Antonio Lucio of 5S Diversity
Are you taking care of yourself?
"FEARLESS CREATIVE LEADERSHIP" PODCAST - TRANSCRIPT
Episode 357: Antonio Lucio
Here’s a question. Are you taking care of yourself?
I’m Charles Day. I work with creative and innovative companies. I coach their leaders to help them succeed where leadership has its greatest impact. The intersection of strategy and humanity.
This week’s guest is Antonio Lucio. His bio is extraordinary. He was the first Global Marketing and Communication Officer at Visa. The first Global Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at HP. He was Facebook’s first Chief Marketing Officer. And he left there to become the Founder and Principal of 5S Diversity. They describe their mission as accelerating the leadership journey of diverse talent and increasing its representation in senior marketing roles in the industry. He is a member of the Executive Fellows Program at Yale University and earlier this month was inducted into The Marketing Hall of Fame.
His reputation is that he is an incredibly empathetic leader.
And as you’ll hear, that may be his greatest accomplishment.
“So, taking care of yourself, and I had to learn this, the hard way, is probably the most selfless thing that you do, because without it, nothing happens. Whether it is your family, whether it's your community, whether it is your work, whether it is the impact that you want to have in the broader ecosystem, it begins and ends with you. I learned it the hard way, and I don't regret that I did, as difficult as it was.”
According to romantic lore, leaders step in where angels fear to tread. They throw themselves, head first, into the fray, and generally, they’re willing to sacrifice themselves for the good of others.
But, here’s a simple truth. It’s hard to lead anyone, anywhere meaningful, if you don’t care about yourself.
The pandemic has extracted a much deeper cost from leaders than most are willing to acknowledge. I see so many who are in denial of the personal price they have paid, and continue to pay, for keeping the company together and the business going.
But the trauma of the last two plus years is real. And it has been replaced by a world in which there are no rules, and everyone’s normal is new.
If you think that you can tough your way through that, then I hope you’ll listen to all of this conversation.
It’s the story of how a leader who has achieved everything, had to first learn the very hard way what really mattered.
Here’s Antonio Lucio.
Charles: (02:39)
Antonio, welcome to Fearless. Thank you so much for coming on the show.
Antonio Lucio: (02:43)
My pleasure, Charles.
Charles: (02:45)
When did creativity first show up in your life? When were you first conscious of creativity playing a role in your life?
Antonio Lucio: (02:51)
Well, according to my late mother, I was a kid full of imagination, from the moment that I was born. I lived in a world of fantasy, maybe because (laughs) my reality was not was not a lot of fun. So, you know, playing parts with… we were five brothers and sister or organizing plays and playing a priest with a confession and everything included in it, with altar boys and altar girls at the time. So I think, exploring the world of imagination has always been part of me. I became fully aware of it the moment that I left Procter and Gamble, that I started… I would say that my career in PepsiCo, following 10 years at Kraft, was the moment where I began to tap into the need for big ideas. And when you learn, as I did, at the time, the challenger mentality, when you're challenging the big brands, creativity becomes the currency of the marketing function. I think I owe that to my years at PepsiCo.
Charles: (04:07)
How did you express yourself growing up? What was your medium of choice growing up?
Antonio Lucio: (04:13)
Oh, I've always been a talker. (laughs) Yeah, I'm… I like people. And I like conversations. And that's how I express myself then and that's how I continue to express myself today.
Charles: (04:30)
I want to jump into an interesting area. I mean, your background is fascinating and so diverse and multi and has so many different elements to it. In some ways, we might think of America as the first brand. If you were America's CMO, what would your next step be?
Antonio Lucio: (04:52)
Well, it's a phenomenal question. I think if I was America's CMO, I will do what I have done with every brand that I was given, that had stood the test of time, going back to the origins, going back to the founders, understanding the things that are run today and understanding the things that need to evolve. When I joined Visa for the first time, and Visa was going to become a publicly traded company, it was a company that was a not-for-profit, it was divided by regions, and every region was owned by the banks that were leading in the region.
