Hi, everyone, and welcome to the next episode of Skate Ukraine Academy. Today we’re talking about abusive and positive coaching. As soon as we launched Skate Ukraine, I started to receive a lot of feedback, including negative feedback. Basically, it’s about “abusive coaching being needed to produce champions”. And I feel like we have to start discussion about this topic, and I couldn’t think of a better guest to have this conversation with than Kiira Korpi. Kiira is a 5-time national champion of Finland, 3-time European medalist, and multiple medalist and champion of Grand Prix events and other competitions. Recently, she has been advocating for conscious coaching. And she studies positive psychology in New York.
Video transcription:
– I want to start with an introduction. Tell us the story of why and how you started to represent skaters and talk about culture in sports in general?
– Thank you for having me, Ivan. I think what you’re doing is so important for our sport. I came to be an advocate for these issues about five years ago. I stopped competing and then I did a lot of inner reflection and got some perspective out of skating. And then, two years ago, I published a memoir about my life and skating career, and after that, I think, the advocacy work organically began. I noticed that I haven't been alone with my experiences in skating with some of the... dysfunctional issues like negative coaching or eating disorders and all these cultural things that are happening in skating. So, after the book, I got so many messages from people and skaters saying to me, "Oh my God, it was like reading my own thoughts about my own life or career". And then thought, wow, now I can use this platform to really help skating to evolve to a new level and to a more conscious and maybe more holistic and humane direction.
– So, the book has kicked off the interest in advocacy, right?
– Yes, it served as a catalyst for a public conversation around these issues, at least in Finland. And there was a lot of pushback like, Kira is just extra sensitive or whatever. She doesn't know what she's talking about, and people shouldn't draw any conclusions about the culture from this. When I was writing the book, I wasn't quite sure. It was really about my personal journey. But then, through the book and the feedback, and now, after working with a lot of people, I know that these issues are so insidious in the culture. For a example, coaching has evolved over the years in a way that an authoritarian style is now viewed as normal or even good for athletes.
– That's what I want to focus on today. But before we get to the positive coaching itself, let’s linger a little bit on what's wrong with that coaching model or, I would say, environment, that you have experienced?
– First of all, I want to say that there are a lot of things in the skating coaching culture that are right, and I want to acknowledge that. But I feel like there are a lot of things that we could definitely improve on. And some of those things are harmful for the holistic well-being of the athletes and the coaches and people in general. And those are just things that many skaters – like myself, when I was competing – didn't even realize to be somehow wrong. You just grow up to take them as normal. For example, the way the coach can use their power over you. They can be yelling or shouting or name-calling or ignoring you or making you the scapegoat or isolating you from the others, these kind of things, that, we know, are actually part of the emotional abuse. Which for me, when I was competing and skating, wasn't even in the vocabulary! It's also a scientific topic that has been researched for just, I don't know, 10 years or something. So, it's a very new topic.
And it concerns the physical aspect of the coaching, too. It’s considered normal that skaters are training, even if they are severely injured, or that they have to compete, even if they are injured. And that's just something that you would take as it is. Or the fact that some coaches can almost blame the athlete, if they get injured, and not self reflect on what’s being wrong with the coaching that an athlete got injured in the first place.
The overall philosophy has been that the coach is an authoritarian figure that produces the athlete. And the athlete is more like a product that needs to be shaped and molded, and it’s the coach’s intelligence that creates the perfect product. And what we see now in the new coaching style, which is more athlete-centered and human-centered, is that the athlete has much more autonomy and intelligence themselves to build up their own product, or to be more in charge of their own career and their own thoughts and emotions, and not to be dependent from the coach or someone else to this extent.
– I like that you mentioned that this whole topic of positive coaching is a relatively new field, and I think it's important to talk about it. In a way, we see the division, “the old generation” vs “the new generation”. But I would use those words very sparingly, because "the old generation" doesn't mean "bad". And, as you said, there were a lot of good and right things. As I understand, the problem is that the environment accepts, and not just accepts, but tolerates some forms of abuse in sports. It doesn't mean that abuse happens all the time to everyone, but it does happen, and it's tolerated.
