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Chuck: And before we get into the work you're doing there, I wanted to ask you so much of who we are comes from our experiences growing up. And can you give us some insight how you growing up has shaped you, as someone who cares about this issue of trauma and how it gives you some perspective to go about, you know, taking this on,
Lovell: You know, where I started down this path was two years ago, wasn't called the market forum in two years ago, the forum was on health and equity, you know, in Milwaukee. And so the forum we have about 30 to 40 events all year long around this one topic where we have, you know, panels, we have lectures we have, we watch movies and have discussions, we have dialogue there. And it was November of 2017, that we had a panel that had the machi police departments here at the district attorney's office was there. We had people from education in the MPs. We had people from economic developments. We had people from journalism, we had some of our nearside features, we had seven or eight panelists that were talking about the health disparities in in just the series in general that Malky faced, and as each of them started drilling down where they thought the root causes were disparities, every single one got to trauma. It was great for me, it was one of those things where it was an aha moment that oh my gosh, if we're going to help heal Milwaukee in disparities, then we're going to have to address trauma. And again, as part of this process, there's something called the adverse childhood experiences that they learn something called aces, and it's a simple task, you 10 questions you answer. And I took the test and I scored 500 To 10, which means I had five of the things that were on the list, I experienced five of them. And it was really eye opening to me, because I found out that the research has shown that if you score four out of 10 on this test, your likelihood of being successful in life is like 12%. It goes way down. And so I became very interested in Okay, why, if I had these experiences, you know, which meant I had grew up with a non stable environment, how was I able to be successful when knowing that the majority of the population was was not and so, you know, there was a very personal part of this, this trauma, you know, and the aces are really, you know, a measure of how much trauma you experienced as a kid, you know, after taking the tests, you know, I really, I did a lot of reflection and thought and, you know, you know, talk with me a lot about this. And what I realized was the fact that I grew up in a small town and even though my immediate family, you know, was was fairly unstable and had issues When you're a small town, you it's really hard to get lost. You know, I had teachers, I had coaches, I had people at my church, that all were looking after me and caring for me and particularly my friend's parents. You know, there were times when I would go stay for weeks at a time with some of my friends and their parents, they took me into their home when my home life was unstable. In the research has shown that those who experience trauma if you have to if your kid, you have two caring adults in your life, your chances of success go way up. And this resonated me from multiple levels, both from a personal level realizing that, you know, I was fortunate that I had people that invested in me that actually, they made me resilient. So you know, I, you know, I'm fairly passionate about ensuring that others that experience have experienced trauma can learn resilience and the great thing is the brain science now is really advanced. So we know we can create new pathways in the brain. So even if you're an adult, our brains but it has plasticity so we can still, you know, evolve and grow and, and heal from experiences we had as kids. So any age now, you know, we want to help prevent trauma for the for the kids, but even the adults in Milwaukee that have experienced trauma, we can actually help them heal and help them lead a better life.
Chuck: So you had I think maybe it was a little over a year ago, you and Amy had recommended that I read a book called The deepest Well, the correlation between trauma and lifetime health issues. As I read the book and saw the signs it was on believable that in a way that I probably was one of those people that believes some people are just tough enough to get out of it. And what you realize is that trauma is actually changing your body. There are real medical conditions that get imprinted because of these things that happen. And so for me, as an engineer, the more of these problems become science problems or health problems, right? It's not it's in your head. It's Yeah, it's in your head, your heads part of your body and it's a system and it's all connected. Okay, this starts to make sense. And so to me, just getting that awareness was a really big deal because You know, at the end of my career, I had a heart issue and thought it was better. And I come back and I get diagnosed with a cumulative stress anxiety disorder. So I didn't grow up with this. But I created a different kind of stress on my body that eventually results in an anxiety disorder that I couldn't even relate it to before. And I didn't know who to tell her what to do about it. I was I don't know if I was embarrassed. I'm the CEO, right? Am I supposed to talk about this? And the first time I went to talk to someone at work, I took aside one of my senior leaders that I thought I could talk to and I mentioned this and they said, Oh, I'm really sorry. I'm glad you told me. I really don't think you should tell anyone else. I don't think people will be comfortable having you lead the company if they know you have a mental health issue. I have to tell you, Mike, I I didn't know what to do. And I actually so I didn't say anything for a little while, but it really took me a while to realize that one to get healthy talking about it as part of that. But also the fact that we can talk about this is none of these problems are getting solved you If we don't bring these issues out in the open and, and part of it's as simple as getting rid of the stigma, I think it's something like 20% of Americans in the case of anxiety, have treatable anxiety, and less than a third ever get treated, what you've done in terms of one sharing your story, but also getting the awareness out there, I think is so critical, but let me test that. So what else should we or can we do to get the stigma out of the way so we can get at the real problems.