So, as global as the brand was from a acceptance mark and logo standpoint, it was completely fragmented. So one of the first things that I did as a CMO, I actually had the opportunity to go to Seattle and meet Dee Hock, who was the person that founded the company, and I had an amazing conversation with him. And I came to terms that the original vision, which was the creation of the universal currency for life and commerce, was what we needed to anchor ourselves in it.
In the case of HP, I did the same thing. Bill and Dave were not alive at the time, but they had left, my goodness, so much writing as to the philosophies of what HP was all about. And the work that came as core to the reason for being was reinvention. And that's what we anchored ourselves, as the company was separated, we anchored in a more focused sort of portfolio. If I was doing the same thing with the US, I would… I've been always fascinated by the revolutionary generation and the personalities that build this concept, this brand called America, that were so different.
I mean, in a way, everybody likes to talk about just the gender and racial profile of them, and it's true. They were all men, and they were all very white, and they were slave owners. But, at the same time, they had fundamentally different ways of approaching the world. George Washington was a quiet leader that grew up in the revolutionary army. So the concept of America was more an integrated, strong federal union, as opposed to the states right.
Jefferson, on the other hand, was a states right guy from Virginia, that saw anything central as the second reiteration of, with all due respect to you, Charles, the British. And that's the reason why revolution happened to get rid of that centralized government. Out of all of them, out of those ideas, came this concept, and I think I would re-anchor today on the words of E Pluribus Unum, ‘Out of the many one,’ which is a concept that I think we have forgotten on both sides of the spectrum, on the right, obviously, but also on the left.
And I think we need to, we need to figure out... That's my biggest fear today, as I think through where I am, where my daughters, my five daughters are, where my one granddaughter is, that we become so polarized, so fragmented, that we lose the concept that we together, we are one. That's the essence of what this country is, and if I was repositioning the US, I will re-anchor in that original idea.
Charles: (08:35)
I don't want to make the whole conversation about politics, and I know you don't either. But I am curious about this. It's so clear that the right are much more effective, much more disciplined around messaging, than the left are. Why do you think that is?
Antonio Lucio: (08:52)
I think we have gone through different moments, where that is true or not. I think that today, it is absolutely the case. But I fundamentally believe that having the power of synthesis, of bringing people together on their unified messaging, and appealing those messages, either to fear on one side, or to the higher aspirations of humankind, will be extremely effective.
Bill Clinton was able to do that. Obama was able to do that. I still believe in a place called Hope. ‘Yes we can.’ I think, on the right, and we can say anything about any candidate, that Mr. Trump is an exceptional marketer, exceptional marketer, when it comes to the simplicity of the message, the discipline required to it, his ability to actually tap into emotion, into fear, if you will, his ability to bring people together into a community, the ins and the outs, and making those people feel special, and even almost enlightened. It’s something that he's done incredibly well.
We need to figure out, the equivalent of that on the left or we're going to have problems going forward. We tend to over complicate things. We tend to over intellectualize things, and we forget one fundamental marketing, actually it’s a scientific concept. People make decisions based on beliefs, not on facts. It's beliefs that we have to change, not facts. And beliefs are based on emotions. And for belief, you need to connect with people. In fact, science will prove you that if you have a very strong belief, you can have as many facts in front of you, and you are going to just double down and hunker down on those beliefs. And you're going to make it worse. So, that piece is what I think that the left needs to fix.
Charles: (10:57)
Yeah, it's a classic Simon Sinek TED Talk, isn't it? People don't buy what you do. They buy why you do it. And I think that has absolutely held up over time.
Antonio Lucio: (11:05)
No question.
Charles: (11:06)
You've long been an outspoken advocate and supporter, and conscience, I think, actually, it's fair to say, for diversity, equity and inclusion. You are currently focused on that full time with 5S Diversity. You've talked about having a mission to accelerate the leadership journey of diverse talent. As you look across the entire business landscape, do you see meaningful signs of change? Or is DEI still more of a corporate selling point?