– In many places it is seen as the best viable coaching method. It's not that people or coaches consciously think, “Let me just abuse these athletes.” No, that doesn’t usually happen like that. It’s just the way people have been coached themselves earlier in their career. Or the federation or someone else puts pressure on them to squeeze out everything from the athletes, no matter how short the career of the athlete ends up to be, or how many athletes need to break in order to produce this one person, one athlete that makes the cut and can endure all this.
But what really strikes me about many of these things, not just in figure skating but in many other sports, is why the best coaches in the world wouldn't want to look at the the recent science behind the performance psychology, and what makes athletes empowered to to do their best, to be physically well and to be able to have a sustainable career. This goes with nutrition and all these things that would need to have a much more science-based view, or philosophy in order to have a sustainable sports environment... Most of all, I think it would be nice, if after the athletes stopped competing or skating, they would be more empowered to start their new lives and embark on this journey. Skating can teach so much more than just skating. What really breaks my heart is that so many skaters that we never hear about have to stop, because they just couldn't take it mentally or physically or emotionally. And I think in that case, we should look more closely to what it is in the coaching that makes it almost impossible for many athletes to thrive.
– I totally agree with you, and I think the last thing that you mentioned is called survivorship bias. It’s when you see champions with abusive coaches, and you build a relation that "abusive coaching" equals "champions". But you don't see those who are not champions, who left sport, who dropped out from sports, who are injured for life because of that. So, it’s an important moment.
– Yes, maybe they don't get the publicity, because they don't have the big medals or big names... I know some cases when athletes would have actually liked to speak up, but then they were just ignored.
– It's a sort of a network effect. When you have one dominant coaching model, it creates an environment which filters out people who disagree with this model or with these approaches, and welcomes people who are the opposite, those who can embrace it. And that's what we call culture. There are a lot of people who disagree with that, but they just don't get accepted.
– That's a great point. I know that in some countries there are coaches who have a very athlete-centered philosophy, but they are not supported by the federation. The federation wants to take the skaters those coaches have and give them to other coaches, who in the past have produced medals, but maybe with the use of some questionable methods. What also makes me really sad is that I know many coaches, many young coaches, who would really love to train according to their values and maybe in this more humane way, but they just burn out in the system, and don't see that they have a place in the system. Because it, like you said, encourages this kind of a more harsh way of coaching.
– I'm kinda happy to hear that from other people, because it shows that the problem is universal. It's not just in Ukraine or one particular country. I see the new generation of young coaches, who remember methods that were used on them, and they just refuse to use them themselves. They just say, we don't know how, but we are going to look for a better way. They just don't accept that it's the only option.
– 'Cause they can feel it in their bones that it wasn't the best way. And what science and researches point out is that emotional abuse is in no way the best option to make the athlete perform in the best way. That's one of the myths that I would like to break in the skating world, the myth that it's somehow needed that you have to break the athlete in order to get the medals.
Many people have told me, well, you probably wouldn't have achieved this or that medal, if it wasn't for the harsh, tough and even at times abusive methods. And in the beginning I was like, yeah that's true… But now I would actually like to ask another question. How much more could I have succeeded, if it was done in a little bit more sustainable way? In a way that I could've been psychologically free and my inner motivation would've been bigger than the outer motivation or pressure.
– That, I feel, is the biggest drawback of the traditional coaching... I mean, from the moral perspective, it's obviously wrong. But also, like you mentioned at the beginning, there is an authoritarian model of a coach that molds and creates skaters. It’s almost a factory, where you work with metal or other stuff. But we are talking about human beings, and every person is unique, and they have their own strengths and weaknesses.
And if you think about it, being a coach is probably one of the hardest jobs in the world! You work with humans, and you have to know how humans work. And you keep mentioning scientific research, because you're probably studying it right now, don't you?
– Yeah, I’m trying to read a lot.
– Scientific research is the ground truth for everything, for books, for articles you read, for knowledge that spreads later on. But I don't know many figure skating coaches who read scientific papers. It's just not what coaches do, usually.
– I think it's also been researched why emotional abuse is so prevalent in the coaching circles. The coaches usually value the mentorship, or the the example of the older, more successful coaches than the formal coaching education, where they would actually get the latest research and stuff like that. And then it creates this cycle, until there are enough people like you and me, and probably most people that are watching or reading this, who are waking up and saying, no, it just can't go on anymore, and there is a better way.