Lovell: So the key is, as you've already pointed out, it's education. So the first goal is when we started swim was, you know, helping everyone be trauma informed. And again, understanding that there the science is behind us so it is not a mental health is like any other physical issue that we have with our bodies. It's it's no different than in fact, it shouldn't even be you know, we shouldn't even have a stigma around mental health it just be it should be part of health in general. Right. And, you know, Going back to what you were talking about for the deepest? Well, you know, one of the things that we learned is that our trauma is passed down from generation to generation. So if our parents experienced trauma, you know, those genes can be expressed in us when we have certain situations. And again, that leads to so many, you know, health issues and problems that we have, you know, so the first thing we need to, to let everyone know, in terms of the education that this is like any other, you know, health issue that we have out there, you know, it's no different than diabetes or asthma. You know, it's just one of those things that we need to address with a public health campaign that way we do, you know, other issues, and that's the first thing. So if we educate people that, hey, there's significant science behind this, then, you know, hopefully that'll get rid of the stigma. I tend to find this as a generational thing. So a generation older than us, never talked about it in our generation, talked about a little bit more but there still is a fear that will be looked at as weak or maybe that we will people worried about us. And then finally, I think, you know, what I see in students today, you The millennials is that they are much more comfortable talking about this and the awareness for them has gone up significantly. So when we think about what we're trying to do with swim is, first of all, give everybody the knowledge that they need need to understand, you know, what trauma and mental health and other issues that it brings about. And the only way we're going to solve this is by talking about it and actually making it you know, taking this larger public health approach. t's been a really eye opening experience.
Chuck: As I tell people, I think I could have been sympathetic to someone who told me they had mental health, but I don't know that I could have been empathetic before. And I think that's one of the challenges is, is that that's just an awareness issue. And, you know, my doctor when I told him, I went in to see him for some issues and when I was first battling says, Yeah, we talked about my heart and some of the issues we were working on there and go Okay, now I want to talk about that other stuff, the mental stuff. He goes, Why do you act like it's not a health issue? He goes, as far as I know your brain is in your body. For some reason, we took our brain out of the equation, and it's a complete and as an engineer, it's obvious it's a connected system. Right? So let me get back to swim. If you look out five or 10 years, what does success look like?
Lovell: So, you know, it's really interesting because the reason why we got into this, you know, was to really help address the inequities in Milwaukee. So I think about five and 10 years out, we will help change the paradigm walking, we are the most segregated city you know, we have some of the biggest disparities of being placed in the country. Success will be helping parts of our community which experiences asperities provide a mechanism and wave to help them lift themselves up and give them support that they need to really change the trajectory of the people living in those neighborhoods and change their lives. And, you know, we use the term community letting community driven that's the only way this is going to work, the solutions, you know, to helping address the inequities are really going to have to come you know from members of the community and we need to provide support and the resources that they can help lift themselves up in and make a difference. So when I think about what 510 years is that we are making a significant impact on helping people within the communities that are facing the biggest challenges in Milwaukee, evolve and change and improve.
Chuck: you know, one of the things I read about when I was doing a little research on swim is and I think it came out in some of the early conversations you guys had as a group is that there was a lot of organizations that have a role to help in different ways in places, but they're kind of like a university. They're pretty siloed. How do we get those organizations to see that there's a greater good?
Lovell: So first, I will say that, you know, I had I'm on the board and Sean hospital, and we're trying to develop the healthiest kids in the country for Wisconsin and, and mental health has now become a really important issue for us. And behavioral health for kids has become some important children and we looked Yeah, we have it we have a diagram. grant that talks about the continuity of care that you need to help you know, a child around the middle emotional health. There are seven or eight different factors or different different ways that you have to help support these children. Even at church hospital there, we may address two or three, there is not one organization that can impact all the different ways we need to support students in children's emotional health. And so the only way that we're going to move the needle on this, particularly for all these kids that are experiencing trauma is by coordinating the efforts of a lot of different organizations. And so with the challenges is that, you know, we talk about, you know, we all need people Just keep swimming in their own lane. You know, but we all have to recognize we're part of a pool. I had a real again, a transformational moment for me was the very second meeting we had in February of last year, where we had an afro American female pastor was sitting next to one of our neuroscience faculty, you know, from biological science, biomedical sciences. And she was talking about this issue she was facing, you know, within her community. And the neuroscience faculty was actually helping her come up with solutions to that problem that she was facing. And I realized that these two would have never have met each other any other way than by having these meetings. And that was a really, really good thing.