Antonio Lucio: (11:30)
No, I think both. (laughs) We live in an ‘and’ world. We don't live in an ‘or’ world. They are definitely pockets of brilliance. Number one, I think, a year and a half ago, for the first time, we have in the US, more than 50% of the CMOs are female. Five years ago, that number was close to 30. That is a real tangible sign of progress.
I have also seen a significant number of clients do a great job in bringing people in of more diverse backgrounds. And I will put Verizon and [inaudible] under at fellows at the top of of that particular list. So when it comes to women at the CMO role, and when it comes to increasing the representation of women and people of colors, at the entry level, on the client side, I think, we have made some tangible progress.
Where we have not made as much progress is on people of color, in general, on both the client and the agency side. And even in conversations with some of those female CMOs, they are worried about the next generation of senior marketing roles, both on the female side, as well as on the people of color side. And by people of colors, I'm referring to Black, Hispanic, and Asian.
So that's the client. On the agency side, yeah, I think, there are some high profile, chief creative officers here and there, they make the news, and it's a big deal. There's a couple of agency, CEOs, but the numbers are not there really. The numbers at senior leadership levels, on the key departments, creative and strategy, are still not there. With people of color, it's even worse, even at the entry level.
And then if you continue out into the ecosystem, when it comes to in front and behind the camera, on the production side of the world, the numbers are not there. There are some marginal progress. There's a couple of great stories from a client here and there. But the fact of the matter is that female directors, people of color, directing stuff, even within the set itself, it's not there. So I think it's both. And this is a… this will be a long term value that we will need to develop over the next decade or so, or we're not going to make progress.
Charles: (14:15)
One of the dynamics about CMO tenure, CMOs in general, I guess, is that the length of their tenure is shorter than it's ever been, right? Or it's maintaining sort of record lows. I think, I read somewhere that 40 months is the average tenure of a CMO. Which is about half of a CEO. What kind of advice would you give CEOs in terms of working more effectively with CMOs?
Antonio Lucio: (14:39)
We have to unpack the numbers, because there are some significant trends that actually make a big difference in understanding those numbers. Over the last decade, we have seen significant growth in the marketing populations outside of the consumer goods world. Financial services, technology startups, they're taking the bulk out of the marketing heads in the industry. That's a big trend. And the reason that I'm mentioning this is that when you really analyze the numbers, most of that movement and the reason why the averages are what they are, are happening not necessarily in the consumer goods world, where the marketing function was invented, it's happening outside.
And the fundamental reason for that is that, in the CPG world where marketing was invented, there is a very clear understanding what marketing does, and its relative value within the overall marketing equation. Yes, you can change the title name here and there, but the core discipline of building brands that stand the test of time, that doing it through insights, and leveraging every single opportunity within the decision making channel to actually provide that level of satisfaction, and preference, and love, and all that type of stuff, is there. And, by the way, if the CMO is not doing a great job, you change the CMO.
But the chair for the most part is there. The function continues to be there, whether they report to the CEO, and that's a separate conversation altogether. But outside of the consumer good world, there is not a clear understanding of what marketing does. You and I grew up with a 4Ps, you know. In the CPG, I was responsible for the product brief. So, the P of product. I had a very strong point of view on what was the distribution strategy or place. I had a very strong point of view on the, on the price because the V or price value equation, the value was set by the marketing function. And then we own the P of promotion, completely from end to end.
And by the way, it was like that because we started with the P&G concept of ‘customer is boss.’ So, you started every single initiative of the company going into the research, through research, insight. Let me go to the consumer. Let me figure out how do we improve their life. Let me see how I can improve the things that they are currently doing. Or even anticipate new ideas, new concepts.