– From what I see in Ukraine, formal coaching education exists just to get the document that allows you to go and work as a coach. But methods that you employ as a coach are usually just copied and pasted from how you had been taught and coached. So, it just goes in cycles and creates the feedback loop. That's the only method you know, and the only method you will pass to the next generation.
But again, what can we offer the people who want to break the cycle? As you said there is research... in which field? Is it called positive psychology?
– Yes. Well, I'm sure there are many fields that offer some kind of a solution. I've been studying positive psychology myself. The idea is that we look for things that are right more than we look for things that are wrong. Through the evolution our brain has been programed to look for things that are wrong, for the mistakes. And especially in a competitive environment like skating, you really have to work hard in order to not only see mistakes. You have to train your mind – your brain – to see the good in yourself and your skating. And as a coach, too. It's important to recognize your strengths and your values, and then provide the space for the athlete to grow into their full potential in their own unique way.
I've got this metaphor in my mind. It used to be, and may still is in some places, that the coach was the one, like you said, who worked with stones... Or what did you say. Metal?..
– Yeah, like in the factory, you’re moulding stuff…
– ...You mould different material. And then, I feel like in this new approach, the coach is more like a gardener, whose main job is just to take care of the temperature to be right, the opportunity and the environment to be right, so that the flowers or whatever grows in the garden could grow into their own unique expression. I think that also takes a lot of pressure off the coaches, because then they don't feel like, oh, I need to make this athlete. It's the athletes who make themselves. And the coach is there to rather be a helper and a guide for the athlete to really tap into their own inner resources and wisdom, into their strength and gift.
– It reminds me of a book about learning foreign languages. Its name can be translated into something like “You can't be taught another language”. The point is that you can’t be taught externally. Only you can motivate yourself and learn yourself. So, I'm applying this logic here. It's not like you can take any human being, any kid, and teach them elements, teach them how to be a great skater. But you can uncover their potential, boost their inner performance, and inner motivation, and just make it happen, just follow along their path. So that's probably the...
– ...the idea, yes! Exactly. I think it's so exciting what comes out, when we allow athletes or even coaches to tap into their own inner motivation and wisdom and strength, then the outer expression is unique to everyone. Then, the definition of success can also be broader. It's not just this one skating type or program type. It can expand and take many different forms. And maybe it's not just about how many revolutions you’re doing in the air, although that's great, too, but it has so many other components.
– Yeah, but that's hard! If you want to be able to adapt to all the personal uniqueness of each child... You have to understand how to work with it. You can’t just quit sports, get some formal education, and then just go coaching. It's a problem, because there are always not enough coaches in figure skating. I think in FInland and other Scandinavian countries there are a lot of volunteers in coaching positions.
– Yes, but not so much anymore. It's become such a difficult profession, and expectations are so high that there is actually a big lack of coaches.
– Which leads us again to the topic of positive psychology and research, and especially to the coaching psychology. I actually did some prior research, and I found that even the term “coaching psychology” didn't exist until very recently.
– Oh, really?
– Yes! It was only 2000 when the first classes of coaching psychology have been started at the University of Sydney. 20 years ago! What did people do 40 years ago? How did they plan their coaching strategy? How were they advocating for their actions? There was no research, no data. You would do whatever you felt was right.
– I think the research was just more focused on the physiology... My dad was a very great ice hockey coach in the 70s and 80s, and even 90s. He won the Olympic bronze medal with the female ice hockey team for Finland. And he said that he probably used to use what we nowadays would call the emotionally abusive coaching techniques, because those were the ones that were taught at the university and were considered good things to do. Kind of like in the 30s, people still thought that if you are too nice to your kids, if you give too much love, that would spoil the kids. And now we know that's corporal punishment, and it is really bad for the kids. I feel like the same thing is now going on with the coaching philosophy... With the research, we have come to the conclusion that this kind of psychologically non-holistic way of coaching can be very detrimental to the health of the athletes and the coach. Going back to my father, it’s been very interesting to talk to him. He's been saying, "It's such a good job what you are doing now". He said, "I wish that we had more education on this psychology, when I was younger." But the focus was only on how we can make the athletes work like machines, and just try to focus on the physical aspect and not so much on the mental aspect.
– I'm so glad to hear that he supports you. I feel it’s very important.
– It is.
– The knowledge that we had back then was probably just the empirical knowledge. We saw that something worked, and we just passed it through to the next generations. The empirical knowledge could be right, but it could also be dead wrong.
