mother gave me my sense of humor. So it's a mixed bag. I have siblings who I love dearly. I was lucky that I grew up with a lot of unconditional love and support and belief in like she said, so, so yeah, it must be right, and the same for my siblings. I mean, we definitely benefited from having two wonderful people care for us. Where

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Erik  02:22

did you grow up and where did they care for you? In

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Nathalie Heywood Smith  02:25

the Bronx, Boogie Down, New York, baby, all the way went to Catholic school, ended up at Fordham University. I think technically, I spent all of my education in Catholic school, one form or another. Left there really. I was pretending to go to law school, but I didn't really want to go back to school because I was tired. Back to school, because I was tired of school already and wanted to just get out and live life. So from there, I ended up actually in the recruitment space. So built a vertical focused on creatives for a company at that time called Update, did amazing things, built a business model the vertical, we triple the size of the business. Expanded across the US. They eventually private equity, venture capital, built, bought, sold, absorbed. So I left there about eight I think it's, ooh, wow, it's nine years ago now. Left there nine years ago, and started out on my own, did a few things along the way, the consultancy is where I've kept like my recruitment and advisory and coaching sort of stuff I was under that umbrella. And then I spend a short time trying to build an app and a tech platform for hiring thin workout Note to self, be careful of the partners you pick to do anything. And then Steve Jones, who I met several years back, came along. He said, I got an idea. I think we can do something. And I'm like, bet, let's do this. So that's where PAC stock comes into my life, and I've been working with them on getting productions and getting clients, and we've been growing it. It's been good. Natalie,

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Kerel  04:04

it seems like whether it was your start in recruitment, your consulting company, or even the work you're doing now with Steve and team over at POC stop, it seems like helping people is always at the core of what you like to do. Is that true? And if so, where do you think that comes

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Nathalie Heywood Smith  04:24

from? You know, it's a good question. I've always kind of thought, you know, the curiosity part. I think it comes actually from being cared for. I think that when you are loved, you want to love other people. I mean, we all want care and attention and stuff, but people have always fascinated me. Their stories, why they do the things they do, how they get to where they they go. Maybe it's a storyteller in me too. You know, there's a little bit of a storyteller. So I think that at the core, people matter most. And I think. You can't change the world. Do anything different if you don't get to people. Even if we look at business, no matter how many times they hack off, you know, layoffs or all these people go a business doesn't exist if there aren't people. So a machine doesn't exist without human beings. So at the core of our existence. We must care for the human being if we expect to have anything else different. That may have rambled a little bit, but in essence, yes to your question, people have always been at the core of it, and I genuinely believe that if we don't take care of that entity, we can't have anything else, grow, nurture, change, create all the things that we want to see in the world. I have

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Erik  05:43

a question about your experience, sort of doing that, because you've worked with some great companies right across recruitment, culture, talent acquisition, sort of leading a lot of the operations to help recruit and find that talent and do a lot more, but all different companies, right? What are some similarities that you found are true across different companies, but are just kind of true and the same to the work that you were doing, people

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Nathalie Heywood Smith  06:13

have a hard time hiring. It's rare to find people who understand how to hire and interview and find the talent that they need in order to grow the way they say they want to. And I think that there's a place where you have to sort of be objective and accept who it is that's across the table from you, and look at the traits, the talents, the way they communicate, you have to look for not is this person like me, or do they talk like me? And that's nice, that's actually the the frosting on the cake. The cake has to be, what are the traits and the possibilities? What are the capabilities and where can we take this?

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Erik  06:57

Yeah, so cake that's inside the cake, yeah,

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Nathalie Heywood Smith  07:01

the ingredients, the flour, the sugar, that's what's in there. Icing is like I get along with this person. Well, icing is there like me, and we have like minded ways of making our coffee or whatever. And it is because we do take it personally. It is because we are so afraid sometimes of this corporate entity that's going to somehow not accept that we want to go in this direction. You know, there's different reasons. There's all different reasons, and people said there's insecurities. There's the same thing that happens in relationships, day to day, the same thing that happens at work. So there's a place where that component of understanding what my cake needs to be made of is key, yeah. I mean,

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Erik  07:48

I think it's interesting the way you described it, because, yeah, on the surface, right, there's the kind of the easy to appreciate stuff, right, but in those layers deeper, that's where the real substance is, right? And then that also, you know, in that role, you're looking to, usually hire or bring someone on board, not just for a week or for the moment, right? It's what's a long term hire. So really trying to understand that, I think, is an interesting way to sort of think about it and kind of pull it apart. So it's easy to understand, yeah,

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Kerel  08:19

and if I could just add to that, right? I think, to your point, that's why people or companies have a hard time hiring, because a lot of companies don't really have the discipline or want to go through that detailed process to really get a couple of layers deep into knowing and understanding someone, at least. That's my thoughts on that one.