Outside of the consumer good world, you don't start with a consumer, you start with a product, a technology, a science, a whatever, and then the piece are fragmented. You know, product is the product office, distribution is the sales force, the price value sometimes… sometimes the offerings are free, and it's just that. And then marketing is relegated to the P of promotion. And sometimes even those Ps are split into three; growth marketing, product marketing, and brand marketing. And the CEO does not have the clarity of what the marketing… of an integrated marketing function that you have in the CPG world, would look like within the context of the non-CPG world.
So, a lot of the issues that we have, and most of the conversations that I have with people in the CPG world or outside of the CPG world, and the reason why those numbers are the way that they are, is that there is no clarity in terms of the expectations of the CEO, relative to the role that the CMO will play. Some of the CEOs want the CMO to do brand work. Some of the times, it's about revenue generating growth strategy. Some of the other times, it's about sales enablement so that if you have no clarity as to what the function needs to do, you're going to make mistakes as to the profile of the people that you're going to hire, and therefore you're going to end up being dissatisfied. And then you will rotate, and rotate, and rotate, and rotate some more.
That's really what's happening. So, my advice to the CEOs is that when we are having the conversation, let's talk about what you want the CMO to do specifically, then we're going to talk about the profile. And then when I'm talking to the CMOs going into those particular jobs, it's about, let's make sure that we have a vision about what it is that you're going to do short term but more importantly, what the function needs to deliver long term so that then you can assure your longevity and the impact on your business.
Charles: (19:56)
And do you think there are absolute truths that are relevant to the job? I mean, do you think they are absolute truths by which the CMO job should always be built, regardless of the industry or the segment you're in?
Antonio Lucio: (20:05)
Absolutely. I mean, absolute truth is that the CMO needs to be a business builder first and a marketing artisan second. Within the CPG world, these two terms become closer to one depending on the company, but it's understood outside of the consumer good world. And frankly, many of the CMOS in the technical world came from the agency world in which they never had to actually drive the business side. They were just driving the brand side of it.
So the whole notion that you are a business person first, which means that you talk numbers first, and pretty pictures last, that you use the vocabulary of the business function as opposed to the vocabulary of the marketing ecosystem, and that you need to become bilingual and bicultural within the company so that you're able to translate business strategies into comprehensive plans that actually end up building the business, these are truisms. So that's one, that you need to become a business person, a business builder first, and marketing artisan second.
And the second one is that you are outside of the consumer good world, because you have to clarify what marketing is actually doing, how marketing contributes, and the way that marketing is going to be measured. You become the CEO of the function, which means that 80% of your time, you're doing setting a vision, aligning that vision, making sure that you have the right resource allocation, and removing roadblocks, as opposed to spending time with your team, with your agencies, with the design studios to actually deliver the right type of program. That's a fundamental truism.
And then the third piece is, at the end of the day, your creativity and your ability to build a business through creativity will make you a successful CMO. But you have to go through the discipline of this creativity is building this particular business this way and this is how we measure it, as opposed to just focusing your time on delivering this just amazing creative idea as we used to do in other categories or the agency world.
Charles: (22:37)
And there's such clarity in that description you just given. It's remarkable, striking really, how often you walk into a business and find the complete absence of that kind of clear thinking and specificity around what is the job. And you're right. It gets bundled into so many different functions these days. And people are held to account to impossible standards and expectations and, to your point, as well, undefined expectations in many cases.
Antonio Lucio: (23:00)
The other thing that is related to that, and by the way, is something that our joint friend, Colleen DeCourcy does does masterfully, is that when you're a CMO outside of the consumer good world, you have to own the fact that part of your job is educating the CEO as to what marketing can do, how marketing is developed, and the way that it is measured. And owning that, spending the time, and doing it through the right storytelling that is relevant to him, not to us, but to him, becomes an essential element of the equation as well.
Charles: (23:37)
Yeah, I'm so glad you brought that point, because I think it's a really under-recognized attribute that great leaders bring to the table, which is the ability to educate people to whom they are ostensibly reporting in some fashion or another, but they take on that responsibility.