The first thing that comes to my mind is the "Moneyball" book. They had this culture of scouting for decades. Hundreds and thousands of people were absolutely sure that they knew how to choose the best players. And then came the era of the computers. People started crunching numbers, and they just did a simple calculation – well, not simple, but still – and they saw that all those people had been dead wrong all this time! I'm fascinated by those stories. I'm a huge fan of the approach based on data science.
– Me too! I hope there will be more tests of the well-being of the athletes. I remember going to the national team camps many times. And there were extensive tests, but there were only physiological tests. Like how much you can jump, or how many pull-ups or push-ups you can do, how fast you can run. And they weigh you, and they look at your fat percentage and all these things. I'm not saying that it shouldn't still be there, but I think it could be so much broader. We could see the data on how the well-being of the athlete correlates with their performance.
– I remember one study in which 300 Olympic athletes were asked how they measured the importance of mental training. Basically, how important their mental skills, like being able to concentrate and overcome problems you have along the path, are for their success . And almost everyone – 90% – scored mental skills higher than physical. And my question to you is, how much time do skaters spend on training physical aspects in comparison to mental skills?
– I guess it’s all combined. You cannot just take your mind off, when you start doing your program. It's always synchronized. As for those trainings that would be purely mental, like going to a sports psychologist or other type of mental training, I think it's very little. Usually, it's a thing only when you, for example, need to overcome a huge fear of competing or nervousness before a competition, or fear of doing a jump after you've experience trauma. It's being used in that way. I am so happy that nowadays you can see more and more of mental training being incorporated even when an athlete doesn't have a huge problem. You just have it as an additional support for the athletes. That's what I would really like to see growing more. The advice that many skating coaches give to their students before they compete is just stay in the moment, stay relaxed, do one element at a time. And we know that the best performance, whether it's boxing or skating or tennis, happens when the athlete is really in the moment and is relaxed enough. I think we could utilize much more mindfulness practices and consciously practice the staying-in-the-moment techniques.
– I like this concept of thinking about your mind the same way you think about your body. We take a shower everyday, right? If we have an injury, even the smallest one, we fix it, we go to the doctor or whatever. With mind, we usually don't do this. We we don't have mental hygiene. And for athletes, I believe, it should be 50/50. We have to spend as much time on training mental skills as we do on physical skills. I think Brian Orser made a mobile app that helps athletes to concentrate, practice meditational stuff, but that’s an exception.
– I love seeing the way Brian relates to his skaters. At least it seems so from the outside... And also I've been working with Brian a few times. It seems that it's based on the supportive community, environment, and freedom for the athlete to choose for themselves or at least have their opinion heard. And one name that I remembered now, since we’re talking about the mindfulness and meditation, is Phil Jackson, the most decorated NBA coach with 11 championship wins. He used Zen Buddhism to teach his athletes about meditation and mindfulness, and even sometimes tai chi. I think that's one of the secrets why he was so successful for such a long time.
– Actually, I think today, when we’re recording this, is Phil Jackson's birthday!
– Well, happy birthday, Phill, if you're watching this, which I doubt.
– He’s very often mentioned as an example of a truly smart and qualified coach.
Back to our discussion about "old" vs "new", "abusive" vs "positive", I would say that this new system that we're talking about – the positive coaching – is a more educated coaching, a more qualified coaching. It’s less chaotic. We should shift the perspective from it being "negative" vs "positive" toward "uneducated" vs "educated". And, again, I'm not talking about uneducated people. 40 years ago we just knew much less about how a human works, we had a lot of preconceptions and beliefs that now are proven wrong.
By the way, I’ve heard that somebody said that positive coaching is just normal coaching, but you have to smile and praise the athletes and just not be negative. And it’s not what positive coaching is about, is it?
– I think the word "positive" is sometimes misleading. People think it's just like being with a smile all the time. But I think it's really the opposite. Positive coaching or positive psychology allows the whole human experience. It allows and celebrates, or tries to welcome all the colours of the emotional pallet of people. So, you can experience fear or sadness or anger, and you can be mindful of that. And then you can process it and let it go and not let it take you over, when you try to dissociate or run away from it. That's why these kind of conversations are important. So we get the more expanded view of what we mean by positive coaching. It doesn't mean that everything is great all the time, no. That's not life, that’s impossible. I guess it means that we stay real with whatever we feel internally or what happens externally. We don't try to sugarcoat anything. I think that's one of the reasons why negative coaching can continue. People, myself included, have been in sort of a bubble. We don't even see it as negative or painful, because we have become so good at dissociating from all the pain and difficult emotions, and we didn't have the space to feel them safely.