Chuck: You know, as you were you were describing that I was thinking about where we started this conversation, and you talked about the work you did and what made certain teams innovative. And it's almost an analogy to that, right, getting people in a room, getting them to interact more regularly, creating these collisions and great communication, and really having, you know, a commitment around a common problem. It's interesting, the, the solution you've implemented, looks a bit like some of the work you did around what makes a successful innovation team. And so it just seems like I don't know that we intended to start there, but it certainly does seem to come full circle and connect that dial.
Lovell: And so it's interesting because part of that process, you know, I use I always use the term you know, you move at the speed of trust. And whether it be that small team where you're solving problems or you're getting knowing other in, you know that the trust develops that you can be comfortable poking at someone else's idea. Same thing in the community, if we're going to solve these problems, we have to have trust one another and respect each other's, you know, opinions and in again, in these meetings, be able to talk about tough issues. And one of the biggest turning points for swim is when we started talking about race in recognizing that race was a really important part of why we're this position that we're in here as a community because there were decisions made, you know, 4050 years ago, that didn't allow people from one ethnic group to even live in certain parts of the city. Right. And, and, or even be able to own a home, you know, and those things, you know, you know, have implications today.
Chuck: Yeah, and I think it's, you know, for you and I, we're white males, right, so we can be informed, but we can't always fully understand When I, when I took over as CEO, one of the first people that came to see me was, he was the Durham County Commissioner. And at one time, he had been the head of the local n double acp. And he just came to see me and you said, Hey, I want to give you some insight. And I said, Okay, we really had no idea what this is about. And his point was, as you do this job, keep in mind that this community went through something. And these are the maybe not the people that were at that lunch counter said, having a sit in to try to get their rights, but these are their kids. And they have a perspective and a history, that it's way different. And you just have to realize you can't fully understand it. And I think it's a huge part of everyone's got a story. And if you don't respect it, or somewhat, I think you miss those opportunities. So you know, you were taking on two of the largest problems we're facing today. Okay, the disruption of higher education and taking on trauma. And some people I'm sure a lot of people have looked at these in the past and just they're too big to take on. I just, it's overwhelming. Do Ever feel overwhelmed by the size of the problem?
Lovell: So the answer the first question, there are days, when you do get up and you think, gosh, you know, am I really making a difference? This is this problem is so huge. A couple of things. You know, one of the things you know, is you and I are both engineers, you know, one of the great benefits that we have through our education is we're system level thinkers. And in both cases, the solution to these things are system changes, right? So how do we change the system? And so luckily, you know, I know that, you know, to change a system, you know, it takes time, and it takes effort. And for me, you know, the what gets me going every day is as long as I see positive progress towards those system level changes. And so I often think about the systems we're working in, developed over periods of decades and to unwind them is also going to take decades, right. And so, that helps me think that and I will say there's, there's other cases that you can look to it One thing that also gives me hope, is when I look at higher ed, there are institutions that are making that transition that are leading now that we're kind of following. And the same is, you know, true, you know, and the other space, you know, as well, in terms of addressing the trauma, there are people that are figuring this out. And it was one of the really good things that happens through the trauma for swim is the Consulate General of Israel. Reddit, one of the articles that was written about the effort, as it turns out, Israel is a country has been, you know, dealing with trauma for for hundreds of years. And not only with all the violence that occurs within the country, but every person when they're 18 years old, they go into the military, and they're exposed, you know, to lots of trauma through that as well. And so, they as a country, they started something called me tall about 2025 years ago, to specifically address trauma within their population because they recognize what was what's happening all these people with PTSD and other things in how it was affecting the country in a very negative way. And there was actually one woman Who, who, who experiences trauma, her husband passed away, parents passed away through some traumatic experience. She was a colonel in the army. And she decided that she wanted to make her life's mission to address the trauma that the population of Israel was forming. So she started Nate Hall. today. It is one of the most successful organizations in in the world in addressing trauma, and she has literally transformed the country of Israel through her work. So I think that if one woman had could make this her mission and change a country, we can change the City of Milwaukee and so it gives us hope.
Chuck: This sounds inadequate but I would tell you that on behalf of the Milwaukee community, I'm very thankful for what you and Amy are doing. So you were quoted as saying that if he were to give a new TED Talk, it would be called leadership, what I've learned from all the mistakes I've made, there any mistakes that you could share today that you would include in that talk is maybe a preview for when that actually happens.