The world has changed so much in the last two and a half years. It's impossible to even begin to describe it. But given that, if you were walking into a company today as the senior leader, as the CEO, where would you start trying to define what the future looks like? Where would you start in terms of defining for the company, what's the future of work? What does the office look like? Where in this whole paradigm shift would you begin?
Antonio Lucio: (24:17)
Well, I think that before getting into the office or no office, I think that the biggest fundamental shifts that, I think, the pandemic just accelerated or amplify, whatever you want to call it, is the fact that when you and I grew up in the business, we were building brands and companies for equity, for brand equity. The correlation was between if you have a strong brand equity, you're going to have long term growth.
And by the way, when you're building for equity, it means that you are focusing on your frame of reference, on your competitive set, and you are going to be great if you're able to over-deliver on those customers’ expectations within your competitive set. And that was great. And you were a great marketer, and you were a great company, if you were able to do that. Over the last several years, but really became a truism, because of the pandemic, there is a breakdown in trusts, in major institutions, because of what we live. You know, we don't trust governments. The Edelman trust index is a really good representation of that. We don't trust governments. We don't trust politicians, and sometimes even NGOs anymore. But we are trusting those people that are close to you. And we trust the corporations that give us our paycheck on a weekly basis more than anyone else. Which means then that we have a unique opportunity on multiple levels, on the employees, which will bring me to your specific question in a moment, as well as citizens, of building brands and building company, not just for brand equity, but building it for trust.
When you're doing it with the trust filter in mind, yes, you have to be incredibly competitive within your frame of reference, but you have to do it within the societal values that citizens and employees expect you to be involved with. And when we talk about those two, there are two big ones, general pop and more importantly, the Generation Z that it's coming up through the ranks, it’s sustainability, or the realization that we've pretty much messed up the environment, and we have to bring it back, and everything related to social justice.
That's where I would start. What is our purpose, as a business, commercially? What is our purpose, as a business, within the context of the communities that we serve? What are the areas that we're going to own that are unique to us, that are authentic to us, so that we can let the world know that those are the areas? As opposed to what sometimes happen, which is you have your business and then you create a CSR separate from your business and then everybody calls you on it. This has to be a very strategic choice.
And then when you set that up, and you create that purpose within the context of societal values, then you need to clearly define the role that each one of your stakeholders is going to play. And you need to start with yours, which is your employees. It is for me, today, the most important target, and one that the marketing function sometimes was paying attention to or sometimes it wasn't. Now, you have to. In the era where everything converges in social media, your employees are your biggest ambassadors or your strongest detractors.
So, with that vision, with that purpose, thinking about them, first and foremost, and then allowing them to live a life of productivity and meaning, both of them at the same time. And then decide what that's going to mean in terms of flexibility, your work practices, so on and so forth. The same holds true for your customers, that right now are expecting you also to have a point of view on sustainability, what is the footprint that you're leaving? I mean, the products that you're selling me are going to have an impact on my footprint. So, what is it, and what is your platform within social justice? You cannot stand for everything, but which one is yours and in what way does that interact with mine?
And then you take it to your consumers, direct to consumers. And what does that mean for them? And then you take it to, who are the opinion leaders that are really impacting your category? And then as we have seen a more expansive role of the government in everything that we touch, you have to do the same thing with the government officials.
That is a fundamental change, Charles, in the way that companies think, and importantly, the role that the marketing function is going to need to play as the aggregator of this, as holding all this together as the coordinator of this integrated platform that serves both the business and community at a deeper level.
Charles: (29:36)
Yeah, I couldn't agree more with that. I think the biggest challenge I see in the people that I talked to, is that they have not yet made this shift towards really understanding the importance of building community on a truly human level. The focus is still, I think, largely on how often you're going to come in the office, when are you going to come in the office, how do we get back to some version of 2020, even if we're going to talk about it slightly differently.