– But emotions are an important thing. They drive...
– ...the behaviour.
– Yeah, basically, all behaviour is driven by emotions. So, it's important to understand what it is and how to work with it. And what I expect from a modern 2020 coach is to be a professional at handling emotions. First of all, own emotions!
One of the typical examples of emotional abuse, even though some people don't even see this as abuse, because, as you’ve said, they learned to dissociate from it, is yelling at a child. When a child is not doing what the coach wants, they yell.
And if you think about it, it's the stupidest thing you could imagine. It's like going to a restaurant in another country, let’s say in France. You say something to the waiter, and they don't understand you, because, well... they don't know your language. And instead of finding another way to convey what you want, you just increase the volume of your voice, and repeat the same thing. Which is obviously a stupid way to communicate. I see yelling at a child the same way. It's not coaching, it's anti-coaching!
– Thank you for bringing up that point. It's so crucial. What I'm really glad about is that now in Finland, the emotional abuse has become a very public topic, and people now have the concept of it. It's in their vocabulary. And parents can be more aware of those situations where skaters are coming home from the practice crying and things like that. But we need a lot more support for the coaches to master the emotional skills, because for some people it doesn't just come naturally. But I'm very happy that at least in Finland I'm seeing more and more of that kind of coaching incorporated into the coaching program. And I think that should be one of the basic things you should teach before teaching an axel. Teach how to communicate with people, and especially with children.
– Yeah, it's not just coaches, actually. That's an important skill for…
– ...for all of us! That’s absolutely true. And I hope more and more kindergartens and schools will adopt that, and some do already. But I think there is still too much emphasis on the hardcore, measurable things to study, and test.
– I agree. It should be a common knowledge, common education for any places where the power imbalance exists. And when we have a coach and an athlete, you have the power imbalance by default. Especially in figure skating, where we have champions peaking at 15 or 16 years.
– Even 14!
– Or 13, yeah. Rules just don’t allow it. ...So, we have a children sport, in a way. I don't agree it should be like that, but it's a topic for another video. Here we have two power imbalance factors: coach–athlete and adult-child. In those environments where we have the power imbalance we have to do whatever we can to make sure that those who have authority know how to work with emotions.
I think you've seen this video of Natalia Godunko, who is a Ukrainian world champion in rhythmic gymnastics. Recently, she also told her story. I'm not sure whether in rhythmic gymnastics the situation is worse or better or the same, but it's also quite severe. She mentioned one book that I would really like to buy and give to any coach I meet in the future. It's “Don't Shoot the Dog” by Karen Pryor. It was written in 1984, and it's a book by a behavioral biologist, who also, like you, loves scientific research. All her experience is based on scientific research. It's a book about how to train humans, animals, and yourself. It just gives you the framework to understand how emotions work, how behaviour works, how to train it, what works, what doesn't work. And to me it was mind-blowing, because it opened the whole new perspective. Now I just don't understand how people can raise children or how coaches can work with kids without reading this book!
– I have to read it! I have to admit, I haven’t read it yet, but thank you for offering that suggestions to all of us.
– It's super practical. It's something that you can start using on a day-to-day basis very quickly. But I think I am going to read it more than once.
Let me play the Devil's Advocate for a little bit here and ask a question that I hear a lot. Why does the so-called abusive coaching produce results and positive coaching doesn't? We've briefly touched it already mentioning that there is a network effect and survivorship bias, but I think there is more to that. What do you think?
– Well, I don’t think it is completely true. If we look at success in a very narrow way, like counting just an Olympic medal of someone who's experienced abusive coaching, it can look like – yeah, great result! But then, if we look at the bigger picture, the bigger prize, which usually is behind that medal, is a lot. Many kids are broken in the process. And, usually, even the athletes who achieve medals are somehow traumatized mentally or physically or both. They are severely affected by the abusive coaching. It might look from the outside like it's bringing great results, but those can be just short-term results, or not sustainable results. We have examples like Michael Phelps, who was very vocal about the issues here in America. He's one of the persons who have won the most Olympic gold medals, but he is advocating that we should be talking so much more about the mental health of athletes.