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Nathalie Heywood Smith  08:48

Yeah, and that's where we get fooled by technology. Or, like, no, we'll test them and it'll come to life. What we're thinking is the right match. Maybe they'll spark some kind of special thing, or who can we talk to that knows that person is? When you're evaluating an individual, you have to be able to listen to what they're telling you. You have to talk about real life instances of what was their experience. You have to understand how they interacted, and you have to know your job in order to query the person that you're talking to, because if you are light in an area, you don't necessarily respect their expertise, right?

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Erik  09:31

Nathalie, I want to ask you about what you're evangelizing at pox talk these days, what's going on.

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Nathalie Heywood Smith  09:36

We need to change how people of color are perceived in the marketplace. We have to stop with the stereotypes. When you talk about hiring stereotypes, there's that thread to speak to what you're saying. Kerel, so much of what we learn from other people are through images and media and video. The thing about that is, in order to tell a story, you want to cut and paste. And tell the story over and over again. So what happens is you get locked into stereotypes, and once you get locked into stereotypes, you actually lose the magic of who people are. So it's important to tell more stories and have people be seen in multiple ways, interacting differently in areas you may not expect. They would go like, you should see black people ice skating. I really, literally had somebody say to me, I didn't know black people ice skate. And I was like, That's offensive, but you know, you you have to see people. And the more we see people, and the more we see differences, then, then we we get away from the stereotypes, and then we don't react and react and react based on these images that have been thrown at us over and over. And what's really important about that is like, you know, for example, we talk about how black people are seen, right? In imagery, you have a set of cops that say, okay, the black person must be this, right? But you also have the black person who's saying the cop must be this, so they won't turn to them for help. They will run away. It will escalate because that negative imagery is hitting both sides. It's not just hitting one. So we have to change all of these Well, expand our experience of other people, in order to find inclusion, in order to find tolerance, in order to find more markets that we can target. I mean, pick anything, but until you widen the birth of stories, you can't actually get to where you say you want to go. My opinion, yeah,

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Erik  11:45

you mentioned you said change. Want to ask you. This is Black History Month. And recently, poxoc unveiled its annual top 50. Yeah, top 50, future of black America list featuring change makers. Tell us a little bit about the list of individuals that are featured, and how do they kind of make the list, bring us into the process and tell us a little bit about them. I

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Kerel  12:12

just want to flex here for a second. I was on that list two years ago, so I just want to, Oh,

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Erik  12:17

nice. Nice flex. Nice,

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Nathalie Heywood Smith  12:20

relax. There's so many amazing people out there that do beautiful, amazing things, and a little bit like when we were talking, you know, impact is one person at a time. And so this list comes together over the course of a year of us interacting with different people, meeting new people, some people we've known, and they just did something, one person at a time, that says, hallelujah, and hell, you deserve to be seen. You know, many of the people on there don't often get the press because they're not on a stage. They're not, you know, in this big corporation that's going to push all this PR money so they can be seen all the time. So it's important to recognize that this entity that we're building, no matter what it is, this mountain we're climbing, this ladder we're on, is not just one person at the top. It's multiple people doing their thing, building it out, and that's important. And even when we met a few years back, Kerel, it was very impactful and beautiful. We were sitting there, we're at color, we're talking and I was like, You're doing what can I introduce you to someone who's doing amazing work? Danny that we ended up highlighting on the show, and she is consulting. She's doing all these great things, and we have to remember the people that we interact with and push them up too. Because a beautiful woman named that I met at can, she said something very important. She said, when we sit down at the table, we have to remember to put our elbows out, because when you put your elbows out, you make room for others to come. So you save the seat, just like when you were little, you saved the movie the seat next to you for your friend in the movie theater. You have to keep saving seats, because that's the way the table gets bigger. That's the way we do more, better, different, as the way we create. You can't sit at a table by yourself and expect magic to happen. And I think that's really important, and that's important for everybody. That's important for everybody,

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Erik  14:35

agreed. I'm curious. There are 50 profiles in there. Tell us one or two that you found kind of interesting, and some of the things that some of those folks are up to pick maybe one or two.