And I think the shift that you're describing is a paradigm shift. I think it's nothing less than an epoch. And I think, 10 years from now, we're going to look at this time and say this is when it all changed, and boy, was it hard to get through. And the companies that I think are going to come out the other side ahead are the ones that get there faster in terms of their real understanding, and their emotional commitment to the well-being of their people.
Antonio Lucio: (30:20)
Yeah, but at the same time, you know, I'm an optimist. It's really remarkable to me, when, you know, you and I stand back and look in, there are today, so many different laboratory experiments as to the different... We will be able to figure it out two or three years from now, where we said, "You know, okay, this company remained incredibly rigid." Oh, and by the way, the banking industry started rigid, and then they had to ease off because they were losing people. Others went all the way out. You can live anywhere. We're going to pay you the same salary, and we're going to get together only for… I mean, it's important that we get together, we're going to get together with a purpose. And it's going to be, I don't know, under this particular schedule.
So, I'm actually encouraged as to the fact that you have so many companies and so many organizations, testing so many models. I think at the end of the day, we're going to figure this out, we have to.
Charles: (31:21)
Yeah, I agree with that as well. I think that the two words there that really stand out to me are experimentation and testing. And I think if, as a culture, you're willing to do that, you're going to be ahead.
You know, it used to be that the leaders of businesses were just required to be subject matter experts, that all they had to do was really understand the industry they were in, the organization that they ran. These days, leaders are asked for their opinions on everything that happens. And the recent flare up between State of Florida and Disney, over the Don't Say Gay legislation, is probably the most vivid example.
How would you guide leaders today to get ready for that reality? If they're going to take on a high profile role, how do they navigate that? Because, to our earlier conversation, there's two sides of every story these days, and people seem to be very firmly on one side or the other. So, you know, whatever you say, you're going to alienate some of your constituents, some of your stakeholders. How do you navigate that as a leader these days?
Antonio Lucio: (32:16)
Let’s start at the beginning and then we'll take it to today. I am a strong believer in STEM education. I think that everything related to science, technology, math is really, really important, because by mastering those disciplines, you're going to be able to solve problems at scale.
At the same time, Charles, I have to say that we have overdone it, because STEM has come at the expense of humanities. STEM has come at the expense of ethics. And I'm talking not just from an educational standpoint. Humanities and ethics are electives for any business leader today. Yet at the end of the day, when you are the Chief Marketing Officer of any major corporation, the case method that you're going to have at the MBA level is about solving a tactical, or a strategic business issue.
And yet today, you are asked to figure out some of the fundamental questions that we have all had at the different generational moments. who are we? What society are we building? What is privacy? We're getting into the metaverse, what does it mean to really exist? What are my rights in this world? Do I have the same rights as in the real world? Am I allowed to touch someone or not touch someone? What is the balance between your right to privacy and the right that we should have as a nation to gather as much information so we can identify the next pandemic, or cure cancer, or what have you? How do we balance growth?
These are the questions that business leaders, and by the way, you cannot expect governments to do it, because they're not doing it, as you know. And by the way, citizens are not even expecting them to do that anymore. So, when you are a business leader today, these are the questions that you are asked to answer, and you have to be prepared for that. Number one, you have to have a deeper understanding of these topics. But more importantly, you have to create the space, within the context of the processes that you have available and your operating plan, strategic plan, what have you, to have these conversations.
Unfortunately, what happens is, you learn something, you grow a lot, everything is great, rosy and peachy, and then all of a sudden, the law of unintended consequence—
Charles: (35:02)
Mm.
Antonio Lucio: (35:02)
…comes to charge you for those things that you didn't think about. Every single company in every known business model has gone through that. Walmart, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, the banking industry. I mean, it's like, yeah, we're going to do this for the betterment of mankind, and then someone figures out how to use it or misuse it, and then we'll go like, “Oh, my God.” Nobody blamed Facebook for having Obama elected. And he used some of the same techniques, and fundraising that the next guy.