I know personally many Olympic champions, who said to me in a distressed way that when they won the Olympic medal, it was so sad to notice how empty they felt inside. You realize that maybe all the sacrifices weren't completely worth it.
Regarding positive coaching not bringing good results, I think there is a lot of research and evidence that would point otherwise. We've been talking about Brian Orser and his coaching methods, and it looks like it's producing quite good results with a more positive take on coaching. We also talked about Phil Jackson and his way of coaching. And then I have experience of working with Shae Lynn Bourne, the choreographer of the year according to ISU. She just makes all the athletes glow and flourish, and it's so inspiring to work with her and coaches like her. There is also a rugby team from New Zealand, whose main goal is to have the athletes be healthy human beings first and have athletic success second. And they have being the best team in the world for years and years. So, there are examples all over the world that we should explore more. Back home, in Finland, we have ice hockey coaches and teams who’ve done so well without the typical yelling and other types of abusive coaching.
– It just warms my heart to to hear about these people. I think we need more publicity for these success cases. Take Brian Orser. He doesn't just produce Olympic medals. He creates truly fantastic champions, champions in all senses, people who you want to look up to...
– I'd like to correct you. He doesn't create them, but he creates the space for the athletes to flourish themselves.
– Yeah, exactly. But also, in a way, it breaks my heart to learn about those short-term results. I know a lot of people who actually got some medals and then they just had to quit because of injuries. Almost all Ukrainian skaters have injuries, severe injuries, something I wouldn't even imagine to deal with myself. And they just accept it, because, you know, “it's a sport”.
– What kind of injuries do they typically have?
– Spine, knees, endocrine system...
– And eating disorders, for sure?..
– Eating disorders is an incredibly huge problem even right now…
– I think those are connected. If your body doesn't get enough energy, the joints and bones and everything start to weaken. I feel like that was one of the big reasons why I also started to get injured more and more. Being on the restrictive diet for too long... Your body just can't take it. And we have worse examples, where you have a osteoporosis at the age of 30, or you need to do a hip surgery or you can't have children, if your hormonal system is too bad for too long. But maybe that's a topic for another episode and another video.
– What I hear a lot is, “What did you expect? It's sport, and injuries are inevitable in sport. You knew where you were going”. But I completely disagree with that. One thing that many people don't realize, and which is obvious, is that healthy athletes perform better.
– It should be a no-brainer...
– Injuries are just a testament of how imperfect our system is. I'm not talking only about coaching system, but also how we understand the human body. The only hope here is the advancement in science. I didn't come from sport. I had a “normal childhood”, not sports childhood. So, I've always seen sport as this environment that creates champions, that nurtures the best in people, that creates superhumans. And it really breaks my heart seeing how it is truly different on the inside. That's why I think we should build a new culture, which would be more scientifically based, more educated, more holistic, and more human.
– Amen!
That sounds really good. And I feel like our whole world is in this big change of rethinking how we live and how we work and how we do sports, and how we treat children... It's a very slow and gradual process. And, like any cultural change, it takes time before enough people are courageous enough to start doing things differently no matter the outside pressure or mocking they might face because of that. But that's how we change. We've seen movements like #MeToo, and the environmental movement. I feel it in my bones that there is also a big movement coming in sports, even bigger than what we've seen before. We've seen a lot of reckoning in the USA Gymnastics with Larry Nassar scandal, and in Finland we had our own little... I mean, it wasn't little. In Finland it was a big scandal in synchronized skating about emotional abuse. All these things can grow into a more worldwide movement. Like a children's rights movement in sports.
My hope is that that the new generation of athletes and youngsters' consciousness is already different from the start, and they see world differently, and they are so much more connected through social media and other platforms. So, my hope is that that they also are the ones to have the power to say, "No, I'm not going to take that yelling. It’s not okay." To have a voice to stand up for themselves, to know their rights and what's okay and what's not.
– It was inspirational. And I hope young coaches who listen to this video or read the text got some confirmation of their views. I think you are doing an incredibly important job. You took this new medium, the Internet, to make the shift in the culture. Thank you so much for that.
– Thank you! You’re a part of this shift, too. And all of us who are listening to this. We are all part of this change and the movement. I feel it's just about to start growing in bigger ways.