Lovell: you learn as a leader, you know, I don't know about you, but I was I kind of evolved in leadership positions without any training. I never took any leadership courses. You know, I never had any even seminars that I did Same here. And so as I became a leader, unfortunately, the way I became I believe I've become a better leader is by mistakes I've made. And unfortunately, when you make mistakes as a leader, the people that you're working with report to you are the ones that suffer and so I oftentimes I feel very bad for some of the people I worked with early in my career or leadership when I didn't, you know, when I was trying to figure out what I was doing. I think the biggest thing, you know, what I learned, you know, and again, there's, I actually give a talk where I go through kind of the 10 things I learned to try to pass on to others about leadership. One of the first things that that I always talk about in that that talk was that The fact that when I first became a leader, I didn't want to show anyone that I had any vulnerabilities that I was this really strong leader that I was, you know, always put myself forward, you know, is, you know, not having any flaws. And so what the mistake I made there was is that, you know, I really separated into my personal life or anything about me personally with my leadership. Well, that's just the opposite of that, where you need to lead because you want to be a leader where people follow you because they want to follow you not because they have to, right because that's when you get a really people follow people, people exactly. And so, if you don't show your vulnerabilities, it's really hard for people to attach to you. If they think that you're this perfect, strong person all the time because all of us are flawed and have things that we, you know, our limitations and do wrong and the more we are willing to be vulnerable and talk and expose those things to others, the more they are able to attach to you will more readily will follow you and so even with swim, one of the things that I knew I had to do to lead this effort was talk about my background and my past and my aces and the things I experienced, which To be quite honest with you that was not comfortable, you know, you know what we're all wouldn't be somewhat private people didn't expose our flaws like I did, you know, leading Cree when you had drinks it, you know, it's, it's vulnerable, but it at the end of the day, you know, people no longer question my motivation until I did that people said, Well, why is he doing this? by, you know, is he arrogant to think he can come in and solve these problems that we're facing around trauma in the city when he's never experienced the trauma that I'm seeing if if I'm moving their city? Well, by doing that people then so this makes some sense. You know, my right now I understand why the Mike's passionate about this.
Chuck: It was certainly I think, if you and I go back, we're almost the same age. So if we went back 30 years, I think the fact that either one of us, we would both lose a lot of money betting that we would ever talk about our own mental health struggles at some point, right. I don't think that would happen. All right, well, for someone out there who's in an organization that thinks they want to pursue innovation, but who feels? You know, I meet a lot of people who say, I wish I could do that. I feel like I can't. What advice do you have for that person that hears these innovation stories? And here's all these great problems you're taking on, but doesn't feel like they can do it themselves. What What advice would you give them?
Lovell: Well, going back to where we started this conversation, when you follow processes that are tried and true, anybody can be innovative, you know, again, some of us more predisposed than others. But you just have to trust. You know, that when you go through these processes, that you can, you know, evolve and be innovative because we again, it's been shown it can happen and all of us can be innovative. All of us can be an entrepreneurial mind, meet those people that one thing is you have to, you can't be afraid to fail because that is actually the key to being innovative is failing, you fail, you evolve and you grow, right. That's how you become more innovative And you know, I always I always tell them like how my class, I always say you learn more from your failures and your successes. I wish we didn't have call them failures. Because again, there's there's learning opportunities, right?
Chuck: I would take your idea and and the one thing I would say is that, I think when we use the word process, some people misunderstand it's not just follow these steps. It's it's a human process. It's about you. And as you as a person have to go through this, right. So what you were teaching them was is not just to wait to do the prototype you That was the actual thing. You want them to wait, but what you really want to understand is why you were waiting, right? Because there's something you're learning along the way. And I think too often, you know, my challenges is that people want to make innovation a recipe. There are definitely things we know make it more successful. But it's not. It's not exactly a recipe because if it was, you'd get the same result is the last right. So there's something it's so much about the person. So I want to wrap it up with one last question, what should I have asked you that I didn't?
Lovell: I will just say that, you know, when I think about, you know, whether it be swim or hire in general, you know, we have to understand that, you know, that there are forces that are driving these things to occur, and it's not an option to stand still, you know, just the reality is, is that, you know, standing still is the only way I know for sure you're going to fail going forward. And so, I think you know, what field or sector you're in, if you are not trying to be innovative and trying to evolve, you can count your days being numbered, you know, in that field, because, you know, I think things are changing so fast. So, I think everyone needs to be focused on being innovative.
Chuck: Yeah. And I think that if, if you don't have to just believe us just look at the history of every organization or industry it eventually comes, you know, in my world I remember the lighting guys telling me that there was no reason to ever have LED lighting what we have is good enough. And those three major companies don't make light bulbs anymore. And so it's and it's hard when you're there. But there is great case work, whether it be in industry or other organizations, it you can't stop innovation, you're either part of it or it. It changes your life in a way maybe you don't want in the end. Mike, thank you for your insight. I think, as a market alum, as a former trustee, we can't thank you enough for leading market. It's wonderful to have your perspective at a time when it's a challenging time. But you know, with change comes opportunity, I think as well. So it's a chance to do some things different and for the stuff you and Amy are doing in Milwaukee. Like I said before, I don't know anyone who's taking on two problems quite as large as you guys are and just incredibly thankful for all the work you're doing.
Lovell: Well. Thanks. Thanks for having me.