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Nathalie Heywood Smith  14:47

IMANI lanners, she's at zeta global. She is just an amazing powerhouse. She is out there pushing every day, talking to. To clients, praising her colleagues, and she ended up introducing me to a few people that will end up doing some kind of project or business together, but we're motivating and inspiring. And when I talked to him on it, she's like, Hey, did you think about this? Do you think about this? She is, she is like one of the few people you can think with all the time, every day, and we have not loaned each other very long, and she's just an amazing individual. I've been inspired by her. It's great. I wanted

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Erik  15:31

to ask you a little bit about your clients, you know, like over the years and working with different types of leaders and different organizations, what have you found, you know, is different from some of the clients that you worked with, let's say five years ago or 10 years ago, versus kind of like what you're working on today. How has it changed? And how is it different? All

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Nathalie Heywood Smith  15:56

right, this is gonna be a little just let me say this, everybody continue to love me as much as you do. I think where the fear sits has changed. Like people who used to not want to take a risk, some of them are more taking risks. People who were supposedly risk takers won't do anything at all because they afraid. I think allies have changed. The people that will come and say, Yes, I'm in this with you. You know, even with this rollback on, on some of the, some of the DEI issues, and, you know, so Walmart, Walmart has a very diverse workforce, all layers, all through, however they're going to roll back. It doesn't make sense to me, and I don't know why. It's like one of the conundrums. So I think the fear has moved. I think people who were courageous before, not so much, and other people are finding that courage and saying, wait a minute. Not so sure about that. That's what I see, is the difference in leadership from a few years ago till now. And

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Erik  17:03

you said allies have changed too. Talk about that a little bit. What are you seeing there?

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Nathalie Heywood Smith  17:08

Yeah, when I say that, I think there are people that claim to be let me put it this way, when you look at the vote, and you look at all the complaining and the news that says, you know, this is not what we want, and this person is doing this, or maybe I just, you know, get too many non right wing news posts in my feed. But that person's in office because the people voted for him, and if they voted for him, that means the person that was sitting next to you, the person that was your colleague, your neighbor, your friend, may not have voted the way you thought they were going to vote. So we don't know anymore. And I'm going to take that a little bit of a radical step further. If I didn't know, did I give them this space to talk. If I didn't give them this space to talk, then I was acting just like them. And then where does inclusion happen? Because if you're knocking out your own friend, quote, unquote, how many other people are you pretending to be inclusive and you're not. So that's where I go. Like allies are different now too.

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Kerel  18:23

Yeah, I mean, certainly in in some interesting times. And to your point, I think these are the times, though, where I think real leaders are made and real leaders will shine through, right? Because anyone can lead when things are great, right? But again, you're you're real leaders are the ones that shine and show up during tough times. That's where I look and try to see who leaders of real leaders are. And

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Nathalie Heywood Smith  18:55

it's the time to be brave. I know all of us want to not be but it's a time to be brave. Yeah, it's no time to be brave. And if we even look at some of the, I mean, I don't know what these executive orders are going to end up being, but I'm like, you know, Canada is an ally, and now you want to make it a non ally. You want to make it a state. I'm not quite sure, you know. I mean Mexico to, you know, an ally. It is just so much. I don't know where it's, you know what? I believe in God and I pray, Oh, that Catholic school worked. So I'm going to pray that whatever these things are, they're going to result in all good. Yep, yep, that's what I'm going for, because we have to make that stand, that we move forward for all the betterment, yeah,

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Kerel  19:42

definitely, definitely, all right, a couple of interesting questions for you here again. Give us a book that everyone should read,

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Nathalie Heywood Smith  19:51

The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle, I will say to you that that book at the time that I read it a lot. Chaos in my life. You know, one of my children were going through some health stuff, I mean, so there's a lot of chaos. And I read that book, and it gave me peace and calm, because was very interesting. I learned that when you look in the past and you keep going hindsight, it causes you to be depressed. And if you keep looking ahead and on things you can't control, it'll cost you to be anxious. So if you sit right here with the things you have in front of you and make the choices and decisions from what's actually in your hand, you can feel peace and relief and keep moving forward. I can't step out of the moment. And that's what that book taught me, and it was, at that time, a lifesaver. So it is the book that I recommend everybody read or listen to. You could do audible. I'm a fan of audible.