All I'm saying is that we need to create the spaces for having conversations that are more anchored on, what is it that we're building, and what is the broader impact that we have, which means combining all the training that we have on STEM with a lot more humanities and ethics so that we prepare our leaders in a more comprehensive sort of way.
Charles: (36:06)
One of the things that's true of leaders who are celebrated, such as you, is that we see their careers from the outside. We see their careers through a prism and through a lens. And you mentioned Colleen earlier. Colleen was on the podcast about a month ago and I asked her if she had any regrets.
And when I asked her if she had any regrets, she said it was that her career had had a lasting impact on her health. Now that's not an insight, I think, that most people would understand or recognize her career through. As you look back at your career so far, I'm clear it's not finished yet, but as you look back at it so far, have you got any regrets?
Antonio Lucio: (36:48)
You know, it's remarkable of how much Colleen and I share in terms of our life journey. I don't think I would call it a regret, because in my particular case, I had to fall in order to change. So, yeah, there were times in my life where I was completely out of balance.
When I was the CMO at PepsiCo, I was diagnosed with chronic depression. I didn't see, did not want to see the symptoms coming. I was avoiding them. I was running fast and furious. I was putting my career ahead of my family, ahead of my health. And I fell, I fell flat on my face, then I had to rebuild my life, brick by brick. And it took me two and a half years to do so. And it lasted for 10 years. And then I began to fall again, and then I had a heart attack. Once again, I had to fundamentally reassess, rebalance, refocus, refocus my life. And my career.
So I think going through the darkness of the depressive period, as I call it, was probably one of the most enlightening moments of my life, because it… I just fell down, and I had to acknowledge my humanity, my vulnerability, my weakness, in that sense, and that I had to make some fundamental and profound changes in my life. And I don't… as hard and as dark, and as painful as it was, because it is. Mental illness is a very dark thing. I am deeply grateful that I went through that, because I don't think that I would have become the compassionate, empathetic leader that some people like to say that I am without that.
So it was, in my particular case, it was immediate moment. I don't regret that I went through that. Having said that, when I tell people about it, I always say that empathy and compassion begins with self compassion and self empathy, because if you are not in a good place, nothing that you have been able to build, including your family will remain the way that it is, because you have a very important role to play there. So, taking care of yourself, and I had to learn this the hard way, is probably the most selfless thing that you do, because without it, nothing happens.
Whether it is your family, whether it's your community, whether it is your work, whether it is the impact that you want to have in the broader ecosystem, it begins and ends with you. I learned it the hard way, and I don't regret that I did, as difficult as it was.
Charles: (40:18)
Thank you for sharing that. I think that it is the hardest thing that I find when working with people, for leaders to recognize they need to take care of themselves first before they can take care of other people. And the pandemic has been even more destructive from that standpoint. And people have been traumatized in ways, I think, they don't often understand. So I think your message is both incredibly powerful, and unbelievably timely. And my very last question for you, what are you afraid of?
Antonio Lucio: (41:00)
I'm afraid of not being able to put the blessings that I've been given, in terms of health and opportunities, to better use and not to leverage that for the betterment of my family, my community, and even my craft. Mental illness has been a very big thing in my family and my youngest brother, who was valedictorian in his class, suffers from schizophrenia. The difference between him and me is the luck of the draw.
Charles: (41:52)
Mm.
Antonio Lucio: (41:52)
I could have been him and he could have been me. And I have that in the center of my heart and in the center of my mind, that I was given such a blessing of a life that I need to make sure that it matters, and that is my biggest fear.
Charles: (42:17)
I am so grateful to you for taking the time today and for sharing so openly. I think this is an incredibly important conversation for people to hear. And you have my utmost respect and gratitude, for everything that you do and for sharing so openly today. Thank you very much indeed.
Antonio Lucio: (42:34)
Thank you, Charles. And hopefully this will be the first of many conversations.
Charles: (42:38)
I very much hope that's true, too.
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