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Kerel  20:51

You can do either one, yeah. What advice would you give to anyone that's looking to start their own business? So

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Nathalie Heywood Smith  21:00

build your circle. Build your circle. Well, part of you know what I said about partnerships, wrong partners, wrong timing, and it fell apart really badly and destroyed those friendships and relationships. So the thing about partnerships is you have to accept who that person is. Yeah, that's who they are. Accept their limitations and don't expect them to do more than they actually can. They can grow into all of this. I'm not saying anything against growth and change and prosperity and abundant. No everything can happen, but at that moment when you're in it, the power of now deal with who you have right now. Gotcha, that's very important. And I would also, you know, pay attention to your network. You know, your network is key, your what is the phrase out there? Right? Your network is your net worth? Yeah, people you surround yourself with are important, and they should be varied. They should be varied. They should have different perspectives. I do have a Trump supporter that would I ask Chloe a door to pieces? And so we decide to stay away from politics, because I don't want to hear, you know, you know limitations, but that's part of acceptance, that's part of acceptance and tolerance. And out of that, you make some things happen, which is great. What's something you wish you were better at? Oh, wow, there's a list of things. I think in the end, the thing I wish I was better at was organization. I keep a lot in my head, and so I list doing things in my head, and I keep going and I keep going and doing but really I should, like, parse them out. I've gotten better at delegating, so I've gotten better with that, so that's keeping me a little bit more organized. But that's kind of like, it's always the thing, like, I've got 7 million ideas. Pick one. That's the kind of thing that gets me. Gotcha. What's in your music rotation? Oh, there's a lot of stuff. There's a lot of k pop, actually, because I'm addicted to Asian dramas. It's becoming Korean pop music, some Japanese and some Chinese, because I, you know, I expand a lot of Afro beats, a lot of African stuff in there. I've always been a global sort of person, oddly enough, so Spanish guitar is one of my favorites. So there's some of that. It's so funny because I think you had asked me about my theme songs. So I have two right now, don't judge me, which is Kiara with Missy Elliot. And I like that, which is Janelle Monae, because I'm a little left to center. And I love that line. And I heard that line that was like, I was it, and don't judge me. It's like, don't judge me, just let me be. I got things to do. I've been through some stuff. I'm good. You don't have to sit there and judge me. So those are my two love it. Natalie,

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Erik  24:02

I'm thinking about you know, you you got your curiosity and you got your humor. Humor for your mom, curiosity from your dad. What are some things that kind of keep you curious these days? What's kind of teasing out that curious side of you these days? Well,

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Nathalie Heywood Smith  24:19

I do a lot of reading, which is one thing, but I human beings. I'm infinitely fascinated. So when you get into a project, I'm always curious about, why are we doing this? What do you want to accomplish? Where do we go? Human beings are a fountain and a depth of entertainment. So it's like, why are you doing that? What would you do with that? And no, that doesn't make any sense. These are the things that constantly go on. I realize I sound like I'm talking to myself, but these are the conversations that go on in my head. Sometimes I'm always ready to ask a question, and I'm I'm fascinated too, like I always want to know why. Yeah, just why, right? Yeah, it is. It is. And you know what? I've had people say I don't know to me, and someone taught me years back, that's a great place to start. If you don't know, that's your starting point. And so I'm entertained, I'm self entertained, and I'm entertained by human beings, and then I like to cook. So COVID taught me that I actually like to cook. If you asked me before COVID, I could care less, but COVID taught me I like to cook. So now I bake my own bread. Oh, wow. Like on the regular, like, I'm one of those, those crazy people you see on Tiktok, they say, Oh, just bake your own bread. I break my own bread every week. It's easy. And I'm into Indian right now. So I've discovered that I've got a knack for Indian spices, the chickpeas, the chicken, the masala, the butter chicken. I'm like, going hard on that right now. Your spice

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Erik  25:54

cavity just got, like, that much bigger. Yeah, it doubled.

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Nathalie Heywood Smith  25:57

It doubled. I've got two large trays of spices, not to mention bins of like onions, scallion, peppers, thyme, sage, keep we can keep going. Well.

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Erik  26:10

Natalie, thanks so much for hanging out with us, and we're excited you could spend some time with us. A lot of our listeners like to figure out how to stay in touch and reach out to you. What are some ways that our listeners and viewers can find you?

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Nathalie Heywood Smith  26:23

Well, my favorite social platform is actually LinkedIn, so look for me there. It's easy to find me. POC stock. You can find me there as well. So I'm easy to find just look on LinkedIn,

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Erik  26:35

excellent. Well, thanks for hanging out with us and everyone. Thanks for listening to another episode. You can find more episodes wherever you find all of your audio and video. Just look for MRP, Minority Report podcast, and look for the logo. Thanks everyone.

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Nathalie Heywood Smith  26:50

Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate you.

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